Buzkashi, the sport that uses dead goats as the ball, a breakdown

Jul 12, 2019 1.8M views 2:15

MLB Baltimore Orioles 2019

What Happened

This entry in Jomboy's 'Fun Sport Friday' series breaks down buzkashi, a Central Asian game played on horseback where riders fight to carry a headless goat carcass into a scoring circle. The carcass can weigh up to about 99 pounds, with the head and feet cut off before play. Jomboy walks through the formal version with boundaries and a designated scoring hole, narrating riders who grab the goat, fend off opponents, and either drop it in for a point or get dragged off their horse trying. Posted July 12, 2019, it trades pitch-tipping analysis for a wide-eyed tour of a sport most American fans have never seen.

Why This Matters

The 'Fun Sport Friday' detours are part of why Jomboy's audience grew beyond baseball diehards. Instead of frame-by-frame strikeout analysis, this one applies the same curious, play-by-play voice to something genuinely foreign, and it works because the format travels. The goat-stealing origin story he mentions tracks with the real history, where buzkashi grew out of nomadic raiding traditions across Afghanistan and the surrounding region. The comparison he reaches for, a rider getting 'his Red Pollard on' after being dragged around, ties it back to horse-racing danger his viewers recognize. Videos like this widened the channel's range in 2019 and showed the breakdown style could cover anything with a ball, even when that ball used to be a goat. It's the kind of content that pads view counts and pulls in casual scrollers.

At 1.8M views it ranks #129 of 1,583 breakdowns, landing in the top 8.1% of the catalog and proving a goat-carcass video can outdraw most actual baseball clips.

Key Moments

Who / What Is Involved

Teams: Orioles.

next up on fun sport Friday we got boos

Kashi Central Asian game very popular

you play with a dead goat carcass they

say what can weigh up to 99 pounds if

you're wondering if that was a drone

flying in the air it was if you're

wondering if there have drones flying

but they're still using dead goats as

the ball they are they very much are you

go on horseback you take the goat and

you try to put it in this giant hole

this is a very formal game there's

informal games where there's no

boundaries oh let's just going to need

to get that one in the hole oh my god

I'm dead I just died and we didn't score

what a bummer here we go nice and easy

red person puts it in the hole opponent

falls in the hole with the goat carcass

that's a shitty way to lose number 5 is

gonna come up here and get a good block

let number 6 take the goat put it in the

hole score goal they're excited what a

sport huh what a wild sport they said it

originated it because tribes would go

steal other tribes goats and then ride

away and then they would get chased like

give us our goat back and they're like

you know that's pretty fun all this goat

stealing we do let's turn it into a game

this dude's got an open lane he's got to

turn this guy whoo whoo nice little move

turns that guy around gets the goat

right in that giant hole goes for a fun

ride himself fist pump I love how

universal the fist pump is okay let's

pick up this goat oh [ __ ] now we're just

trampling a go it seems kind of [ __ ]

up but here we go

oh did I mention the goats headless they

cut the goats head and feet off not sure

how that makes the gameplay any

different but they do it BAM one point

for that team all right this guy on the

Left here he's got nice and easy nice

and easy just put this in now wait I

think I'll just die instead instead of

scoring goat in horse backs out not

interested all right number four and

blue nice easy target bummer dude

terrible goat flaw oh my god this guy's

getting his red Pollard on getting

dragged around that's pretty scary oh I

see you're interested in picking that up

you interested in dying boom crushed

next up nice and easy in the hole booze

Kashi

what a sport