2026-01-03 01:51:14
This is what's going to happen in 2026, according to the Defector staff.
Kelsey McKinney
2026-01-03 01:13:00
Sometimes blowouts can be fun, especially when there are pesky narratives going into them that need to be dispelled with great force. One of the more annoying things about the coverage around Thursday's Alabama-Indiana game, particularly on major networks, was the pundits' undying faith in Alabama. Too many ostensible experts bought into the idea that Alabama could win this game, based on nothing beyond the fact that they've seen that helmet win games like this before. But as anyone paying attention to the Tide all year could tell you, this is a team that cannot handle being hit square in the nose. They win based on reputation, performing well against finesse squads or teams that like to play with their food. But bullies? They used to be the bullies, but now they can't handle bullies, and Indiana is a team of bullies.
By the third quarter of Indiana's all-out 38-3 assault—which at that point was about 24-0—my main concern was no longer whether Indiana would win but what kind of chaos they could start in Tuscaloosa if they goose-egged them. Frankly, the only disappointing part of yesterday's game was that they came just short of accomplishing that, thanks to the most cowardly field-goal decision I've ever seen. Fernando Mendoza, dorky as he is, showed why he earned his Heisman, going 14-for-16 with 192 yards and three TDs. Kaelon Black tacked on an additional 99 yards on the ground off 15 carries. A perfect encapsulation of the game came in the second quarter: Down 3-0, Alabama decided to go for it on fourth down from within their own 30-yard line. Why would they do that? Because they knew what I knew, that you can't hold the Indiana offense off forever, they are going to score and then keep scoring. And keep scoring they did.
2026-01-03 00:20:33
The Hammerstein Ballroom is a beautiful place to watch wrestling. The ring is surrounded on three sides by multiple tiers of scalloped balconies, blue with gold trim, a prestige-TV color palette. From the vantage point of the TV viewer, the audience looms over the action in ornate concentric circles—Dante’s Inferno for people who like a good German suplex. Seated on one of the venue’s upper levels, every seat feels close enough to the action for you to fall into the ring if you lean forward far enough. In events dating back decades, the independent wrestling promotions ECW and Ring of Honor helped make the place a mecca for the sport.
My 14-year-old kid, H, has heard me give variations on this spiel for over a year now. (They’ve also heard me explain it’s owned by the Moonies; they’re big on religious cults.) Now, the Saturday before Christmas 2025, they could finally see for themselves. By the time we made it up to our second-balcony seats for “Dynamite on 34th Street,” All Elite Wrestling’s now-annual holiday stopover at the Manhattan Center, however, H was mostly just winded by taking the stairs. They’re the kind of kid who was born to complain about having to run in gym class; they’ve told me repeatedly they’re physically afraid of volleyballs. We have that in common.
2026-01-02 23:35:46
The 2026 Olympic men's hockey tournament is not, in fact, a two-team tournament. There are several nations involved, I'm told, many with proud sporting traditions. But from the point of view of this American, Team USA has two goals in Milan: win the gold medal, and stop Team Canada from winning it. Here's the roster they'll try to do that with:
2026-01-02 23:19:22
Thursday night's Mississippi-Georgia game was one of those seminally batshit evenings in a sport that generally likes to wallow in its own self-parodic seriousness, and not just because nobody could seem to figure out when it was supposed to end. The stage upon which the Rebels were supposed to receive the Sugar Bowl trophy after outpunching the Bulldogs came to resemble the 1982 Stanford Band in its ability to enter, leave, and then re-enter the field of play—twice—before the game could actually be declared officially over. This was hilarious enough, and the stock shots of happy Mississippi players interspersed with shots of Mississippi players getting annoyed that they couldn't be happy, until the adults could figure out when and where they could express that joy, was everything you have to come know about the industry in 2025. Oh, and the game itself was pretty good, too.
The stage-specific slapstick was the ideal ending to the best and weirdest football game of the college season. Except that, this being Ole Miss and all, it didn't end even after it ended, because they don't know when it was all supposed to end. By beating Georgia 39-34 in a game that lurched between brilliance, zaniness, and miscellaneous stuff you never saw before, Mississippi won the chance to keep playing in January when they have normally struggled to reach the end of November. In doing so, the program reset its collision course with peripatetic imp Lane Kiffin, the coach who won't go away.
2026-01-02 03:02:05
When Drew and I recorded this week's episode of The Distraction roughly a week before Christmas, we were aware of the risk we were taking. All kinds of stuff can happen in an ungovernable and deranged culture over the course of two weeks, even during the two weeks of the year in which the least tends to happen. But Drew was getting ready to go on a longish family vacation, and I was getting ready to make my annual pilgrimage to Maine for six freezing days of last-minute shopping and Amato's sandwiches; there were only so many options. And so we placed our bet that nothing in the remaining days of 2025 would change our assessment of this stupid, brutal, mostly awful, but ultimately survivable year.
