Darylsurat

By Jim Valley

STAMFORD - WWE and President Barack Obama are proud to announce the end of  the government shutdown.

"We have found a compromise on the GOP opposition to ObamaCare," said the president. "It turns out we don't need health care any more."

"Instead of mandating the Affordable Care Act," said Speaker of the House John Boehner, "all Americans will now be immunized with the DNA of WWE Superstar John Cena."

Cena, the cornerstone of WWE programming, has uncanny healing powers.  Americans immunized with C-DNA will now be incredibly healthy, driven, and all natural. People can expect to recover from torn muscles in weeks and mangled elbows in days. Everyone will be so healthy we will no longer need insurance coverage.

"With that out of the way, the U.S. government can go back to work," said Boehner.

Part owner of the WWE Stephanie McMahon showed up uninvited and said, "The only thing more powerful than Cena DNA is McMahon DNA, which can cure cancer. But we will not be giving that up to the US government, which persecuted my family in the early 90's worse than The Holocaust, 9/11, and the Battleground PPV combined."

John Cena's power has been tested. His C-DNA has made noted genius Stephen Hawking walk and talk. "I have a new lease on life. Forget black holes. I want to explore other holes. I mean video games. I want to play video games just like the wrestlers...er...WWE Superstars."

There is still no cure for jorts.

Editor's note:  This is a spoof.  So please don't use this as serious news and send to other web sites.

Mocherz doesn't cry over spilled milk.

Cage goes into water.  Olivier Graham goes into cage.  Cage is in the water.  Our Cage.

Fox News continued to hype the myth that the debt ceiling raises the national debt, smearing President Obama's comments at an October 8 press conference as false. In reality, the debt ceiling does not raise the debt or authorize additional spending, but instead enables the U.S. government to finance existing legal obligations.

President Obama Reiterates That Raising Debt Ceiling Does Not Raise Debt

President Obama: Raising Debt Ceiling "Is Not Raising Our Debt." During an October 8 press conference, President Obama addressed the nation regarding the ongoing government shutdown and pending need to raise the debt limit. During his remarks, he reiterated that raising the debt limit does not add to the national debt:

OBAMA: And because it's called raising the debt ceiling, I think a lot of Americans think it's raising our debt. It is not raising our debt. This does not add a dime to our debt. It simply says you pay for what Congress has already authorized America to purchase, whether that's the greatest military in the world or veterans' benefits or Social Security. Whatever it is that Congress has already authorized, what this does is make sure that we can pay those bills. [The Washington Post, 10/8/13]

Fox Reacts By Accusing The President Of Being Misleading

Fox's MacCallum: President Using "Fuzzy Math" To Explain Raising Debt Ceiling Won't Increase Debt. On the October 9 edition of America's Newsroom, co-host Martha MacCallum claimed that the president was using "fuzzy math, some think, because he says even if we raise our debt ceiling, it won't increase our debt." MacCallum was joined by Fox Business' Stuart Varney, who claimed President Obama "wants more debt, but he denies that we're adding to the debt by raising the debt ceiling."

[Fox News, America's Newsroom, 10/9/13]

Fox Business' Elizabeth MacDonald: President Being "Slightly Deceiving" In Explanation Of Debt Ceiling. On the October 9 edition of Fox Business' Vaney & Co., host Stuart Varney aired President Obama's remarks on the debt ceiling and debt, taking issue with the claim that raising the debt ceiling is not "adding a dime to our debt." Guest Elizabeth MacDonald claimed that the president was being "slightly deceiving," later stating that "when you do raise the debt ceiling, lo and behold, the spending does happen."

[Fox Business, Varney & Co., 10/9/13]

But Raising Debt Ceiling Does Not Add To Debt Or Authorize Additional Spending

Treasury Department: Raising Debt Ceiling "Simply Allows The Government" To Meet Existing Obligations. A May 2011 fact sheet prepared by the United States Department of the Treasury expressly stated that raising the debt limit only allows the federal government to meet existing obligations, and does not authorize any additional spending. From the fact sheet:

Raising the debt limit simply allows the government to meet those existing legal commitments to investors, seniors, soldiers, and millions of other Americans. Refusing to raise the debt limit does nothing to reduce those existing obligations or cut the deficit. [Department of the Treasury, May 2011]

NBC News: Debt Ceiling "Is Not Future Debt." In an October 8 article outlining basic facts about the debt ceiling, CNBC's Mark Koba explained that raising the debt ceiling allows the government to meet past obligations, and is not "future debt":

So what is the debt ceiling? It's a cap set by Congress on how much the government can borrow in order to pay its debts. 

[...]

Federal debt is the amount of money the government currently owes for spending on payments such as Social Security, Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt and tax refunds.

But It is not future debt. The debt limit simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congress and presidents of both parties have made in the past. [NBCNews.com, 10/8/13]

Slate's Yglesias: Raising Debt Ceiling Does Not Alter Spending. In a blog post on Slate, Matthew Yglesias argued that raising the debt ceiling is not a concession for Republicans, arguing that "[g]ranting it does not authorize any new spending, and failing to grant it does not cut spending." [Slate, 9/30/13]

Conservatives have launched TruthRevolt, a website which aims to "unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases." The history of two main TruthRevolt figures, Ben Shapiro and David Horowitz, suggests the site won't prioritize accuracy or refrain from smears.

David Horowitz Launches TruthRevolt As The "Anti-Media Matters"

TruthRevolt Wants To "Unmask Leftists In The Media For Who They Are, Destroy Their Credibility With The American Public, And Devastate Their Funding Bases." From the mission statement posted on its website:

The media win elections for the left. It's not the left's competence in office; leftists have demonstrated none. It's not the left's ideas; leftist ideas have failed everywhere they have been tried. The left wins for one simple reason: leftists control the information distribution system in the United States. And they use that system to pillory conservatives heartless bigots intent on harming the poor and targeting minorities.

The media must be destroyed where they stand. That is our mission at Truth Revolt. The goal of TruthRevolt is simple: unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases.

TruthRevolt focuses on high-profile media members, and holding them accountable. But TruthRevolt does not stop there. TruthRevolt understands that all politics is local, and therefore looks to fight leftist propaganda at the local level, monitoring local newspapers, television and radio. TruthRevolt also seeks to stop the left dead in its tracks when it comes to training the next generation, our college campuses.

TruthRevolt works to make advertisers and funders aware of the leftist propaganda they sponsor - and bringing social consequences to bear to create pressure on such advertisers and funders. [TruthRevolt.org, accessed 10/7/13]

TruthRevolt Bills Itself As The "Anti-Media Matters." From an article about an interview with TruthRevolt editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro:

Appearing on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125 with Breitbart News Executive Chairman and host Stephen K. Bannon, Shapiro said those who "bankroll" and enable the mainstream media to lie and "push their agenda" must "be made aware that the American public is not going to stand for this bullshit."

He simply said there has to be a "price to pay for that."

Shapiro said TruthRevolt will be billed as the "anti-Media Matters." He emphasized that Media Matters has tried to destroy the careers of conservatives who are truth-tellers and TruthRevolt will "turn that around and go after the liars of the left-wing" and the mainstream media. [Breitbart.com, 10/7/13]

TruthRevolt Is A Project Of The David Horowitz Freedom Center. From a post on the David Horowitz Freedom Center website:

Today, the David Horowitz Freedom Center is launching TruthRevolt, a much-needed campaign to expose the hypocrisies and mendacities of the leftwing media. A brainchild of Ben Shapiro, TruthRevolt is a groundbreaking initiative to engage in investigative journalism about the leftwing media figures who produce radical ideology masquerading as "news" and feed it to the American public as objective journalism. 

TruthRevolt differs from other organizations in its action orientation. It is determined not only to confront the leftwing media, but also to impact their profits. By enlisting thousands of conservatives to aggressively call on these media sponsors of leftwing propaganda to cease their sponsorship of destructive views and radicalized demagogues, TruthRevolt will put pressure on the advertisers who support such programming to pull their sponsorship.

"The far left site Media Matters,  run by self-confessed liar David Brock, has achieved enormous success by using the power of astroturfed boycotts and campaigns against conservative media figures, targeting their funders and advertisers," commented Freedom Center Chairman David Horowitz. "TruthRevolt will fight fire with fire, working to make advertisers and funders aware of the malicious propaganda they sponsor and create." [HorowitzFreedomCenter.org, accessed 10/7/13]

Ben Shapiro, TruthRevolt's Editor-in-Chief

Shapiro Credulously Reported That Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Received Money From Non-Existent "Friends Of Hamas." Citing "Senate sources," Shapiro claimed that then-nominee for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel may have received money from a group called "Friends of Hamas." It was later revealed that "Friends of Hamas" does not exist. [Media Matters, 3/3/13; Daily Beast, 10/7/13]

Shapiro: "Of Course Hitler Was A Left-Winger." [Premiere Radio, The Sean Hannity Show, 3/7/13, via Media Matters]

Shapiro: "Arabs Like To Bomb Crap And Live In Open Sewage." Shapiro tweeted about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict: "Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock." [Twitter, 9/27/10, via Media Matters]

Shapiro: Obama Administration Is "Openly Anti-Semitic" And Rahm Emanuel "Is A Kapo." Shapiro claimed in a syndicated column that the Obama administration was "openly anti-Semitic" and called Rahm Emanuel, then-White House chief of staff, a "kapo," a term that refers to Nazi concentration camp prisoners who aided the Nazis. [Media Matters, 4/28/10]

Shapiro: Obama Was "An Ideological Muslim" And Hillary Clinton Was "An Ideological Lesbian." In a post on Breitbart.com, Shapiro claimed that Obama was not an actual Muslim but "an ideological Muslim in the same way Hillary Clinton was an ideological lesbian in her college days." [Breitbart.com, 9/21/11, via Media Matters]

David Horowitz, Freedom Center Chairman

Horowitz Claimed There Was A Muslim Brotherhood "Infiltrat[or]" At CPAC. At the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference, Horowitz attacked conservative activists Suhail Khan and Grover Norquist, claiming that Khan, with Norquist's aid, "infiltrat[ed]" CPAC, the Bush White House and the conservative movement on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. [David Horowitz's CPAC speech, 2/12/11, via Media Matters]

Horowitz: It's A "Fact" That Clinton Aide Huma Abedin Is Connected To "Nazi Organization" Muslim Brotherhood. The allegation that Abedin is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood has been disproven and also condemned by both Republican and Democratic leaders. [Fox News, America Live, 9/19/12, via Media Matters; Media Matters, 7/31/12]

Horowitz Claims He's Proven "That There Are Only A Couple Of Degrees Of Separation Between Anybody On The Left And The Terrorists." [The Washington Times, 3/24/05, via Media Matters]

Horowitz: "Blacks Are The Human Shields Of The Democratic Party." Horowitz called President Jimmy Carter an "anti-Semite" and said "blacks are the human shields of the Democratic Party." [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 9/16/09, via Media Matters]

Horowitz: Professors "Are Recruiting For Radical Parties, Terrorist Supporting Parties, No Question." Horowitz claimed that university professors are "recruiting for radical parties, terrorist supporting parties, no question." [Fox News, Hannity, 9/03/10, via Media Matters]

Horowitz's Book The New Leviathan Was Filled With Numerous Errors, Distortions, And Falsehoods. [Media Matters, 6/11/12]

Horowitz's Book The Shadow Party Featured Doctored Quotes And Factual Errors. [Media Matters, 8/2/06]

Bandai and GUNDAM.INFO have begun streaming English-subtitled episodes of Gundam Build Fighters. While there are regional restrictions on the anime series, unlike the preceding Gundam AGE, this latest Gundam series is available in North America.

 

Kenji Nagasaki (No. 6) directs the series written by Yousuke Kuroda (Gundam 00).

 

 

Sei Iori aims to participate in the Gunpla Battle Championship World Tournament, but despite his skill at building models, he can't control them in battle. Then Sazaki challenges him to a Gunpla battle in order to get his hands on Sei's high-performance Gunpla. Sei accepts the battle, thinking that if he can't even beat Sazaki, then he'd be defeated instantly if he made it to the championship. But Sei is backed into a corner by Sazaki's overbearing fighting style until the appearance of Reiji, a mysterious boy who he met earlier that day. Even though Reiji has never used Gunpla before, he overwhelms Sazaki's Gunpla with his superb control technique. Sei builds, and Reiji battles. Thus the Gundam Build Fighters are born!

 

 

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Click to view slideshow.

Today in 1973, the TV version of Sumika Yamamoto’s tennis romance Ace o Nerae! (Aim for the Ace!) made its TV debut in Japan. It picked up themes already embedded in popular culture and boys’ manga: the plucky underdog, the devoted student, the struggle against huge odds were key elements of hits such as Ikki Kajiwara’s 1968 manga Star of the Giants (Kyojin no Hoshi) and in its turn inspired other tales of plucky underdogs honing unpromisingly raw talent through hard work and the belief of a dedicated and inspiring mentor.

Fifteen years later, Hideaki Evangelion Anno paid tribute to it in Gunbuster, a TV series originally titled Gunbuster: Top o Nerae!, which mashed the themes of Ace o Nerae and the plot of American movie Top Gun with a generous helping of science fiction, bouncing breasts and short shorts. (How did we not see Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt coming?)

Four years and a couple of days earlier, on 3 October 1969, Osamu Tezuka’s Vampire made its TV debut. Based on a manga that ended unfinished in March that year, it marked a darker direction for Tezuka’s works and an interesting mix of live-action and animated film. The themes of exploitation, discrimination  and deception that had been present in earlier work assumed centre stage. His well-established and much-loved character Rock, who started out in Tezuka’s 1940s comics as a genius boy detective and master of disguise, moved his mastery of disguise up a level with some cross-dressing exploits and displayed a cold and vicious side to his always pragmatic, calculating nature.

It also mixed Tezuka’s life and art. He had been in the habit of inserting himself into his comics, as a commentator or character, all his creative life, and in Vampire he took matters a step further by making himself both character and actor and filming literally in his own backyard. His animation and comics studios were attached to his house and he shot some of the live-action sequences in his studio and garden. His young protagonist Toppei was played by Yutaka Mizutani with Hiroshi Sato putting in a scenery-chewing turn as Rock,  backed up by a solid cast of Japan’s character greats, including Bokuzen Hidari, who had worked for Kurosawa on Seven Samurai. Rock’s girl form (or Rock chick, if you will) was provided by Ryuko Mizutani.

Aim for the Ace!  had sequels in animation, live action film and games. Vampire didn’t. But both are remarkable shows, and interesting examples of a time when TV and animation worked together to embrace a wide range of primetime audiences.

While there's plenty of variation in anime character design at any given time, there are also trends that emerge over the years. Today, artist miyoji tried to get past general notions of what's changed and examine the specifics. 

 

 

 

 

Some older favorite guides along these lines...

K-on! through the decades

'60s - '80s

'80s - '90s

'90s-'00s

 

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

kateordie:

megthebrennan:

I was reminded at SPX that I did this comic for the Monster Milk Funny Pages zine!! Figured I might as well post it, because I liked it a lot.

This is… Incredible.

Recently, it’s been announced that Christopher Yost’s Scarlet Spider is on its way out, ending in December at issue #25. Even with the news that Venom is ending at the end of this month, Scarlet Spider‘s cancellation hits harder. It was really a better book, starring a character who will probably fade into obscurity, while Venom will continue to be a staple in the Marvel Universe.

Scarlet Spider stars Kaine, clone of Peter Parker and co-star of the infamous Clone Saga from the 90′s. After that editorial horror ended, Kaine vanished in the public eye, only appearing in the alternate future series Spider-Girl as the grizzled mentor character. A few years ago, Kaine reappeared during Spider-Man’s Grim Hunt storyline for the sake of being killed off immediately. Then he was resurrected as some kind of spider creature during Spider-Island and when everyone was cured of their spider powers, it reduced him to a less scarred and super-jacked version of Peter Parker for the first time since his birth, curing him of his madness.

Now, when you go through all that backstory, it’s not hard to understand why the series didn’t last. Fresh take or not, he’s a toxic character with a longwinded origin. Still, Christopher Yost was able to make it into one of my favorite Marvel titles.

A lot of the fun is explained in the tagline of “All the Power and None of the Responsibility!” Superhero comics are about escapism, but sometimes it can be frustrated when you see your favorite character held back morally. It’s necessary, but when people call out Peter Parker for being a flake or a coward, there’s part of me that just wants him to go, “You know what?! I’m Spider-Man! That’s why I was late! Suck my balls!” Instead, he has to shut his mouth for the greater good. He lets people talk down to him, he refuses to ever kill and he’s overly selfless out of guilt. It’s what defines him and I would never want to change any of that, but there is that desire to see the catharsis of Spider-Man completely cutting loose.

That’s really what Scarlet Spider is. Kaine doesn’t really care about the Uncle Ben or Gwen Stacy situations because that wasn’t really him. He’s his own person and he’s selfish and doesn’t think of himself as a very good person. When he sees an old woman about to be hit by a car, he stomps down on the car’s hood (sending the driver flying out the windshield) and proceeds to scream in the old woman’s face and curse her out for being so stupid that she almost just died. All while he’s in his street clothes because he doesn’t care that he looks exactly like Peter Parker with a crew cut. After all, who’s going to care in Houston, Texas?

