Tag: wrestling

WTF is AEW doing #301

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Originally, I was planning on carving out some time to write about WTF is AEW doing after the debut of Kazuchika Okada on a seemingly random episode of Dynamite.  But with the impending arrival that nobody could see coming in Mercedes Mone, I decided to wait until the episode aptly subtitled BIG BU$INE$$ passed by, so that I could actually watch the product for the first time in a while before passing judgment onto it.

But going back to Okada, the man was basically the John Cena of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, the ultimate good guy character, highly decorated, and a strong worker, and it was a big deal in the wrestling community when news started bubbling up that his contract with NJPW was coming to an end.

Frankly, I figured he was going to re-sign with the company because it would be a great folly for any promotion to lose their flagship player, but news started emerging that he just mentally done with Japan, and wanted to take his talents abroad to America.  I thought it was a pretty even jump ball on whether he’d go to the WWE or AEW, but really it he was AEW’s free agent to lose.  I just thought that there was a chance he’d come to the E, because love them or hate them, the WWE is still the top of the mountain, and a career can hardly be called a career unless you’ve participated in Wrestlemania, and considering Okada was basically NJPW Jesus, you know money isn’t so much his drive as it is honor, accolade and legacy, and if really wanted those things, he would have to go to the WWE.

But as frequently boasted on the internet as well as, on-screen, AEW gave Okada 14 million reasons to come to AEW instead, and he’s also using his general comfort and familiarity with many of the workers, the infrastructure he got to see during the last two Forbidden Door shows, and Kazuchika Okada is poundsign-ALLELITE.

So naturally, they take the guy who’s basically never been a heel in his career and immediately align him with the dastardly power-tripping EVP version of the Young Bucks, and bring out Okada to be, a heel.  Sure, this will allow the Bucks to be his mouthpiece to make up for his weak English, but they’re already taking a guy out of his comfort zone and presenting him to an audience that they’re grossly overestimating at their knowledge of Okada, as this asshole from Japan who’s doing everything for the money.

And in a promotion that has Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC and Chris Jericho, among other notably active strong workers, Okada’s first feud appears to be against Eddie Kingston, a current triple-blet holder, that I personally can’t get over his sheer lack of physique and general not looking like a wrestler, to take seriously as one, but AEW fans seem to be really high on him, because I guess he gives okay promos, but still, I feel like it’s a real bumpy start for a guy the caliber of Okada, to come in and steamroll the generally well-protected Kingston.

Which in itself is going to be interesting, because Kingston has been beating reputable guys left and right over the last few months, including most of the names listed above, and it’s very apparent that he’s going to roll over for Okada, and frankly much like FTR a year ago, I think his run with multiple blets is coming to an end, as he’ll probably drop his whatever blet against Okada, followed by the ROH World Title to the still-sentimental favorite Mark Briscoe.

All I really know is that while watching BIG BU$INE$$ where there was a six-man tag match with Okada and the Bucks against Kingston, PAC and Penta, I almost fell asleep.  Sure, a lot has to do with my general lifestyle and always being tired on account of work and parenting, but also the fact that the match made little sense in terms of storyline.  I get that they’re kind of easing Okada into the promotion by having him do tag matches and learning what the crowds and the full-time AEW atmosphere is like, but they’re also putting out boring-ass product in the process.

It’s clear Okada has no idea what he’s doing as a heel, because his trademark music hits, and the guy just walks out like Dean Malenko without any of his posing or grandstanding he did as NJPW’s Rainmaker, and he just looks really lost out there.  And frankly a match with as much talent in the ring as this one was on paper, should not have been as boring and meaningless as this was.

Honestly, as big of a deal as Okada’s migration was on the internet, AEW somehow managed to take the biggest star of Japan, and somehow make him look like a luxury cog in the machine.  I feel like Shinsuke Nakamura’s transition into the WWE is the blueprint of how to bring an import over, and I feel like AEW grossly overestimated their audience’s familiarity with him, because I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the casual AEW fan doesn’t know who he actually is at all, and now they’re seeing someone who’s just kind of performing mid, and will have to dig out of a hole to earn the respect of the causals.

