Infos & Interessantes » , who bowled with intelligence and control to

One way or another, UFC 200 will be a redemption story for one of the sports light heavyweight champions.Jon Jones, already the greatest fighter in the world at age 28, will attempt to the reclaim the title he was stripped of in April 2015, when he fled the scene of a traffic accident in New Mexico. The story on Jones is his natural, unrivaled talent, which at times he has seemed determined to waste. A dominant performance against Cormier would go a long way toward closing that narrative.And on the other side is Daniel Cormier, one of the most accomplished athletes in the game but also one missing a truly career-defining moment.Cormier, 37, is a six-time U.S. National wrestling champion and a two-time Olympian. As a collegiate wrestler, however, he came up one win short of winning an NCAA championship. His two trips to the Olympics produced zero medals. And even though he is the defending UFC champion in Saturdays main event at T-Mobile Arena, he did not take the title from Jones. The two fought in January 2015 before Jones was stripped, and Cormier lost via unanimous decision.I havent experienced that shining moment, Cormier told ESPN. When [UFC president] Dana White straps that title belt around your waist, thats huge. But to be truly recognized as the best in the world at something? I cant say that Ive felt that because Jon beat me in our first fight.Ill say this -- there are things Ive done that cant be taken away, but my legacy in mixed martial arts comes down to this fight. If I dont win this fight, Im dead. I have nowhere else to go. I will have lost twice to [Jones]. This is life or death for me and Im OK with that.Cormier (17-1) says his rematch with Jones will define his legacy in MMA, not his athletic career as a whole, but even some of those closest to him have trouble separating the two.Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Cormier has been tied to sports for most of his life. He was a high school state wrestling champion and fielded a football scholarship offer from LSU.Wrestling specifically has always been his first, second and third passion. It has been his safe haven at times. When he was 7, his father was fatally shot on Thanksgiving. He lost a close friend and then a cousin to separate car accidents in high school. In 2003, his three-month-old daughter, Kaedyn, died in a car accident. Cormiers therapy through it all took place on the wrestling mat.If you know anything about Daniel, you know that wrestling pretty much adopted him, said Craig Andrus, Cormiers cousin. When those tough times in his life happened, he always looked to wrestling.Cormier began his collegiate career at a junior college in Kansas, before transferring to NCAA powerhouse Oklahoma State for two seasons. He moved weight classes in the process, dropping from 197 pounds to compete at 184. That happened to be the same weight class as Cael Sanderson, who is considered to be the greatest collegiate wrestler of all time.I think his senior year, he had singled Cael out, said John Smith, head coach at OSU. Right out of junior college, he was still realizing how good he was, and we took it slow with him. By 2001, it wasnt about winning an NCAA championship anymore, it was about beating the best pound-for-pound guy in college wrestling. Daniel was so competitive, I remember feeling that if he was that focused on Cael, I wasnt worried about him making the NCAA finals, because we knew thats where Cael would be.Cormier would lose to Sanderson six times between 2000 and 2001. After college, his focus immediately turned to winning an Olympic gold medal, which he came close to accomplishing in 2004 with a fourth-place finish.All roads led to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Cormier made the team for the second time and was promoted to team captain. The field was wide open. None of the three wrestlers who finished ahead of Cormier in 2004 competed in 2008.What was supposed to be the peak of Cormiers athletic career, however, became its lowest point. After making weight, Cormiers body began to shut down. He was taken to a medical facility and diagnosed with kidney failure. He ultimately withdrew.He let his weight get heavy going into those Olympics, said Kevin Jackson, former USA wrestling coach. It became a purely dehydration cut. For three days, we were in plastics, in the sauna. He sucked it up and got through it, made weight, but he was hurting and cramping up. We made the decision to get him to the hospital.After he withdrew, I think there were some people that turned their back on him. They thought it was embarrassing to the country. There were even thoughts that he needed to pay back the costs of his flight and housing in Beijing. A few of us stayed focused on what was really important, the man, but it was his fault he didnt compete. Nobody else did that to him.When Cormier returned to the U.S., he took a job at a television station in Oklahoma. His love of wrestling was never going anywhere, but Andrus says Cormier kept to himself initially. Before the Olympics, he had talked about winning a medal and then transitioning to a coaching