Heard the one about Mike Tyson, Russell Crowe and a priest on hoverboards?

Hoverboard fails
Hoverboard fails

Marty McFly and Doc Brown have a lot to answer for. Because of them, 2015 was destined to be the year of the hoverboard. It was written in the gospel that is Back To The Future Part II, so it was meant to be.

And, in 2015, we did get hoverboards but they are a long way from the awesomeness of the movie.

Our hoverboards are terrible two-wheeled contraptions that even Amazon has banned selling them, due to them being a potential fire hazard. This is the same Amazon that sells Uranium Ore.

To cap off a rollercoaster year for the hoverboard we have had three fantastic Hoverboard-related things happen over the Christmas period.

All of these should, if you actually decided to buy one, convince you to throw away your hoverboard into the nearest flame-retardant bin and rediscover your own feet for walking.

Mike drop

First up in Mike Tyson. Usually someone who is in the news for very different reasons, the former boxer has now taken up hoverboarding, which he is terrible at.

Not as terrible as his acting but he shared his hoverboard fail for us to all laugh at, from the comfort of our own home.

hoverboard

Then there's that other hard man, Mr Russell Crowe. Famed for fighting the entire Roman Empire in Gladiator while being literally stabbed in the back by a snivelling Joaquin Phoenix, Crowe was someone else who took to Twitter to slam Virgin America for not allowing him to take his kids hoverboards onto a plane. Apparently they should have told him they were banned when he booked the ticket.

Hoverboard

Finally, a Catholic priest decided to conduct Christmas Eve mass while riding a hoverboard. Even though the video shows the congregation cheering and clapping while he rolls down the aisle, according to the Guardian, his actions have gotten him suspended and forced a statement that is so bizarre it's brilliant.

On his Facebook page, the diocese of San Pablo in Laguna posted the following statement:

"Last December 24, 2015, before the final blessing of the Christmas eve mass, as a way of greeting his parishioners, the priest sang a Christmas song, while going around the nave standing on a hoverboard.

"That was wrong."

Roll on 2016... Just not on a hoverboard.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.