IGX

Watching a powerlifting meet is about as exciting as watching old people fuck.

BobW wrote:Watching a powerlifting meet is about as exciting as watching old people fuck.

No it's not. Watching old people fuck is way more exciting.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:.At the end of the day, some people with good kinesthetic awareness play your team sports but the best of the best end up in real sports where their talent is highly prized, grappling, surfing, motocross, skateboarding.....

....Truly honorable sports recognize and instill a lifelong passion for play. Soccer is one....

So "real sport" is all individual and not team-based? Not so in Europe. Soccer players like Messi make tens of millions a year and play in front of 90,000 people a week (plus television). If you're talented in Europe (or South America) you play soccer. Or rugby. Or cricket. Or ice hockey. You don't do powerlifting. That's my point. The prestige in representing England, Argentina, France, Germany etc in soccer is incalculable. As are the financial rewards compared to other sports. Kids have heroes and follow them and for most, that's a team sport involving a ball.

I would have thought baseball, pro-football and basketball also attract most talented kids in the US for the same reasons.

LOL at you thinking soccer is honourable. It's a cess pool. Crooked agents, managers and players.

i cannot dismiss any of the PL meet complaints. The average meet is a horrible experience.

However, the Biggest Bench on the River Meets ouside of Baton Rouge i have done, and when the WPO was doing the PL Meet and Bench for Cash at the Arnold, are the high end of what PL can be. Fast meets, big crowds, great announcers, big lifting.

Hard to watch anything else, even for me.

you guys have really ruined this thread

Ed Zachary wrote:Billy comes out with a "today's powerlifters are pussies" or "powerlifting today sucks" or other self hating nonsense article on regular basis to keep his low level of notoriety.

He said nothing of the sort. Just that watching it isn't exciting, which is why there aren't large crowds at meets.

protobuilder wrote:

Ed Zachary wrote:Billy comes out with a "today's powerlifters are pussies" or "powerlifting today sucks" or other self hating nonsense article on regular basis to keep his low level of notoriety.

He said nothing of the sort. Just that watching it isn't exciting, which is why there aren't large crowds at meets.

Have you not read any of his previous so called articles?

He's always harping on how nothing compares to the old days.

And yes I agree that wathing powerlifting sucks but I can't say I didn't enjoy watching Ed Coan lift on ESPN2 at 3 AM back in the day.

powerlifter54 wrote:i cannot dismiss any of the PL meet complaints. The average meet is a horrible experience.

However, the Biggest Bench on the River Meets ouside of Baton Rouge i have done, and when the WPO was doing the PL Meet and Bench for Cash at the Arnold, are the high end of what PL can be. Fast meets, big crowds, great announcers, big lifting.

Hard to watch anything else, even for me.

Strongman is the same way - unless it's been edited and condensed for TV. Live action strongman is an oxymoron.

What a duck says wrote:It's niche because it's hard, as are most things worth doing. It also demands a focused attention to get good, something lacking in our techy ADD world these days. PL doesn't lend itself well (for most) to being "just a hobby".

Exactly. It's not like fishing, softball, bowling, or golf where middle aged men can just throw their gear in a car and go.

Someone said PL was "mismanaged as a spectator sport" - I disagree. It's just not a spectator-friendly sport period. Doesn't help that meets are sometimes 12 hours long.

powerlifting is not popular because there are no internal combustion engines.

you want popular: nascar.

ford and chevy are the great athletes of the 21st century. they can outrun bolt and outpull bolton.

No money in it.

I can sum it up in 3 words: World Record Holder

Ed Zachary wrote:

protobuilder wrote:

Ed Zachary wrote:Billy comes out with a "today's powerlifters are pussies" or "powerlifting today sucks" or other self hating nonsense article on regular basis to keep his low level of notoriety.

He said nothing of the sort. Just that watching it isn't exciting, which is why there aren't large crowds at meets.

Have you not read any of his previous so called articles?

He's always harping on how nothing compares to the old days.

I read his posts damn near daily and he says the exact opposite, that things are not any different now than before and he rips the old farts that show up to whine about the evolution of the sport (and tehre are plenty of those old farts, whining about how they did things differently in their day)

Gorbachev wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:.At the end of the day, some people with good kinesthetic awareness play your team sports but the best of the best end up in real sports where their talent is highly prized, grappling, surfing, motocross, skateboarding.....

....Truly honorable sports recognize and instill a lifelong passion for play. Soccer is one....

So "real sport" is all individual and not team-based? Not so in Europe. Soccer players like Messi make tens of millions a year and play in front of 90,000 people a week (plus television). If you're talented in Europe (or South America) you play soccer. Or rugby. Or cricket. Or ice hockey. You don't do powerlifting. That's my point. The prestige in representing England, Argentina, France, Germany etc in soccer is incalculable. As are the financial rewards compared to other sports. Kids have heroes and follow them and for most, that's a team sport involving a ball.

