Maybe it’s because I fit perfectly into the demographic that they’re searching for, but I find the X-games enthralling. I remember when I first heard of them, I was 14 and into rollerblading every day. I was amazed that ESPN would be covering and promoting sports that I was interested in. Looking back on old clips it’s easy to see how far they’ve come. They did a little piece on the word “extreme” before the start of competition this year. It was a little bit BS because I’ve never actually heard anyone use that word, it’s kind of like hearing your parents talk about “gangsta” rap… in 2004.
But the opening event “Skateboard Big Air” has got to be one of the definitions of extreme. It’s so crazy it makes professional skateboarders scared. When I was watching last year and saw Jake Brown fall 40 feet out of the sky and land on the flatbottom I was sure I just saw somebody die on TV. I called Charlie into the room and told him he HAD to watch this, because “I’m sure this guy is dead”. He wasn’t… he WALKED AWAY.
If you haven’t seen it check this out.
I knew this year they would put the hype machine on overdrive because Jake was coming back to the competition (Jerome Bettis is from Detroit). But seeing the look on his face when he was about to take his first run on the ramp was insane. I thought for sure he was going to say… “OK, I can’t do this, later!” But not only did he do it, he landed almost the same run… on his first try. So after I thought that would be the highlight a few runs later Danny Way absolutely got destroyed on the coping of the quarter pipe then did a front flip 20 feet down and landed on his back and then slid lifelessly into the middle of the ramp. Again I was sure that he broke both his shins and developed “floppy leg syndrome” (Willis Mcgahee, horrible Youtube clips, etc). But after a few minutes with medical… HE WALKED AWAY. Not only that… HE CAME BACK to take his next runs. AND LANDED the same trick he just got KILLED on.
Really I can’t be clear enough, this was the best thing I’ve watched on TV since the NCAA title game. So intense, So huge, So scary. The tricks just kept getting better and bigger and you weren’t sure at any moment if someone was going to die. This event is like the MMA of the X-games… really it’s more than that, it’s like the RUNNING MAN of the X-Games. Eventually someone is going to die or be paralyzed in this event. But HOLY DAMN if it’s not exciting.
Announcer – “Danny are you going to take another run?”
Danny Way – “I’m going to take all the runs“
The Terminator has nothing on Danny Way. PROPS TO MR. WAY!
Later