TIL: Mercedes Mone’s creative control clause

July 1, 2024July 3, 2024 ~ 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.

Dad Brog (#134): Father’s Day 2024

June 25, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

#3 of forever

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there are few things that I look forward to every year more than this photograph. I actually almost took it a month early, because the conditions were ideal, having just gotten a haircut, my lawn just been freshly cut, and the weather wasn’t sweltering yet, but mythical wife kind of poo-poo’d on the idea, and so I felt that I should just hold off until the actual month of Father’s Day.

But that’s just how much I was looking forward to this particular shoot, that I was on the cusp of doing it nearly seven weeks earlier than I would’ve actually done anything with the photo.

Regardless, when the conditions were right to do it in June, there was no stopping me this time. I got the blets all out of their storage, took time to deliberate on which blet that I wanted to wear myself because I’m a hipster that loves rando-midcard titles over any traditional World championship blets, and got all my camera equipment prepared for, what the girls have declared, “belt picture day.”

When I said it was time for belt picture day, I was so tickled when #1 quickly grabbed her little bejeweled tiara and magic wand, and was 1000% on board with her accessorizing for the photograph. #2 still isn’t as gung-ho about it as her sister is, but she also didn’t fight at all when I said it was time to go outside. Fighting boredom is clearly among the most important of duties I have as a parent in the summertime, and I’m fortunate that they still love the idea of belt picture day.

I almost thought this might be the year in which I could actually do it all in a collective photo, seeing as how they both got into their chairs with their blets, and all I had to do was jump in, but getting them to actually look at the camera, and not at a bird, a squirrel, or the dog taking a dump in front of them was too much to ask for, and despite some funny candids, I did have to resort to shooting them individually and then myself, and putting this together in Photoshop, in post.

But all the same, mission accomplished. I’m so stoked with how it turned out this year, and much like how I happy I was last year, the following year just gets better, and I’m thrilled to time-lapse these, and see just how big these kids are getting with each successive year.

So until belt picture day in 2025, fare thee well.

Does a Popeyes title make Chris Jericho the Nueve?

April 26, 2024April 27, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the appealing card on paper, I didn’t watch AEW Dynasty. Frankly, I don’t know how I’d watch it, or any true pay-per-view event anymore. I don’t have cable, so it’s not like I can call an automated system and pay over the phone. I typically refuse to download anymore apps, especially to watch a singular event, and frankly, the WWE has conditioned me over the last few years of just how convenient it is to have a singular service where I can get these events included, and it’s about as easy as it is to tune into something on Netflix or Disney+.

All the same, I was intrigued by the card, to where I took the effort to seek out results, on the same night in which it happened. Most everything happened close to how I’d have predicted it, showing that my decades of watching professional wrestling has gotten to where I barely need to watch the product to know what’s going to happen anyway. Okada over PAC, the Bucks over FTR, Ospreay over Danielson, and I figured Swerve was finally going to dethrone Samoa Joe, because you just can’t keep feeding a champion the same guy three times in a row and expect the result to just continue to be the same.

But amidst the results was one thing that caught my eye: Chris Jericho defeats Hook to become the new FTW champion.

So the question I have is, does Chris Jericho winning a Popeyes title (unsanctioned) count towards his world title count? After all, it does say “World Champion” on it and frankly, even in the ocean of championships that AEW has floating in its pool, between Hook, Jack Perry and Brian Cage, the holder of this Mickey Mouse blet has done some good work.

That being said, that would make Chris Jericho no longer the Ocho, but the Nueve; I doubt such will happen, but it is still funny to hypothesize the silly wrestling logic.

But even funnier will be the fact that despite it not being a sanctioned championship that “counts” in the AEW canon, I think it’s a safe bet that Chris Jericho is still going to elevate it to the point where it’s going to get some substantial television time and attention over a number of the men’s championships the promotion has in circulation:

Because that’s what Chris Jericho does, he elevates things, regardless of how much the fickle AEW fanbase seems to have turned on him, and are giving him the old Big Show treatment of pretending like they want him to hang up his boots. These are the same fans who will be bowing in the crowd and chanting positive things like “you’re the great-est” when he actually does hang it up, but a guy like Jericho also doesn’t care, because he understands the most important thing about working is the ability to get a reaction at all, and he’s a man who has thrived under fan hate in the past, and will undoubtedly do it again and again until he’s done.

It seems obvious that he’s basically repeating the same program he did with Cesaro Claudio Castagnoli, where he won the Ring of Honor World Championship, ducked him repeatedly and made him work to get back in contention, and then dropped the title back to Claudio, but with the title in a better place in which it started.

