Tag: blets

Of course there’s a BTE Championship blet

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny: despite Cody Rhodes’ insistence that he doesn’t believe in mid-card titles, he sure helps run a fed that seems to be utilizing a whole lot of mid-card titles.  Like most wrestling federations, AEW has a world champion, tag team champions, as well as a women’s champion.

But in addition to the trademark blets, AEW also has a TNT championship which I’m still not entirely sure of the logic behind it but is somehow more regarded to than the world championship.  Despite the fact that it doesn’t really count for anything, Brian Cage is running around wearing Taz’s old FTW championship blet from ECW, and despite the fact that they keep saying it’s not recognized by AEW, everyone knows it’s only a matter of time before it’s going to trade hands and suddenly become a thing.  Because Billy Corgan sucks and has basically killed the NWA, Serena Deeb is representing and defending the NWA women’s championship on AEW, and by virtue of regularly appearing and performing, has surpassed their own women’s championship, much like the TNT blet.

More recently, because AEW has interestingly enough opened the doors to collaborations with other feds, TNA Impact’s tag team champions, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows have been usurping screen time on AEW programming to promote Impact shows.  And even more recently, KENTA from New Japan Pro Wrestling has shown up to advance his feud with Jon Moxley over the IWGP United States Championship, which has yet to physically show up on AEW, but has been referenced as the justification for KENTA’s run-in.

And although it’s not a blet, let’s not forget the AEW Dynamite Diamond ring that is a low-key title, twice held by MJF, and has won by virtue of a battle royale, that everyone is desperate to win.

Oh yeah, Kenny Omega is also Mexico’s AAA champion, and has brought that belt onto Dynamite, to antagonize Rey Fenix, the man he defeated to win it. 

So, for those keeping count, outside of the traditional standard championships in AEW, there are six seven titles-not-midcard-titles floating around in the AEW atmosphere right now.

For those who like to criticize the WWE universe for having too many blets, at least there are some fairly defined lines and separation between the jurisdictions of them, and six different weekly shows in which they are circulating between, and not one weekly show, and one YouTube show.

But speaking of YouTube, add one more blet to the mix of AEW-related championships, because of course there had to have been a BTE World Championship blet added into existence, because nothing is more epitomizing of the importance of BTE than giving it its own championship belt.

Continue reading “Of course there’s a BTE Championship blet” →

Every blet has a story

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Originally written on December 24, 2020 (I wanted to start the new year with a positive-to-me post)

I recently redecorated my office.  Primarily because I had exceeded too many running medals for my medal bar, and I had exceeded too many blets for my blet wall, and my running medals and my blets are my favorite things to collect, so I decided to do some reconfiguration in order to proudly display all of both that I have.

First, I decided to create a new medal bar that would one, go all the way across the entire room, and two, actually be made of metal.  Not because it would be metal to make it out of metal, but the fact that a large number of medals accumulates weight very quickly, and I simply needed something strong and sturdy to be able to withstand a gradual increase of weight over time because I have no intention of ever stopping running and collecting medals.

So I basically made a new bar out of actual iron pipes and flanges, mounted to the studs, and measures in at 128” long, which basically accomplishes my goal of going across the entire room.  There is now plenty of room for expansion, and I don’t have to fear that they will eventually bend, sag and break, because it is not a weak curtain rod but is made of actual iron.

And then we have my pride and joy, my wrestling blet collection, which simply needed more space in order to display them all.  So I decided to swap walls between the blets and my giant Jinx graphic, because I needed to have one entire wall in order to accommodate all my blets, and Jinx could comfortably go on wall vacated by all the blets.

I simply had to procure more wood to mount more belts onto and do a good bit of patching and repainting to all the walls prior, but in the end, I was able to comfortably get all 18 of my blets up on the wall, and I couldn’t be happier with the way it all turned out.

But the whole point of this post ultimately was the fact that (almost) every blet has a story or an inspiration behind it, and really for nobody’s edification except my own because I can’t really imagine anyone other than me actually caring, I decided to share all of them, because I have 18 fucking blets so that’s a lot of stories or inspirations to relay.

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That’s one way to make AEW more interesting

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unfortunate: Jon Huber AKA Brodie Lee in AEW, Luke Harper in WWE, passes away at the age of 41, due to alleged non-COVID related lung disease

Firstly, I genuinely do feel bad to hear about this story, because Jon Huber was an extremely good wrestler, and it is always a tragedy to hear of a guy leaving the world this soon, especially when he’s leaving behind a wife and two kids.  At 41 years of age, he’s not much older than me, and many of my current friends, which is also very harrowing to hear of.

I had a high opinion of Jon Huber, and it was a running joke between one of my friends and I that he was a picture-perfect future IWGP World Champion if he ever decided to cross the ocean and go to Japan, because the mold of the evil foreign white man that NJPW loved to use to have their heroes pursue for championships was basically built off of guys like him.

Instead, he went to AEW, where he briefly enjoyed a modicum of success, being unveiled as the leader of the Dark Order, having one World title shot at Jon Moxley which he lost, but then squashing Cody Rhodes for the TNT Popeyes Championship, before losing it back to him a month later.  To my knowledge, that was his last appearance, and he never appeared again on television until the news of his passing.

Here’s the thing though: the news is still fresh, the grief among the industry and the fandom is still outpouring, but I hate to be the guy that wades through all the sadness to wonder just what really happened.  From what I’ve heard, Lee passed away from an unnamed “non-COVID” lung issue, but I can’t help but feel all sorts of skepticism for these vague circumstances.

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Biting on the Sale Price Fallacy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I started my journey of taking online surveys to make money for future blets back in July, as I’ve stated numerous times, the end goal really was to be ready for whenever if and when and mostly if, the WWE Shop would release a replica of the NXT UK Tag Team Championship blet.

Well that still hasn’t happened, and since the belt debuted in 2018, they’ve released countless “tribute” blets, which I put in quotations because almost all of them are entirely existing plates, screwed onto new and gaudy straps, individualized to whichever wrestler they’ve decided to “tribute,” and then charge anywhere from $500-800 for them.

Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Eddie Guerrero, Ric Flair, John Cena, Edge, Triple H and even Chyna have had tribute belts made in their honor.  The Rock and Macho Man Randy Savage have had custom belts designed as theirs.  As noted in the past, Xavier Woods’ YouTube channel’s belt has even been made available. 

Hulk Hogan has tribute belts both to his red and yellow persona, as well as his nWo Hollywood Hogan character.

The Undertaker has had two tribute belts made, this year alone. 

I know it’s a big deal that 2020 marks 30 years in the WWE for the Undertaker, but you know who’s probably the most sick of all this Undertaker tribute-ing?  The Undertaker.  Mean Mark’s made little secret of his generally low-key secluded life when not actively being the business, so I have to imagine a guy like him is put off by all this attention, but does it because of all the paychecks he’s going to continue to get for the rest of his life, by unwavering loyalty to Vince McMahon, but even still, that’s a whole lot of fuckin’ Undertaker to absorb throughout a year.

Anyway, because it’s painfully evident that the WWE Shop is in no rush to ever, if at all, release the NXT UK Tag Team Championship replica, I’ve long past the theoretical full MSRP of a brand-new release blet, and just been continuing to earn more money on the surveys that I do, because why the fuck not?  It’s an easy way to make a little bit of side scratch, and hopefully eventually one day, the blet I really want will actually be made available.

But in the meantime, because of the time of year it is, I noticed that the WWE Shop decided to drop some Black Friday deals of their own, including on blets, and despite the fact that they didn’t have the one blet that I really really wanted, I still felt some excitement and almost a need to capitalize on the fact that they were deeply discounting so many of their inventory.

This is obviously the sale price fallacy, where I simply wanted to buy something solely on the fact that it was on sale.  And despite the lack of NXT UK Tag, I still had in the back of my mind some choices that I’d be willing to pull the trigger on, if they were on deep discount, and seeing as how they all were, I winced and realized that I was about to make an impulse purchase on one of them.

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Writing when I don’t feel like writing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My motivation to write lately has been pretty nonexistent lately.  Not necessarily due to depression, quite the contrary, I’ve managed to pull my head out of the darkness a little bit better since my last brog therapy session.  It’s just that I just don’t really have any motivation to write.

I’m not finding a lot of things on the internet that are inspiring me to write, and maybe I’m still in a state of having writer’s rust when it comes to consistent brogging since I got my site back up months ago.  The point is, I just haven’t felt like I’ve had any real inspiration to write, and I don’t particularly feel motivated to write about things out of thin air either.

Regardless, the anxiety of letting too much time pass between posts is greater than the anxiety of feeling like I don’t have anything to write about, so in order to try and fill the airtime, I’m doing something I used to do whenever it was that I felt like I had nothing to write about: sit in front of a blank canvas and just start writing and see what words I can barf out.

Life lately has been somewhat steady over the last few weeks, especially since my mom is living with me for a few more weeks, and I have the peace of mind knowing that my daughter is in good hands while I hole up in my office for work; I’m actually utilizing my dedicated office space in order to take my job more seriously, as I probably really wasn’t during the first few weeks of quarantining, especially since I had a newborn baby that’s now a 7+ month old infant now.

My entire team has been told that we’re basically going to be working from home until at the very earliest, January 31st of 2021, and frankly even that seems like a dubious milestone in my opinion, because I think when the day is over, schools are what are going to be driving the decisions of all companies on whether or not they’re going to make employees come back to the offices or not.  Child care is low-key the main thing that is going to determine whether or not businesses large or small will be going back to offices any time soon, and even that, is going to be determined by the availability of a vaccine, since ‘Muricans can’t stop being so selfish for two months to effectively quarantine and let coronavirus burn out on its own.

