Month: April 2020

Welp, so much for flattening the curve

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve long since stopped using the phrase “just when I thought people couldn’t possibly get any dumber,” because no matter what flabbergasting things in the world people do, they can always inexplicably find a way to do something dumber.  No. Matter. What.

In spite of the fact that Georgia, much less the rest of America is nowhere close to being on the path to being remotely similar to South Korea or Taiwan in terms of fighting coronavirus, our idiot governor Yosemite Sam, has decided that the stay-at-home ordinance is going to be lifted so that certain types of businesses can open reopen and get back to work; as in people go out of your homes into the world that has a potentially deadly airborne virus floating all over the place and get back to fucking work for the sake of the economy at the risk of your literal lives.

Before we even get to the list of approved businesses, let’s just opine about how recklessly horrible this decision is.

Despite the fact that Georgia ranks in the top-10 states in worst coronavirus numbers, they’re basically scrambling to get to the front of the line in regards to encouraging people to leave their homes, go out amongst other people and put themselves at increased risk; in order to get back to work.

Because the economy needs it. 

So go put yourselves in danger.  Because money

Anyway, let’s take a look at the businesses that will be opening within the next week:

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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.

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People can’t get over their disrespect for wrestling to realize there are many worse options

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When this story came out about how the Baked Potato in Charge appointed Vince McMahon among other leaders of sports organizations to some think tank of how to revitalize the US economy, numerous Facebook friends shared it in the typical “ha ha look at what stupid shit the baked potato did now” kind of attitude that the landscape of social media among people my age tend to operate.

It felt like I was being baited to debate over it based on how many people were posting the link, with the flippant ridicule at the tips of their tongues.  Now as much as I want to heroically say that I never took it, I did, to the first friend who posted it; naturally, sticking up for anything that the Baked Potato in Charge does means I’m an asshole, and it didn’t take long for some person I didn’t know to snidely remark to me, but I got the last word in and decided to take this offline to where I can really explain my opinions without strangers flapping their e-gums at me.

Sure, I get it, the headline itself does sound ripe for criticism given the types of people that the Baked Potato in Charge and the chairman of the WWE are.  But what really got on my nerves was not just people shitting on professional wrestling because “it’s a fake sport,” but the fact that so many people have such blatant disrespect for professional wrestling that they aren’t capable of actually realizing that maybe Vince McMahon really isn’t that horrific of a choice, and that if anyone took two seconds to get over the whole wrestling thing, might actually realize that there’s an avalanche of far worse people to bring aboard as an advisor to stimulate an economy.

Vince McMahon is absolutely no saint, he’s perceived as an egomaniacal tyrant who is kind of racist, kind of sexist, kind of size-ist (if there’s such a thing as someone who discriminates against non-roided up freaks of nature).  But the reality is that most people can’t delineate between the on-screen persona of Vince the Asshole Boss, and the off-screen Vince McMahon, owner and chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment.

The latter is a shrewd businessman who has operated the WWF/E for four decades and has steered his ship through several generations of fans and the changes of the time that come and go with them.  He’s kept his business afloat through numerous scandals, allegations and criticisms when it came to drugs, steroids, concussions, among others.  And he not only revolutionized professional wrestling, he brought it into the mainstream, constantly evolved it, and continues to grow and expand.

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A 2020 MLB Arizona-only short season: greed personified

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I know that over the last few years, baseball has definitely fallen pretty hard in terms of priorities in my life, but it’s still my favorite sport, and I’ll always have an ear to the ground in regards to it.  I’ll also include that the lack of the pomp and circumstance of the Opening Day that didn’t happen is mostly lost on me, because of the whole, having a baby owning my life from here on until the indefinite future, but it’s still a sad state of affairs that this is the time of the year in which baseball should be shining the brightest, but thanks to coronavirus, is nowhere to be seen.

Naturally, within the inner workings of baseball and their respective organizations, there are massive repercussions to not having a season; fans don’t get to enjoy watching the national pastime, ballparks all across the country sit dormant as the beautiful spring days and nights come and go, and of course, there are billions of dollars being lost all across the board from there being no baseball.

Ballparks large and small, major league, minor league, semi-pro, etc, make no money on parking, concessions and tickets when there is no baseball.  The local economies that house and surround said ballparks also feel the pinch from there being no focal point to draw traffic to them.  People who work in the ballparks and any businesses that rely on baseball to bring in money, end up suffering and worse, jobless as a result.

And when everything culminates, above all else, the owners, investors and other partners who run baseball organizations and the teams themselves, aren’t making money when there’s no baseball being played.

What’s kind of messed up is that baseball players, are still getting paid in spite of the shutdown.  For doing jack shit nothing at this point, as they can’t really train, since the places they’d go train at are all also shutdown.  Sure, the Bryce Harpers and the Manny Machados aren’t going to be getting their full $30M+ salaries for the year, but it’s reported that quite a few players are making up to $143K a week for doing the aforementioned nothing.

But anyway, the point of this post comes from some news that’s been bubbling over the last few weeks about how Major League Baseball is kicking an idea around, that would attempt to get baseball back onto the field as soon as possible, even if it had some really extreme guidelines about it.

Basically, in this proposal, the entire 2020 MLB season would take place over the span of 4-5 months starting in July or August and go through presumably November.  But here’s the real crazy part of it: all 30 teams would be playing in various stadiums all across Arizona.  And possibly Florida.  Or maybe just Arizona.  The point is, MLB wants to play as much of an entire season as possible in either just Arizona, or they’ll do Arizona and Florida and use the Spring Training Cactus and Grapefruit leagues as two divisions and then mash together a World Series at presumably a neutral site.

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New Father Brogging, #005

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

We’re now well into the brave new world of pandemic ruining the planet, America “ascending” to #1, as in, being the country that’s most been most devastated by coronavirus and had the highest afflicted/death toll in the world, and pretty much everyone in the world has been advised to stay inside, avoid other people, and generally hunker down and hope for everything to eventually blow over.

Cabin fever, has perpetually been viewed as one of the biggest obstacles for Americans across the country, and it’s no more evident than whenever I do go out (pediatrician appointments, picking up takeout meals), that there are always people out and about, taking walks or jogging, more than ever.  Seriously, a running joke that myself and many people out there have, are that we’re all seeing people in our own neighborhoods that we’d never seen before, because people are mostly recluses to begin with, but forced into situations where they are discouraged from wasting time elsewhere, they feel the itch to waste time at home, even if it means being seen by their neighbors.

It kind of defeats the purpose of social distancing, but Americans have always been shit about following directions in the first place.  Although going on walks and jogging is a pathetic bending of a rule that isn’t going to help, things could be worse, so I guess it’s mostly a “fuck it, let them have that” kind of compromise, although I have heard of more draconian areas in the country that have police willing to write tickets for those not properly practicing social distancing.

Personally, cabin fever hasn’t really hit mythical wife and I, because the vast majority of our days have been overwhelmingly consumed by the whole, now we’re parents thing. I highly recommend popping out a newborn and raising it, if you’re feeling anxious about the way the world is now; I assure anyone that it most definitely is effective at taking their mind off of the inability to go out and do things, and that there’s absolutely no feeling of having too much time on your hands.

As it stands, since I’m working remotely, I actually feel like I work more now that I’m doing it from home, than I do when I’m at the office.  In fact, I feel like a lot of my reports and a lot of my peers in general are doing similarly, mostly on account of the fact that they all feel like they need to prove that they’re working, and subsequently actually become more productive than not.  I’m glued to my work machine for full work days, and by the time I log off, it’s the start of the evening, and we’re on a general cycle of feeding and changing the baby and then suddenly it’s 10 pm, and I need to start thinking about the next work day.

There are people out there who are complaining about how they’ve watched “everything” on Netflix already and are thinking of what streaming service to subscribe to next in order to find more fresh new content to watch; I’ve barely watched any television at all over the last few weeks.  The only things that I’ve really seen are when mythical wife is on pumping/feeding duty and I’m hanging out for support, and she’s been watching stuff like Great British Baking Show or Crash Landing On You.

