Craig H

Funny story, for me anyway regarding the Toni Storm match. So I dozed off for just a little bit while watching Dynamite. I woke up during the Toni Storm match. When I watched what was going on I thought it was Mariah May, which was weird because they advertised a Toni Storm match. And then they showed or talked about Mariah at the commentary desk and then I got really, really confused. The combination of just waking up, seeing Toni dressed up like Mariah, and then seeing Mariah at commentary really fucked me up.

Juice Robinson is a luckier man than Buddy Matthews. Actually, both of those dudes can eat shit. I’m not jealous. You are.

Saying it's not AI and just a bad Photoshop by the artist is horseshit. AI can't figure out hands and fingers for whatever reason. It's the biggest telltale sign AI was used for something. When AI starts creating synths to replace humans, we'll easily be able to tell who is human and who is machine when we see someone with 8 fingers or 3 fingers on one hand.

I mean, it sucks, a lot, but if you had fusion surgery then things aren't going to get better for you. And if you're snapping metal screws that were used for fusing bones together...it sounds like it would be time to call it a career.

Trent. Is. Hurt. People keep asking and he fucked his neck again. In this case, he snapped the screws where he had fusion surgery.

Fucking AI.

For a moment, because it was Sami, I thought KO was going to give him the Steenalizer.

Voiced by Ralph Ineson too.

It may be because I'm watching Raw once it's done or close to when it's done and there are no commercials making the show 2 1/2 hours, but I feel like Raw has been much better paced the last 2 or 3 weeks. So much so that this is the second week in a row that I was surprised I was already watching the main event. That opening segment ruled and showed exactly why Jey Uso is the right guy for this role. Jey picking Gunther knowing Gunther is going to be going after him on sight every week is a story I'm going to love. By March or April you'll have announcers begging Jey to not go after Gunther to save himself. Go full Vader vs Flair with this. Hell, sprinkle in a little of Dreamer and Sandman, just the, "thank you sir may I have ANOTHA" moment though. The Charlotte promo...Yeesh... Seth must have taken Charlotte's promo as a challenge because his promo was even worse. It didn't help that he was dressed up probably worse than he's been dressed in months. His motivation for his attire last night must have been "shittiest Undertaker ever." God, Seth sucks. The main event swerved me big time a few times. I actually thought Sami was going to beat Punk when he reversed the GTS. Really good match and the post match stuff had my head spinning. First I thought KO was trying to stir shit by starting a Sami/Punk feud. Then KO hits Sami with a package piledriver. I've been thinking for awhile that KO was going to be leaving the company because he's been losing every feud and every match lately. I think finishing on a loser leaves town match with Sami beating him would be the perfect way to send off KO.

I've been to 3 and 23. I'm too old now to remember much from 3. I'm going back once they announce whenever Indy is going to have it, which will probably be 2027 because it sounds like it's going to be in New Orleans again in 2026. JT has been posting on the board again.

iShowSpeed had more than a bruise. Part of the skin on his calf was shaved off. I thought Penta might have been hurt in the Rumble because there was a good long while where Penta was in the corner talking to officials and working out his leg. It wouldn't surprise me if Rey had his bell rung after getting spiked early on in the match. The Drew thing still smells like a work because it's the exact shit he's "done" in the past.

I almost want to say JT might have been there too? I can't remember, but HBK vs Cena was the best match to end the show with. It hadn't happened on that scale before, Cena was the guy in the company even though live audiences were starting to like shitting on him, and it was for the bigger title at that point. For Taker and Batista, the streak wasn't the huge thing it would become but it was becoming a bigger deal at that point. The crowd was way into each match, probably HBK vs Cena more so though.

And I think Brian said it, but I'll never get what they see in Charlotte. In the time she was gone the entire division passed her by and then some. She has never been that good. The most I could say about her is that she was maybe the most athletic women's wrestler on the roster at that height, but nearly elite athleticism is the bar in that division now. The crowd went pretty mild for Charlotte, and even more so for Nikki. All that said, I'll take her over Nia Jax.

As someone who was there at WM23, HBK vs Cena going on last was the right move.

Fay Vincent dead is better than Manfred alive.

Also, we need to talk about the crazy angle of Bron’s spear on Roman. That was crazy.

