Breakout Mexican beauty Ana de la Reguera is ready to heat up screens

If this were Mexico, Ana de la Reguera might have been swarmed by fans and photographers like Brooklynites on bespoke cheese. Instead, the sexy actress took these swimsuit shots on a chilly day at California’s Venice Beach, and there wasn’t much of anyone around. Their loss.

De la Reguera, 34, is well-known in her native Mexico through her work in films, plays and telenovelas. But she’s beginning to make inroads in Hollywood. Her biggest starring roles to date have been in 2006’s Jack Black wrestling comedy “Nacho Libre,” 2010’s “Cop Out” with Tracy Morgan and Season 2 of HBO’s “Eastbound & Down,” where she played Danny McBride’s love interest.

This summer, her profile gets bumped further with July’s blockbuster “Cowboys & Aliens,” starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. The genre mash-up pits 19th-century Arizona gunslingers against invaders from space.

“I knew it was going to be huge. Why haven’t they come out with this type of movie before?” de la Reguera asks. “It has so many attractive ingredients.”

Among them is the woman Esquire magazine called the “most impossibly beautiful woman” in its July 2010 issue. De la Reguera plays Maria, a saloonkeeper and wife of Sam Rockwell. But Ford also made an impression on her.

“He was the first person I met at the screen test,” she says of the Hollywood legend. “I wasn’t intimidated with him. He’s very normal. He has such a sense of humor. They were trying all these [cowboy] hats on him to see what looked best.”

(Ford reportedly wanted to go hatless to avoid looking like his Indiana Jones character, but executive producer Steven Spielberg persuaded him to don a different style of fedora.)

If the movie is a smash as expected, de la Reguera hopes she can bypass one of the most crushing aspects of show business: endless auditions.

“I’d love to be able to have people know me better, so I get more work and I don’t have to be knocking on that many doors every day,” she says.

Oh, and for anyone residing in LA, where de la Reguera has lived for five years, she’s single, having just broken up with a longtime boyfriend four months ago. “I think it’s really difficult to date here if you don’t have a regular job,” she says. “I haven’t gotten that many dates or people asking me out.”

Ana de la Reguera uncensored Hot Pictures

Friday Links: Will A.J. Green Be The No. 1 Pick?

Friday is here and that means the 'Lady' will take a break from writing about sports, but not before I drop a few interesting links to buffer your morning web wandering.

Could A.J. Green go No. 1?

According to Adam Schefter, a noted NFL Insider, A.J. Green is considered by many to be the "top-rated player in the draft". Does that mean he could go No.1 overall—defying the opinion of some pundits who felt that Julio Jones' great combine, coupled with Green's bizarre pro day, made the former Dawg slip down many a draft board. We shall see what happens with this one, but it sounds to me like Green is still in a very good position.

Domonique Wilkins in brawl.

Apparently someone didn't give this man the memo. Didn't he know that Wilkins is known as the "human highlight reel"? Surely, he didn't think he was going to get a punch in on this former Bulldog great—tsk, tsk. According to this publication, Wilkins was attacked by a former NBA ref seeking to collect a debt of $13,000 from 'Nique.

Jakar Hamilton and Shawn Williams: dueling safeties.

Neither Jakar Hamilton, nor Shawn Williams, were better than true freshman Alec Ogletree last season. Now, on 2011, with Ogletree moving to linebacker, these same two players are hoping to do what they couldn't do last year—win the starting safety job and play it well. I hope that they both are committed to getting the job done, Georgia's options here are relatively slim.


Could the Bulldogs run the table in 2011?

This mailbag question by a college football fan prompted this response from a Rivals writer, "...
even if Georgia did go unbeaten in the regular season, it still would have to play in the SEC championship game, where Alabama or LSU likely would be looming. Your optimism is respected, but I cannot share it." Read the whole response here.

What's next for Auburn after the HBO report?

