This past Sunday, I attended my first pro wrestling event, WWE's Elimination Chamber Pay-per view. So what is is like to see live pro wrestling? Here are a few of the things I learned.
1. WWE really is Family Friendly - I started to get back into wrestling a few months ago. One of the reasons I'd stopped watching over a decade ago was the crassness of the Attitude era. When WCW folded, there was no longer a show I could sit and watch with my dad without feeling really uncomfortable. Sex jokes and blood did not make for family entertainment. The WWE of today is decidedly a PG affair. The jokes are silly, the action is gore-free, and their is a circus-like atmosphere, which includes $9 cotton candy, and "clown" segments with backstage videos of wrestlers playing with toys or wrestlers heckling the crowd on the mic. "Bad News" Barrett is basically a one man Statler and woldorf complete with a podium that rises into the rafters.
2. The crowd matters - A live wrestling show is one of the few forms of entertainment where heckling and crowd interaction are an essential part of the experience. In real sports, if you boo Santa, ESPN will complain about that city having no class. In WWE, Chanting that the good guy sucks is half the fun. It's like the Rocky Horror Show with drop kicks and body slams.
3. The Spanish announcer's table has the life expectancy of a Red Shirt on Star Trek - Odds are, when it comes time to throw some poor guy through a table, the Spanish announce table is the first to go. This night was no exception. During the six man tag match, two 6'7", 300+ lb guys through a 6'1" 220lb guy through that table. It was awesome. Seeing a guy fall through a poorly constructed table never gets old.
3. The crowd is an interesting mix - The WWE promotes itself as scripted entertainment, and yet I still sat next to a woman who believed everything she was seeing was real. This also meant that she got rather upset when I began cheering for the bad guys. The crowd is an odd mix of kids and adults who believe in everything they see and the folks who enjoy it as the entertainment spectacle that it is, with the later making up the majority of the crowd.
4. The performers are amazing athletes - I knew that wrestlers had to be world class athletes to pull off the stunts they do without killing each other. Seeing it live, I gained an immense appreciation of the precision timing it takes to execute some of these moves. I got to see back flips all over the place, suicide dives onto the ground, and perfectly timed uppercuts, slams and kick-ass finishing moves. It was like a master class of fight choreography. It also helps when your opponent is willing to take actual blows from you. They're also Strong as hell. You can't fake suplexing one guy while he holds onto a third. It's also not easy to catch 250lbs of muscle flying at you from 9 feet in the air. These guys are absolutely professional athletes who also know how to put on a show.
5. John Cena isn't that bad - John Cena is the current top good guy in WWE. He looks like a hulked up Mark Wahlberg and is always talking about hustle, integrity, and never giving up. He's a boy scout to the point of annoyance and the crowd is constantly split between those who love him and those who hate him. (the "let's go Cena!"/"Cena Sucks!" chant is very popular) Since I haven't spent the last 10 years watching this guy, I don't have much of an opinion on his in ring skills. It wasn't until I saw a fan with cerebral palsy wearing a Never Give Up hat that I saw that Cena's value is bigger than the ring. John Cena has granted over 400 wishes for the Make-a-Wish foundation. I'm not always thrilled with him as a wrestler, but he seems to be doing his part to be a great role model, and a hero figure that people can cheer for (even if he kinda sucks)
Overall, I had an absolute blast at this show and I was surprised at how accessible WWE has become. If they come to your town, I'd say give it a shot, you might have a blast too. It's silly, it's breathtaking, and just a darn good time.
Side note: Bray Wyat may be the greatest character since The Undertaker. The guy plays a freaky redneck cult leader with two bearded behemoths as acolytes, one of whom is about 7 feet tall and wears a green jumpsuit and lamb mask. It's creepy as hell and holy cow can they put on a show. Bray's 'Sister Abigail' finishing move is one of the coolest finishers I've even seen. I can't wait to see where this guy goes.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
100 by 30 book 50 - Green Lantern, Justice League, and Supergirl
*huff* *puff* you guys, I *huff* did it. I made it halfway through my challenge. Holy crap, 100 books is a lot for someone who reads as slow as I do. Also, focusing on books makes my pop culture ADD very cranky. Sometimes a guy just wants to sit down and gorge on 30-40 hours of Buffy and Angel and then kill everything that moves on my Playstation. Then the guilt comes back and I get back down to business. Will I make my goal?! Stay tuned to find out. I have 7 months to get through 50 books. This means I have the challenge of finding engaging books that aren't 800+ pages. Or lots and lots of graphic novels. I'll try to keep mixing it up though. I have made a promise to read White Oleander at some point.... But on to today's offerings!
