Rocco Mediate recently shared a story about Tiger Woods that gives us an interesting glimpse at the golf legend’s personality.

Mediate sat down with Golf Channel’s David Feherty for an interview on “Feherty” (Mondays 10:00 p.m. ET on Golf Channel) last week and said he still hasn’t had a chance to chat with Tiger about their dramatic playoff at the 2008 US Open. Woods, playing on a bad knee that would require season-ending surgery, sunk a birdie putt on the 72nd hole to tie him with Mediate, who was in the clubhouse at -1. The two played an 18-hole playoff on Monday to determine the winner. Tiger again made birdie on the last hole of the playoff round to tie Mediate. Woods then beat Mediate in a sudden-death playoff hole to win the tournament.

Battling Woods head-to-head for the entire day is Mediate’s biggest claim to fame. So when he saw Tiger the next year at the 2009 Players Championship, he was hoping his competitor could give him a nice personalized autograph.

Mediate told Feherty that he placed a manila envelope containing a pin sheet and great photo of the two of them on the course together that day. He said he included a note asking Tiger to sign the pin sheet and write a personalized message on the photo.

Mediate returned from his round at TPC and saw the envelope sitting in his locker. He was eager to read what it said. When he opened it up, he saw there was nothing written on the pin sheet, and that Tiger only signed his name on the photo without leaving a message. He was disappointed to learn that Woods ignored his request.

“Why wouldn’t he just go, ‘Roc, you suck, you got lucky for six days. I had a broken leg’ … just mess with me, and then sign my pin sheet so I could put the damn thing on the wall and say, ‘Almost got the guy that day,’” Mediate said to Feherty.

Mediate says he threw the picture away.

“I could go buy one of those pictures if I want one,” he told Feherty.

As bad as the story sounds, Mediate said he wasn’t sharing the story to bash Tiger, but to “tell you how this guy’s programmed.” Mediate also says he’s still one of Tiger’s biggest fans.

“I love the way he does his job.”

If you want to give Tiger a break here, you can say he was in the middle of a tournament and was too busy to worry about jumping through all of Mediate’s hoops. Or maybe Mediate should have asked him personally to sign it so that he got it right. Or maybe this story shows just what Rocco thinks: Tiger is just wired that way.

What do you think?

H/T Devil Ball Golf

Chad Johnson filed paperwork with a court to ask a judge to lower his child support payments for one of his children, TMZ reports.

Johnson’s payments to Andrea Pearson, one of the mothers of his children, reportedly are $5,420 per month. Johnson agreed to that amount in March 2012 when he said in filings he was making $66,000 per month. Johnson was not with an NFL team at the time, but he had plenty of endorsement deals, a TV show on VH1, and he was later brought to training camp by the Miami Dolphins.

Johnson’s NFL prospects ended after the Dolphins released him following his altercation with ex-wife Evelyn Lozada. He also lost endorsement deals and their TV show as a result of the arrest.

Naturally, Johnson says he can’t afford the support payments.

TMZ reported last November that Pearson accused Johnson of being late and missing payments. The two have a son together who was born in 2010.

Let this be a lesson to athletes everywhere who think that making millions entitles you to plant your seed anywhere you please. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up owing thousands per month in child support payments.

Singer Miguel jumped off the stage at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday night and landed directly on a woman’s head, nearly crushing her. The ill-advised moment instantly went viral for obvious reasons.

First off, did you see how badly Miguel demolished her? The poor woman’s head disappeared after Miguel banged it directly into the stage, crotch-first. Not to mention that he took out a second woman with a kick to the head. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Secondly, Miguel somehow managed to land a textbook leg drop on the woman. You cannot teach a better leg drop than that. When Vince McMahon brings new wrestlers into the WWE, I guarantee you he shows them this clip.

The best part of the whole ordeal was the immediate memes of Miguel’s stage jump fail and a top-rope WWE move:

Miguel Be Like twitter.com/Sports_Moneyy/…

— LB Gotti✋ (@Sports_Moneyy) May 20, 2013

MIGUEL WAS LIKE twitter.com/WavyJay_/statu…

— Doc (@WavyJay_) May 20, 2013

Miguel tonight at the Billboard Music Awards … He’s now a wrestler twitter.com/_Duhwayne_/sta…

— Dwayne Tyrek(@_Duhwayne_) May 20, 2013

And here is the leg drop as called by wrestling announcers Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler:

So Miguel lookin like “Damn I hope her neck ain’t broke” twitter.com/CursedByNike_/…

— Le King. (@CursedByNike_) May 20, 2013

The good news is it looks like there was a happy ending to this story — Miguel later brought the woman backstage.

aw Miguel brought that girl backstage who he jumped on… aw that’s so nice! twitter.com/MarisaGJB/stat…

— Marisa Gasbarra (@MarisaGJB) May 20, 2013

However, her nose may have been a little injured:

Miguel took that girl backstage LMFCOOOO!! twitter.com/MarajTyler/sta…

— Tyler Maraj (@MarajTyler) May 20, 2013

Alright, and here it is in Vine form for one more time:

GIF via @CorkGaines

Brittney Griner says she was discouraged by her coaches and the Baylor athletic department from being openly gay while in college the past five years.

