Month: July 2025

WWE Evolution 2: I think that was the greatest women’s match in company history

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I closed my laptop after the show because I was watching on my laptop because Peacock on XBOX sucks and doesn’t let me rewind because I can’t watch live events live because I have kids and it conflicts with their bedtime routine so I always have to start all the PPVs PLEs late, and I said to mythical wife, who humors me and knows a little bit about professional wrestling in her own right; I think that might have been the greatest women’s match in WWE history.

Obviously, I’m talking about the World Championship match between Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley that closed out Evolution 2, where [spoiler alert that doesn’t matter because I have zero readers] Naomi ended up winning the match and the World Championship when she cashed in Money in the Bank and committed the heist of the century of the women’s division.

I’m not even mad about the ending, with Naomi sneaking in at the end and doing what she did, because it was logical, it made sense, and in the context of WWE canon, why the fuck shouldn’t she have done what she did, preying on two superstars who had just put on a legitimate match of the year contender and were spent and exhausted and easy pickings?

Everything about the whole main event to Evolution 2 was outstanding; frankly, the whole show deserves its flowers, considering the tremendous amount of adversity it faced, but the main event was honestly, in my opinion, not just the best WWE match I’ve seen all year, but as far as from their women’s division goes, I am hard pressed to say that it’s genuinely the greatest WWE women’s match in company history.

Which is really funny considering I believed that the company put the match on the card as a panic move when Liv Morgan dislocated her shoulder, because it seemed like the card was going to be built around her vs. Nikki Bella in a battle of eras.  There was no inkling of seeds that Iyo Sky was going to go against Rhea Ripley, and the match literally came to fruition barely two weeks prior, to which I think was a complete in case of emergency break glass moment by the WWE when they realized that they had literally no marquee matchup for Evolution 2 anymore.

Honestly, the whole show was a masterclass of taking chicken shit and making it into chicken salad in my opinion.  I said back in 2018 that the original Evolution absolutely had to be the best PPV of the year, considering the historical impact of being women-only, in a massively male dominated industry.  For the most part I think they succeeded, seeing as how Becky Lynch and Charlotte saw to it, with their incredible last-woman standing match, but they also had a lot of build-up, a stacked card, and very apparent careful planning that went behind it.

Evolution 2 was announced quite a while ago, but there was almost no buildup for it.  For all the flack that TKO gets as being money grubbing, it felt as if the event was announced as a cash grab, banking on fans to just throw their money at it no matter what, solely because it was WWE.  Packaged into a whole weekend of wrestling in Atlanta, it was the third show following NXT’s Great American Bash, and Saturday Night’s Main Event, and they arrogantly pulled the bullshit of only selling tickets in egregiously priced two-event packages at first, before realizing sales weren’t what they were hoping for, and then bringing things (slowly) back to earth.

However again, despite the cards being built for NXT and SNME, Evolution 2 hardly had any proper build-up, and matches started forming in manner that was reminiscent of a slacking student realizing they have an assignment due, but they waited until the last minute to start it.  The one thing they really tried to get started with, with Liv Morgan assaulting Nikki Bella immediately went off the rails when Liv got legitimately hurt, and then they put the whole event on the shelf to further kowtow to their Saudi overlords, and then started to start flinging shit on the wall after the gross Saudi version of Money in the Bank.

Fewer things say, “we didn’t plan for anything, but we want to include as much talent as we can” than a battle royale, which helped fill out a talent sheet for the event, but then the rest of the matches just started filling in, in really clunky manner.  Naomi vs. Jade Cargill, Becky/Bayley and Lyra for the women’s Intercontinental, a four-team clusterfuck for the women’s tag blets, an NXT Women’s championship match, and Tiffany Stratton vs. Trish Stratus?  Like really, how much lead time was Trish Stratus given before she knew she’d be thrust into duty?

So yeah, obviously Iyo vs. Rhea was put on the card to be the one obvious hard carry, that was going to rescue the show if it was bad, or put the exclamation point on a show if it had been good leading up to it.

And in spite of the clunky booking, in spite of the concern of wrestling fan burnout from a full weekend of shows before Evolution 2.  In spite of the Beyonce concert next door at the Mercedes Benz Arena, and in spite of MLB All-Star Weekend taking place 9 miles north on I-75, Evolution 2, fucking delivered.

