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Are You Bad Enough to Beat this Australian Hyper-Spider in a Fight?

Let's see. Let us see.

There are two types of people in this world, people who can look at an alive spider and say something along the lines of, 'huh, okay' or 'get me a glass and a small square of cardboard and I will put it outside' and then the people who are currently looking at the computer screen right now just screaming, just yelling so much, maybe doing a thing where they jolt out of their chairs in fear – every muscle in their body now somehow beyond their control, muscles just jiving away on their own haunted path, muscles working not together but as individuals as part of a whole, and the body they are attached to will either leap or fall apart, it's so hard to tell – and are just looking at this video of a spider eating a mouse and saying something close to – but not verbatim – something close to the following word: BBBBBMHEURGH.

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I am of the first group of people, so this video is pretty chill:

(Video via Facebook)

It's also exceptionally fucked up and wrong, though, isn't it? In my opinion, spiders should not be strong enough to fuck a mouse up and then carry it about in its mandibles, or whatever it is spiders have. In my opinion, a spider should not be able to skitter up a horizontal plane while holding onto a creature many times its weight and at least twice its size. We all have opinions, and those are mine! Deal with it!

Now the initial reaction to what I am calling Spider 2.0 (the spider's real name is 'Hermie', and has been adopted by the Queensland tradesman, Jason Wormal, who took the footage of it this week) (I don't know why you would see a spider like that and choose to give it a home and not, say, put it in a microwave and destroy it in a way the rest of the spiders on earth can feel it) can be split roughly into two: you are either seeing this as a harbinger of the spider apocalypse, that this is the shape of spidering to come, that Spider 2.0 is just the first of many hyperevolutions that spiders will undertake in the next few years, and that by 2020 they will be car-sized, carrying elephants up the sheer side of buildings; the other reaction is just to say 'oh HELL NO' a lot until you close the tab.

There is a third reaction, though, and that is to ask:

ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO BEAT THIS AUSTRALIAN HYPERSPIDER IN A FIGHT?

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I think that, if spiders were to wage a war on us with Spider 2.0/Hermie at their lead, we would stand a pretty good chance. But let's run the theory to prove it anyway: here, below, is a list of the five baddest dudes currently on the planet, and then, below below, we will discuss whether they would defeat a spider in unarmed combat. Then we will see if humanity needs to fear spiders or not.

THE CONTENDERS

IN THE SPIDER CORNER:

Hermie, that spider that carried a mouse about in that viral video we all just looked at a few paragraphs back;

IN THE HUMAN CORNER

Donald Trump, currently the man most likely to jab a red nuclear button like he was trying to usher a member of cabin crew over on a first class flight and ask them for 'a drink refresh and maybe some hand stuff, sweetie';

Tyson Fury, Gypsy King and pound-for-pound world champion, a man so hard he can only be defeated by his own disgrace;

Jackie Chan, who despite being a 62-year-old cherubic-faced half-retired actor could still Fuck You Right Up in about a thousand different ways;

Nicki Minaj, who is not technically from fighting stock in any way but I am still reeling from that time she offered Miley Cyrus out on stage at the VMAs last year and I just think that, if you were going to get in a fight with anyone – spider or not – you would want Nicki Minaj in your corner, talking smack and pulling her shirt sleeves up ready to fight for it;

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Kumbuka, the gorilla who escaped from London Zoo last week and went radge and drank a load of undiluted blackcurrant squash, and though technically not a human, consider: is there anything you would mess with less, on earth, than a gorilla that just drank four litres of undiluted blackcurrant squash? And the answer is: no. There is nothing.

So let's consider how the fights would go:

TRUMP VS. HERMIE

Out of all of the human contenders, Trump is going to struggle the most with a large-ish spider holding a mouse. He's going to spend a lot of time walking stiff-legged around the ring (the fights will be held in a boxing ring, I insist on this). Keeps pausing the fight to do effete and delicate hand gestures to the crowd. Keeps tripping over his weird long tie. "I am a terrific spider killer, just fantastic," he's saying. "This spider is garbage, it's a whole bag of trash." Somehow it takes 40 minutes but eventually yes, he steps on Hermie, killing him instantly. HUMAN VICTORY.

FURY VS. HERMIE

There's a lot of talk ahead of the fight because Fury and his camp aren't sure whether they are allowed to partake in a simple exhibition fight against a spider without the permission of the Boxing Board of Control, and despite the contest being outside of the confines of the sport and a size and weight mismatch Fury does insist on putting his WBO title on the line against the spider, but in the end it only takes two or three punches from Fury against Fury's own face before, dazed and confused, he squashes Hermie to the death with a single boot. After the fight a visibly sweating Fury sings "Sweet Home Alabama" in the ring to his wife. HUMAN VICTORY.

CHAN VS. HERMIE

Jackie Chan defeats Hermie by ziplining into the ring from a burning building nearby and knocking him out with a single cushioned kick. I mean he somehow breaks both shoulders and his skull doing it, but a win is a win. HUMAN VICTORY.

MINAJ VS. HERMIE

I do not know what Nicki Minaj's best form of offence is because I've never seen her truly on the attack but I feel like her go-to is 'just singing the verse from "Monster" really hard at people' and then maybe 'chewing gum and rolling her eyes so witheringly that everybody nearby dies' so she can do either of those – or impale Hermie with a show heel – and ease to victory while Meek Mill watches helplessly from the sidelines. HUMAN VICTORY.

KUMBUKA VS. HERMIE

Animal vs. Animal, God's Perfect Weapon vs. God's Perfect Weapon, only I imagine even a week later Kumbuka is still struggling with a sugar headache and is just mad as hell about it so snatches Hermie up, mouse and all, and consumes him in one. SURROGATE HUMAN VICTORY.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THIS

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Very, very little. But I guess the moral is, 'if you see a spider strong enough to hold a mouse and walk up a wall about it, you can still fuck it up by just kicking it'. Hopefully that has allayed some fears out there.

@joelgolby

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