I will go ahead and just review all three of these together. After the last entry, I was trying to figure out if I even liked graphic novels anymore. Fortunately, these three titles proved that the comic book form still has a lot to offer. Unlike say, Justice League Dark, Green Lantern and friends demonstrate that having a few relateable and grounded characters make all the difference. Hal Jordan and Sinestro's uneasy alliance makes for great storytelling. Just beneath the Buddy-cop bickering lies the very real threat that Sinestro could turn on Hal and any point. Having a point of reference give the story license to go in all the crazy directions that it does because you remain invested in the development of the characters.
The Justice League reboot tells an origin of the team that finds a way to highlight the different strengths of all the members and make them all individuals as well. Superman is the boyscout, Green Lantern is the jock, The Flash is the teacher's pet, Cyborg is the rookie, Batman is the paranoid survivalist, Wonder Woman is the foreign exchange student, and Aquaman is that kid who you thought was quiet and weird until he gets an army of sharks to kill the crap out of everything. We don't need these guys to be deep, but we do need them to be easy to tell apart. The new Justice League title is very successful at building this team dynamic. It's a nice vision of what a Justice League movie could be if Warner Brothers Studios wasn't run by morons.
Finally, we get a fish-out-of-water adventure in the form of Supergirl. Superman's older cousin was put in stasis when Krypton blew up. She crashes on Earth not having aged a day and is understandably dubious when a full grown Kryptonian claims to be her baby cousin. All kinds of shenanigans follow and we once again see an adventure story done right.
That's it for now, see you when I muster the motivation to write again.
All three books 9/10
I will go ahead and just review all three of these together. After the last entry, I was trying to figure out if I even liked graphic novels anymore. Fortunately, these three titles proved that the comic book form still has a lot to offer. Unlike say, Justice League Dark, Green Lantern and friends demonstrate that having a few relateable and grounded characters make all the difference. Hal Jordan and Sinestro's uneasy alliance makes for great storytelling. Just beneath the Buddy-cop bickering lies the very real threat that Sinestro could turn on Hal and any point. Having a point of reference give the story license to go in all the crazy directions that it does because you remain invested in the development of the characters.
The Justice League reboot tells an origin of the team that finds a way to highlight the different strengths of all the members and make them all individuals as well. Superman is the boyscout, Green Lantern is the jock, The Flash is the teacher's pet, Cyborg is the rookie, Batman is the paranoid survivalist, Wonder Woman is the foreign exchange student, and Aquaman is that kid who you thought was quiet and weird until he gets an army of sharks to kill the crap out of everything. We don't need these guys to be deep, but we do need them to be easy to tell apart. The new Justice League title is very successful at building this team dynamic. It's a nice vision of what a Justice League movie could be if Warner Brothers Studios wasn't run by morons.
Finally, we get a fish-out-of-water adventure in the form of Supergirl. Superman's older cousin was put in stasis when Krypton blew up. She crashes on Earth not having aged a day and is understandably dubious when a full grown Kryptonian claims to be her baby cousin. All kinds of shenanigans follow and we once again see an adventure story done right.
That's it for now, see you when I muster the motivation to write again.
All three books 9/10
Sunday, February 9, 2014
100 by 30 book 49 - Justice League Dark & Dail "H" for Hero
Today we take a short and disappointing tour of the weirder edges of the DC Universe.
DIAL 'H' FOR HERO- This book has such an inventive premise that I expected great things. The book follows a big fat loser who discovers that every time he dials the word H-E-R-O into the payphone in the alley, he is transformed into a different, bizarre super hero. The different heroes are delightfully silly. I especially loved the Iron Snail and Cock-a-Hoop (which is a chicken with a hula hoop for a body) Unfortunately, the fun ends with the premise. I forgot the plot almost as soon as I finished and the characters leave no lasting impression. It's a shame for a hero that should be a gold mine for humorous situations to be so dull.
