Tag: honor

Well, that was not unexpected

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Saw that coming: Brazil trounces Korea 4-1, eliminating them from the round of 16

I’m not mad, just disappointed.  Nominally.  I actually had predicted the score would’ve been 5-1, with Korea’s one goal being some garbage time pity goal in the 92nd minute.  Not out of pessimism, but a realistic guess based on the fact that Brazil is in a class way above Korea, and the friendly they played back in June ended in a similar score, I saw no reason why it would be any different during the World Cup.

They weren’t playing a Portugal squad who had already secured their position and really had no reason to play their best.  They weren’t playing a squad with a bitch of Ronaldo in body protect mode and being more of a liability than a threat.  They were playing fucking Brazil, a country routinely ranked 1st or among the top four countries in FIFA rankings, like all the time.

To me, a monumental win would’ve been if Korea could’ve held Brazil to a 0-0 by half, but in reality it only six minutes before Brazil got on the board, and two minutes later, Neymar was notching a PK for a 2-0 score that basically ended the game after it barely started.

The real question was just how much gas was Brazil going to put on the rout?  Having won the game in 15 minutes, there was little reason for them to really risk Neymar or any of their starters.  But unsurprisingly the topic came up in numerous forums of the complete humiliation Brazil endured in 2014 against Germany, losing 7-1, and taking their history out on Korea seemed like a very realistic possibility, and it looked like my 5-1 score might become a reality.

Fortunately, Korea played with integrity and played out the rest of the game cleanly, not fouling like crazy, while still trying hard, forcing Brazil’s goalkeeper Alisson to really work, deflecting numerous shots.  And when Paik Seung-ho crushed his 30 yard smash into the net, that was good enough for me, to be satisfied with the result.  At least we went down fighting and didn’t get shut out, and this goal was most definitely no charity, lazy backup GK goal, it was a screamer and it was earned.

Ffrom what my amateur eyes witnessed, Brazil’s in a class of its own with their touch, as in the ability to so perfectly tap the most intricate light passes in between defenders to get them into prime scoring position.  Son Heung-min is really the only guy on the Korean team with a similar ability, and it’s that finesse that basically won the game against Portugal with his perfect, between-the-legs pass to Hwang Hee-chon before he kicked the game winner.

Like I said, I’m not surprised or mad about the result, but it’s always a little disappointing to see your teams lose no matter the circumstances.  The reality is still that Korea already had a tremendously fine showing in the World Cup that shouldn’t have been in Qatar, by notching a memorable win against Portugal and advancing out of groups.  Those alone are huge achievements for a country oft-ranked among the lower quartile of World Cup teams historically, and no matter the result of the Brazil game, I’m so fucking proud of Korea’s World Cup run, and we’ll always have the fine memories of the win against Portugal.

O PILSUNG COREA MOTHERFUCKERS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On this date, December 2, 2022

South Korea 2, Portugal 1

As much as I enjoy the World Cup, I didn’t have any grand expectations as far as the Motherland’s chances were.  This isn’t eSports or Little League baseball, so my hopes for Korea’s participation in the World Cup is usually along the lines of hoping they don’t embarrass themselves, and be the worst team to get sent packing in the first round.

Thanks to the Qatar that didn’t belong there in the first place, and Canada whom I didn’t even know even played futbol in the first place, that’s not going to happen.  Undoubtedly, the team that brings the most dishonor to the World Cup is undoubtedly Germany, whom once again was bounced in groups for the second straight World Cup, with 2014 looking like a historical event from the present.

But not only did Korea not embarrass themselves on the global stage, they didn’t get bounced in groups.  With their incredible 2-1 victory over Portugal, they advance out of groups and into the elimination round of 16, where Brazil awaits, to which that’ll be its own tragedy in its own right, but at least I can have the memories of this day where Korea, once again finishes groups on a high note after starting slow with a draw and a loss in their prior two matches.

I kind of had this hope that Korea could beat Portugal on the logic that with two wins already, and advancement already locked in, the Portuguese really didn’t have to play that hard, and would change things up and play backups, in order to save their stars.  France and Spain paid a similar price, dropping their third matches, and I was hoping that Portugal would join them.

