Category: Viral

Tuesday night on Impact Wrestling, Eric Young won the Impact World Championship in a brutal match with Eddie Edwards. Edwards had only held the belt since Slammiversary in July, which was the same show where Eric Young made his return to the company. Prior to that, if you’ve encountered Eric Young in the past four years, it was probably as the leader of the apocalyptic faction Sanity, which ran roughshod over the NXT roster back around 2017.

After a memorable NXT run, Sanity got called up to Smackdown, but left behind Nikki Cross, who many felt was the performer who held the group together. Without her, the group never found its place in WWE and was unceremoniously broken up. Alexander Wolfe went to NXT UK and joined Imperium. Killian Dain went back to NXT for the solo run he’d never gotten. Nikki Cross teamed with Alexa Bliss and dominated the Women’s Tag Team Division for a while. But Eric Young never really got anything to do, aside from occasionally being part of the comedy mob in some 24/7 Championship segments. So it was no great surprise when he was part of WWE’s layoffs in April, and now he’s Impact World Champion.

The Impact Knockouts Champion, Deonna Purrazzo, who held a Black Tie Celebration on this week’s show, was also released from WWE in April, although the fact that she still had an NXT contract enabled her to show up on Impact a lot sooner. EC3, Curt Hawkins/Brian Myers, Heath Slater, and the Good Brothers have also recently moved to Impact in the wake of those WWE layoffs. EC3 is already in a storyline involving Moose’s revived TNA Championship, and it’s only a matter of time before Anderson and Gallows get a run at the Tag Team Championship.

But it’s not just Impact that’s getting the most from former WWE Superstars. Just a week ago Saturday on AEW Dynamite, Brodie Lee (FKA Luke Harper) won the TNT Championship from Cody Rhodes, who himself helped found All Elite Wrestling after leaving WWE. And of course the AEW World Championship is held by Jon Moxley, once a top WWE star as Dean Ambrose. Moxley won the belt from the inaugural Champion, Chris Jericho, one of the biggest WWE Superstars of all time.

So you have to wonder, does it hurt these other companies to rely on former WWE talent as their biggest stars? That’s an accusation that’s frequently thrown AEW’s way recently, but it’s also been the number one thing people make fun of about Impact for years.

To be fair, Eric Young is kind of a different situation. He was in Impact first, and was treated like a big star there. Even with the Sanity stuff getting over in NXT, you could argue that Impact did more to make Eric Young a star than WWE ever did. The same is definitely true of EC3. So those guys aren’t really imported WWE stars in Impact, they’re Impact stars returning from an extended visit to WWE.

AEW is in a different situation. They’ve only existed for slightly more than a year, and have been on TV for slightly less than one. So while they’re obviously working to build stars out of wrestlers from the indies and Japan who most of America hadn’t heard of, the only people who showed up with substantial name recognition are the ones who came from WWE.

So it makes sense to put championships on those guys to start. On the other hand, it’s been a year now, give or take, and both of AEW’s men’s singles championships are on their second title holder, and all four champions are WWE alums: Brodie, Cody, Mox, and Jericho. It might be about to time to show confidence in one of their homegrown stars and put at least the midcard TNT Title on them.

Bu there’s something else going on here too, which I think is worth considering. When you push certain ex-WWE wrestlers like Brodie Lee, Eric Young, and Deonna Purrazzo (or the Good Brothers, FTR, and EC3), you give a sense of satisfaction to those “smart mark” fans who have long been saying these wrestlers could do so much more and go so much farther than they were allowed in WWE. It’s a kind of shine that comes from having been in WWE, not because of fans who love WWE and therefore love you for having worked there, but because of the idea that WWE held you down, and now that you’re in another company you’re your best self.

Even stars like Cody and Moxley, who got plenty of TV time and ultimately left by choice, have similar narratives about how WWE wouldn’t give them the freedom to be the characters they knew they be best as.

Wrestling is what it is, and promoters and performers alike will generally take whatever goodwill fans have to offer, including the “thank god you escaped from Vince” kind. That doesn’t mean these narratives aren’t true, just that they’re being used the same way that both truth and fiction are both used in wrestling: to get us to cheer and boo the right people.

When it comes to gateway bourbons, it’s hard to top the original Maker’s Mark. It’s full of vanilla, caramel, and corn-sweetness and is effortlessly easy to sip. But, the best thing about starting with bourbon from the Loretto, Kentucky-based distillery is the fact that you can step up to its other releases when your palate becomes a little more nuanced.

