Weekend Sports Report: The Summer Slump

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Sports Update with yours truly. It’s my job at Something Awful to cover the world of sports since all the other writers are either terribly frail and/or closet homosexual communists. My references in this field are many since before becoming an Internet comedy writer, I was a world class champion of thumb wresting and a two time winner of the Pretty Boy Belly Dancing Contest (Division C). Despite the Internet being filled mostly with pasty nerds whose only daily exercise is clicking a mouse, masturbating, and once in awhile walking to the cupboards for some Doritos, a decent amount are still active sports fans who follow their regional team with zeal. Life can get a little depressing and lonely at times, so pouring all your time and energy on a group of large sweaty men chasing a pretty ball can give your worthless life meaning. Before the Detroit Pistons won the NBA championship this year, I was so terribly bored and suicidal, but now I have countless merchandise littering my apartment, and give high fives to strangers because now I belong to a team. I found it’s much less work than joining the Neo-Nazis.

The sad news is that right now is the worst time to be a sports fan; the middle of summer. No basketball, hockey, or football. All we have is boring old baseball and that’s for old men and housewives. This lack of any exciting sports leaves a large hole in the lives of fans who have nothing else to look forward to. Some turn to reruns of Mama’s Family, others to crack cocaine, and still others freeze themselves in cryogenic chambers until Fall. For somebody like me trying to cover sports, it takes a lot of ingenuity to come up with something of worth to report. For this Weekend Sports Update, I hit the streets and found some little known sports that hopefully fans will come to embrace in the long hot months of nothingness, until some real sports come back into our lives. Also, we have an exclusive sports debate between myself and my magical toy monkey, Hector, about the inflated salaries of today’s sports players. Please enjoy.

Riveting!Poker
Now that there are basically no sports around except some gumps with beer bellies hitting rawhide balls with a stick, poker is gaining a lot of popularity and air time. Although not even remotely a sport on a physical level, it does appeal the macho sentiments and adrenaline that can be found in most competitions. The biggest boost to the poker craze is the Celebrity Poker Tournament on Bravo (the home for gay TV), featuring mostly bit actors trying to be witty and hamming it up for the camera. ESPN and the Travel Channel are also showing an extraordinary amount of poker in an effort to fill the dead air left by the lack of anything worthwhile. It's gotten so bad that I've actually watched reruns of poker matches that I've already seen multiple times. While I sit in front of the television in the sweltering heat, flies planting larva in my facial orifices, I tend to wonder if I am wasting my life on watching stupid games, but then some mongoloid-looking player gets an ace on the river and I cheer and fall out of my window.

Eating Contests
Only in the land of gluttony that is known as America can gorging yourself with an insane amount of food be called a sport. Eating competitions are becoming increasingly popular as of late, making superstars out of people who pride themselves on eating 50 hot dogs in 10 minutes, and who would gladly suffer internal hemorrhaging for a tiny spot of glory. Within a span of 20 minutes, you can see a bucketful of food that could feed a family of 10 in Africa for a month be consumed by a large hairy man who lacks both morals and manners. Oddly enough, skinny Asian people have dominated this sport because of their flexible stomachs and ability to transform into Go-Bots, causing food eating purists to call foul and have them excluded from the events. Regardless of this Asian invasion, and the recent scandal of Hans "Butterball" Bolton sneaking tacos into his sleeves during an event, this sport is really taking off. That is of course until real sports come back and all the contestants die of obesity or ulcers.

The three time drinking champion of the world.

Drinking Contests
Similar to the eating contests, but with much less fanfare. I myself hold personal drinking contests by myself in my basement every Sunday night, and have yet to lose a match. This sport does not get the same air time that eating contests do, mostly because of the negative connotations that go along with being a horrible degenerate drunkard. But not all drinking contests are alcohol-based, such as a local craze in Tampa Bay, Florida, where contestants drink from a hose as long as they possibly can until their stomach ruptures. It’s a little slow to catch on, but did get some coverage on ESPN 14 after miniature clown wrestling.

Freestyle Forklifting
Unsung are the warehouse heros of America. All day they toil in their steel mules, lifting crates and boxes with steel appendages. Without the forklift driver to load trucks, we wouldn't have our precious , toilet paper, or Captain Crunch. For years these proud men have been holding their own forking competitions in the back of old warehouses where the real lifters are separated from the wannabes. This test of manhood in the forklift circuit has been going on for years, but has just recently been discovered by fans seeking a new summertime sport. Events like the triple crate nab, the 50 foot pig snipe, and the granola toil are just some of the many and various competitions that make this a perfect replacement sport. Maybe one day if you are lucky, I will go more in depth on a Weekend Sports Update into this budding contest of wills and forkery, but for now it remains an underground sensation only heard of among whispers in coffee houses and bulk food stores.

