Fight #12: Papelbon vs El Pres

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The Matchup: Jonathan Papelbon vs Dave "El Pres" Portnoy (Barstool Sports)

Size: Papelbon is 6'4" and weighs 225 lbs. The heigh and weight of El Pres is unknown, but he's definitely not as big as Papelbon. Advantage Papelbon.

Speed: Paps never really does much running and juking, but sometimes he runs to first base to cover. And I've seen him do that crazy Irish step dance thing, so he does have some level of agility. El Pres sits on his ass all day and eats pizza while posting pictures of hot girls. I don't see why he'd need to be fast and agile for his job. Advantage Papelbon.

Power: Basically ditto from the last category. I'm sure Papelbon has done some weightlifting and such, and he must have some power behind it to be able to hurl that fastball in the the upper 90s. Almost a guarantee that Pres couldn't hit 70 with a fastball, and an even bigger guarantee that he hasn't lifted a weight in > 6 years. Advantage Papelbon.

Smarts: Papelbon's smarts have been down lately. He doesn't seem to be picking the right pitches in the right situations, because everyone just tees off on him in the ninth so we eventually lose the game. But have you seen El Pres write? This was his reaction to a post about a man who died in a sauna competition: This is so fucking badass. Yeah it sucks he died, but this has to bold well for his future. Bold well? No no no. This is bold. Not the word you think it is. So if he can't do 3rd grade grammar, what makes you think he knows what moves to pull in a fight? Advantage Papelbon.

Intangibles: Biggest intangible factor working against El Pres is that he's probably never had to get into a competitive mindset with mano-a-mano competition in an octagon. At least Papelbon stares down hitters one-on-one every night. He's mentally in condition to fight. El Pres would probably rather have a blogging contest which he would win, because he's a professional blogger and Papelbon is a professional baseball player. But my point is that Papelbon just has the more ferocious attitude and even though he usually blows the game when it matters most, I don't think he has much to worry about against El Pres (the equivalent of Papelbon facing a 14-year-old all-star team). Advantage Papelbon.

Toughness: I guess Papelbon's toughness is more underrated than I thought. I mean, he's blown a lot of games and taken a lot of heat for them. But he hangs in there like a trooper. El Pres is just El Pres, he doesn't really need to be tough because he as a cult following of millions of Barstool readers. Like I've said before, though, this category is mainly about who would be more difficult to knock out or submit. And the answer has to be Papelbon. Just look at El Pres. Do you really think he could hang in the octagon for long? Advantage Papelbon.

The Decision: A clean sweep for Johnny Pap! Maybe this will get him back on track. He had a pretty good outing last time out against the Yankees, so maybe when you couple that with this big victory in the octagon, he'll gain some confidence. It's back to the drawing board for El Pres, who suffers several bruises and a broken nose. Luckily he won't have to miss any days of work, though, because he can sit at home and eat potato chips and drink booze and still do his job effectively. Papelbon knocks out El Pres early in the first round with yet another right hook to the face.

Did I not give El Pres enough credit? Would he actually stand a chance against the Red Sox usually-awful closer? Let me know what you think. Even though it ultimately doesn't matter, because Pap moves on regardless to face Big Baby. Will Baby drown him in his drool? We'll see, but tomorrow's matchup is a huge one -- Dwayne Wade vs Ralphie May! Wow!