NJPW won’t put on any new wrestling shows until at least mid-June, but the company has made some of its archive easier to watch. New Japan was recently discussed on an episode of the Japanese TV show Ametok, and the matches shown on the program are now free to watch (for a limited time) on the NJPW World streaming service.

For anyone missing who’s New Japan or just missing wrestling with crowds and willing to give NJPW a shot, these matches, which you can find here, are definitely worth watching.

Most of them are from recent years, but there are selections from the eighties and nineties too. The oldest free match is from 1980, the tag team bout of Kantaro Hoshino and Kotetsu Yamamoto vs. Goro Tsurumi and Katsuzo Oiyama. Also from the twentieth century, there’s

• the 1989 debut of the Jushin Thunder Liger character
• Masa Saito and Shinya Hashimoto vs. Keiji Muto and Masahiro Chono from 1990
• Hashimoto vs. Liger from 1994
• Mutoh vs. Nobuhiko Takada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, a match from the mid-nineties, inter-promotional NJPW vs. UWF feud with a crazy hot crowd
• Mutoh vs. Manabu Nakanishi from 1999

There are a few more matches from the careers of Nakanishi and Liger, who both retired earlier this year, as well. Nakanishi’s last match (the Third Generation veteran buddy team of Nakanishi, Kojima, Tenzan, and Nagata vs. the present-day top babyface team of Okada, Tanahashi, Ibushi, and Goto) is now available to watch for free. From Liger’s road to retirement, there’s his dramatic grudge match with Minoru Suzuki from last year’s King of Pro Wrestling and his final retirement match from Wrestle Kingdom 14 in which he teamed up with old rival Naoki Sano against Ryu Lee and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi.

Three of the biggest title matches from this year’s Wrestle Kingdom are also available: Okada vs. Ibushi for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from January 4, Hiromu Takahashi vs. Will Ospreay for the junior heavyweight title on the same night, and Okada and Naito’s climactic double championship match from January 5.

The rest of the matches, aside from a 2018 L.I.J. vs. Chaos ten-man tag that seems kind of random, are from NJPW tournaments of the past decade. Aside from that very flippy 2016 Ricochet vs. Will Ospreay Best of the Super Juniors match that made the wrestling internet unusable for weeks, all of these are from G1 Climaxes past. The free G1 highlights are:

• Toru Yano’s legendary wrestling genius showdown with Kota Ibushi from 2018
• Toru Yano’s legendary defeat of his nemesis, Minoru Suzuki, in 2017
• Toru Yano’s legendary defeat of The Wrestler Katsuyori Shibata in 2016
• last year’s Kenta vs. Zack Sabre Jr. match that showed Kenta was just not going to work as a babyface in New Japan
• the extremely hard-hitting first singles match between Shingo Takagi and Tomohiro Ishii

For anyone totally new to NJPW or very out of the loop with present-day New Japan who doesn’t know where to start, I would recommend Liger vs. Suzuki, Kenta vs. Sabre, and Takagi vs. Ishii because they’re quality matches that also aren’t all that long. That’s probably where I’m going to start this weekend, anyway.

Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro: Lash LeRoux DeButed, Eric Bischoff spent the night in a barely functional dunk tank, and Scott Steiner almost killed Kimberly Page by standing near her when she gently fell over.

Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. You can catch up with all the previous episodes of WCW Monday Nitro on the Best and Worst of Nitro tag page. Follow along with the competition here.

Remember, if you want us to keep writing 20-year-old WCW jokes, click the share buttons and spread the column around. If you don’t tell them how much you like these, nobody’s going to read them. It’s almost time for SuperBrawl, the event that can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for February 8, 1999.

Torrie-umon

One of the highlights of this week’s episode is the first appearance of Mysterious Blonde, aka “Samantha,” aka future WWE Hall of Famer Torrie Wilson. She appears in a series of segments that play like a first-person RPG, with her approaching and talking directly to and into a WCW camera like it’s a human face. We first meet her at a bar, where she tell us the guys we’re with are “so cool,” and that we are “so fine.” She then asks would you kindly step into her limo so she can drive you to her hotel room. Would you kindly come up to her room and have sex with her, silent camera man with camera eyes?

This creates the mystery of “who is this blonde and who’s she supposed to be talking to,” although anyone who watches WCW knows a character can only be called “cool” if they’re in the New World Order. The nWo has Nash and Hall and those guys. What’s WCW got, Jim Duggan and Ciclope? I doubt Torrie Wilson’s out here having love-at-first-sight booty calls with Meng and the Barbarian. Although honestly that would’ve been amazing. The only character in the nWo’s sphere of influence not accounted for on this episode is David Flair, who was supposedly getting jumped by Hulk Hogan and a biker gang at the end of last week’s show, but per a phone call to Flair from Arn Anderson on Thunder is at home, and totally fine. I’ll let you use your intense WCW sleuthing skills to piece this mystery together.

As a fun side note, the beginning of Torrie’s wrestling career is such a nightmare scenario for wrestling fans. As the story goes, she’d never watched wrestling before but randomly got backstage because her boyfriend took her to the show, and he was a big wrestling fan. When they were back there, Scott Hall saw her and was immediately like, and I’m paraphrasing here, “holy shit you are at least seven times too attractive to be seen anywhere near professional wrestlers in 1999, you wanna be somebody’s valet right now?” She did, and then next week Kevin Nash personally called her and asked her if she wanted to do an ongoing angle on prime-time television. Pretty soon after that she started dating Billy Kidman instead of her wrestling fan boyfriend. Two decades later she’s breaking up with famous multi-millionaires and still looking 23-years old while being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Pour one out for that guy.

Dear Hollywood, please consider the Torrie Wilson story for your next remake of A Star Is Born.

Bret Hart Goes Mad

On last week’s Nitro, Interim WCW President Ric Flair announced that Bret Hart would have to defend his United States Championship against Chris Benoit at SuperBrawl despite a groin pull the likes you’ve never seen in your entire life. Scott Hall wasn’t happy with Benoit getting the shot for “washing [Ric Flair’s] car,” so he got put into a number one contender match against Benoit. He won, because Benoit’s 8-feet-tall before he’s clutch.

This week, Flair basically proves Bret’s suggestion that he’s holding a grudge against Bret by making an ultimatum: Hart can defend the United States Championship on Nitro tonight, injured or not, or lay down the belt and “go back to Canada.” His opponent will be another undeserving Flair associate, too: Rowdy Roddy Piper, Flair’s homophobic and homoerotic frenemy and former group sex partner who rarely wrestles, has the physique of a sock monkey, and doesn’t technically work here. Hart, a jam up guy, is forced to accept. This shot really should’ve gone to Hypnosis, though.

As Bret’s leaving, he spots a familiar face in the crowd and tears up the fan’s sign. That fan? Mad TV star Will Sasso.

[sigh] This is a whole thing. Let’s start from the beginning.

Who Are You To Doubt El Asso Wipo?

If you were out shopping with your mom and asked her for Saturday Night Live and she told you no because you’ve, “got Saturday Night Live at home,” Saturday Night Live at home was Mad TV. Fox’s attempt at Saturday night sketch comedy was always sort of the Impact Wrestling to SNL’s WWE, but it ended up lasting 14 seasons (plus a 15th “revival” season) and includes notable alumni like Key and Peele, voice acting legend Phil LaMarr, and the “make 7UP yours” guy. They’re also responsible for Frank Caliendo, but we don’t like to talk about that.

Bret Hart was a recurring guest on the show, but his most famous appearance happened on February 6, 1999, only two days before Nitro. Hart was playing himself in a sketch alongside Will Sasso (as Jesse Ventura) when things got went “off-script” and got “out of hand.” Hart put too stiff an arm-bar on cast member Debra Wilson, apparently, which caused a “real” fight between Hart and the other comedians. Security got involved, Hart attacked Sasso with a steel chair, and Sasso caught a shoot Sharpshooter for his troubles. Not only did people think it was real in 1999, they think it’s real NOW. This despite the fact that Mad made an angle out of it, WCW made their OWN angle out of it, and it’s just a ’90s reboot of a then already 18-year old Andy Kaufman bit from Fridays.

So, Hart and his heretofore unseen-in-your-life groin pull defend the United States Championship against a 44-year old man with a replacement hip and the build of a cartoon turtle. During the match, Hart loses focus and decides to pull Sasso over the railing and start wailing on him, because if he has to see another Ms. Swan sketch this year he’s going to fucking kill himself. Unfortunately for Hart, this turns Sasso into Piper’s manager, I guess, and Sasso gets involved to keep Bret from cheating to win. They get into a tug of war with an unconscious referee body, as you do, and Sasso Stretch Armstrong pranks him into a roll-up for three.

