Ron Artest wants to be a professional boxer in four years

[nuclearfm]

Artest, 29, may be one of the league's most well-known players, but he often carries himself like a struggling rapper trying to make a name for himself with a grassroots marketing campaign and a penchant for saying yes to just about anything. Just weeks before the season he was on TV raising money for the Hasidic Jewish movement Chabad-Lubavitch, volunteering at an Iranian basketball camp, walking dogs at an animal shelter and taking some of his Twitter followers to a WNBA game, breakfast and bowling. Every time you turned around Artest was at another event, one more random than the next.

He seems to have made a point to win over Los Angeles one Lakers fan at time, though he doesn't exactly see it like that. "These things that I do aren't for anything. They have no purpose," Artest said. "I'm not promoting anything or selling nothing. I just want to have fun and meet my fans."

There are many things that Artest does that have no purpose. For example, for an interview with SI.com the other day, Artest hired Natalin Avci, a 23-year-old Turkish model he had met recently in a hotel lobby, and a camera crew for a photo shoot for the heck of it. "The only purpose is to have fun," Artest said.

That would appear to be one of the driving forces behind many of Artest's decisions, including the one that could drive him to get out of his Lakers contract early.

"I signed for five years but I want to box, I want to fight a heavyweight fight in four years," Artest said on more than one occasion. "I started training already and I'm doing good and I think in four years I'll be ready to fight my first professional fight. I want to get four professional fights under my belt and see how I do and take it from there. That's been my goal for a long time. Whether I get knocked out or knock somebody out, I just want to fight."

On the court, his performance this season will be judged in large part on whether the Lakers are able to repeat with him instead of Ariza. "I know the pressure is on me. I'm the one change that they made," Artest said. "I have to take responsibility. You can't put it all on Kobe [Bryant]. I know what I have to do."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/arash_markazi/10/05/artest.lakers/index.html

[Morg1411]

Oh, Ron Ron. Always good for a chuckle.

[RocketsBlood]

I hope this attention whore goes through with it and gets knocked out cold...

[Morg1411]

He can start by knocking Blair out.

Ron couldn't even knock out a Pistons fan.

[Morg1411]

Ron and Jack took on the whole Pistons arena.

Which just proves how fucking stupid they are.

[DJB]

He can start by knocking Blair out.

Wow you are so scared of Blair.

[baseline bum]

:lmao :rollin

He couldn't even get a punch in on that fat kid who rushed the floor in Detroit! Not to mention he ducked Ben Wallace when Big Ben wanted a piece of him 2 minutes before.

[Rogue]

I hope this attention whore goes through with it and gets knocked out cold...
Everything red sucks timvp's ass, like bloods, reps, commies, rockets, etc... :wakeup

[Rogue]

Though Ron will prove to be fitter for real fighting than NBA manipulated "games", and no one will ban or fine him there even if he beats others pretty badly, the vivider description should be "he curbstomps the shit out of them".

[Kool Bob Love]

http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc102/Pmighty/NT%20GIFS/th_117skea.gif

[clambake]

what does this have to do with the blazers?

[carrao45]

Is he gonna be like this all season? Fuck

[TheSullyMonster]

what does this have to do with the blazers?

Who said anything about the blazers?

[The Franchise]

I hope this attention whore goes through with it and gets knocked out cold...

I hope for his sake he sticks to basketball. I've been boxing for about 15 years, but I wouldn't be foolish enough to try going pro. To try to start a pro career now would only set him up for embarassment.

[iggypop123]

http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc102/Pmighty/NT%20GIFS/th_117skea.gif

:lmao:lmao:lmao

[nuclearfm]

Can't knock a man for having dreams.

DK7qU1Ik2HQ

[Agloco]

He can start by knocking Blair out.

Good luck with that.


Is he gonna be like this all season? Fuck

Just shows how much of a headcase he really is. You still believing that he's 100% focused on helping the Lakers win a ring? lol @ lakerfans

You might do well to get yourself some Thorazine for the upcoming season, cause Ron Ron obviously isn't taking his.......

[ehz33satx]

Is he gonna be like this all season? Fuck

I laughed so hard when I read this! Too dang funny! See what you got yourselves? A bonafide NUTCASE! And Lakers fans thought he was going to save the day! Get ready for a long season of drama, Lakers fans!

[23LeBronJames23]

I laughed so hard when I read this! Too dang funny! See what you got yourselves? A bonafide NUTCASE! And Lakers fans thought he was going to save the day! Get ready for a long season of drama, Lakers fans!

this kinda true

[Spursfan092120]

Who said anything about the blazers?
apparently you haven't paid much attention to the NBA Forum and all of the delightful threads TDouche has posted lately.

