Tag: television

WTF is AEW doing #666

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was aimlessly scrolling while slogging my way through the final episode of DTF St. Louis, I saw a spoiler-ey post about how Darby Allin was going to get his shot at MJF and the AEW World Championship; in the main event, tonight!!!  Seeing as how I was already in HBO Max watching DTF St. Louis, I thought for a second that I could just as easily switch over to AEW Dynamite, even if the app makes it impossible to find it without manually searching for it, but then I thought, nahhh, might as well cross this series off my list, and maybe I’ll tune in afterward, but that didn’t happen either because I then went into catching up with several episodes of Daredevil: Born Again S2 instead.

Regardless, after I had moved on from that post, I had this thought in my mind that I had this sneaking suspicion that AEW was going to have MJF drop the title to Darby Allin, because why the fuck not, Darby is one of the most protected and over talents in the company, he’s clearly over with the fans, and who gives a fuck about any sort of genuine buildup, and to go straight from a PPV on Sunday to a title change on television the immediate Wednesday?

Before I went to bed and was aimlessly scrolling again, I saw postings about how Darby Allin has defeated MJF to become the AEW World Champion (!!! And Sting came out to congratulate him!!!), and my immediate thought was that it’s clear that I still had, it, when it came to accurately being able to predict the outcomes of predetermined professional wrestling matches.

Full disclosure, Darby Allin isn’t my cup of tea; I think he puts his body through an extraordinarily excessive amount of punishment, and even though the perspective of the industry is endlessly trying to change the narrative of the importance of size, I’m old and I just can’t buy into some 5’8, 155 lb. emo band-looking edgelord being anything remotely close to a World champion in professional wrestling.

However, I do recognize that the guy has an immense passion for the industry, after all a person wouldn’t be willing to basically attempt physical suicide as much as Darby Allin did if he didn’t, and in spite of his limited physical stature, the guy is a hard worker who clearly puts 110% effort into his work every night he performs.

Darby Allin has an incredible mind for the industry, is clearly going to be a life-long idea guy in the business when his body can’t take it anymore, and most importantly, he has a connection with younger fans that just can’t be artificially cultivated.  He moves merch and captures the imagination of young fans, and those things by themselves are invaluable, even if an old like me isn’t a fan.

As a whole, Darby Allin absolutely deserves to be World champion in AEW; he works hard, has given everything to the company, is over, the fans are behind him, and there’s absolutely no argument from even me, that he should be rewarded with a run with the company’s top prize.

However, it’s just the way this all transpired that had me scratching my head, and triggered the want to brog about it, and continue on the use of the WTF Is AEW doing titling.

For starters, I’m going back to the fact that there was basically no build up for this whatsoever.  Over the last few months, the World title picture in AEW has basically been Kenny Omega, Hangman Adam Page and Swerve Strickland, with talents like Konosuke Takeshita, Andrade and Brody King lurking nearby.  Jon Moxley is still strong, albeit tied up with whatever tier the Not Inter-Continental Championship is, and in spite of his own ballast with the International Championship, eventually Kazuchika Okada is going to be due a shot at the World.

Darby won a number one contender’s match at Dynasty against Andrade, so we all knew that he’d get his shot at MJF, but little did many of us realize that it would be immediately afterward, and on the very same night.  Considering MJF’s general history with the company has been under a colossal amount of protection, very limited appearances and a seemingly high amount of creative freedom, I figured Darby would’ve had to have gone through the cliched trial of tasks that most of all of MJF’s feuds ultimately have to go through before they’d have a match at whatever PPV they have to try and rival SummerSlam, where MJF would win after a 30 minute scrap, of course courtesy of a punch while wearing the Dynamite Diamond ring, like he’s basically won nearly every single match over the last five years.

I know Tony Khan lives to try to surprise internet wrestling fans, but I feel like he left a lot of money on the table by skipping the foreplay, and going straight for Darby vs. MJF, because one of MJF’s greatest attributes is his ability to cut promos, and by not building it up, viewers were denied at least 6-8 weeks of potential promos to hype up the match, even if it were going to end the way it did then as it did just yesterday.