job at a Division I college. After the Olympics, his relationship with the sport was less mapped out.That was one of the worst times of his life, Andrus said. Id be lying if I said he didnt still keep up with wrestling, but he really turned himself away from a lot of it. It was like, I dont know what I want to do with wrestling anymore.And then one day, it just hit him. He called me and said, Bro, Im going to California to fight. Im too short to try out for the Houston Rockets, so Im gonna go fight.The revelation didnt come from nowhere. Cormier had been recruited by MMA manager and former collegiate wrestler DeWayne Zinkin since about 2003. Zinkin had actually taken his business partner Bob Cook to one of Cormiers wrestling matches and declared, This guy is going to be a badass fighter.Cook, seeing Cormier for the first time, responded, That short, little guy?Cormier, who is 5-foot-11, arrived at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose after a year of relative inactivity. Cook remembers him weighing around 268 pounds, with not as much muscle as he has now. Cormier was a fast learner, however, and a natural leader. In addition to winning his first 15 fights, he quickly became the head wrestling coach at the gym.And now all roads have led to UFC 200 in Las Vegas. The Jones (22-1) rematch was supposed to headline UFC 197 in April, but Cormier pulled out with a leg injury. That delay, coupled with a public spat between the UFC and Irish star Conor McGregor, paved the way for Cormier to headline a landmark event. His shot at redemption against Jones, whom he personally dislikes, is coming on the grandest stage the sport can offer.Expectations are that Jones will get his redemption, not Cormier. Jones is significantly favored to win the fight, as he was before their first meeting.The cruel reality might be that Jones is just better, a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Cormier is just unlucky enough to have run into two of them in his lifetime: Sanderson and now Jones.But this is where Cormier is able to separate the two, and its why he believes UFC 200 will leave a lasting impact on his MMA career and not his overall legacy as an athlete. Cael was better, Cormier will tell you. He just was, for multiple reasons. He had it all together. No one was beating Sanderson in a college wrestling match in 2001.Jones? Cormier believes he can beat Jones, which would make him arguably the best fighter in the world. His redemption will be proving that to everyone.I truly believe I am better than Jon Jones, Cormier said. I still believe that the last time we fought, I fought bad. I dont have to be mistake-free to beat Jones, because I feel like Im the better fighter. Brandon Thomas Jersey . Tests earlier this week revealed a Grade 2 left hamstring strain for Sabathia, who was hurt in last Fridays start against San Francisco. Its an injury that will require about eight weeks to heal. He finished a disappointing campaign just 14-13 with a career-worst 4. Ben Koyack Jersey . -- Catcher Brett Hayes has agreed to a $630,000, one-year contract with the Kansas City Royals, avoiding salary arbitration. http://www.cheapjaguarsjerseysauthentic.com/?tag=authentic-jawaan-taylor-jersey . The defending champion beat Gael Monfils of France 7-6 (6), 6-3, while second-seeded Andy Murray of Britain dispatched Edouard Roger-Vasselin, also of France, 6-3, 6-3. Making his first appearance since injuring his wrist a month ago, Del Potro had difficulty with his service games in the first set. Brandon Thomas Jersey . Galatasaray said in a statement on its website Monday that Mancini signed a three-year contract and will be paid 3.5 million euros for the upcoming season, with his salary upped to 4. Yannick Ngakoue Jersey . Despite dominating possession, Schalke needed an own goal from Nicolas Hoefler for the breakthrough a minute before the interval. The Freiburg midfielder misjudged Jefferson Farfans corner and bundled the ball into his own net. By the time Jonathan Trott trudged off the pitch at the end of Englands Caribbean tour in 2015, it seemed his days in the sun were over.What once had come so easily had become torturous. He admits to have a sense of relief when he was dismissed in the second innings of that final Test in Barbados: relief he would never have to put himself through the torment again. When Alastair Cook suggested he review the lbw decision, he apparently replied Nah, Im out of here and walked off to one of the more unusual standing ovations you will witness. Everyone knew his international career was over but, despite scores of 0 and 9 in that last Test, the Barmy Army proved they had longer memories than some sports fans when they rose to applaud him off.The months that followed were not easy. Trott didnt just struggle to score runs in the 2015 season - he averaged 25.05 in the Championship - he struggled to muster any enthusiasm for the game. Maybe he even started to resent it.For Trott was a boy brought up to bat. He didnt have a teddy, he had a sawn-down cricket bat. He didnt go on holiday, he went on tour. So while he never much bothered with education - why did he need qualifications when he