talking trash

Many of you can attest i talk trash no matter what i am doing. Playing hearts, pool, basketball, etc. I will say something that usually gets someone mad. In pro sports today trash talking has been silenced in every way. Players get fined for taunting or excessively celebrating accomplishments in all sports. Now some players go over the top with their mannerism and I can understand why the rule was put in place. Deion Sanders high steppin' down the side lines and dancing was fun to watch. The alleged story of him screaming at the Clemson sideline telling them that he was going to take a punt back for a touchdown and then doing it is hilarious. Muhammad Ali coming up with colorful jabs at his opponents was cool too. Even the Mutumbo finger wave was funny because when he got dunked on they did back to him. Vince Carter and Micheal Jordan waved their finger after posterizing Mutumbo. Chad Ocho Cinco became famous because he would talk trash about his opponent before games, during games and after. He made a list one year of all of the defensive backs he was to face and called them the week of the games an told them what he going to do to them. This ear he sent mustard to an opponent basically telling the Ravens that "they couldn't cut the mustard. " Very funny and to his teams credit, they defeated the Ravens twice this year. He apparently is the only player in the NFL that talks trash. Bart Scott of the Jets talks a little smack,so does Joey Porter of the Dolphins. I think that players who do do the talking are all so respected and feared that no one says anything back to them anymore. Ray Lewis talks during games a lot and I have never heard any one say anything back to him. Teams all say that they want to knock Hines Ward out but every week he is the one laying out players. I remember when T.O. mocked Ray Lewis' dance after scoring a touchdown against the Ravens. I am still waiting for retribution on that one. In Baseball the way players taunt others is the home run pose. Ken Griffey Jr. has been doing the same pose for 20 seasons. Barry Bonds did the pose too. Albert Pujols even poses and chucks his bat away. A-rod does the pose and chuck too. Manny does the strut. The pitchers retaliate by throwing at the next hitter or even sometimes at the home run hot dog. Relief pitcher get real pumped up and do their little dance after a save or big out. K-rod does his thing and then points at the sky. I think that if he did not point to the sky after wards he would have some problems. Randy Johnson used to get very excited after a big strikeout. Players would not complain because they had that fear that he would put one behind their head if they did. Tiger Woods does the fist pump when he gets on a roll. At first that angered some of the purest but when the guy kept winning all the time they just accepted it. Lleyton Hewitt used to drive opponents crazy when he would yell come on after winning points in tennis. No one said anything to him because he was always winning when he did this. Roger Federer does a little bit of that now. No one says anything back because he always wins. Floyd Mayweather talks a lot of trash but he wins all of his fights. He even answers questions during fights that the announcers are raising. I wish I had court side seats to a Bulls game back in the day or Celtic game. They used to say that Larry Bird talk so much trash that opposing players would hide their faces so not to laugh at their team mate who was being taunted. He would literally tell you how we was going to hit shots and when to jump and all kinds of crazy stuff. Remember when he won the 3 point shooting contest and did not take his warm up jacket off? He was telling other players that his name already had the check on it. Gary Payton talked a lot of trash. He would lock up his opponent and then post them up on the other end to add insult to what he would be saying at the other end. Could you imagine someone talking smack to Jordan? I am sure that Rodman and Payton did talk smack to Micheal. He once said after a Bulls win in the finals that he may need to take Payton to a playground somewhere and remind him that he was Micheal Jordan. Earlier that season Payton stripped Jordan preserving a victory for the Sonics. The next game Jordan scored 31 points in the first half and Payton was silenced.
I guess the point of this rant is that I miss the trash talkers of sport. Charles Barkeley and his contemporaries made trash talking fun. I think the reason that we don't hear about trash talking anymore is that guys today will fight you in the parking lot, night club or go to your dressing room and confront you about what you had to say. Also I think that today seems to have too many star players in different sports that are so much better than everyone else that it makes most sense not to say a word. I wonder if some one taunted Tiger or Roger or Usain Bolt, what would happen. Can you imagine taunting Micheal Phelps? Lance Armstrong? Mike Tyson? Kobe Bryant? Lebron James? I guess if you can't back it up, it is best to shut it up!!! Chad Ocho cinco trashed talked Darrell Revis from the Jets last week and got silenced in a big way. Ocho cinco had zero catches, this week he gets a second chance. We shall see....