(AP)

William Moody, the real-life undertaker who became famous by portraying Paul Bearer, a mortician who managed some of pro wrestling's biggest stars, died Tuesday at 58 in a Mobile, Ala., hospital.

The hospital did not release a cause of death. TMZ.com reported that Moody told friends in the days before his death he was suffering from a blood clot.

Moody hit the peak of his career when he joined the WWE in 1991, took the name Paul Bearer and became The Undertaker's manager. Bearer's face was painted a pasty white and he would carry an urn with him to ringside.

He was known for a demonic laugh and the catch phrase, "Oh, yes!" He hosted a show on WWE broadcasts known as "The Funeral Parlor."

Moody got into the wrestling business in the late 1970s, first competing on smaller shows around the country while serving in the Air Force.

His first major success, though, came when he was joined Florida Championship Wrestling in 1984 under the name Percival "Percy" Pringle III. He had worked under

Bernard Hopkins is 48, older than five sitting governors, four current U.S. senators and is only three years and five months younger than President Obama. He doesn't move as nimbly as he once did, and isn't the complete fighter he was in his heyday.

Disaster lurks around the corner for every fighter – that's the risk any boxer, whether 18, 28, 38 or 48, takes when climbing between the ropes – but it looms much larger for a guy who has been fighting professionally longer than burgeoning star Adrien Broner has been alive.

The old adage in boxing that a fighter can age overnight has repeatedly proven true.

But Hopkins has been doing things others have told him he couldn't do for about a quarter century now, and he'll probably continue that trend Saturday by mesmerizing Tavoris Cloud in their IBF light heavyweight title in the main event of an HBO-televised card in Brooklyn, N.Y. Nazim Richardson talks as Bernard Hopkins looks on during a press conference. (Reuters)

The Hopkins of 28 would have toyed with Cloud. The Hopkins of 38 would have beaten a

Fox Sports wants to compete directly with ESPN, and one of the staples of its plan will be its UFC programming. 

Cain Velasquez, Bruce Buffer and Anderson Silva pose for a photo Tuesday. (Getty)Tuesday's announcement of the creation and Aug. 17 launch of Fox Sports 1, which will feature Major League Baseball, soccer, college football and basketball and NASCAR in addition to the UFC, is the culmination of Dana White's dreams. 

For more than two years since announcing his company's broadcast partnership with Fox Sports, the UFC president has alluded to a game-changing moment coming down the road.

On Tuesday, when that game-changer became a reality, White was literally giddy.

"This is such a great day for us, I can't even begin to tell you," White said over and over during a telephone interview with Yahoo! Sports. "This is a massive step. I said a year-and-a-half ago when we did this deal that our next two years of work would be more important than the first 13. And now, it's always clicking and all becoming a reality."

[Also: Next wave of female UFC

After nine minutes and eight seconds of unmitigated violence Saturday, Wanderlei Silva was, once again, on top of the mixed martial arts worlds.

Silva isn't about titles or decision wins or game plans. He's as fierce a fighter who has ever stepped foot into a cage, a guy who cares more about bringing the fans from their seats than having his arm raised. Wanderlei Silva and Brian Stann trade punches during their bout. (Getty)

He managed to do both on Saturday, sending the crowd at the Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo into delirium with a brutal knockout of Brian Stann at 4:08 of the second round in one of the great slugfests in UFC history.

Returning to the arena where he made his reputation as one of the sport's most exciting fighters while starring in the PRIDE Fighting Championship, Silva survived a back-and-forth shootout with the ex-Marine hero by landing an overhand right and a left hook with about a minute left in the second.

Stann went down and Silva landed four punches from the top before referee Marc Godard stepped in to halt it.

[Also: UFC

There was a time in his life when Mark Hunt was angry. He was upset by what he didn't have and was consumed by this feeling that the world owed him something.

He looks back now and is thankful that he didn't do something extraordinarily violent, because it was something he was capable of doing.

New Zealand native Mark Hunt , left, faces a tall order against Stefan Struve. (Getty Images)"Had I not found martial arts," he says, calmly, "I'd probably be in jail or who knows where right now. Fighting saved my life, I believe."

The change in Hunt's life has been so dramatic that now, as he's become one of the top mixed martial arts fighters in the world, he says there is nothing material that much interests him.

Even the UFC heavyweight title belt draws a sigh from the New Zealand native.

"I don't care much about a title," Hunt said, only a few days before he's to meet Stefan Struve on Saturday (Sunday in Japan) in the co-main event of UFC on Fuel TV 8 at the Saitama Super Arena outside of Tokyo. "A belt, things like that, are meaningless to me."

[Also: In a

It's going to take some great accomplishments inside the ring for lightweight Sharif Bogere to be known for more than his unbelievable ring walk.

The native of Uganda, who now lives in Las Vegas, is carried to the ring in a cage while wearing a lion skin and lion head. It is something that has to be seen to be believed.

Bogere is 23-0 with 15 knockouts and has finished four of his last five fights in three rounds or less. But even as he prepares to challenge Richard Abril for the vacant WBA lightweight title on Saturday in the main event of a Showtime-televised card at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, it's his ring garb and entrance that gather the most attention.

In an interview with Showtime, Bogere said that the lion head and skin he wears came from a lion that was killed in Africa after it had mauled several people.

In 2008, my manager saw my fighting skill. 'Oh, you fight like a lion! If you get a lion, I think the people of the world would love it.' The ring walk is tremendous.

The Nevada Athletic Commission hammered Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Thursday, hitting him with a whopping $900,000 fine and suspending him for nine months for using marijuana before his Sept. 15 middleweight fight in Las Vegas with Sergio Martinez.

The suspension is retroactive to the night of the fight, so Chavez will become eligible to fight in the U.S. again on June 16.

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., left, lands a punch against Sergio Martinez during Chavez's Sept. 15 loss. (AP Photo)The Nevada commission was within its rights to fine Chavez, who had failed a 2009 drug test in the state. It fined him 30 percent of his purse – the same fine that it gave UFC fighter Nick Diaz for the same offense last year – but Chavez had earned a purse of $3 million. Diaz was fined 30 percent of his $200,000 purse and $65,000 Fight of the Night bonus.

Chavez's fine is the second-largest ever doled out in Nevada, trailing only the $3 million the commission assessed ex-heavyweight champion Mike Tyson for biting Evander Holyfield in a 1997 fight in Las Vegas.

But the massive fine given to Chavez for a

Wanderlei Silva is an anomaly in professional sports, a bona fide star who isn't one of his organization's top competitors.

It's Kobe Bryant who is the Lakers' biggest star, not Antawn Jamison. It's Sidney Crosby who is the Pittsburgh Penguins' biggest attraction, not Craig Adams. And it's Tom Brady who is the fan favorite for the New England Patriots, not Danny Woodhead.

Wanderlei Silva is one of the most popular MMA fighters of all time. (Getty Images)Silva occupies a special place in the hearts of MMA fans and, even though it's been more than six years since he's won back-to-back fights, remains one of the UFC's biggest stars.

He returns to Japan on Saturday, the place where he blossomed into a superstar while in the PRIDE Fighting Championships, to fight Brian Stann in a middleweight bout that will be the main event of UFC on Fuel 8 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama.

Silva is just 5-6 in his UFC career and has never won consecutive UFC bouts. The last time he won two in a row anywhere was in 2005 and 2006, when he scored wins over Ricardo Arona