Previously on Jesus Christ, Superstars: My beautiful, twisted Dark Destiny debuted, and Integrated Conditioning Program wished us both a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays. Additionally, the Big Boss Man took a trip down to Cobb County, Georgia.

If you’d like to watch this week’s episode, you can do that here, and you can support the column (so we’re allowed to keep writing it) by reading previous installments on our Jesus Christ, Superstars tag page.

If you like these, and our break from the normal Best and Worst format, make sure to share it around so it gets read and drop us a comment below. As a reminder, why can’t keep writing about stuff if you don’t click on it. We’re trying to run a wrestling jokes business over here!

Here’s what you missed 28 years ago on WWF Superstars for December 26, 1992.

Jobbers Of The Week

Marching happily into their own graves against the Headshrinkers this week are the two worst guys from your dad’s bowling team, Chris Allen and Bill Vaper. That’s Chris on the left, Supermanning that ho, and Bill is the CVS toy section Kylo Ren action figure on the right.

As you might’ve expected, Bill Vaper is actually Bill Baker, and he’s billed as such in his Wrestling Challenge loss to Kamala the day before. That’s the eternal WWF Superstars question: did they slightly change his name to try and trick us into thinking they’re two separate jobbers, or is the guy running the graphics just illiterate, forgetful, and deaf? He deserves it, though, especially after giving Chloe so much anxiety. She should remember that if she wants a replacement coil but can’t pay for it now, she could Bill Vaper.

I can’t find much online about Chris Allen, but I remember him getting punched in the heart by Mean Mark on WCW Saturday Night, and I know he’s one of Yokozuna’s favorite bean bag chairs full of guts and cholesterol. Also he might have won season eight of American Idol.

Getting a surprise win over the future ECW star “Dante from Clerks with a bad haircut” is none other than Virgil, an emancipated slave turned candy striper whose name is an understated and subtle burn on Virgil “Dusty Rhodes” Runnels. Maybe I’m reading the character wrong and he’s supposed to be in loving tribute to the Roman poet. The Aeneid? More like Aeneid some more training, am I right folks?

On commentary, Vince McMahon puts over the Royal Rumble by pronouncing “melee” as me-LAY and declaring that Virgil might be the man to win it all. I can barely tell where the jobber ends and Virgil begins, so yes, I’m sure he’s about to toss out Yokozuna and Macho Man Randy Savage to earn a spot in the main event of WrestleMania. Virgil wins with a Russian leg sweep that McMahon calls a “neckbreaker,” because it’s so bad you’re not sure which one it is.

Stepping into the ring this week against the Native American Sensation Tatanka® is unknown’s own Bret Tyler, who may or may not just be a white guy in a pretty good Aja King Halloween costume.

The major story of this match is the appearance of Doink the Clown, who’d shown up earlier during a Bob Backlund vs. Barry Horowitz match to keep the children in the crowd from falling asleep. He returns here with a mop, and mops up the aisle until Tatanka’s down [checks notes] sweeping the floor with Tyler. They do some light physical comedy, culminating in Doink doing a full-on Curly Howard bit where he puts the mop on his shoulder and spins around so it hits Tatanka in the face. Tatanka sells it like he just got his eyeball gouged out by the Road Warriors.

The mop swinging around like that looks a lot like Tyler Breeze’s old Beauty Shot. Somebody flip out and kill the clown already.

Blind Children Of The Week

Razor Ramon has a WWF Championship match against Bret Hart at the Royal Rumble, so while Big Scott’s busy throwing poor Gus Kantarakis at the Earth, children in the crowd are wearing their Bret Hart sunglasses and taunting him. Well, “wearing” is a stretch. This poor little girl just gets them bandana’d around her head. There’s something truly Sisyphean about putting your kid on your shoulders so they can see, and then putting them in giant wraparound sunglasses, indoors.

The good news: Who has two thumbs and learned how to wear novelty sunglasses before the tapings were over? THIS kid.

Thirsty Bam Bam Bigelow Fan Of The Week

The first man with a craving for Fire Sauce.

Slamming Jam Of The Week

This week’s big selling point is the new hit single SLAM JAM, which Mean Gene Okerlund assures us debuted at #4 in the U.K. This should not be confused with ‘WrestleMania’ by the WWF Superstars (which came out around the same time and asks us if we’re “ready for the Survivor Series” despite it being “time for WrestleMania”) or the BAND “Slam Jam,” who perform the iconic ‘We’re All Together Now.’

The highlight, at least when The Undertaker isn’t trying to work in “The Undertaker says rest in peace” multiple times, is the rap break from Einstein. The rapper, not the theoretical physicist. Please read and memorize these lyrics, deciphered to the best of my abilities, in case you ever need to impress at karaoke.

we’re the cream
we roll like a team
but every great team needs a theme
here it is for the good the bad and the ugly
now here I am, the man so get with the jam
and pick up the program
(in the air) we’re flying, death defying, pumping iron, roar like a lions
pound for pound, round for round
mama said mama said take you out
bump it bump it bump it get with the jam
and slam

The song would later be rebranded and re-released later in the year as the SUMMER Slam Jam, but don’t believe their lies.

Next Week Of The Week

We finally leave 1992 behind for more Royal Rumble ’93 promotion, a Mr. Perfect vs. The Berserker match that we can only assume will be a catch-as-catch-can classic, and the WWF Superstars debut of Scott Steiner. Can’t wait.

In a video making the rounds on social media, a mother claims she is being harassed by the Calmut Country Sheriff’s department in Wisconsin for allowing her seven-year-old-daughter go to a neighbor’s house for a play date.

In the video shot by a mother who goes by Amy, the officer asks her a direct question about the current stay-at-home order. “Are you aware that we’re at a stay-at-home order right now? By the government?”

---

Amy confirmed she knew about the order but still allowed her daughter to visit a neighbor’s house.

“Stop having your kid go by other people’s homes,” the officer orders Amy.

At the end of the altercation, the officer asks Amy for her full name but she refuses.

According to the sheriff’s office, when the video was taken, it was the fifth contact they’d had with her in recent weeks.

Amy later elaborated on the situation with Inside Edition. “The way they talked to me was completely disrespectful,” Amy said. “I had done nothing wrong from the moment they opened up the door. He immediately started yelling at me.”

“I have a right to be outside my home,” she said. “I don’t have to be locked in my home.”

Mom Says Cops Are ‘Harassing’ Her Over 7-Year-Old’s Playdate

www.youtube.com

The video has made Amy a hero to some who believe the government doesn’t have the right to tell us to stay inside our homes during the pandemic. So is she right? Has she done “nothing wrong” by violating the state’s stay-at-home orders?

Legal experts say that stay-at-home orders or similar proclamations “effectively carry the force of law.”

The Supreme Court hasn’t said much about people’s liberty during epidemics. Although, in 1905, during a smallpox epidemic, a pastor argued that a mandatory smallpox vaccine violated his Constitutional rights.

The Court acknowledged that “the liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment . . . consists, in part, in the right of a person ‘to live and work where he will.'” But it added: “in every well-ordered society . . . the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.”

Most would agree that asking Amy and her child to stay indoors for a limited amount of time is “reasonable” to protect the safety of the general public.

The video has also made Amy the subject of scorn for those who believe she’s creating putting people’s health in danger for repeatedly allowing her child to visit friends’ houses during the pandemic.

Studies show that children are less likely to show signs of being infected with COVID-19. They are also less likely to be hospitalized or die because of the disease.

However, that doesn’t mean that people like Amy shouldn’t worry about allowing their children to play with other children.

The problem is that children can appear to be completely healthy and then transmit the disease to those who are more likely to be symptomatic.

“[Social] distancing and everyday preventative behaviors are recommended for persons of all ages to slow the spread of the virus, protect the health care system from being overloaded, and protect older adults and persons of any age with serious underlying medical conditions,” the CDC said in a special report.

As Americans, we should be forever vigilant that our Constitutional rights are upheld and maintained. But being a good citizen has less to do with the legal ramifications of our actions and more to do with how they affect our fellow citizens.

