I felt as if someone wrote some, and I emphasize some, pretty decent jokes for Samuel L. Jackson, but he was the wrong guy to present them at the ESPY’s on Sunday night (taped earlier). There was the awful zinger about Kobe potentially dunking on Lebron and Nike having the videos being confiscated, a cheesy Danica Patrick “what a catch” comment, uber-cheesy Venus/Serena Williams win a lot of tennis tournaments joke, and, probably the worst of all, was Jackson’s introduction to the show where he went down the front row and took his own picture with some of the celebrities, while they sat there with blank stares wondering if that was really Samuel L’s grand entrance.
There were some decent opening moments, though. For example, talking about Phelps being able to smoke his competition in the pool, applauding Mark Sanchez for leaving USC and taking a pay cut to play in the NFL, and even the played out “what a black man can’t enjoy hockey?” crack gave me a good chuckle. Those were pretty good. Although, my smile quickly went to a frown when ESPN flashed this ill-advisedly fashioned douche on the screen:
Tebow looks like Jim Tressel’s gay son. That’s what I’d call a triple no-no. Daddy’s not happy:
Anyway, I didn’t exactly love Samuel L’s obligatory “denigrate anything that has to do with Detroit or the Lions” joke, either:
“Matthew Stafford is here,” Jackson said. “Once you actually play for the Lions, they stop inviting you.”
We just went 0-16 and that’s the best you could come up with? Child please.
Overall, a pretty decent ESPYs as there were a lot of great moments in sports in the past year. I give Samuel L. Jackson a generous B- and the overall show a B+.
Lastly, what’s a little Samuel L. Jackson commentary without this famous NSFW clip:
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
