Tuesday, September 23, 2008

BYU 44, Wyoming 0: A Boring Shutout

September 20, 2008:

I won't lie. I wasn't able to attend this game at Lavell Edwards Stadium in Provo because I was in Seattle for some family stuff. I wish I had gone to Seattle two weeks earlier to watch the controversial win against the University of Washington. I don't know if any of you readers have ever visited the UW campus, but it is amazing. I'd say it's a top-5 most awesome campus in the country.

I couldn't get the MTN channel (the Mountain West Network) up in the state of Washington, so I had to get my scoring updates via Google Text (text something to the number 46645, and you'll get a quicker response than using CHA-CHA).

The game appeared to be amazing from the texting standpoint. 44-0! Another shutout at home! That's 103-0 against the past two opponents. This never happens (actually BYU had a 59-0 win followed by a 44-0 win in 1985, the year after their first national title in 1984).

I couldn't wait to watch the game on replay. I got home and read all the newspapers, and talked with my friends who attended the game. They all said the same thing.

"It was pretty boring."

What!?!?!?! How could a 44-0 landslide victory be boring? I was at the 59-0 game the previous week, and that was anything but boring. 'Twas a 3-hour celebration! Every awesome touchdown was euphoric! The suspense of the looming shutout was intense.

So, I hurried home to watch the TiVo'd version of the game. I don't know about you, but I love to watch a football game previously recorded. You can condense a 3 1/2 hour football game to just around one hour, or an episode of "Lost" or "24" or "Chuck" for those of you non-sports readers. No commercials, no pre-game, no halftime, and you don't have to listen to every stupid little quib the commentators think they have to give.

Sure enough, the game was kind of boring, even in the shorter version. I was so bored after a 27-0 first half lead, that I didn't even bother to watch the last 17 points scored after halftime. Even if Wyoming had scored, it would have been ok. Weird.

So, I decided to write about something else for the second half.

Have you ever watched an old movie you remember being so awesome as a kid, and then as you re-watch it, you can't believe how awesomely bad it was, even "Star Wars?"

This weeks movie: "Bloodsport" starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, released in 1988. One user on IMDB called it the best Martial-Arts film of the century.


Growing up as a kid, I remember thinking this movie had it all. Martial Arts, fighting, and the perfect villain named Chong Li (whom I believe was the inspiration for woman Chinese fighter Chun Li from one of the best video games ever: Street Fighter 2).

But watching it last week on TV, wow! I don't think it could have gotten any worse. It was so bad, it was great. The fighting in the movie was more scripted than a Dukes of Hazard bar fight. I was so disappointed. It felt like the producer knew that the movie would fail, but young kids would drink it up quicker than WWF wrestling. Sorry, Hulk Hogan.

He was right! I remember thinking this was the greatest thing since Thundercats. Oh, that scene where Chong Li breaks the dudes leg, and you stomach churns. I was so bummed out that they edited it out in the cable TV-version I was watching. But if this movie didn't inspire the video game Street Fighter, which then gave us Mortal Kombat, nothing else did.

This was the greatest gift ever given to boys my age. Better than Kathy Ireland playing a football kicker on a college team in "Necessary Roughness." Better than "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (the first movie). Better than Ken Griffey Jr. UpperDeck rookie baseball card. I submit that it could not get any better than this!

I'd personally like to thank the producer and director for reluctantly giving boys of the '80s the most important R rated movie of our lifetimes. Jean-Claude Van Damme owes his career ("Kickboxer," "Lionheart," "Double Team," etc.) to you, and so does Forrest Whittaker ("Species," "The Last King of Scotland" and "Hope Floats").

Just please, watch it again... for the first time. Make it an event.

Next Week: 400 possible scenarios of how BYU could make the BCS title game during its bye. Weber State plays Utah for the first time since Ron McBride gave us MAFU. Plus, No. 24 TCU at No. 2 Oklahoma could possibly be the biggest game in the history of the Mountain West Conference.

3 comments:

newby said...

"bloodsport" is officially the only van damme film i'll watch. chong li is so wicked intimidating, and he was 50 when he did that film! plus you can't beat a blind van damme channeling his jungle training, hitting the splits just at the right time, and dropping chong li with a shot to the nads from below. classic.

joN. said...

hey! is that why johnny cage has the splits crotch punch in mortal kombat?

Johnny 5 said...

Amen to newby, you have to admit, the chick in that movie was not hot at all. The only drawback to an otherwise awesomely bad movie.