Chris Jericho hasn’t hidden the fact his desire to work with, and elevate young talent, and there’s no question that he’s going to accomplish such with Hook. And by the time Jericho drops the title back to Hook in 5-6 months, the Popeyes title will probably be worth more than over half of the above listed championships, because that’s just the kind of thing AEW would let happen, having a meaningless blet become more meaningful than their own prizes.

Let’s talk about the WWE’s new tag blets

April 21, 2024April 27, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In one of those I should’ve seen it coming but I didn’t, the WWE has recently redesigned and unveiled new tag team championship blet designs. Over the last few years, almost all the blets have been systematically been redesigned from top to bottom, except for the tag blets, which were still red for RAW and blue for Smackdown.

Blets being in the middle of a reign didn’t seem to matter for when to unveil new designs, as Roman Reigns, Asuka and Rhea Ripley all received the new versions of the blets that they had held, but for whatever reasons, the Usos having the combined tag team championships on lockdown didn’t warrant swapping of those designs, but seeing as they were broken up and sent off to different shows seemed as good as time as any for the E to finally unveil new titles.

When the new World Tag Team Championships were unveiled on RAW, one I was happy for the Miz and R-Truth, two WWE lifers who are the consummate pros who do anything and everything they are asked for, do it well, and always manage to get absolutely anything over. But two, my knee-jerk reaction to these blets were that I was relieved to see that they were finally gold blets again, seeing as how fewer things made the tag titles feel lesser-tier over the last 10+ years than the fact that they were bronze and then silver plates.

The shade of gold, amount of flourish and the weird griffin chimaera creatures made me think that this perhaps could’ve been a previous version or option of the World Heavyweight championship blet that ultimately ended up looking like a spin-off of the old WCW big gold blet in terms of its general shape and composition.

But overall, I do really like the new World Tag Team blets, except for one thing – the font they used on it. Not digging the spiky, Glaive-like typeface they used, and it looks like they’re trying to be a 2005 RAW graphic package with it. Furthermore, the type is just too fucking large, and much like my general aesthetic preference when it comes to clothing, I think when apparel requires too much text to explain it, then it’s design that is not optimal.

If the fonts were smaller, I could overlook the undesirable typeface selection, but overall, I’m pleased with the way the new World tag blets look. Not sure if I’d want to own one, but typically a really good discount has gotten me possession of other blets I’ve felt similarly about.

Obviously, once RAW had unveiled new tag blets, among the first thoughts I had was pondering what Smackdown was going to do, because it was obvious that they were going to get a redesign as well. But the question was, was it going to be carbon copies of the RAW titles, but with blue paint behind the globe and type? Or was it going to be something completely independent?

Fortunately, the answer was just days away, when Smackdown unveiled the WWE Tag Team championships, with blets that looked completely different from their RAW counterparts. Immediately, my eyes noticed the familiar shape of the center plate, which was an obvious throwback to older tag team blet designs, that had what I like to jokingly call the nutsack shape, because for whatever reason, the bottom has two bulges like a pair of testicles.

Regardless of the homoerotic comparison, my knee-jerk reaction was still positive. I liked that it was a completely different design, and this will prevent any future embarrassing title swaps in future draft storylines. It’s general design is much more muted and subdued than the World tag blets with its design being more etched and not molded. In doing so, it does look like a cheaper blet in comparison, but as far as design goes, it’s a preferable design over its counterpart.

The font treatment is much more subdued and exactly how I prefer it, and the throwback shape of it is pretty much all that it needs to have to be the preferable of blets between the two.

What it all boils down to is if I had to pick one, which would I go with, and that would be the Smackdown WWE Tag Team blets. The homage to the classic design is fantastic, and even though the World is the more detailed and nicer looking blet, the font is a turn-off for me

Either way, I’m glad to see that the E has redesigned both, because in the future when the tag blets are used as a prop or a means to reward two mildly over singles guys, at least they’ll look good holding some actual gold straps instead of silver-plated toy-looking blets.

Praise for TNA’s blet refresh

January 14, 2024February 16, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Initially, I wasn’t really keen on Impact Wrestling re-branding back to TNA. There was just this bush league reputation of TNA that always stuck with me that involved Jarretts, Dixie Carter, strange booking, Cups for no prizes, convoluted booking, the six-sided ring and a drunk Jeff Hardy that I didn’t think was a good idea to going back towards. I always felt that Impact was a respectable endeavor of scaling back, restructuring, reinventing, and growing back towards respectability.

