Anthony Pepe is Challenger in Chris Barnes Challenge #5
Anthony Pepe is the highest bidder and will take on Chris Barnes in the fifth Chris Barnes Challenge. Pepe put up the max bid of $5000 today. Each bowler will put up their $5000, making the pot the highest in any of these events at $10,000. Barnes is currently 2-2 in these matches. There is currently some talk of people wanting to take on Barnes for more than just the $5000 this weekend, but we will have to wait and see if anything comes of this.
Chris Barnes and Anthony Pepe will take each other in a 3 game series on Saturday night, March 27, 2010 at approximately 9:00 Eastern Time. This match will take place at AMF Babylon Lanes in West Babylon, New York and will be aired live on PBA Xtra Frame. The challenger, Pepe, will have the choice of bowling with regular equipment on the PBA Shark pattern, or using plastic equipment on the modified “plastic shark pattern.”
Aguiar Wins in Chris Barnes Challenge #4
Alex Aguiar took on Chris Barnes for the second time this week, this time in the Chris Barnes Challenge. Aguiar was the highest bidder, at $1500, to take on Chris Barnes. Coincidentally, the two were paired together earlier in the week in the PBA Go RVing Match Play Championship. Aguiar beat Barnes 4-0 in their match earlier.
This time, Aguiar jumped out to an early lead and didn’t look back. Aguiar started with a 224 to jump ahead of Barnes’ 192 game. Aguiar beat Barnes the other two games to win the match 626-524. By defeating Barnes, Alex won the $3000 prize. As of the end of the match, Alex Aguiar has a 7-0 record against “the best bowler in the world.”
Chris Barnes is now 2-2 in his matches in the Chris Barnes Challenge. Barnes has already set the date of the next challenge, coming next week at the PBA GEICO Mark Roth Plastic Ball Championship. Chris will look to make back some of the money that he lost to Aguiar this week.
Upsets Galore in Round 1 of Match Play Championship
The PBA Go RVing Match Play Championship is underway today. The first round of the tournament was full of upsets. Three of the top four seeds lost their opening match. #3 seed Bill O’Neill was the only of the top four to advance into round 2, but not without a struggle. O’Neill needed all seven games to defeat David O’Sullivan.
#1 seed Walter Ray Williams, Jr. lost in his opening match to Justin Warhol. #3 seed Wes Malott lost his match to Ryan Abel. #4 seed Chris Barnes lost his match to Alex Aguiar. Barnes hopes to get his revenge this saturday in the Chris Barnes Challenge.
This event is being bowled on both the PBA Cheetah and PBA Shark patterns. The rounds of 32, 16, and 8 will be bowled tomorrow, Friday, March, 19, 2010.
Aguiar Winning Bidder for Chris Barnes Challenge #4
Alex Aguiar is the winning bidder for the fourth Chris Barnes Challenge. Aguiar’s winning bid stands at $1500. Alex will take on Chris Barnes in a three game series on Saturday night, March 20, 2010. Alex Aguiar and Chris Barnes faced each other in the first round of the PBA Go RVing Match Play Championship. Aguiar won the best of 7 match, four games to one. Aguiar averaged 245.6 in the match. If Alex can keep up the great bowling, he may have a very big week, not only facing the rest of the bowlers throughout the week, but when he takes on Barnes on Saturday night for the $3000 pot.
This match will be aired live on Xtra Frame Saturday night. Good luck to both bowlers!
Go RVing Match Play Championship This Week
This week is the PBA Go RVing Match Play Championship. The Tour Qualifying Round will take place on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. TQR bowlers will bowl 7 games of qualifying and the top 8 bowlers will advance into the tournament. These 8 bowlers will face off against the top 8 ranked bowlers in the tournament. As the tournament starts on Thursday, bowlers will bowl best 4 games out of 7 matches against one another. The winner will go on to the next round. The top four seeds for this tournament are #1 Walter Ray Williams, Jr., #2 Bill O’Neill, #3 Wes Malott, and #4 Chris Barnes. These are the top guys looking to get into the final four. This tournament is the PBA’s version of March Madness. It should be a lot of fun to watch and to participate. To fill out your bracket, head over to PBA.com. This tournament is being bowled on the PBA Cheetah and PBA Shark patterns.
Chris Barnes Gives Back in Chris Barnes Challenge #3
The third Chris Barnes Challenge ended a little differently than the first two. Dave Johnson was the winning bidder, at $400. Dave decided to let his 16 year old son Sean bowl in his place. Later in the week, Jimmy Johnson, the son of the late great Don Johnson, decided to get involved in the action. Jimmy put up his own $400 to challenge Barnes. Chris Barnes beat the other two with his score of 746. Sean Johnson had 566 and Jimmy Johnson had 580. Barnes ended up taking his $800 in winnings and donating it to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Barnes handed the winnings over to the Johnson family, who have been doing a lot of help to raise money for the foundation. This is nothing new to Barnes, who has a son with juvenile diabetes. Chris and his wife Lynda are active members of the JDRF community in Texas.
John Szczerbinski Cute Picture Fan Page
It looks like the right people have gotten their hands on a picture of John Szczerbinski used for Junior Team USA purposes. Someone found the picture and has posted it on Facebook and created a group for the picture. The Facebook group can be found here. Even big name bowlers like Chris Barnes are fans and he has commented, saying “probably not the first time he has had a ball(s) on his chin!” Feel free to become a fan of the page and see how fast we can help make it grow!
Chris Barnes Challenge #3 Takes Place This Week
Chris Barnes has put himself out there again. The third Chris Barnes Challenge will take place this week, at Sequoia Pro Bowl in Columbus, Ohio. The challenge will take place on Saturday, March 6, at 5:30 PM Eastern Time. The deadline for entries is Thursday, March 4, at 9:00 PM. Barnes has put his $5000 offer up again and whoever can come closest to matching his bet will take him on for that amount in a 3 game total pinfall match. As of right now, the highest bidder is Dave Johnson with his bid of $400.
Jason Belmonte Takes Over Lead in U.S. Open
Jason Belmonte had a huge score of 1493 (+293, 248.83 Average) to take over the lead in the third round of qualifying in the U.S. Open. Belmonte’s final qualifying score was 4117 (+517, 228.72 Average). Qualifying second was David Beres with a score of 3939. Rounding out the top five were Andres Gomez (3920), Chris Barnes (3915), and Bill O’Neill (3914). The field will now be cut to the top 88 bowlers (25% of field) with the cut score being 3594 (-6, 199.67 Average)
The remaining bowlers will bowl 9 games on Friday and cut to the top 24. After cutting to the top 24 bowlers, the remaining bowlers will bowl 24 games of match play Friday night and Saturday.
Bill Scheid Rants About Chris Barnes
Apparently Ebonite International president Bill Scheid is not very happy with how Columbia 300′s biggest name bowler, Chris Barnes, has been bowling once he makes the TV finals. As we all know, Barnes bowls well in almost every event, but has a history of not being able to finish out a tournament once he reaches the finals. Here is a video that someone made showing how Bill reacted to the situation. FYI – This is not a real video of Bill Scheid, but it is one of the funniest videos that I have seen in a long time.
Update (2/25/10): Unfortunately, this video has been removed from YouTube. (Possibly under pressure from Ebonite International, who knows…)
Update (2/28/10): The video has been re-posted. The video was edited to remove some parts that were seen as “very insulting.”
DV8 Hell Raiser