The WNBA Meets WWE?

This past week saw the WNBA with a historic first in its league: a major brawl amongst two teams, as well as a coach getting involved, and a star player getting injured for the season. While the battle between the Los Angeles Sparks and Detroit Shock will never be talked about like the fight at the Palace between the Pistons and Pacers several years ago, it still goes to show sports can turn ugly.

In this situation, a player on the Shock ended up running over Candace Parker of the Sparks. Sparks flew after the collision which saw the players on top of each other on the court. Lisa Leslie of the Sparks tried to restrain players from fighting and ended up getting shoved by Detroit's assistant coach, former NBA player Rick Mahorn. Also during the melee, Detroit's Sheryl Ford ended up hurting her ankle and will now sit out for the rest of the WNBA season.

While many sports fans continue to belittle the WNBA as a pro sports league, a brawl of this sort will always help in the cause. But even more glaring is the idea that it will take a fight amongst women to gain their league more respect. The brawl at the Palace years ago is still recounted to this day as one of the worst incidents in pro sports mayhem, as fans got involved. While no fans were involved in the women's basketball battle, it may come to that at some point. And now the WNBA may start to get noticed, albeit slightly more, for its first major on-court brawl. It's unfortunate it may take that sort of event to spark more interest and shock fans into appreciating the women's basketball game.