Posts
My dad was a … weird guy. I don’t mean that in a bad way. He was wonderful. But part of why he was wonderful owed to how damn weird he was. When we were kids, my dad would read to my sisters and I. Mom would too, but when dad did it, we got an added benefit: ad-libbed story beats and voices. We adored those voices, and the stories were different every time, whether they came from Little Golden Books, Elephant in Trouble, or the Barbie and Skipper Jet Ski Adventure (probably not the actual title).
Dad had a full roster of characters. His best, and one of the few I’ve never been fully able to replicate, was Donald Duck. The best I can do is “boiling point Donald,” when the character went from irritated to fully irrational, just quacking and threatening anyone within earshot. My old man was able to do regular Donald speech, and I’ve never figured out how to twist my vocal cords to properly get that quack-talk. Dad did a lot of other voices, too, although most of his were just silly and not, like mine or my sister’s, celebrity based. (Ask Mandy to do her Will-Ferrell-as-Harry-Caray for you sometime.)
Here’s why I bring this up. Have you ever wondered how many voices you can actually do? I know professionals have a roster of characters, but as a regular shmo who just does voices for kids, or when running a Dungeons and Dragons game, it’s something I never really thought of until recently. And ever since the thought popped in there, I haven’t been able to shake it. I do a lot, and while some of them are terrible (not my Morgan Freeman, though -- that one is solid) others are actually spot on. At the very least, I think they’re recognizable when I use them in games. They’re mostly exaggerated SNL-type bits, but I’m always adding more and it’s just something I think is fun to do. Just this past Halloween, I listened to Homer Simpson’s recitation of The Raven about 50 times in order to perfect the line, “Take thy BEAK from out my HEART, and take thy FORM, from OFF MY DOOR.”
Okay, actually, now that I’m thinking about it, there are two reasons I’ve been thinking about this lately. Aside from the dad thing, my lovely wife has been binging BONES and while she watches that, I tend to write or play a game on my computer in my office. But I rarely wear headphones, or if I’m listening to music I’ll just put one earbud in so I can hear if she calls for me. In the meantime, I’ve half-heard about ten seasons’ worth of Temperance Brennan’s particular cadence in her speech, and I kinda want to write a D&D one-shot that features the characters adventuring on behalf of a quirky fantasy forensic scientist and her government-appointed partner.
Anyway, my point is, I’ve never made that list of voices, and I’d probably be too embarrassed to publish it even if I did. These days the only times I ever bust out a silly voice are for games, and they are few and far between. And given that adults have, like, lives and schedules that prevent large groups of us from meeting up for anything even close to a regular gaming session, I’ve been looking into running some kind of online game. I’ll update if I ever figure that out, but for now, I figure (as I often do) that writing and publishing it means I am at least a little accountable for actually getting it done.
A refresh/re-introduction
Since last we spoke, there’s been (as always) a number of developments in the wrestling world as well as *gestures wildly* the world at large. While I’m not touching real world events here -- after all, a big reason a lot of us watch wrestling is for some escapism -- I would like to note that social media site BlueSky has seen a big influx in users over the past week. As such, I figured I’d do a bit of re-introduction, as far as letting people know what to expect before we dive head first into the abyss. I’m not a move-for-move recapper, although if you dig far back enough into the archives you’ll find reviews like that as I tried to figure out my online voice.
I started writing in 2022, after leaving my auto mechanic job and being encouraged by my wife to try something from home. Soon afterward I started this blog, and was lucky enough to get a job writing for Wrestling, Inc.’s new Features department, which closed down about eight months later. The articles I wrote near the end of my run were more a product of “what was left in the hopper” than ideas I pitched, and as such I’m not super proud of listicles like “wrestlers who have large age gaps between them and their SOs” among other bullplop. However, during my eight months there I got to write about some of my favorite wrestlers, and adopted my sweet Cinnabon son, Konosuke Takeshita. And, it got me writing almost daily, something I’ve slept on recently but fully intend on doing again.
Even after that Features department closed, my editor was nice enough to recommend me to the folks at our sister site SlashGear, where I currently write an article or two a week on things like tools, cars, and technology. It’s mostly list-based stuff, but I’d like to think people find and use those lists to make informed purchases, and as such I do a good amount of research on various sites to collect and aggregate data before publishing anything. I also wrote the odd gaming review or wrestling article for a few other now-defunct sites, but for the most part this blog is where my stuff resides.
But enough about me…let’s talk about some wrestling!
ALL ELITE WRESTLING, depending on who you ask, is either headed for the dumpster or due for a revival. The former assumption is made by fools, as the company and its owner currently have more money than God. The latter is made by hopeful folks like myself, i.e. a different brand of fools, albeit a more gentle one. I love having two major wrestling promotions around, and I simply don’t understand folks who spend their time focused on something they hate. I DO understand people who won’t watch WWE for moral reasons, and while that’s not me, I respect that position. I tend to lean more towards AEW, since it’s the first time since Lucha Underground that I’ve been into a promotion since its conception. But I enjoy both big promotions, and regularly watch Raw, NXT, and Dynamite live. SmackDown and Collision are “if there’s time” shows for me, although I’ll always watch a Simon Miller recap or listen to a podcast to catch up if I miss them when they air. I do want to continue to be married, and there’s only so much wrestling I’ll subject my lovely wife to, after all.
