Fantasy Contender

By Robby Wellington – Staff Writer

Note: Don’t worry, this article contains no spoilers.

Last night I spent two delightful hours glued to ESPN’s “The Contender.” For those who missed Season One, the show takes 16 fairly talented and accomplished boxers who live and train together. At the end of each episode, two boxers are chosen to fight, with the winner advancing and the loser going home until an eventual champion is crowned.

The show’s first season aired on NBC but was not renewed after suffering through subpar ratings. ESPN picked it up for a second season, which features welterweight boxers instead of middleweights and has trimmed down the primetime budget. The million dollar purse has been slashed in half, the fighters’ families no longer are provided with housing nearby, the teams no longer compete in elaborate and idiotic competitions and, tragically, executive producer Sylvester Stallone no longer appears on the program, having focused his most recent efforts on the highly-anticipated Rocky VI.

This is far and away the most severe blow to the show’s enjoyability, as Sly provided pure, unadulterated comedy every moment he was on camera. My favorite Stallone moments were during the actual fights when he would sit next to co-host Sugar Ray Leonard and offer insight, matter-of-factly telling one of the greatest boxers of all-time what was going on in the match (“Gomez won that round,” or “Mora needs to use the jab more”). Clearly, the audience, and maybe Sugar Ray himself, were supposed to believe that this wasn’t Sylvester Stallone providing boxing expertise, but rather Rocky Balboa, the greatest champion ever! Anyway, Sly’s absence has forced Sugar Ray Leonard, his former second banana, to take over the hosting reigns, a job he is not at all cut out for. No doubt, the man was a great boxer, but he exudes about as much charisma as a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

So while the show’s changes appear to have caused it to drop a full grade on the watchability scale (from an A to a B), the last twenty minutes of each episode are still gold. The first ten really tug at the old heartstrings as each boxer is reunited with his family the day of the fight, a scene invariably spliced together with an emotional and tearful soliloquy, all of which is accompanied by some phenomenally dramatic music. Then, for the next ten minutes, you get to watch the two men beat the living hell out of each other. I generally think that the show chose their boxers, in large part, on fighting style, selecting only guys who are willing to wail on each other for five rounds and produce entertaining bouts. And on the rare occasion when a match isn’t entertaining, it’ll be edited enough in post-production, combinations repeated from different angles, punches slowed down and made to look more powerful, not-so-subtle sound effects and cutaways to combatants’ families, all of which may sound incredibly cheesy, but trust me, work quite well.

But enough about the show itself. I am here mainly to advocate a way to make the program even more entertaining, the same way we spice up any sport or game: gambling. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present “Fantasy Contender.”

The scoring system is fairly simple: a point for every bout your fighters win and a bonus point for picking the eventual champion. I briefly considered a 1-2-4-8 doubling format similar to most NCAA pools, but clearly whoever picked the winner would win with the owner of the runner-up getting second, and that’s no fun. You can also make things a little more interesting by choosing to have additional bonus points awarded or taken away for each platitude your contender utters (e.g. “I left it all in the ring”) as well as every time a fighter asks God to help them win.

Now, unless your league has seven participants, some teams will have one fewer boxer than others. The best solution I have for this problem is that all participants have the option to draft one point, instead of an actual boxer, meaning your team would have one fewer boxer, but start a point ahead of teams with full rosters. Granted, not a perfect solution but better than not using every boxer in my opinion.

Another problem is what to do with the boxers who already advanced. Should their owners get a point for the wins from last night or only count future victories. Since I personally don’t think that either of these boxers have a great chance of taking it all, I am inclined to award their owners a point for the first round victory, but either format works.

So now how do you prepare for your league’s draft? The best way, I would think, is to watch the first episode closely, taking note of which fighters were singled out at the beginning as the frontrunners, and which order the teams were picked (a good way of judging the boxers’ perceptions of each other). There are also a handful of Web sites that briefly profile each boxer, with ESPN’s official site being a good place to start. So just remember, you were put here for a purpose, do this for your family and for a better life, leave it all out in the ring, give 110 percent and make sure that God is in your corner because it’s win or go home when you play Fantasy Contender.