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Ian Smith: Help me understand the appeal of 'sickening, saddening' wannabe sports
Ian Smith • May 28th, 2025 10:30 am
Photo: RUNIT
The sermon today is a plea, really, a plea for help.
Help me understand the upside, the good of developing activities, because I refuse to call them sports, like 'run it straight' and backyard fighting.
One tragic death already, God knows how many head and upper-body injuries. A glance on social media gives a very clear indication of the growing numbers of these events. The saddening, alarming sound of the thuds in contact, and the enthusiastic support of the demise and suffering of the participants is almost sicker than the activity itself - and in fact, probably is. Just the thing our kids of today should be inspired by and there are plenty of them at close hand to see the carnage.
If you seriously believe there's good in this stuff apart from the pitiful prize money which would scarcely cover the collective medical bills and pending funerals, then surely you've already come off second best in one of these contests yourself.
Seems to me, there's a few would-be Dana Whites out there, amateurs, floating around these parts with quite a bit of pull because they don't appear to lack the participants.
Teen dies from serious head injury sustained in 'run it straight' game | Sport Nation
Do they get waivers signed beforehand exempting themselves from liability, because who's in line here when things will inevitably go wrong?
Yeah, I played bull rush at school. People are comparing it to bull rush. From memory, ours was more about speed and elusiveness than serious contact, so to me it's incomparable to this latest fad.
For the life of me, I just can't see one good thing about the dark clouds that are approaching on the horizon.
Tell me I am wrong or justify it. I need some help. Are my observations wrong? It's almost impossible to police and somehow they're getting the blame for this as well; what happens in our own backyards.
So common sense may have to prevail to curtail this stuff sooner rather than later. That's if it hasn't already been bashed out of you by now.
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