Tag: wwe

Some words for Kamala the wrestler

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I feel that I needed to clarify the disambiguation, because given the fact that the name “Kamala” is exploding the internet right now as Senator Kamala Harris has been formally tapped to be Joe Biden’s VP running mate, there has been an ironically cringey overlap between she, and James “Kamala” Harris, the professional wrestler who has just recently passed away.

When mythical wife stated to me that “some wrestler died,” I quickly did a Google search to see that it was Kamala who had passed away.  I’ll be honest, Kamala “The Ugandan Giant” wasn’t necessarily a guy I cared a tremendous amount, as I always thought he was more of a racist caricature of a character.  And given the fact that he was 70 years old at his passing, it was one of those moments of insensitivity that I felt where at least he lived to see 70, and wasn’t a guy who was found dead in a hotel bathroom from an overdose or heart explosion from a lifetime of steroids and painkillers.

But then as a little time passed, and it was revealed that Kamala had passed away, basically because of coronavirus, then I winced and felt guilty for no-selling the news of his passing, because now it wasn’t so much a passing because a guy had lived out his life, as much as it was a guy having what remaining life he had left to live, stripped away from him, on account of an extremely preventable sickness that shouldn’t been neutralized like three months ago, and now that’s something to be sad about.

As I said, Kamala wasn’t tremendously important to me, growing up as a wrestling fan, but even I knew that Kamala was a guy who’s career transcended three decades in the industry, and has rubbed shoulders with countless industry legends in the process.  In the 80’s he feuded with Hulk Hogan, in the 90’s he feuded with the Undertaker, and he even came back in the early 2000’s to still take some bumps and put over the then-current generation of performers.

In fact, it was actually in 2005 when I probably came the closest to marking out for Kamala, when on an episode of RAW, he got into an altercation with Umaga, who was being pushed pretty hard as a bruising heel at the time, and there was a segment where the husky Samoan and the husky Ugandan were up in each other’s faces, and I was like “oh shit, this is really happening!”  They would have a match where Kamala more or less got squashed, but I can admit that for about five minutes, Kamala was pretty much the baddest guy in the industry when he stood toe-to-toe with the WWE’s top heel for a brief match.

Rarely is a loss of life is ever not sad, and the wrestling industry loves to throw around the title of “legend” to all sorts of former professional wrestlers, as long as they didn’t burn bridges with the biggest promoters.  Like, I’d seen Marty Jannetty being called a legend; the guy’s career’s legacy is being the guy Shawn Michaels smashed through a window, and now he’s more known for wanting to bang his own daughter and admitting to murder on social media.  He’s definitely no fucking legend.

Let’s make it clear that in spite of my own personal ambivalence towards the character of Kamala, he is, undoubtedly a legend.  His career transcended decades, he had feuds with legitimately some of the biggest names in the industry, and had a character that basically proved that black don’t crack, as when he showed up in 2005 looking basically the same as he did in 1985.

Despite living to 70, the man frankly should have kept living, but ‘Murica being what it is today, even the Ugandan Giant from Deepest, Darkest Africa was in the prime age of susceptibility, and unfortunately the business and the world lost a life that should very well have been preventable, which is the saddest part of all of this.

Happy trails, James Harris.

Somehow, being a Marty Jannetty managed to get darker

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny, as I’d been going through all of my old posts from the last decade, I came across this one from 2017, which was this cringe-worthy story about how Marty Jannetty supposedly wanted to bang his own daughter.  The span between 2016-present, I’d forgotten a lot of the things I’d written, because they never saw the light of day on my brog in the first place, but there’s no other way to describe the situation – Marty Jannetty apparently wanted to bang his own daughter, and the most fortunate thing that could’ve happened was that the biological test proved that they were not actually related.

But basically, I declared that the definition of being a Marty Jannetty was no longer exclusive to being the weaker half of any professional wrestling tag team, but also implied a man who would want to bang his own daughter.  For example, it could be said that the current president of the United States has almost made some Marty Jannetty-like remarks, like when he stated that if Ivanka were not his daughter, he’d probably be dating her.

