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by 

LOVE WILL KILL AND THE PRINCESS


LWK and The Princess visit the XFL

Love Will Kill: Many of you might not know this, since I usually come across sounding like a meek, caring and sensitive guy in this column, but I am a HUGE football fan.  Even though I've lived in California all my life, I've been a Dallas Cowboys fan for over 25 years.  But being a football fan isn't too easy when you're living in Southern California.  The only team we have down here is the Chargers, and I'm not sure they qualify as a professional sports franchise.  Besides, they're in San Diego.  Just about the only reason I ever go there is for the Comic Con.  It's just too darn far to drive to watch a football game.  I, like most other people in my part of the state, think that Los Angeles needs a football team.  The stupid Raiders moved back to Oakland where they belong, and Georgia "I wish I could still sleep with my quarterbacks" Frontiere moved the stupid Rams to St. Louis of all places.

The Princess: Blah, blah, blah.  Get to the point.

LWK: The point is LA finally has a football team again.  No, it's not an NFL team, but it's football, damn it!

TP: It's Xtreme, baby!

LWK: That's right.  Los Angeles finally has a professional football team thanks to Vince McMahon and those wacky kids at the XFL.  The Los Angeles Xtreme are one of eight teams currently vying for the chance to win "The Big Game at the End", the XFL's version of the Super Bowl.  The XFL, whose teams are made up primarily of guys who couldn't make the cut for whatever reason in the NFL, has claimed that their brand of football will be "football the way it was meant to be played."  A lot of the rules the NFL developed to protect players simply don't exist in the XFL.

TP: Oh, stop with the explanations.  If you haven't heard of the XFL and you want to learn more about it, go to XFL.com.  Let's discuss the game.

LWK: Whatevah.  So I'm trying to provide a little background.  Shoot me.  Being the good boyfriend that I am, I took mah woman to the Xtreme's home opener against the Chicago Enforcers.  After all, how often do you get to go to the first ever home game of a new sports team?

TP:  Never.  And, to make it more exciting for me, this was the first pro football game I'd ever been to.

LWK: Well, I don't think we could have picked a better game to go to then this one.  It had everything I want to see in a football game: hard hits, a few great defensive plays, fans who were really into the game and an unbelievably great ending.

TP: If it had had good cheerleaders, the game would have been perfect.  I'm not trying to be catty (although I'm good at it), but I wanted to be impressed by these cheerleaders.  I wasn't.

LWK: That's fine with me.  Unlike some of the fans, I didn't go to watch the cheerleaders (even though it looked like the girls were chosen for the squad based on their bust sizes).  I went to watch FOOTBALL.  And what a great game it was!  It looked for certain like the Xtreme were going to lose their second straight game as they were down 25-13 with about three minutes left in the game.

TP: See, now I had heard all this hype about the cheerleaders.  And I figured some beautiful, talented young women wanting to flaunt their stuff would be the cheerleaders.  You know, one out of three, that's what it was.  They were beautiful, and I did really like their outfits.  Especially those boots.  But young and talented?  Umm, no.

LWK: You wanna talk about talent?  I dunno if it was talent or luck, but LA quarterback Tommy Maddox (formerly of UCLA) put together a couple amazing drives in the last few minutes.  The Xtreme scored with 2:59 left on the clock in the 4th quarter, and then their defense really put together an amazing effort and stopped the Chicago offense.

TP: I think they tried too hard is the problem.

LWK: Who, Chicago?

TP: No, the cheerleaders!  They wanted so badly to look all sexy and provocative, but their movements were just too harsh.

LWK: You wanna talk about harsh, talk about Chicago.  Here they had a nice, fat lead going into the last few minutes of the game, then LA scores.  Then their offense can't get the job done and LA gets the ball back on the Chicago 49.  After this, Maddox marches the team those 49 yards and the Xtreme score when Ken "Ox" Oxendine runs it in from the one with 29 seconds left on the clock, tying the game and sending it into the XFL's first ever overtime game.

TP: And what was up with the people in the hot tub?  Those girls seemed a might bit slutty.  They were shakin' it more than the cheerleaders were.  It was frickin' 40 degrees outside, what were they doing in a hot tub?  I went there to watch tight ends and eat hot dogs, not watch people in a hot tub on the Jumbo-Tron.

LWK: Yeah, well I went to watch some football.  And what I saw was amazing!  The XFL has some wacky rules when it comes to tie games.  Each team takes turns getting the ball at the 20-yard line.  They've got 4 downs in which to score a touchdown, with no first downs.  If they score, they still get a chance at the extra point.  If the first team scores, then the second team has to score in as many downs or fewer, or they lose.  And this goes on until someone fails to score.  I gotta tell ya, this is a great way to end a football game.

TP: Yeah, the ending was exciting.

LWK.  Definitely more exciting than picking on the cheerleaders.

TP: Never underestimate the fun of picking on cheerleaders.

LWK: Yeah, well never underestimate the LA Xtreme.  Chicago got the ball first.  They scored a touchdown on 3rd down, and got the extra point.  That gave LA three plays to score.  After two horrible pass attempts, it looked like LA was screwed the hard way.  It looked like the tight ends were about to become wide receivers.  But Maddox managed to...

TP: ...pull his head out of his ass...

LWK: ...complete a pass to Jermaine Copeland for 6, and another one to get the extra point.  Game tied again, Chicago let LA take the next shot at the end zone.  Again, the first two plays went nowhere, but Maddox tossed one to Darnell McDonald for another 6 points.  If you have a second, be sure to check out this play on the XFL site, as McDonald shows another beautiful thing about the XFL - they encourage touchdown dances.  McDonald's "Booty Dance" is definitely one for the highlight film.

TP: Yeah, it's all about the Booty Dance.  That was the best moment of the entire game.  I became a fan at that moment.

LWK: Well, I was loving life the whole game.  Especially as LA's defense kept Chicago out of the end zone for the three downs they had to match LA's touchdown, giving the Xtreme an amazing win in double overtime.  It was about the biggest nail-bitingly wacky ending to a football game I've ever seen.  Now the XFL has gotten a lot of flak from more "serious" sports reviewers, but to me the XFL is about one thing - good football.  The guys on the field are there to play football.  Period.  If you've got an XFL team near you, go to a game.  I guarantee you'll have a blast.

TP: Such a good time, in fact, that your girlfriend might suggest you celebrate your anniversary at a game.

LWK: Like we're doing when the Xtreme host the Las Vegas Outlaws in a few weeks.

As soon as LWK heard that The Princess wanted an Xtreme knit hat, he knew she'd look adorable in it.  He was right.

Copyright©2001 LWK and The Princess