WrestleMania 29 Thoughts/Review

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$69.95. That was the cost of WrestleMania XXIX’s HD broadcast through DirecTV. Remember when PPV events were $29.99? This is why I only order 1 event per year, 2 if SummerSlam is a strong card (Unless someone wants to pay me to review them!). Of course, older WrestleMania events didn’t have multi-million dollar stages and massive fireworks displays, either. The spectacle that is WrestleMania nowadays seems far removed from the product that’s presented the other 51 weeks of the year. I attended WrestleMania XXVII at the Georgia Dome, which has the distinction of having possibly the worst main event in history and the worst crowd. Anyways… let me move on to my review of the show along with my commentary about the state of the product.

PRE-SHOW

I’ll start with the pre-show. I watched it on the WWE App on my phone. I was going to watch it on YouTube via the PS3, but I couldn’t find it. I didn’t have any buffering or streaming issues. My one complaint is that when you stream a show on a phone and they want you to text, tweet, or tout, you have to shut the feed down and do that. That’s annoying. I did really enjoy the way the pre-show was presented, though. It was an NFL-style panel discussing the card. It was well done and really made the event seem that much more important. Dusty Rhodes is so good at selling matches and it’s always a plus to hear Jim Ross.

Match #1: Wade Barrett (Champion) vs. The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship.

This was a short match. One thing I noticed is that Barrett has been given so little build-up in the ring on RAW (I only watch RAW, then read Smackdown spoilers) that I didn’t know that he was hitting his finisher on Miz. Miz picks up the win and the IC title with his second attempt at submitting Barrett with the Figure-Four. It was a pretty decent match. It probably got less time than it would have on RAW.

I guess this is fine. WWE seems to have little regard for these mid-card titles, which is too bad. Winning the US or IC title seems to make you a prime candidate to job to the main event guys week in and week out. This is well documented by the IWC, which is a minority. The overall money-paying audience doesn’t seem to care, so the trend will continue. If it were up to me, I would unify the titles (maybe at WrestleMania XXX?) and do away with the US title.

Final Pre-Show thoughts: It was well executed. In the future, I’d like to see it on my TV. I just paid $70 for the event; I don’t want to watch the pre-show on my computer or phone. I understand that they want people to use their social media services, but come on – put this on TV. Hell, it might even sell a few more PPVs if someone is flipping through the channels and sees the arena and presentation.  I can’t express how much I liked the NFL-style panel set-up and I hope they use that from here on out – maybe even on every PPV or at least the big 4.

WRESTLEMANIA XXIX

There was an opening video from Chris Christie (who never lets a good tragedy go to waste) about Hurricane Sandy and WrestleMania. Top notch video editing by WWE, like always. In between, there were some National Guard folks waving flags that weren’t even close to being in sync. The show then opened right into Sheamus making his entrance after the opening WrestleMania video. No National Anthem/America the Beautiful? No massive fireworks introduction? No fighter jets doing a fly-over? I was surprised by this.

Match #2: Sheamus, Randy Orton, and Big Show vs. The Shield.

This was a good pick to open the show. The Shield seemed more over with the crowd than the babyfaces. Or at least it came across that way on TV. I was surprised that Big Show was the guy who got stuck in the ring with a prolonged beat down during the match. Once the match broke down, Big Show hit a triple spear on The Shield as they had Sheamus up for the triple power bomb. That was a pretty awesome spot. In the end, Orton tagged himself in when Big Show was reaching for a hot tag from Sheamus. Orton caught Rollins off the top rope for a nice RKO, but then ate a spear from Reigns and Ambrose picked up the win as Show watched from the ring apron all pissed off. Big Show ended up knocking out Sheamus and Orton after the match. I’m really surprised Big Show ended up staying a heel. I thought that was just too obvious and that Orton might turn heel. Especially when Orton hot tagged himself.

Regardless, this was a good opener. The Shield needs to start evolving, though. They’ve beaten the absolute best that the WWE has to offer (Cena, Ryback, Sheamus, Orton, and Big Show) and there really isn’t much more that they can do in 6-man tag matches.

Off topic, I really thought that Ambrose and Rollins should have been the ones challenging Team Hell No for the titles and winning, which would have led to Kane and Bryan breaking up post-match. Reigns should have been one-on-one against Sheamus. Ziggler should have been on the card cashing in the MITB. Ok, back to the show.

Match #3: Ryback vs. Mark Henry.

This was a typical big man match – which is funny because Ryback isn’t an especially ‘big man’ at 281 lbs (by WWE standards). After a slow, plodding match, Ryback lifted Henry for the Shellshock (Don’t lie – you thought ‘Holy Shit’ when he picked him up). Henry used the ropes and kind of fell on Ryback. I guess – it looked sloppy on TV. Even more shocking that it was good for the pin. I was blown away by this result. Ryback hit the Shellshock post-match on Henry for his big moment, but it’s another big loss for Ryback.

Since his undefeated streak ended against Punk last year, I’m pretty sure Ryback has lost every single PPV match since then. Maybe the people making decisions think the character just has a low ceiling and know what they’re doing. I’m inclined to agree. Then again, Goldberg wasn’t much different than this character. Both had almost no mic skills and depended solely on power moves. Goldberg’s momentum died with his streak and so did Ryback’s. Remember that pop that Ryback got when he finally got his hands on CM Punk in 2012? I think WWE dropped the ball and lost out on a lot of mileage with Ryback.

