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WCW Halloween Havoc 1994 & 1995

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Oh, WCW. You tried so hard during this time period, but with a handful of exceptions, you still were not at the WWF’s level. We are now at the point where Hulk Hogan left the WWF for WCW, but it initially did not work as well as Ted Turner thought it would. That will change in a few years, which I will get to in a couple of weeks, but at this date you could tell the crowd were not that excited to have Hogan in WCW. With that in mind, let’s quickly look at 1994:

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We start with Johnny B. Badd vs. The Honky Tonk Man for the Television Championship. Badd wins, but that is not what I remember the most. Johnny B. Badd was a stupid gimmick. Stupid, stupid, stupid. One of those gimmicks that makes me cringe if I am watching wrestling with a non fan. The thing that really surprised me was that he was an excellent worker. He was a fairly big guy who happened to be an excellent high flyer. A great athlete who got stuck in a ridiculous gimmick. When he went to the WWF as just plain Marc Mero it must have been somewhat of a relief for him to get away from this character.

Other matches of note:

– Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson which was an excellent match between two great workers with Rhodes getting a big win.

– Nasty Boys vs. Terry Funk and Bunkhouse Buck with the Nasty Boys getting the win in a short 8 minute match that still told a good story and was a lot of fun.

– The main event was Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair with the loser ‘retiring’. This match was a mixed bag. It took place in a steel cage which can provide a ton of excitement and with characters like Sensuous Sherri and Jimmy Hart outside of the ring getting involved from time to time and Mr. T as the referee/special enforcer there were some fun moments. The issue was Hogan who was clearly at a point in his career where people just did not care as much about him anymore, especially in WCW. Ric Flair was way over as always, even though he was clearly the heel in this match, and Ric really seemed to carry the match. Hogan won which was not unexpected, but you could clearly see the signs that he was not as ‘over’ in the WCW as he was during his long WWF run.

Now to Halloween Havoc 1995…oy…we will start with the good.

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Johnny B. Badd over Diamond Dallas Page – they put on a great match with a lot of good moments and DDP started showing that he was a future main event player.

Kurasawa vs. Road Warrior Hawk – very short match, but still fun with Kurasawa getting the dirty win with his feet on the ropes.

Now the bad…

Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant in a monster truck battle on the top of the arena – good grief…just stupid, stupid, stupid. Hogan won and afterwards ‘accidentally’ pushed The Giant off the top of the arena into the nearby river. Oy…

Main event was Hogan vs. The Giant again for the WCW World Title – “Surprisingly” The Giant showed up dry and unfazed. It was slow and plodding and ended with Jimmy Hart turning on Hogan. The “best” part though is when the Yeti arrived. Why he was referred to as The Yeti is beyond me since he was dressed as a mummy, but just the whole gimmick was stupid, stupid, stupid. Professional Wrestling has always had over-the-top characters, but this one was too ridiculous for even wrestling.

Next week I will discuss only the 1996 edition since this was actually a darn good PPV with some newer faces and the luchadores who started to have an impact in WCW.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

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G.I. Joe is a brand that I am quite familiar with having played with the 3 3/4 inch toys, watching the cartoon, and reading the comic books as a kid. After Star Wars, G.I. Joe was next on my list of favorites in grade school.

When they came out with the first live action movie a few years back I was excited to see it. It was okay…not as fun as I hoped it would be, but there were some things I enjoyed like the portrayals of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, my two favorite characters from the property. Then they announced a sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, followed by the casting of The Rock Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock. Now I was getting hopeful for a much better second movie since I am a big wrestling fan and really feel that The Rock has made an excellent transition to movie making. I did not see this movie until very recently through Amazon Prime and was very pleased with what I saw.

I had heard about the beginning featuring the death of the majority of the Joes except for Roadblock, Snake Eyes, Flint, and Lady Jaye. I was still a bit surprised by the scene though. Channing Tatum’s Duke was fairly popular and killing him off seemed like an odd choice, but it worked out since the leads really came off well. The Rock was his typical fun, badass self who always seems to have a way of making the audience root for him right off the bat. Ray Park as Snake Eyes and Byung-hun Lee as Storm Shadow were simply awesome and Adrianne Palecki was an effective Jaye. The only one that seemed a little off from the way the character was portrayed in the comic books/cartoon was D.J. Cotrona as Flint. Flint was always one of the leaders of G.I. Joe and in the film version he came off as an unsure of himself subordinate. Of course, the plan could be for him to build up to being a leader in the next movie which would work, but it still was a little strange to see the character portrayed the way he was in this movie. Also worth mentioning is Bruce Willis as Joe himself. He was typical Bruce which worked great for the role.

What pleased me the most in this movie was the portrayal of Cobra Commander. In the first movie he came off as a non threatening, weenie of a future commander. In the cartoon his voice was so over the top it would become annoying at times. In Retaliation he was a much more menacing figure and really seemed like the type of character that could take over the world. The other character on the Cobra side that was a ton of fun was Ray Stevenson’s Firefly. You could tell he was having a blast being the bad guy and it made for a very enjoyable character.

Overall, this was a fun, solid film that did not disappoint. It was much better than it’s predecessor and made me look forward to a possible third film.

This type of movie is not supposed to be an Academy Award winner. It is not supposed to be critically acclaimed. It’s only goal is to provide the movie audience with a way to escape from their hectic days and just have some good old fashioned fun.

It is streaming on both Amazon Prime and Netflix and is well worth a couple hours of your time.

A Slight Change

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Just a quick post today. I decided to turn my blog into an actual website and when I went to register thegeekinitiative.com I discovered someone was already using that domain. Slight bummer since my wife came up with that name a couple of years ago and it was perfect.

After a couple of weeks trying to come up with another title she came up with The Geek Registry, which I loved as well, so this time I secured the domain name thegeekregistry.com immediately and here we are.

My hope is to continue to become a better writer and develop this website/blog into more than just a hobby.

I appreciate all comments, good or bad, because I truly want to improve my skills and over time develop this in to something big.

Thanks for reading!

WCW Halloween Havoc 1992 & 1993

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These 2 Halloween Havoc’s were very interesting since they seem to be a who’s who of former WWF stars with one that I did not realize had a stint in WCW.

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1992 was a fun show overall with the following highlights:

Big Van Vader vs. Nikita Koloff was a good match between two big guys that showed that WCW did have some of their own talent that could compete with WWF. Same with the tag team match between Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes and Steve Austin/Steve Williams. All four putting on a great match with Rhodes and Austin continuing their exciting feud.

The three matches featuring former WWF stars were over all good. Ricky Steamboat going against a young Brian Pillman was an excellent match and they really seemed to have a great chemistry together. Rick Rude vs. Masahiro Chono was also great with Rude not only showing his great in-ring ability but his heel personality was always very over with the crowd and provided some very memorable moments throughout his career.

The guy that I did not realize had a stint in WCW was Jake “The Snake” Roberts. He was involved in a ‘spin the wheel, make the deal match’ where early in the show his opponent Sting had to spin a large wheel to determine what type of match they had (steel cage, texas death match, etc…). It wound up being a coal miner’s glove match where whoever climbed up a pole first in the match could grab the suspended glove and knock their opponent out (it was supposedly metal lined). The match was fine for the most part until the end when Roberts used his gimmick of pulling the snake out of the bag to taunt his opponent but was instead bit on the face himself. It was an actual snake (cobra I believe) and clearly de-fanged. The problem was Roberts had to be overly physical with the snake in order to make it look like he was being bit. Let’s just say PETA would have been all over him today for how roughly he treated the snake.

Overall, a solid PPV and worth a watch.

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1993 was probably the best Halloween Havoc up to this point. Just a brief synopsis of the standout matches:

Paul Orndorff vs. Ricky Steamboat – two legends put on a great match and showed that both could still work well

Lord Steven Regal vs. Davey Boy Smith – two very different styles of wrestling that really worked well together

Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Austin – this match seemed to be a bit of a tradition for a few years and never got old since they both had such great in-ring chemistry

Nasty Boys vs. Marcus Bagwell and 2 Cold Scorpio – simply awesome…Bagwell and Scorpio had silly gimmicks at the time, but were amazing athletes and performed some very memorable high flying moves off the top rope

Sting vs. Sid Vicious – they had a feud for a while and always managed to be entertaining

Rick Rude vs. Ric Flair – two legends who kept the crowd into the match throughout

And finally, Vader vs Cactus Jack – this was a Texas Death Match which is basically no DQ’s, falls count anywhere. Both guys beat the heck out of each and really put everything in to it which made for a fun match.

