Soul : A Symphony of Failure

Disney movies usually have messages of perseverance, working hard, and to keep on moving forward. Soul doesn’t do that. The message at the end of Soul is “you might not achieve your dreams, but appreciate every moment” which isn’t a good for young children and failing adults.

In Soul, the main character Joe Gardner doesn’t want to be stuck in an everyday routine. He wants to be a jazz concert musician and not just a music teacher. At the end, Joe finally gets his chance to be part of a popular jazz band, but realizes he’ll just be doing the same thing everyday and then gives it up for the vague message of “I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but I’m happy about it”.

What makes it worse, is that the band hired someone else for that night, but Joe insisted he’s the best person for that job and they told the other guy to leave. So, Joe got someone fired from the biggest moment of their life so he can achieve your dream, but then gave up on it when it wasn’t everything he wanted it to be.

This movie isn’t for the motivated dream chaser, its for the settler who can now justify their plain existence with the message of “I live life every day to the fullest” as they clock into their 9-5 or part time job talking about how they’re winning at life. Bad message Disney. Bad message.

Control Your Narrative Promotion?

When I first heard of the Control Your Narrative movement, I thought this was just a wrestling faction, but I later learned this is going to be a new failing company in the world of wrestling. The company’s 3 main stars are EC3, Killer Kross (Karrion Kross) and Adam Scherr (Braun Strowman). In their mission statement, the men explained what the company is. They first took shots are shareholders and billionaire owners.  Saying that owners collect wrestlers like “toys”. Clearly these men have never ran a company before. The “toys” they are talking about are employees, not friends and not members of a bigger picture. If a wrestler or “toy” is not putting in the work, not loved by the fans and making for lower ratings, then a change will be made. That’s running a business.

The letter than goes on to name drop popular wrestlers that have joined the company. Names like Moose, Matt Sydal, Matt Cardona and some no names. Now, are you telling me that Moose, a superstar in Impact Wrestling who is probably being paid very well, is planning on leaving Impact to join this company?

Who’s paying for this? You don’t have a billionaire owner like Tony Khan or Vince McMahon, you don’t have or want shareholders, so where is the money coming from? The top 3 wrestlers starting this company I imagine have some savings, so they can go a little while without getting a regular paycheck, but the others can’t. Matt Sydal was never a “run the company” wrestler. He has been bouncing around from company to company since he left the WWE. And more importantly, why would he want to leave AEW in any capacity?

I don’t know what to think about this company after reading this letter. I’m very confused with a lot of wrestling companies these days. The WWE looks like the only real wrestling company and the others are just all working together in some way.

Jon Moxley still does shows in Japan and backyard wrestling promotions, but still works for AEW. This move I find incredibly stupid because why would AEW be ok with letting one of their most popular wrestlers go to other places? More importantly, Mox went to some unknown company for his first match after rehab, kinda dulling the moment of his return. Why would Impact Wrestling be ok with Moose playing in this other company. If he gets hurt that’s a MAJOR blow to your company.

The whole promotion just seems like a great faction idea, one that would thrive on grabbing wrestlers who are lost or on losing streaks to be more, but as a company they are failing before they even got started. My prediction gets stronger when I read their website. Apparently, if I’m reading this wrong, fights (not matches) are decided by Tap Out, Knock Out or Can’t Stand……so not wrestling. Is this a better version of Raw Underground?

Another section of the website says “FTN blends professional wrestling, cinema, and harsh reality”. The cinema part throws me off. Because they are going to have live crowds. Are these planned out fist fights? I HATED the cinematic matches during the Pandemic Era for the WWE. I thought nothing had to change with the style, just put on great matches and you captures your audience interest.

If I was running this show, the first thing I would do is write up a REAL mission statement of their promotion, take it to Rumble and do shows exclusively on there. Rumble was ready to give Joe Rogan $200 million dollars to be exclusively there. I wonder how much they would pay for the exclusive rights to a wrestling promotion? I wouldn’t do shows on the road. Like NXT, I would do shows exclusively in one location. Buy a simple warehouse or property you can make into an arena and that solves where it would be. I would put the arena somewhere in the South or mid-West because it’s cheaper to buy property there. Maybe one day take the show on the road, but when you’re stating a new company saving money is key.

The next step does against everything they believe in, getting shareholders. They NEED some big money bankrolling this operation. Let’s say if the Rumble deal happens, they give, let’s say 10 million dollars, you still have a lot of things to buy. The biggest would be the location. I saw just use one because you don’t have to worry about costs of travel and you can control the environment more than using someone else’s building.  

