Where's the Hype?

Did you even remember that the Superbowl is this week?  Who's having a party?  Are you sure what you're doing yet?  We at Gus Johnson's Whisper feel like we are not alone in this awkward feeling of this boring Superbowl week.  There's no hype.  The best we get are dumb articles by chooches like Peter King where he's all: 'that's not the only connection between these two franchises.  Turns out that Byron Rando, the former equipment manager with the Steelers, was lured away when Ken Wisenhunt took the job in Arizona.  This game means a lot to him.'

Seriously, check it: 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/01/25/walkup/index.html

Weird.  How is that possible?  Oh, you mean in a small league where there is a personnel carousel, a former coach or player could go up against his former team in the Superbowl?  So the league with no imagination that only hires from a selective and exhaustive pool has some overlap?  I don't believe you sir!

Anyway, we feel like this matchup, for the biggest prize in American pro sport, has no buzz.  Let's look at some other matchups for the big prize that had as little (or less) hype.

-Super Bowl XL: This 2006 symphony of boredom featured Pittsburgh beating Seattle in one of the 37 most untight games ever played.  It was like watching 4 estranged brothers play pee-knuckle.  Pittsburgh won but we all lost.

-2002 World Series:

 

Hard to live up to the drama of the 2001 Fall Classic.  So, in a smart move, the 2002 Series went the opposite extreme and no one in the entire world cared at all.  Who played in it?  Can you remember without looking it up?  We could because we're dorks.  San Francisco lost to the Anaheim Angles in 7.  It was actually a good series.  Tens of people on the west coast were riveted.  

1994 World Cup USA vs Brazil in Round 2: The US made it through group play for the first time since John Adams was president.  In 1990, the squad had a great showing when it went 0-3, we didn't qualify for the WC in 1986, before that... we're not talking about before that.  This was huge for US soccer.  Huge.  The game was played on JULY 4th in America!  Somehow, no one cared.  We were so hyped for this and no one else we knew even watched it on tv.  There were like 19 Americans in the stands... which was a nice break from the 30,000 Brazilians.  Even after some punk got a red card for elbowing Tab Ramos' head, it was a boring 1-0 game.  Weird.

1988 Presidential Election: We did a whole thing on this in school.  We were all so excited for this thing to be a nail-biter.  Neck and neck, they traded barbs like slap-boxers at recess.  The night of, we assembled at the home of one of the parents and watched in horror as the tv men calmly explained to us that it was already over and Dukakis was sipping soup broth by 5PM.  We thought it was this epic battle.  It was really close... until they started counting the votes.  426-111 in electoral votes.  Great talk.

-Every boxing match since Mike Tyson lost to Lennox Lewis in 2002: Who is the heavyweaight champ?  How many different boxing organizations are there?  Since the Victorian Freak Show lost to Lewis and had that bizarre post-fight gratefulness episode, boxing has been creeping along on its way to a lonely grave. 

   UFC, no charismatic heavyweights, perceived corruption/chaos with the myriad boxing organizations, and the unwillingness to change the 'pay-per-view' model have all led to boxing's demise.  Championship bouts now get less attention than new episodes of CBS sitcoms.  

-2004 Sugar Bowl: LSU beat Oklahoma.  This game was all awkward because USC should have been in the game and everyone knew it.  It was hyped but every time it was hyped it was like, 'but also USC... so...'.  It was like you have Lucy Pinder at a photoshoot next door to a photoshoot of Keeley Hazel but are only allowed to hype the Lucy Pinder shoot.  Is it not like that?  Whatever.