You can’t go wrong with its Maker’s Mark 46. But the true bourbon aficionados always eagerly await their second release, Maker’ Mark 2020 Limited Release. This is the second offering from its Wood Finishing series. Last year, the brand launched Stave Profile RC6. It was full of toasted vanilla, sweet caramel, and mouth-watering fruit flavors. This year, at the same time the brand is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Maker’s 46, it’s making this new release available.

You might be unfamiliar with the term “wood finishing.” In this scenario, it refers to Maker’s proprietary stave finishing process. After full maturation, cask strength bourbon is filled into barrels containing specifically designed wooden staves. Then, those barrels are rested in the brand’s limestone bourbon cellar. The result is a unique flavor profile created by the well-aged whiskey and the staves interacting together.

Available now nationwide, Maker’s Mark 2020 Limited Release has a suggested retail price of $59.99 — a great price for what’s in the bottle. It won’t be available for long, so you better get your hands on a bottle while you can.

Maker’s Mark 2020 Limited Release

ABV: 55.4%
Price: $59.99

The Story:

Proving that you need to compare both offerings, last year’s expression was created to be high in baking spices and fruity flavors. This year, the emphasis was richer, more dessert-like flavors. That’s because the 2020 version doesn’t use the same stave styles from the previous year. They selected the two specific staves to impart the flavors of vanilla and caramel. They didn’t figure out how to do this overnight. It took more than a year of experimenting before they created the perfect balance. One stave, made from French oak, was cooked on medium heat before toasting. The other stave was made from American oak. It was cooked on low heat for an extended period of time. The vast difference in the flavor of the two offerings makes us wonder what we’re in store for next fall.

Tasting Notes:

Like all great bourbon sipping sessions, it all starts with the nosing. You’d be remiss if you took a sip without first savoring the aromas of rich, toasted oak, sweet cream, and salted caramel. The first sip brings forth flavors of vanilla beans, sticky toffee pudding, and caramelized sugar with a subtle nutty backbone. The finish is long, dry, and ripe with more vanilla and caramel that ends with a subtle flourish of cinnamon.

Bottom Line:

The folks at Maker’s Mark spent a long time perfecting this whiskey. You should do it justice by pouring it over a few ice cubes and sipping it slowly while you watch the world go by around you. Its September launch is well-timed because this will be your go-to autumnal dram.

Tekashi 69 doesn’t believe there’s any difference between himself and Tupac, according to a New York Times profile of the recently-released, rabble-rousing rapper published today. The broad-spanning interview finds the troublemaking 24-year-old in full tell-all mode as he opens up about his various missteps, including his 2015 conviction for using a child in a sexual performance (he continues to deny wrongdoing in that instance), his testimony against the Nine Trey Bloods (“I knew what I was doing with Nine Trey. I knew what I was getting into.”), and his penchant for nonstop trolling in the pursuit of fame.

To whit, the comparison between 69 and Pac. When asked about his above-mentioned guilty plea for posting a video of a 13-year-old girl in a sexual performance with an acquaintance (he maintains he didn’t know the girl’s age and was devastated to learn it after the fact), he points to Tupac’s 1994 conviction for felony sex abuse. “Tupac Shakur was convicted of rape,” he insists. “Is Tupac Shakur loved or hated? Loved! What’s the difference between me and Tupac Shakur? I never caught a rape charge — ever.”

He counters protests that Tupac gave back to the world through his music by playing “Troublesome ’96” and pointing out that it’s one of Tupac’s biggest songs. “What’s the difference between that and ‘Billy’?” he wonders. You’re telling me he gave back through his art? You’re lying to me.” When interviewer Joe Coscarelli points out that Pac was a multifaceted artist in comparison to 69’s more one-dimensional output, Tekashi contends that “I got to feed what, in 2020, is relevant. I got to feed the masses. There’s no difference between me and Tupac Shakur.”

Read the full interview here.

This week’s episode of Hard Knocks began with Rams coach Sean McVay watching video of police shooting Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, which should give you an idea of the tone of the episode. Dammit, HBO, I was trying to watch these young men compete to give each other head trauma to forget all that!

There were some brief forays into other subjects, like Mike Williams’ loose gloves and Justin Herbert’s beautiful balls, but in the end it was back to social issues. Mainly it was the open question of whether these football players should use their platforms to try to effect change or stay in their proverbial lanes and keep knocking heads. Hard to blame the players or coaches for doing the former, even if it’s yet another example of our inability to have nice things at a time when we need a distraction to maintain our sanity.

Football coaches are also some of the last people on Earth I feel like I need to hear weigh in on how to fix society. But maybe they’re our fitting punishment for our own failure to keep the house in order. Send Sean McVay to Congress. Have him force Mitch McConnell to watch 11 hours of constantly paused game tape breaking down predatory policing between weird platitudes like “time to lean or time to clean, am I right chief?” Whip these clowns in congress into shape! Especially the ones who used to coach football!

