Month: July 2024

I wonder what it says that I relate so well to mommy bloggers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the connected world we live in full of prying digital eyes and ears that seem to exist solely to collate information for algorithms and targeted content, I was fed this blog article from some mommy blogger, talking about how lonely it felt being everyone’s B-list friend.

It was a headline that I immediately knew what it was going to be about before I even started to read it, but like a masochist I clicked on it out of curiosity to see how someone else felt about this fairly accurately named affliction.

And unsurprisingly, I feel as if this entire article could have been written by me, except with a little more feminine eloquence and emotional neediness.  But I definitely felt this article so very hard, and the examples of where they were resultantly made to feel B-list resonate so much with me, especially since becoming a parent, and transitioning into the inevitable zone of I have kids and lots of my friends don’t, and the gradual position of not only being excluded by everyone, but also no longer even considered for invitation.

I’m seldom mad or upset about it, that just seems to be the way life is for people who age and people who have children, but one thing I’ve always said is that there is tremendous power and consideration in the act of the ask alone, and although I know and most everyone knows that asking me do something is nine times out of ten going to result in a no I can’t, I always appreciate the ask, because it makes me feel like people still think and consider me.

Honestly though, even before kids, I felt this way a lot of the time, mostly because I was the sad-sack single guy for eternity, and I get that nobody always wanted an odd-numbered wheel on their activities.  Things improved a little bit once mythical girlfriend-now-wife came into the picture, but now that we have children and have stepped onto a less-adjacent plane of existence as most everyone around us, going back onto the B-list feels more prevalent than ever.

But going back to the article, it clearly hit home hard enough to pop the synapses in my brain to want to write about it, because it was that thought-provoking.  I don’t think it hurts me as much as it hurts the author of this post, but I see, I acknowledge and I can relate to so much of this.

Frankly if I’m being honest here, the only people in my life that I don’t feel like put me on the B-list are my children.  As much as I bemoan the workload sometimes, feel like I’m overwhelmed and tired of being a parent at times, when the day is over, my girls are the only ones who don’t make me feel like I’m B-list ever.  When they have bad dreams and wake up at night, they call for me.  When it’s the morning and they know it’s time to get up and have breakfast, they know it’s me.  When they’re distressed and need a hug and snuggle, they come to me.

This isn’t to say I resent everyone else for making me feel like I’m B-list.  Everyone else just has their own shit going on their lives, and it’s easy to take a self-sufficient machine like me for granted.  I feel like everyone else already does a lot of the time, and I don’t always feel comfortable expressing such opinions too often, so it’s just the norm.

I agree with the author that it’s not good to measuring self-worth by the effort others put into our relationships, but at the same time, it’s also kind of impossible to ignore the scales of relationships and when those around us are putting us into the B-list.  It’s always easy to say one thing, but doing them is a whole different matter, and in this particular case, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to struggle with chessboard of where we’re positioned, because frankly I think it’s human nature that everyone does, and those who don’t are either blind or lying.

All the same though, going back to the title of this post, I wonder what it says about me, that such thought-provoking mommy content is what is fed to me, and resonates with me so much.

I always forget there are four NBA teams in California

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While scrolling through some sports headlines, I saw one that stated that the Sacramento Kings had landed DeMar DeRozan, for three years and $74M dollars.  My first thought was simply, oh yeah, the Sacramento Kings are an NBA team.

I simply had forgotten that they existed.

It occurred to me then, that pretty much at no point in my entire sports fan life, have I ever really been able to immediately recall that there are four NBA teams in the state of California.  The Lakers are easy to remember, the Clippers are easy to remember as the team that isn’t the Lakers, but at varying points in my life, I always forget about one of the teams between the Warriors and the Kings.

Usually it correlates with which one of them sucks because sucky teams are easy to lose track of, but one of my friends recently reminded me that it was the Kings that actually eliminated the Warriors from this past year’s playoffs, but it didn’t really matter because they had been living in the shadow of the Warriors for so long now, that they’re still basically an invisible market.

Back to the original point though, I like DeRozan as a player, but the fact that he’s going to the Kings, it’s a good thing that he’s getting paid a fat contract, because he’s definitely going to be an invisible player for the next three seasons, barring any opt-out clauses or drama-filled trade sagas that could occur along the way.  Because the Warriors still have a few years left in the tank before they really start to suck, and until Steph Curry hangs up his shoes, the Warriors are always going to be relevant, and there simply isn’t going to be any room for any awareness for the Kings short of a breakout star and/or deep playoff run.

