If you’re a regular reader at With Leather, you know how much I love mascots. Keeping that in mind, know that while I find the above video to be hilarious, I also imagine that it might be what Hell feels like. I’m going to guess the D.C. Air All-Star team wasn’t voted on by the fans.

The DC Air All-Stars – Big George, Hippo, G-Wiz, Air Screech and Air Slapshot, joined forces to entertain the crowd at Colonials Invasion 2011 to help the GW men’s and women’s basketball teams start the 2011-12 right.

This routine, like so much trampoline slam dunking, would be embarrassing but forgettable if the George Washington University Midnight Madness crowd were clapping and enjoying themselves, but their dead silence takes it to another level. It’s one part Zooperstars, one part high school pep rally and ten parts those weird amusement park live shows where kids sit on bleachers in a crayon-themed amphitheater or whatever and listen to five young actors who wish they were dead smile through a Now That’s What I Call Music dance medley.

All kidding aside, there’s something concerning about watching an inflatable hippo do a headstand while FloRida sings about how great his blowjob feels.

[sorrowful h/t to Off The Bench]

Another day, another story about Justin Bieber, the world’s Sexiest Teenage Man, shoehorning himself into the world of sports because he’s rich and popular enough to do anything he wants. The latest incident comes from one of The Beeb’s concerts, and if your ears can get through the throng of screaming adolescents you’ll see Anderson Silva celebrating his defense of the middleweight title at UFC 134 in Rio de Janeiro by doing a synchronized “The Shuffle” onstage for the enjoyment of 40,000 screaming Brazilian 12-year olds.

At no point did Silva counterstrike Bieber’s dancing with a Muay Thai knee to the face, but it’s worth watching anyway, and is at least a step or two up from wanting to put your junk in a cheeseburger.

Take a look, courtesy of our friends at Cagewriter:

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You may have woken up screaming from feverish nightmares last night and somehow just known this, but Madonna is performing at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. The news broke on SB Nation earlier today, and if you’re like me you’ve spent the last few hours going back and forth between “great, another 60-year old thrusting their hips at me between Dorito’s commercials” and “at least it’s better than the f**king Black Eyed Peas”.

It’s impossible to mention Super Bowl halftime shows and not mention the reason why they’re only allowed to be manned these days by responsible corporate types — we are still living in the shadow of Janet Jackson’s enormous metal titty and its impromptu appearance in 2004. Classic Madonna may have sought to top Janet, but modern Madonna is basically a yoga mom who only gets dragged out with Britney Spears or the cast of Glee need someone iconic to dance with.

Here’s a quick survey of Twitter opinion, courtesy of Off The Bench:

@PeytonsHead
Madonna is performing at the Super Bowl? Maybe the Bills really are good this year, considering we’ve warped back in time 20 years.

@bruce_arthur Bruce Arthur
Madonna performing at halftime of the Super Bowl? I bet Joe Montana and John Elway will really enjoy that before they play the second half.

@joshlewinstuff josh lewin
Madonna playing SB halftime this yr after BEP last year.. we keep creeping backwards here, people. by SB48, it’s going to be Boz Scaggs.

@gourmetspud Gourmet Spud
They need to stop letting Al Davis’s grandfather pick the Super Bowl halftime acts.

The Super Bowl halftime show is just like everything else in the world: run by the elderly, because nobody young knows how to handle it. Here’s to hoping she goes full 90s Madonna on us and makes out with Naomi Campbell onstage to the terror/delight of all.

Like everywhere else on the Internet, we end up talking about Justin Bieber way more than we should. Our job is to 1) cover what happens in the world of sports, and 2) bring as many people from the Internet to our site as possible. Unfortunately for us, Justin Bieber is what millions of people online love and he won’t stop injecting himself into professional sports. He’s rented out the Staples Center to show his girlfriend a movie, he’s defeated NBA players in a game of basketball, been loved by Erin Andrews, been a Bowling Hall Of Fame nominee and been covered by Cam Newton.

Now, he’s golfing with “Golf Boy” Bubba Watson, for whatever reason, and he’s doing it exactly like you think he would: at five feet tall in a hot pink polo shirt. But hey, his swing isn’t bad. Courtesy of @bubbawatson, by way of Sportress Of Blogitude:

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A “major Canadian concert act” is scheduled to perform at next month’s NHL FaceOff in Winnipeg. Who could it be? The Barenaked Ladies? (The Barenaked Ladies are triple platinum. Are you?) Maybe Sarah McLachlan will show up with an eight-minute ballad about “shelter” and a crate full of one-eyed kittens. Whatever they come up with, it couldn’t be worse than the NFL bringing in Kid Rock, Maroon 5 and Lady Antebellum to christen the new NFL season, right? Right?

