AEW Full Gear 2022

Thus we come to the final AEW PPV of 2022… and no, I’m not counting the ROH PPV that came afterwards. Anyway, this was a show that I had zero interest in watching back then… partly because of the All Out business and partly because the card on paper just wasn’t all that appealing. Unfortunately, AEW was in the middle of a rut and showed no signs of getting out of it.

Still, thanks to a buddy of mine, I was able to give this show a watch and for what it’s worth, it was certainly a show… that went very, very, VERY long.

 

DAY ONE VIEWING
Yes, it took me two days to watch this PPV. That’s a bad omen right there.

Jungle Boy Jack Perry (yes, that’s what they’re going with now) defeated Luchasaurus via Snare Trap submission in a STEEL CAGE match. In what seems like a bit of a trend on this show, things started off a bit slowly before steam was picked up and the match ended up getting good. Lucha plays a great monster heel for the smaller Jungle Boy to play off of and having Jack beat Lucha with the submission was something I didn’t expect to see, but I’m not one to complain about a surprising finish. All in all, this was a fun match.

The Elite – back from exile that wasn’t explained on television, but those who know know and those who don’t don’t – did NOT defeat World Trios Champions the Death Triangle (PAC and the Lucha Bros), as one of the bros hit Kenny with a hammer and then went for the pin to retain the titles. This would turn out to be the first in a Best Of Seven series that the Elite would eventually win to regain their Trios titles that they’d had to suspend. No doubt this got a billion stars in the Wrestling Observer newsletter and this was a fine match, but I wasn’t really feeling it. Probably because I had seen them wrestle on Dynamite so many times that the first match loses its luster. Maybe if this had been a one-off thing, I’d be more into it, but it wasn’t, so I wasn’t. It happens sometimes, no worries. Better luck next time, that’s all.

The series would eventually be won by the Elite, gaining back their Trios titles that they’d probably still have had that whole business not taken place. Speaking of which, there were “Fuck CM Punk” chants that were very loud. Anyway, this was the Elite’s first match back since All Out and they hadn’t missed a beat, it seems.

TBS Champion “Thundercat” Jade Cargill defeated “Low-Riding” Nyla Rose to retain the title and get back her belt, which Nyla stole weeks ago and so this whole feud is over Jade trying to get her belt back. I don’t get it; does AEW not have another TBS title to give to Jade? They can seemingly shoot out TNT titles out of their ass given how many different designs have been sported by champions, but they can give the only credible champion in AEW a replica belt to hold on to until she gets the real one back? Anyway, this was a thing that happened. Not going to call it bad, but it wasn’t all that exciting… not when the end result was never in doubt and nothing was done to deviate from that mindset.

ROH World Champion Chris Jericho defeated Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, and Sammy Guevara in a four-way match to retain the title. While Claudio was doing his swing, Jericho hit him with his spinning elbow move and then hit another one for the pin, which made for a clunky finish. I think one Judas Effect would’ve been sufficient; the audience isn’t that fucking slow. Beyond that, you have three of the best talents in the promotion (and Sammy was there too) working their asses off to produce a super match that I probably would’ve enjoyed more if it had been a singles match or two. Four ways seem too busy at times.

By the way, Claudio would win the belt back from Jericho at the next ROH PPV… which I didn’t watch.

Saraya -formerly Paige of WWE – defeated Dr. Britt Baker in her first match back since her injury way, way, WAY back when… and it was fine. Look, it’s Saraya’s first match back. You knew that it would take a while for her to get her groove back (and she eventually did, for better or worse) and given that she made it through the match in one piece, I will cut some slack. The same cannot be said for the crowd, who were largely dead throughout the match, especially when the former WWE Superstar Paige defeated the AEW Original Dr. Britt. Oh well. Better luck next time.

ROH Television Champion Samoa Joe defeated Powerhouse Hobbs and TNT Champion Wardlow via chokehold submission to Hobbs to win the TNT title and declare himself the King Of Television. Not exactly forward thinking there, Joe, but whatever – we’ll go with it. They wanted to go for that whole big fuckers beating the fuck out of each other vibe, but that doesn’t work when you have three big fuckers in there. Not a fan… but hey, Joe was a double champ for a while there.

It was at this point where the show started to feel a bit long in the tooth. And so I stopped the show and saved it for another time.

DAY TWO VIEWING

Sting and Darby Allin defeated Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal in what was essentially a party match. It wasn’t the most impressive showing or the most hard-hitting, but it was a fun time, particularly with Sting and Jarrett reliving their spotty rivalry over the years.