Turns out that I did have a lot more to say about Okada than I thought I did, because I feel like I’m at a good stopping point for this post, and can take some time later to opine on Mercedes Mone, because as critical as I’ve been about her over the last year and change, I still am a fan of hers and want to see her succeed, and on that same note, I’d rather have a post about Mercedes be solely about Mercedes, and not be buried behind a wall of text about Okada.

Happy trails, Virgil

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Lonely no more: Mike Jones, better known as former WWE wrestler, Virgil, passes away at the age of 61

I know it seems like every single wrestler from yesteryear that passes away was a favorite of mine in some way shape or fashion, and after twenty years of brogging, there’s no shortage of wrestler eulogies that I’ve written in my own way, at this point.

But Virgil, this guy, was truly a guy that I can’t say was necessarily a favorite of mine, but he was something of an icon in his own way, that I was fixated with, pretty much from the time I learned of his existence until the day he passed.

When I first got into wrestling, a lot of it had to do with the fact that I actually got into a WWF video game first, the arcade version of WWF Superstars, before I actually parlayed it into indulging in the real life variant of the game on television, into the life-long fandom that still maintain today. 

In the game, the final bosses were the tag team of “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant; but before you actually started playing against them, there’s like a 12-second cutscene prior to the match where you see “Mean Gene” Okerlund interviewing both DiBiase and Andre, but also standing with them was a jacked black guy in a shiny tuxedo counting money.

When I started watching wrestling, and the first time I laid eyes on the real-life Million Dollar Man, sure enough, there was the same jacked black guy accompanying him, holding the money, and that was when I first learned of the existence of the real-life Virgil.

Little did I know that he was named Virgil, as a personal attack from Vince McMahon to rival promoter/booker/wrestler Dusty Rhodes, whose real name was actually Virgil, and in only a manner that could come from Vince McMahon, he slapped basically a slave persona onto a black man and called him Virgil.

But throughout the years, it became quickly apparent that despite Virgil’s imposing stature and menacing scowl, he was tantamount to the WWF’s punching bag to the stars, and in just a few short years of getting into wrestling, I’d seen Virgil get his ass beat by Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man Randy Savage, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan among others.  He was a jobber before I even knew what a jobber was, a term I wouldn’t learn until like 12 years later.

Continue reading “Happy trails, Virgil” →

When news ≠ reality

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

News: Hulk Hogan channels the power of Hulkamania, lifts wrecked car, rescues teenage driver, cures cancer while he’s at it, completely by himself

Reality: Hulk Hogan present at the scene of an accident while most likely his friend more than likely did the actual work of pulling a teenage driver out of a flipped vehicle

You’d think a story like this would get me out of my seat and prepare to strap in and mark out about how amazing and wonderful the power of Hulkamania is and how great Hulk Hogan is, but let’s not kid ourselves anymore.  As much as I love the idea of Hulk Hogan and Hulkamania living forever, the guy himself, Terry Bollea is far from a perfect human being in his own right; made no more prevalent then the NYPost giving him the professional athlete treatment, and inserting this snippet into the footer, much like a baseball player’s statistics in any story that has nothing to do with sport:

WWE released Hogan from his contract in 2015 after audio from a sex tape revealed him uttering the n-word and saying he was “racist, to a point.” He apologized for his remarks.“

I’m not sure how any of that has anything to do with being a Good Samaritan and stopping at the scene of an accident, but in the grand spectrum of things, it was still pretty cool of Hulk Hogan to stop and give a degree of assistance, up for interpretation.

I think the funniest thing is that Hogan hogs the tagline, as if he himself did a completely selfless and heroic act, and that he and only he, lifted the vehicle with his 28” pythons and the power of Hulkamania coursing through his veins, and rescued a damsel in distress.  Obviously this isn’t necessarily by any fault of Hogan himself, a rag like the Post knows what they have to do in order to draw page views.