It’s funny though, because as long as I’d been paying attention to basketball, I can definitely recall the years where the Kings were the kings, and the Warriors were invisible, and when the Warriors were pretending to be Ultimate and the Kings ceased to exist.

When I first really got into basketball, the Warriors were the good team because they had the Run TMC backcourt of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin which was fun, fast and exciting to watch.  Although the Warriors were still a fringe team, they were exciting, while I didn’t even know where in the country Sacramento was at that age.

Eventually, as is inevitable in the world of sports, the Warriors would eventually become the laughing stock of the NBA, winning 19-28 games a season, years after Run TMC and trading Mitch Richmond and Chris Webber away.  And it would be Chris Webber who would transform the Kings into contenders, and teamed up with guys like Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic and Vlade Divac, the team would really challenge the league, and if not for existing at the same time as a prime Kobe/Shaq Lakers squad that had Robert Horry on it, they probably could’ve won a championship and really put Sacramento on the map for good.

But that window of contention would eventually close, and the Warriors would draft Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, pick up Andre Iguodala, hire Steve Kerr as head coach, and the rest is history.  The Warriors would go on to become one of the greatest squads in history, making the Finals an absurd amount of times, winning multiple ships, and putting their stamp on the record books, both team and individual.  It’s safe to say that the Splash Bros changed the entire game, and the influence is palpable with ballers all over the world flinging three-pointers like it’s the only option on the court.

Meanwhile, the Kings have taken the backseat once again, and whenever the topic of the NBA comes up, I always have to stutter and stall whenever the obscure trivia comes up of, name all four NBA franchises in California, because I simply forgot they fucking existed.  Sure, they’re on the rise again, but we’re reading a pivotal point in the timeline of the modern NBA, where it could really go either way, whether the Warriors make all the right moves and climb back up the standings of contenders, or they slowly begin their ride into the sunset as Steph winds his career down, while the Kings capitalize on draft picks and acquisitions like DeRozan.

And five years from now, who will be the contender, and who will be the forgotten fourth team in California?  I don’t know, but what I do know is that whomever is the shitty team then, is the team that I’ll definitely forget exists.

Kid-free weekend musings

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I haven’t had to wake up before the sun rises to prepare and have breakfast ready for when my kids awake, I’ve still been getting up early.  The first morning, I had forgotten to disable my alarms that ensure that I’m up for the morning routine, and the second morning, the dog whined and woke me up because I had disabled my alarms but that meant she was stuck in the bedroom at the time in which her feeder would go off.

All the same, the idea of going back to sleep didn’t really cross my mind because I’m a neurotic doer who unfortunately often times sees sleep as a means to an end, and as much as I’d like to get more sleep in my life, as long as I feel like there’s an endless queue of things that need to be done instead, those will often times keep me out of bed despite knowing what pleasure sleeping without an alarm clock can bring.

So instead of sleeping more, or preparing a breakfast for the kids, I’ve actually had some calm mornings where I could actually feel a little bit like an old iteration of me for a little bit.  I went on a leisurely morning walk, alternatively to the virtual Peachtree Road Race I ran the morning prior.  I came back drenched in sweat because it’s humid as balls, but then I came home, changed clothes, logged into work, and unsurprisingly had a very slow remote day, where I was able to accomplish all sorts of side quests throughout the day.

Like hanging some picture frames that needed the 22 ft. ladder that I never get a chance to do when the kids are around, got an emissions test on my third car, went to the DMV to renew the tags and got out in two minutes because I used the self-serve kiosk that nobody else uses which left me feeling really good.  I did some kid laundry which felt good to not have to try to do it in a window in which they’re not sleeping so the noises don’t distract them, and I even got a new shelf for my garage to tidy up the shoe tornado that living in a home with nothing but females often results in.

Needless to say, I had a productive day which always puts me in a positive frame of mind, and I decided to reward myself by finally watching Fast X; a completely dumb movie which is about as surprising as white people liking Rivians, but also unsurprisingly enjoyable for me, even if I didn’t know that it was going to be a two-parter.

