He has done it in the past, headbutting members of the opposition on two separate occasions last season.  He was at it once again last night, as he drove his head into the chin of the Philadelphia Flyers forward Jakub Voracek.  Kaleta has since been suspended for four games and will forfeit $19,621.64 from his salary, which will go towards the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

Here is a look at the incident.

The entertaining sideshow we are referring to began with approximately 20 seconds left in round four, as Ortiz had Mayweather against the ropes and was landing some shots on the undefeated former champion.  However, Ortiz appeared to get a little too riled up, as he let his emotions get the better of him and delivered a headbutt to the chin of Mayweather.  Ortiz was deducted a point for the illegal maneuver, but when the fight was restarted and the two met to touch gloves at the center of the ring, it appeared as though Mayweather was saying something in the ear of Ortiz, before stepping back and knocking out his unsuspecting opponent with a left-right combo.

For some reason, referee Joe Cortez was not looking at the fighters while this took place, and when his focus returned to the fighters, Ortiz was on the ground and Cortez proceeded to begin his 10-count.  The reigning WBC champion was unable to get back to his feet, and Mayweather was awarded the KO victory at 2:59 of the fourth round.

If you though that was strange, it gets better!

With the boos raining down on Mayweather, he met with a rather disappointed Larry Merchant in the ring for a post-fight interview.  Fed up with Merchant’s questions about his apparent cheapshot, Mayweather sounded off on the ringside analyst, yelling “HBO needs to fire you” and “you don’t know sh*t about boxing.”  Merchant responded by saying, “I wish I was 50 years younger and I’d kick your ass.”

On the one hand, the fight just seemed to start getting interesting, as Ortiz had lost the first three rounds but appeared to have something going in the fourth round before throwing the head butt.  That left many believing that he may have been able to work his way back into the fight, had it continued.  But on the other hand, that post-fight exchange between Floyd Mayweather and Larry Merchant alone was probably worth about $30, which has left me wondering whether those of us who paid the $50 bucks to watch this fight ended up getting our money’s worth?

For those of you who didn’t get to see it, as well as those of you who want to see it again, you can catch the must-see highlights from the latter portion of the fight and the post-fight interview in the video below.

In a Champion’s League play-in match between Spain’s Villarreal and Denmark’s Odense, a rather minor run-in between two players quickly turned unnecessarily violent.

Andreas Johansson of Odense took down Borja Valera of Villarreal. The foul was probably worth a yellow card, but it wasn’t especially vicious. After the initial contact, however, Johansson accidentally kicked Valera in the back of the head while trying to avoid doing that very thing. That was a big mistake.

Incensed, and apparently inspired by Pamplona’s running of the bulls, Valera leapt up from the ground and plowed his bald skull into Johansson’s chest. The blow sent Johansson flying backwards about three feet.

As you can see, one of Johansson’s teammates goes to confront Valera immediately after the head-butt. I assume he said, “dude, you better check yourself before you wreck yourself,” or the Danish equivalent thereof.

Of course, this latest incident still isn’t as impressive as Zinedine Zidane’s wicked headbutt of Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup Final. But it’s not bad.

Cruz Azul won the first leg by a score of 2-0, but a late goal in the 88th minute put Morelia ahead 3-0 in the second leg, giving them the 3-2 lead on aggregate.  Following that goal in the 88th minute, a Cruz Azul fan stormed onto the pitch and attempted to get a handshake from one the Cruz Azul players.  No dice!  Instead, he was treated to a few kicks and punches from the Cruz Azul players, who chased him around the pitch until he was eventually rescued by a few Morelia players, but the brawling didn’t stop there.

Tensions between the two teams began to rise during the melee, causing some of the Cruz Azul players to go after Morelia assistant coach Sergio Martin.  And just when it appeared as though Martin had escaped danger, he was viciously headbutted by Cruz Azul goalkeeper Jesus Corona.

Check out the entire incident below (headbutt footage at 5:04 mark).

