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I do believe we have our first openly gay WWE superstar ever: Darren Young. Good on ya, Darren! http://www.tmz.com/2013/08/15/darren-young-wwe-superstar-gay/

That TOTALLY fits his gimmick. He didn't say how many kids he has after all... that could just be from this weekend's mandatory visitation.

The key word is "openly". Pat Patterson was well-known backstage to be gay, and on the internet, but was never "openly" out there. Right, that's why Jim Ross said stuff like. "And he's single, fellas!" Still...that's not really "openly" gay. Especially in light of wrestling's history of denigrating heels as homosexual (I mean, Goldust turned face by revealing he wasn't "queer"!), Ross insinuating that Patterson, a heel, is gay, isn't really declaring someone as openly gay. I mean, you could use this same line of reasoning to say that John Cena was openly gay because The Rock said as much. Or how many heels John Cena has suggested are gay. Also, to people saying "So what?", "It's not a big deal", etc. etc. It IS a big deal. It certainly is STILL a big deal. Hopefully, one day, it won't be. Hopefully one day there will just bs some people who are straight, some who are gay etc. etc. But you need only to look at the upcoming Olympics in Russia to see that, yeah, it IS still a big deal to come out as openly gay. And hopefully Young isn't punished for this. And hopefully Young has the courage to stand up and go "Yeah, so what?" And, hopefully, in the not too distant future, media won't have to ask wrestlers, athletes, celebrities and the like this question, because it isn't a question anymore and people are just gay like other people are not gay, and it's no big deal. But, yeah, at this moment in time, this is a big deal. Nice work, Darren!

Wait one second. This is PG WWE/F we're talking about. He's the first openly "Bizarre" superstar in the WWE. Nope.

I actually hope they don't make his character gay because it's pigeonholing the guy. IE Neal Patrick Harris is gay but he plays straight characters and gay characters. Just because a wrestler is gay doesn't mean his character suddenly has to come out too.

I think the story here is that someone recognized Darren Young

Good on Darren Young. More tolerance and acceptance of others makes for a better world.

isnt shannon moore both?

What I hope happens from this: PTP are turned face, and pushed as 2 friends with no damn flamboyant awkward Rico/Haas stuff. Just two guys who are friends with the sexuality difference not being a factor. If they Rawhide Kid this I'll punch something.

"I got ups! WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA"I like that he's doing the old Steve Martin arrow through the head bit.

How dare you. That was the Raw moment of the year.

To people saying NBD because of Pat Patterson...he was winkingly acknowledged as being gay in the most sneering, condescending, gay-panicky ways possible. Sure, he had backstage power and wasn't held back on the basis of his sexuality, but guys like Jim Ross went out of their way to make sure everyone knew it was Not Okay. See also: Goldust, Billy and Chuck, the Rock implying every opponent he ever faced was a nancyboy. If they handle the DY thing right, it will be a big deal. As for what they should do, I'd say acknowledge it in passing and then move on. If they have to turn it into a story, the best bet really might be to turn them face by having some obnoxious heel (any of 3MB would work) pull out one of good ol' JR's shitty lines and letting Titus beat the ever-loving shit out of the guy and ask if anybody else has a problem with his partner. Biggest actual Be A Star move they can pull off.

WWE is really good at making something lame really fast.

I don't give two shits about this story, but this is funny.

I want to punch that watermark in the face

That's what he said.

Thanks to everyone for the kinds words. Actually had a mini-meltdown yesterday at work when a girl made a "your mother" joke for no reason. Everything hit me like a ton of bricks, but I called my mother and got a lot of shit off my plate. Cathartic.

@RebySky: This wkend: Ric Flair accidentally walks into girls locker room & quickly closes the door, reopens & yells WOOO ! Then quickly closes again

Ugh, that reminds me of that awful sitcom with Harry Anderson playing someone who was supposed to be Dave Berry.

Yeah, I hated Super 8. I didn't see the logic of the kids trying to help an alien whose mission in the film was to secure enough human beings to serve as a daily source of protein and iron for its diet while heading back to its home planet. The whole "It's as frightened of us as we are of it," bullshit didn't keep it from stalking and trapping townsfolk to use as human lunchables. Scared of us, my ass. I could not fathom the depth of sympathy this alien generated with the kids. It was fucking eating the people that lived in their town. We were cattle to that goddamned spider critter. It did not need to be communicated with or reasoned with or understood; it needed to be set on fire. I don't care how much you hate the town drunk, the asshole bully on your bus that takes your lunch money, or the strict dad on the corner that doesn't like you hanging around his daughter. They don't deserve to be eaten alive by a giant spider alien. Maybe the mysterious US government folks the movie tries its best to demonize were in the right when they wanted to dissect that thing like a frog in science class? And the ending? Holy shit. You've got ET Go Home triumphant symphony music playing while the alien is delivering the final Fuck You to humanity by setting off tank shells and making the town explode. Fuck that alien and fuck that movie. We shoulda fired every nuke we had at those assholes as they left orbit. You don't try to make The Day The Earth Stood Still with The Thing From Another World or the Ymir from Twenty Million Miles to Earth.

Or they can go the route of remembering that wrestlers play characters and he can keep chanting MILLIONS OF DOLLARS I haven't exactly been chomping at the bit for them to justify why the rapey fire demon is a Libertarian.

The seeds may already be in motion for that. Titus just posted this:I'm VERY PROUD of @DarrenYoungWWE He's been like Family 2Me&My Kids And that won't Change! #ImInFullSupportOfDarren Dude, Titus is like 6'6" and that kid on the right who looks about 9 is up to his armpit. Forget the FCW roster, sign HIM.

This is going to be a cross genre, possibly convoluted comparison, but I think the same thing that happened with Puroresu happened with rap after 2pac and Biggie died. Instead of trying to find new unique talents that brought something new to the table, they decided to try to fill the vacuum with imposters and substitutes. They should have been looking for young guys who are talented, fundamentally sound, and unique. Instead they watched 90s NJPW Jrs. and AJPW Heavyweights and focused on the flashy dives and suplexes and missed everything that held them together and made them special. So they basically shaved a couple guys heads, put bandanas on them and just assumed it would work. Thankfully, it seems like there are some guys are beginning to see that the most important parts of wrestling are the parts that are unseen. Sometimes taking an extra second or two to sell the last suplex makes the next suplex mean more. Doing a moonsault after being in a figure four looks good, but makes no sense based on the story being told in the ring. Hip-hop suffered from believing that people liked 2pac and Biggie because they were thugs or ballers, and not because they were extremely charismatic, talented songwriters who could make good music. Puroresu suffered from thinking that people watched because they were flipping out of the ring and dropping each other on their heads instead of the fact that they had wrestlers who did everything to tell a compelling story in the ring. Hopefully that makes some sense to someone other than me.

I don't see why they can't keep the Prime Time Players together with them swimming in a sea of women AND men. That's even more awesome.

Trash was awesome. "What" was always lame.

Somewhere, Orlando Jordan is throwing things, saying this should be his spot.

The really question what does Zeb think of this?

I don't understand; did he win a prize?

I haven't watched this movie in eons, but it turns out the original PIRANHA is really packed with awesome character actors. Just a huge amount of history there. They pop up and disappear at a startling rate. I'm guessing this is a Joe Dante thing. To the drugged out "turned on" hippies of the 1978 drive-ins they were just a bunch of funny-looking "geezers" and "narcs" and "squares." But if you look past that you see deep careers that stretch back across a century. So, here is the first installment in a series I'd like to call "AWESOME ACTORS HIDDEN IN THE CAST OF PIRANHA" (Also why does everyone in the movie pronounce it "Piranya"?) Installment #1 Richard Deacon. Barely minutes in and we get a 1 minute scene with this wonderfully awesome looking dude. Here he is in his cameo scene from PIRANHA: How do you not love a face like that? His voice is massively familiar-sounding if you see the movie. And it turns out for good reason. He was part of Jack Benny's old radio crew who made the transition to t.v.. Here he is as a salesman in an excerpt from one of the greatest comedy bits of all time, where Jack Benny drives Mel Blanc insane buying a christmas present. He's one of those guys who spent his life playing one part..uptight salesman, business man, doctor, beureaucrat and mean boss on everything from THE MUNSTERS (and THE ADAMS FAMILY) to GET SMART, BURNS AND ALLEN, THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, THE LOVE BOAT...all the way up to his final role in GROWING PAINS as "mean ticket seller" which I assumed meant he caught Mike Seaver and Boner trying to sneak into a R-rated movie...until I looked it up to find that it was the alternate title of a B-movie originally called BAD MANNERS and starring a teenaged Pamela Adlon [aka the hottest woman on earth as of this writng or so] from LOUIE). In the process of all this he ran with some of the greatest comedians of all time (Benny, George Burns, Lucille Ball, Dick van Dyke, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason, Phyllis Diller, ....) and was a regular part of a number of important comedy "cliques" in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Some comedy nerds will remember him best from is recurring role as essentially the Ted Baxter/Dan Fielding of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnO__-Onzo Or as the mean neighbor Fred Rutherford on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER. But most awesomely, Richard Deacon was a regular panel member on all the best game shows of the 70s: $10,000 PYRAMID: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aadYDIsB17o MATCH GAME '77: not to mention HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. As a kid, he was stricken with Polio and almost lost the use of his legs. He rehabbed by taking dancing lessons and ended up trading lines with Bob Barker, Nipsy Russell, and Rip Taylor. This automatically makes him 1000x cooler than hippie icon James Franco who will never be on any of those. So FUCK YOU, JAMES FRANCO! This man: > James Franco (Yes, that is Richard Deacon clowning around with Mary Tyler Moore)

