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Meltzer is reporting Brooke Hogan has been fired from TNA.

Yes, and it is an awesome match.

Me and my cousins wrestled no ring matches all the time. I've also been known to wrestle a trampoline gimmick.

Like giving presents to kids.

As I've mentioned once before, it turns out that 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. And for the pampered coke-addled Sean-Cassidy worshipping fools of the "Me Generation" packing the 1978 drive-ins they were just a bunch of funny-looking "geezers" and "crazy beardos" But if you look past that you see deep careers that stretch back across a century. So, here is the second installment in a series I'd like to call "AWESOME ACTORS HIDDEN IN THE CAST OF PIRANHA" Maybe even more amazing than last time's entrant Richard Deacon is the subject of installment #2: Keenan Wynn Early on in PIRANHA there is a frankly bizarre scene between two old grizzled drunken hillbillies that does nothing but 1) creep out the viewers and 2) set up one poor old dude so that later when he dangles his feet in the water and gets them eaten off, we will have some context for where we are and where the evil Piranya are. Here he is in PIRANHA about to be eaten: Once again, Joe Dante has given us a great crazy guy with a great crazy-guy face. In 1978, that's all he was, right..."some old-timey dude from central casting...probably a homeless guy who collects cans on the studio lot." Bullshit, junior. It turns out that this is Keenan Wynn, one of the most storied film actors of the 20th century, racking up 276 credits on IMDB. That, as we all learned recently, is the same number as Christopher Lee. So, this man is worthy of a few minutes of your time. He didn't always look like a crazy old prospector. But when he did, he was exceptionally crazy and prospective: Looks a bit like Eli Wallach from THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, no? Enough so that he scored a role in Sergio Leone's 2nd greatest movie, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST as the hapless sheriff outwitted by, well everyone: When Sergio Leone comes calling, you know you have a great face. But unlike Richard Deacon, who played the same type over and over, Keenan Wynn underwent an incredible transformation over his career. He began like this: as a dashing, Noel Coward-ish, Cole Porter-y MGM pretty boy. That, in itself was an attempt to distance himself from his father, the famous Vaudevillian Ed Wynn, who worked with Buster Keaton, and The Three Stooges and hosted a hit variety show on both radio and early television. <----------Keenan's Dad Our Wynn, whose given full name was...check this shit...Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn...set out on a different path. But cursed with a receding hairline and looking old for his age, he pretty quickly settled into the role of MGM's go-to heavy, starting out as the "bad aristocrat" and then "the mean military guy" and eventually "the batshit crazy wildman" You can trace his career path in the thickness of his moustache. From pencil-thin and aristocratic: to bushier and authoritarian (here as Colonel Bat Guano in DR. STRANGELOVE OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB): To the full Wilfred Brimley lunatic-stache: Along the way he played in movies that ranged from A-list pictures starring Clark Gable, Lana Turner, and Judy Garland, with Fred Astaire in FINIAN'S RAINBOW and ROYAL WEDDING, and for you film-school types with Orson Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL and in Altman's NASHVILLE. For God's sake, He had an entire segment to himself in ZIGFIELD FOLLIES. For you soulless baby boomers, he was the voice of the Winter Warlock in SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN' TO TOWN, which those in the baseball thread already know is the universal guidebook to righteousness and tradition (and, hey Fred Astaire again..I think they were buds or something, because Keenan Wynn is in, like 12 Fred Astaire movies). His t.v. work is practically an encyclopedia of everything that was great: from early t.v. like THE TWILIGHT ZONE, WAGON TRAIN, PLAYHOUSE 90, to later awesomeness like EMERGENCY, DALLAS, TAXI, QUINCY, BARETTA, THE LOVE BOAT, THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO...just like, every show you could possibly name, including the greatest show ever Once he fully embraced comedy, he appeared with his famous father (then in his 80s) in a series of comedic tributes including teamups in THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR, and SON OF FLUBBER. And then there were the B pictures. Enough of them that he ended up getting MST3K'ed at least twice (THE CLONUS HORROR and LASERBLAST). Keenan and the bots: He looked awesome on this poster: Boobs go in the middle pane. So, the next time you watch PIRANHA...and you will watch PIRANHA again, raise a glass to a guy who never won an Oscar or an Emmy or a Tony but who grew up with Buster Keaton teaching him how to pratfall and partied with Bing Crosby, danced with Fred Astaire, was pretend engaged to Lucille Ball, got slapped by Katherine Hepburn, and was the guy who let Steve McQueen ride his motorcycle, which turned out to be Steve's first time on a Triumph. HE FUCKING SHOWED STEVE MCQUEEN HOW TO RIDE A TRIUMPH!!!! Wait, WHAT? Let's let Steve McQueen fill us in: Are you fucking kidding me? And it wasn't just him. He taught Marlon Brando how to ride for THE WILD ONE...ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME? He was supposed to play the Lee Marvin role, but MGM refuesed to let him out of his contract. How many toked-up, munchied-out dopers at that drive-in realized any of this when they were watching Keenan Wynn get his feet eaten in PIRANHA? 0. That's how many. Don't be a doper!

