This final RAW of 2014 was fascinating, despite being pretty low key until the hostage situation at the end. There were no celebrations of Hulk Hogan or a holiday or a charity, just well-composed rising action and character development. The episode functioned as something of an airing of grievances, as is seasonally appropriate and a welcome change from the Christmas shenanigans of the previous week and the tired cliches of overall holiday season. It was…
Tag: Big Show
Well, you know. It was the Slammies and all, and there’s nothing like an awards show to dampen my writerly spirits. Plus, I’m a little behind still — I need to listen to the Vince McMahon podcast, but I first need to dig up my password so I can renew my subscription to then network, which recently expired. I almost don’t want to, considering how much I hate looking up passwords, as well as the…
Wow! One retweet from Big Show and this blog is blowing up! Before my post on Show’s poignant heel turn, Notes on the Spectacle of Excess had something like 320 all-time hits. After he shared my post I’m well over 800 in just a couple days. My thanks to the big man, and welcome new readers! I have taken to tweeting my thoughts on RAW, and then compiling and revising them for my weekly Notes…
Part of me wants to delete every post on my blog and start from scratch after listening to the CM Punk podcast. Punk’s revelations changed everything from a critical perspective. He pulled back the curtain on the company’s ugliness, which I submit we were all aware of and just didn’t know how to confront. Somehow we accepted it as part of the drama, but in fact there are real people sacrificing their bodies and being…
It is a curious state of affairs and a reflection on the liminal nature of kayfabe that WWE feels it must apologize to the people of Russia about Big Show’s satirical disrespect to their flag on RAW this week. Recall that WWE readily apologized about Lana’s mention of the Malaysian Airlines plane in Eastern Ukraine, while Lana herself dismissed the kerfuffle about what she said as “blah, blah, blah… propaganda.” These apologies are calculated —…