An Old Nerd Belatedly Remembers Another PPV Happened

Glad it happened even if it’s under less than ideal circumstances.

I suppose it be3hooves me to get WWE’s last PPV of the year on the books while the year still exists. Not an awful show if you have access to the fast forward button.

An Oldnerd Has A New Favorite Spider-Man Movie

Not too many Spidermens

This has been an amazing year for superhero movies. Black Panther, Infinity War, Deadpool 2. Lots of people liked Incredibles 2 (which I haven’t seen yet. I know. Netflix end of January.) Ant-Man And The Wasp was fine. Some people even liked Venom and Aquaman.

PREDICTIONS: TLC

What It’s All About

Oh, hey, it’s time for another WWE pay per view event! Tables! Ladders! Chairs! Some of the matches feature some of those things! I’ve been very NXT focused the last few weeks except when Becky Lynch is on the screen. Predictions ahoy!

An Oldnerd Splurges On His Forever TV

This doesn’t do it justice. Trust me. I am bad at photos.

I really wasn’t planning on doing my 4K upgrade this year. I also wasn’t expecting to future-proof my setup for the next maybe decade. But I did.

A Dude Pissed His Pants And Pissed Off An Oldnerd

How Things Should Be

This show was mostly garbage and they jobbed out Smackdown at (nearly) every opportunity, so I’m just going to run through this quickly

An Oldnerd Did Watch Takeover Wargames 2 Last Month

The Dream is and is not over.

This was a very good show, and it’s a shame Survivor Series’ pee moment and the pee moments that have followed have really tamped down my interest in giving a shit about any wrestling that doesn’t have Becky Lynch in it. Oh, and Matt Riddle one-hit-killed Kassius Ohno in an impromptu match, for the record.

Yes, The OLDNERD KNows About Beat Saber

Up down left right I’m gonna slash some cubes tonight

It started months ago. Before I even had a Playstation VR. Before it was even ANNOUNCED for Playstation VR. People would ask me if I’d heard of Beat Saber. In person, from halfway across the country. To Cathy on Facebook since I’m not on Facebook. “Has Bryan seen Beat Saber?”

An Old Nerd Is Even Less Sure About How Survivor Series Is Going To Go

Wrestler # 4 Plesae Don’t Break Wrestler # 5

Survivor Series! The night when Raw and Smackdown collide everything is made up and the points don’t matter! Yes, it’s all about fake brand supremacy between the two fake brands we all watch both of anyway. This makes predictions even more of a crap shoot than usual. But let’s go.

An Old Nerd Is Not At All Sure Of His Takeover WarGames Predictions

Not now, but soon. Soon.

With an even more lackluster-looking Survivor Series than usual on the horizon, a stacked Takeover only needs four long matches to steal the weekend instead of the usual five. Predictions!

An Old Nerd TheManSplains Becky Lynch

Taking an accident and turning it into a legend.

It is infinitely disappointing that Becky Lynch won’t be wrestling Ronda Rousey at Survivor Series due to a broken face and concussion from an errant punch on Raw. But all of this doesn’t change, and in fact accentuates, the fact that Becky Lynch is the most exciting star in WWE right now. By a goddamned mile. Possibly the most exciting thing in all of wrestling since All In.

An Old Nerd Watched Evolution, Enjoyed It, Wrote About It, Then Missed A Key Step

And that’s why Becky Lynch is THE MAN.

Oops, I wrote this and then forgot I posted it with all the other bullshit going on. Still, it’s better to talk about than most of what else is going on in WWE, so let’s say I did it on purpose.

Evolution was, in many ways, the ultimate expression of women’s wrestling in WWE. It made up for a startling lack of support and attention by the brand through hard work and solid in-ring storytelling.

An Old Nerd... Gets A New PS4. Eventually.

This picture took nearly two months to take.

And now, for Halloween, a SCQAAAARY STOOOORY about my new PS4.

An Old Nerd Does Some More Singing Not LIke That You Pervs

Get it? It’s like that other thing!

Spider-Man for PS4 is offering up three story mode DLC packs, collectively called “The City Never Sleeps”. They’re interconnected and coming out at the ends of October, November, and December. And I just finished the first one.

An Old Nerd Deals With Things Not Getting Cold Enough

Shiny... too shiny.

Nothing screams Oldnerd like shopping for appliances. And nothing is more annoying than appliance shopping under duress. Especially for a fridge.