Maybe Titus O'Neil was conditioned to be supportive of homosexuals because his uncle, Rufus "Pancake" Patterson is related to Pat Patterson.

MMA Jeff Jarrett

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!

That's what you get for trolling a professional lad, there are no depths to which I won't stoop.

Finally! Some good news out of TNA!

Ruben Amaro is a weaselly little shit.

Looking forward to the shows on Fox El Ocho.

FSW has terrible taste in movies, I expect it to barely make back its budget.

I remember when I thought Daniel Bryan was the weirdest sounding shit in the world and I'd never say it, but I don't really remember the last time his name came out of my mouth as Bryan Danielson. The same thing's slowly happening with Claudio. I don't even remember what CM Punk was called in the indies.

Lying/cheating/stealing face Eddy. Milk truck driving goofy face Kurt Angle. Reeking of Awesomeness Edge and Christian. Deadman-Taker. Look, I get that a lot of people liked BikerTaker as something different, but really this is the iconic version of the character for a reason. Team Hell No Kane. Most interesting he's been in anything that didn't involve Taker, and probably the most complex version of his character. Early Mankind, when he first started developing his character and feuding with Taker.

I could very well be alone in this, but I enjoyed D-Lo as European champion.

Conspiracy Victim/Unified TV Champion Chris Jericho was the best thing on WCW and better than all but the top 3-4 acts in WWE back in 1998. That year long run basically set up his entire career. Even though it sucked when he first came to WWF and tried to redo the gimmick with Howard Finkle playing the part of Ralphus. I never hated WCW (I even bought their ppvs until the bitter end) but the fact they wouldn't even give Jericho a friggin' squash match against Goldberg after he single-handedly set up the most interesting angle Goldberg ever had in WCW pretty much convinced me those idiots deserved to go out of business.

You are most likely a sheltered middle class person.

That might be the only way to make the Bellator PPV match interesting between Rampage & Tito. Make it the first ever hammer on a pole MMA match.

I think the story here is that someone recognized Darren Young D-Young being gay does fit into the whole "Bizarro Cena" thing. He needs a boyfriend who is half of a twin team...Don't give Jey Uso any ideas.

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.

Now I'm picturing the PTPs doing skits with Titus and Uncle Darren going to Disneyland with Titus' kids and tossing around Disney cash while shouting "Millions of dollars" to an exasperated Goofy or Princess Merida.

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.

Just decent? That's sad. Is that all Koko ever got? Just a decent match. This makes me sad. That match is far more than "decent", it's pretty great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk0J38o6mkM

It's a TNA Thread. Give TNA six months before they copy the idea then.