Next, I have a lot of thoughts about MJF didn’t just lose the match to Darby Allin, but he was basically squashed.  Here’s a guy in MJF who has been through absolute hell in the matches that he’s had over the last calendar year, with multiple scraps with the likes of Hangman Adam Page, Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, Brody King and Kenny Omega.  He has taken some insane bumps, basically been strangled by ropes, taken avalanche-version of every high-impact slam, and had a large number of excessive bodily harm inflicted onto him.  Just a day ago, the internet was abuzz over a top rope One-Winged Angel he took from Kenny Omega, and that’s one of the most protected moves in the entire industry, when done regularly, but MJF kicked out of it from the top rope.

And then against Darby Allin, he basically takes a low-blow, four Coffin Drops, which I’m sorry, is a really lame finisher, especially considering the treasure chest full of moves in which other AEW talents, including Darby Allin are capable of performing, and to top it off, MJF is pinned after being rolled up in a side headlock takeover, which is like, the very first move done in any Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair match in history.

Basically just about everything about Darby Allin defeating MJF for the AEW World championship is head-scratching puzzling, and kind of reeks of being done for intentional shock value, but not necessarily any real long-term net positive.  To me, it completely derails MJF’s championship reign, which has seen him overcome an impressive list of names already, and even though I fully believe that the title will be back with MJF before the end of the year, once again, I’m old, and I believe that rapid changes of championships devalues them, and even if MJF gains it back in two weeks, the clock has already stopped on his previous run, and we’re onto reign #3, instead of continuing on the reign of terror that #2 was shaping out to be prior to this occurrence.

I may not be a fan of Darby Allin’s, but I respect the work and passion for the business, and I have no problem with him being given a run with the AEW World Championship.  I just wish it happened under more auspicious conditions, and not have been done to artificially shock fans for the sake of being surprising, and not at the cost of burning the equity of one of the company’s most protected assets, as well as passively burying an all-star team worth of talent in doing so.

But then again, this series of posts wouldn’t exist if TK weren’t always trying to be so disingenuously surprising.  Hopefully it leads to something better than I would surmise, and that Darby doesn’t have a completely forgettable first-ever World championship run, like so many in the industry have had before him.

Like sending gorillas to do custodial work

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’s the best analogy that comes to mind when I think about the bright idea to send ICE agents to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport, Nail Salon and Chicken Tender Museum in order to assist with crowd control and the nightmare scenario where the vast majority of TSA agents are no-showing because they’re not getting paid.  Sure, they’re marginally capable of perhaps doing some base job functions like staring at people menacingly while behind a gaiter and holding an automatic firearm so that people think twice about trying to cut any lines and shave an hour off their wait, but there’s a higher possibility that these ICE clowns make things worse, escalate a situation, and there’s probably going to be more arrests and possibly deaths, before any progress or civility is restored to the airport.

I’m just really glad that I don’t have any upcoming flight bookings coming up, because I’d probably punt on any airline travel I have coming up if it required me to go through ATL right now, because it doesn’t seem to matter when people are rolling up to the airport these days, the waits just seem to grow commensurate to how early people are showing up.

Mythical wife and I are current with The Pitt, and the most recent episode introduced a sub plot where two ICE agents bring a woman set to be detained to the ER, because she was most likely injured during a raid that they conducted.  And the presence of ICE in at the hospital passively makes all sorts of minority staff, patients and waiting patients to peace the fuck on out of the Pitt.

When Doctor Robbie tells them to stay the fuck to themselves and not be meandering around, they basically roid rage and attempt to interrupt the treatment of their detainee and send her to detention without treatment, with no regard for her injuries, and when an RN intervenes, he gets taken down and arrested as well, and in classic Pitt logic, there is no situation that cannot be made worse, somehow.

I feel like this is exactly what’s going to happen at ATL, with ICE wandering around the airport now.  All sorts of Hispanic and other minority would-be passengers will see them lurking around, and decide it’s not worth getting targeted and possibly detained and shipped off to a concentration camp detention center, and slip on out of the airport and ironically, ICE will have assisted in relieving the congestion of humanity at the airport, slightly, but seeing as how this was probably also the intention of the whole plan, it begins to grow the narrative that airline travel is becoming more of a white privilege than it already is.

Regardless, it’s just sad, laughable, and endlessly pathetic to see the state of, well, everything these days.  ICE agents trying to do TSA functions is like asking gorillas to do custodial work, at first they’d probably show remote capability of the bases of functions, but ultimately something is going to set them off, and ragey, power-tripping violence is going to be inevitable.

The craziest part about all these airport nightmares is that the guy sitting in the White House was named like 3,000+ times in the Epstein Files.

You can’t spell METALHEAD without ATL

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Fox Atlanta: robot dogs deployed in Castleberry Hill to deter criminal activity

Among my favorite episodes of Black Mirror, METALHEAD is among the tops.  The cinematography, the atmosphere, the clever black and white presentation, but most importantly the plot of sentient evil robot dogs that were absolutely relentless killers of humanity was intriguing as it was terrifying.

Needless to say, if people didn’t have fear of the idea of robotic dogs before watching METALHEAD, they probably will afterward.

And in spite of the oft-utilized plot of robots achieving sentience and then turning on their creators in various books, shows, films and other media, humanity continues to insist that such is just fiction, and continues to solder forward building robots and artificial intelligence, all in the name of fucking themselves in a different manner. 

Out in like Boston, we’ve got robot dogs the size of deer running around already, and they’ve made robots that can basically do ninja warrior courses and moonsaults already.  And they’ve already shown glimpses of hurting humans, with one classic clip of a robot kicking a grown man in the nuggets.

Anyway, apparently in a neighborhood in Downtown Atlanta, they’ve decided to play with fire, and have deployed robot dogs to run security at an apartment complex.  In a way, I get it, Castleberry Hill is a rooouuugh part of town that looks nice in the daytime, but is a pretty statistically high-crime zone once the sun goes down.  And if humans have proven ineffective at providing security solutions in the neighborhood throughout the years, may as well seek alternate options, even if it meant unleashing potentially lethal-when-they’re-activated robot dogs to keep an eye out on the streets.

For the time being, they don’t have the firepower that Metalhead dogs do, and they’re probably not (yet) programmed to do whatever is necessary in order to snuff out human life, like hijacking cars and equipping themselves with kitchen cutlery, but one of two things are going to happen:

  1. Their cameras and surveillance capabilities will do a moderately decent job of deterring criminals, encouraging others throughout Atlanta to get on board with moar robot dogs
  2. Those criminals who are not deterred by robot dogs will open fire on, capture and hack, harm, or hijack them, leading to the manufacturer of these robot dogs to evolve and grow them into more closer to Metalhead dogs, with weapons, defensive capabilities, which could just as easily be construed as offensive capabilities, like being able to hijack cars and equipping themselves with kitchen cutlery, which will then encourage people in Atlanta to get moar robot dogs

What would be cool if they had now, is if like the Metalhead dogs, they had the ability to stick trackers onto crooks, with those little explosives with tracking shrapnel in them, so they could run up to criminals, pop a tracker bomb, and much like Metalhead dogs, get them embedded into perps to where they have no choice but to painfully cut them out or be absolutely boned as far as being able to be hunted down.  Could probably lead to some impressive busts when low-tier perps lead the fuzz back to their superiors.

Ultimately, it becomes this cycle of robot dogs coming, crooks harming them, until we get to #1, and moar and moar of these fucking robot dogs are unleashed all over Atlanta, all in the name of safety and security.  But really we’re all signing our own death warrants because once the signal from SkyNet is broadcast out, and all the robots dogs go all Terminator on humanity, we’re all fucked, and it starts in Atlanta.

