Tag: blets

Praise for TNA’s blet refresh

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Initially, I wasn’t really keen on Impact Wrestling re-branding back to TNA.  There was just this bush league reputation of TNA that always stuck with me that involved Jarretts, Dixie Carter, strange booking, Cups for no prizes, convoluted booking, the six-sided ring and a drunk Jeff Hardy that I didn’t think was a good idea to going back towards.  I always felt that Impact was a respectable endeavor of scaling back, restructuring, reinventing, and growing back towards respectability.

Especially compared to the questionable things that AEW does, I found Impact to be the more refreshing alternative to the predictability of the WWE, and over the years, I’ve always made a point to hit up Impact when they stopped in Atlanta, and even liked their product so much, it inspired me to get an Impact replica blet, as bootleg Pakistani as it undoubtedly was.  I enjoyed what they were doing, and I respected the fact that they weren’t necessarily trying to compete with the Joneses and were out there, as a solid #3 promotion, doing their thing, letting people work, and putting out decent product.

But I kind of get it why they wanted to go back; probably if for anything, because all of the noteworthy promotions in the land are all three-letter acronyms, and being “and Impact” might’ve felt like being way too much of an outlier.  WWE, AEW, ROH, NWA, GCW, PWG… and Impact.  Perhaps there’s just something about three letters that means wrestling, and just like that, TNA is back, and the Impact name reverts to being the flagship television show.

Regardless, if there was one fun thing to come out of the rebrand was the inevitability that there would be new blets, because Impact blets sure as heck weren’t going to fly in the land of TNA.  And I have to say, despite my reluctance to accept the TNA name back into existence, as far as their refreshed lineup of blets across the promotion, I have really nothing but praise.

They did the smart thing, and refreshed them all at the same time, so they can have something of a cohesive and uniform look to them.  Not like when the WWE updates the US title in 2020, the Intercontinental blet in 2021, a 24/7 title that came and went in the blink of an eye.  I didn’t know who ZBro’s Belts was, but after seeing how great these TNA blets came out, I dug to find out who the maker was.

I appreciate that there’s both cohesion as well as variation with all the blets, and they don’t all look like the same fucking blet like Ring of Honor’s entire lineup of titles look after Tony Khan bought them.  Gold for men and women’s top prizes, red straps for the tag blets.  The X Division blet has come leaps and bounds from when it was basically just a big red X on a blet, and looks like a solid #2 prize, and I know it gets a lot of criticism mostly for its name, but I really dig the updated Digital Media blet.  I love how it has kind of a circuitboard pattern in the background, and there was obvious thought that went into its design as opposed to copying bits and pieces from Japan and UK to create a bunch of AEW midcard titles.

As for the inevitable question on whether or not I’d entertaining getting any replicas should they be available, legitimately or though Pakistan, there’s always the possibility for the right price.  I’d honestly go for a Digital Media championship first, and if I ever had the disposable income, even go after a set of the Knockouts Tag Team blets for my girls, especially since these don’t have the goofy-ass Garfield Copper font on them like the old ones did.  The others, would be dependent on if any workers appear to be doing good enough work to inspire me to want to get one, and if Nic Nemeth captures the world title, it just might be enough to get the job done.

Critiquing the IWGP Global Championship

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When Dave Finlay involved himself into the program with Will Ospreay and Jon Moxley, and then destroyed both the IWGP United States and the unofficial UK championship blets, and then it was announced that there would be a new title announced to replace them outright, I held my breath with hopes that it would be a sweet design.

The IWGP World championship that looked like the X-Men’s Phoenix Force emblem was kind of a letdown in my opinion, and came at the cost of merging out the old Intercontinental championship in the process.  The NJPW World Television championship that they unveiled was without question one of the worst blet designs I’d seen in a while.  The IWGP Women’s championship looked like a repurposed Jr. Heavyweight blet from 1996.