Let's face it, nothing can really help us out here. Without our basketball, hockey, and football, we are empty husks of men who might as well go into hibernation until late Fall. We cannot fully feel human emotion until our regional team beats another regional team or wins something shiny. Just think, only a few months away.

Kill it with fire good sirs.

Dangerous Spider Juggling
When people run out of ideas for new sports, often something very dangerous and foolish is invented. Dangerous spider juggling was created by Cecil Sillysnax of South Carolina and just like you would imagine, it entails juggling extremely deadly spiders. Two contestants juggle the spiders until one is bitten and is afflicted with major nerve damage or death, and the other one wins a golden cup. It is rumored to be a great spectator sport because as one fan put it, “It’s funny to see people get bitten.” Some kinks still have to be worked out on this little-known sporting event, such as the frequency of both jugglers getting bitten in the first few seconds and the spiders getting loose and running into the orphanage next door. ESPN 63 has shown some interest, but they are waiting for the knuckle cracking championships to end before a spot opens up.

WNBA
Hahaha. I'm kidding of course. Women playing basketball, what will they think of next?!

Sports Gab with Frolixo and Hector

Frolixo: Greetings Hector. Today we are going to chat about the extraordinary amount of money professional athletes are making these days. Take for example Alex Rodriguez's contract of 252 million dollars over 10 years. How much is too much? Hector?

Hector: What? Oh it’s you, Paskiewicz! How many times have I told you to stay away from me? But seriously, redheads really creep me out. They all look the same and are full of lies and deceit, and they are ruddy like a talking carrot.

Frolixo: Come now Hector, we are talking about professional athlete's salaries, not your unfathomable disdain for my kin. How much do you think players should make relative to the average wage of an American citizen?

Hector: You fool! Are you a seven foot giant who can dunk a basketball without breaking a sweat? Are you a tough hockey player who can deal out punishment and skate like ballerina? No, you are a small pitiful little man with no talent, and that's why you make a measly salary instead of millions of dollars.

Frolixo: Oh Hector, please don't be rude. I was just making a comparison of our values. Teachers in America don't make that much, although they are extremely important in molding our future generations. Yet, if somebody is really tall or can hit a ball really far, we lavish them with money. Don't you think our value system is a little askew?

Hector: You are a goddamn retard, Paskiewicz! From this point on I’m convinced that the Polish and Irish should never be allowed to drink together to put an end to genetic mishaps such as yourself. In my day you would’ve been dropped down a well at conception with no questions asked.

Frolixo: Well ok, but do you think salary caps should be mandatory in hockey and baseball to try to stem the trend of outrageous contracts? Also, what do you think about the hockey shutout that might occur this coming season because of the proposed cap?

Hector: How many times do I have to tell you fuck off? I’m a busy toy monkey and don’t have time to sit around to talk about sports and jack off into a cup. If you ask me one more question, I’m going to bite your face off.

Frolixo: Given that the average American makes less than $50,000, do you think that...AIIIIEEEEE OH MY GOD!!!!

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Sports Gab with myself and Hector. Thankfully, most of my face is still intact, and I'm recovering nicely thanks to modern medicine. Toy monkey teeth aren't really as sharp as one would think, and most of the damage was done with blunt force and small lightning bolts. See you next week sports fans, I'm going to go ice down and silently weep.

StateOg

Hiya, Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell here. While the rest of the Something Awful gang are in Las Vegas for the big GoonCon partying it up like only internet nerds can, I'm left behind all alone at SA headquarters. In case anyone asks, I'm watching over the place responsibly like I'm supposed to, and definitely NOT sitting in everyone else's chair while sweating up a storm and eating vienna sausages directly out of the can.

I was so happy to see the killer whales, mainly because I liked their names. It felt magical to pet the dolphins and the stingrays, although I was sad that they had no killer dolphins or killer stingrays. But there was one animal there that I could not pet, the killer manatee. That is because no such thing exists, but they did have original manatees, which you could tell from zesty salsa manatees by the lack of a sombrero.

Click here for State Og goodness with a disturbingly creamy center.

– Reid "Frolixo" Paskiewicz