So all that leads us to…what’s going on at AEW now? The major storyline follows Jon Moxley and his Death Riders, aka nWo mOx. I feel like most AEW fans are enjoying this story, which makes it all the more frustrating for me that I don’t. I like everyone involved. I think I’m just over the “we’re taking over” storylines in wrestling in general. Unfortunately, I came to this realization just as AEW started theirs.
But that’s fine. AEW has always focused more on in-ring action, and they’ve got a lot going for them in that regard. Matches featuring guys like Ricochet, Will Ospreay, Hologram, THE BEAST MORTOS, and my son Konosuke Takeshita have raised the bar on what we expect from weekly TV shows, and there’s not a week that goes by that AEW doesn’t present at least one match that I want to recommend to other fans of the sport.
Dynamite and Collision were fun, and while the crowds aren’t the loudest the action we’re being shown is great. Shelton Benjamin and Kommander had a helluva match on Saturday, and while I had high hopes for Ricochet and Dante Martin on Rampage, it felt like they were holding something back. That’s probably for the best, though -- Rampage for the warmup, Dynamite or even a pay-per-view to really show off.
One thing I love doing, and probably the thing that works best in keeping me blogging about wrestling, is previews. I love guessing about what’s coming next, and I also enjoy comparing my records with both better pundits than myself and the WWE2K24 game, where I’ve put together current AEW, NXT, and WWE rosters in order to run preview matches, mostly for my own entertainment. At one point, I had a whole create-a-wrestler universe full of animal hospital employees that worked with my wife, and we even did a weekly YouTube show that I won’t be linking here for shame reasons. It was a blast though, despite my less than professional (but family friendly!) onscreen presence. All that is to say, I’ll probably be running (and posting) previews for Deadl1ne, Survivor Series, and Full Gear on the Fridays before those events.
WWE continues its … I don’t want to say “trudge” or “slog” so we’ll go with “leisurely stroll” towards Survivor Series and the unofficial start of WrestleMania season. While the Royal Rumble has become the de facto beginning to many ‘Mania storylines, it’s Survivor Series that tends to showcase the performers that will take the stage on the Showcase of the Immortals. Between Full Gear and WarGames, we’ll be eating good for the next few weeks. Thanksgiving pun fully intended.
The Fed has some intrigue with its neverending Bloodline stories, as mysterious fifth members are being teased for both the OG Bloodline and Solo Sikoa’s new version. Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, and Jey and Jimmy Uso make up one side, while Solo, Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa, and Jacob Fatu comprise the new kids. Most folks are assuming Cody Rhodes may join up with the “good guys” while The Rock is a possibility as the as-yet-undisclosed true leader and Tribal Chief for the nü Blüdline. I think there’s a lot of wiggle room, and WWE has done a good job of keeping possible other members or distractions like Kevin Owens and Randy Orton viable as both allies or threats to either side.
The most recent Raw saw a good chunk of the women’s roster interact during the main event, leading me to believe either a 4-on-4 is coming for those wrestlers, or we’re doing the “mystery fifth person” bit for the women as well. At the end of the show Monday, we saw Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill, IO SKY, and Naomi stand tall over both main womens’ champs Nia Jax and Liv Morgan, along with Raquel Rodriguez and Tiffany Stratton. That’s a good match there, but I’d love to see some returns to round out both teams. We haven’t seen Becky Lynch, Asuka, or Charlotte Flair for some time, and only just got a return for Damage CTRL’s Dakota Kai during that Monday show. I hope they even out both the men’s and women’s Survivor Series matches to five a side, but I guess we’ll see.
Aside from the WarGames matches at Survivor Series, the only big match I think is set in stone is Damien Priest against Gunther -- again -- for Gunther’s World Heavyweight Championship. Gunther is almost guaranteed to retain, but they do have a little redemption to shoot for after a bit of a sloppy ending during their last match. And both guys are supremely talented, so it’s possible for them to steal the show with a good match. At least, until The Rock’s theme hits at the end of the show.
And that’s it!
I think that’s where we’ll leave this catch-up version of the blog. I’ve honestly been working on this a while, just procrastinating on posting ANYTHING. But there’s no way to start something new without putting out something old, so consider this the clean slate before we dive into three straight weeks of premium-pay-per-live-events.
If you’re interested, I’m usually on BlueSky during Raw, Dynamite, and any other shows I catch as they air -- follow me there at elosopequeno.bsky.social if you want your feed invaded by all my bad jokes and observations -- and we’ll work on getting back to more regular posting. My hope is that I’m smart enough to realize I’m much more interested in writing about a show right after I watch it, and at least pump out an outline with some notes to make a post the next morning, if not the night of most shows. Previews will likely remain a Friday thing, rather than having Friday be the be-all end-all of posts. But we’ll see how it goes, as always.
Thank you so much for reading. If you liked what you saw, consider telling your friends, mentioning Let’s Watch Some Wrestling on social media, or even buying me a hot cup of coffee using the Ko-Fi button. Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next time, dear reader. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!