The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

The topic of concussions in sports is a dialogue that’s been growing the past number of years.  Do a search on ‘concussions’ and ‘football’ and you’ll get several thousand hits on the controversy that’s surrounded the sport.  It’s a challenging topic as the research is all relatively new, and the topic itself challenges the mentality and philosophy adopted by football loving Americans.  Now, I’m not a fan of football or NFL but when I saw this book lying at the local bookstore, my interest was piqued.  Although I’m not a fan of football, those that know me know that I’m an unabashed fan of prowrestling.  Talks about concussions are also quite a hot topic even within the prowrestling sub-culture.  Earlier this year, one of the hottest wrestlers of the current era, Daniel Bryan, retired early at the age of 34 due to a history of concussion related issues.  Interestingly, he was not permitted to return to the ring due to the disapproval by WWE’s medic...

Yes!: My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of Wrestlemania is the latest New York Times Bestselling autobiography by none other than internet fan-favourite wrestler, Daniel Bryan (aka. Bryan Danielson).  The book takes us through a journey from his independent wrestling roots to his current run as a WWE superstar.  We follow him on his humble journey as he lives off of peanut butter sandwiches, jet-setting across the world to make a few bucks and finally landing himself in the WWE, the wrestling world’s biggest stage.  He shares some stories about his family and about falling in love (with current Diva, Brie Bella).  Although the broad span of the book covers his early career journey, each chapter opens with a short story on the days leading up to the biggest match of his career: main eventing Wrestlemania (28). If you’ve followed the WWE the past few years, you’ve undoubtedly seen the popular Bryan, or at least his famed YES chants which has been seen ac...

This past weekend, the body of former WCW, WWE/F wrestler Chris Kanyon, 40, was found dead in his apartment in Queens, New York. The cause of death was presumed to be suicide from an overdose of medication. Another premature death of a wrestler, it's a common occurence these days. I first saw Chris when he performed as a masked wrestler named Mortis in WCW. He would eventually unmask and become known as Kanyon. In-ring wise, he was an entertaining wreslter to watch; a really solid worker, coming up with unique spots all the time. Arguably, the peak of his career was in a storyline where he, Diamond Dallas Page and Bam Bam Bigelow (also deceased) formed a stable dubbed "The Jersey Triad", who though a trio, were allowed to perform as a tag team, giving them an advantage over other two-man teams. When WCW folded earlier in the decade, he was picked up by WWE when they scooped up the defunct company. Still in his early 30s, Kanyon would eventually fade into obscurity amongs...

In case you didn't know, I love bad movies. I hate bad bad movies but I love bad movies. For me, it's difficult to create a scale to weigh out movies that I like or don't. For example, I love good big budget movies but I HATE bad big budget movies. Yet at the same time, I love low budget direct-to-video movies, which in a lot of cases are worst than bad big budget movies, but their lower budget gives them an endearing quality of sorts. Are you confused yet? Let's put it this way, if you're a bad movie but you went straight to video, there's a better chance that I enjoyed you more than if you had made it to the big screen. Which brings me to The Wrong Side of Town (the name of the movie and not the place of course). This was a bad movie, but I found it wildly entertaining. I think a large part of it is because it stars two major wrestlers and as a hardcore wrestling fan, it behooves me to enjoy this tripe. The poster on the left is a bit misleading though...

I don't know about you, but for me, 2009 felt very blah (See last posting). And not only because of my state of unemployment but it stretched to other facets in life; for example, there was not much much to look forward to in movies (save for Avatar ). If I could create a device to fold time so that the end of 2008 would mean the beginning of 2010, I would press the button to do it. In fact, I drew a diagram below of said time folding. 2009 is in his own sad loop. With that said, there looks to be tons of stuff to look forward to in 2010 and I am excited in many ways. Here are some of those things. THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO... ...IN MOVIES If you've been reading my blog this past year then you would've known that I wasn't enamored with movies this year. There were a few good ones, but on the whole, I felt completely underwhelmed. I was just looking at my short list for my favourite 10 movies of the year and though I greatly enjoyed all of them, none of the...