Match #4: Team Hell No (Champions) vs. Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston for the Tag Team Championship.

I thought this was a great match. I really thought Ziggler and Langston would get the belts here. There was a great spot at the beginning where they teased an 18-second loss like what happened to Bryan last year. I don’t have much else to say about this match. I was kind of expecting Kane and Bryan to break up, but that didn’t happen. Then I thought that maybe Langston would attack them post-match and Ziggler would use his briefcase to cash in for an immediate rematch and win the belts that way. None of that happened.

Match#5: Chris Jericho vs. Fandango.

Jericho had the first really awesome entrance of the night. This was a solid match, but when’s the last time Jericho had a bad match? I’m surprised someone kicked out of Fandango’s finisher in his first match (More on that later). I couldn’t tell if the ending was botched or not, so props to Jericho for not making it obvious if it was. I actually thought Jericho might get the win here since the other relative n00bs (Langston, Ryback, Barrett) all lost. I was a little underwhelmed by the match overall, but it was solid and enjoyable.

Match#6: Alberto Del Rio (Champion) vs. Jack Swagger for the World Heavyweight Championship.

This is where I first had a hint that there might be a time problem. When WWE returned from the promo video, Swagger was already in the ring. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a WrestleMania where a wrestler entrance was not televised (and I’ve seen them all). I was already pissed off for having to listen to Diddy (more on that later, too). Then the challenger for the WHC gets the jobber treatment?

This was another solid match. Notice I’m saying these were solid matches. There was nothing really great to me at this point. Del Rio picked up the win by submitting Swagger with the arm bar. At this point, I was 100% sure that Swagger would give Del Rio a beat down and Ziggler would cash in. In the end, nothing.

Match #7: CM Punk vs. Undertaker.

This was the best match on the card for me. Even still, I thought it was underwhelming. I enjoyed Living Colour playing CM Punk to the ring. Undertaker’s entrance was pretty awesome as well. That said, these guys still delivered a strong match. It didn’t have the drama that HBK and Triple H had over the last 4 years, but it wasn’t fair to expect that. I expected Punk to focus on trying to get Undertaker counted out or DQ’d, but that was relatively minor as well. Some other spots I liked included CM Punk hitting Old School on Undertaker and Undertaker sitting up while in the Anaconda Vice. That’s what makes these guys main event stars. Psychology, facial expressions, and telling a story in the ring are grossly underrated. I’ll take that kind of match over a ‘5-star’ wrestling match any day of the week. And Paul Heyman? Brilliant.

On a side note, can we please go back to using old fashioned tables or at least make sure the announcer’s table is gimmicked properly so that it actually breaks? After watching Shawn Michaels almost kill himself against Ric Flair and now CM Punk somehow not breaking his leg last night, they have got to stop using those tables.

Undertaker had to win this match for Paul Bearer. I’m not upset about the result, but I never once thought the Streak was in danger. There was never that moment where I thought to myself, “Wow, Punk might pull this off.” For those who say they never have those thoughts, bullshit. When Triple H hit Pedigree #3, then 10 chair shots, then hit a Tombstone at WM27, there was no chill up your spine? Or at WM28 when HBK hit Taker with Sweet Chin Music right into a Pedigree, you didn’t gasp and think that was it? No matter how obvious the result, they always created doubt during the match. I never thought Punk was going to pull it off at any point in this match and, in that aspect, they failed. Like I’ll mention later, WrestleMania 28’s Hell in a Cell will never be topped.

Match #8: Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar.

This match was No Holds Barred. Why wasn’t HBK just in the ring with Triple H and the two of them could have just beat Lesnar down? We can assume it was a pride thing, like Triple H wanted to do it himself, but it wasn’t ever made vocal. Anyways, I had bloated expectations for this as well. As a fan back when wrestlers bled a lot, I expected this to be a bloodbath. Yes, I know Lesnar smacking his head on the post wasn’t an intentional blade job, but did the blood not make that exchange on RAW seem awesome? If you want to sell brutality, you almost need to have some blood. The exception was last year at WrestleMania when the Undertaker and Triple H devastated each other with chairs.

Regardless, Lesnar came off as a monster for most of the match. Screaming and bleeding from his mouth – I don’t care if the man is 1-2 since his return, he’s a monster. He was absolutely ripped aside from maybe the skinniest legs in the world. It was a brutal match and I enjoyed it more than the SummerSlam match. It was just really physical and stiff. If there are any doubts, watch the elbow that HBK took in the nose from Lesnar. Again, Triple H had to win. He’d been completely humiliated and dominated twice. HBK had been beaten down. His wife was repeatedly insulted. To have the heel beat him and retire him would be kind of sadistic. Once again – Paul Heyman was brilliant in his role.

Just on a side note here, I personally think that Triple H and Undertaker should have retired at WrestleMania 28. It was billed as ‘End of an Era’. Undertaker should have said he was finished and was ready to Rest in Peace or whatever – they could have come up with something. Triple H should have put his career on the line for one more shot. The show should have ended with 3 of the greatest wrestlers in the last 2 decades embracing on stage. Think about it. Neither Triple H nor Undertaker will ever have a moment or a match like that again.

Match #9: The Rock (Champion) vs. John Cena.