There are a lot of great reasons to argue over the legality of the state order, but there are far fewer ways to rationalize putting our friends’ and neighbor’s health in jeopardy.

---

View Entire Post ›

With livestreamed DJ sets and beat battles becoming the de facto official entertainment of the Great Quarantine Of 2020, it was only a matter of time until some of the biggest names in music began to hold their own digital concerts, festivals, and shows. While DJ D-Nice’s Club Quarantine and Swizz Beats’ Verzuz series give fans plenty to look forward to each weekend, the next evolution of the format has apparently arrived thanks to two of hip-hop’s original party starters: Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

This Saturday, May 9, from noon to midnight EST, Bel Air’s favorite hip-hop duo will host the “Break The Monotony Block Party” on Instagram Live featuring a star-studded showcase of their veteran DJ friends. Guests include DJ Clark Kent, D-Nice, Just Blaze, and Neil Armstrong, with each guest checking in from their own handle, with some of the sets running concurrently, festival style. The principal duo has also announced a limited-edition collection of Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air merchandise going on sale May 9, with a percentage of proceeds to be donated to No Kid Hungry‘s ongoing COVID-19 relief efforts.

In a press release, Jeff said of the block party, “It’s humbling to see how The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and our music has transcended time and continued to shape pop culture. Between this new collection and the block party, I hope we can come together during these trying times, celebrate culture, put smiles on people’s faces and raise money for an important cause.”

Check out the set list above and sign up for a newsletter to gain first access to the merch here.

The NBA 2K League will kick off its third season on Tuesday night with a pair of games at 7 p.m. ET — Cavs Legion will take on Pacers Gaming, while 76ers GC and Raptors Uprising GC will go head-to-head. Then, in a pair of virtual tilts scheduled to tip off at 9 p.m., Kings Guard Gaming and Warriors Gaming Squad will take the floor, as will Mavs Gaming and Hawks Talon GC.

As always, the games will be broadcast on Twitch, but this year, the 2K League will feature a new way to watch. The league announced on Tuesday morning that games will be broadcast by ESPN during the 2020 campaign. For the first few weeks of the season, the games that occur on Tuesday evenings will take place on ESPN2, while games on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will air on the ESPN App and on ESPN.com.

According to a release, games will air on ESPN2 through May 19, with details about where games will be broadcast starting on May 26 coming some time in the future. With few other live sports going on right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic, eSports have been thrust into the spotlight, and as a result, Tuesday’s broadcast on the Worldwide Leader will serve as the first linear telecast of 2K League games in the United States.

The Last Dance has given us so much over the past three weeks that it’s hard to keep track of all its many joys and wonders. For those of us who grew up idolizing Michael Jordan, it’s both a trip down memory lane and revealing look behind the scenes of one of the most compelling sports figures of all-time.

Sure, the petty beefs and bitter rivalries that are still simmering all these years later are endlessly entertaining, but there’s also all sorts of random historical ephemera that adds so much texture to it all. Take, for example, the stunning curly-mulleted security guard that has popped up a few times in the archival footage from inside the Bulls locker room.

The man in question, John Michael Wozniak, has now become a viral sensation after episode six, after an incredible scene in which he took Jordan’s money pitching quarters, then hit him with the shoulder shrug.

This security dude hit Michael Jordan with the Jordan shrug after winning at quarters! #TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/yxFs2kcVnm

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 4, 2020

Sadly, Wozniak died earlier this year after a battle with colon cancer, but his son Nicholi says his father would’ve loved all the attention its garnered him.

Via Matt Fortuna of The Athletic:

The 35-year-old Nicholi never stopped giving his old man grief for his eccentric hairstyle. If father’s responses to son over the years were any indication, then John had a good laugh Sunday night up in heaven.

“Dad, why don’t you cut your hair and wear it like Pat Riley? Your hair is like 20 years old,” Nicholi recalled of his pleas. “I was a kid in grammar school, and he was like, ‘Nick, it’s my mark. It’s my brand. It’s my emblem. It’s like a lion’s mane.’ And I was like, Dad, you’re gonna get roasted one day. And I swear to God if he knew (about Sunday) he would be doing the same thing to me, ‘I told you!’ It was his mark. Everybody is playing into exactly what he wanted.”

