Trashing the garbage of the XFL

Sporting News, The, May 21, 2001 by Jay Mariotti

It might shock you, but I own a Limp Bizkit CD. I drive a silver sports car and recently revved it to 110 on a Chicago expressway. I notice tanned women in thongs as much as any other guy. I sometimes buy stuff at Banana Republic.

I am 40 and legitimately cool, not dysfunctionally influenced like the Kevin Spacey creep in American Beauty. Point is, I'm not some crusty fuddy-duddy unwilling to try new life experiences, which is why I have a certain hip credibility when it comes to 18-to-34 demographical experiments such as the XFL.

And let me tell you, dude, the thing reeked.

A note of gratitude goes out to the masses for smacking down this farcical disgrace to civilized culture. My faith in the American condition has been restored, seeing our country separate the phony world of Vince McMahon from the real world of serious sports competition. The WWF could have saved about $35 million and NBC about $30 million if they'd just done a little research about people. Turns out we weren't ready for live cameras in showers, Jesse Ventura at the mike and He Hate Me on the back of a jersey, not to mention bad football at a time when football is king. You never know about the social breakdowns of future generations, but ours passed a critical litmus test. The XFL will be remembered as the Ex-FL, X-tinct after three months.

Deal with it, Beavis and Butthead. "We tried to figure out every conceivable way to make this work," McMahon says. "We came up with different combinations and permutations to try to make it work."

The best permutation would have been sticking to wrestling. I'm still deciding what my lasting image will be: "cheerleaders" being tracked in from a strip club to sit in a hot tub at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, or sideline announcer Mike Adamle being conked in the head with a flying whiskey bottle. The shame is that so many players and coaches were sold a bill of goods, convinced by the schlocky McMahon and NBC's Dick Ebersol that the league had long-term viability. "What do I say to the families? We thought we were going to be here," says Galen Hall, former coach of the Orlando Rage.

What the XFL had was a curiosity window of one week in early February, the post-Super Bowl hangover period when no one feels like watching basketball or hockey. Blitzed by wrestling-style hype, we were kind enough to give the league a chance, like dinner at an edgy new restaurant.

Quickly, we sensed we were eating skunk. Those of us who love football realized the product was weak and unwatchable and the announcers were shills. Those who love wrestling realized there weren't enough gaudy costumes, thrown chairs, fake sex acts, swinging sledgehammers and devil worshipers. Still in denial, Ebersol says the decent first-week ratings indicated interest. "It showed there was an appetite for football and the XFL," he says. "We just didn't respond to what the public wanted us to do. They came--they just didn't come back."

They didn't because there is only one NFL. How many leagues have flopped trying to compete? It was funny to hear Basil DeVito Jr., XFL president and a McMahon crony, challenge my doubts about the league in mid-February. "When I come to Chicago for the Enforcers opener, I'm going to take you out for dinner," he says. "I'll order the finest meal in the house, and you'll be eating crow." The other day, DeVito was seen microwaving a can of Spam with McMahon. That was after WWF stock, priced at $19.20 a share the first week of February, fell 32 percent to $13.15.

There are genuine reasons why we watch sports in America. We appreciate sincere and honest competition. We enjoy highlevel athleticism. We respect the pomp and tradition of it all, the sophisticated strategies and dignity of our legends. We embrace timelessness, taking our children to games the way our fathers took us. Amid such a time-honored backdrop, the XFL was a nuclear slimeball, pandering aimlessly to McMahon's warped mind-set that young people have no attention span beyond wrestling and its sex-and-violence trappings. The product was minor league, featuring too many NFL rejects and too many has-been coaches, tossed together in tacky sitcom scenes dominated by near-naked cheerleaders, heavy-breathing announcers and have-no-life crowds known to heave beer cans and food at hired hands.

"The crowd? I appreciate them coming out, but I don't appreciate them throwing chicken bones at us," says Chicago running back John Avery, who escaped his football prison by landing an NFL contract with the Cowboys.

The triumph in the XFL's demise is that McMahon failed to wedge his way into the young-male consciousness. He was rejected like a stupid video game. Turns out kids are smart enough to weed out bad programming and do other things on Saturday nights. Even they had to smirk at a staged locker room scene starring a Las Vegas quarterback and a cheerleader. "Ryan Clement knows how to score," she cooed.

"A lot of heavy breathing in there," the play-by-play announcer interrupted. "It sounds like a crank call."