[JamStone]

Can Tyson still fight?

I'd watch a Tyson-Artest bout.

[CavsSuperFan]

I also heard that Sasha Vujacic has challenged Kimbo Slice to a cage match…

[JamStone]

Go-go dance off in a cage?

[hater]

Ron couldn't even knock out a Pistons fan.

:lol

that kid from the partridge family that boxes would wup Artest

[hater]

Is he gonna be like this all season? Fuck

:lol

[phyzik]

I'll be honest and say I've been half hoping/half expecting Ron Ron to taint the Lakers but the season hasnt even started and he has done and said some whacked out shit already, Im starting to lean heavily on the "expected" side at this point.

[phyzik]

The green Power Ranger would whoop Ron's ass.

[Allanon]

Ron will provide spots of entertainment in an otherwise boring romp through the regular season. :lol

[duncan228]

Another Open Letter to Ron Artest (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=tsn-anotheropenlettertor&prov=tsn&type=lgns)
SportingNews

Hey Ron Ron,

Hope things are good with you. Same old with me. Take the Mazda to get some cereal, then I'm back on my grind.

I'm writing because I'm worried about you, my man. Well, also worried about what you might do to me. I don't want to be hurt again.

Nah, just playing. You know I've had your back since before Auburn Hills, and couldn't be more stoked about you joining the Lakers. Maybe you won't replace Trevor Ariza move for spindly move, but man alive, you're Ron Artest. And you're playing for peanuts.

It's a drag, though, that everyone's already wondering about your head. Will you listen to Phil, fall in line, talk with your defense and not your fists, do the right thing, be a good boy, not let down all those new fans who hated you last year, you know, real stuff. I guess I see where they're coming from—well, if I hadn't really paid attention to your career, and went on wire reports alone, I would—since you've done some weird stuff. But above all, you play when it matters. A lot of your failure is cosmetic.

OK, so you're not perfect. No player is. In your case, though, all flaws or weirdness, no matter what the flavor, get put in the big pool of Ron Artest Screw-Ups, like a cardboard thermometer the marching band car wash uses. When it hits the top, you wile out. Or it might not even have to get there. Halfway up, and you could quit on the team and join the Marines. You're the human doomsday clock.

I'll say it again, and this is what gets me: Anything you do that's the slightest bit out of the ordinary gets shoved in there. They talk about "Ron Artest's head" like you've got no scrap of sanity remaining, or are in a perpetual state of mental crisis. That's why your new fans are so worried. It doesn't occur to them that, unless you're on Stephon Marbury's level of dysfunction, there's a lot of middle ground between telling a bad joke at the wrong time and robbing a liquor store.

The slippery slope, the earthquake warning machine, the Dewey Decimal-less public library … these are terrible metaphors for the human mind. Painting personality with such a broad brush is insulting to everyone but the very young or very sick.

All that said, I did want to talk to you about this new media stuff you've been doing. You've got the Twitter, the video log, and the answering fan email thing going. I can tell you see the future like the rest of us, and you're having a good time with it. The problem is, it's not working for you. Yes, it's fuelling the "is he sane" speculation, which is never good for you in the long run. But more to the point, it's alienating old fans.

Clowning around is cool, and we get it, you're a first-rate ham. At some point, though, we get numb to it. I never thought I'd say this, but Ron Artest is trying too hard to be interesting, or least impress upon us how interesting he is. And it's not a good look. OK, so I don't know you well enough to know if, just maybe, you've always been this corny all the time, and were forced by the powers that be to keep it from us. If so, I stand corrected, but it's still overkill.

What really upsets me, and what I'd like to speak with you about in person, is how insincere it's started to feel. If one thing has sustained your fans through all the ups and downs, it's been your sincerity. At least at the moment, you mean everything you say. I don't want to turn this into "RON ARTEST SO REAL OMG", but through it all, we could always count on you to say what you felt. Not act the fool on Twitter all day long to get traffic. It's a cheapening of all that's made us stick up for you over the years.

I am your fan, so I can say stuff like this and make assumptions about your motives. I can even call you names and wonder how you'll affect my marriage, but time is tight, so I'll wrap this up. Let's leave it like this: Ron Ron, you've got to get focused, or I'm giving up on you. Not on the court. That doesn't worry me so much. You need to get your image in order, or I won't believe we have anything special this season.

Best,

"Gary Shandling"

[Morg1411]

The green Power Ranger would whoop Ron's ass.

:lol