Tarheel Moneghetti

I feel like I better google Everett and verify these "Son of Andre" claims. I didn't google Paul Wight until 2012 or so, and, well, as the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. (I wish I was making that up. I legitimately believed Paul Wright was Andre's son until somewhere around 2012-2014)

I'm hoping Disney is saving their good ideas for 2023. This year's slate seems like it's going to have to overachieve to keep me watching.

Did AEW have any real hope of selling out a 21,000 seat arena? I feel like 10K or so would have been their ceiling regardless. Am I that far off. Running the same area three times in five weeks seems sort of counterproductive. I assume live events are off some in my region, but most of the events I've been to have had pretty healthy attendances, Men's basketball games lately have drawn 10, 11K in an arena that seats 14,000 or so. Several ranked teams are coming to town, so I'm guessing it will be a packed house for those. A local concert tonight supposedly sold a lot of tickets. Movie theaters were doing decent business through New Years. We haven't been to the theater for a week or so, though wife and I will probably go see Scream once we get back. We're out of town for Steelers game this weekend, A relative's is competing at Wodapalooza (lrg. CrossFit competition in Miami) this weekend, so I've been watching some of the event streams. Really surprised how packed the stands are, even for the afternoon events. My general impression is that people are going to turn out for a live event if they want to, and probably won't if they are on the fence.

Is Everett really doing a "Giant" gimmick? If so, that's hilarious. Dude is billed at 5'9" and probably isn't that tall. I feel like I've seen about 320 Everett matches and 319 of them were either against Trevor Lee/Cameron Grimes or had him tagging with Lee.

Didn't realize DeMatteis was writing the book, so thanks. Not really a fan of Ben Reilly the character, but I'll at least give it a try. Was a big fan of JMD in the 80's. I run hot and cold on quippy, post-Justice League JM DeMatteis, but his Spectre series is one of my favorite books of the past 20 years and maybe my 2nd favorite "Nobody read this" DC book. Zeb Wells/JRJR is on Peter is really underwheming to me. I didn't quite believe it, but Hickman/Bachalo was the rumor. Wells is an easy pass for me.

At this point, maybe Australia should deport everyone involved in this mess. There's really no one to root for or feel sorry for. Aussie Open officials are supposedly campaigning for Djokovic privately, while fending off questions about how blind their exemption review process really was. Australian government is probably only drawing a line in the sand on this because they need to score a political win and thought Djokovic would be an easy target. Djokovic is probably getting treated poorly, but he's such an asshat that it's hard to be too sympathetic. Apparently he didn't let a positive COVID test affect his public appearance schedule. He also lied on his visa application about international travel in the two weeks prior to arriving in Australia. For good measure, maybe somebody should deport his dad somewhere, as well as the Serbian officials who keep comparing Joker to Jesus Christ and concentration camp survivors. I think he's being treated shoddily, but dialing down the rhetoric wouldn't hurt. I'm assuming someone working for Djokovic understands current immigration policies and COVID rules and bothered to explain them to him. This mess was entirely foreseeable. Djokovic apparently thought no one would try to apply the rules to him. He's that dude that gets wasted on New Years' Eve, then is surprised when he gets stopped at the sobriety checkpoint that was announced in the local media every day since Christmas. Djokovic really may get banned from at least three of the four majors, possibly for multiple years. Lol, if only there were some way to avoid this...... Maybe some day, they'll invent a COVID vaccine.

Honestly, I thought both the PS4 and Xbox One had been discontinued in Nov. 2020. Was very surprised Sony is still producing PS4's. Honestly, I don't think it's a bad idea, especially considering Microsoft is having success with the Xbox One. Sony said the number of new PS4's made could vary depending on demand, but one site said they were planning on making one million. That's not a huge number. I won't be too surprised if Sony extends crossgen releases into 2023. They previously said first-party PS4 games would be discontinued at the end of 2022.

During my wife's shift at a local animal rescue today, someone came in to surrender their pet and lectured my wife on how hard it was for her (the customer) to make it during normal business hours. Apparently the woman thinks the shelter should install an overnight drop box. So she can dump her pet in the middle of the night like she was returning a DVD. I'd say we deserve COVID, but really humanity deserves much worse that that.

17-20, if her Wikipedia page is accurate. I quit trying to count. The past ten years of her life is a confusing mess of dui's parole violations, contempt of court citations, outstanding warrants in multiple states, etc. I got a headache trying to sort it out. Wiki probably mentions 40-50 separate charges, and I'm guessing it's either incomplete or overly summarized. I'm thinking the actual number of arrests and charges is probably higher than what's reported on Wiki. I'm wondering how - or if - she managed to stay out of trouble until the early 2010's.

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I had to work from home during lockdown in 2020 and it was a nightmare. I was miserable and my staff was fairly unproductive. Tasks that should have taken a day or two got drug out all week and I heard a lot of excuses for why people basically locked in their homes couldn't work. I'm sure it works for some people and in some fields, but it's not for me. I'm in the midst of interviewing for a new job. One of the firms I interviewed with last week is wanting to move to either a hybrid or permanent work from home model after the pandemic ends (ha!). I didn't know that before the first interview or I might have declined. It's not definitely a deal breaker, but I don't feel like I'd fit in there in several respects. Lol, I had a second interview there yesterday. Thinking I might be able to use a job offer from them as leverage with a couple other firms.

Supposedly, USA and Fox want different champions as well as different rosters, so title unifications don't seem to be in the cards.