This is why I have keen interest in women’s wrestling; not just because so many women are easy on the eyes, and not just because as a father to daughters, it’s important to me to see women get their chance to succeed and thrive.  It’s that the women always, always have to perform in manner that is fighting an uphill battle, fighting to prove something, because unfortunately, this is just something that they always have to do, in a male dominated industry in a male dominated world.

I’ve been watching wrestling long enough to have witnessed all sorts of talents come and go, and believe me, it’s really easy to pick out the guys who really genuinely care about the business versus the ones who are tourists and are hoping to parlay success in wrestling into other careers.  And these days, with as much infrastructure there is in the industry, a lot of the tourists get weeded out before the mainstream can get to see them, and by the time we get to events like Evolution, it’s definitely more all hands on deck of people who not only want to be there, but want to give their best and prove that they belong.

But for the sake of not turning this entire post into a love letter to each and every match, I want to get back to the Iyo vs. Rhea match, because as I stated before, this match was not only the best match on the card, it was honestly one of the best matches I’ve seen all year, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m going to say that it was the greatest women’s match in WWE history.

Yes, better than Bayley vs. Sasha’s Iron Woman match, better than the Four Horsewomen-four corners match.  Better than Charlotte/Becky/Sasha for the inaugural WWE women’s championship.  Better than Trish Stratus and Lita’s first-ever women’s main event match, and leaps, bounds and galaxies better than just about everything in the Divas’ era.

It had everything from a compelling base story, with the whole Rhea has never beaten Iyo narrative.  Both put on their carry shoes and delivered a match that had everything from a respectful start, technical prowess, near falls, digging deep into their arsenals.  An extremely rare female referee bump from Jessika Carr, which most internet geeks know is a wrestler herself, so she sold it like a million bucks, which led to a brutal brawl outside the ring which saw some crazy bumps and spots.

And when the action came back into the ring, there were a few more crazy spots and near falls, and a great Spanish fly spot so late in the game, massive respect to both workers for executing it.  Of course, there was always the possibility that Naomi could show up, but I was actually predicting it would happen shortly after the match, but when she did, it was still a surprise, because the match was still in progress.

When Naomi completed the heist, I wasn’t even mad, because I’ve always been a supporter of Naomi specifically because I respect her as a worker, and I’m happy for her to reach the top of the mountain, especially after the years of shit she had to trudge through with her Sasha-led abandonment of the company a few years ago.

Everything about the match was outstanding.  The work from Iyo and Rhea, the performances of their selling and storytelling.  The drama of a ref bump, and the brawl that occurred with no supervision.  Iyo hitting her moonsault and Rhea kicking out.  Rhea desperately trying to land a Riptide with the ref in play.  Naomi cashing in, and completely saving the heat that all but ensures the Iyo and Rhea rivalry will have yet another chapter in the future with the original narrative completely intact.

I loved everything about it.  I was entertained, I was thrilled, and even a jaded smark like me felt like a true fan again, throwing my hands up at near falls and covering my mouth and going OHHH at some of the impressive spots.

This was truly the greatest women’s match in WWE history, and I will die on this hill.  It is a front-runner for WWE match of the year as far as I’m concerned, and in the future when we talk about stalwart matches of history, Iyo and Rhea deserve a chance to plead their case.

Does this mean I’m fatphobic?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I went to a wrestling show with some friends.  Not just any show, but a WWE show – NXT’s Great American Bash to be specific.  It was the first of three shows the E was running in Atlanta over the weekend, and although I was interested in either of the other two shows, GAB won out because:

  • NXT is the most fun brand in the company
  • I could only really afford tickets to one show
  • It was held at Center Stage, which is basically my all-time favorite place to watch wrestling; I would watch a show put on by Somali pirates if it were held at Center Stage

All shade about the WWE, their parent company TKO and their predatory decimation of the fan experience aside, I was looking forward to this show a lot, because I’ve always had good experiences with NXT, I always love watching wrestling at Center Stage, and it was a small reprieve from parenting for an afternoon with some friends.

The show itself was decent; a little below my expectations as far as NXT goes, not to mention this was technically a PLE, which meant that I would’ve expected a little bit more.  But considering how much B-or lower tier wrestling I see in this building, the level of polish from a WWE show is evident.

However, my biggest complaint of the whole event and getting to the point of this post was simply the fact that I had the unfortunate misfortune to have been seated next to an extremely obese person whose body continuously transcended the boundaries of their own seat, and I had to spent nearly the entire show rubbing shoulders and legs with this person and it was rather unpleasant and had a tangible negative influence on my general enjoyment of the show outright.