Yes, folks, Rowdy Roddy Piper is the new United States Champion instead of [vaguely gestures] anyone who actually works here and might benefit from it, thanks to interference from a second-tier Saturday night sketch comedian. Imagine if Goldberg had won the Universal Championship from The Fiend thanks to a run-in from Bobby Moynihan. That’s kind of what we’re dealing with, here.

The Hart vs. Sasso feud will be continued on both Saturday’s Mad TV and next Monday’s Nitro, which proves even sketch comedy worked shoots during the Attitude Era needed Vince Russo swerves. I assume Raw counter-programs this with The Undertaker putting the Depressed Persian Tow Truck Man through the stage with the Last Ride, but I don’t remember. As for the United States Championship, the title match at SuperBrawl is suddenly Scott Hall versus Rowdy Roddy Piper, and you’d need to be a real psychic to predict how that one ends.

A Hogan Always Pays His Debts

This week’s chapter of nWo red and black’s Lucifer Effect experiment on the B-Team involves Hollywood Hogan going full Tyrion Lannister. Remember when Tyrion wanted to find out who he could trust on the Small Council, so he gave Varys, Littlefinger, and Grand Maester Pycelle different stories about who he’d lined up for a marriage with Princess Myrcella to see which one would blab to Queen Cersei? Hogan does that on Nitro by individually asking every member of the nWo B-Team to step up and be the group’s leader, with his blessing. That’s him in the image above, still struggling to say he’s related to Horace Hogan in fewer than 50 words.

As you might imagine this causes the legendary nWo PECKING ORDER to break down, which we see almost immediately when Stevie Ray and Vincent both try to interfere in Horace and Brian Adams’ Tag Team Championship Tournament match against likeminded country music fans Curt Hennig and Barry Windham. I don’t know if this has ever come up in wrestling before, but it turns out holding back your opponent’s arms so a third party can bop them in the top of the head with a foreign object is a bad idea, as your opponent might move at the last second, or your friend might miss and hit YOU instead. I feel like I can count on one hand the amount of successful attacks have begun with someone holding back the arms like that.

This sets up the best of the clandestine meetings with Hogan, wherein this exchange happens:

Hogan: “On the QT, look at these guys like they’re your children. We’re gonna lead ’em to them water and make ’em drink.”
Vince: “I’M THE DADDY.”
Hogan: “You are the daddy.”

Note: He is not The Daddy.
Secondary Note: Stevie Ray’s “Cool S” Cosby sweater is more interesting than your entire life. Stevie was low key WCW’s drip king.

CAT DADDY

Not like that.

Ernest Miller, as he is wont to do, issues an open challenge to anyone who thinks they can get into the ring with a 3-time World Karate Champion. He, he says, is the greatest. I decided to type out this promo, which also might as well be a Big Poppa Pump promo. Just raise it a couple octaves.

“LEMME TELL YA FAT BOY, IF YOU CAN GET OVER THAT RAIL I’LL WHOOP YOU TOO. NOW SITCHO FAT TAIL DOWN. YOU PEOPLE KNOW I’M THE GREATEST, I WILL WHOOP ERRBODY. ERRWEEK I COME OUT HERE… YOU NEED TO CUT YOUR HAIR, THAT’S WHAT I NEED TO TELL YOU CAUSE I’M THE GREATEST, YOU GET IN THIS RING I’LL WHOOP YOU TOO. I AM THE GREATEST. I WILL WHOOP ANYBODY. ERRWEEK I COME OUT HERE I BEAT THESE CHUMPS LIKE THEY WAS GOING OUT OF STYLES. RIGHT NOW I WANT YOU PEOPLE TO SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN. FAT BOY DON’T MAKE ME COME OUT THERE, YOU HEAR ME. I’M GON WHOOP YOU AND YOUR GIRLFRIEND, SO SIT DOWN. YOU PEOPLE NEED TO RECOGNIZE GREATNESS, AND I AM THE GREATEST. I’M THE BADDEST MAN IN THIS BUILDING, SOMEBODY LOCK ALL THESE DOORS, I’M WHOOPIN ERRCHUMP IN HERE TODAY. I TELL YOU WHAT, COME IN THE RING, I’LL SHOW YOU WHO SUCKS. COME ON IN HERE, ANYBODY. BECAUSE I AM THE GREATEST, GET IN HERE.”

