Pinheads Episode 2 – Charlie

Pinheads follows the misadventures of radio station employees – awkward metal-head Charlie, egocentric Steven and laid back glutton Brian – as they hang out at the bowling alley managed by lunatic Bernie and his neurotic son Kenny.

In this episode, the gang becomes convinced that Charlie has been impregnated.

Copyright 2016 Alex deCourville

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Daredevil SN1 EP2 – ‘Cut Man’

After a fight, Daredevil is found in a dumpster by Claire, a nurse who takes him in. Daredevil is mum about his personal details, but informs Claire on his battles with the kidnappers and how he needs to rescue the kidnapped child. Meanwhile, there are flashbacks about Matt dealing with his father being hired to take a dive by mafia. Elsewhere, Karen and Foggy are having a night of bar hopping.

Much of this episode is slower, but effective nonetheless. The scenes between Claire and Matt are good at building suspense and establishing the character. Introducing a new character is good way of being a third person perspective to introduce Matt’s powers as we see him hone his incredible hearing skills. We also learn about Claire and she is a good character. She’s caring but no-nonsense as she wants to learn about Matt. She also holds her own when dealing with the criminals.

The flashback scenes between Matt and his father. Matt’s father shows some tenderness when helping Matt with his blindness. He is also faced with conflict when presented with the choice of taking a dive. He wants to set an example for his song, but he knows the mafia won’t take kindly to that. He eventually stands by his guns and it costs him. With a little character development, we feel the pain at his death. The B-plot of Karen and Foggy hanging out may sound like filler, but it does help flesh out Foggy’s character as a goofball.

While most of this episode is an effective character building episode, there is one terrific fight scene when Daredevil confronts the kidnappers. The fight is successful in its bare bones approach. Rather than a big sprawling fight, this is a fight that takes place in an enclosed hallway. The fight is brutal. Daredevil does not just dispatch these guys with no effort, he has to wail hits just to knock out one guy. Also the whole fight is done in one take (or at least appears that way). This works because the raw technique makes us feel more absorbed in the fight.

Overall, this was another great episode. It was set up to establish characters and have an intense fight scene. “Cut Man” succeeded in both.

Pros And Cons of WWE’s New Brand Split

With the recent influx of talent and the return of Shane McMahon, a brand split felt inevitable. Fans have been clamoring for this to happen for years now. But is should fans be careful what they wish for or is gonna be everything they dreamed of? There is one good one way to examine the risks. Let’s take a moment to look at the things they got right and the things they did wrong the first time there was a brand split.

Pro: They could have their cake and eat it too

Realistically, wrestling is a negative sum expansion – someone has to be on top, there is only one world champion. The company recently inherited a ton of talent including AJ Styles and a whole lot of people from NXT have drifted to the main roster. That’s already in conjunction with people who have been headliners for years such as Reigns, Cena, and Rollins and people who fans have been clamoring to see in the main event such as Ambrose and Owens. The early days of the brand split also took place during what fans unlovingly call the Reign of Terror when Triple H was very much a world title hog. However, that was on Raw. On Smackdown, guys like Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar and Eddie Guerrero had chances at the world title. True, guys like Christian and Rob Van Dam often ended up mid-carders (with occasional world title reigns) regardless of what show they were on. I sadly see the same thing happening to guys like Neville and maybe Cesaro – things are kinda looking up for him ever since he started wearing that tear-away Bond suit. But for the most part, I see new stars created.

Pro: More screen-time for certain guys

It’s not just a chance to let new people have some chances at world title gold, but these guys may have a little extra TV time. Instead of giving attention to Roman Reigns on two shows, Reigns will be on his own show so that time can be spent giving a little promo time to Kevin Owens or AJ Styles. On that note…

Pro: Less pressure on everyone

If the WWE is splitting shows into different brands, guys may not be working every night. This may sound like a rip off to fans who might want to see a certain someone on a certain show. However, those fans would probably be a lot happier when those guys are getting injured a lot less. Injuries have been piling up more and more. If they can divide the roster among different brands, they can have people work certain shows, having people work a little less and (hopefully) cause fewer injuries.

Con: More Authority Figures

WWE sure loves their authority figures. And they were all over the place during the brand split. Both Raw and Smackdown had some kind of authority figure – sometimes more than once. To be fair, they had the right people doing these – Steve Austin, Teddy Long and Paul Heyman were all entertaining in their roles. But we also Stephanie McMahon and we’re gonna have a lot more of her.

