What is the most antiheroic thing you've ever done?

[mike_dyer]

When I was a year out of high school I got the itch to compete again so I started training. I hit a few open tournaments and then in the middle of the summer I signed up for a freestyle tournament at the state fair.

I didn't know many of the rules for FS. It's just wrestling, right?

WRONG!

Wrong in a way at least. The way it's scored is all different and this will be long enough so I won't go into it.

Anyway, there were 18 guys in my weight so they split it into 2 pools with 9 guys in each of them. How they picked the pools is a mystery. You can't really seed a tournament with no numbers to compare. I did notice that the guys in my pool were mostly "unattached" or not affiliated with any club and the guys in the other pool were all there with someone.

So, again, I know nothing about the scoring maneuvers or holds. I just decided that I was going to use all of my folkstyle stuffs. I was out there hitting cement mixers and racking up big points with them. I broke out the cheap turn that my coach called a "head lever" until I used it so much that they just started calling it "the Dyer." They still call it that today. These guys were basing out after I would score a takedown and waiting for a restart, I was grabbing their wrist, pulling it under them, and rocking this cheap little tilt 2 or 3 times. I spladled one of them and got a fall. It was hilarious.

I was rolling. 2 or 3 matches into it I felt great. A lot of the guys I was beating were whining to the mat officials and pulling their own little light weight antiheroic stuff.

"He has no respect for the sport. He's not even using freestyle technique!" etc. Amateur hour.

I started to think I might just win this thing so I started watching matches in the other pool to see how that was going to go. Those dudes were TOUGH! One of them was Canadian. Do you know what they call "freestyle wrestling" in Canada? They call it "wrestling." It's all they do. I did notice that he was wearing head gear though. That is a no no. That is 1 FS rule I did know. If you're wearing head gear and your opponent says you can't wear it you can't wear it. I also noticed that one of his matches kept getting stopped because his ear kept bleeding. I saw him with the head gear off one time. One of his ears had got so full of blood and whatever that it had burst and the other one was looking pretty full.

I ended up losing a match in my pool, but because of the way the rules were at the time I won my pool because I had pinned or won by technical superiority over everyone else. The guy who beat me won by decision only. A pin was worth 4 points, technical superiority was 3, major decision - 8 or more points - was worth 2, and a decision was worth 1. I had more points but at the time it was customary for the guy who lost the head to head match but won the pool to step aside and let the guy who had beat him wrestle the winner of the other pool for the championship. How antiheroic would doing the "right" thing be though? On top of that those were the rules and I'm not the one who made them.

As expected, I get the Canadian in the finals. That guy was going to chew me up and spit me out. He shows up to the mat with his head gear on. I walked over to the mat official and told him I wanted him to take it off. I described what condition his ears were in and naturally he didn't want to. I wouldn't either. There was a lot of bad noise around the mat and he finally walked away. The mat official raised my hand and the boos rained down on me.

It was glorious.

Those boos seemed like a whisper though when I showed up to the podium with a hoodie on. They had some scantily clad young lady dishing out medals and the boos grew even louder when she got to me and I took my hood down and everyone saw that I was wearing my head gear.

 

[Hilliarddad3]

Came in second in the state of NJ back in the 80's in the Miller Light Doubles Bowling Tournament with one of my brothers, picked up a few grand and that was the peak of that ride......but We joined the league that our dad used to bowl in with the team name "Who Cares" and proceeded to win it 3/4 first years in it. They hated us especially when we showed up at the first year banquet that was a suit and tie event in Miami Vice type attire, they were soooooo pissed,,,,,,,

 

[coachjwb]

No way I can top Mike's but I do have my own story. I was working for a large company in Lake County about 10 years back, and was asked to join the United Way Committee to help raise money for the annual county-wide drive. We had a variety of events we did each year at our company ranging from bake sales to all of the VP's making breakfast for the employees to a Chinese auction. That year, the county-wide campaign decided to have a Corn Hole tournament where the local companies could sponsor teams to compete. They also encouraged the companies to have their own tournaments to raise money for the drive. I loved playing cornhole and thought I was pretty good at it, so I volunteered to lead that for our company. I put on a tournament for teams in our building to have a building championship, worked with people from the other plants and buildings to do their own, and then organized an event where the top teams from all of the sites came in to do a company championship with the top 8 teams going on the county-wide championship. My boss wanted to play so I teamed up with him and he was decent but not great, but we were one of the our company's top 8 teams so we got to go on to the county-wide championship where there was about 100 teams. I think we won two rounds that year, but got knocked out and watched a team from another company win the whole thing. I felt good about helping raise money for a good cause, but I hated losing.