Kaine plays the hero role due to his own conscience, even though he tries to believe that he doesn’t have one. One of the better examples is when there’s a fire at a lab or Carnage is on a killing spree or something and Kaine swings into action, admitting that he found out about it on the TV at a diner and it was only halfway into his omelet that he realized that he should probably do something about it. Or this time he stumbles upon some kind of Roxxon criminal plot. He washes his hands of it and decides that it isn’t his problem. He spends the next day, doing his normal routines while continually thinking about how it isn’t his problem and he doesn’t care. Then in the middle of the night, his psychic sidekick Aracely busts into his room and yells at him to do something because she’s sick of hearing with her mind how much he “doesn’t care” and it’s driving her crazy.

Aracely is part of Kaine’s awesome and optimistic supporting cast that keeps this from being a mopey sulkfest. It’s kind of brilliant. Aracely is a teenage girl who jumps at the superhero lifestyle and even makes herself a costume and identity as Hummingbird. Other friends of Kaine include police officer Willy, Willy’s doctor husband Donald and Kaine’s love interest Anabelle, a singer who works as a bartender at the hotel where Kaine lives. Yeah, since Kaine is super rich from stealing money from criminals, he lives in a suite at the Four Seasons because he’s totally skipping off to Mexico ANY DAY NOW. REALLY. HE TOTALLY WILL AND THEN HE’LL FINALLY BE ABLE TO LEAVE THIS STUPID SUPERHERO CRAP BEHIND. NOT JOKING, GUYS.

What makes the characters great is that they offset Kaine’s whining in what would normally drag down the series. Every now and then, he’ll go on about how he’s a monster and no hero and that if they really knew the kind of stuff he had done in his former life, they’d be right to run away. Then they usually go, “Yeah, that’s nice. You’re a pretty cool guy, Kaine, so shut the hell up and put on this cowboy hat because we’re all going to a rodeo.”

It’s that attitude that makes this so entertaining because Kaine is reluctantly forced to get in touch with his inner-Parker. Kaine has every right to be down about his past. Not only is he a clone, but he’s the lesser clone compared to his “dead brother” Ben. He can never live up to either’s example. That doesn’t stop him from being shoved into goofball superhero situations that are made better by the fact that he really wants nothing to do with them. When the Texas Initiative team offers him a spot on the team, he punches the leader and tells them to get off his back. When trying to save someone from a drunken Armadillo, he ends up riding a horse while using his webbing as a lasso. That would be completely at home in a Spider-Man comic and Spidey would have some kind of one-liner to show he’s totally into it, but not Kaine.

Hell, he didn’t even call himself the Scarlet Spider. He simply wore these bootleg Spider-Man tights in public and the media called him the new Scarlet Spider. Kaine immediately groaned at the cosmic joke of it all.

One of the more interesting, redeeming factors of the series is that it’s a haven for hated Spider-Man concepts. I mean, look at it. It’s a series starring Kaine using the superhero name that Ben Reilly used in the 90′s. We already have a double-dose of Clone Saga right there. There’s a team-up with Venom against Carnage named Minimum Carnage, named after the reviled Maximum Carnage. Not only does Kaine have the organic webbing and wrist spikes that Marvel wants us to forget Spider-Man ever had, but he’s also given himself to the spider-totem creature from the Other.

Kind of interesting that there are three Spider-Men out there and each has a monster living inside them, whether it be the Other, the alien costume or Doc Ock.

It’s a cocktail of bad ideas made to show that a good writer can make just about anything work. That said, Minimum Carnage is the low point of not only the Scarlet Spider series, but for Venom’s series and Carnage’s recent appearances. That’s too bad. If anything, I blame the use of the Microverse as a backdrop, as it just doesn’t really suit the characters well. Plus Carnage isn’t really seen as such a threat on his own anymore, so when Venom and Scarlet Spider are both just as capable of taking him down solo, it loses its appeal to see them team up.

My absolute favorite issue is Scarlet Spider #12, taking place after Minimum Carnage wraps up. It’s a Christmas issue with a gang of robbers dressed as Santa barging into the hotel. Anabelle tells one of them about how there’s a guy in the suite with a whole lot of money as a way of setting a trap. Meanwhile, Kaine gets drunk and whines to Donald about how he’s actually a terrible person who’s done some terrible stuff blah blah blah. Donald gives him a pep talk, the door is kicked open and this happens.

Suffice to say, an amazing scene of Scarlet Spider destroying an army of Santas in the lobby follows. Oh, Reilly Brown. You rule so much.

So with Scarlet Spider and Venom losing their titles, does that mean we’re getting Eddie Brock in his own Toxin series? Maybe a team series of all of them with Arana/Spider-Girl tossed in there? No?

Well, I can dream.Similar Posts:

• One of the best Spider-Man moments
• Putting the Reign in Dark Reign?
• “Could ya see yourself with a Spider workin’ harder than 9 to 5?”
• The 70′s Spider-Man Song That Will Be Stuck in Your Head for Days!
• This Week in Panels: Week 122

Aymmy in the batty girls is a new lifestyle and apparel line slated for Spring 2014 featuring ASOBI SYSTEM model Ayumi Seto as the brand’s director and image character Aymmy.

According to the official website “It is a brand that projects a lifestyle fashion of ‘Aymmy’ a 17 year old girl from California”…who apparently lives the American Dream and is “working in a diner.”

Based on the image illustration, Aymmy looks like a long lost background character from an Archie comic book, and appears to have been raised in some kind of hermetically shielded fallout shelter where the 21st century never happened.

Aymmy’s fictitious bio (which overlaps with Ayumi Seto’s own catalog of interests) claims her favorite foods are hamburgers and Cherry Cokes. Her favorite movies are Ghostbusters, E.T., and Return of the Living Dead. Her favorite groups are the Ramones, the Damned, the Sex Pistols, and the Dead Boys.

Built on these foundations, the brand is promising clothing and goods in the following genres: Kidz, SK8 (skate), School, and Rock. Coordinates like this have long been the stuff of countless fashion spreads in Harajuku-kei magazines like KERA and Zipper, where the tomboyish 20-year old Seto has been regularly featured. Even more, the caps and sports jerseys “kids” look that batty girls will be rolling out has been a cornerstone for Harajuku and Shibuya style since the "cutie" 1990s.

I’m not sure exactly how long the batty girls brand has been in the planning stages, but the official promo pictures look like they were taken when Seto (along with ASOBI SYSTEM agency pal Kyary Pamyu Pamyu) passed through California for the J-pop Summit in July 2013. Consider now what the vanguard of “Cool Japan” found in the wild and opted to bring back with them: the ruins and ghosts of American pop culture.

The lookbook for ‘Aymmy in the batty girls’ shows Seto stalking the streets of LA with soda pop in hand, paying homage to Dr. Pepper in a Melrose antique store, posing in front of a juke box, and contemplating  an “old fashioned” milk shake. Some of the photos and clothes do make overtures to punk and surfer looks, but it’s clear that the real target of this sentimental journey is a nostalgic nonspecific past: the post-Elvis fifties or the pre-Beatles sixties. Pure American Graffiti territory.

 Of course…it’s nothing new. Retro junk culture has long since become inseparable from girl’s fashion in Japan. For decades now, magazines from egg to ageha and all points in-between have continually shown us models in both cheap and expensive garb gorging themselves on greasy foods surrounded by trash pop iconography: Hot dogs, super markets, soda pop, ‘50s diners, superheroes; all of it echoes and symbols of the hyper consumerism that America hotwired into the DNA of post-war Japan. 

But the models in the spreads are usually just the stand-ins for the real work of stylists and designers: human mannequins. However, Ayumi Seto appears to be the real deal. Way before Aymmy in the batty girls was announced late in September, Seto’s Instagram had dedicated itself to cataloging pop art, old movies, and comic book covers. Even now, copious plates of hamburgers tend to outnumber the selfies.

Indeed, Seto is practically a character from Phil Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle”, an emissary from an alternate Japan that won the war and now collects symbols of vanishing Americana. Already invisible in the batty girls fantasy is any evidence at all of the digital world we now inhabit. While writing this post, I took a break for walked down a city block for a coffee. Literally everyone was looking at their phone or interfacing with some kind of device, be it phone or MP3 player. But by gosh, here is Seto's alluring old fashioned world of colorful physical objects and, you have to admit, it looks like fun. And I don't care what you're selling. Fun is the ultimate commodity. 

"Ayumi Kidz" book on sale 10/7

You gots ta wonder: Will there ever be a “new” nostalgia? Will strip malls and Starbucks ever inspire Japanese girls the way junk food and antique shops do? Will the Westward-gazing batty girls find an audience overseas, let alone in their own “Harajuku kawaii!!” backyard? Will girls who look like Aymmy ever work at diners again? Did they ever in the first place? Can a 20 year old Japanese girl get away with pretending to be a teenager from California, and is that any crazier than 30-somethings playing teenagers in "Grease"?

I can't say for sure, except that stranger things have happened and hamburgers never seem to go out of style...

The Cherry Bomb burger, curated by Ayumi Seto, on sale at Village Vanguard. Probably fucking delicious...

The new third season of the legendary Hajime No Ippo anime series is coming to Crunchyroll for fall 2013 in the form of Hajime No Ippo: The Fighting! –Rising

Hajime No Ippo: The Fighting!–Rising  is set to broadcast every Saturday starting on October 5, 2013 at 11:00am Pacific Time for its premium members, with free members able to watch one week later. More information can be found on www.crunchyroll.com/hajimenoippo. 

 

 

Story and background

Hajime No Ippo is a Japanese boxing manga written and illustrated by George Morikawa and has appeared in Weekly Shonen Magazine since 1989. After being frequently bullied as a child, Ippo's encounter with the sport of boxing inspired him to think about what true strength really is. Ippo has endured the kind, yet rigorous, instruction of Coach Kamogawa and defeated one powerful opponent after another. He mastered his signature punch, the Dempsey roll, and even became the champion of all Japan. But even as champion, he still hasn't found the meaning of "true strength"...

Hajime No Ippo: The Fighting! –Rising- will be available to Crunchyroll’s viewers in the U.S.A, Canada, UK, Ireland, Iceland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Central and South America, and the Carribbeans.

 

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Patrick Macias is editor in chief of Crunchyroll News. He is also the editor of Cosplay USA magazine. Check out his blog at http://patrickmacias.blogs.com

The National Security Agency (NSA) spied on Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, and other critics of the Vietnam War during the 1960s, according to classified documents revealed Wednesday. The spying program was discovered in the 1970s, when it was shut down, but its targets had never been known. The NSA also spied on journalists from The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as two members of Congress.

Alarmed by the intensity of antiwar dissent, President Lyndon Johnson asked U.S. intelligence agencies if the protests had been masterminded by foreign powers, and to create “watch lists” of war critics.

The secret six-year spying program, dubbed "Minaret," later deemed "disreputable, if not outright illegal" had been exposed in the 1970s but the targets of the surveillance were kept secret until now.

The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping: Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were heavy-weight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-ID) and Howard Baker (R-TN).

The program continued after Richard Nixon entered the White House in 1969, and historians say it reflected a climate of paranoia pervading his presidency.

U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson shut down the NSA program in 1973, just as the Nixon administration was engulfed in scandal.

The documents were published on Wednesday after the government panel overseeing classification ruled in favor of researchers at George Washington University who had long sought the release of the secret papers.

One-Punch Man is an ONE & Yusuke Murata joint. It runs in Weekly Shonen Jump (preview pack here), an anthology of boys’ comics that’s currently serializing Tite Kubo’s Bleach, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, a colorized version of Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z, and several other series. The gist is simple and enjoyable: Saitama wanted to be a hero, so he trained. He trained so hard that he actually became capable of ending any fight in a single punch. He dreams of having a glorious, devastating battle, but it doesn’t happen. It can’t happen. He’s too good. He’s Slacker Superman, and he’s in a gag comic.

A big part of my enjoyment of OPM is that ONE & Murata clearly love the same things I do about superheroes and shonen comics, but have no patience for the nonsense that infests both types. So OPM feels very lean and easy-going, but explodes into incredibly enjoyable high action.

Chapter twenty-six came out this week and is the finest cape comic I’ve read in ages. I try to avoid hyperbole, and that sounds hyperbolic, but dig:

Mumen Rider is a Class C hero. His power is that he has a bicycle and moves like JUSTICE CRASH!, where he throws a bicycle at someone, or JUSTICE TACKLE!, when he tackles someone. He’s a normal dude with a heart of gold, but hearts of gold and bicycles only take you so far against a nigh-invincible Deep-Sea King. A wise man knows his limitations and acts accordingly.

The Deep-Sea King, he of the heart nipples and massive strength, has spent the past few chapters tearing through every hero in sight, including ones with names. He hammers Genos, Saitama’s cyborg sorta sidekick, and is ready to finish the job when a JUSTICE CRASH! grabs his attention. He manhandles Mumen Rider, Looney Tunes-style, by simply intercepting an attack and beating Mumen Rider against the ground repeatedly.

But Mumen Rider stands up again.

What makes a hero? Is it the powers? The tortured past? The borderline-authoritarian insistence that you know right from wrong better than anyone else? Or is it something else? For me, growing up, it was scenes like this, when someone looks at injustice, holds up a hand, and says “No,” no matter the risk that entails. It echoes through Frank Miller’s Sin City, the Michelinie/McFarlane Spider-Man, and even a little bit in Jim Lee-era X-Men. It’s all over Hiromu Arakawa’s Full Metal Alchemist. You can see it in real life heroes. A hero is someone who is willing to throw their life away to protect someone else, regardless of their level of skill or destiny. You get up out of your seat and on your feet and you tell them people “No.”

That near-suicidal courage is inspiring. It’s a reminder that we’re not alone, that we’re all in this together, and that one man can make a difference if he tries. It’s hope. Something works as it should in our fallen world. And so:

When Mumen Rider showed up, these people were excited, but confused. They’re locked in a shelter to hide from Deep-Sea King’s attack, and they’ve seen him utterly dominate another, higher-ranked hero. They know that Mumen Rider has no chance. But a little bit of courage, a little bit of confidence, goes a long way. They believe because he believes.

Mumen Rider has no chance. Deep-Sea King clobbers him effortlessly. But in taking a stand, Mumen Rider did exactly what a hero should do. He held the line.

Saitama catches Mumen Rider before he falls. Saitama tells him “Good job. Nice fight,” and carefully lays him on the ground. Saitama understands and respect sacrifice. In a way, Mumen Rider is the hero Saitama wishes he could be. He wants that glory. So he treats Mumen Rider with the respect and tenderness that he has not just earned, but deserves.

There’s a few pages left after this sequence, but that panel of Saitama catching Mumen Rider? That’s the real cliffhanger. That’s what’s going to get you hype, because it’s a moment for you to reflect. You know that Saitama is invincible. You know that he only gets beaten in his dreams. You know that he’s a little dumb, but genuinely kind. You know that he’s a hero. You know that heroes win, especially in cape comics, and you know exactly how Saitama wins his fights.

Deep-Sea King has caused a massive amount of destruction, shown a callous disregard for life, and generally acted a fool because he can’t be stopped. He’s a bully.

Here comes Justice.Similar Posts:

• Joe Casey I Love You Forever
• A Left-Field Idea About the Future
• Kabuki: Alchemy
• The Cipher 05/18/11: Cape Comics Are Dead Edition
• Iconic or Generic: The Green Arrow Preview

Fox News contributor and GOP strategist Karl Rove revealed the real motive behind calls to delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA): To buy time until the election of a Republican president who would be willing to repeal the law in its entirety.

On the September 23 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Rove discussed his previous criticism of Republicans and conservative media figures who have threatened to force a government shutdown if President Obama doesn't acquiesce to right-wing demands to completely defund the ACA, also known among conservatives as Obamacare. Congress must pass a continuing resolution by October 1 in order to fund the federal government. If not, the government will partially shut down. Republicans in Congress have insisted that they will only pass the resolution if it excludes funding for the ACA, one of Obama's signature accomplishments.

Rove opposed the idea of forcing a government shutdown, largely for fear of the political consequences. Instead, he pushed the idea that Republicans should attempt to delay implementation of the law -- currently scheduled to be fully implemented on October 1, 2013 -- until a Republican president is elected. "We need to have a President who will sign a measure defunding, repealing, getting rid of, and replacing Obamacare, and until we have a president who is going to do that we are going to be fighting."

When Fox host Bill O'Reilly pointed out that the next presidential election is three years away, Rove shrugged if off, responding, "That's why I favor a delay strategy."

Welcome to This Year in Panels, something I’ve been doing every 52 or so weeks since starting This Week in Panels. As you should know by now, This Week in Panels is all about taking the comics that me and my buddies (Was Taters, Gaijin Dan, Space Jawa, Jody, Matlock, Brobe, Dickeye and anyone else I might be forgetting) have read and cut them down into one representative panel. The kids love it.

ThYiP is a little best-of take on it where I only choose one panel from each week but I can’t double-dip on the same series. For some nostalgia, here’s Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3.

Begin!