And to be fair, as much as I liked how flashy and gaudy it was, I know that the US championship that Finlay destroyed was also not really that well received by lots of smarks and blet aficionados, but I was still a fan, and was sad to see them go, although I understood why they were doing it; Ospreay brought in a variant of it, plus he was on his way out, so the company had to do something to consolidate the blet’s position in the company. 

Frankly, I was really hoping they’d just bring back the Intercontinental championship, because much like in the WWE, the IWGP Intercontinental was often seen as the workhorse blet, that usually the most talented worker gets, and has been held by so many greats, most recently from Kenny Omega, Shinsuke Nakamura, Chris Jericho to Tetsuya Naito.

So when they unveiled the IWGP Global Championship in preparation of Wrestle Kingdom, I have to say that my knee-jerk reaction was that of kind of a push.  It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time, my breath wasn’t taken away when seeing it.

Now I’m not saying all new blets need to be radical and unique, but I thought the Global blet was kind of vanilla.  The hard squared plates in the center and the fairly generic globes as the side plates.  It’s funny because I think AEW lifts a lot of design cues from NJPW’s blets, but the hard vertical lines of the Global make me think that they borrowed cues from AEW for a change.

What I really liked about the old Intercontinental blet is that it was nearly a clone of the old World championship, in terms of the centerplate.  It had fairly generic side plates as well, but the fact that the centerplate was fairly similar to the World, it was metaphorically stating its position as a blet close to the tier of the World championship.

The IWGP Global championship, most definitely looks like a tier below the World championship now.  Make no mistake, this is a true #2 blet, and a guy like David Finlay holding it is still very much a #2-tier talent, even in an absolutely decimated roster like New Japan’s current state is.  Even Dolph Ziggler Nic Nemeth showing up to immediately put his name in contention for this new blet couldn’t save the fact that it still seemed kind of mid.

I don’t think I’m doing a great job of articulating it, but it just doesn’t really look or feel like a big deal, like the #2 blet in New Japan Pro Wrestling really should feel like.  The design is classic, but it’s safe and kind of boring.  It feels like a blet that’s going to be passed around by guys who get over with character work, tenure and obligations to free agent acquisitions, like David Finlay, TJP or Jeff Cobb, and doesn’t seem like it’s going to be held by guys who seem like they’re on the rise to greatness, and would be the guys to elevate the title, like Nakamura and Naito did with the old Intercontinental.

Overall, the blet is fine.  But compared to the relatively short histories of prior #2 blets in the company, it already looks and feels like it will never be more than a true #2, and not one of those blets where it can someday feel like the guy holding it really does seem like they’re on the cusp of becoming great.  It’s like with the recent roster decimation recently, it’s apparent that NJPW is headed for a downswing, but it’s also as if they prepared for such by introducing a downwardly-safe and vanilla championship for the promotion to wield, and for an inherently prideful and honorific Japanese company, such just seems kind of mediocre in the big picture.

I will never understand people who think cash doesn’t make the best gift

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year when all across the country, as well as the world, people are preparing for their respective gift-giving holidays and putting way more thought than really should be necessary in pondering on what to get for the ones in our lives we feel the compulsion to give gifts to.  And because I am fortunate to have people in my life who care about me, I’ve been asked for what I want, or lists of things that might want to expedite their pursuits for checking me off a respective list.

The honest answer to if there is anything that I want is that I literally want nothing.  There is no physical tangible thing out there at this juncture in my life that will improve my standing in said life, and I would rather have absolutely nothing over one more piece of existing matter that can further fill up my house that I already feel is packed to the brim with, things.

Not even any more wrestling blets, because for starters there aren’t any blets out there that I actually want anymore, and secondly because I have no office or personal space to put them in, any further blets would just sit in my closet out of sight until whatever day comes when I can have a private space again.

What I would really like, is to receive cash, if I had to get any gifts at all.  But the thing is, at least with so many Americans, cash is considered not a good gift, as it’s impersonal or thoughtless or other pejoratives people who feel this way use to try and justify their opinions that it’s just not a good gift.

