By
Ryan Finley
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Load up on anabolic steroids and grab a steel chair - the XFL is here. The league - which was started by WWF chairman Vince McMahon as a way to compete with the blahs that come during the month of February, when dog shows and spelling bees dominate the airwaves - is Xtreme, in your face and intense!
Riiiight.
It's football, plain and simple. Bad football, at that.
The XFL brass - which probably consists of Razor Ramon, Paul Bearer and Rick "the Model" Martel - think that fireworks, hos and "in your face" halftime locker-room pep talks can draw crowds.
Well, they were absolutely right. I watched - in fact, most of the sports fans that I know actually watched.
Of course, an hour later, I was flipping through the channels, hoping that I could find the E! True Hollywood Story about "Chico and the Man" star Freddie Prinze. I settled instead on a Brady Bunch marathon. I was done with the XFL after a quarter and a half.
You see, no amount of fireworks, cleavage or curse words can change the fact that the league is a halfway house for gas station clerks and janitors.
However, there are some cool things about the first-year league. The cheerleaders are hot. The winning team makes more money than the losers. Two guys get to scramble for a ball to see who receives.
But for every cool thing about the XFL, there are five or six absolutely stupid rules. For one, the camera angle is just slightly less annoying than the "Cha Cha Slide". But the worst - in my book - is the fact that players can put whatever name they want on the back of their jerseys. That's just what we need - the illiterate guy from Tennessee Tech putting 'deez nuts' on his jersey. Some of these guys' 'names' look like license plates. I can just see it now - "Starting at tailback for Orlando, YUGOT2PLAYAH8?"
The Las Vegas Outlaws' tailback is called 'He Hate Me'. What the hell is that? Who hates you? After watching the way you run, I guess I hate you, your coaches hate you, and the entire league hates you
One early-season XFL star appears to be Las Vegas defensive back Brandon Sanders, a former Wildcat star. Dick Tomey called the mouthy Sanders the best player he ever coached. Somebody give this guy a contract - in a league of has-beens and never-will-be's, Sanders stood out like a literate guy in a room full of, well, XFL fans in his first game ...
...News from the NBA: singer (and UA alum) Jimmy Buffett was kicked out of his seat courtside at yesterday's Knicks-Heat game for screaming obscenities. Seriously. What's next? James Taylor gets kicked out of a baseball game for throwing beer bottles at the umpire? Barry Manilow gets arrested for throwing bottles of his own urine at a soccer game? It just goes to prove that you don't have to be a NewYorker to act like one. "I'm just looking for my f*%king shaker of salt over here!"...
... Saturday night, former Packers tight end Mark Chmura was acquitted of any wrongdoing in a rape case involving a 17-year old girl. I'm not even going to touch that one, which is probably what Chmura should have said more than a year ago, when he (allegedly) had sexual intercourse with his children's baby-sitter at a post-prom party.
Chmura joins an immortal list, consisting of Ray Lewis, O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson - all guys who have gotten off. Of course, had Chmura not "gotten off" in the first place, he'd still be in the NFL ...