An Old Nerd Makes Blind Guesses About THe First All-Woman PPV

The placement in this graphic is disappointingly accurate.

If you go by the promotion on WWE television, there are four matches on Evolution this Sunday.Maybe five, if you didn’t blink and miss an announcement like I did. Turns out there are eight, but the other three are from WWE sub-promotions, because apparently that’s the only way they can write enough women’s feuds to fill an entire PPV despite their massive roster. Anyway, predictions.

An Old Nerd Is Sad About Roman Reigns, Crown Jewel, And Panic Booking

So, yeah. Roman Reigns has leukemia.

An Old Nerd Spends A Month Doing A Bunch Of Shit Spiders Can’t Do

Two of my favorite things - the fast travel scenes and the Vintage Suit.

It’s done. It took me a month, but it’s done. At least for a couple of weeks until the DLC drops.

An Old Nerd Finally Hatewatches Justice League

Not even in the top fifty problems with this movie.

I finally got around to this. It’s been on HBO for a bunch of minutes, but I just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t give it a slot in the schedule. But September has a lot of lulls in it so I made it happen, and I’m... happy? From a cultural knowledge standpoint? Because that shit was garbage.

An Old Nerd Is Excited About A New Album

Open Mike Eagle announced a new album for the fall, which is great for me, because the only other album I’ve bought this year is the Teen Titans Go To The Movies soundtrack, and that’s a shitballs answer to “what was your favorite album this year?”

Anyway, this is the first... single, I guess? Preview track? As mentioned I donkt follow music mch anymore.

An Old Nerd Wonders How That Iron Fist Season 2 Thing Happened

The real stars of Season 2

On a scale of one to ten, when the first season of Iron Fist dropped on Netflix, I’d say my interest in watching the show was about a 7.

An Old Nerd Reflects On Hell, Cels, And Australia

THEY PAINTED THE CELL RED OH MAN

I actually plowed through Hell In A Cell on Monday, but I’ve had to spend a couple of days researching yet another goddamned iOS writing app (another post) so now I have to remember how I felt about these matches. Shouldn’t be difficult.

An Old Nerd Tries To Guess What Will Hpapen At Hell In A Cell 2018

Apparently this is real art. Seriously.

I gotta be honest - I’m not particularly interested in or excited by the happenings leading up to and the matches in tonight’s Hell In The Cell PPV. But let’s make predictions anyway.

An Old Nerd Grabs A Handful Of Piig Intestines

Fodder for dozens of dick jokes.

Those of you who’ve followed my exploits on the Internet for years, or just spent any time around me, are probably surprised that I haven’t stuffed my own sausage before. But I hadn’t, until a few weeks ago.

An Old Nerd Loves A New Pepper

.

Suaaaaaaave.

This is the Numex Orange Suave.

It is a pepper.

I grew it.

This OLDNERD Climbed A THousand Foot Robot

To The Top is my favorite game of the year and maybe my favorite game of the last five years, because it’s given me something I almost never get: an entirely new gaming experience.

An OLDNERD In THe Matrix

CAN’T STOP JACKIN’

OK, as part of my effort to shift away from regular episodic posting and more into enthusiast stuff, I’ve spent, and I just checked this, about three months hooked on Playstation VR. So much so that I haven’t bothered to write about it.

Summerslam 2018

The only real memorable moment of the show.

If it weren’t for one glorious, shining moment, I’d have been uniformly disappointed with Summerslam. That moment though.

Rusev and Lana vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega (Pre-Show): Almas/Vega win.

This match was weird garbage. Aiden English wasn’t involved, it was short, and it ended oddly. People were just filling time. (1/1)

Cedric Alexander vs. Drew Gulak (Pre-Show, Cruiserweight Belt): Gulak wins the title.

Nope. Cedric won with a rollup or some bullshit I think after a nothing match. It ended like someone told them it had to end right then. Didn’t showcase either guy. They gotta have a rematch, right? A proper one? On 205? (1/2)

The B-Team vs. The Revival (Pre-Show, Raw Tag Belts):B Team retain.

Yep. Another of their weird fluke victories. This was fine. A good Raw match, a mediocre PPV match. (2/3)

Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins (Intercontinental): Rollins wins the belt.

