Sports Meme Power Rankings: Ay, El Chupacabra!

Consult last week's Sports Meme Power Rankings here.

1. UP LIKE THE EARS OF A THOUSAND MEN HOPING THEY'LL FIGHT, THEN KISS: Elizabeth Lambert, Soccer Ninja (Last Week: NR). No one said honest rankings were flattering. For example, take the top-selling albums of the 2000s as a perfect illustration of the inverse relationship between instant popularity and overall quality (Via Wikipedia, the most reliable source of information this side of Pro Football Talk):

• The best-selling album of 2000 was No Strings Attached, by *NSYNC.^[41]
• The best-selling album of 2001 was Hybrid Theory, by Linkin Park.^[41]
• The best-selling album of 2002 was The Eminem Show, by Eminem.^[42]
• The best-selling album of 2003 was Get Rich or Die Tryin', by 50 Cent.^[43]
• The best-selling album of 2004 was Confessions, by Usher.^[44]
• The best-selling album of 2005 was The Emancipation of Mimi, by Mariah Carey.^[39]
• The best-selling album of 2006 was High School Musical Soundtrack.^[38]
• The best-selling album of 2007 was Noel, by Josh Groban.^[45]
• The best-selling album of 2008 was Tha Carter III, by Lil Wayne.^[46]

While someone at Pitchfork hangs themselves after reading this, please don't miss the point: the thing you probably were most able to talk about with your stupid, slovenly co-workers this week was "HEY DID YOU SEE THAT SOCCER CHICK TOTALLY BEAT ASS ON SPORTSCENTER?" Not an interesting, quality sports story like the rebirth of the NBA season, or the evolving NFL season, or even the vagaries of the college football season...no, what you could talk about with any idiocrat you happened to walk into was Elizabeth Lambert yanking a helpless young Mormon soccer player to the ground by her pony tail, pulling furiously on that rope of hair like a hunchback yanking the very bells of Notre Dame itself.

New Mexico's Lambert lost the game, then lost her season, and has a losing week overall save for one thing: she gave us an excuse to remind you that most people have no taste, that someone has to be buying Josh Groban albums somewhere (Aunt Linda, please), and has enshrined herself in the hearts of men nationwide who like their women with a little bit of stabby in 'em. 

2. UP LIKE A FLAG FOR RAISING AN EYEBROW AFTER A PLAY: SEC Officiating LOLOMG (Last Week: NR). This week's travesty comes to you courtesy of the LSU/Alabama game, where officials ruled this was not an interception.

The error was compounded by the revelation this week that SEC replay officials, working without HD quality televisions in the booth, happily groaned out a luxuriant "HURRRRNNNNGGHHH" and rubber-stamped the call on the field on review before returning to their late-game snack of paste and coat buttons. The resulting video and photo evidence does nothing to calm the angry apes of SEC Message Boards railing about a grand conspiracy to place Alabama and Florida into the SEC Championship game, and while they're at it: have you ever noticed how the shadows don't line up on these moon landing photos.

3. UP WITH THE FORCE OF A RUSSIAN BEAR (WITH A FRACTURED NOSE): Fedor Emelianenko Wins And Gets Complimentary Vacation (Last Week: 5). America got to see Fedor Emilianenko fight live on CBS this Saturday night against Brett "the Grim" Rogers, the very embodiment of our American dream itself, a hardscrabble fighter who as recently as April was changing tires at the Sam's Club for his meals and living the blue-collar dream. Appropriately for this phase in America's history, that very fighter was laid off by foreign competition in the form of Fedor Emelianenko.

Rogers did get his revenge on Emelianenko, though, hitting him with a pickaxe in the face, leaving what could have passed for an axe wound and breaking his nose. I don't know when Rogers had time to do this during the fight, but whatever ghastly hell happened to Fedor's nose could only have resulted from a pickaxe to the face, which Rogers must have hidden up his sleeve. I know he was shirtless. No one said my theory didn't need serious work.

4. UP LIKE BILL COMPTON RISING FROM HIS COFFIN: Sammy Sosa, Undead Steroid Hero (Last Week: NR). Sammy Sosa appeared eight shades whiter this week after using a skin treatment containing bleach. Since he's fond of rubbing various creams into his body without wondering too much about the long term effects (and has a long-proven track record of doing this), it is therefore totally plausible he is not indeed trying to turn himself into lighter-skinned version of baseball's second most notorious Roid Ranger. Really, how bad can it look? Let me see here...

AY VAMINOS! ES EL CHUPACABRA!  If you see undead Sammy Sosa, please do not attempt to approach him, at least not after sunset. Sammy's bid to re-win the youth market by appealing to those caught up in the Twilight phenomenon will land him a role in the fifth film, where the former slugger will play a baseball player determined to become the first vampire to win an NL batting title. The New York Mets will offer the fictional character a $12 million contract, and oh! Laughter will ring over hill and dale.

