After I woke up this morning and did a few thousand pushups, I checked my email to find two variations of this joke:

Andrew Luck and RG3 walk into a bar… to watch Russell Wilson play the Atlanta Falcons in the Divisional Round of the playoffs.

The other variation involved the Pope and Raquel Welch in a dhingy, but that’s irrelevant. The point is that people are enjoying the fact that the Indianapolis Colts, who famously Sucked for Luck, and the Washington Redskins, who mortgaged their draft future for Robert Griffin III, are out of the playoffs and the Seattle Seahawks, who took a chance on Russell Wilson in the 3rd round, are still alive. Because it’s not like 2/3 of NFL fans wouldn’t at least consider chopping a finger off to have Luck or RG3 as a QB right now.

Even stranger, though, is that so many fans – or perhaps “anti-Redskins” is more appropriate – rejoiced in RG3’s knee injury last night. Again, maybe it was just the fact that it meant that the Redskins were screwed, but there have been very few athletes over the years who I could have imagined feeling jubilation over their pain. Especially not someone as likable as RG3. But here we are, the morning after, stepping over the lifeless bodies of the men and women who overdosed on joy at another’s expense.

Of course, that means there were memes galore last night, what with this Internet being such a horrible place and all. But if they mocked Derrick Rose and Manny Pacquiao, you could be sure that the RG3 mockery was coming.

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On one hand, if the NFL didn’t have its rule that a player must be three years removed from high school to be eligible to play professional football, South Carolina Gamecocks sophomore defensive end Jadeveon Clowney would be the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NFL Draft. That means that the 2013 Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day would have been the last time SC fans would have watched their 19-year old, 6’6” freak of nature destroy an opposing offense. On the other hand, Cocks fans must absolutely love that NFL rule right now, because it means that Clowney is going to come back for at least one more year. Hell, we should all love that.

By now, you’ve undoubtedly seen Clowney’s insane-o-craz-a-tastic hit on Michigan Wolverines running back Vincent Smith, as it was certainly the key highlight of SC’s 33-28 victory in the Outback Bowl, if not the entire 2012-13 bowl season. And if you’re anything like me, you just can’t stop watching that damn hit. You’re also very handsome and wise beyond your years.

My initial reaction after that hit was, “Cool, I’m going back to sleep” but then my next reaction was, “Boy, the memers on the Interwebs are going to have a field day with that.” In reality, they did, but not as much as I expected them to. Either way, I’ve included some of the best responses, as well as the Day One leading contender for GIF of the year.

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If you joined us for the UFC on Fox 6 live discussion on Saturday, then you most likely watched the sad end of the BJ Penn era, after he was outmatched and exhausted by our favorite fighting hipster, Rory MacDonald. But some people believe that the real end of an era came later that night, when Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manual Marquez reignited their incredible rivalry for the fourth time in front of a fiery Las Vegas audience. Marquez delivered a stunning knockout blow to Pacquiao in the 6th round, securing the WBO “Champion of the Decade” belt and a barrage of “Is this the end of Manny?” headlines.

Lost in the shuffle is also a hilarious Internet uproar caused by none other than Floyd Mayweather’s No. 1 fan, Justin Bieber, as Canada’s crown prince of pop apparently made fun of Pacman on Instagram, and that didn’t sit well with the fighter’s fans. What really blows me away is that Pacquiao has a considerable amount of fans worldwide, as they flocked to Bieber’s Instagram account to defend their fallen hero. There you have it, folks – boxing’s biggest star being made fun of by this guy…

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"Sweet gloves, bro."

NBA legend and TNT analyst Shaquille O’Neal, in his neverending quest to completely besmirch Dwight Howard, once said that Andrew Bynum was the best big man in the league. But since he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in the blockbuster deal that sent Howard from the Orlando Magic to the Los Angeles Lakers, I’m pretty certain that Shaq doesn’t even care who Bynum is anymore. That doesn’t change the fact that, though, that when healthy Bynum is indeed one of the most talented centers in the NBA. The key component of that statement being WHEN HEALTHY, because lately that’s a concern.

Bynum has been rehabilitating his knees after he received fancy lubrication injections in Germany during the summer. Basically, the guy has no cartilage and he’s trying desperately to make his knees work. Originally, he was aiming to be ready by mid-to-late November, but then he suffered a bone bruise that set him back to December or January. Now, his recovery has been set back again, because he reportedly re-injured his knee while bowling. Seriously.

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If you didn’t see enough of it last night as the news initially broke, you’re going to see plenty of columns, editorials and fiery rants today about how Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is a scumbag because he is willingly killing his second baseball franchise because he’s horrible at what he does. And many of them will be great – I like this effort by Yahoo!’s Jeff Passan and this more subtle rundown by Deadspin – because as much as writers, analysts and experts love to argue about every little meaningless thing in sports, hatred for Loria runs deep within the majority. Jeffrey Loria destroyed the Montreal Expos and now he is destroying the Miami Marlins. That’s pretty much all you need to know.

So why? Why did the Marlins trade Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, John Buck, Emilio Bonifacio and Mark Buehrle to the Toronto Blue Jays for Yunel Escobar and several prospects that don’t even include Toronto’s best? Was it a brilliant move to clear money? Was it an admittance of mistakes in even signing Reyes and Buehrle in the first place? Was it just the same old fire sale that we’ve come to expect from the Marlins? Or is it more likely the story of a man under investigation by the SEC for allegedly fleecing the city of Miami in the construction of a new baseball stadium that he couldn’t even fill with a stable of stars because he already created a product so tainted within the community that people refuse to buy in until his stink is washed away?

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Every week I write the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column, but I barely ever talk about Smackdown. If you’d like me to recap every Smackdown between 2004 and early 2012, I can do it in four words: TEDDY LONG TAG TEAM MATCH.

Former Smackdown General Manager Teddy Long (aka WCW’s Theodore R. Long, aka “Peanuthead”) ran a wrestling show for almost 8 years with only one programming idea:

1. Wait until 2-6 wrestlers were arguing in the ring.
2. Interrupt those wrestlers with a rap song about Teddy Long.
3. Announce that if those wrestlers had an issue, they could resolve it in a TAG TEAM MATCH*!

*With Teddy you can’t just type “tag team match,” because that’s not how he says it. He says TAG TEAM MATCH.

Teddy is no longer GM, but now, thanks to YouTube user mekabizh1, you can relive the glory days with this nearly 7-minute long compilation of Teddy showing up, doing the most predictable thing a guy in charge of a wrestling show can do, and bailing. As an added bonus, I’ve included some of my favorite TAG TEAM MATCH memes and videos after the jump. So check this out and enjoy it, but don’t get confrontational with anybody about it, because … well …

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