Previous ‘Sports On TV’ columns (for ‘Saved By The Bell’ and ‘Full House’) have been fun to write but a pain to suffer through for research, because seriously, have you tried watching an 8th season episode of ‘Full House’ in 2012? Those columns sorta celebrate the badness of sports on TV, and how they get shoehorned in when people run out of love triangles and job jokes don’t have anything to write about.

So it’s with great pride that I present the third ‘Sports On TV’ effort, celebrating the 25 best sports moments from one of the best and most under-appreciated animated comedies ever made, FOX’s ‘King Of The Hill’. If you haven’t seen it before or just flip past it when you’re looking for ‘Squidbillies’ episodes on Adult Swim, the show’s entire 13-season run is available on Netflix streaming and is one of the best ways to spend 130-ish hours. What made the sports on ‘King Of The Hill’ great is that they aren’t accessories to the action … they’re focal points, important or not, just like in real life.

I’m lucky to have some great guest columnists this week, so I hope you enjoy the list. And yeah, there are at least 40 other moments we could’ve included here, so consider this part 1 of an eventual 50 Greatest Sports Moments Of ‘King Of The Hill’. We’ll loop back around when I realize Golden Girls didn’t have 20 sports moments on it.

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A rematch between Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva and challenger Chael Sonnen has been formally set and scheduled for June 23 at 50,000ish-seat Joao Havelange Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

If you don’t remember the first fight from UFC 117 back in 2010, Sonnen “dominated”. I put dominated in quotation marks because he controlled the fight for five rounds and submitted to a triangle armbar with a minute to go, but when you write about it you have to say he DOMINATED~. Apparently Sonnen’s spent the last two years only reading the first half of sentences, because he’s responded to Silva’s suggestion that he quit talking and start training with the most hilarious amount of talking ever.

A partial transcript, courtesy of Cage Potato:

I’m not fighting you in Brazil, I’m not fighting you in Chicago, I’m not fighting you in Florida. I’m fighting you in the Octagon. And when you get in there and I get in there, I’m gonna stomp you this time the same as I did last time. You can complain about your rib. I’m sure your rib *did* hurt. Your rib is inside of a coward. That’s the problem your rib’s got. It’s got the same problem your hands and feet have — they’re attached to *you*, dummy! I’m gonna be attached to you too, for 25 minutes or until you give up.

At this point, Sonnen’s “heel” gimmick is starting to sound a little too much like a Will Ferrell character trying to be threatening. YOUR RIB HURT BECAUSE YOUR RIB IS INSIDE OF A COWARD is the kind of thing you say when you’re wearing a fake mustache and trying to make someone laugh.

Video of Sonnen’s comments is after the jump.

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I thought he was just a cereal box model, but apparently Jeff Gordon is a champion race car driver and B-Boy.

The breaking of dance occurred during the NASCAR “After the Lap” event in Las Vegas, a championship banquet referred to by the Las Vegas Sun as a “press conference on steroids” that plays out like the last 30 minutes of any Blue Collar Comedy Tour stop, right down having Bill Engvall sit there squinting and laughing while people around him try to be entertaining. The skinny (and white) from SB Nation:

Gordon said he started break-dancing in middle school because that’s what all the cool kids did. In fact, the four-time NASCAR champ said he’d sneak into the bathroom and break-dance every morning before school, because they weren’t allowed to dance in the hallways.

You can check out video of the hip-hoppery after the jump, but be aware that at no point during the clip does he accidentally kick Bill Engvall in the face.

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It looks like I’m going to have to turn “Texas football guys dying” into a daily feature. Yesterday, we shared the story of Prestonwood Christian School assistant football coach Wade McLain, who collapsed and died when he stood outside all day in one of the state’s 40-plus days of 100-degree-plus weather. Today’s story takes place amidst air conditioning but is no less brutal — the storied college sports rivalry between the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at Austin evolved from aggressive car decals to full-on knife fighting at a San Antonio Applebee’s. Applebee’s©, where stacking food on top of different foods constitutes a new menu item!

The report and video, courtesy of Alamo Graphics News:

An argument over college football escalated into a knife fight at a San Antonio Applebee’s that sent two men to the hospital.

Police said officers were called to a northwest Applebee’s restaurant just before midnight on Monday in regards to a fight that started as an argument between an Oklahoma Sooners fan and Texas Longhorns fan. The argument escalated, and the Oklahoma fan pulled a knife and attacked the Texas fan.

Both were taken to University Hospital, where the Texas fan was last reported in stable condition; the other man in critical condition.

State pride legislation permits me to point how how the Oklahoma fan is the one who pulled the knife and attacked, but is the one in critical condition. Oklahoma, ladies and gentlemen, the Poland of the central United States. I hope by “pulled a knife” they mean he picked up the steak knife he was using at the Applebee’s and tried to stab a guy. I wonder if he got Garlic Mash in his wounds.

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