The point is, I declared that the definition of a Marty Jannetty had changed back in 2017 based on some ironically fucked up behavior, but very, very shortly after revisiting that post, one of my friends shares with me a text message that basically just said:

Marty Jannetty confessed to murder on Facebook

Naturally, this friend never really gives me any context to remarks like this, so I had to look it up, but well yeah, it basically looks like Marty Jannetty confessed to committing a murder, on theFacebook.

In the grand spectrum of things, as fucked up as potential incest is, I’d still rank it not as bad to, potential murder.  So I guess perhaps it’s gotten even darker to be defined as a Marty Jannetty, because now that would imply that you might be a murderer, and if we want to get specific, someone who can kill a guy and that will ultimately confess to it on social media, 30 years later.

Either way, I’m sure the Nick Jacksons, Chuck Taylors, Angelo Dawkins, Tuckers and Erick Rowans never liked being called Marty Jannettys in its original definition, but I think it’s safe to say that perhaps we should start looking for new terminology for the weaker half of tag teams now, because ‘ol Marty is taking his shit into some really dark and undesirable to be compared to places these days.

NXT Japan? Think of the belts!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Prior to the rise and age of coronavirus, I’d heard rumblings of Triple H’s ultimate goal of basically colonizing various parts of the world with NXT. It’s apparent that he has visions of reinventing the territorial system, but in a manner where he’ll have a finger in every single one of them, by having an NXT division in all of them. And despite the notion that he could be saturating the industry with his product(s), the truth of the matter is that NXT, the WWE and their general modus operandi run pretty tight ships, and I have to ask if that’s such a problem?

One of the most oft-discussed future NXT territories, has been Japan; it goes without saying that when it comes to the professional wresting industry, Japan is easily top-3 when it comes to countries that take it seriously, between them, the United States and Mexico. It goes without saying that if there were any place on the globe that should be a priority for a future NXT brand, it’s definitely Japan. And try, the WWE and Triple H have done throughout the last year or so, and every now and then there’s news of WWE getting into talks to purchase some small federation in Japan, before it fizzles out somewhere along the line.

It’s pretty clear that the WWE’s intention is to purchase an existing company, re-brand it as NXT Japan and go from there, as opposed to starting something from scratch. Which sounds like a decent plan, as to minimize transitioning as much as possible, but if there’s one thing about Japanese culture, is that they’re extremely nationalistic and extremely prejudice towards outsiders seeking success in their lands. Whether the validity of the reports are true, supposedly the WWE has been shot down numerous times by various promotions looking to sell, and in some stories, some Japanese promotions be it New Japan, All Japan or some other players, have swooped in to purchase them, for seemingly no other reason than to cockblock the WWE from getting their foot in the door.

Whether or not any of that is true is really irrelevant in the long run, and I don’t particularly feel like going through the trouble to validate any of it, but the fact of the matter is that in the long run, it’s a moot point, because eventually, the WWE will get their foot into Japan, and NXT Japan will one of these days, eventually come to fruition. It’s not a matter of if, but when, because everybody has a price, and someone will eventually set aside nationalistic pride for financial gain and hand the reigns to their promotion over to the WWE, or failing that, the WWE will start from scratch if the projections of success are high enough.

I for one, am all for an NXT Japan division, because I appreciate and like what they’ve done with NXT UK, and I think there’s a tremendous world of opportunity and growth if an NXT Japan were to come to fruition. They’d obviously be the new base for Asian talent, and much like UK does, they can easily bring in talents from China, the Philippines, and if there’s even any interest in professional wrestling in Korea, why not see a first-ever Korean-born WWE professional wrestler too? They’d be closer for talent in the hot beds of Australia and New Zealand to feed into, and they’re an option for talents from Russia and India as well.

Continue reading “NXT Japan? Think of the belts!” →

I don’t care if it’s a work

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I mean, there’s a 100% chance that this is a work, because things in the WWE universe don’t happen if they aren’t; but anyway, I just wanted to say that I took tremendous enjoyment out of Adam Cole blasting into Pat McAfee during his shitty radio show, because I fucking can’t stand Pat McAfee, and it’s a pleasure to hear a strong talker like Adam Cole tear into him.

