KAT’s new icky pre-game ritual has Harambe rolling in his grave

Well, that’s one way to get your head in the game. Earlier today, Minnesota Timberwolves’ center Karl-Anthony Towns said his new pregame ritual to get him pumped up before games is to watch videos of gorillas… fighting to the death?!

What in the 2007 Michael Vick is going on here? Why is this the kind of thing that gets Towns pumped up for games?

Is KAT okay? Like I’m not here to judge how someone gets pumped (okay, maybe I am a little), but animal death? That’s a little suspicious. Not only is that the biggest red flag experts use for determining psychopathic tendencies in children, but it is eerily hard to find videos of that kind of stuff.

Strictly for research purposes, I tried to find videos of gorillas fighting to the death and after scrolling through a few Google and YouTube pages, there were only a few different videos that really showed any semblance of gorillas “fighting to the death.” Towns must really love watching gorillas fight because man I wouldn’t be willing to look that hard for new “gorilla deathmatch” content every day.

While I can respect Towns’s intention of watching these videos — trying to get into that “fight for your life”/”dog eat dog” mentality — this isn’t really the most normal or sane method for getting there. I’d argue that Kobe Bryant was one of the best players ever at maintaining that sort of mentality. Towns even referenced Bryant’s ability to do so in the interview:

But comparing gorillas fighting to listening to Halloween music? That’s not a comparison. That’s a justification for a pre-game ritual that KAT knows is weird and will be looked at in a disturbing light.

I’m not going to go full PETA on Towns here. If that’s what gets him going, then, I guess, power to him — but you can’t tell me that it’s not a little bit weird. Towns mentions that he wants “to see who is best in the laws of nature.” Well, I’d hate to break it to him, but that’s people. There’s a reason Planet of the Apes is a science-fiction novel/film. We are the dominant species. We are the best in the “laws of nature.” So, might I suggest watching Mike Tyson bite a slice of Evander Holyfield’s ear off or Connor McGregor take down Eddie Alvarez instead? Maybe those fights can have similar effects?