Dear loyal readers, I know not many of you are fans of wrestling so posts like these are more rare these days. But every now and then something big happens that just can't be ignored. Case in point, Shane McMahon (son of Vincent K. McMahon ie. the mainstream prowrestling tycoon) handed in his resignation letter this past Friday, stepping down as Vice President of WWE Global Media effective January 1, 2010. If you ignore all the death related news stories in the wrestling world, then this is possibly the biggest news in the industry since the death of WCW in 2001. "Why is this important, oh dear Lamster?" so you ask. Well, if anything, it's the symbolic significance of it. Paul Heyman (owner of the original ECW) made an interesting analogy on Wrestling Observer Radio this weekend. He was saying the McMahon's are like the Royal Family of the wrestling world, where Shane would be the prince. His leaving his father's company would be analogous to Prince Ch...

Ring of Honor Wrestling returned to Toronto and put on two shows in a row at Ted Reeve's Arena. Leading up to this weekend's events, fans were unsure what was exactly going to happen. You see, right now Toronto city workers have been on strike for well over a month, with no garbage pick-ups since it began. Instead, certain city owned parks and parking lots have been made temporary dump sites for people to dispose of their garbage. Ted Reeve's Arena was one such dump site. The parking lot is filled with so much garbage that they had to close it off to dumping (it's maximum allowable capacity is at 1,250 tonnes). So we had a stinky arena and all that garbage outside of it. THANKFULLY, and I don't know how they did it, but the arena inside did not smell as bad as it did last year (when there wasn't all that garbage). The fans packed the arena on both nights to see some of their favourite indie wrestlers grapple and fight their way to victory. Some wrestling ...

As part of my "campaign of cheapness", the past 3 months I've been going to the Indigo bookstore downtown about twice a week to read Chris Jericho's autobiography A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex . I'd park down for about 1.5 to 2 hours per visit and it took 3 months to do, but I finally finished it. Let it be known, that Jericho was my favourite wrestler from 1997 to 2002 (it only lasted this long because from 2002-07, I stopped watching/following wrestling completely). I learned of him during my junior high school years when me and my friends would watch WWF and WCW programming religiously. I knew there was something that stood out in Chris, it might have been his style of fighting, his comedic arrogance on the mic or his boyish good looks. Well whatever it was, I believed in him. My friends at the time were skeptical, but I would argue with them why he was so great. It was during his cruiserweight feud with Dean Malenko that really brought ou...

Wrestlemania has come and gone for the year 2009. It was the 25th anniversary of their biggest PPV, but they certainly did not make it seem like they achieved this milestone. For the most part it was quite the snore-fest this year. I'm not going to go into the "whys", but if you watched the product in the past few months, I'm sure you know why. Anyhow, here are the results with some thoughts (bold highlighting winner): Money in the Bank - CM Punk : I was screaming with excitement when Punk won. I started a poll on the F4W board~! about a month ago asking people who they think would win. I stated that I think Punk should win because now they can tell the story of how he's the only man to ever win the MITB match 2 years in a row, a feat no one has accomplished. If they were serious about making him a star, then I guess they should give him the belt when he cashes in the briefcase as well. I was listening to the post-Wrestlemania episode of The Law last nig...

On Wednesday, August 20th 2008, it was announced that Gail Kim was leaving TNA and was signing back with WWE. This met fans with confusion as Kim was a prominent player in the TNA Knockout's division. The Knockout's division started not even a year ago and came to fruition with the crowning of Gail Kim as champion after a gauntlet match at Bound for Glory. Clearly the division was centered around Gail Kim as the ultimate babyface and her arch-rival, Awesome Kong as the ultimate heel. It was so classic and it was so simple. The Knockout's division basically grew from around these two, and it was clearly catching the attention of TNA fans. I've said it before, there are only two reasons to watch TNA: firstly is for the X-Division and secondly, but equally, is for the women's Knockouts Division. TNA claims that they do all those wacky and stip matches in order to distinguish their product from WWE's. But if they take a step back and look at what they have, t...