I have to imagine the actual reality is more along the lines of his friend, who supposedly is a veteran, along for the ride, sees the accident occur, and his protect instinct kicked in and he wanted to act.  And Hogan, always the politician and puppeteer and his (third) wife probably immediately seeing an opportunity to soak up some positive press and get the Hogan name back out into the public eye didn’t hesitate to be on board.

But then you see the few photos of the scene, and it looks pretty clear that Hulk Hogan himself, in an nWo shirt no less, is just kind of standing around and watching.  The friend, who looks younger and fitter, probably is the one who did all of the work, but solely by being the celebrity in the scene, Hulk Hogan gets to absorb the lion’s share of the credit for the act of heroism.

I’m not going to shit on the Hulkster any more than this, but it’s just funny how Hogan, whether he’s trying to or not, still somehow manages to always stay relevant in some way shape or fashion, and this is a good example of it.  All things considered, it was cool that he stopped at all, because I can’t imagine that most people these days want to get involved, and are more apt to drive off and feign ignorance rather than help out.

Praise for TNA’s blet refresh

~ 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

~ 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.

WTF is AEW doing #256

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently there was an AEW pay-per-view today, Full Gear.  I’m not writing as such to throw shade, frankly I lose track of when WWE or anyone else has shows either, and I’m extra salty that I missed a GCW that was at my favorite venue to watching wrestling in Atlanta, so I’m not trying to deliberately sound dismissive of AEW like I sometimes do.

Upon reading a summary of the event, there’s plenty that definitely warrants the title of his post series, because I really often am curious just WTF AEW is actually doing sometimes with their booking and storytelling.

Frankly, MJF as this babyface seems lame, and the guy is way better at being a heel rather than this babyface scumbag, and the entire promotion seemingly has no idea what to do with all these hotshots they’re bringing in like Jay White.  Will Ospreay joining AEW seemed like an obvious outcome, seeing as how he still feels like there’s art to make, before he inevitably goes to the WWE to make the big bucks.

But not to completely shit everything AEW does, I have to say that I’m a big fan of what they’re doing with Timeless Toni Storm, and I love the transformation she’s done into the black and white retro starlet, and her character work has been outstanding, and she’s easily among the most entertaining performers they have from the second the camera starts rolling on her to when she leaves the screen.  Glad that they’ve put the Women’s championship back on her, and in her current character iteration, I’m optimistic that this reign might actually stick for a little bit.

However, there was a specific match that served as the impetus to this post, and in fact within this match, there was a specific spot, that really got the gears grinding, and wondering not just WTF is AEW doing, so much as it’s WTF Hangman Adam Page?

During his Texas Death Match with Swerve Strickland, both dudes are bloodied up, as AEW loves to have everyone bleed as if they’re trying to transmit transmissible diseases on purpose, but at one point, Hangman Adam Page drinks the blood of Swerve.  He spits it out like Triple H spits out water, but the point remains, he forces the blood of another human being into his mouth, lets it swish around, and even though he spits it out, it’s still very much in his digestive system and eventual blood stream.  Even if both men are healthy and clean, there’s a tremendous number of red flags that go up upon simply describing the act of allowing another human being’s blood into your own mouth, on purpose no less.

Generally, I’m cool with Hangman Adam Page, because I think he’s a really good worker, seemingly chill and cool guy based on his conduct on social media and the persona he projects, but not going to lie, this spot does pock my opinion of him a little bit, and thinking there’s some screws loose and maybe he himself has taken one too many chair shots in his career.

In this day and age, performers are most definitely allowed to veto a spot when walking through the general summaries of what should happen in a match.  Sure, it’s easy to say that Tony Khan suggested it, but Hangman has enough clout and equity in the company to where he probably would be fine if he said “you know, I’m not comfortable drinking another man’s blood,” and TK would probably acquiesce.  But this spot still happening means that there’s a part of Hangman that is dumb enough to think this would be a good spot, and I’m a little bit disturbed by his agreeance to do it.

