In Defense of Goliath

There are plenty of losers in sports, but none is bigger than Goliath. The Washington Generals may have had a terrible losing streak to the Harlem Globetrotters, but no one under the age of 30 knows who the Globetrotters are anymore, so they can fade to obscurity. Goliath, meanwhile, hasn't stopped losing.

A quick Google alert to "Goliath" pulls up quite the rap sheet of the behemoth's misery.

"After a decade of losing to Toledo, CMU finally killed Goliath. Ten years of misery finally broken. CMU is now on a streak of its own..."

"Denison slays Goliath to take title..."

"David slays Goliath ... twice! Holy Trinity wins flag football championship..."

And, in what is probably the most down-to-earth and realistic use of the story, this headline from a website in Ireland.

"Boxing: David slays Goliath to conquer the world."

So, for all you people who laughed at the conspiracy-theorists warning us about a one-world government, it's time for a plate of crow. Apparently, a boxer has taken over the entire world. Which, in my opinion, must have made for a highly entertaining match.

Forget fighting for things like "championship belts" and "money." Fighting for political power is the way it should be. It's like a WWE match, but instead of the "loser leaves the company match," it's a "loser controls everything ever" match.

Of course, the website was referencing David Haye's win over Nikolai Valuev, which was monumental. If you're like me and not sure how monumental, allow this website to sum it up.

"It was probably the most surprising, if not sensational, result in the annals of unarmed combat since the original David toppled Goliath almost 3,000 ago."

I love how the writer uses "probably" there, like there possibly could be some epic hand-to-hand battle he's forgetting about that happened in the year 500 B.C.

And the thing that kills me about 99% of the stories that invoke this age-old anecdote ... every single one of them is to report about David's unbelievable upset over Goliath. It's about how "the little guy" overcame the big power. Every one of those stories misses the entire point about David and Goliath. It's perhaps the greatest flaw in all of journalism.

In the fight of David vs. Goliath, Goliath was the underdog. In fact, he's probably the biggest underdog in the history of competition (I'm not even limiting it to unarmed, as our friend in Ireland tends to do).

Everyone is quick to point out Goliath's size advantage but they forget the crucial, and most obvious, part of the story. DAVID HAS THE POWER OF GOD ON HIS SIDE! That's like putting Brock Lesnar in the cage with Harry Potter. Lesnar doesn't stand a chance. He couldn't even land a punch before he'd be turned into a toad or a mop or some other magical cliché.

Think of the worst officiating disaster you can possibly imagine. Every sports fan has one or two extreme injustices that should come to mind quickly. Now, imagine that times one billion and you have what happened to Goliath.

Goliath played by the rules. He probably lifted weights. You can assume he started fighting people on his own skill level and gradually worked his way up the ladder through his dedication and work ethic (combined with his physical gifts, of course).

David, meanwhile, benefited from the ultimate performance-enhancer — Yahweh. That, my friends, is complete bullshit. Goliath, despite doing things the right way, never had a prayer. That was as far from a fair fight as you can get. It would've been a fairer fight to have Goliath fight a team that included all the Transformers in the cartoon's history, three of the five Power Rangers, and that soccer girl that pulls everyone's hair.

And here's the thing that really pisses me off. David didn't even try to hide his performance-enhancer. He didn't barely win and then take credit for the success. He didn't try to hide it from his people. He didn't try to downplay. He literally said, "Hey, Goliath, I have the power of God on my side and I'm going to use it to kill you with a little rock. Because I don't respect you. I won't even beat you like a man. I'm just going to pick something up from the ground and smack you with it to show everyone what a little bitch you are. Then I'm going to cut your head off and give it to someone."

Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly like that. But he did talk a lot of shit beforehand, and he did tell Goliath he was going to cut his head off after the fight. And then he did it. And everyone for the rest of eternity acted like it was such a big upset.

Think about it like this. If you have a homely looking friend, with no game at all, who manages to snag a model-quality chick in a bar, everyone is impressed. They are floored. It will be talked as long as man has the function to speak. But if your friend reveals to everyone that he used a roofie to hook up with the model? No one is impressed.

That's not skill. That's not inspiring. That's date-rape. And that's what everyone is supporting when they bring up David and Goliath. It's time to put an end to this practice once and for all.