Action Comics #18
Grant Morrison, Rags Morales, Brad Walker, Sholly Fisch and Chris Sprouse

Age of Apocalypse #12
David Lapham and Renato Arlem

All-New X-Men #8
Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez

All-Star Western #19
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Moritat and Staz Johnson

Animal Man #17
Jeff Lemire, Scott Snyder, Steve Pugh and Timothy Green II

Aquaman #15
Geoff Johns and Paul Pelletier

Avengers #11
Jonathan Hickman and Mike Deodato

Avengers AI #1
Sam Humphries and Andre Lima Araujo

Avengers Assemble #9
Kelly Sue DeConnick and Stefano Caselli

Avengers vs. X-Men: Versus #6
Kieron Gillen, Jim Cheung and various others

Batman and Robin #18
Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

Batman Incorporated #8
Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham and Jason Masters

Batman ’66 #2
Jeff Parker and Jonathan Case

Before Watchmen: Minutemen #5
Darwyn Cooke and John Higgins

Burn the Orphanage: Born to Lose #1
Sina Grace and Daniel Freedman

Cross Manage #5
KAITO

Daredevil #30
Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

Deadpool #11
Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan and Mike Hawthorne

Dial H #11
China Mieville and Alberto Ponticelli

Dragon Ball Z #16
Akira Toriyama

Fantastic Four #611
Jonathan Hickman and Ryan Stegman

Flash #18
Francis Manapul, Brian Buccellato and Marcio Takara

The Goon #43
Eric Powell, Kyle Hotz and Mark Buckingham

Green Lantern #20
Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke

Green Lantern Corps #17
Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

Hawkeye #3
Matt Fraction and David Aja

Indestructible Hulk #3
Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu

Injustice: Gods Among Us #28
Tom Taylor and Tom Derenick

Invincible #103
Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley

Journey Into Mystery #645
Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans

Larfleeze #1
Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Scott Kolins

Manhattan Projects #8
Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra

Mars Attacks the Transformers
Shane McCarthy and Matt Frank

Mega Man #21
Ian Flynn and Ryan Jampole

One Piece #704
Eiichiro Oda

One-Punch Man #2
ONE and Yusuke Murata

Saga #13
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Scarlet Spider #11
Chris Yost, Reilly Brown and Khoi Pham

Sonic Universe #51
Ian Flynn and Jamal Peppers

Spider-Men #5
Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli

The Star Wars #1
J.W. Rinzler and Mike Mayhew

Street Fighter Origins: Akuma
Chris Sarracini and Joe Ng

Supergirl #20
Michael Alan Nelson and Mahmud Asrar

Swamp Thing #20
Charles Soule and Kano

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #16
Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz and Andy Kuhn

Thor: God of Thunder #12
Jason Aaron and Nic Klein

Thunderbolts #10
Daniel Way and Phil Noto

Uncanny X-Force #35
Rick Remender and Phil Noto

Venom #41
Cullen Bunn and Jorge Coelho

Wake #3
Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy

Walking Dead #105
Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard

Wolverine and the X-Men #17
Jason Aaron and Michael Allred

Wonder Woman #22
Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

Thanks again to all my contributors and all of you guys who keep coming in week after week. Join me again this Friday for another episode of the other anniversary spinoff, This Character in Panels.Similar Posts:

• This Year in Panels: Year 3
• This Week in Panels: Week 156
• This Week in Panels: Week 32
• This Week in Panels: Week 73
• This Week in Panels: Week 188

Disappearance Diary 2: The Ward for Alcoholics autobiography to arrive on October 6

Two former high-ranking officials in one Pennsylvania school district are facing a criminal investigation over shocking racist and sexists text messages that were found on their work cell phones, authorities confirmed on Sunday.

In a statement to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan said that his office launched the probe after it received a transcript of the texts from district personnel.

An investigation by the Daily Local News found that the cell phone accounts were linked to former Coatesville Area School Superintendent Richard Como and former Director of Athletics and Activities Jim Donato. Both men had unexpectedly resigned during the first week of school in late August.

A timeline of events from the Daily Local News showed that the text messages were sent in June and a copy was provided to the school board in August after being discovered by the district's IT department.

According to the paper, "the school board was made aware of the text messages and was prepared to allow Como and Donato to remain in their positions until the transcripts were leaked to the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, prompting a criminal investigation."

In a transcript of the text messages obtained by Daily Local News, one of the men suggests that all African-Americans should have the N-word for their last name.

"All should have whatever first names they want... then last name is N*GGER!" he wrote. "Leroy N*gger, Preacher N*gger, Night train n*gger, clarence n*gger, Latoya n*gger, Thelma n*gger and so on."

"Hahahahahahahahhahahahaha could have a whole homeromms of N*gger!" another message said. "Hahahahahahaha! Will N*gger report to office, pardon the interruption but will N*gger report to nurses office. N*gger to lunch now!"

One message complained that there was "no f*cking way that ape banged that white piece? WTF is going on with these white pieces taking n*gger cock! Me no understand!"

The men also apparently used their work phones to have a long, racist and sexist conversation about the Miss USA pageant.

"OMg! N*gger OUT!" one man wrote when as an African-American contestant was voted off. "WTF SKINNY B*TCH. Give good head! Trumped!"

Other texts contained slurs about Jews and Arabs.

On Sunday, about 80 people had gathered at the historic Bethel A.M.E. Church for the 75th anniversary celebration of the local NAACP chapter on the same day that news of the investigation broke.

Chester County Commissioner Ryan Costello told the group that the incident was "not a reflection of our character."

Yes, it's September, and that means I go down to Anime Weekend Atlanta and spend three days immersed in that sea of costumers, anime fanatics, lost children, hucksters, and confused parents known as an "anime convention". Lots of great stuff happening this year - star voice talent, cybernetic musical acts, key video game designers, and me!  What am I up to?

Thursday night at 7 - before the convention even starts, really -  we host a yard-sale garage-sale swap-meet event we like to call the "SuperHappyFunSell". 


Then at 9 I take whoever's still hanging around on a fun trip through the world of TCJ, the studio that brought us Gigantor, Eighth Man, Prince Planet, and Kamui, and is still going strong as Eiken!



On Friday at 3:30pm I've been dragooned into the Mega 80s Panel where we'll talk about what it was like to be an anime fan in the 80s!  This will contain substandard fan art, so look out.

Over on tumblr, franzferdinand2 asked:

Just wanted to say your crack earlier about people using racists on twitter as some kind of weird “I’m not racist” barometer really got me thinking. Journalism has managed to make gawking at obvious racism something to be consumed.

Franz is referring to stories like this, or this, or this, which I tweeted about a bit the other day. Today, I’m expanding on those tweets. I’ve got a lot of moving parts here, but bear with me. The tweets:

Imagine a world where we talk about the 1st Indian-American Miss America or young black actresses without farming hits off racist backlashes

— david brothers (@hermanos) September 16, 2013

I also get the feeling that "racists did a racist thing!" is another way people can say "Yo, I'm not racist! I don't even own a white hood!"

— david brothers (@hermanos) September 16, 2013

also if I can get really real: spotlighting someone only because racists hate them is privileging the position of the racist, not the person

— david brothers (@hermanos) September 16, 2013

Those stories actually really make me frustrated with the people who put them up and the people who share them. I think these types of stories are actually a kind of passive white supremacy. I call it passive because it’s not the result of a conscious choice to prop up white supremacy. It’s actually coming from what I think is a good place on the part of the website or anyone involved, a desire to spotlight someone overcoming not just personal adversity, but specifically racial adversity too. There’s an extra oomph in that story. It’s nice when people do things and racists can only sit there impotently.

Which I understand, and empathize with. But nine times out of ten, more column inches are devoted to how racists react to them, and then occasionally how they react to the racist, instead of their actual accomplishments. The accomplishments have always been considerable, whether she’s Nina Davuluri, the first Indian-American Miss America, Gabby Douglas doing super well in the Olympics, or Amandla Stenberg playing Rue in the Hunger Games.

Stenberg has the best first name ever, was the best part of Colombiana, and is a promising young actress. I don’t know anything about Miss America except that it’s weird we still do that kind of thing, but I assume they don’t just hand out that crown to anyone. You have to have some merit, and you have to have more merit than the next woman to go home with the crown. Sports stories are always interesting, and I bet the eventual ESPN 30 for 30 on Douglas in ten years is gonna be great.

All of these people have stories that are pretty interesting, and that’s without the outside input of people who quite literally would have never mattered in any even vaguely meaningful way to the people they are insulting. With that input, their story shifts from “really talented in their field” to “really talented in their field, also hated by racists.” Which is true, racists hate a lot of people, but a lot of things are true that aren’t regularly and consistently reinforced through the media.

These types of stories elevate the racist feedback above the only real issue at hand: some people did a cool thing and deserve press for it. They privilege the voice of the racist above the accomplishments of the actual person who is being attacked. Here’s a search on Jezebel for “Amandla Stenberg.” There are three posts about the racist tweets. There is one about her being cast in the role. There is nothing in-between. There is nothing of substance about this actress on that site, but there are three posts about racists reacting to her, her reaction to racists, and racists reacting to some other actor who dared be something other than white. They haven’t mentioned Nina Davuluri once without mentioning racism.

I most commonly see these stories with non-whites, and it’s usually a pretty even mix of men and women, maybe tilted a little toward women due to selection bias. The effect of tagging brown faces with hate narratives a dozen times a month all over the place online—and occasionally super often depending on what you choose to follow, in terms of blog subjects—causes a connection in your head with that negative stigma. It’s why when I say Somalia you think Black Hawk Down and starving children, the Middle East and constant warfare, China and disgusting smokestacks. It’s why black-on-black violence is a problem, a real tragedy, and white-on-white violence isn’t even a concept in your head.

We get a limited number of stories by and about non-whites, and women too, in comparison to white dudes. Think of how often those stories are about conflict or hate or death, the unbelievable burden of being brown. Think how many major movies starring black people are action vehicles and how many deal in black misery like it’s pornography. These stories are almost always othered—The Fast & The Furious being a notable, and rare, exception. It’s not about us over here. It’s about things that happen over there, to them, instead of here, to us, whether over there is Detroit or Beijing. The hate narrative becomes part of your definition of that group, and that affects how you treat people of that group.

So he’s articulate, she’s such a strong black lady. They’ve overcome so much adversity, like… racism! Which, again, positions them apart from you. You’re not racist, but you’re not them, either. People aren’t doing racist things to you. That happens to other people. Or maybe you’re a victim of racism, too, but what do you get out of seeing people say racist things?

No, these lists and posts are a chance for people who believe they aren’t racist to confirm their own internal assessment of themselves, and also how racism works. The story being “hated by racists” instead of “incredibly accomplished” gives people a chance to react against it. They share it with an affirmation that they, the sharer, are not anything like the racist. They scorn the racist. In fact, sharing this is yet more proof that they are not, in fact, racist, because racists should be scorned on sight. Which is cool, A+ for motivation but more or less a C- in execution in terms of being useful or helpful or anything but self-serving.

The racism this story depicts is binary. It’s on or off, is you is or is you ain’t this racist, and that encourages the idea that racism isn’t something you personally do or are. It’s something other people do. You don’t do that, right? So you aren’t racist!

But any colored folk can tell you that’s not how racism works. Everybody is a little racist. There are hundreds of learned reactions to different groups of people to unlearn, not to mention the areas of society where racist sentiment is implicit instead of explicit, like zoning laws or the prison industrial complex or the war on drugs. It’s in all of us. We’re gonna have to live with that racism until we fix it and our selves, and viewing racism as a binary personality choice doesn’t allow for that.

That’s why people react so strongly to being called “racist” when they say something totally racist or suspect, or their work being called “racist,” or occasionally even just hearing the word “racist” in like a fifteen meter radius or something and their “I’m Not A Racist!” alarm goes off. They aren’t like those people, no, not at all. Their personal definition doesn’t allow for internalized racism. Which is adorable.

So, in that sense, these posts help prop up white supremacy. But there’s more.

This stuff trickles down, just like everything else has trickled down over the years. It’s how culture works. We tell ourselves stories so that we might combat the stories that are thrust upon us. People talk about sexy Asian girls, black dudes with big dicks, black chicks with big butts—those aren’t positive stereotypes. They’re stereotypes that reduce a people to objects of desire, and animalistic desire in the case of black people in particular. Black men having big dicks isn’t a compliment. It’s a sign that they were closer to animals than humans, filled with uncontrollable desire thanks to their firehose of a penis. (Consider the tenor of a lot interracial porn if you don’t believe me. That didn’t come out of nowhere. There’s a long history that you don’t even need a book to understand. Or read this, which looks like a great resource.)

So: “Black is beautiful” battles “black is disgusting.” “I am somebody” served to convince children that they were, in fact, somebody, when every little thing in their life told them different. Black men became kings and black women became queens because the narrative was that they were lower than trash. It’s counter-programming.

These posts are programming, too. When you consider that we get precious few stories about us in comparison to white men, the impact of every single story is elevated. If you most often see stories about young black girls reacting to racists, then you’re going to associate young black girls with the struggle. If you only ever hear about Iraq when it’s wartime, you’re going to associate Iraq with that. If the only story you hear about Islam is violent jihad, you’re going to feel a spike of fear when you see a woman in a veil in the TSA security line. It’s why I see a cop and think about what I’m doing that might get me shot, and a cop sees me and thinks about what I’m doing that’ll get me shot.

And that, at its heart, is what white supremacy does.

White supremacy is a self-sustaining enterprise, a system, but that doesn’t mean that everyone involved in that enterprise believes in white supremacy. When white is established as the default, then the default story is a white story. That positions all other stories as Other, Alternative, and you think of the people in those stories that way, too. White supremacy is nothing but “White first, y’all second” and it’s not as easy as just deciding you aren’t racist.

White supremacy infests everything. That’s why Obama is still our “first black president,” instead of the first word being wrong and the second word being meaningless. Black sits apart from white, for reasons both intentional (for a long time they couldn’t be president because all that cotton needed picking I guess, I’m fuzzy on the rationale) and completely incidental (no black person had a chance of getting elected because they didn’t have access to the same resources whites did).

Things go around online occasionally that make people go “This is what racism looks like.” Sometimes it’s a young black male being shot down by an old white man, sometimes it’s a burning cross. It’s true: those are often indicative of racism. But by that level of racism is seen as the only level of racism. “Hey, this dialogue you wrote–that’s kinda racially suspect, isn’t it?” isn’t a personal attack, but every time I say it, no matter how hard I try and soften the blow (and I spent years pulling punches and getting blown up at anyway), somebody gets mad because their personal definition doesn’t allow for any type of racism, even accidental or incidental or institutional.

Racism is intentional and unintentional, and that’s why looking at race like a binary proposition sets up ideas that end up hurting everybody in the end. You have to be willing to accept that a little of the poison is in you, too, if you want to understand why these ideas persist after all this time and in so many different areas of our life.

So yeah, I’m not a fan of those stories. I don’t like the way they distort the reality of life. It makes black life seem like a burden, instead of a life with ups and downs. It messes up the way we view other peoples, and that trickles down to how we interact with them on a personal and foreign policy level.

I want fewer stories about racists and more stories about the people the racists hate. But that won’t happen, because those posts do gangbusters in terms of hits. You get to point and set yourself apart from them, people get to be sure that they’re on the right side of history, and you get to show support for a brown face by attacking a white face.

But it’d be better if you just supported the brown face in the first place and thought harder about why you’re sharing what you’re sharing.

Read the commentary on this post to see how racism manifests itself in subtle ways, in the absence of malice, hoods, and dead bodies.

This is real life. This is how it works. Everything we take in has a point and an effect. Think twice. Dig past the surface-level and try to understand that if it’s bigger than whatever makes you feel good for not being them, whether they’re racists or colored folks who are the victim of racism. Try harder.Similar Posts:

• T’Challa & Ororo vs The Sexist Racists
• Black History Month ’09 #05: Make the Cipher Complete
• “i’m in the field with a shield and a spear” [tintin in the congo]
• Tumblr Mailbag: James Ellroy vs Robert E Howard in The Racism Race
• Friendly Neighborhood Reminders

A middle-class American family made less last year than in 1989, according to a new Census Bureau report released on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Forbes magazine this week reported that the 400 wealthiest Americans doubled what they were worth a decade ago and “finally gained back all that they lost” in the 2008 economic collapse.

The Census Bureau also reported that:

- The typical middle class family has seen its income go down by more than $5,000 since 1999 after adjusting for inflation.

- Average male workers made $283 less last year than they did 44 years ago.

- Average female workers earned $1,775 less last year than they did in 2007.

- A record breaking 46.5 million Americans lived in poverty last year.

- 16 million children in America (21.8% of all kids in America) lived in poverty last year.

- A higher percentage of American kids lived in poverty last year than in 1965.

- A higher percentage of African Americans lived in poverty last year than 15 years ago.

- 9.1% of seniors lived in poverty last year, higher than in 2009.

- More American seniors were living in poverty last year than in 1972.

- 48 million Americans are uninsured, 3 million more than in 2008.

If I could nominate Bernie Sanders for sainthood, I would do it.

{issuePic observer.jpg} Wrestling Observer Newsletter

PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 September 23, 2013

WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS PPV POLL RESULTS

Thumbs up 22 (15.8%)

Thumbs down 48 (34.5%)

In the middle 69 (49.6%)

BEST MATCH POLL

Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton 128

WORST MATCH POLL

Lee vs. Natalya vs. Brie Bella vs. Naomi 59

The Miz vs. Fandango 51

Rob Van Dam vs. Alberto Del Rio 10

CMLL 80TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW POLL RESULTS

Thumbs up 51 (96.2%)

Thumbs down 0 (00.0%)

In the middle 2 (03.8%)

BEST MATCH POLL

La Sombra vs. Volador Jr. 41

Averno vs. Blue Panther 12

WORST MATCH POLL

Sombra & Volador Jr. vs. Atlantis & Guerrero 25

Casas & Shocker & Terrible vs. Rush & Vangelis & Corleone 10

Ishii & Namajague & Okumura vs. Fuego & Stuka Jr. & Cometa 9

Based on e-mails and phone calls to the Observer as of Tuesday, 9/16.

There are tons of questions regarding the future of TNA, as in the face of major cutbacks, there is much speculation regarding changes that will be made, and may need to be made.

