Category: Trending

Roman Reigns appeared on First Take this week ahead of his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match against Jey Uso at SummerSlam on Saturday night in Detroit. It was, apparently, supposed to be a standard promotional appearance ahead of WWE’s second biggest live event of the year, and then, Stephen A. Smith walked backstage and saw that Paul Heyman was there.

According to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, Smith was the driving force behind Heyman appearing on set. This was because once Smith found out Heyman was in the building, he made it a point to get him involved.

Smith saw Heyman when he greeted Reigns. That led to a discussion with his producer, and the decision was quickly reached that Heyman should also appear on the show.

Smith’s producer made that request to Reigns, who approved of the addition. That ultimately led to Heyman’s ingenious insults of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and the “Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart on First Take.

It ended up being an excellent idea by Smith, in large part Heyman appearing alongside Reigns just felt right. It helps, of course, that Heyman knocked his appearance out of the park, calling himself the “greatest of all time” while a 100 percent captivated Smith egged him on.

Whether or not this was all a means to an end for Smith so he can achieve his well-documented goal of appearing at WrestleMania remains to be seen, but we have to give it to him: this was very good television.

Dominican pop singer Natti Natasha has always been unapologetic in regards to her sexuality. This is evidenced by her new single, “No Pare,” on which, she lays out her fantasies over a scorching reggaeton beat.

From the very beginning of the song, Natasha makes it known she is not one to mince words

“Ме dеѕреrté реnѕаndо еn tоdo lо quе mе hасíа / Тu lеnguа роr mі bоса, соrrіеndо роr lа míа / Yо buѕсаndо сrееr еn аlgо у tú рrоmеtíа,” she sings on the song’s opening verse, which translates to, “I woke up thinking about everything you did to me / You’re tongue in my mouth running all over my tongue / I’ve been looking for something to put my faith in, and you promised.”

The seductive lyrics of the song are very much suggestive, but the single cover leaves little to the imagination. On the cover, Natasha is seen sitting on top of a sink in the nude, with her phone in hand, taking a mirror selfie. According to PopCrave, Unique News Online, and Marca, this photo is actually a nude that reportedly leaked recently.

In the video, for “No Pare,” she is seen dancing around on the beach and in a luxury resort, and later reclaims her power by sending a similar photograph to a mysterious suitor.

You can see the video for “No Pare” above.

With Saquon Barkley and Tony Pollard’s short-term futures all sorted out, the final major domino that needs to fall in the NFL’s running back market is Las Vegas Raiders standout Josh Jacobs. While the team extended the franchise tag, Jacobs has not signed it, and is instead holding out after the two sides could not agree to a long-term extension.

As Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk explained, there are five potential ways that this could go right now. The nuclear option for the Raiders would be to rescind the franchise tag, which would let Jacobs immediately hit free agency. If that were to happen, and Florio reports that Jacobs understands it’s one of the potential outcomes here, a pair of AFC West rivals were mentioned as potential landing spots.

But he would still have a plan. He would be inclined to take the best deal he could get from a contending team, starting with the Chiefs.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Chiefs and Broncos are among the teams interested in Jacobs. And while the Broncos could be a considerable way from contender status, they’d be an option at the right price.

It’s extremely fun to imagine Jacobs — a first-team All-Pro who led the league in rushing yards and touchdowns last season — joining Kansas City and serving as the bell cow back lining up behind Patrick Mahomes. Last year, rookie running back Isiah Pacheco led the team with 830 yards and five touchdowns on 170 carries.

Jacobs would get a 1-year deal worth a little more than $10 million if he signed the franchise tender, but that comes with the caveat that Las Vegas could franchise him next season.

When being arraigned for a third time last week, Donald Trump vowed not to post threatening messages about his case, which he’s done before. It didn’t take long for him to break his promise. On Friday the former president dropped an all-caps post vowing revenge upon those who “go after me.” It didn’t take long for Special counsel Jack Smith, who gifted Trump with his third indictment, to divine that he was referring to his case and take action. And it didn’t take long after that for the judge assigned it to do the same.

As per Newsweek, on Saturday Judge Tanya Chutkan — the Obama-appointed, Jan. 6 rioter-hating judge randomly assigned his latest case — filed a motion ordering the Trump team to respond to Smith’s call for a protective order, which would limit the amount of information Trump is allowed to publicly share about the case.

It is hereby ORDERED that by 5:00 PM on August 7, 2023, Defendant shall file a response to the government’s 10 Motion for Protective Order, stating Defendant’s position on the Motion,” read Chutkan’s filing.

Trump then did what he does best: He delayed. His lawyers responded by asking that they move the due date from Monday to Thursday, August 10th, “to ensure counsel has adequate time to prepare a fulsome response.”

The inciting Truth Social post found the ex-president writing, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

After the post was widely read as being about Jack Smith and any other prosecutors looking to prosecute him, Trump’s campaign issued a statement, claiming his vague threats were about completely different people.

“The Truth post cited is the definition of political speech, and was in response to the RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs, like the ones funded by the Koch brothers and the Club for No Growth,” read the Trump campaign’s statement.

After all, who wouldn’t assume that Trump, mere days after being arraigned a third time, was really worked up into an all-caps frenzy by special interest groups. It all makes sense.

In any case, by now Trump’s latest batch of lawyers ought to have realized why he’s lost so, so many others. Soon enough they might have to deal with his BS while he’s running for president from prison.

(Via Newsweek)

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York is honoring East Coast rappers in a very special way. In conjunction of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, the MTA is issuing special edition cards featuring rappers who hail from New York City — the birthplace of hip-hop.

On different versions of the Metro Cards are rappers LL Cool J, Pop Smoke, Rakim, and Cam’Ron. The cards arrive as part of a partnership with Universal Music Group.

The LL Cool J and Pop Smoke cards are available beginning today, at stations in their respective neighborhoods. LL Cool J’s will be available to purchase at Forest Hills-71 Av and Pop’s Canarsie-Rockaway Pkwy (L) & New Lots Av (3)

Cam and Rakim’s will be available for purchase later this month, throughout the entire MTA system.

“From standing on top of the Empire State Building to grabbing a slice at the corner pizza shop, NYC creates iconic moments that are recognized around the world,” said Rakim in a statement. “But it doesn’t get closer to real city life than swiping a metro card and standing clear of the closing doors. It’s an honor to be celebrating the 50th Anniversary on the streets…and now below them…of the city where hip-hop was born.”

In similar New York-related news, the Brooklyn Public Library also recently announced that it would be offering a selection of Jay-Z inspired library cards, as part of its ongoing The Book Of Hov exhibition, honoring the rapper’s inspiring career.

You can see some of the Metro Cards above.

Nine years ago, rapper ILoveMakonnen dropped his breakthrough single, “Tuesday.” The song proved to be a viral hit for Makonnen, especially on platforms like the six-second video-sharing network, Vine, and resulted in him signing to Drake’s OVO imprint. But Makonnen was eventually dropped from OVO when he couldn’t recreate the success of “Tuesday.”

Last week, Makonnen and rapper Youngboy Never Broke Again dropped “Parasites,” a collab that’s already proving buzzy. So much so, that Metro Boomin’ — who co-produced “Tuesday” with Sonny Digital — reached out to him via Instagram DM. Swae Lee and Post Malone also reached out, however, it appears Makonnen wasn’t really thrilled about them hopping on the bandwagon.

Makonnen shared a carousel on Instagram, which featured screenshots of conversations he had previously had with the three. In the conversations, it appears Makonnen had reached out to the artists over the years, only to be ignored.

“I’m HIM and I Been HERE!,” said Makonnen. “I ain’t do sh*t to yall! Y’all turned y’all back on me and held hands together, unfollowed me and everything, now y’all see me with YB…and start hitting me up like it’s all good. Damn, That sh*t painful to see, especially after we came up together in Atlanta in 2014.”

At the time of writing, only Swae has responded to the post. He took to the comments to express disappointment in the fact that Makonnen chose to address the situation publically.

“We can chop it up anytime you see me though,” said Swae. “I don’t do the public drama sh*t, stay up.”

Makonnen then insisted that there is no beef, and that he still maintains admiration for Swae, Post, and Metro.

“well chop it up, it’s love it’s just a conversation,” said Makonnen, “dont be mad that the only way I get support is if some drama going on, u know the music fire, and u know everybody been tryna deny it. It ain’t no beef. U stay up too.”

Youngboy Never Broke Again is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There aren’t many quarterbacks in the history of football who are better than Patrick Mahomes at completing passes from a bunch of different arm angles. The Kansas City Chiefs signal caller and reigning Super Bowl MVP is as good as it gets when he drops back and throws it normally, but the thing that makes Mahomes so special is his ability to throw the ball with power and accuracy when he’s not doing that, as his ability to put it right between the numbers while essentially throwing side-arm is rare.

