by Tom Weppel
The Tennis Championships at Wimbledon are being held as we speak over in merry old England. For all intents, this is the premium event for both Men’s and Women’s tennis. On the Mens’ side, defending Champion Roger Federer comes off a tough loss in the French Open Finals to Rafael Nadal, who has won the last three French Opens. But Nadal has yet to win the giant plate/trophy at Wimbledon, and the question remains whether he can defeat Federer on the grass surface, after having done so well on the French clay. American Andy Roddick is also in the running, but he must win to establish himself in the same class as Federer and Nadal.
On the Womens’ side, Justine Henin is the #1 seed and defending Champion, but all eyes seem to be on Maria Sharapova, who won this event in ‘04. She must come through with a strong performance to re-establish her reputation, or else questions will really start to come out as to what she is up to. Serena Williams has expressed her desire to win this title again, having done so in ‘02 and ‘03. We shall see how she fares as the #8 seed.
The boys come back from the West Coast to New Hampshire to race this weekend in Loudon, and there continues to be controversy and intrigue surrounding this series. Obviously, Hendrick drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson are not happy about being nailed with 100-point driver penalties for the cars failing inspection last week. Whether they were trying to cheat or not is always suspect. The bottom line is: their vehicles didn’t ‘measure up’, and so we’ll see what the two stars will do this weekend as a comeback of sorts.
Meanwhile, NASCAR made a statement this week, saying that it owns the #8, and not DEI, Inc. So if Hendrick wants that number for Dale, Jr., he’ll have to go to Daytona and speak with the boys running the Series, instead of negotiating a deal with Teresa Earnhardt.
This weekend the Women’s U.S. Open is being held in Southern Pines, N.C. All of the ‘big names’ will be there to compete, including Michelle Wie. I believe there is growing pressure on Wie to perform and produce. We have known about this girl for a while now, even thought she’s still a teenager, yet we have not seen her win anything of note. She has been plagued by injuries to her wrists, which have kept her out of play for a considerable time. But she is back now to go up against the best of the LPGA, and it will be interesting to see how she fares in this tournament.
Meanwhile, we will also see a twelve-year old competing from South Florida. Her name is Alexis Thompson. She qualified to play in this event a few months ago, and now she’s here to play. While there is certainly intrigue as to what she will do and how she will play, to me there simply has to be a certain age for anyone to play in any professional sport, no matter what the situation. I mean, would it be okay for an eight-year old to suit up? Would the public and the LPGA be open to allowing that to happen? And what if Thompson were to get into the mix over the weekend? Can a girl at her age handle the nerves and pressure to compete in that situation? What a crazy deal that would be! But it’s entirely possible, and we’ll see how things shake out in North Carolina.
This past weekend we heard about a gruesome situation in the Atlanta area. WWE wrestler David Benoit was found dead in his home, along with his wife and seven-year-old son. Apparently, Benoit, 40, had killed his wife on Friday night, then strangled his son on Saturday, before hanging himself on Sunday. This is certainly an awful story, but it falls on the heels of other situations in which WWE wrestlers have died at an early age. In the Benoit case, Georgia police found prescription anabolic steroids in the house.
For a number of years, steroids have been seriously linked to the WWE. In 2002, Davey Boy Smith, known as the ‘British Bulldog’, died of heart failure. The coroner suspected long term steroid use. In 2003, Curt ‘Mr. Perfect’ Hennig died from an overdose of painkillers. His father believes steroids were involved in that death as well. And in 2005, Eddie Guerrero died of heart failure at 38, linking the death to possible steroid use. Both Hulk Hogan and Jesse Ventura admitted to doing steroids. Now, I know a lot of people don’t consider WWE wrestling to be a sport. But it certainly involves very physical activity and a good degree of skill. There’s no question all wrestlers are bulked up and cut, and steroids can and will do that to a person, without question. The reputation of the whole thing has been tremendously soured, and should be denigrated to further depths, or else we’ll simply see more wrestler suicides and killings, possibly due to ‘roid rage and fury. Isn’t that what the WWE loves in the first place?
Tom Weppel talks trash with Greg Larson, Lonnie Marts, Eugene Chung, and Ron Duguay on SportsAvengers.com 24/7.
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