1. Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!

Which sports do you detest watching?

Discussion in 'Tottenham Hotspur' started by Hoddle is a god, Jul 10, 2014.

  1. redwhiteandermblue

    redwhiteandermblue Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2011
    Messages:
    6,647
    Likes Received:
    2,281
    American car racing. 500 miles of cars turning left.

    I'm losing interest in all American sports but still enjoy the NFL and the baseball and hockey playoffs.

    Anything except fighting which involves judges.

    If the object of the game isn't either to get a better score or to render your opponent unconscious, it's not really a game, it's some kind of twisted show.

    Here are a few sports I'm surprised how much I like:

    I love Olympic rowing. No doubt because I used to row.

    God help me, cricket. Because I'm beginning to understand what's going on.

    Any martial arts sport. Boxing and any kind of grappling, including Olympic wrestling, judo, jujitsu I find very watchable. But MMA I have very mixed feelings about. Sometimes watching MMA consists of watching one guy beat the crap out of another, which I don't really want to see, or at least am not very comfortable seeing.

    The Olympics in general. I love the Olympics. If people competed in Olympic tiddlywinks I'd be enthralled. (Though I draw the line at anything judged.) I dream of going to Mexico for the next Winter Olympics, just because the last one was so much fun there. They showed lots of competition, very few human uninterest stories, and had commentators who were frank about their lack of technical knowledge, but were long on humor and enthusiasm.

    Olympic Ice Hockey: Second only to football (and maybe rowing) for viewing enjoyment to me, and with many of the same virtues. The NHL divides the world hockey talent pool thirty ways and misses some good players. Olympic ice hockey divides a bigger talent pool into six or seven, and puts them in bigger rinks, so it's played at a much higher level. The game is reasonably continuous, and I suspect football fans would like it if they gave it a chance.

    I like televised golf. There, I've said it. It's one of the best shot American sports. The networks manage to weave an exciting contest out of a lot of mostly non-athletes walking for ages to take one swing at a stationary ball.

    Olympic marathons. Surprisingly interesting to see who can avoid being broken by the pace.

    Funny, that's what I like about them. Human beings are massively overrated.

    Don't forget the ridiculous outfits. No principal in American sports is more sacred than the one that states that you can't play them without dressing up like a complete t**t. Though this applies to cycling as well.

    Very true. The two biggest American sports consist, essentially, of inaction. The enjoyment is spending this time trying to guess what the next play or pitch should be...or otherwise thinking along with the players. It is enjoyment of a kind, but you have to know the game quite well to have any of it. Just to begin with, if you can't tell a slider from a curve from a fastball from a change up, baseball will be no fun at all except for the biggest moments. And you need to understand the very complex and arcane rules involved in both baseball and football.
     
    #21
  2. SpursDisciple

    SpursDisciple Booking: Mod abuse - overturned on appeal
    Forum Moderator

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2011
    Messages:
    30,124
    Likes Received:
    16,887
    Have you had too much coffee?
     
    #22
  3. Milk not bear jizz

    Milk not bear jizz Grasser-In-Chief

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2013
    Messages:
    28,193
    Likes Received:
    9,998
    American Football = Sumo wrestlers in armor being asked to run at each other and collide for 20 seconds at a time- whilst one or two slightly less fat people run around with a rugby ball as a side-show. With every 20 seconds of action interrupted with 5 minutes of inaction to give presenters chance to talk about statistics.
     
    #23
  4. redwhiteandermblue

    redwhiteandermblue Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2011
    Messages:
    6,647
    Likes Received:
    2,281
    It's actually an average of five seconds, not 20. So American football is four times worse than you thought.
     
    #24
  5. littleDinosaurLuke

    littleDinosaurLuke Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2011
    Messages:
    25,619
    Likes Received:
    27,549
    Enough panning of American sports. I think if you're an aficionado, you get enjoyment from all the intricacies of the games (like cricket) but to outsiders it's all too baffling.

    Football (soccer) remains the game for the masses. Still essentially a simple game, its allure is its familiarity, universal appeal and nevedr ending drama.
     
    #25
  6. No Kane No Gain

    No Kane No Gain Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2, 2011
    Messages:
    20,582
    Likes Received:
    3,483
    Well yeah, I've never seen anyone cheering on a dog they don't have money on. It's probably a big fix but I quite like a trip to the Wimbledon dog track.

    I love nothing more than watching darts or snooker when I'm hungover. They're so easy going and relaxing, and darts is quite good drunk too actually...

    Oh and bowls! Great hangover watching :D
     
    #26
  7. weararedbonnet

    weararedbonnet Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2011
    Messages:
    2,142
    Likes Received:
    39
    Womens Tennis. If you turn off the visual and just listen to the sound you imagine your listening to a very sensual sapphic encounter.

