Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

On Tuesday night, WWE’s new Facebook Watch series Mixed Match Challenge debuted to about 126,000 live viewers, with another million-plus later checking it out on demand. For all the rumblings about the WWE/Facebook deal’s possible larger significance, fans were authentically excited to see it. The more laid-back…Read more...

The last time Denis Shapovalov met Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, he could have easily been confused for a half-fluke, a lucky amoeba. At 18 and barely breaking the surface of the ATP tour, he’d been competing mostly at the Challenger level. A flip switched suddenly. Fresh off beating Juan Martin del Potro and Rafael Nadal in…Read more...

Merrell makes some of the best footwear in the game, and they’re knocking up to 30% off a bunch styles to help you hit the trails (plus some outerwear to help with the cold). It may not exactly be hiking weather, but if you’re a bold winter camper, these are the boots you should pick up.

There are a lot of ways for football fans to be insufferable. You have your fatalist fans like me who always expect the worst and expect you to pity them. And you have your loudmouth asswipe fans who brag about their team constantly and outright refuse to acknowledge when they’ve been owned on the field. Sometimes you…Read more...

Outside a squat, one-story building on Chicago Avenue on the south side of Minneapolis, Alexis Collins, a 20-year-old Taco Bell employee, stands holding her baby, both of them bundled up against the piercing Minnesota wind. On the wall behind her, stretching all the way up to the roof, is a multicolor mural of a woman…Read more...

It’s been nearly three whole days since Stefon Diggs caught the ball and turned around to find nothing but open field in front of him, and I’m not ashamed to say I’m still jazzed up about it! If you’re like me, then you will enjoy this latest video compilation of the play, courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings:

It’s weirdly easy to forget about Anthony Davis. The Pelicans big man has a fraction of the personality that DeMarcus Cousins does, he’s played in just four playoff games in his five-year career (all of them losses to the Warriors), and he’s been very good for long enough that the shine of an ascendant star is no…Read more...

The AHL’s Charlotte Checkers sold more than 7,000 hot dogs last night during their 3-0 win over the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. At today’s home game, they’ll sell zero.

Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley, who somehow managed to make a 42-point showing against the Jaguars feel like a job-losing performance, will not be returning to the Steelers’ sideline next season.Read more...

Florida Atlantic coach Lane Kiffin announced a surprising hire this morning: The Owls will be hiring 24-year-old Charlie Weis Jr. to serve as the team’s offensive coordinator. Weis Jr., a couple years older than his players, will be the youngest OC in college football. Here’s how Kiffin described the hire:Read more...

Competitive gaming in the Philippines was dealt another serious blow after the recent signing of a resolution by the country’s Games and Amusement Board (GAB). In addition to mandatory drug testing for THC and methamphetamines, the resolution will require esports events to ensure all participants are officially…Read more...

When Allison Janney won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Tonya Harding’s mother LaVona Golden in I, Tonya, she made sure to shout out Harding, who sat in the audience that night. This was not just a passing thought. Janney praised many things about Harding, whom she called “a woman…Read more...

Sportivo Dock Sud, a team in Argentina’s fourth division, really want their goalkeepers to be prepared for anything. That must be why the team’s keeper coach runs his charges through the wildest training gauntlet imaginable:Read more...

Tennis missed its lost injured boys. I missed seeing a dude look like he a sipped through a six-pack, dozed off on the couch, toppled out of it, peed golden-brown, shuffled off to his match and immediately began lashing 100 mph backhand winners. There are a lot of professional tennis players, but there is only one…Read more...

Kotaku Why People Are Freaking Out About Street Fighter’s Ryu And Sakura | Gizmodo Bitcoin Falls Below $10,000 | The A.V. Club The A.V. Club’s 50 most-anticipated movies of 2018 | Lifehacker Why Bitcoin’s Price Is So Volatile | Jalopnik This Guy May Have Built An Indestructible Toyota Corolla AE86 |Read more...

