XFL

The Tribune blasted it too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vince McMahon creation is worse than expected-- if that's possible

February 5, 2001

BY JAY MARIOTTI SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Iown a Limp Bizkit CD. I wear Revo sunglasses. I drive a silver sports car and once revved it to 110 on an Edens straightaway. I notice tanned women in push-up bras and hot pants as much as any other guy.

I am 40 and legitimately cool, not dysfunctionally forced like the Kevin Spacey creep in "American Beauty." And being no fuddy-duddy, I have just one request for any 12-to-34 male who thinks the XFL is the future of sport.

Dude, may you rot in Vince McMahon hell.

There are genuine reasons why we watch sports in America. We enjoy top-quality entertainment. We appreciate honest and serious competition. We respect the pomp and tradition of it all, the sophisticated strategies, the dignity of legends. We embrace timelessness, taking our children to games the way our fathers took us to games. Warts abound, but not so many that a revolution is necessary for new generations.

Amid such a time-honored backdrop, the XFL is nuclear slimeball. It's a farcical disgrace to civilized culture, pandering shamelessly to McMahon's warped mindset that younger people have no attention span beyond pro wrestling and all its sex-and-violence trappings. My initial impressions are worse than anticipated. The product is nothing but minor-league football, featuring too many NFL-rejected players named Rashaan and too many has-been coaches like Chicago's Ron Meyer, tossed together in tacky sitcom scenes dominated by near-naked cheerleaders, heavy-breathing announcers and have-no-life audiences that already are throwing beer cans and food at the hired hands.

"The crowd? I appreciate them coming out, but I don't appreciate them throwing chicken bones at us," said John Avery, star running back for our Enforcers, who eluded slow linebackers during the 33-29 debut loss in Orlando but couldn't avoid greasy projectiles.

Young or old, we all have brains. So why waste a precious Saturday night watching a league that has no drug policy, pays players an average of $5,000 per game and encourages gambling on the XFL odds in Vegas? Translation: Without rules addressing even the basics of morality, aren't we risking a steroid-raged mess that leaves lowly compensated players vulnerable to a fix? Maybe a 16-year-old in suburbia doesn't understand what's wrong with steroid use and point-fixing, just as the 16-year-old in "Traffic" thinks shooting heroin is fine while her politician daddy lamely fights the drug war. But I'll be damned if McMahon is going to do the teaching, if the czar of schlock is going to blur the golden rules. The same applies to NBC Sports loose cannon Dick Ebersol, who already has ruined the Olympic Games and now has lost his mind by vindictively selling out to McMahon after his network lost NFL rights to CBS two years ago.

For now, until the TV ratings are bleeding and blue-chip advertisers are repelling, the XFL can say it is selling real football. That is, if you can ignore the suspicious sequence at the end of the Enforcers opener, when the fourth-quarter clock suddenly stopped at 0:01 as fireworks exploded in the Citrus Bowl and Orlando players celebrated. The two announcers, yokels out of broadcasting school, already had said Chicago couldn't stop the clock. So why, after several seconds had ticked away, wouldn't time completely expire? It gave quarterback Tim Lester one last chance to win the game with a possible classic finish--and, much closer to the point, left viewers hanging two more minutes to help spike a TV rating.

If I can't trust what I'm watching, why watch it? And it's impossible to trust a concept rooted in wrestling fantasy, right down to the announced "sellout" in a stadium with an empty third deck. "The WWF casts a long shadow and there has been a lot of misinformation printed," said Basil DeVito Jr., president of the XFL. "This is real football. Nothing will be scripted. We've grown tired of people wondering if the games are fake."

Uh oh. They might be sending The Rock after me.

Or Dick Butkus. In a stream of XFL mindlessness, the most pathetic development has Butkus, the personification of real football, diving into bed with McMahon. You are a sellout, Dick, embracing hokum for a few extra bucks. Better that than grilling burgers in the old infomercial, I guess. I asked him last week what Bears patriarch George Halas would think of the XFL. "He would have wished he had the creativity to come up with some of these concepts," Butkus said.

A moment of silence in Chicago, please.

Surely, Papa Bear would have cringed if he knew cheerleaders were getting nearly as much TV airtime as the players. When Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell was asked about the XFL, he growled, "They're selling sex." Turned out to be a gross understatement. Rarely did five minutes pass in Orlando without another cheese shot of the ladies. In the night's other game, a staged locker-room scene starring a Las Vegas player and cheerleader provided all we need to know.

"Quarterback Ryan Clement knows how to score," she cooed.

"A lot of heavy breathing out there," play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian interjected. "It sounds like a crank call."

Women receive no respect in this trash-pit league. McMahon will put females in skimpy loincloths, but he doesn't want them, say, reporting on the sideline during broadcasts. Instead, we get the usually measured Lou Canellis, breathlessly reporting the action for ESPN Radio 1000 while Bill Simonson barks out play-by-play calls like he's doing the Super Bowl. The testosterone is suffocating. "Football's a man's game. Don't put a woman on the sidelines to tell me about football," McMahon said. "It's insulting. They've never played the game."

