Tag: wrestling

NXT’s current best talent

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since I’ve started watching NXT with some regularity, I feel like I jumped aboard during a pretty stale period.  Guys like Shinsuke Nakamura, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe have all left at pretty much the same time, and in their place has been a main-event pool of guys that I’m not remotely interested in, such as Bobby Roode, Roderick Strong and Hideo Itami; aside from Roode’s arrogance, there’s literally no intrigue, personality or narrative that anybody brings to the table, creating stories that are hard to get vested in.

As much as I disliked the name “#DIY,” the talent of Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa shined through, but now they’ve been broken up and taken off television for the time being, and taking their place in the tag team division are a bunch of mammoth hosses like the Authors of Pain and Heavy Machinery, who will undoubtedly have a stinker of a program when they inevitably collide for the belts.

But if there’s been one thing worth tuning into recently, it’s NXT’s women’s champion, Asuka.  Week in and week out, she’s the brightest star in all of NXT, and it’s going to be a dark time for the brand’s women’s division once she gets the demotion to the main roster.  She’s undefeated, and WWE’s even gone as far as to declare that she’s surpassed Bill Goldberg’s old WCW record of 163 wins before first defeat, and given NXT’s women’s talent pool it doesn’t seem likely that it’s going to end that soon, especially with her most recent victory over Nikki Cross in a Last Woman Standing match.

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GLOW was pretty good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It doesn’t happen often, but not only did I manage to dive into a Netflix original fairly close to when it drops, I’m already done with the series and can write things about it in a timeframe where it’s likely that not every single TV watcher on the planet has also watched every single episode yet.  But I didn’t want to write anything about it until I was finished with the series, and ultimately, I’m glad that I waited.

As a wrestling fan throughout most of my life, GLOW was one of those things that I remember its existence back in the day, when they’d manage to sneak in a sparse commercial during WWF Prime Time Wrestling broadcasts, but being the little girl-hating misogynist as a kid, I didn’t think anything of it, other than trying to remember the acronym behind the name.  I never watched anything aside from the commercials, and I never sought out to seek out what kind of product they put on.  I just knew, they existed.  Nothing more.

When Netflix announced that they were doing such a show, I was mildly interested, because I am now an adult, capable of understanding things other than Masters of the Universe and Super Mario Bros.  I’m always intrigued with the wrestling industry in general, and it didn’t hurt to build promotion of the show around Alison Brie, whom every nerdy guy in the world had a crush on while watching Community.

To be honest, in spite of my enthusiasm and anticipation of the show, GLOW was actually a little bit difficult to get into, for me.  But after watching through the whole series, a part of me felt like such was constructed in a deliberate manner, as to really exaggerate the finer points of what progresses a storyline – much like how it’s done in the wrestling industry itself.

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Money in the Blah 2017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

By the grace of god, a close friend of mine gave me his WWE Network access, so I’ve actually kind of been able to play catch up with wrestling, since I haven’t really watched any televised shows in nearly two years.  I ditched cable television in this span, so although I still can’t watch any RAW or the supposed renaissance of Smackdown that I’ve heard so much good things about, but at least I can watch NXT and pay-per-views as they come out.

And speaking of which, I was able to catch the latest WWE ppv, Money in the Bank, which I like to often describe as the storyline bailout show, since the sheer mechanism behind a one-time, unpredictable title challenge is a blessing for both fan anticipation and Creative, and can easily bail out any bad storyline choices, or add drama to existing ones.

Unfortunately, as much as things change throughout the years, some things never change either, in the world of professional wrestling.  Such as the ideal that if a ppv isn’t Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Survivor Series or the Royal Rumble, it’s basically a glorified bonus episode of RAW or Smackdown.  Money in the Bank is definitely on that B-tier of annual shows, but at least it gets to have a consistent name, and not something random and thoughtless like Great Balls of Fire (really?).

Needless to say, I was excited at the prospect of having a relatively free evening where I could watch MITB, but after the show was over, I was left with this unimpressed taste in my mouth, like when you drink a Pepsi MAX which tastes good going down, but leaves a lingering, slightly acidic and bitter twinge in the back of your throat whenever you swallow afterward.  Except the difference between Pepsi MAX and MITB is that I actually find Pepsi MAX to have been enjoyable, and was mostly meh about the rest of MITB as a whole.

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The outcomes are fixed, but the moves are still real

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And highly dangerous in the hands of untrained Missouri rednecks.  There’s an amount of jokes I’d want to say in light of the context of this story, but considering a two-year old little girl was killed because a man was a stupid piece of shit, I will try to be a little selective with my choice of words.

I’d be lying if I didn’t demonstrate my adult strength over a child before, but the difference is that I’m not actually throwing my nephew or the kids of my friends in any manner that can cause anything other than delirious laughter and want for repeat performances.  But that’s the difference between adults with brains, and those without.

