She’s not the first person that comes to mind when we think of today’s dominant athletes. When we think of the top 5 female athletes of all time, she doesn’t even come into discussion until we put some real thought into it. However, now her recent success and headline-worthy quotes have put her at the absolute forefront of the sporting world. So, you better get used to these two words: Ronda Rousey.

Right now, the 28 year old Rousey is the best pound-for-pound woman fighter in the world, the UFC champion in the bantamweight division, the #1 woman fighter at 135 pounds, and some are even calling her the best female MMA fighter of all-time. She began her career in 2010 as an amateur, but didn’t make it into the limelight until she took down Miesha Tate in the Strikeforce Bantamweight Championship. From there, her celebrity status boomed, with talk-show appearances, Sports Illustrated covers, and a lucrative deal to become the first female UFC fighter.

Rousey putting Miesha Tate in her signature armbar.

Apparently defending her UFC title 3 times wasn’t newsworthy enough, because Rousey fell out of the spotlight until UFC 184 on February 28th, 2015. There, she defeated Cat Zingano in 14 seconds, the shortest match in UFC history. As of right now, she’s one of the most talked about athletes not only because of what she’s done in the ring, but what she’s said off of it. But Rousey isn’t just an athlete with a big mouth; she’s breaking ground not only for females, but for all athletes.

It’s obvious what a strong and talented female athlete can do for young women, but Rousey is doing things differently. Take the quintessential female role model, Alex Morgan. She uses her femininity as a source of pride in what she does, and she shows younger girls that it’s okay to be a woman and play sports. Morgan, however, is doing so in a sport that is played by more than 2 million women and girls across the United States. Rousey is using the other end of the spectrum. She is pioneering a sport that has been, literally, male-only since it’s inception.

While Rousey is good-looking, she doesn’t have the outward charm that Morgan displays. However, she is as confident in her body as any other professional athlete. In that, she sends a completely different, yet similar message: it’s okay to be a girl, it’s okay to be comfortable with who you are, and it’s okay to do whatever you want, because no one should judge you. Even if they do, you can just put them in an armbar to shut them up.

Rousey accepting the 2015 ESPY for BEst Fighter, beating out Floyd Mayweather.

It may be because she competes in a heavily male sport, but Rousey also has the swagger and bravado of a heavyweight champion. After winning Best Fighter over Floyd Mayweather at the 2015 ESPY Awards, she had some choice words for the 48-0 boxer. Staring straight into the camera, she posed “I wonder how Floyd feels being beat by a girl for once”, referencing his history of domestic violence.She decimates opponents with an unforgiving armbar, dislocating the elbows of multiple opponents. Before one fight, she even said she would rip off her opponents arm and throw it at her training team, then choke her to death. While that may be a little extreme, her unfiltered nature, in a strange way, is endearing herself to scores of both casual and hardcore fans of mixed martial marts. It’s like loving Jameis Winston or LeBron James; we crave overconfidence out of talented athletes, and Rousey certainly has nailed that market.

Almost above anything else, it seems (for now) that Rousey is real; that her emotions and reactions are not 100% calculated by some PR team that’s completely disconnected from her personal life. She says what’s on her mind and she stands up for what she believes in, without anyone telling her what not to say. Rousey is a girl with a tough upbringing that uses her fire and the chip on her shoulder to bowl over everyone she faces in the octagon. Her next opponent is Bethe Correia, who said that Rousey would “want to kill herself” after their bout on August 1st. Rousey did not take kindly to this, especially because her father committed suicide. Her response below shows just how raw her emotions can be, which is far from anything else we see in the meticulously set up world of sports.

I really do love Ronda Rousey. I hope that, in the future, more athletes model themselves after her. Her unconventional allure with her unmatched boldness makes for exciting hype leading up to each of her matches, impressive victories, but that’s not all. She is an an athlete that many can relate to, with a strong mind and an impressive future. Rousey has the ability to literally change sports into something that’s more real, not just something we watch on TV and can never connect to.

These days, Citi Field is looking more and more like a comic book.