The biggest story involves the future of taping on the road, as well as the future of a number of wrestlers whose contracts are coming due, including the company’s two highest paid and best known stars, Hulk Hogan and Sting.

Hogan, 60, the face of the company, has his contract due on 10/1. Eric Bischoff, his major ally, is the key person when it comes to creative and there would be a major psychological blow to the company if he left. However, whether cutting back on his contract would help cut back on losses is a different question.

Hogan isn’t the only contract due, with Mickie James and Ken Anderson having been written out at the last TV, even though the door is still open for both to return if a deal is worked out. It’s well known that A.J. Styles, who is now being pushed as the company’s top babyface, and will be doing a TV feud with owner Dixie Carter, has his current short-term deal expire at the end of the year. Sting’s contract also expires at the end of the year. A few months back, people in WWE were talking about having a legitimate shot at getting Sting for a WrestleMania appearance, something which hasn’t been seriously talked about in years.

Sting and Kurt Angle are the second and third highest paid performers in the company, although Sting works far more limited dates, including almost no house shows.

At another time, the renewal of Hogan and Sting’s contract would be considered formalities from the TNA side, with the only question being if they would want to leave. But with the financial problems the company is facing, and so many performers being dropped when their contracts have expired, or being let go, every major expense is subject to review.

In a very interesting political move, Jeff Jarrett, who had only been at television once in recent memory, was at television the past week. Jarrett was working behind the scenes as a road agent, including being the agent for all three of the Bound for Glory series matches that aired on the 9/12 TV show. Given the quality of those matches, his work would have to be viewed as a positive. Jarrett was a key power broker in the company from a creative and administrative side before Hogan and Bischoff were brought in. His departure from power was more related to Carter being mad at him when Jarrett lied to her years ago when she asked him if the rumors of he and Karen Angle (now Karen Jarrett) being together were true.

The latest cost cutbacks are strong talks of going back to a singular location for tapings early next year. They are committed to being on the road and have venues booked through the end of December, including at least three tapings in December, so they are going to be getting ahead on the schedule by a couple of weeks. They will probably tape all TV through the end of February when they go on the U.K. tour. So if a change is going to be made, late February or early March would make sense as the target date.

It is a step back, but financially, there is no other alternative. While the story just broke publicly, within the company, people have talked about it as a probability for about six to eight weeks. There were rumors even before that, because everyone knew the road tapings, which cost about $600,000 every two weeks, were bleeding the company dry.

For all the feeling that the stars come off as bigger stars when you see them in arena settings, in front of generally hotter crowds and made for better television, it has not led to the desired results.

The ratings are about the same. The TV audience itself is actually down due to fewer viewers per home. Attendance and PPV numbers haven’t moved. It’s also become harder and harder to sell tickets for the taping shows.

The old Impact Zone is rented out. The locations that were rumored are going back to Central Florida, likely Orlando, back to the Fairgrounds Sports Arena in Nashville, or to a casino site in Las Vegas.

Since most of the talent lives in Central Florida, and the production crew is mostly people based out of Florida, Georgia and some in Tennessee, Orlando would be far cheaper as far as travel expenses go. The Fairgrounds, the home for TV in its first few years as a weekly PPV property, is inexpensive to run, but it has the look of being so much more minor league than the Impact Zone did. The look of the show improved by night and day when they left Nashville.

Las Vegas sounds better and more importantly, will probably look better on television if they choose the right place. But even thinking for a second, those rumors make no sense at all. They’d have to fly everyone in, and that would undermine the entire cost issues of why they are trying to get off the road. The only people in the company that I know of based in that area are Frankie Kazarian, Christopher Daniels, Kenny King, Mike Tenay and Samoa Joe is from there but at one point recently had relocated to Florida.

The Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, the rumored spot since it was the last place they ran in the city, wouldn’t be available every other week on a Thursday because they’ve got a minor league hockey team as a regular client. It’s also too big, with a capacity in the 7,000 range.

Either way, in any location they are going to have a big problem when it comes to getting fans out and when it comes to fan reaction when the fans see the product so much. That was why they wanted to get out of Orlando in the first place.

There were a lot of positives with the Universal deal. The rent was said to be a great deal. There were tons of people in the park, so you could always get a few hundred park goers to come in to see them taping a live TV show, especially if Hogan is there.

Going to Las Vegas every other Thursday, I wonder about the ability to, even with papering or all free tickets, if they would be able to keep getting enough people out. They were able to get people to Nashville every Wednesday when the company had far less exposure and generally lesser stars, although they were mostly were giving the tickets away. Nashville fans are generally very responsive.

People forget that when Raw started, the idea was to tape once every few weeks from the Manhattan Center, and that was in New York with its huge population base. They started the run selling out and turning people away, But after a few shows, they were down to selling 300 to 500 tickets and had to get out of the Manhattan Center and take the show on the road. Of course in the long run, that ended up being a blessing in disguise.

They have to pick a place that they can let people in for free, because in this day and age, you simply aren’t going to sell tickets in the same location every other week. The Impact Zone was also great because seating was only done right in front of the hard camera, to where it wouldn’t look bad with a few hundred people in.

The question I’ve been getting a lot is people asking if I thought Spike and Viacom would be willing to buy the promotion, like they did Bellator, which would alleviate much of the current uncertainty and guarantee its future.

I have no way of knowing the answer. The reasons they gave when they bought Bellator would be just as logical for TNA, in the sense they’d own the property, and wouldn’t have to worry about losing it like they lost UFC when it got big. But I think Spike really wanted MMA on its station because it had a great history with it and the station was associated with MMA. Bellator was probably on shaky footing financially but they were the only real option to bring MMA back to the station.

Still, TNA does draw bigger ratings and can be used to promote Bellator in many ways. There were stories that reached key people in other organizations that the company was for sale, but those within the company don’t believe that’s the case, that the Carters have a ton of money and Dixie Carter is passionate about the business.

There is a feeling with the cost cutting and restructuring that is going on, TNA can be a viable business as far as not bleeding money. There were periods pre-Hogan that the company was breaking even on its own, or even making a profit. But at this point the reality has set in that it’s probably never going to get any bigger or more popular. And that can hurt the motivation level and morale in the sense of recognition they were never going to really be competition and they aren’t building something big, but simply staying alive. Their weekly television audience is actually incredibly loyal, given how well the show holds up on holidays and against major sports competition.

The one thing I’d bet is if a sale was to happen, particularly if it would go to Spike, that Bischoff would have the best chance to wind up as the guy in charge, because that’s how the TV industry works. Bischoff has a track record in television, and even though it’s been 14 years since the WCW business really collapsed and started heading for the iceberg, the success of something at the level of Nitro is something nobody else in wrestling except Vince McMahon has on their resume. Plus, if there is a sale, most likely the new owners would consider Hogan, with his name value, as the strongest commodity, and not as an expensive character who can no longer wrestle and doesn’t move numbers anymore.

Other talent has been openly speculating that with all the cost cutting, that they may not renew Hogan or Sting, with the idea it would save the company significant amounts of money and that it wouldn’t hurt ratings or attendance at all. But Hogan is the face and identity of the brand, so I don’t see him being dropped. Carter has a great affinity for Sting, and has talked him into staying for one more year, ever since the end of 2006, since when he signed his first deal that year, it was a one-year deal and at the time he felt it was his retirement year. But he’s now closing in on 55.

To Sting’s credit, unlike just about everyone else at that age, he doesn’t look it. While they have to do smoke and mirrors with his matches of any length, he doesn’t move like an old man, the crowds love him and his promo work is by far the best of his career.

But ratings are going to be pretty much the same whether Hogan and Sting are there or not, as Hogan’s big return a few weeks ago drew the same number they were doing when Hogan wasn’t around.

I know that there are people high up that have questioned the Sting deal for the past few years, but Carter always brings him back. For Hogan, there is the idea that his name being associated with the brand helps in ways like licensing or a video game deal. That made sense in theory. But after nearly four years, that didn’t materialize. Hogan is great for media because he can open doors promoting shows locally, but even when he does, they don’t sell many tickets.

At the tapings this past week, things were done to potentially write James and Anderson out.

The contract of James, 34, expired this past week. She dropped the Knockouts title in the second show taped on 9/12 (airing 9/19) to ODB, a title change done because she hadn’t signed a new deal. They really had no choice in the matter. At this point, that would be her final television appearance.

James, who has been in the business since the age of 19 on the indie scene as Alexis Laree, and then in TNA, before making it big under her real name in WWE, was offered a new deal, but had not agreed to terms. We’re told she has interest in going back to WWE if the opportunity is there. She was fired the last time, which was a very unpopular move among fans at the time. There were several issues involved, none of which had to do with her ability as a performer. She was let go due to an outside the ring things including an incident that happened on a European tour where she was late and held up the bus from leaving. It was blamed on behavior issues strong enough that she lost her job.

Anderson’s contract expires in a few weeks. The angle on TV where Anderson, 37, was taken out on a stretcher and Bully Ray piledrove him on the floor, was used to write him out if he doesn’t sign a new deal. If he signs a new deal (he was making $2,500 per appearance), it’s left open for him to do a big return as a face and using that angle as an injury, a return from a concussion and neck injuries from the piledriver.

In my mind, they put him over way too much as a face in that final match storyline segment if he’s not coming back. It’s also TNA, so you have to speculate the possibility that they’ll do a big angle at Bound for Glory with Anderson and Devon (since they keep mentioning his name) either causing Bully to lose or even swerving everyone and they help Bully to win.

Also on the financial end, there have been reports this past week that all production people were caught up on back pay.

However, in checking, that’s not the case. The production people were paid something of late, but many were not caught up. Many had talked of quitting at recent tapings with people citing that their family members or wives were asking them why they keep coming to work when they aren’t getting paid. One production person was said to have quit before the most recent tapings. Even getting paid something was considered a good sign at this point. There is not a feeling that the company is going anywhere, with the idea it does successful numbers for two hours in prime time for Spike, well above their station average. But there is uncertainty about what form the company will take going forward with so many genuine stars and key people having departed in recent months.

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Jim Ross, the voice of pro wrestling to most fans in this generation, was let go after a meeting with Vince McMahon on 9/11 at the company offices in Stamford, CT.

Ross’ departure, immediately called a retirement by WWE, and later by Ross, was related to the 8/17 2K Sports video game symposium in Los Angeles to promote the WWE 2K 14 game that comes out next month. Things got out of control, at least in the view of those who count, resulting in company officials apologizing to those there when it was over. Ric Flair was pulled off the SummerSlam show and his contract offer being rescinded.

The decision to have it announced as Ross’ retirement allowed him to leave with dignity with the announcement he had left to pursue other business endeavors. In addition, from a company standpoint, it allowed the company to avoid a fan backlash since Ross is a popular character, particularly since most in wrestling were shocked at the reasons he was fired.

The symposium, with Ross as the host, involved having a panel of wrestling greats, including Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Rey Mysterio, Paul Heyman, Steve Austin, Flair and Mick Foley. The idea was to have the wrestlers answer questions about their greatest WrestleMania moments, their dream WrestleMania matches that they never got to participate in.

The key in the video game was that with the roster of almost all the greats dating back to the first WrestleMania in 1985, all the dream matches that never happened, whether it be stars from different eras, stars who were never in the promotion at the same time, or stars who had never crossed paths, could be played.

Ross had a script, but none of the wrestlers were scripted, nor did they know any of the questions that were going to be asked. Things got out of control when Foley asked why Ross had not asked Flair any questions. Apparently the script was to build to going to Flair as the senior member of the panel. Ross made a remark about building to a hot tag, and then Flair started talking about all kinds of subjects, none related to the game.

He told a story about how he put his Hall of Fame ring on son Reid in the casket at Reid’s funeral, and then, to be fair and not play favorites among his children (something that may have been the impetus in the Dusty Rhodes storyline on Raw this week), gave son David his other ring (Flair has a ring for being inducted on his own and as a member of the Four Horsemen). He said that when HHH found out, the company got him a new ring for himself and said it to put over the company. However, there were those not happy because it wasn’t the direction they wanted it to go, and it brought up a young death of a wrestler when they were looking for a happy celebration of WrestleMania.

He went on a variety of tangents, including talking about how John Cena drinks a six-pack a day and marveling at how he can keep his body looking like it does. The idea of portraying the company’s biggest star who is promoted as clean-cut, as being more like the heavy drinking wrestlers that they try to push are part of wrestling’s past, was an issue.

He also talked about TNA at one point, and even told a story about the night Ross met his wife Jan, at the time a flight attendant on a plane and Flair and Ross were together. Flair joked about how his wife was very pretty, but she needed Lenscrafters, because they were together and Jan chose Ross over Flair and Flair made a remark, more in jest than anything, about a woman choosing Ross over himself when he was in his prime. Austin was egging Flair on. Ross at one point tried to cut him off, to no avail, and eventually made a remark that the symposium was being sponsored by Grey Goose.

Eventually, Heyman got up and went to podium and tore up the script.

There were questions regarding the condition of both Ross and Flair. Ross, even before Flair started talking, when doing introductions of the various wrestlers, made fun of the script he was given and some of the wording in introductions of the talent.

He intimated and outright said the words written were not what he would say, and given his familiarity with the careers of everyone, decided to introduce most of them in his own words. The introductions went longer than expected, leading to less time for the panelists. Ross had also at the start of the panel, brought up his own plight in battling Bell’s Palsy, noting that it makes it appear he’s never smiling when he often really is.

Everyone who saw the symposium, whether there live, watching on the Internet, or watching later when word of how it became a story and the company’s reaction got out, has their own interpretation of what transpired. As a general rule, since Flair took it over, the reactions were largely based on how one viewed Flair. It was more about whether people were entertained by his stories or mad that he largely took over and didn’t give others much of a chance to speak. Some didn’t like the nature of his drinking and chasing women stories. Others thought the WrestleMania stuff planned had been boring and Flair was the life of the party.

Stephanie McMahon apologized to the people there and to 2K when it was over, although 2K officials had no problem with how it turned out, and even expressed that personally to those on the stage. In its own way, it brought far more publicity to the game than had it gone as planned. The WWE then pulled Flair from media interviews that were to follow.

Ross immediately went to Twitter and said that he had not been drinking, but his Bell’s Palsy was acting up and it led to him slurring words.

There were as many different views of what happened as there were people watching. Some believed Flair was drunk, others said he was not. Most thought Ross was not drunk, but obviously others thought differently, and Ross must have known that, which is why Ross went to Twitter so quickly for his explanation.

The next morning, we were told it was a tense situation, and that everything was being heavily scrutinized by the company, the key point being that Ross may lose his job over the situation, that’s how big a deal it was.

When I later watched a tape for myself, I thought it was an overreaction. Those who were friends with Flair remarked that Flair behaved like Flair always does. Get him in public and in front of a crowd and he’s going to be the center of attention. That’s what made him Ric Flair. If they didn’t want Ric Flair, they shouldn’t have booked him. Flair’s drinking is legendary, but ever since the death of Reid, there has been far more concern about him, in particular from his friends because they know just how close he and Reid were. Over the last two decades, I had very few conversations with Ric where Reid’s name wasn’t brought up. It was usually his favorite subject to talk about.

Flair was in the bar before the symposium and there were people who were supposed to be with him and make sure he didn’t drink too much before the panel.

Ross had earlier that afternoon done a 2K event with Jerry Lawler announcing the legends roster for the WrestleMania mode performers in the game, in the hot sun of Los Angeles. It was speculated that may have zapped him by the evening and led to remnants of his Bell’s Palsy causing him to slur words late at night.

It wouldn’t be fair for me to speculate on what condition people were in, not having been there.

The general reaction from those who saw it is that there was nothing Ross could have done that wouldn’t have caused more of a scene, because the only way to stop Flair was to outright tell him to stop, which would have been viewed terribly by almost everyone there.

The only complaint we got that he went too long on his impromptu introductions, and most felt he really couldn’t have stopped Flair without causing a scene. I don’t know how Ross could have broken in and stopped Flair from telling the story about Reid without coming off like an overly defensive company representative, and terribly insensitive to a grieving father. Perhaps he could have jumped in at other points, and he tried once. Breaking in on the stories that the company wouldn’t have liked, like the Cena drinking story, would have only called more attention to them and made it look like the company was hiding something.

But after a few days, it appeared it had all blown over when no disciplinary action was taken on Ross.

When Ross went to the U.K. for his tour, in Manchester, and perhaps in the other cities, he enthusiastically spoke about his work with the company and noted that he had no thoughts of retiring. He spoke of enjoying his work in developmental, and that he loved announcing, although didn’t miss traveling 51 weeks a year, but was willing to announce whenever they wanted him to.

The subject of the symposium seemed to have come and gone until there were some rumors within the company that Ross was going to be let go a few days before it happened.

For example, on 9/10, the day before Ross was fired, someone in the book department had called an author to tell him that WWE had picked him to write Ross’ autobiography, so the book department was still working on the deal with obviously no hints of what was happening. Exactly what involvement the company would have regarding a planned autobiography, since Ross is no longer with them, is unknown. Also unknown is the long-term future of J.R’s barbecue products which he no longer sells on his own web site, and are mostly sold through the WWE’s web site.