Fast forward to the next year. My boss had left the company and, while I liked working for him and all, here was my chance to "upgrade" partners. So I hand-picked a guy from another department who I knew pretty well and who had lost his partner from the previous year too. We ended up winning the building championship and were runner-ups for the company, so he and I went on to the county-wide championships and, to make a long story short, we won the whole thing with like 95 teams there, with us each winning a set of cornhole boards for our efforts. And of course our company was proud of us. Well, we won the building and won the county-wide championship the next year as well ... pretty cool ... back to back wins and another set of boards. The third year we played together, no one in the building wanted to play us ... we actually shut out several of the teams, and now all of a sudden we are anti-heroes. People are rooting against us and we are just crushing team after team. We did not win the county championship that year ... made it to the final 8 and actually lost to a team from our own company who did win the whole thing.

So the next year, which turned out to be the last year of the county-wide tourney, we once again crushed everyone in our building despite most people rooting for someone to upset us, and we win the company-wide championship again. We get to the county-wide finals and they have a loud speaker system, and of course when they introduce us, they announce we are 2 time champions and that our company has won 3 years in a row and we get a smattering of boos. Oh, I forgot to mention they actually had me speak at the county-wide kick off to the United Way campaign that year to try to get companies to participate in the event and beat us, and maybe I trash talked just a little. So anyhow, we are up against a pair of young "whipper snappers" from another company ... both maybe about 20-22 years old, who we had been watching talk trash all day against their opponents. They go up on us 20-13, and of course the trash talk is relentless about dethroning the champs, blah, blah, blah. They also have a bunch of their buddies there watching and they are cheering for them, and booing us the whole match. There are no rules about hitting 21 exactly or winning by 2 ... first team to 21 wins period.

My partner and I are laughing about it, but I have to admit I am nervous. No way I want to lose to these two idiots. I throw 3 in the hole and one on the board, and my opponent throws 2 in and 2 on, and we cut the lead to 20-15. My partner also throws 3 in the hole and one on the board, and the other guy throws 2 in the hole and 2 miss the board so we cut the lead to 20-19. It's probably going to come down to me and this last turn. I throw my first one right up against the front of the hole, laying a little over the edge where I would surely be able to push it in next turn but my opponent throws his on top of mine, so that ain't going to happen. My second skims by the side of the hole and falls off the edge ... crap ... I'm in trouble ... my opponent is good and never misses the board. My opponent throw one that lands right next to the other two and is covering up about 1/3 of the hole. I am down to my last throw. I normally love to throw low and spin my shot at the bottom of the board and slide it up to the hole but that will do me no good if he just puts his last shot on the board too, or to push his in even if mine goes too. I have no choice but to try something different. So I lift my throw about 6 feet higher than normal ... it just clears the 3 bags in front and goes straight down into the hole. He has to put his on the board to keep them alive ... I look over at him and smile and nod my head, and he proceeds to choke, hitting the side of the board and just falling off. We win 21-20. Everyone there watching moans, and we are the anti-heroes ... trying to support a great cause (though I think it was no coincidence that they cancelled the county-wide event the next year partially because other companies didn't want to lose to us again).

By the way, does anyone want to buy a set of cornhole boards? I seem to have 3 sets in my garage.

 

[mike_dyer]

Nice, fellas.

Here is one I'm certain everyone here is guilty of. Kid steps up to bat out of order and cracks a 2 run double. Then and only then do you say anything, the runs come down, everyone goes back to where they were, and the batter is out.

You need a handlebar mustache to pull this off effectively.

 

[yossarian]

By the way, does anyone want to buy a set of cornhole boards? I seem to have 3 sets in my garage.

That depends on whether or not they come with a wristband system for corn hole plays!

 

[coachjwb]

Mike ... don't you actually hate in that situation when the batter makes an out?!

Wristbands for cornhole ... hmmmm ...

 

[Pacerdad57]

Jeff, similar story at my company. My boss and I teamed up and walked through everyone till the championship game, we're up against two twenty somethings and the only ones cheering for us were the old guys lol! By rules had to hit 21 exactly or drop back to 13points. They had 20 twice, but both times got dropped back to 13. At one point they had the tourney won unless we ( me) dropped one through, and I had not been hitting that game at all. Finally put one through the hole on the next throw, nothing but net, they choked and we came back to win the tourney. No on of the younger guys liked that the 2 "old" guys pulled it off! Let me know what the last high bid on those boards was if it includes the full writ band system!!!

 

[mike_dyer]

Mike ... don't you actually hate in that situation when the batter makes an out?!

Wristbands for cornhole ... hmmmm ...

Nope.

You keep your teeth together and hope she does it again. Eventually one will fall. Then, and only then, should your inner antihero come out.