Americans like their sports to be high-scoring and full of spectacle and razzle-dazzle. Soccer/football typically has little of any of these.

Brett Favre is a selfish jerk. I’m not taking away from any of his on-field accomplishments. He’s a hall of fame QB, a league MVP, and a Superbowl champion. That cannot be argued. That being said, his current behaviour is deplorable. The guy had his big teary-eyed farewell press conference in the winter when he announced his retirement. Between then and now the Green Bay Packers made plans based on the fact that Favre would not be returning. Now the jerk wakes up one morning and decides he wants to play again and is being a whiny snot about the fact that team doesn’t want to roll out the red carpet for him.

I don’t care how much “fire” he claims to still have; the guy retired. When you retire from any other job you can’t show up six months later and say that you want your old job back just the way it was as if nothing had happened. Whether you’re a janitor or a professional football player the world keeps on turning and the organization has to move on after you retire. For Favre to be expecting what he is based on what’s being reported in the news is childish and shameful.

I, for one, largely blame the NFL for allowing something like this to happen. To the best of my knowledge, there is no regulation that makes a player ineligible to play in the NFL for any amount of time after he announces his retirement. In my opinion, there should be a regulation that clearly specifies this and the minimum wait before any kind of comeback is attempted should be three years. That would also prevent idiots like Ricky Williams from retiring just so they can avoid drug-related suspensions. But who am I kidding? The NFL probably really likes having that retirement loop-hole for cases just like Ricky Williams so that their big money superstars can avoid suspensions when they get in trouble. To this day I still think that the reason Michael Jordan went to play baseball was because he got in some kind of trouble that the NBA wanted to sweep under the rug.

It’s 24 hours before Wrestlemania 24. The card is more-or-less finalized and it’s time for some predictions. This year’s card has a lot of “meh” matches on it for me so I’m only going to talk about the three matches that really matter in terms of why people are tuning in.

Ric Flair VS. Shawn Michaels
Everyone expects Flair to lose and ride off into the sunset. Just because that’s so predictable I’m going to go with Flair making Michaels tap out to the Figure-4. I think they’ll make Michaels look strong and maybe do something like have him give Flair the Sweet Chin Music and then have Flair bump the ref, low-blow Michaels while Michaels checks on the ref, have Flair put on the Figure-4, and Michaels taps out. Michaels is at a point in his career where he wouldn’t look bad at all losing to Flair and beating Flair doesn’t elevate Michaels because Michaels has nothing left to prove. I’ll speak more on why this makes sense later.

Undertaker VS. Edge
This match should go on last as the main event. Undertaker’s Wrestlemania undefeated streak is one of the few traditions left in pro wrestling that means anything. It hasn’t been duplicated and it’s one thing that, if maintained, nobody can take away from Undertaker. As a heel, Edge doesn’t need the title to get over. Maybe it won’t be 100% clean but I predict the parting shot for Wrestlemania to be Undertaker hoisting the belt with his eyes rolled back in his head.

Randy Orton VS. HHH VS. John Cena
I wish there were a way for all three men to lose this match. I don’t hate any of these three… I just think the three have faced one another enough that one more outing doesn’t mean much. I think HHH will wind up beating Orton so that he can face Cena one-on-one at a later date.

Now... getting back to Flair VS. Michaels. Here’s how I see it playing out. Flair beats Michaels at Wrestlemania and walks teary-eyed back to the dressing room having saved his career. Monday night on Raw, HHH will go to the ring to put over his title win. Cue Ric Flair’s music. Ric Flair comes out to the stage and puts over HHH’s win but then says that he wants to become a five-billion time champion and challenges him to a title match at Backlash. The next week on Raw the two men meet in the ring. HHH agrees to the face-on-face title match at Backlash to great applause. Flair then starts strutting and HHH waffles him from behind and turns heel. Then you’ve got a month of build-up for a HHH/Flair title match and then HHH beats Flair compelling him to retire.

Given how buddy-buddy Flair and HHH are I was totally surprised that Flair’s final Wrestlemania match didn’t wind up being against HHH. This way Flair can have one more big win on wrestling’s “grandest stage” and put over his friend HHH on his way out the door.

Yeah, it's taking joy in the shortcomings of others but BOY am I glad that the Packers lost tonight and that it's all Brett Fav-ruh's fault for throwing an interception during overtime. I sure hope he takes this as a queue to ride off into the sunset. I'm friggin' sick of hearing out him and the freakin' Green Bay Packers.

Well, my beloved Chargers couldn't pull off a miracle two weeks in a row. Oh, well. Losing to the Patriots is hardly a slight. They're an amazing team and they won convincingly. I've said it before and I'll say it again... This time last year was San Diego's chance to win the Superbowl and they blew it with a loss in the divisional play-offs. I'm just sitting here cleaning up my office and listening to the Green Bay vs. New York game on the radio. I can't even remember the last time I listened to a football game on the radio but I'm really enjoying it!