|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Blog: "Mascot Death Match" by Paul Jury As everybody does these days, I participate in a small NFL pool in which players predict which football team will win every game of each week, with the overall winner receiving some tawdry prize at the end of the season. We’re not very serious about it, which is why the best winning percentage each week is usually around 56%. Unexciting as it may be, my pool participation has spawned a rather interesting debate between myself and my friend Kristy, who participates in a similar, meaningless pool. I generally pick my team based on cities where I’ve lived or my friends have lived, but Kristy has a much more unique method: she picks team based on which of the two teams’ mascots would win in a fight. This raises some very interesting scenarios. Could a Seahawk, for example, beat a Cowboy in a fight? Kristy insists that one could, given the Seahawk’s sharp talons and eyeball-pecking beak. But I have several problems with this. First, is this a fight to the death? Because even if a Seahawk could peck out the Cowboy’s eyes, the Cowboy’s not dead. What’s the Seahawk going to do then? Peck his jugular? And do you think the Cowboy’s just going to sit there and take this? Hell no, he’s going to fight back. A good Cowboy’s not even going to let things get to the eye-pecking level – as soon as that Seahawk swoops down, that Cowboy is going to punch him right in his bird beak. This is going to continue - swoop, punch, swoop, punch – until finally the Cowboy can get a hold of the Seahawk, at which point that Cowboy’s gonna strangle that Seahawk like no Seahawk has ever been strangled before. A Cowbody definitely could kill a Seahawk, if his life depended on it. Plus, and I know it’s unfair, but I think the Cowboy gets a gun. If we’re talking the true, archetypical essence of a Cowboy… what kind of Cowboy doesn’t have a pistol? Possibly a lasso, too. The Seahawk gets his talons, right? But those talons won’t matter, because that bird’s getting pumped full of lead if it even dares to come near the Cowboy. As you can see, this is way more interesting than watching an actual football game. Some of these matchups would make for quite even battle: a Buffalo Bill versus a Cowboy, for instance, or a Chief versus a Redskin (one’s higher-ranking, but the other’s more racist). What is it with the NFL and antiquated Western stereotypes, by the way? Or a Lion versus a Bear or a Bengal Tiger – now these are cool-ass animal fights that I would pay to see. Some of these matches are less even. A Panther versus a Cardinal, for example? This isn’t even fair. A big-ass jungle cat versus a one of the pussiest birds there is? Why did Arizona even pick this mascot? Maybe this is why they were 5-11 last year. Even worse, consider a Titan versus a Raven. A Titan is a giant, powerful diety of Greek Mythology. The Titans created Zeus and all the other Greek Gods, who then turned on the Titans, and after an 11 year war, narrowly defeated them. A Raven, on the other hand, is sort-of scary bird which once starred in an abstruse Edgar Allan Poe poem. Let’s see… a giant warrior god who all the Greek Gods together could barely beat… or a small black bird. Come on. Some of the matches just get really obscure. Take a Packer versus an Oiler, for example. I’d never thought about who would make a better fighter, an employee in the meat-packing industry or an employee in the oil-refining industry, but I suppose anybody can be pitted against someone in a death match, given the right circumstances. Though I’m not even sure you get a Saint to fight a 49er. The latter would be too busy digging up gold, and the former would be too busy being in heaven. As far as the Patriot vs. Jets matchup to occur this December… What is this, Paul Revere versus an F-16? Um, hello, these two don’t even exist in the same time period. Unless by ‘Patriot’ they just mean ‘someone who is enthusiastically supportive of their country’… In which case clearly an airplane is going to kick the shit out of a regular guy with nationalist sentiments, no matter how much he likes his country. We didn’t get into the ramifications of this concept taken into other sports (Where are a Red Sock and a White Sock going to fight? In a dryer?), but we did find two areas where Kristy and I agreed: 1) That this is definitely a much more interesting way to pick teams than consulting statistics and injury lists, and 2) That the Chargers should never lose, because how can you win a fight against the general concept of electricity? I don’t care who you are, you’re going to get electrocuted. See Paul's complete blog at www.paulspond.com |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
© 2006-2008 Panda Smash (PandaSmash.com) / Contact us / Advertising info / Technical ???s / Site history |