Wozniak was a long-time narcotics officer in Chicago who quickly endeared himself to Jordan after once accidentally busting out the back window of his SUV while parking it at Chicago Stadium. He worked on Jordan’s security detail for more than 20 years after that, and, as we learned Sunday, had a mean quarters game.

(The Athletic)

It has been just over a year since Irish rockers Fontaines DC released their debut album, Dogrel, in April of 2019, but they’re already ready for more. Today, the group has announced their second album, A Hero’s Death, and shared the title track.

The video for the post-punk tune features fellow countryman and Game Of Thrones star Aiden Gillen playing a tormented talk show host. The band’s Grian Chatten says of the song and accompanying video:

“The song is a list of rules for the self, they’re principles for self-prescribed happiness that can often hang by a thread. It’s ostensibly a positive message, but with repetition comes different meanings, that’s what happens to mantras when you test them over and over. There’s this balance between sincerity and insincerity as the song goes on and you see that in the music video as well. That’s why there’s a lot of shifting from major key to minor key. The idea was influenced by a lot of the advertising I was seeing – the repetitive nature of these uplifting messages that take on a surreal and scary feel the more you see them.

The title came from a line in a play by Brendan Behan, and I wrote the lyrics during a time where I felt consumed by the need to write something else to alleviate the fear that I would never be able follow up ‘Dogrel.’ But more broadly it’s about the battle between happiness and depression, and the trust issues that can form tied to both of those feelings.”

The band also notes of the album, “It feels like time hasn’t ticked since we announced our first record just over a year ago. We wrote these songs during the 12 months after finishing Dogrel as a necessary reaction to assure ourselves we will always be the band we set out to be. A sincere thank you to everyone who has supported our music since and before then.

Watch the “A Hero’s Death” video above, and below, find the A Hero’s Death art and tracklist.

1. “I Don’t Belong”
2. “Love Is The Main Thing”
3. “Televised Mind”
4. “A Lucid Dream”
5. “You Said”
6. “Oh Such A Spring”
7. “A Hero’s Death”
8. “Living In America”
9. “I Was Not Born”
10. “Sunny”
11. “No”

A Hero’s Death is out 7/31 via Partisan Records. Pre-order it here.

Aside from Jerry Krause, the chief villain of The Last Dance thus far has been Isiah Thomas. The leader of the Bad Boys Pistons teams is still hated by Michael Jordan and many of the other players from those Bulls teams of the late 80s and early 90s, and that tension has been well-documented for years but has been thrust back into the spotlight thanks to this documentary.

This past Sunday’s episodes included a section on the Dream Team, where Thomas was famously excluded and is considered the biggest snub by far. Thomas still doesn’t understand his exclusion, but it’s pretty clear that it wasn’t basketball talent that kept him off the squad that went to Barcelona. Michael Jordan insisted in the documentary that he was not the reason for Thomas’ exclusion, noting that damn near half the Dream Team roster had previously had issues with Thomas. Rod Thorn has stated that in discussions with Jordan, Thomas never came up, and in the documentary the two recall their phone call with Mike asking “who’s going to be there” and Thorn simply saying, “not the guy you’re thinking of.”

Jordan’s insinuation that others like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird also didn’t like Isiah and could’ve been part of keeping him off the roster led to Magic addressing that issue on First Take on Monday.

“You have to be with each other for two months, and there was four or five guys who just had problems with him [Isiah Thomas],” Magic said. “He was unfortunately not going to be a part of the Dream Team because of those problems, because we all had to live with each other for two months, practice with each other, hang out with each other, all those things.”

…

“Now, did I have a hand in him not being on the Dream Team? No. They didn’t ask me who should be on the team. The only thing David Stern and Rod Thorn asked me to do was to call Larry Bird and Michael Jordan and tell them they should play on the Dream Team.”