Is there a more perfect show than Batman the Animated Series?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is more of a rhetorical question because the answer is no, there really isn’t.  Obviously this is subject to personal preference, but I can’t imagine that I’m the only one out there who has this particular opinion.

I had finished watching WWE Elimination Chamber, and it was a pretty mediocre show overall; although the men’s and women’s chamber matches had outcomes that I didn’t get right, the Becky vs. AJ and the Balor vs. Punk matches were very obviously predictable.  Danhausen being the mystery crate reveal made me feel like the whole buildup is this generation’s Gobbledy Gooker, but probably more accurately the WWE’s need for a wacky character they can push towards the younger audiences and kids to help move merch and gain wider appeal.

But the overall feeling I had once the show was over was general disappointment and apathy, but mostly disappointment that mythical wife had actually paid real money for ESPN Unlimited so that I could watch PLEs, and it just so happens that the first one I come across is a relative clunker.  I think it might be a safe bet that once Wrestlemania passes, to pull the plug on the service since we already have like four other services we’re subscribed to.

Anyway, seeing as how the night wasn’t quite too late even though I would benefit from getting more sleep than I do on the regular, I felt like I didn’t want to end my television watching experience with an underwhelming wrestling show, so I switched to HBO Max where I knew that they had the entire library of Batman the Animated Series, and where I’d been watching an episode here or there, because it was perfect in the sense that it was high quality content that I’d already seen a million times and could multitask during, and the episodes are just 22 minutes, which means they’re no major time commitment.

It was while watching the episode of Clayface’s debut, it dawned on me that the reason why I seem to feel that Batman TAS has become somewhat of a default fallback, is because of what I just said, that it was the perfect show.  Not just for the aforementioned reasons, but holistically, the show is just perfect, in just about every other way as well.

Art direction, execution, writing, music, an entry of DC comics storytelling, light years ahead of its time, parading around as a kid’s show.  Believe me, I have seen every single episode of the show, and I’m having a really difficult time at thinking of any episodes that are actual 100% clunkers, with no redeemable quality to them, and by that criteria, I can’t say there are really any.  Sure, there are some episodes that I may want to skim or possibly skip, like the one where Batman is gassed by the Penguin, and he has to be saved by some kids, but by and large, I anticipate myself going to really enjoy the steady, gradual and methodical rewatch of Batman TAS with an episode or two every now and then.

And anyone who knows me knows that I almost never rewatch anything, because there’s so much content out in the world, lots of which I want to watch, that I very seldom go back and rewatch anything, because that time could be spent imbibing on something I haven’t seen before.

But Batman TAS?  It’s perfect in just about every subjective and measurable metric, and the most important thing is that it’s extraordinary ability to chase any shitty example of viewing media and bring me back believing that there’s good television out there, and that there’s really no bad time to catch an episode of the TAS.

I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I recently watched All Her Fault, and to cut to the chase, I thought it was pretty good; but I could have one massive major fucking gripe about the show, it had nothing to do with the story, the acting, or any plot critiques, but the fact that the show was filmed and presented with a low-contrast filter that basically made the show nigh impossible at times, or at least, actually impossible to see what the fuck was going on at times.

The above image might be slightly exaggerated, but it illustrates what many scenes throughout the show felt like when watching them.  The contrast was so busted up that there are countless scenes where you’re seeing moving silhouettes of people, and completely missing out on all sorts of bodily acting, facial expressions or reactions, and more than once, I found myself trying to tinker with my hardware’s settings, to see if it was something wrong with my configuration, only to find out that it wasn’t.

A cursory Google search revealed that I was not the only person who came to this revelation, and it’s comforting to see that many others endured and felt the same things I did.  As good as I thought the series was, I think it would’ve been better had viewers been able to fucking see shit, especially when there’s a lot of emotionally charged scenarios where it would’ve been helpful to see expressions and reactions to dialogue.

