And the Cowboys can't keep their house in order again...

• Ronald Jones, two game suspension -- for a diuretic or masking agent, under the PED policy.

July 31, 2023 News and Notes

• Pee Wee Herman passed away, Paul Reubens.  70, long fight with cancer.
• G1 Climax Groups C and D
• Group C has three wrestlers eliminated now.  Mikey Nicholls from NJPWoA, Henare and (surprisingly) Tomohiro Ishii are all out of the competition.
• David Finlay can eliminate Shingo Takagi and Tama Tonga can eliminate Eddie Kingston, but there's still a lot to be said with the five other wrestlers within two points.
• Group D:  Toru Yano picked up his first win, and NJPWoA's Alex Coughlin is out of the tournament.
• Zack Sabre Jr. can eliminate Tetsuya Naito with a win in the next cycle.
• Justin Gaethje has accused Conor McGregor of being on steroids.  If that's the case, he pops them every day -- he's on perpetual Roid Rage.   

It's Time For Fandoms To Realize The Gravy Train Is Over

Non-sports, related to two July conventions I've been reading about, including this weekend's Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival at the Las Vegas Convention Center.  I am going to Tweet/X this link and tag the event hashtag.  I do not expect anyone who clicks to stay on this site, but I do think some things need to be urgently addressed now.

These cons can no longer be feasibly held, at least in the US.  I'm sorry I have to state this, but the fact of the matter is, when you look at the two stories I point at, you'll get a very good idea why -- from both ends of the spectrum.

First is the annual debacle of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation -- the industry con, Anime Expo, which basically almost burst the Los Angeles Convention Center four weeks ago.

The picture in this Kotaku article on that debacle should do the trick.  An atrium slammed to the utter gills while the SPJA lauds a new record unique-person crowd of 160,000 -- a crowd THREE TIMES that of the DVD Boom, when the con could be held in Anaheim.

Basically, one misplaced fire alarm (much less an actual event), and you have The Who in Cincinnati all over again.

Now you would THINK Square-Enix in Las Vegas would have the absolute opposite situation.  Faced with a demand of over 100,000 North American Final Fantasy XIV players for their Las Vegas Fanfest, they held a lottery which cut that number to under 15% of that total.

And then they decided to put the convention in the Las Vegas Convention Center -- which, by all accounts, hosts the largest conventions they can find, at least in the United States.

Well, if the reports of the last 36 hours are any indication, their wad has been shot:

• If you want food, it's 1-2 hours.
• And don't think of trying my approach, at least two attendees have told me personally -- that of basically filling up beforehand (which would've meant a 5 AM breakfast someplace and not eating again until sometime after 9 PM (I'll get to why on that in a bit...)) to prevent the (if you can put up with the line) $20 per entree meal situation....
• The water fountains are lined up at least 50 deep.
• On two days, now, which have approached 115 on the thermometer, or a nice chilly 46 Celsius.
• And the policy on not bringing in outside food and drink has been either inconsistent, or (at least by one report) changed three times Friday!!
• And apparently the Las Vegas Police Department has been called into enforce now.
• I'm sorry.  It's 110+ outside.  So leaving the Convention Center (which is an isolated island unto itself set off from the northern part of The Strip) is nearly, if not completely, out of the question.  The line for water is a good 30-60 minutes.  You've already had a report of at least one person collapsing in the lines at the event as it is (before 10 AM Friday!!!)...
• Which isn't inconsistent with Square-Enix events.  I recall a wheelchair-bound Yuna cosplayer at an art/pre-release sale event in Los Angeles for the Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster who nearly collapsed.  And if the visual hadn't been so terrible, I'd have dumped cold water on her to help with the heat!!!
• You are dangerously close -- AND YOU KNOW IT, LVCC -- to a real health crisis out there.  And you're going to stick those attendees that badly??  
• The "Quiet Room" is a complete joke to many.
• Two hours to stand in line for the side quests, no real prize.
• The lines and the organization surrounding the battle challenge were a complete debacle (and, unlike the 4.x and 5.x in-person Fanfests), no shirt was given to the winners.
• And then there's the end of the day after the 8 PM concerts.  The main way to get through the area and back to the Strip (and most of the hotels) is the Las Vegas Monorail.
• That's if you can get on it and not get crushed by the crowd, with a wait time for even that upwards of an hour!
• The merchandise lines were destroyed and the merchandise put up by speculators who attended the event at multiple times the price on EBay...
• Tomorrow, as a non-Fanfest adjunct, the Final Symphony series is holding a show in Las Vegas.  At least one ticket for the event is now on the secondary market for SIXTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.

One Redditor said it perfectly:  They know they're the only game in town, especially of that size.

And remember again:  This is less than 15% of the actual ticket demand.

And that was only part of the LVCC, since a basketball tournament had some of the rest of it.

It is time and far past time to blow up these major events.  There is no venue which could conceivably hold them.  I'm sorry for the reality check for a lot of people, but the fact of the matter is that if you aren't there for companionship with people you've only been friends with online and the like, there is no real point.

• Both major sets of announcements were completely bare-bones.
• It is going to be a very fortunate event if someone is not killed by the deliberate incompetence at FanFest.
• The cut-throat nature of the event, on both sides (organizationals AND fans) is just escalating to a breakneck point.

The size of the FFXIV events is so out of hand, the Japan event is the next event after Wrestle Kingdom in no less than the Tokyo Dome!!!

One official forum poster has said that various major groups are scaling back major events.

It's time for everybody to do the same.  Not even screening out through a lottery is helping anymore, in many cases.

July 28, 2023 News and Notes

• Congratulations to IWGP World Heavyweight Champion SANADA, who, because of tiebreaker considerations, has not only become the first person to qualify for the quarterfinals of the 2023 G1 Climax, he has won Group A, because his 10 points plus victories over the two men with 6 has clinched the victory in the group.
• All seven other participants are still alive for the second spot.  One and only one scenario can allow Ren Narita into a 7-way tie (which would probably have to be settled with a battle royal of some form), and that would actually have to involve a specific double-disqualification (and specifically a DDQ) and a specific draw on the final night, and SANADA has to lose twice.  A double count-out grants each person a point (and they just had one in the last round), a double-disqualification grants no points.
• Group A alone has had three draws and a double count-out.
• Lower-mid-carder Great O-Khan has become the second person (behind comedy wrestler Toru Yano, who is the only one of the 32 in the tournament with no wins) to be eliminated from the tournament.
• All six of the other Group B wrestlers are still in it, and can be in it the final night, though only five of them can technically tie with Okada and Ospreay in a seven-way tie at eight points.
• Square-Enix, in it's biennial North American Fan Festival for Final Fantasy XIV, announced "Dawntrail" as a Summer 2024 expansion.

An additional remark on a recent comment...

He almost got one through me.  Someone posted that I might posit the possibility of Bronny James being "replaced" as well (in the same spirit as Damar Hamlin).  I made a video-game reference which kinda missed his point.

Let's see how and if they present Bronny in public once and if he is prepared to retake the court.

Remember several things regarding Damar:

1. Much of the story surrounding him indicated he was not doing nearly as well as anyone might have wanted him to in the three weeks between cardiac arrest and the divisional game in Buffalo.
2. Much pain was taken never to get a direct, face-full, clear shot of Damar at the latter.  This is the key point.  Even that I can understand he might well have been bundled up outside, there were cameras inside his suite.  I have yet, seven months almost on, to see any face-full picture of Damar from inside the suite that day.  (All photos of the situation were deliberately taken from the side, and the only straight video into the suite was through a snowy Buffalo afternoon that no one could get a clear shot of him through.)  Why?
3. The NFL has a penchant of exploiting tragedies and lauding those who overcome them.  Hence, I almost think it a tautology that you begin this season with the Buffalo Bills as the Super Fraud Super Bowl favorite starting this preseason.  If this was the Heroic Return of Damar Hamlin, the Bills didn't play like it and the NFL didn't rig it like it.  Why??

To more fully answer the commented question:  Let's see what the media is allowed to do with respect to Bronny James going forward.  Remembering that the key point was the secrecy around Damar the day he was in Buffalo (you damn near could've put ME in that coat, sent me out there as "Damar Hamlin", and not that many people would've realized the difference until they tried to release pictures from the suite days later!), let's see what the media and the like does first.

All we are being told, at this point, is that Bronny lost consciousness at some point in the process.  If he "coded" (died), they are being secretive about it -- unlike Damar, when it was clear that night he had coded twice.

As I say, stay tuned.

Today's "Women's Sprots" hypocrisy:

Seen yesterday on MSN after another Katie Ledecky World Aquatics Championships rout:

Is Katie Ledecky transgender?

Knew it!  She's too good -- she has to be!!!

July 27, 2023 News and Notes

• After eight years of trying, Will Ospreay, the IWGP United States Champion, has a win over Kazuchka Okada in the G1 Climax.
• In a state of bigotry, Italy has barred all but those female at birth from becoming Miss Italy, in the face of transgenders.
• So 100 female-to-male transgenders have entered the local qualifying pageants!