Okay, whatever, this is the last episode and thus the last recap, we might as well get on with it.

Merciless Cut Of Previously Anonymous Player

Second: Rams quarterback Josh Love.

Your reward for going from walk-on to the third most prolific passer in San Jose State history? 30 seconds of screen time on Hard Knocks during which you get cut! Brutal, man.

Starter: Rams linebacker Bryan London II.

Josh Love got cut to make room for some new linebackers, as did London, who is… (*checks notes*) also a linebacker. Meanwhile, the coaches inexplicably attempted to explain this decision by describing all the positives of the news guys they were bringing in. “Yeah hey, we thought you did great, but we’re bringing in some guy we’ve never seen play on account he has such a great body. I mean 6’4″, 250! Just pure muscle, this guy. Anyway, you did amazing with what you got.”

I thank God none of my ex-girlfriends chose to dump me this way. “You tried really hard, but have you seen the abs on Steve? We just think he’s worth bringing in, just to see if he works within our system.”

Gratuitous Haka Footage

Starter: Breiden Fehoko

What the hell, guys? You had a guy who would lead the Haka this whole time and you hid him from us until the final episode? This is professional negligence. Give me all of the Hakas.

Too-Brief Moment Of Football-Like Excitement

Second: Justin Herbert’s beautiful balls.

The Chargers backup quarterback began this episode with a notably bad practice that coach Anthony Lynn somehow tried to spin into a positive — “no, honestly, looking like shit is exactly where we want him to be.” That quickly became backstory for Herbert’s incredible turnaround, stepping up in the pocket and throwing ball after beautiful ball. Boy, Justin Herbert has some beautiful balls, doesn’t he?

Dammit, Tyrod Taylor is going to get hosed again, isn’t he. And all so the Chargers can go 4-12 in an empty stadium.

First: The end-zone dive drill

Kudos to the Hard Knocks cinematographer, I never thought I could be so excited about guys jumping over a stack of pads. I guess we found out why Ekeler is the starter.

Legacy Hire Making Good

Second: Van Jefferson

Son of all-star Shawn Jefferson, Van Jefferson made some plays this week (“Jefferson wowed with his precision route running,” said the announcer). Then we realized he was just a sacrificial lamb for depicting the greatness of CB Jalen Ramsey. That’s my favorite Hard Knocks move, by the way. They spend five minutes puffing up a guy before you realize they’re only using him for scale.

Starter: Clay Johnston

After four episodes I still have no idea why this guy gets 5-10 minutes of screentime every episode. Is it for the apparently mediocre play? Was it solely a means to get his Godfather “Papa Favre” on camera? Come for the dull banter, stay for the cringey PG swears! “Fudge! Gosh, isn’t football great? Gee golly, I sure love the game.”

I wish NFL players got to write social justice messages on their jerseys like NBA players, so we could see Clay Johnston running around the practice squad in a “SHUCKS” jersey.

Anachronistic Joke Award

Starter: WAAAAZAAAAP, Justin Herbert.

Damn, that is a callback. A little internet sleuthing shows that Justin Herbert was one year old when the first Waaaaazuuu Budweiser ad aired. At this rate, he’s going to get to “…said no one ever” in about 10 more years. God bless him.

—

And with that, we say goodbye to season 15 of Hard Knocks, the first not to feature a single preseason game or live intra-team play. Like most things in 2020, we bid it a hardy “good f*cking riddance” and pray we never have to do it this way again.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Chef’s Table: BBQ (Netflix) — It’s time to dig into the juicy realm of meat-land and perhaps for the show to scoop up more Emmy nominations in the process. This season, featured chefs and pitmasters shall include Rodney Scott (shown above) of South Carolina, a master of whole-hog barbecue; Tootsie Tomantez, an 85-year-old Texas grandmother who shovels her own coals; Leonnox Hastie, who hails and sources from the Australian Outback; and Rosalia Chay Chuc, a traditional Mayan chef in Mexico.

Coroner (CW, 9:00 pm EST) — As morbid as it sounds, this profession needs to consider how to spend Thanksgiving at home, too. Then work and personal realms collide, and good luck with having a relaxing holiday.

Might we suggest these fresh offerings as well?

Ted Lasso (Apple TV+ series) — Jason Sudeikis is reviving his small-time college football coach character (who hails back to a 2013 advertising campaign) for this show. Lasso is somehow coaching professional English soccer, and good luck to him. What’s even more important, though, is that our own Brian Grubb calls the series “almost unreasonably good,” despite the seeming odds against it.

Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness (HBO Max series) — The star of 2014’s Meet the Patels is back to mull over deep conversations in a four-part season. Maybe some of life’s more fundamental questions shall be solved, but the journey to several different continents will fuel enough escapism that answers might not matter.

Love Fraud (Showtime series debut) — This critically acclaimed Sundance Film Festival limited series feels like the lovechild of Dirty John and Tiger King, as one prolific con-man leaves a decades-long trail of destruction.

Cobra Kai: Seasons 1 & 2 (Now on Netflix) — Season 3 of this crowd-pleasing arrival will arrive in 2021, but you can catch up to your heart’s content on the series that started as a YouTube original. Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso faces off again with William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence and both of their respective dojo members, and the show’s still got the same energy as the original movies. Macchio promised us that “[t]he best is yet to come” for this series, and we believe him.

In a passionate argument that cuts to the bone of whether future generations will live in a world where words matter or not, Ander Christensen has petitioned the city of Lincoln, Nebraska to lead the charge in renaming “boneless chicken wings.” Citing the inaccurate phrasing of the popular appetizer, Christensen pleaded with the City Council to think about the message being sent to impressionable youth.

“Nothing about boneless chicken wings actually come from the wing of a chicken,” Christensen argued to a mostly empty audience, save for one woman who laughed the entire time. “Boneless chicken wings are just chicken tenders, which are already boneless.” Christensen believes that this is a mixed message that fails to teach children an important lesson that meat grows on bones. But the time for change is not too late. Via KRVN:

“Lincoln has the opportunity to be a social leader in this county,” said Christensen. “We have been casually ignoring a problem that has gotten so out of control that our children are casually throwing around names and words without even understanding their true meaning.”

The man proposed that Lincoln remove the term boneless chicken wings “from our menus and from our hearts.”

Ever helpful, Christensen provided the following alternative names for boneless chicken wings: wet tenders, saucy nugs, and trash. He then concluded with a call to action. “We’ve been living a lie for far too long, and we know it because we feel it in our bones.” The now-viral video clip of Christensen’s impassioned speech ends with one of the City Council members noting, “For the record, that’s my son,” which answers a whole lot of questions here. Let’s be honest.

(Via KRVN Video)

The Clippers, especially head coach Doc Rivers, have been at the forefront of the conversation around social justice during their time in the NBA’s Bubble this summer. In the aftermath of the players’ wildcat strike last week, Rivers again is leading his team in new ways to be involved in gradual societal reform.

During the Clippers’ break following their six-game first-round victory over Dallas, the team set up a conversation with U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus whose congressional district includes the southern and western parts of Los Angeles.

Rivers explained during his game day media availability on Wednesday that the team’s chat with Rep. Bass centered around her thoughts on the player strike, her perspective as one of the writers of the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, and how the Clippers can even go a step further to take pieces of the federal legislation to the California state legislature.

In the days since the strike, NBA players and coaches have focused on how to channel their demonstration and collective energy into meaningful reform. The Bucks, who initiated the strike, demanded that the Wisconsin state legislature meet for the first time in four months, and sought out conversations with the governor’s office and attorney general’s office in the state. The Clippers are following suit by speaking with elected officials who can help them make their voices heard.

When we hear about racial bias in education, we might picture things like disparities in school funding, disciplinary measures, or educational outcomes. But it can also show up in the seemingly simplest of school assignments—ones that some of us wouldn’t even notice if we don’t look outside our own cultural lens.

Ericka Bullock-Jones shared one such instance on Facebook, with her daughter’s responses to questions on a high school ancestry assignment.

“My kids go to a pretty much all white school,” she wrote. “They got an assignment yesterday asking them to talk to their relatives and document how their families came to ‘immigrate’ to the US. The teacher asked for details about the ‘push and pull of the decision’ and really made it sound like a light hearted assignment. Female Offspring was INCENSED. She is a beast – and I mean that in the best possible way. I wish I had a scintilla if [sic] her nerve, knowledge and courage when I was her age. This is what she put together to turn in for this assignment…”

The top of the assignment reads:

“Your objective: Learn a little about your family history by talking to parents, grandparents, aunt, uncles, etc. Go home over the next few days and talk to family members to discover as much information as you can concerning how your family came to live in the United States. As you gather information, type the information you learn to the questions below. Find as much as you can and be prepared to share with the class next week during our Zoom call on Wednesday.”

The image shows the questions the teacher asked in bold, with the students’ answers underneath them. Two of the questions were crossed out by the student and reworded to fit her ancestors’ reality. It reads:

“Who is my first ancestor to come to the United States?

