Tag: observations

Randy Orton is the WWE’s Friend Zone

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not often where I feel like I’ve hit an analogy home run, but I think I hit the nail on the head with this one.  After watching Edge’s return to the ring in the Royal Rumble, and the subsequent segment on RAW the night afterward, where he was brutally attacked by Randy Orton, it dawned on me much like the sun rising: Randy Orton is basically the friend zone for WWE wrestlers.

I feel like the analogy works so perfectly, because not just in the case of Edge, but any wrestler who has the unfortunate situation of being put into a program with Randy Orton, they have to know it’s a dead-end feud with no gain to be had from doing it, much like any sad schlub of a guy who thinks they have a chance with a girl, but get put into the friend zone, and they’re the only ones who don’t realize that they’re in it.

Randy Orton has just enough name and face value to where anyone stashed with him retains some degree of relevance, but he doesn’t have enough of either to really elevate them beyond the holding pen point of relevance.  He’s basically keeping budding stars warm, but for guys that are trying to re-climb the mountain, or in the case of Edge, come back and rise through the ranks, a feud with Orton is literally being put into the friend zone, where there is no happy ending in sight, but he’ll still work like hell trying to prove something, because he doesn’t realize that he’s in the friend zone.

I mean, just look at the last few guys Orton has been paired up with: AJ Styles’ went nowhere working with Orton. Kofi Kingston not only didn’t go anywhere, all the momentum he had from Kofimania came to a slow stop, and not long after vanquishing Randy Orton, ended up jobbing to Brock Lesnar in 4 seconds to drop the WWE Championship.  It’s debatable that it wouldn’t have mattered who he was paired up against, but Jeff Hardy fell off the wagon after working with Orton.  Rusev will never get a main event push in the WWE, and working with Orton couldn’t have helped that cause, and the list goes on and on, really.

But it really sucks for Edge, considering the nine years he’s been away from the business, and as soon as he gets back, he’s thrust into a feud with Randy Orton.  I mean, this is a feud that could have just as easily happened back in 2011, and in fact have faced each other before several times in the past.  But in a company that’s chock full of young guys and guys from different companies, you’d think they’d try and pair Edge up with any one of them before Randy Orton. 

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The Jeopardy! GOAT: As if it could’ve been anyone else

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It took just four nights out of a possible seven, but the long-awaited answer was finally given its question: the Greatest Of All Time Jeopardy! Contestant?

Who is Ken Jennings?

Ultimately, I’ll admit that I was rooting for Jeopardy James Holzhauer to win it, partially because of likely recency bias, but also because he’s a known baseball stat geek, and he plays the game with such reckless abandon that a known gambler should play, that it’s hard to not become a fan.  But I do also remember the summer of 2004 when Ken Jennings emerged on the scene and it seemed like every single day after work, he was at the podium with a $15,000+ lead.  He would end up winning 74 games in a row and raking in over a million dollars in the process, and I’m pretty sure it was decided then that he was, at least unofficially, the greatest of all time.

But unofficial doesn’t ever count in the grand spectrum of things, plus not to mention that in several of the follow-up specials and tournaments, Jennings often times fell short of winning some major crowns, and was dually humbled when IBM’s Watson AI wiped the floor against him (and Brad Rutter).

Regardless, as most people know the narrative, the emergence of Jeopardy James meant that Jeopardy! finally had a third worthy contender, and with the declining health of legendary host Alex Trebek, there was no better time than the present to embark on the long awaited matchup to decide, who is the GOAT of Jeopardy?

Frankly, with no real disrespect to Brad Rutter, but he didn’t belong in this.  His run as a Jeopardy champ was nearly 20 years ago, and despite the $4 million+ he’s raked in through repeated tournaments and follow-up appearances, there was no way he was going to hold a candle against a savant like Jennings or a gunslinger like Holzhauer.  It was no more evident than through the four episodes of the GOAT shows, where Rutter finished last in every single match, and repeatedly wiped out and finished with 0 points after Final Jeopardy; if he was even allowed to play, as in, not being in the negatives.

Although he was a class act the whole time, gracefully singing the praises of his competition as well as honoring Alex Trebek, when the day was over, his presence made the entire GOAT tournament a two-man race.  I would’ve seen someone like Arthur Chu or Julia Collins in the third spot; I know they don’t stack up in terms of wins or earnings, but based on the way Rutter performed, it’s hard to imagine that they’d have been any less inconsequential.

