The hottest tickets for The Birmingham World Games have been Sumo wrestling and then the dance sport of breaking. Both were sellouts.
Math tells me that combining these sports into one new international discipline — Sumo break dancing — would be the most diabolical test of athleticism in the history of mankind, but that’s a column idea for another day.
Competition at The World Games is at its halfway point on Tuesday and Wednesday in Birmingham. My suggestion: don’t let this historic time for Birmingham pass without enjoying the experience. As a sports reporter, this is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever covered in my career, and — true story — I’ve reported on bikini-clad polo exhibitionists while poolside at the Versace Mansion on South Beach.
Every day of The World Games brings something different. All the athletes are incredible, and the sports have been a combination of fascinating, dangerous, impossible to comprehend and absurdly fun.
Birmingham, Alabama, this is your big come-up as a city. Enjoy the ride.
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Halfway through our city-wide party for international niche sports, I’ve come to the realization that The World Games are actually better than the Olympics in many ways. The Olympics can be a huge hassle for a city and terribly expensive. The World Games are more relaxed, far less corporate and way cheaper for fans and the hosts. On Sunday, I rode my bike to Sloss Furnaces for parkour and breaking. It was one of the single greatest experiences of my career.
Monday felt like a rest day in the middle of the games, but it was not without more controversy for the sport sumo. The team from Egypt ran into trouble — again — when its wrestlers weren’t allowed to compete in the open competition on Sunday. The ban was related to the incident that occurred on Saturday at Boutwell.
The sumo saga all started when one of their wrestlers seemingly won a gold medal, but then had it taken away from judges who didn’t like his celebration. One of Egypt’s coaches, who goes by the pro sumo ring name of Osunaarashi, protested so emphatically that it caused the judges to call for a rematch.
The judges were wrong in taking away the initial victory for Abdelrahman Elsefy of Egypt. An even bigger controversy was avoided when Elsefy won again.
At the center of the drama was the old-school culture of pro sumo, and the new-school vibe of the international sport in The World Games. Victory celebrations inside the sumo ring are a cultural faux pas for pro sumo wrestlers in Japan, but there aren’t any rules forbidding it in the amateur game.
Osunaarashi, by the way, translates in English to “Great Sandstorm.” It has been an inglorious-type of storm for Egypt in Birmingham, to be sure. We can only hope team canoe water polo manages to steer clear of any sensational international circumstances.
On tap on Tuesday are things like flag football at Legion Field, archery at Avondale Park, softball at the Hoover Met, canoe at Oak Mountain, fistball at Birmingham-Southern College, lacrosse at UAB, flying disc (ultimate frisbee) at John Carroll, and on and on.
Check the schedule online for updates because weather has been causing some delays. Canopy piloting at Barbers Motorsports Park, for example, is even more insane when it’s windy or overcast. What is canopy piloting? If you’re unfamiliar with this sport, then let me sum it up. It’s a sport for lunatics. The lunatics jump out of planes and parachute down to a pond like Navy SEALS. At that point, they make artistic patterns across the water with their feet while somehow figuring out how to avoid a crash.
If canopy piloting doesn’t agree with your tolerance for anxiety then trends are emerging elsewhere.
This crack journalist confirm that pretty much everything happening at Sloss Furnaces has felt like a party. I was there for parkour and breaking on Sunday, and it was all standing room only and sold out. The crowd for parkour was baking in the sun, but having a blast doing it. Get tickets for beach handball (Monday through Friday) and sport climbing (Thursday through Saturday) if any remain.
The dance sport of breaking deserves special attention here for the atmosphere it created inside the old shed venue at Sloss. Man, what a night of entertainment. It was a pure, raw, unfiltered celebration of the human spirit.
The incomparable Ami of Japan dominated the women’s battle competitions, but silver medalist Sunny of Team USA was a favorite for her style and magnetic personality. Victor of United States won gold on the men’s side, and I don’t think I ever blinked during his semifinal dance battle against Shigekix, who is an international breaking legend from Japan. Victor then went against Jeffro in an all-Team USA gold medal breaking battle.
The spinning, stylish, swaggering athleticism of every breaker was mesmerizing, and I couldn’t fall asleep later that night from the surge of excitement watching it all. It was full-on sensory overload.
To call breaking a competition in the traditional sense of the word would be wrong. The dance floor inside the shed, with the iconic industrial motif of Sloss surrounding everything, made it all feel like being inside a video game. People were hanging from the sides of the rusty walls to watch. There was a huge videoboard above the dance floor and the DJ was located below it. Everything was framed perfectly, and the MC for the event kept the crowd engaged every second of the way.
Breaking is what olds like me who grew up in the 80s still refer to as break dancing. It’s going to be in the Paris Olympics in 2024. That means this event at The World Games was the last of its kind before the sport gets washed clean by the filth of global corporate slimeballs. Birmingham, we were there to see the best of it, and from the very beginning of the introductions I couldn’t believe my eyes. This one guy, for example, was bouncing on his head and his name was Octopus.
Am I too old, I thought to myself, to become an international breaking beat reporter? Turns out the answer to that question is yes. Octopus posed to the crowd after his dance introduction and took his seat among the row of chairs between the dance floor and DJ’s elevated turntables. Wait, who was that guy?
Turns out my man Octopus was only one of the judges.
Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.