Virtually everyone in wrestling was surprised when Ross was fired at this point. Because he had been off television for so long, a lot of fans weren’t even aware he was under a long-term contract with various duties within the company, mostly in developmental. The belief is the decision was largely made at SummerSlam, but it took three-and-half weeks before it was taken care of. Obviously, since Ross was flown in for a face-to-face meeting with McMahon, that McMahon felt he either had to or wanted to do so in person as opposed to use an intermediary. Even those who thought Ross’ performance at the symposium was below par for whatever reason (and many who watched it thought he was acerbic and funny), nobody expected it would be a firing offense. Even the ones who at SummerSlam had heard his situation was bad and how negative the reaction to the symposium was by Stephanie McMahon and Chief Marketing Officer Michelle Wilson figured it had blown over when nothing came up on it the first two weeks. As for Flair, he has since canceled all his public appearances, although I’ve seen his name for bookings and events several weeks down. The word promoters who had booked him were told was that he once again was being bothered by blood clots in his leg. He has been available on the phone to his friends that have called and texted consistently since this happened. He very legitimately had health issues with blood clots earlier this year, which led to him not wrestling in Japan early in the year, and being pulled from a Raw show and sent to the hospital when he arrived clearly in bad shape.

This weekend, he said that he was in Orlando, with his daughter, and had been hospitalized for four days with blood clots, and on Coumadin for the clots. He said that he can fly but is not doing any appearances, but talked about getting better and going back to WWE at some point. The belief is that WWE read him the riot act about taking care of himself before they would consider having a contractual relationship with him.

Given that Ross and Vince McMahon have had a unique relationship, and he’s been fired a few times before, within the company there is the strong belief by those who are supporters of Ross that he will be back. The feeling is he provides a lot of value in developmental, recruiting, and that he helped forge the relationship between WWE and the NFL Player’s Association. If the network gets going, his knowledge of the era when so much of the old footage is from is something that very few have. It’s cited that the legendary figures in the business often leave WWE, or get fired, at some point with the current regime, where almost all old transgressions, on both sides, are forgotten, they end up back with an affiliation with the company.

Logic would say that TNA would make an immediate play for him, perhaps both for an office position as well as an announcing position. In Ross’ lone media appearance, on the MMA Hour, TNA was never brought up, and he spoke more about potentially working in MMA, or perhaps even in football.

Most acknowledge that Ross was still the company’s best announcer when he was removed from the air in 2009. He had been moved from Raw to Smackdown in 2008 which started the process of making Michael Cole the voice of WWE. Even before Cole went heel, he would be booed at shows, largely because he replaced Ross, which led to the heel run and feud with Ross and Lawler. But over the years, the decision to replace Ross as an announcer was made time and time again. In the 90s Vince Russo pushed to have him removed, thinking his Southern accent was a negative for the product. Eventually a second bout with Bell’s Palsy did remove him as lead announcer in 1998, suffered while announcing the Capital Carnage U.K. PPV which took place hours after the death of his mother, who he was close to.

Russo later brought him back in 1999 in a role designed to humiliate him, where he would show up, thinking he was the lead announcer, sit at a table called “J.R. is Raw,” and call the show even though he wasn’t an announcer, with Steve Williams as his bodyguard. The idea of the angle was for people to see Ross as a delusional pathetic guy, so they’d accept Cole, who the audience would boo, as the voice of the WWE going forward. That angle backfired when the fans cheered Ross and booed Cole. Steve Austin, the company’s biggest star, and Dwayne Johnson, both went to McMahon that year and asked that Ross call their WrestleMania match, and shortly after that, he was brought back as host.

Behind the scenes, Ross was the Head of Talent Relations at WWF/WWE, dating back to when J.J. Dillon quit the company. After WCW folded, John Laurinaitis was brought in to be Ross’ assistant, and it was well known Laurinaitis would be replacing Ross after learning the job. At that point Ross would move back to Norman, OK, but continue as an announcer. While everyone around wrestling knew the transition was coming, it was actually a McMahon call telling Ross that Laurinaitis was taking over when it happened and not a specifically agreed upon date.

In 2005, when Raw was moving from Spike TV to the USA Network, the decision was made as part of the transition to replace Ross and go with new blood. Mike Goldberg, the UFC announcer, was offered the job and the belief in WWE was that he had accepted it. WWE’s first night on USA went head-to-head with a UFC special on Spike, and the WWE was trying to redo Lex Luger, but in a bigger way, where Goldberg would be paid a bonus to disappear after already being in town for the UFC event, and then show up as the new announcer on Raw, unbeknownst to UFC, who would also have to scramble when their lead announcer would have disappeared just before a live show.

However, UFC was aware of Goldberg’s negotiations and gave him an improved deal. Goldberg has said that under any circumstances, he would have never walked out on the UFC show. A month later, as part of the new storyline of the McMahon family united as heels, Linda McMahon, who had never played a heel, to get over, kicked Ross in the balls and fired him. It was supposedly done because Linda needed to do something so dastardly or the heel turn wouldn’t get over. As it ended up, the idea of Linda as a heel was almost immediately dropped. Joey Styles and Jonathan Coachman each had runs as host of Raw.

Ross had serious colon issues at the time, both Diverticulitis and Diverticulosis, as well as a cancer scare, that would have led to him having to take several months off had they not done the storyline firing.

Ross had been frequently made fun of over the years, sometimes good naturedly, often-times mean spiritied. The rule of thumb, because he was so proud of his association with Oklahoma, was to humiliate him when tapings were in Tulsa or Oklahoma City. Russo once booked Ed Ferrara to imitate him, with his mannerisms, including the Bell’s Palsy, in a Raw skit. Later, when Russo and Ferrara worked for WCW, they took the character even farther, with Ferrara mocking him as “Oklahoma,” again managed by Steve Williams.

But the most remembered was, at the time Ross had the surgery, McMahon doing the Dr. Hiney skit making fun of Ross’ colon issues.

Eventually McMahon decided that neither Styles nor Coachman were cutting it, and Ross was brought back.

The decision to replace Ross was again made in 2007, with the idea that he’d be put in the Hall of Fame and that would be his swan song. But after the amazing crowd reaction in Chicago when the announcement was made about Ross going into the WWE Hall of Fame, the feeling was they couldn’t make the move at that time. Instead, the move was made a year later, when in the draft, it was announced that Ross had been traded to Smackdown, and Cole (the Smackdown host) had been traded to Raw.

In 2009, while on Smackdown, it was clear he was being phased down as Todd Grisham took over as the play-to-play guy, with Ross doing color, until Ross was dropped.

His announcing is constantly praised by talent, particularly the older wrestlers who were there when he was lead announcer on Raw and the PPV shows.

He was very well received when he’d be brought back to Raw over last few years. He did occasional shows, once during a storyline where HHH came in as a babyface authority figure and brought back Ross, only to be fired by heel John Laurinaitis several weeks later. At another point, after Jerry Lawler suffered a heart attack last year, he was brought back for a few months until Lawler could return.

Even in his limited role of mostly calling Raw when Lawler was out, and announcing the main event matches in FCW and later NXT, Ross was voted Announcer of the Year in this past year’s Observer poll. It was the 14th time he had won the award dating back to 1988. In writing about his winning in our year in review, it was noted that during his few month run on Raw it became clear Ross’ reputation as the best in the business was not living off a reputation from the past, noting the announcing on Raw was markedly improved during his time there. Yet, he was then removed when Lawler came back. He was also removed from announcing on NXT, with the idea, which was logical, that NXT was about training talent for the future, including announcers. His role there would be more suited to teaching and working with the announcers of the future, before, during and after the broadcasts than doing the key matches himself.

Strangely, there was an eerie lack of comments from talent on Ross being fired, or congratulating him on his retirement. After seeing the outpouring of emotion not that long ago when Rob Naylor was let go from developmental, it was almost shocking the difference. One non-wrestler in the company pointed it out, thinking that the wrestlers must have been told to not say anything.

It was well known that as soon as Ross was let go, that Jane Geddes, the head of talent relations, sent out a memo to all talent, essentially the same wording as on the WWE web site, saying Ross had retired. It was confirmed to us by a few talents that nothing was said at all regarding whether they should or shouldn’t talk about the subject, nor telling them how to address the subject if asked. There were various different views on Ross in WWE, both personally and professionally, and he had his enemies. Ironically, the only tweets I saw (and I’m sure there were others) from those in the company came from Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and HHH, all congratulating him on his retirement.

Many who knew the background saw those tweets, and Vince’s in particular, and took it negatively, given at the end of the day, the decision was made by Vince and nobody else. But that’s how things work in the business world with any well known employee in a major company when a change has been made. The vast majority of football legends announcing their retirement are actually teams telling the players that their days are over, and then allowing the player the dignity to make it appear it was their decision.

There was some mainstream coverage of his leaving, some portraying it as the company wanted, others, usually citing my reports, saying that there was more to it and that he was forced out.

Ross appeared on 9/16 on the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani. He portrayed the retirement as a decision he made, saying working in wrestling left him with little time to do other projects, and he in specific cited interest in football, MMA, writing and spending time with his grandchildren.

During the interview, he pushed the idea of having strong interest in working at either the talent relations level, or announcing, for UFC. He wouldn’t say anything negative about WWE, his departure, and was complimentary to UFC. He told a story about when he was at the UFC offices several months back, brought by Marc Ratner, and met with Dana White, and said they talked Bishop Gorman football (the high school White and Lorenzo Fertitta went to in Las Vegas that has close ties with the University of Oklahoma), Oklahoma football and dealing with Brock Lesnar. Ross noted he’d be less interested in working for another MMA organization, but would listen to offers.

“The most challenging part to me would be to engage in talent development, recruiting the right kind of people for the organization,” Ross said. “Any organization, any entity like UFC, the NFL, WWE, it starts with its talent. It starts and ends there. Talent is the reason people engage in the product.”

“The most challenging thing would be to work with talent. It could be a lot of fun, (would be ) interesting. You want personality traits, athleticism, dedication. I think that quite frankly this may sound egocentric, but I think the transition from calling a pro wrestling match and calling an MMA fight would be easy. I think it would just be getting more familiar with fighters, more familiar with techniques, nuances that I try to study, with ample preparation. I’d say the same thing about (announcing) football.”

Jonathan Coachman and Todd Grisham both went from WWE announcing to working at ESPN and covering and announcing mainstream sports. Mauro Ranallo went from pro wrestling to announcing one of the biggest sports events of the year, the Mayweather vs. Alvarez fight. But very few know Ranallo was a pro wrestling announcer. Coachman and Grisham announced on a national basis for WWE, but neither were nearly as associated with the genre as Ross. Grisham was also a sports announcer, fairly well known for soccer, before his run in WWE.

But the situation is far different from the early 1990s when Ross was able to get an assignment while working at TBS when the station covered a major amateur wrestling tournament. However, the amateur wrestling officials at the time were very upset at a pro wrestling announcer being used. They complained so vociferously that not only did Ross never announce another amateur meet for TBS, but since the event was taped for later airing, they removed all remnants of him from the broadcast. He was never shown on camera, and a new announcer was brought in to re-voice the show in post production before it aired. Ross also came under heavy criticism in 2001 calling football for the XFL by mainstream media because of his background as a pro wrestling announcer.

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After a string of great PPV shows, WWE fell far short of the normal standard with a lackluster Night of Champions show on 9/15 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

The show was really a two-match card, with Daniel Bryan seemingly winning the WWE title from Randy Orton as the main event. A very good, but not great main event saw Bryan win with the Busaiku knee with help from a super fast count by referee Scott Armstrong. This is likely going to wind up with a long-term storyline where somebody, perhaps Vince McMahon, HHH or Orton, most likely the former, ordered Armstrong to do a fast count if it appeared Bryan was going to win and thus having a reason to overturn the decision. McMahon makes the most sense since he was advertised for the Toronto show and started being downplayed and disappearing from TV. He wasn’t on TV during the PPV or Raw the next day. It would be a swerve since at this point everyone thinks it was HHH who ordered Armstrong to make the fast count, and then publicly fired him.

Bryan was then stripped of the title on Raw on 9/16 in Cleveland, by HHH. HHH accused Bryan and Armstrong (who was fired in storyline) of working together to steal with title from Orton when Armstrong was being questioned and then implicated Bryan by looking at him and saying, “They’re on to us,” in front of HHH. However, he wouldn’t give the title back to Orton, and a rematch will take place on the Battleground PPV on 10/6 in Buffalo.

The show came across more as an average episode of Raw, complete with lots of filler, including a 15 minute opening interview segment, unadvertised matches that for the most part the people didn’t care about, and even commercials during the PPV.

The second major match was a handicap elimination match with C.M. Punk facing Curtis Axel & Paul Heyman. Punk first pinned Axel, and was destroying Heyman with kendo stick shots, until Ryback came out and speared Punk through a table, which broke badly and left Punk with a sliced up back. Ryback then put an almost knocked out Heyman on top of Punk for the pin.

The next two PPV shows will have three week builds, with Battleground on 10/6, followed by Hell in a Cell on 10/27 in Miami. Interestingly, on Raw, not one match was announced, meaning they have only two weeks of Raw promotion for the key matches, although by Smackdown, both main events will have been announced.

The main event of Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton for the held up WWE title was announced during the Main Event show. Alberto Del Rio having a world title rematch with Rob Van Dam was announced at the Smackdown tapings. It didn’t appear any other matches were announced at this week’s television.

Based on Raw, it would appear there would be a Punk vs. Ryback match, with some form of involvement of Paul Heyman. There are TV teases of a Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler rematch for the U.S. title and Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns defending the tag titles against The Usos, along with A.J. Lee against either Natalya or Brie Bella, or a three-way.

However, we’ve been told the bigger direction was to put Dusty & Goldust & Cody Rhodes against The Shield, probably with jobs at stake for Goldust & Cody, which would eliminate the U.S. and WWE tag titles.

Insider gambling on the day of the show, after the results of the WWE matches were confirmed, moved the lines tremendously. So the one show apparent moratorium for fear finishes would change at the last minute seemed over.

The “Reddit guy” who had an internal source who would get him the finishes didn’t surface before this show, but those with knowledge were betting late and following the lines changes made it clear most of the finishes.

To show how significant it was, Randy Orton opened with 9-to-1 odds in his favor. Daniel Bryan went from being a gigantic underdog to crazy odds in his favor, ending up as a 15-to-1 favorite.

The only match the insiders didn’t bet on significantly was Del Rio vs. Rob Van Dam. Del Rio went from a 4-to-1 favorite to a 15-to-2 favorite in a match he lost via DQ. This may have been a late finish change since he’s the only favorite who lost, and the last day swings being huge in the other matches had to be people who knew full well the results. It also may be that those with knowledge were leery on the finish and didn’t bet it, because there was no late movement at all for Van Dam.

Punk, for example, went from an 8-to-1 favorite to where Heyman ended up as a 9-to-1 favorite before the show started. A.J. Lee went from a 5-to-2 favorite to retain to a 9-to-1 favorite. Dean Ambrose went from a being an 11-to-4 favorite to being a ridiculous 50-to-1 favorite. The Prime Time Players started out as 3-to-1 favorite to win the tag team turmoil match and ended up as 4-to-1. Given that the Prime Time Players winning seemed pretty likely since they worked for the first time with Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns at the weekend house shows, and new matches the weekend of a PPV are usually done to get the participants used to each other, you would actually have thought those odds would have moved a lot.

No odds were taken on the tag title match and the other matches weren’t announced ahead of time.

The show drew 10,500 fans to the Joe Louis Arena, which surprised me because I figured a PPV in Detroit would sell out. Those there were hot early, but the so-so show led to a lot of matches not having much reaction. Nothing was bad, but when it was over, it really didn’t feel like a $55 value.

1. Titus O’Neil & Darren Young, the Prime Time Players, won a tag team turmoil match, a Gauntlet match, over the Usos, Heath Slater & Drew McIntyre, Brodus Clay & Sweet T and Antonio Cesaro & Jack Swagger to earn a title shot. Everyone worked hard, but this kind of a match with all quick finishes comes across as contrived.

A) Clay & T beat Slater & McIntyre in 1:31. Clay had this ridiculous outfit on with scales in his back. He was supposed to be a Stegosaurus. McIntyre did a running flip dive on T and looked to have hurt his back on landing. T and McIntyre botched a sunset flip spot almost beyond belief before Clay pinned McIntyre with a schoolboy.

B) Swagger & Cesaro beat Clay & T in 3:03. McIntyre & Jinder Mahal had attacked Clay & T after their match, so they came in weakened. Clay did get a near fall on Cesaro with a splash, when Swagger saved. Clay powerslammed Cesaro, but missed seeing Cesaro tag Swagger, who got Clay in the Patriot lock.

C) Swagger & Cesaro beat Usos in 4:03. Jimmy did a dive over the post onto Swagger and Jey did an Asai-moonsault outside the ring on Cesaro. They went to a commercial break in the middle of the PPV pre-show match. The finish saw Jimmy try and jump off the top rope over Swagger, who caught his leg and put him in the Patriot lock. Good finish and the best work of the four matches.

D) O’Neil & Young beat Swagger & Cesaro in 1:42. O’Neil looked huge. Swagger used a chop block and Patriot lock on O’Neil, but Young saved. Swagger put Young in the Patriot lock, which he’d beaten two guys with already, but Young kicked his way free and hit the gut buster on Swagger for the pin. **

They did a nice opening video package showing champions from the past, from Buddy Rogers and Bruno Sammartino through the big names in the history of WWE. They were almost all WWE champions, but they did show Jack Brisco in the montage.

HHH opened the show doing a babyface promo, saying he was not the villainous corporate guy people think. He ordered that there would be no interference allowed in the Bryan vs. Orton main event, whether it be The Shield or Big Show. He promised this would be one of the greatest nights in WWE history.