I won’t give anything away, but I have to say that casting Jason Momoa for the role he’s in seems like a whiff of colossal proportions.  I feel like the number one priority for the role was “look like he could be South American” but they didn’t take into account any of the character’s mannerisms, personality traits or general perceived look.  And as hunky as Momoa is, the reality is that he’s not a very talented actor, and it really says something when a Fast & Furious installment has pushed his acting chops beyond his capabilities.

All the same, can’t wait for the next one, which I feel like has to be the actual finale to the series.  Vin Diesel’s not getting any younger and it’s looking as such, the character development is heading in a direction that I’d say should be irreversible, but they seem to throw caution to the wind when it comes to those kind of rules, and the only thing I will give away is that Paul Walker’s character is still fucking alive despite the fact that the actor has been dead since Fast 7; they just can’t keep this ruse up forever!

Anyway, this morning, after the dog woke me up at 7:26am which might as well be 10am for me, I thought about possibly going back to sleep after taking her out to pee; but after we came back inside, the bowl was empty, because the feeder was empty because the dog eats like a horse, but then the tub of extra food was empty, which meant that I had to open up the new 40 lb. bag of dog food to fill the tub and feeder and bowl, and at that point I was just like fuck it, I’m staying up.

So, I got back on the horse and went for a run.  I’ve been coming to the grips that at this juncture in my life, my running speed isn’t what it used to be, and short of making some actual adjustments to my way of life, I don’t think it will get back there.  I’d been struggling to keep my pace under the 10 minute/mile as of late, and I chalked it up to poor diet, habits and complacency, and I was able to get it back down under ten, but that also was the result of several consecutive days of running while I was at my sister’s place in Richmond without having to be a parent.

My Virtual Peachtree was completed in 1:04:36, which I’m pretty sure the slowest timed 10K I’ve done since I started doing organized runs back in 2007 which was a little disappointing, but as I said, unless I really make some changes to a lot of things in my life, like taking stat points away from weight lifting and eating and putting them into running, things aren’t going to get any better as I age.

It’s a little inevitable since Father Time is undefeated, and the sooner I accept it, the less angst I’ll have about running as a whole.

So, I ran while trying to keep that mindset in place, and ran in a manner which didn’t have me gasping for air when I inevitably failed to complete a sub-30 minute 5K, which was the case, and just took solace in the fact that I was up and doing something, and when it comes to exercising, I’m fortunate to have always had the mindset that it is always a good use of time.

I’m not the fastest runner or strongest lifter, but I can confidently say that I’m probably the most consistent and dedicated exerciser that I know.  It’s never been a fad, it’s never been something I’ve done to attain a physical goal.  I made the choice to start hitting the gym and exercising back in 2006, and short of a few exceptions like coronavirus lockdowns, have I ever taken an extended period of time off from it.

No matter how down on life I might feel, how envious of the lives, accomplishments and lifestyles of other people, I feel like I always have exercise to fall back onto.  It is never a waste of time, and often times it helps get my head in a better place than which it started, or at least get my brain chugging along, which is what brought us to this point where I’ve been able to blather on so seamlessly this morning, after the run.

If there were a gun to my head to relax, I’m as good as dead

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The kids were shipped off to the grandparents this weekend, and it’s not only a kid-free weekend back home, it’s a long kid-free weekend, since it was parlayed into July 4th.

I recall the immediate feeling of pressure being released after dropping the kids off and driving home, but a lot of it more had to do with the fact that I was driving to a destination with a predetermined time with goal, and the fact that it was an obnoxious trek up I-85 given the usual array of crap drivers on the road.  The drive back down to Atlanta was certainly less occupied, leading to an easier drive, but the mental weight of not facing a clock being off the table felt palpable.

However, there was also another feeling that I was feeling after handing the kids off to grandma; I already miss my children.  That feeling actually started pretty immediately, watching grandma’s car pull away with the girls in tow, and it’s funny because as much as my kids drive me bonkers on some days, and as much as I complain and bemoan the lack of support I feel, and wish there were times where I didn’t have to be a parent, whenever those instances actually come to fruition, there’s nothing more I feel than how much I miss my kids and how much I love them.

