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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