ROSEMARY ABBOTT | Culture
LIGHTS OUT
A new combat sport known as RUNIT is currently sweeping social media and hospital emergency rooms alike.
Two rivals — a fearless ball runner and a determined tackler — line up at opposite ends of a narrow 20m by 4m battlefield. Then, like human missiles, they charge headlong at each other, each aiming to knock the other flat on their back.
But amid the chaos, one question has dominated the conversation: What if one of the RUNIT contestants had to run it straight at Bulldogs-era SBW?
According to the Whakataki Institute of Contact Sport Studies, the answer is simple:
“They’d disintegrate.”
“Sonny Bill Williams in his Bulldogs prime was not a human man. He was a heavily moisturised battering ram with the most dominant shoulder charge ever seen in the game,” said lead researcher Dr. Matiu Heke.
“The shoulder charge was legal, he was 110kg of Polynesian marble, and he’d hit you so hard your future kids would wake up dizzy.” he said, bringing up footage of primetime SBW playing for the Bulldogs between 2004-2008.
The new RUNIT championship is offering $20,000 to the toughest of 16 competitors at Trusts Arena this week, with the winner of the finals taking home $200,000. But most fans online say the prize isn’t worth the risk — especially if someone unfreezes Sonny from his prime era and throws him in the draw.
More to come.
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