The world of sports has always been dominated by heated debates grounded in inane hypotheticals and unanswered questions: Who was more influential in their respective sports, Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky? Who is hotter, Martina Navratilova or Martina Hingis? Who is a bigger douche, Barry Bonds or Ron Artest? Is golf really a sport? Do you have to enjoy the taste of a warm phallus in the morning in order to appreciate figure skating? Why don’t they televise croquet? What the hell is croquet? Is Gary Bettman Satan himself, or merely one of his minions (most likely Beelzebub, or possibly Mammon)? Does calling it “table tennis” really elevate ping-pong from a beer game to the level of an Olympic sport? When will they introduce the two-person-hot-naked-lesbian-inverted-luge to the Winter Olympics? [Food Court Lunch has already registered Regan Lauscher for the event, unbeknownst to her…]

Croquet is so “street”…

While all of these are great questions (especially the last one, IOC…), they all share one fatal flaw: they are without answers. Until now… Food Court Lunch has decided that it’s time to stop asking questions, and time to start looking for answers to these timeless gems. And so we present to you, our reader [yes, that was intentionally in the singular form… And thanks again for reading, Steve], the first in a series we like to call “Hey Asshole, The Anwer is X”.

And what better way to kick off our unfounded and wholly uninformed answers to age-old questions than by paying homage to the forgotten heroes of the sports world, the refs. So sit back and enjoy our definitive answer to life’s great mystery, Who Are The Toughest Referees in Sports?

After a tight first round of competition (involving a few minutes on YouTube, some reheated Chinese food, and a complex quadratic equation), we have narrowed the field to 6 contenders:

1) Boxing Referees
It takes some serious stones to stand three feet away from two guys beating the life out of one another wearing nothing but a bow tie and suspenders… particularly when one of those guys is a pinko commie from Cuba!!

Note Canada’s cagey entry of the bass player from Bachman-Turner Overdrive as its national representative, causing the Cuban fighter to become confused as to his opponent…

Of course, every man has his breaking point, and boxing refs are no exception. In this case, I believe the breaking point came when the organizers thought it might be fun to use a skinhead biker to ref youth boxing… It was likely the same genius who decided to let David Frost coach youth hockey.

2) Hockey Referees
You know what’s a great idea? Naked luge (with Regan Lauscher). You know what else is a great idea? Skating around with a group of large, angry, heavily-padded men with sticks on an icey surface wearing nothing but a child’s helmet and a uniform from Foot Locker. What could go wrong? I mean, it’s not like they allow fighting in the game… [wait for it… at about the -1:30 mark, and then again (reverse angle) at the -0:50 mark]

Watch closely as Keith Acton prays to the gods (a) that the ref does not let go of his jersey for fear that he might actually have to live up to his trash talk, and (b) that Rogaine actually works.

As with boxing, however, hockey refs live for the opportunity, be it ever so rare, to dish out a little payback (particularly when it comes in the form of an unsuspecting drunk fan…)

Honourable mentions also go to THIS GUY, and THESE GUYS

3) Football Referees
Surrounding themselves with roid rage and criminal records (and that’s just at the high school level…), football refs are truly on the front lines of idiocy. In fact, even when they’re on the sidelines, they’re on the front lines:

Note the sounds of the concerned fans playing the home edition…

That clip had heart, but this one (entitled “Football in Groin”) has a football in the groin…

4) Basketball Referees
Let’s not kid around - most basketball fights involve awkardly proportioned giants failing to land a single blow (with a few notable exceptions, in the form of Rudy Tomjanovich and Kermit Washington…). Apparently, however, this rule of thumb does not apply in Uruguay, particularly when the target of the assault is a diminutive referee who is undoubtedly being paid minimum wage…

Apparently it is common practice in Uruguay, when someone has been dealt a fatal blow to the jaw, to form a Circle of Love around him, remove your outer garments and wave them furiously over his unconscious head in the hopes of exorcising the evil face demons…

5) Soccer Referees
I think we can all agree that soccer is renowned for its “tough as nails” players, who battle through virtually any injury or misplaced tackle in order to preserve the Beautiful Game’s sterling reputation. Well, the refs are no different. Indeed, apparently getting tea-bagged from long range is not enough to keep these men down…

Of course, soccer refs are subjected not only to physical abuse, but also psychological harm (such as the mental anguish that this man has been forced to endure as a result of the invention of YouTube):

6) Baseball Referees (sometimes known as “umpires”)
While the umpires typically outweigh the players by about a deuce and a half, they are by no means strangers to abuse. And while such abuse typically comes in the form of dirt being awkwardly kicked onto the inseam of their pantaloons by an irate manager, sometimes they have to endure the full panoply of childish antics:

In this clip you will observe “Well-Man” execute various classic managerial dispute resolution techniques, including “The Sandcastle”, “The Third Base Toss”, “The Commando Crawl”, “The Chalk Bag Toss”, and “The Crazy”

RESULTS:
So which of these sports boasts the toughest referees? Who can claim the coveted “tough guy” trophy? I think this clip definitively resolves any debate: