If you thought air travel was a sh*t experience before we started living in a pandemic, then you’re about to long for the days of TSA frisks, delayed flights, and slow Uber drivers who you inevitably blame for you missing your flight because you didn’t have the good sense to leave five minutes early. Once you’re feeling brave enough and have a good reason to risk jumping on a plane again, be prepared to wait as much as four hours before you actually get to board your flight due to the additional screening procedures and security measures that are already in place at airports across the country in an effort to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Don’t expect to kill that extra time grabbing a drink at an airport bar either, those probably won’t be open. Instead, you’ll spend those extra four hours waiting around and trying to avoid getting close to other people until you’re on the plane. Not easily done at an airport.

According to airline marketing consulting firm, Simpliflying, travelers should expect a scenario where they arrive at least four hours in advance of their departure to give themselves an adequate amount of time to go through additional screening procedures, possibly being shuttled through disinfectant tunnels, and having to wait for routine cleanings of frequently touched surfaces. Passengers may also have to endure what is known as “bingo boarding,” a process where individuals are let onto an airplane by seat number rather than the section in an effort to avoid crowding and pileups. Considering people don’t even wait for their zone to be called to start boarding, this experience sounds like it may cause some frustrations.

Fox Business reports that the TSA has started implementing new rules to keep people the recommended six feet apart, and will relax rules on expired licenses until October 1st, and allow passengers to bring 12-ounce bottles of hand sanitizer on board, as well as provide additional PPE to those who request it. While those tweaks may add time to the experience, they absolutely sound like logical, common-sense initiatives, considering the information we currently have.

For international travel, the situation may be even more extreme. According to The Points Guy when Hong Kong-based journalist Laurel Chor documented her experience at the Hong Kong International Airport on May 14th, she was subjected to a lengthy screening process that took eight full hours. Detailing the experience on Twitter, Chor explained that she had to fill out a quarantine order and good-health declaration, download a tracking app, and receive a COVID-19 test, as well as report her method of transportation home.

Despite testing negative, Chor was still subject to a 14-day quarantine in her home before she’d be allowed to enter public life in Hong Kong. Breaking quarantine could result in a fine of $3,225 and six months in prison.

Forbes found that 9 out of 10 travel experts surveyed agreed that turnaround times between flights will increase due to thorough cabin cleanings and sanitary measures and expect the use of digital technologies and automated services to increase throughout the airport experience. Future air travel will likely include the use of facial recognition during the boarding process, which is already used in some US airports, as well as the use of immunity passports once a vaccine is available. Major airlines are also considering disinfection tunnels with the use of UV light or sanitary solutions, as well as on-the-spot blood tests, mandatory self-check-in, self bag-drop-off, and the end of lounges.

Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber recently joined forces for the heartwarming track “Stuck With U.” The song was released for charity, with proceeds going towards funding grants and scholarships for children of essential workers who have been impacted by the pandemic. Aptly titled, the collaboration was written and recorded all while in quarantine. The singers were able to create the song in isolation with the help of their home studios, and Grande used hers to produce the track. Now, Grande sheds a light on her process in a behind-the-scenes explanation.

Sharing a self-shot video to social media, Grande said that vocal production is one of her “favorite parts” of her job. “So I have no idea if this is going to be interesting to you or not. But I’m sitting at my little home setup, my little studio I have here,” Grande said, “and I wanted to share with you a little bit of the ‘Stuck With U’ session that I vocal produced, because this is one of my favorite parts of what I do.”

Recording her computer screen, Grande detailed how she cuts and pastes different vocal takes together to smoothly align. The singer explained her creative decision to add in snippets of her dogs as well as some laughs she shared while recording. “I really wanted to put that because it captures the vibe of being at home,” she said.

Watch Grande’s behind-the-scenes videos above.

Michael B. Jordan has reportedly landed the lead role in Methuselah, a film based on the Biblical character who lived to be 969 years old.

The film will be the next from director Danny Boyle, but Jordan wasn’t the first choice for the role. According to Variety, Tom Cruise was originally attached to the project, which Warner Bros. is hoping to turn into a franchise. However, the studio has been looking to keep Jordan in-house following the success of the Creed films, and apparently the Biblical epic fit the bill.

While the character is mostly noted for his advanced age in the Christian Bible, Methuselah does appear in other religious texts where he has an especially close connection to God, which results in him being a key figure shortly before the Great Flood that cleansed the earth. In fact, Anthony Hopkins portrayed the extremely aged character in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. As for which texts Boyle’s film will pull from is unknown, but 969 years should provide a whole lot of material for a franchise.

The role is an interesting choice for Jordan given recent rumors that he might be replacing Henry Cavill as Superman in the DC Cinematic Universe. J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot is now working exclusively with Warner Bros., and the word is that his production company is working on a new film for the Man of Steel that could potentially star the Black Panther actor.

In the meantime, Jordan will be blasting into theaters this October in the adaptation of Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse. The film is yet another franchise for Jordan as he takes on the role of CIA agent John Clark who’s a regular staple in Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels. Unlike Ryan, who uses his skills as analyst, Clark is the guy you send in when things need to be done quickly and brutally.

(Via Variety)

Justin Vernon has involved himself in a number of endeavors outside of Bon Iver, like the supergroup Gayngs, which was founded by Poliça’s Ryan Olson. The group has been inactive since releasing their 2010 debut album Relayted, which came out almost exactly ten years ago (May 11, 2010). Now, out of nowhere, the group has returned with a new song, “Appeayl 2 U.”

The relaxing and relatively freeform track incorporates influences from soft rock and electronic music (much more so the former than the latter). The song runs for about five-and-a-half minutes, although the last 90 seconds or so are silent. The track features contributions for a large number of the group’s members, including Vernon (on synths and guitar). There are others not part of the group’s original lineup as well, like Velvet Negroni and Naeem Juwan, the latter of whom had an i,i song named after them. Olson’s credited contribution is producing the song.

The group took to Twitter to explain why they decided to put out a new song now, saying, “Tonight the band GAYNGS was scheduled to play at First Avenue as a part of their 50th anniversary shows and an homage to the last time Prince hopped out the back of a minivan, with a guitar strapped on, 2 his club. But PLANS HAVE CHANNGED… so we decided to release one of the new songs that we would have played.”

Listen to “Appeayl 2 U” above.

Life as a sports fan has been awfully tricky over the last couple of months. Obviously the No. 1 priority everyone has is staying safe and healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic, but at the same time, it’s been weird going from multiple games across a number of sports happening on a daily basis to absolutely nothing.

Slowly but surely, a few things have returned. Baseball in Korea, for example, has gotten off the ground in recent weeks, and while those games air stateside in the wee hours of the morning on ESPN every now and then, it’s still something fun to watch. The same goes for various eSports leagues, some of which had shortened hiatuses but are back up and running.

The world of soccer has been impacted on a number of levels — leagues paused, while major international tournaments were pushed to next summer. There is, though, a light at the end of one of the myriad of tunnels, as Germany’s Bundesliga is slated to resume this weekend. The same goes for the country’s second division, the aptly named 2. Bundesliga.

We won’t worry about the second division for now, in part because the top level of German football is perhaps the most entertaining soccer league on earth. When comparing it to American sports, Bill Connelly of ESPN compared it to Big 12 football, citing “points and offensive aggression” as qualities shared by both leagues.

“Best way I can put it is, it never feels like the ball is in the middle third,” Connelly told Uproxx when asked why the league is so much fun. “It feels like it’s in more dangerous areas more frequently. And teams are good enough in counter attack that there’s constant racing up and down. And more goals, of course. It’s a young, optimistic style, and it’s aesthetically pleasing.”

Basically, the Bundesliga is the best entry point into soccer for people who want to get into soccer but have no idea where to start. And there might not be a better time than this weekend, given the lack of anything else in the world of sports. As such, we tossed together a very brief guide to get you prepared for the coming weeks of Bundesliga action, which kicks off on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. ET and runs through Monday afternoon stateside.

What does the title race look like?

The single-best title race in major world football right now is in Germany. Liverpool all but won the Premier League. PSG all but won Ligue 1 before the year was called. Real Madrid and Barcelona are battling for La Liga for the 10,000th year in a row. Serie A is a fun two-team race between Juventus and Lazio.

In the Bundesliga, four teams — Bayern Munich (55 points), Borussia Dortmund (51), RB Leipzig (50), and Borussia Mönchengladbach (49) — are within six points of one another, with Bayer Leverkusen (47) in shouting distance with nine games remaining in the campaign. This is, admittedly, a touch misleading, as Bayern may have been playing the best footy of any club in the world when things stopped back in March. By 538’s Global Club Soccer Rankings, the Bavarians are just a hair below Manchester City for the title of the world’s best, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone saying the English giants were playing better heading into the shutdown. Among Europe’s five-best leagues, only PSG (a statistical outlier due to the weakness of their league) and City (see the last sentence) were better in expected goal differential.

Having said all of this, the Bundesliga is weird. Bayern have to play all three of Dortmund, Gladbach, and Leverkusen before the campaign is decided. Ryan O’Hanlon, over at ESPN, explained that Leipzig has an easier path than Dortmund to upending Bayern. Gladbach, while good, just might not have the horsepower to have too much to say here, while it would take a miracle for Leverkusen to make much of a jump. Still, the overwhelming favorite is Bayern. They are that good.

So should I just watch Bayern?

Of course not! Yes, tune into Bayern, because they are magnificent — there are tons of big names, but in my opinion, pay special attention to Alphonso Davies, a Canadian teenager who might end up being one of the best players in the world in the next few years and is dominating despite playing fullback, which is not his natural position. They also have Robert Lewandowski, who has been among the best strikers in the world for years and has taken his game to a new level this campaign, and David Alaba, who is on here because I adore him (he moved to center back from fullback earlier this year and is one of the best in the world at the position already). But the thing with the Bundesliga is it is so much fun that any random match you turn on is almost certainly going to be worth your time.

Example: The first slate of fixtures on Saturday, which kick off at 9:30 a.m. EST, include Dortmund-Schalke and Leipzig-Freiburg. We can forget Freiburg for a moment, as they’re not particularly great, but in a way, they are the perfect first foe for Leipzig, which boast gobs of young talent, are one of the most tactically flexible sides on earth, and have the second-best goalscorer in the league in Timo Werner. Schalke are a fine side — they sit in sixth and are one of the league’s more conservative bunches — but this is a rivalry fixture against Dortmund, football’s chaos agents who attack relentlessly and oftentimes leave their defense wide open. An example from earlier this year:

That sounds fun!

It is!

You seem to really like these three teams.

Personally, I am not a particularly big Bayern fan for reasons we won’t get into, but yeah, they’re all fun, and you’d probably enjoy watching them, although it is certainly plausible that all three play a little more conservatively in their first match or two considering the amount of time they’ve had off.

Talk to me about Mönchengladbach and Leverkusen.

Sure. Gladbach are an extremely solid side, one that did hit a bit of a rough patch in league play before things went on hiatus — they accrued 15 of a possible 27 points in the nine matches before the league was suspended, which is OK, just not quite what you want when you’re fighting for a top-4 spot, is all. Still, their underlying numbers are good, as they’re third in the league in expected goal differential and, despite their lack of a ruthless goalscorer in the likes of Lewandowski, Werner, or Dortmund’s Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho, are also third in non-penalty expected goals and assists per 90 minutes. A pair of talented Frenchmen, Alassane Pléa and Marcus Thuram, are very much worth the price of admission.

Leverkusen, meanwhile, was in the midst of some scintillating football in the lead-up to the hiatus. They had taken 22 of a possible 27 points, which included a 4-3 win over Dortumund. While their best goalscorer is German forward Kevin Volland you should make it a point to watch Leverkusen because of their precocious midfielder Kai Havertz, a 20-year-old ace who has the potential to lead the next generation of German footballers.

It seems like there are a lot of good young players in Germany worth watching, Bill.

There are, voice in my head making the other part of this dialogue! Just among players 22 and under, the aforementioned Havertz and Thuram are tremendous, Bayern’s Davies is going to be a superstar and is in the midst of one of the most impressive rises we’ve seen recently, and moving down the table, plenty of clubs have entrusted major minutes to youngsters — Schalke’s Weston McKennie and Ozan Kabak, Wolfsburg’s Xaver Schlager and Josip Brekalo, Koln’s Sebastiaan Bornauw, etc.

The clubs that best handle youngsters, though, are Dortmund and Leipzig, both of which are factories for developing talent and flipping them for major money. Dortmund might have two of the three-best youngsters on the planet attacking in English ace Jadon Sancho, who is 20, and Haaland, who is 19, joined in midseason, and has all the makings of someone who will be mentioned as the best player in the world. Beyond them, 20-year-old Frenchman Dan Axel Zagadou and 21-year-old Moroccan Achraf Hakimi are fixtures in their defense, while 17-year-old American Giovanni Reyna has broken into the side as a reserve. Leipzig’s list of youngsters is also quite impressive: 20-year-old Matheus Cunha (Brazil), 21-year-olds Tyler Adams (United States) and Dayot Upamecano (France, he is insanely good in defense), along with 21-year-olds Amadou Haidara (Mali), Nordi Mukiele (France), and Christopher Nkunku (France).

You mentioned a few Americans. Christian Pulisic broke out in Germany, right?

He did!

Is he still there?

No he’s at Chelsea, but he was at Dortmund.

Ah!

It’s fine! Over the last year, Germany has become a destination for all sorts of talented youngsters, and a number of Americans have carved out roles in the league. Pulisic is the best recent example, but that was the case before him, too — Landon Donovan’s professional career, for example, started at Leverkusen.

Currently, the Americans generating the most buzz are McKennie (a very solid midfielder for Schalke who is a fixture for the national team), Adams (Leipzig, had been injured but is a ball of kinetic energy in the midfield or at fullback), and Reyna (he’s 17!). Make it a point to watch all of them, but especially Adams, who could end up snatching the title of the world’s best American from Pulisic sooner rather than later, which says more about Adams than Pulisic.

They’re hardly the only Americans in the league, though. John Brooks (you might recall) is a stalwart in defense for Wolfsburg and is the national team’s best defender when healthy. Former national teamers Timothy Chandler and Fabian Johnson ply their trade for Eintracht Frankfurt and Gladbach, respectively. Düsseldorf’s Alfredo Morales is a tenacious midfielder, Josh Sargent’s had an up-and-mostly down campaign for Werder Bremen but might be America’s striker of the future, and while he is injured, the national team’s No. 1 keeper, Zack Steffen, plays for Düsseldorf on loan from Manchester City.

Alright, I’ll tune in. What’s the schedule look like?

Here are this weekend’s fixtures with television information, all times are ET:

Saturday, May 16

Borussia Dortmund vs. Schalke, 9:30 a.m., FS1
RB Leipzig vs. Freiburg, 9:30 a.m., FS2
Hoffenheim vs. Hertha Berlin, 9:30 a.m., Fox Soccer Matchpass
Fortuna Dusseldorf vs. Paderborn, 9:30 a.m., Fox Soccer Matchpass
Augsburg vs. Wolfsburg, 9:30 a.m., Fox Soccer Plus
Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Borussia Monchengladbach, 12:30 p.m. FS1

Sunday, May 17

Cologne vs. Mainz, 9:30 a.m., FS1
Union Berlin vs. Bayern Minich, 12 p.m., FS1

Monday, May 18

Werder Bremen vs. Bayer Leverkusen, 2:30 p.m., FS2

Very good, anything else I need to know?

Sure, real quick, here’s how testing is gonna go. As ESPN explained, players and staffers will get tested twice weekly, via nose and throat swabs as to make sure the likelihood of false positive results are reduced. Clubs are staying in isolated areas with the hopes of keeping players from contracting COVID-19, and if players or staffers test positive, they’ll go into quarantine. Also, as you can guess, stadiums will be empty, which is an unfortunate necessity, as atmospheres in Germany are perhaps the best in the world.

This all seems weird and like things could backfire pretty easily.

Yup!

Is it gonna work?

I have no idea, but I’ll certainly be watching on Saturday morning, and if the league can resume without hitting and major bumps in the road — the biggest “if” in all of sports right now — do not be surprised if other leagues get back onto the pitch sooner rather than later.

Saturday Night Live’s 45th season is finally in the books, finishing out with three episodes of the “At Home” variety while the rest of the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the unprecedented nature of the season, the subject matter of the show often touched on what people are doing to fill time while in isolation, which led to a number of sketches about gaming.

The first was Mikey Day playing a frustrated streamer who kept getting nuked at Call of Duty: Warzone. And now, we have a somewhat belated look at the meanest Animal Crossing: New Horizons island in the game’s otherwise adorable history. In the sketch, which was released as a digital exclusive on Friday, Melissa Villaseñor and Day hop on a video call to play Animal Crossing together. But while Day is having a lovely time getting acclimated to the island wilderness, Villaseñor is encountering animals saying things like this to her.

Clearly, the editors enjoyed taking screengrabs from the game and putting new text over them, as basically everyone in the game is far too nice to say things like that. Even bullying animals off your island is done pretty gently, relatively speaking. As the sketch continues, Day tries to visit his friend’s island to see if he’s getting the same kind of hate. And while Tom Nook doesn’t hope he gets coronavirus, it’s clear that the animals don’t like living with Melissa very much.

What’s interesting about the sketch is that the islands they appear on are basically brand new. Day, in fact, is wearing the gingham shirt you can get as starting clothing. However, in the video it’s clear that Villaseñor has the hard-to-find Animal Crossing Switch bundle, as you can see from the controller in her hand.

It’s clear that she’s a fan of Animal Crossing, as she does a pretty spectacular Isabelle impression, complete with warbled words and all. But it’s very likely that she’s been playing since launch day in mid March, which begs the question: did she have to delete her launch day island just to play out the sketch? Or did someone else buy a copy of New Horizons to get the video needed for the very mean comments?

Given the timestamps on the game that pop up when you stop moving, we know they’ve been working on this for at least a few weeks now. The scene where her character is murdered, for example, was video captured on May 4. So perhaps they’re further along on this new island at this point, anyway. And if that’s a bit too much negativity in your island experience, please enjoy this video from the musicians who made New Horizons‘ soothing title track.

Ah, that’s better.

Sharon Van Etten has a talent for transforming popular songs into haunting ballads. The singer is known for her rendition of Sinead O’Connor’s “Black Boys On Mopeds,” which she regularly performs at live shows. Back in December, the singer shared a soaring version of the holiday classic “Silent Night.” Now, Van Etten has enlisted the help of Queens Of The Stone Age vocalist Josh Homme and others to record a version of Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding.”

Linking up with Homme and a handful of session players, Van Etten injects her singer/songwriter style into the cover. Popularized by Elvis Costello on his 1979 album Armed Forces, Lowe’s “Peace, Love And Understanding” confronts a loss of humanity. “I ask myself / Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?” Van Etten sings.

Sharing the cover to social media, Van Etten detailed how the cover transpired: “When my friend Zach Dawes first suggested we try to cover Nick Lowe’s timeless song, ‘Peace, Love, & Understanding’, I was nervous and excited and wondered what direction we would take it together,” she wrote. Van Etten added that the cover leaves her “wistful” because it reminds her that she is a part of a “great community” of people in LA and the song feels “especially significant” now.

Listen to Van Etten and Homme cover “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” above.

And it’s incredible.

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FIFA’s ruling council will announce the host nation of the 2023 Women’s World Cup on June 25 during a virtual meeting, soccer’s governing body announced Friday. Individual bids from the soccer federations of Brazil, Japan, and Colombia, along with a joint bid from Australia and New Zealand, are being considered in what FIFA called “the most competitive bidding process in the history of the Women’s World Cup.”

Hosting the 2023 tournament would be a first for all of the bidding nations. The FIFA Women’s World Cup was introduced as a competition in 1991 in China. Since then, Sweden, Germany and Canada have each hosted once, China hosted for a second time in 2007, the United States has hosted twice ⁠— at back-to-back tournaments in 1999 and 2003 ⁠— and France hosted last year’s event. The 2019 tournament saw the U.S. women’s national team dominate the opposition as they won their fourth World Cup, becoming the most successful team in Women’s World Cup history.

Originally, the hosts for the 2023 Women’s World Cup were supposed to be chosen at a FIFA Council meeting in June, however the global coronavirus pandemic pushed those plans back. Members of FIFA visited each of the four bidding sites for inspections in January and February of this year, and are “now finalising the evaluation report, which will be published in early June.” The results of June 25th’s ballot and voting rounds will be made public on FIFA’s website, according to the organization’s statement.

“FIFA remains committed to implementing the most comprehensive, objective and transparent bidding process in the history of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This is part of our overall commitment to women’s football that, among other things, will see FIFA invest USD 1 billion in women’s football during the current cycle,” said FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura in the release.

The 2023 Women’s World Cup will also see 32 teams take the field for the first time in the event’s history. The last two tournament, both won by the USWNT, had included 24 teams which was expanded from 16 in 2015.

No decision on an increase in prize money for 2023 has been made yet by FIFA, but the organization announced in 2018 that prize money for the 2022 men’s tournament would increase from $400 million to $440 million. As 2019 world champions, the USWNT earned $4 million in prize money compared to France’s $38 million for the 2018 men’s title, which included 32 teams. Furthermore, as Rachel Bachman of the Wall Street Journal reported, while the 2019 Women’s World Cup attracted about 31 percent of the men’s global audience, “FIFA awarded the women 7.5 percent of the total prize money the men receive: $30 million, versus $400 million.” In July 2019, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said that he would propose that the prize money for the 2023 Women’s World Cup double to $60 million, but further details have yet to be announced.

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Mankind won an empty arena match for the WWF Championship during halftime of the Super Bowl by using a bag of popcorn and a forklift, Vince McMahon went to Texas to find Stone Cold Steve Austin and almost got shot to death, and The Undertaker strangled some vampires until they agreed to be on his team.

If you haven’t seen this episode, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes of classic Raw you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.

Hey, you! If you want us to keep doing retro reports, share them around! And be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of these shows. Head back to a time long forgotten when WWE TV was fun to watch, and things happened!

And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for February 13, 1999.

Welcome To SkyDome, Where Every Human Being In Canada Brought Posterboard

Welcome to Toronto’s SkyDome for a true moment in history: the largest crowd in history (41,432) for Monday Night Raw in its 27 years on television, aired on Saturday night because it got preempted by the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. It’s also real Attitude Era hours out here, which means roughly 41,429 of the people in attendance brought signs. You’d think it was a goddamn posterboard convention. You could blot out the sun with arrows and Toronto would just raise their signs and cheer for Road Dogg in the shade.

In case you were wondering, the winner of that year’s dog show was a Papillon with the extremely normal name of CH. Loteki Supernatural Being. Dog breeders name dogs like Square names Kingdom Hearts games. Tell me you’d be surprised if the next mobile game was called, “Kingdom Hearts: Loteki Supernatural Being.”

Best: The Corporate Gauntlet Gets Thrown Down (Again)

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: In Your House is in six days tomorrow night, so they’re ratcheting up the tension between the Corporation and Austin-gun, which as far as I can tell is only Steve Austin with Mankind and D-Generation X sometimes working as sellswords. Don’t get that confused with Austin-gunn, which is totally different.

Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mankind are supposed to have a match later in the night to “tear each other apart,” weakening them for Mr. McMahon and The Rock respectively at In Your House. McMahon guaran-damn-tees us that he wants his cage match with Stone Cold to be his true moment of victory, so any member of the Corporation or McMahon family who interferes “in the slightest way,” he’ll “fire every damn one of ya, and you’ll never again work for the World Wrestling Federation.” Spoiler alert for both In Your House and King of the Ring, but McMahon got a lot of mileage out of the technicality, “nobody currently on my team will interfere.” He also makes himself the special guest referee for Austin vs. Mankind, because even mildly good news sends 1999 Vince McMahon soaring confidently toward the sun on wax wings.

McMahon’s reading of the rules for the match is so funny. He says they should gouge each other in the eyes, encourages the use of chairs and tables and “assorted other furniture” — what, does he want Mankind to hit Austin over the head with a loveseat? — and says, “kicks to the groin, quite frankly, would be appreciated.” He wants to see somebody’s ass kicked.

In a rare moment of WWE babyfaces not being complete dolts, Austin tells McMahon that it’s actually McMahon’s ass that will be kicked, because this match is bullshit and not really for anything, so they might as well body him and throw it out. Austin can’t hit Vince or he’ll be fired, so he gets Mankind — well, Mr. Socko, technically — to choke him out instead. The Corporation hits the ring to make the save, but Austin and Mankind’s stats are buffed from defeating Vince so they fight them off. McMahon, unhappy that his brilliant plan to put himself in the ring with two guys who want to kick the crap out of him didn’t work, books Austin in a new main event: facing, “each and every member of the Corporation,” (except The Rock) in a Corporate Gauntlet.

