I'm gonna try to win the Pulitzer with this one.

Austin, Texas, has 8-10 festivals every weekend, but this weekend was a big one: the 7th annual Fun Fun Fun Fest, featuring a reunited Run DMC, everyone from Public Image Ltd to X to f**king Kreayshawn and a cannon that shoots tacos. It’s the weird little brother of SXSW, and it’s the best.

It’s also full of sports, and because 1) I was there, and 2) I run a sports blog, I documented all of it to share with you here. I actually got to participate in some of it, too. My jobs as a returning judge for the Air Sex Championships and hosting gig for a veggie hot dog eating contest got me billed as a “Yellow State Artist,” meaning I performed (as it were) on the same stage as David Cross, Eugene Mirman, H. Jon Benjamin, Saul Williams and a magician who did a racist ventriloquist act and pulled ribbons out of a chicken’s ass. It was one of the coolest, best experiences I’ve ever had, and that’s not even mentioning how I got a crowd of hipsters to join me in a Daniel Bryan “YES” chant.

Inside this Golden Treasury of sports photos you’ll find:

- Skateboarding and BMX at “Ride The Plank,” sponsored by Project LOOP
- Pro wrestling courtesy of local pals Anarchy Championship Wrestling
- Mechanical bull riding
- The aforementioned Air Sex Championships, which gets covered a lot on With Leather these days and is exactly what it sounds like.
- The veggie hot dog eating contest

Stick around until the very end to see a shirtless fat guy in a horse mask squaring off against a punk rock pornstar. That is not clickbait, that actually happened. I love you, Fun Fun Fun Fest.

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By now you’ve probably seen video of 24-year-old New Zealander Jed Mildon pulling off the world’s first (and by process of elimination, best) BMX triple backflip. What you haven’t seen is the amount of landscaping, foam pits and backbreaking scientific research that went into it. This video, courtesy of the Discovery Channel, explains exactly how it worked, rather than just showing you how awesomely it did.

I think this version is actually more impressive than initial video of the jump. I mean, the monkeys and typewriters vibe of life could allow somebody to jump off a skyscraper and live, and while that might be a fun video to stumble upon on Buzzfeed, it’s even more impressive when the monkey shows his work. Then you know you’ve got a truly-evolved sentient typewriter monkey, and building things like a giant bike ramp for triple backflips doesn’t seem some pointless. That example got weird. But hopefully you know what I’m saying. I’m happy knowing he could pull a triple backflip again, because he didn’t just pull it off, he made “pulling it off” a logical possibility.

I’m never going to get a job writing for the new Uproxx science blog with explanations like these. (That should be a real thing. And we should call it ‘With Levers’.)

The Morning Links section is all about spreading the love to our friends, peers and Network At Large, but today the sports section is going to be all about With Leather. I feel like we’ve been doing a great job since I came on, and if you disagree I am going to jam material down your throat until it comes out your backside.

And then it will read something like Bleacher Report.

Sports

The Greatest Atrocity in the History of Sport - If you missed this from last week, you’re really missing out. Punte’s story of disdain toward a BMX biker who cares more about breakfast than competition is outstanding, and the kind of thing that should have 1500 comments. [With Leather]

Gilbert Arenas Really Loves Planking - He does, apparently. Burnsy’s gallery explores the joys of lying on things that aren’t comfortable in situations that could prove sociall awkward. Hilarity ensues! And yes, it looks like he’s parking in handicap spots. [With Leather]

Mexican Soccer Fans Are Boorish Animals: A First-Hand Account - Matt Ufford was the King of With Leather in its infancy, and this kind of thing is why. For extra fun, join in the comments discussion, where you will be called a “dumbass” and an “idiot” no matter WHAT you think. [With Leather]

The Best and Worst of WWE Raw 6/27 - If you have typed the words “probably” and “worked shoot” into a sentence in the last two days, you need to read this column. Then, don’t ever write about wrestling on the Internet again. [With Leather]

Not Sports
Okay, now about the other people

Lady Gaga Is A Panda Now - I still appreciate Gaga’s madness, but part of me wishes she’d spent longer in that sweet spot when she was carrying around a teacup and wearing Mickey Mouse sunglasses all the time. She was still hot and super weird, but she hadn’t started digivolving into mantises and Asian beasts. [Uproxx]

BBQ’s & Boomboxes: 25 Essential Summer Songs - Sometimes I really wish I wrote for The Smoking Section. It’s so much cooler than what I get to do. They get to write about “Illmatic”. I have to write about David Eckstein. Wait, hold on, this list has the Kings of Leon on it, nevermind, they are the David Eckstein of popular music. [Smoking Section]

