| So here’s my dilemma with the XFL. I
believe that the World Wrestling Federation is garbage. I’ve tried to watch it on
occasion through the years because I’m fascinated by the devotion some folks feel
toward it, and I’d love to understand why. But every time I’ve attempted to
watch the WWF, I’ve been bored beyond belief and found the product to be totally
repulsive. But hey, I’m smart enough to realize that one man’s garbage is
another man’s treasure. So what if I’m only watching the XFL because it’s
my job, and I’d never consider wasting my free time on it? I’m a 48-year-old
with a portfolio — not the guy Vince McMahon, the WWF, Dick Ebersol and NBC are
looking for.
The XFL deserves to be judged on its own merits. But — and this is a huge but
— the more it’s painted with the same kind of trash its overseers have nourished
in the WWF, the more it deserves to be branded as the same kind of lowbrow farce.
NBC’s broadcast of the XFL’s opening weekend was terrible, but the second
week was a marked improvement.
While watching Week One, I kept asking myself one question over and over: If fans
wanted to watch an entire game from just above and behind the quarterback’s head,
then why don’t endzone seats cost a lot more than those on the 50-yard line? Somebody
at NBC must have asked the same question because I saw very little of that camera angle in
Week Two. The network also figured out that there is little or no entertainment value in
being in the locker room at halftime, and while they take some getting used to, all those
shots on the field and in the huddle do give the viewer a feeling of being more a part of
the action when used more sparingly and tastefully.
On the other hand, the clowns in the NBC broadcast booth have to go. Listening to Jim
Ross and Jesse Ventura is like listening to three hours of fingernails scratching a
blackboard. I could perhaps tolerate them if they had the slightest clue what the game of
football is all about. We all understood after the first 20 minutes of the season that
there are no fair catches in the XFL. And, contrary to what the announcers keep telling
us, the XFL players aren’t playing "real football" or
"smash-mouth" football or hitting anywhere near as hard, often or as cleanly as
players in the NFL, the Big Ten, the Big 12 or the Southeastern Conference. The truth is
that there are some pretty good athletes who at times can be entertaining.
I can’t tell if the women on display are professional cheerleaders or simply have
the appearance of members of the world’s oldest profession. The direction the league
goes in this regard the next few weeks will tell us a lot about what McMahon and NBC are
really trying to sell us. Actually, I think we know what McMahon wants, but how low is NBC
prepared to go?
So let’s get to the bottom line. The climax of the Week Two Chicago-Los Angeles
overtime game was definitely entertaining. And the XFL’s overtime rules are better
than the NFL’s. But was the game fixed? I’d say no.
We know the WWF is fixed, but I don’t think you can fix a football game since
there are too many variables. But you can manipulate the outcome, and I think that’s
just what happened in the Enforcers-Xtreme game.
Trailing 25-13 with about 7:00 remaining, the L.A. team completed a pass at
Chicago’s 38-yard line. Two flags were thrown, one for interference and one for a
late hit. In the XFL games I’ve watched in varying degrees, I’ve seen about 25
pass-interference infractions and at least a dozen blatant late hits, and not one was
called. The late hit that was called in this instance tacked on 15 yards to the Chicago
23. On the other dozen or so late hits that I’ve seen in which no flags were thrown,
replays were shown on almost every one, sometimes two or three on the same play, along
with nauseating commentary on how this is the XFL. But I saw no late hit on this play, no
replay and heard nothing at all from the announcers.
Three plays later, L.A. QB Tommy Maddox hit WR Damon Dunn of L.A. in the endzone,
Chicago DB Corey Ivy annihilated Dunn with the best hit in an XFL game to date, and Dunn
and the ball both hit the ground. The way I saw it, it was an incomplete pass. But the
officials signaled a touchdown, the announcers raved about the incredible catch, and the
extra point was run with no replay. After the extra point, we got one replay of the pass,
which clearly fell incomplete after Ivy’s big-time hit. Next thing we know, a
sideline announcer is asking Dunn how he held on to the ball. The problem was that he
didn’t. Nobody ever even mentioned that possibility, and throughout the rest of the
broadcast, we continued to see replay after replay, but we never again saw what should
have been highlighted as a signature moment of what the XFL tells us it’s supposed to
be all about.
In addition, on what proved to be the winning score, the Chicago defensive back
covering the receiver who caught the touchdown looked like a punch-drunk fighter taking a
dive. Of course, I’ve seen NFL corners look like that on occasion as well.
Was the game fixed, manipulated or just poorly officiated? I don’t know, but with
McMahon involved, you would have to have your head so far in the sand you’d be in
China not to at least consider the ugly possibilities. At least for the short run, it
should be truly interesting to see where the XFL goes from here.
Back to my dilemma.
How will Pro Football Weekly cover the XFL? As long as the games are true
competitions and enough of our readers want to follow them, we’ll cover them, and
we’ll do it more in-depth and better than anybody else.
That decision is truly up to our readers. But if it turns out the fix is on, or even
being attempted, you won’t find anything at all about the XFL in the print edition of
PFW or on its Web site.
That’s up to Ebersol and McMahon. |