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I thought Ric Flair loved his daughter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The intentions may have been pure, but to me, comparing anyone to Randy Orton may as well be telling them they’re vanilla ice cream, so when Ric Flair said his daughter Charlotte was akin to the female equivalent of Randy Orton, well, that’s not necessarily a compliment as far as I’m concerned.

Frankly, Ric probably should’ve stuck with naming all the attributes he thinks Randy Orton has that he loves, and applied those to Charlotte without actually naming Randy Orton, but what’s done is done.

Ric Flair thinks Charlotte is boring, stale, never-changing, and getting put into a program with her is getting put into the friend zone of WWE Creative for the women’s division.

To which by that logic, is completely untrue and unfair to Charlotte, to compare her to Randy Orton.

Randy Orton, is exactly what I said he is, and he genuinely is the equivalent of being put into the friend zone.  Poor Edge, makes this monumental comeback after nine years of forced retirement, and then is immediately thrown into the slammer of WWE Creative, being forced to run a months-long program with Randy Orton.

Most wrestling fans can only guess the queue of younger guys salivating at the dream of getting to work with Edge, and I can only imagine the potential four-star+ matches that could be had if he got to work with guys like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Johnny Gargano or Tommaso Ciampa.  But instead, the WWE welcomed Edge back with a soul-crushing program with Randy Orton.

Charlotte Flair, on the other hand is in my opinion, genuinely the best female superstar in professional wrestling, bar none.  Ric is definitely not wrong about that part, it’s just not fair or cool to compare her to Randy Orton.

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Well that was predictably not great

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unsurprising to me, considering the fact that professional wresting kind of needs fans and atmosphere to really excel at being the spectator event it’s supposed to be, that a Wrestlemania with no fans and no real atmosphere, just was not that great.  It didn’t help that as a result of coronavirus running wild, there were some massive impacts to the card, like Roman Reigns pulling out because as a leukemia survivor, he’s already immunocompromised, and then the Miz pulling out because he had some ailment that scared the shit out of all other roster and personnel and probably gained him a ton of heat, things were becoming a steeper and steeper uphill battle, even before circumstances made the company turn the whole thing into a closed-door private affair.

In spite of their best efforts and making it a two-night event, very little could’ve really been done to have made the event remotely palatable to an old smark like myself.  The importance of crowds and the atmosphere they bring has been completely understated in the last few weeks of both WWE and AEW putting on empty venue shows.  But as much as I don’t like having to praise AEW, I have to give them credit for at least having the wherewithal to put their superstars in the audience so that there’s some sort of crowd noise or interaction to gain.

WWE on the other hand has literally nobody in the stands whatsoever, and it’s almost an eerie silence when matches go on.  I have to imagine as performers, it’s really jarring and awkward to them to have to perform for nobody but the camera, but act like that there’s a crowd at all, and go through with ring entrances and staring out into nothingness like there’s a sold out show.  I imagine those who are WWE grown struggled with it the most, whereas those who worked their ways through independents and alternative federations are probably no stranger to low-attendance or near-empty gates.

Regardless, the show as a whole was pretty weak, and it was entirely too difficult to get into many of the matches.  I fortunately watched each night of the show the day after, so I had the luxury of being able to fast forward and skip the rest holds and extended promos in order to chew up time.  As well as Rob Gronkowski segments, where the only thing I want to see out of him is to team up with Zack Ryder and Matt Riddle and make a douchey white guy bro stable, and have one program with The New Day since they’re a group of black nerds, and then get the fuck out of the WWE forever.

Undertaker vs. AJ Styles was about as bad as I imagined it would be, considering the fact that it was a gimmicky “Boneyard Match” that wasn’t so much of a match as much as it was an episode of WMAC Masters from back in the 90’s.  It hid every bit of the Undertaker’s lack of mobility and stamina, and AJ Styles had to work his ass off to make it look remotely passable.  It wasn’t really entertaining, but more cringeworthy that the WWE went off in this direction, but given the fact that the Undertaker is like 55 and can barely move, they didn’t really have that much of a choice.

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