We have seen Sonnen run his mouth on several occasions before, and while many consider him to be one of the best talkers in the business, it was the mouths of Evans and Davis that were busy stealing the show during yesterday’s press conference.

Evans’ cruelist verbal shot came when he compared the beating that he is going to lay on Davis to what Jerry Sandusky did to the kids at Penn State (1:05 of first video).  As for Davis, he seemed to do his opponent one better when he answered a question regarding Rashad’s chances of beating him in a wrestling match by reminding us all that “cocaine is a hell of a drug” (0:24 of second video).

If the fights are even half as good as the presser was, it look like we could be in for quite the entertaining free UFC event!

“Party like a rock star” is dangerously close to being replaced with “party like Charlie Sheen,” given his recent exploits. While athletes, as a rule, can’t compete with the likes of actors, rock stars, or even writers when it comes to drug intake, there are a few that “represent” harder than others. Unfortunately, as you’ll see from the names on this list, virtually none of these stories has a happy ending. The lesson, as always: “Cocaine’s a hell of a drug.”

11. Jon Daly
I don’t know if what JD does will fit a standard definition of “partying,” but it’s certainly something. Since joining the tour in 1991 Daly has been the Cousin Eddie to the PGA’s Griswolds. His tendency to sip a chardonnay or 15 has caused domestic disturbances, wrestling matches with 62 year-old fans, and just being drunk outside Hooters throughout the south. He also smokes on the course, which is actually kind of awesome. When you’ve got a drink named after you (Jon Daly=Dirty Arnold Palmer=Lemonade and sweet tea vodka), you know your doing something right. Or wrong. I guess it depends on your outlook.

10. Lawrence Taylor
Like Charlie Sheen, LT was known for his love of coke. And like Sheen, LT was also know for his love of hookers. The good news is Taylor supposedly cleaned up his act as far as cocaine is concerned. The bad news? He was recently caught with a child prostitute. That is bad news.
 
 
 
 
9. Steve Howe
This guy might take the cake. I actually consider Howe the Charlie Sheen of Cocaine snorters. He was suspended seven times during his 17-year career. (Baseball might want to revisit their substance abuse policies after so many suspensions and an overturned “ban for life.”) Howe’s career was nothing remarkable – he pitched about .500 with a couple standout years. It seems that the seven suspensions couldn’t exorcise his demons, as he flipped his pickup truck in 2006 in California with crystal meth in his system.

8. Mickey Mantle
The stories of Mick and his buddies going out on the town are legendary. “Dinners” among Mantle and his teammates would end when the sun came up, often on game days. Beers were in the clubhouse after and before games to subdue hangovers. Unsurprisingly, Mickey’s alcohol-focused lifestyle caught up with him in a number of ways. Virtually all his personal relationships had been tainted by booze by the end of his career. Nevermind the fact that the alcohol had destroyed his liver. He received a liver transplant in 1995, but the damage had been done. Cancer had spread throughout his body, killing him two months later.

7. Andre the Giant
Mr. the Giant was a big dude. Standing about 7 feet tall and weighing about 500 lbs (the WWF stats are wildly unreliable), this behemoth was rarely comfortable, especially while traveling. So he self-medicated. With a hell of a lot of booze. 75 beers in a night was not uncommon. He once wrestled in Madison Square Garden after 16 BOTTLES of wine. By all accounts, Andre didn’t experience many adverse effects of his heavy drinking – he was a happy drunk and his other health problems got the best of him before the effects of drinking did, so there isn’t much in the way of a cautionary tale here. He was just literally a gigantic lush.

6. Josh Hamilton
Hamilton’s story is unlike many others on this list in that he was able to turn his hard-partying ways around before he sacrificed his career. Hamilton’s love affair with drugs and alcohol started in 2001 while he was playing A and AA-ball in the Devil Rays’ system. Over the next couple years, his addictions took their toll, causing him to miss practices, get suspended for failed drug tests, and eventually caused his de facto retirement from baseball to seek help from 2004 to 2006. He was able to maintain sobriety as he became a standout player for the Rangers, having refrained from alcohol and drugs since 2005. Hamilton had a well-documented slip-up in 2009, but aside for that seemingly isolated incident, he has been on the straight and narrow, setting aside his demons to take home the MVP trophy last year.

