Tipsy

The match last night between Fed and Janko Tipsarevic was simply unbelievable, and immediately qualified for Large's All-Time "I Cannot Believe That What I Am Watching Now Is Actually Happening" List.

Had Tipsy managed to pull it out in the end, I think it would have cracked my top five, but unfortunately that didn't happen. For posterity's sake, however, I thought I should record my top five as it stands right now. Not a lot of the big three on this list sports-wise, because with baseball, basketball and football, that "any given Sunday" vibe is omnipresent, particularly in the playoffs, and staves off the total realization of surreal shock-osity that I'm talking about here. The general criteria for making this list... ah, you know, I'll just give you the stupid list. You'll figure it out:

5. Holyfield/Tyson I, 1996
I watched this at a bar in Ridley close to where my parents live. I'll never forget it for two reasons - there was a karaoke contest going on behind us fight-watchers that drove the cigar-chompers at the bar bonkers (the winner, I recall, did a particularly wrought, and loud, version of Heart's "Alone") and I won about $150 in the bar-pool because I had Holyfield in a stoppage after 10 (even back then, Large could prognosticate). But that was a wager - I still couldn't quite believe it when I saw it. Buster always felt like a fluke (and believe me, the Douglas fight would be #1 on this list if I had seen it live) but this was clearly no fluke. Holyfield had no fear of Tyson whatsoever and completely exposed him. The Iron Mike mystique disappeared in the course of a single fight, and it was literally hard to comprehend.

4. Bob May v. Tiger Woods, 2000 PGA
This may seem like a bizarre choice, but I tell you that watching it was truly surreal. You have to remember that this is back when Tiger was straight-up bubonic - he'd won three of the past four majors, won the British at St. Andrews by eight strokes, and the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15. So then at Valhalla he goes into Sunday with a one-shot lead and a final-round pairing with an unknown duffer (who still to this day has not won a PGA event) and you're thinking that the only reason to watch was to see how many records Tiger would break in pantsing the dude. Next thing you know a golf war breaks out, as Bob May matches The Anointed One stroke for stroke and ridiculous shot for ridiculous shot in what has to be one of the greatest Sunday two-man duels in major championship history. I must have said "who IS this guy?" about a hundred times that day. Of course, Tiger won it in the end in a playoff - it was a lot like last night's match, really, only, you know, it was the final of a major and not the third-round.

3. Maria Sharapova v. Serena Williams, 2004 Wimbledon Final
This was a real head-shaker. I'd heard of Sharapova going in and heard all the talk. This wasn't at all a Bob May situation - everybody knew Sharapova had serious game. But still, to see a seventeen-year-old blonde cheerleader bitchslapping Serena all over the court like she owned her was about the most shocking sight I've ever witnessed in a big-time tennis match. It was a true "there's a new sheriff in town" moment of the highest order.

2. Villanova v. Georgetown, 1985 NCAA Final
There have been a lot of great college basketball upsets over the years, but this is still the one that sticks out in my mind, the one that I vividly remember watching and thinking "this just cannot be happening." It had a heightened edge for me, because I grew up about ten minutes from Villanova and we always rooted for them like a home team. Even now, I feel like you can watch replays of that game and sort of feel like at any moment Ewing might take over and end the Cinderella bullshit once and for all. I remember reading afterwards someone writing "they could have played a hundred times and Georgetown would have won 99." And I thought, "yeah, that sounds about right."












1. Antonio Tarver v. Roy Jones, 2004
I know a lot of people will be surprised to see this at number one, but boxing fans will understand. After the Roy Jones decade that was the 90's, the effortless destruction, the impossible hand-speed, the behind-the-back knockouts, the pure what-will-he-think-of-nextness of the man, to see the great Roy Jones floored with a single shot and then struggle helplessly to get to his feet with a completely stupified look on his face... it just did not seem real. While HBO ran the interminable replays I just paced around my living room with my hands on my head saying, "OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!" about a thousand times. I could not get my head around the fact of what I had seen. It's funny, because then Johnson knocked Roy out and then he ran like a bitch in the third Tarver fight and still almost got knocked out, and so now when I watch Roy fight it always seems possible that he'll hit the canvas. Back then, though, after everything he'd been and done, the man just seemed invincible. It was a mind-altering moment indeed.