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Being an orange guy supporter fan is basically a meme

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On my way to the office, there’s this house that I’ve noticed.  It was an obvious tear-down and flip, because it’s a home that sticks out that it looks absolutely nothing like the aesthetic of all the other properties in the vicinity.  It’s hard to describe it, but it almost seems fortress-like, because there’s almost no landscaping other than fresh sod, there are high fences that flank the sides of the property, and the only vehicles in the driveway have been two giant fuck-you trucks.  The trucks are black and white respectively, and for the matter so is the house, with it being primarily white with black shutters, doors and accents.

I don’t really know why, but I had this hunch that the people that lived there were probably the types of people who supported the orange guy that tanked ruled ‘Murica.  But recently, on my latest commute in, I noticed that they had two signs in their yard, in support of Bubba Kemp, the orange-guy worshipping incumbent governor who is up for reelection in November, and it basically validated everything I theorized about the residents of this property.

But then it got me thinking, how easy it’s become to pick out orange guy supporters, even if they’re not so flagrantly broadcasting their fealty.  And that they’ve basically become living breathing memes of human beings with their brainless worship of a clown.

Sure, there are the very obvious sheep out there who have Make America Great Again hats, bumper stickers, and other orange guy paraphernalia, and those guys are sad and disappointing in their own right, but at least they’re honest and straightforward with their allegiance.  But it’s the people that want you to know without making it obvious that I’m more fascinated in and frankly, these are the people out there that I think are worse, because it’s like they want to enjoy the luxuries of America, while being in support of ‘Murica.

Not to mention, that a lot of these types have unfortunately co-opted all sorts of brands, IPs and other forms of symbolism, and ruined it for everyone else by claiming that they’re symbols of their hatred of modern society.

So anyway, here’s what I’ve observed as being signs of more subtle orange guy fanaticism:

  • Don’t Tread On Me stickers, flags or decals
  • The Punisher logo decals
  • Salt Life stickers
  • Really loves firearms
  • Very large trucks with lift kits, usually black
  • American flags hanging off of said trucks
  • Properties that look like they are somewhat defensible in an apocalyptic scenario

I’m sure there are lots of other things that could be on this list, but these are the things that come immediately to mind when I think about things I see that instantly make me very confident that a person is an obvious patriot.  And the more bullets they check off, the more I’m curious what they were doing or where they were on January 6th.

The point is, people don’t really need to be brandishing the very obvious stuff to make it obvious where their general allegiances and temperaments lie.  Whether they care to realize it or not, there’s plenty of other things that have manifested and been nurtured throughout the last few years that make it pretty obvious to what type of person a random stranger on the street is, just by their behaviors and preferences, which to me, is what makes something meme-worthy. 

What’s sad, aside from the people who are brainwashed by all this bullshit, are the poor identities and IPs that have been bastardized by their being co-opted by the extreme right.  I feel bad for any intelligent Marines who have to see the Gadsden flag being used by idiots who have never even thought about serving the country, flying it without knowing any bit of its history.  I feel bad for Marvel Comics and any writer who ever was involved with The Punisher, seeing all these morons using the skull emblem and claiming it to be “for them.” 

And worst off, I feel saddest for the American flag, which is so often being flown with almost a malicious intent, by people who want to throw their extreme patriotism in the faces of normal, regular Americans who might not feel the need to have to throw the flag up everywhere they go to represent the country we live in.

The behavior of the mindless and ignorant have taken a lot of historic elements and respectable  symbols and turned them into memes by how flagrantly misused they’ve been, but at least in doing so, they’re making it very easy to identify people that I really have no interest in associating with, because ain’t nobody need this kind of stupidity anchoring down my little world.

Tony Khan buying Ring of Honor seems pretty notable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a part in the WWE documentary, the Monday Night Wars, where Eric Bischoff talks about how when WCW was on top of the ratings game, they generally felt invincible. They didn’t really care much to what the WWF was doing and didn’t really see a lot of what they were doing as threatening.

Until the WWF got a hold of Mike Tyson to make some appearances and get into a storyline with D-Generation X and Stone Cold Steve Austin.  Bischoff is seen describing finding out about that news as a moment of, oooh, now that is something.