That being said, when I got back home, I basically went through the rest of my day like a lost ghost, unable to figure out what to do, paralyzed by indecision, and completely incapable of relaxation.  Like the title of this post states, if a gun were put to my head and I was told to relax, there might as well be a clock over my head to count down when the trigger would be pulled to put me out of my misery.  I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this pathetic condition, but it’s also not often that I’ve ever in the circumstances of being completely kid-free at home where I don’t actually have to be a parent for a few days so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m regurgitating a trite topic.

I tried to decompress and wind down and watch some television, but that didn’t last long.  I watched the last episode of season 1 of Succession, which was a show that I thought I would like more than I did, but it’s just been a little too slow of a burn for me, and I have doubts on if I’m going to keep watching more of it, or deciding to punt.  I tried to follow it up with a layup of something I thought I’d like in watching the latest episode of The Boys (S4E6), but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling distracted, and dicked around on my phone through more of it than it deserved.

Ultimately, I ended up tidying up both of the girls’ rooms, tidying up my bedroom a little bit, and tidying up the bathroom where the girls have wrecked shop.  I made a list of other menial tasks that I could try to tackle while the home remained kid-free, but the point of the matter is that I spent very little bit of all this free time, actually being free and relaxed.

As I’ve said many times before, the ability to relax is a genuine skill and it’s a skill that I simply do not have.  At the same time, I am not envious of those who do have this skill, because deep in the recesses of my mind, I’m probably judging everyone who is relaxing too much and thinking that they’re lazy and not doing a laundry list of things that I think they could be doing instead of relaxing.  I think what trumps my self-pity at being incapable of relaxation is the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment I feel when I am alternatively being productive.

All the same though, if Sunday afternoon comes, when I’m feeling the clock again at trying to be somewhere on time in order to pick up the kids, and I haven’t taken even just the smallest sliver of time for myself, then I’m going to go straight back to feeling like I’ve squandered all this free time, and be salty and full of piss and vinegar about it.

I really wonder if this conflict in my head could be considered somewhat of a disorder, or if I’m just simply too wound-up of a personality that needs to learn to fucking relax.

Prior to this, during one of the occasions where we watched some television as a family, we were watching some of the newer episodes of Bluey, which I’m convinced is pretty much the greatest show in existence for this generation, the episode titled Relax was basically speaking directly to me.  I know I feel like Bandit a lot for the obvious reason that he’s the Dad of the family with two daughters, but in this particular episode, I 1,000% was Chilli, as the parent who is entirely incapable of relaxation.

It’s astounding just how many episodes of Bluey are just so sniper accurate at detailing what parenting feels like in this day and age, at least to me, and as the episode was unfolding, I knew where it was going, but I still was unable to avert my eyes at the obvious conflict that was going to arise as Chilli wanted to get everything in order, wrangle the kids and just get down to the god damn beach.  And the feeling of getting some time, but not knowing how to actually turn off and relax hit harder than a baseball bat.

So, all I can do instead of anything sedentary and mindless, is brog about it.  These last 20-30 minutes could’ve been used relaxing and finishing the last book I started and haven’t finished yet, or watching an episode of a show on my list 74 titles deep.

I wonder if one day, I will be able to acquire this skill to relax, or if I’ll always be plagued by the need to always be doing something productive.  If I’m a betting man, I think I’ll have to bet on the latter. 😩

Rawdogging has got to be the dumbest flex in recent times

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Although there have been a few positive exceptions, social media has mostly spawned nothing but bullshit since, well, the inception of social media.  From stuff as stupid as kids eating Tide pods, illegal activities like teaching people how to steal Kias and Hyundais, to all sort of pointless, stupid bullshit often dubbed challenges like pretending to slip and fall in grocery stores while holding milk cartons or weird dances in public places.

Sure it’s easy to just chalk up my attitude being a grumpy old man, but I have a hard time trying to justify peoples’ defense of claiming that things are just fun, if they’re inconveniencing others, or you know, committing crimes.

Recently, I saw this thing where people are apparently bragging about their ability to ride on airplanes and do absolutely nothing at all.  No headphones to listen to music, no watching any in-flight entertainment, no napping, no snacks, seemingly no bathroom breaks, just sitting and doing absolutely nothing at all.  Some of these braggarts might have a cup of coffee that they brought onto the flight, or are allowing themselves to watch the flight status screen, but for all intents and purposes, they’re partaking in a challenge known as raw dogging flights, aka doing absolutely nothing at all for as long as they can.