5. Dwight Gooden
Gooden wasn’t so lucky. After what may have been the most promising start of any young pitcher in history, Gooden just as quickly began abusing cocaine, with his first failed drug test in 1987. He failed two more drug tests over the next few years, and it’s widely known that Gooden failed to appear at the Mets 1986 World Series parade because he was on a cocaine binge. This behavior recurred throughout Gooden’s career, causing him to struggle with depression as a result. Though he had a small renaissance as a Yankee later in his career, his drug abuse left many fans wondering what could have been.

4. Roy Tarpley
The thing about drug abuse is it’s hard to close that chapter of your life and just “move on.” As such, it can be frustrating for fans to constantly see your favorite players squander the chances and opportunities that they’re presented with. Tarpley is one such example. Always a solid player, his addictions kept him from making the leap to “star player” throughout his career. He was kicked out of the league in 1991 and again in 1994 for substance abuse violations. His behavior off-the-court made him the scourge of his team and alienated him from his teammates, continuing the cycle.

3. Ricky Williams
I don’t know if smoking a boatload of weed can really be construed as “partying,” but if it is, then Ricky Williams was a party animal throughout college and his early pro career. Cursed with anxiety and shyness, Ricky self-medicated by smoking lots and lots and lots of pot. After an initial stint with the Saints, Ricky was dealt to the Dolphins were he mostly made a name for himself for failing lots of drug tests. Also, he led the league in rushing and went to some Pro Bowls. But mostly for the drug tests. His retirement in 2004 was seen by any as a conscious decision to choose pot over football. He came back the next year, served his four-game suspension, and put together some respectable numbers. In the following off-season, he failed another drug test and was suspended for the entire 2006 season. Ouch. He seems to have quit weed and gotten his career back on track for the Dolphins, but it was a pretty rocky road for the first seven years of his career.

2. Diego Maradona
Maradona had the distinction of being one of the greatest soccer players in the history of the game. He also had the distinction of being a pretty big cokehead for much of his career, which makes his achievement all the more impressive (not really). After failing a drug test in Italy in 1991, he was suspended from soccer for 15 months. It was recently revealed that he was addicted to cocaine from the mid-80’s to 2004, which, in case you didn’t know, is a really long time to be addicted to cocaine and not die. In 2004, he quit coke and saw his weight skyrocket until he got gastric bypass surgery the following year. It’s thought that Maradona has been clean for eight years, but the toll of drugs and alcohol have left him with myriad ailments.

1. George Best
George Best was one of the greatest footballers the world has ever known. However, he may have been even more well known for his hard partying ways. Perhaps his most famous quote: “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars – the rest I just squandered.” That’s a funny line, much more so than his second most famous quote, which came about as he laid in a hospital bed dying from multiple organ failure as a result of alcoholism: “Don’t die like me.”

“Stay off the crack.  Drink Chocolate milk.  Enjoy the moment.  That’s all I got.”

..And that is all you really need to say Charlie.  I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Sheen was at the Bruins’ diamond taking part in a batting practice session with a few Major Leaguers, including Milton Bradley and Coco Crisp.  Being a friend of the Two and a Half Men star, UCLA head coach John Savage invited him over to speak with his team.  Savage may have been somewhat surprised by the message Sheen delivered, but I guess it is better than him advising this group of college students to “indulge in as many lines of coke and hookers as your body will allow, because life is too short to let such opportunities pass you by.”

I guess rehab has caused Charlie to ditch that motto/lifestyle in favor of the brown cow.

Hat Tip – [Star Magazine]

Since his last professional fight, which was a second round knockout loss to Pacquiao in May of 2009, Hatton has hit rock bottom and was last seen in this homemade video snorting several lines of cocaine in a Manchester hotel.

The footage was first revealed by News Of The World after Ricky’s friend Emma Bowe (who is also a boxer) released the tape to the newspaper telling them, “I’m doing this for Ricky’s own good. I hope he gets help and advice before cocaine destroys him.”