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The Mandalorian has what a lot of Star Wars lost sight of

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It was kind of interesting watching through The Mandalorian leading up to, as well as after watching The Rise of Skywalker.  Going into The Rise, I can’t say with much certainty that I was particularly looking forward to it other than the fact that there’s always some sort of nerdy obligation to see Star Wars films fairly immediately upon their release.  In contrast to after watching the first two episodes of The Mandalorian, I bought in, and as Disney+ released them at an agonizing weekly episodic pace, I looked forward to each on a weekly basis.

Now it’s a little unfair and partially not quite an adequate balance comparing a television series to film, but when I sit back and think about everything I’d taken in that are all part of the Star Wars universe, the ultimate takeaway I really have is how much I really enjoyed The Mandalorian, versus how lukewarm I am as it comes to not just The Rise of Skywalker, but just about all Star Wars films released within the last decade.

In all fairness, I did really enjoy Rogue One, but when the day is over, Solo just kind of existed, and I’m at a push when it comes to the latest trilogy; The Force Awakens was a fantastic film, but The Last Jedi was pretty awful, and The Rise of Skywalker spent 80% of the film digging itself out of the chasm its predecessor put it in.  But as a whole, the decade’s Star Wars films all add up to a widely mediocre median.

But The Mandalorian, I thought was exceptional.  If I had a Disney+ subscription, I’d say that this show is probably easily the hard carry of the entire service so far, but that’s really not saying that much considering it’s basically the only piece of original content they have so far, but I guess what I’m really saying is that it’s almost worth the price of a subscription just for this show, it’s that good.

To cut to the chase, what I really loved about The Mandalorian, aside from how it was short and sweet, was that boiled down, the show simply has a heart.  They don’t waste a lot of time trying to piece together a complex plot, or weave a web of characters and potential storylines; they move in a very linear path from episode to episode, introduce characters who are immediately used, and then move right along.

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Winning ugly: the Star Wars third trilogy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Fewer things I’ve seen over the last few years have been as divisive as the third Star Wars trilogy.  In a way it’s kind of a microcosm of today’s extremism society where people feel the need to have either completely bonkers dedicated opinions in one direction versus the other, with those of whom aren’t hard on one side are perceived as flakes and/or invalids. 

Either people completely loved the series (aka loved The Last Jedi) or they hated the series (aka abhorred The Last Jedi), with there being no real space in the middle.  Fights broke out on the internet, people unfriended/unfollowed/muted/ignored others on social media, and eventually The Last Jedi became something of a topic like politics during Thanksgiving; a powder keg of a topic that’s often at the tips of everyone’s tongues, but kept quiet for the sake of the group’s collective enjoyment, but really it’s an uncomfortable armistice just to hold their mouths shut.

At the risk of being an invalid flake, I am kind of in the middle when it comes to the series.  I thought The Force Awakens was an outstanding entry into the Star Wars primary series, and I often likened it to being JJ Abrams’ love letter to the Star Wars franchise.  It introduced solid characters and laid down the groundwork for a fairly logical path to success.  In terms of comparing it to a football score, I would have said The Force Awakens was like a solid 31-7 score at halftime, in favor of the light side.

Obviously, the shit really hit the fan after The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson; normally, I wouldn’t bother mentioning directors, if not for the fact that it’s Johnson himself whom is either loved or reviled by Star Wars fans across the globe, for the way he handled the series, once given the reigns to the story.  Personally, I’m definitely in the camp that’s more dislike than like, but I will still maintain that in spite of the negative outlook on The Last Jedi, I would say it was still better than the Jar-Jar Trilogy.

But there’s little denying that Rian Johnson shit the bed with The Last Jedi, twisting the storyline to some strangely asinine directions, introducing strange characters, veering existing character arcs into weird plot/relationship chasms and missing out on some really easy layups.  After such careless bumbling, the score of the game was 42-31, with the dark side scoring five consecutive shit touchdowns to take a commanding lead heading into the final period.

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You heard it here first

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Say it with me now: Luke Harper* – IWGP World Heavyweight Champion

*or whatever name he chooses to go with, because the WWE probably owns the copyright the name “Luke Harper”

When news broke that the WWE had released, among several performers, Luke Harper, from their contracts, my friend and I immediately realized the destiny that was now free to become fulfilled: Luke Harper was now free to migrate over to the land of the rising sun, and begin his reign as a foreign terror, en route to a lucrative and prosperous career revitalization for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, culminating with at least one reign as the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion.