On February 11, the Cavs will visit Boston for the second and final time this season, and a very brief tribute was planned for Isaiah Thomas, who was traded away in the Kyrie Irving deal last summer—it was to be a short video played before pregame introductions. That was beyond the pale for Paul Pierce, who is having…Read more...

North Korea and South Korea have agreed to form a joint Olympic women’s hockey team and march together during the opening ceremonies next month in Pyeongchang, according to the Associated Press.Read more...

While this Sperry Sale may not include their ever-popular Top-Siders, up to 60% off select boots is a great way to deal with the remaining Winter Weather Advisories that seem to pop up unexpectedly. There are tons of options from ankle to knee-high and even some weatherproof options for those days you don’t feel like…Read more...

Everyone needs pens, and let me tell you, Amazon’s got pens. Today only, Amazon’s discounting over 70 different styles of pens from BIC, plus a handful of other office supplies, as part of a Gold Box deal. Have a favorite type? Let us know in the comments.

Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski has been found dead in his apartment in Pullman, Wash. Police are investigating the 21-year-old’s death as a suicide.Read more...

Chris Coyte, a Pac-12 referee who officiated Kentucky’s 24-23 loss in their bowl game against Northwestern last month, has been receiving threatening messages from fans ever since, according to ESPN.Read more...

At halftime of a tricky road battle against Kansas State, freshman phenom Trae Young is shooting 3-of-10 with eight turnovers.Read more...

In a truly inspiring instance of perseverance through pure failure and godawful struggles, 12th-ranked Cincinnati basketball scored only 15 points in the first half, yet still won their game against UCF tonight. The Bearcats came, uh, “roaring” back with a staggering 34(!) second-half points, while holding the Knights…Read more...

If you’re suffering from withdrawal after enjoying all the ridiculous details of last night’s Rockets-Clippers squabble, fear not, for there is more delicious NBA beef. Things got spicy between Arron Afflalo and Nemanja Bjelica midway through the second quarter of tonight’s Timberwolves-Magic game; after some initial…Read more...

Christian Yelich is just about the last good Miami Marlins player standing, so naturally, he’d also like to escape the Derek Jeter regime’s austerity plan before the start of the season. Yelich’s agent Joe Longo spoke with ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick and made it abundantly clear that Yelich wants out immediately.Read more...

Thirty years after a team of Jamaican bobsledders inspired a Disney movie with their unlikely appearance at the Calgary Winter Olympics, the country will send its first female bobsled team to compete in Pyeongchang.Read more...

Our ovoid president took his first physical exam this morning, and you will not be surprised to learn that the natural athlete is in “excellent health.” Though his arteries may be as grease-occluded as any gout-afflicted Tudor monarch, and while he sleeps just four or five hours a night, the president clocked in at…Read more...

More than two dozen women who said they were sexually abused by Larry Nassar, dating back to the early 1990s, gave victim-impact statements today in a Ingham County, Mich., courtroom. The statements were read ahead of Nassar’s sentence on 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Together, their words painted…Read more...

Everyone knows about the basketball phrase “breaking one’s ankles,” a metaphorical description for when a defender gets juked so hard by a crossover or the like that, in their spasmodic attempt to stay with the dribbler, they fall over themselves into sad heap of pain and humiliation. Well Dimitri Payet just pulled of…Read more...

On Friday, Donald Trump received his first physical exam as president. On Tuesday, his doctor, Ronny Jackson—who also served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama—did his best to reassure the White House press pool, the rest of the country, and the world that the president is the picture of mental and physical health.

On Day One of the Australian Open, top-seeded Simona Halep stretched for a ball in the second set of her match against 17-year-old Destanee Aiava and rolled her ankle over... and over, and then somehow over even more until her foot was roughly perpendicular with her lower leg. The video is above, but also *shiver*Read more...

Gary Mays, who should have been really famous, died Monday night. He was 82.

