Sugar Ray Leonard On Married With Children

So early this morning, I was watching a classic episode of the TV show Married With Children. This was a special episode, for it had three famous athletes guest star.

The story of this episode was that there was a famous athletic shoe named Zeus coming out, and they were casting for legendary athletes of the Chicago area to star in their commercial.

Al Bundy, who still lived in his head in the glory of his Polk high school days, felt the fact he scored four touchdowns in one high school football game more than qualified him to audition.

Al Bundy nails the audition and wins the role in the commercial. Little does he know he is playing the role of the common, everyday man up against three major pro athletes.

The first athlete was NFL star Ed "Too Tall" Jones, who ends up knocking Bundy out with a single blow for his scene.

Then the second athlete, former pro baseball pitcher Steve Carlton, throws a fastball at Bundy's head, knocking him out again for his scene.

For the final scene of the commercial, Al Bundy is in boxing trunks and in a boxing ring just waiting for the third and final pro athlete to show up, and it's obviously a boxer.

So who comes into the ring? The great Sugar Ray Leonard, who throws one single right cross that landed perfectly on the chin of Bundy, knocking him out cold.

Peggy Bundy then says, "Wow, he didn't even have time to say no mas as he was going down." She was obviously making a joking reference to the great fight between Leonard and Duran; where Duran famously quit.

Leonard then said, "I always wanted to hit a non-pro boxer just to see what it feels like."

So this Zeus shoe commercial airs during the Super Bowl halftime show and Al Bundy is now confined to a hospital bed in all casts and bandages from his injuries.

It turned out that Al Bundy's face was nowhere to be found in the edited commercial; it showed only his feet getting knocked out three times by all three athletes.

This episode probably inspired the producers to make Pros vs. Joes, hoping to have similar results of a pro athlete utterly dominating an average Joe.

This episode also reminds us that one must stop living in the past, and must live in the present and future.

It is truly sad and pathetic to only be proud of something you did while you were still in your teens; only to turn out to be a shoe salesman for the rest of your life. That's where the term "peaked way too early" probably comes into play.

Usually I would never quote rapper 50 Cent because I do not find his lyrics to be all that great compared to true emcees, but this whole subject matter can best be summed up with Fiddy's quote:

"Damn homie, in high school you was the man homie, #$%^ happened to you?"