This would embark the WWF into the attitude era, where they would eventually catch and reclaim the ratings war back from WCW and never look back until WCW was dead and bought for pennies on the dollar by Vince McMahon himself.

That’s kind of the feeling I got when I heard that AEW owner/president/rich man child Tony Khan had bought Ring of Honor.  Oooh, now that is something substantial.

Obviously, I don’t think the WWE is ever going to die like WCW did, but in the general war of two between the companies, I do think AEW’s acquisition of ROH is a pretty notable instance that has a lot of potential to swing some momentum.

Aside from the general facts of AEW got something WWE wanted and the forbidden doors that an AEW/ROH association opens up, most people know that the tapes library alone was the primary prize in this whole thing.  WWE ultimately wants every living piece of professional wrestling media to do whatever they want with, but was denied by AEW. 

And with all that back catalog in tow, AEW now has some fuel to open the doors to their own streaming service, much like WWE sold to NBC’s Peacock.  Even prior to the news of the acquisition, news of AEW potentially broadcasting on HBO, as being a Turner product they fall under the same umbrella, was picking up steam.  And with a legitimate back catalog to bolster their own growing library, AEW stands to make some legitimate coin if and when they launch a streaming package.

Because when the day is over, money seems to be the biggest pissing contest between the companies.  Now the WWE isn’t at any risk of losing the dollars game, primarily because of the Saudi blood money they Hoover up every year now, but at least on the domestic front, AEW picking up ROH definitely is denying the E a lot of money in which they won’t be getting, which is a pretty symbolic win against an entity that seems pretty unbeatable.

Otherwise, I don’t think Khan’s purchase of ROH is going to make nearly the splash as wrestling fans might be rubbing themselves over. To me, the smart play is to let ROH operate as-is as long as they can while making small and subtle changes or integration plans.  When it’s not nearly as fresh on people’s minds is when to start firing shots, but that’s just my opinions.

But if I’m Vince McMahon, whether he’ll admit to it or not, seeing ROH dell to Tony Khan, probably is a noteworthy disappointment, and should make him go hmmmm.

Of course Patrick Ewing wants to get rid of the handshake line

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sportsmanship?  What’s that?  NBA legend and current Georgetown Hoyas coach, Patrick Ewing opines that the tradition of the post-game handshake line be eliminated

In all fairness, I don’t really disagree with Ewing.  This whole discussion came into question after an incident where former player-now coach of Michigan, Juwan Howard took a swipe at a Wisconsin assistant after losing to the Badgers, it’s probably not the worst idea in the world to keep two teams apart from each other after a game ends, especially since society today is full of sore losers who can’t handle defeat.

It’s an antiquated custom that creates more room for conflict than it does at preventing it, even if it is an attempt to curry the notion of sportsmanship in the game.  It’s the kind of thing that’s practiced at the junior, junior, kids level, but considering basketball is still originally a children’s game, I understand why they try to force it onto participants even at a level as high as D-I collegiate.

But this post comes to fruition because it’s Patrick Ewing who came out and said this, and it’s just such a low-hanging fruit easy opportunity to clown on Ewing, because as many players have proven throughout history, it’s just so easy to dunk on him.

And as the subject of the post said, of course Patrick Ewing wants to get rid of the handshake line – since he’s taken the reigns at Georgetown, the Hoyas have gone 26-48 over four years in the Big East, so that means Ewing and his players have had to go through a whole lot of post-game handshake lines as the losing squad.  It’s no wonder Ewing wants to get rid of the handshake line, because he’s been getting owned way more than doing the ownage, and he’s tired of it.

The funny thing is that in doing the cursory fact-checking for this post, I had no idea that Georgetown actually won the Big East conference championship last year.  The Hoyas went 7-9 in conference play, but then used a Game Genie during the conference tournament and ended up winning the whole fucking thing from the 8th seed.  That was four straight critical games in which Ewing was actually on the winning side of the handshake line, and fairly recently, so I’m surprised to see that he’s still against it.