Especially compared to the questionable things that AEW does, I found Impact to be the more refreshing alternative to the predictability of the WWE, and over the years, I’ve always made a point to hit up Impact when they stopped in Atlanta, and even liked their product so much, it inspired me to get an Impact replica blet, as bootleg Pakistani as it undoubtedly was. I enjoyed what they were doing, and I respected the fact that they weren’t necessarily trying to compete with the Joneses and were out there, as a solid #3 promotion, doing their thing, letting people work, and putting out decent product.

But I kind of get it why they wanted to go back; probably if for anything, because all of the noteworthy promotions in the land are all three-letter acronyms, and being “and Impact” might’ve felt like being way too much of an outlier. WWE, AEW, ROH, NWA, GCW, PWG… and Impact. Perhaps there’s just something about three letters that means wrestling, and just like that, TNA is back, and the Impact name reverts to being the flagship television show.

Regardless, if there was one fun thing to come out of the rebrand was the inevitability that there would be new blets, because Impact blets sure as heck weren’t going to fly in the land of TNA. And I have to say, despite my reluctance to accept the TNA name back into existence, as far as their refreshed lineup of blets across the promotion, I have really nothing but praise.

They did the smart thing, and refreshed them all at the same time, so they can have something of a cohesive and uniform look to them. Not like when the WWE updates the US title in 2020, the Intercontinental blet in 2021, a 24/7 title that came and went in the blink of an eye. I didn’t know who ZBro’s Belts was, but after seeing how great these TNA blets came out, I dug to find out who the maker was.

I appreciate that there’s both cohesion as well as variation with all the blets, and they don’t all look like the same fucking blet like Ring of Honor’s entire lineup of titles look after Tony Khan bought them. Gold for men and women’s top prizes, red straps for the tag blets. The X Division blet has come leaps and bounds from when it was basically just a big red X on a blet, and looks like a solid #2 prize, and I know it gets a lot of criticism mostly for its name, but I really dig the updated Digital Media blet. I love how it has kind of a circuitboard pattern in the background, and there was obvious thought that went into its design as opposed to copying bits and pieces from Japan and UK to create a bunch of AEW midcard titles.

As for the inevitable question on whether or not I’d entertaining getting any replicas should they be available, legitimately or though Pakistan, there’s always the possibility for the right price. I’d honestly go for a Digital Media championship first, and if I ever had the disposable income, even go after a set of the Knockouts Tag Team blets for my girls, especially since these don’t have the goofy-ass Garfield Copper font on them like the old ones did. The others, would be dependent on if any workers appear to be doing good enough work to inspire me to want to get one, and if Nic Nemeth captures the world title, it just might be enough to get the job done.

Critiquing the IWGP Global Championship

January 8, 2024February 16, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When Dave Finlay involved himself into the program with Will Ospreay and Jon Moxley, and then destroyed both the IWGP United States and the unofficial UK championship blets, and then it was announced that there would be a new title announced to replace them outright, I held my breath with hopes that it would be a sweet design.

The IWGP World championship that looked like the X-Men’s Phoenix Force emblem was kind of a letdown in my opinion, and came at the cost of merging out the old Intercontinental championship in the process. The NJPW World Television championship that they unveiled was without question one of the worst blet designs I’d seen in a while. The IWGP Women’s championship looked like a repurposed Jr. Heavyweight blet from 1996.

And to be fair, as much as I liked how flashy and gaudy it was, I know that the US championship that Finlay destroyed was also not really that well received by lots of smarks and blet aficionados, but I was still a fan, and was sad to see them go, although I understood why they were doing it; Ospreay brought in a variant of it, plus he was on his way out, so the company had to do something to consolidate the blet’s position in the company.

Frankly, I was really hoping they’d just bring back the Intercontinental championship, because much like in the WWE, the IWGP Intercontinental was often seen as the workhorse blet, that usually the most talented worker gets, and has been held by so many greats, most recently from Kenny Omega, Shinsuke Nakamura, Chris Jericho to Tetsuya Naito.

So when they unveiled the IWGP Global Championship in preparation of Wrestle Kingdom, I have to say that my knee-jerk reaction was that of kind of a push. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time, my breath wasn’t taken away when seeing it.

Now I’m not saying all new blets need to be radical and unique, but I thought the Global blet was kind of vanilla. The hard squared plates in the center and the fairly generic globes as the side plates. It’s funny because I think AEW lifts a lot of design cues from NJPW’s blets, but the hard vertical lines of the Global make me think that they borrowed cues from AEW for a change.

