I’m a big fan of John Oliver taking over the hosting duties on ‘The Daily Show With Jon Stewart’ for several reasons … he’s funny, he’s a nice change of pace from Stewart’s regular routines, and he’s a reminder of when ‘Community’ was a good show. On top of that, there’s the joy of discovery, watching him figure out some of the finer points of sharing news clips and facepalming about them as he goes. A good example: WWE adding “half-naked men fighting” to political discourse.

If you don’t watch Raw (and haven’t totally given up on this blog over it yet), “Zeb Colter” is a fictional, nationalistic, racist and exclusionary character based on the real nationalistic, racist, exclusionary character playing him. He believes that illegal immigration is ruining our country and, for whatever reason, has chosen professional wrestling as his way to reach the masses. Yeah, I don’t know. Up until now he’s been managing an Oklahoman amateur wrestler turned giant Vader-Bomber Jack Swagger. Swagger’s had … some problems, so now Colter’s attached to Swiss superman Antonio Cesaro. The joke is that the guy who hates immigrants is supporting a guy from Europe. Wrestling jokes!

The WWE Raw announce team is having problems accepting this and won’t stop arguing about it, and John Oliver’s sub-in job gets name-dropped. On last night’s episode of ‘The Daily Show,’ Oliver responded. And by responded I mean “tore off his sleeves, held a toy belt and screamed in front of a wall of fire with WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley.”

It’s as entertaining as it is surreal. Video is after the jump.

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I’m not a big fan of ‘Daily Show’ correspondent Aasif Mandvi for two reasons:

1. His voice
2. His role as Commander Zhao in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, which is easily the most ignorant-of-itself film adaptation this side of The Scarlet Letter.

That said, he has won a small place in my heart for yesterday’s piece about how kids should consider NOT going to college and bringing in goddamn NEW JACK when it was time to scare the kids straight.

If you aren’t familiar with the work of New Jack, he’s a pro wrestler, former ECW star and former bounty hunter with four justifiable homicides (!) who owns Wolverine claws, jumps off of balconies for little-to-no pay and is not afraid to beat a guy to death for real in front of children. He’s great, in the worst way that pro wrestling can be great, and it was surprising to see him here.

But you know what? A pro wrestler who kills people is still a better fit for ‘The Daily Show’ than Olivia Munn. New Jack’s appearance is after the jump.

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Next week he’s going to be on Charlie Rose talking about Cet obscur objet du désir.

Anyway, R.A. Dickey, the New York Mets knuckleballer who was so good this year he got a biography, a documentary and the 2012 National League Cy Young Award, showed up on ‘The Daily Show With Jon Stewart’ to discuss his magical super pitch, talk about the permanency of the written word and do his very best to avoid Jon’s nonstop string of HOW ARE THE METS PREPARING TO MAKE ME MISERABLE questions. I don’t blame Jon for asking those questions while he’s got the chance … if I interviewed R.A. Dickey, it’d just be “do you know Mr. Met personally,” followed by 10 minutes of silence.

The full, extended interview (courtesy of TheDailyShow.com). It’s a fascinating look into the life of a legitimately interesting baseball guy, and holy shit I miss baseball. Is it baseball yet?

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Lance Armstrong has spent the last ten years and change denying doping allegations, but now, after a 1,000 page collection of evidence and 26 sworn statements from fellow cyclists, he’s ready to … still deny them, I guess. But he’s stepping down as the chairman of Livestrong, which is a pretty big deal.

“This organization, its mission and its supporters are incredibly dear to my heart,” Armstrong said in a statement. “Today therefore, to spare the foundation any negative effects as a result of controversy surrounding my cycling career, I will conclude my chairmanship.

“As my cancer treatment was drawing to an end, I created a foundation to serve people affected by cancer. It has been a great privilege to help grow it from a dream into an organization that today has served 2.5 million people and helped spur a cultural shift in how the world views cancer survivors.

“My family and I have devoted our lives to the work of the foundation and that will not change. We plan to continue our service to the foundation and the cancer community. We will remain active advocates for cancer survivors and engaged supporters of the fight against cancer,” Armstrong said. (via LA Times)

We’ve tried to write objectively about whether or not Armstrong doped. We’ve even passed the buck to the pro comedians, guys who can say HEY F**K LANCE ARMSTRONG, WHO CARES ABOUT CYCLING without fear of a cycling forum somewhere finding out what they’ve said and bringing the hammer down. George Carlin summed up our thoughts on Lance Armstrong years ago, and now Lewis Black and ‘The Daily Show With Jon Stewart’ have taken it a step further by straight-up comparing Lance to the University Of Tennessee butt-chuggers and a guy who got arrested for doing it with a donkey.

Check out the video below, and see if you end up finding the donkeyf**ker infinitely more interesting than the nearly three-dozen cyclists who went to court to rat each other out.