This was... excellent? I don’t know. It was good, in the exact same way everyone of Rollins’ and Ziggler’s last fourteen matches have been. They did good work but I’ve seen it too many times in too few weeks to get me excited, and the inclusion of McIntyre and Ambros was minimal. (3/4)

Bludgeon Brothers vs. The New Day (SD Tag Champs): Why match them again just to have the New Day lose again? New Day wins the belts.

Apparently they did this to show that if they ever come close to losing, the Bludgeons will grab their hammers, force a DQ, and beat up the opposing team. New Day tried their best but the ending made this a dud to me. (3/5)

Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens (MitB Briefcase On The Line): Fuck it. Owens wins the briefcase.

WHY WAS THIS MATCH A THING? I swear, it was only there so that people would be slightly surprised by Strowman’s attempted cash in later that night. Owens got totally squashed in the first of THREE matches where heels got in zero offense on dominant faces. Which is weird-ass booking any way you look at it. (3/6)

Carmella vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair (SD Women’s): I’m going to say Carmella retains somehow. But I’m not comfortable with it.

The match was solid, the ending was bullshit, with Charlotte pinning Becky with Natural Selection to win the belt again... except that it led to Becky Lynch punching Charlotte’s fucking lights out in the most satisfying main roster moment of the year so far. And she got a HUGE face reaction for it, too. If WWE is smart, they’ll turn Becky into the women’s division’s Stone Cold Steve Austin. If they’re not smart, they’ll try to retroactively make this a heel turn. WWE is generally not smart. (3/7)

AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe (WWE Championship): AJ retains. The feud may continue though. 

Yes to the first, probably to the second. This was as good a match as you’re going to get out of these two guys at this point in their lives, and it featured a mid-match promo, which is always and forever a thing that I love. Joe won by DQ after goading AJ into snapping, but AJ keeps the belt and the cover spot on WWE 2K19. (4/8)

Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz: My gut tells me this is not a program. Bryan wins.

It’s a program. Miz won with a foreign object. They’ll probably wrestle a tepid match inside Hell In The Cell. This was about twice as long as it needed to be for the story it needed to tell. Good beats throughout, good performances throughout, but you could have lost five minutes from this easily. (4/9)

Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin: Finn Balor wins.

The second face squash of the night, and the only one I agree with in principle. They sprung The Demon on us out of nowhere, with minimal supernatural hooey, and he kicke d Corbin’s ass thoroughly, making it the second match of the night with zero heel offense. (5/10)

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy (US Title): Nakamura’s definitely retaining somehow. 

He’s retaining by beating Jeff Hardy mostly clean with a Kinshasa. Time for Hardy to go rest up and the rest of us to move on. Post-match, Randy Orton came out, walked to the ring, paused, turned around, and walked away, which is the perfect metaphor for both Randy Orton and most of this Summerslam. (6/11)

Alexa Bliss vs. Ronda Rousey (Raw Women’s): I’m betting they put the belt on Rousey for the publicity and protect her to such a degree that it gets annoying.

That’s exactly what happened. This was barely a match. Bliss got no offense in. She was dominated by Rousey, it was a short match, and Rousey clearly is in no position to be a full time WWE wrestler or a champion. I wish it were different, but it’s not. She’s nowhere near even Shayna Baszler at the last Mae Young Classic level. This reign is gonna be a mess and if the fans turn on her I wouldn’t  be shocked. (7/12)

Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns (Universal Championship): Please, dear God, let it be Reigns.

Before this match, my ideal version of this match was Braun Strowman setting a precedent by csshing in his MITB contract and joining the match as a Triple Threat before it even started, then winning it. Instead, he announced his intention to cash in on the winner, got beat up by both guys outside the ring, got his briefcase taken away, and then Reigns speared Lesnar to win the title. It was a fucking mess but at least the belt is off Lesnar. (8/13)

NXT Takeover Brooklyn IV

The purest of heelage

This show lived up to expecations - it was awesome. Fell a little short in some areas, excelled beyond my wildest dreams in others.

PREDICTIONS: Summerslam 2018

Oh yeah there’s like fifteen more matches.

Summerslam! The biggest event of the summer! Honestly, it’s a pretyy meh card on paper. We’ll see how it plays out in reality.

PREDICTIONS: NXT Takeover Brooklyn 4

Fourth time’s the charm! i 

This could literally be the single greatest TakeOver of all time. I mean, it can’t be beat on paper, so unless things go horribly wrong somehow, I’m very much looking forward to this.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (Hey Wrestling Happened Edition)

NONE MORE HEEL.