What I really liked about the old Intercontinental blet is that it was nearly a clone of the old World championship, in terms of the centerplate. It had fairly generic side plates as well, but the fact that the centerplate was fairly similar to the World, it was metaphorically stating its position as a blet close to the tier of the World championship.

The IWGP Global championship, most definitely looks like a tier below the World championship now. Make no mistake, this is a true #2 blet, and a guy like David Finlay holding it is still very much a #2-tier talent, even in an absolutely decimated roster like New Japan’s current state is. Even Dolph Ziggler Nic Nemeth showing up to immediately put his name in contention for this new blet couldn’t save the fact that it still seemed kind of mid.

I don’t think I’m doing a great job of articulating it, but it just doesn’t really look or feel like a big deal, like the #2 blet in New Japan Pro Wrestling really should feel like. The design is classic, but it’s safe and kind of boring. It feels like a blet that’s going to be passed around by guys who get over with character work, tenure and obligations to free agent acquisitions, like David Finlay, TJP or Jeff Cobb, and doesn’t seem like it’s going to be held by guys who seem like they’re on the rise to greatness, and would be the guys to elevate the title, like Nakamura and Naito did with the old Intercontinental.

Overall, the blet is fine. But compared to the relatively short histories of prior #2 blets in the company, it already looks and feels like it will never be more than a true #2, and not one of those blets where it can someday feel like the guy holding it really does seem like they’re on the cusp of becoming great. It’s like with the recent roster decimation recently, it’s apparent that NJPW is headed for a downswing, but it’s also as if they prepared for such by introducing a downwardly-safe and vanilla championship for the promotion to wield, and for an inherently prideful and honorific Japanese company, such just seems kind of mediocre in the big picture.

I will never understand people who think cash doesn’t make the best gift

December 2, 2023December 7, 2023 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year when all across the country, as well as the world, people are preparing for their respective gift-giving holidays and putting way more thought than really should be necessary in pondering on what to get for the ones in our lives we feel the compulsion to give gifts to. And because I am fortunate to have people in my life who care about me, I’ve been asked for what I want, or lists of things that might want to expedite their pursuits for checking me off a respective list.

The honest answer to if there is anything that I want is that I literally want nothing. There is no physical tangible thing out there at this juncture in my life that will improve my standing in said life, and I would rather have absolutely nothing over one more piece of existing matter that can further fill up my house that I already feel is packed to the brim with, things.

Not even any more wrestling blets, because for starters there aren’t any blets out there that I actually want anymore, and secondly because I have no office or personal space to put them in, any further blets would just sit in my closet out of sight until whatever day comes when I can have a private space again.

What I would really like, is to receive cash, if I had to get any gifts at all. But the thing is, at least with so many Americans, cash is considered not a good gift, as it’s impersonal or thoughtless or other pejoratives people who feel this way use to try and justify their opinions that it’s just not a good gift.

Quite the contrary, I don’t think there’s a gift better than cold hard currency, because it shows that you care enough to want to gift something to a person, but at the same time, take into consideration that they can actually then use it on specifically what they want, because the things people want might be personal or too expensive and require lots of other cash gifts to help to go toward it, but the fact of the matter is that cash is one of those things most could probably use, but at least in America, probably won’t get solely based on perception bias of cash as gifts.

In the Korean part of my upbringing, cash as gifts was about as common as white people giving out cups and mugs* as gifts. Not only does it demonstrate thoughtfulness, it also takes into consideration that the recipient is now free to use it towards what might actually make them happy, instead of receiving something that they might have to pretend being happy over and making it awkward when it’s never seen of again, or worse off, ends up in a charity pile or discreetly sold on Facebook Marketplace.

*this is another can of worms that maybe I’ll rant about the next time it triggers me

Frankly, I’d love it if everyone who wanted to get me a gift would just send me cash. The only things I want are time, which I know can’t be purchased, and relief from feeling like I’m scraping by, which can only be gifted in the forms of cash that I’d use to help keep my head above water. And it wouldn’t be like using gift cash to pay for my bills or anything, it would be like cash used to help cover for actual indulgences that just happened to have occurred in the past, like the multitude of Disney trips that have happened over the last two years where it always feels like I’m trying to dig out of.

That’s what would actually make me happy. Things won’t make me as happy as the alleviation of some of the financial undertakings that I’ve been put on, because there is a direct correlation with my financial security and my general state of happiness, and anything that can bring me any sort of relief, would be the most welcome gift of all.