At this point, given the recollection Jordan had of his conversation with Thorn and Magic’s insistence here that Isiah never came up in conversations between he and the USA Basketball executives, what seems most likely is that none of the players had direct conversations that led to Thomas’ exclusion — which, in turn, gives them all plausible deniability here. Thorn, as the executive VP of basketball operations for the NBA, knew very well the tensions between all of those players and Thomas and did not need to have explicit conversations with them to know that keeping Thomas off the roster was the best way to ensure they got the rest of those top stars to agree to join the squad.

So, while those players were surely the reason Isiah didn’t land on the roster, they didn’t have to say anything for that to happen. From Thorn’s perspective, it’s understandable. You leave off one player to ensure you get five of the biggest names in basketball — and most importantly, the biggest in Michael Jordan — and while it’s unfortunate for Thomas that he was left off, it couldn’t have been a very difficult decision for Thorn and USA Basketball.

Though Jpegmafia only recently released his record All My Heros Are Cornballs, the rapper isn’t slowing down any time soon. Since his album debuted, Peggy has released several stand-alone singles, including the tongue-in-cheek track “Bald.” But the rapper didn’t stop there. Jpegmafia has called on Denzel Curry to offer up a verse for a chipper remix of the single.

Curry’s verse interrupts Peggy’s blown-out instruments in favor of a clapping beat. “My life was written already so I was gifted already / And with this God-given talent I knew the Devil been met me / Can’t compare me to Jesus because he ain’t Noah’s father / He told me, ‘Please be still and see that steel is revolver,’” Curry raps.

This isn’t the first time the two rappers have joined forces. Peggy appeared on Curry’s 2018 track “Vengence | Vengence.” Later, the duo linked up and Curry appeared in a promotional video for Peggy’s recently-released record.

Ahead of the remix’s release, Peggy sat down with Talib Kweli for a recent interview on People’s Party. Peggy told Kweli that fans don’t understand the intricacies of producing music. “The touring we do, the work we put in — it’s not understood,” he said. “Even producing, it’s not a craft that’s appreciated right now. In 20 years, people might appreciate it, but [not] right now.”

Listen to “Bald (Remix)” above.

Matt Riddle‘s time in WWE has included a fair amount of off-screen feuds and backstage rumors along with the Original Bro’s in-ring accomplishments. He’s beefed with Goldberg and declared he’ll retire Brock Lesnar, but does he have the kind of backstage heat that could hold back his career? In a recent interview with Sportskeeda, Riddle says he does not. In his words:

I’ll tell you this. Do I have heat with WWE or NXT or the people that run the show? No. Do I have heat with some people who think I’m disrespectful at times because they don’t understand how business works? Yes. Do people take things too seriously? Yes.

And honestly, I’ve had to give talks at NXT, is not like I stopped the place, but it’s like, interjecting. I’m like, ‘Hey. I’m going to tweet or say something that offends you. Realize I’m not trying to actually offend you, I’m just trying to make people think I am. I’m putting out an image, a facade, you know?’

Riddle points out that at the end of the day, his coworkers don’t sign his checks:

If the employer’s happy and I can make them money and make them a profit, and I’m worth my weight and I’m pulling my weight, I don’t see a problem. To answer your question, yes, some people I have heat with. But most of it’s just high school, catty, ‘He said this,’ people who just can’t take a joke or a work.

In the same interview, Riddle gave his take on the booking of the recent Universal Championship reign of Goldberg, who he’s criticized in the past for wrestling unsafely. The NXT Tag Team Champion observed that “If Bray Wyatt wasn’t as good as he is and so charismatic… he wouldn’t be able to survive” the way he lost the title to Goldberg.

Riddle also wasn’t crazy about the way Goldberg lost the title.

I don’t think it was a poor move bringing him back for a match, but to bring him back to win the title, to destroy the character like The Fiend being so unstoppable and then just have Braun Strowman beat him… You know, it doesn’t really do much for Braun Strowman beating him. It’s not like it was a passing of the torch or a great match. It was a couple of spears and a powerslam… As a fan, like yourself and myself, we all agree and every fan that watched that, even if they wanted Braun to win or whatever, was disappointed.