The wacky world of sport

On this week’s Let’s Talk Sport the Today’s Group, Liam Emerton is joined by 4RO’s Aaron Stevens to talk about the weird and wonderful world of sport.

The boys lash out at Harry Potter, imagine Brandon Smith rolling down a hill and even bicker over World Wrestling Entertainment.

Liam: We were chatting about some weird sports on CQ Today this week and I thought we were going through quite a bit.

Firstly, is there one that immediately springs to mind when you hear about weird sports?

Aaron: I love sports, both of us, we’re fascinated by sports, but isn’t it great when you’re flipping through the telly and you find something and you’re like, what’s going on?

I’m a big fan of some sports that are real sports that you don’t necessarily watch regularly.

Darts is fantastic when they shout “One hundred and eighty” in a British accent.

I’m hooked on darts and throwing them with a beer in hand is the perfect sport.

As you go through some of the weird and wonderful sports, it’s amazing how many are done differently just by inserting the word “beer” somewhere.

You can take almost any sport in the world and put beer in it anywhere and it gets even more interesting.

I read about the beer mile which is basically just a running race with beer.

And of course the very famous Beer Pong which has become a worldwide competitive sport.

Liam: Beer pong has become such a big thing everywhere. I remember playing it when I was 18.

I don’t know when it started to be a big deal, you’d know more than me, but it’s been a big deal since I grew up.

There are huge competitions for $100,000 for winning a beer pong tournament.

And it’s great that a sport like this can grow out of a backyard game and we were just talking about the movie BASEketball a few months ago and I’m sure there will be a league based on that movie out there somewhere .

Another one that comes to mind and made my list thanks to one of our journalists, Khrysti, was Quidditch, the Harry Potter sport that has become a real-world phenomenon.

And when I went to university, the first open house I had down in Wollongong, the university Quidditch team was there trying to get people to sign up.

They ran around on broomsticks and threw a ball through some hoops.

But it’s absolutely bizarre what you can do with films or other influences for sports.

Aaron: Well I can’t believe you mentioned Quidditch because it was on my list too.

And we didn’t talk beforehand, we just gave each other a few categories.

And I’m telling you, it SHOULD NOT be in my sports category.

If you’re flying high in the air on a broomstick chasing that little flying thing, you’re doing the right thing, call it Quidditch.

But you can’t just walk around on a broomstick thinking you’re playing it.

You can’t just take something from a movie and recreate the sport if it’s not how it’s in the movie.

Is that fair enough?

Liam: Sure mate, the risk Harry Potter takes flying around so high in the air is totally different.

What they do is play NRL without the ball!

You just run around with an invisible ball and say you bounce it back every time.

Aaron: What about the cheese roll? I love the sport of cheese rolling.

I love cheese so I think I would be great at this sport. You watch these competitions every year and it doesn’t seem like a lot.

As long as your cheese hits the bottom and you follow your cheese, you win.

At the end there is something for everyone, because you can eat cheese!

Liam: I love the cheese roll idea. Would Brandon Smith be good at this sport?

I’d love to see the cheese involved because that’s what it’s named for!

Aaron: He would be the cheese. You would surely roll him down the hill.

Liam: Haha, you might think.

I love these sports because I always wonder how did it start?

Was it just two people who decided to one day roll cheese down a hill and then they started to build a following and it just got bigger and bigger from there.

I love it because it’s a sport for everyone and that’s what sport is about.

Speaking of sports, we love Aaron, this one might be at the other end of your list, but I think it’s one of my favorite sports and I think a lot of people wouldn’t call it a sport, and that’s WWE.

It’s wrestling! I love it, I get it, it’s wrong, it’s made up, but it’s a great sport full of great athletes.

Most people are ex-NFL players, maybe MMA, and they’re running around a ring, it’s great.

I watched a 60 minute game the other day and it was absolutely phenomenal.

I get that they don’t really hit each other, but some of the performances and moves they put on in front of a massive crowd are amazing to watch.

Aaron: Well, is it sports or just acting?

Is there a competition, is there really a winner or loser?

Are you saying Rocky the movie is a sport? That’s boxing, but they’re just playing and for show, aren’t they?

Liam: You could say that, but there is still a referee, there are winners and losers, there are championships.

You can watch the UFC and it’s clearly a sport, it’s more professional mixed martial arts and it’s as real as it gets.

But from my perspective, WWE is a sport because it’s such an athletic thing.

If you stuff anything you can really get hurt and I don’t think that happens in acting unless it’s the stuntman.

It’s called Sports Entertainment Aaron, so it depends where you draw the line!

Aaron: There you go, I’ll tell you another one that I’ve come across that I haven’t seen in years and it’s one of those sports that they do in Europe.

You have to appreciate the sheer talent of these athletes, that’s the caber toss.

They are very tall men and women who carry around huge logs, like on trees, and throw them.

It’s like a spear, but the sticks are 20 to 30 times bigger. You see them in action and it’s amazing to see them just wearing them.

And then they throw them in the air, so Caber Toss is amazing.

Liam: I don’t think I’ve ever seen it played. I have to go back and watch this.

They are the athletes who are strong men and women like my aunt, Greetings to Aunt Meg!

I love that some sports are as confusing with their rules and regulations as Quidditch is, but other sports have a certain simplicity, don’t they?

Throwing a log as far as possible is as easy and as brutal as it comes.

You know it just came from two buddies in the backyard and has grown into a phenomenon.

And there’s a newer sport that has come in with some controversy and that’s the Power Slap League.

Did you see this in action?

Aaron: It’s straight out of the sheds from the Wests Magpies days!

Liam: Tommy Raudonikis would have been a pro in the sport.

There’s simplicity in sport, there’s stupidity in sport and this is just a mixture of all of that.

Pure slaps, absolutely amazing to watch and cringe every time someone gets hit.

It amazes me that someone would come up with a sport where they say, hey, how about we hit each other and whoever gets knocked out loses.

It’s as simple as it comes.

It’s straight out of a 6 year old playbook about seeing who can hit harder, right?

Aaron: You’re absolutely right and I won’t be in this sport, that’s for sure.