Perhaps Dana White didn’t see the Jeff Horn-Manny Pacquiao boxing match last week. If he did, the UFC honcho might have noticed the canopy covering the ring at the open-air Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia.
I know everything in boxing isn’t 100 percent transferable to MMA. But if the biggest roadblock to holding a UFC event at Aloha Stadium is the possibility of rain, that canopy, or one like it, might be the answer. It appears as though it did not obstruct the view for any of the 55,000 fans in attendance; if it did, there were multiple big screens around the stadium that gave them a better picture, anyway.
Maybe Aloha Stadium chief Scott Chan can inquire with his counterpart Down Under and find out how to get one of those canopies.
Barring any it’s-not-that-simple complaints, let’s move on to the next challenge. That would be the swap meet. The swap meet? You’ve got to be kidding, right? The swap meet being in the way simply cannot be the deal-breaker, or any kind of obstacle at all, to a UFC event featuring world champion Max Holloway of Waianae.
Why is the swap meet at Aloha Stadium to begin with? Move it! Take it somewhere where it will never interfere with sports events, or make sure its contract with the state is clear that sports events will always have the priority when it comes to the stadium parking lot.
The stadium was built for sports events, not flea markets.
>> My cable bill from Oceanic Time Warner, sorry, Spectrum Networks, is $65.72 a month.
Spectrum — the Connecticut company with the ersatz local-style commercials that used to be Oceanic — will now offer online streaming of high school sports events for $400 per school year to non-subscribers.
Doesn’t that seem a bit steep, especially in comparison with a regular cable subscription like the one for which I pay just a couple of bucks more? Might as well get the entire service if you want to stream prep sports. Looks like high school sports are being used by Spectrum as bait in the ongoing competition with Hawaiian Telcom.
Either a slick business move or dirty pool, depending on how you look at it. I vote for the latter, and for making watching prep sports more affordable for family members and other fans instead of soaking them for all you can.
>> Speaking of high school sports and TV, what’s not to like about the idea of using replay review in televised state tournament games? Last year, Alabama became the first state to experiment with the concept, and the world did not come to an end.
Matt Sumstine, a replay official with the Big 12 when he’s not busy training new Hawaii high school football officials, says there’s no reason not to do it.
Some might say it’s not good to employ a rule that you can’t use in all games, since all prep games aren’t televised.
But isn’t it more important to get it right whenever you can, especially in championship games?
>> Vince Carter, at 40 the NBA’s oldest active player, joined the Sacramento Kings as a free agent on Thursday.
He started just 15 games at Memphis last year.
When we got to see him play in Hawaii he came off the bench, too.
That was 17 years ago at the Stan Sheriff Center. Carter and his USA Men’s Senior National teammates, including Kevin Garnett, Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway (Sr.), Jason Kidd and Ray Allen, were on their way to the Sydney Olympics.
They made a quick stop here to pound Canada 99-70, and Carter — early in his pro career with the Toronto Raptors and then perhaps the best dunker I’d seen — electrified the crowd with a game-high 29 points. Future two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash played for Canada, but managed just two points on eight shots from the floor.
Predictably, this edition of the Dream Team swept everybody and went on to beat France in the gold medal game of the Olympics, 85-75, after edging Lithuania 85-83 in the semis.
Carter led Team USA in scoring in that Olympics, and performed what some consider the greatest dunk ever documented, over France’s 7-foot-2 center, Frederic Weis. It adds to the legend that it was done in the pre-social-media era, but you can still see it on YouTube and judge for yourself.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.
