We Must Be Nuts

Torn ACL? Child's play. Tommy John surgery? We mock thee. In mens' sports, there is no injury as devastating as a well-placed strike to the nutsack. Some are due to unfortunate circumstance, some can be chalked up to the evil of the opponent, and some are just due to plain old stupidity. But they're ALL hysterical. You know, in that cringe uncomfortably and vomit a little in your mouth kind of way. Seriously, is there anything else that can make every man in attendance or watching on television simultaneously grab their groins in empathy? Didn't think so.

Recently, the nutshot has been making a comeback. We've had a couple of notable ones in this year's NBA playoffs already. But this fairy tale started long, long ago. To begin, we roll back the clock about 20 years.

1987. Vinnie Jones helps himself to a handful of Paul Gascoigne: Jones was considered a hard man, no pun intended. Paul Gascoigne was an English soccer hero, a superstar. Was there a better way for the Wimbledon midfielder, decidedly average in skill, to neutralize Newcastle's goalscoring machine? Maybe, but not a funnier one.


Grade: A-. Practically perfect. The only flaw, Jones giving Gazza's peas a squeeze was forever immortalized by a watchful cameraman. Bonus points here also, because the good-natured Gascoigne sent a rose to Jones in the Wimbledon dressing room after the match.

1996. Andrew Golota punishes Riddick Bowe's package: Bowe was the heavyweight boxing champion. Golota was a little-known contender from Poland. We can't hardly blame Golota for repeatedly bashing Bowe's balls. We'd probably do the same if some 265 pound dude with boxing gloves was trying kick our asses.

Grade: C-. Golota wasn't even trying to disguise his cheating. He continued to hit Bowe below the belt even after repeated warnings and point penalties. The only saving grace was that after Golota was disqualified, one of Bowe's cornermen attacked Golota with a walkie-talkie in the ensuing riot.

Five months later: Bowe and Golota Tango #2: Inexplicably, Bowe decided to give Golota a rematch. Predictably, Bowe won by disqualification. Once again, Golota decided to test Bowe's testes.

Grade: D. Frustratingly, Golota's inability to fight fair marred what would have gone down as one of the great fights in heavyweight boxing history. At least this time, Golota varied his rule transgressions, implementing such illegal subtleties as headbutting and rabbit punches to the medula oblongata to go along with the traditional uppercut to the sack. He made it to the ninth round before getting disqualified. Adding to the sheer stupidity of the matter, Golota was comfortably ahead on all scorecards, and seemed a sure thing to become champion.

Bonus Coverage: Under the heading of "awesome", someone actually took the time to edit out all the superfluous stuff, i.e. the boxing matches, and save only the nutshots.

Sidenote: Sadly, the art of attempting to gain an advantage by injuring the coinpouch of your opponent took a hiatus until Spring of 2006. But at least it came back with a vengeance. The floodgates are officially open.

April 2006. Reggie Evans tugs the tallywhacker of Chris Kaman: It's hard to know where exactly this came from. Maybe he was irritated by getting outplayed by a perennial finalist for the ugliest white guy in basketball award. Either way, a shove in the back is the least of what Evans deserved for that molestation.

Grade: B-. Sure, Evans got a better pull in there than you get at most dodgey massage parlors. Still, points are lost here because Kaman managed to reasonably control himself and not start a bench-clearing brawl by doing his best Kermit Washington impersonation.

May 2006. The Jet lands a blow to Finley: In a pile of bodies on the floor of the Mavs/Spurs playoff series, Jason Terry throws a sneaky shot straight into Michael Finley's babymakers.

Grade: B+. Not so much for the quality of the strike, but because we get to hear Mark Cuban try to explain how it was an unintentional right hook... to the gonads. Unintentional? I think not. A mistake? Perhaps... Kind of like giving Dirk Nowitzki the MVP award.

May 2006. Avery Johnson hopes Josh Howard is at least 18: You can almost hear Avery yelling in that strangely high and twangy for a black guy voice. "Don't bother me while I'm jumping up and down and running back and forth down the sideline for no apparent reason!" Or maybe that's just me. Whatever the lesson was, Howard learned it the hard way.

Grade: A+. Anything involving an animated Johnson gets automatic bonus points. But the comedy is exponentially multiplied by the split second of delayed reaction and the "I'm gonna hurl" expression that subsequently manifests itself on Howard's face.

May 2007. The nefarious Bruce Bowen is an amateur vintner: That's the only explanation I can come up with for Bowen smashing Steve Nash's grapes.

Grade: C. Bowen is widely regarded to be jostling with James Posey in the race to be the NBA's dirtiest player. If he's not trying to snap Amare Stoudamire's achilles, he's sticking his foot out hoping some unsuspecting rebounder on the other team lands on him and Jorge Garbajosa's his ankle. But a knee to the frank 'n beans? C'mon, Bruce.

May 2007. I wish there was something funny that rhymed with Hinrich: I just spent 8 minutes of my life I'll never see again trying to come up with something witty for a headline here. Anyway, imagine you're an unathletic, smallish by comparison white guy and the bigger, stronger, and faster Flip Murray is about to stuff a dunk on your head. What do you do? Hammer fist him the schlong, of course! (Watch the final replay)

Grade: B. We couldn't be-LIEVE that Murray didn't at least headbutt Hinrich. Was that "You just uppercut my chode and I STILL dunked on you, beyotch!" look the best Murray could do? The funny thing is, Hinrich's sack shot was way worse than Robert Horry's cheapshot on Steve Nash last night, yet the league doesn't bat an eyelash at Hinrich.

Honorable mention I: As if there isn't enough of a danger of some ruthless opponent taking grope at your goodie bag, there are always the morons who must take it upon themselves to endanger their bloodline. Take Curzon Ashton Football Club's Wayne Cahill, for example. Scoring a goal is great and all, but is it necessary to straddle the goal frame at high speed?

Honorable Mention II: And then you have this classic video of a pole vaulter tearing off a chunk of his nads using only the end of his pole, the surgical uselfulness of which can best be described as "blunt". We're not exactly fans of track and field because we prefer watching leaky faucets drip so we don't know what that guy's name was, but it's probably something like Jennifer these days.

Honorable Mention III: Consider also, Robert Jarni, the former Croatian soccer great, whose beanbag was given quite the rude greeting by Serbian defender Zoran Mirkovic. In Mirkovic's defense, the Croatian words for "Stop diving, you cheating asshole!" sound a great deal like "Hey, bro, grab my nuts!" in Serbian.

Thanks for having your shot of 120 Proof.