Month: November 2023

Order has been restored

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While we were all sleeping: SK Telecom’s T1 squad wins the League of Legends World Championship for the fourth time, defeating China’s Weibo Gaming in a 3-0 stomping

Despite the fact that I don’t play anymore, I still had a loose ear to the ground when Worlds began.  Obviously, I’m always hopeful that a Korean team comes out the victor, but considering over the last few years, Chinese teams have finally gotten the monkey off their back and traded some championships with Korean squads, it’s really a jump ball between the two LoL powerhouse nations.

There was a moment of dread when the final four shook out to be three Chinese squads and T1 as Korea’s last hope, especially since the event was taking place in Korea, and I couldn’t think of a more disappointing scene than Chinese celebrating a championship in the home of their overlords.  The anxious feeling didn’t go away when T1 survived the semi-finals, because there was yet a second chance at China getting to upend Korea, and over the last few years, history has not been kind to T1, with more close calls than there were actual victories, with T1’s last championship being all the way back in 2016.

But that’s what’s good about something that’s happening on the other side of the planet, my ass was asleep while the finals were occurring, and I woke up to be pleasantly pleased to hear that T1 not only won the championship, they did so in an extremely dominant, one-sided affair, with not only T1 winning in a 3-0 sweep, the cumulative time of play was barely over 90 minutes, with T1 eating their breakfast in a sequence of 30 minute matches.

I’ve been to two Worlds championships too, I can assure that all the logistics, setup, festivities, ceremonies and break in between combined probably equaled to two days’ worth of hours, and fewer things are probably as unsatisfying to the event and all the people who traveled long distances to partake, than the actual main event lasting 90 minutes.  I’m quite tickled imagining the ironic dissatisfaction from all those who run the event that it was over so quickly.

I spent a few minutes this morning, trying to think of the best analogy to describe T1’s rofl-stomping of Weibo, to capture the combined sentiment of nationalism, shade, hometown pride and disappointment for spectators, and the following come to mind:

  • 2007 College Football National Championship: Florida cruises past Ohio State 41-14. Florida QB Chris Leak makes a remark about how they played tougher teams in the SEC than Ohio State
  • 1995 Houston Rockets: the #6 going into the playoffs, they are pushed the distance in every round of the Western Conference playoffs by the Jazz, Suns and Spurs, but then go on to sweep the Orlando Magic in the NBA Finals
  • 1997 Braves at Yankees: Greg Maddux throws a complete game shutout in 84 pitches to quickly dispatch of the Yankees. Legend has it that he did not shower and rushed out of the locker room immediately afterward because there was a tee-time he wanted to catch.
  • Tiny Toons: Happy World Land episode: Plucky Duck is invited on Hamton’s family trip to the Happy World Land amusement park, goes on a grueling miserable car trip, only to discover that after arriving, they only ride on the complimentary park monorail once, and call it a trip and go back home

I made a joke that Faker and/or the rest of the team probably had daily League of Legends practice at 7pm local that they didn’t want to be late to, because starting late meant finishing late, so it was in their best interests to put Weibo away as quickly as they could.

But anyway, just like that, SK Telecom wins their fourth LoL World Championship; and for the record, there have been 13 championships, with T1 being involved in seven of them, with them not even existing for the first two.  With Faker being a member of all of them, this is his fourth ship, an unprecedented achievement, especially in a field where change happens more rapidly than the stock market.  Needless to say, with an actual victory, order most definitely has been restored in the competitive League of Legends scene.

WTF is AEW doing #256

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently there was an AEW pay-per-view today, Full Gear.  I’m not writing as such to throw shade, frankly I lose track of when WWE or anyone else has shows either, and I’m extra salty that I missed a GCW that was at my favorite venue to watching wrestling in Atlanta, so I’m not trying to deliberately sound dismissive of AEW like I sometimes do.

Upon reading a summary of the event, there’s plenty that definitely warrants the title of his post series, because I really often am curious just WTF AEW is actually doing sometimes with their booking and storytelling.

Frankly, MJF as this babyface seems lame, and the guy is way better at being a heel rather than this babyface scumbag, and the entire promotion seemingly has no idea what to do with all these hotshots they’re bringing in like Jay White.  Will Ospreay joining AEW seemed like an obvious outcome, seeing as how he still feels like there’s art to make, before he inevitably goes to the WWE to make the big bucks.

But not to completely shit everything AEW does, I have to say that I’m a big fan of what they’re doing with Timeless Toni Storm, and I love the transformation she’s done into the black and white retro starlet, and her character work has been outstanding, and she’s easily among the most entertaining performers they have from the second the camera starts rolling on her to when she leaves the screen.  Glad that they’ve put the Women’s championship back on her, and in her current character iteration, I’m optimistic that this reign might actually stick for a little bit.

However, there was a specific match that served as the impetus to this post, and in fact within this match, there was a specific spot, that really got the gears grinding, and wondering not just WTF is AEW doing, so much as it’s WTF Hangman Adam Page?

During his Texas Death Match with Swerve Strickland, both dudes are bloodied up, as AEW loves to have everyone bleed as if they’re trying to transmit transmissible diseases on purpose, but at one point, Hangman Adam Page drinks the blood of Swerve.  He spits it out like Triple H spits out water, but the point remains, he forces the blood of another human being into his mouth, lets it swish around, and even though he spits it out, it’s still very much in his digestive system and eventual blood stream.  Even if both men are healthy and clean, there’s a tremendous number of red flags that go up upon simply describing the act of allowing another human being’s blood into your own mouth, on purpose no less.

Generally, I’m cool with Hangman Adam Page, because I think he’s a really good worker, seemingly chill and cool guy based on his conduct on social media and the persona he projects, but not going to lie, this spot does pock my opinion of him a little bit, and thinking there’s some screws loose and maybe he himself has taken one too many chair shots in his career.

In this day and age, performers are most definitely allowed to veto a spot when walking through the general summaries of what should happen in a match.  Sure, it’s easy to say that Tony Khan suggested it, but Hangman has enough clout and equity in the company to where he probably would be fine if he said “you know, I’m not comfortable drinking another man’s blood,” and TK would probably acquiesce.  But this spot still happening means that there’s a part of Hangman that is dumb enough to think this would be a good spot, and I’m a little bit disturbed by his agreeance to do it.

It doesn’t make him look strong in defeat, it doesn’t make him any more respectable than he already was, all it really does for me is think he’s not as intelligent as I thought he might be seeing as how he was a teacher prior to wrestling.  It’s gross, its unsafe, and no knock on Swerve, but if they weren’t careful, whatever Swerve has, Hangman now has, for deliberately taking another person’s blood into their mouth for the sake of entertaining a bunch of fickle wrestling fans.

AEW has done some bonkers shit in their short time span, ironically both spots coming in separate Omega vs. Moxley deathmatches; when Omega forced Moxley to injest “glass” and the hilarious “exploding” ring after their second death match, but I’m going to have to go out a limb and say that I think Hangman Adam Page drinking Swerve Strickland’s blood is going to have to take the title for the dumbest spot in the company’s history now.

Maybe AEW should make a blet for that too.

Introducing the Rome Emperors

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t hate it: the Rome Professional Baseball Club formerly known as the Rome Braves, unveils new team name and branding identity, the Rome Emperors

Sure, it’s not the snarky low-hanging fruit like the Rome Rednecks, or the outside-the-box idea I had of calling them the Floyd County Archers, but it’s not like we didn’t know that it was going to be something safe, kid-friendly, and homogenized, because at the end of the day, the Rome Professional Baseball Club is still a business and going safe, kid-friendly and homogenized is still the modus operandi of trying to squeeze money out of as many demographics and parties as possible.

So yeah, the Rome Emperors – as stated above, I don’t hate it.  Smart to have unveiled everything at once, or at least that’s how I found out because I live under a rock and this was fed to me by friends before I could even find out about something this baseball minutiae on my own like I used to, but whatever, because I saw everything all at once, I didn’t have time to speculate, dissect and eventually hate it, because everything was done upon delivery.

There’s one aspect that likes that they’re calling themselves Emperors, which sends a message that they intend to rule the Sally League or the Carolina League, or whatever level of A-ball they’re in these days, I’ve lost track, but at the end of the day, Minor League baseball is still a feeder league to higher leagues, and so often times is the case, especially with Braves affiliates, is that their records aren’t ever really that great.  I don’t remember the last time, or ever, when a Braves affiliate won a league championship, so it’s kind of funny that they have the name of Emperors, but will more often than not, be doing anything but ruling the league.

It’s kind of like Team Emperor in Initial D, because they were introduced to be this badass guerilla team of Evos that dominated lower-tier street racing clubs, but then eventually became another fodder squad to the Hachi-roku, the Redsuns, Kogashiwa’s MR2 and even Mako and Sayuki’s Sil-Eighty.  In spite of the menacing sounding name, they ultimately were just mid, at best.

Regardless, in spite of the snarky analysis, good on the organization for picking a name that remotely goes tangibly with the name Rome, and I like the explanation of their direction to go with a penguin, instead of the Little Caesar’s mascot, because when the day is over, everyone loves animals and frankly I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like penguins. 

Sure, it’s ironic that an animal most known for living in arctic conditions will be the mascot for a team that plays in a state that has nuclear summers, but when kids and grown-ups like me that like chintzy, novelty crap like penguins with baseball bats see a penguin, there’s money to be made in moving merch.

Not lost in the rebrand is the fact that they actually got away with using the overkill’d Trajan font with the Rome wordmark on their away jerseys, because if there was ever something that could get a pass on using the most basic and Rome-ey fonts there ever was, it was a brand that was actually called Rome.  I still think they’re lazy for not sharpening off the tips of the serifs, but at the same time, I can understand why.

Overall, I’m quite satisfied with the rebrand altogether.  Kudos to the organization for pulling it off, even if I wish they didn’t try to sparsely try to satisfy the Braves by keeping so much red in their branding, but baby steps, I suppose.  They’ve already taken great strides stepping away from their overlords, and hopefully things can only get better from here.

I look forward to (not) hearing about the promotions, shenanigans and general business that the team will be able to do in the coming season and in the future, when they’re not quite so held down by the shackles of the Atlanta Braves stuffy corporate branding.

Clearly I am the weirdo, for valuing hygiene

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to gym going habits, I always factor in the time I need to get dressed, take care of any bathroom needs, changing back, but most importantly, showering.  If at any point, it doesn’t seem like there’s enough time to get a shower in, I just won’t go to the gym; period, full-stop. 

I will alter my workouts and drop down from three sets of everything to two sets of everything.  And/or I will drop weight in order to ensure I’m not getting gassing and taking excessively long breaks in between lifts, all in order to make sure that I have adequate time to get my shower in, because like I just stated, if I can’t shower, then there is no workout.

Over the span of the last year, I’ve often witnessed men, and well women, who come to my little office gym to workout, and after they finish, they’re dressed back in their slave office attire and leaving within the next five minutes.  Obviously, they did not shower, which always has me scrunching up my face in varying amounts of disgust based on how sweaty and gross I think they probably are, depending on the seriousness of their workouts, which in most cases I can usually observe and evaluate while I’m doing my thing.

And I always think it’s weird and gross that people are doing this, because even if I were to hop into the gym, walk five minutes on the treadmill, do some bicep curls or some push-ups or some lat pulls, I know that I’ll have warmed up my general core to at the very least, feeling a little bit sticky and un-fresh.  I know I’d want a shower from just that amount of activity, so I couldn’t fathom doing an actual workout where my chest has started sweating because that’s the part of me that apparently starts sweating first, for your daily dose of TMI, and I don’t clean myself off.

One of my greatest fears is being the guy that smells bad, because that’s a reputation that I imagine lasts forever to those who are unfortunate to have been hampered by it.  Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever smelled bad, but I’m also convinced that most people can’t really smell themselves, and I’m always paranoid that in times when it’s hot out and I’ve gotten some perspiration going, I am someone that smells bad and just the people I surround myself with in my life are all too polite and considerate to ever say anything to me, or perhaps I really don’t smell bad, and I’d like to keep it that way, and the best way to ensure that kind of silence remains is to keep myself fucking clean, by virtue of taking showers, especially after working out.

Plus, I just love the feeling of being all clean and fresh after a nice shower, and I’m baffled that so many other people don’t enjoy it enough to want to alter their exercise habits to ensure that they can clean themselves up too.

I asked my friends in one of our collective group chats on I were being weird by being so grossed out by people who didn’t shower, and no matter how many times I’ve brought up the topic, the answers haven’t really changed much mostly because 80% of the people in my group have muted the chat because those of us who are active are often too fucking active and they’re tired of checking in and seeing 87 new messages about inane topics like humans that smell bad.  But a lot of them are seemingly okay with it, or defending or giving excuses for people who don’t shower after working out, and it doesn’t gross me out any less, as much as it makes me think that people need to prioritize their lives better to where they should probably concern themselves with their hygiene more than they do.

Take for example, there’s one dude, who is actually on my floor, who doesn’t work out in the gym, but he goes on long nature hikes on the paths that surround my building, but he comes back sweatier than a wildebeest, and he tracks in all sorts of mud and debris into the locker room.  And then, he doesn’t shower, ever, and just gets back into his default skin, probably takes a damp towel to himself and considers himself fine to go back to the office, and I’m disgusted by him every time I see him, especially after noon, because I know where he’s been and I’m sure he’s probably a guy who smells, but I don’t want to find out to confirm.

But more recently, and what spawned this revisiting of this topic is that just the other day, an extremely high-up guy in my company came into the gym to workout.  And I’m talking about like, not the CEO of the company, but like the #2 or #3 guy in the company, someone who is on the highest floor of our building.  He’s recognizable because he’s the guy who leads off the vast majority of corporate communications and is undeniably the highest positioned guy in the company on premises, because the CEO of the company, despite adding a fourth day of mandatory in-office a week, lives in fucking Florida in a grand display of hypocrisy.

Anyway, super high-up executive guy, he’s actually in pretty good shape for his age.  White girls might even consider him a silver fox.  Does some time on the rower, does some hindu squats, spends an adequate time on several machines, working out all over the body.  Has what would be considered a pretty full workout in the process.

He vanishes into the locker room, and I’m thinking to myself, does this guy, a major high-up executive for this $2B company on the rise, come out in five minutes, or does enough time pass to where I can believe he’s taken a shower because he had a pretty decent workout?

Of course, he emerges in five minutes, in his default skin for white guys, cornflower blue oxford shirt and khakis, and it’s evident that this guy who probably makes three times what I do and is the highest position in the building, did not shower.

Obviously, going back to the title of this post, clearly, I am the fucking weirdo, because I value hygiene and cleanliness moar than the rest of the slovenly sweat hogs that I work with.  And upon further reflection, I realize that there are probably fewer people than I have fingers on a single hand that I have seen who actually shower after their workouts.  And at this point, I suppose I really can close the book on the topic, and stop asking myself and all my friends on if I’m being weird for judging people who don’t shower after working out, because it’s pretty evident that so many in the world are completely at ease with being gross and stinky in situations where they can control whether or not they can refresh themselves.

Jimbo Fisher: The Bobby Bonilla of College Football

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I first heard the rumblings that Texas A&M was planning to axe Jimbo Fisher, I didn’t think much of it.  Just that it must really suck to be Jimbo Fisher and having to hear through the grapevine that your termination was basically coming, and that you just have to sit there waiting for the shoe to drop.  Even more so than the fact that at the time, Texas A&M, while not having a great season, were still 6-4, bowl eligible and in the grand spectrum of the sport, at least more than likely going to have yet another winning season.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Texas A&M is doing such, because Jimbo, in spite of not having won a National Championship for the school, is still a rare breed of good coach, who has been to the top of the mountain before, when he won a natty with Florida State, and for all intents and purposes knows what he’s doing.  The interesting thing is that ATM* hasn’t exactly been a cellar dweller under Jimbo Fisher, which is usually one of the first pre-requisites for firing a coach; under Jimbo, ATM has gone 45-25, and won 9, 8, 9, 8 games before a five-win season a year ago, and as it stands right now, the Aggies probably will finish with seven this year.  But two unsatisfactory years is basically bad luck, injuries, a miss on a recruit or two, but really nothing a fairly successful football program like ATM should worry about.

*what I like to call Texas A&M because their logo’s letter order is literally, “ATM” and it’s also a metaphor to the cash cow that college football is

What it really boils down to is the fact that ATM has higher expectations than much of the rest of CFB, and are tired of hanging out in the middle of the pack and want to make a change for the sake of making change.  The thing is, there’s a vastly higher chance that ATM is going to go through some really dismal years over the next few, possibly miss some bowls (and the payouts that come with participation), and probably would have been better off in terms of wins and losses if they stuck with Jimbo.

But the bigger story is the fact that in firing Jimbo Fisher, ATM is still on the hook for around $77 million dollars of contracted salary, and despite the fact that he won’t be driving the reigns for the program, are very much responsible for paying every single cent.  Unsurprisingly, this is the highest payout in CFB history, and if there’s one thing that never seems to change with my interests, is stories about sports having too much fucking money and doing a whole lot of dumb shit with it.

Long story short, from what I’ve seen, it appears that ATM is taking a page out of MLB and going on an installment plan in order to help spread out the money they owe Jimbo, instead of just plunking down $77M, slapping him on the ass and bidding him adieu.  So until 2031, it looks like ATM will be paying $7.27M every single year to not be coaching ATM.  He gets a lump sum of $19.4 immediately for some reason, I don’t care to know the granular details, but basically starting in 2024 and over the next eight years, he’ll be getting a cool $7.27M for doing absolutely nothing,

This is of course, a similar situation to Bobby Bonilla, the baseball player whose agent somehow transformed $5.9M into nearly $30M, spread out over 25 years, except the fact that it doesn’t appear that Jimbo’s agent negotiated any variables for inflation or interest.  But who’s to say that within the next eight years, ATM gets sick of how much cash they’re literally throwing away, and renegotiate something that does encroach more similarly to Bobby Bo territory, but that’ll be another post for if it ever occurs.

But given the sheer dollar amount and the breakdown of daily intake, Jimbo Fisher is not only the Bobby Bonilla of CFB, he’s actually making out way bigger than Bobby Bonilla ever did.  $77M is greater than $30M, and whereas Bobby Bo is basically making $3k a day for existing, Jimbo Fisher will be making roughly $28k every single day until the end of 2031, merely for existing.

Chalk this up as another reason why sports are so (ironically) great, and just how much needless money is dumped into these industries to where programs can literally set millions and millions of dollars on fire and suffer absolutely no consequences in the process.  Whereas I couldn’t have given any lesser number of shits about Texas A&M in the past, just due to this failure of a scenario, I kind of feel like I need to root against them, and whomever is Jimbo’s successor, just so I can imagine a guy I gave no turds about in the past, laughing in front of a television while the Aggies get rolled around in the basement of the SEC for years to come.

The return of Sasha Banks is afoot

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

You heard it here first: the journey of the return of Sasha Banks has begun.  Obviously, I’m not really in tune with the industry as much these days, but every now and then I like to try and flex some of my old Oracle™ predicting power to see just how much the same the wrestling industry is no matter how much things seem like they’ve changed throughout the course of time.

When I saw that Kairi Sane had returned to the WWE and immediately gotten back with Iyo Sky, I didn’t think much of it.  But when I heard and then saw that Asuka had flipped and joined up with Kairi and Iyo, into Bayley’s Damage CTRL stable, I began to think, hmm.  Considering the long-storytelling here, and the obvious outnumbering of Bayley and an injured Dakota Kai, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before the Japanese girl-trio turns on Bayley and kicks her out of her own stable, and killing it in the process.

Charlotte has been the frequent victim to this new union, and now Bayley will be out on her own.  Somehow, Becky Lynch will get entangled in this affair, mostly because Iyo is a Women’s champion and that will be the clause needed to bring them all together despite differing show affiliation, and now we’ve got a nice little even three-on-three going on, after some reluctant teaming between the three of them which will hopefully be told in a manner that doesn’t treat the fans like idiots.

But obviously, something will feel missing the entire time, because there will be someone who is missing from the whole equation from the Four Horsewomen, and this is where I would be willing to wager, that if the rumors are true, and Giulia from NJPW/Stardom does sign with the WWE, she’ll be the fourth member to Japanese girl-squad, and it becomes all but inevitable that Sasha Banks has to make her return to the WWE at this point.

Perhaps it’s The RAW after Wrestlemania™, or maybe even sooner, maybe later, like next year’s Survivor Series or a War Games event separate, but at this point, I would wager that within the next calendar year, we should expect to see Sasha Banks return to the WWE.  As known as the Four Horsewomen name is, the stable has never been made official, the team has never competed simultaneously, and the company hasn’t merch’d or marketed them as such, and this would be as good as time as any for them to do so, especially when there would be a super-talented stable of Japanese girls to work with.

All of them get to start a new chapter in their careers, and it seems like good timing for all four Horsewomen to do such, considering Charlotte and Becky are kind of floating around in limbo, Bayley can probably do some entertaining work gradually phasing back into a face persona, and Sasha can steal all the spotlight with a grand hero’s return, en route to being the one who moves on with a championship.

The stars are not yet in alignment, but they’re all swirling around close enough to where it’s not going to take a lot to make it all work out.  The real challenge really will be trying to keep things under wraps, because once Becky joins up with Charlotte and Bayley, it’s going to be pretty obvious that Sasha is coming back, and knowing the WWE’s obsession with creating moments and surprises, anything short of a hero’s return might be enough to stall the inevitable.

The point is, from the day she left, I always predicted that it was never a matter of if, but when Sasha Banks comes back to the WWE, and I strongly feel like the wheels for that return have just begun moving.  It’s hard to get a straight answer from the internet, but to my knowledge, Mercedes Mone is basically a free agent since she was supposedly doing a per-appearance arrangement with NJPW, and considering how long she’s been out with an ankle issue, the timing seems appropriate for her to be able to make a return within the next few months. 

Dad Brog (#124): Should I be concerned??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I walked into #1’s room after her quiet time and was immediately met with the sight of Naoru and Kaoru AKA The Wrestling Cats, basically hanging off of the dresser.  My immediate reaction was that of amusement, but at the same time, I’m wondering if I should be concerned, because the first thing that came to mind was the comparison to the hanging corpses that are all over the various mansions in Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest.

Of course it’s just a child playing with her stuffies, but lately, #1 has really been into ribbons, string, tying knots and such.  I don’t really know where she’s getting it from, it doesn’t seem to be on the agenda at what they’re teaching in school, but for whatever reason, she’s been fascinated with fiddling with loose threads and ribbons and always tying them into knots or together, and in her quiet time, she’s been experimenting with decorating the lamp post or hanging things off the bed rail, and in this case, draped around the necks of her favorite stuffies and suspending them off of the dresser.

Really though, I just wanted to make the comparison to the visual of what I saw and accurate comparison reference to Castlevania II as what immediately came to mind when I saw it.  Perhaps my kid isn’t the one I should be concerned about if hanging corpses from a game from the 80’s is the first thing that I thought about.