A bit late to the party, but a belated happy birthday goes out to OG Pinky Amy Jo Johnson, who recently turned 55.
In other news, whiny PR fanwanks continue to complain about her not being the reunion show or her not attending Morphicon (is that still a thing?) or her not playing dress up or her… whatever she’s not doing, they’re probably complaining about it. Fuck ’em.
Wow… where did that come from?
Someone was watching AEW a while back and asked me why they keep bringing back Riho every year to lose to whichever champion they want to push at the time. Part of me think it’s giving Riho something to do because she’s a friend of Kenny Omega, another part is that Riho is busy with stuff in Japan and there’s also dealing with work visas and things of that nature.
This isn’t a knock on Riho; she’s a fine talent, first AEW Women’s Champion, got the ball rolling on that… but they’re bringing her in every year to have a couple matches, challenge for whatever title, and then lose, which kind of mitigates the “specialness” of the whole deal, right? And it’s not just her; the same deal happened with Hikaru Shida, who was also once a prominent star in the early days of AEW – especially during the pandemic days – and now she just shows up here and there. Again, she has stuff in Japan and work visas to deal with, but it’s just sad that she was actually one of my favorite characters on the program and she barely shows up.
And then there was the comments that Gail Kim made regarding Riho that I’m not really going to get into. As a prominent wrestling veteran, she can say whatever she wants and people will be pissy about it. It happens to anyone these days and honestly, I don’t care what Gail Kim thinks about Riho. Someone else’s opinion is not going to hinder my own enjoyable of a show or a talent; I’m not sure why it should hinder anyone else’s unless they’re really, really stupid.
In 1995, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie hit theaters; essentially a higher budget version of the Power Rangers television show with a much different tone from the usual fare. Two years later, the franchise got a second theatrical release – Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. This was more in line with the television product and not quite as high end. Minus some bits where a bit more money was spent in places, it could have aired as an extended television episode.
That’s the same feeling I got with the recently announced Mandalorian & Grogu movie that’s due next year… which feels like an extended episode of the Mandalorian show that people really liked (and I was on board with too… until they brought in out-of-shape Boba Fett and CG Luke Skywalker into the mix.) Honestly, there’s nothing about the trailer that has me genuinely excited about this thing… which, I suppose, is par for the course with a modern Disney production.
There used to be a time when a new Star Wars movie felt like an event… something that got people excited to look forward to, even if the final product ended up being less than what came before. Now it’s just a thing that happens and everyone goes “meh.”
How did we get to that point?
Truth be told, we have no clue how old future NoA president Devon Pritchard is… but come on now. They bring in a bald guy and replace him with a head of gray. She’ll last a week before the dentures fall off when she tries to get the table for someone named Bubba.
All joking aside, I wish Dr. Pritchard (law doctor) all the best in her new future endeavor. Here’s hoping that she becomes more of a presence than Doug Bowser was, who had a name going for him and that’s it. Last thing I want for her run to end in a few years time and my only thought is “I miss Reggie.”
Your usual Monday review has been postponed for personal reasons that I won’t get into other than it’s nothing serious. Instead, blog visitors get a video of me opening some AEW cards. Yes, even though it’s on the Extra Bits channel, the video is unlisted and so anyone who comments on the video is someone watching this from the blog (or just got the link elsewhere.)
I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but considering the Dailymotion option is less desirable these days, I’m trying the unlisted Youtube video option. Which isn’t fantastic, either, but it’ll keep out unwanted noise. It’ll eventually go public one of these days
If you’re upset because Brock Lesnar has some peripheral involvement in the McMahon/Grant case and how dare WWE sully their good name or whatever, it’s worth noting that WWE is a named defendant in that case while Brock Lesnar is not; he was mentioned in the suit (at first as a former UFC champion and later by name to try and get more traction or something), but at the moment, he isn’t named as a defendant. So if you want WWE to swear off anything involving that legal business, you probably want them to shut their doors and hide under their rocks since – again – they are named defendants in the case as well. That sure as shit isn’t happening.
If you’re upset because Brock Lesnar is back to being the uber-kill main event push guy who shows up every ten months or so to have boring Suplex City matches or whatever the case may be… here’s the deal; WWE has begun airing PLEs on ESPN’s streamer in the U.S. while the rest of the world gets it on Netflix. Naturally, ESPN would want their first WWE event to feel like a really big deal, so they get a big star like Brock Lesnar to come back and have a match with John Cena, which will be the same shit we’ve seen before because John is all about replaying the hits and not doing anything interesting for this final run… like wrestling Joe Hendry.
If you’re upset that Brock Lesnar beat John Cena at the PLE… well, it could have been worse. He could killed Kofi Kingston in less time than he did at the FOX debut of Smackdown so he could go on to face some other former UFC guy nobody cares about anymore. Or he could have challenged for a World champion and beat one of those guys in a couple seconds to win another title that he doesn’t need.