I would have thought baseball, pro-football and basketball also attract most talented kids in the US for the same reasons.

LOL at you thinking soccer is honourable. It's a cess pool. Crooked agents, managers and players.

I said nothing of the organization surrounding the sport. I don't care about FIFA's problems anymore than I care about NASCAR's.

Of course I'm making a value judgement of what constitutes a Real Sport. For the most part, I find team ball sports tedious and uninteresting. They are about the spectacle not about the lifelong play. At the end of the day they are consumers of a certain type of physical talent, but are not where you find the best "athletes" in my mind, the real athletic freaks of the world are not playing basketball or soccer, they are track and field throwers, decathletes, grapplers, or engaged in high speed, higher skill acrobatic sports like motocross, grand slalom, surfing etc.


You also completely misunderstand my second point. I noted the sports where there is a culture of lifelong play and participation, this is where powerlifting, weightlifting, track and field, soccer, and possibly rugby and even bowling are superior to the American big 4 sports...there is a culture within those sports of playing for life form grammar school to retirement there is an opportunity and an expectation you can and should play. These by necessity end up being primarily individual sports but are far superior at showcasing what humans are capable of than a highly tweaked and juked little exhibition of an hour of ball throwing between men ages 19-26. That is my bias.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:You also completely misunderstand my second point.

BOOYAH!

In your FACE!

protobuilder wrote:

Ed Zachary wrote:

protobuilder wrote:

Ed Zachary wrote:Billy comes out with a "today's powerlifters are pussies" or "powerlifting today sucks" or other self hating nonsense article on regular basis to keep his low level of notoriety.

He said nothing of the sort. Just that watching it isn't exciting, which is why there aren't large crowds at meets.

Have you not read any of his previous so called articles?

He's always harping on how nothing compares to the old days.

I read his posts damn near daily and he says the exact opposite, that things are not any different now than before and he rips the old farts that show up to whine about the evolution of the sport (and tehre are plenty of those old farts, whining about how they did things differently in their day)

I stand corrected. I've only read a handful of his articles and they all seemed to be pity parties. I may have him confused with another cry baby powerlifter.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:Money creates athletic excellence. Nothing else.

The best go where the shekels are.

There's far more shit than corn in this tired bit dogma.

Money attracts a lot of talent, but really what Money does best is create a spectacle. "Excellence" in one kind of spectacle is not some immutable transferable quality. Talent and the ratio of fast to slow twitch muscle fibers may be the raw materials of excellence but there's more naturally talented people washed up and quit than there are champions contenders and also rans.

Desire is what makes great athletes and it's sport specific, all the "talent" in the world will not turn the greatest football player into the greatest anything else, Floyd Mayweather is not Chael Sonnon, hell he's not even Michael Bisping.

Desire+Talent plus love of the game is what makes great athletes in any sport...except John McEnroe..in his case it's desire, talent and self loathing.

No. I never once mentioned the word 'talent' in my 'training philosophy', so I don't know why you're basing your refutation of my comments on that concept.

Excellence is progressive. There has to be a locomotive that drives this on. The locomotive is money/prestige.

Gold medals, jackpots, and a sponsorship that provides a decent living are the drivers of athletic success and innovation.

Because it's strongly resonant and the perennial excuse that all the "real athletes" end up in the money sports.

Unmuddle your point. Which is the locomotive? prestige or money? Discus has no money, Are you saying if only athletes were paid they'd throw 80 meters?

I always thought it was a fairly traditional critique of the American throwing sports that, because their athletes were poorly funded, they didn't have access to the training infrastructure that would make them competitive at the international level.

I know for a fact that this was mooted on this very forum and there was a consensus that this was the case. So yes, I'm saying that 'if only athletes were paid', they'd throw a lot farther.....

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:Money creates athletic excellence. Nothing else.

The best go where the shekels are.

There's far more shit than corn in this tired bit dogma.

Money attracts a lot of talent, but really what Money does best is create a spectacle. "Excellence" in one kind of spectacle is not some immutable transferable quality. Talent and the ratio of fast to slow twitch muscle fibers may be the raw materials of excellence but there's more naturally talented people washed up and quit than there are champions contenders and also rans.

Desire is what makes great athletes and it's sport specific, all the "talent" in the world will not turn the greatest football player into the greatest anything else, Floyd Mayweather is not Chael Sonnon, hell he's not even Michael Bisping.

Desire+Talent plus love of the game is what makes great athletes in any sport...except John McEnroe..in his case it's desire, talent and self loathing.

No. I never once mentioned the word 'talent' in my 'training philosophy', so I don't know why you're basing your refutation of my comments on that concept.

Excellence is progressive. There has to be a locomotive that drives this on. The locomotive is money/prestige.

Gold medals, jackpots, and a sponsorship that provides a decent living are the drivers of athletic success and innovation.

Because it's strongly resonant and the perennial excuse that all the "real athletes" end up in the money sports.