Jamie Hayter defeated AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm to win the title. Slow to start, but about halfway through, things started to pick up and the match got real good. Hayter winning the title here instead of waiting another six months was the right move.

AEW Tag-Team Champions The Acclaimed (Max Caster & Anthony Bowens) defeated Swerve In Our Glory (Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland) to retain the title in a largely forgettable match that saw Keith have enough of Swerve’s cheating ways and after a slap from Swerve, Keith walks off on his partner, allowing the Acclaimed to get the win and retain the titles. Their first two matches were better than this, I’m afraid.

Maxwell Jacob Friedman defeated AEW World Champion Jon Moxley via William Regal bestowed brass knucks to win the title. The end result was pretty obvious even if the circumstances were a bit of a cluster. I’d explain it, but my brain hurts just thinking about it, so I will just tell you to look that stuff up yourself and be the judge. Still, MJF can call himself a World Champion; a title he continues to hold to this day. The match itself was… fine. It was alright. The finish was kind of convoluted and if it lead to anything, fine. But all that happened afterwards was that Max brass knucked Regal out of AEW so he could go back to WWE, but not before recording a weird promo telling his Club members that they don’t need him anymore. I’d explain that a bit more, but now my eyes are hurting as well as my brain. Best look that stuff up yourself and grab some tranquilizers just in case.

The biggest takeaway from Full Gear 2022 is that it was too damned long. Other than that, there were some good matches on there and some not-so-good matches, but nothing that really stood out or anything of the sort. MJF winning the title should’ve been a much bigger deal than it came across as, but considering how lackluster his run as champion would be afterwards, maybe this was an omen of things to come. Anyway, still a fine show, but not up to the standards held by prior AEW PPVs.

Next week is Revolution… I was gifted the show… let’s see if it’s any better.

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A Word On The Bond Edits

For those who haven’t heard, James Bond is celebrating his 70th Anniversary this year and rather than a new movie that’s going to feature 100 callbacks to prior films whether they make sense or not, we’re going to be getting reprints of all the original Ian Flemming books… except not really.

Apparently, there’s word that the new reprints are going to be edited for content – presumably to remove or perhaps rework certain wording that might not be “appropriate” for modern sensibilities. Naturally, this has caused some people cry foul and throw out accusations of censorship and changing the original works without the consent of the original author… although I’d imagine the Fleming estate or whoever was in charge of Mr. Fleming’s holdings would have approved such edits before any announcement was made in regards to said re-releases.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I can understand the desire to present a version of these novels that can be read by anyone without any possible fear of controversy. Those books were written during a time when certain attitudes and wordings were commonplace and more widely tolerated, if not outright accepted. I’m saying that to be the case; this is WAY before my time, but I would have to assume that’s the case. So I can understand the desire to present these classic stories in a way that can be enjoyed by anyone and everyone.

On the other hand, just the fact that these works are being edited at all does not sit well with me. Not just in the sense of censorship – which is also a grave concern – but it raises the question as to how much of the work you’re reading was written by the original author and how much of it was edited for content. I fear that it eventually gets to the point where we might be getting heavily edited editions of these books that may be nothing but edited for content text with nothing of the original author’s work remaining. It’s almost like taking a bunch of scenes from a movie, shot with a certain intention, and then somebody else reworks those scenes to be completely different.

I am not telling you to either condemn or condone this practice. I’m only offering my five cents on the matter. Am I concerned about this practice being the new standard for literary works in the future? Certainly. Do I think this is going to be a major issue going forward? Absolutely. Is there anything we can do about it? Not really. I could suggest if you don’t want to support these things, don’t give these people your money… but the reality is that if you don’t buy it, somebody else will. And a franchise like James Bond is no doubt going to sell some books on name value alone without a care as to whether the work is representative of the original author’s writings.

I guess we’ll have to see.

This Mutant Mayhem Thing… It’s Gonna Suck, Isn’t It?

So Paramount released a trailer for their newest animated feature take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles entitled Mutant Mayhem – you know, the one conceived by Seth Rogan… I guess. I’d supply a trailer, but I honestly don’t want to. And quite frankly, you can pretty much tell by the title of this post that I don’t have any positive vibes regarding this.