This one was tough. I’m going to try to articulate my opinion on this. I’ll start by saying Cena had to win. That’s just business. The Rock only won the belt to put Cena over and to draw attention to the WWE. The Rock is not a full-time wrestler. He’s a movie star and he’s worth God knows how much. No matter how much the IWC hates John Cena, this had to happen. Let me also say that John Cena is a fine wrestler. He’s had matches with HBK, CM Punk, Lesnar, and others and they’ve been outstanding. Sure, you can say so-and-so carried him, but it takes two. That being said, John Cena and The Rock do not have good chemistry in the ring. It’s a simple as that.

Back to this match, didn’t the entrances seem rushed? Nothing special happened. Nothing elaborate happened. This was despite the fact that there were over 50 minutes left in the show. This match, above all, needed some glitz to save what would likely be a mediocre match.

The Rock of 2013 is also very out of place. It’s not his fault. The Rock is a product of the Attitude Era. The matches were more or less just brawls, fighting through the crowd, run-ins, and other chaos. Promos were laced with profanity and sexual innuendo. The Rock was cocky and arrogant and would go do commentary while his opponent was down. The audience was different. 2013 Rock is relying solely on one-on-one in-ring wrestling, which was never his strong point. Don’t get me wrong, I get it. The Rock sells. Sure, most of the fans don’t even know who the Rock is outside of movies and that he used to wrestle. It doesn’t matter because he draws money.

Back to my point – this match wasn’t good. It started off slow and then the false finishes started. I will admit, when Rock caught Cena with the 3^rd Rock Bottom, I thought that might be the finish. So, props to them there. Cena won clean, of course. The crowd seemed to shit all over it so Cena wisely left the ring to allow the Rock to get a proper send-off. I guess that means Rock isn’t coming back for WrestleMania 30? Rock joined Cena at the top of the ramp to pose and the crowd didn’t seem that entirely happy still.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

I’ll start with the obvious: Who completely screwed up the planning of the show? The introduction was cut short. An advertised match just casually never happened and was never mentioned. The challenger to the World Heavyweight Championship has an untelevised entrance. There were exactly ZERO backstage vignettes or interviews. The main event entrances were tossed out in favor of quickly getting them to the ring – even though the show went off the air with 10 minutes still left!

I will quickly explain why this happened in 4 words: Commercials, Promo Videos, Diddy. Let me be clear with this: I don’t pay DirecTV for WWE RAW specifically. If they want to air movie previews and commercials for toys and events, go right ahead. If I just paid $70 for an event, do not waste my money showing me advertisements. You want to show a preview for WrestleMania 30 and the next PPV, fine. There’s precedent for that and it’s a whopping 45 seconds total.

Second, the promo videos are overwhelming. For the last 7 weeks, RAW bombarded us with promo videos and recaps. We are now watching the event and have spent the money; we don’t need you to sell the event to us! If you combine all of the Rock/Cena videos and all the feud recap videos, I bet you find another 25-30 minutes. What do you think the pre-show was for? What are the announcers for?

Lastly, the Diddy debacle. My God, why? Every single time they hire a performer to perform a little show, the crowd and the fans absolutely shit on it. You know what works? Bands playing a wrestler to the ring. I bet you could count on two hands the amount of people that were excited that Diddy was going to perform.

Add all that junk together and I bet there is a minimum of 45 extra minutes on the show. Including the 10 minutes early the show ended. That’s 55 minutes to get the 8-person mixed tag match on the show, get some backstage promos and action, to have big time ring entrances for Rock and Cena.

What about the predictability? I don’t think it really was predictable. The Big 3 matches had to end the way they did. But the undercard wasn’t exactly predictable as you’ll notice by reading my thoughts through the first half of the event.

I do think a big opportunity was missed by WWE with Ziggler, though. He had a chance to wrestle for the WHC at WrestleMania and didn’t do it. I’m sure he can explain it away, but he’ll still look dumb. Maybe it was actually supposed to happen, but the time mismanagement caused them to throw it away?

My last issue is with false finishes or whatever you want to call it. Basically, when a wrestler kicks out of a finishing move or escapes their submission move when there usually isn’t precedent for it. The first WrestleMania false finish I can think of was when Warrior kicked out of 5 Savage elbow drops at WM7. Warrior/Hogan doesn’t count since their gimmicks involved kicking out of finishers.

It happens a lot now, maybe too much. These kinds of finishes are common for the Streak match, so I let them slide. It’s part of the gimmick that the Undertaker is unbeatable at WrestleMania. I mean, my God, Triple H hit him with 3 pedigrees, 10 chair shots, and a Tombstone at WM27 and couldn’t get the job done. Last night, though, it started getting absurd.

Not including the Streak match: First, Miz kicked out of Barrett’s finisher. Then Jericho kicked out of Fandango’s finisher. Triple H kicked out of the F5 and escaped 3 of Lesnar’s arm locks. Lesnar kicked out of a pedigree and escaped 3 arm locks. Then Cena kicked out of something like 3 Rock Bottoms and a People’s Elbow. Rock kicked out of at least 1 AA that I can recall. Even going back to RAW, Cena and Punk were kicking out of finishers. It gets to the point where you’re almost sure the first 2 times aren’t going to work. Only once the finisher is hit for a 3rd or 4th time will there finally be a winner. I just feel like it’s getting to be overkill.

My overall opinion is that it was a good, solid show that was marred by gross time management issues that are not common to WWE productions.

iPhone 5 Review

I upgraded from an iPhone 4 (AT&T GSM model) that I purchased during the insane launch in June 2010. I say insane because it took almost an entire day to get an order through. I think I was among the last orders to get through before the shipping dates slipped a few weeks. Needless to say, I was able to order this one on my third try roughly 10 minutes after it went on sale. Luckily for me, since preorders sold out within the hour. So, here are my first impressions after using the iPhone 5 for about 10 days now.