Last Thursday, the Hurricanes officially announced that owner Peter Karmanos had sold a majority stake in the franchise to Thomas Dundon. Dundon bought 61 percent of the team, paid a reported $420 million, and has the option to buy the rest of the franchise in three years. He’s boys with Tony Romo and Mark Cuban and…Read more...

The Karyolyi ranch in Huntsville, Texas, has been USA Gymnastics’ training center for the sport’s most elite talent since 2001. Owned and operated by coaching legends Marta and Bela Karolyi, a list of gymnasts that now includes Simone Biles and Aly Raisman say it was the perfect environment for former USA Gymnastics…Read more...

A Philadelphia man was arrested on Saturday after police say he punched a police horse after being ejected from the Linc during the Eagles’ 15-10 win over the Falcons.

Carlos Tevez had about 40 million reasons to love his cushy, high-paid life with Chinese Super League club, Shanghai Shenhua. But, as readers of this site well know, Tevez hated living in China, hated the food (though not so much as to prevent him from packing on the pounds), and hated the soccer culture. His disdain…Read more...

Writing about Mikaela Shiffrin’s success would be getting boring—if her narrative arc weren’t continually getting more dramatic. Back at the Sochi Olympics, the story was how the then-18-year-old kept her nerve after flubbing a turn and won slalom gold. Later that year, it was how she’d mastered slalom, won her first…Read more...

Now that the Houston Rockets have Chris Paul leading their offense, they’ve become a much more formidable team. They’ve also taken on the personality of their new superstar, which is to say, despite cementing themselves as the most credible Western Conference threat the Warriors have seen in years (which is to say, a…Read more...

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton seems to have a knack for getting cocky at precisely the wrong moments. In December, he threw the “Choke!” sign at Falcons running back Devonta Freeman while Atlanta in the middle of a scoring drive. It comes as no surprise, then, that Payton really played the hell out of…Read more...

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking Arby’s, missile alerts, aftershave, farting, and more.

“[Steve] Bannon’s political fall reveals a major weakness in his brand of right-wing populism: the overwhelming power wealthy donors have over the right-wing media and the Republican Party.” That’s according to the New Republic’s Jeet Heer, in a blog from last Thursday about the former White House chief strategist and…Read more...

Normally, TUMI luggage will run you into the $500s and even more. But with Nordstrom Rack’s sale, you can get your own TUMI carry on, backpack, messenger bag, and luggage for hundreds off list price. I’m not talking a couple hundred, here. You could stand to save almost $400 on certain styles.Read more...

After their 118-108 victory over the Cavaliers in Cleveland last night, the Golden State Warriors found that there was no hot water in the locker room.

“Oooh. Ooaaaagh. Aaaaoowwgh Ho Ho.”Read more...

The English Premier League has been the most famous and purely entertaining soccer league for ages now. No other domestic league can match England’s in top-to-bottom competitiveness, in the sheer number of historically and consistently great clubs, in blustery, throat-hoarsening fan engagement, in worldwide appeal and…Read more...

Dan Gurney died Sunday at age 86, and to say that he lived a full life would be an enormous understatement. He wasn’t just one of the world’s most prolific racing drivers, or the namesake of the Gurney flap and the Gurney bubble. He even started the tradition of spraying champagne on the podium. But that’s just the…Read more...

The tennis, as it has been lately for Nick Kyrgios, was encouraging this weekend—a 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 rout of Rogerio Dutra Silva in the first round of the Australian Open—but of course it’s never only about the tennis when it comes to Nick.

The 2018 San Francisco Giants would have been a great team in 2013. But it isn’t 2013, and the Giants, who this offseason have traded for Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria, are in odd shape as they try to escape a payroll, personnel, and farm system crisis.

Each of tennis’s grand slam tournaments has its own app, which allows users to track live scores and completed matches, watch highlights, and get the latest news. Anyway, that’s what it’s supposed to do.

Last week, I wrote that WWE should just let Braun Strowman destroy things.Read more...