Why Does Riho Show Up To Lose Every Year?

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.

WCW Monday Nitro (Oct. 9th, 1995) – Eh…

So it’s worth noting – at the risk of breaking the kayfabe of these musings – that I’m wrote most of these earlier in the year when WCW’s YouTube channel… think about how awkward it is to say that about an official channel…. anyway, they’re uploading the first few episodes in aired order until the Oct. 2nd episode, which is later followed by the Nov. 27th, 1995 episode that takes place a month later. Obviously, Nitros not being uploaded in order kinda hurts this whole project that’s supposed to be about following this show in episodic order.

Fortunately, a buddy of mine had recorded a whole bunch of Nitros off the WWE Network when that was still an on-air TV channel as part of the Rogers package on to a bunch of DVD-Rs and kindly gave me his batch as a sort of “get well” gift as a result of my earlier health scare. And so whenever I need to fill holes in the Youtube playlist, this will be my go to.

And just as well to because I’m actually enjoying these more than I thought I would.

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Oct. 9th, 1995) – Eh…”

Review #1241 – Polygirl’s Adventure (NES)

You know, we haven’t touched a Mega Man game or an NES ROM Hack in a good long while… let’s kill two birds with one stone.

(Yes, we’re back to 4:3 for this one since I played this on an Everdrive via FC Twin… or is it the other way around? Who knows? Who cares? We’ll up the quality next time… or whenever I feel like it… yeah, that’s it… next.)

WCW Halloween Havoc 1998

(Quick note: This was originally going to be posted in July, but then Hulk Hogan passed away and to publish musings on one of his worst outings would have been too soon… so I held it off until now, which is October and thus makes it appropriate for the time. My grace period over the Hulk Hogan Creative Control Card has ended. It’s back to the schlocking, which you can find more of in my weekly WCW Nitro musings posted every Thursday.)

Before anyone asks, yes, the entire show can be viewed on the WWE Vault YouTube Channel… for free, no less. And yes, before anyone else asks, yes, I’m skipping over the Fall Brawl ’98 PPV… one day, we’ll get to that one, but this one is the bigger deal.

So yes, consider this an out-of-season bonus for this final week of July before we start jumping into some recent PPVs that I’ve witnessed or am going to witness next month.

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2025-10-07 – Hell’s Kitchen (Wii) Sample Gameplay

Hell’s Kitchen for Wii sample gameplay. No audio commentary. No showcasing of skill. Just a bit of gameplay to give people an idea of what we’re dealing with come October 28th, when this game becomes the subject of the 1250th video review on the main channel. This will either excite you or terrify you… or neither.

Review #1240 – Nickelodeon GUTS (Super NES)

Do you have it? ‘Cuz I sure don’t.

For those keeping count, this is the 100th video review done this year. And to celebrate the occasion, we have a rush job video that I was going to save for a rainy day, but alas, I had an opening and most of the other stuff isn’t ready.

For what it’s worth, the Halloween Week is planned out and somewhat ready to go.

AEW Dynamite (October 1st, 2025) – 6th Anniversary Show

Color yourself shocked; I actually sat down to watch the last episode of AEW Dynamite, which happened to be the 6th anniversary episode of the program. It is also the first bit of AEW programming that I’ve watched since whatever the last PPV was from the summer. All In? All Out? One of the two? I don’t recall. I’m sure it’ll pop up on the archives if I look it up, but it doesn’t matter.

Continue reading “AEW Dynamite (October 1st, 2025) – 6th Anniversary Show”

The Mandalorian Is The Reverse Turbo

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?

Review #1239 – Fight For Life (Jaguar)

Oh boy… this was painful. And on a sidenote, I do want to issue an apology in advance. I normally want to get the best possible gameplay for a game and considered using the hidden feature that let the CPU play itself, but realized it would be a bit of a fib when it could play the game better than any human player with gimped controls ever could, so you get this paltry effort.

Yeah, regardless of its final state, it was a product that Atari tried to sell to people and later put on a compilation disc for consumption. Therefore, it’s going to be treated as such. Even if I got a free copy, I’d still want my money back.

WCW Monday Nitro (Oct. 2nd, 1995) – A Clean Shave

Five episodes into Nitro… and we’re still watching this somehow… honestly, this hasn’t been that bad of a show. Sure, a couple times have been slow, but it hasn’t gotten to the point where I want to quit. The promos, if nothing else, have been fun.

This, however, was a good show and it begins with…

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Oct. 2nd, 1995) – A Clean Shave”