As the snow fell from the sky like cocaine in the promised land, I cursed the sporting gods as athletics stood at a standstill for the weekend. Between the mullet overload that was the Daytona 500 and the soap opera that was Tiger and Phil, there was little else to do but peruse the wide world of cable. Armed with my digital cable remote, I prepared to do battle with 800 channels that held more mysteries than the age-old question of what happened to Ashanti Cook?
The first stop on my television tour was the Toughman Competition on Pay Per View. A boxing tournament of champions, the Toughman boasts some of the fiercest competition since Paula Jones-Tonya Harding Celebrity Boxing. Expecting a few overweight males, I was pleasantly surprised when two overweight (but big-breasted) females strolled out of the tunnel looking to kill whoever just told them they weren’t on American Idol. As they threw the standard female half-slap, half-over-the-head-punch, I waited patiently for a little skin. I mean, come on, for $19.95, I expect a bit more than two Anna Nicole Smiths running around with clothes on. Thirty seconds into the first round, one of their speedbag-sized breasts flys out, but it’s blurred! After this gigantic disappointment, I focused in on the Sumo World Channel, but kept flipping back for the promise of the impending midget m?l?e.
There are no surprises on the sumo channel, it is what it advertises: large flabby men in diapers. While sumo is an easily mockable sport, the intricacies are no longer lost on me after a fun-filled afternoon of obese debauchery. Take for instance the riveting match between Jumonji (I’m serious) and Kinkaiyama. Now at first glance, it might appear that Jumonji won simply by throwing Kinky out of the ring, but … no, wait, that’s exactly what happened. Next channel.
With all college basketball games cancelled on Sunday except St. Peter’s versus Marist, ESPN was forced to show reruns of World’s Strongest Man competition. So you think you can be the world’s strongest man? You know that feeling when you haul your keg from the trunk of your car to the nearest elevator? Well, try throwing your keg over a twenty foot wall. Does TV get any better than the head-to-head matchup of Magnus ver Magnusson versus Harold “Chief Iron Bear” Collins in the ‘hold-up-a-car-as-long-as-you-can” event? Did any of these guys have a Dad to play catch with, or did Pops just say, “Hey son, I’m sort of busy, so why don’t you go pull a garbage truck around the block until dinner”?
Finally, after hours of waiting for the main event, the Toughman Competition came through. As the vertically challenged, as they like to be called, emerged from the tunnel, I couldn’t stop the tears of joy from running down my cheek as I watched the most glorious sight in the world. Soon, there were little fists of fury flying around like gnats to an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. My God, it was beautiful.
After surfing a few more channels, I realized that I get free porn with digital cable and I stopped watching sports. But before that, I stopped and acknowledged the fact that I had broadened my cultural horizons. No longer was I a standard, three-sport fan with no interests outside those which regularly pepper the Washington Post’s sports section. I had seen the sporting world and I was a new man, eager to uncover the many truths that lay in sumo wrestling and keg-throws.
Who am I kidding? With no real sports, I was a lost and broken man, and though I tried to replace them with faux sports, there was no consolation. The midget m?l?e, however, could replace the Super Bowl, the World Series and the Olympics because that was $19.95 well spent.