But whatever, for better or worse, I’m working from home for the remainder of this year, and into the start of next.  Regardless of the state of work in that time, I can always have peace of mind knowing that I am always going to be home with my child, even if she will be with the nanny that we’re going to have to hire part-time in order to have eyes on her while I take my job seriously.

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Happy Trails, Animal

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The end of the road for this warrior: legendary tag team wrestler, Joe “Animal” Laurenaitis passes away at the age of 60

Here’s a big oof moment – when looking for a picture to use for this post, I came across this particular image from Survivor Series 1990, and realized that now, every single person in this particular promo was dead.  Kerry Von Erich, Road Warrior Hawk, the Ultimate Warrior, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, and now, Road Warrior Animal, all gone from mortal existence.  This particular Survivor Series was also the debut of the Undertaker, whom has just officially retired from the business after 30 years in the WWE but is otherwise alive and well.

But back to Animal, 60 is not quite an age where the royal we can say he’s gone too soon, but at the same time it’s not really an age where we can say that he lived a full life, closer to general white male in America life expectancy than not.  The cause of death hasn’t formally been revealed, but I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to assume that it was probably his heart, it was probably enlarged, and couldn’t have been helped by some of his life spent with his former tag team partner, who was a notorious partier, substance abuser, and was someone who was gone too soon, at the age of 46.

For the record, I was always more fond of Animal than I was Hawk, even though I fully understand that when the day was over, Hawk really was the stronger worker and more talented of the two.  I guess I just preferred Animal’s power game and his general aesthetic, and the single center mohawk looked cool, and not like he was prematurely balding like Hawk’s dual mohawks.  Hawk would carry matches, take the brunt of the punishment, but then make the hot tag to Animal, who came in and bulldozed opponents, before eventually putting someone up on his shoulders for the Doomsday Device, which to this day, is still one of the more legitimately devastating looking finishers in all wrestling, and there’s a reason why so few tag teams even try to replicate it today.

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New Father Brogging, #021

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As my paternity leave winds down, I naturally feel like the last six weeks have blown by, and that I wish I had more time.  Mentally, I’m not really that prepared to return to work yet, but it’s not like I really have much of a choice if I want to be able to provide for my family, other than to suck it up and get back to it.  But I definitely wish I had more time, without a doubt.

Overall, the last six weeks have been mostly anything but easy, as raising a child is definitely no small feat, and I should be fortunate that I even had the luxury of paternity time in the first place.  As necessary as it most certainly felt to me, the reality is this is something that my company did not have in place when I first started there, which wasn’t even a full five years ago.  I remember the big deal it was within the company, and even getting some national news traction about how when we went full paternity, and thinking nothing of it back then, because I wasn’t even married yet, but having capitalized on it now, I couldn’t be more grateful to work for a company that offers it, because I know that such is not the case everywhere else.

But throughout my paternity leave, my child has grown a bunch, begun eating solid foods, competently rolling over front to back to front, has graduated out of swaddles, and has been teething, chatting a lot more, and we’ve begun trying to get her to sit up on her own strength.  One of my prime hopes was that while I was off, we’d be able to get her into a casting call for some sort of baby company, and put her to work a little bit, and once she actually did get put on a shortlist of candidates, but then they hit us with the curveball that all babies would be required to be able to sit up on their own power.  Bummer

Aside from baby-ing, over the last six weeks, I managed to get my brog back up and running, although it’s an indeterminate time to whether when or if I’ll ever get the pre-2010 archives back up and running, because that’s way lower priority than the brog.  I also had some house issues, when some freakish storms exposed some leaks in my home, which turned out to be a time consuming and costly ordeal in its own right, which really messed me up, and I also found out that my own dad has been having some minor health issues on his own, leading to my sister and I to have some real talks about the inevitable future.

Needless to say, it’s been a time during paternity leave, and it’s hard to comprehend that these six weeks have evaporated so quickly.  Put being on full-time daddy duty 10-12 hours a day, with next to no help and practically no down time for myself, and it’s been very understandable when people try to expound the difficulties of parenthood.

To reward myself and/or indulge in some retail therapy, I decided to get myself a new belt, as well as track down my own belated birthday gift, in this sweet Power Rangers T-Rex DinoZord.  And the belt is mostly as a result of an Amazon gift card my sister got me for my birthday when her own attempt to get me the T-Rex stalled out due to a flaky seller in Japan, and much like Target gift cards, I’m left with a wtf do I purchase, until it came to my attention that Amazon actually had a few people selling legitimate belts.  So now I have a Ring of Honor tag replica, that guys like Kyle O’Reilly, Bobby Fish, the Young Bucks, Hardys, AJ Styles, Kevin Steen Owens, Cesaro, CM Punk and Seth Rollins have held in their histories.

And modeling the belt is my new life-long tag team partner.  As intensive as some parenting might have felt at times, I wouldn’t take anything away from the last six weeks, and I’m sad that it’s likely I’ll not get another massive chunk of time like this to spend with my child for the immediate future.