Belly Billboard

This is the only way they could make jousting more awesome.

In what is going to be our second to last episode for this season of Full Metal Jousting, we’re treated to the Semi Finals matchups.  And it’s pretty damn brutal.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these guys have tremendous, swaying, titanium testicles and tonight’s competition put them to the ultimate test.  Not only do you have to possess gigantic brass balls to compete in jousting, you have to be slightly goddamned insane.  And again, tonight’s competition proved that point.

First up, we’re treated to a little party for the jousters.  They’ve set up a nice pavilion outdoors in the woods for everyone to come and enjoy a little BBQ and some wine.  It’s kind of romantic actually.  If they had been playing some soft violin music, you could have taken your girl on a date to watch this part of the show.  Wine.  Christ.  WINE?  These are MEN!  Where’s the mead and ale?  Wine.  They lose ball points for drinking wine with BBQ in my book.

I may not be ballsy enough to get on a horse and joust with them, but when you pair good BBQ with wine, I’m ready to throw down.  I challenge any of the jousters to a one-on-one thumb wrestling match, no holds barred.  Wimps.

Anyhow, we move on to see a little pre-match practicing from Matt and Jake.  Shane is calling this match a toss up.  On paper, he says, it shouldn’t even be a competition.  Matt is the hands down winner on paper.  However, we don’t joust on paper and Jake sure as hell isn’t playing with paper dolls.  He’s made it to the Semi Finals, so he’s doing something right.  Remember Jake is the fat kid that was picked last for dodge ball when the season started.  He shouldn’t be here.  He’s defying all the odds!

During Matt’s practice, the lance shifts in his grip and smashes his little finger.  It’s immediately filled with blood behind the nail.  Rope Myers is apparently the team physician when they get back to the bunk house and he pulls out a needle and a pair of pliers to fix Matt up.  Don’t forget, Matt also has a gash on his inner thigh from taking lance shrapnel earlier in the season.  It would’ve punctured his junk, but even the lance is afraid of the mega-balls on this guy.

Rope heats the needle to sterilize it or just to add to the gruesome nature of his witch doctor surgery, I’m not sure.  Then he pokes the needle into the finger nail, unleashing a gooey red ooze of blood and puss.  Meanwhile, the teammates stand around eating chowder and enjoying the show.  Take that as you will.

Jake, meanwhile, is practicing on Nevarro.  Nevarro isn’t really cooperating with Jake so much.  In fact, if I didn’t know any better I would have to guess that Nevarro is shunning the fat kid who was picked last.  Like a little horse-style “up-yours” if you will.  Jake has enough of his shit and switches over to Jefferson and all seems to be right in his world again.

Matt’s confident that he can win.  Jake is confident that he can win.  Shane is confident that on paper, Matt should win and the Jake was picked last for the team.  I’m confident that I just want to see some jousting and you’re probably confident that I’m clearly rambling on here.  Also, Matt mentions that he’s never once been unhorsed in competition, and that makes me wonder if he didn’t just jinx himself going into the match up.

Keep reading, click the page numbers below.

The Cowboy vs. Teenwolf

YES!  The Quarterfinals of Full Metal Jousting are officially in the books.  Best show since the ball piercing episode where two guys had lances shoved in their junk.  Well, 2/3rds of the show was anyhow.  Let me explain.

This was the final 3 matchups of the Quarterfinals leading into the Semi Finals which ultimately lead into the Finals.  Got all that?  We have to whittle these guys down to four, then two and then we get our winner.  That’s how it works.  If that doesn’t clear it up for you, I can’t help you anymore.  Go soak your head.

First up…Rope Myers vs. Josh Avery.  Rope will be riding Phantom and Josh will be on Paladin.  Let’s get to the action.  No time for foreplay this week.

Pass One:  Rope misses and Josh scores a strike.
Score:  Rope 0, Josh 1

Pass Two:  Rope unhorses Josh, Josh unhorses Rope.  It’s cute the way they both did that, isn’t it?  Brutal shit though.
Score:  Rope 10, Josh 11

Amazingly, both guys get up off the ground, shake the sand off their balls and act as though it was the most pleasant thing that’s ever happened to them.  Go figure.

Pass Three:  Rope breaks a lance, Josh misses.  Pussy.
Score:  Rope 15, Josh 11

Pass Four:  Rope strikes, Josh breaks a lance.  Looks like Josh responds when you question his testicles.  Good for him.
Score:  Rope 16, Josh 16

Pass Five:  Rope strikes and Josh misses.  Apparently Josh is a one pump chump?
Score:  Rope 17, Josh 16

Pass Six:  Rope strikes, Josh strikes.  Copycats, I hate copycats.
Score:  Rope 18, Josh 17

At this point Rod advises that you “stick it in about 4 inches deeper.”  Good advice whether you’re jousting or not, if you ask me.