Griner just completed her senior season in Waco and was selected No. 1 overall by the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. The former two-time first-team All-American center came out publicly last month, though she says she has been openly gay since high school.

Griner told ESPN The Magazine/espnW that she was discouraged from being open while at Baylor. She says she was told to keep it private because it could damage recruiting.

“It was a recruiting thing,” Griner told ESPN The Magazine and espnW. “The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor.”

Griner says she told Baylor coach Kim Mulkey up front when she was being recruited that she was gay. She says Mulkey told her that was not an issue. However, she was discouraged from being open about her sexuality.

“It was more of an unwritten law, but come to find out it was a written law. It was kind of one of those things like, ‘just don’t do it.’ They kind of try to make it like, ‘Why put your business out on the street like that?’” Griner told espnW’s Kate Fagan.

Griner says the issue first came up when she tweeted something.

“I tweeted something out and it was kind of like ‘hey, you need to probably not do that, pull that off.’”

Griner says she tweeted something to her ex and was asked to take it down. She believes it was someone from the compliance office who asked her to remove the tweet.

One of the reasons Griner was likely discouraged from being openly gay in college is Baylor’s religious affiliation. Baylor is a Baptist school that does not believe in homosexuality. Here’s the school’s Statement on Human Sexuality as it appears in the student handbook:

Baylor University welcomes all students into a safe and supportive environment in which to discuss and learn about a variety of issues, including those of human sexuality. The University affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God. Christian churches across the ages and around the world have affirmed purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm. Temptations to deviate from this norm include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior. It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.

I’m sure Baylor wasn’t complaining about all the positive attention Griner brought the school through her basketball career, but it’s not like Griner didn’t know what she was getting into. Or, if she didn’t know, then she didn’t do her proper research ahead of time. Either way, this really explains why there has been so much about Griner’s sexuality recently; she was discouraged from talking about it before.

Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE

“We’re not just another team,” James told reporters, via ESPN’s Michael Wallace. “I don’t understand what he’s saying. But we’re not just another team. That’s not true. He said we’re just another team in their way. We’re a great team. If we’re just another team, you really don’t prepare for just another team. You have to prepare for us.”

Vogel made his remark after the Pacers beat the New York Knicks 106-99 in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series on Saturday.

“It’s exciting, but this is not about getting back at Miami,” Vogel said when asked about facing the Heat. “You’re in the final four, you’re competing for a championship. You’re competing for a championship. And they’re just the next team that’s in our way. And that’s how we’re approaching it.”

Indiana gave Miami a tough test last year when the team’s met in the Eastern Conference semifinals. They were up 2-1 in the series before Miami came back to win in six. The way last year’s series went probably had the Heat on alert. But Vogel’s comments are already leaving an impression; James referred to them as “bulletin-board material.” Also recall that Vogel tried pulling the same trick before the teams met last year when he called the Heat the biggest floppers in the NBA.

“We’re very confident,” James said. “We’ll be ready for them. We don’t need bulletin-board material. We’ve heard everything, we’ve seen everything. But I would say we’re not just another team, though.”

The way Vogel described how they view the Heat is good for his team. If you want your team to feel like they can compete with the Heat, you have to view Miami as just another team. The problem is Vogel should have kept those words between himself and his team rather than say them publicly. Now, James is going to have extra motivation entering the series. That’s bad, bad news for Indy.

Competitive instinct seemed to take over for Tony Allen during Game 1 of the Western Conference finals between the Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs on Sunday.

Early in the third quarter, Spurs point guard Tony Parker rebounded a Mike Conley miss and was off and running in transition. He took the ball up by the sidelines and did a spin move around Allen, but Allen stuck out his foot and tripped Parker. The two quickly made up and Parker seemed to be a good sport about it, while Allen apologized.

Allen didn’t appear to have any malice with his act — it seemed like he was just trying to stop Parker out of instinct — but tripping a guy like that can be dangerous.

Parker played extremely well during the game. He went 9-of-14 for 20 points and nine assists in San Antonio’s blowout 105-83 win. They were ahead by so much that Tracy McGrady even registered seven minutes, though he did not score. Kawhi Leonard went 4-of-5 on 3-pointers, Matt Bonner was 4-of-6, and Danny Green was 3-for-5. They shot 48.3 percent on their threes. You’re not going to beat the Spurs when they’re making that many outside shots.

Lucas Matthysse cemented himself as one of the most dangerous fighters in boxing with his 3rd-round TKO of Lamont Peterson on Saturday night in Atlantic City.