For a while now, my friend and I have always made the joke about how Luke Harper was a future IWGP champion; historically, there’s no secret that NJPW loves bringing in big white guys to push as these evil foreign heel characters for their national Japanese heroes to feud against.  And in order for the feuds to have any modicum of impact, they occasionally need to be allowed to ascend to the highest honors, so that the heroes can have lofty goals to achieve.

From guys like Vader, Scott Norton, Tyson Tomko and even Prince Albert, Japan has often times embraced the big white guy heel, pushed them to the moon so that their stars could fight them, and eventually put the faces over, and if there was ever a guy more destined to be the next great big white terror in Japan, it was Luke Harper.

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Impossible Burgers are pretty good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For a while, I’ve wanted to try an Impossible Burger AKA the meatless, plant-based burger that allegedly pulls off pretending to be a beef patty, impossibly well.  I was pretty alright with the idea of swinging by a Burger King to try an Impossible Whopper to see what all the fuss was about, but mythical wife was convinced that I needed to try one at a real restaurant and not a fast food joint, so that I can get a more accurate bar of what an Impossible Burger was capable of.

It also doesn’t help that maybe it’s just Georgia, or the general state of Burger King as a company, but I realized it’s pretty challenging finding nearly as many Burger Kings these days as there are just about any other fast food joint out there.  Needless to say, I ended up waiting a little bit before I would get my chance to try one of these hamburgers of myth.

But over the weekend, I finally got to try one.  Mythical wife took me to the restaurant she had in mind where I should try one, and I was pretty excited to get to try it finally.

Honestly, if nobody ever told me that what I had eaten was an Impossible Burger or any other plant-based, meatless hamburger, then I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.  It tasted like a hamburger, the consistency was that of a typical hamburger, and like I said if I didn’t know it wasn’t actual meat, then I would’ve just figured I had a regular beef hamburger.

In all fairness, I have a tendency to like my burgers pretty loaded, so what I had eaten was with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, grilled onions and ketchup and mustard, so the general flavors do get jumbled up in some bites.  Admittedly, there is a slight flavor difference in the patty itself, but it’s pretty miniscule and I ask myself if I’d even have noticed it if I didn’t already have in the back of my mind that what I was eating wasn’t beef.  It’s kind of a slightly more earthy flavor, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s the tiniest hint that it wasn’t real beef.

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AEW Full Gear: What is Kenny Omega trying to prove?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I really want to like AEW more, but I’m finding it really difficult to not see all the parallels between it and WCW.  Don’t get me wrong, AEW isn’t a bad product after six weeks, but given the hype, the mission statements and even more hype, it was envisioned to be this grand WWE-killer promotion, but honestly if I could be objective, isn’t even remotely close at this point.

The roster is bursting with potential, but there’s no denying that a lot of the talent is still really raw and unrefined, and could definitely use a lot of polishing.  Private Party is the first that comes to mind with two guys that have athleticism up the wazoo, but you can literally watch them talking and calling spots in the ring, and they rush all the time and are often seen waiting for someone to jump off the top rope or springboard, and it looks really sloppy to the smark’s eye.

Commentary is also really sloppy, as JR and Excalibur can’t stop plugging the global real estate company that actually has AEW.com, and nobody seems to have told them that.  Tony Schiavone is still “accidentally” saying “WCW” instead of “AEW” and after 30+ years in the business doesn’t know the difference between a running clothesline and a Buff Blockbuster.

It’s no secret the involvement of the promotion’s management, and how the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes are executives, as well as primary talent.  But there are two sides right now, which is Cody Rhodes who is acknowledging this on screen, but at the same time is very much in the main event picture, having fought Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship.  Also benefitting is Elite member Hangman Adam Page, who has probably had the most screen time of anyone on the entire roster.

However, on the other side, is the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, who have basically jobbed themselves to oblivion.  I get that they’re afraid of being accused of whatever nepotism executives elevating themselves would be considered, but at the same time, these guys were gods in New Japan, but have rendered themselves to be glorified jobbers to the stars in their own federation.  And not just that, they’re also repeatedly taking losses from almost solely former WWE or TNA guys, which can’t help the perception that they were ever better than the competition.

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