Gripping Hard

As Jules said in the infamous dinner scene from Pulp Fiction, "I'm in a transitional period". The process is a simplistic one. Must... shift... gears... from... golf... to... football.

Kudos to the PGA tour for assisting with the detox. The Wyndham Championship's leaderboard wasn't exactly a who's who in golf.

It read more like the law offices of Snedeker, Petrovic and Overton. It's proving to be an effortless transition away from PGA Championship fever. Especially when El Tigre is M.I.A.

Our Tulsa Talons defeated the Shreveport Battle Wings to earn a berth in the 2007 ArenaCup. The Talons did what they have become accustomed to doing.

A second-half surge sent the Battle Wings back to Shreveport. The CenturyTel Center in Bossier City is the location for the championship game this coming Saturday night.

As the time ticked off the clock and the game was in hand, the defense stood along the sidelines hand-in-hand. "We worked so hard and everyone is such a family that it was emotional; it was a lot of fun. We did this not as individuals but as a team," says Talons' sure-footed kicker Luke Phillips.

The focused group was given an all-too-familiar choice. After each win, coach Mitch Allner asks the team how many nights they want to celebrate the victory. The players unanimously voiced 'one'. I'd have said three but I guess that's why my professional sports career never panned out.

The post game message was "Have fun, congratulations, celebrate it tonight, be safe and we'll go get the next one," according to Phillips.

He'd like to see a wave of blue and red fill the arena in Bossier City. "I encourage anybody who can and wants to - to go down. I'm hoping that we have a larger crowd (than the team from Pennsylvania)."

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers stand in the way of a Talons championship and af2 glory. Visit tulsatalons.com or call 584-2000 for more information.

More Big Bang. In other hard-hitting news, Tulsa's David Heath is set to reenter the famed Octagon this Saturday night in Las Vegas. His last bout against the cautious Brazilian striker, Lyoto Machida, put the first blemish on his otherwise solid 9-1 record.

The 5-11, 205 (at fight time) Tulsa-trained ultimate fighter is matched up with a wild man. Renato 'Babalu' Sobral also hails from Brazil but that's where the similarities between his two opponents end.

Sobral is well-known for getting knocked out via a highlight reel kick from the 'Iceman' Chuck Liddell. Babalu is a black-belt in jujitsu but loves to stand and bang. Unpredictable would best describe his fighting style.

This plays right into heavy-handed Heath's strength. Don't blink or you might miss a flash KO. UFC 74: Respect airs live at 9pm on pay-per-view. The Mandalay Bay Events Center will be rocking.

Also on the card is the icon Randy 'The Natural' Couture. Couture is a decorated wrestler from Oklahoma State. He transitioned to the world of Mixed Martial Arts seamlessly and has been pummeling opponents ever since.

'The Natural' is getting a bit long in the tooth however. His opponent, Gabriel Gonzaga (another Brazilian), outweighs the 44-year-old heavyweight champion by 25 pounds. Will this be Couture's last title defense? Or will Gonzaga prove to be another footnote in Couture's illustrious career.

Well Allow Me to Retort. The summer of '07 will forever be remembered as the scandalous one. Somehow, I have managed to focus on the Tulsa sports scene and stray away from the drama.

However, we are about to find ourselves knee-deep in football. Here is my last chance to weigh in on a few hot-button national issues. Here are the three big stories masquerading themselves as sports topics.

Dog fighting, game fixing and steroid obtained records. Sounds more like a cheesy ESPN made-for-TV program. If this movie script were given to Hollywood, they would have tossed it aside as being too farfetched. Well, maybe not, but you get the idea.

We'll start with the easy one first. How can we best describe the feeling associated with Barry Bonds being crowned the new homerun king? Soiled. Poor Hank Aaron.

Talk of an asterisk in the record book is nonsense. The court of public opinion has been adjourned and Bonds is guilty as charged. The mental image of his gargantuan cranium wobbling around the diamond is entrenched in our brains. Forever.

But how can you place an asterisk? We honestly have no idea who, in the steroid error, was clean or dirty. Perhaps 100 of his record-breaking homeruns came against dishonest, juiced-up pitchers.

Then we have the basketball saga. Honestly, I wasn't surprised. The NBA has fought credibility issues for years. The officiating in basketball is an abomination. And this was before we knew refs were putting the fix in.

Gambling is the American way. We gamble on investment stocks. We gamble when driving down the turnpike. We gamble on politicians we put in office. We gamble on the safety of toys and food made in China. It's all a crapshoot.

Why should we be shocked when it makes its way into sports? We should be shocked if Tim Donaghy is the only ref found guilty.

Steroids, gambling and sports have a well-documented history together. However, dog fighting is brand new to the realm of sports.

Being from Oklahoma, we are more familiar cock fighting. This dog fighting is callous, heartless, coldhearted and malicious. The indictment against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Mike Vick is a gruesome read. The details make dog lovers grimace in agony.

However, why all the love for PETA? These grandstanding idiots are merely spotlight hogs. These are the same morons who protested the Indianapolis 500 because the winner drinks milk.

The transitional period is almost over. Fine tune your NFL fantasy draft boards and get ready for another tumultuous ride through the college football season.

I'm ready.