JJ's Journal

I'll try to post in here at the end of the week and talk about some of things I've been into for the week. I'll try to clearly label what I'm talking about, so you can decide if you wanna skip it or not. Maybe I'll find somebody's interested in some of the same stuff as me. It'll mainly be about movies, sports, music, video games, books, tv shows, and anything else I might be into.




Week ending 2/19/2022

This week I've been busy getting moved into my new apartment and spent a couple nights without the internet. So I didn't really do a whole lot, but I have a lot to say about pro wrestling this week. I put it all at the bottom though, as I know that's probably not what most people care about here. Maybe Captain Spaulding will be interested in some of it.

Movies

I watched Midnight Cowboy this week, but I put all of that stuff into the HoF thread.

Popcorn (1991; Herrier)

The movie I watched for me this week was Popcorn from 1991 directed by Mark Herrier. It's a pretty fun flick that mostly takes place in a movie theater where an all-night horror/sci-fi marathon is being held. You have to suspend disbelief that something this niche would fill up a movie theater in a random town. The film is a slasher kinda, but it's not in the same way as the classic idea of a slasher. There is also clips of the fake films shown, so we get some fun sci-fi schlock thrown in that's done well and lovingly. There are a couple things in this film that maybe wonder if the Scream franchise took a little bit of inspiration from this, or maybe they just took inspiration from the same places. There's the phone call early in the film, plus the setting being a movie theater and people not realizing what they are seeing is real. This film is also a comedy as well, I feel like I should have mentioned that up top. It's not a full blown comedy, but the comedy is there to make sure the viewer knows that they weren't trying to make a super serious horror film, because that would have been a failure with this film. There are ridiculous elements to the film, but that's part of the point. There is an unexplained supernatural element to this film that is sort of just abandoned or they just decide not to explain by the end, perhaps hoping you'd forget about it, or maybe just in reference to the great and terrible B-movies of the past that realized what happened 30 minutes ago is less important than what is happening now, so there is no reason to think about it. My favorite of the fake films is Mosquito, which is not to be confused with the Portuguese film Mosquito from 2020. The fake film features a giant mosquito that has a really awesome kill as it pierces the roof of a car and stabs a dude in the head and sucks all the blood from his body, the Portuguese film does not have that, but a dude does get eaten by a tiger or lion, I can't remember which. Anyway, that film has nothing to do with any type of film related to Popcorn, that film is more in line with Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now.

Video Games

Dragon Quest (1986)

I had put this game down a few weeks ago after spending probably 15 hours or so on it, mostly grinding, because I had been mostly grinding. I don't really wanna be a quitter, so I picked it back up this week. I probably put a couple more hours into it. It is a fine game to play when you don't really wanna think, because most of the time you just walk around and hit the attack button. Which isn't great, but there is some level of charm there, I guess. It's not very deep, but apparently it's a good enough concept to keep me coming back to it. On one hand, you'd want all of your possible options in combat to mean something, so why have a hurt spell that seems to almost never do more than the attacks? Especially when you consider you are going to be grinding and it would be more efficient with your MP to heal yourself when you are away from an inn. On the other hand, it allows people like me to not have to think that much when approaching and attacking. Sure, it will lead to a limited experience, I can't in good faith recommend this to very many people in 2022. I'll probably try to finish it, but it most likely won't end up in my top 5 games of the year for 1986.


Pro Wrestling

I've got three matches I watched this week that I want to talk about, plus I tried to watch most of the WWE PREMIUM LIVE EVENT TAKING PLACE IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA on Saturday, but I refuse to get Peacock and I'm definitely not paying to see anything from WWE in 2022. The only reason I was interested in this show is to see how the women would be dressed and to watch Brock. I have a rule: if Brock has a match, I watch it. This rule is relatively new, but eventually I plan to have seen every Brock match that has made tape. My stream was kinda shoddy, so it kept cutting in and out at various points. I made it through the Roman/Goldberg match which felt kinda like a nothing-burger and Roman's title reign has been filled with matches I don't like, which is a giant shame because I thought it was going to be great when he came back and grabbed the strap. Instead we were given bloated, acting and dialogue heavy melodramas that I don't want any part of. This match wasn't that, but I was so much less excited for this match than I was for the one they were scheduled to have at Mania. I am a high voter on Goldberg, I even loved his trainwreck with Taker in Saudia Arabia, but I think it might be time to lose his number. Then again, WWE is a garbage fire, so maybe just keep bringing him back because he is more interesting than just about everybody on this roster not named Brock or Bron.

The women looked pretty awful in their weird outfits for the most part, the exception being Liv Morgan and Sonya Deville who both make me wanna do bad things. I was kinda worried about the two of them being beheaded or stoned, but I haven't heard anything about it so I assume we are in the clear. Ronda Rousey's outfit was my favorite, because she just came out in a gi, which almost felt like a protest to me. Ironically, with this being the least sexy of the women's outfits, Doudrop excluded, sorry, Ronda still showed the most skin as she took cues from Matt Riddle and went barefoot. Anyway, I wanted to watch the women's elimination chamber match because the elimination chamber used to pretty much guarantee you'd see a few fun things in the match, even if it didn't really cohesively create a great match. My stream cut out a few times, including the finish, so I still don't even know who won, and I don't really care. Doudrop actually seemed like the best thing in this match other than Liv Morgan looking like Liv Morgan. This might sound harsh, but I don't mean it negatively, but I wouldn't mind some more fat female wrestlers. She used fat man offense, which in this case is fat woman offense, but there are more fat dude wrestlers than chicks. Her back senton looked great, she looked like she crushed whoever she hit with it, maybe Liv. A lot of the match seemed sloppy and I am disappointed greatly with Rhea Rhipley. Maybe it's just this company taking the soul out of the people who work for it and the people who watch it, but I wasn't really feeling this match. There weren't even that many good moments, or at least that I remember.

I was having some stream issues, so I took a break before the Drew/Moss match. In hindsight that might have been a mistake, because even if the match wasn't good, that spot where Drew threw Moss down right on his dome was sick. That would have been good to see live. Who knows, maybe if this Moss fella gets to work, he could be something. He looks good, and apparently will take a hell of a bump.

The women's tag match seemed pretty sh*tty, I couldn't sit all the way through it. I expect Rousey/Flair to be great, but this is not Ronda's element. She shouldn't be working in a gi unless we are going full shoot style. But at least they are changing the world or whatever. Also, let's not tie Ronda's arm to her side anymore. Let's let her throw fools around with judo throws and suplexes and stuff. As great as I think her first run is, she is still green and they should keep it basic with her.

The main event is what I am here for though.

Brock Lesnar vs Bobby Lashley vs Matt Riddle vs Seth Rollins vs AJ Styles vs Austin Theory - 2/19/22 WWE Elimination Chamber

I didn't even try to watch this match live, because I wanted to watch it all the way through without interruption and with decent VQ, so I waited for about 20-30 minutes after the show ended to put it on. The match started out as a decent but fun match that consisted mainly of guys hitting their moves when they come in. It wasn't bad at all, but also not exactly the type of match that I'd go out of my way to see. Still probably better than 90% of the current product. There wasn't much more to the match than that with the exception of the spot that effectively eliminated Lashley, which looked really damn good, and I plan on talking more about Austin Theory and his bumping in this match later. I also had planned on talking a little bit about the booking of Lashley being eliminated this way, but it turns out Lashley is injured for a shoot. Plus booking talk is boring and doesn't lead to anything, so no bother there. Plus booking is only one of a myriad of problems with this company. But yeah that bump Theory took for that spot was nasty, in fact, Theory was bumping his ass off in this match. He was the second best thing in the match. He was working word, took nasty bumps and had a nice quick snapping suplex on I think AJ. The best thing about this match was clearly Brock. Brock is special, therefore he is often allowed to have match structures that nobody else in the company gets. Just going back to his original comeback when he had that match with Cena that basically an extended squash. Since then he's also had the matches with Goldberg, his performance in the Rumble (which should have elevated Keith Lee). Those are just a few examples, well also the match Danielson, I remember that being very different too. Anyway, this match also got an unique structure to it. I've never seen a guy just decide he wanted to enter the match before his time (this may have happened, I haven't seen all of them, but I doubt they just kicked their way in), and lay waste to everyone. For everything great about Brock, his presence, speed, power, etc., he is probably the best in the world at selling. Brock selling that nutshot was the most compelling moment in the match. I never thought Theory would get the win, but Brock sold it perfectly. And he sold the follow up offense perfectly and appropriately, which is to say he didn't just back bump off of a drop kick, because that would make no sense for Brock. Plus Brock has the great quality of his face being able to change like 5 different colors. That visual element adds a lot and makes the whole thing feel real when you know it's not.

When Brock got pissed, I was hoping for a great ground and pound beat down, but I can settle for those clubbing blows on top of the pod. Those looked pretty nasty and I almost believed for a moment that Brock was going to break Theory through that plexiglass or whatever that is on top of the pod. Which reminds me, the spot where Brock kicked through the pod to get to Theory who was running away from him looked great as well. The finish of this match won't stand the test of time or anything, as it probably won't be remembered, but it is a fine way to end a WWE gimmick match like this. I also hope for something grittier, but like I said, it's a fine way to end a really easy to watch match in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.


Dean Ambrose vs Daniel Bryan - 5/7/2013 WWE (Aired on Smackdown on 5/10/13)

If you are keeping up with AEW, it won't be hard to figure out why I watched this one. If you aren't, these two guys are starting an angle together that will at least have one match where they are against each and that may lead to them tagging. I don't know how that will play out, but I decided to check out a match they had against each other when Moxley was still good.

I missed the entire Shield run in real-time, but everything I've seen from that first two year period from those guys has been great. Moxley looks like he was a great pro wrestler then. All the matches I watched were six-man tags, so it is possible that his singles weren't all that great back then. I know his latter days in WWE were abysmal, and I don't think all that highly of his post-WWE run (the exceptions being when he works with great talent, i.e. Darby, Kingston, and Barnett). I do remember the FCW matches with Regal being great, but I checked out of wrestling between that time and the debut of the Shield. His matches with Kenny Omega are god-awful, but I expect that from Omega anyway.

This particular match just takes place in the middle of a Smackdown and from entrances to exits probably went ten minutes of air time with a commercial break, and it's a blast. I can't imagine these two only going ten minutes when that match happens in AEW. 2022 Moxley has devolved from the kinda over the top but not unbearable mannerisms to those mannerisms being like 85% of his gimmick. Nowadays he slinks his body around and contorts his face in the most annoying ways possible, but 2013 Ambrose still had bloom on the rose and isn't overdoing it. He was looking good and in shape and throwing his body into everything, he looked authentically chaotic. This guy should have been Jon Moxley and the AEW guy should have been Dean Ambrose. Bryan laid in the kicks, hard. He looked like a guy with a grudge, he looked pissed off and hit the guy like he was pissed at him. Something that is lacking in modern wrestling.

We get a f*ck finish, but it's a tv match telling part of story, not the whole thing. AEW could benefit from more f*ck finishes, not every match needs a clean winner. In fact, because of this match, I'm going to try to watch every match in the Shield vs Danielson feud I can get my hands on. If these two dudes outdo this tv midcard match in the main event of whatever AEW show this match main events, I have a feeling it will be mostly a carry job, but this match was absolutely not a carry job.

Trevor Lee vs Andrew Everett - CWF Mid-Atlantic 2/8/14



I almost didn't post about this match, because I figured nobody here would care about some random pro wrestling match from some random indie fed from 8 years ago. But then again, why would anybody here care about Popcorn, Dragon Quest, the Saudi chamber, or Ambrose/Bryan?