Design

The first thing I noticed was the weight. Yes, I know the numbers and I expected it to be light, but the extent of it still took me by surprise. I purchased a slate black phone and I think it’s as close to perfect as the design of a smartphone can get. I like how the aluminum metal band around the phone now matches the color of the phone rather than being silver-colored. I also like how the back glass panel is replaced with aluminum as well. I haven’t and won’t be testing the scratch resistance. I’ll note that mine arrived in flawless condition – no pre-existing scratching as has been reported.

Functionality / Dock Connector

Again, I was shocked by how small the dock connector turned out to be. I saw the pictures and such, but finally seeing it and holding it in person was a shocker. I feel like I should treat it like it’s very delicate, so we’ll see how durable it turns out to be. I personally love it, it’s easier to plug in than the old one and there’s no right or wrong way. I didn’t have any accessories that require an adapter, so I guess I’m lucky on that front. Well, I did, but I sold them with my old iPhone 4 so I could boost the price a little. The home button and on/off switch seem lighter and easier to click. I had problems on my iPhone 4 when I tried to click or double click the home button and it wouldn’t respond. It would drive me insane. It could have just been wear and tear from constant use, though. Another note is the speakers on the bottom of the phone, which are much, much louder than my old phone. They also have a new design that probably won’t allow dust to cake up inside them. Many times, I’d have to get something fine-tipped to dig out dust from the grilles. No longer will that be the case.

Display

The display is very nice. It’s the same retina display from the iPhone 4/4S, but it seems different. The whole in-cell display or whatever they used is very apparent. I also noticed that the default brightness is lower than my iPhone 4, yet just as bright or maybe even brighter. Perhaps that is what contributes to the battery life. The touch screen itself works as perfectly as every iPhone has in the past. That was what sold me on the original iPhone back in 2007 and I’m glad to see that it either improves or stays consistently good.

Battery

The battery is better. It’s tough to compare because my old phone had been through probably 1,000 charge cycles, so the battery was probably measurably worse than when it was brand new. By that comparison, the iPhone 5 outperforms it with about 20% better efficiency. All things being equal, it’s probably not too noticeable. Considering the addition of LTE and the spec bumps it got, the fact that they’re getting marginally better battery life out of a battery that’s about the same size is almost an engineering miracle.

Update: A few more days in, I’ve noticed that if my reception strength is less than 4 bars, the battery rapidly depletes, as in about the same as I saw with my iPhone 4.

LTE/WiFi/Call Quality

Call quality is better. People sound louder and crisper. This is my first LTE phone, so this is new for me. As far as cellular service, it’s worse than my iPhone 4. I’d say about 20% worse. Places where I had maybe 1-2 bars of service are now ‘No Service’ and places where I had 4-5 bars are now 1-3 bars. This only counts inside buildings. I have full service when I’m in the car or outside. So far, that’s been a downgrade. When LTE is working, though, it is absurdly fast. I’ve had download speeds as high as 45Mbps and Uploads as high as 16Mbps. That absolutely leaves my home wireless connection in the dust.  That being said, I’m having the issue looked at by Apple later to see if there’s a software issue that’s causing the poor reception.

Hardware

Coming from the iPhone 4, it’s substantially faster at everything. They said twice as fast, I say it’s about 10x as fast at some tasks as my old phone. Camera is open instantly and there’s no lag between pictures. I’m used to 5 seconds of lag between shots and up to 10 seconds to open the camera. Apps open almost instantly. For example, Tap Zoo would take 2-3 minutes on my iPhone 4. It now takes about 10 seconds. Jurassic Park Builder used to take about 30 seconds, it’s now instant. Safari renders pages instantly now with no lag. It’s very fast and can’t imagine things being much quicker. The camera is noticeably better than the old phone, obviously. I haven’t tried the panorama mode yet. Honestly, I probably never will. I’ve never had a real use for it yet and likely never will.

Apple Maps

Ah, Apple Maps – The big controversy from this launch. Honestly, this is another feature I don’t have a great deal of use for since my car has its own built-in navigation (And Lexus has a pretty solid navigation system – aside from finding POI). So far, in my limited use, I haven’t seen any map glitches in the St. Louis area, but I haven’t looked too hard, either. I did test the turn-by-turn with my car’s navigation and it did the identical routes that Lexus gave me. Like I said, Lexus has a very polished system that spoils me, so I’m accustomed to sub-screen zooming in on roads as I approach and audible warnings up to a half mile beforehand. Apple Maps isn’t quite that good. It finds the route and Siri will talk through my car’s audio system via Bluetooth, but that level of information that I’m used to isn’t there. I think it would be perfectly fine if I were a passenger and directing someone or maybe even be fine as a primary navigation for someone who doesn’t have a GPS unit. I think the Maps criticism is mainly outside of the US, but as for the occasional railroad track route, missing body of water, or glitch – what are you expecting? Sometimes Google was better than Lexus. Sometimes Garmin had a better route. They all have their shortcomings.

iOS 6

I’m mixed about iOS 6. One part of me has high expectations from Apple to revolutionize things. The other part realizes that iOS is a very solid OS and, at this point, there really isn’t much more you can do with a smartphone that isn’t already done. That being said, iOS 6 doesn’t blow me away. The weather app is updated with the hourly forecast built in using the extra screen real estate. YouTube is finally gone, thank God (There’s a superior app offered by Google in the App Store). iTunes and the App Store have both been redesigned in a good way. People aren’t happy with the new App Store since it seems to not be good for searching. I haven’t had that thought or trouble.