For some reason, it seems to be limited to men participating in this flexing contest, and I’ve (unfortunately) seen people flexing seven hours, ten hours, 14 hours, on flights within the United States, and transcontinental flights to other countries.  Dudes boasting about how they raw dogged these flights, as if its something to be proud of to be so devoid of anything in their heads that they can stare mindlessly in front of them and absolutely nothing else.

Don’t get me wrong, my life has been chaotic to the point where I have been in the position to where I do want to just stare at a wall and do absolutely nothing, but with my inherent doer mentality, even at my worst, I probably could only last like 20-30 minutes before my brain turns back on and I feel the necessity to be making good use of my time instead of squandering it.

What I wouldn’t give  to have an hour, much less 7-11 hours on a flight to do all sorts of activities that I typically can’t do when I’m in my ordinary life because I’m so in the trenches of being a dad.  I would read books, magazines, I would write brog posts, I would binge television shows and movies from the list of titles that I’ve been trying to keep track of over the years since becoming a parent.  I’d listen to music, or play a video game, but the idea of squandering any bit of free time that flights inadvertently provide would be completely out of the question.

A long time ago, I was on a flight from Atlanta to Toronto, and I was reading a book.  I was seated next to this girl who appeared to be inadvertently raw dogging the flight, and at first I thought it was strange, but I was minding my own business.  After a while, I noticed how fidgety she was, and that she had skimmed through the in-flight magazine and it was pretty apparent that she was bored.  Finally, I put my book down, and asked her if she were bored, to which began a pleasant conversation for the remainder of our flight, how she was from Guadalajara, and learned a lot of English from watching English-language television, but the point being raw dogging was such a terrible experience that conversing with a total stranger was preferrable over it.

When I went on a work trip last year, I couldn’t wait to get on the plane, because of all the free time that awaited me once my ass was in the seat.  ATL to LAX meant I would have almost four hours to myself, and once we took off, I knocked out like two brog posts, and then watched half of the latest season of Castlevania and several episodes of the live-action One Piece.  After landing in Los Angeles, I felt productive and accomplished and got my head in a good place going into a work trip.  The flight back saw more Netflix and more writing and frankly catching up on my writing queue as well as binging through two shows that I had wanted to watch was a bigger accomplishment than lots of the work crap I had to do during the trip.

Very soon, I have a small flight coming up; it’s only going to Florida, so the in-air time is only going to be barely more than an hour.  But I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit and stare blankly in silence on the flight, because that’s an hour in which I could read a book that I haven’t finished yet, maybe knock out a brog post of something that I might’ve wanted to write about and haven’t had the time to do.  Or maybe I’ll put something to watch on my iPad and enjoy an episode or two or half of a movie.

The point is, raw dogging is about the stupidest thing to have ever been come up with in recent history, and I can’t help but express disdain for it as a whole.  All these brainless dorks flexing that the ability to do it is something to be proud of, clearly have little in their heads or are completely okay with wasting time that could be better used for any sort of things that aren’t just burning a large number of hours staring at nothing but a shitty 3D model of a flight screen.

TIL: Mercedes Mone’s creative control clause

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t watch AEW’s Forbidden Door (3) pay-per-view because one, who in the world actually pays for a ppv anymore these days, two, the card seemed entirely way too predictable, and I called like 90% of the card correctly and 100% of the singles matches, and three, there were probably 3-5 other things that I’d rather have done with that time in my life instead.

Naturally, as stated, the card was ridiculously predictable, and much like the years before this one, almost all of the New Japan guys and all of the CMLL guys from Mexico took the losses in their matches, and for some reason, AEW keeps feeding Orange Cassidy to the next big thing in New Japan, with it being the very obvious Zack Sabre, Jr. who was one of two NJPW guys to actually come out with a W.

For obvious business reasons, it was a foregone conclusion that Jon Moxley was going to drop the belt to Tetsuya Naito, because fuck if NJPW would allow a guy in another promotion to continuously hold their top prize any longer than this, but good for Mox to be able to lay claim that he’s held World championships in the WWE, AEW and NJPW among numerous other titles he’s held in his career.