Before you assume the people in charge of professional sports don’t want us to kill ourselves, consider that the band could be Nickelback.

Thankfully, the people of Winnipeg (and all good people in this world) are fighting back — by way of Deadspin (+1) comes an open letter published a few days ago in the Winnipeg Free Press urging the NHL to not ruin the Jets’ return to Winnipeg with a concerto from Chad Kroeger And His Stooges.

As people who love music and love Winnipeg even more, we have a request: Please ensure this does not happen. The return of the NHL to Winnipeg is something we have been dreaming about for 15 years. Please do not sully the celebration with the presence of a band whose existence is antithetical to the very concept of celebration.

Please, Person In Charge Of Booking This Event, do not bring Nickelback to Winnipeg that weekend. They can play the arena to their own fans — of which there are many — any time. But a free public performance? That would be tantamount to spitting on Bobby Hull’s toupee, burning Dale Hawerchuk’s jersey, leaving something wet on Thomas Steen’s city council seat or tripping Teemu Selanne on the ice during his final season in the NHL.

Strong words, but strong words are necessary to preserve the morale of a sport going through three player suicides since May. You may want to type, “come on, Nickeback isn’t that bad, they’re just a rock band, if you don’t like them you don’t have to listen”. Want to know why professional wrestling has such a problem with premature deaths? It probably has something to do with this:

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Sports

NBC Buys 80′s Wrestling Drama from The Rock - Matt Ufford gave me a shout-out in this, and he’s right; my personal career goal is to have the people in charge of this show find my Best and Worst reports, realize I’m the man for the job, put me in charge and let me turn it into an actual NWA 80s wrestling show without any confrontational family moments or walking conversations. [Warming Glow]

Kevin Durant’s Summer Blossom Has Hip Hop Roots - By the time the NBA comes back, Kevin Durant will have like six championship rings. I don’t know how it’s gonna work, but it’s gonna happen. [Smoking Section]

Henry Winkler F’n Loves Fly Fishing - And he’s very good. [Adult Swim]

Brandon Marshall Has All The Crazy - Worth reading if only for those pictures of Marshall making that face. That’s the face I make when I’m trying to concentrate and not die in video games. Maybe he got stabbed in the mouth. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

With Leather

Female Reporter Wants Her Butt Signed - ESPN is like five years away from doing this. Rachel Nichols is just gonna whip out her junk one day to hoots and it will have happened so gradually we won’t notice. [With Leather]

Athletes Take to Twitter for the Great East Coast Earthquake of 2011 - Read this, then go back and click the Buzzfeed link in the intro where everybody blames the earthquakes on gay marriage. I didn’t know getting gay married turned you into one of the Teen Titans. [With Leather]

LeBron James Is Like A Dead Kid From A Movie I Once Saw - The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter isn’t a great movie, but if you don’t give this post a bunch of hits I’m comparing Andy Dalton to Return To Oz, and I promise you it’s not nearly as solid a connection. [With Leather]

The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 8/22 - Update: I won’t be doing Best and Worst of Smackdown this week, as I’ll be on a plane to Virginia while it’s on. I will, however, do a Best and Worst of Super Duper Live Smackdown next Tuesday, even though that’s when I’m on the plane back. [With Leather]

Not Sports

16 Rejected Titles for Toy Story - The person who suggested “Rex’s First Movie” should’ve been fired on the spot. I bet it would’ve had “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind in the trailer. I hope John Lassater’s response was “we aren’t making the f**king Rugrats” and a slap across the face. [Film Drunk]

7 Famous Album Covers Featuring People Who Didn’t Want to Be There - Who sues Dido, honestly? She’s been through enough. One time her boyfriend stuffed her in the trunk and drove her off a bridge. [The Smoking Jacket]

The 11 Worst Songs to Have Sex To - This is pretty funny, but my biggest pet peeve ever: people who identify a song by saying an entire line. The song isn’t called “in the arms of an angel”, it’s called “Angel”. Even worse is calling it “that in the arms of an angel song”. Consider your ass McLachlan’d. [Buzzfeed]

Classic Video Games As Stage Plays - I’m almost too old to think this is funny, but I’m not there yet. The Duck Hunt clip isn’t great (other than the pre-existing Duck Hunt sound effects), but I’m gonna say that Donkey Kong play is probably hilarious. [Gamma Squad]