Fast forward to the Chiefs’ training camp and it turns out Mahomes has a new club in his bag. Mahomes dropped back and looked in the direction of second-year receiver Skyy Moore, who caught a pass and turned upfield. The catch: Mahomes threw this thing behind-the-back, and managed to put it in a place where Moore could catch it in stride.

If this was anyone else, my guess would be they were just joking around during camp and they would never, ever try this in a game. This, however, is Patrick Mahomes, and as a result, my hunch is Andy Reid is going to put together an entire package of plays where he’s asked to throw the ball like this.

The DCEU is in a bit of a mess right now, what with that overhaul being done by new honchos James Gunn and Peter Safran that might not be as complete as previously reported. (For one thing, Gal Gadot may return as Wonder Woman after all. Unless she doesn’t.) One person who was already done with them before the makeover was Ben Affleck, who played Batman across seven films, yet never got a solo outing. He almost did, which was to be helmed by Affleck himself, and if one DCEU staffer is to be believed, that’s our loss.

“I can’t really say too much other than it was f*cking awesome,” DC Comics director and storyboard artist Jay Olivia recently told Inverse (as caught by Entertainment Weekly). “It was the best. It was amazing.”

After his Bruce Wayne debut in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Affleck was tasked to handle his own solo venture himself. It eventually fell apart, with the actor/filmmaker saying he “couldn’t crack it.” He did get as far as pounding out a script, which someone told him was “good,” but who added, “I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went through again.”

So what was a Batman movie from the director of Argo supposed to be like? We may find out later, but for now you’ll have to subsist on the vague praise of Olivia:

“Ben’s story was gonna cover something that had never really been covered in comics but was building off of storylines in the Batman mythos over the last 80 years and approaching it from a new kind of perspective … I’ve worked on a lot of Batman things and what was really cool about it was, it was tying together a lot of really cool Batman storylines that had never been really explored.”

“It was very clever and there were a lot of things about it that I really loved that I wish that had come to fruition… It was a really great project in the beginning. Ben had to step away for personal reasons, and I totally understood, but the time that I spent with Ben working on the project was fantastic.”

Of course, a solo Batman movie did come out. It was called The Batman and it was completely unrelated to the main DCEU, much like Joker. As for Affleck, he’s doing pretty good for himself. Instead of doing a movie about a rich guy who dresses up like a bat and fights crime, he made a movie about some guys who made a shoe.

(Via Inverse and EW)

Today (August 5) marked a very special episode of CBS Saturday Morning, as the iconic weekend morning show celebrated 500 editions of their music segment, Saturday Sessions. In celebration of the milestone, women-led rock trio Boygenius performed three songs from their full-length debut album, The Record, which dropped earlier this year.

Boygenius — which is comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker — performed on a large stage to a packed crowd, deviating from the show’s small, intimate stage format.

They opened the set with a performance of “$20,” and played “Not Strong Enough,” and “Cool About It.”

Also in today’s CBS Saturday Morning, the trio sat down for an interview, where they shared the story of how they formed. The three indie darlings were booked for a co-headling tour in 2018, and planned to record a song to promote the tour. However, their friendship and musical chemistry felt so natural that they ended up recording six songs, and releasing the debut Boygenius EP.

While they were buzzy as solo acts, Boygenius is even bigger as a collective of women.

“This whole process and friendship has just felt like a thing that was never contrived,” said Bridgers.

You can see the performances and interview above.

Last week Donald Trump again made history: He became the first American president to score three indictments. No other former commander-in-chief has any, so he has three on everyone. Is he proud of that? Sort of. On one hand, he’s reportedly freaking out in private, as the big guy probably doesn’t want to get thrown in the slammer. On the other, every time he gets indicted his polls go up. So win-win?

As per HuffPost, Trump attended a Republican dinner on Friday night, where he treated the crowd to his latest gripes and grievances. But not all was gloomy. Though infamous for his ketchup-throwing tantrums, Trump took a glass-half-full approach to his latest legal setback.

“Any time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls,” Trump bragged. “We need one more indictment to close out this election. One more indictment, and this election is closed out. Nobody has even a chance.”

It’s true that Trump’s base loves him even more when he faces comeuppance for his actions, not less. He might be the most popular potential criminal in history — kind of like Robin Hood, except that instead of giving to the poor Trump grifts from them.

Surely the Founding Fathers never envisioned crooks amassing power because of their crimes, not despite them. Maybe it’s a winning strategy in today’s GOP. Indeed, a Ron DeSantis ally is joking (or not!) that what he needs to save his flailing candidacy is at least one federal indictment for breaking the law.

(Via HuffPost)