Phil Sherwen - Two Heads Are Better Than One

While the UCI and various race organizers continue to argue with each other and Pro Tour teams bicker amongst themselves, the cycling world has been joyously treated to a long overdue union of arguably the sport's two most popular figures. In a short ceremony held before a Tour of California press conference in San Francisco, renowned cycling commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen proudly announced to the world that they will be combining their names and will now each be known simply as "Phil Sherwen."

Phil Sherwen and Phil Sherwen

The announcement comes as somewhat of a shock to many cycling fans but will likely cut down the number of times each man is referred to by the other's name. "I really can't even tell you how many times I have been called Phil," said Paul Sherwen to the gathered media. "It's one thing to hear it every once in awhile, but it was getting ridiculous. I have pretty much responded to being called Phil for the last few years anyway."

Phil Sherwen and Phil Sherwen

Liggett continued to explain the motive behind the name change by claiming, "When Paul and I started working together many years ago we realized that people confused us all the time. But since we were both married and didn't want to deal with all the legal stuff...we put off combining our names until now. I never thought 'Liggett' was that cool a name anyway so I am looking forward to being called 'Mr. Sherwen' from now on."

Phil Sherwen

"We decided to go with Phil's first name and my last name for a few reasons," stated Sherwen. "First of all, he's been in the announcing game a bit longer than I have so I kind of had to defer to him there. But the main reason is that 'Paul Liggett' just sounds terrible. It's almost as bad as Frankie Roll or Richard Towle or something."

Phil Sherwen

When asked what the most difficult aspect of the name change would be, Liggett was optimistic. "I don't think it will be too hard to get used to. But I do have to have all the identity tags changed on my 'Suitcase of Courage' that I take with me to all the races. It has my old name on there and I would hate it if the airport lost it and couldn't correctly identify me."

"Yeah...there would be some serious argy bargy if they lost Phil's Suitcase of Courage," declared Sherwen excitedly. "The man by the name of Phil Sherwen would be dancing on the pedals...err...I mean the face of anyone who dares mishandle any of our stuff. Also, anyone that calls us by our old names will surely wear the mask of pain, trust me."