Let me also point out that Center Stage was built in the 60s and hasn’t really changed much since then, meaning the seats haven’t been renovated and maximized like on an airplane, meaning reduced in order to shoehorn as many people in as possible.  They’re actually very generous and comfortable seats, when seated next to ordinary human beings.  Just for context at being able to picture the size of the person that effectively put a damper on my entire experience.

Now before anyone can immediately accuse me of being a fatphobic asshole, I do believe large people have the same rights as everyone else.  They shouldn’t be denied the ability to enjoy things like live experiences and travel because of their size.

However, I do think that society has been way too quick to deem obesity and all other forms of habits of excess as, addiction, and labeling addiction as a disease, instead of what I think it is, bad habits gone rampant with those with them lacking the willpower and fortitude to try and break them.  The fat guy seated next to me wasn’t fat because he has the disease of addiction, he’s fat because like so many stereotypical wrestling fans, he’s a guy who doesn’t exercise, watches too much tv and eats way too much shitty food, and is completely at peace with such lifestyle.

When my friends and I got inside the arena and we were heading up to our seats, I knew it was going to be unpleasant when we got to our row, and he was sitting in one our seats, because the friend he came with was also a big guy, and in typical bro mentality, if you can give a bro space, you give a bro space, but this was a WWE show that was known to be 95%+ sold out.  He was quick to vacate and move to his actual seat and wasn’t a dick about it, but I knew that one of my party was going to have take one for the team and be the unfortunate one to have to sit next to him.

And seeing as how this show was my idea, and it had a way higher cost than what my friends were probably thinking, who aren’t nearly the wrestling fans that I am, I quickly decided that it should probably be me to be the one to eat the shit sandwich, because I’ll do my best to find enjoyment in the show itself, but I’d feel like shit if one of my friends who was probably more there to hang out and casually watch, had to be the one whose experience was ruined by having 3/5 of a seat to watch from.

If being pissed at having to sit next to a guy like this, oozing into my personal space makes me fatphobic, then I guess I am a little fatphobic after all, because there’s not one iota of me that doesn’t believe anyone, whether they believe that they’re fatphobic or not, wouldn’t be absolutely miserable in the conditions I was in. 

I paid a lot of money to go to an event I was really looking forward to, and my general enjoyment of the whole thing was completely sandbagged by virtue of having to sit next to a morbidly obese person whose physical mass was all up in my business for the entire show.

I know it sounds like a terrible, shitty thing to say or write out, but it’s the honest truth, and I don’t think many people in my circumstances would feel differently.  I do not hate the guy for being large, and he has every right to be there as all other paying attendees were.  But I am disappointed and upset with his life’s choices that led to him being the size he was, and disappointed that I was the poor unfortunate soul to have to end up sitting next to him.

I like to believe that I’m not a fatphobic person, seeing as how I could definitely afford to lose 30 pounds or so myself, but I’m also not going to lie and say that my experience at NXT wasn’t neutered by having the unpleasant feeling of a morbidly obese person all up in my space the entire show.  It sucks because this is one of those things that nothing can be done about, because it’s not like when you’re buying tickets for any sort of show, there’s specially designated sections for larger people.  It’s basically just a massive game of Russian Roulette whenever you purchase a seat(s) to anything, and pray that you’re not next to a large person.

And it’s shit like this that really makes me averse to leave the house, and go out and experience things.  Inevitably, other people have the ability to ruin everything, whether they’re doing it deliberately or not.  I maintain that there’s no better place to watch wrestling than at Center Stage, but after an experience like this one, I might have some pause the next time NXT rolls around, because it will be packed, it will be expensive, and my chances of ending up in a situation like this one are tremendously higher than any of the other lower-tier wrestling shows that’s book there.

Professional athlete problems

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Newsweek: Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder reveals having a very specific no-trade clause; refusing to go to the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants or Padres

Call me naïve, but I’ve always had the belief that it’s probably in our best interests to not put our employability at any sort of disadvantage, by doing things like putting in legal writing, refusal to go work for specific employers.  I have a wife and kids, and when the day is over, my obligations is to provide and support and I don’t really think I’m above any particular task or duty in order to accomplish such. 

Sure, there are lots of things I’d rather not do, or places or companies that I’d probably hope to have a superior alternative to, but when push comes to shove, I’ll shovel shit eight hours a day if it meant being able to provide for my family, and do my best to be the absolute best at it.

Then again, I am not a professional athlete, paid exorbitant amounts of money to play sports originating from children’s games.  I have not lost touch with poverty, living paycheck to paycheck, and the constant vigilance of every penny spent.

