NO HOLDS BARRED

I just received in the mail my new, shiny, laminated membership card from the National Wrestling Media Association. I was also rummaging through some files on my old but slowly functioning Windows 98-running laptop and came across the photos above of me winning awards for boxing and wrestling journalism. All this got me a-thinkin'.

While I am not one particularly enamored with awards and their related rituals, I figured that since one of the functions of a blog is as a sort of ongoing self-promotion vehicle, I might as well remind the world of some of the accolades I have earned. Besides, it's my blog and I'll self-promote if I want to -- you would try too, if it happened to you.

On the left is the photo of me receiving a third place award in the 2003 writing contest in event coverage of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) at the 79th annual BWAA awards dinner April 16, 2004, at the Marriott Marquis in New York.

My article was entitled "A Friday Night at the Fights" and was about the "Boxing in the Bronx" card held Sept. 19, 2003. The article appeared on MaxBoxing.com, and you can see it here.

Look closely at the photo and notice that I was wearing an always-fashionable Three Stooges tie. One day I just may make the cover of Redneck World or Modern Drunkard.

The photo on the right was taken at the 2003 annual meeting of the National Wrestling Media Association at the 2003 NCAA Div. I Wrestling Championships at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO. I was then wrestling editor at Grappling, which was voted the 2002 Wrestling Publication of the Year by the National Wrestling Media Association. On my right is Gary Abbott, the Director of Communications and Special Projects for USA Wrestling, who has done incredible work over the years both in promoting wrestling and aiding other journalists do the same.

Back in 2000 I also was voted the Journalist of the Year for mixed martial arts by the readers of Grapplersworld.com. But that site is no longer up and I can't think of anything else funny to link to, so if you need more laughs, go here or here or here or here or even here.