Since I’ve devolved into a way more filthy casual wrestling fan over the years, my only real exposure to the WWE product really is down to NXT re-broadcasts once they’re made available on the Network, and PPV events.  Without cable, I can’t watch RAW, I can’t watch NXT live, and frankly I can never find the time or want to watch Smackdown despite the fact that I can watch FOX on Friday nights.  NXT UK is currently shuttered due to coronavirus, and I don’t even think the WWE personnel even watches Main Event or 205 Live.

So occasionally, I’ll have the wherewithal to tune into a WWE PPV, and over the last few years that I’ve been able to intercept a pre-show, my thoughts have often been, who the fuck is this guy??

This ginger, jew-fro’d geek with a receding hairline and a voice that makes me think of the scientist guy from The Simpsons, so having said that, I am naturally referring to Sam Roberts.  I had no idea who he was, and why he got to be on the pre-show panel with guys like Booker T and Renee Young, but all I knew was that I thought he was annoying, and I was not a fan.

But then came along this other guy, some douchebag-looking Chad, who exuded a frat-bro personality tantamount to his appearance, and my brow crinkled even more at the notion that the WWE kept opening their doors to these douchey marks to be on their pre-shows.  Well that turned out to be Pat McAfee, and he immediately gave me X-Pac Heat vibes, and I was really tempted to tune out entirely thanks to him, but I wanted to watch the PPV, so I grit my teeth and soldered through.

Continue reading “I don’t care if it’s a work” →

This would be a sad way to go for NXT UK

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: there is speculation that the WWE’s NXT UK brand could get shut down amidst the hashtag-Speaking Out movement

To those of my 0 readers who don’t pay attention to wrestling, to summarize, there’s been an online movement in the industry known as #SpeakingOut in which people (men and women but mostly obviously women) went on social media to identify and post documentation of those in the professional wrestling industry of bad behavior, of the less than fortunate nature.

There hasn’t been a company large or small that hasn’t been named in some sort of capacity, be it a promoter, producer or a talent, and so far the names that have been thrown out have been pretty eye-opening, and the fallout of lots of it is beginning to get big.  The trying-to-rebirth NWA has put themselves on hiatus amidst the allegations, and their VP has outright resigned.  Philadelphia’s Chikara Pro wrestling has outright shut down.  Jim Cornette, the guy who can’t not get involved with anything in wrestling, had a disgusting sexual adventure/fetish unearthed.  Notable names from Ring of Honor, Impact and even AEW have been unearthed as people who have done things as far as being too clingy, not taking no for an answer, to some, little extreme remarks to express physical desire.

But with obviously anything pertaining to the wrestling industry, all eyes eventually seek out what’s going on in the world of the WWE, and believe you me, things have not been easy for the ol’ McMahon family business either, amidst all this.

Numerous names of talent have been named, and you can practically see the WWE machine scrambling to figure out the guys who are above a certain tier to whether they’re safe from losing their job, versus the guys that need to be immediately let go in order to look like they’re doing something about it.

One very alarming and unfortunate pattern that has emerged however, is the volume of reports coming out of the UK, primarily involving guys that are on the NXT UK roster.  As the link above details, guys like Ligero and Travis Banks have been immediately released, with the latter being somewhat of a surprise considering I figured he had a future with at least 205 Live reinforcement.  But guys like Trent Seven, Joe Coffey and Jordan Devlin are also names of accused parties, and regardless of what happens from their individual cases, it’s a frightening notion that already so many names in the British wrestling scene have popped up in such a short amount of time.

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Looks like the WWE was finally ready for Asuka

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I wonder if my posts are too long, mostly on account of me rambling about something in the long form that sets up what I’m actually intending on writing about, and then five paragraphs later, I really actually get to the point of the impetus for writing in the first place.

That being said, I’ll keep it short about how much I cringed like OJ Simpson in court, when fucking Otis won the men’s Money in the Bank briefcase.  Sure, I’ll give the WWE a little bit of credit for actually taking a stab at some pure unpredictability, but based on the lineup of contenders, Otis had to have been the one guy that nobody and their mothers from their basements would have actually considered winning MITB, but here we stand.

