Let's Get Ready To Grumble !

Monday night it was proved to me, once again, why our society is on a slow, cloudy spiral down the toilet. The proof? A new television show called The Contender.

“Why do you insist on poisoning your mind with such trite dribble,” you ask? I don’t know… I simply don’t know. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment.

This is another “reality” show forced down the throat of the viewing public. I normally don’t even give something like this a 1^st look, let alone a 2nd, or an entire viewing. (sigh) In this case, I think I knew ahead of time that it would give me fodder for this site.

For those of you much, much smarter than I am, who didn’t subject yourselves to The Contender, let me share my pain.

The Contender is a reality based show that focuses around the lives of 16 skilled pugilists, punching for a chance to fight at a Las Vegas casino for a 1 million dollar purse, thus “changing their lives forever.” Some of you may be thinking, “Ok, that sounds mildly entertaining.” Wait, it gets worse. The show is hosted by ex-boxing champ Sugar Ray Leonard and ex-movie flopper Sylvester Stallone.

Like every other pointless reality show, the boxers were split up into teams: West side and East side. Apparently, they are going to start a gangster rap war at some point. Each week there will be a 5 round fight, which ultimately results in the losing boxer going home. In addition, they have to perform tasks as a team. The team that wins the task chooses who fights that week. The losing team has no say in the matter. The advantage to winning, obviously, is the winning team can match a better fighter from their team with a worse fighter from the other, in hopes their boxer will win the fight that night and send someone from the opposing team home.

The humor comes not in the tasks, or the struggles of these promising young fighters, but in the dialogue between everyone on the show. For instance, Leonard and Stallone come into the house where all the boxers are staying, for a motivational speech. One of the fighters tells Stallone how great Rambo was, and then asked him how he could ever agree to be in Oscar. I would have asked what the hell Stallone was thinking with Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot, but hey, he’s on the right track.

Stallone, instead of getting pissed which any normal person would have done, retorts, “Aaaaaeeeeeeeee, yo. Well, how do you think I felt having to be in the movie? I’m like a truck engine with my hat… I gotta go sew up my arm.” All the while, Leonard, whose brain is scrambled and one eye shaken loose from being hit too many times, is always chiming in with lines that make no sense at all.

Like, “Hey, just remember, to become a champ, you have to make it.”

What the hell does that mean? Jesus, they might as well get John Madden in there to start circling random crap on the screen while Sugar Ray mumbles.
“See, John. These fighters, they have to have heart. Cause that is what will take them all the way. That and being better than the rest.”

Madden starts drawing a heart on the chest of the boxer, then draws a bunch of arrows point from his heart down to his feet.

“That’s right Sugar. See, if, uh, if, uh, if, if, if, uh, if the boxer’s heart is right here… then uh, you got your feet right here. That right there, that’s gonna, that’s gonna, that’s gonna be where the athlete gets his foot. With the flare ups and BOOM, tough actin’ Tenactin.”

The trainer wasn’t much better. I think Stallone cast him because he looked like Mickey’s little brother. The team challenge this week was for them to carry big logs up a 1 mile hill in the middle of a 100 degree heat way. The entire time, Mickey’s brother is riding in the back of a pick up truck shouting things at the boxers. Towards the end of the challenge, the teams have to unlock a pad lock using numbers on the road signs they passed as they were carrying the other logs up the hill, in order to get the last log. One team got there way ahead of the other. The problem was, he forgot the combination. So the trainer is screaming at him.

“Come on, you’re way ahead. Open the lock. It’s a combination lock. You gotta remember the combination. That’s what it’s for… that’s your job.”

As if the boxer was standing there, befuddled, wondering if he should try to open it, or sing it a song.

So then comes fight time. Before the fight they showed random clips of celebrities who were attending the fight. I’m not sure of the point behind that, but it almost seemed like they used stock photography of the actors they stole from somewhere else and edited them in to seem like they were really there. First it was a shot of Melanie Griffith smiling. Then there was a shot of James Caan lying in bed with two broken feet with Kathy Bates sitting next to him. Then they cut to Mel Gibson covered in blue paint screaming “Freedom!”

Stallone and Leonard are sitting next to each other in the first row. For the length of the fight, they would make comments to each other. The funny thing was neither of them were making any sense because they would respond to each other’s comments, only with something completely unrelated. For instance, Sugar Ray says he was surprised by one fighter, to which Stallone replies by yelling, “flip the jab, Tommy.” I kept expecting him to start punching random people in the audience, mimicking the fighters in the ring.

All in all, I’d say, watch The Contender. It proves to be this season’s new break out comedy.