The B-Team tries to convince Vincent that he should go out and handle Miller. Like last week, Vince attempts to delegate gopher duties to Disco Inferno, but Disco wises up and tells him to do it himself. You know your group’s struggling when Disco Inferno is the voice of reason. Forced to go it alone, Vince answers The Cat’s challenge and, after botched interference from Sonny Onoo which at this point should be accepted as a feature instead of a bug, wins the match. Goddamn Virgil, of all people, is the one to shut up Ernest Miller. AND HE DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO. Outstanding.

Worst: The Horsemen Get Cleaned Up

At the top of the show, we find out that the Outsiders have beaten down Arn Anderson in the locker room, and left him at the cruel mercy of the Disco Inferno’s revenge. In response to this, Ric Flair makes Eric Bischoff be the janitor all night and clean up poo-poo and pee-pee. We get comedy bits where Larry Zbyszko leaves the water running until it spills on the floor, and where Bischoff’s mad that the Faces of Fair are taking dumps at work. Flair should’ve dragged that dude out into the parking lot and beaten him to death with a golf club, especially after every other menial task punishment Flair’s given Bischoff has blown up in his face, but I guess the Horsemen have to look as bad as possible as much as possible.

The reason I bring this up here is because the main event tag team match of Flair and Steve McMichael versus Hall and Nash ends with — are you sitting down? You’re going to want to be sitting down when you read this — Bischoff’s janitorial punishment blows up in the Horsemen’s faces. During the match, Hollywood Hogan grabs Bischoff’s mop bucket and, in a moment of true malice, splashes Mongo in the face with mop water.

The dirty mop sludge proves so effective that not only does Mongo remain incapacitated for the rest of the match, he remains incapacitated forever. This is Steve McMichael’s final WCW appearance, giving him one of the most hilariously unceremonious outros in wrestling history. Your ex-wife getting too popular on the other channel? BLEACH TO THE EYES! Mongo wouldn’t return to wrestling until almost a decade later, when in 2008 he showed up to ref a match in TNA with a three-count so slow it could’ve been directed by Terrence Malick.

Never mind that shit. There goes Mongo.

Wet Hot American Steiner

On this week’s episode, Diamond Dallas Page attempts some corporate synergy by guest starring on forgotten generational classic Friday Night, formerly known as Friday Night Videos, and inviting its host, Rita Sever, to Nitro. She “cuts a promo,” which is to say she remembers the three loosely related wrestling catchphrases they told her about when she got there.

“HOLLYWOOD SCUM HOGAN YOU ARE GOING DOWN! OH YEAH! WAAOOOOH!!!! FEEL THE BANG!!!”

Page’s response lets you know that he’s either going to try to throw it in Rita Sever later, or murder her, or both. “She’s a little scary but uh [looks directly into camera] I like it, heh heh heh.” And yes, sharp-eyed viewers will spot The Wonder Years star and Dolph Ziggler’s biological father Jason Hervey there between them, doing an, “I’m BUSY because it’s the 90S and I’m on a CELLULAR TELEPHONE,” bit. In case you weren’t aware, Jason Hervey (1) was an executive producer for WCW, (2) created the Latino World Order, and (3) is Terry Funk’s Godson. Incredibly, one of those things are lies.

So while Page was winning Kenny Kaos matches on rookie difficulty and hanging out with Rita Skeeter and this butthead, what was Kimberly doing? Why, being vehicularly manslaughtered by Scott Steiner, of course! Here she is in a suspcious full body suit, being abducted by Steiner and then angrily thrown out of a moving car Wet Hot American Summer-style.

Kimberly gets put into a neck brace and taken away to a Local Medical Facility while DDP paces around, wondering how the past month of an enraged muscle-man stalking his wife at work could’ve possibly led to such a tragedy. Tony Schiavone calls it, “one of the most frightening scenes ever,” and yes, a Nitro Girl failing to tuck and roll is the wrestling equivalent of the Winkie’s scene from Mulholland Drive.

