Funny News Stories and Weird News

Orlando, FL – Larry Stevens threw a party Thursday night, inviting his guests to bring hors d’oeuvres and plenty of plastic wrap. The 29 year old Orlando man is just one of many young attorneys, litigators, and even administrative assistants in their twenties and thirties who have found themselves caught up in a new, extreme, and dangerous game.

Some call it sport, others claim it is art. But all who participate agree: It’s a highly contagious way of life. Of course you have probably already guessed the sport to which I refer — Hippo Wrestling. Across our nation’s great dingle-dangle of a state, lawyers are reserving conference rooms and building chapters of what many have deemed the “Fight Club for a new generation . . . but with hippopotamuses . . . and lawyers.”

Hippo wrestling is exactly what you would think: it requires participants to wrestle a wild hippopotamus. The first rule of hippo wrestling? According to inside sources, it its: Don’t kill the hippo. “Or even injure it too badly. Hippos aren’t the easiest animals to come by and if we kill, like, seven hippos a night, we’re screwed for next week. We had to figure that one out the hard way,” commented a lanky legal aid with fresh facial scars. Why the phenomenon has gained such popularity among lawyers has caused much speculation, but lawyers seem to unanimously agree that the similarities between wrestling a wild, Saran wrapped hippo and practicing law contain obvious similarities. “If you’ve never been to a deposition, you probably won’t see it,” said Stevens.

Most agree that hippo wrestling originated in 1982, at the height of cocaine’s popularity, amongst four drug-addled attorneys. Searching for an alternative to dancing in clubs, or just getting high with friends and watching a video, the quartet of lawyers decided to do something each had only dreamed of. They stole a hippo from the Orlando Zoo and held it captive at their local Elk’s Club. They waited six weeks until one litigator finally had the courage, and a vast amount of coke, to wrestle it, but by then the unfortunate creature was starving and angry. This is how “‘Gator v. Hippo” began. But how much of this story is myth, tall tale, and hopeful legend remains to be seen. The lawyers were never heard from again. The Orlando chapter of the Elk’s Club offered no comment on these matters.

The phenomenon has caused the collective ears or hearing membranes of animal rights advocacy groups to perk up, sparked by their concern over the health and safety of the hippos. The Coalition of African Nations wants the lawyers to be held accountable for their dealings as well. C.A.N. officials are demanding to know where the animals have come from and how they were transported to the basements of law offices across Florida. So far, no progress has been made by either of these organizations. In fact, the anonymity of the hippo wrestling societies has made it extremely difficult to find any one individual to question regarding the trend.