Saturday Night Live satirizes Billie Jean King, Battle of the Sexes with host Jason Momoa

The skit airing on the late-night show’s 49th season hews more closely to the first BOTS battle between Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court, then called the “Mother’s Day Massacre.”

ByDavid Kane

Published Nov 19, 2023

Women's History Month: King beats Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes

Tennis anyone?

Saturday Night Live paid ironic tribute to the Battle of the Sexes’ 50th anniversary with an outlandish skit featuring actor and host Jason Momoa over the weekend.

The late-night sketch comedy show, currently airing its 49th season, presented a mocumentary-style look at a fictional BOTS battle that preceded Billie Jean King’s famous victory over Bobby Riggs, pitting an overconfident Charna Lee Diamond (played by Sarah Sherman) and a much more physically imposing Momoa playing Ronnie Dunster, “the largest man to ever play tennis.”

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The absurdist set-up takes a gruesome turn, evoking memories closer to the first Battle of the Sexes between Riggs and Margaret Court. In a match deemed the “Mother’s Day Massacre,” Court won only three games against the elder Riggs in May of 1973, inspiring King to take up the challenge and ultimately defeat Riggs in a best-of-five exhibition four months later.

The match was recently immortalized in the 2017 film Battle of the Sexes, starring Emma Stone as King and Steve Carrell as Riggs.

King celebrated the 50th anniversary of BOTS back in September, posting that “it was a catalyst for social change & one of the most important days of my life” on Twitter/X.

Check out the full sketch on from Saturday’s episode of SNL on YouTube.