So I guess this stilted Spider-Verse 5 FPS animation style is a thing because that’s something they’re doing here and it looks awful. I mean, we’re at a point where we could have the smoothest, slickest animation in either hand-drawn or CG-rendered style that we could really hang our hats on and what passes as art is something goes “Let’s make this choppy and WORSE.”

Even setting that aside, the overall art style and character designs are just so bad. I get wanting to make the Turtles more like teenagers, but it feels like I’m watching Muppet Babies with Ninja Turtles. The overall tone of the whole deal feels a bit off. It seems like they’re aiming more towards goofy comedy with weird innuendo things that only the grown-ups will get. I’d be surprised if the people behind this thing realize the whole reason for the Turtles being a thing in the first place; they’re turtles that do cool ninja shit. Seth Rogan wouldn’t know cool ninja shit if it bit him in the ass.

And wait, is that Splinter with an afro? What the fuck am I watching here? I’m not even going to touch the thing that’s implied to be this movie’s version of April O’Neil. There’s a bunch of other people doing that already and quite honestly, my issues with this one trailer go beyond merely a new take on that character… or at least, that’s what I’m presuming… unless it’s supposed to be another character entirely, in which case… I’m rolling my eyes here…

I’ll be blunt here, folks. I am not feeling this one. This teaser trailer hasn’t left the strongest first impression. With that having been said, however, I have not totally soured on this thing. This isn’t a Ghostbusters 2016 deal where one bad trailer was all it took to decide that this wasn’t worth my time. This is more Star Trek Beyond Teaser that plays Beastie Boys and you’re just rolling your eyes at the whole thing… but then Beyond shot out a second trailer that did a better job of selling the movie. So my mindset is that the next trailer will do a better job of selling this thing than this did.

One thing is certain; I am not watching this in theatres. I’m at the point where if I’m going to watch a movie at a theatre, it’d better be worth the damned effort and this doesn’t quite reach that point. This is more “wait until it hit Netflix” or something like that. Or maybe grab a cheap DVD. Either way, from the teaser alone, the feeling I have is that this Mutant Mayhem thing… well, it’s probably gonna suck, isn’t it?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

AEW Dynamite (March 8th, 2023): Just A Show

For those wondering, I have yet to see the Revolution PPV, but I’ve heard generally good things. In any event, we have new Trios and TNT champions while Hangman and MJF emerged victorious over their veteran opponents via tap-out submissions. Now color me intrigued in that they’re starting to use the old guys to put over the young guys and possibly start making some stars for this company to hang their hats on (for once).

Anyway, I watched last night’s Dynamite. It wasn’t anything special, save for the fact that we have a new TNT champion, with Powerhouse Hobbs defeating Wardlow (himself having won the title from Samoa Joe at the PPV and then was eventually – legit – robbed of his belongings – wish him the best and hope he gets his stuff back) in a pretty straightforward hoss fight that had interference from QT Marshall, who apparently no longer has a factory… I don’t know why, but there you go.

Another piece of noteworthy news is the rebranding of the AEW All-Atlantic International World Big Gold Western States Heritage Championship to merely the AEW International championship and that next week, to celebrate the release of the new Shazam film, Orange Cassidy will defend the title against JEFF JARRETT. And in Winnipeg, no less. You know what would be really funny is if somehow, someway Jeff Jarrett overcomes the odds and defeated Orange to win the International title, thereby pissing off the All-Elite hardcores… actually, now that I think about it, that is precisely the kind of scenario I wish to see next week.

Beyond that, this was a show. There were a couple multi-persons and tag-matches here and there and if you liked that stuff, this is the show for you. Nothing I’d go out of my way to watch, but an easy two hours of wrestling for better or worse.

P.S. – Apparently, today is International Womens’ Day and to celebrate the occasion, AEW gave the world a quick Ruby Soho promo followed by an extended squash over Skye Blue followed by a run-in from that Willow person that ends in failure and everyone gets spray-painted. Well, it’s something, I guess? Maybe? Maybe not… eh.

NintendoLife’s 50 Years Of Influential Games Playable On Switch

Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/feature-50-years-of-landmark-video-games-one-per-year-all-playable-on-nintendo-switch

This past weekend, NintendoLife put out a list of the most influential games over the course of the medium’s 50 year history that are playable on Switch. Basically, they pick out the most influential game of each year and list a way you could play the game on Switch; whether it’s via compilation, re-release, or remake. It’s actually a pretty good read if you have the time and a nice little time capsule on how far we’ve come since the days of Pong and The Oregon Trail.