I am not Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, Bryan Reynolds, who for whatever reason is very adamant about not wanting to play for a specific list of teams, effectively implying to 1/5 of Major League Baseball that he’d rather be unemployed than play for any of them.  Which to someone like me, is mind-blowing that any player would have no-trade clauses in the first place, because unless they’re true MVP-caliber talent (which Reynolds is not), they’re not going to be endearing themselves to organizations by being inflexible.

What the internet is fascinated by is the list of teams; typically lots of guys who have had no-trade clauses in the past, they typically tend to list off teams generally perceived negatively by the masses; be it that they’re cheap teams, not good teams, in smaller markets, or any combination of the above.  After all, professional athletes play to win, to make money, enjoy their lives, or, any combination of the above.

But the teams Reynolds listed: the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants and Padres – very few of the negatives really apply to them, and very much of the positives do.  Currently, all of them are either division leaders or are very much in the postseason picture, and they’re all squads based out of major New York and California markets or Toronto.  All of these teams are very liberal with their spending and all have budgets north of the median MLB payroll.

The immediate joke was that Bryan Reynolds has no actual desire to win, or be a part of a championship squad, seeing as how he plays for the perpetually middling Pittsburgh Pirates, and seems to only refuse to go to squads known for contending.  And the funniest thing is that when called out for such, by once-peers, Reynolds has gone out of his way to defend himself on the internet, validating the idea that he does in fact pay attention to the internet and what others might be saying about him, thus making him owned, but that’s beside the point.

Nerds on the internet were quick to point out that the list of teams Reynolds refuses accept trades to, correlates with high income tax rates, which New York and California do have, and Toronto being in Canada, is subject to massive taxation, which I guess does suck for an American paying Canadian taxes and getting no benefits for it.

However, Bryan Reynolds is a professional athlete, making professional athlete money, netting $12.25M this season and will continue to make more, over the next five years, as he signed an eight-year, $108M deal back in 2023.  Yes, it sucks to know that 40-50% of your income is immediately lost to Uncle Sam, but when the day is over, he’s still pulling in $6M+ a year after that motherfucker takes his pound of flesh.  

It’s hard to feel much empathy for any professional athlete making millions of dollars to play children’s games, and it’s extra puzzling how stingy it would be if income taxes really were the reason why he would block a trade to six of the upper tier of MLB franchises, where he would not only continue to make the contractually obligated millions he’s owed, but he could improve his general brand and parlay it into higher earning opportunities in stronger markets.

What’s funny to me however, is the fact that I don’t know if it’s ignorance or maybe he only does want to play for non-contending losers, but the Oakland Las Vegas Sacramento The A’s are not on his list.  The Dodgers, Padres and Giants being on it makes it sound like he’s avoiding California, but for the next three years, the A’s are still in the state, playing in a very fitting minor league ballpark, considering how the franchise is operated, and it would be hilarious if Bryan Reynolds were to get shipped out there, and his no-trade clause wouldn’t be able to prevent it from happening.  He would then be subject to California’s 13.3% income tax rate, and he’d be playing in a minor league ballpark, for a glorified minor league franchise.

Furthermore, I knew nothing about the guy before finding out about this story, but it’s interesting to deduce his journey through his statistics alone.  He debuted in 2019, had three well above average seasons with one injury-marred flop in the middle, but impressive enough to make the Pirates offer him a huge nine-figure deal to buy out his arbitration seasons and secure him for the next eight.  And in classic, got-the-bag player performance, he has two okay seasons but aren’t even close to the heights he reached in his 6.0 bWAR 2021 season, but apparently the man has fallen off a cliff in this 2025 season, already worth a horrendous -0.7 bWAR at the time I’m writing this.

He’s still going to be due nearly $75M over the next six seasons, and considering the downward trend he’s headed now, it’ll probably be the last big money he’s going to make in his career, so I suppose he should be trying his best to avoid getting shipped off to somewhere where nearly half of it is going to be assimilated by the IRS.

Either way, my final word on Bryan Reynolds is that man be dumb, blacklisting some of the richest and contending teams in the league.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with being in it just to make money, but me personally, anyone who doesn’t want to win while getting rich is missing something, and I’d rather them get the fuck out and make way for someone who wants everything including the bag.