This version of the Corporate Gauntlet is great, because it knows what it’s supposed to be. Instead of trying to win, each member of the team’s simply out there to do as much damage to Austin as possible to soften him up for Vince. Every time Austin’s able to fight back and make a cover, a new member shows up to cause a disqualification and cheap shot him. That gives them an immediate advantage, and after this has happened five times (including the Big Boss Man attacking him repeatedly with a nightstick), Mr. McMahon himself “enters the match” and takes the pin. If you weren’t personally invested in seeing this 53-year old jacked businessman get thrown off a cage before, you are now.

Worst: And He Didn’t Even Make A Joke About Loving The “BJs”

This comes up again later (surprise!) when Chyna randomly shows up and punches X-Pac in the bat and balls for doing well against Kane. X-Pac matches where he’s in there against a much bigger, much stronger opponent who can launch his quick little light ass around the ring are always worth the watch. Pac and Kane had a special kind of chemistry on top of that, which is why they ended up more or less creatively chained together for a while. Triple H makes the save and Chyna’s like, “I’m hardcore, I’ll take ’em both,” but Kane drags (and then carries) her to safety. She looks like a total bad-ass, sure, but she should learn how to wear the right gloves before she [chops at dick] chokes up on the bat!!

Val Venis’ Death Wish Continues

Val Venis can only get an erection outside of his work in adult film if the situation is dangerous, and might end with him being mutilated. As mentioned we saw him hook up with Mr. Yamaguchi-san’s wife and almost get his [dick chop] dick chopped off and almost end up as Terri Runnel’s baby daddy in association with a gaslighting girl gang, and now he’s taking Ken Shamrock’s sister Ryan to the hotel at the SkyDome and hooking up with her in full view of WWF cameras. He then comes to the ring to talk about it with Ryan on his hip, which — get this — causes the constantly infuriated murder machine who gets punched in the brain for a living to hit the ring and flip the fuck out on Val. Who knew pulling a co-worker who is also a former MMA champion’s sister out of the crowd, making a porno with her, showing that porno on a big screen at work, and bringing her to all your shared work events would end badly for him?

Shamrock’s fury is so great, in fact, that he suplexes a couple of referees, puts one of them in the ankle lock, and even headbutts Earl Hebner. You deserve it, clap clap clap-clap-clap. Because of this, Hebner runs backstage and narcs to the announce team that no World Wrestling Federation official will work Shamrock’s match on Sunday. If that happens, Shamrock will be forced to forfeit the Intercontinental Championship. That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense — if they don’t have a referee they can’t have the match, which would mean Shamrock would just stay the champion, right? It’s not like each guy has to bring his own referee to the match or he loses — but the day is quickly saved by the one, Bill Ass, volunteering for the job. I guess he was empowered by Mr. McMahon’s terrible decision to be the special guest referee for a match feature two guys that hate him.

The three of them brawl around backstage for the remainder of the show, and I can’t help but reiterate that 100% of Val Venis’ work problems would be solved if he just kept his homemade sex tapes to himself.

Best: Droppin Bows

If you’d like to see a fun little match you probably didn’t even know existed, check out The Rock vs. Steve Blackman from this episode. Rock’s supposed to be the world’s most dastardly and violent heel, but the crowd loves him, because of course they do. He’s peak Track Suit Rock here, and lets us know what his eventual dominant face run will look like by hitting the Rock Bottom, but actually winning the match with the People’s Elbow. I always enjoy top heels winning matches against talented undercard guys without having to cheat their asses off. You shouldn’t be at that level if you aren’t good enough to EVER win on your own. There’s gotta be some kind of standard or the “sports” part of sports-entertainment just becomes bad entertainment.

Best: The Bucks Stop Here

If you want to see the most 1999 thing imaginable, here’s Jesus Shuttlesworth wearing a bright yellow LUGZ shirt while sitting front row for an Attitude Era show in the SkyDome. That’s Ervin Johnson, Jerald Honeycutt, and Robert Traylor with him, by the way. Michael Cole calls Traylor “Ray Taylor,” which is wrong in every direction, but maybe he thought Ray Allen went to Raw with the Big Boss Man. It’s interesting that they’re in Toronto but the Milwaukee Bucks are the team in the crowd. Maybe the Raptors drove to Buffalo and went to Nitro instead.

