Were you a good athlete as a kid?

No, thankfully, never wrestled Bruce. Both Scherr brothers and Mark Coleman, who ended up being one of the first UFC champs.
Got ass kickins' in all three matches.

 

I wrestled Sean McDermott, the Bills’ coach, in high school. He pinned me in about 90 seconds.

 

In the 80s, NBC used to do “Sports Fantasies”, which was kinda an early “Pros vs. Joes”. Fans could write NBC about what they wanted do against the pros and NBC picked some out and did some TV specials

The first episode, as I recall, had a Dodger fan want to try to hit off a major leaguer. So Lasorda had one of his bullpen guys come in and told the fan if he homered that he would get signed. They even had Vin Scully do the play by play. As I recall, the fan actually fouled a ball off before whiffing.

Most of the other fans would fail miserably. One guy lost 6-0 to Chris Evert. Gretzky scored multiple times on breakaways against the fan goalie before allowing him one gentle save.

The only ones that I recall being competitive was one guy who beat Arnold Palmer in a one-hole playoff and a young bowling prodigy who came within, like, a dozen pins of beating a Hall of Fame bowler who I don’t recall who it was.

ADD: I also remember a guy who beat Michael Jordan in a one-on-one game of wheelchair basketball.

 

Getting on the mat with guys is more than pretty much everyone can say.
Early days of UFC were great.

 

My two primary sports as a youth were football (9 yrs) and baseball (7 yrs). I was better at baseball when I was younger but was pretty much all glove and no hit. My first team was awful. We won just 1 game and I say to this day that it was thrown by the team that ended up winning the league championship. We had practically the entire team back the next year and I added pitching to my tasks and be dog-gone if we didn’t win the league championship in a best 2-out-of-3 series. The following year, we lost our main battery of the previous two seasons as well as our coach who had taken over the team mid-way through that first year. We were good but not good enough to defend our title. So, the next year it’s on to a new league and team who has an established shortstop. So, after failing to make it as a 2nd sacker I was pretty much banished to right field. It got to be so bad that near the end I missed a few practices and the last 2 or 3 games. So, my 12 year old campaign opens and I’m starting at 1st base and doing a pretty job If I say so myself. Then it’s either the next to last or last and our pitcher doesn’t how . We have a couple players who could pitch but were ineligible because they played for the league’s travel team --- of which I did not. So, I get tapped to pitch and use my intimidating Juan Marechal delivery and a spin ball for a curve to knock off the team that won the championship. So at 13 was going to be my final year in this particular league. New coah and it was awful. I was pegged the #! Pitcher and that just wasn’t me. I remember bad outing even one I asked to be pulled in the first inning.So, nex was JV baseball in high scool. I believe we had 18 uniforms 0f which #17 and #18 were handmedowns. I recall getting into two games off the bench. That was the end of baseball for me.
I started football at age 8 as a running back on the second string team of the junior varsity. Same thing at age 9 although our junior varsity team won the league championship. At age 10 I’m suddenly the JV starting QB. We had a good season because we had a RB who could get to the edge and reach the end zone more frequently than not. The next year I’m varsity backup QB. Don’t recall much about that season. Then I’m the varsity QB when I’m 12. We were unbeaten going the road in a battle between 2 unbeaten teams. We trailed 7-0 most of the way and scored late to make it 7-6. I called the perfect two-point-conversion play for us but It got vetoed by the coach and we didn’t sore, losing 7-6.
At age 13, I could continue to play youth varsity football or JV football at the high school level. I started with youth football, but the new youth coach just rided me and made things unfun. So I turned in my equipment and we to the high school JV program. Was the backup QB my 8th grade year and the starter for 4-2 or 5-2 team as a frosh. Went to the varsity as a backup a a sophomore and threw a TD pass in a reserve role. The next year I was touted to be the starting QB, but a principal’s son was coming up to challenge for the top. We split time in the season opener, but that was it. Couldn’t blame the coach since I was aout 5-9 and 130 pounds. Plus something called sexual intercourse was thrust upon me by the best looking gal in the school who as a year behind me. That situation kept
me away from the football field my senior year.
I enjoyed watching basketball and played it on the playground. We had 4-H basketball at our school and In the 5th grade I would go and keep score and stats. Well, they came up one player short to fill out one of the teams and I came out of the stands to fill out a team. Well, I didn’t good enough that the coach named me the defensive player of the game. Well, you can say some of my classmates who had been practicing for 3 weeks in preparation for this game were a bit ticked off. So I convinced the all that I was not interested in playing anymore. I believe I signed up to play in the 6th grade but never went to a practice or a game. That was the end of basketball for me until I started writing about It for our local paper 4 years later!

 

In 2015 Fox tried to do this but it turned into a one-off special instead of a series called Beat the Champions. It was a Pros vs. Joes concept where the pros were increasingly handicapped as the challenge went on. The Joes had three chances to win. If they did it on the first try, they got $100,000, the second try $50,000, and the third $25,000.

The first challenge had a swimmer against Olympian Missy Franklin in a 50-yard freestyle. They gave the Joe a 25-yard head start and she still got smoked in the first round. The second round, they gave her a boost with a fire hose and handicapped Franklin by shooting a fire hose against her. Franklin still won easily. The third round, the Joe had the head start, they used the hoses again, AND Franklin had milk jugs tied to her ankles. Franklin won by about 10 yards.

Second challenge had Rob Gronkowski going against a Joe. First round was straight up, but Gronk had to catch a pass in a specific target area (which he did). Second round was the same, but the Joe had 10 members of a church choir also helping him on defense. Gronk still caught it. Final round had 25 members of the choir and Gronk had to catch it in the end zone. Gronk finally got tired of running around and told his brother (who was throwing the passes) to just chuck it up. Gronk outjumped the choir but the pass went long and the Joe won the $25,000.

Last challenge was a basketball challenge with Scottie Pippen. I can't remember the handicaps, but the Joe just had to score against him. IIRC, he'd played some college ball and won the $100,000 by jacking up a quick shot. Then Pippen got embarrassed and got serious and locked the guy down.

 

Short answer: No.

I was a decent 7-8-9 year old soccer player -- leading scorer on some terrible teams but once you had to be more than just fast, I was lost.

Packed on some pounds and switched to football where I was a consistent offensive live starter in 8th grade, freshman and JV but injuries, size and just not being good meant that I rarely saw the field in varsity.

My considerable lack of talent makes my kids athletic successes even harder to understand.

 

I understand why they do the handicapping in the shows like this, but honestly I just want to see the pros shit all over cocky non-pros for about 30 minutes, haha. Like the pro sports version of MXC.

 

Loved baseball and then about 11 years old some asshole invented the curveball and that career was over. Too slow for anything else and maxed out at 5-11 and 160 in high school so football was out of the question because of said lack of speed. I fell in love with tennis, thanks to Arthur Ashe and Jimmy Connors, and played four years of high school varsity. For whatever reason I had a big serve and had a knack for hitting a twist on the first serve that jammed right-handed players in the ad court and had a pretty good slice for the second serve that bothered some opponents. But I never consistently cracked the top-six to play. Then walked on my JUCO tennis team, and the coach took my T3000 Connors racquet out of my hand, made me go back to wood, and lo and behold I had more control and only slightly less power. Played one season and went 2-2. My peak.