When the Pirates do inevitably move him, because he still fits the mold of a good trade chip, I hope he gets shipped off to The A’s, Rockies, White Sox, Marlins or some other shitty mid franchise who have no desire to win.  To which, at this point in time, the Braves would actually be a club that might work with him, but here’s hoping that doesn’t happen, because I sure as fuck don’t want a dork like him.

Mickey 17 and the Korean curse of producing for The West

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the things I watched during my staycation was Mickey 17, for really no other reason than it was directed by Bong Joon-ho. Parasite was truly a best picture, and I always exert a little more effort to support those from the Motherland, so I had high hopes for Mickey 17, being (I think) Bong’s return to the screens since Parasite.

When the film finally ended, I was left with this disappointed feeling, and worst of all, the feeling that I had wasted my precious time.  At 2:20, it’s what I would classify as “a long movie” and if I’m going to sink that much time into something, I’d hope it’s got some redeeming quality.

Like lots of films, I felt the film prioritized its named stars, leaning on Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie and Mark Ruffalo to hard carry the film in spite of the weak story, but obviously a film is only as good as its story, and the cast of the Avengers would struggle to make Mickey 17 decent.

Mythical wife, being a K-pop snob, had begun distancing herself from BTS fandom, once BTS really came into the global mainstream, and wasn’t just a niche phenomenon within Korea and those who knew them from long ago.  She cited that their sound had immediately morphed into a more vanilla, cookie cutter sound, clearly catered to wider, global audiences instead of sticking with the formula that made them who they are.

Frankly, this is nothing out of the ordinary, nor was it remotely surprising to me, because Korea has been notorious for changing shit up in all facets of media when it comes to seeking validation from The West, most specifically from America.

Once anything starts to receive any praise or acclaim from The West, Koreans have shown a tendency to lean hard into it and try to squeeze out more validation, even if it means compromising the foundations of said things.

Music, food and in the case of Mickey 17, film are all fair game when it comes to this general practice, and in the vast majority of cases, it doesn’t result in as much success as they hope it will, and they’ve compromised their concepts and alienated those who were fans before the mainstream rub.

Take Squid Game S3 for example; the first season was brilliant from nearly start to finish.  It couldn’t escape all Korean tropes but frankly those tropes really are things that make Korean media, Korean.  But when S2/3 came, I still enjoyed it, but there were clearly ideas incorporated into it that were clearly influenced by their knowledge that The West, would be watching.

Top from K-pop group Big Bang as the colorful Thanos, spouting horribly broken Engrish every chance he could, the ending that basically had kicked the door down that they want to go Westward Ho.

But nothing was more evident that they’re seeking Western acceptance than the character Hyun-ju, which most casual Americans simply recalled as “the trans one.”  It’s changed a little for the better these days, but LGBTQ+ concepts are still considered taboo and not nearly as accepted as they are in America.  Although I had no problem and appreciated Hyun-ju’s inclusion in Squid Game, there’s no part of me that believes such would have ever happened if not for the influence of potential Western viewers.  In this case it’s a positive result, but I still chalk it up as a decision made to appease The West.

The reason Parasite was so good was that it was inherently a film for Koreans, telling Korean stories and describing Korean struggles. It showed the cultural differences in setting and appearances but at the core of it, it’s a relatable story that sucked audiences from all over the globe in and deserved all the praise and accolade and the Oscar it got.

Mickey 17 was clearly made for The West, with its  Hollywood cast, and evident copious budget.  The core story was an interesting concept that provokes discussion about ethics and morality, but to me, it was like asking Bong Joon-ho to direct Starship Troopers or something out of his element.  It would be like asking Francis Ford Coppola to direct Parasite or something completely different than his own background and expecting it to be not full of holes as the result of cultural unfamiliarity.

Needless to say, in spite of energetic and enthusiastic performances by Pattinson and Ruffalo most notably, they couldn’t rescue a weak story.  Halfway through the film, I started to glaze, and by the time the last quarter was around, I was already dicking around on my phone and half listening.  And by the time the credits started rolling, the seed for this post had already been planted.

I mean, it’s a nigh impossible task to hit a home run after winning an Oscar, so it’s no surprise that Mickey 17 wasn’t that great. But considering the heights that Parasite climbed to, it’s extra disappointing to see just how far down Mickey 17 fell to.

The eternal struggle of making the best of my time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Earlier in the week, mythical wife sprung on me that her parents would take the girls for the holiday weekend, as she wanted to go on a road trip to visit friends out of state.  The thought of a 13+ hour road trip each way was about as appealing as doing yard work, but the difference is that the yard work would always need to be addressed so long story short, I opted to stay home, completely alone and have myself a staycation.