Matthysse (34-2, 32 KOs) knocked down Peterson once in the second and two more times in the third before the referee called it off to save a woozy Peterson. The Argentine’s first knock down of Peterson (32-1-1, 16 KOs) in the third round was a thing of beauty.

Both fighters were going for a left hook at the same time with around 1:02 left in the round. Matthysse’s shot was more compact, enabling him to land a powerful punch to the face of Peterson, flooring the DC native.

You can see how close the timing was in the image below:

Peterson hit the canvas and was totally stunned. Despite having a confused look on his face, he managed to get up but was hit a few more times and fell back to the ground.

Peterson said after the fight that he did not feel anything was wrong with him, though he did admit it was a good stoppage by the referee.

“Yeah, I feel good,” Peterson said after the fight. “There’s nothing physically wrong with me right now. Of course I’m upset that I lost, but I feel good.

“I felt as though I could have fought through it, but the ref did the right thing by stepping in and stopping the fight.”

Peterson also gave plenty of credit to Matthysse.

“I guess tonight he was. He won the fight fair and square. I have no complaints. He’s a good fighter.”

The fight everyone was talking about after the knockout was Matthysse vs. Danny Green, but I really don’t want to see that. Matthysse has won six fights in a row. His two losses came to Devon Alexander and Zab Judah — both in split decisions where he knocked down his opponent. He would kill Danny Green. With 32 knockouts in 34 wins (94 percent), Matthysse is one of the most dangerous fighters in boxing.

Roy Hibbert had an amazing block on Carmelo Anthony in the fourth quarter of Game 6 between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks that was a major turning point in the game.

The Knicks were up 92-90 with around five minutes left and looked like they might send the Eastern Conference semifinals series to a seventh game. The quarter had gone back-and-forth and was a one-possession game for the first seven minutes. But that’s when Hibbert changed the game.

The Pacers center came over to defend the rim after Anthony spun around Paul George and headed for a baseline dunk. He managed to stuff Melo’s dunk attempt at the rim. The ESPN replay showed the struggle between the two at the rim and how Hibbert’s strength stood up to ‘Melo’s. It was a thing of beauty.

The block sparked the Pacers; they went on a 9-0 run and won 106-99 to end the series. They outscored the Knicks 16-7 after the block, which was Hibbert’s fifth of the game.

Carmelo credited Hibbert for causing “havoc” in the paint. Everyone viewed it as a major turning point. But the only one unwilling to heap praise on Hibbert for the play was ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who said he wasn’t about to throw Hibbert “a cookie” for the play.

“It was a pivotal play in the game, no doubt about it, but I’m not about to throw him a cookie. He is 7-feet-2 for crying out loud. It’s nice to see him get up and block that shot,” Smith said after the game.

“That particular play, as great of a block as it was, I guess, you’re 7-feet-2. A guy 6-foot-8 is coming your way. I expect you to be able to make that play. That’s what you’re on the court for. I’m not about to give him cookies and milk for that.”

You can see his comments below:

Come on, Steve. Don’t stiff Hibbert on this one. Just because a guy is paid to hit home runs doesn’t mean you don’t give him credit when he delivers in the bottom of the ninth. It’s too much of that Skip Bayless influence getting to you.

Vitor Belfort beat Luke Rockhold in the first round of their middlewight fight at UFC on FX 8 on Saturday with an absolutely stunning spinning heel kick to the head.

Belfort knocked Rockhold down with the kick then jumped on him for a few punches before the referee stopped the fight with 2:32 left in the round. The win improves Belfort’s record to 23-10 and gives him four wins in his last five fights, with his loss coming to Jon Jones.

“I’m stronger than ever … as I was before,” Belfort said after the fight.

When asked if he felt he deserved another shot at the UFC middleweight title, Belfort deferred comment.

“I’m here to fight. I don’t pick fights, I accept fights. The fans decide it, Dana White,” he said.

Rockhold, who drops to 10-2, praised Belfort for the spinning heel kick.

“I take my hat off. He landed a spinning heel kick to my head. I didn’t see that one coming … what can I say? He caught me with a spinning heel kick to my head. Kudos to him.”

Here’s another look at the knockdown kick from the other angle:

GIFs via Zombie Prophet, Mock Session

Adrien Broner has been cultivating a reputation as the next Floyd Mayweather Jr. Based on his appearances and behavior, he’s well on his way to carrying the “Money” torch.

Broner showed up to the Lamont Peterson-Lucas Matthysse fight card in Atlantic City on Saturday iced out with a diamond grill and some diamond stud earrings. Showtime was showing him in the audience to promote his upcoming bout with Paulie Malignaggi on June 22.

Anyone who wears that kind of a grill has to be a big deal, right? I guess that’s the logic behind the look. Dude looks like a member of the Big Tymers.

In previous episodes of Adrien Broner screaming for attention, we shared him faking a marriage proposal after a win, and a video of him offering $200 to cut ahead in line at the DMV. He’s a character.

Here’s another look at the grill below: