Showing posts with label Bray Wyatt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bray Wyatt. Show all posts

Saturday, 10 April 2021

Give me a “Hell Yeah!” for WrestleMania weekend

An Alexa Bliss collectable figure.
It is something sports writers are looked down upon for admitting, but I had moments in my life where I fantasized about working for the WWE.

There is no way in hell I would ever be one of the wrestlers on camera. Even in my days where I was in my best physical shape, I would not survive tryouts or boot camp workouts at the WWE Performance Center.

During a first workout, I would be one of those that would have asked to be excused to go to the washroom and promptly leave the premises – never to be seen on that site again.

The in ring talent in WWE are incredible athletes who do amazing choreographed and often dangerous stunt performances. They do an amazing job telling stories in entertaining scripted matches that have pre-determined outcomes.

WWE is great live theatre, and that is the bottom line.

Early on in my sports reporting career, I always imagined throwing a resume at the WWE to try and become part of that company’s creative team or get a position as a photographer. I imagined being able to travel the world with WWE while getting paid reasonably well with that position.

Those visions kind of faded away after my third season covering the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers for the Medicine Hat News in 2006-07, when the Tigers won their fifth WHL title. From there, I was really focused on covering hockey.

Alexa Bliss and “The Fiend” have great merch.
WWE and sports entertainment’s professional wrestling was one of my rediscoveries during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. For about the last 16 years, being a sports reporter has been my life consuming thing.

I have usually been so busy usually on the WHL, U Sports, CJFL and SFU18AAAHL circuits that I really didn’t have time for other interests. During normal times before the pandemic, I might watch one movie or play one video game of Madden Football during a course of a calendar year.

Growing up, I watched the WWE (then WWF) a tonne. Of course during the 1980s wrestling boom, the favourites were Hulk Hogan and the “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

In high school, the favourites became Bret “The Hitman” Hart and The Undertaker.

During my days at the University of Regina, I still kept following WWE despite a busy schedule. It seemed most of my friends with the University of Regina Rams and the University of Regina Cougars men’s teams kept tabs on the action there.

The WWE during that time was in its “Attitude Era” and was involved with the “Monday Night Wars” with WCW. The “Monday Night Wars” ended in 2001, when WWE acquired the trademarks, video library and some contracts of WCW.

Favourites during that time were “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, “The Rock” and the NWO stable.

Around 2004, I really drifted away from following the happenings on WWE. I would catch it casually from time to time, but that was about it.

Things changed on Jan. 11 episode of Monday Night RAW when Alexa Bliss came into my life, and she shot a fire ball into the face of Randy Orton. All of a sudden, I was hooked, and I had time to be hooked.

A popular Alexa Bliss T-shirt.
Of course, Bliss, who real name is Alexis Kaufman, is arguably the most attractive female performer on the WWE roster, so that opened up the avenue for some good-natured teasing from friends.

I quickly researched using YouTube and Google searches the feud involving Bliss and Bray Wyatt, who goes by alter-ego persona “The Fiend,” and Orton.

I enjoyed Bliss’s current dark super-natural persona, and checked out her clips during her heel run as “the Goddess,” where she became a two-time WWE Women’s Smackdown Champion and three-time WWE RAW Women’s Champion. I learned about her baby face run with Nikki Cross as WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.

I was really impresses with the range of Bliss’s acting abilities, which can be best shown on the YouTube video “Transformation ofAlexa Bliss: WWE Playlist.”

That video really showed the range of her acting abilities, especially over the last seven months where the storyline saw her morph into her dark super-natural persona.

I do remember seeing clips of Bliss hosting WrestleMania 35 in 2019, and I remember hearing she had been battling concussion injuries around that time. A thought ran through my head to not get too interested, because I probably wouldn’t get to see her in action.

I’m glad it worked out I did get see her in action in WWE. I checked out her back story and saw she overcame a life-threatening eating disorder at age 15 and took part in a variety of sports growing up.

She loves coffee, everything Disney and being from Columbus, Ohio, the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets.

I am also amazed that she is able to hang in with WWE standing 5-foot-1, which created her “Five Feet of Fury” nickname.

Overall, I rediscovered how much good escapism WWE provided. Soaking in escapism in moderation in these crazy times is a good thing.

Along with Bliss’s exploits, I’ve enjoyed seeing that Orton is still as good as he ever was. I’ve gotten a laugh over the comedic duo of The Miz and John Morrison.

I’ve marveled over the sweet suit game WWE Champion Bobby Lashley has. He looks so ace in a suit.

I’ve even checked out WWE’s competitor in AEW and have enjoyed the product there as well.

From that point, I got reintroduced to the fans that make up the WWE Universe. I was floored by how many millions of followers the WWE performers have.

Some in WWE Universe have thousands and even tens of thousands of followers on the fan accounts they’ve created.

My personal favourite is the @Era_of_Bliss account on Twitter which has over 22,000 followers. If you haven’t followed it, it is definitely worth a follow.

Other fan accounts do incredible art work like the one operated by Christian Heard under the Twitter handle @KingOcho3K. The guy is super talented.

The WWE Universe’s passion is amazing. It would be safe to say the passion of WWE fans is equivalent to that of European soccer fans.

For the WWE Universe, the excitement on Saturday is like what NFL fans have for Super Bowl Sunday as WrestleMania weekend began.

For the second straight year, WrestleMania ran over two nights. This was also the first time in 13 months fans returned to a live WWE show outside of a couple of hundred supporters that take in shows from the company’s NXT brand.

There were no fans at WrestleMania in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That meant the 2019 WrestleMania at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, that attracted 82,265 spectators was the last one of those events to have a crowd.

On Saturday night, the WWE sold all 25,675 tickets they were allowed to sell at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. Before the show, the WWE roster came out to salute the crowd, and WWE kingpin Vince McMahon offered the WWE Universe a thank-you for the support during the COVID-19 pandemic and a welcome to WrestleMania.

All the matches were crowd pleasers.

Among the highlights, rapper Bad Bunny spent months training at the WWE Performance Centre and he turned heads and delivered in the ring with tag team partner Damian Priest. Their match win over The Miz and Morrison will likely pick up media attention outside media outlets that follow the WWE.

The night ended with the hair whip heard round the world as Bianca Belair became the new WWE Women’s Smackdown Champion defeating Sasha Banks. Belair used her lengthy tied up hair to whip Banks near the end of the bout, and the sound was painful to hear.

The two burned the house down with their stellar main event performance.

The WWE Universe is likely heading to bed getting all energetic and excited for Sunday’s closing day of WrestleMania.

Bliss is on for night two taking the side of “The Fiend” in his match against Orton.

The main event sees Edge face Daniel Bryan and title holder Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship in a triple threat match. It is crazy to think this is a main event after Edge and Bryan overcame career-threatening injuries and Reigns won a battle against Leukemia over the past 10 years.

Overall, I found the value of having another interest to follow outside of covering events in the WHL, U Sports, CJFL, SFU18AAAHL and working with the local sports scene in Saskatoon.

When the COVID-19 pandemic passes and the world becomes closer to what it was pre-pandemic, I admit I am not sure how much I will continue to follow the WWE, but I will be more motivated to continue to check out the company’s live shows on TV.

Alexa Bliss and Rob Gronkowski WWE figures on display.
If things work out, maybe I will get tickets to live event, whenever the WWE starts touring the world again.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Saturday, 16 January 2021

Saskatchewan curlers take class to new heights

Rylan Kleiter releases a shot on January 1, 2020.
During these coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic times where there seems to be a lot of toxic talk on the local sports scene, the curling community in Saskatchewan has provided a breath of classy fresh air.

On Thursday, CurlSask announced the provincial men’s, women’s and mixed double curling championship tournament have all been cancelled due to government restrictions with the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, the Government of Saskatchewan extended existing Public Health Orders that include a ban on team sports until Jan. 29.

On Wednesday, CurlSask had its bubble proposal to hold provincial championship tournaments rejected by the Government of Saskatchewan.

As a result, CurlSask used points system taking account the performance of teams over a two season window to determine representatives for men’s and women’s nationals. The evaluations included roster changes on teams.

On the men’s side, the Regina foursome skipped by Matt Dunstone including lead Dustin Kidby, second Kirk Muyres and third Braeden Moskowy were picked as the provincial representative for the Canadian nationals - The Brier.

On the women’s side, the Saskatoon foursome skipped by Sherry Anderson including lead Breanne Knapp, second Chaelynn Kitz and third Nancy Martin were selected as the provincial representative for the Canadian nationals – the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

The Regina duo of Ashley Quick and Mike Armstrong, who won the 2020 provincial mixed double title, have been tabbed to represent Saskatchewan at the Canadian mixed double championship tournament. They actually never got to play in the 2020 Canadian mixed doubles tournament, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

All three of those nationals will be held in a bubble environment at the Markin MacPhail Centre in Calgary, Alta. The Scotties runs Feb. 19 to 28, The Brier is slated for March 5-14 and mixed doubles nationals are set for March 18 to 25.

Normally, you would expect teams that are left out in the cold to be crying foul with these announcements. The opposite happened when those teams took to social media after CurlSask came out with its announcement.

Team Kleiter’s Facebook page post on Jan. 14.
The Saskatoon foursome skipped by Rylan Kleiter including lead Matthieu Taillon, second Trevor Johnson and third Josh Mattern are in their first full season on the men’s circuit after winning four straight Saskatchewan provincial junior men’s titles.

On Thursday night, the Kleiter foursome put up a great post on team’s Facebook page saying they would be cheering for the Dunstone and Anderson rinks.

The Kleiter rink post also said, “It has been a difficult year for everyone, and we are thankful for the games we did get to play. We respect CurlSask’s decision knowing health and safety is a top priority.”

The grace and class by the Kleiter side was outstanding. Kleiter has shown great professionalism and sportsmanship on the football field helping the Saskatoon Hilltops win CJFL titles in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The class was being shared by the big rival curling teams of the provincial representatives too. On the women’s side, the North Battleford foursome skipped by Robyn Silvernagle, including lead Dayna Demers, second Jessie Hunkin and third Kristen Streifel shared a very understanding post on their squad’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

The post that rink shared on Thursday started by extended best wishes to Anderson’s rink and went on to state, “This has been a very challenging year for CurlSask navigating through a pandemic, and we thank you for going above and beyond during this challenging time. Your efforts and hard work did not go unnoticed.

“We are all Team Sask, and we will be cheering hard as per usual!”

The team one would expect to be the most upset would be the Saskatoon foursome skipped by Colton Flasch, including lead Dan Marsh, second Kevin Marsh and third Catlin Schneider.

Those who follow curling were expecting the Dunstone and Flasch rinks to engage in old school hockey style throw downs.

The Flasch rink stated over the team’s Facebook and Twitter lines on Thursday, “Disappointing news today, but understandable. We are well aware it was difficult for CurlSask.

“Good Luck to Team Dunstone as Team SK!”

The Flasch rink’s posts finished stating fingers were crossed with regards that foursome could slide into a wildcard position.

Those posts concluded with the classic “so you’re telling me there’s a chance” gif.

Overall, the curlers showed great respect to their provincial sport governing body and were outstanding with the dignity they showed each other.

Saskatchewan’s curlers showed how those in sports should carry themselves in these pandemic times.

It would be great if those on all the other sporting bodies in Saskatchewan could follow that example. A lot are, but there are too many vocal ones that aren’t.

Sask. government gives funds to WHL and SJHL

The Blades and Pats in action on Feb. 5, 2020.
The Government of Saskatchewan appears set to do what it can to help the province’s five WHL teams and junior A Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.

On Friday, the Saskatchewan provincial government announced it would give $600,000 to each of the provinces five WHL teams for a total of $3-million to help those clubs navigate their way through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SJHL will receive $1-million in support, and that funding will be provided to the circuit.

The funding is being provided to help those WHL clubs and the SJHL offset revenue shortfalls due restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

All of the SJHL teams are community owned.

Three of the five WHL teams in Saskatchewan are community owned including the Moose Jaw Warriors, Prince Albert Raiders and Swift Current Broncos.

The Regina Pats are owned by five local businessmen including Anthony Marquart, Todd Lumbard, Gavin Semple, Shaun Semple and Jason Drummond.

The Saskatoon Blades are owned by Mike Priestner, and his son, Colin, is the Blades president and general manager.

Of course, there were some over social media who showed displeasure about taxpayer money going to fund junior hockey teams.

I myself am fine with the Government of Saskatchewan giving financial help to those junior hockey teams get through something that no one can control.

The ownership group of the Pats and Blades owner Mike Priestner have gone beyond the call of duty over the years to make those teams go. I am good with them getting help in these unprecedented times.

The provincial funding won’t cure all the financial hurt these junior teams have absorbed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it will help.

Sask. hockey not expecting game action until March ends

The Saskatoon Stars and Prince Albert Northern Bears are on pause.
The Saskatchewan Hockey Association seemed to be getting grilled by some for being the messenger.

On Thursday, the Saskatchewan Hockey Association sent out a memorandum regarding a virtual call on Wednesday between all Saskatchewan sport governing bodies and Ken Dueck from the Provincial Government’s Business Response Team.

During that call, the provincial sport governing bodies were told there would be no consideration of return to play where you would see game action for at least four weeks and a return to game play before the end of March was unlikely due to how the COVID-19 pandemic was playing out.

Saskatchewan had a number of days this past week where in led Canada in active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people.

The Saskatchewan Hockey Association said it was reviewing the state of the game and going to conduct zone meetings over the next two weeks.

Thursday’s development seemingly created a sizable uproar on social media from Saskatchewan residents regarding this development. It seemed a number of people wanted to return to game action the next day, if that could happen.

It should be noted that Saskatchewan Hockey Association general manager Kelly McClintock and his crew did a mountain sized pile of work to get game action going that did happen before November of 2020 came to a close. Even the best thought out plans can easily fail in these crazy COVID-19 pandemic times.

McClintock and his crew have been really transparent throughout the pandemic.

Also, the Saskatchewan Lacrosse Association put out a memorandum to its membership on Thursday, and that memorandum was fairly similar to the one the Saskatchewan Hockey Association released.

Bliss fireball heats up great WWE storyline

Action in the WWE is heating up literally these days.

I must admit I haven’t been the biggest WWE follower over the last 12 or so years. I did watch it a tonne growing up, and followed it fairly heavily in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

On Friday night, I found a couple of online media reports that said Randy Orton, who one of the all-time greatest heels in sports entertainment, received minor burns due to off timing on a stunt on the last Monday Night RAW.

In a cliffhanger ending of that episode of RAW, Orton was left rolling around the ring in pain after being on the receiving end of taking a fireball to the face from Alexa Bliss, who has become one of the top performers in WWE.

The stunt of Bliss shooting a fireball into Orton’s face looks very cool on video. Orton is expected to recover in short order from his minor injuries.

I noticed that Bliss was playing a very dark persona on that night, and she sold it hardcore. I ended up spending Friday night going through various videos on Youtube checking out Bliss’s storyline from the last seven months.

I knew she held multiple singles and tag team women’s championships in WWE and had been one of the company’s most popular performers that came on the scene in the last eight years.

Bliss has over five-million followers on Instagram, over two-million followers on her Facebook page and over 1.5-million followers on Twitter.

Over the past seven months, Bliss has been in a storyline with Bray Wyatt, who also goes by alter-ego persona “The Fiend,” and Orton.

The storyline contains a mix of darkness, scary disturbed stuff and humour. Like many storylines from the late 1990s and early 2000s, this one is all shades of grey as opposed to having clearly defined good guys and bad guys.

The villains that get a following ultimately become antihero types.

Bliss has kind of a persona like comic book villain Harley Quinn taken a step further on the evil spectrum. In the storyline, Wyatt at “The Fiend” pulled Bliss over to embrace the dark and evil side.

Together, Bliss and Wyatt can be playful and comical from a dark humous side and switch to being outright cool and ruthless. The storyline plays them out to being connected to the supernatural.

They feud with Orton, who still plays his classic egotistical legend killer persona to perfection. His character is always being cunning and manipulative looking to strike with a sneak attack at any time while being outright ruthless.

Orton actually sets Wyatt in his persona as “The Fiend” on fire in a late December pay per view. That of course eventually led to Bliss’s fireball attack this past Monday.

Overall, that whole storyline and feud has been the most enjoyable WWE storylines I’ve seen in the past 12 years. Usually over the past 15 years, I’ve found the main event performers in WWE to be enjoyable, but I’ve usually felt the rest of the company’s roster doesn’t have the depth it once had.

I found a lot of the storylines to be bland.

The Bliss, Wyatt and Orton storyline was a fantastic change from that.

For me, checking out that storyline from various clips on Youtube provided a night of great escapism.

Hofmann featured in video on Young Bucs account

Logan Hofmann is getting some love from the communications crew of the MLB’s Pittsburgh Pirates.

On Thursday, Muenster, Sask., product was featured on a video placed on the Young Bucs Twitter account, which brings news and features on the young players coming up through the Pirates minor league system.

In the MLB Draft that was held on June 11, 2020, Hofmann was selected in the fifth round and 138th overall by the Pirates. The right-handed pitcher, who stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 190 pounds, signed a rookie contract with the Pirates on June 27, 2020.

The 21-year-old has developed strong command of four pitches in his fastball, change-up, curveball and slider. He is good at getting to help out youngsters who are coming up through Saskatchewan’s minor baseball system, when he gets back to his home province.

Hofmann gives Saskatchewan lots of love in the video on the Young Bucs Twitter account. The video can be found below.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.

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