Passbook is there, but I don’t like it. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just not practical for me. Unless I’m forgetting something, that’s it as far as changes go. Hell, the best update for me is that I don’t have to enter my iTunes password to download free apps or updates anymore! It’s shocking that it took 5 years to address that.

Conclusion

It’s a great phone. It does everything I need it to do and it does it well. It has a nice screen and enlarged it while making the phone smaller. It’s really the perfect size for a phone. The OS is stable and solid and the phone feels like it’s a quality piece. I’m holding out hope that the service issues I’ve had are a local deal and not a permanent thing. Above all, the antenna should be the most important part of the phone. Plus, you can’t argue with the resale value. After the initial investment in an iPhone, the rest are essentially free. After two years, you can still flip them for what you paid on contract (Thus justifying the purchase of an Otterbox Defender to keep it perfect). You really can’t beat that. That being said, it is just another iPhone. There isn’t anything revolutionary here – and that’s fine because the smartphone has been more or less perfected at this point.

Apple is in a tough spot. On one hand, you have a group of people that moans about Apple being boring and far behind Samsung (Absurd). On the other hand, you have a group of people that are perfectly content with the phone. The problem is that Apple feels forced to include features to appease people and then when they aren’t 100% perfect or fixed in hours, there is worldwide outrage. They’re going to sue Apple for Maps not delivering. Really? Did you ever buy Windows Vista? Use Playstation Network for the first 3 years? Buy a game that looked great on previews and then sucked to play? Saw a movie that sucked? So, I could have sued for being underwhelmed by software? People need to either grow up or have some patience. Download Garmin for $40. There are other options here, but they’re too hysterical to worry about that. If you’re worried about nothing else integrating, why the hell would you buy Apple? Hasn’t that been the company signature since forever?

What is it that people want exactly? I couldn’t copy and paste for an entire YEAR after I got the original iPhone. You’re whining because Maps are glitchy 12 days into the OS launch? Turn by turn isn’t good enough and you want Google Maps back? Since when did Google Maps offer turn by turn on iOS? The App Store is outdated and boring, but this new, faster App Store sucks? Make up your minds. Apple has reached Microsoft’s problem. The customer base is too big. Too many people whine and complain and expect perfection. There are just too many people to please. Steve Jobs had it right when he said Apple told people what they wanted, people didn’t tell Apple. Now, it’s the opposite. And just like Microsoft, Apple will fall. When you start caving into the demands of the vocal minority, you will fail.

Fanboys, Wrestling, and Apple.

Anyone who spends any time on the internet has had experience with product fanboys. You see them everywhere. You have the Sony Playstation vs. Microsoft Xbox fanboys. You have Gran Turismo vs. Forza fanboys. You have Chevy vs. Ford vs. Import fanboys. There are WWE vs. TNA fanboys. This post is going to pertain to the Apple vs. Android fanboys.

Where do you draw the line between fan and annoying, obnoxious fanboy? It’s actually rather simple: When you are reading forum or post comments, the people so angrily calling people fanboys or sheep are, in fact, the actual fanboys. It’s not all that surprising when you think about it. Keep reading to see why.

The Dark Knight Rises Review

The Dark Knight Rises is the third and final movie for this particular Batman franchise. I saw the movie at midnight on opening night and now that I’ve had a few days for the movie to sink in, I’ll review it. Of course, don’t read on if you don’t want aspects of the plot spoiled. In my opinion, I think this movie is better than 2008’s The Dark Knight. It’s refreshing to see a movie trilogy end with closure as well. There is closure regardless of how you interpret the ending.

As you know, the movie starts out 8 years after The Dark Knight ends. The Batman is gone because of the events during The Dark Knight. He’s public enemy #1 while Harvey Dent is still hailed as a hero. Due to this, it’s said that a law was passed, The Dent Act, which enabled all the criminals to be locked up. Gotham is enjoying a time of peace, but it’s clear that Commissioner Gordon still feels immense guilt over the lie being told to the public. On the 8^th anniversary of Dent’s death, Gordon almost tells the truth, but chooses not to do so. Bruce Wayne is also a recluse, having not been seen in years.

Selina Kyle is introduced early in the movie and never referred to as Catwoman in the film. Hathaway is pretty good as Catwoman and much better than Batman Returns. She doesn’t have ‘9 Lives’, but is instead a skilled fighter and good at getting out of situations, which makes more sense as a character who is more of a master thief. Another major character was John Blake, who was played brilliantly by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Without spoiling too much, you discover that John isn’t his real first name.

Now we get to Bane. I thought Bane was a good character. I’ll be honest, I had a little trouble understanding his speech sometimes, but it may have been because I had to sit in the second row of the theater and not in the middle. Bane is insanely brutal and is involved with probably the most shocking scene in any Batman movie – the first fight between him and Batman. I didn’t read too much about the movie before release, so I wasn’t even expecting Bane to not be the main antagonist in the movie. That part caught me off-guard.