Considering the perpetrator in question here was actively abusing his teenaged girlfriend’s kid to begin with, it’s almost another level of sadism that he was performing wrestling moves with the likely intent that wrestlers portray on television, but with no training from either party, resulted in actual pain and damage.

I’m actually surprised that the article actually names any specific moves, citing that among the numerous physical traumas inflicted on the kid, one of them was a Batista Bomb, which those in the know, know is a sit-down power bomb.  Honestly, I’m actually perplexed on how this actually worked considering the difference in sizes between a 24-year old idiot and a 2-year old toddler; like dropping into a sitting position would physically make it impossible for the kid to hit simultaneously, but why am I even bothering pondering this, when the lack of training probably made things worse, in a lethal way.

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I find this offensive

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Who is the ultimate Warrior?  Between Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant?

How about fucking neither?? 

How about having some god damn respect for the most polarizing man in the history of the professional wrestling, and not comparing him to an industry full of bitches and is somehow more fake?

Look, I get that ESPN is all buddy-buddy with the WWE these days, and I know Stephen A. Shit is pretty much the worst talks-about-sports guy in history, but jesus christ it’s never a low they’ll sink to in order to have a clever quip or graphic to put onto screen.

Neither is an ultimate warrior, but if you had to answer who was the best between the two, the answer is obviously Stephen Curry.  The guy won without Durant, and then Durant being the lazy gravy-training leech, jumped ship from a great team onto the best team, hoping to coast his way to his own ring.  I mean, never in my life did I ever think that anyone would be clawing to join the Golden State Warriors, but I’ve also seen the Cubs win the World Series too.

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A completely different meaning for wrestling fans

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard a radio spot for this employment app called Jobber.  Supposedly, it’s this comprehensive all-in-one employer app that can do everything from asset management, payroll, hiring, and all the other bullshit nuances that go into day-to-day business operations.  Honestly, it seems kind of cool, and like the perfect kind of tool for inexperienced business operators to get their feet wet in the world of commerce.

However, what I can’t get around is their name.  Jobber.

I would wager money that I’m not the only person in the world in their car or listening to Sirius radio elsewhere that heard this radio spot and immediately had their wrestling fan senses triggered by name Jobber and started thinking about constant losers like Heath Slater, the Brooklyn Brawler, Alex Wright, Tommy Dreamer and Crash Holly, among countless others.

To people like us, the phrase “jobber” will never be synonymous with a potentially useful employment application; jobber will first and foremost always be a phrase used to describe a professional loser, who shows up to work, gets their ass kicked, loses a wrestling match, but then gets paid at the end of the day, they go home, and the cycle repeats itself for however long as they are needed to do so.  Jobber isn’t just a noun, the act of jobbing is also a clearly defined verb, and it’s pretty efficient at being an adjective as well.

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Unexpected, but unsurprising

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t for the life of my say that I’m at all surprised by this: Sean Waltman AKA X-Pac, busted with a whole lot of drugs with the intent to sell

My friend texted me this story, along with the commentary that this was the least surprising story in the world.  I can’t say that I disagree one bit.  X-Pac getting busted for pot and meth seems about as much of a shocker as finding out Lance Bass was gay on the cover of People magazine.  Perhaps it’s the fact that X-Pac has looked like the living embodiment of a sexual transmitted disease for the better part of his professional life makes it seem like such a no-brainer, or perhaps it’s the fact that he’s allegedly been connected to lots of drug use in his life previously that does it.

An unsubstantiated remark sure, but he did make a sex tape with Chyna (RIP); it happening without the aid of some drugs seems kind of unbelievable too.

Whatever though, there’s just something funny about seeing anything at all about X-Pac in the news.  He’s pretty much a living joke, and even the mere mention of the phrase “X-Pac” is enough to draw snickers out of anyone who’s ever watched pro-wrestling in the 90s.  The fact that he was dumb enough to be caught with a ton of drugs in the first place just adds to the amusement in the story, because of course X-Pac, the guy who made the better part of his career chopping an X over this genitals and saying “suck it” on cable television whom one of his signature moves was shoving his crotch in the face of a prone opponent, was caught with a ton of drugs.

There’s really not a whole lot of additional commentary I can add to this, as much as I’d have expected to churn out a thousand words about the topic.  X-Pac’s always been reputed as a scumbag, so to see him getting caught for actually being one isn’t at all surprising.  Again, it’s just more amusing that X-Pac is in the news again at all.  At least his other Kliq buddies have sort of been doing some less illegal things with their lives lately, like visiting a buddy who opened up his very own Shoney’s.  God damn, does Scott Steiner look like a fucking jacked Colonel Sanders in that photo.

I got nothing else.  X-Pac, lol.