During the pre-game show, Paul Heyman told Brad Maddox that he figured his way out, that if he was left with C.M. Punk, he would hit the ref, causing a DQ, and the match would be over. If Punk did anything to him once the match ended, it would be felonious assault. They portrayed Heyman as a complete boob giving away his game plan, because Maddox heard it and changed the match to a no DQ bout. Of course, in the end, that worked in his favor. While never stated, they could have said how Heyman manipulated Maddox to get the no DQ which he would later need.

Heyman came out for a promo saying that he has been trying all week to get in touch with HHH, but he wasn’t returning his calls. HHH made fun of Heyman’s appearance. Heyman let his beard grow and gave the look of someone worried to death. The guy went the extra mile for his storyline. HHH said Heyman looked like he’s never slept and remarked he looked like he hadn’t showered in days and stunk. Heyman said that HHH is putting a middle-aged father of two in a handicap match against a real fighter, a man who is marketed as the best in the world. He noted that Punk almost beat Undertaker and gave Brock Lesnar all he could handle. He said Punk wants to give him such a beating that he would never be seen in WWE again. Heyman said that wasn’t best for business so they should cancel the handicap match. HHH said he made some good points, but then said the answer is, if you really believe in Curtis Axel, just don’t tag in, Axel beats Punk and you shouldn’t be worried. Heyman was almost in tears, giving away that he didn’t think Axel could beat Punk. Axel then grabbed the mic and said on 5/20 in Kansas City, he beat HHH in a match on Raw. HHH made fun of him for remembering the date. HHH told him not to poke the bear. HHH also said that since it’s Night of Champions, and Axel is IC champion, that he’s going to have him defend the title against the first guy he sees when he goes backstage. So Axel was working twice. This dragged out like the 15:00 opening talking segment on a Raw. It was also notable that HHH was pretty much a face here, between banning interference, and being the adversary of Heyman and Axel.

2. Curtis Axel pinned Kofi Kingston in 13:53 to retain the IC title. A cool spot early as Axel whipped Kingston into the steps, he jumped up to the top of the steps, climbed to the top rope and did a crossbody on Axel to the floor. As Jerry Lawler was ripping on Heyman, John Layfield remarked that Lawler is still mad at Heyman and Austin Idol for shaving his head in a famous Memphis angle in 1987. There was a “You can’t wrestle,” chant here, I guess for Axel. Lots of near falls. Axel ducked Trouble in Paradise. He went for a neckbreaker, which Kingston turned into the SOS for a great near fall. The finish saw Axel drop Kingston’s throat on the top rope and did a neckbreaker into an implant DDT for the pin. It was well wrestled, but the crowd wasn’t that into it except for the big pop for the SOS spot. **½

In the first of a series of polls being done on the web site during the show, Chris Jericho was named greatest IC champion of all-time with 63 percent of the vote to 24 percent for Mr. Perfect, 10 percent to Honky Tonk Man and pretty much nothing for Rick Rude or Pat Patterson. Interesting they kept names like Randy Savage and Ultimate Warrior off the list. Generally speaking, the voting in these polls saw, as expected, the recent guys all won except for Hulk Hogan.

A.J. Lee was backstage with Aksana, Layla and Alicia Fox recruiting them to help her. Aksana and Fox walked out on her first. Then she talked about how she knew she could count on Layla. Layla then walked out on her as well.

Greatest women’s champion poll was won by Trish Stratus with 56% of the vote, over Fabulous Moolah, Lita, Michelle McCool and Wendi Richter. Richter got only 1% of the vote.

3. A.J. Lee retained the Divas title in a four-way over Brie Bella, Naomi and Natalya in 5:34. They were almost 40 minutes into the show before the first advertised match took place. Fans voted for Brie’s new ring outfit, which beat the hell out of that 1940s swimsuit thing she’d worn on the last show and Raw. She and Naomi both had new looks, with Bella’s look making her look younger, which in this market is a plus. All attacked A.J. to start with and there was no heat. There were some near falls and saves. The big spot started when Natalya slammed Brie onto Naomi. Both actually had their shoulders down with Brie on top but the ref never counted and Layfield was throwing a fit about the ref just standing there. It was actually a set up for Natalya putting both Brie and Naomi in the sharpshooter at the same time, which got a big reaction. A.J. broke it up by kicking Natalya in the head, and then putting her in the black widow (octopus) for the submission. *1/4

4. Rob Van Dam beat Alberto Del Rio via DQ so Del Rio kept the world title in 13:25. Terrible finish for a PPV match. RVD went for a moonsault to the floor but Del Rio was way too close to the apron so the move looked bad. Del Rio used a tope and threw Van Dam into the barricades. RVD did a series of clothesline spots and since that’s not his repertoire, it really didn’t work. Del Rio got a near fall with a back stabber. Van Dam used a somersault body block off the ropes for a near fall. Van Dam got near falls with his scissors takedown and split legged moonsault. Van Dam was also bleeding from the mouth by late in the match. The finish saw Van Dam come off the top for the frog splash, but Del Rio got his knees up. Del Rio put Van Dam in the armbar. Van Dam made the ropes, but Del Rio refused to break on the ropes. The ref counted to five and called for the DQ. The idea was to do a finish to build a rematch but this was bad. To end on a high note, Del Rio went outside the ring and brought in a chair. Ricardo Rodriguez, arm in a sling from the armbar spot on TV by Del Rio, grabbed the chair away. Van Dam gave Del Rio a DDT and put him in the corner. He went to the top rope on the other side of the ring. Rodriguez held the chair in front of Del Rio’s face and Van Dam did the Van Terminator (which they called the Van Daminator) to Del Rio. The doctors came out to examine Del Rio after the match. **1/4

In the poll for Greatest World champion of all-time, Booker T won with 38% to 22% for Edge, 21% for Undertaker, 14% for Ric Flair and 5% for Batista. Thank God they didn’t embarrass Lou Thesz or Harley Race with this poll. Booker was doing the commentary stuff with Santino Marella and Alex Riley, and he was laughing when they came back to him, kind of realizing how silly that was.

HHH was backstage with Orton. Orton was mad that HHH banned The Shield from ringside. HHH said that he wanted to make sure he picked the right face of the company. Orton said, “You did.”

5. The Miz beat Fandango in 7:47. People weren’t into this unannounced match. The fans entertained themselves by chanting “We Want Tables,” and “Randy Savage.” After a few near falls, Fandango missed his legdrop off the top rope. Miz worked over the leg and won via submission with the figure four leglock. *1/2

6. Curtis Axel & Paul Heyman beat C.M. Punk in a no DQ handicap match in 15:29.

A) It ended up being two singles matches instead of a handicap match. It started with Punk vs. Axel, with Heyman on the floor the entire time managing. They started with kendo stick shots. Punk did a tope onto Heyman. Punk then put on Layfield’s cowboy hat, snatched Heyman, teased a kendo stick shot on him but Axel recovered and gave Punk a low blow. Fans were chanting “Walrus.” More “We Want Tables” chants. Axel put a chair in the corner and brought out a table. Fans popped for the table. At one point Punk went to the top rope for the Randy Savage elbow, but Axel rolled out of the ring. Fans booed that heavily. Punk went to hit Axel with a tope, but Axel picked up a chair and Punk tope’d into the chair. It was an easy chair hit, as opposed to the usual swinging a chair on the tope spot which would be against WWE rules. Technically this was as well, but we didn’t hear anything and it was clearly almost no impact on the chair. Punk came back and hit Axel with a kendo stick shot to the gut, gave him the GTS and made him submit with the Anaconda Vise in 10:30. The idea he put on the Vise is he had to hurt Axel so Axel couldn’t help Heyman. **½

B) Incredible facials by Heyman looking scared to death. Heyman was running away and Punk was chasing him. They went all over and around ringside. Punk was having to do the best job he could of looking like he was running fast and still not catching up to Heyman until he tackled him in the ring. He ripped at Heyman’s nose and ears. Heyman tried to make up and hugged Punk. Punk smiled, jabbed the kendo stick to the belly and hit him in the back with the kendo stick. Punk then pulled handcuffs out of his boot. They must have been fun to wrestle a match with them in there. He handcuffed Heyman’s hands behind his back. Heyman started screaming that he was tapping out, but the referee ruled he had to tap. But his hands were tied behind his back. Yes, I know, Ryback already showed in the match with Miz that verbal taps are allowed, which only makes logical sense, but we’ll have to accept that they weren’t here. Fans were chanting “This is awesome.” Punk hit Heyman with a kendo stick to the ankle, groin and several to the belly. He then held the stick and said he was going to break Heyman’s face. Just at that moment, Ryback showed up and speared Punk through the table set up in the corner. Punk’s back was all slashed up from the way the table broke on it. There were loud “Goldberg” chants. Ryback picked up Heyman and placed him on Punk for the pin at 4:59. After the match, Ryback picked Heyman up and carried him to the back. This was pretty much perfect for what it was supposed to be. ***

7. Dean Ambrose pinned Dolph Ziggler in 9:43 to retain the U.S. title. Ambrose made fun of Ziggler’s pose where he wipes the sweat off and Ziggler dropkicked him in the face. Ziggler did the ten elbows, looking at Jerry Lawler when he did the tenth one. Talk about a weird babyface spot if you think about it. Crowd wasn’t into this match. Work was good but they were put in a bad position so late in the show. Ambrose did a double arm superplex. Ziggler did an X factor off the top rope. More near falls, ending when Ziggler missed a charge into the turnbuckles and Ambrose used a headlock DDT for the pin. **3/4

Poll on the greatest U.S. champion of all-time saw Sting got 53% to 24% for Ricky Steamboat, 12% for Sgt. Slaughter, 9% for Harley Race and 2% for Bobo Brazil. Some thought it was something WWE didn’t want with a TNA top guy winning their poll, but clearly they did because Sting was the only modern guy on the list and while Steamboat would have had an outside chance to win, one would expect Sting to win. He wouldn’t have been put on the list if they didn’t expect and probably want him to win.

8. Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns retained the WWE tag titles beating Titus O’Neil & Darren Young in 7:26. Crowd wasn’t much into this one early, but they ended up liking it when O’Neil started blowing the whistle while doing spots in the ring. It was a better match than expected and O’Neil got over just throwing people around. He hit the Clash of the Titus on Rollins, but Reigns saved. Finish saw Reigns then spear O’Neil and Rollins pinned him. **½

Greatest tag team of all-time saw DX win with 47%, ahead of the Legion of Doom at 32%, Hart Foundation at 17%, British Bulldogs at 3% and Samoans (Afa & Sika) at 1%.

The final poll was greatest WWE champion of all-time, with Hulk Hogan at 55%, Steve Austin at 16%, John Cena at 13%, C.M. Punk at 12% and HHH at 4%. They kept Bruno Sammartino, The Rock and Bret Hart off the list, not that any of them would have won.

9. Daniel Bryan pinned Randy Orton in 17:32 to seemingly win the WWE title. Crowd started with dueling chants early. They were into it from the start, and far more than any other match on the show. Bryan did two running dropkicks into the corner, a huracanrana off the top, a tope, a missile dropkick and a second tope. He teased doing a third tope but Orton nailed him with an elbow as Bryan flew out of the ring. Orton then gave him a draping DDT on the floor. Back in the ring, Bryan dropkicked Orton who knocked into ref Scott Armstrong. Armstrong rolled to the floor and was there selling being hurt for several minutes. A second ref came in, who I think was John Cone. Bryan got the Yes lock on in the middle of the ring but Orton was able to get to the ropes. Layfield in commentary brought up how Orton has a history of shoulder problems, which was really smart to bring up at that point. They went back and forth. Bryan did a superplex spot where Bryan hooked his own legs in the ropes so Orton went flying when Bryan didn’t take the bump. That spot makes so much more sense than the traditional way of doing it. Bryan then delivered a diving head-butt and Orton kicked out. Armstrong came back to take over as ref. Bryan took over with kicks, but Orton caught a kick and gave him an exploder suplex for a near fall, with Bryan landing on his right shoulder. Bryan used a back suplex, a superkick and hit the Busaiku knee, when Armstrong did the fast count. At first, the pop wasn’t that big because they didn’t believe the fast count, but when HHH didn’t come out to overrule it, the crowd started doing the “Yes” chants really loud. It was an interesting strategy. It was a good cliffhanger finish but the announcers were told not to bring up the fast count at all. So the show just ended with Bryan as champion, no intimation anything was wrong, with the idea that word of mouth would spread and build the rating for the next day. It felt like they were way over thinking in that regard. ***3/4

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The WWE on 9/13, after the close of the stock market (the company protocol of saving bad news announcements for late Friday) announced that its financial outlook for 2013 would be down from projections.

It was obvious after the second quarter results that this year wasn’t going to be as financially successful as the original projections. They couldn’t even cover the dividend in the Mania quarter, and if Mania wasn’t held in the second quarter, it would have been a money loser. It had appeared to be impossible because of all the guaranteed TV revenue for WWE to lose money, even if popularity dropped and ticket sales, PPV and licensing went down.

And really, popularity is at what I’d call normal levels, and that’s with it being somewhat of a transition period to new stars.

Now, none of the new stars have taken off into being difference makers, but many of them are very effective for the level they’ve been pushed at.

The key here is the decreases in profitability are not the result of lowered revenue coming in. Actual revenue coming in will probably increase this year. So the decrease in profitability comes from increased spending, with them getting ready for the new network.

So it was known ahead of time, even last year, that the 2013 profits would probably be down. Plus, WrestleMania profits, the single biggest event for the company, were way down this year. That was due to so much added expense in talent and the thought that the increase costs of running in New York would result is far more business because of the publicity stemming from running the show in New York and the higher prices that could be charged. But it didn’t work out that way, and may put an end to the theory that location is a big difference maker when it comes to Mania buys. Still, buys were way up in New York because of the local publicity of the show, and that’s the leading market. But it didn’t translate at all anywhere else that the added publicity led to more business.

But they are spending more in that direction than at first projected, as well as they’ve upped their spending on the film division, coming off the success of “The Call,” The new film formula is partnering with studios and purchasing rights to good movies, as well as producing inexpensive and often straight-to-video movies featuring their own talent.

And next year film spending will be way up because you don’t get a Dwayne Johnson starring movie on a $5 million budget.

Another difference is the purchase of the new jet. The price of the jet will be paid in payments, not all at once, so it’s not like a $31 million to $33 million expense will be all on this year’s books. And there is also some money the company will receive for selling its old jet. But this is going to be several million in new expenses on the books over the next few years.

In addition, they are spending far more at the developmental level than ever before. Vince McMahon never earmarked much money in that direction. Since HHH took over and was given full control, it’s become his baby and he thinks it’s the key to the future of the company. All the spending is such that they hope it will pay off with greater profits down the line. For that reason, I don’t see any of this news as bad news or a negative because this is a long-term business.

The good news or bad news is down the line stemming from whether the network does or doesn’t pay off.

For the first six months of 2013, actual profits were $8,216,000. During the same period in 2012, the profits were $27,272,000, so that’s a major difference and there’s no way to catch up on that over the last six months. That’s with a big increase in fixed income, which is television money coming in from producing so many more shows.

Last year’s pre-tax profit was $43.2 million, and this year they are projecting it as $16 million to $28 million. As far as the actual after-tax profit level for 2013, they are expecting now for it to fall between $10 million and $18.5 million. That means they are expecting somewhere between $1.8 million and $10.3 million in total profits over the final six months of the year.

However, much of this year is setting up for the future, and the long-term outlook on the company hasn’t changed. If the network is a hit, the company is in for a significant business gain. If it’s not, then they will lose money but ultimately wrestling won’t be significantly worse off unless the usual factors of creative, the television industry, the economy and the international marketplace change negatively.

As far as profits from wrestling goes, this year will be the lowest since 2002-2003 (which did $16,362,000 in wrestling profits) in a best case scenario. In a worst-case scenario, it would be the lowest since 1997-98, which would be before there was any significant money made in producing televised wrestling, Internet revenue was pretty well non-existent, and international business was minuscule compared to now.

It should be noted that the $10 million to $18.5 million total they are projecting does not include the film division. “The Call,” which has not figured into this year’s books yet, is expected to generate $5.9 million in profits for WWE.

Keep in mind the dividend payout for the year will be $36.2 million, so even with the best case scenario they are going to be down $18 million in actual company income for the year after paying the dividend out, and probably worse. About $24 million of that dividend goes to Vince McMahon.

In actual cash on hand, on June 30, 2013, they had $120 million in cash assets, down from $150 million on June 30, 2012.

In numbers not figured into these projections, the company also announced that their film spending this year will be between $15 million and $20 million.

Company stock closed at $10.16 before the announcement was made on 9/13, and dropped to $9.77 after the conclusions of the first day of trading.

There is talk of cutting down on spending, including sending less talent on the road for house shows.

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On Friday afternoon, it appeared CMLL was on fire as the hottest promotion in the world.

CMLL, born EMLL, became the first promotion in wrestling history ever to become an Octogenarian on 9/13. In celebrating that milestone, the company sold out Arena Mexico in advance with more than 17,000 fans paying approximately $900,000.

This broke the company’s all-time gate record of $700,000 set on September 28, 2007, for a cage of death match loaded with big names that Lizmark Jr. lost, that also included the original Mistico (Sin Cara), Villano V, Atlantis, Dr. Wagner Jr., Ultimo Guerrero, Blue Panther as well as the hair of Perro Aguayo Jr., back when the promotion was hot.

What they got was a mostly good show, ending with two outstanding matches. In the main event, La Sombra beat Volador Jr. in a mask vs. mask match that was an incredible display of state-of-the-art high spots. Some saw it as the best match in Mexico this year.

