Sunday Samplers are a “lightning round” of different subjects, whatever I feel like talking about, no matter how random or trivial or rambling. They’ll make appearances whenever I feel like it, but it’ll always be a Sunday.
No AI was used in the creation of this blog post. I have been using em-dashes since high school, and I’ll be damned if I let either the plagiarism machine or terminally online witch hunters take them away from me. Also, any art is by either real people or myself (which you will easily spot cuz it’ll look like trash).
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Owen Hart would have been 60 this year.
Wait, let me rephrase that: Owen Hart SHOULD have been 60 this year.
I can’t help but wonder what he’d be doing if he was still alive. Would he still be involved with wrestling, maybe as a trainer? Would he have retired like he had planned and found a new career? It’s just one of the many “what if” scenarios that surround him, ones that should be “remember that time” situations instead.
Talking about Owen is one of those things that’s hard to articulate. He’s my favorite wrestler, the reason I got into this mess of a performance art at all; he’s a character who seems to have been a fundamentally good guy at heart; he’s used as a dehumanized bludgeon by weird fanboys online, be it to defend/denigrate a given brand or out of sheer insanity (trust me, you wouldn’t believe some of the… unique worldviews in the IWC I’ve seen). I wanna do him justice with whatever I have to say, but at the same time, I don’t want to rob him of his humanity & turn him into a cardboard saint. Most of all, I never knew Owen. I don’t want to feel like I’m speaking over or in place of those who did.
Wrestling historian Allan Cheapshot posted a Xwitter thread that's an excellent look at Owen - him as a person, him as an in-ring talent, him as a flawed human. It’s not an angle that you get to see much, unless it’s to remind everyone about how young he was when he died. You’ll see it when someone wants to be an asshole - treating his ribs as akin to attempted murder or being weirdly self-righteous about his biggest recurring flaw of being unsafe explicitly with piledrivers - but that’s really it.
I always get a little sad looking at how Owen’s death divided his family, and it’s a situation where I can see both “sides”’s reactions. It’s entirely understandable that his wife & kids won’t want to work with the company whose callousness & carelessness led to his death. On the other hand, I understand where Bret comes from, feeling like the only way to make sure his life’s work can be celebrated is to play along with the people who own the rights to the vast majority of it. It’s a situation that just makes things even sadder from an outsider perspective. And I’m not gonna do what so many IWC weirdos do and take sides. The hate both “sides” get from them is ridiculous and over what? Brand loyalty? Funko Pops not being licensed? C’mon.
Now, I’m going to give everyone some fair warning: I am about to give an opinion on AEW. It’s not a super positive one. If this is something you cannot handle - and believe me, lots of you can’t - please leave right now. Go join Wrestlesky or r/SquaredCircle. Go. Shoo.
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Okay, it should be safe now. I’m just gonna say it: AEW has NOT handled the Owen Hart tourneys well in the slightest. I don’t know if it’s because Owen’s style of wrestling isn’t one that the company’s “main characters” prefer, since he could combine high spots with technical work & made his moves look as realistic as possible; there are (unsourced) quotes from him talking about how he didn’t care for the overly stagey, reliant on gymnastics style of folks like the Bucks or the slow, unintimidating moves of Hangman. I don’t know if it’s cuz the loyal audience of “sickos” online, the only people Tony will listen to that aren’t on the WON payroll, don’t really care for Owen’s style of wrestling, for the history of wrestling outside of the Pacific Northwest indie scene & NJPW, and/or automatically hold him in disdain as having been active in the 90s with the eeeeevil “Fed”. It seems like 90% of the wrestlers who knew or at least respected Owen have left the company, too, with Jeff Jarrett & Chris Jericho being the remainders. Even the few non-peer talents, like the FTR guys, were participating less because they respected Owen and more cuz they respect Bret. And they’re exceptions, given how most of the AEW roster comes from the “Temu HBK” school of skillsets.
And that’s before we get to the tourneys themselves or even the shows around them. Anyone familiar with me knows that it’s natural I would be disappointed at best by the results of the first one; giving it to Dr & Mr Poochie, the former who embodies everything garbage about modern wrestling, felt like a slap in the face. The second one tried to be more respectful, probably cuz it was done on Collision while Punk was still there & he’s a Bret guy. Of course he’d want to do right by his late brother’s memory. The third one was when they decided to “make it matter” by having the winner get a chance to challenge for a championship, because the AEW fanbase doesn’t see value in it as a memorial. This was also the last one I actively watched, and it’s entirely because of their Godawful decisions around Jarrett’s presence in the tourney. Having him cut one of the rare few sincere promos, probably one of the most heart-breaking things I’ve seen in some time in wrestling, only to job him out so that the BetterHelp Cowboy gets a hero’s welcome from the fans so his weirdly racist-coded storyline can resume… it was VILE. The rumor is that some people (I have guesses as to who) were upset that Jarrett’s promo was “too good”, and I fully believe that, given the gaggle of overripe high schoolers that are AEW’s equivalent of The Kliq. Even the most recent one, which had some decent matches (aside from the greasy cowboy gunking it up as per usual), had its finals featured on a PPV that ended with the main event’s theme song repeating the phrase, “Let the bodies hit the floor.” The pattern of “whoever references Owen and/or knew him or respects his legacy the most will be the loser of the match” was established with the first one as well, feeling like a Russo-esque swerve just for swerving’s sake; coming from a company that holds the guy in scorn (moreso than I do), it’s pretty damn rich. Even Russo wouldn’t be like, “Let’s make sure that whoever honors the memory of a dead man the most loses every single time.” As Allan said in his thread linked above, “Is remembrance about honouring a life, or is it about giving a company another night of content?” You can probably guess which descriptor I would apply.
So yeah, AEW & the culture around the company just are not doing a good job with the tourney. Sadly, though, they’re the best option to do it, even if it’s become abundantly clear that Tony just sees it as a tax deductible and the audience sees it as no different from, say, the Continental Classic. There’s no other option, since TNA has no real connection to Owen, and they’re basically a sister company to WWE now, so… yeah. The only other “big name” wrestling company in North America that I can think of is NWA, and that’s another “no connection” situation (among other reasons). In an ideal world, there’d be a big enough native Canadian company that could be killing it while paying tribute to one of the nation’s finest wrestlers and doing it with actual respect & care.
But then again, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t even need a memorial tourney for Owen.
Best I can think to do is to keep paying tribute in my own way. Making yarn works inspired by Owen. Working what I consider one of his finest moments into my (still-in-process) original work as both a part of the lead’s backstory & the inspiration for her familiar’s name. Just trying to be a decent person, like Owen was.
I recommend donating to the Owen Hart Foundation as the best way to honor him. They help the people of Calgary with everything from housing subsidies to scholarships to food/school supply drives. Coming from an affordable housing background, local support groups like them are absolutely vital to helping keep people housed & thriving. And it’s easy to donate even if you’re not in Canada. Please at least consider it if you want to do something solid in Owen’s name.
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Sadly, May 23rd isn’t just the day one great “what if” wrestler passed. We need to talk about Hana Kimura, too.
Hana’s harder to write about, if only because I discovered so much of her work posthumously. I’m probably not alone in that, but that just adds an extra depressing layer to discussing her. Add to that how much of the Japanese wrestling scene is cordoned off from your average broke technological donut like myself, and it feels needlessly difficult to get a handle on Hana’s full skill set. But from what I’ve seen from RoH and what few Stardom matches that haven’t been copyright-struck, Hana would have easily been an international star. Doesn’t matter what company or even country. She had personality & in-ring skill to spare (that one hold she did always looked both nasty & awesome), and if she had lived, her potential to be a beloved legend was near infinite.
Of course, given my own experiences with suicidal ideation & people's reactions to it when you don't fit the cliche narratives around it, I get more than a little angry when I think of how & why Hana isn’t here anymore. She seemed to have experienced the same mental death by a thousand cuts that I had, only far FAR worse (for instance, at least my bullies weren’t motivated by racism & xenophobia like hers), and her public persona is one of the saddest yet best examples of masking those thoughts I’ve seen. It’s painful to watch because it’s recognizable.
Now, please excuse me, I absolutely HAVE to rant about how often I see people who supposedly want to honor Hana’s memory online (especially on social media) acting no differently than the pathetic men who provided that last straw. They’ll put the sakura emoji in their names or bios, talk an awful lot about “kindness” or “empathy” in that warped way that shows they think both mean “do what I want/agree with me”, and then they’ll happily join in acidic & vicious dogpiles against others for the most trivial reasons. LuFisto says that she won’t work with your comfort company anymore because her few times doing so weren’t pleasant? Time to harass her off the internet! Will Osprey, one of Hana’s actual friends, posts literally anything? Let’s endlessly shout at him about thoroughly debunked & exceptionally minor allegations like he’s history’s greatest monster! Criticize literally anything they like, because they are incapable of estranging themselves from the media they consume? Brace yourself for doxxing, which they will consider righteous & justified! It’s that “it’s okay when WE do it” attitude, only applied to reducing a victim of suicide to a prop or a hashtag. To a way of signaling to each other, “See? I’m one of the Good Ones”, even as they act no different than the sad little men who got mad over a staged reality TV squabble who effectively killed her. It INFURIATES me on multiple levels, and every single person who ever did it, whether they realize they did it or not (cuz they tend to proudly lack self-awareness), should at minimum be deeply ashamed of themselves. It’s both sad & upsetting, since it shows that her Tokyo Cyber Squad motto of “Everyone is different and everyone is special” is still a radical counterculture statement. Especially with the people who seem to think they’re following it.
Wherever Hana is, I hope she’s found happiness & peace.
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As is the custom, I am working on a yarncraft piece as a tribute to both Owen & Hana. It was started some time ago, but I was unhappy with the variegated yarn I had used for the middle section. So I took the color that looked the best against the 2 central colors & matched a solid to it to remake them. I wanted the hearts to pop out more.
Please ignore the ends, the lack of blocking, and the kitty feet.
It’s kind of funny how much the two’s signature color palettes overlap. I’m sure some of it is just because both black & bright pink pop when used for ring gear. And both had very colorful gear as well (although, let’s be honest, it worked SO much better for Hana). It’s 100% coincidence, but it’s a serendipitous one.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done a project like this, but… well… let’s just say this. Even if it’s a lace-style stitch & made with lightweight yarn, a knitted scarf still isn’t something that you’ll see worn a lot in late May around here. So I keep it, accompanied now by a nice set of glowing firefly pins, on my bookshelf.
The tribute scarf, made with now-discontinued Madelinetosh Unwind DK in Pink Moon. You know it’s a special tribute when I’m springing for such a good brand of hand-dyed yarn.
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Lightning-squared round! Because there’s a little Blue Blazer in each & every one of us.
If you’re gonna be one of those people who sulks about having to look at a Xwitter thread link, regardless of topic or poster, I am glad that you have so much time & energy to be so petty. But the kind of people who’d react like that hopefully were driven away when I told them to leave and avoid seeing non-sycophantic words about their comfort promotion and went back to Bluesky, to soothe themselves with rephrased N*zi rhetoric & diaper porn as is the custom.
I feel extremely bad that I couldn’t really write anything about Bray Wyatt, since May 23rd was his birthday. But I’ve been playing catch-up with the highlights of his career, as most of those were in my not-watching-wrestling time. I can’t really speak on much except that the Firefly Funhouse Match with Cena was actually extremely cool & I don’t care if the consensus says otherwise. The consensus was ragging on the guy for his less-than-perfect health not even a week prior to his passing, so the consensus can kiss my ass. I just feel so sorry for him, especially since he excelled at doing really creative supernatural stuff in an era where the audience thinks they’re “above” such things.
Really wish that Jeff Jarrett’s podcast where he talks about Owen was still available on YouTube. You get so much of a sense of how close they were, how much he loved working with Owen & enjoyed his antics, even if some of the stories get lost in him cracking up over the memories. And unlike certain AEW promos, it’s not just him rehashing his very real grief so that a greasy loser who can’t wrestle but posts in the Wrestlesky-approved way can get yet another big push. Oh well.
One thing that I can’t complain about with AEW’s handling of Owen’s legacy? They gave the tourney a banger of a tribute theme song.
