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When athletes attack: six of the best/worst

We don’t condone it but it makes interesting viewing. Pow!

WE TOLD YOU earlier about the pretty surprising open-handed slap Oakland Raiders’ defensive end Richard Seymour dished out to Ben Roethlisberger.

That attack earned him a $25k fine. So it’s not smart and it’s not funny.

But here’s six more instances of similar behaviour:

1. Tom Gomboa

Most baseball fights are what they’d call ‘handbags’ on Sky Sports. Usually, the benches clear and there’s so much posturing you expect a David Attenborough voice-over to kick in. Not so in this instance.

The Kansas City Royals were playing the Chicago White Sox in 2002 when two shirtless Chicago hooligans charged the KC base coach, Tom Gamboa. It didn’t take long for the cavalry to arrive.

[H/T Totalprosports]

2. Páidi O Sé v Dinny Allen

It’s like the lad-mags’ staple rhetorical question: who’d win in fight between a lion a tiger? This random (most recent) Youtube comment says it all:  “Jesus Christ, this is when men were men. A shocking elbow followed by a left hook that even Muhammed Ali would be proud of. I f****** love being Irish.” Indeed.

3. Elizabeth Lambert

You remember this girl. She’s a keeper.

4. Ben Thatcher

Ben Thatcher had the cherubic face of an angel but the forearm smash of a former Wimbledon player. As the ball bounces harmlessly out of play in a routine Manchester City versus Portsmouth game, the full back left the Portuguese in bits.

5. McRae v O’Gara

Duncan McRae was sent off for landing a barrage of vicious punches on a prone O’Gara during a New South Wales-Lions match in Sydney in 2001. McRae’s coach later said that the Munster out-half had ‘rearranged his player’s private parts’ and so, provoked this brutal reaction.

Note to self: do not rearrange an Aussie’s private parts.

6. Zidane

We’ve all seen this a million times – Zinedine Zidane head-butts Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin.

But like a great painter influencing his art, this headbutt from Zizou has prompted copycat attacks – see Inter striker Samuel Eto’o lose the rag in the defeat to Chievo last weekend. And regardless, as the full stop in ZZ’s career, it deserves re-watching.

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