Sports Meme Power Rankings: Tiger Woods Fails At Infidelity

SBNation's Sports Meme Power Rankings list the top ten most-discussed sports stories on the internet and beyond each week. These are determined by a rigorous process that incorporates a complex formula involving none of your business. 

1. UP WITH THE FORCE OF A RAGING NORWEGIAN WIFE RUNNING AT FULL SPEED WITH A GOLF CLUB IN HAND: Tiger Woods Fails At Infidelity. You don't have to be poor white trash to have drama in your front yard. It's something even privileged cyborg golfers can do  something the universe learned when Tiger Woods ran over a fire hydrant and crashed his car into a tree early last Friday morning in a harmless accident in Islesworth, Florida. His wife also broke out the back windshield of the car to help him. And he was going somewhere at 2:30 in the morning after Thanksgiving and suffered facial lacerations inconsistent with an unbroken windshield. And Tiger is famous, and had a rumor leaked in the National Enquirer that week regarding an affair between him and a woman not named Elin Woods.

Besides all of that it was an airtight story and though America may be flat-broke, fat, and jobless, one thing never stops working: our bullshit detector, particularly when it involves famous people and their wandering genitalia.

Huddling with trusted advisers, Tiger decided the best ploy was to let TMZ handle the narrative, and boy did they, unearthing a false mistress (denied,) at least one real one, a voicemail left on the mistress's phone with Woods asking her to take her name off, pictures, and ultimately sometime later this week, a sex tape of the golfer copulating with the city of Helena, Montana, because that would be the only thing more damaging than everything TMZ has already dug up. 

Note to future PR people: do not let TMZ or any other tabloid handle the public discussion of your private affairs. It goes terribly. You should, however, let Taiwanese news agencies to animate potential narratives explaining what happened in your case, because Taiwanese news agencies rule with a fierceness: 

This shocking tale of a wealthy man of privilege attempting and failing at having extramarital afffairs is more proof that being poor has its advantages, since no one cares who you sleep with or even if you're caught driving into a tree at 2:30 in the morning. (Except the police.) (Who, if you're doing those things frequently, probably already know you by name.)

TIGER BONUS! Spirit Air wins the week on this story, though, with their offer of $9 Tiger Specials.This is the actual graphic they use on their site.

A "Tiger Special" could also refer to a renegotiated prenuptial agreement, which is precisely what Tiger will be getting as a result of this fiasco. This announcement brought to you by the hospitality workers of Nevada, who remind you that prostitution is regulated, clean, and legal in their great state.

2. UP LIKE A FLAMING SPEAR IN THE HANDS OF A MASCOT: Bobby Bowden Retires. Tallahassee Police have quietly resolved a three year hostage situation at the Florida State football facilities as Bobby Bowden, 80, was at last talked out of his office where had been barricaded for "oh, you know, three or four years depending on how you count it." The standoff had been a tense one between officials and Bowden, especially with coach-in-waiting Jimbo Fisher visiting each day to actually coach the football team while Bowden still sat in his office insisting he was in charge. Bowden retires as a coach, but will stay on in capacity as fundraiser and barbecue grill.

3. UP LIKE THE RUSHING TOTALS OF A RAGING TOBY GERHART DESTROYING YOUR DEFENSE: Charlie Weis, Fired At Notre Dame. Someday, children will gather around their grandfather as he settles in to watch a football game between the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and the Alabama Crimson Tide. When they ask their grandfather about what Notre Dame football was like in his time, he'll say "Oh, there was a great man who tried to win games, and did. He had some bad years, and some good ones, and a few great ones. He knew how to coach a complete team, one that cared about defense, special teams, and offense. He knew how to get the best out of his players, kids. He made us respectable again."

Then the children will say "Are you talking about Charlie Weis?"

And he will say "Hell no, kid. I'm talking about Brian Kelly." Charlie Weis should have picked up his paychecks with a ski mask." Then the old man will drink an entire bottle of scotch and pass out in the chair, because children are irritating and scotch makes all the bad go away. 

4. UP LIKE THE FINE STRANDS OF HAIR COVERING HIS LUCKY BALD SPOT: The Rise of the New Orleans Saints. Maybe it helps that he does a shouty, enthusiastic hype-huddle before the game. Americans seem to like that. Oh, sure, Ray Lewis is the best linebacker of our time, and made a decade's worth of thunderous tackles to prove it, but squirrel-dancin' is what gets the rabble excited. (In addition to a general respect for honoring the "No snitches" rule.)

