ESPN’s NSFW-ish Body Issue: Naked Gymnastics And Awkward Nude Dunking

Written by Brandon Stroud / 10.05.11

espn-body-issue-2011

ESPN The Magazine has released a batch of photos from the 2011 installment of their annual “The Body Issue”, and while full-on nudity isn’t something we can really share with you at With Leather, we can’t see a picture of Blake Griffin dunking with his pants down and not share it with you. It gives the whole “dunking over a car” thing an extra degree of difficulty.

This year’s issue isn’t as conservative as 2009, when most of the athletes were wearing shorts, but it remains tasteful and doesn’t tread near the whole “seeing Patrick Willis’ pubic hair” thing from last year. There are a lot (a lot) of gorgeous women from nearly every corner of the sports world featured, including-but-not-limited-to Hope Solo, LPGA rookie Belen Mozo, foxy roller derby star Suzy Hotrod, the WNBA’s statuesque Sylvia Fowles and the lady pulling a LeBron James in the image up top, Olympic silver medal gymnast Alicia Sacramone. I’m really glad that isn’t LeBron James.

Of course, the following gallery is only a sampling, and you should head on over to ESPN The Magazine The Website to see more, including the pictures I’m not authorized to show you (or, “Wow, time to Wikipedia the sh*t out of Stephanie Gilmore”). Also, consider buying the magazine itself, if that’s your bag. Now please click through and laugh at that weird picture of Jon “Bones” Jones peeing in his swimming pool.

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Mourning The Loss Of Talent

Written by Brandon Stroud / 09.09.11

Frank Talent diesFrank Talent died last night. He was a representative for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, and at first, his passing might not seem to be the time of thing you need to report to a mainstream sports blog audience.

Talent was Assistant Athletic Commissioner for 38 years, presiding over boxing, roller derby and wrestling. In 75 years he went from a kid raised in an orphanage to a man who was featured on the radio, made appearances on television, wrote columns for the newspaper and generally lived the kind of life that lets you die surrounded by your family seven-and-a-half decades in with a smile on your face.

But why does a guy like me remember Frank Talent, and mourn his passing? I just happen to be one of those people who will always associate Philadelphia pro wrestling with his name. To put it another way, here’s a short paragraph written about Talent by Peter Holby a few years ago at Progressive Boink:

Frank Talent is the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commissioner. He was appointed to his post and it’s his responsibility to make sure that every wrestling show is conducted in a safe manner. He has to make sure the ring is well-built and the crowd is out of harm’s way. And what better way to do such a thing than by being a paid performer on those wrestling shows? For a nominal fee, Frank Talent will come to your show and stop a match on the grounds that it’s unsafe, or maybe you just want him to stand backstage, give a pep talk, and yell at Spanky for having his headphones on. He gets two paychecks.

That’s what he was — a guy who did his job, but also liked to do a little more.

You won’t find his eulogy on Yahoo Sports or probably even the major wrestling sites, but I wanted to devote a few paragraphs to him here. Tom Holzerman at The Wrestling Blog put up his own tribute late last night after the news of Frank’s passing started to spread across Twitter, and if you’ve never seen or heard of the man, I think the best example of his importance is in this video, where CHIKARA pro wrestling’s Icarus tries to get Frank Talent to make sure the good guys don’t cheat and gets called out for being the biggest cheater of all.

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LES BON TEMPS DID ROULER

Written by Christmas Ape / 07.14.08

It\'s Heather Graham back for revenge!

With 45 people who totally had it coming getting hurt in the annual Running of the Bulls in Spain, for once a similar event in New Orleans looked relatively free of violence. Over the weekend, some girls in roller skates got together to chase people through the French Quarter, which is kind of like that segment in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, except no one dies, which makes it slightly disappointing.

Hundreds of men, women and children, most in white with red scarves around their waists and red bandannas around their necks, gathered outside a French Quarter bar Saturday morning to be chased down Bourbon Street by members of New Orleans' roller derby league.

"Roller skates and a stampede through the Quarter — what could possibly go wrong?" said accountant Jason Medonia.

The run, in its second year, featured 33 roller girls in horned helmets from teams with names like Confederacy of Punches and Crescent Wenches.

A Confederacy of Dunces reference? From girls willing to mix it up and beat up strangers for fun and, if the cops aren't looking, profit? That's so close to my dreams it's scary. The difference being, of course, that my dreams are actually scary.   

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