"The NCAA would need more than just allegations made by these players to bring a case against Auburn. But it’s enough for it to start asking questions." I don't know if the NCAA will ask questions that actually lead them anywhere, but perhaps they'll do their due diligence—you recall how they handled the Cam Newton situation, right? They'll just ask. 'did you cheat'? to which Auburn will reply, 'no'. Okay, carry on then.

Not everyone is convinced Cam Newton will be successful at the next level.

"Newton has only been exposed to basic coverages in the SEC due to the nature of the Tigers' offense, leaving scouts and coaches diligently working to determine his football acumen in workouts and meetings." So, what you're saying is, Newton looks good in person, not on paper? Well...who didn't know that?!?

Oh, I get it now, it's okay for Auburn to pay players—if they did. 

Funny, I don't think this guy would have this opinion if Alabama were the school on the proverbial hot seat for running an elaborate pay-for-play scheme, "...It's time to say, yes, Auburn paid players. And that did everyone else does too." So, as long as everybody else is doing it, Auburn shouldn't be penalized. Well, I'll buy that convenient logic for $1.


Steve Spurrier is unimpressed with his quarterbacks—as usual.

This is hilarious. I love the part where Spurrier says the mediocre play of his quarterbacks is likely why they'll be "running the ball about 50 times a game with Marcus". You hear that, SEC? Focus on the run!

(h/t GamecockAnthemTube)




HBO Roundtable With Rich Rodriguez, Jason Whitlock, etc. 

Former Auburn Player Not Impressed With HBO's Choice of Interviewees

You have to love Twitter for it's ability to catch the instantaneous thoughts of it's Tweeters.

Kody Bliss, a former punter for the Auburn Tigers—yes, the punter—had this to say about the guys HBO chose to interview for the expose on Auburn:

 

I guess Mr. Bliss would know a dummy if he saw one, he was an academic standout at Auburn—sporting a 3.45 cumulative GPA in marketing as a student there.

Bliss didn't stop there, he went on to say this about Stanley McClover:

I don't know if that clears things up or not, but I suspect the HBO story will get more interesting by the day as more people weigh in on it's participants and the motives behind them coming forward—particularly Chaz Ramsey who sued the athletic department at Auburn in 2009. His case was dismissed in February.

Rumor has it, the restaurant/bar where Ramsey works has been boycotted by some of the Auburn faithful until the owner fires him—hope this kid has a backup plan...outside of Auburn, that is.

Auburn Football: HBO Special Looks Damning, But Proves Nothing

Stanley McClover

The internet was abuzz late yesterday after portions of an HBO program—airing tonight—were leaked by the website, SportsByBrooks. In the segment, four former Auburn football players go on-the-record and say they were paid by the school to both secure and keep their services.

While all four players had plenty of dirt to dish, some of the more eyebrow-raising statements came from the mouth of Stanley McClover, a former defensive star, who stated that he switched his commitment from Ohio State to Auburn after receiving a bookbag full of money. 

Here is how McClover described the incident to Andrea Kremer:

Kremer voiceover: “McClover says what he asked for was money. A lot of it. And that he got it. Delivered in a bookbag, exact amount unknown.”

Kremer to McClover: “You opened it up, what are you thinking?”

McClover: “I almost passed out. I literally almost passed out I couldn’t believe it was true. I felt like I owed them.”

Kremer to McClover: “You felt obligated to them (Auburn)?”

McClover: “I felt totally obligated.”

Kremer to McClover: “Because of the money?”

McClover: “Yeah.”

As wild as that sounds, McClover isn't bringing anything new to the table where accusations about pay-to-play at Auburn is concerned.

Former head coach, Terry Bowden, expressed a similar account in 2001—although it would be two-years before anyone knew of his statements—when he told a reporter "They [Auburn Boosters] were paying players cash, $12,000, $15,000 to sign...all I was told to do was shake hands and say, 'Thank you. I appreciate how much you love Auburn."

The collective fingers have been pointing in Auburn's direction for years.

That said, the one thing the HBO expose doesn't seem to offer is the one thing that would make this story the most damning—proof.

