Mike's 10 Suckiest Athletes Alive List for 2010
- Wednesday, July 21, 2010 8:02 PM
- Written By: Mike Stiriti
Back in 2008, before I dropped the dot-blogspot and moved to the official home of the 'Dise, I was motivated by sports' biggest douchebags to compile a list of the 10 Suckiest Athletes Alive.
The events of the past few months have lit a fire under my ass once again, so I think now is as good time as any to bust out an updated list. Here is the Bottom 10, a rundown of the guys who are sucking the life out of sports.
10. Pau Gasol
First he was simply Eurotrash. Then became one of the most egregious floppers in NBA history. THEN he became a Eurotrash flopper who won back-to-back titles. And just when it couldn't get any worse ...
9. Brett Favre
Fav-rah was 5th on the '08 list, but since then his annual off-season Will He?/Won't He? charade has become more of a pathetic joke than a infuriating saga. Still, the guy is egotistical beyond belief, and despite a statistically successful 2009 season, he is still an old man who will end his team's season by throwing a miserable interception at the end of a playoff game. That is a given. Plus, anybody can put up good passing numbers when the defense is stacking 8 in the box trying to stop AP.
8. Floyd Mayweather
Sure, he may have brought in more pay-per-view revenue than any other boxer, and he is probably, pound-for-pound, one of the best boxers in the history of the sweet science. But until he quits bitching and steps up and fights Manny Pacquiao he will stay on lists like this. Oh, and he's a complete asshole:
7. Albert Haynesworth
It takes a real douche to sign a $100 million contract, play like crap for a season, then demand a trade because the new coach wants to change the defensive scheme. It takes a gigantic mega-douche of epic proportions to cash a $21 million bonus check before refusing to come to camp. It makes stomping a defenseless guy in the face not look so bad anymore.
6. Michael Jordan
5. Kader Keita
Who is Kader Keita? He's that bitch on the Ivory Coast who flopped and faked an injury so shamelessly that he got some Kaka guy from Brazil suspended for a game and in the process proved once and for all what guys like me have been saying: Soccer sucks. Keita gets a spot in the top 5 because he is represents floppers everywhere. Thank God I don't have to hear anything else about his sport for another 4 years.
4. Kobe Bryant
Answer: Two championships, a few nice photo-ops with your wife and daughters, and being the crown jewel on the team that the brightest stars in Hollywood flock to see.
Question: What does it take to get people to forget that you raped a girl in 2003? Allegedly.
3. Tiger Woods
But not for the reasons you're thinking. I personally have no problem with the fact that he was cheating on his wife, nor was I surprised. What are the top 5 reasons a hot girl throws themselves at a guy? Probably, in no particular order, Money, Fame, Looks, Confidence and Money. So excuse me for not considering it breaking news when a good looking entitled billionaire who is one of the most famous people on the planet and the best at what he does is exposed for having an affair. The impressive thing was the amount of women that came forward, and if you add that to the amount of women he banged who happen to respect themselves a bit and didn't come forward then you really have a special news story. I get why it got so much coverage, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued as well, but what another man does behind clothes doors, in Vegas hotel rooms or in a Denny's parking lot is his own business, I won't vilify him for doing what 90 percent of the men in the country would have done in his situation. Hell, I think it finally humanized him, if just for the weeks until he finally spoke up.
What I'll vilify him for is the way he handled it. All the PR, the canned statements, and refusing to be a normal dude and just smile and say "Yeah, I was an idiot, I thought I could get away with it. I love my wife but I was weak and succumbed to all the awesome white tail that kept finding its way into my Bellagio suite." Then, after promising to be a better guy and a nicer golfer he was a perfect gentleman during Thursday of the Masters: thanking fans, smiling, not swearing, kissing babies. That lasted all of one day. Since then he has gone back to the robotic douche bag that he always was, he's an asshole to fans, throws his caddy under the bus when he hits a bad shot, and refuses to give a human answer to any question about his tabloid train wreck of a life.
He doesn't suck because he cheated; he's human because he cheated. He sucks because he's refused to act like a human since.
2. LeBron James
It's as if his goal of the off-season was to make it on this list. Well congrats, buddy, you achieved one of your dreams. Now as long as your other dream is to ride Dwyane Wade's coattails to a tainted championship then the rest of your life will be complete. I won't spend a lot of time grilling One of the Chosen Three because everybody in the world has been ripping him and his ego maniacal "Decision" apart. I'll just say that he showed his true colors as a guy who craves attention but knows that deep down he doesn't have that clutch "I'm going to win this game no matter what" gene that Jordan, Kobe, Duncan and his new teammate do. Now that we can't call him King James, what's the new nickname? I'm going Bishop James, or maybe Rook, not sure.
That said, don't expect me to shed a tear for Dan Gilbert. As entertaining as his drunk letter was, he needs to get off his high horse. If he thinks that is the way he is going to lure superstars to a crappy city like Cleveland, then he may need a new game plan. Step No. 1: Promise free agents that Delonte West won't bang their mom. Start there.
1. ESPN
Yeah, I know ESPN isn't technically an athlete, but if there is one thing that the previously mentioned douche bags have in common it is the constant and shameless promotion from the WWL.
I can't pinpoint a specific moment when ESPN changed from the place I get my sports news to the place that creates, promotes and sells whatever it decides should be sports news, but "The Decision" was certainly the culmination of this ridiculous trend. The company that was once the CNN of sports now has more in common with the WWE than it does with a respected news organization. Can you imagine if CNN bought the exclusive rights to the State of the Union, plugged it for a week and then had Stuart Scott interview Obama afterward? Seems ridiculous, right?
Clearly, ESPN lost its way, right around the time when it became so big that it started to become the story instead of just reporting it. It is impossible for them to be taken seriously as journalists, since they are reporting on athletes that are employees of the same organizations (NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA, PGA, etc.) of which they have multimillion-dollar television contracts with. If a high-profile athlete of one of these leagues (let's say, hypothetically, Ben Roethlisberger) was to hypothetically sexually assault a hypothetical girl, I would guess that the Sr. Producer of SportsCenter may get a call from a high-ranking member of the NFL's front office to discuss the best way to handle the delicate hypothetical situation.
And that's the problem. ESPN pays these leagues a ton of money for TV rights and in turn make a ton of money off advertising, not just during the games but during the countless promotional shows. It is impossible to provide fair and balanced coverage, which is why we need to stop taking ESPN seriously and just watch the damn games, because everything else they stand for is what sucks the most about sports.
Read more of Mike Stiriti at the original "Sports Fan Paradise" blog.
That is why it always baffles me when the public reacts so negatively to star athletes who don't act like perfect role models. At what point in these guys' lives did they sign up to be altar boys? Was it in high school when they weren't expected to go to class because of how good their jump shot was? Was it in college when girls threw themselves at whoever had the best chance of going pro? Or was it on draft day when professional organizations ignored all past indiscretions if a guy could run a 4.3 40?
I'm sure some of you are disagreeing with me. You're saying that by accepting millions of dollars in endorsements guys like Woods and Phelps have a responsibility to uphold the image that they're selling. You're right; except the responsibility is to Gatorade and Buick, not to us. Even if Joe Schmo is having an affair he most likely brings his wife to company parties, and when he walks into his boss' office to discuss a raise he doesn't preface the conversation with "Oh, before we get started I just wanted to let you know I'm cheating on my wife. Figured I'd get that out there so you didn't give me any extra money thinking I'm a good guy." Just because these guys were selling the public a product based on their "perfect" image doesn't mean they should have to apologize for the advertising campaign.