DDP will try to get revenge for the systematic harassment and attempted murder in a wrestling match at SuperBrawl, which in WCW terms means of course he’ll get humiliated and lose. Hey, I’m one of the biggest WCW homers and apologists you’ll ever meet, but even I’m not going to pretend late ’90s WCW didn’t get nihilistic as fuck. Friedrich Nietzsche could’ve booked these shows and it wouldn’t have been as routinely soul-crushing.

Best: Blitzrieg Debuts

Sorry, [squints] BlitzCREIG debuts. What is this, Superstars?

If case you weren’t aware, Blitzkrieg — aka “Fabulous Blitzkrieg” — is a 5-foot-6, 170-pound cruiserweight in an Electro and Harley Quinn mash-up costume whose entire career from beginning to end took place between 1995 and 1999. He debuts in WCW on this February episode of Nitro and was retired by October. He never won any championships, and he rarely ever won at all. And every single WCW fan LOVES him. I’m talking loves him loves him. It’s hard to find anyone who knows who Blitzkrieg even is that doesn’t follow that acknowledgement with, “I really liked him!”

If I had to explain it, I’d say he just felt different from the other cruiserweights. He was a little ahead of his time, too, wrestling like a pre-Jack Evans Jack Evans; Evans idolized Blitzkrieg and took over the gimmick in 2004, even, but quickly dropped it because he couldn’t see out of the mask and kept falling on his head. Dude showed up looking like Tom Holland Spider-Man in a homemade suit and popped off top rope springboard corkscrew feints and Skytwister Presses. I think he cemented his legend by getting his soul Juvy Driven out of his body at Spring Stampede, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Blitz Craig” could’ve done a lot worse than having Rey Mysterio as his debut opponent, as well. In fact, I think he’s the only guy small and unimportant enough to get HOSSED AROUND by little ass Rey-Rey. Here’s Rey murdering him with a powerbomb and rolling through him with a big lariat. I can’t wait to spend the next eight months telling you how great this guy is, and then never seen him again. Again.

Best: Super Mark Sweep

This week’s strangest development is in the ongoing “Raven goes home to rehab and live with his mom” story, which suddenly decides it wants to be a sitcom, complete with Raven looking into the camera to address the audience. Raven invented Jim Halpert. Here’s the collection of this week’s segments, which I recommend watching as I’m not sure I can properly do justice to their devil-may-care absurdity.

Raven and Kanyon go to the bank to get a thousand dollars in ones, carry the money around in canvas bags while driving around in a convertible like they’re 1970s bank robbers, and, and this is the best part, go on a Versace shopping spree. Yes, there’s a “trying on clothes” montage. Yes, it’s amazing.

… is that one of The Rock’s shirts? Anyway, WCW calls up Raven’s mom and tells her they want Raven back at work, and so ends our magical quest into Raven’s privileged, terrible, fourth-wall equipped family life. No, you’re never finding out what those Roddy Piper clippings from several weeks ago were about.

Also On This Episode

Booker T defeats Fit Finlay in a match so important WCW cuts away from it to air an entire Horace and Hulk Hogan conversation and the first episode of the Eric Bischoff janitorial comedy hour in the middle of it. Added to the commercial break that means they just decided to ignore like, eight minutes of wrestling.

Bam Bam Bigelow bring what appears to be a laminated clipping from USA Today to illustrate how Bill Goldberg’s not taking his responsibilities as a former champion (or whatever) seriously. The headline, in case you can’t make it out, is “Brawler sickened by animal fights.” The eloquent response from the Bammer: “LISTEN, ANYBODY THAT GOT HIS MIND ON COCKFIGHTS AND BULLDOGS AND RIPPING THEIR THROATS OUT, HE SHOULD HAVE HIS MIND ON SUPERBRAWL” … Should he, though?

Bigelow escalates the situation by mentioning Goldberg’s family, which any WWE fan will tell you is the worst thing you can possibly do. Bammer: “HE VOWS TO MAKE EVERYBODY IN THE WCW ADOPT AN ANIMAL THIS YEAR. WELL HELL, I’LL TAKE HIS OLD LADY, AND I’LL PUT A LEASH AROUND HER, AND I’LL WALK HER ONCE OR TWICE, AND I’LL FEED HER SOME ALPO, WHATEVER IT TAKES, WHATEVER HE WANTS.” You could’ve stabbed Goldberg in his kidneys with a rusted bayonet and he would’ve shrugged it off, but if you say he’s got a WIFE and it’s not GREAT he will KILL YOU FOR REAL.