was going to score centuries? - he learned to express himself through runs. Want to make his parents happy? Score a century. Want to impress new team-mates? Score a century. Runs made everything all right.But, somewhere along the way, batting become too important to him. It wasnt just a game: it was his profession; his identity; his means of providing for his family and making them proud. By the time it all came crashing down - unmasked and, in his eyes, humiliated in public in Brisbane - he felt he had nothing left. He has a book coming out in the coming days (I must declare an interest; I helped him write it) which will surprise a few by revealing the depths to which he sunk and how early in his career the demons started to take control. In short, cricket had become agony to him and he really didnt have anything else to fall back upon.It has taken a long time to recover. But somewhere, maybe through the faith shown in him by Warwickshire, maybe through the hours spent with the psychiatrist Steve Peters, maybe by simply keeping on buggering on (as Winston Churchill memorably put it) he seems to have emerged through the other side of the storm.Oh, yes, the game defeated him in the end. Brisbane and Barbados still happened. Mitchell Johnson was still too good. Nothing will ever change that.But, as he showed at Lords, the experience has not destroyed him. It has scarred him, yes. But he has recovered sufficiently not just to re-emerge as a fine player at this level, but to have rediscovered his enjoyment for this great game. Maybe there is a happy ending to his story, after all.There should be. While his international career ended in failure - they nearly always do - there were some great days along the way. There were Ashes wins at home at away. There was the rise to No. 1 in the Test and ODI rankings. There was the highest ODI batting average of any regular England batsman. It would be a shame if all that was overshadowed by the ending. It would be a shame if his second Test in Brisbane was remembered but his first not.It looks, at least, as if he will be able to look back with a sense of proportion and pride. To have paid the club he loves back with a Man-of-the-Match performance in a Lords final will ensure he leaves the game - and that departure is not especially imminent - with head held high and good memories outweighing the bad. He finishes as the competitions second-highest run-scorer (only team-mate and imitator Sam Hain scored more) with three centuries and two half-centuries from seven innings.ddddddddddddYou didnt have to be a Warwickshire supporter to celebrate his success.For maybe the first time in his career, Trott is playing the game for fun. He still puts himself under pressure to perform - as an ex-international player you want to set the standard he said - but he is not driven by the same desperation to prove himself. He knows there is more to life than cricket now. He knows its not everything. There were many heroes in this Warwickshire performance. There was Laurie Evans, who owed his selection over Ireland captain William Porterfield to an impressive display in a fielding training session earlier in the week and took what may have been a match-defining effort to dismiss Jason Roy. There was Oliver Hannon-Dalby, who gained seam movement absent to Surreys hugely talented quartet of pace bowlers. There was Chris Wright, who bowled with intelligence and control to tighten the grip on Surreys nervous batsmen. There was Tim Ambrose, who shrugged off injury to keep magnificently on a tricky surface and completed a stumping off a leg-side wide as if it was easy. There was Dougie Brown, who remains under pressure, but deserves time to lead this team through a tricky transition; the club will not find a coach who works harder or cares more. And there was Jeetan Patel who, with his quicker pace and greater turn, easily out-bowled Surreys two spinners. As Ian Bell said afterwards: He is the standout spinner in county cricket.But most of all there was Trott. The limited-overs game may have moved on from the time he took England to the brink of their first global ODI trophy - he still refers to the Champions Trophy final defeat at Edgbaston in 2013 as the biggest disappointment of his career and the moment his decline began - but if you need a man to chase a relatively modest target, there is nobody better. There might never have been anyone better. He was never going to let a chase of 137 bother him.If theres one bloke in world cricket who I would want to knock off a small total - or a total where you can pace yourself - it is Jonathan Trott, Bell said.That is not faint praise. This was a surface - a poor surface for a showpiece final, really - on which nobody else in the match passed 40. Only one man reached 30. Not even Roy scored at such a strike rate. It required a man with a calm head and masterful technique to conquer it. It was a reminder of the high-class player he once was.It was noticeable at the end that the supporters of Surrey, as much as Warwickshire, stood to applaud him. As cricket crowds become more partisan such moments become ever less frequent. But maybe there has been something in Trott