5/10
Justice League Dark, vol. 1 & 2 - Hey what if all of the magic/supernatural- based characters in the DC universe got together to fight evil? Wouldn't that be super dark and kick-ass? It should be. But it isn't. This is the Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing of Comic books. We have another great premise that fails to live up to even the lowest expectations. Characters join and leave the group with barely an introduction, and the ones that do stick around don't make much of an impression on you. The main character ends up being John Constantine. (Keanu Reeves played him in the movie, even though he can't speak in a British dialect and James Marsters was available and would have been perfect.) John is a British warlock/antihero. He's the closest thing to interesting here and I'm willing to bet that his solo stories are actually engaging. The interchangeable cast is a big problem though. With people dropping in and out all the time, it feels like the writers are actively struggling to find something interesting to do with a bunch of weirdo misfits. It's a shame no one has ever created any cool plots with a team like that, except for Buffy, Angel, X-Men, Avengers, Firefly and the countless others that I missed. I've never been so bored reading fantasy fiction in my life. So you can skip these.
3/10
DIAL 'H' FOR HERO- This book has such an inventive premise that I expected great things. The book follows a big fat loser who discovers that every time he dials the word H-E-R-O into the payphone in the alley, he is transformed into a different, bizarre super hero. The different heroes are delightfully silly. I especially loved the Iron Snail and Cock-a-Hoop (which is a chicken with a hula hoop for a body) Unfortunately, the fun ends with the premise. I forgot the plot almost as soon as I finished and the characters leave no lasting impression. It's a shame for a hero that should be a gold mine for humorous situations to be so dull.
5/10
Justice League Dark, vol. 1 & 2 - Hey what if all of the magic/supernatural- based characters in the DC universe got together to fight evil? Wouldn't that be super dark and kick-ass? It should be. But it isn't. This is the Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing of Comic books. We have another great premise that fails to live up to even the lowest expectations. Characters join and leave the group with barely an introduction, and the ones that do stick around don't make much of an impression on you. The main character ends up being John Constantine. (Keanu Reeves played him in the movie, even though he can't speak in a British dialect and James Marsters was available and would have been perfect.) John is a British warlock/antihero. He's the closest thing to interesting here and I'm willing to bet that his solo stories are actually engaging. The interchangeable cast is a big problem though. With people dropping in and out all the time, it feels like the writers are actively struggling to find something interesting to do with a bunch of weirdo misfits. It's a shame no one has ever created any cool plots with a team like that, except for Buffy, Angel, X-Men, Avengers, Firefly and the countless others that I missed. I've never been so bored reading fantasy fiction in my life. So you can skip these.
3/10
Sunday, February 2, 2014
100 by 30 Book 48 - Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
So the Superbowl is super lame this year, so why not read my blog instead. That should kill a few minutes. Speaking of killing, I recently read Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell (AKA Violet from The Incredibles). The book follows Vowell as she drags various friends and family members to an assortment of historical sites related to the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. The book is divided into 3 sections, one for each president, and covers a lot of obscure factoids that I never knew. In one of my favorite moments, Sarah, in her own dry way, leads us on an evaluation of the laugh line in the play that Lincoln was watching when he got shot. Yep, turns out Boothe waited for a laugh line so the audience would cover the sound of the gun. On one hand, that's really messed up. On the other hand, as Vowell points out, Lincoln got to die with a smile on his face. On the other other hand, the joke is terrible and doesn't translate to modern times.
This is just one of the many helpful things you will learn on this delightfully wry and rambling tour of some of the darkest moments of our nations history. If you are only going to read one book about presidential assassinations while relaxing on the beach in Mexico, make it this one.
9/10
This is just one of the many helpful things you will learn on this delightfully wry and rambling tour of some of the darkest moments of our nations history. If you are only going to read one book about presidential assassinations while relaxing on the beach in Mexico, make it this one.
9/10
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