Not because of the usual suspects, the hilariously bad efforts of the Mets, but because of the nicknames of their impressive pitching staff. The team is currently featuring a dynamic trio of aliases, including Thor (rookie Noah Syndergaard), the Dark Knight (ace Matt Harvey), and my personal favorite and personal creation, the Ageless Wonder (42 year-old Bartolo Colon). In order to keep their warriors fresh for each fight, the team announced this week that they will expand their Justice League Rotation to 6 arms instead of the normal 5. Many pundits have bashed this decision for days, citing the fragile mental state of pitchers and the long-term effects, but it’s not as bad as you think. In fact, the 6 man rotation could be exactly what the MLB is looking for to save pitchers from arm troubles.

Perhaps the most prominent reason that the Mets expanded their starting staff is because they simply couldn’t pick who to drop down to the minors or the bullpen. Quite frankly, that’s not a terrible problem to have. The front office called up Syndergaard from AAA Las Vegas, where he gave up only 6 earned runs in 29.2 IP, after starter Dillon Gee injured his groin. Now that Gee is back on the rehab trail, the sensitive relationship between Gee and the team is rears its ugly head again. He has explicitly told the media and the team that he prefers to be in the starting rotation over the bullpen, and would be open to being traded to fulfill his wishes. Since the market isn’t active yet and “Trade Season” hasn’t begun, it makes the most sense to bring Gee back into the rotation for the time being. Syndergaard should stay for myriad reasons, including his 2.55 ERA and his uncanny ability to draw a large crowd.

Dillon Gee, inset, is one of the main reasons that the Mets have gone to a 6 man starting rotation.

The Mets have a few pitchers that could benefit from the extra days off as well. As they have accumulated wealth in the pitching staff, they have encountered a few obstacles. Matt Harvey shout out of a cannon in 2012, striking out 11 in his first major league start en route to a 2.73 ERA in 10 starts in 2012. His whirlwind success didn’t slow to a halt until he was diagnosed with a torn ligament in his elbow in 2013, posting a 2.27 ERA and a 9-5 record up to that point. Although he crept out of the back page news, he made front page headlines by becoming one of the most visible celebrities in the country. Harvey used the same flashy demeanor when he stepped back onto a baseball field this spring, hitting 99 MPH against his first batter back from Tommy John Surgery. Only in his last two starts have we seen the rust and effects of a year and a half absence from the mound. In his most recent start against the Pirates, he gave up 6 hits and 7 earned runs in just 4 innings, the shortest outing of his career. Going to a six man rotation now is a great opportunity to rest his arm after a surprisingly strong start to this season.

Bartolo Colon and Matt Harvey, above, are both beneficiaries of an extra day’s rest.

Bartolo Colon is shocking himself at this point with his staggering success this year, his 18th season in the bigs. Right now, he stands at a 7-3 record, with a below-average ERA of 4.85. However, he leads the National League in walks per 9 innings pitched (0.73) and strikeouts per walk (10.8). The journeyman claims he drug free after he was suspended in 2012 for the use of testosterone and attributes his success to his well-known command his the wisdom he’s garnered from pitching for close to 20 years in the MLB (Sidenote: he also has two hits in his first 10 games, which is already tied for the third most in his career, while looking like a shaven bear with a tree trunk swinging at the plate). Getting the extra day off in between starts can do nothing but help the 42 year old Colon, who threw over 200 innings for the 8th time in his career.

There’s also the point of protecting the rookie Syndergaard during his first taste of the big leagues. The Mets don’t want to rely on him like they relied on Harvey through his first 12 months of MLB ball and like they did with Zack Wheeler. Wheeler pitched half a year of big league ball in 2013, and a full year last year, compiling almost 300 innings by the time he turns 25 on May 30th of this year. The immense workload on his young arm resulted in Tommy John Surgery before this year even started.

Perhaps a larger rotation could have saved Marlins phenom Jose Fernandez, who had Tommy John Surgery a year ago.