I don’t think it’s hard to imagine that this was not a bad thing at all in my head.

However, as is often the eternal struggle for me, is fear of letting such freedom squander and my mind is always racing at trying to make sure every meal and every hour is made to be as “worth it” as I can, before my life reverts back to stressed out anxiety dad mode, and I hope to have at least one notable accomplishment during my solitude.

At the very least I can say that I’ve had a very accomplished break, as I ran a great time for my Virtual Peachtree Road Race, getting back to a sub-60 minute 10K (57:52) and I got to do it on the Silver Comet Trail, which is pretty much my favorite place to run.

Furthermore, I did tackle the aforementioned hard work, cutting the grass in not just my front and back yards, but as well as the field adjacent to my home that I’m responsible for and was hoping my now-former landscapers would tackle for my for a flat cost but clearly didn’t like the idea and has since ghosted both me and my neighbors who used them.

Needless to say, I think I actually pushed myself physically to oblivion; I mean I made the conscious decision to do yard work after running a 10K like a fucking idiot, but I thought I could handle it as long as I stayed hydrated and took some breaks.  But by the time I was done with the lawn, my body was exhausted, I had sweat buckets, twice now, and I was at the point where just about every bodily movement was resulting in Charley horse-like cramps in places I didn’t even know could cramp, like my toes and obliques.

However, I probably accomplished more in a single morning than lots of people would have done throughout a long weekend.  That’s just how I roll, where I want to accomplish all my shit as soon as humanly possible, so that I can then loaf and do more self-gratifying things for the rest of the weekend; even if it put me in some legit bodily pain.

But then becomes the real challenge, of not squandering the time I have.  After a nap, which is a rarity in my world in itself, I wanted to make sure the meals I ate were quality and whatever television or movies I watched were good.  The clock of my staycation was ticking, and the anxiousness to make the most of it was already creeping in.

At one point I felt myself getting extra antsy because I felt I was starting to squander my solo time, and I was paralyzed by indecision on feeling like I needed to do something but what, but then I began to ask myself of what was so good about going out and eating out if there was no real motivation beyond not wanting to waste the time. At some point, forcing outings becomes the waste of time and worse off, a waste of money if I’m doing it for the sake of going out.

Places these days don’t want people loitering around anymore. America in general doesn’t want to make places where people hang out and meander anymore. I racked my brain to think of places where I could nurse a cup of coffee or take my raptop and write or something, but aside from the few Starbucks that are always slammed, nothing came to mind and I realized that going out just isn’t always worth it.

This time last year, I made a post about how if I had a gun to my head and was told to relax, I’d probably be toast, and although the same applies to the present, I think I’m doing better than last.  On top of the shit I’ve already been productive with, I’ve had some good meals, explored some restaurants and watched a lot of television; some good, others regrettable, but I’ll probably post about the latter since I have some feelings about it, and I still have the time to do so.

Maybe I’ll go to the pool. That’s something I haven’t done in eons, at least not without having to keep watch on two little humans to not drown or hurt themselves.

Must every successful Korean thing get white people’d?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[This post is about Squid Game S3, there will likely be spoiler-ey words]

However, since I write for basically zero people, it’s merely a formality that has no real meaning.

Anyway, mythical wife and I just wrapped up watching S3 and the supposed finale to Squid Game, and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how the finale transpired and the events of the how it all wrapped up.  Fortunately for me, I managed to hold off on watching it for a few days and managed to not get spoiled along the way to which I am very grateful.

So, as far as S3 went, it was as well executed as I would have hoped it would be.  Frankly, the original season was great on its own, and I didn’t think it really needed to have a sequel season(s), but Netflix is rich as balls, money talks, and moar Squid Game we got.  Thankfully, the moar Squid Game was pretty decent as far as sequels go, and wasn’t just a shitty Ocean Twelve-like cash grab of a turd sequel, and although it wasn’t as flawless as the original was, and some Korean storytelling trope cracks did show, overall it was still well acted, visually compelling, and had a storyline that made sense for the most part.

Without giving too much away, one thing I found to be hilarious was when the VIPs showed up to the mysterious island of games, is just how poor the acting was from them.  It’s like Squid Game clearly is a global phenomenon that most any Hollywood A-lister would probably love to participate in, in a cameo capacity, and I imagine it wouldn’t be a difficult ask for any agent to get some known global stars to play the layup roles of the VIPs.