You can hate the Auburn Tigers all you want, but until the fire starts surfacing on all this smoke, it's much ado about nothing. And if you think NCAA investigators are on a plane to Auburn at this very moment, don't hold your breath.

Marc Emmert (NCAA's idiot President) already looks like a shill for how he's handle some very high profile cases—Cam Newton, Ohio State, Jim Tressel, etc.—and he's not looking to make any moves towards further tarnishing his already fragile reputation by investigating Auburn based on a few claims by some previous players.

Those accusations will need to be accompanied by something more valid—a paper trail, a name, or a tape would be a nice start—before this debacle takes on the shape of something more than just a witch hunt.

That's just being honest.

In the end, it's another blemish on Auburn's resume—at least in the court of public opinion—but when you get right down to it, without proof, this is just another juicy story.

Related articles

• "SportsbyBrooks: Four Former Auburn Players Make Pay-for-Play Allegations" and related posts (rollbamaroll.com)
• Report: Four former Auburn players got cash (sports.espn.go.com)

I Am Extremely Tired of Tony Dungy and His Judgmental Ways

The first thing I want to say is this: this article has not been written to speak of all the good qualities of Tony Dungy. You can find a million other articles, books, interviews, and journalists in the world of sports and entertainment who will do that for you ten times over—go read them today.

That said, if you choose to read any further after the statement above, you do so at your own risk because you probably won't like what I have to say about Dungy in the next few paragraphs—understood?

Here we go....

Everyone loves to praise Tony Dungy for his great work in life as a man, a coach, and a mentor for the misguided athletes who make millions playing in the pro ranks—Michael Vick is his best known cause.

A cause, might I add, that has seemingly given him more grief than gratitude as Vick continues to take missteps and make Dungy look like an ill-advised yoda for ever having stuck up for him.

Yet, I digress...

Dungy is such a major good guy in the world of sports that fans, newscasters, players, and public figures dare you to say anything bad about him—on-air or in print. He's untouchable. That's why he can do something as asinine as chastise a grown a$$ man for using some terse language with his grown a$$ players.

Rex Ryan, the current head coach of the New York Jets, was featured on the HBO Original Series, "Hard Knocks". He dropped the F-bomb, on this CABLE station might I point out, no fewer than ten times. Dungy's response to Ryan's choice of chatter was to call him out for his bad language and suggest that the NFL Commissioner get involved (by suggesting that Goodell have a talk with Ryan about using said language)...for real?!?

Dungy said:

"I would not. I personally don't want my players to be around that. I don't want to be around that," Dungy said. "It's hard for me to be around that, and if I were in charge, no, I wouldn't hire someone like that....Now, I've been around 'F' bombs, so it's not like it's new. But I just don't think that has to be part of your every minute, everyday vocabulary to get your point across."

Good for you, Tony. You are a clean-living man who didn't use bad language to coach your players when you had the good fortune of doing so—yay, for Tony!

Newsflash...Rex Ryan isn't you. He does/did use that language and his methods are clearly different than yours. Does that make him less of a coach than you? Less of a person? Less of a man?...Not in my opinion, but obviously you think enough of yourself to feel that your way is the best way where coaching is concerned.

Please, get a grip.

Rex Ryan is probably more the rule than the exception—where head coaches and their use of foul language is concerned—and while I can understand the value of espousing an opinion on the way a man chooses to get his point across to his players, I cannot get behind a guy who is, essentially, trying to throw that man under the bus for doing so. 

Rex Ryan hasn't committed any crimes or hurt anybody by coaching in this manner and, obviously, he's getting the results he wants to see from being so brash. Respect the process, even if you don't relate to the method. Show a little humility, Tony...you of all people should know how to do that.

End rant. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• "Buddy Ryan: Jets Rex never tried to work with Tony Dungy" and related posts (benmaller.com)
• Profane Ryan chafes over Dungy's 'Hard Knocks' (cbssports.com)
• Jets' Ryan Says Dungy 'Unfairly Judged Me' (abcnews.go.com)