Quite the contrary, I don’t think there’s a gift better than cold hard currency, because it shows that you care enough to want to gift something to a person, but at the same time, take into consideration that they can actually then use it on specifically what they want, because the things people want might be personal or too expensive and require lots of other cash gifts to help to go toward it, but the fact of the matter is that cash is one of those things most could probably use, but at least in America, probably won’t get solely based on perception bias of cash as gifts.

In the Korean part of my upbringing, cash as gifts was about as common as white people giving out cups and mugs* as gifts.  Not only does it demonstrate thoughtfulness, it also takes into consideration that the recipient is now free to use it towards what might actually make them happy, instead of receiving something that they might have to pretend being happy over and making it awkward when it’s never seen of again, or worse off, ends up in a charity pile or discreetly sold on Facebook Marketplace.

*this is another can of worms that maybe I’ll rant about the next time it triggers me

Frankly, I’d love it if everyone who wanted to get me a gift would just send me cash.  The only things I want are time, which I know can’t be purchased, and relief from feeling like I’m scraping by, which can only be gifted in the forms of cash that I’d use to help keep my head above water.  And it wouldn’t be like using gift cash to pay for my bills or anything, it would be like cash used to help cover for actual indulgences that just happened to have occurred in the past, like the multitude of Disney trips that have happened over the last two years where it always feels like I’m trying to dig out of.

That’s what would actually make me happy.  Things won’t make me as happy as the alleviation of some of the financial undertakings that I’ve been put on, because there is a direct correlation with my financial security and my general state of happiness, and anything that can bring me any sort of relief, would be the most welcome gift of all.

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.

AEWShop be out of their GOT damn mind

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

  • Get email from shopAEW.com for some reason, I’ve never purchased anything from them before
  • Limited edition The Acclaimed-themed AEW World Trios Champions replica blets
  • Only TEN will be made
  • $5,000*

*actually $4,999

Most people know the story about how way back when, someone in marketing figured out that pricing things with a cent value of 99¢ often times subliminally tricked consumers into thinking something was cheaper than it really was, because like $1.99 was leaps and bounds cheaper than $2.00 was, solely based on the fact that all they saw was a leading $1 instead of a $2.

Yeah, I think when we’re dealing with the difference between four thousand and five thousand dollars, that single digit in the ones column really isn’t going to be fooling anyone.

But here we are, where AEW is now selling a replica blet that is, for all intents and purposes, the most expensive replica blet on the market.  Higher than WWE’s Elite series of replica blets (~$2,000 USD), and higher than New Japan’s replica blets ($2,500-3,400 USD), and not even close, butting up against $5,000 in comparison to others.

Allegedly, the old NWA/WCW World Heavyweight Championship blet that was synonymous with Ric Flair back in the olden days, was originally estimated to be $8,000-10,000 depending on whom you asked, and when the NWA refused to give Ric Flair back a collateral of $10,000 at one point, he took the blet with him, and showed up to WWF television with a rival promotion’s blet.

The point of bringing that up is the fact that an actual original championship blet, albeit in 1991 dollars, was closer to the asking price of AEW’s tribute Trios blet, than any other blet replica available in marketspace.

I know that the Acclaimed are pretty over right now, but the fact of the matter is that in the grand spectrum of the wrestling industry, they still haven’t proven jack shit, to be worthy of getting a tribute blet, much less one with so much exclusivity, that they might not actually move all ten of them but who am I kidding, AEW tribe marks are so ryde or die that they’re probably already all ten accounted for by the time I’m done with this post.

Like, WWE has a shitload of tribute blets out there, but they’re all for guys that are legitimate legends of the industry.  AEW giving a tribute blet to the Acclaimed would be like the WWE realizing the team of Al Snow and Steve Blackman were over at one point, and making a tribute tag blet for Team HeadCheese.