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Links

R.I.P. Peyton Manning - Gone too soon. He was one of the greats! Once we’ve stopped Kony, we’ll never stop remembering you. [KSK]

Peyton Manning Is a Great Tipper - In contrast, Mark Shapiro of the Cleveland Indians once tipped me four dollars on 25. Danny Ferry tipped me 7 on 35. I guess Cleveland sports guys use the tipping chart. [The FW]

The 3 Best DJing Apps Out Now - I downloaded all three of these just so I could walk into a room and yell, “DJ BLUNTZ IS IN THE BUIL-DING!” [Smoking Section]

TV Network Power Rankings: What’s Their Greatest Season Ever? - Every time I read “Power Rankings” I read it as “Power Rangers”, so I got upset when I clicked these and didn’t see Galaxy anywhere. [Warming Glow]

Valve Is Not Making a Game Console. It’s Making Something Better - They’re making a wonderful dream where Half-Life 2: Episode 3 was released four years ago and Valve never beat us to death with delays. [Gamma Squad]

Patricia Heaton (The Mom From ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’) Makes A Staggering A$s Of Herself On Twitter - Hey G-Town Gal: When you become rich, you convince yourself that you “did it right” and everyone else is making ridiculous mistakes! Don’t have compassion or perspective, plz! [UPROXX]

The Improbable Rise And Unsurprising Fall Of LulzSec - The FBI was trying to beat down Tommy Dreamer, but the lights went out, and when they came on SABU HAD MADE HIS RETURN TO THE ECW ARENA. [UPROXX]

AVENGERS ACHTUNG! Downey chews scenery in the German Avengers trailer - My favorite member of DIE AVENGERS is DIE HULK. [Film Drunk]

Will You Be Buying Apple’s New, Improved iPad? - Yes, because I have a girlfriend with brand loyalty and nothing better to buy. [Smoking Section]

The 9 Funniest Former ‘Daily Show’ Correspondents - Never appearing on this list: Aasif Mandvi. Thanks for your weird voice and helping ruin ‘The Last Airbender’, jerk. [HuffPost Comedy]

Brazilian late-night shows are a far sight better than their American counterparts: Exhibit A - Exhibit B, they freaky with big ol’ booties and they thongs? Blue yellow and green! [FARK]

You’re the Vulgarian, You F*ck: Our Favorite Verbal Film Fights | The 2011 Fun Oscars - Robert Guillaume vs. Morgan Freeman in Lean On Me is still my favorite. I don’t have time for Mrs. Elliott’s problem! [Pajiba]

“BEWARE LEST YE BECOME THE CURTIS PAINTED” – Jon Bois

Links

Fetushead Cannibalism Creates Possibility For Perfect Fat Hump Story - Headlines like this make me want to write for KSK so bad. The Colts keep getting better, and the only thing funnier than Brett Favre showing up to right the ship would be Curtis Painter continuing to exist. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

UFC 135: Jones Vs. Rampage Aftermath - Jon Jones “Bones” “Jones” is awesome, if only for the parade of weirdly racist comments that accompany him wherever he goes. You’d think racist people wouldn’t get upset at a black guy having confidence and being good at fighting, but here we are. We are a nation of Jeffs Dunham. [Cage Potato]

She Got Her Nails Did: The Finger Nail Retrogame Art Of Maya Pixelskaya - As long as nobody grows her nails out to 10 feet long and takes pictures for a This Week In WTF World Records, I’m cool with this. [UPROXX]

Blinky In Ink: ‘The Simpsons’ Famous Mutant Fish In The Flesh - For the longest time I wanted to get a Worker and Parasite tattoo. Still might. [Gamma Squad]

Confession: I Didn’t Hate ‘Whitney’ - Matt, I don’t think we can be friends anymore. /laughtrack [Warming Glow]

Black Star & Common Perform “Respiration” Live In Chicago - Look at this brutish thug, Common! I hope nobody ever lets him visit the White House! He’s a thug! [Smoking Section]

Lewis Black Killed On The Chaz Bono/DWTS Controversy - I don’t normally like Lewis Black a lot (outside of doing a pretty funny impression of him), but he absolutely murdered this. I still think the controversy around Chaz Bono being on Dancing With The Stars should be that Chaz Bono is not a f**king star. [UPROXX]

Simon Pegg Continues To Be Awesome - His best performance is still as a guard in the Maths episode of “Look Around You”. Best show ever. [Film Drunk]

Alex Morgan, Hope Solo And Women’s Soccer Still Being A Thing - Tossing this in here in case you missed it on Friday. These women are good at sports and attractive in important ways and you should support them. By, uh, looking at my gallery. [With Leather]

Porkins Finally Gets His Due In These Totally Real Star Wars Blu-ray Deleted Scenes - I hope there are some scenes where Boba Fett takes off his helmet and sounds like Charles Nelson Reilly so I can forget about Star Wars forever. [Gamma Squad]

10 Things You Didn’t Know About “Dazed and Confused” - Did you know? Milla Jovovich made out with me during the production of the film and I convinced her not to appear in 2,000 action movies between the years of 2000 and 2011. Three Musketeers never happened. [Buzzfeed]

Sly Stone Is Living in a Van - Now, Sly Stone is probably asking himself, “Hey, Matt, how can we get back on the right track?!” [FARK]