Why Battlehawks Hate the Vipers

The rivalry is as bizarre as it is passionate

BY RYAN KRULL

St. Louis Battlehawks fans are looking forward to March 25, when the team will finally play its first game against the Las Vegas Vipers (formerly the Tampa Bay Vipers). Any XFL fan knows that the rivalry between the two teams is intense, despite the fact this will be their first time meeting on the field (assuming this XFL season is not marked by financial or viral catastrophe, as has been the case in years past).

Typically, a rivalry develops between two teams based on proximity (St. Louis Cardinals vs. Chicago Cubs) or as they meet again and again on the field in bitterly contested battles (see the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys). Hard-fought wins and losses stack up on both sides. The rivalry becomes more bitter, the shit-talk more specific, the memes more self-referential. Eventually, the two sides forget how the rivalry began, and as far as everyone is concerned one team has always despised the other.

The Battlehawks seem to have managed to do almost all of that to the Vipers without the teams ever actually having played a game against each other. They were set to face off in 2020, but COVID had other ideas. It didn’t matter; within weeks of the Battlehawks becoming a St. Louis XFL team in