Gibraltar! (February 2024)

It's time for February, which both went super quick and also still felt like a lot more happened worth talking than what January offered, especially in the wrestling circle. And some other stuff worth updating on what I've been up to. So let's pump out a February recap and do what Cody Rhodes can't, and finish the story for this month.

Starting NOT on the wrestling front this month, albeit there's a lot to talk about. The sad news of this month in terms of pop culture is that Coyote vs. Acme is pretty much fucked. It's expected to be shelved despite numerous attempts from other companies to purchase it and a twitter campaign, spearheaded by the voice of Bugs Bunny himself Eric Bauza, that tried its best. But ultimately the fate of the movie lay in the hands of David Zaslav, who didn't even see the damn film he's shelving and oh yeah, is going to start cuts on the animated film department overall. Wonderful. Never forget that this dipshit said that Warner was struggling reaching a kid demo and here they are fucking scrapping cartoons. 

David Zaslav is not a creative genius. He is not a man with a passion for the entertainment industry, he isn't here to provide quality content. Lest we forget he was a massive cheerleader for The Flash. He's a dime-a-dozen billionaire businessman who is out to get his and screw over the people who work hard and are passionate for creating art. And he's far from the only one as we enter a hellscape where hard work is being scraped for AI while people get shitcanned. We're entering a dark place when it comes to the entertainment industry and if Coyote vs Acme's unfair treatment has done anything it's merely a window of just how worse things are going to get. 

When last we talked on the blog about wrestling, Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble, Punk got hurt, the company was trying to poorly pivot from the Vince McMahon scandal, but otherwise the ship seemed to be sailing. It's a bit shaken up from some high tide, but it's sailing on through. Then it hit the goddamn rock of Gibraltar. Because on the first Smackdown of February, Cody made his decision... to not finish the story with Roman Reigns and instead allow The Rock to get his chance to compete for head of the table. In an act so confusing and poorly thought out, it couldn't have been the original plan. And sure enough, it wasn't. As it became the plan after Rock's executive role in the TKO board took shape. So the initial plans of Cody/Roman II, the match built up over a year, predicated on, again, finishing the damn story, doesn't happen because... ???? 

We've never gotten a full answer as to why Cody made the decision since, well, there really isn't a logical explanation that would work aside from "Dwayne said so". But as you'd expect, nobody was buying this, especially not the fans, who voiced their anger on Twitter over that weekend. All building to the Wrestlemania XL Press Event in Las Vegas where Cody now changed his mind and now wants to wrestle Roman, and because Rock is being looked at as the guy who tried to screw over Cody, he's now a heel again, evoking the Hollywood Rock of 2003. It's all a big mess. One I do think they've managed to fix a little over the past few weeks, now building to a Rock vs Cody match either before or at Wrestlemania, but it does come off as one of the biggest booking snafu with WWE since, well, last year when they didn't give Cody the title at Wrestlemania.

Elimination Chamber was last Saturdau in Perth, Australia. I know people pine for the good old days of Saturday Morning wrestling, but waking up at 6AM for a four-match show with a shit ton of ads kind of took me out of it. It was a very predictable show, with the people you figured would win ending up winning. Predictable isn't necessarily bad, and given the twists and turns so far in this road to Wrestlemania, it can be appreciated when the company doesn't have to pull a dozen surprises to keep people on their toes. Drew McIntyre vs Seth Rollins should be solid, as will Rhea Ripley vs Becky Lynch. 

This week we lost both Ole Anderson and Mike Jones, best known to wrestling fans as Virgil in WWF and Vincent in WCW. While never a top guy in any sense, Virgil is still best remembered for finally turning on Ted Dibiase after all of his abuse and it culminating with Virgil defeating Dibiase for the Million Dollar Championship at Summerslam 1991. His career petered after that, but it remains as a beloved moment in the company's history. Virgil became more well known as an internet meme of sorts in his later years, best demonstrated by a photo him in a booth with the sign "WRESTLING SUPERSTAR VIRGIL" with nobody attending. Not to mention his affinity for meat sauce and once taking a tenner from Mr. OOC of OSW Review. Rest well Mike, may the meat sauce flow in heaven.

Nintendo held both a Direct and a Pokemon Presents this month. TECHNICALLY the Presents was for a partner showcase, and offered little that really enticed me. Save for maybe the Epic Mickey remaster and adding some Rare games to the Switch's online services. Granted, I have no interest in playing Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, but hey, Blast Corps is cool. The Pokemon Presents didn't keep my interest, but the new Legends ZA should be interesting at least. Poor gen 5 getting the shaft though. Ouch. 

Pickups aplenty for me this month. I have stuck to the NES collecting and this month paid off big time. Winning some money managed to allow me to snag about 20+ games this month. Big titles like Castlevania, Metroid, Final Fantasy and Bionic Commando, to some more low level games like Faxanadu, Blades of Steel, The Goonies II and... yes... Back to the Future. I don't fully hate that game like most do. I mean, it's still crap, but there's worse crap on NES. Comics wise, not as heavy a focus this month, but a couple more Simpsons and MLP comics filled the quota, including the best of Rarity, AKA the best pony. 

With the NES bought, it's given me incentive to beat some of these games on physical. Many I have before, but some, like Final Fantasy, were ones I've never beaten before. I was going to beat Blaster Master, but burned out by the last area. Will try again though. Final Fantasy is a solid game, albeit archaic as hell. Thankfully I used the walkthrough of U Can Beat Video Games to help me advance and finish the game, but that last dungeon made me legit angry to the point I almost quit, but I stuck with it, defeated Chaos, and felt accomplished in finally beating one of the games that I always wanted to finish but never did. 

Still drawing. Trying to at least draw one thing a day to see how I improve. Even picked up a few sketchbooks to add to them. Still can't draw bodies or hands worth a damn, but I think faces are starting to be near perfected. It's amazing how it's shifted from "hobby I think I'd suck at" to "hobby I kind of really love doing and can see my improvements overtime. I'm dabbling the idea of eventually getting a tablet to start working with digital art, but for now, I'm cool with the paper and pencil manner that I've been sticking with. 

Blog-wise, it was a slower month. Mainly getting blogs done on weekends lately. Not intentionally, just how things have ultimately ended up. We finally covered the first part of 99 Fear Street, a blog I've had sitting around for like two years at this point finally covered. And I entered hell by covering the first Barf-O-Rama book. Penance I guess for finally reaching 100,000 views over at Raiders of the Bookmark. Hopefully I get more done in March. Usually it's the colder months I tend to slow down on the book blog, but we're due to warm up soon. 

And that's pretty much February. Moved really quick, but felt packed with content. March has AEW Revolution this weekend and we're closing in on what's looking to be a rather absurd Wrestlemania. Also Dark Side of the Ring returns, so there's definitely going to be a lot to talk about with that. So let's March forward in this year and hope for the best.