"He shouts? THAT GUY'S A HECKUVA LEADER." Thank you, Jon Gruden, for noticing the thing having the least to do with the Sains putting up the biggest offensive numbers in the NFL since Brenda Warner lost her smoking cauldron, pointy hat, and broomstick in St. Louis in 2002, and with it her ability to put hexes of amazing strength on defenses playing her husband's turn-of-the-millenium Rams teams.

The Saints drove the point home by KILLING THE HEARTS AND SOULS LIKE NO OTHER QUARTERBACK EVAH in beating the New England Patriots 38-17 on Monday night in A LOSS MORE BITTER THAN ANY OTHER TEAM HAS EVER EXPERIENCED. Despite the evidence, no one will respect the Saints or Drew Brees until he impregnates not one, not two, but three beautiful famous women at once, and even then they'll just accuse him of biting Brady's style. (They do both sport unimpressive combovers.)

5. UP LIKE A DEEP PASS WHEN YOUR TEAM IS UP BY TWO SCORES ALREADY: Pete Carroll Gets Tiffy With Rick Neuheisel. When Pete Carroll suggests you might want to take his offer of a gracious knee, you may want to consider accepting, because he will revoke the deal and do so with a quickness:

The teams then attempted to brawl on the field afterward, taking us into the final week of the Pac-10's ongoing soap opera with style and the guarantee that next year's ledgers will be chock-a-block with revenge agendas. In case you're not clear on this, I'll put it this way: In the social ecosystem of the 2009 Pac-10, it is not only acceptable to "smash the homey," it is expected and encouraged.

6. UP LIKE THE FLOATING NEEDLE OF AN EEG MACHINE READING BRAINWAVES: Hines Ward, Ben Roethlisberger, and Accusing Your Teammate of Being A Nancy-boy About His Bruised Brain. Ward apologized for saying that the locker room was "50/50" on whether Roethlisberger should play in last Sunday's game against the Ravens after suffering a concussion the previous week, thus ending the favorite kind of NFL reporter's story, the "locker room bitchcraft" story. Next week: Vince Young approves of Kenny Britt's frilly, unmasculine, and distracting choice in men's undergarments in the locker room.

7. UP LIKE THE SIREN OF A POLICE CRUISER WAKING YOU UP: Carlos Dunlap, DUI Superstar. Florida's Carlos Dunlap decide to go to bed around 3:30 in the morning on Tuesday, a late bedtime even for a college student, but it's college, and sometimes those kind of things happen. Dunlap unfortunately did this in his car in a state of drunkenness one could rightfully call "Clooney-ish," and this is a violation of Florida law. Dunlap did display his only good judgment of the night by declining the DUI test, which by the way is one of the two things all Florida residents are told when you arrive in the state as a new resident:

a. Don't run in straight lines from alligators, but zigzag, because they can't corner, and

b. Always turn down the breathalyzer.

Way to read the "Welcome To Florida" pamphlet, Carlos. He will miss the SEC Championship game due to a one game suspension

8. UP LIKE THE HINDENBURG WHICH WE REMIND YOU ALSO BLEW UP IN NEW JERSEY: The New Jersey Nets Go 0-17. The glowing you see on the horizon is Lawrence Frank, who was fired after the Nets fell to an 0-17 start, something that should get much better in the future now that the team is being bought by a shady Russian billionaire and will be coached by their former GM and a man with no actual head coaching experience at any level. The NBA: where Mark Cuban is considered sensible.

9. UP LIKE A LEVITATING SWEATY MALE BALLERINA: John Wall.  If you would like the phenomenon explained, John Wall is the next Brandon Jennings who was the next Kevin Durant, or what Google Wave was to Twitter was to Google Maps, or what the Black Taco was to the Volcano Taco was to the Double-Layer Taco, or--okay, he's no Black Taco, but he's close. We apologize to its glory, but must mention that 18.5 points, 6.7 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 2.1 steals as a freshman for the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats is a fantastic accomplishment worthy of at least comparisons to the legendary Black Taco.

10. HOLDING ON BY A RECONSTRUCTED BICEP:  The Orbiting and Ever-Present Brett Favre PR Death Star/Country Bear Jamboree. Last week: 10, holding steady yet again as Favre continues to linger around the periphery of the American sporting universe, but with a diminished magnitude as he is playing in Minnesota and quietly winning. Oh, but we stand only a heroic fourth-quarter comeback or amazing throw away from---wait, wait, I am being handed a map that shows that Minnesota is nowhere near anywhere with a major media outlet, so he'll probably just stay in the ten spot until the playoffs when everyone not named Peter King remembers he's alive.

Slipping off from the top ten from last week: Clean slate due to the Thanksgiving holiday, because two weeks is like 3,000 years on the internet, especially when the tryptophan wipes your hard drive clean with its druggy poultry magic.