Hat Tip – [Dirty Tackle]

After a scoreless first half, the Rossoneri dominated the run of play for much of the second half, but couldn’t capitalize on their chances.  Tottenham, on the other hand, made the most of their chance when Peter Crouch slid home a pass from teammate Aaron Lennon to put the Spurs up 1-0 in the 80th minute.  They would hold on from there for the crucial away victory.

With nothing working on offense, frustrations began to boil over for the Italian club.  It all started in the 58th minute, when Milan midfielder Gennaro Gattuso came face-to-face with Tottenham coach Joe Jordan before pushing him away with a shot to the neck.  At the conclusion of the game, the two would exchange words for a second time before Gattuso initiated contact once again, this time with a headbutt.  The man that some refer to as “the Italian pitbull” had to be restrained immediately before things escalated.

Gattuso will not be in the line-up when these two teams meet for the second leg at White Hart Lane in three weeks time, but we still expect it to be quite the interesting contest.  Here is a look at both incidents from today’s game.

We all know that soccer players can be whiny diving sissies at times, and the same can be said about their coaches as well.  This clip says it all, as a player and the opposing coach exchange a few words before butting heads.  At that point, it is a race to see who can hit the ground first.  I’ll give this one to the coach, who was quick to react after being the one to throw the headbutt.

I guess when they perform such acts, they don’t necessarily take into account just how stupid they will look once the instant replays are made available to us all.

Renshaw, who is the lead-out man for Cavendish’s HTC Columbia team, has since been expelled from the Tour for repeatedly attempting to headbutt Dean, the lead-out man for Tyler Farrar’s Garmin-Transitions team.  With Dean looking to pass, Renshaw struck the New Zealand rider three times with his head in order to prevent that from happening.  That illegal act was enough to allow Renshaw’s teammate, Cavendish, to make his move and sprint to the finish line ahead of the rest of the pack.

Cavendish was quick to defend his teammate, stating the Renshaw simply “fought to prevent the lane from being closed on him.”  However, course-director Jean-Francois Pescheux saw things differently.

“This is cycling, it’s not wrestling,” course director Jean-Francois Pescheux said. He said removing Renshaw was “severe” punishment, but that his violation was “flagrant.”

“There are rules to respect.” [TSN.ca]

Last week riders were beating each other with tires.  This week they are headbutting one another.  Since when did the Tour de France turn into the WWE?

It was the moment that saw the historic career of Zinedine Zidane come to a rather painful conclusion.  Having scored his team’s lone goal in the 2006 World Cup final against Italy, Zidane and his French International squad found themselves tied 1-1 in extra time when the unthinkable occurred.

After being the victim of a verbal insult from Italian defender Marco Materazzi, Zidane turned around and delivered “the headbutt heard around the world.”  The image of his head driving into the chest of Materazzi would forever be entrenched in the minds of French and Italian soccer fans everywhere.  In fact, memories of the image have extended beyond the two European countries to become one of the most memorable moments in World Cup history.

Zidane would be sent off with a straight red card, the Italians would win the title in a shootout, and the rest is history.  As for the image of Zidane’s noggin blasting into the Italian crest on Materazzi’s jersey, it would be recreated in just about every manner possible, and has even inspired a commercial for Bet-at-home.com, which has since been pulled from Austrian television airways due to its portrayal of violence.

If they thought that was bad, I wonder what the Austrian television police would think of these images?

During a boxing match in Finland, Juho Tolppola was warned, then disqualified by the ref for a headbutt.  He was not pleased at all with the decision, but even more furious than he was his father, who stormed the ring to get at the ref.  He was quickly restrained and ushered out of the ring, but not before attempting to get a couple of punches in.

Tolppola and his opponent, Giuseppe Lauri seemed to be fine with what had occurred during the fight, shaking each other’s hands giving pats on the back several times following the fight.  They never got the chance to finish what they started, and luckily for the ref, neither did Tolppola’s dad.

Hat Tip Video – [With Leather] via [SportsRubbish]