Best/Worst: Mark Henry Meets A Gorgeous Lady Of Wrestling

The most historically significant part of this week’s Raw is that it’s the WWE debut of Hall of Famer Ivory, more notably (to me) known as former G.L.O.W. Champion Tina Ferrari. I’m giving it a “Best” because Ivory’s fantastic and makes everything she’s involved with better, and a “Worst” because she debuted as … well, a glorified version of one of The Godfather hoes.

Here’s D’Lo Brown to explain:

“Mark, I know you like looking at eye candy, I know you like looking at pretty things, but I’ve got someone that’ll do exactly what you want, I’ve got someone that’ll do anything WHEN you want it, and Mark my man, she’ll do it any WHERE you want it. And guess what, brother? She’s all yours.”

Raise your hand if you remembered Ivory came into WWE as a prostitute to make sure Debra McMichael didn’t give Mark Henry any boners.

Also On This Episode

The actual Hoes (including this gorgeous woman who has me in a real The Office Chair Model situation) have an even worse night than Ivory, as they’re at ringside to watch Mideon and the newly named and be-geared Viscera maul their friendly pimp. Mideon spends most of the minute-22 trying to show Michael Cole an eyeball in a jar and convince him to “accept the purity of evil,” which sadly doesn’t work. Congratulations on wrestling in a sweatsuit and being named after guts, Dark Mabel!

The fiend Bluedust causes a vomit-inducing distraction (pictured) that causes Goldust to face the ultimate indignity and get pinned by Gillberg. This begins Gillberg’s epic undefeated streak in WWE. After the match, Goldust is attacked in darkness and covered in Smurf jizz, which the announce team excitedly refers to as a “bluebath.” Cole is just like, “it’s Bluedust’s take on the Brood, anyway, moving on,” like he didn’t just watch the bootleg wrestling version of an animated Beatles villain cause a psychologically manipulative wrestling Oscar statue to lose a match to a tiny old man dressed like Bill Goldberg and then use vampire magic to cover him in player two Pepto Bismol. Wrestling is weird.

Al Snow hopes to show the Road Dogg how hardcore he is by going full Fight Club and wrestling himself in a hardcore match. He sprays himself in the face with a fire extinguisher (pictured), cookie sheets himself in the face, slams his own head into the announce table, and hits a picture-perfect Charlotte Flair moonsault:

After the match (?), fellow Job Squad member Bob Holly shows up and tries to get him to stop bludgeoning and impaling himself on shit. Snow resists, first with shoves and then with a punch, which triggers Bob Holly’s dormant bloodlust and turns him into the Bob we all know and have no particular affection for, Hardcore Holly. The shifting of focus to Holly ends up giving us arguably the greatest Hardcore Champion ever, one of the best Women’s Champions ever, and some A+ scale gags. HOW DO YOU LIKE HIM NOW?

Finally, here’s Kevin Kelly interviews The Droz, seen here wearing an enormous furry bucket hat that borders on being a shtreimel, and asks the hard hitting questions. “Everybody loves the Oddities, why do you have such a problem with them?” First of all, speak for yourself. Second of all, you’re cool with the fact that he straight-up murdered a suicidal alcoholic on Raw by shoving him off the TitanTron, but being kind of an asshole to Kurrgan is a bridge too far? Anyway, Droz punches him in the face, which is how every Kevin Kelly interview should end.

Next Week:

It’s time for St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: In Your House, featuring:

• Stone Cold Steve Austin taking Vince McMahon to a cage-shaped woodshed
• the super secret debut of Netflix sitcom star who once died in a rooftop monster truck battle with Hulk Hogan
• the thrilling conclusion to Dust vs. Dust
• a Last Man Standing match between The Rock and Mankind, which Rock definitely would’ve won at the Royal Rumble
• Bill Ass wearing stripes and showing butt while a severe cuckolding fetishist challenges for the Intercontinental Championship
• more of the Corporation vs. D-X
• a hardcore match in the Mississippi River

All this and more, next week. Until then, drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of this episode, give us a share on social media to get more people reading about how the Attitude Era actually went down, and try not to leave the curtains open and the camera on if you’re about to throw it in Stipe Miocic’s sister.