But to the audience, it largely didn’t matter. As the 80th anniversary show, the older fan base that sold the arena out for the first time in three years, were expecting the biggest match at the building since the Atlantis vs. Villano III mask vs. mask match in 2000.

They didn’t care about the best match. All year, the promotion’s main events have been built around Atlantis, who had headlined more anniversary shows than anyone not named El Santo, and former tag team partner turned top opponent, Ultimo Guerrero. The seeds had been planted for the mask match for months, challenges issued and accepted. But instead, it turned into a situation where it was going to be a tag match with Atlantis & Guerrero vs. Sombra & Volador Jr., with the winning team getting the main event mask vs. mask spot.

The fans decided to convince themselves on the 80th anniversary show, because of the longevity of the two men under the mask, and because they were paying the highest ticket prices in company history, that the bigger match would take place.

Instead, just after Blue Panther got his head shaved after losing a submission match to Averno, out came the four headliners in a tag match.

All was well and good. A bad sign was, early in the tag match, Guerrero did a running flip dive onto Sombra & Volador Jr. Atlantis followed with a big plancha on everyone. Given the ages of the two, it was a risk having them do big dives in this tag match, since they would have to come back and do an all out main event because the fans were expecting something special.

Then, Sombra gave Atlantis a one-armed power clean into a back suplex, and at the same time, Volador Jr. pinned Guerrero after a Spanish fly. The time was just 5:33. Not only was the main event that the people paid for not happening, but the two main eventers they expected only worked a short match. Fans were furious.

Immediately, the promotion sent out dancing girls to stop the “fraud” chants. It technically wasn’t a fraud, but the whole year was built for one match, and on the biggest show with the highest ticket prices, when it should have happened, it didn’t. The chants continued on-and-off for the next hour, until the show ended. There is talk that they are still going to do Atlantis vs. Guerrero later this year, with a hint it may be in a month, on 10/18, to counter WWE running at the more modern Arena Ciudad in Mexico City, and with AAA running one of its biggest shows of the year in Puebla.

If so, it’s going to be past its peak. After the dancing girls were done, the booing started again. Next up was a CMLL trios title match with champions Mistico & Mascara Dorada & Valiente beating Polvora & Rey Escorpion & Polvora. The unhappy crowd was brutal on the faces, although they likely would have been under any circumstances.

They didn’t want to like Sombra vs. Volador Jr., but the match was so spectacular that the hatred built to indifference of many. It was a mostly older audience, seemingly former regulars who came back for what they considered a historic match. For the women and some of the younger fans, they were into the main event from the start and there were strong positive reactions among some of the crowd. The third fall consisted of more than 20 near falls, with the big match style of ultra-slow three counts, with the idea it provides more drama to the near falls. And by the end, there were so many that the crowd did get sucked into the match, going from hatred to standoffish to being very impressed. Almost all the near falls came from spectacular moves, and there were far too many dives to keep track of, which, to me, means overkill. Finally, Sombra got the pin with the sickest move of all, a sunset flip power bomb out of the corner where he dropped Volador Jr. on his head and got the three count.

The match featured both men’s father at ringside. Brillante was in the corner of Sombra (who began his career as Brillante Jr.). The original Volador, who is now Super Parka, was in his son’s corner. Volador Jr. then took off his mask, and announced his name as Ramon Ibarra Rivera, 32 years old, from Monclova, Coahuila, a 17-year pro. The crowd was really booing at this point. It wasn’t the mask they wanted, and more so, even though Volador Jr. was the heel, the crowd was heavily rooting for him to win. Instead of the big reaction one would have expected, cheering both men for the classic match, the “fraud” chants started once again. He left center stage to Sombra, the company’s most talented younger wrestler, who held up the Volador mask in triumph.

There were stories that surfaced, which haven’t been confirmed, that Volador Jr. lost because he gave notice and was going to work full-time in Japan, but not with New Japan.

There was a major problem with the match. From an American or even Japanese standpoint, just going from one spectacular move to another, lacked storytelling. The countless near falls were the story, and it did have more drama than 95% of main events. But the issue is the physical wear-and-tear on the competitors. Guys killing themselves physically to put on the best big show match is part of today’s wrestling. But this was way over pretty much any match I’ve ever seen when it came to risk moves. There are more physical matches, and they can get out of control. But there’s no way doing all those dives isn’t going to shorten careers. In the case of Sombra, at 23, he’s got everything going for him except he does lack charisma, to be a superstar worldwide for decades. That is, if he doesn’t destroy himself physically too early. And Sombra came into this match hurt, taking no time off with his most recent knee injury. After seeing the entire career of Kenta Kobashi, to see a young guy who made it to the top putting his body through big falls far beyond the likes of what Kobashi ever took is an unnerving long-term issue.

It’s probably going to be a long time before they can draw another crowd like this. Time will tell, but even though there’s no way you can say this was anything but a great show due to the last few matches, my feeling coming out of it was they hurt business, and they aren’t going to be drawing well in Mexico City for some time. They have been down around 3,000 for the usual Friday night shows, which is for weekly business, near historical lows.

The decline is because the younger fans see WWE and not CMLL as the major league, and traditionalists hate any changes such as Tirantes doing the heel ref gimmick. The loss of Mistico and Perro Aguayo Jr., the two big draws from the heyday, as well as L.A. Park and Dr. Wagner Jr., all hurt.

A decline from usual levels is part of the natural follow-up of a big show in a market that gets so much live wrestling. In addition, CMLL business is also almost always hurt for a few weeks before and after a WWE tour. The success of this single show will more than make up for whatever decline from average takes place over the next several weeks.

In theory, Atlantis vs. Guerrero, as long as it’s a direct singles match with no wiggle-room by the promotion, should be the same automatic sellout they had here. Perhaps it’s so big that it will, but I’m skeptical. It felt like the air was being let out of the tires of that feud.

You could argue that they stole a sellout house in the fans’ minds, even though they didn’t false advertise here. It was very much pushed that Sombra and Volador Jr. had as good a shot at being the main event. Both matches were pushed strong as potential, but it was the crowd in the weeks leading to the match that made it clear no matter how many impressive moves the young guys did, it was the older guys feud that was the one the crowd cared the most about. But the audience reaction after Atlantis & Guerrero were eliminated from the main event was a loud message they’d felt after paying the highest ticket prices for a show in company history, that they’d been baited and switched one time too many, and the promotion in Mexico City already had a reputation for that.

1. Team Japan of Tomohiro Ishii & Namajague (Kyosuke Mikami) & Shigeo Okumura won 2/3 fall over The Mexican trio of Fuego & Stuka Jr. & Rey Cometa. After splitting falls, this turned into a good match, even though Ishii’s style doesn’t work nearly as well here as in Japan. Among the highlights were Cometa coming off the top rope into a huracanrana on Okumura, sending him to the floor. Cometa followed and gave him a spinning backbreaker on the floor. Crowd was hot for this chanting for Team Mexico. Fuego came off the top rope with a quebrada (lionsault) into a body block as opposed to a press. Fuego did some Matrix spots. Ishii and Stuka Jr. were trading hard chops. Fuego did a tope on Okumura, and followed with a second one. Cometa then followed with a screwdriver dive over the top rope on Namajague. Stuka then did a backwards crossbody block. In the ring, it came down to Stuka Jr. vs. Ishii. It got heated as they traded falls. Stuka Jr. did a tope reversa, coming off the ropes springboarding back with a reverse head-butt. Stuka went to the top rope, but Namajague swept his leg so he was crotched. Ishii then gave him a delayed superplex and got the pin. ***

2. The second straight rudo trio win saw Niebla Roja & Mephisto & Euforia over Brazo de Plata (Super Porky) & son Maximo & Titan. Titan is one of the better younger high flyers. Porky looks to be dangerously close to 400 pounds on a 5-foot-4 frame. He’s 50 years old, and moves around a lot so you get the impression he’s a heart attack waiting to happen. Not to mention he’s got a personal history of heart problems. He really put on a show here.

A) Titan did spots where he walked on his hands in the first fall. It was mostly the rudos beating down Titan. Euforia pinned Titan after a power bomb. Then Mephisto & Niebla Roja combined to suplex Porky and then Roja pinned Porky after a springboard splash to take the first fall in 5:37.

B) In the second fall, Porky splashed and pinned all three rudos at 4:45.

C) Lots of heat in the third fall. Porky came off the top with a crossbody. Titan did another handstand but Euforia dropkicked him. Titan jumped over the top rope and DDT’d Euforia on the apron. Maximo kissed Mephisto, gave him a huracanrana off the ropes and arm dragged him out of the ring. Maximo did a tope on Euforia. Porky then did a tope on all three rudos. The crowd went crazy for that. Maximo kissed Niebla Roja. Titan came off the ramp and dove from far away, over the guard rail onto Roja. The finish then saw Euforia used a dragon sleeper on Maximo while Mephisto picked Porky up, which wasn’t easy, and gave him a chicken wing for a second submission in 5:06. **3/4

3. Next was a match where rivals became partners as tecnicos Rush & Marco Corleone teamed with rudo Vangelis to beat tecnico Shocker with rudos Negro Casas & CMLL world heavyweight champion El Terrible. Lots of crazy music as Terrible & Vangelis came out to the song “La Grange,” which I remember was already old when David Von Erich used it, and he’s been dead for almost 30 years. And speaking of that, Rush came out to Chris Benoit’s music. Fans booed the hell out of Rush, even though he’s a face, and it’s not because of the music.

A) They just went crazy when Casas, a rudo, was killing him. Casas, at 53, is out there doing all kinds of modern moves. First fall ended in 2:18 when Corleone pinned Terrible and Vangelis pinned Shocker after a Northern lights suplex.

B) In the second fall, Terrible and Vangelis, regular partners, went at it with hard chops. Crowd was going crazy booing Rush as he was stomping Casas. Then they loved Terrible taking out Rush. Corleone ran down the ramp and dove into the ring with the Air Italia (Hernandez’s Air Mexico, although Corleone did it first) on Terrible. Shocker then gave Terrible a senton. Corleone pinned Terrible and Shocker cradled Vangelis at 5:01.

C)Third fall was rushed as Casas did a double foot stomp on Rush but Rush kicked out. Rush then gave Casas a power bomb and held onto the ropes for the pin at 1:46. Nothing gets more heat that a match ending long before the crowd expected it to, with a hated babyface blatantly cheating to win. It seemed like it was a tease of a heel turn by Rush, who was actually by far the most over heel on the show. **1/4

4. Averno beat Blue Panther in a submission match where the loser was to get his head shaved. Panther is one of Mexico’s all-time greats, but he turns 53 this week. The problem is he looks much older than he is, and never should have lost his mask. It was really amazing he did as much as he did here, particularly in the third fall after the first two falls really weren’t much.

A) Panther won a slow paced first fall in 4:54 with a shoulder submission move.

B) In the second fall, Panther did some Red Bastien style flying head scissors out of the 70s. But Averno quickly won the fall in :49 with something approximating a heel hook.

C) Things picked up in the third fall. Panther hit a tope right after the fall started. He used the upside down surfboard (La Tapatia), but Averno escaped and used a figure four leglock. Panther made the ropes but Averno wouldn’t break. They both rolled to the floor, while Averno still held on. It was broken up. Panther used a crossbody off the apron to the floor. In the ring, Averno had Panther down in a cradle but there were no pinfalls allowed in this match. But Averno evidently didn’t know that and was furious when heel ref Tirantes wouldn’t count the fall. Averno tried octopus and Kimura submissions. Panther got Averno in the Gori special. Averno got out with a victory roll but again Tirantes wouldn’t count. Averno was mad again. Panther did another tope, and then did a third tope to Mephisto, who was at ringside. Averno used two power bombs, but Panther quickly grabbed the Fujiwara armbar. Mephisto threw in the towel but ref Tirantes didn’t see it. Panther let go of the Fujiwara armbar to tell Tirantes about the towel being thrown in. Mephisto then pulled the towel out and Tirantes saw nothing. As Panther argued with Tirantes, Averno came from behind with a choke and put Panther out in 13:28. After the match, Barber Pancho Panizola, who has been around forever, shaved Panther’s head. ***1/4

5. La Sombra & Volador Jr. beat Atlantis & Ultimo Guerrero in 5:33 of a one fall match where the winners advanced to the main event. Atlantis & Guerrero were pounding on the younger guys early. Guerrero did a flip dive on Sombra & Volador Jr. Atlantis then did a plancha on everyone. It was a real good one, particularly considering his age. Atlantis put Sombra in a submission but Volador saved. Guerrero did a reverse superplex on Volador Jr. while at the same time Sombra cradled Atlantis, teasing a double pin, but both kicked out. Sombra tried a huracanrana off the top on Guerrero, who blocked it and Guerrero power bombed him while Atlantis laid out Volador Jr. at the same time and went for the pin, but both kicked out. Sombra gave Atlantis a codebreaker and then Volador Jr. gave him a backstabber, but Guerrero made the save. Sombra gave Guerrero a German suplex for a near fall. Sombra went to superkick Guerrero, who ducked, and Sombra nailed Volador Jr. Sombra went to the top rope but Guerrero shoved him and he was crotched. Finish saw Sombra use a one arm clean into a back suplex on Atlantis while at the same time, Volador Jr. took Guerrero off the top rope with a Spanish fly for the double pin. **

6. Mistico & Mascara Dorada & Valiente retained the CMLL trios titles over Polvora & Dragon Rojo Jr. & Rey Escorpion in 2/3 falls.

A) The new Mistico is really skinny, almost to the point you can’t buy him, although he flies great. Escorpion, who is really good, rag dolled him in the first fall and threw him into the post. His shoulder is already hurt. First fall ended when Polvora made Valiente submit to the camel clutch and Dragon Rojo Jr. pinned Dorada with a power bomb in 3:15.

B) The rudos kept on top, throwing around the faces. Dorada got hip tossed over the top rope onto the ramp. They continued to beat down Mistico until he did a springboard huracanrana on Escorpion. Dorada ran off the ramp and gave Escorpion a huracanrana. Mistico did a great flip dive over the top on Polvora. Valiente pinned Polvora with a codebreaker. Dorada then ran down the ramp and dove over the top rope, flying into a sunset flip on Escorpion at 2:34.

C) Valiente climbed up to the top rope and arm dragged Rojo off the apron. Mistico gave Escorpion a huracanrana off the top rope and Escorpion went to the floor. With all the heels on the floor, all three tecnicos did dives. Mistico and Dorada did usual topes while Valiente did an Asai moonsault. Valiente had Rojo pinned when Escorpion stopped ref Tigre Hispano from counting. That spot always looks stupid because it should be a DQ and only cheapens the product when it isn’t. Escorpion did a short power bomb on to Valiente but Mistico saved. Mistico did a springboard huracanrana on Escorpion. Dorada did a springboard flip dive and Mistico followed with a springboard shooting star press on Escorpion. Mistico won the match using La Mistica on Polvora for the submission. ****

7. La Sombra beat Volador Jr. in 2/3 falls in a mask match. Volador Jr., whose gimmick is that he wears a different costume, usually based on movie super heroes, came out in the ring gear his father wore as Volador during his 90s AAA heyday. A) Volador Jr. came out immediately with a huracanrana on the floor and doing stage dive plancha. Volador Jr. got the pin with the back stabber in 2:48.

B) Sombra did a moonsault off the barricade. Sombra also did a springboard flip dive off the barricade and nailed Volador Jr. who was about three rows deep in the aisle. Volador Jr. did a springboard into a Sombra dropkick for a near fall. The finish saw Sombra hit a powerslam, then come off the ropes with a quebrada (Lionsault) but Volador Jr. moved away. Sombra landed on his feet and immediately did a second standing moonsault on Volador Jr and got the pin in 2:36. That spot is fantastic the first time you see it but you can’t do it every week. Now, on this show, yeah, this is the show to be pulling it out. Still, after that great finish, fans were booing the hell out of Sombra.