Con: One Show is Probably Gonna be the B-Show

It may be interesting to see how the company will split up the roster – define who is a Smackdown guy and who is a Raw guy. However, the WWE booking team may not have the same ideas as the fans as to who is talented and who’s a star. Between 2002 and 03 and when the brand split was fairly new, Smackwon was THE show. Even with Jericho, RVD and other talented guys, Raw also had the reign of terror while Smackdown – which had Paul Heyman as a booker – had guys like Eddie Guerrero, Edge, Brock Lesnar and Rey Mysterio tearing down the house. Even Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon were mainstays of Smackdown during this era. However, when Brock Lesnar left in 2004, that seemed to trigger something that made people care less about Smackdown and it became a clear B-show. Even with guys like Undertaker, Rey Mysterio and Kurt Angle, the show just had a B-feel to it with tons of guys the company just didn’t seem to care about while Raw started having much better programming. There were still good matches, but read some of the cards for those Smackdown pay per views in 2004 and 05. Among gems like Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio were a whole lot of matches that did not sound PPV-worthy. Between 2008 and 09, things improved a little. Smackdown still kinda felt like a B-show, but it was a B-show worth watching. Guys like CM Punk and Jeff Hardy would have killer feuds/matches without jockeying for position from guys like Cena. But 2010, the writing was on the wall that Smackdown was gonna be a b-show even if worthwhile talent was there.

Con: WWE needs to stick to their guns to make it work

The original brand split was diluted by a few things. By 2009, Smackdown guys started showing up on Raw more often. In 2011, Raw Supershows which featured both shows became frequent. In 2012, there was a storyline about both shows having the same general manager, but for some reason, they were still treated like separate brands… with guys just randomly jumping from show-to-show and challenging for whatever title they wanted. At the end of 2013, the world heavyweight and WWE Championships were officially unified, thus putting the end to any illusion that the brand split was still a think. Unless WWE wants to recreate the mistakes of the past, they need to go all the way and make sure people aren’t just drifting from show-to-show.

There are certain things that are hard to tell whether they’re pros are cons just because it’s hard to predict whether or not they’ll pan out a certain way. Will WWE go with brand exclusive pay per views again? I highly doubt that, but if one show is a B-show, once again bad history might repeat itself one way or another. Of course, that could also mean good things like giving storylines more time to develop. On that note, the show’s writers may be stretching themselves for having to write for two distinct shows. If nothing else, Smackdown should at least have some unique program rather than feeling like a dumping ground for less important matches. The brand split will occur in July so time will tell on all of these.

Pinheads Ep. 1 – Sweet Charity (Featuring Obscurus Lupa)

Pinheads follows the misadventures of radio station employees – awkward metal-head Charlie, egocentric Steven and laid back glutton Brian – as they hang out at the bowling alley managed by lunatic Bernie and his neurotic son Kenny.

In this season premiere, Steven unwittingly agrees to spend the night in a coffin for charity after a caller tricks him.

Features special guest stars Obscurus Lupa and Magic Steve

Copyright 2016 Alex deCourville

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WWE Extreme Rules (2016) Review

The Usos vs. The Club – Texas Tornado Match

Talk about starting a show off on the right foot. Both teams are filled with talented guys. As a standard tag match, these guys probably could have put on a solid tag match, but the tornado tag stipulation put it over the top. All four men were combatting at once, saving us from the contrived ref not seeing the tag spots, resulting in this match being 100% action. There were tons of wild spots and The Club won. While I like the Usos, The Club felt like the right guys since they are new and need the rub. Overall, this was a standout tag out match.

Overall rating: 3.75 (Out of 5) Stars

Rusev vs. Kalisto – US Championship

This was another great old school-style match with Rusev playing a monster heel with Kalisto playing the underdog champion. Kalisto took a wicked bump on the ringside. Time will tell whether this was real or not, but after Enzo’s injury last month, it felt a little too real. Kalisto’s flexibility lead to an insane variation on the Accolade. This was a solid match, but I have to deduct a few points for some rest holds that slowed the match down. Still, it is nice to see Rusev back in monster form. I was worried he was doomed to be a jobber with a hip hop gimmick, but the booking team finally has Rusev back on the right track.

Overall rating: 3.5 stars

The New Day vs. The Vaudevillains – Tag Team Championships

I suspect that with Enzo Amore injured, they’re letting the New Day hold onto the tag team gold a little longer since I suspect the company wanted Amore and Cass to be tag champs. The match was good, but they broke very little new ground. They kept the flow going with some exciting kickouts and there was an exciting spot where Big E attempted the spear. The ending was a little weird since it saw Kofi cheat to win. I suspected something like that would happen. I felt a New Day babyface turn was inevitable since it’s hard to hate guys who are as genuinely funny as they are. But it is weird that the babyfaces usually outnumber their opponents and still use dirty tactics. Then again, we don’t see them just randomly change their attitude just because the audience cheers them. So there’s that.