Pass Seven:  Rope misses, Josh strikes
Score:  Rope 18, Josh 18

Shit just got real for real.  After his refractory period, it appears Josh is back in the saddle.  Look out Sally, he’s got wood!

Pass Eight:  Rope ????   Josh??????

No seriously.  It took the judges like 5 minutes to figure out who did what to who and where the wood landed.  When it was all sorted out, they decided that Rope missed and Josh scored a strike giving him the 19 – 18 victory.

Personally, I don’t like it and I could tell Josh didn’t want to win that way either.  He wanted to shove wood deep into Rope.  And who could blame him?

Either way, Josh moves on to the Semi Finals and Rope is out of the running for the $100k.

Let’s see the next match shall we?  Click the page numbers below.

Concussions are no match for titanium testicles

In what was a ball busting, brain bashing episode, we were treated to our final round of preliminary jousts.  This week’s final preliminary matchup saw James Fairclough vs. Joe McKinley.  James, as you might recall, suffered a concussion two weeks ago and was forced to sit out of any contact drills or competitions.  With the doctor’s blessing, he finally got to compete.  Thankfully, no actual balls were harmed in this week’s episode.

Joe on the other hand, is only back in this thing because he was awarded a second chance.  Having lost his first jousting match earlier in the season, it took patience to find a way back in.  Unfortunately, the spot he filled once belonged to Landon Morris, Full Metal Jousting’s very own Horse Punching Champeen!  I would go through all that again, but really, you can click the links to my past articles to read more of my thoughts on that.  Some folks disagreed with my assessment of his actions, and that’s ok.  Personally, I have to side with the trainers and coaches of the event.  Rules is rules afterall.

Now, on to the good stuff.  A post-concussion James is practicing.  He’s riding Gulliver for his matchup.  Shortly into his practice session, however, Gulliver decides he isn’t really all that into this jousting shit, and refuses to run the list.  I love a horse with a mind of its own.  Unfortunately, this causes the team to switch horses and James winds up riding Superman instead.  Superman is a fast horse who tends to get a little hard to control it seems.  Fortunately, this just infuses James with his own superhero powers as if he got a dose of space radiation straight to his balls, because he’s breaking lances and taking names.

Joe’s up next on the practice list.  Riding Jefferson, Joe has a cold start with his targeting and overall lance control.  A few passes later, however, and Joe’s on point stabbing deep into everything that comes his way.  Once he’s warmed up and dialed in, this matchup is promising to help your testicles swell.  Let’s see how it turned out.

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Clash of the Titans' Balls

Oh man oh man oh man.  Another excellent installment of Full Metal Jousting last night.  I mean, it was loaded with the good stuff.  Very little of the “reality” programming that I was worried about last week, and a healthy dose of action.  The show has a routine they follow and honestly it’s really nice if you ask me.  Hell, even if you didn’t ask me, I’m telling you, it’s really nice.

Each show starts off with the aftermath of the previous week’s competition.  You get to see your winner celebrate with his team, the losing jouster come to terms with failure that particular day and then the teams mix together to blow off a little steam.  The amount of beer they must run through in those bunkhouses has got to be close to rivaling a frat party.  This week, the teams decided that those who have yet to compete would slip into most of their armor and just get a few extra minutes of adjusting to wearing the steel.  And what do a bunch of jousters do in between practice and competition while wearing their armor?  I have no idea what others might do, but the FMJ teams decided to play a few hands of “spoons” and then chess while wearing their helmets, upper body armor and gloves.  Just. Freaking. Awesome.

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Full Metal Testicles Jousting Mathis vs. Nodar

For one glorious hour last night, I was treated to some of the most balls-out brutality that can legally transpire on your television set.  Full Metal Jousting was back for round two and once again, they didn’t disappoint.  I have to say, it’s not as action packed as some other sports, but what it lacks in overall action, it more than makes up for in pure, unfiltered carnage.  These guys must have a second set of testicles, there’s no way in hell you could participate in jousting with just the standard single pair of balls.

So, last night, we were treated to a bit more training footage in where the competitors were shown techniques and given a chance to sort of hone their skills a bit.  With the Red team suffering the first loss of the series last week, they were out there to try to even the odds and insure that their first loss was their last loss.  We get a chance to see more of the jousters interacting, and getting to work together as a team.  Ultimately that team stuff will have to go out the window as they approach the finals to decide the overall champion of the event and to see who walks away with a cool $100,000.