This is why I don’t get people saying Jey shouldn’t have won or he’s not good enough to main event either night or being surprised he won. I watch SD by way of clips on YouTube and until Raw was on Netflix, that’s how I watched Raw too. It makes me wonder if these people watch WWE at all beside even with how I keep up with it it’s been pretty clear it was going to be Punk or Jey and Jey has more than earned his spot by being one of the hottest acts in the company since becoming Main Event Jey Uso. Is he the best wrestler in the ring? No, but damn does that guy have a special connection with the crowd. Go after Gunther and slay the dragon.

I’m surprised Jey winning is that much of a surprise to some people. I figured it would be him or Punk.

They just opened up some more seats for tonight. They’re going to have nearly 70k fans in house. So think about this…The MCMGs are about to perform in front of nearly 70k people in a featured match. That’s fucking crazy.

Jacob Fatu is the best thing going in WWE. Holy fucking shit. Everything he says is fire. Legitimately terrifying.

So, aside from looking forward to this game just to basically hang out and play poker with my cousins, I'm also hoping, nearly praying, that Kendrick says fuck it and plays Not Like Us. Probably won't happen, but one can dream.

I hate lists so much, but I feel so miserable today that fuck it, I'll do one. I'm writing some feedback with mine just so it makes sense. I have no idea how to even rank these...Except #1 is clearly #1 for me. That may also be true of 2 through 4 or 5? 1. Endgame - It's right up there with Back to the Future as my favorite movie of all time. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched Endgame at home. Shit. I'll probably watch it today because I feel like shit and my hand is too fucked up to play video games. And it makes sense that if Back to the Future was my favorite movie ever that Endgame would be tied with it because they're practically the same movie with the same beats and you even have Alan Silvestri doing the score for each, which, if you listen to the Endgame thing closely, you'll hear A TON of Back to the Future in that score. Silvestri even uses the same twinkling sound from Back to the Future in Endgame. 2. GotG 2 - https://youtu.be/8VulkN5OLEM?si=ibHcmrsDKlkfFb7i Yes. That video is 34 minutes long. It's a video essay. But it perfectly sums up why and how GotG 2 is so nearly perfect. I'm going to start tearing up if I start thinking of Cat Stevens Father and Son playing at the end of that movie. 3. Thor Ragnarok - Maybe one of the funniest movies ever in the modern age and the movie that has the most, "FUCK YEAH MOTHERFUCKER! LET'S FUCKING GO!" moments in it. "Are you Thor, god of hammers?" And then Immigrant Song starts playing? Holy fucking shit. I get goosebumps thinking about that. And then, to bring back the humor, after all of that insane action that makes you want to jump out of your seat and run a marathon, you get Loki telling Thor to hit her with a lightning bolt to which Thor says, "I just hit her with the biggest lightning bolt in the history of lightning bolts" and seconds later Loki offers his feedback, "I'm not doing 'get help.'" The very end of the movie has Korg saying, "hey! Miek's alive!" 4. Spider-Man No Way Home - It's incredible that so many Marvel heads have tried squeezing the square peg through the round hole by trying to find ways to make Peter even more tragic from making it look like he's a clone to sacrificing his entire history just so old ass Aunt Mae could live to, Jesus, there's been so many it's hard to even think of another one to list. Just pick one. He has some key tragedies like Gwen dying, his uncle dying, but No Way Home not only pulls off a multversal Spider-Man event but it also creates a new Peter/Spidey tragedy that's actually really good and done way better than the comic books ever could do it. His best friend and the love of his life no longer no who he is. Happy doesn't know who he is. Peter Parker is essentially erased from existence. It brings to mind so many questions like, what do his transcripts even look like, what college will he go to, will he even go to college, what will he do for a living, will he find a new best friend, who will he find love with next, and so on. You have to watch this movie ignoring just how much physical time has passed and think about this as Peter, Ned, and MJ being 17 or 18 years old. Peter is a teenager who hits the peek of life so early and ultimately it ends just as soon. Plus, the story in the movie is killer, the action rules, it's the best Andrew Garfield Spidey you could ever get, and it's the best swan song for Tobey's Spidey. 