C) Volador Jr. opened trying a codebreaker, but Sombra blocked it and used a power bomb for a near fall. Sombra did a split legged moonsault but Volador Jr. moved. Volador Jr. threw Sombra out of the ring and did a moonsault off the top rope to the floor. You could see Sombra’s bad knee was hurting here. It wasn’t as if he was selling it to add drama, but it was the little stuff that people wouldn’t notice. He couldn’t sell it because he had a million moves to do. Sombra went to do a missile dropkick but Volador Jr. stepped back, caught him and power bombed him for a near fall. Sombra came back with a Gori especial, and then turned it into a German suplex for a near fall. Outside the ring, both fathers were cheerleading. Volador Jr. did this spectacular reverse huracanrana for a near fall. It was as smoothly executed as I’ve ever seen from that move. Sombra backdropped Volador Jr. over the top rope and did a running tope con hilo (flip dive) over the top. In the ring, Volador Jr. came back with a codebreaker, followed by a backstabber for a near fall. Sombra did a backflip into a leg slice for a near fall. Volador Jr. used a Canadian Destroyer but Sombra kicked out. Sombra then did a moonsault from the top rope to the floor. They were fighting outside the ring and Volador Jr. came off the apron with a huracanrana on Sombra, flipping him into the barricade. The crowd really liked that spot. Sombra came back and did a one rep giant swing on the floor sending Volador Jr. into the barricade. Both were on the top rope and Sombra jumped up and did a super huracanrana for a near fall. Sombra followed with another huracanrana and a shining wizard for a near fall. Sombra got a near fall with a backslide. Sombra went for a power bomb but Volador Jr. turned it into a tight huracanrana for a near fall. Sombra then used a backstabber and Volador Jr. kicked out at the last possible split second. Sombra went to the top but Volador Jr. shoved him off and superkicked him, but Sombra kicked out. Sombra then did his second fall finishing sequence, the powerslam, quebrada, landing on his feet when Volador Jr. moved and the standing moonsault, but this time Volador Jr. kicked out, again at the last possible split second. Sombra went to the ref to complain about a slow count, kind of teasing that he did his biggest move possible and it didn’t end the match. Sombra went back to the top rope and Volador Jr. kicked him, climbed to the top and delivered the Spanish fly, the move he used to pin Ultimo Guerrero earlier in the show, but Sombra kicked out. Volador Jr. did a huracanrana where Sombra took the bump on his head, but he kicked out again. Volador Jr. missed a charge into the corner, and Sombra did his one arm power clean into a back suplex, the move he used to pin Atlantis earlier in the show. Volador Jr. kicked out. Sombra went to the top rope. Volador Jr. again kicked him in the head and climbed up. However, Sombra did a sunset flip into a power bomb from the top rope, flipping over like he was delivering a Canadian Destroyer. Volador Jr. took the bump on the top of his head like a piledriver. To their credit, of all the big spots, the finish was the one that as soon as it was hit you got the impression this had to be it, and it was, with the fall coming at 20:08, and with the breaks between falls the match went a little over 27:00. This was such a passionate heel crowd that they were booing heavily when it was over, because by that point since in their minds they got screwed out of the main event they wanted, they at least wanted Sombra’s mask, which is more valuable than Volador Jr.’s because he’s the bigger star, and they didn’t get that either. Volador Jr. looks just like Bryan Alvarez. This was a must-see match and you could argue it for match of the year consideration, but I think many who work within the U.S. wrestling business would have a hard time with it and some would hate it. As a fan watching for the drama, the near falls built and they picked up the audience as it went, so it wasn’t numbing overkill of near falls. Still, they could have, with more transition work and selling, done one-third of what they did and it would have been as good or better. ****½

***************************************************************

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre badly wants to remove all speculation that he's using performance enhancing drugs after it became a hot bottom issue with claims made by Nick Diaz before their fight in March.

His next opponent, Johny Hendricks, has stated numerous times in recent weeks, that he's got nothing to hide.

So on the surface, it sounds simple. Since both say they've got no issues with subjecting themselves to the inconvenience of being drug tested, with no warning, at any time, between now and their Nov. 16 title fight in Las Vegas, it should be the most heavily tested fight in UFC history.

If only things were so simple.

And as things stand right now, St-Pierre has been subjecting himself to unannounced and random blood and urine drug testing through VADA (Voluntary Anti-Doping Association) for several weeks. Unless he withdraws from the program, which is exceedingly unlikely given the backlash it would cause, he will continue to do so until the fight.

St-Pierre was not only willing, but has already put up the money to pay for Hendricks to do the same. But based on a series of red flags, Hendricks has stated he will not test with VADA. But his representatives opened the door for other options after discussing things with UFC and the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

A conference call was held last month, with the idea of getting both fighters on the same page for enhanced testing.

What happened next was a series of things that resulted in mistrust from the Hendricks side, and then a lack of communication from the St-Pierre side, to where no agreement has been reached, with time now running out. The deadline has long since passed for a 12-week program that would run through the entirety of both men's training camps.

Beneath it all is the politics of competing organizations in the drug testing business and a subject that remains as much a frustration in sports today as it has been for a half-century. The gist of the subject is the competitive disadvantage that clean athletes face today in sports that involve a high degree of athleticism, and the potential of long-term health issues that may result from long-term usage of certain performance enhancing drugs.

In any sport where speed, explosiveness, aggressiveness, stamina, power and even cosmetic looks are involved, you are going to find performance enhancing agents. Exactly how prevalent they are in MMA is subject to debate. Those who want to justify usage will claim everyone is doing it, and the playing field is already even. They will say it's only the dumb or very unlucky ones that get caught.

Other fighters vehemently deny usage, say users are cheaters, but most concede it's a very significant problem. Camps at times base game plans around the belief certain fighters are using substances, trying to avoid strengths from that perceived usage, and attack weaknesses based on those beliefs.

Testing is a hit-and-miss game. The UFC insists on testing at all its events, in most cases by the local commissions. When UFC runs in places like Japan or the United Kingdom, where there is no commission, they will test themselves, and historically those shows seem to result in more positives than commission testing. Some commissions only test a few fighters. Others test every fighter on the show.

In other organizations, testing is not necessarily there for every show. Few other promotions insist on testing if the local commission doesn't require it on its own.

But even though UFC has consistently pushed for more testing, it has been often criticized for not implementing stringent testing of its own, as most major sports organizations these days do. Dana White has always argued that UFC, along with boxing, is tested by the government, an outside independent agency. He claims that's superior to testing by the sports themselves, because of the credibility of the organization itself having no hand in the results or the punishment, except in those cases when UFC does its own testing.

But few believe that tests that, except on rare occasions, are only done at fight time, when fighters know and expect them, represent much more than an IQ test.

And White hasn't been publicly supportive of fighters, like St-Pierre in this instance, who is demanding of himself a far more stringent testing program.

"I think it makes them both look stupid," White said on Thursday in his Google+ Hangout chat when the subject of the St-Pierre/Hendricks steroid testing back-and-forth volleying was brought up. "These guys are going to get tested by the athletic commission. This is something that Georges St-Pierre wants to prove to everybody, because for years people have been saying (he's doping). When he fought B.J. Penn, B.J. talked smack about him. Other people have talked stuff. The kid, not only is he another guy that's been with us since day one, he's never tested positive for anything even remotely close to anything bad. He's never tested positive for anything.

"He's always been a straight shooter and always professional, yet people keep talking smack about him. I just think it's crazy for him to even do this. I just think it makes everything cloudy, man. There's a system in place by the government for combat sports, and it's just a pain in the ass for them. They can do whatever they want. They want to do it. They don't want to do it. I could care less."

Testing that is limited to urine tests taken the weekend of the fight leaves an incredible amount of leeway to use PEDs in the off-season, or during the hardest part of training camps. Commissions do have the right to test licensees at any time. For financial reasons, such testing is rarely done, although unannounced training camp testing of fighters in major main events in Nevada does happen these days on occasion.

Still, there are issues. Some fighters claim that all drug testing does is give the rich fighters the edge, because they can afford the best drugs and most expensive programs for beating the tests. While there is a blood test for Human Growth Hormone, it almost never catches anyone and most in sports believe the drug can be used pretty much with impunity. In MMA, athletic commissions don't test for HGH, even though it is a banned substance.

There are also all kinds of issues with testing for testosterone. Victor Conte, who designed programs for notable athletes including Barry Bonds and Marion Jones to beat drug testing, has been an outspoken critic of the current system.

Conte, now a supporter to VADA, which he regularly promotes, is critical of using the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio to determine whether athletes are using testosterone. VADA is a newcomer in the drug testing battles, and in July announced that Dr. Donald Catlin, had joined on as its Scientific Adviser. Catlin is the biggest name in the U.S. when it comes to sports drug testing, which is a significant industry given the amount of money spent by various different sports and athletic commissions.

Conte and Catlin are strong proponents of CIR (Carbon Isotope Ratio) testing, which VADA uses, and can tell the difference between natural and artificial testosterone. The problem is, such tests run from $700 to $1,000, four to five times what the current T:E tests cost. This makes them cost prohibitive for most commissions.

But CIR testing has become more popular over the past year. A number of sports organizations, including both the Nevada commission and World Wrestling Entertainment, use CIR testing as a secondary test if the T:E test shows borderline or high levels. Still, like when any new test comes in, those who advise athletes to beat the tests, are constantly studying the tests with the idea of devising ways to beat it.

The public, after decades, is largely burned out on the story, even if they are quick to turn on athletes who test positive.

In fighting, the problem becomes that everyone with a top level physique, like St-Pierre, is put under suspicion, and even more so when they excel in their sport. The problem is, if someone is genetically gifted when it comes to physique, the nature of fight training and eating healthy is going to give one a very impressive physique. Others, without that genetic disposition, like Tim Sylvia and Josh Barnett, have failed steroid tests without having bodies that remotely loo...

The mahjong gambling madness of the Akagi anime is the latest addition to Crunchyroll’s library of streaming anime, based on the manga by Nobuyuki Fukumoto, of Kaiji fame. Premium members have access to all episodes as of 5pm PDT today whilefree members will enjoy 6 episodes today while adding 5 episodes/week. 

 

 

Story synopsis

 

 

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Patrick Macias is editor in chief of Crunchyroll News. He is also the editor of Cosplay USA magazine. Check out his blog at http://patrickmacias.blogs.com/

 Everyone was speculating about how AnimeSols would do and what would happen when funding came down to the wire. We’ve now seen people rally and make titles like Creamy Mami the Magical Angel and Black Jack happen while others were stopped short.

Consider this post an encouragement to fund the recent addition to the AnimeSols line-up, Dear Brother. This is the type of show I believe AnimeSols should be courting, it fits perfectly. Dear Brother is a classic, it is fairly well-known, and the original manga is from Riyoko Ikeda creator of The Rose of Versailles. The anime was adapted by Tezuka Productions and directed by the indomitable Osamu Dezaki.

Dear Brother, influencer of so much that came after it, is a seminal shojo anime that might actually blow your mind.

The Rose of Versailles has always been the big name title that everyone in the US knows Riyoko Ikeda for. The Rose of Versailles was the series that was mega popular in France. It was the anime that made Utena what it was. For the longest time it was the holy grail of anime and manga. The manga had a bilingual release that only had 2 volumes ever released and what little that did come out eventually became a collector’s item. The anime always had a strong vocal fanbase but never could seem to be licensed. Riyoko Ikeda has done other work but really how many people do you know demanding the The Window of Orpheus or Eikou no Napoleon – Eroica?

But in between the rock star popularity of The Rose of Versailles and the almost total obscurity Claudine…! was another title by Ikeda. It was popular enough in Japan to get an anime. It had a lesser known but equally powerful influence on Utena. It had a distinct following of fans due to its yuri themes. A renown director and production company caught a few eyes as well. So Oniisama e… has a distinct but far smaller audience. I think most of the time the Oniisama e… fans decided to pull for The Rose of Versailles with the hopes that if that could get licensed and do well then Dear Brother could hopefully ride in the slipstream of its more popular sister.

But now the The Rose of Versailles anime was licensed by Nozomi Entertainment. Dear Brother is even streaming in Viki. The only has one last hurdle to cross in English. That is the physical release of the anime. So Anime Sols is trying just that with a Kickstarter styled attempt to get the release crowd funded. As fans of the series we figured we would try to sell you on the show in hopes that it can make its goal.

The series is awesome so this should be very easy.

Mean girls in shojo manga? They’ve always existed, but you’ve met your match with the girls of Dear Brother. The social hierarchy of high school ready to devour unsuspecting women is on full display. Who will survive?

The first rule of Dear Brother is everything can be, and often is, dramatic. EVERYTHING. Whether you are riding the bus, painting your nails, eating cake, or writing a letter. They like to punctuate these life changing incidents with an intense plucking of violin strings and a still frame.

Sure I’m presenting all this with levity but Dear Brother is no comedy. Even if you find yourself laughing at during these tense moments like I do, you’ll also find yourself completely riveted.

As I mentioned before Dear Brother is what I assumed Maria Watches Over Us would be like. While Maria Watches Over Us is the polite social drama parts of Downton Abbey then Dear Brother is the best parts of Game of Thrones (with less dragons). In other words Dear Brother is the dramatic lesbian school girl anime you deserve.

Dear Brother is a series where it is always pouring when people have fateful meetings so it can reflect the tears in there eyes and the pain in their hearts (and so people can throw umbrellas out the window of their limo like one would drop money on the dresser for a prostitute.) Everyone has a dark secret, a forbidden love, and a dangerous vice. There are drugs, slap fights, political maneuvering, and drama all around. There is also love, betrayal, and friendship in the most unlikely of places.

But it is not all over the top. Many times it is what is not said that is just as important as what is screamed. A little look, a choked back interjection, or a stony silence is often used to say volumes about character relationships in a way that someone pontificating about their emotions could not convey with 5 minutes of dialog. The lighting, camera angles, and music also tell much of the story as anything obviously in the foreground. The subtle backs up the bombastic and lets them both reinforce each other.

Dear Brother may have more influence on Revolutionary Girl Utena than any other, yet we so rarely talk about it! From the school politics to the use of light and shadow, you’ll be tripping over similarities as you watch Dear Brother.

Unmistakably, the influence for Nanami is Misaki with her troupe of yes-women and her guile for Nanako ability to attract people and attain goals above her social standing. Misaki’s signature outfit is even yellow.

Sexuality is a big piece to Utena and the variables of such are a big part of Dear Brother, too, seen especially in androgynous characters like Kaoru and Rei.

While there may be some minor architectural influences by The Rose of Versailles on Ohtori Academy in Utena they are trifling as compared to how much the Seiran School has influenced the look of where Utena goes to school. The European influenced architecture which separates it from the normal Japanese aesthetic and makes the campus seem very other worldly from the outside. There is also the large amounts of greenery worked into the structures all over the campus which further separates it from the rest of the very urbanized city. The covered walkways and huge pane glass windows in every building that allow for dramatic lighting whenever it is needed. Music rooms for both atmospheric music, displays of artistic flourish, conspiratorial conversations, and romantic interludes. There are echoes of Dear Bother’s school all over Utena.

Also you can see the roots of many characters in Utena stem from Dear Brother. There are parts of Rei Asaka and Kaoru Orihara in both Juri and Utena with their princely attitudes but troubled pasts. Mariko Shinobu’s obsessive affections can be seen in Kozue. Tomoko Arikura’s simple and supportive friendship feels much like Wakaba’s as well. Oscar François de Jarjayes’ influence on Utena herself is unmistakable but it would be a crime not to notice how the Dear Brother cast also made their mark on the show.

In fact we will almost assuredly write a follow up article to this detailing all the ways that Utena has been influenced by this show when we watch the show to completion.

It would be a real treat to see this get funded way before the date. It has certainly garnered good momentum so let’s make it happen!

Hopefully if you ever heard of the show before this point you will be intrigued to watch a few episodes for free on Anime Sols. If you like what you see please a little support especially if your a fan of classic shojo or yuri.

Filed under: Anime, Classics, Editorials Tagged: Dear Brother

This is the first stage of Killer Is Dead, the new game directed by Hideyuki Shin, art direction by Takashi Kasahara, music direction by Akira Yamaoka, with story and executive production by Suda51. It’s called “Episode 1: The Man who Chose the Moon.” The video is about five minutes long.

I made a joke with a friend the other day about how if someone tried to create a Dogme 95-style movement for video games, their list of rules would essentially describe Suda51 games. Lollipop Chainsaw, No More Heroes, Killer Is Dead, all of these are basically the same game, gameplay-wise. One button to hit, one button to guard crush or secondary attack, another button to dodge/counter, and an optional jump button. Vaguely or explicitly annoying minigames. Gameplay that’s just good enough to be rewarding to a certain type of person, but not good enough to be A-list. I think of Suda51 as a dude who is really interested in making sure that the children of today still get to play Dreamcast games, and I appreciate that. All of his games are a solid B, maybe B+, but in terms of being interesting, in terms of being art, in terms of being experiences, Suda51′s games are A+ across the board. Shadows of the Damned and Black Knight Sword break the gameplay pattern, the latter being a throwback to a different genre than the other games and the former being more of a shooter than action/adventure game, but they’re both similarly obtuse and difficult, in terms of skill or patience.

“The Man who Chose the Moon” was my real introduction to Killer Is Dead. I watched a debut trailer, I think in Japanese, but I avoided any info on the game up until the day it came out and I decided to buy it. “The Man who Chose the Moon” is part-tutorial, part-cinema, and the blending of the two is what made it such a lightning strike for me. The only thing you do is walk forward, watch a cinema, and then press a button.

But what got me, what made me realize I was going to see the game through instead of getting bored as quickly as I usually do these days, was the moment you had to press and hold R1. Mondo Zappa, the main character, raises his sword, the screen changes, a voice says “Killer is dead,” and then you’re told to release R1, at which point the sword comes down and Tokio’s head comes off.

There was something about that moment, about a quicktime event being used in this fashion, as opposed to the normally annoying way they’re deployed now. (Do this on short notice, or repeat this section forever!) It felt cinematic and interesting in a way most QTEs don’t. It feels stylish. It blends story and gameplay into one thing, putting you directly into Mondo Zappa’s shoes.

Style is substance. I tend to think of substance as deep gameplay or a rewarding story, something along those lines. Something that takes time to digest, the concrete and quantifiable aspects of video game production. The Last of Us, for example, excelled at substance, even in the multiplayer. I like substance because it feels like I’m getting my money’s worth. Games are expensive, and if I’m dropping sixty on a disc or download, I need to be wowed. The most direct method is substance, but style’s just as good.

Style is harder to quantify. It’s not just visual style, or audio direction, or gameplay. It’s Mondo Zappa murdering people to finance sexual encounters, a grown man having a catchphrase, gameplay that continues to refine a blueprint established forever ago. Style is the aggregate of everything.

Killer Is Dead has style in spades, and the substance derives from that.

Further Reading:
I like this look at Killer Is Dead through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s pleasure principle and death drive concepts. It’s deeper than I went, but having played through the game a couple of times, it feels right.Similar Posts:

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Kenji Nakamura's anime with female protagonist premiered in July