Sunday, January 21, 2007

In Praise of: Pros vs. Joes

I feel like I am late to the party here, as Pros vs. Joes (on Spike TV) is about to start its second season. Then again, I couldn't find footage of Clyde Drexler on ice skates on YouTube, so maybe this show has been under the radar.

I'm coming to praise it.

The Premise is pure brilliance: Take 5 ex-super badasses (Jerry Rice, Kevin Greene, Matt Williams, Dave fucking Stewart!, etc) and then add in to the mix 3 guys who think they can compete in Major League Sports, but don't, because their life didn't turn out the right way.

The three jokers are in competition with each other, but that's not really what the game is about. It's about seeing guys who think they could have played in the NFL getting burned by Jerry Rice, or getting smacked by Bill Romanski. It's about Alexi Lalas telling some guy who bragged about his martial arts skills on his audition tape to "Go Back To your Fucking Dojo."

Spike TV (ugh) ran a marathon of this shit, and I'm sold, brother. I love this show. I'd like to link their site on SpikeTV's site, but apparently Spike still thinks Flash-based websites are still the shit. Shocking, that. So I have no direct link.

But really, is there anything more fun than seeing guys who talk about their fucking Little League Homeruns, getting lit up by Dave Stewart? I don't think so. Seeing Justin Gatlin catch two dudes in a 60 meter dash, when he spots them 10 meters? Hilarious! I love the show.

I'm recommending it. With my whole heart. It's worth it to see what retired athletes are still capable of--Dave Stewart is still throwing 86 mph heat? Mugsey Bogues can still hit 8 13 foot jumpers in a row? Kevin Greene is still a scary motherfucker?

But the bonus is seeing these dicks who think they could have been pro athletes getting heckled by former badasses. I particularly love Bo Jackson (who knows a little something about bad luck) yelling at a guy, "You were one good break away from being a loser!"

Herschel Walker, by the by, still looks like a fucking badass.

1 comment:

LButler36 said...

My favorite part ofthe show was how the competitions always had to do with the pro-athletes sport and particular position (for example you had to score from the 1 yard line on Kevin Greene). So the competition they had for John Rocker was charge the mound and had to wrestle him and his pony tail to the turf.