Fun with RottenTomatoes Career Graphs - It’s not surprising to see Chuck Norris and Jennifer Love Hewitt as the worst actor and actress of all time based on science. I still forgive Love for Can’t Hardly Wait, and I’m sure one day she’s going to show up on Entertainment Tonight and be all “oh wait, hey guys, here’s a well-lit porno I taped when I was 22, enjoy”. [Film Drunk]

Ten Toys That ‘Transformed’ Into Television Shows - All I cared about when I was little was He-Man’s Bashasaurus vehicle “transforming” me into a kid who owned the He-Man Bashasaurus. I feel like I would’ve hated these Transformers movies when I was five about as much as I do now. [Warming Glow]

I spent my weekend watching Minor League Baseball and attending an independently-promoted women’s professional wrestling tournament, and since those are the two things I love nobody else in the world wants to read about, here are links to other things.

Sports

The Greatest Atrocity in the History of Sport - If you didn’t read Punte’s piece about BMX and Raisin Bran from last week, you’re missing out on one of the best things I’ve seen since I got here. In a perfect world, we’ll be doing stuff like this more often. Support it! [With Leather]

10 Things I Learned From Watching the NBA Draft - And don’t forget Burnsy, who manages to produce something like this every week and blow me out of the water. Also, my review of watching the NBA draft would just be a multi-pager with “uhhhhh” and a picture of David Stern on every page. [With Leather]

Ron Artest = Metta World Peace - It became a tired old Internet thing to mention before it even became news, but in case you need to know what the jokes are about, read the Smoking Section’s take on Ron Artest and his humorous name change. Changing With Leather’s name to “Beta Blog Read”, brb. [Smoking Section]

Everything’s Bigger in Texas - Kissing Suzy Call-ber (© TH of The Wrestling Podcast) is on vacation, so listen to the House of Punte podcast in five minute intervals for the remainder of the week. [KSK]

Not Sports

Bieber’s Kelly Kapowski Shirt: The Domino Effect - I feel pretty sad to live in a world where a Canadian teenager can wear a shirt and change it, but I’m happy to live in a world where people wear Kelly Kapowski t-shirts. Technically shouldn’t a “Kelly Kapowski t-shirt” be a bra with a floral print? [Uproxx]

Every Opening Quote from ‘The Wire’ in Under 3 Minutes - Create your own The Wire opening quote! Here are a few examples: “Things we do? We just do ‘em.” – Bird. “How’m I spose’d t’open this can without a can opener?” – Lester. “Go Fish a game of chance, yo.” – Omar. [Warming Glow]

Battle of the Kirks - William Shatner was too awesome and handsome to’ve devolved into the wierd Center of Attention Shrek he’s become. However, I will support any television show that gets Avery Brooks TV time. [Gamma Squad]

Twilight Are Book Now? - It’s hard to believe people like this exist, and also extremely easy. Create your own Twilight quote! “I die in the light… but without you, I never would have found the darkness.” Ha, somewhere that hoggish British lady is bursting into tears. [Film Drunk]

Boomshakalaka! The nail in the coffin?

Sports

The NBA Finals: 10 Points To Watch - Point one, how many nicknames for Dirk Notwitzki can you come up with while watching? Sports writers can come up with INFINITY. Point two, when writing a recap of the games, how many times can you point out that the Heat seem like nice guys, even though they’re being portrayed as the league’s villains? [Smoking Section]

World’s First BMX Triple Backflip - Witness a first for action sports. Of course, saying “action sports” is like saying “jump diving,” but this is pretty cool. I think BMX clips, win or fail, are 90% people going AOOHHHHH. [Buzzfeed]

Dad Drops His Daughter to Catch Foul Ball - We would’ve covered this on Monday, but if you haven’t seen it yet, watch as this dumb jerk completely sacrifices his kid to go for a foul ball. Maybe this is one kid that won’t grow up yelling BALL, BALL, BALL, BALL, BALL at players during games. [Fark]

Productive Outs - A baseball blog. I call them Baseblogs™! And I’m totally not linking it here just because they’ve got an interview with me going up in a couple of hours. Nope! [ProductiveOuts]

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This is acutally helmetcam footage of a BMX racecourse in Chile, not Mexico, but props to Ufford on the headline anyway. But this is kind of a big deal: the Valparaiso Cerro Abajo Urban Downhill Race draws bikers from around the world and over 10,000 spectators each year, to the point where the city shuts down to facilitate the race. And you’ll soon see why I had to wear rubber underpants while I watched this. It’s amazing video.

The course took a toll on the riders, and vice versa–several jumps had to be repaired between runs. Filip Polc of Slovakia posted the best time of 2 minutes and 34 seconds, but I’m more impressed that nobody died.

Death defiance awaits you after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »