Though it may be easy to take pot shots at Mario, pointing out his short stature and protruding gut, it is an undeniable fact that he is, in actual fact, an amazing athlete. Beyond his mind-boggling ability to jump and flip to incredible heights, he has also proven apt at practically every sport ever invented. Baseball, golf, tennis, soccer matches so brutal people get electrocuted every twenty seconds – the man has done it all. He has competed in every single event in the last five Olympics, both of the summer and winter variety, and even dunked on LeBron James at one point. He’s easily Italy’s greatest sporting icon, and it’s harder to actually find a discipline he hasn’t dabbled in at least once. But they’re out there, you know. He may have ticked off the most obvious suspects, and even some of the more obscure ones like curling or handball, but even the great Mario has yet to make his mark on the following sports. Knowing him though, this article will be rendered obsolete in just a few months when Nintendo announces the newest addition to the Mario spinoff franchises. We at least expect a percentage of the royalties. Football This one is a glaring omission to Mario’s crown, but in fairness, he’s European – soccer will always be the true football in his eyes. The hard-hitting, fast-paced, and brutal live game of chess that thrills millions of Americans and bemuses the rest of the world, it’s quite shocking that we haven’t even had a vague attempt made at this sport. If you want to be especially nitpicky, Mario Party 8 does have a minigame called Grabby Gridiron, wherein teams of two compete to collect bouncing footballs and throw them into a goal, but that’s a bit of a stretch. It hardly resembles the sport at all, and other than the relevant balls and field, it could have just as well been called ‘Snatchy Soccer’ or ‘Bouncing Bocce’ or ‘Obtuse Hackey Sack Competition’. The most obvious reason that we’ve never seen a true Mario football sim is because of the game’s complex nature, something that takes some getting used to. What’s a false start? How do I run a curl route? Why is a tackle in your own endzone called a safety, when it doesn’t seem very safe at all? Mario games thrive on simplicity and accessibility: once you start throwing variables around like hail Mary’s, you begin to lose the very essence of what makes them fun for the whole family. You could possibly opt for a more stripped down version, like NFL Street, but even then, it’s probably asking for too much. Our best hope is probably for a cameo appearance in a future Madden game, assuming they return to a Nintendo platform anytime soon. Ah, how satisfying it would be to watch Cam Newton eat a sack from Toadsworth. NOTE: These fantastic mockups are by the talented SyBro, be sure to check out the full gallery. They may look real, but they’re 100% fanmade. Observe: as if you’d have a Kremling as the slot receiver.

Arm Wrestling Because of course, Mario has already competed in traditional wrestling (thanks again, Olympics!), and professional wrestling isn’t actually a sport, kayfabe be damned. This may disqualify it from contention, but it does not make the idea of a Mario professional wrestling game any less amazing. Super Lariato! So we’ve had to widen our net and broaden our biceps with a rousing bout of arm wrestling. Truly a test of mettle, grit, and intestinal fortitude, it would be quite the spectacle to see Bowser take on Donkey Kong to determine once and for all who is the mightiest in the Mushroom Kingdom. If football’s issue is that it would be a tad too complicated for a Mario game, the opposite would surely be true of arm wrestling. It is, after all, a sport that is undertaken entirely while sitting down. But never you forget, Nintendo did have an arm wrestling game out in arcades back in the mid-80s, which even featured a guest appearance from Bald Bull of Punch-Out fame. Could Mario and his pals be the perfect squad to bring this glorious lost legacy back from the past? They would probably make for better mascots than Texas Mac. There is something really unsettling about that man’s nipples.

Cricket I believe it was the renaissance painter Raphael who once opined, ‘Cricket? Nobody understands cricket. You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket.’ Despite this, it has a massive worldwide following, and is a point of national pride – particularly when the fate of the Ashes is at stake. Those Ashes, incidentally, represent the posthumous reputation of English cricket itself, which seems like an enormous amount of pressure to defend. If you drop the urn, does the ghost of Ivo Bligh attack you? So, cricket. It’s like a miniature version of baseball, and it’s just adorable. Mario is no stranger to the cutesy, and would look right at home in front of the wickets. It’s a sport that would be well-suited to all kinds of wacky power-ups, particularly in the bowling and fielding aspects. Daisy would be the first to shout ‘howzat’ into the stands, no doubt. The only drawback is that cricket matches can take an ungodly amount of time. The aptly named ‘one day’ tilts routinely clock in at eight hours, and test matches? Multiple days. Not literally on end – you don’t have the batsman eyeing off balls at 3am (not on the pitch, anyway), but it’s hard to dedicate yourself to anything that lasts that long: sports, television shows, relationships, anything! Playoff basketball can become a bit of a grind when series go the full seven games, can you imagine just one match lasting the same length? Sheer horror.

Competitive Eating It’s a sport, dammit – you can tell because it’s on ESPN. On a related note, that same logic also qualifies poker, cup stacking competitions, and spelling bees as sports. Does this mean that Pratyush Buddiga, former spelling bee champ turned professional poker player is twice as much of an athlete as Michael Jordan? Sure, probably! Your skeptical mind probably takes you straight to Mario Party minigames like Eatsa Pizza or Shy Guy Shuffle. Shouldn’t they count? In a peripheral manner, yes – you are literally eating in a competitive manner. But if I throw a football at you right now and shriek ‘touchdown’ at the top of my lungs, that doesn’t make me a quarterback, now does it? What we’re talking about here is the good old fashioned affairs of ‘consume everything in front of you, and if anyone doubts your capabilities, consume them too’. The kind of events made famous by Joey Chestnut, Takeru Kobayashi and I wish I had stopped this sentence at two, because I have run out of famous competitive eaters. At long last, Mario could put his purported pasta eating skills to the test, stuffing his face full of penne until he can stomach no more. Yoshi’s infamous gobbling prowess would become legend, but controversy and contractual issues may lead to his eventual arrest on Coney Island. Please submit your best ‘Free Kobayoshi’ fan art. Or your worst, for that matter – we’re not picky.