    There was one exception last year. I had a half day, and the wife was watching Wimbledon. I wasn;t taking too much notice, but eventually got enthralled with the game. The match was between two German girls and not one of em grunted squealed or groaned. . Brilliant
     
    #27
  8. lennypops

    lennypops Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 2, 2011
    Messages:
    2,711
    Likes Received:
    604
    I can get into any sport on TV if the context is right. I once got really into watching darts. Weird.

    But golf. Come on. I always thought when I was a kid that the day would come when I would be able to follow the ball's flight. But now I'm pretty sure they just aim the cameras up at the sky and hope for the best. Tiny white balls traveling really fast against a mainly white, cloudy (if it's in the UK) background is not fun.
     
    #28
  9. NSIS

    NSIS Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2011
    Messages:
    36,067
    Likes Received:
    14,555
    I have the same problem with ice hockey. When I first came to live in the states, I thought that would be the game I could watch and understand. But, all you saw was the hitting the puck, never where it went - that was just a blur.

    As for Baseball, I could watch the last one or two innings but the rest was just sooooo boring!..
     
    #29
  10. Inda

    Inda Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2011
    Messages:
    2,662
    Likes Received:
    749
    Judo is hard to watch. I've done Judo and still remember most of the moves, but it's all too technical as a sport. Someone wins with a single throw and just looks like the other guy fell over. Boring. Someone needs to get winded, or choked, or have an arm bent in the wrong direction, but it never happens.

    Crown green bowling. Watch it like you watch snooker and it's golden. I'm amazed at the skill involved.

    Sailing. How can people watch that? You can't even tell who's winning or where the finish line is.
     
    #30

  11. Fencing, anyone?

    Nope. I thought not.
     
    #31
  12. Milk not bear jizz

    Milk not bear jizz Grasser-In-Chief

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2013
    Messages:
    28,193
    Likes Received:
    9,998

    I love Ice Hockey- its the one sport I enjoyed watching after moving to the US... don't watch it on TV- but used to have a local minor-league team in the city and I used to go to a half-dozen games a season or so. It's easy enough to see the puck in the stadium.

    Only reason I stopped is because the teams learnt they got more spectators by fighting... so there would be at least one staged fight per game... it got old quickly... I wanted to see the hockey not the fighting. If I wanted a fight I'd go watch boxing.

    (now there's a boring spectator sport)
     
    #32
  13. NSIS

    NSIS Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2011
    Messages:
    36,067
    Likes Received:
    14,555
    Yeah, I know what you mean. This is 30 odd years ago, but I used to go to Blackhawks games when I lived in Chicago. Much better, you could see all the action. As for the fighting, yeah there was plenty of that too!....I saw one game where one of the player's came through the gate, up the steps, and proceeded to beat **** out of this spectator who had been heckling him!...
     
    #33
  14. littleDinosaurLuke

    littleDinosaurLuke Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2011
    Messages:
    25,619
    Likes Received:
    27,549
    I'm not sure women's tennis is boring

    The world no. 3 used to be fascinating to watch :emoticon-0110-tongu

    simona-halep-breasts.jpg
     
    #34
  15. NSIS

    NSIS Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2011
    Messages:
    36,067
    Likes Received:
    14,555

    That's a "very healthy looking" female!...:D
     
    #35
  16. remembercolinlee

    remembercolinlee Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2012
    Messages:
    35,732
    Likes Received:
    40,799
    that bike racing round the oval, slanted, wood, indoor track...they go round like snails for 95% of the race and then go ****ing mental...seriously, WTF?
     
    #36
  17. Inda

    Inda Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2011
    Messages:
    2,662
    Likes Received:
    749
    22 grown men chasing a ball for 90 minutes? WTF?

    Sorry. Forgot where I was for a minute.
     
    #37
  18. maggie blanchflower

    maggie blanchflower Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2012
    Messages:
    873
    Likes Received:
    1,903
    Boxing. Hate to see people deliberately hurt each other.

    Love most other sport apart from the American stuff. Glued to Le Toure atm. Gutted re Cav & Froome. Looking forward to The Open next week.

    Nice being retired, plenty of time to enjoy all the sport!
     
    #38
  19. totsfan

    totsfan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2011
    Messages:
    10,317
    Likes Received:
    122
    Can't understand why they fight,with all that padding etc,how can they feel it!
     
    #39
  20. humanbeingincroydon

    humanbeingincroydon Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 28, 2011
    Messages:
    69,798
    Likes Received:
    30,589
    Cycling, because there's a direct corrolation between British cyclists winning things and more and more cyclists being a menace to pedestrians and motorists alike.
     
    #40

Share This Page