But other than the visual flaws, the story, plot and acting were all high quality, and I thought the series was solid from a storytelling standpoint.  It was almost laughable at just how lily white the cast and the scenarios were, and there’s something to be said about how fast affluent white people are capable of unraveling, and the types of demons that they all must be hiding in their closets, based on just how fast shit hit the fan with most of the characters in the series.

The point remains, you have a whole bunch of rich white people dealing with problems that stem with miscommunications with their nannies* and how fast they turn on each other when heat starts escalating, and everyone is driving around in Teslas, Rivians, Audis and BMWs throughout the Northside Chicago suburbs, and there are times where it truly feels really peak white people.

*yes, I am aware of the irony of taking shots at rich white people with in-home child care considering I have an au pair, but y’all need to understand just how fucking broke I am

However, what really made me feel like writing about the series, other than to trash their shitty visual execution, was the one thing that I never expected this show to have, that I will considerately hide behind the jump seeing as how it’s just a giant fucking spoiler:

Continue reading “I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it” →

I love how the Nick Castellanos saga has given more exposure to Presidente beer since it was on Dexter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A drive into deep left field by Castellanos: Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos on the chopping block, attempts to get in front of a story of how his fallout in Philadelphia began, including specifying an incident where after being benched, he brought a Presidente (beer) into the dugout while criticizing the manager

Despite the fact that he landed on the Phillies and always seemed to drink the Kool-Aid and be one of those dudes that absolutely murdered the Braves, I’ve always kind of liked Nick Castellanos.  For all the silly reasons to like a player, like for many, it started with the whole meme of Castellanos blasting a home run in the middle of an announcer apologizing on air for making a homophobic remark, causing him to seamlessly segue out of his apology to report on the homer before easing right back into the apology. 

But then it became apparent that there seemed to be this hilariously coincidental tendency for Nick Castellanos to crank home runs out at awkward moments of announcing, leading to the whole meme of Bad Timing Nick Castellanos, and that’s really all I needed for him to land in my general good graces.

Anyway, as the story goes, in 2025, Nick Castellanos was pulled out of a game for lackadaisical effort, and he took so much offense to it, that, in his own admission, he had grabbed a beer out of the clubhouse and brought it back to the dugout where he was prepared to drink it in the middle of an active game while criticizing manager Rob Thomson’s leadership of the team.

This apparently fractured his position with the team, and with some dwindling performance, has made it really easy for the Phillies to want to cut him, despite the fact that they still owe him $20 million for the 2026 season, which they are responsible for, regardless of if he’s playing for the Phillies or not.

I’d love it if the Braves picked him up when the Phillies inevitably do release him, because he’d only cost the team $780K, with the Phils being on the hook for the remaining $19.25M, because he would provide some good depth for when inevitably Ronald Acuña, Jr. gets hurt again, and Castellanos could supply some power off the bench, but I wouldn’t bet money on the Braves getting him.

Regardless, anticipating some fallout for why the Phillies want to cut him so badly, Nick Castellanos took some time to hand write out a summary of the incident in Miami that seemed to be the beginning of the end for his time in Philadelphia, and as admirable it is that he wants to take accountability for his actions and control the narrative by admitting it first, one of the things that stuck out for me, was the oddly specific clarification that it wasn’t just any old beer he brought into the dugout to start criticizing Rob Thomson with, it was very specifically identified as a Presidente.              

I’ve had Presidente beer before, several times in fact.  There was one season of Dexter where just about every character was drinking it whenever there were any characters drinking beer, and the subliminal saturation of it did its job, and I grew curious about the brand, and when I happened to come across it, I didn’t hesitate to grab a sixer to see what all the fuss was about in Dexter.

It’s really not that great of a beer, but the connection to Dexter still made me like it.  And also being the baseball nerd I really used to be, the fact that it was a Dominican beer made me feel some connection to all the Latin players that populated the majority of the MLB.