Overall rating: 3.25 out of 5

Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro vs. The Miz – Intercontinental Championship

If there was one sleeper match of the night, this was it. I knew this match would be good, but I didn’t expect it to be this far off the hook.  Beginning a match with a finisher is usually a gamble as we saw Zayn use the Heluva Kick right out of the gate. However, with three other guys carrying out a wild brawl, this was another match where the action was nearly non-stop. All four men did or attempted their finishers at one point with plenty of kickouts, Maryse interfering, Maryse being thrown into the match. There were some insane multi-man spots including Cesaro powerbombing all three other opponents during a double superplex. Cesaro pulled a running elbow on all three members of the match in turns while Kevin Owens did his usual taunting. Miz won which was irksome as he is easily the least interesting person in the match, but that was not enough to ruin this match of the year candidate.

Overall rating: 4.75 stars

Dean Ambrose vs. Chris Jericho – Asylum Match

Dean Ambrose and Chris Jericho are two of my favorite guys on the roster – with Jericho being one of my all-time favorites. So it pains me to admit two things: 1. The most extreme thing about this match was how underwhelming it was. 2. I never like to admit this, but I have read a few reviews on this match. I bring this up because it’s not nearly as bad as other people have been making it out to be. People have been calling it a zero star match and saying it’s a worst match of the year candidate. I cannot get behind the hate that way, but I will agree this match was a letdown considering the talent involved. First of all, I think the gimmick of the match hurt them more than it helped them. If these two had just had a regular street fight/extreme rules match, I bet dollars to doughnuts this would have been better. With the mop, potted plant, straight jacket and nunchaku on the cage, there was an obligation to use those strange weapons, which almost turned this into a comedy match.

Even worse, this match was nearly TWENTY-SEVEN minutes. Word on the grapevine is that there was a ten-minute segment cut and this match had to fill in the time. I suspect Jericho and Ambrose had a much tighter match planned, but had to fill things out when they learned the match needed to go longer, thus causing them to go longer. I say this because there were spots that demonstrated the brilliance this match could have been. The last few minutes alone showed some brilliance. The spot this match will be remembered for was Ambrose slamming Jericho through a pile of thumbtacks. You read right, it wasn’t the guy who always wears a shirt who went through the tacks. I applaud Jericho for taking that obviously brutal spot. Ambrose won with Dirty Deeds, which was the right choice, but hopefully he can do some work to undo the damage of this match.

Overall rating: 3.25 stars

Charlotte vs. Natalya – Women’s Title Match

As much as I like both women, I feel that there was little suspense to this match. Natalya, as talented as she may be, is essentially the female Cesaro – she carries other women to good matches (not that Charlotte needs that much help) then does the job. Still, with the way WWE has had a habit of kicking women to the curb, and their history of treating the beautiful Natalya like a freak, being a respectable athlete who happens to be a jobber to the stars is a trade-up. Besides, she’s at least jobbing to another respectable athlete, and these two did put on a respectable, but not great match. With Flair banned from ringside, Dana Brooke came out disguised as Flair. I have to admit, that was pretty clever chicanery to open the door for Charlotte to gain a tainted victory.

Overall rating: 3 stars

AJ Styles vs. Roman Reigns – Extreme Rules for the WWE Championship

Styles and Reigns had a solid match at Payback, and this was even better. The extreme rules stipulation gave way for some amazing brawling for both men. They brawled in the crowd, Reigns gave Styles a back body drop onto the announce table, there were some wicked powerbomb spots outside of the ring. Both the Club and The Usos interfered. We saw a different shade of AJ’s character. The technical marvel showed a vicious side, wailing on Reigns and both Usos with chairs. The match told an interesting story with both guys showing shades of grey to their personalities.

Both men gave it their all in this match. AJ Styles already gets the respect he deserves – when I defended their match from last month, people said Styles did all the work and merely carried Reigns. While you’ll get no argument that Styles is one of the best guys on the roster, Reigns deserves a little credit too. He’s had some great matches recently, but this is the first time he’s done something that felt like a star performance. Don’t believe me? The crowd went from their usual booing him out of the building to at least SOME people cheering him, which is more than I can say about some nights. He won the match with a cool spot that was a little too similar to Payback – i.e. the same Phenomenal Forearm into the Spear.

The other big news was the return of Seth Rollins. Look, I would have loved to have seen Styles win, but Rollins vs. Reigns is the much more logical match.