More or less, during Gotham’s time of peace, the city has been lulled into a false sense of security. At the same time, Bane is directly beneath them quietly building a revolution. He exploits the poor by pitting them against the wealthy and slowly builds an army. Of course, with no Batman, the city is powerless to stop Bane once his plan begins. Bane uses the lies the public was told about Harvey Dent to further turn the city against itself. While you might correctly assume that the Dark Knight ‘Rises’ in this movie, you might incorrectly assume he fell at the end of The Dark Knight. No, Batman’s fall happens in a pretty shocking series of events about halfway into the movie. It brings the entire trilogy full circle and even brings back Alfred’s actions (burning Rachel’s letter).

The finale will send chills down your spine as Batman leads the hundreds of police officers into the warzone that once was City Hall to fight Bane and his army hand-to-hand. There’s also an insane sequence with the Bat (plane) fighting a group of Tumblers that have been modified by Bane’s army. All of this while they race against time and Batman literally gives Gotham his everything. Earlier, Catwoman had asked Batman to just leave the city with her because he’s given the city ‘everything’ to which he responds, “Not everything, not yet.”

The movie ends with a scene with Alfred and the look on his face will almost make you cry out of happiness. It’s a great ending and shows that Batman will live on as a symbol of hope with or without Bruce Wayne. I’m of the opinion that there was no hidden message or illusion, what you see is what’s really happening and it’s perfect that way. 

WWE RAW Review (09 July 2012)

Here we go with another WWE Raw review – this time for Raw #998. Michael Cole called it #999 to open the show, so that should give you a sign that this show was a debacle. TNA is receiving fairly universal acclaim for their PPV Destination X this past Sunday, so what will WWE do to try to steal at least some of their thunder? I’ll warn you, they basically crapped on everyone’s TV screen.

The show opened up with AJ skipping to the ring. Blah, blah, blah, and out came CM Punk. Eventually, AJ proposed marriage to CM Punk before being interrupted by Daniel Bryan. Bryan then proposed to AJ instead. Punk and Bryan argued back and forth and the stupid iPhone text jingle went off. You know what this means – the Anonymous RAW GM is back. The computer booked AJ & Punk vs. Bryan & Eve as the main event. Quick, name one mixed tag match that has been awesome… Time’s up! Couldn’t think of one? What’s that tell you? Those types of matches suck? If so, you’re smarter than the WWE writing team.

WWE RAW 1000

WWE has been putting on the worst weekly show humanly possible for quite some time now. That being said, RAW 1000 is coming up very soon and I have a pretty fantastic ticket that I could probably flip for 5-6x what I paid, but I won’t. That being said, the entire show is being built on past stars and part-timers. Shawn Michaels, Triple H, The Rock, and Brock Lesnar are all official right now. You can almost be certain that Undertaker will make an appearance (I mean, he was on RAW #1). Ticketmaster still has tickets, but the best left available is 12 rows up in the upper deck. StubHub’s inventory is also rapidly decreasing, which means this show might be a legit sell-out by July 23rd.

The arena capacity is 19,150, but I don’t know how many more seats a WWE event adds. That being said, the reason most people are going is a bad sign for WWE. People like me are going to see the older stars because there is no way in hell I’d pay to see the regular garbage they air every week. One day, that proverbial well will dry up. Triple H appears enough that his appearance isn’t that special. Shawn Michaels has less and less to do with WWE every year. Undertaker will soon retire – probably very, very soon. Lesnar doesn’t care about wrestling and he’ll make his money and be gone again after WrestleMania. The Rock is the #4 highest paid actor in Hollywood and if you think he’s going to ever really make a full-time return to WWE, you’re insane. Kane is reaching the end of his career. The same goes for Jericho and Big Show. Cena has the Bieber Effect in that all his fans are children and once they reach a certain age, they aren’t fans anymore. Punk and Bryan continue to have their Championship feud overshadowed by AJ, Kane, Cena, MITB, take your pick. WWE is in big, big trouble.

The Amazing Spider-Man Review

Spoilers ahead!

I decided to give The Amazing Spider-Man movie a chance on Independence Day. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. I’m part of the crowd who was kind of bummed to see a new Peter Parker and a rebooted franchise with the last trilogy still so fresh. I agree that Spider-Man 3 was a poorly written plot that tried to do way too much at once and was generally bad in comparison to the first two movies – both of which rank among my favorite movies.

Let’s start with the movie’s plot. It’s a straight-up reboot. Most of the movie is fairly similar to 2002’s Spider-Man. I’ll start with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. Tobey Maguire, in my opinion, was absolutely perfect for this part, so taking his place will be a challenge. I think Garfield played the role pretty well, but I think that the way he was presented was awful. First, in the original Spider-Man, Parker was a true nerd. He was down on his luck, wore glasses, clumsy, insanely brilliant, and just about every other nerd stereotype there is. You felt sorry for him, you were happy when he did well, and you just wanted him to win. Like when Doc Ock levels a de-powered Parker through a wall and takes MJ, Parker bursts out of the rubble, throws his now useless glasses down (His powers were back), and clenches his fist in anger. You just knew he was going to beat Doc Ock’s ass. It then led to the famous train fight, which might be one of the best movie fight scenes ever. There is no feel-good moment like that in this movie.

WWE Raw Live Blog (02 July 2012)

Pre-opening: The Colossal Clutch is the name for Big Show’s stupid half assed Camel Clutch.

Great, the MITB has 3 guys who won’t bump. Great ready for a plodding, slow match complete with many, slow, very slow ladder climbs. Cena comes out happy and smiling after being assaulted. But no, he’s above being mad. I really don’t like Cena. Sounds like Cena is cutting a promo for all the 9-year-old fans.