5. Civil War - Hot take pick here. This movie fucking rules. I've re-watched this movie so many times because it's so well done. It builds and builds to this ultimate crescendo where the villain, someone who is just a man with no powers, just a very smart man who knows how to play people against each other, finds the only means of revenge he could ever find to make up for the death of his family. Cap has to choose between best friends, Tony has to deal with his best friend choosing someone else over him and they're not in a space to just pull up a couple chairs and sit down and talk it out for why Tony feels the way he does to try and get Cap to understand and for Cap to get Tony to understand that whatever the Winter Soldier did wasn't what Bucky did. And meanwhile, because failing to put a suit of armor on the planet falls through, you get the fallout of that being the Superhero Registration Act. PLUS! One of the biggest and coolest fights ever, the introduction of Spider-Man, every interaction between Cap and Ant-Man, Falcon coming into his own, and more. This movie is hard fucking core. WINTER SOLDIER TRIES TO SHOOT TONY POINT BLANK IN THE FACE! HOLY FUCK! Like, that's maybe the most hardcore moment in any MCU movie and no one ever talks about it. It's such a well done movie and the fractures it creates setup Infinity War perfectly. 6-10. Infinity War, GotG 3, Spider-Man Homecoming, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain America Winter Soldier. A few thoughts on these. Captain America Winter Soldier could very well be #6, but it also seems like Infinity War or GotG 3 or Homecoming should be in that spot. I hesitate to say things like, "such and such is the Dark Knight of X, Y, or Z" but this is probably the Dark Knight of the MCU in how grounded it is even though the set pieces get pretty fucking huge. Ant-Man and the Wasp is so fucking good. Scott's relationship with Cassie and how much Cassie means to him resonates so much with me when my oldest daughter was the same age and her mom and I got divorced. After getting out of prison, Scott is really trying to do everything for Cassie and in this, he takes it one step further. Throughout all of the capers in this movie Scott has Cassie in the forefront of his mind, where she should be. They take the inventiveness of the set pieces and action scenes from Ant-Man and they crank them up to 11. And again, it's not a story about someone or a team trying to save the world, they're trying to save Ghost. Plus, WALTON GOGGINGS IN THE MCU! To go back to the video essay for GotG 2, GotG 3 ends things perfectly for the gang and it's like James Gunn watched that video essay and knew the right way to wrap things up or the girl doing that essay is very smart and had her finger on the pulse. Either way, you see all of these characters grow up and mature in various ways. I think of myself when my dad died when I was 17 and my favorite uncle that night says to me, "you have to be the man now." That is a heavy, heavy, heavy thing to experience and hear when you're only a teenager, but it was what I needed. For so many of these characters, their emotional growth was stunted for one reason or another and it took being jolted for them to grow up and move forward. Peter Quill grows up, matures, and makes peace with this uncle. Groot has grown up and the family doesn't have to take care of him anymore - it's up to Groot to do that now. Rocket becomes the leader he was born to be. Gamora is this lost piece of the puzzle in this universe that was allowed to exist by the TVA for reasons we can only assume were comfortable enough for the One Above All and she has found her place and her family. And there's more to say but I'll stop there. Homecoming is one of the best Spider-Man movies ever. Tom Holland is the best Peter Parker ever. There are so many callbacks to great John Hughes movies throughout Homecoming. Homecoming has the prom night speech from Vulture to Peter and it's as chilling as some of the shit Thanos said. Infinity War is a fucking epic. Thanos wins. It's hard to imagine them pulling the trigger on everything that happens, but it happened. Iron Man is an honorable mention in all of this because without Iron Man, none of this happens, but it's also one-upped by all of these movies. I did go back and watch Iron Man after the new Superman trailer dropped. It holds up.

I have seen so much tv. But that may have been one of the wildest, weirdest, darkly funniest, intense, and thrilling episodes of tv ever seen. Watching that episode felt like I took 200 mg instead of 20 mg.

Severance S2E3…HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!

Ticket prices are still fucked for this event with prices still north of $200 for nosebleeds, which is really fucking bad in Lucas Oil. I'm going to do one last look for tickets on Saturday by noon. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive. If I can get something for less than $100 then I'm going. I also need to be symptom free of the flu by that point and NIN tickets for the extra show in Chicago go on sale tomorrow. So there are many competing factors, but I'd really like to go to my first Royal Rumble. Come to think of it...In all the shows I've been to, I'm not even sure I've been to an event with a Battle Royal. I don't even know how that's possible. Surely there must have been one of the tons of house shows I went to at Notre Dame as a kid and one of those had to have had a Battle Royal.