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Unlike the Oscars or the Grammys, the ESPYs crosses boundaries by mixing Hollywood and sports, which is kind of an odd combination anyway. The only people who can really pull that off are Shaq, LeBron James and every basketball player from Space Jam.
Specifically, the ESPYs opening monologue can be pretty rough (see Drake last year). It’s a bad combination when low-percentage jokes cross paths with a generally humorless crowd. This year’s host, comedian Joel McHale from the show Community did his darndest to deliver some pretty ruthless material in his opening monologue. Some of the jokes were actually funny, and might have succeeded in some other settings.
McHale claiming Steve Kerr out-coached LeBron in the NBA finals was topical and probably accurate. Telling Russell Wilson to hand him the microphone and not throw it was good, too. Easily, the funniest joke was McHale saying golfer Jordan Spieth was the next Tiger Woods—which was bad news for the future Mrs. Jordan Spieth.
On the flip side, the Justin Bieber/Canada joke was confusing and didn’t appear to have a punchline, which is incredible considering it’s a Justin Bieber joke and that should be the punchline in and of itself.
However, the most memorable joke by far, for better or worse, was the one directed toward Jason Pierre-Paul, who, as you probably recall, had a fireworks accident during the Fourth of July.
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