But if there were any other guarantees on the night, it was that Mercedes Mone was without any question, going to defeat Stephanie Vaquier and walk out with the NJPW Strong women’s championship, and be a double champion.  I mean really, I don’t like to bet on things, but if I knew of a safe and legal way to gamble, I would’ve felt comfortable dropping like $500 Mercedes was going to take the W in their match.  I mean the NJPW Strong women’s championship was basically created for her, and if not for a Shrek-green Willow Nightingale legit injuring her, she probably would’ve been the NJPW Strong champion when she debuted with AEW.

Back to the title of this post though, it was afterward through scuttlebutt did I learn that Mercedes Mone actually has creative control baked in to her AEW contract.  Obviously, this doesn’t look like anything to anyone who doesn’t follow professional wrestling, but basically it means that Mercedes Mone has legitimate legal veto power over the way she is booked in the company.

In other words, if she shows up to the arena one day, and Tony Khan says to her, “Hey Mercedes, I’m going to have you lose tonight to Kris Statlander and drop the TCM belt to her” she could actually say “no, that doesn’t work for me brother” and force TK to go back to the drawing board and book a better scenario for her, and there’s really nothing that he can do about it.  He can’t flex his position as owner of the company or that he’s the boss, because he gave her creative control in her contract.

For context, there are only two other instances I can think of where wrestlers had any degree of creative control in their contracts, which was Hulk Hogan during his time in WCW, where he had full creative control, and where he has been alleged and accused of various instances where he utilized it in order to maintain a high-stature within the company.  The other was Bret Hart, who had a degree of creative control baked into his WWE contract if he were ever to be on his way out, so that the company couldn’t bury him on the way out and make him look like a putz going to another employer.

Hart really didn’t get to use his control due to the Montreal Screwjob, but Hogan, as mentioned was alleged to have flexed his power numerous times throughout his WCW tenure, and there are many stories and accounts out there from former colleagues and wrestlers who claim that he did.

What I’m getting at is that it’s a really dangerous sword to give to just anyone, because there’s never any guarantee that someone with it, won’t just go into business for themselves and ensure that they’re always in a position of looking strong and prominent, and suppress the rise of any potential partners to draw money with.

And yet, Mercedes Mone has creative control in her deal.  I don’t care enough to dive deeper to find out just how much of it she has, or what if any conditionals exist with the deal, but the point is she still has it, and I can’t help but feel that that’s a really dangerous thing to give to a person like her, whom for all intents and purposes I do like as a performer, but I also think she’s kind of a spoiled entitled brat who has demonstrated a tendency to cry foul and walk away when things haven’t looked too great for her character’s portrayal.

I mean, even before I found out that she had creative control, I would’ve bet a large sum of money that she was going to beat Vaquier, but now the perception is murky on if it happened because it was the best business decision, or if it happened because she pulled her CC card and made it happen.

Even before finding out she had CC, I had already fantasy booked her future where she would undoubtedly go on a blet collecting saga, because that seems to be the well that AEW and TK seem to repeatedly dip into in order to cement guys as legends, like they did with Kenny Omega, and also did with FTR, and it seems like they’re doing the same with Mercedes Mone.

Without question, she’ll probably collect one of the women’s titles from Ring of Honor, whether it’s taking down Athena for the ROH’s women’s title, or perhaps she’ll keep her sights on television titles, and be the one to part the ROH Women’s TV title from Billie Starkz.  And then when Stephanie Vaquier comes back for a rematch, she’ll probably demand that it can’t be for free, and that she needs to put her CMLL Women’s championship on the line for a shot to get the NJPW Strong women’s blet back, and then collect a fourth belt.

And as long as AEW has their open door policy with NJPW, this keeps the chances alive that Mercedes will go on to re-capture the IWGP Women’s championship, or maybe she’ll stealthily slide her way into the partnering Stardom promotion, and start hoovering up blets there too.

Eventually, it culminates with her setting her sights on Toni Storm and the AEW Women’s championship, and despite the fact that I think Storm has been the legitimately best thing in the entire company, all it takes is a little bit of flexing of that CC clause, and she’ll complete the god-tier run of collecting blets.

Would it be best for business?  Probably not.  But when you give an inmate creative control, you put yourself in a position to where that doesn’t matter if that’s what they want.

And as a fan, that wouldn’t work for me.  Brother.