UFC fighter picks on wrong guy
What started as a typical postfight interview with a mixed martial arts website nearly turned into a major federal incident for Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Jacob Volkmann.
The 30-year-old Minnesotan had just defeated Antonio McKee on the preliminary card of UFC 125 at the MGM Grand Garden on Jan. 1 for his third straight win when mmafighting.com interviewed him.
Volkmann, who also works as a chiropractor, was asked whom he wanted to fight next.
After first saying he didn't care and then half-heartedly naming Clay Guida, Volkmann decided to say he wanted Barack Obama to be his next opponent.
He first called the president "not too bright."
"Someone needs to knock some sense into that idiot. I just don't like what Barack is doing," said Volkmann, who has been an outspoken critic of the president's health care reform bill.
The video has made the rounds all over TV, having been shown on many national news shows and mocked on "The Tonight Show" on Thursday.
Apparently, Volkmann committed the sports equivalent of saying the word "bomb" in an airport.
After Volkmann returned home to Minnesota, a Secret Service officer visited him and questioned him about making threats against the president.
Volkmann has since tried to clarify his position in an interview with mmaweekly.com, telling the website that people not having to worry about being denied for medical coverage is "good, I guess, just not good for health care providers."
Maybe there's a reason most athletes stick to boring, cliched answers in interviews.
■ STUNNER -- A shocking revelation comes out of the soon-to-be-published memoir of flamboyant figure skater Johnny Weir.
In "Welcome to My World," set to be released Tuesday, the 26-year-old with interests in choreography and fashion design admits he is gay.
"Watching Richard Gere in 'Pretty Woman' at the tender age of 6 was when I realized there was something different about me. I wanted to be Julia Roberts so badly. Kissing seemed like a weird thing to do, but I knew if I was going to do it, it would be with Richard Gere," reads an excerpt published in People magazine.
In other news, Joe Paterno is old, Brett Favre is indecisive, and steroids were largely responsible for baseball's inflated power numbers in the 1990s and early 2000s.
■ PRACTICAL PLAQUE -- Recent Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Roberto Alomar will reportedly be enshrined as a Toronto Blue Jay.
That's not the biggest surprise about his plaque.
Apparently, it will shoot water out of its mouth and be used as a sprinkler to water the lawn in the umpire's wing.
■ NO KIDDING -- Running back Mark Ingram has decided to leave Alabama to enter the NFL Draft, but the 2009 Heisman Trophy winner insists the school will always be close to his heart.
"Best experience of my life," Ingram said. "I'll always bleed crimson."
Well, at least for as long as he's alive.
COMPILED BY ADAM HILL
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
