Day: July 14, 2026

Watching the WWE has kind of become a job

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was on vacation, I didn’t really think much of wrestling beyond the show in Korea that I was going to go/had gone to, and thinking of an upcoming local show that I mentally reminded myself to reach out to my boys about when I got back.  But as far as what was going on in the big pro-wrestling industry, I knew that I was missing out on things, but at the same time I didn’t really care.

Through social media, I saw that Sami Zayn had won the WWE championship at Night of Champions, which in one hand made me happy because I’ve grown to really appreciate the man and his career, and it always brings me satisfaction when a hard worker gets rewarded. 

However, in the other hand, was the skepticism that his win came entirely on account of the fact that this was one of the WWE’s gross Saudi shows, and in spite of the fact that the E has gotten a lot of credit in recent years for not treating viewers like complete idiots like they used to, such doesn’t seem to apply to the Saudi shows and the company pretty much does nothing but grasp at low-hanging fruit out in the Middle East.  It’s very easy to assume that Sami won in Saudi Arabia almost entirely to satiate the local audience, getting to see an openly Muslim man win the largest prize in the company.

Such narrative was justified just nine days later, when Sami would immediately drop the WWE championship to a returning CM Punk; contrary to what I was just saying about not treating fans like idiots, such had occurred in Chicago, Punk’s hometown, being seen as yet another low-hanging fruit cash grab, or that Sami was seen as nothing more than a transitional champion and that this was the plan all along, neither of which is particularly good optics among the IWC.

The E has been harder and harder to keep up with, much less actually, like and enjoy, as the sands of time have progressed since the company had been sold, folded into the parent TKO company, and turned into this NASCAR-like ATM of corporate greed.

Months ago, I stated that I’d never felt more alienated from the WWE and my general fandom, and not only has that not changed, but the chasm has widened and continues to do so.

Obviously, companies like the WWE and their parents TKO don’t become the bloated fat cash cows they are because they care about lifer fans with lots of opinions like me, but if it actually mattered, they’re at constant risk of fans like me turning my back on them because of how much they’ve changed things, primarily for the pursuit of moar and moar money.

The point of all this is that I’d actually been debating with myself since coming back from vacation, on if it really wanted to bother getting back into watching big wrestling anymore, because over the last few months, watching wrestling has begun to feel more like a chore and that my time was not being spent well doing such, versus actually enjoying the product. 

For every Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley or El Grande Americano vs. El Grande Americano banger classic, there are hours upon hours of ads to have to sit through, predictable, ChatGPT-generated storylines, moar ads, moar shitty product, and a whole lot more ads.

But for lack of a better alternative, as well as probably false-hope clinging that just one more RAW will get better, I still tuned into RAW the other night, just to see where things were.  And honestly, nothing was really new, and I’m left wondering why I even bother, yet again.  I’d say I’ll just keep up through YouTube, but even those videos are so loaded with ads now as well, that they’re becoming a chore as well.

I was chatting with some of my bros during the broadcast, and it dawned on me that watching the WWE was a lot more like a job, than the last time I opined such, and it was slightly more explainable now, because as someone who has worked for large corporations for the most of their career, watching WWE truly feels like a scenario where I like and appreciate all the workers and talent, but I really dislike and detest all of the higher-ups, shareholders and people who are steering the workers and talent into soul-sucking and inefficient uses of their skillsets.

Frankly I realize that I’ve had this mentality and relationship with other fandoms in my life, like how I’ve felt/currently feel about the Atlanta Braves, as well as how I’ve felt about most of the companies I’ve ever worked for.  I appreciate (most) talent, workers and colleagues, but I don’t particularly care much for those higher up, playing a different game than the rest of the pleebs.

This is probably one of those revelations where I’m amazed to realize at the age of 44, and that there are probably tons of people way more enlightened than me that figured it out way longer ago.  That fandoms all eventually feel like jobs at times, and that it’s worth pondering on if they’re worth continuing to keep once they hit that point, or if we should always just be looking for better things to invest our time into.

As far as professional wrestling goes, I still enjoy going to indy shows with friends, and thankfully Atlanta has no shortage of availability of such shows, and even though I’m jaded and completely skeptical of the E these days, I still have hopes for the few storylines that it’s clear that the company actually gives a shit about, like the masterpiece that is the redemption of Chad Gable. 

Granted, I know that on a long enough timeline, they’ll fuck it up because they always fuck up eventually, be it through he’ll fall short at Summer Slam due to some shenanigans, an injury, or they won’t plan for anything beyond his initial journey and that he peters out after victory, but at least for the time being, he’s probably the best thing going under the E umbrella, and the only thing I’m truly vested in with the company.

The ever-increasing aggravation of phone avoidance

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Much like the rest of ‘Murica, I don’t really like having to speak on the phone.  Frankly, I don’t like having to interact with other people if it can be avoided.  However, there are plenty of times in which I understand that a vocal interaction is capable of being way more productive than trying to do things over text messages or emails, and I will pick up the phone and make calls when necessary.

The other day, I had two things I wanted to accomplish: contact an optometrist and make an appointment for my dad to get an eye exam and some new glasses, and set up an appointment with my pest control people because it’s that time of year in which ants decide to intrude in my home and I don’t understand why ants exist in the first place.

When the business day was effectively over, neither objective was any closer to accomplishment than the start of the day and it’s partially my fault for thinking that text correspondence was going to get the jobs done as opposed to just calling up the places I needed to speak with.

The optometrist that I had in mind, not only would they not pick up their phone during business hours, there was a message that gave a phone number that could be texted for business purposes.  Hm, I thought, maybe they’d be like Delta Airlines and be more efficient at getting shit done over text than over the phone.

I was wrong.  The number I was given took three hours to get back to me, and responded to me as if I were an existing patient and was referring to bloodwork, and when I corrected them, they were like oh sorry, and gave me a different number to reach out to after 1:30 when the office was back from lunch break.  So I reach out to them, they don’t respond until two hours later, oddly in ALL CAPS, asking when I want to come in, and there’s no more response after I tell them the desired day in which I want to come in, and asked what information I need to give them in order to secure an appointment.

Mission failed.  Need to call tomorrow.

My pest control people, I reached out to them on Friday before the start of the business day via web submission, since it was early as fuck in which I realized that my annual ant problem was happening again.  No response at all, so Monday AM I call and ask what the delay is, since they’ve never taken this long to respond before, and am given a canned corn response that they’re busy and a scheduler will get in touch with me later.

Later comes, in the form of a text message, giving me a date and time that they’re available.  However, I am not, because of a work conflict, do you have another time?  No, we’ll just have to look for another time.

And then silence for the rest of the day.  Mission failed.  Need to call tomorrow.  But this time remind them that I’m over having an annual ant problem and that I will be reaching out to other companies now, and the first one available will be my go-forward pest control.

The point is, yes, having to speak with other people is a massive inconvenience that I understand that we all want to avoid if we can.  However, the issue is that the alternative is about as effective and efficient as trying to send an email with a cucumber or trying to construct an airplane with Fisher Price tools.  People hide behind the lack of pressure from real-time correspondence to suck at their jobs way more than they already do, and the clocks of life are never pausing, and the most important commodity in life, time, is continuously being wasted.

Until people on the other ends of the lines can prove to me that text correspondence can be remotely as efficient as pursuing a forced interaction over a phone, I need to remind myself to just forego the typing and just get in the grills of people and force them to speak, because when the day is over, I want to meet my objections and be efficient with my time over the convenience of not having to interact with others.