Lol, that was real? I was answering email and looked up and got a quick glimpse of him but never saw him again. More or less decided I was just seeing things and forgot about it. I hope they eventually give Silver a quick run with the TNT title or a tag run. Dude's got some interesting offense and loads of personality, but is going to be held back by his height and look. As Dave once remarked about Austin Aries (during AA's first stint as ROH champion), "if he were six inches taller - he'd still be six inches too short for Vince."

Speaking of Armageddon, was their any storyline reason Despero mostly appeared as a bearded human and only in his alien form occasionally. I assume the answer was "budget" but I wish they had tried to explain it in the episodes. Honestly, Despero's sleeveless robe reminded of the costumes from the live-action Flintstones movies, so it was hard to take him seriously.

No worries. They'll get together next week and watch highlights of the conversation they had after the photo was taken.

I'm hoping he joins up with House of Black. I think he's a much better heel than babyface and he really needs to move on from Death's Triangle. Between injuries, COVID, Visa issues, etc., they've been much closer to Bermuda Triangle and, really, they're probably better off as a heel unit. Just put a pin in the idea and move on. First show I've watched (mostly) in full in quite a while. Thought it was fairly bleh. The Punk match telegraphed its outcome and still took took long to get there. Killed most of my interest in the show. I feel like that match would be reviled if it was in WWE and involved someone less beloved than Punk. Did enjoy Deeb taking out Shida decisively. When Shida hopped in the ring and they started the match, I wondered if she was going to get the win just because. Looking forward to the rubber match between those two.

The NXT crowd chanting "You deserve it" at a guy who's wrestled less than 25 matches was.... something. Then again, Tony D'Angelo has wrestled six or seven matches total, so, by that measuring stick, Bron is a grizzled veteran.

Hype Rockwell's gimmick in Chikara was definitely chronic narcolepsy. He eventually found an energy drink and cured himself. I don't remember Darkness Crabtree's gimmick being narcolepsy. More like, he would tire easily because of his age (100). I was prepared to hate the Wendy Choo gimmick, but - last night, at least - it was a lot of fun and a good callback to some of the more absurd 80's/early 90's gimmicks. I dunno how you do much with it, but I said the same thing about Orange Cassidy, so what do I know?

Bears are asking permission to talk to the Steeler's exec Omar Khan. Timing is interesting because there was a rumor a week or two back that Kevin Colbert is retiring at season's end. Colbert denied, but did say he was thinking about retiring, so I'm guessing the decision has been made and he's just not ready to announce. Khan has interviewed for GM jobs before, so it's probably his time. I think the Steelers will have to promote him now or lose him. Honestly, wondering if wanting to keep Khan in the organization has anything to do with the timing of Colbert's potential announcement. Khan has been the obvious candidate to succeed Colbert for quite a while now.

No Tubi? Disappointing. Kinda curious to see what Meltzer has to say about the lawsuit - F4's Youtube channel and this board are basically my sole outlets for wrasslin' news and talk. On the one hand, I can believe Vince nudged Fox execs into killing MLW's streaming deal. On the other hand, why would he bother? MLW isn't any more real competition to WWE than Impact, ROH, or GCW and isn't likely to grow to the level of AEW or 2000's RoH. Aside from hubris or a personal grudge, I'm struggling to come up with a reason Vince would risk a lawsuit or bad pr. Granted, people do stupid things for stupid reasons every day of the year. Even if Vince did want to cancel MLW, is keeping him happy worth that much to Fox that they'd wade into a potential antitrust complaint for him? I'm not saying WWE isn't worth that much to Fox, but I'd have to know more before I have an opinion. It probably won't matter. If Vince did kill the deal, there probably isn't much in the way of actual proof laying around and I suspect the case will be hard to make in court. That's assuming WWE's attorneys don't simply bury MLW's lawyers in motions and postponements until Bauer's money mark runs dry I'm guessing that, if it looks like it will eventually go to trial, Fox will lean on WWE to settle it quickly and quietly. They don't really have anything to gain here even if WWE wins in court.

Switch is quietly continuing to be the best platform for shmups since the Xbox 360. Cel-shaded shoot-em-up Radirgy Swag was released on the Nintendo eshop yesterday. A port of underrated Xbox 360 shooter Eschatos is set to release tomorrow and Illmatic Envelope Swamp (from the Radirgy Swap developer) is supposedly going to be available in the West very soon now. Last year, five excellent Cave shooters - DonDonPachi, Espgaluda II, Mushihimesama, and Deathsmiles I & II - got ported to the Switch, along with G-Darius HD, virtually the entire Cotton series, a remake of Cotton 1, a new Cotton title that won't be released in the West until 2022, and several other bundles of goodness. Some of the titles are also getting ported to PS4, but the Switch has a good-sized selection of Switch shmups that have yet to be announced for Xbox or PlayStation. Given that the Switch probably has about three years left before the Switch 2 makes an appearance, I'm guessing the Switch is going to be the best console for shoot-em-ups since the Dreamcast. I'm not a huge fan of some of the ports and am hoping the Cave games all make their way to PlayStation eventually, but - at worst - they're average ports of great games and most of the releases have been well above average (good-great). I'm not even a shmup superfan but my PlayStation/Switch shmup library is already huge.

Either Dave or Alvarez (forget which) specifically made the point that the titles aren't being retired, but won't be in play at the start. It's possible they'll be defended in other indies (Gresham and the Pure Title were specifically mentioned). Also (Impact spoiler ahead)

Kirby and the Forgotten Land releases on March 25. New trailer:

Lol, speaking of Hulk Hogan