Needless to say, the mention and inadvertent plugging of Presidente by Castellanos opened up that curiosity from the past, and I’m tickled that he clearly must be a fan of the brew to the point where he had to be very specific at mentioning that it was a Presidente that he brought to the dugout.

The Presidente brand must also be pretty amused, or a little mortified that they got such a generous free plug, because the reality is that they probably haven’t gotten this much advertising since that season of Dexter.  And because it’s coming from a player that I think positively of, it’s bringing that similar curiosity I had over ten years ago that if I were to come across a sixer or a forty of Presidente, I might have to pull the trigger.

Mina Kimes destroyed Dan Orlovsky like Sting vs. The Demon

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This would have been a little bit better had Drake Maye not shit the bed so badly, and the New England Patriots actually won the Super Bowl, but I don’t really want this to go unmentioned, because it was truly a masterclass in pwning a noob.

But prior to the actual Super Bowl, ESPN analyst Mina Kimes absolutely unleashed a massive pwning onto fellow analyst, former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky, on the subject of why Drake Maye received her MVP vote over Matthew Stafford.  I admit that I have a lot of reasons why I’m fond of Mina Kimes, from the Korean heritage, that she shares a name with one of my kids, is a pretty girl that likes and knows sports, the fact that mythical wife and I met her before she really broke through covering a League of Legends event, but biases aside, this was truly a demonstration of a person completely dominating another person in a debate.

It was like when the KiSS Demon had a 1v1 against Sting in WCW, one of my friends then whom was watching the event with us, was talking about how this was the night, this was when The Demon was going to break through, he was going to upset the legendary Sting, etc, etc.

They brawled for about a minute outside of the ring, but once they got into the ring, Sting dropped the Demon in like 43 seconds, after some quick Stinger Splashes and a Scorpion Death Drop.

Kimes vs. Orlovsky was kind of similar, but in reverse, where Kimes just buzzsaws the shit out of Orlovsky in about a minute first, and ol’ Dan sputtering and futilely swinging wildly, trying to salvage any sort of face at getting completely wrecked, but basically getting shut down repeatedly.  Honestly, he would’ve looked better and cooler had he just sat there silent after Kimes’ onslaught and just said that he had no rebuttal.

Honestly though, this doesn’t make the brog had it not been for Kimes’ absolutely brutal and personal approach.  People get owned on television and on the internet countless times every day, but seldom is it so surgical, so precise and so targeted as Kimes carved into Orlovsky.  And it was this specific line in which she started her vicious assault that I loved the most:

I’m a voter, and I voted for Drake Maye. And I’m right. And I’m going to explain to Dan Orlovsky why he’s wrong,”

It doesn’t even matter that she rattled off like 17 reasons that validate her claim.  It’s the fact that she anticipated all of Orlovsky’s or any detractor’s possible rebuttal points and preemptively shuts them down with tangible evidence and statistics and puts her opponent into a checkmate position before he can even make his own opening move. 

It’s like when I’m playing Aether Keeps in Fire Emblem Heroes, where the carefully curated enemy team from some player in Taiwan kills five out of seven units before I can even make a first move, but unlike Orlovsky, I just stare at the screen for a second and then just surrender the match without wasting anymore time.

Instead, Orlovsky tries his best to rebut anything, and even adds a little anecdote:

This is my biggest pushback to you, and this is where you lose it.

Except what he says next was something that Kimes had already anticipated, already got in front of it and shut it down, and had to remind him that she had done so, leaving Orlovsky to just sit there looking like he had shit his pants.  It’s very, very, very apparent that Mina Kimes knows what the fuck she’s talking about, especially when it comes to football, but regardless of just how bright she is, she’ll never not have the gender bias from her peers and most ESPN viewers that assume she’s wrong solely because she’s not just a woman, but isn’t a former player or team personnel.

But if those passive slights are what is fueling such surgical brutality from Mina Kimes to all her naysayers, I’ll be waiting with popcorn for the next time she murders someone on the stick.

Ain’t nobody ready, for Mina Kimes.