Anyway, this was a 2/3 falls match from CWF Mid-Atlantic. I haven't seen much from this promotion, but I know they got relatively big for a non-major indie a few years after this match. Mostly on the back of Trevor Lee I believe. I'm pretty sure they were also kinda known for having long matches, which I usually don't go for. This match was over an hour, but it was handled in way that built it up well. It had some of the modern stuff that puts me off, but for the most part was down my alley. The first two falls are very good. Good heel stalling from Trevor Lee. Some tight work, some good, hard strikes. The third fall is where things get kinda ridiculous in the way long modern matches do. Some of the selling goes out the window, we get more nearfalls than we need and going hand-in-hand with that, we get guys kicking out of moves they really shouldn't be kicking out of 62 minutes into a match. Trevor Lee does come out of this match looking like a star in the making, he has a lot of snug stuff. He's in NXT now as Cameron Grimes, but I've seen zero of him there. I haven't really seen much of him in this fed either, but I'll be changing that soon.

It's not hard to tell early on they are going broadway, it's two out of three and Lee is doing some good heel stalling. I am a sucker for stalling done right though, so no complaints about that from me. Everett looks like a guy who should have been signed somewhere. Not because I think he is a fantastic wrestler, he was fine in this match, but because he is a really good flyer. He was very smooth with the aerial stuff, but did go to it when it was inappropriate. I don't want to see a guy smoothly flying through the air at minute 45, much less minute 55. I really think this match could have been an all-time indie classic if the third fall was better and the guys, specifically Everett but Lee too, put over their exhaustion as little better.

2/20/2022 - 2/26/2022

Part 2 of the thing nobody asked for, except this time I kept my notes on a notepad without saving them and accidentally let the battery on my laptop die losing everything I wrote. So


Movies

Another slow week of movie watching for me.

Child's Play 2 (1990; Lafia)

Some of my earliest memories are getting my own bedroom for the first time and being afraid of that f*ck, Chuck. I don't know which of the series I would have been exposed to at that time, Of all the horror icons I could have been exposed to at an early age, Chucky stands out the most to me, but I hadn't revisited this series in a serious way since those times. I may have seen glimpses of it on tv while scrolling channels at some point, with most of my memories being parts of the series when Chucky gets a wife and a kid. I guess maybe some time last year I watched the first film in the series, I don't remember why I didn't care for it, but I think it may have been a tonal issue. I seem to remember the film being too serious, which is then hard for me to take serious when, as a grown ass man, I am supposed to be afraid of a doll. Upon completion of the sequel, I have determined that I either too harshly judged the original, or those problems were mostly covered up in part two. It also helps that some more humor has made its way into this film, while still conveying that Chucky is a nasty, little bastard. It's not really a standout film or anything, at least not until the final act. It doesn't really make sense to me that the factory would be up and running in the middle of the night with only a night watchman looking over it, but if you can just put that to the side, after all this is a movie about a doll that came alive due to being possessed by the soul of an evil serial killer due to some voodoo ritual... I think, I don't actually remember what happened to get him into the Good Guy doll now.

Anyway, the film really picks up in the plant, where individual Good Guy doll boxes are stacked very high. The movie needs it to be this way, so we don't question why they aren't put in bigger boxes to be shipped in bulk or why they are allowed to be stacked this high, or why these machines are being operated without more supervision. There are also these bullsh*t machines that put together the dolls and also burn stuff or cut it up or something, I don't remember, I just remember they are supposed to be very dangerous because they keep teasing the danger of our main protagonists getting got with them, with the ending being Chucky getting f*cked up in one of them. The ending is great as the effects showing Chucky melting look fantastic. I wouldn't say this is a must-watch slasher or anything, but I enjoyed it a lot more than the original. If you got 90 minutes to waste and this is streaming on something you have, you could do worse.

Music
Albums

Nightroamer by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers (2022)

This is the new album of a favorite of mine, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. This albums is a victim of expectations for me, sadly. I LOVE her first two albums, with Sidelong possibly being a re-listen away from the full five stars. Artists grow and change, their styles develop, sometimes that means the thing you love about an artist's early work goes away or becomes less important to their work. Luckily, the shift here isn't as dramatic as say Kacey Musgraves becoming unlistenable after dropping one of the best mainstream country albums of the last 30 years in Pageant Material. Still it's hard to ignore my disappointment in this album, because it's good, but not what I wanted, and definitely not close to the greatness of their previous two albums. Hopefully I'll be able to come to terms with what this album is and reevaluate it in a more fair manner sometime in the future. Until then, I'm going to stick with Sidelong and Years.

Music
Songs

I've been participating in the February song tournament, so I've listened to a bunch of different songs. I don't have anything to say about most of them, but I figured I'd talk about a couple of my own nominations that I relistened to before nominating and a song that's new to me that was nominated by crumbsroom.

Mama, You Been On My Mind by Bob Dylan



Without looking it up, because research is for the birds, I believe this was originally recorded in 1964 but not officially released in any capacity until 1991 on the first of the Dylan bootleg recordings compilation album thingies. Dylan has recorded and released a ton of music in his lifetime, but it blows my mind that this song wasn't thought of as either being good enough or not being a good enough fit for an album proper, the same thing holds true for another one of his songs that wasn't given a proper album release, "Abandoned Love". These two songs are among his top 20 songs, with "Mama, You Been On My Mind" a legit top 5 candidate for Bob. I've tried to conduct a self-audit on myself to determine if I feel this way because I felt like I made some kind of discovery with this track being "hidden" in one of the most accessible and popular "bootlegs". I don't think that is the case, I think it's just a fantastic song that makes me sad as sh*t. It's all about Bob grappling with his feelings over a break up. He contends throughout the song that while yes, he is thinking about this woman he's loved, but he's not terribly broken up about. But maybe he's not being entirely honest with himself. He's also curious as to whether or not she's thinking of him the same way he is thinking of her, which also complicates the situation. Human emotions are complicated and sometimes we just want to be wanted and don't really want the other person, which could possibly be at play here. I've been there before, maybe not entirely from a break up, but the idea of wanting to be around a person more when I am away from them, then when I am around them, not really feeling the same way. Or Bob really still felt conflicted about the whole thing and was just trying to come to term with it. Either way, this should have been on a legit album.

SpottieOttieDopaliscious by OutKast



Potentially the greatest beat in the history of hip-hop. The bass, the drums, the horns. Amazing. It came from Andre listening to a bunch of reggae at the time and spun from there. And while Andre and Big Boi are both all-time greats at more conventional rapping flows, they went with a smooth, laid-back "smokin' word" form on this track that honestly works better than anything else would have. This track clocks in at around 7 minutes, but it breezes by as you get caught up in two different stories of young people experiencing the night life. One story ends that night, but the other lasts a life time. I don't know if that was intentional, but it really captures that whole butterfly effect thing that can happen in the blink of an eye. It helps that two of the coolest lyricists of all-time are painting these slice-of-life pictures that even a person like me, who has never been to the ghettos of the place Andre mentioned in the song, can fully picture and smell the circumstances. Big Boi mentions a girl's neck smelling sweeter than a plate of yams with extra syrup and Andre tells stories of beautiful women lulling lukewarm lullabies in your left ear, which the alliteration in this line is only part of the story, there is also a great, yet kinda throwaway thing going on this where it's mentioned that that girl is competing with "Set It Off" coming from the right side. A battle between given into this beautiful women's lullaby, either like a siren or just settling down against the party on the right side, whether that be trying to impress his boys or just staying at the club instead of going home. This song is such a unique experience from the greatest duo in hip hop, or perhaps just music in general, history.

Born a Woman by Sandy Posey



Of all the songs ever nominated for any song tournament here that I've been part of, this song is probably my favorite discovery. It's by far my favorite "new" thing from this month, maybe this year. It makes me want to reevaluate a lot of the music I love from the same time period to see where it stacks up. 1966 is a hell of a year for music, Pet Sounds coming out alone makes '66 a great year, but "Born a Woman" deserves a spot at the table with all the best songs of that year. It might not be a top ten song of that year, but if a song isn't credited to the Beach Boys in 1966, odds are that it won't be. Top 20 is a different story though, I think this track could probably firmly place itself in that top 20 range in a year where there are some all-time, stone-cold classics. I've seen this listed as pop or as Nashville sound country. I'm not sure which distinction would be accurate, as if it is country, I guess it would be the more pop leaning country of the time. Which in 1966 is acceptable, if it was 2016, it would not be. It's also a great anthropological artifact of a time not that long ago and how women, or at least one woman, viewed themselves in society. I'm not going to get up on my high horse and pretend like I care about feminism or have any political agenda when I listen to music or anything like that, but this is an interesting lyrical take. Like Stockholm syndrome or something? But at the same time, she loves this dude so much that she is happy to be under his thumb? She never actually mentions what makes him so good that this is okay, but it sounds so good that I don't actually care.

Video Games

Dragon Quest (1986)

Not a whole lot new to report. I put a couple more hours in this week, still mainly grinding. I got the flame sword, which I believe leaves me only one sword away from the final sword I'm going to end up. I am currently grinding to get the Silver Shield, which I think is the last item I'll need to actually buy other than maybe some keys. The gameplay is the same. Still grinding. Still not much to it. There is still that charm to it, but you definitely feel like you are grinding after a while, and while you can see your experience and gold increasing, it can be hard to feel like you are making progress sometimes. Still I'll probably put a couple hours a week into it until I beat it. I may try a newer Dragon Quest game I after I beat this one to see how much improvement has been made, or I may just try to the OG Zelda game that came out the same year. Different kinda game, but both spawned long-running franchises, so it'll be interesting to look at both of the first steps.

UFC Fights

Islam Makhachev vs Dan Hooker - UFC 267

Not much of a fight here. Islam overwhelmed Dan right away on a level change off of a punch. He easily advanced position and tapped Dan out. Only reason I am mentioning here is if I decide to watch all of the Islam UFC fights once he fights for the title, which will probably happen near the end of this year, I will have some sort of record of watching all of them a saying a word or two. I might just watch all of the UFC fights of all of the major players in the UFC 155 division as it is currently the most exciting.

Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Kamal Shalorus - UFC on FX 1



This was a fun little fight in Khabib's UFC debut. It's an interesting thing to look at now that we have all of Khabib's career to look at and compare it to. For one, the announcers mention how Khabib had never fought in a cage up to this point and would have to learn how to adjust his game to those circumstances. I'd say he adjusted just fine considering that one of his strong suits was using cage wrestling to get and keep people down. Khabib was never a great striker, but he was always dangerous enough on the feet due to the threat of the take down, the most obvious example of this is when he dropped Conor in a standup exchange in their infamous fight. In this fight, Khabib is throwing this wild, lunging uppercuts at Shalorus, who was also known as a grappler and not much of a striker, according to the commentary. So Khabib kinda had free range to do this sort of thing, even though it wasn't the most sound technique. It did look cool in an uncoordinated looking way. It's kinda funny that Khabib is as good as he is, because with his standup and his personality, he can come off as kinda goofy, yet he was the most dangerous man probably from anybody under 200 lbs. One of those awesome, goofy looking uppercuts connected pretty clean on Shalorus and dropped him, but he got saved by the bell. Khabib eventually finished in the third round without much real resistance from Shalorus, but Khabib wasn't quite the dominant force he would become yet. Not a crazy brawl, but still something worth watching if you are a fan of the sport.

Pro Wrestling

In what might end up being one of the more obscure things I mention in this thread (but probably not), I watched an episode of NWA Southern All-Star Wrestling television that I guess came from Nashville. Nashville is in the name of the YouTube channel that uploaded it and I don't remember which cities were mentioned in the program. I wasn't all that interested in the promos in this show as they were pretty much not great, even though there was some charm in the overall program as a cheap southern indy that is very different than a lot of northeastern workrate indies. I pretty much only watched this because I saw someone on a wrestling forum mention something about southern indies and linked a match from one of the episodes of this program that looked interesting. Instead of just watching that match, I decided I was going to watch every episode of their tv for that given year... I might not do that now.

anyway,

NWA SAW 1/5/14 (all matches were taped 1/3/14 I believe)



Jason Kincaid vs Hot Rod Biggs

This match was set up due to Hot Rod Biggs, who I think is more of a manager than a wrestler but still is somewhat of a wrestler I guess, and his partner(?), Chris Michaels, cutting one of Jason Kincaid's braids off. This really hurt Kincaid because, according to his promo before this match, his long hair is a tribute to his grandmother who died because she was proud of her long, Native American hair. The promo was clunky and not good at all and Jason Kincaid has an... interesting look. Well both guys do, this is some pretty cheap looking attire. Kincaid looks like he is wearing some grey leggings or something. Hot Rod Biggs also looks like he is wearing some leggings and also looks like the type of heel that would have drawn some homophobic chants from audiences about ten-twenty years ago or maybe even in 2014 in this current indy, just not on this particular night. Biggs looks like maybe he could be capable of some good stooge work, but not much in this match really works for me. I had some notes written down about it that I lost and this match wasn't all that memorable, so losing those notes hurts.

Jocephus Brody vs Cliff Compton

Losing my notes for this match hurts even worse because I remember almost nothing about this at all. Jocephus Brody is working a Bruiser Brody gimmick, which I've seen about a million and a half of those. I don't remember a single thing about Cliff Compton. I thought Brody was the face and Compton was the heel based on attire at the time, but I don't remember what Compton was wearing other than one of those baseball caps that say Compton on them in stylized font. But Brody has a female manager whose gimmick is that she like a female Bruiser Brody or like a cavewoman or something, but she acted heelish. I don't know.

Chris Michaels vs Shawn Shultz

This was my favorite match of the night and I'd even go as far as to call it good. It's not a world beater or anything, but you could do a hell of a lot worse than this match just by putting on WWE or AEW tv any given week. I'm not saying this would be match of the week any given week mind you, but I doubt it would be the worst match of the week from any of the 5 major wrestling tv shows we get every week. Chris Michaels kinda has The Wrestler vibes, I like that. He looks like he definitely smokes a pack a day. He also throws a nice super kick, which nowadays I could do without super kicks, but I won't hold his nice super kick against him from 2014. This match ends with a pretty nice stop sign shot to the head from Hot Rod Biggs who turned on Chris Michaels earlier in the show, which I forgot to mention because it happened backstage. After the Jason Kincaid match, to get his hair cut revenge he takes some clippers and cuts a small patch in Biggs' hair and Biggs is pissed off Michaels wasn't there to help him. Chris Michaels tells him to f*ck off or whatever because he's getting ready for this match which is like a last chance TV title match or something like that. I don't know, but it's setting up a match between the two, which I have to admit, I would kinda like to see it. I might be back for another episode of NWA SAW Inferno.

2/27/22 - 3/5/22

Movies

I watched Safety Last! for the 27th Hall of Fame. I didn't have much to say about it. I enjoyed it, solid film.

Scream (1996; Craven)

So I watched Scream for I guess the 30th time this past week. It'll probably be a long while before I put it back on, but I still think it's a great film. I just don't get any excitement out of it anymore. The one exception to that this time around was the opening sequence with Drew Barrymore, it's well done and clever and all of that. The film relies heavily on its meta references and jokes, but they don't always hit. It's not the worst thing in the world or annoying all the time, but there are times that make me roll my eyes. I did not like the janitor being Freddy Krueger gag at all, that one still gets on my nerves as it just takes me out of the film. Despite having comedic moments and being purposely self-aware, it still has a dark tone and works best as a straight-up slasher. Having two killers was a great idea. The performances are all over the place, but admittedly do add to the charm if you are in the right headspace. I just remember one piece joke that I did enjoy this time around that I didn't remember from before and that was Jamie Kennedy imploring Jamie Lee Curtis "look behind you, Jamie" as Ghostface snuck up behind him.

Music
Albums

Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson (1975)

If a 1970s revisionist western was a concept album, this would be it. There are albums that feel like spaghetti Westerns or classic westerns. Lindi Ortega's Liberty feels like a spaghetti western and the classic, maybe greatest country album of all-time, Gunfighter Ballads and Trial Songs by Marty Robbins feels like Rio Bravo or something, and even Colter Wall's most recent album feels like some kind of classic western. Red Headed Stranger feels like something else. It doesn't have the same feel as his previous album, Phases and Stages (which I honestly like more), but it does have some of Willie's strongest influences on display, jazz, Mexican music, and western swing a la Bob Wills and this Texas Playboys. And how great is it that Willie's true commercial breakthrough as a performer was on an album where he just sat down with Trigger and played honest-to-God, simple country music. He didn't need the big, lush string arrangements or anything like that. He just tells great stories for a half hour. Country music was getting big, but Willie managed to scale it back all the way to the bone. He tells a heartfelt story within a concept album, and it being a concept album is kinda crazy, because it feels very personal. I'll be listening to some more Willie albums in the near future.

UFC Fights

Islam Makhachev vs Bobby Green - UFC Fight Night 202

I mentioned last week I'd be watching the Islam fights. This fight I must have watched on the Sunday I wrote up my last entry. It happened a week ago, and it pretty much played out as expected. Islam just overwhelmed Bobby Green on the ground. He got position on him and pounded him out. Not a good fight, but it continues to put Islam over. He's gotta be close to getting a title fight in the most stacked division. The possible match ups involving him are very exciting. Give me Islam vs Gaethje, Chandler, Conor, Poirier, RDA, Moicano, Ferguson, or Oliveira. Every single one of those fights sound like fun to me.

I was also able to catch all the main card of 272 except the first fight, which apparently was Greg Hardy getting TKO'd by some other heavyweight. I think the book has been written on Hardy and he's probably not going to rebound. I also caught some of the prelims, not any entire fights but parts of the Marina Rodriguez fight but not any clean chunks, I did catch parts of the Jalin Turner vs Jamie Mullarkey fight which looked very interesting. Jalin Turner looked like a real star, his striking looked on another level. I'm praying to God he is legit because it would just continue to make the 155lb division the best thing going.

Kevin Holland vs Alex Oliveira - UFC 272

First fight of the night that I watched in full and it was a pretty fun start. The first round had some real nice leg kicks from Holland and one of the biggest right hands that I've ever seen no-sold in the Octagon as Holland absolutely pasted Oliveira without so much as a wince. The highlight of the first round was an explosion from Cowboy Oliveira with about 20 seconds to go, he had two good leg kicks that buckled Holland and followed it up with a takedown attempt and a scramble for Holland's back, but there wasn't enough time to work. The second round was one sided as Holland snuck in a beautiful straight right to drop Oliveira and jumped on top of him and finished him off.

Edson Barboza vs Bryce Mitchell - UFC 272

I was rooting for Bryce, so I enjoyed this more than I would have had I not had a vested interest in the fight. It was mostly a one-sided mauling, but the interesting parts of the fights where Bryce figuring out how to get inside and put Barboza down. It was also great to see Bryce mauling somebody and not just going for a submission. I'm sure he would have taken it if Barboza gave him his neck or one of his limbs, but Bryce was content to make Barboza miserable for 15 minutes. He busted him open with a nasty-ass elbow right on the orbital, the best place to get hardway blood. This was a really stressful fight for me to watch though, because I know how dangerous Barboza is. Bryce isn't much of a striker yet either, and even if he was, Barboza is on another level. Any time it looked like Barboza was going to load up a kick, I had brief moments of panic. I knew when Bryce had him on the ground, regardless of how much time was left, the round was basically over. I can't remember the round, it may have been the first, but Barboza did get up once with about a minute left and at the very least closed the gap a little bit in that round. I love Bryce, I really hope he gets the belt someday soon.

Renato Moicano vs Rafael dos Anjos - UFC 272

Of the four fights I caught of the show, this one was my favorite. It was also a one-sided beatdown. One that felt like it shouldn't be happening. It was short notice for Moicano and it was a five-rounder. It should not have been a five rounder, but the UFC, I guess, threw RDA a bone and gave him the uber advantage of a five rounder since his main event on a non-PPV event was cancelled. They put him in a co-main the very game Renato Moicano who he mauled and battered most of the fight, but my lord did Moicano make it fun every time RDA decided to stand and trade. Moicano was bleeding all over the place and the fight probably should have been stopped, but he tagged RDA several times after it looked Moicano should have been dead and buried. Renato Moicano being labelled the Brazilian zombie would be fine with me and I want to see him fight another high level guy on a full camp. I don't really think this does much for RDA other than give him a payday, had Islam accepted this fight, that could have been a status increaser for RDA.

Jorge Masvidal vs Colby Covington - UFC 272

This fight would fit right in with the pro wrestling section, not because it was a work, but because it felt like a grudge match at times. When they'd interact with each other at times other than engaging physically, it was more exciting than the fight even. Like, the post fight you weren't sure what was going to happen. Like, I wasn't sure they'd even be able to stand next to each other when the obvious decision was announced. Colby put on a Khabib level performance against Jorge who is obviously in the second tier, talent wise, but the top tier star power wise. He's essentially Conor McGregor right now. I just want those guys to realize, taking a cue from pro wrestling, that they don't need the belt. Usman needs the belt, Oliveira needs the belt, those guys are not stars without it. Masvidal and McGregor and Covington even, are just fine without the strap. Covington really is the clear number two guy behind Usman though, it's a shame that Usman has the strap because Covington would make it much more interesting. Masvidal had a couple moments in the fight, including once where it looked like maybe if Masvidal had a little more energy or confidence in his top control, he could have pounced on Covington and got the finish. It wasn't to be though and Covington looked like the Daniel Cormier to Usman's Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier would be the greatest light heavyweight if Jon Jones didn't exist and Covington would most likely be discussed in those type of terms for the welterweight division without Usman. And Covington's heel gimmick continues unimpeded.

Good night of fights, nothing world beating, but hard to complain for me.

Pro Wrestling

Battlarts is one of my all-time favorite pro wrestling promotions, they had a core of guys that could stand up with anybody's core ever. It might not be as known in all corners of the pro wrestling internet, but in the corner that knows and follows it, they'd all agree. Yuki Ishikawa, Daisuke Ikeda, Alexander Otsuka, Takeshi Ono, Carl Greco (though honestly he probably didn't make tape enough to qualify for this top billing), and Katsumi Usuda. Usuda was my focus this week and maybe for a few more, I know the others a little better plus they show up in a lot of the tag matches of Usuda I have lined up to watch.

Katsumi Usuda, Daisuke Ikeda, & Super Tiger II vs Yuki Ishikawa, Alexander Otsuka, & Munenori Sawa - 7/26/08 Battlarts



In some of the circles of the internet wrestling fandom I mentioned, this match is heralded as an all-time classic and those internet wrestling nerds are completely correct. This match might very well be the greatest six-man tag match of all-time. It's an elimination tag match and it's amazing to see pro wrestling tag team spots in this shooty environment. You have guys breaking up submissions in the stiffest fashion I have ever seen and I love it. And if you didn't f*cking bring it when you break up a sub attempt, the dude with the sub applied just keeps it held on. So you have to kick them as hard as you can right in the spine, and that's what happens. And Super Tiger II also does the nastiest shoot elbow drops you'll see in the match. With this being elimination the numbers game comes into play as well, and this match handles that as well as any match I've ever seen as well. It reminded me somewhat of some peak Shield stuff in that regard. There is a moment where it's 3 on 2 and the team with 2 has a submission attempt going so the partner runs in the ring to cut off the attempted save, but since there was two dudes he would have to try to fend off there is a great moment where both guys come into make the save and they make the one guy choose who to stop as the other broke free to completely obliterate the submission applier with some kinda nasty shot. It becomes clear to the disadvantaged team that submission attempts are too much of a risker way to go, so they start going for gross knockouts as they are easier to secure in flash ways than the submissions. I really can't put this match over enough, if you are a fan of shooty pro wrestling at all, this is must see.

Katsumi Usuda vs Daisuke Ikeda - 9/11/05 Big Mouth Loud



I am not too familiar with the fed that ran this match, but they booked a lot of people that are interesting to me, so I'll probably be watching some more of their stuff on youtube. I also don't think I've ever actually seen this match up in a one-on-one match even though I'm sure Battlarts would have ran it at least once. Checking my notes I find that they did indeed match up in Battlarts way back in 1996, I'll have to track that match down. This match was a little disappointing considering who is involved, but we get a fun shooty sprint that goes like 5 minutes. I could really do without the couple of no-sell spots and there was a kick that looked like it missed but was still sold. Other than that it's Usuda and it's Daisuke Ikeda, so it's hard to imagine there won't be something to like. They kick the shit out of each other and throw nasty headbutts and Ikeda wins it off a really nice looking brainbuster. It's still weird to see these guys going for pins.

Katsumi Usuda, Yuki Ishakawa, Daisuke Ikeda, Mohammed Yone, & Takashi Hijikata vs Mr. Gannosuke, Hisakatsu Oya, Yukihiro Kanemura, Hideki Hosaka, & Hido - 5/5/99 FMW



This is an elimination tag that includes over the top rope eliminations, which I did not know where a thing I first started watching. That could potentially be an interesting wrinkle in a match like this, but the audience, in this case me, should be aware of it going in to it. I'm sure I'd know this if I spoke Japanese, so it's no fault of the match, I'm sure they mention it in commentary. This is a good time, but it's far from the Battlarts six-man from above, which I was hoping it'd be more in line with. It's more of a pro style match than the shooty stuff and as such, the brutal pin break ups don't exist. I probably wouldn't be judging them as harshly if I hadn't recently watched that other match. I don't have much to say about it. It's not great, but it's definitely fun. I'd take matches like this every week, but it'd not be close to a MOTYC.

Katsumi Usuda vs Keita Yano - 11/16/08 Battlarts



2008 Battlarts might be the best thing ever. This match starts out with some great grappling between the two. Just snug matwork with slick transitions, and both guys don't have a problem wrenching a hold in. Yano isn't as good of a striker as Usuda, and you can tell that he isn't laying his stuff in like Usuda does. So when it does break down in to a striking affair, Usuda kills Yano with stiff kicks and a nasty, nasty, nasty punt kick KO finish.

Curious to hear your thoughts on AEW Revolution if you watched any of it. I enjoyed it immensely, but I'm admittedly an AEW mark. The tag-team championship match was probably my favorite. A wild, spot-filled juggling act -- the type of match you loathe but that I find so entertaining when done well, and the crowd was hot for it. Best story belonged to Punk and MJF. I think it's the most compelling feud the company has built so far. One of the few complaints I've had with AEW is that they tend to burn through feuds too quickly sometimes, giving us three weeks when there's enough potential for a three-month storyline, and Punk and MJF did a superb job building the stakes and selling the emotion in the preceding months and in the match itself. Also love the clever payoff with Wardlow and the diamond ring (and I think he was the correct choice to win the ladder match, as well, which was a bit sloppy but featured a few memorable moments, mostly courtesy of OC). Moment of the night had to be William Regal slapping the shit out of Moxley and Danielson and forcing them to shake hands. I'm excited for their potential stable of violence. Spot of the night belonged to my childhood idol Sting, jumping off the balcony through multiple tables at almost 63 years of age. Britt Baker/Thunder Rosa was a letdown, and I took a bathroom break and grabbed a bite to eat during Jade Cargill/Tay Conti, but everything else I'd grade at least a 'B.'

I haven't even bothered to read the recaps for most WWE shows lately, but I did watch the Rumble and Elimination Chamber, and both served as reminders for why I've finally turned my back on the company after all these years. I wish I shared your enthusiasm for Brock, but ever since he established "Suplex City," I find his matches incredibly dull. Rinse, repeat. Same goes for WWE's booking.

Sometime I'll have to check out those Japanese matches you posted. I'm ignorant of most Japanese wrestling outside of NJPW. I fast-forwarded to the end of the Usada/Yano match to witness those stiff kicks you mentioned. Brutal. Although it appeared that all they did was lay on each other on the mat leading up to it, which I know appeals to an MMA lover like yourself, but does little for me.

Shame to hear about the new Sarah Shook album being underwhelming. I've only heard one song from it -- forget what it was called -- but it didn't inspire much confidence. I've even neglected the Years album because I just keep listening to Sidelong over and over, which is one of my favorite country albums from recent years. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Dallas Moore. I haven't heard anything yet that's set my world on fire, but it's been consistently solid. Right now I'd say he's a lesser Whitey Morgan, not quite as hard.

As for the movies you've been watching, Popcorn has been on my watchlist for several years now; Child's Play 2 is just okay for me, and I struggle to remember anything outside of the last act (my franchise ranking if you're curious); and Scream I haven't seen since I was a kid too young to understand the references or genre tropes it was dissecting. Sadly, even when I think back to Scream, my mind has a tendency to replace it with scenes from Scary Movie instead. I need to run through the whole Scream franchise at some point in the near future.

__________________

I watched most of Revolution, when getting to the stuff that I wasn't interested in, I was writing parts of my weekly post above. I skipped that tag match, most of the ladder match (Ricky Starks is crazy to be taking that powerbomb bump), both women's title matches, and I turned the show off before the world title match. I'm probably only going to spend a significant amount of time writing on my match of the night, which was Danielson/Moxley, but I enjoyed King/Jericho, most of Punk/MJF, and parts of the Sting six-man. I don't guess we've talked about AEW since the Punk/Danielson signings, but whenever those guys are the focus of the show, it's usually good. I still hate all the Elite segments and I almost went full Cornette seeing what Adam Cole came to the ring in. I'm not looking forward to Omega coming back at all. It blows my mind that Tony doesn't seem to want to put FTR vs The Briscoes on AEW, I guess saving it for ROH. Out of WWE and AEW, AEW is the fed that is far more exciting right, the easiest to fantasy book with the pieces they have (though I only ever seem to get about a quarter of what I want from it), and AEW has hot crowds that don't usually get on my nerves because I don't watch the matches where they would get on my nerves (I did hear some of those Battle of the Adam chants and I didn't actually hate them as much as some people on the internet did.) Also AEW does a way better job of building stars, by default and because they do a good job. I don't think it's a good time for pro wrestling as far as having a variety of places to go to watch good wrestling, so just for the core guys I like in AEW, it's my favorite promotion right now.

WWE is just the complete pits right now and probably has been for several years. At this point, Brock is the only thing I'm interested in. Bron Breakker should be given a Steiner name. WALTER is not GUNTHER. F*ck, somebody really needs to convince Vince to give us WALTER vs Brock.

The Battlarts and even shootier stuff isn't for everyone, that's for sure. I do love me some good matwork, which they bring. I'll have to bring some of the less matworky stuff to your attention to see how you feel about it. Yuki Ishikawa and Daisuke Ikeda have been career long rivals and they have some stuff where they pelt the sh*t out of each other, there is also a four minute match, I wanna say with Ikeda and a guy named Takeshi Ono where they don't go to the mat but do what I guess would be considered a shoot style sprint and brain the f*ck out of each other.

Glad to see you are into Sidelong, it's so good. I think Years is great too, but Sidelong is climbing up my decade rankings for country albums at a pretty rapid pace from the first time I heard it.

I saw Scary Movie before I saw Scream and it almost ruined it for me to be honest, I used to do the same thing with the two films. And with the Chucky films, I plan on watching some more of them, but who knows how long that'd take me. I'd like to be able to compare our rankings, but all it would take is one of the flicks being so bad that I just give up on the idea. I know I for sure want to get to the craziness that comes with Chucky getting married and having the kid. I don't think I've seen either of those all the way through but I feel like I know everything about them. I could see those being a love it/hate it type deal. I've heard some good things about some of the new stuff but they all kinda run together so I don't remember which of the new stuff got the praise I remember hearing.

3/6/2022 - 3/12/2022

The only movie I watched this week was Magical Girl for the 27th hof. I still haven't posted about there. It was solid, but I'm not in love with it.

Music
Albums

Phases and Stages by Willie Nelson (1974)



Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson are kinda the same person, with the major difference being that Willie Nelson actually deserves all the love he gets. Snoop deserves like 45% of the love he gets and that's me being very generous. West Coast hip hop from the 90s is massively overrated compared to East Coast sh*t which largely blows it out of the water. Anyway, What a f*cking albums this is. Show this album to any of your "everything but country" friends and if they still don't like country, stop being their friends, they don't deserve you or this album.

Willie crafts this masterpiece with some jazzy jamming and heartbreaking lyrics about a dissolving marriage. It's a wonderful melding of actually good country musicianship with actually good country lyricism and an actually good country singer with an actually distinct voice that actually cares to make something non-homogenous or heterogenous(?). I love country music but I hate that people that hate country music have a good point when they only are exposed to the worst the genre has to offer because that's the only thing widely pushed. I think things are changing (kinda sorta), but this type of album exists and should be talked about as the masterpiece it is. In an alternate reality this album is the most influential country album and country grew from this instead of away from this kind of album.

Music
Songs

There are four songs I wanted to highlight. I created a playlist thinking I was going to do one for each year possible, picking out my favorite pop songs of each year. 2017 was the first I chose, mostly because of "Hard Times". I am all about little projects (or big projects), and I wanted to do one I could build around this song. I'm not the biggest pop music fan in the world, but I expected to find more songs that I like than I have so far. I tried the Dua Lipa stuff and Demi Lovato stuff and the Camilla Cabello (which I'm not even sure if that's the accurate name, and I'm so disrespectful that I won't even google it and just hope it's not the name of a pornstar) stuff from the year, but these four are the only ones that really grabbed me. If you have any suggestions for pop songs from 2017 for my playlist, let me know.

Hard Times by Paramore


The hyperlink is the studio version, but I didn't hyperlink the embedded video because you need to see it. For real. It's better than the original studio version, and I've watched it a stupid amount of times.

I don't even know how or why I found this song, but using some reverse engineering based on facts that I remember: I know my first exposure was seeing Hayley Williams looking fine with blonde hair performing this song in the Live Lounge or whatever version of artists performing their songs and covers live in a studio for a YouTube page this happened on and being way into it. I also remember seeing Hayley and Paramore performing "Passionfruit" in the same session. I was into that as well. So I could narrow it down to two possibilities based on that information: I may have found this looking up different "Passionfruit" covers because I enjoyed Yaeji's, or I found this because I was going through Live Lounge (or whatever) covers by artists that seemed like odd fits, I remember specifically a Billie Eilish one where she covered Michael Jackson's "Bad" which was interesting and good. That may also be the same way I found "bellyache" too. So basically every song I like from this year I found on Like a Version or the Live Lounge or whatever these things are called.

I'm not great at writing about music, or anything else really, as I don't know much about the technical side of things or the terms to describe what the music doing. I can hear them and feel them, but I don't know what an arpeggio is or anything about chords or vocal techniques or tempo or none of that stuff. I know that Hayley Williams has a lot of charisma and that while Paramore's earlier stuff was mostly not for me, she did have some fun, mindless bangers that were undeniably catchy earworms. "Hard Times" isn't as mindless as those, but equally catchy. Hayley's vocal performance is probably great, because I read someone talk about her jumping from a high note to low note or vice versa in this song and it being some sort of great feat. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that the way Hayley goes after it in this song is impressive and endearing. It's even more endearing watching her perform this song in the Live Lounge.

bellyache by Billie Eilish



Before you consider me an edgelord teenage girl, hear me out.

I only like.. like 3 or 4 of her songs... I swear... I think. "Ocean Eyes", this, and.. um... her cover of "Bad" and that might be it. I can't think of any others off the top of my head. Her big song about seduces somebody's dad, which I think might be some sort of lyric that is better than she intended, but I don't want to get into it because that song isn't anywhere near as good as "bellyache" which I consider her magnum opus. It's the epitome of everything this creation was meant to be. It's got that dark and dangerous edge that isn't really what Eilish is but what she either wanted to be or was crafted to be. She is talking about how she wants to make people feel scared and stuff, like the way she wears her noose or whatever, that's all good stuff in this song, but also feels like some sort of confession. She wants to do this, but it's all an act. She's actually just a sweet teenage girl that is put in a position to make her family and herself filthy rich and be ridiculed by a world who loves to devour its celebrities, especially the pretty, young ones who are being sucked dry by parasites in an industry that relies on young, emotional girls looking good, singing good enough to be put through a computer, and working non-stop until they break down and shave their heads or OD. It's a double-edged sword, as they say. But sure, Eilish is a creation of sorts, but she is a very talented individual with a rare voice. She's also creative enough, but her and her brother are much better at creating a vibe than crafting a cohesive story or deep lyrics. Instead we get some lyrics in this song that sound cool, but ultimately don't really add up to much. But that's not really the point, and you shouldn't get bogged down by thinking all that much about it. Besides, they feel authentic enough and it's great fun. The word bellyache is a good word that should have already been used in a song like this.

Boys by Charli XCX



I kinda hate Charli XCX. Her hook in "Fancy" is the only reason that song was a big deal, and I like that song for what it was, but I don't think I really need to hear it again. I overdid it when I was into it. It's the type of song that kinda sucks, but the people that hate it are wrong about it, but so are the people who actually like it. I do like it, but I am getting sidetracked. I've tried a couple other times to listen to some Charli music, never really feeling it. This song is also probably a song that seems like the sort of thing respectable people should hate. Maybe. I don't actually know what makes a good or bad pop song or why some work for me and some don't. I know it has to go deeper than whether or not a song incorporates the Mario coin sound effect as this one does. It could also have something to do with pop songs having interesting lyrics. And this song sounds like it might be a celebration, but it's kinda sad to me and I like sad songs. It's also a fun celebration too though. She likes to f*ck dudes and she's hot and young and she's gonna live forever. None of those things apply to me, but I get it, ya know? Plus it's nice to hear males getting some love. Big ups, boys.

Cyber Stockholm Syndrome by Rina Sawayama



Let me get the negative out of the way first: this song makes me feel like an idiot every time I listen to it in the car, because it always makes me think my blinker is on. Well also the title of this song may make you roll your eyes, but you need to be open minded, dude. The lyrics can sometimes be that way too, but they are earnestly delivered and it's not like she's not right about a lot of it. It's also impressive that lyrics can be written in a way to say something and also be performed this way. Well, I guess that applies to most good songs. This song has a sick build to a point where it's like she's entered another dimension. I get Matrix sequels if they were good vibes from this song. It probably has the best overall lyrics of the four songs, I guess. The internet is both good and bad, that is true. Really plays with what it means to be with someone online instead of in person and how we may need certain things that we can't get or struggle to get with either one of those types of relationships.

Video Games

Command & Conquer (1995)

I've put about two and half hours into this, but I lost all my progress from the first 45 minutes or so because I didn't save it properly. I've never played an RTS before, so I'm trying to get the hang of it. I figured I'd go with an early one to get the hang of the basics and see how I feel about it. These types of games can be overwhelming for me. I really wish I would have been able to play PC games when I was younger, but I was a console only kid. I'll be honest, I'm struggling a little bit with this. The first couple of missions didn't really require a whole lot of thinking, but I'm at a mission now that I've failed about four times, I've gotten a little better at each time, so I expect to get passed it soon. This game doesn't hold your hand. I need my hand held a little bit, but I've had to resort to reading the manual a little bit. I do have a hard time remembering inputs that require the keyboard, as I'm not that used to it. I have enjoyed myself with it so far, hopefully that continues.

UFC Fights

Cain Velasquez vs Brad Morris - UFC 83
Cain Velasquez vs Jake O'Brien - UFC Fight Night 14
Cain Velasquez vs Denis Stojnic - UFC Fight Night 17
Cain Velasquez vs Cheick Kongo - UFC 99
Cain Velasquez vs Ben Rothwell - UFC 104
Cain Velasquez vs Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira - UFC 110
Cain Velasquez vs Brock Lesnar - UFC 121

With the recent Cain Velasquez news, I decided to watch all of Cain's UFC fights. I've made it through him capturing the title and being one fight away from his first loss. If you are unaware of what happened with him, the story that came out goes something along the lines of one of Cain's close relatives, a young child, was molested on multiple occasions by somebody, Cain tried to chase them down in a car and shoot them to death while driving near them, but apparently missed and hit one of the molester's relatives, their dad or grandpa or something. Cain was arrested and charged with a bunch of things, the worst being attempted murder. His bail was denied. He could do 20 or more years in prison if convicted. It sucks, but I guess these things happen.

Anyway, I watched the first seven of Cain's UFC fights. Cain only had two professional fights before making it to the UFC, but he was already being hyped as the next big thing. Maybe this is looking back knowing what we know now and pretending that we knew it then, but Cain already seemed to have an aura about him in those early fights. The results were never in question in any of these fights, outside of Cain getting tapped on the button a couple times and his knees doing the quickest of buckles before Cain immediately recovered and shot for a takedown. If memory serves this happened in two different fights. Out of the seven fights, only two would be what I consider good, but I don't know that even those two fights would be considered good by most. I don't really need a fight to be competitive to think it's worthwhile. Most of these fights play out the same: Cain walks his opponent down, shoots on them, takes them down, completely controls them on the ground, advances position, punches and elbows them until the referees says to stop. Cain does some cool stuff in the standup in some of these fights. In the Stojnic fight, if I am remembering them correctly, Cain gets to open up on him on the feet with some good knees and elbows and leg kicks. But most of the time it's all top control Cain making guys wish they didn't take the fight. The Cheick Kongo fight goes the distance and is, up to that point, the most fun Cain fight. Cheick had a very obvious stand up advantage and would tag Cain whenever Cain was foolish enough to engage, he just had zero answers for Cain's wrestling, and Cain, like Khabib, was fun when he was on top because he was constantly working and always making the guy on bottom go through hell. Cain manhandled Rothwell in embarrassing fashion. He had his most impressive looking victory over a legend in Nogueira after that where he was way quicker to the punch than the older Big Nog. He knocked him down and rocked him with well timed shot and quickly turned the lights out with some disgusting ground and pound. The fight after that was his world championship coronation, taking the belt off Brock Lesnar. This fight became my favorite of the Cain fights thus far. It's basically a sprint as Brock, who I don't think had the best fight IQ, possibly because he had a tiny amount of MMA experience, was going for broke as soon as the bell rang. Brock turned it into a scrambling affair as he throws his big toaster sized hands at Cain and shot on him, even getting a takedown, which nobody had done to Cain before in the UFC. But it just didn't matter as Cain proved to have the better wrestling than Brock, as he just popped up and got out of his grasp, later taking him down and doing what he did to everybody else and just mauling the sh*t out of him. He also beats Brock up pretty handily in the stand up, touching him with an uppercut to the chin that sent Brock flailing across the ring in a moment which was giffed and used to make fun of Brock in the past on the internet, mainly by people who Brock could eat like a Goya painting. There is also a disgusting knee that Cain lands on Brock. Brock got opened up and had the crimson mask in that fight too. Just a really fun five minute scramble where one guy was helplessly overmatched but came out like it was the other way around. I'll keep going with the Cain fights. Up next is the first installment in the trilogy with JDS.

Pro Wrestling

A week ago AEW put on their Revolution PPV that was getting a lot of hype. The hype mainly came from Punk/MJF and Danielson/Moxley, or at least on the streets I run. Those are the two I was most looking forward to, but I was also ready to get into Kingston vs Jericho. Kingston is a fantastic pro wrestler and Jericho is not, but he really brought it in this match. Kingston dumped that f*cker on his head right away and Jericho stayed game the whole match. Kingston is an excellent seller, up there with Brock but in a different way. Both present a tough guy aura, but Brock is a monster and King is a street thug who keeps getting back up. Give me that match please. Anyway, Jericho palm strikes King in the orbital bone and keeps targeting the eye. When does Jericho ever throw palm strikes? That was awesome. Eddie selling his chest on the suplex to the floor is the type of thing that guys who get it do, because the conventional wisdom would be to just writhe around on the floor with a hand on your lower back, and we'd probably all be fine with that, but King is a genius. Like when he sold nerve damage to the fingers off a kick to the spine in non-contrived way. He just gets it. He might have gotten Jericho's best AEW match out of him.

Punk/MJF went a little long for me. I enjoyed parts of it, especially the first time MJF whipped Punk with the chain and you could see the chain marks on punks back, that was brutal. I wasn't big on the "creative" uses of the chain, also Punk whipping MJF with the chain didn't look great as you could clearly see Punk working the shots instead of laying them in. Still, the match was overall compelling enough. Punk's blade jobs have been great. I am not super into all of the reference wrestling Punk has been doing, but it's even weirder when you are doing a self-homage. It can kind of work in this context when the story is about MJF being a fan of Punk at that time, and also because Punk has goodwill with me right now. He's still one of the most compelling guys on tv right now, and he's really tightened up his overall execution since being back. I'm here for whatever he does next.

I only saw parts of the wild six man bullsh*t. Sting and Darby are great, just put the tag straps on them and give me a Mox/Danielson vs Sting/Darby tag title main event that ends with Danielson stomping Sting's head in with Sting bleeding all over the place as Mox ties Darby up and makes him watch. Then rematch in a cage and have Sting dive off the top of the cage. I'm only 75% serious about the cage dive, but I am totally down for that feud. I'm pretty done with Sami at this point, it doesn't really seem like he gets it. He's gone full "get my sh*t in" mode, which maybe he's always done, but he's unlikeable so as a heel you think he's good. He should not be a baby face at all, but he does crazy sh*t that makes the crowd pop, so he's hard to take seriously as a heel in that way. I'm done with him I think.

I didn't watch the main event outside of the entrances but both guys were dressed so stupidly that I almost had an aneurysm. Just put the strap on Kingston and then turn him heel when he gets it. Or not, I guess the title really doesn't matter if the main event of a ppv is a title match with Adam Cole vs Adam Page, who is only good when he's bleeding buckets and bouncing off the ring steps in nasty ways or is in the ring with the greatest wrestler of all time.

Speaking of the greatest wrestler of all-time

Bryan Danielson vs Jon Moxley - 3/6/22 AEW

Let me get the negative I have with this match out of the way first: Moxley really needs to tighten his strikes up now that he is part of a "violence" stable. I know the Moxley character is supposed to be this violent, blood-drinking character, but if anybody can point out a really violent Moxley match where he is the more violent guy, I'd be happy to watch it. He's got the match Josh Barnett at Bloodsport that I am a big fan of, but Barnett is clearly the more violent guy in that match. Don't get me wrong, I love that match, but Moxley threw a ddt in a shootstyle match. In this match, his looser strikes don't ruin the match and at one point they kind of accidentally elevate the match a little bit. Moxley's clinch knees to the head look like elephant sh*t, but when he throws them in this match it's during a brawling section that adds some realism to the match. In a real fight you see guys in a firefight throw strikes that miss or hit their opponent's guard all the time, and Danielson doesn't sell it or bump for it, but fights through it. But Moxley really needs to tighten that up going forward, but he won't, which is sad. Also the dual bladejob spot was very obvious and with the camera zooming out the only time of the night at that same exact time, that was annoying.

The positive for Moxley strikes: when he threw those kicks to mirror Danielson's, his accuracy was way off and blasted Danielson in the back of the head once and the chin another time. That looked violent. On the other side of it, Danielson feinting the kick up high and destroying the alcoholic's liver was about as nasty and violent as it gets. The execution on these particular strikes add to the story, the best story and best told story of the night. Two guys just trying to show the other that they are the toughest f*ckers on the roster. Normally you'd be a little let down with the finish we got in a match with that story, but it obviously had to happen that way to get the debut of Regal and the formation of this faction.

The positive part of the bladejobs is that Moxley hit a good one. It made for a good visual when the guys got to, deservingly, sell exhaustion. There is also a great visual in the corner when Mox rakes Danielson's back and you can see some marks and Mox's blood drips onto the back. The dudes are always staying on top of each other, keeping things close. The only time there is separation is when they make it look like we are doing to get a dive from either guy, but I love what they did with it, in concept. Mox teases a dive, but Dragon slides in. Dragon then dives, but he's just caught by Mox and they start brawling. Mox has some loose strikes out there, but the idea was great there to show they aren't here to do cute Young Bucks sh*t. Also thank God Mox didn't dive, he's not great at it anymore. I watched their tag match for Dynamite, I'll say a few words about that too, but Mox goes for a dive in that match.

All of this leads to the debut of William Regal and thank God for that. In a perfect world, William Regal becomes the most influential person in AEW. Moxley could take notes from Regal about how to lay in a strike, Regal slaps the piss out them boys.

Bryan Danielson & Jon Moxley vs Anthony Henry & JD Drake - 3/9/22 AEW

On the Dynamite following Revolution, Moxley and Danielson debuted as a tag team on AEW with William Regal ostensibly as their manager. They squash the tag team of Anthony Henry & JD Drake who apparently go by The WorkHorseman... ugh. JD Drake looks like a guy who would be working in the maintenance department, but somehow is wrestling the greatest wrestler of all-time on national television. I don't know how to feel about that. I like fat guys who wrestle and I like guys who are old who wrestle, but I hate fat, old guys who don't wrestle like fat, old guys. Moxley goes for a tope and he it looked terrible, he didn't come close, his foot caught the rope and Anthony Henry has to go down and it was completely business exposing (I think it's the first time I've used the phrase here, but let me clarify, I know the business is obviously exposed, but I don't need to be reminded of it). This was a nothing match that probably didn't even need to happen. It was only four minutes and Danielson looked good, but the match kinda sucked. But Regal cut a great promo after the match that had him and Danielson welling up. I'm cool with that. I'm all for William Regal on tv. When he called Danielson the wrestler he should have been and the perfect wrestler, it was the kind of truth and authenticity you don't get with WWE promos.

Daisuke Ikeda, Katsumi Usuda, & Mohammed Yone vs Koji Nakagawa, Yukihiro Kanemura, & Hido - 2/27/99 FMW

This match takes place earlier in the feud than the 5v5 elimination match I mentioned before and it also blows it out of the water. It's not elimination like that match and has no such over-the-top rule. And I'm not trying to dump on that match as it's a solid, good match. This match is just a lot better, a lot hotter, and a lot meaner. It's one of those great Japanese matches where the angle takes place during a match, and what's happening is these dudes escalating a feud as the match builds. The strikes are stiffer in this match and the dudes all get pissed. We get shoot kicks to the face and a chair gets introduced and good lord do they swing that f*cking thing. After the match ends they keep brawling as the Beastie Boys play over the loud speaker and the bell rings, but they just keep at it for like seven minutes and it's awesome. Then the Battlarts guys take the ring and start cutting a promo and the FMW guys run back in the ring and start brawling again in one of the coolest and funniest chaos spots I've seen in a while. I love this type of Memphis or Puerto Rico bullsh*t.

Katsumi Usuda vs Carl Greco - 10/30/96 Battlarts

Matwork alert. Amazing stuff as Carl Greco is a guy who really should have done more in pro wrestling, but what we have is all high end. These guys marry slickness with struggle with all their transitions and sub attempts. And they scramble like the result actually depends on it. Greco gets the better of Usuda on the mat because he's a better grappler, so on the next reset Usuda tosses out a leg kick to give him something to think about before shooting for the leg. It's this type of psychology and thought put into the work in Battlarts that I love. That's real stuff that people do in fights and they do the reverse of it too. Colby recently did the opposite of that with Masvidal in the standup exchanges. He had Masvidal so worried about the takedown that he won just about every standup exchange. Greco never really starts any strike exchanges or ground and pound unless it is in response to Usuda doing it first, because you gotta give out receipts. Those strikes never look as good as Usuda's but they are important, because they show that Greco might be a grappler, but he's still a dude who won't take any sh*t. Usuda has to throw the strikes on the ground because they will help him advance position and because he's a bigger bastard than Greco. There are clear dynamics in this match and they work them intelligently and include personality in the match dynamics to keep things from being predictable.

Katsumi Usuda vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara - 2/28/94 PWFG

Usuda is a rookie in this match and Fujiwara is the established guy here who is going to teach Usuda a thing or two about a thing or two. It only goes something around 4-5 minutes, but if you know anything about these two dudes, you probably already know that it's going to be a fun five minutes. Usuda started his career with great kicks and because it's shootstyle he didn't have to worry about trying to pull them and making them look weak as hell. They start out trading leg and body kicks, and when I say trading, I don't mean your turn-my turn, I mean you get a couple and I'm just going throw while you are throwing and get my couple at the same time. Fujiwara closes on him and ragdolls him a couple times with fun throws. He checks some kicks and blocks them up high in a way that indicates he's seen this kinda thing before, because he is the crafty vet and this punk-ass kid isn't anything new to him. We need more pro wrestling matches based around leg kicks, somebody ought to try to incorporate a calf kick into a match and see if somebody else can do the calf kick sell convincingly. If that were to get done right, that could be awesome. Look up Marlon Vera vs Sean O'Malley to see the type of thing I am wanting. It could easily look stupid to see a pro wrestler trying to sell a dropfoot off of a calf kick, but you gotta shoot for the stars and hope you land in the clouds or whatever the saying is. The struggles over ankle locks in the match make Benoit/Angle exchanges look completely stupid by comparison. This is a tremendous four minutes of pro wrestling.

And if anybody reads this and wants links to any of the pro wrestling matches, I can PM you the links of the AEW matches and the Japanese matches are on the internet archive so I can just post them here if you want them.

3/13/2022 - 3/19/2022

Pro Wrestling

Bryan Danielson & Jon Moxley vs Wheeler Yuta & Chuck Taylor - 3/16/22 AEW

Chuck Taylor and Jon Moxley were actively bad in this match. Moxley throws these clinch knees that remind me of a bag of Lays because of how much air is left in them. Somebody (William Regal) needs to take Moxley aside and show him the footage. In the Danielson match, it kind of worked for me, but I still had the stink in my mouth of knowing it wasn't what he was going for. In this match, there is no excuse. They are supposed to be getting this tag team over as violent and recruiting young guys in to be violent, he's either going to have to tighten those up, start making a little contact with them, or just retire them. Chuck Taylor has always sucked. If his contract runs out and Tony stops talking to him, my feelings will not be affected. Danielson is great and hits a William Regal inspired suplex in this match, he works hard to give Yuta some rub. The idea is to initiate Yuta into the crew, which you'd think would be great for his career. It's certainly better than being the fourth or fifth guy in the Best Friends stable.

The Diamond Studd, Cactus Jack, Vader, & Abdullah The Butcher vs Sting, Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner, & El Gigante - 10/27/91 WCW

This is from Halloween Havoc 1991, it's the infamous Chamber of Horrors 8-man cage match debacle.

The only reason I believe this match sucks is that I've seen it. Seven of the eight dudes are great and this match (other than the whole chair thing) looks great on paper. Sure, El Gigante is awful, but there is enough talent in this match to make up for it. Plus it's a big cage that comes down to the floor with space to work around the ring, that sounds awesome. The only thing this match is missing is The Nasty Boys and somebody pointing out that there is no need to do a match where the finish is an electric chair and also somebody to point out that the refer-eye camera is a bad idea and somebody who will explain why you shouldn't zoom way out and make everybody in the cage look like ants. And we also don't need a guy in the coffin, but I mean, I guess it makes up for it when Scott just destroys him. And honestly, this match has some great moments. But how could it not with the people involved. You have Scott Hall, Mick Foley, Vader, and Abby on the same team, that's insane and awesome. Sting throughs a coffin lid way up in the air and Foley just eats it. Foley takes a crazy bump out of the ring to the floor, working way too damn hard for this sh*t show. I usually write like an unfortunate reader has also seen the thing I'm talking about, but in case you don't know what I'm talking about, this is the crazy Chamber of Horrors match... actually I'm going to go back up and add that to the top. If you are reading this now, you've already seen it, but I made the decision all the way down here.

Yuki Ishikawa & Takeshi Ono vs Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda - 12/19/10 Futen

I'm going to keep watching all of these Futen and Battlarts guys, but you eventually start running out of ways of saying that this match is great because they hit each other really hard and are awesome at grappling. Trying to come up with a hierarchy of these dudes would be a nightmare. I am pretty sure I'd go either Ikeda or Ishikawa number one, but Ono sometimes feels like the best thing on Earth. Usuda is probably a cozy number four, but it feels really dirty to have to slot him in the last place of anything. This match goes like 25 minutes I think and it's all awesome. I said before that 2008 Battlarts was possibly the best pro wrestling, but it might actually be 2010 Futen. I'd put it up there with any year of any other promotion. It's the same crew of guys in different combinations not being part of any trained monkey show.

Music
Albums

Paranoid by Black Sabbath (1970)

I listened to this album again, this time on a car ride. I don't have anything new to say about this album or this band, I don't keep up with whether or not Black Sabbath is still considered cool or Paranoid is still okay to be the top Sabbath album. Maybe it would be hipper to say Master of Reality is actually the best Sabbath album, and it's a good enough album to be the best album a lot of other bands would have put out. Paranoid despite having the really popular songs that would probably invite people to try to find the flaws due to said popularity is still possibly their best album. I love "Fairies Wear Boots" more than say "Iron Man" or "Paranoid", but I won't bullsh*t you and pretend like I don't still really enjoy those songs when they come on. They are well overdone at this point, and they are great f*cking songs regardless of how many times I've heard them.

Video Games

Another World (1991)

As soon as I picked this game up, I knew it was going to be my primary game until I beat it. I've put a handful of hours in, but I still haven't finished the game yet. I do admit that can get frustrating at points and I've died a lot. But this game is gorgeous. I started playing it because it is the in MOMA and it's there because of how beautiful it is. I don't really know the technical details, but it's pretty clear (and confirmed by the game's designer) that this game wasn't just inspired by other video games. You can see the influence of sci-fi movies and certain paintings (once again, you'll have to forgive my ignorance, I am not of a museum dweller even when they are open. I can just see that there is a style here that isn't often seen in video games, but there are paintings that I'm sure I've seen that resemble this game).

Command & Conquer (1995)

I have set this game to the side for a bit, at least until I finish up Another World. The game itself is not bad at all, but somehow the version I downloaded ended up not having any of those infamous cut scenes and leaves out important details, which may be one of the reasons I was initially struggling, I didn't even know what I was supposed to do on some missions because of it. That said, I would just play a cut scene on youtube and then play the level after that. It did become a pain in the ass, so if I go back to it, I'll probably find a better way to do it.

Tough Love Arena

This a browser based 2D fighter with rollback netcode that you can just go to and play for free. I have no idea what the overall plan is for this game, but it's one of those games where the idea is boil the fighting genre down to a smaller set of mechanics and be valuable to people new to the genre but still be deep enough and tight enough for genre experts to get something out of it. I am not enough of an expert to say that, but I have seen some other people who are much better at fighting games than I am have that same thing to say about it. It makes sense to me as this is a lot of fun and I like fighting games, I think I am good at some of the basics, but I am not quite there with all of the nuance and intermediate tech. I can't tell you anything about frame data. This game is loads of fun. If you have any interest in fighting games, you should look it up. There is only like three of four characters and they are based on fighting game character archetypes. It's very easy to pick up and you could find yourself giving this game hours. It also made me want to dust off my PlayStation and play Fantasy Strike again. And maybe someday I'll try to get good at a Street Fighter or something.

MMA

Cain Velasquez vs Junior Dos Santos - UFC on Fox 1
Cain Velasquez vs Antonio Silva - UFC 146
Cain Velasquez vs Junior Dos Santos - UFC 155
Cain Velasquez vs Antonio Silva - 160
Cain Velasquez vs Junior Dos Santos - 166
Cain Velasquez vs Fabricio Werdum - UFC 188

Picking up where I left off with these Cain Velasquez fights. The first fight of this bunch is Cain's first loss and was a big surprise at the time. Cain looked like he was slated to go on a dominate run... and immediately got caught right behind the ear by JDS and Cain's only flaw up to that point, being hittable, caught up to him in what amounted to a non-fight. Cain's next fight was his first fight with Bigfoot Silva and his fight that proved he deserved the rematch with JDS. He completely dominated this fight, destroying Silva's nose and causing him to bleed his own blood in quantities rarely seen in MMA. The fight doesn't go a round before being stopped, but Silva still managed to stain the canvas and both guys' torsos had the blood rubbed in which looked uncomfortable and gross. Silva had blood running into his eyes and mouth, he had to wipe his eyes over and over again. It was brutal. Speaking of brutal, Cain got his rematch with JDS for the belt after that Silva beat down. This fight answered the question of what if JDS and Cain really fought. The first fight wasn't much of a fight as I mentioned. Cain got hit once and it was over. This time around, Cain barely gave Junior room to strike. He swarmed him and brutalized him for 25 minutes. JDS didn't spring a gusher like Bigfoot Silva, but his head was literally reshaped after the fight. He had weird bumps coming up around his temples and eyes, he started to look like he was transforming into the Toxic Avenger. Cain got the belt back. After being granted a rematch by JDS, Cain did the honors for Bigfoot Silva, giving him a shot at the belt. This time around Silva may have fared even worse than the first time with Cain just looking like the completely superior fighter even on the feet as he could always just beat Silva to the punch, including the shot that ended the fight. Silva was throwing a punch with a bunch of start up frames and Cain just sent a right hand down the middle and only had to crawl on top and rain down shots until the ref pulled him off. After that successful defense, the final JDS fight was booked. This fight looked a lot like the second fight, but JDS did show some life at various points. Cain is hittable and he got tagged a few times, but it was still a heavy beatdown until the fifth round when JDS was awkwardly dumped on his forehead in a somewhat fluky knockout. The knockout was a little fluky and weird, but if it went to the cards, it'd be the same outcome. Once again, JDS got lumped up around the face and head area. Then the last Cain fight I watched this week (he has two more I need to get to) was a fight where it finally looked like Cain may be on the way down. Sure, they did fight at high altitude and Werdum had been training there and Cain had not, as they make sure to let you know in the commentary, but it was the first time Cain was beaten down and not just caught once. Werdum looked more like Cain than Cain did in this fight. Werdum was the fresher guy throughout the fight. Werdum would be an interesting guy to do a deep dive on as he beat some legendary guys, including Fedor.

Ilia Topuria vs Jai Herbert - UFC Fight Night 204
Molly McCann vs Luana Carolina - UFC Fight Night 204
Paddy Pimblett vs Kazula Vargas - UFC Fight Night 204
Arnold Allen vs Dan Hooker - UFC Fight Night 204
Tom Aspinall vs Alexander Volkov - UFC Fight Night 204

Getting so far behind on writing about this has kinda taken some shine off of the moment, but I'll do my best to recapture some of that feeling when I write about this night. I watched almost the entire main card only skipping one fight, the fight that went the distance and by the only reports I read, not something that I really needed to see. This card took place in the O2 Arena in London, and the gimmick of the show is that all of the main card fights would feature English fighters taking on fighters from elsewhere. That set up made for a great night of fights with a hot crowd ready to end a damn pandemic.

The first fight of the night was Topuria vs Herbert and holy cow, what a start. They come and start striking in exciting flurries and then bam, Herbert nails Topura with a head kick that drops him and Topuria has one quality that I think is very important for MMA fighters and that is the instinct to grapple when they get rocked instead of the Justin Gaethje instinct to stand and trade (though Justin Gaethje is an elite level MMA fighter, he's just the guy that came to mind first). Topuria eventually slams Herbert and survives the round. He doesn't really get to do much damage on the ground and Herbert gets up even before the round ends. They do some striking with each other and both land nice shots several times, with Topuria getting his mouthpiece knocked out twice. But the round ends and both guys survive, but a minute into the second round after dangerous exchanges, Topura puts a nasty, nasty combo that went body-head and turned the lights out for the long-limbed Jai Herbert. This somehow wasn't even the fight of the night.

Up next was Molly McCann vs Luana Carolina. I took this note right after watching this, which was I think was the night of the event: God, it's great hearing a crowd roar for a hometown hero. This is the type of thing COVID shut down, but f*ck COVID, it's time to cheer for our babyface heroes. Damn near crying. What an insane finish. This HAS to go on the highlight reels. If UFC was pro wrestling, this would need to go on the intro video.

At the time I didn't want to spoil the ending because it's one of the crazier KOs I've ever seen, but we are like two or three weeks removed. Molly McCann hits one of the best timed, best set up, best placed, best spinning elbows to flatline an opponent I've ever seen. The crowd went wild, she went wild. She was wild all night long and she looked like a superstar. She couldn't have gotten this over anywhere else in the world, but the greatness of sports is that you can have moments like this. It's in the right place, with the right people, at the right time. This felt like a moment of rebirth for the world. Maybe a few hundred thousand people watched this, so I know that that is an overreaction and hyperbole and all of that, but it was a moment and the start of a great night that gave me hope.

I feel sorry for people who are unable to get into sports, especially combat sports. I even feel sorry for people who are only into sports on a surface level and only care about a win or a loss or a championship. This specific moment, and the importance of it will certainly be lost to time, was just as spectacular to me as many championship coronations.

I was a bit emotionally exhausted after that. I skipped the next fight and went straight to the Paddy the Baddy showcase. He fought a dude named Kazula Vargas who I am not familiar with. Paddy showed what might be his biggest flaw, which he also showed in his UFC debut: he's hittable. He takes a shot, goes to the ground and Vargas was not ready for his moment and makes a huge mistake by letting this fight go to the grappling where Paddy outclasses him. Paddy controls the rest of the fight including a very nice judo throw, and eventually submits the guy in less than a round. Not a great fight, but still a great moment as we could be seeing a superstar on the rise. He gets compared to Conor already, but there are differences. The similarity is that this is organic and the people are choosing him. Conor is still the biggest star, but that authenticity is gone. Paddy will not be boxing anybody, but he might also never reach that same level. The reason Conor did is because at one point, he was as good as advertised. We will see if Paddy is, because if he is, his run should last longer than Conor's did.

Up next was a very interesting fight, one that didn't last long but was exciting while it did. Dan Hooker was the more known fighter, a dangerous guy who has had a tough stretch. He went down to 145 from 155, and it looks like the weight cut may have damaged him a bit. Seems like maybe he would have been able to take more damage at 155, maybe the water off the brain there could have played a factor. But damn if he didn't go out swinging. I know Dana gave 50Gs for all the finishes but I'd have cut a check to Hooker for this fight. Hooker has lost four of his last five, but he's lost to Poirier, Chandler, and Islam at 155 and now to Arnold Allen who is undefeated in the UFC. This is the type of fight that keeps a great night rolling, but not a fight of the year contender. It goes less than three minutes, but it's all action and ends with a stoppage.

The main event was Tom Aspinall taking on Alexander Volkov. I had never heard of Tom Aspinall, but after tonight, I think he's vaulted himself into that second tier of heavyweights who only need an opportunity to enter that top tier. If I had to guess, I'd say he's two wins away from a title shot, but if he can get Stipe, Gane, or Tuivasa next, he may only need one win. Volkov is like 6'9", so he creates interesting problems for people, but Aspinall had no problem at all. This wasn't a very good fight in terms of back and forth or anything like that, but it's an interesting fight if Aspinall goes on to be a champion or cult figure in the history of the sport.

3/20/2022 - 3/26/2022

Music
Albums

Driving from Alabama to Texas takes awhile. On the way I listened to some podcasts, I talked on the phone, and I listened to four country albums. Three for the first time, one for about the twentieth or thirtieth time, but first in a long time.

Bury Me Where I Fall by Joseph Huber (2010)



The most noticeable thing about this album is the songwriting. Country music is unfairly criticized for its song writing often, I personally love the idea of the "three chords and the truth" with "the truth" being the simple songwriting. I understand that some others may need more abstract, mystic, or enigmatic lyricism. This exists in the country genre, but you will have to deep beneath the surface and pursue it. It's worth the pursuit to find the easily findable Townes Van Zant or the less easily findable Blaze Foley, but there are folks who carry that legacy on. Joseph Huber may be more well known, though still practically unknown, for his fiddling in the great .357 String Band, but he stepped on out on his own with his debut album (and subsequent albums). I had never listened to it in whole, but I was familiar with a few tracks. "Downtime" was the one I heard first and kinda sticks out in this album as being more in line with what you may expect from country music. It's not his most TVZ song on the album is what I'm saying. I love that song, but there is more depth in this album than that offers. Just don't expect to find the musical sparseness of Townes in this album. Joseph Huber plays every instrument in this album, and he is to instruments what Stone Cold Steve Austin is to anything on four wheels. If he can pick it up, he can play it. His intention may not to have been to carve out a place for himself as a solo artist, maybe his intention was just to give himself a creative outlet where he has full control. What I've listened to of the .357 String Band is great, and I have more of that to listen to, but this is a very different thing. Everybody should listen to both them and Huber's solo work. I'm listening to this album again as I type this up, and I'm getting even more into it. I love that somebody who chooses these instruments (banjo, fiddle, etc.) also chooses to write serious and smart songs that feel like they are about people in the world who couldn't understand why they feel like what the songs say they do.

As an extra note: Though the comparison I made was to Townes Van Zandt, none of the songs in this album sound like any of his songs. Except for one. "Can't You See a Flood's a-Comin'" made me go to Google.com to check and see if it was a cover of a TVZ song I'd never heard before. Huber wrote it, but that's the song to listen to if you want the TVZ experience by somebody else.

This whole album is on YouTube. Seriously go listen to it.

Follow Me Down by Sarah Jarosz (2011)

This is a very solid album, but a little outside my wheelhouse. I am not the biggest folk fan and this falls more on the folk side of country. And while it flirts with things I like on the country side, including bluegrass, it goes too far into that side of folky female singer-songwritery americana country whatever the genre is things that will keep it from ever being my favorite thing in the world. But like I said, this is a very solid album. I can clearly recognize that. Jarosz is a very talented person, who played a bunch of the instruments on this album, and played them well. She also has a fine voice, but maybe not necessarily the voice that I was looking for. I hate to be negative about this, but it falls in that weird space where I came out feeling a net positive with more negative things to say. That might have to do with expectations or taste or something. I'd recommend this album if somebody asked me whether or not to listen to it. I think it could work for others more than it worked for me. I won't immediately jump on another Jarosz album, but I would be willing to return to her at some point in the future.

The Woman I Am by Kellie Pickler (2013)

I was told that Kellie Pickler was the real deal and is a good representative of country music that could be accessible to a wide audience. So, I gave one of her albums a listen to see how I would feel about her... and it didn't go well. Sure, she is not doing the worst kind of pop country music, but good lord is this album grating. She does the Carrie Underwood thing of singing "powerfully" for sake of it and not really making it mean anything. I don't know how many of the songs she wrote or were written for her, but I really didn't like the songwriting on this album. I also don't believe Kellie Pickler the same way I believe Angaleena Presley, Kacey Musgraves, Karen Jonas, or Sarah Shook. Everybody is playing a character, and those four women all play a different character, but I believe that they are that character. Kellie Pickler is playing like this tough character for most of this album, specifically in one of the songs she says her dad taught her to curse like a sailor but there is also a song where she earnestly calls a guy a son of a buck when she is supposed to be angry with him. If albums are supposed to be considered cohesively, that type of thing just can't happen, especially if you aren't charismatic enough to pull it off. I was told I listened to the wrong Pickler album, but I don't really want to spend the time listening to another one.

Wish You Were Here by Joshua Ray Walker (2019)



This album is now in the same category as Sarah Shook's Sidelong as albums that I heard and recognized as being really good but appreciate even more upon my return to them. This album has some of my favorite country songwriting of the decade in it, particularly standout lines such as "I laid in bed an hour today / trying to die of natural causes / in case the Lord forgot to take me in my sleep". That's how Walker starts a song and it's great. It's a song about a broken marriage which is country music bread and butter, so to contribute something to this particular subgenre that stands out is no easy task. The instrumentation and production are pure country gold as well. I could see myself finding a spot in the top ten of the last decade of country music for this piece.

UFC Fights

Cain Velasquez vs Travis Browne - UFC 200
Cain Velasquez vs Francis Ngannou - UFC on ESPN 1

And with these two fights I've finished up watching Cain's UFC career. I still feel bad for the guy and his current situation, but admire his resolve to attempt to do what he must have thought he had to do regardless of the repurcussions. Sadly his last fight was in the same realm of Rousey vs Nunes, in that this formerly elite fighter was just no match for the new juggernaut. But before that we at least got one more vintage Cain fight, where it looked like he was ready to make another run. I'm not going to do any Googling right now, but I believe it was knee injuries that kept him on the shelf after his absolutely dominant beatdown of Travis Browne. That fight even had Cain throwing spinning shit. He pressured Travis Browne and just beat the everloving Hell out of him, not looking like the guy who gassed out in Mexico City. But his last fight, he looked old and weary. You never want to look old and weary when you are stepping up for a fight, but against the scary man to ever live, it looked like the sort of thing that shouldn't have been sanctioned. It didn't last long and mercifully Cain's head stayed attached to his body and wasn't found rolling around section 30.

Video Games

Another World

I played a few more hours of this, but I got a little stuck in a tricky spot where I haven't been able to grasp how to take out the enemies that come from both sides of the screen. It's still a beautiful game, but damn is it unforgiving at times.

Pro Wrestling

Dean Ambrose vs Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar - 2/21/16 WWE Fastlane

I watched this before Wrestlemania for my Moxley project. I'm trying to come up with the sickest Moxley/Ambrose comp tape matchlist that I can, not because I love the guy but because I think he has had an interesting career. He was okay for a long time and then seemingly got really good and then fell off a cliff and then supposedly got good after leaving WWE. Him getting good againg after leaving WWE feels like a huge myth, but he does have several bangers since then. He seems to perform well when he's got a good opponent and an important match, but he never carries anybody and is actively bad as a midcard tv worker in AEW. This match is great however and blows away the recent Wrestlemania main event with just Brock and Roman. I love the layout of this match and that's not something I usually say about triple threat matches. Triple threat matches typically have a low ceiling, but this match played out like a handicap match for most of it. Brock can believably dominate people and look great doing it. When Roman or Dean are out of the picture for a few minutes at time, those minutes are typically earned. Like that suplex on the floor where Dean gets dumped on his head nearly Big E style. Something that Moxley doesn't do that Ambrose did was throw his body around in a wreckless way. Moxley tries to be a bad ass, while Ambrose was supposed to be this wild and crazy guy. In ring I prefer wild and crazy Ambrose who continuously looked great diving in at Brock or breaking up pins or his really great crossbody on Roman. It's not all rainbows and lollipops, I did have a few nitpicks. I am not a big fan of Ambrose's facial selling during his section of going to Suplex City, but his bumps were awesome. (Great bumping all around in this match.) I also hate the way Wrestlemania is treated in WWE. It's so annoying that Ambrose twice took his eyes off of his opponents just to look at a stupid f*cking sign. They treat Wrestlemania like it's a bigger deal than the World Championship. Stone Cold was awesome and during the lead up to X-7 he wasn't making it about Wrestlemania, that was part of it, but he made it clear that he NEEDED the championship. That's cool, fetishizing Wrestlemania is not. Stop pointing at the stupid f*cking sign, stop looking at it, just take it down and stop making your wrestlers look like f*cking dorks. I also don't like when they clear the announce desk off. I already suspend my disbelief enough, if Brock bounced his head off of a pointy monitor, that would hurt way more. Same thing with chairshots, though I don't mind how Ambrose threw the chair around in this match as it all looked good and everything fit in that regard. Brock was awesome in this match, especially when he took a spear from Reigns with Ambrose on his shoulders. It was pointed out to me so I can't unsee it, but Brock excellently and very safely threw Ambrose past the part of Reigns' legs that could have been clipped and hurt him badly and botched the spot up. Really high level stuff there that looked great and was extra safe. I'll take this version of Moxley over the guy we have today, I'll take this version of Reigns over the guy we have today, but Brock is evergreen so there is no need to take this version or that version of Brock.

Johnny B. Badd vs Johnny Swinger - 1/27/96 WCW Pro

I started up an episode of WCW Pro on Youtube but something came up and I had to turn it off after the opening match. It was a pretty nothing match and I am not much of a Mero fan as it is. He has a nice looking two move combo that is kinda stupid. He throws his opponent out of the ring to slingshot himself over the top rope and flip his ass onto his opponent's head and then rolls the opponent in to launch himself into them in the ring. It doesn't look bad, but it's pretty illogical. I'm writing this while I've still not caught up to the current date and still have not finished this episode. I need to get back to it. I'm hoping to find some hidden WCW gems.

I attended a local wrestling tournament in late March hosted by PWX (Premiere Wrestling Xperience) that featured Anthony Henry. I didn't realize until now that I had apparently already seen him on AEW TV. JD Drake was promoted to be in the tournament as well, but was unable to make the event and had to be replaced. I was looking forward to maybe getting to have a conversation with Drake since he's from my hometown. LOL at your comment about his appearance because I thought the same when I first saw him on TV in a match against Darby during the pandemic shows. I was shocked to hear Justin Roberts announce Drake from my hometown, but it also made sense, because Drake very much looks like someone from my hometown. Wheeler Yuta was in the tournament as well. He lost in the second round, which surprised me because I expected him to win it all, and his performance was lackluster, like he was just going through the motions. Makes sense in hindsight, however, since he was on the verge of receiving the push of his life. Why go all out in front of a few dozen fans in a rundown town and risk injury when you're about to be put in a faction with Regal, Danielson and Moxley?

Anyways, curious to hear your thoughts on Double or Nothing if you watched any of it.

The only thing I watched was the 10 man outlaw mudshow match and the MJF/Wardlow squash. I give the mudshow a positive rating overall, but it did start to go on a little long and there were little things throughout the match that I wasn't feeling. I don't know if I'll rewatch it or not, but I worry that my thoughts on the match would go down before they go up. The MJF/Wardlow squash was probably fun for the live audience, so I won't really poopoo on that but I wouldn't have minded a match where MJF stooged for a while longer before being finished off by a single big powerbomb, then after the match Wardlow hits a couple more and then we get the stretcher job. MJF wasn't bumping super big for the powerbombs so it kinda looked bad.

You didn't miss much. It was the weakest AEW PPV in quite awhile. Way too much filler. I think most AEW PPVs have been well paced. They all have their lulls, but for the most part I'm usually exhilarated by the end of them. This one left me exhausted. I was glancing at the clock with exasperation when realizing how many matches were yet to come.

Judging by reviews, most people seemed to love the Anarchy in the Arena match. It was just okay for me. A bloodied Eddie Kingston walking to the ring with a gas can was an incredible image, but the chaotic nature of the match means almost no individual moments stood out. Plus it feels like a waste of Danielson's talents, having him out in the crowd throwing punches instead of manipulating some poor soul's joints on the canvas. And even though they've got in-fighting to blame for the loss and future feuds will likely come from it, it still seems wrong to have BCC/Kingston/Santana & Ortiz, with all their street toughness, lose such a match to Jericho's glorified job squad.

Match of the night for me was House of Black vs. Death Triangle. A nice pay-off to a feud that's been going on for what feels like an eternity. I consider Malakai Black and PAC two of the most talented dudes in the company, and I hope that they move higher up the card soon. The tag-team championship match was very good as well. Lee & Strickland mesh well together, even though I'd rather see Lee going after the TNT or World title. I'm fine with Jurassic Express retaining since they're likely dropping the belts to FTR in the near future.

As soon as the participants were named for the Owen Hart tournament, I knew Adam Cole would likely be the winner as a consolation prize for coming up short in his feud with Hangman. Sadly, I was proven right. I've always found Page overrated, but still had an overall positive opinion of his abilities, but I think he sucks nowadays. His whole act is stale as hell, and he's been over-exposed in the ring. At one point in the match when Joe had him in a submission, you could hear Cole telling him that he couldn't reach the rope, so Joe had to maneuver his weight so that Cole's weak ass could get close enough to get a finger on the ropes. Size and lack of physique isn't something that typically bothers me in wrestling as long as wrestlers compensate with other traits. Darby's tiny, but it's believable when he overcomes much bigger dudes because of his agility and reckless abandon. For instance, Darby's suicide dives look more painful than anyone else's because of the force with which he launches himself. But Cole looks like a dude who could barely lift a 10lb dumbbell and yet he wrestles as if he's 230-pounds of muscle. Charisma is the only thing he has going for him. And it bugs me that a dude who clearly modeled himself after HBK is the winner of the inaugural Owen Hart tournament.

I've over Britt Baker as well. Everyone, myself included, was smitten with her after that bloody Lights Out match with Thunder Rosa, and it was easy for her to stand out in the lackluster women's division at the time, but I think she's also been over-exposed and is now getting stale. I don't think Ruby Riot is anything special, but winning the tournament would've done a lot more for her than Britt.

The main event had a few shaky moments, like Punk's botched buckshots, but it was a very good match overall. They told a good story. I expected Punk to win but wasn't especially confident, and I thought there was a good chance he'd turn heel in the process, but instead they had me thinking that Hangman would be the one to turn. Hangman had a strange reign. I wouldn't rate any of his matches from the past several months less than 3.5 stars, but as much as he's been killing it inside the ropes, he never carries himself like a champion outside of it. Some of that is the booking. AEW does an excellent job building up challengers, but once a person gets the belt, they strangely de-emphasize them, as if they think that just having an occasional title defense is enough for audiences to remain invested instead of continuing to put in character work. Jade Cargill has been the only exception. But Page never carried himself as a champion, either, always feeling small. I guess that's the anxious millennial way, but I think champions should possess more swagger.

I was surprised that MJF didn't get in any offense at all. Those powerbombs were doing a number on him. After the 5th powerbomb or so, you could see him trying to brace the impact with his elbows, which just made them even more painful probably. I've heard a lot of wrestlers name the powerbomb as one of their least favorite moves to receive. AEW has done a phenomenal job of building up Wardlow. I'm curious to see how far they go with him. I'm so used to WWE squandering potential than I expect AEW to do the same and drop the ball with Wardlow at some point, but I hope I'm wrong. I haven't watched last night's Dynamite yet, but I saw everyone raving about MJF's promo. After he got stretchered out Sunday, I didn't think we'd see him at all for a few weeks.

There were two inherent problems with the mudshow match for me: 1) how are you going to do a serious bloodbath brawl between a team that's treated as killers and a team that features 2.5 comedy goof jobbers (they did kinda answer this by having one of those dudes hit a great bladejob), 2) the name of the match. "Anarchy in the Arena" sounds so lame to me.

I have no opinion on HoB and Death Triangle other than it doesn't matter what they do because I'll skip it anyway. Neither team has anything I want to see. Same goes for Swerve, Lee, and Jurassic Express at this point.

Adam Cole may be my least favorite wrestler of the last however many years with literally the only match of his I enjoyed was him being carried by a guy who had never wrestled a match before.

Yeah, Britt probably needs to take some time off. She's had some great moments, like you said, the lights out match was a big deal and provided us with a great visual, but from a week-to-week standpoint, this women's division sucks.

Hangman's never excited me and his finisher is dumb. I'm sure the Danielson match (or was it matches?, I can't remember now) was good, and I'm told by people I trust that the match with Archer is a fun shout, but a guy who claims to be about Cowboy Shit doing flips and being brooding or whatever the f*ck won't work for me.

I watched the MJF promo. I'm torn on it, because the worked shoot stuff is whatever to me at this point. I don't think it works in a company where the company is babyface. In WWE it can work because everyone recognizes the company as heel. I also don't know what the end goal is for the promo. It did get people talking, so if that was the only goal, I guess they accomplished it. It seemed to outshine whatever Wardlow did, which you would think would be counterproductive. Like why didn't Wardlow come out during the promo and run MJF off or something? Wouldn't that make sense, because Wardlow is happy to sign with this company and this dude is out here running it down. I don't think Wardlow will have anywhere to go, and this whole situation, to me, took away some of his shine.