football, spies, war and wrestling

[amw]

I get most of my entertainment news through ohnotheydidnt, which i read more for the entertainment of the comments than the actual news. But, you know, at least by browsing that comm every day i knew the name Charlie XCX years before it unexpectedly popped up in the "serious" news, even though i still have no idea what her music sounds like

Comments

[geminiwench]

I. Love. This. Post.

[king_of_apathy]

I've never been big into any sport. I'll watch the odd football game as a social thing, but never think to watch it on my own. I have to admit I didn't even know the Euros were going on until halfway through.

I have to say though, using a drone to spy on another team practicing is cheating in my books, or very unethical behavior at the best. I think it's fine to study games that you've played against a team. But for me this is like the difference between recording someone speaking at a public event where they know they could be on camera or listening in on a private call.
For a war, I would totally steal the enemies battle plans, but there is no such thing as cheating in war. If you have an unfair advantage then use it. But sport is meant to governed by rules to ensure fair play.

[amw]

The way i see it, if someone is breaking privacy laws or trespassing laws, then that's already illegal, no need for the sports association to get involved. But if they're not breaking any laws, what is there to complain about? If sport is about direct physical competition, then how teams mentally prepare should not be relevant to the rules of the game. But if sport is about a battle of wits, then why should the rules of the game ban behavior that is legal in peacetime and a key component of actual real life battles? If the rules are going to be so arbitrary, at that point you might as well just admit the whole thing is a contrivance and embrace "sports entertainment".

[egg_shell]

Ha! Hangman Adam Page is so funny. They're all so over the top ANGRY!! I grew up watching studio wrestling with my dad and brother and I would still watch it if it happened to be on a TV in front of me, though I don't follow it at all now. I'll have to keep an eye out for Mason Madden & Mansoor. Smooth ..

[amw]

I know, right? It's so DRAMATIC!

Adam Page has a great storyline. He's a former English teacher in real life, and started out with a character described as an "anxious millennial cowboy", wanting to be the typical "white hat" cowboy hero but also being a bit awkward and self-conscious and woke. Then during the pandemic he leaned into the anxiety and filmed a promo sitting alone on a mountaintop contemplating his future, personifying what we all felt during lockdowns. Later on he had a big feud with the guy who is now AEW champion, and that guy (in storyline) broke into Page's house soon after his (real life) new baby was born, looming over the cradle like a psychopath. But somehow instead of the bad guy being understood as a bad guy, he broke out due to a silly dance routine that one of his minions does on stage, and now that former bad guy is one of the most popular characters in the company, and Page is furious! The best part is that Page has snapped and is now acting evil, but it's coming from a totally understandable place, so one

[siglinde99]

Analyzing the opponent’s previous games has been part of the game since televised soccer began. Drones are dumb because it’s too easy to get caught. Getting caught is, of course, the biggest failure in sport. I can feel myself getting worked up into a rant about Caster Semenya and others like her who have been “caught” having natural advantages, so I’m going to leave it at that before I start frothing at the mouth.

[amw]

You know I didn't reply to this comment because I had nothing pertinent to add, but here we are, not a week into the Olympics, and the nut jobs have apparently once again started crusades against AFAB women who look a bit too masculine for their tastes. You can't win with these bigots! If you're AFAB and your body produces more testosterone than the median woman, can't be treated as a woman. If you're AMAB and reduce your testosterone levels to equal or less than the median woman, still can't be treated as a woman. Let's not even get into how it always seems to be non-white athletes who are targeted. Why are these people so obsessed with policing who is allowed to be a woman? Why is it suddenly so important to them now when trans and intersex and gender non-conforming and "at the tails of the normal distribution but nevertheless part of the population" people have always existed? It's bananas. Do they really have nothing better to do with their lives?

[siglinde99]

Clearly they do not! I’m pretty sure most of them have never played any sports seriously, and they are sitting in their mom’s basement playing at being keyboard warrior. Unless they’re Russian bots. Speaking of the Russian influence in all this, you might find this piece interesting: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/olympics-imane-khelif-angela-carini-boxing-controversy-1.7282002. It’s a pretty good summary of the origins of the nonsense (well not Rowling and the other TERFs, but the boxing organization and their shady dealings, and why everyone needs to take a deep breath and do some critical thinking and verify sources before spouting off).

[amw]

This is something that really irks me about the commentary on boxing in particular. Speaking as someone who was actually involved with women's amateur boxing for a couple years... it is not a sport where everyone is a conventionally attractive gym bunny wearing lipstick and pink gloves. Although there are a handful of those, there are also a lot of flat-chested, cauliflower-eared, bruised and bloodied fighters that a lot of men would be wary of encountering in a dark alley. It's a rough and tough working class sport, where a lot of the competitors are coming from hard backgrounds and wear those scars with pride.

People who feel uncomfortable watching women getting punched in the face should not be watching a sport where the literal goal is punching women in the face. It's violent. It's brutal. My mom hated boxing and thought it was barbaric... so she didn't watch it. It's okay to not feel comfortable with boxing and to watch something else instead. People don't need to constantly give their two cents.

[siglinde99]

Also, who decides how much is too much or too little testosterone? And why is that an advantage but not being 7’2” for basketball, or 4’8* for gymnastics, or having incredibly flexible size 14 feet and double the normal capacity to deal with lactic acid for Michael Phelps in swimming? The 4’8” one is a bit of a straw man, I admit, because that’s Simone Biles’ height and she does get lots of hate for daring to be so good.

[amw]

This is the real point, and i think it's where reality shines its cold light on the ridiculous arbitrariness of competitive sport in the first place... and people don't like that. They like to imagine that sport is somehow "pure", a fair competition between equals... But of course it's not and it never was. A great example is Australia, whose government invested a huge amount of money into structural support for sporting achievement in the 1980s, and their investment paid off, making Australia into a country that hits way above its weight class in international competition. Places where kids can grow up with good nutrition, good trainers, good doctors are gonna produce more champs than places where those facilities aren't available. Teams that can afford the best and most high-tech kit that's still allowed under whatever rules of the day will beat the ones who can't afford that kit. But then every now and then a genetic anomaly or outlier can come along that can break through other structural advantages. Or sometimes they don't quite

[siglinde99]

Brilliantly said. And the number of nepo babies is astonishing. Somehow, what is reviled in the corporate world is celebrated in sport. Summer McIntosh is touted as a generational swimming talent, but she almost certainly wouldn’t have had the same support for her swimming ambitions had her mother not also been an Olympian. She is far from the only one; I just came across an article listing all those on the Canadian team in Tokyo. Presumably other countries have the same phenomenon. It’s making me cheer more than ever for the refugee team and the winners from places like Guatemala and St Lucia. No doubt those are also people with privileged opportunities compared to most, but at least it feels a bit more like cheering for the underdog.