Jeff Harris gives us a lovely look back at the life & legacy of Ted Turner. Personally, him giving the greenlight to Cartoon Network, TCM, & WCW has been formative in making me the person I am today, so I will always doff my proverbial cap to Turner in respect.
Yes, proverbial cap. Hats would mess up the perm.
That picture of Owen with Bret is legitimately one of my favorites of his. A Canadian tuxedo with three shades of denim, cowboy boots, AND a wide open collar while standing in the snow… sartorial perfection.
Cue the sad Titanic flute music. Played over a worn-out dining room speaker, ideally.
Every time I see pearl clutching over one of Owen's pranks on social media, I just know that the person doing it has definitely participated in some sort of Discord-based online harassment campaign and thinks that was justified.
I love living in a world where at least one anime is so popular & mainstream in the States that McCormick is selling a themed spice mix set based on it.
Methinks I should mentally bookmark a couple of the comments here, in particular from Austin Gorton & ChrisV. Cuz y’all know how I feel about creators of any kind getting a little too cozy with their social media audiences and my fascination (both good & bad) with cases where you can tell an original work was grafted onto an existing one like an awkwardly built sunroom.
On one hand, offering DVD set releases for an online-originated series is a great idea and should definitely be done more. On the other hand, when that series is less than 10 episodes long, with those episodes being about 30 minutes each, you REALLY don’t need to divide that into multiple sets. That’s some Aniplex BS.
(Sees video talking about the “new” girls in Magia Exedra, including Mabayu) (Sees comments that show the video completely missed the entire plot & point of Scene 0) Oh, okay, I guess I can skip this one. Gotta say, that’s about what I’d expect from someone who has way way WAY too many videos about RWBY & Viv’s stuff between their actually decent stuff about magical girls.
Be nice to my new favorite fictional daughter, dammit. She’s sleep deprived.
New Pendog Creative Library update! There’s been a hard shift in Penny’s perspective, and that can’t be good. We've also started to learn that the characters who are connected to Miss Hecate aren't just her in a new guise but their own people, so there's a lot of possible repercussions from that (aside from being horrified to find Harmonia is now... relatable... brrr). Also, while it’s not part of this particular update, I keep thinking of the situation with Dorothy Do & his cast and how sometimes dormancy is better than malignant misuse. (Again, I may or may not revisit this to flesh out these thoughts. We’ll see.)
I can’t be the only person who gets annoyed when the fans of one particular work try to derail any & every topic into a discussion of how ~great~ it is, even when it’s barely related (if at all) to the work. Cuz there’s a movie out where that’s been happening online, and it’s getting to the point where I once again wish slapping was possible through the internet.
Anger & sadness are so naturally intertwined for me that I really can’t fathom what it would be like if they weren’t. Is that why so many of the people who insist I’m doing depression “wrong” think that way, because they have those two divided? I don’t know. Or care, really. It’s just a way to explain some things about my thought process.
I saw someone say that modern fandom is just lolcow culture for people who think they’re above lolcow culture, with the subjects being the people who created the things they like in most cases, and man, is that accurate. About the only difference I can see is that the farmers bring receipts for allegations of p*dophilia when they accuse someone of it that aren’t just “a Google Doc my friend shared with our private Discord”.
For those looking at the picture of my shelf o’ fondness above and seeing a Funko Pop, please know that I only own two & that you can probably guess which two from the one in the picture. I never figured that even they would pick up the license, given how much of their target market overlaps with Adult Swim fans. But damn them, Funko called my bluff after years of saying that’s the only way they’d get my money.
The Darby & Sting cross-stitch on my shelf was made by Wrestling with Stitches, not me. His cross-stitching is WAY nicer than mine. He has tons of finished works and patterns (with various sizes) of pretty much every wrestler available. So if you’re in the same Venn diagram overlap of “likes wrestling” & “likes needlework”, give his stuff a shot.
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Well, that’s it for this entry. I haven’t gotten any good cat pictures lately, so instead I’ll be sharing a couple of my favorite old goofy cat memes.
*Sigh*... Yes, I picture these with the fictional cat in my never-read stories. I wish I could redraw them with him but oh well.
See y’all some other Sunday, hopefully a happier one.
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