In what was forseen as a weak card for a Summerslam event, WWE managed to pull off quite an exciting show, all things considered. My predictions sat at 57% (4 of 7), lower than expected. In a surprise move, they decided to put the two non-championship matches on top as the main events. Highlighted in bold are the winners of the matches: MVP Vs. Jeff Hardy : Shelton Benjamin ran in for some interference. Jeff missed the swanton on MVP, and MVP capitalized with the yakuza kick. This was surprising, but I was happy as MVP is my favourite wrestler in the WWE brand. I hope they push him now into a main event program with Triple H. Santino & Beth Phoenix Vs. Kofi Kingston (c) & Mickie James (c) : Greatness! Santino and Beth as champions will have limitless comedic opportunities. I can't wait. Mark Henry (c) Vs. Matt Hardy through DQ: Match ended after 2 minutes after Tony Atlas interfered. DQ finishes suck on PPV, but at least they did it to the match that would have...

Double-post Saturday! Tomorrow night is WWE's inaugural Summerslam event, I thought I'd just make a quick post of my predictions, with a follow-up post-show tomorrow night. My predictions are in the bold and the (c) denotes the current champions: Santino & Beth Phoenix Vs. Kofi Kingston (c) & Mickie James (c) : Santino is a great man. His wrestling capabilities may leave more to be desired, but the man is a freaking genius on the mic. Imagine all the comedic promos that could come if he and Beth were to win the belts. MVP Vs. Jeff Hardy : I see Hardy going over as revenge to all of MVP's attacks in recent weeks. Mark Henry (c) Vs. Matt Hardy : Who cares. John Cena Vs. Batista : Cena wins and Batista's eventual heel turn nears. This match could have been so epic if they built it up towards Wrestlemania or at least a different PPV. But with only a two week build, it doesn't seem as significant. What a waste. CM Punk (c) Vs. JBL : Tough call. I want P...

A smelly arena full of 2,000 sweating wrestling fans. The seats were filled and the fog machine was running... ROH made its live event debut in Toronto, Ontario. The event was held at Ted Reeves Arena... just 2 major intersections away from my house (a 10 minute walk, I was truly blessed). If you're a fan of pure wrestling action, and none of that bad storytelling bullshit which is frequent to WWE and TNA wrestling, then you must watch ROH. It's raw, aggressive, and sometimes bloody battles at its very best. Their style of wrestling is a lot stiffer than what you would expect to see on national TV. Here's a rundown of the results (winners in bold ): Chris Hero with Larry Sweeney vs. Ruckus This match was an excellent opener. More of a quick action and high flying short match. It was a great way to get the crowd started. Larry Sweeney and the Sweet and Sour Inc. were at ringside and were great at drawing heat. Delirious vs. Kenny Omega This was another fun match wit...

This past Monday on Raw, CM Punk, the ROH alum, cashed in his money-in-the-bank briefcase to capture the World Heavyweight Championship belt. It was a move that shocked both casual fans and smart marks (smarks) of the wrestling community. Was it a good move? Is he just another 'transition' champion? We will see the next few weeks as this unfolds. But here's what we do know. CM Punk, since his win at Wrestlemania 24 for the money-in-the-bank briefcase has been rendered the most impotent winner of the MIIB since its inception. He's done jobs left and right for wrestlers who have no right going over (at least on him). Apparently backstage in the lockerroom and on the road, CM Punk is a bit of a dick. He rubs people the wrong way. Apparently. So if you're going to punish a guy by making him job all the time, fine. By why put the MIIB on him? The MIIB is supposed to elevate a superstar to the upper echelon. A clear path must be paved if the fans are to truly ...

Unlike TNA Impact, the Slammiversary pay-per view this year was pretty enjoyable, all things considered. All the wrestling itself was fine. That said, there were a few things that were stupid. Here's a quick recap of the card (the bold indicates winner): 1. X-Division Title: Petey William(c) vs Kaz 2. The Beautiful People vs Gail Kim, ODB, Roxxi 3. TNA Tag Titles: LAX(c) vs Team 3D 4. Awesome Kong open challenge 5. Wedding of Black Machismo and SoCal Val 6. AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle 7. TNA Championship (King of the Mountain): S amoa Joe(c) vs Booker T vs Christian vs Robert Roode vs Rhino The thing that separated this PPV from the average TNA show was that: a.) they didn't try to fit every single wrestler on the roster into the show and b.) only one of the matches had stipulations, that being the King of the Mountain championship match. If you discount the Awesome Kong squash match(es), there were only 5 real wrestling matches. Of those, 3 of them were really well done, ...