Perhaps a 6 man rotation could cure the arm injury epidemic that has ravaged the MLB and the minor leagues for years. Tossing in an extra day of rest could keep the entire staff, including relievers, fresh well into September and October. It would allow for extra rest to heal soreness and tightness that could turn into something much more serious. A 6 man rotation could also give minor league pitchers a chance to prove their worth earlier in their careers rather than later, providing far more exciting and promising baseball for teams, like the Mets, that have toiled in sub-mediocrity for years. There have been multiple teams just this year that have either implemented or at least thought about using the 6 man rotation. This week, the Red Sox called up highly regarded prospect Eduardo Rodriguez to pitch against the Rangers on Thursday and will go to a six man rotation for the time being. There’s also the St. Louis Cardinals, who’s ace Adam Wainwright was shut down earlier this month with a torn Achilles. For a while, the team was considering moving towards a 6 man rotation to pick up the production of Wainwright. It’s not new, and it’s not used often, but the 6 man rotation could be just what baseball needs.

I know a lot is made out of pitchers being “creatures of habit” and having their day-to-day workouts and schedules planned out like a cruise ship director’s daily planner, but if they can adapt to a strict 5 day schedule, they can just as easily re-adapt to a 6 day schedule. Pitcher’s are humans, not robots, and the adjustment to a 6 man rotation is probably easier than we think. For now though, all we can do is examine the results of the Comic-Con that the Mets pitching staff has become.

You saw it coming, didn’t you?

Couldn’t you tell at the beginning of the season that, as we close in on the end of another NBA regular season, the Knicks would have the worst record in the NBA- by a considerable margin? No? Well, neither did I.

Pundits, fanatics, and even casual fans expected the Knicks to underperform this year, as they always do. But there was a sense of optimism all the way back in the fall when Phil Jackson was the freshly crowned president, Derek Fisher was the bright young head coach, fresh off of his final year as a player, and Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire were both healthy together. Then something unforeseen happened. Something that not even Jackson’s spectacles could see coming. Something not even matched by the Isaiah Thomas-led Knicks.

The “Zen Master”, Phil Jackson, has taken the Knicks team to a place where no one thought they would go-the cellar of the Eastern Conference.

They started out really, really badly. And they are finishing really, really badly. Like, worst-Knicks-ever badly. Currently, they are sitting at 14-61, far below what even the worst critics thought. Stoudemire was bough out, Anthony was hurt, and whatever was left of the fan base essentially forced themselves to cheer for a Langston Galloway 3 or Andrea Bargnani dropping 20. Everyone that knows of the plight of the 2015 Knicks knows that it’s been rough. But everyone is now hopeful, cheering for one day to come like they cheer for Galloway and Bargnani: Draft Day.

While it’s not certain that the Knicks will get the top pick due to the infuriatingly baffling and awkward NBA Draft Lottery, almost everyone can be assured that the team will get at least a decent pick in the upcoming draft. Jackson, in anticipation of a top-5 pick, has gone to numerous college practices to scout players such as Karl Anthony Towns from Kentucky, Jahlil Okafor from Duke, and D’Angelo Russell from Ohio State. While I hate to be the bearer of bad news, getting one top-5 pick in this year’s draft isn’t going to solve all of the problems for Jackson and company. It’s going to take a lot more than that to make Galloway’s 3’s count, and to make people believe that the Knicks can take the Eastern Conference again.

Let’s say, for example, that the Knicks get Towns, the 6’11” forward/center, with the first pick in the draft. He would fit in perfectly into Jackson’s hailed triangle offense. A gifted shooter as a big man who can hit his free throws, Towns is perfect in the system that thrives on big men playing face-up basketball with his athleticism and length. The problem is then, who can feed him the ball? Jose Calderon, currently injured, is a capable point guard, but once the ball gets in Anthony’s hands, it never leaves. He is what we call a “volume scorer”, which is a colloquialism for a guy who needs the ball 100% of the time offensively to score 25 a game. Anthony also likes to drive and draw fouls, which he simply can’t do in the triangle. Until he was injured, he averaged a career low in free throws attempted per game.

