August 7, 2026—It is a warm summer evening as you plop down on your couch, ready to watch ESPN’s regular summer programming: baseball, wrestling, NASCAR. But instead of the Giants playing the Tigers, or Ty Gibbs racing down the Iowa Speedway, what you see surprises you—soap hockey, pumpkin flinging, marble racing and sign spinning?
All you can think is: this must be a dream.
But it is not. You are wide awake and watching ESPN8: The Ocho.
Streamed this year from August 6 to August 9, The Ocho takes over ESPN’s regular programming to showcase sports that rarely make national television. What began as a fictional TV network in the 2004 comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story has become an annual showcase of unconventional sports.
2026 marks The Ocho’s 10th anniversary, with 23 new competitions alongside returning fan favorites. From classics like cornhole and dodgeball, to inflatable T-Rex races, and Excel spreadsheet competitions, ESPN8 continues to deliver on its promise: “Bringing You the Finest in Seldom-Seen Sports.”
But just because these sports rarely take the spotlight does not mean the athletes behind them take their craft any less seriously.
Take pillow fighting, for example; streamed this year on The Ocho from Disney Arena in Florida, the Men’s Pillow Fighting Championship (PFC) brings trained combat-sport athletes into a ring with specialized pillows, referees and judges. Picture boxing, with a lot more fluff.
photo courtesy of @leandroapollooficial on Instagram
The ring’s two-time defending champion is Leandro Silva. A former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) competitor, Silva has over 20 years of mixed martial arts (MMA) experience and has competed on the American Top Team, a premier MMA training academy. In 2021, when UFC opportunities were limited due to the pandemic, he was invited to his first pillow fighting tournament.
“My first thought was, ‘I fought in the UFC, now you want me to fight with a pillow?’” Silva recalled. But with his first swing, he fell in love.
“I’m a bit of a martial arts scientist,” he mused. Silva studies timing, footwork, distance, and his opponents’ mindset—all of which are skills he developed during his UFC career, which translate to pillow fighting. “Different weapon, same fighter thinking,” he said.
In 2025, Silva won his first PFC, scoring the first-ever “pillow knockdown,” and this year he returned to defend his title.
“It’s rewarding to see my ideas work, and now I’m travelling and training around the world to keep improving,” Silva said.
While unconventional sports like pillow fighting may seem like a world away from San Francisco, the city has its own niche-sport legends.
In the Mission District, Joey “The Cat” Mucha can nail nine 40-hole shots in 15 seconds on his skeeball machine. He is a three-time Skeeball National Championship winner.
He started “rolling” skeeballs at his 11th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, and in 2008, when he moved to San Francisco, he joined a league called Brewskee-Ball. He hasn’t looked back since.
Skeeballers are a lively bunch. Competitions during the “skee-son,” as they call it, are filled with crazy outfits, fun nicknames (known as “alter skee-goes”) and if it was not already obvious, a plethora of skeeball jargon.
In 2000, while living in Bernal Heights, Mucha purchased his own skeeball machine. It took up almost his entire apartment, blocking his bedroom door and spilling into his kitchen. But for him, the inconvenience was worth it.
The machine gave him something other competitors did not have: a place to practice whenever he wanted—and that practice paid off.
photo courtesy of @joeythecat.com
After losing in 2010 and adjusting his strategy, Mucha won the National Skeeball Championship in 2011, 2012 and 2014. It is safe to say, Joey “The Cat” is a San Francisco legend.
Since then, he has started “Joey the Cat,” an arcade operator business, and the accomplishments just keep rolling in. He has built over 40 arcade locations across California, launched a travelling YouTube gameshow called “Meow Mobile Mania” and opened Joey the Cat’s Mission Arcade, his first wholly owned location, where he hosts a skeeball league. “Its all kind of come full circle,” he said.
The Ocho highlights unconventional sports for four days every year. But from pillow fighting in Florida to skeeball right here in San Francisco, they are hidden all around us. So, look past the basketball or the catcher’s mitt, the soccer pitch and the swimming pool and you’ll find pillows, dodgeballs, inflatable T-Rex costumes, Excel spreadsheets and skeeballs with the same dedicated athletes and communities who bring passion and commitment to a craft that is seldom celebrated.
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