But instead, we get these no-name clown actors whose acting is terrible, and I can’t help that it was probably cast in such a way deliberately, so that the Korean showrunners could passively flex how great their Korean cast was compared to the scab foreign cast who couldn’t act their way out of a preschool play.

Anyway, as the final episode began winding down, I said to mythical wife, that I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the episode ended in an open-ended manner, because regardless of their association with Netflix, Korean television shows are notorious for always ending in open-ended manners, because they seem to always want to keep the door open for potential sequel seasons, spin-offs or moar content. 

No matter if this was supposed to be the final season of OG Squid Game, I wasn’t going to be surprised if the general plot was left with gaping holes for moar Squid Game to manifest in the future, because despite their massive steps forward culturally in some regards, Korean media can’t stop being so Korean in others.

[Okay, here come abject spoilers to those who might not have seen it]

Naturally, as all the arcs start wrapping up, there are massive hints that things aren’t going to be over when it comes to The Games, and the season wraps up with a teaser of a new, American, Recruiter character, played by none other than Cate Blanchett, goading some white bum in an alleyway in Los Angeles, in a game of all things, ddakji, leading to the obvious conclusion that Squid Games are most definitely not over, but are now beginning to take place internationally, most notably, America.

Mythical wife had already heard about news that there was going to be a Squid Game: America in the works, and I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised, but at the same time, I’m also irritated that yet another successful Korean property is selling out for white people to white people all over it, and make their own variation of it.

It’s like Parasite, and the success and buzz of its rise to the top of the mountain couldn’t even cool off before news started swirling about how it was going to be remade by Americans, inevitably going to be cast with an entirely, for lack of a better phrase, deliberately forced woke DEI cast.

It’s like shows like Physical:100 and Culinary Class Wars and Street Food, that were so good in their original Korean iterations, but white people couldn’t just accept watching good television with subtitles on, so instead they just have all their shit remade for the comfort and convenience to white people.

I mean a story like Squid Game isn’t solely exclusive to Korea; despair, poverty, desperation, violence and empathy can be told in any nationality, so I’m sure Squid Game can easily be picked up by any other culture, even if it’s not white people, but it’s just the fact that white people are clearly so eager to white up the property, that they can’t even wait until the flowers for OG Squid Game to stop coming in before they shoe horn their own introduction into the ending of the finale, and set the stage for their impending colonization.

I digress though.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that bullshit, and even if the Squid Game creators resisted a white spinoff, white people would just inevitably just rip it off and release something on their own in the future anyway, so might as well have the Korean creators get the bag in the process of having their shit stolen.

It’s just obnoxious how often and how quickly Korean successes become marked for white people-ization, and as much as I loved Squid Game and the cultural phenomenon it became, it irked me to see just how fast white people had to inject their sniveling little tentacles into the property, and sour the general ending for me.

The 2025 MLB All-Dead Money Team, starring Stephen Strasburg

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was putting together my annual Bobby Bonilla Day post, I noticed just how much retained/dead money salaries existed in the MLB ecosystem.  At first, I was going to add it onto the Bobby Bonilla Day post, but as I was typing away, I realized that it had some legs to stand on its own, so I decided to ultimately break it off and let it fly and artificially inflate my post count that doesn’t matter to anyone else on the planet but me.

So as kind of an addendum to the Bobby Bonilla Day post, the topic this post is retained salaries, which I like to simply consider, dead money.

While combing through salary information, I noticed almost as frequent amounts of cases of retained/dead money on most teams, and this is different from deferred money because these payment obligations are not predetermined and agreed upon so much as they’re salaries that teams agree to be responsible for in exchange for these talents to be cut and free up the roster space.

That being said, there were 24 players spanning 18 teams who are getting paid despite in most cases, not being on a Major League roster, or even actively playing at all.  Combing through the names and cases, there are typically two primary camps of retained/dead money: young prospects who clearly have savvy agents who managed to get them guaranteed salary numbers, but they proved to not be ready for the Major Leagues yet, got demoted or cut, but the team was still on the hook.  Or, there are veterans with substantial money, that in most cases, fell off a cliff, got injured, and the team preferred to cut them and eat the salary just to free up the roster spot.

