FanHouse Kevin Johnson

Vitali Klitschko will make the third defense of his WBC heavyweight title against unbeaten Kevin Johnson, according to Klitschko's manager.

"It looks like he's going to fight Kevin Johnson on Dec. 12 in Switzerland [at the PostFinance Arena] in Bern," said Tom Loeffler of the Klitschko brothers' K2 promotions.

Loeffler also said that it looks as if Vitali's younger brother, 33-year-old Wladimir Kiltschko (53-3, 47 knockouts), will defend his IBF and WBO titles "sometime in March" against Philadelphia's Eddie Chambers (35-1, 18 KOs).

The chaotic scene outside of Veltins Arena resembles that of a big, rock festival.

Inside the jam-packed, 61,462-seat capacity stadium in Gelsenkirchen, Nordrhein-Westfalen -- one of the largest sports complexes in Germany -- the wait is over.

The larger-than-life, world champion Klitschko brothers emerge from separate sides of the ring and climb through the ropes to finally determine who is the king of the ring.

If only it weren't fantasy.

Today the NBA announced the judges for the 2009 NBA Slam Dunk Contest. Since All-Star weekend is in Phoenix this season, the league decided to select a panel of former Suns to judge the contest. The judges are Cedric Ceballos, Larry Nance, Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle, and Tom Chambers. Of course, all of them were known for their dunking ability at some point during their career. Ceballos and Nance are both former Slam Dunk Contest champions, while KJ, Majerle and Chambers served up a few facials in their day.

So which of this year's judges was the best dunker? Watch some videos of all the judges throwing it down after the jump.

Barack Obama, the free world's new leader and apparently an advocate of this "change" thing, has gained notoriety for his ability to play basketball. Saying hoops was a platform for his campaign may be a stretch, but it was certainly emphasized. However, despite his on-court talents, Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, and a decent basketball player in his own right, isn't that impressed with the new President. In fact, he called him out recently in a CBS interview, saying he would "skunk" Obama and that the Prez' "first mistake" in office would be to challenge him.



Via NESW Sports

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. OC Register's Lakers Blog: Bad news for The Machine: Sasha has a fracture in that ankle and will likely be out the entire pre-season.

2. NESW Sports: Video: Kevin Johnson enlists Charles Barkley to help him campaign in Sacramento.

3. Free Darko. FD is previewing all 1,230 games of the NBA regular season ... before the season begins. October/November and December have been posted.

4. NY Post Knicks Blog: Strange, almost personally gleeful piece about the possibility of Allan Houston's comeback not happening.

5. NJ.com: More delays for the Nets' Brooklyn arena.

6. Celtics Blog: Fear not, Celtics fans: Brian Scalabrine isn't getting cut.

Charles Barkley, folks, is white hot these days. We've already been over his Playboy appearance and his interview with Wolf Blitzer where he promised to run for governor of Alabama in 2014. Oh yeah, and he attacked the right wing Christian movement in that same breath, too (and the left wing, to be fair). Well, more to the point of the actual NBA, Barkley was at it again, getting very candid on the subject of the Phoenix Suns in an All Star Weekend interview that was published last night.

• On jealousies: "I don't like the whining that goes on with the Suns. It bothered me that there's this jealousy of Steve that goes around in the locker room. Steve is a terrific player. As I've told Amaré and Shawn, 'You both make the maximum. You both make the All-Star team. What respect are you not getting? And you're winning. What else could there be?' It's very disappointing that it all came into play."

The Bengals are apparently still worried about their receiver depth (and I don't blame them), and to fix the problem they brought in a few players yesterday to work out for the team.

They auditioned three wide receivers (Kevin Johnson, Kevin Kasper, and Darius Watts), two tight ends (Tim Day and Matt Kranchick) and one linebacker (Jason Berryman).

Most of these guys are your typical waiver wire flotsam that's available half way through an NFL season. Kevin Johnson was a 1000 yard receiver for Cleveland back in the day, but his yards per catch went down pretty drastically between 2001 and 2002 and never recovered, which makes me think he probably lost a step at some point. Kevin Kasper has been out of the NFL since 2003, and never did much while he was active. Darius Watts caught 31 passes for Denver back in 2004 and was actually a second round draft pick out of Marshall. He's probably the most interesting of the three to me, but that's not really saying a lot.

I'm hopeful that Kelley Washington can come back healthy, but if the Bengals are looking around so hard for other options I'm guessing they know something that we don't about his status.