Getting wrestlers shouldn’t be that difficult. Yes, I crapped on Sydal before, but he’s a good wrestler. Not someone who can lead the company, but a suitable wrestler. Moose would be way out of their pay range, but Cardona might be a great addition. The 3 creators would be taking a pay cut for the first few months so that’ll save some money. There are a ton of unknown wrestlers and released wrestlers looking for a shot to be on tv again. If anything, this new promotion might be a way to help them. But that would be a WRESTLING promotion and not a….whatever this is.

I don’t think the Control Your Narrative promotion will be a success. The idea is enough to get some early viewers, but this doesn’t seem realistic and will fail pretty soon.

World War Joe

Jay White Vs The Best Friends

After Jay White beat Trent in his AEW debut, I saw something that really annoyed me. The camera panned over to Orange Cassidy before the show cut to black……is AEW seriously going to give us Jay White vs Orange Cassidy? Are they really going to push a fight between White, who I say is top 5 in the world, against one of the least imposing threats in AEW? Not only that, I can see White fighting the entire Best Friends group, probably ending in a multi man tag match.

I figure this might be a good idea for a feud in theory, White is very popular overseas, but if you don’t watch him on YouTube then you probably never heard of him. My problem is that this feud is a waste of time, especially for White. I would have White attack Cassidy before he enters the Face of the Revolution Ladder match this weekend. Attack him backstage, knock him out of the match and get White in that match against the best the company has to offer.

You can have Cassidy interfere and cost White’s chances of winning the match, setting up their feud. But having Cassidy in that match is such a waste. Cassidy isn’t equipped to be the face of the company ever, but White is. Maybe White running through all the Best Friends might buy him time until some of the other feuds are finished and he can get inserted into the main title picture or against a higher profile talent like Hangman Page.

Simptastic Joe

Adventures of Buck Wild

Does Disney know what the word “Adventures” mean? Adventures, as in more than one? From what I read online, take that with a grain of salt, the original idea was supposed to be a series of shorts, but they decided to go with a feature length movie instead. Which begs the question of why didn’t they do a series?

This movie was ok, but it did have a lot going for it. Buck Wild is a very fun character and the Lost World environment can really bring in a lot of new ideas. Wild has all the qualities of an action hero. He is brave, adventurous, kind and smart.

I didn’t fall in love with Crash and Eddie of the Ice Age series, so having them tag along with Wild felt like a slap in the face for a very exciting character. If I wrote this, Wild wouldn’t have any interaction with the Ice Age cast. I would give Wild his own 15-20 time slot where he goes on his own adventures. Maybe have the main bad guy of the movie in the show, give him the same love interest and his own rag tag group of characters to play off of and you got a show.

It seemed like an extremely simple concept which would’ve worked out for Disney in many ways. Giving Wild his own story would’ve opened up a lot more merchandising and spin off opportunity, but Disney instead decided to stick Wild with 2 of the worst comic relief characters they could find and came out with a subpar product.

Simptastic Joe

AEW Needs A Developmental Brand

Right now, NXT is really bad. I mean almost unwatchable at times. From the hideous new arena to the ridiculous gimmicks of their top talents, but at least NXT makes sense. The whole point of it is to bring in talent, put them into meaningful feuds, give them title runs and let the fans get a glimpse of what the future of the company will be. In a year or two, the main roster will be guys Bron Breakker, Carmelo Hayes, Solo Sikoa, Grayson Waller to name a few.

Let’s look at AEW’s developmental brands in Dark and Elevation. These aren’t developmental brands, these are fillers. Some people argue that the other companies are the developmental brands and AEW is the main roster now in wrestling. A few months ago, we watched the final matches of Bobby Fish, Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole on NXT. Now the trio is on AEW and all the developmental work done. Their names have been built up; their brand is still there. The trio didn’t lose a step from their NXT run. Tony Khan just brought them all over and they’re doing the exact same thing.

Dark and Elevation are poorly managed. Lets me give you the matches on February 8th of Dark.

Julie Hart vs Kelsey Heather

Powerhouse Hobbs vs Gus De La Vega

The Gunn Club vs who the hell cares.

Mercedes Martinez vs Queen someone

Anthony Ogogo vs Someone

Lee Moriarty vs I don’t care

Anna Jay vs some woman

Fuedo Del Sol vs Serpentor

And last was Wheeler Yuta vs Aaron Solow

Who do you think won the matches? The AEW wrestlers that are featured on Dynamite and Rampage? Or the random people nobody cares about? The only match that wasn’t obvious was Yuta vs Solow. Everything else on the card was a waste of time. It didn’t elevate anyone. It just filled time and let wrestlers that aren’t featured in a while a chance to be in front of fans.

