Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Anthony Richardson, Jon Jones Sparkle
From 1952 through 1958, in living black and white, The Adventures of Superman aired on television — although reruns of the show continued to air for decades.
Every episode started with these lines:
"Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
'What's that up in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane?'
It's SUPERMAN!"
On Saturday, the adventures of two real-life supermen were on display: Florida Gators quarterback Anthony Richardson and UFC fighter Jon Jones, who became the undisputed G.O.A.T. — an acronym that is now officially recognized by Merriam-Webster — of that sport when he made quick work of Cyril Gane to claim the vacant UFC heavyweight title, submitting Gane with a guillotine choke after a mere 2 minutes and 4 seconds of the first round at UFC 285 in (where else?) Las Vegas.
Hours earlier, Richardson had strutted his stuff at the combine in Indianapolis — and the generation that gave us so many groovy things would have called the resulting measurables "outta sight":
At 6'4 1/4", Richardson is taller than 49ers tight end George Kittle.
At 244 pounds, he is heavier than Eagles edge rusher Haason Reddick.
His 10 1/2" hand size is bigger than that of Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins (although a quarter of an inch smaller than that of WIP's just-retired morning sports talk radio host Angelo Cataldi).
His vertical leap of 40 1/2" is higher than that of Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams.
And his broad jump of 10 feet 9 inches exceeds that of (unemployed for the moment) wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr.
One has to go all the way back to Herschel Walker 40 years ago to find a raw athletic specimen about to descend upon the pro football world who even comes close to these numbers.
Not long ago, Richardson was projected to be only a late first-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft, which commences on April 27.
But in light of what we witnessed on Saturday, according to highly-regarded Athlon Sports, Richardson could now be the first overall pick.
"Indeed, teams are already lining up to try and trade up to obtain Chicago's first-round pick which is No. 1 overall.
As for Jones, he will apparently move on to a showdown with former UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic in his first title defense — given that Francis Ngannou (a fellow countryman of Sixers center Joel Embiid), whose last two UFC fights were victories over Gane and Miocic, has left the promotion in search of — as if you didn't know — more money.
With his win over Gane, Jones became the eighth multiple-weight-class titleholder in UFC history (he had been light heavyweight champion from 2011 to 2020), joining Randy Couture, B.J. Penn, Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Georges St-Pierre, Amanda Nunes, and Henry Cejudo (and when Ngannou abdicated his belt, he became the first reigning UFC champion to do that since Penn did it in 2004).
It would be totally awesome if someday mixed martial arts could become an Olympic sport, although sheer logistics would appear to rule it out: any MMA tournament would have to start as long as a year before, with only the gold and bronze medal fights to be held during the Olympics themselves.
But one would suppose that an Olympic niche can be invented for Richardson.
In the meantime, just as Abbott and Costello had trouble figuring out who's on first, we are all having trouble figuring out who will be on first when the draft begins.
At least for the moment, though, the Bears are on the clock.