The Triangle Offense, depicted above, relies on court awareness and team chemistry, both of which go by the wayside with Carmelo Anthony on the team.

The problem isn’t solely the system, or solely Anthony’s need for the ball. The problem is the fact that Jackson and Fisher are trying to run the exact system that Anthony can’t be successful in. This system needs a certain tempo to it, and needs more fluidity than Anthony can afford it. Michael Jordan, who thrived under Jackson and the triangle offense, averaged a little over 5 assists for his career. Anthony averages about three, which doesn’t work in the offense predicated around finding the open man.

If the Knicks really want to be successful, they can’t rely on one draft pick to solve their woes. If they want to rebuild and revamp around Anthony, who even with one knee is still far and away the best player on the roster, they need to be patient. Drafting Towns is a great start, but it’s pretty clear that next year will probably be another rough one, unless they sign LaMarcus Aldridge in free agency this summer. Then there won’t be cap room left for Kevin Durant in 2016 if they choose to pursue him. Coincidentally, what would be Durant’s first year in New York would be Calderon’s last. Then they would be in the market for a point guard, and they wouldn’t be bad enough to get a top-notch guard in the draft. There would only be enough cap room to get a point guard for the bare minimum, and the talent level at that price is not what the team needs.

The only constant for the Knicks in the coming years will be Anthony, above.

In the coming years, the Knicks will have a strangely intertwined situation between their cap space, draft picks, and ultimately production on the court. It doesn’t bode well for the fan base, who have been longing for sustained success since the Eddy Curry era. You should never discredit Jackson, however. He always seems to have a higher plan that no one can see, and he has the uncanny ability to make a winner out of anyone. For the last ten games of the 2014-15 season, though, sit back, relax, and watch the dynamically dysfunctional trio of Galloway, Bargnani, and Cole Aldrich go to work.

Base-running gaffes. Terrible fielding blunders. Anemic offense. You name it, the New York Mets have done it over the last five years. It seems as if this team was made to be just plain bad. The one thing that they have aced, however, is starting pitching. The Orange and Blue have compiled an impressive list of top mound prospects, while also maintaining the solid veteran starters they have showcased at the big league level. This year is one of interest on the hill for the Mets, with several prospects reportedly big-league ready (Hello, Noah Syndergaard) or finally coming into their own (Howdy, Zach Wheeler). They also have a surplus of veteran hurlers, such as Jon Niese, Dillon Gee, and the Ageless Wonder that is Bartolo Colon, still on the roster, although they reportedly tried to trade Gee. Oh, and let’s not forget that one-time Cy Young candidate Matt Harvey returns from Tommy John surgery, and NL Rookie of the Year Jacob deGrom is poised for another good year. Now, with 8 pitchers vying for a spot in the 5 man rotation, it seems that the Mets have too much of a good thing.

Let’s take a look at the “bubble” candidates (pitchers who are on the fringe of cracking the rotation), and see who will work best on the mound for the Mets in 2015.

Bartolo Colon: At this point, I’m not sure how Colon is not only pitching in the league, but pitching well at 41. He’s endured elbow injuries, shoulder injuries, and an experimental stem cell transplant, and is still an absolute workhorse on the mound. He pitched over 200 innings for the Mets in 2014, with a respectable WHIP of 1.23 and a record of 15-13. This includes a filthy June, where he went 4-1 with a 2.57 ERA. Colon provides veteran leadership and knowledge of the league with 17 years of experience, but is not the only viable source of veteran understanding. He’s due $11 million this year in the last year of a back-loaded contract. That’s a lot of money for a guy who’s 10 years removed from his only Cy Young award. The Mets had been trying to trade Colon, Niese, or Gee this off-season, but that plan failed so now all three are retained.

Prediction: There’s a slight chance that Colon could be traded by the time the season starts, but it’s far from probable. Expect him to start the season with the team, and look for the Amazin’s to try to ship him off to a contender in July.

The future in Flushing is cloudy for veteran Bartolo Colon.