Oh shit, but then I realized what I was looking at wasn’t factoring in this season, and at the time I’m writing this, the once vaunted Georgetown Hoyas, are an abysmal 0-16 in conference play this year.  FFfffffuuuck, no wonder Ewing is completely over the handshake line, after all.  Poor guy just can’t stop getting owned, he might want to consider leaving the industry if he ever wants to stop getting dunked on.

How the transfer portal can break college football

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, my father-in-law was giddy with excitement over the news of Oklahoma quarterback, Spencer Rattler, transferring to South Carolina, via the seemingly most common words at the end of every college football season, the transfer portal.

Firstly, I can’t not hear that phrase and not imagine that the transfer portal is portal stage from Mortal Kombat II, where college ballplayers all show up and mingle around, with hopes that they’ll land at another school where they can either play for a contender, start, or go anywhere where they can hedge their bets and put up gaudy numbers in preparation for a future NFL draft.

Secondly, when the transfer portal really began becoming a thing within the last 4-5 years, I actually hated the idea of it.  It basically turned into the equivalent of free agency for college athletes, and further fed the narrative that these athletic ringers all give no shits about education at all, if it already wasn’t clear enough but purists and romantics like me can hope.

But it really began picking up steam when the most notable cases were players who were just seemingly looking to gravy train their way to powerhouse programs, and were just kind of this rich getting richer circle jerk among notable contending teams.  But then it seemed like every Tom, Dick and Harry players were jumping into the portal to try to land somewhere else, regardless of if it made sense or not.

Like Justin Fields who went from Georgia to Ohio State; that made sense.  Fields was blocked by Jake Fromm, and he was a phenomenal talent that needed to go somewhere where he could flourish.  Jalen Hurts and Kelly Bryant transferring out of Alabama and Clemson respectively made sense, since both of their schools had benched them for the hot new freshmen.  But then you have cases like Josh Jackson, who was mediocre at best, transferring from Virginia Tech to go to Maryland where he vanished into obscurity.

The point is, commitments from players have all but become meaningless in the grand spectrum of college ball, because over the last few years, there’s been little reason why anyone would stay anywhere for more than two years, for any reason.  As far as I was concerned, the transfer portal wasn’t really something that was healthy for the game, in general.

All the same, with Rattler joining the Gamecocks, it does open the door for some intriguing storylines next season.  I haven’t really paid any attention to any sports over the last year or so, but from what I can interpret, a large part of him choosing South Carolina had much to do with Shane Beamer, a former coach at Oklahoma, being there, and him wanting to play for him again.

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Finally, let’s talk about the World Series Champion Atlanta Braves

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Firstly, baby luck is real, boys.  If you want to see your team win a championship, go have a kid.  I’ve seen it work for the Cubs.  I’ve seen it work with the Nationals.  Both those teams were laughing stocks not very long ago, and good friends of mine with their then-new children, got to witness the pinnacle of baseball fandom. 

Despite the fact that the Braves lost megastar Ronald Acuña, Jr. to a blown ACL, Mike Soroka blowing out his arm, and Marcell Ozuna getting suspended indefinitely for a domestic abuse incident and were sitting as low as fourth place in the division at one point, #2 was born, the Braves stopped sucking just enough to win a horrid division, and then got hot at the very right moment, and rode the momentum all the way to the top.

And now baby luck has worked for me, finally getting to witness a reality where the Atlanta Braves are World Series champions.  How can anyone not love baseball when an 88-win team that had no business making the playoffs ends up winning the whole thing?

Honestly, I never thought I’d see this in my life.  Between the Braves, Virginia Tech football, Korean national teams in, anything other than video games, I don’t have a lot of world championship potential, so y’all will have to excuse me if I’m still in a little bit of disbelief at the fact that the Braves are actually champions.

I wasn’t a Braves fan in 1995, when they won the World Series previously.  Growing up where I did, the team to root for was Cal Ripken, Jr. and the Baltimore Orioles, and the O’s got bounced by the same Cleveland Indians who went on to lose to the Braves in that World Series, but I make no claim to that championship.  So 2021’s World Series, really is for me, as it is for all Braves fans who have waited over 20 years for another championship.

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