It is still too early to tell if this strategy will work, but it does appear to have Hatton rethinking his out-of-control lifestyle.  Max Clifford, a spokesperson for Hatton, has spoken to his client since the incident and said that he is “very upset” over it:

“He feels he’s let everybody that matters down badly, his friends, his family, his fans and of course most of all himself, that he is, in his own words, he’s been in a bad place for some time, probably before even his last fight and obviously he’s really upset about what has happened but he totally takes responsibility, takes the blame, ‘It’s all down to me’.

“He just wants to let everybody know how he feels, he’s got to sort himself out.” [News Of The World]

It is unfortunate to see that it took a publicly released tape of Hatton snorting cocaine to finally bring him to his senses, but at least he now realizes that the lifestyle he is currently living is not a healthy one for himself, or his family.  However, on important question remains:  Will it be enough to change his ways?

We can only hope so.

Hat Tip – [News Of The World]

During this time every four years, it is not unusual to find football-crazy fans around the world creating their own version of the FIFA World Cup trophy.  But while most would opt for materials such as plastic or paper-mâché, in Columbia they prefer the use of a different substance: cocaine.

Colombian authorities found a 36-centimeter-high gold statue made of 11 kilos of cocaine mixed with acetone (to help mold it together) inside a box headed for Madrid, Spain.

With Spain only two victories away from bringing home the real FIFA World Cup Trophy, they may have been hoping that the Columbian version would also be meeting them in Madrid for their victory celebration.

Hat Tip – [Dirty Tackle]

Gasquet, 23, was suspended in May for 2 months and 15 days after testing positive for cocaine at the Miami Masters in March.  Ranked 32nd in the world, his suspension ended today.

When asked how cocaine got into his system, Gasquet told the tribunal that it occurred after he kissed a woman named “Pamela” at a nightclub.  The BBC described the scenario as follows:

Gasquet told the tribunal that he kissed a woman, identified in the ruling only as “Pamela”, and suggested that was how the cocaine entered his system.

The tribunal stated, “this explanation is more likely than not to be the correct one”, and said that it “found the player to be a truthful and honest witness, and a man of integrity”.

It added that the quantity of cocaine detected in Gasquet’s sample was “very small, about the size of a grain of salt”. [BBC Sport]

Whether or not this story is true is anyone’s guess, but it sure sounds like quite the stretch.  Why can’t Michael Phelps get off the hook with a story like this.  Maybe those strippers he hangs around forced him to put the bong on his mouth.

In the mean time, Gasquet may want to look for some cleaner ladies when out on the town.  Maybe he should try the Madrid Masters ball girls for starters.

Hat Tip – [BBC Sport] via [DeadSpin]

In a bizarre remake of the chalk throwing pre-game rituals performed by King James, Nike has released footage of their new commercial which shows a puppet LeBron throwing chalk and rambling on about “post-season” and “Kobe Bryant“.  And his sidekick throughout the entire session is none other than puppet Kobe.  If we didn’t know better, it looks like a little something more is going on.  At the end, puppet James stands among the piles of chalk (or coke), saying he’s “just getting started.”  Judging by how hyper he is I’d say he’s well into doing whatever it is he is doing.

This is a rather funny commercial, all coke jokes aside.  But you have to wonder whether the people at Nike actually watched this and thought what most people are now thinking after seeing it.  Guess you just have to read between the ‘lines’ here, and hopefully puppet LeBron plans on setting on up for Kobe soon.  He seems like he could use a little boost.

Hat Tip Video – [WithLeather]

Pro Football Talk is reporting that Williams was arrested in Houston on Sunday night.

“Williams was arrested in Houston on Sunday night for felony possession of a controlled substance, which is believed to have been cocaine.  Williams reportedly was Tasered in the process of being arrested.  On February 27, Williams was arrested for DUI and marijuana possession.”

Tasered and arrested, not an ideal way to spend a Sunday night.  If you were the GM of an NFL franchise would you take a chance on either of these guys?