Not everything is gutter sludge. The in-your-face TV production is fun and innovative, bringing an intimacy not thought possible in sports. For the first time, viewers truly felt they were in the huddle, thanks to an extraordinary number of cameras, two held by on-field cameramen in flak jackets and hockey helmets. As the Enforcers were trying to rally late, Avery was heard shouting at Meyer and his assistants, "Run the draw! Run the draw!" That was cool.

Too bad it was overwhelmed by three and a half hours of uncool. When asked about the XFL last month, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue barely responded. "Frankly, it has been a minor aspect of what we worry about," he said. "In many cases, it's just a complete non-issue."

Now we know why.

Back to top Back to Mariotti

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 06, 2001

Answers

I guess I didn't miss much.

-- Canny (Canny@no.dupe), February 06, 2001.

He isn't "cool"; he's "trendy". (People who are cool don't have to say it, much less illustrate it.) "Trendy" is NOT "cool".

I think he's going through a mid-life crisis.

-- (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), February 06, 2001.

"The product is nothing but minor-league football"

What the hell was Professor Mariotti expecting, Montana to Rice all night???

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), February 06, 2001.

Mariotti acts as if the NFL is some type of sacred cow and the the XFL has just vandalized the Hall of Fame or spray painted Soldier Field.And what's this comment?"encourages gambling on the XFL odds in Vegas",like there aren't millions bet on his precious NFL,is he living in a hole?

Dude man isn't cool,he's the status quo,that's all.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), February 06, 2001.

I watched part of the first game last Saturday. I think I can run faster than those cornerbacks.

Also, Am I the only one to notice that the cheerleaders weren't that hot? It seemed like the cameras were focussing on the armpits of B-grade strippers.

I have season tickets to a legitimate NFL team. I can tell you that the cheerleaders in the NFL are gorgeous and athletic. They could give you a kiss on the lips and then jump up and take out your trachea, and you'd die happy.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), February 06, 2001.

Bemused

Have to agree about the cheerleaders. Kinda 'slutty' lookin' to me for the most part.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), February 06, 2001.

I take it Mariotti's team lost. Better luck next week.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 06, 2001.

I just watched XfL for a few minutes. It didn't exactly grab me. I am noise sensitive and I found all the extra sounds to be distracting. Did they go in the lockerrooms? Surely that will be next.

Anyone watch Oz on HBO? I'm addicted even as I'm repulsed. It's got to be the roughest show on TV all things included---language, violence, subject matter. Their new "breakthru" this season is full frontal male nudity. It's not fair, I want to see Sister Peter Marie nude.

Back to XFL. I see where the PC police are already mobilizing. They feel that the name of the Memphis team--the Maniax, is offensive.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 06, 2001.

While the author makes some good points, starting off with

Iown a Limp Bizkit CD. I wear Revo sunglasses. I drive a silver sports car and once revved it to 110 on an Edens straightaway. I notice tanned women in push-up bras and hot pants as much as any other guy.

didn't leave him much room to talk.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), February 06, 2001.

CD,

Like an (highly paid) NFL player isn't as vulnerable to a "fix"? Money is money,either you are honest or dishonest,no matter what league you play in.

Insurance: What *do* we know about their insurance?

The Avery fellow whom I believe plays for Orlando is IMHO quite good enough to play in the NFL,we shall see.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), February 06, 2001.

Mariotti is a smug elitist whose self-interest is tied to the status quo NFL. Football is entertainment. XFL kicks butt!

-- (Chicawgo@da.Bearssss(NOT)), February 06, 2001.

I can see your point, capn. You're right, either a person is honest or he's not. I have to believe however, that a player who is possibly struggling to support a family and pay his bills is much more susceptible to taking a payoff than a player would be who has money in the bank, a big fat contract and the liklihood of a cushy retirement check regularly rolling in at the end of his career.

As far as not being league-benefited with insurance coverage... All I know is what I read. Supposedly this is not part of the package.

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), February 06, 2001.

CD,

We are talking about players who make $45,000 per season,$2,500 bonus for won games,bonus for championship games,10-14 weeks,barring injury(I don't know those contractual or insurance variables).

That's a good income from where I come from,and that's just for a max of 5 months,seems like a pretty above the norm wage to me,especially if it's what I love to do.

I still don't see the point,honesty is honesty and dishonesty is dis honesty.

Maybe my view,(and Iv'e said it before) of life is too simplistic.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), February 06, 2001.

For some reason, this reminds me of that old joke, capn...

Guy asks his female co-worker if she would have sex with him if he paid her a $100. She chuckles at him and says; Of course not. What do you think I am!? The guy then asks if she'd have sex with him for $500. She again says no she wouldn't. Finally the guy says; Ok, what if I won the lottery and offered you a *MILLION* dollars just to have sex with me one time? She thinks about it for a minute and then grudgingly admits that, yeah, she probably would have sex with him for a million dollars. The guy then says; OK, now that we've established *WHAT* you are, all we have to do is negotiate a price.

(Hmm... I think there was a moral in there somewhere which supported the point I was trying to make about XFL players being more vulnerable to participating in a "fix". Don't ask me what it was though.)

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), February 06, 2001.