Missing the XFL

Football season is upon us, and undoubtedly, many chest pounding, face paint smearing fans are excited.  But it’s been about eight years since the XFL, wrestling magnate Vince McMahon’s venture into pigskin pounding, took flight and folded in just one year, and we here at FListed thought it would be criminal to not at least bring the XFL, an innovative league in its own ways, back into the limelight just this once. More after the jump.  

The XFL, it should be noted, actually was pretty different from the NFL.  One innovation was that the names on the back of the Jerseys didn’t have to be your typical familial names (Unless you belonged to the He Hate Me bloodline—I never did like that family). Also, players had to run to the ball instead of calling a coin toss, which made for some pretty spirited opening matches full of beer knocker-overing, and gambling. And there were the no point after touchdown kicks, just two point conversion plays.  Which were devalued to only one point. Seriously, the XFL was hardcore.

But, being so hardcore, the XFL couldn’t last forever. In fact, on Wikipedia, there’s a pretty good explanation as why to why it folded so quickly.

Though paid attendance at games remained respectable, if unimpressive (overall attendance were only 10% below what the league’s goal had been at the start of the season), the XFL ceased operations after just one season due to astonishingly low TV ratings.

Yikes, astonishingly low TV ratings? That’s pretty bad. Couldn’t the writer have put it any lighter? “Astonishingly low”? Yeesh, give ‘em a break.  It wasn’t all bad.  Seven XFL players would eventually make it to the (real) Super Bowl.  And He Hate Me now gives back to his community, as a high school guidance counselor.

Below, though, here’s a clip of the XFL. Watch it and weep when your beloved Dallas Cowboys easily catch that floater in the end zone when they should have been running for that ball for possession instead.