I've noticed a phenomenon where nearly all athlete highlight reels and tributes on Youtube are set to angry rap songs. It's fitting enough for videos of halfbacks running people over, linebackers completely fucking shit up, or a basketball player slam dunking in the helpless faces of smaller, whiter defenders, but it doesn't work for everything sports-related. For example, it wouldn't really work to set Shawn Johnson's pommelhorse routine to a militant Public Enemy ballad, and it would probably be just a bit silly to set a record-breaking swim by Michael Phelps to an Eminem song about killing his wife.
Even though angry rap songs clearly aren't magical potions that you can add to any sports video editing stew to create something pulse-pounding and awesome, some people still try their damndest to insert them into places where they clearly don't belong, like a mentally challenged 8-year old jamming a third Cheez Doodle into his nose. The phenomenon is so prevalent that Deadspin has an occasional feature called Incongruous Athlete Mix-Tape Theater. It's thanks to that feature that I've been treated to this gem:
There's certainly nothing wrong with making a highlight reel calling attention to the work of Gordon Hayward. He isn't a flashy slam dunk machine, but I appreciate a white guy contributing to the game with solid fundamentals, proper shooting form, and hustle as much as any racist sports journalist, but the whole production reaches an almost sublime level of stupidity when you have footage of a dude shooting free throws set to Straight Outta Compton by NWA.
I took this as a challenge. A few nights ago I loaded up my video editing software with one humble goal in mind: to create the worst video tribute to an athlete ever made. Faithful reader, I believe I have succeeded. The only athlete I could think of that's even less deserving on an angry rap tribute than a player like Gordon Hayward is a kicker. They are not real athletes, and they earn seven-figure incomes to participate in roughly six plays a game. I grabbed some footage, pictures, and interviews with Adam Vinatieri and set about making my masterpiece. The most insane and angry rap song I could find was "X is Coming" by DMX, off of his album It's Dark and Hell is Hot. It's a charming little ditty about DMX coming to a man's house, killing his wife, and then forcing him to watch DMX do terrible things to his 15-year old daughter before finally killing him.
But I didn't want to terribleness to end with merely setting inappropriate music to field goal kicks. That's why I decided to include random photos and a banal postgame interview over the hook. There's also only three actual kicks shown over the course of the video. Eat your fucking heart out, Gordon Hayward. Behold the worst highlight reel ever made. Honestly, don't watch it. You will lose IQ points like a sumbitch.
I really have no reason to be proud of this.
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