(Unfortunately, scribed just below this sculpture were a series of hateful, anonymous comments telling these “pussies” to, among other things, “Quit lay-n-praying and knock a motherfucker out.”) 

Following the sport’s shocking removal from the 2020 Olympic games, the wrestling community has called upon every conceivable resource in an attempt to restore the sport’s reputation amongst casual fans and potentially introduce it to even more. Sadly, us history buffs have thus far failed to sway the group of geniuses who declared handball and all that horse-related bullshit as sports more worthy of our viewership from reverting on their monumental mistake. But now, it appears that the International Federation for Wrestling has decided to follow our beloved sport into the fire in a last ditch attempt to save their own. USA Today has the scoop (via MMAJunkie):

“We have to think about how to make a show because without that today, it’s difficult,” FILA acting president Nenad Lalovic told USA TODAY Sports.

Former world champion Bill Scherr, chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of Olympic Wrestling, has met with UFC chief executive Dana White and Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. MMA stars and officials have been very supportive of wrestling’s efforts. Scherr said his sport can learn about presentation from the MMA world. “We need to think about ways to change how the stage is presented,” Scherr said. “They compete in an octagon and we compete on a mat. We don’t have to compete on a mat. We can compete in sand, we can compete in grass and we can compete on a mat or an octagon. I don’t know. We can get survey groups together and see what looks best.”

There you have it, Potato Nation: Goodbye USA Wrestling. Hello SandFC!

As you all no doubt have heard, the International Olympic Committee has decreed that wrestling is no longer worthy of a place in the Summer Games, in order to make way for other, more lucrative events. I tell you now that this decision is the worst kind of folly, made for the worst reasons possible. I won’t rail about the corruption in the IOC, or the nepotism and naked commercialism that seems to hold sway in any of their decisions. I will point out that kicking wrestling out of the Olympics does seem rather…historically disconnected.

On the other hand, it’s possible that this is only a con from the IOC in order to drum up support (read: money) to get wrestling back into the Olympic arena where it belongs.

In any case, here is a list of ten sports that should be rightly removed from the Games, even if we weren’t talking about making room for an original Olympic event. Let’s just cut all this extra fat, and strip the Olympics down to the more raw athletic events. (And gymnastics. You have to keep gymnastics.)

The Modern Pentathlon

This was the ass-backwards event that everyone with a brain in their head assumed would get the axe, for two reasons. First, it’s an oddball series of activities based on an archaic skill set — cavalry officers still ride horses? — that is no longer relevant. Second, it’s redundant: Take this away, and athletes could still do the triathlon. Or the decathlon. Or just, you know, pick an event instead of being a scatterbrained dipshit.

Table Tennis

(Jordan Burroughs defeats Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi of Iran to become the 2012 Olympic champion at 74 kilos.)

In an utterly baffling move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided to drop the sport of wrestling, a.k.a the reason the Olympics even exist, as of the 2020 games. The Associated Press reports:

The IOC program commission report analyzed more than three dozen criteria, including television ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity. With no official rankings or recommendations contained in the report, the final decision by the 15-member board was also subject to political, emotional and sentimental factors. 

The IOC, however, did decide in its infinite wisdom to keep the modern pentathlon, a sport which combines pistol shooting, fencing, riding a horse and some other crap. Forgive my facetiousness, but I fail to see how a sport that managed to bring in athletes from just 26 different countries last year has somehow been deemed more important than one that brought in athletes from 71. And oh yeah, golf will be added as an Olympic sport in 2016.

Yup. Golf.