Is this what wrestling has come to? Just long winded, pointless promos with all the competitors just talking over each other? Great, here comes Jericho to say he’ll win.

No, he’s just going to go through all his past catch phrases. Since the audience is 9 year old, they have no idea what’s happening. And here’s Kane to add to this pointless rambling.

Big Show adds nothing to this. Just utterly pointless. Almost like the bookers can’t come up with an original idea to build a feud, so they based an entire, boring 15 minute promo on it. Goodbye ratings. A 15 minute promo that accomplished nothing.

Oh, God. A completely random 8-man tag. Christian, Santino, Kofi, and Truth vs. PTP, Otunga, and Rhodes. Will this lead to anything?

This is a really sloppy match. The Prime Time Players again show that wins don’t matter. They took a blatant loss again. Then Rhodes walks out. Now it’s 1 on 4. Now Otunga is apparently being written off TV with a heel-style beat down after being pinned by Santino. All the kids in the ring dancing with Brodus make me feel stupid for watching this.

The whole heels bailing on a match and taking a count out doesn’t really work if they aren’t champions. Heel champions do it to keep the belts as they don’t change hands on a Count Out. Why do they really care if they lose? They’re the champs! If they aren’t the champions, it’s a loss that should hurt their standing as competitors, right? Illogical.

Love that Raw flashback with McMahon training for Austin.

Hey, once again Del Rio slams that car door like he wants to damage the car. Is he retarded?

This is the best booking of Sin Cara ever. No one wants to see his garbage style and I’d rather Cara look like a jobber than someone like Christian. Maybe Sin Cara won’t come back.

I warned you last week. WWE tried to hint that Lesnar would respond, but didn’t actually advertise him. Now you see it’ll be Heyman. Nothing wrong with Heyman, though. Don’t expect to see Lesnar though.

See? WWE ruined Lesnar already. Him being dangerous would be believable if Cena hadn’t beaten him. So, uh, what does he think Triple H will do to him if PG Cena took Lesnar’s best and still won?

Gran Turismo 5 Review

PSN ID: Venom_46 (Feel free to add me)

Gran Turismo 5 launched in November 2010 for Playstation 3 – nearly four years after the launch of the PS3 system. It was delayed over and over and over for what seemed like years. I remember having a pre-order at GameStop for over a year before finally canceling it after the last delay. I ended up buying it from Amazon on launch day anyway. When it finally launched, there was mass hysteria and expectations were through the roof.

I had purchased my PS3 in 2008 exclusively for Gran Turismo 5 which was when it was originally going to release. I had owned GT1 and 2 on the original Playstation and GT 3 and 4 on PS2. Anyway, I’m writing this review over a year and a half later because I think I finally have a definite handle on what this game is all about and can give a legitimate review. I don’t care what people personally think about the game or what the other fanboys think of Forza in comparison – this is solely on GT5 and what was expected and my impressions of the finished (and evolving) product. As a disclaimer, I’m a Level 38 A-Spec and Level 40 B-Spec. I own 904 cars (855 unique), have won 565 races, and driven over 45,000 miles. I also currently have 35 Gold trophies (and counting) in license testing. I’m a fairly good driver, so this review isn’t from someone who played it once and threw a tantrum because the game was too hard.

Cars

Before I get to gameplay, I’ll start with the selling point: the cars. At launch, this was a comprehensive list of almost every car you could ever want. I won’t name them all, but there were over 1,000 and you’d be hard pressed to be disappointed even if your favorite car was missing. For example, there isn’t a 2003-2004 Cobra, but the 2000 Cobra R is there. As you know, GT5 has what they call Premium models and Standard models. Premium models are a work of art. They look as realistic as a video game can possibly get, they’re more customizable, and they have full and accurate interior views. They just look phenomenal. Unfortunately, a smaller percentage of cars fall into this category. For the most part, the majority of the cars are Standard. By Standard, I mean copied and pasted from GT4. By no means do I exaggerate. The cars retain their polygonal form from the PS2 game. They all have generic interior views, can’t be zoomed in on in photography mode, and are much less customizable cosmetically. This will be a re-occurring theme in this review, but I find this extraordinarily lazy.

WWE RAW Review (25 June 2012)

Raw improved marginally from last week, but that isn’t saying much. It’s like going from an F to a D-. Starting from the beginning, Vickie Guerrero is the guest GM. It turns out that the permanent GM will be revealed at Raw 1000, which means these next 3-4 shows are just going to be throwaway shows as they prep for a huge 3-hour Raw 1000. Anyway, Guerrero announced Punk vs. Bryan vs. Kane in an unannounced Triple Threat elimination match. OK, two problems here. First, this match had no hype whatsoever prior to right now. Second, this is an exact rematch from the No Way Out PPV 8 days ago. You cannot continue to make people regret spending money on a PPV. They are extremely expensive nowadays. Sure, it wasn’t a 20-minute match, but still, you’re giving it away on free TV 8 days after it aired for $55 on PPV.

Despite that, the match is fine. It was nothing special and the finish protected all 3 wrestlers. It moved the AJ/Kane/Bryan/Punk story forward. Kane was pinned after distraction and Bryan got the pin on Punk by blindsiding him, more or less. Moving forward, it sets up Punk vs. Bryan II at the next PPV. You can’t really be upset about that. Hopefully, it’s a clean match and Kane doesn’t get involved.