Since the Black team won last week, they got to pick their Red team opponent.  The Black team selected Jake Nodar, a horse trainer by trade, and widely assumed to be the weakest link on the Red team.  Since we’re not privy to all of the training footage between events, we as an audience simply have to take their word for it.  The jouster for the Black team would be Jack Mathis, a Theatrical Jouster.  I would have to imagine, that as a theatrical jouster you have a leg up on your competition because you are at the very least comfortable on a horse, wielding that lance and hitting targets on a daily basis.

Now that the competition is set, the teams set out to train their guys for victory.  And for Jack, it’s looking pretty good.  He’s got the skills, the determination and the drive to win.  Obviously there’s some things to work on, but they seem to be minor and if you had to put money on the early favorite, it was going to be Jack.  At one point, however, during his training, he takes a wicked hit to the head and winds up breaking a tooth.  After the doctor checks him out, he’s cleared to continue.

We’re next treated to Jake’s training.  Even his coach mentions how he’s just not skilled at the event, but then, how many people are really?  So they work with him on his lance technique, and for the majority of the training he’s missing everything.  Just looking bad…until he doesn’t.  He starts making strikes, getting his timing down and looking like he belongs there.

After the training segments, we see the guys back in their own team headquarters, and Jake decides to go talk some trash to the Black team.  It’s friendly enough, at least as friendly as trash talk can be.  He calls Jack out and says that he’s got a target on his shoulder.  To this, the black team makes fun of him saying he messed the phrase up, that it should be “Target on your back, or a chip on your shoulder”.  This is where I have to disagree.  The target in jousting, is in fact, on your shoulder.  Before you go calling someone stupid….yada yada.

And finally…FINALLY we get to the match.  The jousters suit up, mount up and take to the “sandbox” as they’ve come to refer to it.  And it’s on like Donkey Kong.

Pass 1:

Red makes solid contact and unhorses the Black Knight.  The Black Knight doesn’t score a strike.  He is immediately checked out by a doctor to insure he can continue the competition.  As an aside, apparently the rules state that the minute the doctor walks away you have two minutes to get back in your armor and on your horse or you risk disqualification.  Jack makes it back in time, and gets ready for another round.

Score:  Red: 10  Black 0

Pass 2:

Contact is made by both competitors but neither strikes the Grand Guard on the shoulder.  Therefore, no points are awarded.

Score remains  Red: 10  Black 0

Pass 3:  

Another zero point round.  Both guys are struggling to find their targets.  You almost can’t blame Jack, he’s probably still a bit rattled from that early knock-down.  And Jake, well, he’s still green.

Score remains:  Red 10  Black 0

Pass 4:

With frustration setting in for Jack, he gets a bit careless.  He makes contact for a score, but overextends himself to the point that he manages to unhorse himself.  Sloppy riding is to blame.  Since Red didn’t make contact, no points are awarded for the take down.

Score is now:  Red 10  Black 1

The doctor does step in to check on a visibly upset Jack, and after he leaves the race is on to get him back on his horse within the two minute time window.  Luckily, they manage to get him back on in time.

Pass 5:

The first 4 passes see the Knights using lances that are 1 1/4″ in diameter.  For the last 4 rounds, the lances are 1 1/2″ in diameter.  This adds rigidity and weight to the weapon.  And our fifth pass sees a double miss.  Both sides attribute that to the change in weight of the lance.

Score remains:  Red 10  Black 1

Pass 6:

Red scores a strike, and Black actually breaks a lance, but in doing so, misses the grand guard, so he receives no points for his efforts.

Score is now:  Red 11  Black 1

Pass 7:

Another double miss.  I can only imagine the stress leads to sloppy targeting.  That’s not a knock on the competitors, they’re doing something I don’t have enough balls to do.  Just my thoughts.

Score remains:  Red 11  Black 1

Pass 8:

With the final pass coming up, Black is still in a position to at least tie it up.  They haven’t mentioned what sort of tie breaker system they employ in the event it happens, but he’s got the chance.  If Jack can unhorse Jake on this pass, he will tie.

And they’re off, Black misses and Red strikes but not on the grand guard.  In doing so, Red loses his lance completely.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter because Jake Nodar for the Red team has prevailed.

Final Score:  Red 11 – Black 1

This brings the series to a tie, with one win each for the teams.  A great show, a ballsy effort and I sincerely hope they bring this back on a very regular basis after this season.  Check it out if you haven’t already.  History Channel, Sundays @ 10pm