X Games Recap - A Few More Thoughts on the Action Sports Revolution

Nolan Monroe taken by Mark Coleman/ESPN

So yeah, as we all get ready for our short (or at least interrupted) week, in celebration of our great American Revolution, let's look at the current American revolution - that is, the explosion of sports and competition so different from all that came before that it's a more true form of the word revolution than even our own American Revolution. Don't get angry but our greatest war was more of a liberation (or an evolution) - according to Camus, a revolution is a complete changing of the way we do things. America still had and has taxes, still had slavery, still had its power centralized among a few wealthy white men, that power was just on this side of the Atlantic. On the other hand, these X Games have essentially invented constantly-growing and evolving "fields" (halfpipe, street stage that looks like a high school, park that looks like a bunch of swimming pools, wood piles in motocross races) as well as are constantly redefining and interpreting what the athletes should do and how they do it. Seriously, think about the fact that sports have traditionally played with balls on square or oval fields (the exception being the baseball diamond). When was the last time the football field changed, especially as they try harder and harder to block out snow and rain that used to make football so damn fun. Or basketball, if everybody can dunk so easy, why not raise the net"?

Anyway, so here are just a couple thoughts and highlights before we can put this year's Summer X Games to bed and start looking towards the Olympics:

• They're all winners. What I mean by that is, if you just flipped on after the finals, you wouldn't be able to tell who won Gold. I was watching Street Skate finals, a tight race. You had Nyjah Huston, the new kid killin' it who racks up wins like the Madoff family is racking up jail time but who's also coming off a fucked up leg. Then there was Paul Rodriguez, one of the older guys (27) and also known for being a good guy. Rodriguez had thrown down a sick run and Nyjah had been nailing it, despite the fucked up knee. Then on his last run Sheckler, who'd been falling the whole time, threw together a banger, massive 360 flips, tail stall on a rail, stringing together sick move after the next and finishing it with a lofty stomped 360. Cuz hell, the kid had to prove he wasn't just a media bitch, that he could still skate. And when the dust cleared, he'd moved into second. You'd think a super competitor like Sheckler, as well as upstart on a hot streak, would be a little irritated at not winning. But no, they seemed just as amped for Rodriguez to have won considering the fact that he did throw down a sick run.
• Even more with skate street, if you watched you saw people just hanging around. It kinda looked like a schoolyard, all the kids just posting up wherever. Which is exactly the idea. Along the lines of "the field can be whatever we dream of" is the freedom "you can start wherever you want." And as such, you had the competitors not all in some special holding pen, not sitting in some sterile bench wearing matching uniforms sitting next to the old man who pats them on the back and tells them they did good. No, they're just kickin' it. This competition isn't that in the traditional sense of one against the next - the culture of these sports are about jamming together, more like a jazz freestyle than a rigorous choral opera. They're pushing each other not to try and beat the other; more it's about improving by watching those who might be better than you and, at the same, pushing yourself. Nobody will ever try and bust somebody's leg up to avoid competing with them because, shit, the better the competition, the more you push yourself to do new and crazier shit, the better you are and the better the sport as a whole.
• That double loop was just ridiculous. The X Games are taking the craziest shit that Evil Kneivel and all the stuntmen back in the day thought was cool and shitting on it. You're gonna jump a huge gap? So will we - but after racing 2 cars in a 6 story loop, setting a Guinness Record in the process. And the cockpit cameras just put you fuckin' in there - insane.
• Along the lines of camera, the stuff they did with all those GoPros and other setups took it to a whole new level. Like Rally Cross,  which I found pretty boring but when you went into the cockpit (happens in this video at 20 seconds) it's like Cruisin' USA. Gives an added shock to us Angelenos that this is essentially done in blocked off streets of downtown L.A., Pico street signs visible throughout the aerial shots of the course. But there's also all the first person Go Pro cams in Big Air, which gave me a newfound respect for BMX.

Then of course there's the freakish youngsters in big air who in the end were beaten by the "old man" himself, Bob Burnquist who showed them while they can spin and all, he can do it all switch (imagine not only going in the air like that but going bigger and doing it backwards).

And Pedro Barros in skateboard Park losing his hat in the middle of his run and picking it up on his way to a frontside air.

And Tony Hawk, one of the few mainstream X legends, now a commentator as skaters bust big bonelesses as homage to the trailblazer. A true passing of the torch now complete.


And of course can't forget Jamie Bestwick's 6peat (that's right, 6).

And then Real Street, the video-off that opens the contest up to the artistry of video-makers as well as exposes the X Games watcher to the ridiculousness being done by the top talents when they have a little more time and a few more tries - and "natural" features no park can properly replicate. Check here for the rundown and watch the videos too - Nyjah Huston won but Aaron "Jaws" Homoki, who came in second, should get a gold for having knees of steel considering the massive drops onto concrete this freak makes.

Oh, and the fans gave a gold to Collin Provost's vid over 2nd place Manny Santiago but either way, that's like letting the viewers at home vote on a highlight reel and giving the best on the list a medal. Ridiculous how endless these horizons are.

All of it was ridiculous. Want a more official summary? Sure you do and here you go.

Now we can look towards the next games, the good 'ol Olympics. And their crazy sports. 

See, summer's long, hot, dead sportscasts aren't so bad.

- Ryan