Needless to say, I’m disappointed that fucking Otis is going to be the get-out-of-jail-free card for WWE Creative for the next calendar year, and I have to assume that he’ll end up like Damien Sandow or Baron Corbin, as dudes who will inevitably have failed to successfully cash in their championship opportunities; or, they’ll go very radically, and have Otis cash it in on tag titles, or do some revisionist history to where he can cash it on any brand and any title, which might actually make it a little more interesting.

Anyway, the point of this post wasn’t to talk about fucking Otis, but to applaud the WWE for their choice to get back on the Asuka train and actually give her a god damn push.  She went from being one of the hottest talents in the company with an undefeated streak that eclipsed Bill Goldberg, but once the streak came to an end against Charlotte Flair, she was dropped down to the mid-card faster than television ratings during an X-Pac match.  Sure, she had a Smackdown women’s championship in this time, but again was jobbed out to Charlotte Flair, and relegated to tag duties, which she actually spun gold from shit, with Kairi Sane and their cringeworthy Kabuki Warriors name.

Regardless, I was excited to see Asuka win the women’s Money in the Bank briefcase, but before I could even write about it, the following night on RAW occurred, where Becky Lynch announced her pregnancy to the world, and relinquished the RAW women’s championship over to Asuka, for winning the MITB contest.

Now it’s no secret WWE loves to build their company on “moments,” and it was widely reported that absolutely nobody other than Lynch, Seth Rollins (the father) and only a few key creative bigwigs knew about it, and not even Asuka was informed before the segment, so it’s safe to say that Becky’s announcement and the bequeathing of the RAW women’s championship over to Asuka was an entirely unscripted and about as genuinely real moment as one could see in professional wrestling.

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The path to the IWGP World Championship has just been opened up

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When the first wave of future endeavors was announced, my initial thought was, meh, no real loss.  Maybe Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows, but anyone with a pulse who follows wrestling knows they’ll be back in Bullet Club t-shirts by the end of the month in Japan, so they’ll be fine.  It sucked for Drake Maverick and Sarah Logan who are/were in championship programs literally right now or weeks ago.  And it also sucked for Heath Slater, who I figured was going to be one of those company lifers, and whose sole shirt was one that said I GOT KIDS | I NEED THIS JOB.

But really, it didn’t seem like anyone particularly consequential was axed from the company in light of coronavirus screwing things up.  That is, until a second wave of future endeavors was announced shortly afterward.

Introduced Alexander Rusev, and then gradually shortened to just Rusev, he was always one of those guys that I was always high on since his ascent to the main roster.  I appreciated that even in spite of being the archetypical evil foreigner, he showed a tremendous amount of respect for the ring itself and the business, and I loved the way he was originally built up, with a different face of the month being put in front of him, before he would ultimately meet them at the next pay-per view and then finish them with the Camel Clutch he called The Accolade.

Riding this burgeoning undefeated streak, Rusev would eventually capture the United States championship from Sheamus and hold it for several months, before having an eventual Wrestlemania program with none other than John Cena, whom he’d lose it to at the Showcase of the Immortals™, but not before having an epic entrance where he rode to the stage in a literal tank.  Seriously, if this moment couldn’t be considered the pinnacle of his WWE career, then I don’t know what else could.

Either way, Rusev maintained a pretty strong presence for a while afterward, and even managed to turn face, when he for whatever reason, started christening every day as a holiday known as Rusev Day.  I mean whatever, the fans ate it up, and it got him over, even if his win-loss record wasn’t nearly as sparkling as it was during his initial run.

Eventually, for reasons I don’t really particularly care to research beyond Wikipedia, WWE seemed to sour on him, and such was easily reflected in how he was treated on screen, if he was even allowed to make it on television.  I’m going to guess there was some sort of contract dispute or something of the sort, and Creative basically took him to the woodshed with his character.

Continue reading “The path to the IWGP World Championship has just been opened up” →