I am getting close to finishing the Halloween Havoc PPV’s and there is definitely some interesting moments where you really start to see where WCW went wrong as a company. When I get to my synopsis of those shows I may briefly go down to reviewing just one since I will have a bit more commentary.

Otherwise, next week is 1994 and 1995!

Role Models

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One of my favorite comedies is Role Models starring Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott. When I am having a not-so-good day and just want to laugh, this is one of a handful of movies I throw in to my blu-ray player.

Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott play energy drink salesman who have to perform community service when after a school rally, Danny (Rudd) gets into an argument with a tow truck driver who is taking away his company truck for parking in a restricted zone. He winds up running over a security guard and crashing his truck in to a statue and unfortunately, Wheeler (Scott) is with him when this all happens. Danny is going through a bit of a mental break down when he realizes his life is going nowhere in his current job and his relationship with his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) starts going south after the truck crashing incident. Danny and Wheeler perform their community service at a big-brother style center called Sturdy Wings (led by a hilarious Jane Lynch) which is their sentencing judges favorite charity. This is where the real humor begins.

Danny is partnered with Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who is a LARP loving, shy teenager and Wheeler works with Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson) who is a hilariously fouled-mouthed little kid with a major attitude. As can be expected, things do not start off well for either Danny or Wheeler, but over the course of the movie they become close with Augie and Ronnie and as can be expected, everything works out in the end.

Without spoiling anything for someone who has not seen this movie, it ends uproariously with a fantastic homage to Kiss at the end.

I have only seen the unrated version so I cannot speak on the difference in content between this version and the theatrical one, but there is quite a bit of sexual innuendo and vulgarities which might offend some people.

If you want some non thought-provoking humor that will keep you laughing throughout the movie then this is a great pick.

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South Park: The Stick of Truth

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One of my new favorite games is South Park: The Stick of Truth. This game is a must buy if you are a fan of South Park or just a fan of ridiculous, over the top humorous RPG style gaming.

The game starts off like most RPG’s with you creating your own South Park character to represent you in the game. Just this small part is laden with humor that will have you laughing from the get go (just an FYI, do not spend too much time trying to come up with your character’s name…you will see why). From this point forward you are now in a long episode of South Park. The graphics are spot on and really give you that feeling of playing around in an episode.

I am only a little over half way through the game and it does not disappoint. There are many inside jokes that may get lost on the non fan, but overall it is still that same crude, socially/politically biting humor everyone has come to expect. The game play is fast paced and even though there is a story line to progress through, you can still spend some serious time just walking around and trying to find all the easter eggs you can.

This game is definitely one that must be added to any gamer and/or South Park fan’s collection.

WCW Halloween Havoc 1990 & 1991

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I am going to combine some PPV’s so as not to bore anyone with match by match descriptions and just discuss the highlights, and any notable lowlights, and catch up to what I have watched on the WWE Network so far.

First off is WCW Halloween Havoc 1990.

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The first highlight for me was The Steiner Brothers vs. The Nasty Boys. Two very popular tag teams who were at the top of their game in this match. Nasty Boys were the heels and what I have always been impressed by is the fact that they excelled as either the bad or the good guys. Many wrestlers struggle when they are out of their comfort zone, but not The Nasty Boys. They seem to love being the heel just as much as they love being fan favorites. What they lacked in athletic ability they more than made up for with ring psychology. They were great at working a match and The Steiner Brothers are one of the best teams of all time for them to work with. The Steiner’s are very athletic and really know how to work the crowd. They spent a large portion of their careers as faces and it worked. They had a very long run as a tag team and are truly one of the greatest teams of all time. The Steiner Brothers won in a very exciting match that deserves a re-watching.

The other notable match was Sting vs. Sid Vicious. It was surprisingly fast, about 12 minutes long, but was fun either way. The ending was slightly confusing since Sid pinned a fake Sting, but suddenly the real Sting runs out and wins the match. Kind of unnecessary, but interesting to say the least.

The rest of the card was not very notable with the exception of Stan Hansen vs. Lex Luger. Stan Hansen was not a great worker in my opinion and him coming out with chewing tobacco running down his chin was just plain gross. Hansen winning the match was even worse.

Next up is WCW Halloween Havoc 1991.

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It started off with a Chamber of Horrors match featuring El Gigante, Sting and The Steiner Brothers vs. Cactus Jack, Abdullah the Butcher, The Diamond Studd and Big Van Vader (the attached poster shows different participants since there was a last minute change) ending with Abdullah the Butcher being ‘electrocuted’ and giving the win to Sting and his team. Very strange gimmick, but bizarrely entertaining.

The best match of the night was Stunning Steve Austin vs. Dustin Rhodes. The two of them always seem to have great matches together and this was no exception. It ended in a time limit draw, but still managed to be a satisfying match between two great performers.

The third and final match of note was Lex Luger vs. Ron Simmons in a two out of three falls match. Both wrestlers put on a great match, really worked well together, and even though Lex Luger won, Ron Simons still came off great.

The quality of the Halloween Havoc PPV’s can be a bit iffy, but I still enjoy them. Something about the whole Halloween theme that entertains me, probably since it is my favorite holiday.

1992 and 1993 to come next week!

Pacific Rim

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Pacific Rim is one of the most fun movies that has come out in a while. I am a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro and when he first announced he was working on a Kaiju movie I was very excited by the possibilities. He is one of the most talented filmmakers today and I knew he would not disappoint. I did not get to see this movie in the theaters but watching it on blu ray was worth the wait. The movie looked perfect in HD and the sound was intense.

The Jaeger were impressive and came off very realistic as did the Kaiju. You truly got a sense that these monsters and robots were all real and beating the living daylights out of each other while destroying everything in their path.

Overall, the performances were good with Idris Elba and Ron Perlman standing out. Idris Elba is great in every role he plays and he really seems to take every part seriously no matter how silly the subject may seem. Because of that he always stands out and makes every movie he is in that much better. Ron Perlman is simply an iconic genre actor and he never disappoints no matter the role.

I sincerely hope we get a sequel to this movie and get to see much more robot on monster action.

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Echo

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Last year I started reading Terry Moore’s Echo (yes, I realize I am a little late to the show)…an excellent comic book that is available digitally through Comixology. I bought the first 3 issues and really enjoyed it. It is about a woman dealing with a divorce, financial issues, etc…who is suddenly bestowed a high tech battle suit by accident which obviously will change her life dramatically. I am only three issues in so I do not know much past that and do not want to spoil it for myself even though it has been out for a few years. It is produced in black and white which really adds to the artwork much like it does for The Walking Dead (a personal favorite of mine that I will discuss at a later date).

Terry Moore really seems to have a strong respect for women and does not overly sexualize them like many male comic artists do. It is nice to read a comic book featuring a female character that I do not feel weird reading in front of my daughter due to the ridiculous poses/proportions. He is an excellent writer/artist and after I finish reading Echo I plan to buy the Strangers in Paradise collections (I know…even later to the party) which I have heard nothing but good things about.

Here’s hoping to a satisfying read of all 30 issues of Echo and an enjoyable start to Strangers!

 

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Wrestlemania XXX

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Wrestlemania

This past Sunday was the 30th installment of WWE’s Wrestlemania. It is amazing to think that Wrestlemania has been around for so long and shows no signs of slowing down.

I will not be going through this PPV match by match, but briefly discussing what stood out, good or bad.

Overall, it was a very good show that started off perfectly with The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Hulk Hogan doing a bit that was immensely entertaining.

The first match was Triple H vs. Daniel Bryan with the winner to become the third entrant in the main event World title match with Batista and Randy Orton. It was one of the best matches I have seen in a while. Both performers were at the top of their game and the match ended the way it should with Bryan winning.

The match that almost ruined the show was The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar.  It was very slow and fairly boring and the match ended with Lesnar winning which was a huge shock. The Undertaker had a 21-0 record at Wrestlemania and it is a wrestling tradition for him to win. The ending was very surprising and really took the air out of the crowd in attendance. Yes, wrestling is scripted, but this was the one thing all fans thought would never change. After Wrestlemania it was learned that The Undertaker suffered a concussion early in the match and was rushed to the hospital after the match ended which explains why it was so slow moving.

The best part though was the triple threat match for the World title between Orton, Batista, and Bryan. It was a good match throughout and everyone got the ending they wanted with Daniel Bryan becoming the new WWE World Champion. All three wrestlers worked the match perfectly. I hope they give Bryan a fairly long reign since he really puts on great matches.

This was a great show and I cannot wait for next year’s!!