Finally, if Brock Lesnar being brought back to WWE for sporadic appearances at best is making you long for the days of Vince McMahon… back when Brock did sporadic appearances at best… meet the new boss, same as the old boss…. that sort of thing?
Look, I genuinely don’t care if Brock sticks around for the long haul or if he’s just there for a bit before farming season kicks off again. I have a lot of issues with WWE programming that adding another one to the pile isn’t much of a big deal. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be upset about Brock coming back; it’s okay to feel that way. I’m just giving some reasoning as to why this is now a thing.
Really, if this thing is upsetting you that much, then maybe you should spend your time and money elsewhere. Thank fuck I don’t live in the U.S. where being a WWE fan (or really any sports fan in general) requires two mortgages minimum to keep up with all this shit. It’s ridiculous.
This is a developing story… not the Brock thing, but my continued interest and investment in this modern form of wrestling that has become something that I really don’t care for… and I can’t blame the talent for this because they’ve been putting on some great matches. Hell, some of the creative is actually pretty good… but then there’s the stuff around it that… eh, we’ll get to that point, eventually.
This has been your utterly worthless Sunday sermon for the whackos. Good night.
His planet (Beth) needs him.
Hope he doesn’t die on his way back to his own planet or something.
Recently came across this post from Nintendo Is Great, a Substack blog thing that talks about how great Nintendo is… except in this case where the author explains how Nintendo has not given the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros – that Nintendo game from 1985 – the proper respect with a celebration worthy of the occasion. Is this really the case?
For those who don’t know, Nintendo used the occasion to announce a number of Mario-related projects. The title of the next Super Mario movie is “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” due in 2026. They also announced a new Super Mario Galaxy combo pack collecting both games in one cart (though you can buy both games separately digitally), a new Mario Tennis game, a Switch 2 version of Super Mario Bros. Wonder (with exclusive content) and a new Yoshi game. There’s also some minor notes on amusement park attractions that I will never get around to visiting and thus are not worth mentioning here.
I don’t know. Seems like a fair amount of Mario content being released… except for the fact that it’s content that probably would have seen release regardless of anniversary. If anything, Nintendo is using the 40th as an excuse to announce a bunch of Mario games that would have been out one way or another and nothing was done to truly celebrate the game that got the ball rolling. They did that for the 35th anniversary with the amazing (and long defunct) SMB35 battle royale game and the release of a new Game & Watch unit that housed OG SMB and the Lost Levels… that was pretty sweet too.
Maybe something like that would’ve been a worthy celebration of the 40th. Bring back SMB35… but now it’s SMB40 where you can play against 39 other players. Honestly, that would have sold me on a Switch 2 if they had gone that route… but they didn’t and nothing that they’ve announced has me clamoring for a next-gen Switch any time soon.
I don’t know, folks. There are those who would probably feel stronger about this than I do. I’ve seen the Direct, I’ve heard their announcements, and I came away shrugging and moving on with my life. At this point, major anniversary milestones being underwhelmingly undersold is the bare minimum expect from these people. And with Star Trek turning 60 next year, I’m expecting an equally placid celebration next year.
In case anyone isn’t aware, yes, they made a Bubsy collection of all those old games that you hated back in the day.
And before anyone else asks – because at least one person did – yes, I did get the collection. I have no problem buying the Bubsy collection because I’m genuinely curious about these Bubsy games that I’ve only played a couple of. And no, I’m not particularly baffled by this. Bubsy may not have been a beloved mascot, but he has a following of sorts… enough that they did put out a couple new games over the past few years with another on the way.
Hell, there’s a compilation of games based on old Nick stuff like Guts or Rocko’s Modern Life. I don’t recall those games being fondly remembered classics, but there you go. They’re being brought back.
It’s like I said before… if they’ll bring back Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties, then they’ll bring back anything.
Whatever the case, expect some Bubsy content in 2026… as soon as I get the Valis stuff out of the way, which will also be in 2026… maybe.
I just want to get this year’s output out of the way first.
WWE has the Wrestlepalooza PLE coming up featuring the Punks going up against the Lynches. AEW has the All Out PPV featuring Hangman Page defending his Men’s title (his words, not mine, but technically correct) against somebody and other stuff happens, I guess. One is going to be three hours of a couple matches, ten thousand vignettes, and twice as many commercials, while the other is eighty hours of great wrestling featuring guys that I used to care about, but now don’t because the stuff they’re doing from a story perspective is uninteresting.
That, along with the fact that watching a WWE PLE requires a Netflix subscription, which I’m not keen on getting at the moment, while an AEW PPV costs 60-70 Canadian dollars, which I could spend on essentials like drug prescriptions.
On the other hand, the WWE Vault recently uploaded that Wrestlefest show from 1997… you know, the one where Bret Hart wrestled Terry Funk in what was allegedly Funk’s last match (good one, pal!)… you know, the one where Dennis Stamp got booked. It’s on Youtube. And it’s free.
Yeah, I know what I’m watching this weekend.
Have fun, kids.
dtm666 