Everybody likes to compete, right? Well, okay, the majority of people like to compete and be crowned the winner at something. That is why sports like soccer, baseball, and American football are so popular all over the planet. We love watching the best of the best compete for the crown. However, we can’t all be professional athletes and sometimes this means that we have to play some…lesser sports. We decided to find 12 of the wildest and wackiest competitions from all over the globe. Keep on reading if you think you’re the next star of, well, whatever these people call these odd games.
The World Beard and Mustache Championship.
Now this is the kind of competitive sport that we can get behind. You won’t have to get any special online traning, you won’t have to stop pursuing your online degree, and you can compete merely by just sitting there! This competition puts competitors from 15 different countries head to head in what is essentially a man’s idea of what a beauty pageant should be. There are multiple categories by which judges evaluate talent and the winners are crowned with a piece of paper, a gentle tug of the bear, and a scold from their wife to finally go cut that damn thing off. The competition has been in going on since 1990. Get in the game, get cheap insurance for your beard, and win you some weird trophy!
The World Beard and Mustache Championship
Air Guitar Championships.
Nobody enjoys a great air guitar session as much as us but this competition is, ah, interesting to say the least. Worldwide people work on their air guitar skills in order to put together a ‘realistic’ session that is synced to already popular music. The goal here is to be accurate, entertaining, and an absolute air rockstar in every sense of the word. The competition began back in the ’90s with a tournament in Finland and now it has risen in popularity at an almost alarming rate. Seriously, just go search YouTube for competition videos. Wouldn’t actually learning the guitar be a better usage of time? ah, ignore our advice — we’ve been going to online colleges for years.
Air Guitar Championships
Baby Crying Championships.
Quick! What is the kind of championship that would not fly in America but is incredibly popular in Japan? If you guessed Baby Crying Championships then congratulations, you read the headline to this article. For hundreds of years fathers have been meeting in Toky during the spring to see if they can make their baby cry before the other person can. Dad’s dress up as sumo wrestlers and make funny faces and noises until their kid cries. Folklore has it that this crying will lead the baby to have a long and healthy life. We’re not exactly sure that this is a healthy competition for the kid but, well, at least they are winners right from a young age…for crying, but still.
Baby Crying Championships
Gurning Championship.
Don’t ask us to explain the origins of this bizarre English ‘sport’ because we can’t wrap our heads around it. The World Gurning Championship is held in England every year at the Crab Fair which, apparently, is a must see event. Oh, what is Gurning you might ask? Well, apparently the Gurning Championship is all about seeing who can make the ugliest face possible. We are not sure how a competition could have been made out of this concept and we are absolutely baffled there is no alcohol involved.
Gurning World Championsh
Cockroach Racing.
If you’ve ever wanted to win money while simultaneously grossing yourself completely out then you’ll just love cockroach racing. This sport is held on Australia Day at the Story Bridge Hotel. Here you and the other competitors will bring in their own supreme cockroach. during the competition everyone will release their cockroach at the center of the tarp. The first roach to make it to the edge of the tarp is crowned the winner. Stepping on your opponents bug is considered very, very rude.
Cockroach Racing
Worm Charming Championships.
We don’t understand how this contest is even a thing but apparently it is. Competitors have been gathering all over England since the ’80s to compete in the World Worm Charming Championships for some reason that we aren’t quite sure. The goal of this competition is to successfully charm worms out of your plotted section of Earth. There are rules, of course, and we’re sure that there is some science backing how this is done but we aren’t going to spend the time figuring it out. The world record for charmed worms is held by a 10 year old girl who managed to get 567 of the creepy crawlies out of the soil.
Worm Charming Championships
Bee Wearing Contest.
To keep on our theme of incorporating insects into non-sports we come to the Bee Wearing Championship. This contest is exactly what it sounds like and it looks as uncomfortable as you can imagine. The goal in this competition is to wear the most bees in the competition. The winner is decided by weight. Right now the current World Record holder managed to get 350,000 bees to land on him for an incredible weight of 87 pounds. Eighty seven pounds of bees. That’s incredible, uncomfortable, and altogether alarming. This contest is also called Bee Bearding and it is far more popular than you could even imagine. We don’t get it, we truly don’t.
Bee Wearing Contest
Toe Wrestling.
Thumb wrestling makes sense. Sumo wrestling makes sense. Heck, even arm wrestling sounds alright. For the life of us, however, we cannot wrap our minds around toe wrestling. Maybe other people have hyper flexible toes and heightened strength, but we certainly don’t. This contest was started by four drunk dudes in a pub back in the ’70s and it is still going on today. No socks allowed so you better not have anything gnarly going on down there or else we might just have to forfeit. In that case….
Toe Wrestling
Nailympia.
Do you like decorative nails? Do you fantasize about getting the perfect pedicure? Well if either of those things are true you’ll have at least a passing interest in Nailympia. Called ‘The Olympics of Nails’, Nailympia has been going on for over 10 years. The competition has people elaborately and ornately decorating and dressing up their nails in order to win a variety of different categories. The categories can range from tame (French Manicure) all the way to borderline obscene with fantasy categories drawing the majority of the public’s attention.
Nailympia
World Championship of Cell Phone Throwing.
Whew, lads, that was a mouthful for a title. We’ve all been angry enough to chuck our cell phones out the window but very few of us actually do it. If you ever want to follow through on that feeling then head to Finland and compete in the Cell Phone Throwing Championships. Right now the record holder is sitting pretty after tossing his phone almost 360 feet. Don’t worry, nobody is out there slinging new iPhones or Android models. What you’ll be throwing are old, brick like clam phones that are more useful as a projectile than a piece of technology for every day usage.
World Championship of Cell Phone Throwing
Air Sex Championship.
So this next competition is definitely not for the prude among us. Or maybe it is. We really don’t know how to judge an Air Sex Championship. For this contest competitors, fully clothed, emulate having sex as an audience watches and judges take notes. Believe it or not this competition has been growing strong since 2009 as it focuses on a regional tour through the United States before moving on to a grand tournament to showcase the ultimate air sex champion. We aren’t sure that this sort of competition ever actually translates to a real love life, no judgment though.
Air Sex Championship
Bed Racing.
We’ll close off our list with a unique take on the Bobsled competitions that are so popular the world over. Bed Racing involves competitors creating their own aerodynamic bed. Four people haul the bed while a fifth one sits inside of it and helps to steer. This is like a mixture between boxcar racing and bobsledding and it is strangely more satisfying than either. Oh, no, we are definitely not in a hurry to start our own team. But we would enjoy watching it from afar as long as nobody we knew realized that we enjoyed it.
Bed Racing
