What do you get when you take a group of old rich white men who have too much money, slightly younger rich guys who claim to be going broke, even younger guys who claim to be treated like slaves … who get paid millions and another group of young guys who in the past have claimed that $15 million was not enough to feed their families? If you said lockouts in half of the major North American sports leagues you'd be correct. Yes, if the current NFL labor "negotiations" are any sign of what the future holds, we could be in for a long, long year.
But fear not loyal readers, there will always be sports for you to get your fix from and I have taken it upon myself to come up with a list of them. So without further ado, I present to you the "Official Hainsfurther's Holler Guide to Lockout Sports."
1. CHESS BOXING: Do you love the strategy aspect of football? Are you worried that an unfilled craving for unadulterated violence may leave you no choice but to commit a violent crime? Then have I got the sport for you! Introducing chess boxing. All the blood and punching mixed with intellect and strategy will make you forget all about football, and mostly because of the high concussion rate. Yes, if you want to see a guy pull off a Ruy Lopez while fighting off a brain bleed chess boxing may indeed be right up your ally.
2. SLAMBALL: What do you get when you cross basketball, hockey and Red Bull-addled adrenaline junkies? The answer is the first ever cracked-out basketball hybrid. Yes the original gangster of extreme editions of the major sports, Slamball, is back and ready to break some necks. Mason Gordon founded the sport and league in 2002 and hoped to create a sport that was more like a real-life video game than an actual sport. That seriously was the goal. When the league attempted to re-launch its TV broadcasts in 2009, Chris Albrecht, then the president of IMG Global Media (who partnered with Gordon and other partners to revive television broadcasts of the sport) told the New York Times "It's like a live-action video game." Sounds like the perfect replacement for the NBA, heck it even sounds better.
3. QUIDDITCH: Yes, you read that correctly. Quidditch has come to the Muggle world. In all honesty, Quidditch has the potential to become quite the full-contact sport. The no-longer-fictional game is almost identical to the one we've been reading about since the mid-1990s, only nobody flies, there's no magic involved and the snitch isn't a flying gold ball but rather an extremely fast person covered in gold from head to toe. Although still in the early phases of development, the game has a large college following and a season which culminates in the yearly Quidditch World Cup where colleges reign supreme.
4. BOSSABALL: This Volleyball-Soccer-Gymnastics hybrid is one of the few sports that also incorporates elements of capoeira, also known as Brazilian break dance fighting. Let me repeat. BREAK. DANCE. FIGHTING. Played on an inflatable surface that has trampolines built into the center of the court, Bossaball is a one of the most ridiculous sports played today. Think about it, kicking, heading, or hitting a ball over a net, played on an inflatable with trampolines on the beach.
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