Dick Grayson Is Now Ric Grayson…

Source: http://www.theouthousers.com/news/141439-as-dc-races-to-erase-batdicks-from-dc-universe-dick-grayson-becomes-ric-grayson.html

Because I guess the Bat-Dick was such a big deal…

But see, if they’re going to get rid of all the dicks, they have to kill off Superman.

After all, Superman is kind of a dick.

Oh well, I don’t see this lasting long and we’ll probably get another shitty reboot in a couple years.

Smackdown (Oct. 16th, 2018) – The Crackdown On The Smackdown #1000 Or Something

It’s time for another Crackdown On Smackdown!

So I saw the 1000th episode of Smackdown, which was a mere 2-hour program whose opening segment was nothing but McMahons, featured a reunion of a stable that was a focal point of RAW’s worst years, and generally felt like any other episode of the show. For a show that’s going to be on the FOX Network next year and hitting their 1000th episode, this sure as hell didn’t feel like an important show. But then again, if WWE couldn’t be bothered to produce a worthwhile anniversary show for RAW earlier this year, then my expectations shouldn’t be (and quite frankly, weren’t) that high.

So much like that show, I’ll bring up five observations that came to mind when watching this show. I was going to save this for later on… but I ended up watching the show late last night and wanted to get this out of the way so I can have something more worthwhile later this week.

Continue reading “Smackdown (Oct. 16th, 2018) – The Crackdown On The Smackdown #1000 Or Something”

WWF Smackdown (Apr. 29th, 1999) – The Pilot Episode

I swear to God, if that name isn’t already a regular feature on some website or web show somewhere, you’re all just a bunch of geeks.

In any event, in lieu of another TNA PPV, I decided to go back in time and check out the original pilot episode of WWF Smackdown from 1999. With Smackdown having aired its 1000th episode ever – and yes, I’ll offering some quick thoughts on that show when I get around to watching it – I thought it’d be pretty neat to give this show a watch and see where it all began.

Fun fact: This is the only episode of Smackdown to garner a TV-14 rating, which is the usual television rating for most WWF/E television programming until the full-on shift to PG programming. Other than this one show, Smackdown has always – ALWAYS – maintained a TV-PG rating and managed to produce some of the best wrestling and sports-entertainment weekly shows in the 2000s, thus curtailing any arguments that the TV-PG rating is an issue with modern-day WWE. It never was.

And because this is April 1999 and because it’s TV-14, this is a Vince Russo-penned program. Given that the second show came along and was a strictly PG show, I wonder if that had more to do with Russo leaving than just the second show and nanny comment in general.

Continue reading “WWF Smackdown (Apr. 29th, 1999) – The Pilot Episode”

You Know… There's This Other Show Too…

This is a wrestling-related musings, but not quite a wrestling musings. Hence the regular Musings label and not the Wrestling one.

A few weeks ago, my brother and I had a bit of a talk, where he had expressed surprise that Kane was wrestling in Australia despite being the current mayor of Knox County. I suppose for someone who doesn’t watch or even closely follow wrestling anymore, it’s understandable… and I never did bring up Jesse Ventura’s WCW stint where he was mayor of some town. What I did bring up was the Saudi shows, which left him shocked because they don’t allow women on there.

Yep… not a fan of that deal.

This Saudi deal has been something of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. On the one hand, Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly the most “modern sensible” society to put it in nicer terms… but on the other hand, a ten-year deal and all that sweet, sweet Saudi money means WWE can sign them big deals. Possibly sign big free agents and even entice old guys long retired to do a couple matches since the prince is a fan of 90s wrestling and doesn’t give a shit about the current crop.

My guess is the prince is actually a WCW fan and just wanted to watch old guys wrestle at the speed of light… that’s an old joke.

So for those not following the news, a journalist who was a critic of the Saudi government was murdered and allegedly assassinated by someone working for said government. Right now, all of this is suspicion and speculation, but with this kind of controversy in the limelight, it puts WWE in a very fickle position. Do they cancel the event and risk damaging a valuable deal with Saudi Arabia that would’ve brought a substantial revenue stream? Or do they continue with the show as planned despite the urging of U.S. senators and prominent officials telling them to not go ahead with the show.

So… like I said, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I honestly don’t have an opinion on whether they should go through with the show or not. I sure as hell wasn’t thrilled with the deal when it was initially announced and certainly some folks would (and have) argued that they should never have made the deal to begin with for a variety of reasons – not the least of which something like THIS possibly happening being a good reason not to go along with it – but when it comes to this upcoming Crown Jewel show… I would suspect there’d be an uneasiness among the talent for taking such a trip.

But you know… if they do end up cancelling the Saudi show, there is another show that they have on the calendar that they can move all this shit to that’s been booked since the dawn of time.

You might’ve heard of it too… it’s called Survivor Series.

Just a thought.

Some Folks Want To Make A ColecoVision Clone System…

Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1408938247/collectorvision-phoenix-an-fpga-colecovision-conso

CollectorVision, a company who produces homebrew games for older systems, have recently launched a Kickstarter to fund their Colecovision clone system, a smaller system that plays Colecovision systems on modern days and with semi-functional parts. They have a working prototype on hand that hasn’t been debunked by anybody as of yet, so this one looks somewhat promising.

I am hesistant to throw my hat into this thing; one because so far pickings have been slim – though there’s still 27-ish days to go – and the last time there was a Coleco-related crowdfunding campaign, it didn’t exactly turn out the way people were expecting or even hoping.

Regardless, all the best to these guys and if this gets legs, maybe I’ll chip in a couple bucks for the cause and possibly get one myself.

TNA Sacrifice 2011

So this is the show that’s perhaps best known for being Chyna’s first (and only) appearance in TNA Impact Wrestling before continuing with her porn career. That is, of course, assuming that you were even cognizant of the fact that Chyna, the former Ninth Wonder of the World and 2-time WWF Intercontinental champion, once made a brief return to North American pro wrestling with a very brief stint in TNA… because even though I have touched on the subject on this blog in the past, I had completely forgotten about this one until I was revisiting the old blog posts.

So here’s the deal; this is a TNA PPV from 2011, which hasn’t been a high point for the company and pretty much that whole era was what turned me off from the promotion once and for all. As such, I’m probably not going to be saying much in this regard considering I know very little about the proceedings and can only react to the show from a largely ignorant view.

But in any event… let’s see how this show fares several years removed from when it last aired.

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