It doesn’t make him look strong in defeat, it doesn’t make him any more respectable than he already was, all it really does for me is think he’s not as intelligent as I thought he might be seeing as how he was a teacher prior to wrestling.  It’s gross, its unsafe, and no knock on Swerve, but if they weren’t careful, whatever Swerve has, Hangman now has, for deliberately taking another person’s blood into their mouth for the sake of entertaining a bunch of fickle wrestling fans.

AEW has done some bonkers shit in their short time span, ironically both spots coming in separate Omega vs. Moxley deathmatches; when Omega forced Moxley to injest “glass” and the hilarious “exploding” ring after their second death match, but I’m going to have to go out a limb and say that I think Hangman Adam Page drinking Swerve Strickland’s blood is going to have to take the title for the dumbest spot in the company’s history now.

Maybe AEW should make a blet for that too.

The return of Sasha Banks is afoot

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

You heard it here first: the journey of the return of Sasha Banks has begun.  Obviously, I’m not really in tune with the industry as much these days, but every now and then I like to try and flex some of my old Oracle™ predicting power to see just how much the same the wrestling industry is no matter how much things seem like they’ve changed throughout the course of time.

When I saw that Kairi Sane had returned to the WWE and immediately gotten back with Iyo Sky, I didn’t think much of it.  But when I heard and then saw that Asuka had flipped and joined up with Kairi and Iyo, into Bayley’s Damage CTRL stable, I began to think, hmm.  Considering the long-storytelling here, and the obvious outnumbering of Bayley and an injured Dakota Kai, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before the Japanese girl-trio turns on Bayley and kicks her out of her own stable, and killing it in the process.

Charlotte has been the frequent victim to this new union, and now Bayley will be out on her own.  Somehow, Becky Lynch will get entangled in this affair, mostly because Iyo is a Women’s champion and that will be the clause needed to bring them all together despite differing show affiliation, and now we’ve got a nice little even three-on-three going on, after some reluctant teaming between the three of them which will hopefully be told in a manner that doesn’t treat the fans like idiots.

But obviously, something will feel missing the entire time, because there will be someone who is missing from the whole equation from the Four Horsewomen, and this is where I would be willing to wager, that if the rumors are true, and Giulia from NJPW/Stardom does sign with the WWE, she’ll be the fourth member to Japanese girl-squad, and it becomes all but inevitable that Sasha Banks has to make her return to the WWE at this point.

Perhaps it’s The RAW after Wrestlemania™, or maybe even sooner, maybe later, like next year’s Survivor Series or a War Games event separate, but at this point, I would wager that within the next calendar year, we should expect to see Sasha Banks return to the WWE.  As known as the Four Horsewomen name is, the stable has never been made official, the team has never competed simultaneously, and the company hasn’t merch’d or marketed them as such, and this would be as good as time as any for them to do so, especially when there would be a super-talented stable of Japanese girls to work with.

All of them get to start a new chapter in their careers, and it seems like good timing for all four Horsewomen to do such, considering Charlotte and Becky are kind of floating around in limbo, Bayley can probably do some entertaining work gradually phasing back into a face persona, and Sasha can steal all the spotlight with a grand hero’s return, en route to being the one who moves on with a championship.

The stars are not yet in alignment, but they’re all swirling around close enough to where it’s not going to take a lot to make it all work out.  The real challenge really will be trying to keep things under wraps, because once Becky joins up with Charlotte and Bayley, it’s going to be pretty obvious that Sasha is coming back, and knowing the WWE’s obsession with creating moments and surprises, anything short of a hero’s return might be enough to stall the inevitable.

The point is, from the day she left, I always predicted that it was never a matter of if, but when Sasha Banks comes back to the WWE, and I strongly feel like the wheels for that return have just begun moving.  It’s hard to get a straight answer from the internet, but to my knowledge, Mercedes Mone is basically a free agent since she was supposedly doing a per-appearance arrangement with NJPW, and considering how long she’s been out with an ankle issue, the timing seems appropriate for her to be able to make a return within the next few months.