Since if I don't, someone else will.... Teddy Hart. Cat army

But we love you! I'm more of a well-wisher, in that I don't wish him any specific harm.

I really hate all of you

Pretty much the same thing that happens to every thread.

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Also known as: Life...all life.

FIGURATIVELY is right there! It loves you and wants to have (figuratively) 10,000 of your babies, America.

Hey, Dolph the Loser.....that works too.

This group of students at an Irish language school in Ireland have been covering a number of relatively mainstream songs - seems to have been getting a lot of buzz. That annoying Cups song from Pitch Perfect

Is mixed the right word? I really don't think we're supposed to be talking about this.

Ziggler is cringey at best in a pro wrestling environment, the idea that he'd be a Hollywood star is mind blowing.

"I got ups! WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA"

Nothing to worry about. Just, when you're eating your strudel, make sure to think happy thoughts.

Wait. I didn't know we were allowed to book armies, prides, colonies, etc. In that case the Wyatts should have a giant fireant hill in ahuge glass case that they wheel out and throw their opponents into. Heath Slater can then try to one-up them with a single piranha in a baggie full of water while complaining that the company wouldn't give him the budget for anything more.

Man McDonalds totally missed the boat on a Ken Patera campaign like that.

But we love you! I'm more of a well-wisher, in that I don't wish him any specific harm. The Simpsons soul mate quote gets you off the list.

Fuck it I'm in. Go Raccoon.

It was actually Overly Critical Man, whoever that is, but I am sticking to my guns. World's changing Matt. Punches are out, old chum. It's all about lungblowers and back crackers. I'm actually not a big punches guy, or really a huge execution guy in general. Wrestling is symbolism. I'm not as much of a proponent as Old Man Sorrow of "if the fans are into it, it's good," but when it comes to strikes/execution my general feeling is "if the fans buy it, it's fine" with anything better than that as extra credit. I know that there are others who strongly disagree with me though. I definitely care more about structure/theory than execution.

Trying? I dunno, man, Hank finally met Heisenberg and he looked like he was about to shit his pants. And the last guy who punched Walt didn't turn out so well, and that guy actually knew who he was dealing with. This seemed to me to lay it out that Hank is in over his head and shit's about to wind down for the guy. Brilliant bit on that from the AVClub Review (which I would put in spoiler tags but I'm not sure how to do on the new board.) But there’s another side to Walt’s restful retirement and tiresome re-raveling of loose ends. Like most premature retirees, he’s bored stiff, and as is traditional, he copes by interfering in his wife’s business. Look at how he shows up at the carwash to bug Skyler about his elaborate plan for restructuring the displays to move more high-margin air fresheners. The man always got off on solving problems better than anyone else. Now the only outlets for his talents are penny-ante schemes to move money around, one $14.95 basic wash at a time. (“Please give this to your carwash professional, and have an A-1 day.”) So when he realizes Leaves Of Grass is missing, connects the dots to Hank’s discomfort, and confirms his suspicions by finding a tracking device on his Dodge Challenger, it’s both terrible and wonderful. Terrible: His secret is out. Wonderful: He has a project. And he feels fully up to the task, all but sneering at Hank for his clumsy use of the same tracking device the two of them planted on Fring’s car. “If you don’t know who I am, maybe your best course of action is to tread lightly,” he warns a shaken, awestruck Hank. Making meth was never what Heisenberg was all about. Having an enemy to crush, whether it be in business or in the struggle to survive—that’s the essence of Walt’s alter ego. And he seems to grow a foot taller when he’s able to set that side of himself free. EDIT: Rewatching now. Really hating that in the midst of all the Hank/Walt talk, the Badger/Pete fanfic isn't going to get its proper due.