I haven’t been in the mood to write about wrestling for a couple of weeks, partly because of a deep abiding Farpoint obsession (more on that later) that has now cleared up, but there have been some things happening over the past couple of weeks that need to be addressed. Events, if you will, of Significance.

TOMMASO CIAMPA WINS THE NXT CHAMPIONSHIP

This is huge. Tommaso Ciampa is the greatest heel in at least a decade. He is the closest anyone has come to being stabbed by a front row old lady since kayfabe died. And I was thinking this BEFORE Ciampa literally got into it with an old lady in the front row of Full Sail this week. Despite losing nine months of heat due to an injury right as they broke up DIY, Ciampa has managed to minimize even Full Sail smark tendencies to get the boos to 90/10, and the intensity of those boos up to a 12. It’s insane. And now he holds the belt heading into Takeover Brooklyn, one of the hottest Takeovers of the year.

EVOLUTION, THE ALL WOMEN’S PPV

This is a good thing. I like this thing. I hate the way they talk about it in WWE. It’s simultaneously self-aggrandizing and patronizing to the talent. Plus it’s so heavy-handed with the “say this thing that nobody would ever say in this way to satisfy branding requirements” that it’s grating. But I’m looking forward to the show.

REIGNS-LESNAR AT SUMMERSLAM

They are literally doing everything short of having Brock Lesnar eat a puppy in the center of the ring to get people to hate him and cheer Roman Reigns for beating him, and it’s sort of working? I mean, we want anyone to take the belt off Lesnar at this point, even if Reigns is at the bottom of the list. Well, near the bottom of the list. He’s above Lashley and James Ellsworth.

CARMELLA-LYNCH-CHARLOTTE AT SUMMERSLAM

This is disappointing, because they’ve been building Becky Lynch up great for a couple of months now. She gets a shot at Carmella’s title, and then they add Charlotte to the match immediately upon her return from minor surgery. I honestly wanted Lynch to interfere in Charlotte’s qualifying match, but it’ll be interesting to see if they do anything with this dynamic over the next couple of weeks.

SANE-BASZLER AT TAKEOVER

In a Mae Young Classic rematch, Kairi Sane and Shayna Baszler will go at it for the NXT Women’s Title at Takeover Brooklyn. Should be another great match, even if I don’t see Sane winning.

MOUSTACHE MOUINTAIN VS> UNDISUTED ERA AT TAKEOVER

Seriously, how shit hot is this show going to be?

Extreme Rules 2018

One of the few extreme things on the show.

Extreme Rules was a bad show. People hated Backlash, but I think Extreme Rules may have been worse. Lots of bad matches, bad outcomes, bad returns, and badness. Bad bad bad.

PREDICTIONS: WWE Extreme Rules 2018

Nearly 50% Extreme!

It’s time for Extreme Rules, the PPV where anything goes, as long as you’re in one of the five matches where anything goes! Well, OK, one of the matches is an Iron Man match, so not anything goes. And one match just has a dude in a shark cage, so also many things don’t go. But definitely three matches where anything goes, if you count the pre-show!

MOTHERFUCKING LUCHA UNDERGROUND! (Episodes 5 and 6)

Don’t know why this worked as well as it did, but damn.

Lucha Underground picks up a a ton of steam after an off week, with the consequences of last week’s Three Way To The Grave match playing out against a backdrop of Aztec medallionage and gradually increasing insanity and death.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (July 9-11)

Moustache Mountain, or The Knights Who Say Knee

With Extreme Rules on the horizon, it’s time for the secondary shows to pick up the Events Of Significance slack with a pair of important title matches.

Luke Cage Season 2: “Episodes 3 Through 7”

The Internet’s failure to find me a proper Comanche screengrab is disappointing.

The second batch of Luke Cage examples throws plot twists and nigh-Shakespearean tragedy around willy nilly, but it seems to have forgotten the first three episodes happened.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (Jul 2-4)

Never has the removal of a knee pad been so important.

We’re moving into  that wonderful time between PPV’s when they have to actually do a bunch of stuff and move stories forward to get ready for Extreme Rules. So gear up for many EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE!

Luke Cage Season 2: “The First Three”

Thought they were gonna do a more standard HUBRIS story but no.

 Three episodes in, and I’m a little concerned that Netflix’s tendency to base entire seasons around “let’s drag all the characters through shit because that’s DRAMA, DAMMIT” may have infected Luke Cage.

