NEW ORLEANS – The "press conference" of the deer antler spray salesman had dragged on for over an hour.

Mitch Ross, fresh off a plane from Alabama, stood on the sidewalk outside the New Orleans convention center, home to the Super Bowl XLVII media center, and despite claiming he would "clear the air" about everything, managed to only further confuse things.

Ross, 45, wore a tight, sleeveless T-shirt after taking off his tight, sleeveless black vest, so eventually when the media became exhausted and baffled enough – eyes spinning at all the empty allegations, bold defenses and strange promises – they just turned the thing from confrontational to comical.

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"Mitch, Mitch, do you have any shirts with sleeves?"

"Mitch, Mitch, have you met Bambi?"

Everyone laughed, even Ross at times, which made the entire thing more surreal, a real-life turn out of "Alice in Wonderland," perhaps the perfect cap to one of the strangest weeks of pregame hype ever.

Whether any of Mitch Ross's products – say the deer antler spray that Ray Lewis supposedly used, or the energy patches that he claimed the Baltimore Ravens wore as they defeated the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots to get to this Super Bowl – actually work is still anyone's guess.

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Ross is a full believer. His proof isn't exactly clear – some combination of anecdotal belief, demands that the media "look it up on the Internet" and the promise of a future interview with a doctor in Hawaii that will testify to it.

For the sake of argument, let's assume it's all good and Mitch Ross isn't how he was characterized in Sports Illustrated, which dubbed this week's article on him: "Snake Oil For Sale." Hey, his sales are up after all this pub, although Ross kept repeating he didn't care about money.

The SI article set off a firestorm because of the inclusion of Lewis, who may have used the product to make a quick recovery from a midseason triceps tear. Lewis denies this and calls Ross a "coward." In the end, none of it really matters.

Ross said he's gotten death threats from Ravens fans, although he offered nothing specific. He found that unfortunate since he also said it was God who initially sent him to Baltimore to work with Ray Lewis.

There were times during the "press conference" when Ross wouldn't badmouth Lewis, or answer anything about him. Then there were other times he would. He said he gave Lewis his deer antler spray in the past, but acknowledged he never saw it actually used. Later he apologized to the Ravens linebacker. That's where it got even stranger. Was this press conference an attack? A whistleblower attempt? A defense? A cry for attention?

About the only thing that was certain is that he's angry at Sports Illustrated for leading him on for a couple years and then hitting him with a negative story. "They catfished me," Ross said. "They dated me for two years."

At one point, as he scanned through his text messages in front of reporters, the name "Ray Lewis" came up with a Monday date.

Wait, the deer antler guy and Lewis were texting this week?

"I text'd him and said, 'God Bless,' " Ross said. "He has not texted me."

Ah, well, after showing reporters supposed proof of communication with Lewis, which naturally drags the Ravens linebacker back into things and raises new questions, wouldn't you want to show the actual message to then clear Lewis? That'd be fair, right?

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