Author: dtm666

I ramble about things.

TNA Impact (January 9th, 2025) – This Post Is All About Joe (And Other Stuff Too, I Guess)

On the flip side, I also saw a little bit of last week’s Impact, which featured a tremendous video package on Joe Hendry, giving the viewer some background on the guy’s early days, his efforts to get into the business, his songwriting, and that sort of stuff. It’s the kind of video package that is designed to get you invested in someone who is challenging for the World title at the next big PPV event and for what it’s worth, I think they’ve hit the mark. One thing you can always count on from TNA is that their video packages have been excellent at getting you up to speed on things and this was no exception. There’s a small part of me that thinks all this hyping up Joe will mean that they will do the thing that probably should have been done at Bound For Glory when Joe was at his hottest and not this “third time’s a charm” bullshit that they’re going for here.

In addition to a good video package, Joe Hendry got the main event slot, teaming up with Rhyno to take on and defeat the Nemeth Bros. in a pretty solid main event. Part of me wonders how things are going to play out now that JBL has been announced for a future RAW segment. Does he still make his presence felt at the PPV or has the role of wrestling outlaw god guy gone over to Ryan Nemeth of all people? Because if that’s the case… woof.

Like I said, I didn’t catch the whole show, but apparently, more matches were named for the Genesis PPV, which I believe is this weekend. I’ll probably give that a watch and post some musings if it turns out to be a good show with good booking… but not until I get the Ramble out of the way first.

AEW Dynamite (January 15th, 2025) – Minimum Carnage

Welcome back, neckbrace Tony. You’ve been missed.

Tonight’s themed show is brought to you by Maximum Carnage – which apparently has nothing to do with the Spider-Man comic book event from the 90s or the hit video game that spawned from it. Instead, it’s just a name of a random Dynamite show from a smaller theater house, which is actually quite a nice setting. One thing I will credit AEW on is finally reading the room that maybe half-filled arenas is a bad look and opting for smaller, more intimate locations. Some might see this as a step down – and certainly the stragglers will declare AEW DED BY NATIONAL DILDO DAY or something like that – but a smaller setting with a hotter crowd always makes for a good atmosphere and if you can make the smaller setting seem much better – TNA used to have a knack for this back in their prime years – all the merrier.

As for the show itself…

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (January 15th, 2025) – Minimum Carnage”

RAW (January 13th, 2025) – I Only Stayed For Penta

So last night was the WWE RAW debut of Penta (formerly Pentagon Jr. and Penta El Cero Miedo of TNA and AEW fame), where he defeated Chad Gable in a nice little showcase for the new signee and not much more than that. The idea of Michael Cole opening mentioning TNA and Lucha Underground by name will always be weird to me. For what it was – show off the new guy and prop him up a bit – I thought it was fine and I wish Penta nothing but the best in his new home. (Not sold on him cutting a promo afterwards, but his English was fine and his thanking his family and fans for the journey was nice and wholesome.)

Other than that, I didn’t see much of the show, but apparently, we have a new IC Women’s champion in Lyra Valkyria, Damien Priest beat up Finn Balor in a main event street fight, more names were announced for the Rumble, and Jey Uso is challenging GUNTHER for the World title at Saturday Night’s Main Event. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Jey Uso before his eventual mauling at the hands of the Ring General.

That’s all I have to say on that. Next Wednesday, PPV Musings will be making a return and will cover the only Royal Rumble event not to get the Royal Ramble treatment. I’ll go ahead and spoil it for you…

Should be a fun one to revisit, kids.

Later.

Telling A Really Disposable Ignorable Story

Spent the better part of the day celebrating my mother’s 77th birthday today with family and friends. Despite a couple health scares over the past year, she is in good spirits and always bursting with energy… sometimes to her own detriment considering the oxygen support and other things that she should be taking care of.

It’s also today where Maya got to play with one of her siblings and the results were truly wonderful.

At some point, though, I got a PM from a friend of mine. They’ve been asking if I knew about The War Games In Colour and if I had seen it. For those who don’t know, The War Games is the final Doctor Who story to feature Second Doctor Patrick Troughton before he would pass the reigns over to Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor the following season. (Troughton would reprise the role in later multi-Doctor stories before his eventual passing.) News of The War Games being made into a colour film surprised me and I looked into it a little more.

Turns out that this “colour” version is a re-edit of the original ten-part story (which clocks in at a total running time of four hours) into a much more brisk ninety-minute film. From what I’ve seen of clips online, the project not only gives the old serial colour, but also adds some additional music bits, some annoyingly anachronistic modern special effects, and perhaps most of all, a new regeneration scene from Troughton to Pertwee done via CG and stuff like that. The only thing I’ve seen is the regeneration scene, which I thought was well done for the most part and certainly a far better take than that one fanfilm thing where some Doctor Who fan put on a Second Doctor costume and somehow got a much older Jon Pertwee to reprise the Doctor for said regeneration. (I’m not begrudging said fan film – later Star Trek fan films would also adopt the practice of bringing in actual Trek actors into the fold before Paramount put the kibosh on that practice.)

At the moment, The War Games In Colour can only been seen on BBC’s online player, which is region locked. Apparently, there’s going to be a Blu-Ray release somewhere down the line and will even include the original serial so people can compare the two works. There’s a part of me that’s actually looking forward to this thing when it becomes more widely available. I’ve always wanted to sample more Classic Who, going so far as to track down a Plex channel that’s showing nothing but vintage Who stuff. It also gives me a chance to sample these more modern takes on classic material… maybe if this turns out to hit the sweet spot, I might consider the season sets that are being put out at the moment.

In other news… I have yet to touch a single lick of modern Doctor Who ever since the David Tennant run… the second one. Apparently, from what I’ve heard, the new Doctor is fine at times, but the stories are kinda rubbish… which, coincidentally, is the same sort of thing I’ve heard when Jodie Whittaker took over the role. I’m sure some people would want to blame the actor for the series going on some proverbial downswing, but you have to cast blame on creative as well. I’ve not seen Jodie’s run yet, but I’ve seen clips and she seemed fine in the role. Hopefully, the Big Finish stuff will give her more juicy stuff to play with and that’ll be a much better sell. Maybe Ncuti Gatwa might have a better run on Big Finish. Maybe you should sell the franchise to Big Finish and let them do all the good Doctor Who stuff.

Maybe one day, I’ll give these things a shot… but that would require resubbing to Disney Minus… and I really, REALLY don’t want to do that.