I don't like Jinder, but I agree about Drew & Heath. Actually, Heath Slater is one of my favorite guys in all of WWE right now. He's a good heel. He has great facial expressions, he bumps his ass off, he seems really safe. Plus, as a fan, more importantly than all of that, he's damn entertaining. There's a reason why all the returning legends leading up to RAW 1,000 were wrestling Heath Slater & not someone else. Heath also has one of those faces that you kind of just want to punch over & over again, which makes him a hilarious heel. Great jobber & something that all promotions needs, in my opinion.

As I may have said somewhere on here, I make music entirely by myself- writing, recording, mixing, mastering, even the artwork. So here's my good news: I set a date for my next album months ago, and I've made that date (which happens to be next tuesday). War me, I suppose.

Dawn appeared for the first time, once, in season 4 before popping up again so she could get flambéed to start season 5. I really don't recall them every being mentioned before in any specific way before then. Even if they were referenced in some slight way beforehand, a reference does not make them characters anybody gives a damn about. It was a blatant case of Sutter coming up with a plotline to bridge seasons 4 and 5, then realizing there was no one Tig really cared about that he could afford to kill, so he reached deep into Tig's bio (and/or his own butt) and pulled out this daughter to sacrifice. I think another problem with it was that Tig isn't the most lovable character himself. I mean, it's not ideal, but *maybe* you could still get some mileage out of killing a nothing character, IF we just love the character suffering the loss so much that we feel it for him, if not for person being killed. But Tig is one of the least sympathetic characters in the club, second only to Clay.

I swear Schiavone looks younger in that video than he did when he was rocking the Ricky Skaggs look on TBS.

So, I see Moyes has settled into Ferguson's seat perfectly...

Hogan & Edge was the only time I ever appreciated Hogan. Still begrudgingly, but it was hard to hate him then, and I'd hated the guy since literally (born in '81) before I can remember. Surfer Sting was wonderful when I was a kid, but I watch that stuff now and wow, what a dork. I almost don't like seeing it, because he was my favorite face as a kid. The early Crow stuff is still great theater, though. Non-goofy Angle never worked for me. In the 'rasslin tradition of trivializing 9/11, I'd say that it was the worst thing that could have happened to Kurt Angle's character. Heel Jericho from Souled Out '98 through the rest of his WCW run is my favorite character ever. Easily the most hilarious comedic heel run by a wrestler ever, and yeah, the matches were excellent. I remember being infuriated that they wouldn't even let Goldberg come out there and squash him. I was so hyped up for his WWF appearance that I lost my voice shouting at the TV the night he appeared, but it was never the same after that one amazing entrance.

Also: Matt fucking Damon

I'm a big fan of surfer Sting. but it had gotten a bit stale by 1996. Crow Sting was awesome and came at the perfect time of his career.

Pyromaniac, drool baby, Unholy Alliance member Mikey Whipwreck

And I like how there was character progression. You get the feeling that Jake snapped after Quake killed Damien. Which is another 91 WWF segment that was upsetting.

Pretty happy with the rookies tonight. Bostic just plastered some Charger jabroni.

Not strictly a cover per se but what the hell:

That was when Punk won the title, and yeah, as much as I loved Summer of Punk, his matches during that run mostly left me cold.

...hardly requires justification, does it?

Looks like some classic samurai violence.

This went from a must buy to a hell fucking yeah I must buy

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

I'm not down on Ziggler, and WWE could be doing a lot more with him, but the notion that "he doesn't need the WWE, the WWE needs him" was you taking a detour through downtown Crazyburg.

After I moved out, I don't even know where the AWA discs went. I might be able to pull a marathon...

I desperately want to see Robot Chicken or somebody do a PSA or industrial film on minecart safety, starring Donkey Kong, Crash Bandicoot, Scrooge McDuck and other early 90s game characters who had to deal with that scourge of jump timing.

I would be really in to a story based around Teddy Hart's cats forming up like voltron in to Big Show. They could do a moonsault, but the impact would shatter them back in to just an army of cats.

He's not bad, but some of his stuff really strains that "suspension of disbelief" thing.