MOTHERFUCKI’ LUCHA UNDERGROUND!: “Rest In Pieces”

She hammered in the evening. All over his ass.

A relatively weak episode of Lucha underground is elevated by an exciting debut and a fun Matanza development.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup! (Jun 25-27)

If you can ignore the last two months this is pretty cool.

We’re moving into  that wonderful time between PPV’s when they have to actually do a bunch of stuff and move stories forward to get ready for Extreme Rules. So gear up for many EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE!

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (Last week)

I’m starting to warm up to Team Kick

Hey, let’s get this posted before I start watching this week’s Raw! With Money In The Bank being positioned as on par with a Big Four PPV, apparently WWE felt th eneed to shake things up a bit afterwards. Not a lot, but some. Ergo, EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE.

MOTHERFUCKIN’ LUCHA UNDERGROUND: “Darkness And The Monster”

The Internet’s Lucha Underground screencap game could use some work.

Conflict between masters and underlings is a common theme throughout this week’s Lucha Underground. So is matches with shit on the line. Two shows this season, 4 matches, and 100% of them thus far have been for something. I don’t expect this to continue, but it’s a good way to kick off the season.

Money In The Bank (2018)

The very definition of “fool me twice, shame on me”.

That was fine. I mean, some of it was good, a lot of it was mediocre or bad.

NXT Takeover; Chicago (2018)

Such a perfect reaction.

Jesus, what a show. I mean, I was expecting it to be great, and I was expecting Black Vs. Sullivan to underwhelm,

PREDICTIONS: Money IN The Bank 2018

Oops. Forgot to post these before the show started. Luckily, I’m just sitting down to start it now.Too impressed by Takeover, I guess.

Look, I know the WWE wants to turn the “Big Four” into the “Big Five” by adding an hour to Money I The Bank, but if they want to do that, they probably shouldn’t stack the card with Backlash-level bullshit. Predictions:

PREDICTIONS: NXT Takeover Chicago

It doesn’t just steal the show. It is a show.

I suspect this will definitely be one of those weekends where Takeover completely outshines the PPV it’s paird with. While the two MitB matches and Styles/Nakamura have a strong chance of impressing, the rest of the card can’t hold a candle to four out of five matches on this card. PREDICTIONS!

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (June 11-13)

I think we can all agree this is a good idea if we limit it to “neck up”.

I’m pretty sure there was a grand total of one Event Of Significance this week in seven hours of WWE programming. Oh, there were some decent matches, and things that clearly telegraphed Takeover and Money In The Bank results, but those are more for predictions than the Wrapup. Still, there was that one thing.

MOTHERFUCKIN’ LUCHA UNDERGROUIND! - “El Jefe”

Out with the old dead, in with the new old played by the old old dead.

THEY’RE BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Jessica Jones: “AKA The Middle Chunk”

As v/in Diesel would say, it’s about fuhmbuly.

I’ve been watching the middle chunk of Jessica Jones Season 2, but not writing about it. Partly because we blew through them fairly quickly (through episode 9) and partly because the middle chunk deals almost exclusively with two plot developments, and I’m still not sure how I feel about them.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (6/4-6/6)

Looking forward to this match so much...

As Money In The Bank approaches, things slow to a crawl. But there were still a few Events of Significance. Oh, and the Zayn-Lashley thing is still going on and is still awful, in case you were curious.

ONLY SIX MORE DAYS MOTHERFUCKERS!)

Lucha Underground. Season 4. Are you emotionally prepared? Does it matter, since none of you watch it? DON’T CARE.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (5/28-30)

YES! YES! YES!

Fairly slow week this week, since most of Money IN The Bank is set. So it’s up to the small shows to pick up the slack with some championship matchery. EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE:

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wrouindup (5/21-23)

Goddamn, these two are great together in the ring, and hey, Sullivan is there too.

“Which show is better” discussions are always funny, because for every week where Raw is good and Smackdown’s bad, there’s a week like this one, where Raw is an upper-deck turd and Smackdown is interesting and exciting. EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE.

The Flash: “We Are The Flash”

Still not the dumbest-looking thing on Barry’s head over the course of the series. But it’s close.

I think I finially need to come to grips with the fact that The Flash is just a bad show. It was an OK show for one season and a bad show for three seasons, and I had to look up how many seasons it’s been because I’ve been pummeled into apathy.