photo credit: THQ.com

Unlike the Kitana-costume-donning AJ Lee, whose 10 most beloved video games were featured on Monday, Kofi Kingston hasn’t made any big shout-outs to gaming culture on WWE programming. But much like Lee, Kingston is dedicated to the medium and was totally down to write and rank his favorite games before doing a countdown interview a while back. “The top 10 list is a big deal, so you didn’t have to ask me twice,” says the resident king of resourceful Royal Rumble spots.

Kingston’s life with video games began with the 1987 Commodore 64 title Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior. As a console player, he’s run the gamut. At first, his loyalty was strictly with Nintendo (he despised Sega), but his allegiance began to wobble when the SNES version of Mortal Kombat hit and substituted blood for sweat. Later, he was a fan of the original PlayStation. When he and Zack Ryder were going through developmental together, Ryder’s mom got her son an Xbox 360. Since Ryder wasn’t really into video games, Kingston bought the barely used 360 for a song and soon became an Xbox guy. Currently, he owns all three major consoles plus, as an episode of WWE’s YouTube series Superstar Toyz indicated, a 125-games-in-one arcade cabinet. “I guess that’d be pretty hardcore if you had to put a tag on it,” he says.

As of this writing, Kingston has disappointingly been given nothing to do for WrestleMania 29 on Sunday. If he doesn’t get a last-minute slot, this will mark the first WrestleMania without a Kofi match on the card since he debuted in WWE in 2008. Seeing as how he could especially use some love right now, let’s hand off the reins to everyone’s favorite ex-Jamaican to hear his ballot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our Man Burnsy’s on the road today, so I’m handling the With Leather Watch This. Who likes shoehorned-in wrestling references? Everybody? THOUGHT SO.

Here’s what’s on TV tonight, highlighted by a “seemed like a great idea when we were making the schedule” showdown between the 3-7 Philadelphia Eagles and the 2-8 Carolina Panthers. Sophomore slumpmaster Cam Newton looks to throw more interceptions than touchdowns against Philadelphia’s Michael Vick, a guy who could seriously benefit from Tim McGraw showing up and duct-taping the football to his hands. It’s going to be GREAT, and the Philly sports fans on your Twitter feed won’t be obnoxious about it AT ALL.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been running awesome fantasy baseball games alongside Fanduel.com all summer, but football is almost back, and we’re ready to hit fantasy sports right in its wheelhouse.

You’ll want to sign up now for our first FREE FanDuel Fantasy Football game of the season (one entry per player) and take your shot at winning money from a $1000 prize pool. Do I seriously have to bribe you into playing a free fantasy football game? On Week ONE?

Here’s how it works:

We’re getting this ready for week 1, so that means the contest happens on Sunday, September 9. That means you can’t draft anyone from the Wednesday game, but all Sunday and Monday players are eligible. Payouts start right after Monday Night Football. How sweet is that? A free game with free money to celebrate the return of the one sport people seriously care about.

So yeah, sign up, friend. Enjoy your money.

Taiwan’s Next Media Animation has been in a bit of a slump lately, but they’ve followed up their disappointing, wordless Austin Powers-esque recap of Kate Upton’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover and incessant videos of Jeremy Lin on fire with this masterful retelling of Randy Moss’s 35th birthday and the UStreamed intentions to return to the NFL that followed.

The obvious highlight here is Michael Vick throwing touchdown passes to Moss in prison, but don’t sleep on him destroying a referee’s fine with a giant baby bottle that looks and works like the gun from Portal.

Oh, and in case you were wondering:

There’s something a little concerning about two Taiwanese ladies animating themselves high-fiving and cheering “yayyy!” after they’ve just made a video about how black people are crybaby prisoners, but I’ll let it slide.

I once thought that a great idea for a magazine would be Haters – “The publication devoted to people who hate sh*t.” It was my billion dollar idea until I learned that things take effort and I hate that sh*t. But lately I’ve realized that my idea would have just been a knock off of the magazine that already has hate down pat – Forbes.

When it’s not busy hating people who don’t have money, Forbes is going out of its way to compile lists of people and things that we all hate. This week, it’s the annual list of the Most Hated Athletes in America. Sure, they call it the Most Disliked Athletes, but read between the capitalist lines, amigos.

So who, pray tell, are the most heinous and villainous prick athletes in all of the land, Forbes?

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re big fans of Taiwanese Animation here at With Leather, but far too often the things that make Next Media Animation’s efforts truly great — absurd imagery and hilarious bluntness — are eschewed for political cartoon style moments where someone who just got suspended gets beat over the head with a giant rectangle with SUSPENSION written on it.

That’s not the case with today’s cartoon, which goes completely over-the-top with its images (Michael Vick riding an eagle that gets shot to death with rifles, Eli Manning getting run over by a school bus with the New Orleans Saints logo on the side, children being murdered by fire breath) and even higher over with its most blunt message ever. And I quote:

The ‘Boys have a recent history of choking. And Jerry Jones is their owner, GM and head coach. They won’t win anythin [sp] until he dies.

… then Tony Romo and black Tony Romo (?) high-five each other as his death is replayed on TV.

Taiwan, you are my hero.

[h/t Fark]