sports

One of the world’s most popular wrestlers, The Undertaker made his return to the ring last night on the 900th episode of WWE SmackDown, despite hopes that this 51-year-old sports entertainer had retired.

The Undertaker, who has been MIA since Wrestlemania 32, entered the squared circle to deliver what many believe to be the announcement of a full-blown comeback, and not the announcement many hoped for: That he’d be trading the tights for gold clubs and moving to Florida. That's right, the 51-year-old will continue to put his life and health on the line for wrestling fans.

via Reddit

Rather, the Deadman himself, instead of just resting in peace because, well, wrestling is a pretty strenuous and dangerous profession for a 51-year-old, made an announcement that hints at multiple roles with in the organization, particularly a match at Survivor Series this Sunday.

“WrestleMania will no longer define who I am. I’m back, taking souls, and digging holes. Survivor Series was where the Undertaker was born, and SmackDown has always been my home.

Now, that brings me to the second reason I’m out here. At this year’s Survivor Series, there’s no reason to fear failure. But if you fail, if you fail, you will have reason to fear the Deadman. Team Raw better rest in peace.”

It looks like we’re going to be seeing a lot more of the Undertaker, even though it would probably be better for wrestling fans and the wrestler if he would just call it a day. 

For more on why the Undertaker should just retire already, check out Complex. 

Quidditch, the indecipherable sport from Harry Potter, is set to catch the golden snitch in the United Kingdom.

Nearly 20 years after the sport debuted in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone in the states — I DON’T WANT TO GET ANY EMAILS ABOUT THAT), Quidditch, the sport in which I have no idea how it’s played, now has an organized, competitive league in the UK. The Quidditch Premier League takes its cues from the U.S.’s Major League Quidditch, meaning it will host high-level competitions and, presumably, offer a rule book explaining why anyone would bother doing anything in this game other than try to catch the golden snitch.

via BBC

The QPL has laid out their mission statement online, writing:

“The Quidditch Premier League will bring a new level of competitive play to the summer months in the United Kingdom. Exact dates are yet to be confirmed, but our tentative schedule for the inaugural season begin in early July 2017 and end in late August 2017.

Inspired by the success of Major League Quidditch in the United States, we will have regional divisions with teams competing against each other in a regular schedule. Each fixture will comprise of three matches, where each team plays the other three teams in the division. The QPL season will conclude with a scintillating championship weekend, bringing the teams from each division together to crown a champion.

Though a UK league has been demanded for years, nobody has truly attempted to bring a project of this scale to British quidditch players across the country. That is, until now.”

Why they don’t include in this explanation is why everyone on the team doesn’t just try and catch the golden snitch. Like, it just seems like that part of the game was included to give Harry an easy way to save the day."

As mentioned, the QPL will be broken down into two divisions: North and South.

South Division:

• The London Monarchs – after the residing Royal Family in the capital
• The Southwest Broadside – after the seafaring and piratical history in the area
• The Southeast Knights – after the legacy of the Battle of Hastings
• The Eastern Mermaids – after the many ‘drowned cities’ off the eastern coast

North Division:

• The Northern Watch – after the iconic Hadrian’s Wall
• The Yorkshire Roses – after the region’s famous symbol
• The East Midlands Archers – after the legend of Robin Hood
• The West Midlands Revolution – after the heritage of the Industrial Revolution

They even added this handy infographic, which helps explain why anyone would waste their time doing anything other than catching the snitch, getting the most points, and ending the game, but hey, I guess it’s better not to ask such questions.

via QPL

But why doesn’t the whole team just go after that thing? It seems easier than trying bat a ball into a hoop.

via Ok Totall

Want to heal your bones faster? Well, thanks to researchers at Northwestern University, pretty soon you'll be able to 3D print a flexible "scaffolding" to encourage bone growth on and around them.




Okay, taking a breath.

Here we go:

The scaffold is "made up of hydroxyapatite, a naturally occurring mineral that exists in our bones and teeth, and a biocompatible polymer called polycaprolactone, and a solvent. Hydroxyapatite provides strength and offers chemical cues to stem cells to create bone. The polycaprolactone polymer adds flexibility, and the solvent sticks the 3D-printed layers together as it evaporates during printing. The mixture is blended into an ink that is dispensed by the printer, layer by layer, into exact shapes matching the bone that needs to be replaced."




The idea, they continue, is that "a patient would come in with a nasty broken bone—say, a shattered jaw—and instead of going through painful autograft surgeries or waiting for a custom scaffold to be manufactured, he or she could be x-rayed and a 3D-printed hyperelastic bone scaffold could be printed that same day."

Currently the technology is being used to fuse spinal vertebrae in rats, and is performing well. Since you can't use this tech YET, maybe you can 3D print yourself a cast in the meantime:



Read more on the innovation here.

Competitive Indoor Skydiving is as awesome as it sounds.

Watch the Czech Dynamic 4 Way team the "Mad Ravens," win the silver medal at the 1st FAI World Indoor Skydiving Championship in Prague.

It's almost gridiron time, so bone up on your NFL Trivia with this list of 32 Team Name Origins!



So for REAL fans of REAL football, here ya' go:

The Seattle Seahawks

"There were 1,700 unique names among the more than 20,000 submitted in a name-the-team contest in 1975, including Skippers, Pioneers, Lumberjacks, and Seagulls. About 150 people suggested Seahawks. A Seattle minor league hockey team and Miami's franchise in the All-America Football Conference both used the nickname in the 1950s. "Our new name suggests aggressiveness, reflects our soaring Northwest heritage, and belongs to no other major league team," Seattle general manager John Thompson said. The Seahawks' helmet design is a stylized head of an osprey, a fish-eating hawk of the Northwest."



#GoHawks


Get a cake supporting your favorite team here.

Ryan Lochte finally got his punishment for pissing on the wall of a locked service station and pulling a framed poster from the wall in Rio during the Olympics and lying about it saying someone robbed him.



CNN reports that The Liar will serve a 10-month suspension and will be banned from the 2017 World Championships, in addition to monetary losses that are still being determined.

Ryan Lochte gets 10-month ban, misses 2017 worlds. Other 3 to get several months each. My @USATODAYsports column: https://t.co/0HfI9h1FDx

— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) September 8, 2016

Chvrches dedicated their song "Under the Tide" to Harambe while a Red Sox fan ran on the field in a "Harambe 69 Jersey" at Fenway Park on Sunday night:

Done in loving memory of Harambe #RIP

A video posted by Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) on Aug 28, 2016 at 7:03pm PDT

Not to be outdone though, an awesome Cincinnati school has made Harambe their new mascot for the football team, and decided to dance and drag a kid around during a game to celebrate "Harambe style" in front of a ton of soccer moms to glorious extent:



I don't know who made the final decision on this one--in the town that Harambe died in--but these kids kick serious ass for going this far!




Never change, you crazy gorilla-loving bastards. Never change.

Snoop Dogg, the world's most chill weed advocate, is taking on the NFL's desire to have access to guns in a new Instagram video.

Snoop takes issue with the NFL wanting to give football players access to guns but not access to weed. He successfully argues that football is already a violent profession which lends itself to perpetuating a violent environment amongst the players, and that weed would be a panacea to this problem of violence and allow the players some respite from their aggressive environment.

He even reached out the NFL to offer his services as an advocate to make this change happen:







Do it, Snoop.

Ever wonder how your Grandpa would compare with an Olympian at their own sport?



Well, some scientists did, and they set up an experiment with seniors doing the same activities as Olympians and then measured the difference between the Olympian's record and the centenarian's. Specifically, Usain Bolt, who ran the 100-metre in 9.58 seconds...



...with, say, Donald Pellman, a competitor in the 100 to 104 age-group, who did the same event in 26.99 seconds, which was only a 64.5 percent decrease in performance compared with Bolt.

The centenarian athlete who showed the lowest percent decrease in performance between an Olympian and himself was Robert Marchand, a Frenchman, who holds the world record for his age group in 1-hour track cycling. He cycled only 50.6 percent slower than Bradly Wiggin's record.



After 40, our performance decreases by about 10 to 15 per cent per decade usually, so you'd better start running now if you want to catch these Grandpas.

Australian Badminton player Sawan Serasinghe drowned his Rio loss sorrows like only an Olympian can: with an 8,000-calorie gorgefest at Mickey D's.



His fans don't seem too upset about it yet...



...but just wait until that 8,000 calories hits his thighs