Next up, Vickie makes a Ziggler vs. Del Rio match to determine the #1 contender for the World title on Smackdown. That seems kind of rushed and pointless. Shouldn’t these guys be trying to get in the MITB match instead? Vickie makes this an ‘object on a pole match’. Those are never pretty. Ziggler comes off in the segment looking strong. Last thought on this: Vickie is Ziggler’s manager, so why doesn’t she just book him in the title match on Smackdown? If she isn’t loyal to him, why didn’t he just dump her? It’s silly things like these that make the product look cheesier than it is.

Next up, Big Show vs. Brodus Clay. Here’s another example of WWE just blowing potential PPV matches. A month ago, Show laid out Brodus. In response, Brodus was switched to Smackdown brand, which I don’t understand because I thought the brand split was over, yet they still treat it like it exists sometimes. Brodus ends up playing a part in stopping Big Show in the cage match at No Way Out. Ok, so there’s a nice little feud here and it gives the WWE somewhere to go with Big Show and Brodus at this point. Nope, WWE decides that it’s best to throw together a rematch unannounced on RAW. Clay comes out walking just fine despite having a bad knee from some attack on Smackdown. I don’t watch Smackdown, so I have no idea what happened. He gets in a tiny amount of offense, but Show mostly dominates him and gets the easy pin. Then as Clay is being helped out, he gets KO’d by Show again.

This accomplished two things. First, the aging and stale Big Show is a monster. Great. Second, Brodus is a novelty act. The only way this will remotely help Clay is if he returns and takes Big Show out. Knowing WWE, they’ll forget about this and Clay will be dancing on Smackdown next week.

Then, a skit with AJ and Kane is next. Don’t care. The US Championship is being defended this week. Turns out Santino is done feuding with a ring announcer and doing 90-second jobs to Del Rio. It also turns out that the jobber, err, Santino, is also holding a meaningless title. His opponent, Jack Swagger, earned his title shot by losing to Ziggler last week. I know it makes a lot of sense. Shockingly, Santino beats Swagger. Swagger is a former World Champion, so just like the Miz; he’s just being buried weekly.

John Cena is out next to announce his big announcement that he promised on Twitter. Is he retiring or taking a break? Doubtful. He calls the majority of the WWE audience a bunch of 9-year-olds. Thanks, asshole. Way to shit on probably 70% of the audience. He goes on and on with his childish promo which surprisingly didn’t contain any homophobic slurs. Right before he makes his announcement, he gets interrupted by Jon Bon Jovi. No, wait – it’s a returning Chris Jericho. Jericho trashes Cena and says a few things that the non 9-year-olds are thinking. Cena then announces he wants to be WWE Champion again and stop Big Show, so he’s in MITB. The non 9-year-olds with a collective eye roll since we know Cena will likely be given an 11^th title reign. Jericho announces he’s also going to be in the MITB.

Out comes Vickie, who says they can’t just enter themselves in the MITB. I was wondering if they’d address that. Big Show has an out because he’s got his contract and does what he wants, I guess. She then announces that only former champions can compete, so Cena and Jericho are in anyway. Well, that was pointless then. Why not start out with that stipulation? She also sets up Jericho vs. Cena tonight. There’s another potential fresh PPV match going for free tonight. There was a joke about WWE being PG in there, but I missed it.

Next, the return of Sid Vicious/Sycho Sid that kept with the Raw 1000 theme. Sid’s looking rough. I saw a quote from someone that said something along the lines of, “Sid looks like he’s seen some things, some bad things,” and that’s pretty accurate. All that aside, it was fun and I enjoyed it. Thank God he didn’t jump off the second turnbuckle, though. If you don’t know what that means, search “Sid Ankle” on YouTube.

The contract on a pole match is next and this was terrible. I’m all for Ziggler getting a push, but this was a disaster. These pole matches are always absolutely stupid, but this took it to a new level with them trying to pick up the dropped clipboard. Sheamus randomly walks out and says he’s excited because Vickie says it’ll be a triple threat match for the title at Smackdown. This is so dumb on so many levels. Once again, Vickie undermines her guy, Ziggler, by booking him in a triple threat. And Sheamus is so stupid, it hurts. He’s excitedly announcing the match even though it puts him at an extreme disadvantage as he won’t even have to be pinned to lose his title. Jerry Lawler pointed this out, but was probably quickly screamed at for making sense in his headset. The only good thing about that match was stopping it.

Now here’s a Diva’s battle royal while they wear bikinis. Yeah, this is a PG show. AJ wins after the travesty you’d expect.

It’s main event time. Cena and Jericho. It’s an OK match until the Big Show comes out. He distracts Cena and Jericho puts Cena in the Wall of Jericho. Show comes in and leg drops Cena, earning Jericho a DQ. Jericho backs off and Show puts Cena in half camel clutch, sort of. More like a choke out. So show pulls back on Cena choking him out and it reminded me a little of Chris Benoit with his Crossface, which is probably how he murdered his son. Turns out the anniversary of that was the day before. Great idea to leave us with that image, WWE. Stay classy. And for those of you who say that’s just a coincidence, this is Vince McMahon we’re talking about. There are no coincidences. This is the man who runs the anti-bully campaign on the shows and then openly mocks a man’s disability on the show.

So, Raw was better than last week, but the PPV is shaping up to have a pretty weak undercard. Not that it matters because all the PPV matches will be on RAW and Smackdown, I’m sure. Next week, don’t hold your breath for Lesnar to be there. They aren’t advertising an appearance, just his ‘answer’. It’ll likely be a taped interview or a lawyer/Heyman delivering the news.