Vince McMahon and NBC will have a lot of thinking to do over the next few months. The controversial billionaire and the uncontroversial multi-billion dollar conglomerate will have to come to terms with the loss of 35 million dollars, but more importantly, the disappointment of the XFL's failure, the end of "the end of pansy football." I share in their shock and confusion; how could an 11th hour organized collection of bad football players in predominantly small markets that started playing the week after the Super Bowl be so unsuccessful?
After all, the first set of games posted a 10.4 Nielsen rating, more than any NHL hockey game (I didn't know anyone watched hockey). I think the realization that most people came to a week after the Super Bowl was that if they weren't already tired of football after a full college and NFL season, they definitely grew tired watching the performance of the New York/ New Jersey Hitmen, who most Midwestern high school teams could take out on a bad day. The ratings would slip thenceforth until the XFL became first the lowest rated sport in prime time television, then the lowest television program in prime time history. Perhaps its biggest shortcoming was that it never lived up to its "smashmouth, in your face" expectations. The best they could do was interview players like 'He Hate Me' after touchdowns, upon which they would sputter unprofound and incoherent phrases like "He hate me, but I scored." Another weakness of the XFL was that NFL fans watching the game inevitably uttered the words, "Look! It's (fill in washed up player)! The last time I saw him was when he got cut five years ago by (fill in bad team)!"
My favorite moment of the season might have been when commentator Jesse Ventura tried to incite a fight with one of the XFL coaches, calling him "a pussy" after the coach settled on a game-winning field goal instead of going for a touchdown. Ventura was soon fired, and he returned to governing Minnesota. While NBC was wringing its hands at McMahon for the abysmal ratings, McMahon explained that on Saturday night, the young XFL male fans were out trying to score with XFL female fans, which is why no one was at home watching the game. This was McMahon in one of his more subdued moments, before he nearly attacked Bob Costas in an HBO interview.
Personally, I am beside myself with the loss of the XFL because of the rivalry it would have spawned. The XFL, you might remember, was created to address the shortcomings of the NFL. So what if Fox and NFL football had gotten together and forged the SLXWF (the Substantially Less Xtreme Wrestling Federation), a non-smashmouth answer to the WWF? This league would be based on adapting the traits of the NFL and applying them to the over-the-top, in your face aspects of the WWF. For example, all matches would be very slow and drawn out, with commercial break every three or four minutes. Wrestlers would be paid millions and millions of dollars, and if they were still unhappy, could trade their personalities for a new one with a better chance of contending for the championship. The SLXWF would ban speeches entirely, along with bandanas, skullcaps, and post-match victory dances. They would launch a crusade against the sexist tradition of scantily clad women wrestlers, but would instead hire scantily clad cheerleaders and put them at ringside. The wrestlers would predominantly be black, but their managers would almost all be white, even if they were less qualified than potential black managers. And in response to Wrestlemania, the SLXWF would have Superwrestlemania, an overhyped spectacle in which the matches would suck and a halftime show would display a hybrid of washed-up rockers and talentless young pop singers butchering classic tunes.
In short, was I really heartbroken at the prospect of no more smashmouth football? No. From the opening minutes of the first XFL game, I knew the league was doomed; no alternate camera angles or behind the scenes investigations could overcome a professional sports league laden with mediocre skill and talent. But I stood behind the XFL from the outset because it sought to bring a sorely needed breath of fresh air to professional football, which has done no better than its professional counterparts in baseball and basketball to curb the influx of greedy players and owners, a trend that adversely affects the only people that really matter, the fans. Although the XFL made the economic mistake of playing its games on Saturday nights, not having a long enough preseason to prepare the players, and marketing its league through its cheerleaders, it brought a lot of good ideas to professional sports: capping salaries at $40,000, rewarding players for team victories, putting cameras on coaches to hear what goes between plays, and attempting to create a closer relationship between the players and the fans. I hope that these innovations do not go the way of the "He Hate Me" jerseys. And as for the SLXWF, I dare Fox and the NFL to try it- for they will learn two important lessons: don't mess with success, and some people like it extreme.