My first ancestor to come to the US has no name. They most likely had an African name, but there are no records of this ancestor because they were not treated as human beings.

Which side of your family is this?

Both sides of my family are mostly black.

Where did they migrate to the United States from?

Where were they taken from?

They did not migrate to the US, they were forcibly ripped from their homes and packed in ships similar to sardines (see pictures). They were stolen from Africa.

Where in the United States did they migrate to?

Where were they sold to?

They were most likely sold somewhere in the 13 colonies.

What brought them to the United States?

They were forcibly relocated to the US by slave ships and white men who wanted to profit off of human trafficking to build their country on the land that they stole from the indigenous people, which they all did under the delusion that they were entitled to do so.”

Ericka Bullock-Jones/Facebook

The assignment assumes the dominant cultural narrative in the U.S.—that we are a nation of immigrants and that our ancestors at some point along the line left a faraway homeland in search of a better life and found it here. But that narrative completely erases the experiences of the millions of descendants of enslaved Africans, in addition to the descendants of Native Americans whose ancestors have lived here for thousands of years.

This 15-year-old succinctly and boldly showed that, intentional or not, this assignment was designed only with non-Black and non-Native students in mind.

Bullock-Jones shared an update with the email that the student sent to the teacher with her assignment as well as his response.

She wrote:

“History Assignment Update:

Today is the day the students were scheduled to present their homework assignments to the other classmates via Zoom. The teacher postponed the presentation. My guess? I suspect he may have caught wind of her completed assignment making the rounds to thousands of people here in the US as well as abroad.
Before Female Offspring submitted her work to him, she sent an email directly to the teacher. It is below:

Dear ____ Good afternoon. I am unsure of whether or not it came to mind when creating this assignment that not all students come from a line of descendants whose history involves voluntary immigration. As an African American, my family history involves somber deep rooted wounds involving enslavement and exploitation which (as you know) continues to constantly weigh heavily on our shoulders. I want to make it clear that I understand that history is not always pretty and in this class we will learn and gain a deeper understanding of tragic historical events. The topic of this assignment it not something I take lightly. I am telling you all of this in the hopes that in the future you might give assignments like this more thought before asking these types of things of your future students.

Monday, the Female Offspring had office hours with the teacher. He was apologetic, conciliatory and complimentary of the assignment she turned in. He told her that it was insensitive of him to put her in that position. He said that he would need to re-evaluate the assignment, after having assigned it to his students for many years. He complimented her on how she had chosen to answer and re-frame his questions. Finally, he told her that it was the BEST response to the assignment that he had ever received and he’s been teaching for more than 15 years. I assume that when he said her response was the best he’d ever received, that means that she’ll be getting an A.

Right on, Female Offspring! Keep up the good fight!”

Indeed, keep up the good fight. We all need to learn to look outside our assumptions, challenge the dominant cultural narrative when it erases other Americans, and courageously speak the truth. Kudos to this student, and good for her teacher for hearing her, acknowledging the impact of the assignment, and committing to reevaluate it. (And also for giving her an A—she certainly earned it.)

Some of the moments that make us smile the most have come from everyday superstars (like Zaza!).

Everyone could use a little morning motivation, so Crest – the #1 Toothpaste Brand in America – is teaming up with some popular digital all-stars to share their smile-worthy, positivity-filled (virtual) pep talks for this year’s back-to-school season!

Let’s encourage confident smiles this back-to-school season. Check out Zaza‘s back-to-school pep talk above!

Teyana Taylor shared her highly-anticipated 23-track record The Album a few months ago. The Album boasted a handful of features from artists like Missy Elliot and Erykah Badu, who Taylor says will assist in delivering her next baby. But the record also showcased Taylor’s intimate and affecting solo songwriting, like with the soaring track “Still.” Taylor now returns with a moving video alongside “Still,” calling attention to racial justice and the ongoing demonstrations against police brutality.

The visual opens with a powerful message from one of Malcom X’s infamous speeches: “We are oppressed. We are exploited. We are downtrodden. We are denied not only civil rights, but even human rights. So the only way we’re going to get some of the oppression and exploitation away from us or aside from us is to come together against the common enemy.”

The video then flashes the names of Black Americans who were victims of policy brutality and racism, like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Throughout the remainder of her “Still” video, Taylor intercuts vintage footage of iconic civil rights speakers like Angela Davis and Martin Luther King Jr. with footage of herself dressed as several recent victims of police violence.

Watch Taylor’s “Still” video above.

The Album is out now via G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam. Get it here.