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Renato Babalu Sobral defeated Bobby Southworth by TKO to become Strikeforce light heavyweight champion in the co-main event of the promotions ‘Destruction’ card. Despite leaving with the belt around his waist, it wont be the centerpiece of Babalu’s highlight reel with the way it transpired.

An early goal gave the United States soccer team hope, but in the end the result of their World Cup Qualifier against Mexico at Azteca Stadium was a familiar loss. Mexico rallied for a 2-1 triumph in front of their home fans, sending the US to defeat for the 23rd time in 24 games at the venue. The US soccer record at the 105,000 seat venue is 0-23-1 with the best result the US has been able to muster on Mexican soil was a 0-0 draw in 1997.

Though it enjoyed solid fan support and was popular among sports betting enthusiasts, arena football fell off the map with the demise of the Arena Football League. The AFL suspended play under the weight of a poor business model in 2009 and later pulled the plug altogether. Since then, a new league has announced plans to take its place. Arena Football One (AF1 for short) will begin play in April and on Thursday secured a TV contract to broadcast games on the NFL Network in the United States. The TV deal should help the new arena football entrant to get off to a successful start as they attempt to revive the sport.

The video game is now a ubiquitous part of American pop culture. Pinball, however, is still much cooler. Though there’s been a lot of consolidation in the pinball industry in recent years, the quality of modern games keeps improving. This is due, in part, to improvements in technology–though not at the expense of first rate playfield design. Pinball went through a few lean years during the early years of the video boom, when designers tried to cram as much stuff onto the playfield as possible, perhaps feeling the clutter was needed to replicate the video game experience. In recent years, however, designers appear to have concluded–and rightly so–that pinball cannot be a video game, nor should it want to be.

The bizarre career path taken by Croatian striking machine Mirko Cro Cop will continue on New Years Eve in Tokyo as he faces 72 Korean kickboxer Hong-Man Choi in what should be the final addition to the K-1/DREAM combined show called Fields Dynamite!

Tom Brady returned to NFL action and looked good in limited playing time as the New England Patriots opened their preseason schedule with a 27-25 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. Brady played into the second quarter, moving well and showing no lingering effects of his knee surgery. He completed 10 of 15 passes for 100 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.

While there are a number of challenging tracks on the NASCAR stock car racing circuit, few have earned the fearsome reputation of South Carolina’s Darlington Raceway. Known as ‘the track too tough to tame’, its shaped like an egg with a surface that shreds tires. Some of the best drivers–including NASCAR’s ‘King’ Richard Petty never mastered it. David Person, on the other hand, dominated at Darlington. He won 10 races and won 12 poles–both records that will likely never be broken. He actually made the ‘track too tough to tame’ look downright easy.

No one knew quite what to expect in Saturday’s WEC Interim Lightweight Championship battle between Donald Cerrone and Ben Henderson. Henderson was known for his dominating wrestling skills, while Cerrone has a reputation as a punishing striker. Instead of being a clash of styles, however, it was an instance where the differing approaches of the two competitors complimented each other perfectly. The result was a ‘fight of the year’ candidate bout that Henderson won by a narrow-yet unanimous-decision.

The Florida Gators rampage through the SEC reached its culmination with a 31-20 victory over #1 ranked Alabama in the conference championship game. The Gators scored– 4th quarter points to secure victory in a contest that was an epic struggle for three quarters with five lead changes and two ties. This victory set the stage for the Gators’ appearance in the National Championship Game.

Gina Carano put women’s MMA on the map, but Cris Cyborg Santos may have become the sports first dominant female champion by virtue of her overwhelming TKO victory in the main event of Saturdays STRIKEFORCE event. Cyborg simply was too physically strong and her punches too powerful for Carano, who fought valiantly before succumbing to a barrage of ground and pound punches with one second remaining in the first round.