And worst of all, look at some of these records. Powerhouse Hobbs, a guy that I absolutely LOVE. A guy who I think will be running this company in a few years is 39-17. When the hell was Powerhouse Hobbs in all these matches?  And the Gunn Club is 35-0! You’re telling me this team is undefeated and running through opponents like this are just now going after the tag champions? That Christian Cage and Billy Gunn had to have a discussion about the worthiness of an undefeated team?

This card had 9 matches on it for an hour-long show. So, each match was about 6 minutes long. What exactly can you do in 6 minutes? You can’t have much going on. You can’t cut many promos. You can’t really have a lot of interference.

Did any of these matches elevate the winners? Anna Jay is a main roster wrestler, one of the most popular women on the roster, doesn’t need to be in any match against an extremely unknown wrestler whose name I already forget. It shows she can beat an unknown talent. So does she get a title match next week? No? then what was the point?

What is the point of putting Santana and Ortiz in a Dark tag match and then put them on Rampage? Santana and Ortiz, arguably one of the best tag teams in the world of wrestling do not need to be in a match that doesn’t matter.

I went to an AEW live showing. They film Dark before the show so we got to see a few matches. Preston Vance fought QT Marshal. Was the best Dark match because these were two main roster wrestlers, but it didn’t set up for anything. I was hoping it would set up for the Dark Order to fight The Factory. Two tag teams with interesting talent. I know I crap on the Dark Order every time I talk about them, but I would rather see them wrestle and maybe do something besides looking like fools online.

AEW is doing a massive disservice to its wrestlers with how they’re handling Dark and Elevation. They should have maybe 4 matches at the most. That’s about 25 minutes for each match in terms of entrance, match, finish, promo and future match teases. What an absolute waste of 2 shows.

Another great example is Captain Shawn Dean. I don’t know wither or not to care about him. He has Dark matches and he was featured in a match against MJF where CM Punk ran in and knocked out Dean to give MJF the loss. Soooooo is Dean going to be a future AEW star? Or is he cannon fodder? Or is he a realistic prospect? I know Grayson Waller is going to be a featured star in NXT. Why? Because he’s featured more. He’s in big matches like War Games and he’s having a feud with AJ Styles and LA Knight. You see progress. You see screentime. You see potential. You see a guy that is being smartly pushed.

AEW has 0 idea what they’re doing half the time. The whole company is just a dream match factory and that’s it. what do you guys think?

Simptastic Joe

Steve Cutler/ Wesley Blake

NXT missed a huge opportunity not giving these two men the tag titles and Jaxon Ryker the NXT Championship. Ryker has been helping Cutler and Blake win a few matches and him helping them win the tag titles would’ve been fun to see. Similar to the Bloodline, they could’ve also helped Ryker win some matches. I never saw any singles careers from Cutler and Blake, but at least giving them the tag titles would’ve made their time in NXT interesting and if the fans were behind them who knows what could’ve happened.

Simptastic Joe

X-23 : Marvel Strike Force

Easily one of my favorite characters in the game. X-23 has all the healing abilities as Wolverine, but I mainly use her because of the attack Feral Rage, which attacks the most damaged opponent for 4 attacks and if that enemy gets defeated, she continues the attack on to the next most damaged opponent. So, depending on how powerful the targets you can take out many opponents in one attack. 

Simptastic Joe

Thor : Marvel Strike Force

0 downside to Thor. He deals a ton of damage on his 1st attack; his 2nd attack damages adjacent targets and his 3rd attack shoots lightening at all opponents and Stuns them. He is part of the Cosmic and Mystic classes so you can use him for the long run. I’m also leveling up Heimdall and Loki as well so all 3 give each other Asgardian buffs. And eventually the more damage Thor takes, he’s able to unleash a massive counter that hurts all opponents. Thor is a character that is built to be in a lot of starting rotations so I highly recommend putting a lot of points into him.

Simptastic Joe

Namor : Marvel Strike Force

I hate Namor. Don’t know why, but as soon as I got him, I’ve been trying to get him out of my main Villain squad, but he’s so easy to level up and does so much damage that I’m forced to keep him. Obviously, I’m drawn to characters that Summon other characters to my team or have more Perks and Bleeds to their moves. Namor doesn’t impress on paper, but somehow, he’s gotten me through a lot of the game as soon as I unlocked him. So, I don’t know if I recommend him. He will get you over the hump I think, but in the end, I keep him around until I get something better.

Simptastic Joe

Punisher : Marvel Strike Force

There really isn’t anything special about the Punisher. He feels like a more powerful Minion character. Attacks are simple, no real added Perks to them and his categories aren’t vast enough to put a lot of focus into. I wouldn’t bother with the Punisher in any aspect.

Simptastic Joe