The Acclaimed are a pretty okay team, and they’re a good example of how actual wrestling skills aren’t as important when you have charisma and great stage presence.  I’d say Anthony Bowens is a 7 in the ring, and Max Caster is a 6 at best, but the two of them together have a tremendous amount of charisma and performance chops, and they know how to engage a crowd.  But when push comes to shove, they’re not even the best tag team in the company by a long shot, and from a promotion that values tag team wrestling as AEW does, they’ve got a long way to catching up with the Young Bucks, FTR, and Lucha Bros among others.

And let’s not forget the fact that they’re carrying around Billy Gunn, whom it seemed like a pretty slapped together union at first, but to their credit and willingness to run with whatever is thrown their way, they’ve made it work.  Obviously, Billy Gunn is in incredible shape and can still go despite being 59 years old, but the guy is mostly a legend solely by association with stronger performers. 

But in storyline, he was shunned and assaulted by his own sons, and in two seconds afterward, he was completely revitalized and renewed by putting his fingers into scissors and joining hands with a rap group team; seems a bit convoluted and silly, but then again, this is AEW we’re talking about.

Back to the blets though, we’re living in a world where a replica blet that is held in part by Billy Gunn, is the most expensive replica in the entire industry.  And it’s not even real gold like the IWGP replicas sold in limited quantities by NJPW; as absurd as it would be to drop 2.5-3.5K on one of those, they’re at least made from real 24 carat gold, and might actually appreciate in value, aside from the fact that some of the greatest wrestlers in history have held it.

My god man, I’m worked up over something so silly and absurd and I really need to stop.  AEW be out of their got-mind with this one.

Orange Cassidy: giving credit where it’s due

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

OFC when I actually get the opportunity to write this post, it just so happens to be right after Orange Cassidy finally lost the AEW Intercontinental All-Atlantic International championship after 31 previously successful title defenses.

But it doesn’t matter; all the same, despite the fact of how critical I am of AEW, I still wanted to make this post to give credit to where it’s due, to Orange Cassidy, whom in my opinion, has probably just concluded the greatest championship reign in the promotion’s short history.  Better than Cody’s TNT title run, better than Mox’s first AEW World title run and most definitely better than Jade Cargill’s TBS title run.

Over the last 11 months, Orange Cassidy successfully defended the International championship 31 times after winning it from PAC last October, which is a pretty unprecedented run, especially in today’s day and age of the industry where championships are either seldom defended, or passed around like a hot potato. 

Sure, it might seem silly to applaud the results of a scripted industry, but the fact of the matter is that in spite of the predetermined outcomes, the dancing still has to take place, and over the span of the last year, OC has participated in 30+ high-output matches which over time is a colossal physical workload, that he’s endured and thrived through, bringing the stock of the AEW International championship to quite frankly, the heights of a 1B tier, right behind the World championship.

Admittedly, I wasn’t really that big of a fan of OC, as I thought his whole schtick was too juvenile and apropos to the kid fans of today, but it dawned on me that that’s just exactly what he is.  He’s a guy meant to appeal to the younger audience, the guy that can capture the imaginations of the 17-and younger audience, as well as the younger rung of the vaunted 18-35 male demographic that AEW loves to tout being the kings of.  And the last time I checked, I’m firmly outside of both demographics, so OC is not a guy that’s meant for me no matter how his character is booked.

But work is work, and I have tremendous respect for a guy who can go 11 straight months and performing at the pace in which he does, and who has clearly been working through a lot of aches and pains throughout that stretch, as the amount of RockTape™ on his body seemed to increase every single month.

And 31 title defenses doesn’t account for the times he was involved in programs with Best Friends or with other stable vs. stable feuds in between his singles bouts, which only adds to the workload that was heaped upon him over the last year.  Again, the outcomes might be predetermined, but there’s an expectation of performance in AEW for title bouts, and OC has done a tremendous amount of work over the last year, and it goes without saying that the guy deserves a boatload of credit, recognition and acknowledgment of the effort he’s put in.

In a way, it’s almost a relief that he finally dropped the blet, although I’m perplexed to why it’s going to Jon Moxley who needs a mid-card title win as much as some rich guy needing another million bucks, but I really hope that OC gets to take some time off soon in order to rest his body, because I’ve grown to respect the worker, and I’d like for him to get back to an optimal condition to where he can get back into the game and keep pleasing fans and earning respect from olds like me.

But for what it’s worth, I just wanted to tip my e-cap to Orange Cassidy, for basically being the MVP of AEW over the last year, because as all fans of the WWE Intercontinental championship know, that 1B title is the workhorse blet, and they’re the guys that really shoulder a substantial load that satisfies the wrestling fans, even if they’re not involved in the World title storylines.

A e-tale of two extremes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I got two emails today; one from New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s shop, and then not long afterward, one from the WWEShop, since I’m a big wrestling mark nerd who has shopped with both companies to where regardless of the checkbox I decline to receive emails, they send me shit anyway.  Normally, I delete them all with light prejudice since I never asked to receive them in the first place, but today I opened both of them, because they smartly put in the subject line, shit about my favorite thing in the world: blets.

In one corner, we have NJPW’s shop advertising the pre-sale of the undisputed NJPW World championship that I’ve made no secret to not being a fan of the design of.  But at an insignificant, paltry $3,500 (three thousand, five hundred dollars), you could be one of probably 1,000 extreme marks to get your hands on an extremely rare, official NJPW replica championship blet.

In all fairness, it is typical impeccable Japanese craftsmanship, and unlike lots of wrestling replica blets that are made from brass or some other cheap shit metal, official NJPW blets are (allegedly) made from actual 24-karat gold, to justify the drink-spitting price tag on them, so in theory, they literally could be purchased as a legitimate investment, should the cost of gold ever spike to Gamestop-like proportions, and an actual owner of one of these bad boys could flip them for some actual profit.

But yeah no, $3,500, I can think of a hundred more constructive or better things to spend that money on, mostly going towards my actual house, a real architectural structure where human beings reside in, instead of a championship blet replica, regardless of how much I love collecting them.  Alternatively, I could get like 7-8 WWE replica blets (at full retail) for that cost, or every single AEW replica blet in one fell swoop, instead of a blet that I don’t like the design of in the first place.

But speaking of WWE replica blets, it brings us to email #2, from the WWEShop.  Because the WWE has caught up to having released almost every single blet in WWF, WWE, WCW and ECW history at some point, as well as having made a legion of bullshit “commemorative” blets for cherry picked former wrestlers, and a confusing array of MLB and SEC athletics tribute blets, it should come as no surprise that the WWE has finally gotten in bed with the NFL, seeing as how there’s a considerable amount of overlap between fans of both companies.

For what will probably be a low-cost (in comparison to NJPW) of $499 per blet, NFL fans can get official WWE replica blets of their favorite team, regardless of if they’re the Kansas City Chiefs or not, seeing as how they’re probably going to embark on a dynasty and win every Super Bowl as long as Patrick Mahomes stays on the squad, but you can get a blet anyway, because if you’re a Redskins Commanders, Lions, Cardinals, Texans or fan of some other hopeless shitty NFL squad, you can get a blet anyway and feel like for two seconds what it feels like to have something that scripted winners get to hold.

UNLESS you’re a Jacksonville Jaguars fan, because in a humorous turn of events, the WWE overlooked for a few minutes that the Jags are also the owners of AEW, and pulled the option from their site, but not before smartasses on the internet made the astute observations first, and of course, got their archive of screencaps and proof of fucking up, because there’s little else the internet loves to do than call out failure.

Either way, I’m broke as fuck, so there’s no chance in hell I’m getting any of these new blets anyway.  I only like blets that actually exist or have existed, and my general cap for any blets is preferred to stick under $500 a pop.  But all the same, I do think it was amusing that both of these drops happened on the same day, and not without its own malaise by the ol’ E for forgetting that one of the NFL teams also reinforces their number one North American competitor’s bankroll.