He had a hissing contest

Ron Cook, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports writer, uttered this beauty on the sports talk radio show, 93.7 The Fan.  He was summarizing Steelers’ wide receiver Antonio Brown’s out of control behavior and that Brown had “a hissing contest” with one of the coaches.  This is a conflation of “pissing contest” (useless or trivial argument) and a “hissy fit” (a childish temper tantrum).  Both idioms actually fit the context, a rarity in malaphors.  The rhyming of hissing and pissing also contributed to the mashup.  A big thanks to John Kooser for hearing this one and sending it in.