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Summer's Most Intriguing Sports Figure
08/09/06
by Clay

The greatest untold story of the summer sports scene isn't taking place on an athletic field or in the hills of France. Instead, it's occurring on the reality TV show Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat where Wes of The Real World: Austin infamy has become the summer's single most intriguing sports figure.

What's more impressive is Wes doesn't play for a legitimate team, isn't a professional athlete, has no shoe contract, models a Mohawk, has no readily discernible last name and is refreshingly honest about his disdain for fellow competitors on the television show.

If you've ever wondered what a reality series featuring Terrell Owens competing alongside and against other men and women might look like, you absolutely have to watch Real World/Road Rules Challenge. As if this weren't enough, blasphemous as it may sound, Fresh Meat is more consistently fun to watch than any other summer sport currently on television. Period.

In the beginning, there were 24 competitors (evenly divided between men and women) paired into 12 male/female teams. Every other week, one team is eliminated and the ultimate winning team receives $250,000 in cash. When Wes arrived, he was accompanied by his girlfriend Johanna, his best friend Danny and his best friend's girlfriend, Melinda. Wes wasted no time establishing his iconoclastic worldview by saying, "You are athletically worthless," to teammate Casey. As insults go, this one is succinctly destructive.

But initially, Wes was surrounded by a coterie of forgiving friends and admirers who sort of masked his isolation and insanity. Think Quincy Carter pre-Parcells. Then his friends started to leave and an already intriguing television show became more compelling.

First, Wes engaged in a screaming fit with fellow competitors that led another to say he had no idea what Wes was saying because, "I don't speak idiot." Then his girlfriend, Johanna, got so upset at his relentless badgering that she cursed at him, threw a bottle of Gatorade at him and refused to speak to Wes for the better part of a show. We're talking priceless ClayNation television.

But here is what Wes and teammate Casey have managed to accomplish: They've won four Exiles in a row. Every other week, all summer long, two teams have gone into Exile to compete against one another for the chance to stay in Australia. Wes and Casey have faced head-to-head elimination four times and both have triumphed each time. In the process, Wes has become the quintessential angry athlete who heaps scorn, condemnation, ridicule and condescension upon his fellow competitors.

Yet for all his faults, I somehow find myself returning each week to root for Wes to win. Thanks to him, I think I know what the Maloof brothers feel like when they watch Ron Artest play for their team.

And you want enemies? Oh man, does Wes have enemies. Eight people have been eliminated from the show so far. All were eliminated as a direct result of Wes' actions. Further, among the eight eliminated were Danny (his best friend), Melinda (Danny's girlfriend) and his own girlfriend, Johanna. It's as if Tony Soprano had to pick off A.J., Meadow and Carmela one by one to retain control of his empire while continuing to battle the New York mob the entire time.

Take it away, Wes: "There is a substantially great chance that I am going to go into Exile every single time. But I don't mind being the only one with enough integrity to kick these people off the continent." (Points to Wes for being one of the only contestants on the show who is aware Australia is actually a continent).

Wes taking a turn as Die Hard's John McClain: "Now it's just me that I'm fightin' for and I'll just keep pluckin' people off one at a time."

Wes as the modern Machiavellian athlete: "Casey is doing amazing, but I have to baby her or else she gets pissy. So I have to pretend to be a nice guy. I have to pretend like I'm really sensitive. When really I'm just thinking ca-ching, ca-ching."

Plus, we have some major character development going on here. For most of his stint on The Real World: Austin, Wes was a funny, drunken lout who was fond of throwing furniture into the indoor pool. Now all of a sudden, he's a ripped, Mohawk-wearing crazy man who appears to be making a run at the most consecutive hours of televised appearance without sleeves. Wes curses, fights, hurls invectives aplenty and seems to speak in public without any tone short of a scream. (He's like Stephen A. Smith with a Mohawk.) But he's impossible not to watch, and for me, impossible not to root for.

I know, I know. Right now, there are doubts aplenty rushing through your minds. One might be, "I'm too old to watch a show on MTV." Au contraire. MTV news anchor Kurt Loder is about 78 years old. So if you are 78 or younger, you are perfectly within your rights to watch this show. If you are older than 78, what do you have to lose?

Another doubt might be, "What if you're right and I enjoy the show, but don't feel comfortable telling other people about it? Will they judge me?" People will inevitably judge you for a variety of reasons. For instance, some absolute fool still believe I am not attractive enough to reside in MTV's 8th and Ocean house. These people are called "haters" and if you let these people rule your life, you end up acting like Alex Rodriguez and being so bland everyone hates you anyway.

"Okay, okay," you might say. "You've got me, Clay. But what about all the other sports currently on television? Fresh Meat really can't be better than all of them, can it?" The answer is, indisputably, yes. Other sports options:

1. The WNBA: This is a joke, right?

2. Major League Baseball: Here's my deal with regular season baseball: Each team wins 60 and loses 60. This means about 40 games end up deciding the season, only you never know when those 40 games are going to be played. Trust me, if you leave baseball behind for a month, there is about an 80 percent chance your team will go 14-16, 15-15 or, be still my heart, 16-14. Exhilarating stuff.

3. Tennis: You must mean the last week in August, which is the only week of the U.S. Open that is entirely within the summer. No thanks. Until then, no one is watching any tennis for the rest of the summer. Even Mary Carillo is bored. Carillo's still consulting her attorneys to see whether or not she can sue World Cup soccer announcer John Harkes for sounding just like her. You have to do something between now and late August. Incidentally, "You have to do something between now and then" was this close to becoming the WNBA's 2006 slogan.

4. Pants-Off Dance-Off: If you haven't watched this show at least once, it's probably because you entered the summer unaware a station called "Fuse" actually existed. Trust me, you have to watch this show. Stephanie Tanner from Full House is hosting. But this is an easy distinction. Anytime someone sitting at home determines the outcome of something (voters select the winners of the stripping competition), it isn't really a sport. So see, you can watch both.

5. Golf: Okay, you've got the British Open and the PGA Championship. Anything more and you're just fooling yourself. The British Open begins Thursday and will be airing at about 6:30 a.m. EST. You will be at work madly refreshing your computer screen to see who is winning while at the same time pretending to complete TPS reports. You'll also have the day's action on your DVR, but when you get home, like me, you'll realize there isn't that much suspense since you already know the result.

As for the PGA Championship, complete this analogy: The NHL is to the NBA, MLB, and the NFL as the (blank) is to the golf majors. If you filled in anything other than the PGA Championship here, you are lying ... or the head of the PGA.

6. Deadwood Drinking Games: This one is a tough ClayNation call -- especially because this is the final full season of Deadwood. But since ClayNation managed to anger several members of M.A.D.D. by suggesting that another name for The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party could be the Men Against Drinking O'Doul's (M.A.D.D.) Bowl, we'll take the high and mighty road and scold all of you who think it's a game to drink based on what Al Swearingen says. But if you're really, really curious what some simpleton swine are doing, here are the rules.

7. NFL training camp highlights: Only idiots who have their fantasy football drafts in July are paying attention to this and generally for only two reasons: They are rooting for their first several picks not to get injured and miss the entire season subsequently ruining their fall and because they are rooting for the first several picks of every other team to get injured and miss the entire season subsequently enhancing their fall.

Arguments to the contrary hereby eviscerated, I'll expect you to join me on Monday night to watch Wes continue his summer exploits.

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