Overall rating: 4.5 stars

Overall, Extreme Rules was a solid show. Some people may argue with me on this, but I found there to be no bad matches. Okay, there was some filler and that Asylum Match was marred by some awful booking, but look at it this way – no interminable McMahon promo! Plus we got TWO match of the year candidates out of the deal.

A Look Back at Andre the Giant

Andre was of the most popular of the wrestlers for the 70s all the way into the 90’s. If were still alive today, he would have turned 70. He was billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World. He was both a wrestling and movie star. Outside of the ring, he was beloved by those who knew him. The condition that made him a star was also a burden on his life.

Andre’s main claim was a wrestler. He was the most popular of the seventies. With his size – which the World Wrestling Federation exaggerated to over 7 feet – Andre benefited from a DECADE-long winning streak. As crazy as that sounds, in the days before weekly wrestling on TV, things did not happen as quickly as they do. Title reigns lasted years and while monsters like Rusev will go undefeated for a few years, Andre’s undefeated streak lasted YEARS. Also, while big men are usually portrayed as monsters – which makes sense because David/Goliath storylines are easy to book and make the David of the story look like a hero – Andre the Giant was portrayed as a lovable, gentle giant.

Realistically, Andre was not 100% undefeated. He was disqualified and counted out every now and then, but he was never pinned or made to submit. His other big gimmick was that he always won battle royales – After all, if someone needs to sell the idea of someone being monstrous and undefeatable, a good way to do that is to have him crush hundreds of people in one match. It also portrayed him as someone too enormous to be thrown over the top rope. Andre remained popular into the 80’s and had a hugely popular feud with Killer Khan. As the Rock n Wrestling Movement became popular, Andre still remained popular, appearing at the first two Wrestlemanias, but for Wrestlemania III, he would embark on the feud of his career.

The stage was set for Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant – the biggest star of the 70’s was clashing against the biggest star at the time. It was Hogan’s world title against Andre’s undefeated streak. While hardly a technical classic, the match is fun to watch, especially for Hogan bodyslamming Andre. Andre the Giant did eventually claim the WWF championship (or World World Championship as Andre called it). He won it on The Main Event (Before monthly pay per views, wrestling promotions often hosted televised supershows) by using a twin brother Earl Hebner. Andre’s moment in the sun did not last too long. As soon as he won the world world championship, Andred IMMEDIATELY handed the championship over to Ted Dibiase – as he was instructed to do in storyline.

Throughout the rest of the 90’s the once undefeated Andre the Giant started losing more often as a way to put over other talent. He retired from the WWF in 1990, but kept going a few years in Japan before fully retiring from wrestling in 1992. Andre’s size was catching up with him. It caused him constant pain and injuries. These problems piled up so severely that Andre was reduced to using a wheelchair when he wasn’t on camera. Because of – and likely because of the pain his size caused him – Andre was a hardcore drinker. In his youth, Andre could drink six beers and still be the designated driver. According to wrestlers such as the Fabulous Moolah, Andre would drink over 100 beers. Drinking did lead to problems for the giant as he was arrested in 1989 for attacking a cameraman.

Wrestling was not the only thing Andre the Giant was known for. He also had a career in acting. He played monsters on TV shows such as the Greatest American Hero, the Six-Million Dollar Man – where he played Bigfoot – and Conan the Destroyer – where he is buried in make-up effects despite being one of the most recognizable wrestlers in the world. However, all of those pale in comparison to the role of a lifetime as Fezzik in The Princess Bride. Not only is Princess Bride a stone classic, but Fezzik feels like the role Andre was born to play. As the filmmakers pointed out, there are few real life giants. Andre looked the part, he showed incredible comedic timing and chemistry with his co-stars. Not to mention, he had some of the funniest lines in the movie (“Anybody want a peanut?”)

The gentle giant role was not just a character Andre played. Despite his drinking and pain problems, Andre was one of the most beloved people in the wrestling and film business. Robin Wright relates stories of how Andre helped keep her warm on the set of the Princess Bride. Andre was also a notorious practical joker. Longtime friend Bobby Heenan often told stories of Andre cutting the cheese in elevators (Editorializing for a second, I shudder to think of what Andre passing gas sounded or smelled like), then blaming little girls.

Unfortunately, Andre the Giant passed away in 1993 in Paris from heart failure. His death was contributed to size. (Think of it like a big car needing more fuel and needing to work harder to carry a heavier load.) The man was only 46 at the time of his passing, but he left behind a legacy of being loved by fans, friends and inspiring big men wrestlers ever since.

Daredevil SN1 EP1 – ‘Into the Ring’

They say you only get one chance at a first impression. So being the first episode of a new show means Daredevil needed to get off to a good start.