weird-sports - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights



Crazy-Ass Italian Sport Combines Rugby With Bare-Knuckle Fighting
There is a sporting event held annually in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. It is called Calcio Fiorentino, and it is an ancient form of football that is essentially rugby, but with a whole bunch of dudes just mercilessly beating the crap out of each other. ...

We Have No Idea What <em>Hip Show</em> Is, But It's The Best Thing On TV
What you are watching is a clip from a Russian MMA-based show called Hip Show: Arena Combat, which is broadcast in America on AXS TV. It's really weird....


Stay Out Of The Kitchen: Day One At The World Shuffleboard Championship
A dozen pale Norwegians seek shelter among the 200 stadium seats, mercifully covered by a roof. A young, bearded American wrings out a wet towel over his bald head. An orange-clad Dutchman creaks by, white hair poking out from beneath a Florida Gators baseball cap. Elderly Japanese men stretch agai...

What Is This Weird-Ass Sport I Saw On TV Yesterday?
Yesterday a reader tweeted at me, urging me to tune into Fox Sports Midwest where "unathletic adult men" were "racing tiny bikes around a tiny track." He wasn't lying, and I watched a good half hour without ever figuring out exactly what, or who, or where I was watching....

The Year In Weird: Here Are 38 Bizarre Sports Moments, Slowed Down And Set To Music
One one of the most intriguing elements of televised sports is that the medium can be consumed in myriad and diverse ways: some viewers engage with their favorite team's local broadcasts, others watch for outstanding individual performances, and others enjoy observing tactics and strategy courtes...

Inside The Great, Freaky Sport Of Cup-Stacking
Jeff Van Gundy joked while broadcasting this week about cup-stacking. He said he could have had a future in it. Little did he know, though, what it demanded of its competitors. Stefan Fatsis, on this week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast, explains all the terrifying details, with ...

Finally, A Triathlon For Drunken Rageaholic Gamblers
Billiards and high-stakes poker are not exactly riveting spectator sports, but you know what would make them surefire TV entertainment? If at the end of each contest, players beat the crap out of each other....

Land Of The Giants
One would think that a team with four seven-footers in the starting lineup wouldn't need a last-second shot to win. But this is the American Basketball Association, where the official rules more resemble Calvinball than anything. Why didn't someone inform us earlier that, in their finale against the...

One Shining Moment... Of Pooh Sticking
In case you missed it on SportsCenter, today continues the 23rd annual World Pooh-Sticks Championship Race in Oxfordshire, England. The Japanese have returned to defend their title against... a lot of people with nothing better to do....

The Cold-Blooded World of Competitive Kickball
Our nation's courts have recently been home to some vicious legal battles about the sport of kickball. The WAKA (World Adult Kickball Association) has beef with DCKickball about... well, I have no idea what it's about. The news here is that there are adults out there who play kickball....

There Will Be No Sheep Tackling Here, No Sir!
To close out this sleepy Monday, we bring you sport from the other side of the pond; more specifically, the banning of such. The BBC reports that in New Zealand — wait ... that's not really "the other side of the pond," is it?; sorry, we went to grade school in the United States and thusly know no...