Naturally, 24 players is almost a roster, so here we go again – the 2024 All-Retained, All-Dead Money Starting Lineup that actually has a catcher:

Pos. Name Salary Team Retired?
C Matt Thaiss † $100K CHW/LAA Active
1B Eric Hosmer † $17.9K BOS/SDP 2023
2B Isiah Kiner-Falefa $1.2 PIT Active
3B Nolan Arenado † $5.0M COL Active
SS Wander Franco $16.5 TBR 2023
OF Mitch Haniger $14.5M SEA Active
OF Cody Bellinger $2.5M CHC Active
OF Aaron Hicks $10.7M NYY 2024
DH Jose Abreu † $19.5M HOU 2024
SP Stephen Strasburg $35.0M WAS 2022
SP Nestor Cortes $2.0M NYY Active
RP Ryan Pressley $5.5M HOU Active
RP Taylor Rogers $6.0M SFG Active
Reserves
INF Andres Giminez $1.0M TOR Active
OF Jorge Soler $1.9M SFG Active

†denotes player receiving multiple paychecks

So as you might be able to see, there’s an absurd roster to be constructed from the dead money alone, and further illustrates the egregious amounts of financial waste that exists in the constructs of Major League Baseball, as well as professional sports itself.  Sure, nobody should be obligated to work for free, and I too believe in the idea of past services rendered pay, when players are generally paupers on their minors to majors journey, if they even make it, but there are some dudes who simply don’t need the money and should probably feel ashamed to be accepting it.

Of course, I’m mostly referring to pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who is going to be making $35M from the Washington Nationals (bringing their total sunk cost amount to $60M).  Yes, the man carried the team to a World Series in 2019, and at that point, had already cleared $80M in career earnings.  Since then, he has suffered constant injuries and can no longer play baseball, but somehow the Nats are still on the hook for his retained salary until 2027, in which he will start making deferred payments from them instead.  At this time he has tripled his career earnings, and by the time the Nationals are done being handcuffed to him, he will nearly have quadrupled.

Wander Franco is a unique case, because his salary is probably going to be refunded to the Rays on account of his sexual deviancy scandal which has him out of baseball outright currently, but he still shows up on their books for the time being.

Matt Thaiss is a guy I’ve never heard of in my life, which added to my surprise at seeing him appear twice in retained lists, for both the Angels and the White Sox.  He’s a journeyman catcher who really isn’t good, but as documented, catching is the thankless position, so he seems to have always managed to have a job.  But his agent clearly seemed to be clever enough to ensure that he still got a paycheck, and although both teams are only on the hook for $50K a piece, which is pennies to a Major League squad, $100K to play baseball is still the dream, and why Thaiss makes a roster at all.

As far as dead money goes, there’s about $146,789,000 of it on the books of these 18 teams.  That would rank 16th in MLB payrolls, higher than 14 other teams.

Which brings me to one final observation before I begin to wrap all this up: six teams managed to have absolutely no deferred money obligations, nor did they have any dead money retained salaries.  The A’s, the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, the Miami Marlins, the Texas Rangers, and of course, the Atlanta Braves.

People accuse me of being pessimistic and curmudgeon about the Braves and their perception that they don’t spend money, but it all comes from actual evidence.  The team is so risk-averse and absolutely unwilling to compete when it comes to any transaction that requires them to open their wallets.  There’s zero creativity when it comes to paying people, and as a result they lose out on every free agent that could possibly help them, and it’s laugh-worthy whenever the Braves’ name is mentioned an interested party in any available free agent.

As much as baseball nerds love to debate and typically applaud teams for smart spending, as it’s demonstrating more and more these days, sometimes you have to spend some money in order to get results.  Everyone may hate the Dodgers for committing a billion dollars to their roster, but there’s little reason to believe that they’re not going to cruise to the playoffs this year, and every foreseeable year afterward.  And when their payments start to come due in the 2030’s, they’re no guarantee to turn into the 2010s Phillies, because they have smart, creative people in their free agent that aren’t afraid to find alternative ways in order to remain competitive.

The six teams that have no debts whatsoever, I don’t really see that as much of a good thing as much as I see six franchises that are cowards when it comes to spending money, and more interested in finding the perfect balance of maintaining a baseball club while padding the pockets of investors.  The challenge as fans is to able to sift through the context, and find out how much teams feed us bullshit, versus how much they’re actually willing to invest.

Anyway, much like Bobby Bonilla Day, when it comes to retained salaries, there’s a tremendous amount of waste here as well.  I don’t know if I will do this one on an annual basis, because I found that writing about this topic dregs up more angst and venom towards the Braves than any Braves fan really should have towards the team they’re actually fans of.

Perhaps if they haven’t been underperforming as much as their roster’s potential could be great, I wouldn’t feel this way, but we’ll see where we land this time next season.