5. UP LIKE THE FOOT OF RALPH MACCHIO INTO THE FACE OF WILLAM ZABKA: Bill Simmons, The New King Of All Media (Last Week: NR). Simmons' opus The Book of Basketball opened at No. 1. Do not get too excited about this in terms of prestige: prior No. 1 books on the list in recent years include Too Fat to Fish by Artie Lange with Anthony Bozza, Arguing With Idiots by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe, Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler, and Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings by Tyler Perry. (The last was ghostwritten by Simmons, who is surprisingly in touch with his inner black woman). Do get excited about a former online writer big-ballin' in a recession with a 700-page-plus epic about basketball, because it proves a.) there's hope for your epic post-apocalyptic novel about Ben Roethlisberger saving the human race by throwing grenades into the chests of zombies, nerdy Steeler fan and b.) that New England Patriots fans can read. Both are good signs for humanity on the whole.

6. STAYING LEVEL WITH THE FREQUENCY OF 20 BAD SHOTS TAKEN A GAME: Allen Iverson, Retiree (Last Week: 6). I like to imagine Iverson at a proper retirement home, complaining about the lack of praise for his macrames in the craft class, demanding additional jello at dinner time, and complaining about the lack of playing time Murray and Herman give him on the Pleasant Acres shuffleboard team. It's a more amusing scenario that what Iverson is actually doing, which is deciding which team he's going to saddle with a crotchety veteran fond of throwing up bad shots like Peter O'Toole on a bender and bemoaning his lack of playing time. In the meantime, Ensure and Kahluas for everyone at Pleasant Acres, which just became the ballin'est place in the land to wait for the cold touch of the Grim Reaper.

7. UP LIKE A METH-HEAD AT 5 IN THE MORNING: Andre Agassi, Meth Confessor (Last Week: NR). Agassi hanging around in the rankings thanks to Martina Navratilova chastising him for not fessing up to meth use. He already confessed to wearing a mullet hairpiece in public, however, and thus has confessed to something more embarrassing that any drug confession you could imagine. He could cop to huffing Krylon through a sock in between matches at Wimbledon and it could not be more humiliating than the hairpiece admission, but if he wanted to he could have stuck with the old "I wasn't doing drugs, but I was making out with people who were" ploy. That might still work, actually.

8. DOWN LIKE A SIGN SUGGESTING THE REDSKINS DO NOT PLAY WINNING FOOTBALL WHICH THEY DO NOT: The Daniel Snyder Deserved To Be Bullied As A Child Meme (Last Week: 4). A surprisingly quiet week on the Redskins' front, both because they were on the road in Atlanta, did not play absolutely horrible football (merely mediocre in a 31-17 loss), and because Snyder did not have the opportunity to do something Snyder-y in front of the home fans like banning children from the stadium for implicitly making him feel short and inadequate.

9. DOWN LIKE THE NET YEARLY INCOME OF A CERTAIN FORMERLY GREAT RUNNING BACK AND HASTY TWITTERER: Larry Johnson leaves the Chiefs (Last Week: 7). Falling this week from 7 to 9 is Larry Johnson, now wandering the streets of Kansas City pensively while sad music plays and he wonders what happened to his life. Actually, this is the low ebb of the hero arc, and Johnson's agent is probably driving next to him with the windows down and some kind of Larry Johnson-themed piano ballad with a driving chorus and topical lyrics. No you've got to fiiiiiiiiight...

Or maybe he's just listening to it all by himself, man. Just LJ vs. the world. Years from now the world will acknowledge the brilliance of Baseketball, perhaps sometime during the year 2024, aka the Year of the Seasonally Available McRib. In the meantime even the 'Skins don't want anything to do with Johnson, a statement best ephrased as "beggar refuses hamburger."

10. DOWN LIKE PERCY HARVIN INJURED WITH A BLOWN FUEL INJECTOR: The Orbiting and Ever-Present Brett Favre PR Death Star/Country Bear Jamboree (Last week: 2). Due to the bye week for the Vikings, The Brett Favre PR Death Star falls to a lowly tenth this week. Favre spent the week recovering at his home in Mississippi, driving around on an ATV, playing touch football with hired actors, and touring his vast tracts of land while recharging his interceptions gland.

Falling out of the rankings: Baseball and all things baseball-related because this isn't 1922 ... "Fake American" Meb Keflezghi ... Brawlin' Tim Floyd (presumably still riding the range of Indian Casinos and keeping the peace between brawlin' white trash) ... The Saints imminent rush to greatness (still awaiting ESPN paying attention to anything outside the NE Corridor) ... College athletes who gouge eyes.

Just missing the list: Derek Jeter being handed a Gold Gloves award, dropping it, and still not being credited with an error ... Nascar something something ... LeGarrette Blount's reinstatement ... Kareem announcing he has cancer, because he's going to be fine and cancer is way unfunny.