Unmuddle your point. Which is the locomotive? prestige or money? Discus has no money, Are you saying if only athletes were paid they'd throw 80 meters?

I always thought it was a fairly traditional critique of the American throwing sports that, because their athletes were poorly funded, they didn't have access to the training infrastructure that would make them competitive at the international level.

I know for a fact that this was mooted on this very forum and there was a consensus that this was the case. So yes, I'm saying that 'if only athletes were paid', they'd throw a lot farther.....

The indoor shot put record is an American and the Americans own the world record and have dominated the world championships back to 1995. Despite shitty money and nowhere to go pro.

This forum may be littered with a few sharp tacks but engaging in "if only Shaq was white and wanted to throw discus" is as useless as wondering if Joe Louis could take Tyson in his prime...It takes a hell of a lot more than money to make an athlete and to develop athletes....what it takes is something we lack to the will to do.

Run state sponsored athlete mills and put them on da joose early?

well it ain't making more professional sports with big money payouts. In the 20's the biggest American sports were baseball and bicycle board track racing..the one that survived did so becuase of participation.

futbol is the world's sport for one reason...not that it's on TV, because everyone PLAYS IT. The money is tangential.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:well it ain't making more professional sports with big money payouts. In the 20's the biggest American sports were baseball and bicycle board track racing..the one that survived did so becuase of participation.

futbol is the world's sport for one reason...not that it's on TV, because everyone PLAYS IT. The money is tangential.

Bicycle board track racing? Hardly.

During the 1920s; Boxing, baseball, and horse racing were the kings of sports in the USA.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Yes, I'm drunk wrote:Money creates athletic excellence. Nothing else.

The best go where the shekels are.

There's far more shit than corn in this tired bit dogma.

Money attracts a lot of talent, but really what Money does best is create a spectacle. "Excellence" in one kind of spectacle is not some immutable transferable quality. Talent and the ratio of fast to slow twitch muscle fibers may be the raw materials of excellence but there's more naturally talented people washed up and quit than there are champions contenders and also rans.

Desire is what makes great athletes and it's sport specific, all the "talent" in the world will not turn the greatest football player into the greatest anything else, Floyd Mayweather is not Chael Sonnon, hell he's not even Michael Bisping.

Desire+Talent plus love of the game is what makes great athletes in any sport...except John McEnroe..in his case it's desire, talent and self loathing.

No. I never once mentioned the word 'talent' in my 'training philosophy', so I don't know why you're basing your refutation of my comments on that concept.

Excellence is progressive. There has to be a locomotive that drives this on. The locomotive is money/prestige.

Gold medals, jackpots, and a sponsorship that provides a decent living are the drivers of athletic success and innovation.

Because it's strongly resonant and the perennial excuse that all the "real athletes" end up in the money sports.

Unmuddle your point. Which is the locomotive? prestige or money? Discus has no money, Are you saying if only athletes were paid they'd throw 80 meters?

I always thought it was a fairly traditional critique of the American throwing sports that, because their athletes were poorly funded, they didn't have access to the training infrastructure that would make them competitive at the international level.

I know for a fact that this was mooted on this very forum and there was a consensus that this was the case. So yes, I'm saying that 'if only athletes were paid', they'd throw a lot farther.....

The indoor shot put record is an American and the Americans own the world record and have dominated the world championships back to 1995. Despite shitty money and nowhere to go pro.

This forum may be littered with a few sharp tacks but engaging in "if only Shaq was white and wanted to throw discus" is as useless as wondering if Joe Louis could take Tyson in his prime...It takes a hell of a lot more than money to make an athlete and to develop athletes....what it takes is something we lack to the will to do.

Barnes was a pro. The current crop aren't. That just proves my point. Plus, Randy was a dirty drugs cheat, and I don't account for scum like that. Let's stay on topic and discuss honest athletes. Doing that dignifies us all, in the long run.....

Indoor worlds was won by an American this year and an American is currently leading the field in 2012.

As for your utterly irrelevant comment about PED's in sport, thank you. In a sports discussions, this analogous to a Godwin's law violation.I now know to disregard anything you have ever or will ever have to say.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Indoor worlds was won by an American this year and an American is currently leading the field in 2012.

As for your utterly irrelevant comment about PED's in sport, thank you. In a sports discussions, this analogous to a Godwin's law violation.I now know to disregard anything you have ever or will ever have to say.

LOL! Nice back out clause.

My point still stands though. The current record WR was set by a pro, and a pro who is is currently serving a lifetime Olympic ban for being a dirty, lying drug cheat.

EDIT: At least you won't be responding to this post now, will you.....?

Idiot. It's not a back out clause at all, it is what it is. The American shot put system is quite healthy and dominant..Randy Barnes and Brian Oldfield included or not.

There is an obvious reason for this that is lacking in the other throws, which I think we could be just as competitive in. This is not to say that were it not for X the USA would be crushing all comers, but we would at least be making a decent showing. Now quickly, whinge about drugs.