Dillon Gee: He’s been in the headlines in the off-season for being the pitcher that was most likely to be traded, but we’ve survived the winter, and Gee is still on the roster. He pitched well until spending 6 weeks on the disabled list in 2014, going 3-1 with a 2.73 ERA before a strained latissimus dorsi stopped him. He had a rough last three months of the campaign, posting ERA’s of 6.08, 3.89, and 4.88 in July, August, and September respectively. The Mets haven’t found a new home for him yet, but that could quickly change. The Rockies, Padres, Royals, and Twins all have been linked to him this winter, and none of them have signed a player like him.

Prediction: I expect Gee to be gone before the regular season starts, if not soon thereafter. If not, it is possible that the team could carry 6 starters for the beginning of the year, but they will eventually have to trade one of their vets. Gee just signed a $5.3 million deal to avoid arbitration, which is a fair price to pay for a potential new ball club.

Steven Matz. A good old homeboy. Born and raised in Ward Melville on Long Island, this kid has had a rough road to relevancy. Signed right out of high school, Matz went through Tommy John surgery and lingering scar tissue that sidelined him for almost two years. Then, when he finally made his impressive minor league debut in 2013, he was shut down after six starts due to shoulder tendinitis. His first full year of pitching professionally was last year, and posted a 2.62 ERA and a 10.2 K/9 rate. He used mostly his fastball, and lacked confidence with his off-speed stuff. After dominating in Class-A ball, he moved up to AA Binghamton where he ruled. He posted a 2.27 ERA and a 8.7 K/9 rate in just 71.1 IP with a BB/9 rate of just 1.8. It was noted throughout last year that his curveball improved drastically from 2013. Recently, he was compared to Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw and whiz kid Madison Bumgarner of the Giants. He still has some polishing up to do before he takes the mound in Flushing, but the future is bright for Matz.

Prediction: Matz won’t get a chance in the MLB from the start of the regular season, but he will be the first man up from the minors if someone gets hurt or is ineffective.

Steven Matz is electric, but not refined enough to pitch in the big leagues.

Jon Niese: After all of the productivity that Niese has given the Mets over his career, it’s difficult to speak of him being on the fringe of  the rotation. But that’s a testament to how deep the Mets are on the hill. He’s been with the Orange and Blue for 5 full seasons, and had the second highest workload of his career last year, with 187.2 IP. He had a respectable 3.40 ERA (the lowest of his career), which the Mets will gladly take along with the experience he brings. Niese’s numbers have generally improved every year of his career and has provided the some stability to the constantly fluctuating Amazin’s. There’s not much else to say about Niese; he may just be a victim of circumstance.

Prediction: I do believe that Niese will be a mainstay in the rotation. He will be the one to provide leadership and knowledge to an otherwise youthful staff. Expect him to be in the middle of the rotation for 2015.

Noah Syndergaard: The supposed Wunderkind in the farm-system, fans have been drooling at the chance of watching Syndergaard pitch in Flushing since early last year. He was elevated to AAA Las Vegas last year and stayed for the entire season, with good reason. In a career high 133 IP, he posted an unusually high 4.60 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, and .293 BAA. Despite this, experts say he will crack the rotation out of spring training this year due to his impressive command. In fact, his command might have been his downfall last year. Syndergaard throws around the strike zone so much that no matter what pitch it is, it’ll be close enough for the hitters to swing at it. His K/9 rate of almost 10 can be attributed to this; he gets a lot of swings and misses, but gives up a lot of hits too. Despite his down year in 2014, the sky is the limit for the 6’6″ hurler.

Prediction: I think that the Mets will listen to the desires of the fans and give Syndergaard a shot at the beginning of the year. If he fails, they have Matz in Vegas or perhaps the sixth starter in the bullpen to give him a reprieve.

Noah Syndergaard is a highly regarded prospect, but hasn’t proven himself at a higher level of play.

So there you have it. With Harvey, Wheeler, and deGrom locked in, my 2015 Mets rotaton is: Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, deGrom, and Syndergaard. These guys can lead the Orange and Blue to some success, provided that they find some offense, in 2015.