Finally, you know what’s a really good idea? Doing a month of stories about how you can stalk and hospitalize a Nitro Girl and not face any consequences for it, and thenhaving hundreds of wrestling fans go on a cruise with the Nitro Girls. The commercial for it sounds like it’s going to end with a request for you to call now to speak to your area’s sexiest singles. REAL WOMEN ARE WAITING, THROW THEM OUT OF MOVING CARS NOW.

Next Week:

Next week’s episode features such highlights as Disco Inferno getting the shit kicked out of him in a parking lot (finally), the Mysterious Unnamed Blonde ending her full week of hotel sex with a mute WCW camera man, and a special message of hope from Nitro Girls Spice and Whisper. Plus, last week saw Lash LeRoux debut and this week had Blitzkrieg and Torrie Wilson, so we’re keeping the streak going by debuting another of 1999’s hottest rookies …

See you then!

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Social distancing continues this weekend amid the global pandemic, and several new TV seasons are here for the binging. If nothing here suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Solar Opposites (Hulu series, Friday) — Rick And Morty co-creator Justin Rolland’s new original animated comedy series revolves around a team of aliens who crash-land in suburban America after escaping their exploding home planet.

I Know This Much Is True (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — Launch day is here for the series in which Mark Ruffalo plays twins, one of them a paranoid schizophrenic who suffers a violent public breakdown and the other stepping up to his defense.

Dead To Me: Season 2 (Netflix series, Friday) — Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini bring their guilt-and-grief-laden chemistry back as Jen and Judy, who attempt to mop up after that backyard clash with Steve Marsden’s Skeevy Steve. The reveals are even bigger this season, and the show’s addictive and bingeable as ever.

The Eddy (Netflix series, Friday) — Oscar winning director Damien Chazelle (La La Land) helms this limited series about a once-celebrated jazz musician, who attempts to keep his struggling club afloat in modern-day Paris.

Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal (Amazon stand-up special, Friday) — Yang presents his thoughts on Matt Damon, his experiences with immigrant parents, and apartment guests, as performed live from Seattle’s Neptune Theater.

Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:

Friday Night In with The Morgans (Friday, AMC 10:00 p.m.) — Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton are back, hopefully with more insight into The Walking Dead.

Betty (Friday, HBO 11:00 p.m.) — Skate Kitchen director Crystal Moselle (The Wolfpack) brings back her O.G. crew for this funny and freewheeling series about a group of young women who simply want to skate and are much cooler than all of us. This week, territorial skater boys present challenges for Kirt, Indigo and, Honeybear.

Batwoman (Sunday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — Kate questions everyone’s loyalty while Gotham’s intelligentsia members begin evaporating, and Sophie and the Crows attempt to quell the latest homicidal threat.

Billions (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — “The Chris Rock Episode” is the title this week, with Chuck wrestling demons, Wendy taking the lead, and Axe pursuing a play.

Killing Eve (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — The Villanelle bottle episode has arrived, so return with her to Mother Russia, where she explores her roots.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (Sunday, Showtime 10:00 p.m.) — Santa Monica Pier serves as the location for Tiago and Molly to escape reality while Lewis interrogates a Cal-Tech student.

Insecure (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — The block party has finally arrived with some surprises, including a new boo for Kelli and Tiffany finally enjoying a break.

Run (Sunday, HBO 10:30 p.m.) — The new show from Fleabag and Killing Eve dynamic duo Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge barrels further down the train track as Ruby and Billy try to figure out whether this is all a huge mistake.

Harley Quinn (Sunday, Syfy 11:30 p.m.) — Harley’s crew must spend time inside her mind (yikes!), and a heist gone wrong leads to a missing limb for Clayface.

Tekashi 69’s first livestream during quarantine broke Instagram’s previous reported record with 2 million viewers as supporters and detractors alike tuned in to see what he’d do next. As he defended his decision to cooperate with federal authorities in the racketeering case against him and the Nine Trey Bloods gang which had been backing his career until his arrest, the comments featured words of affirmation and condemnation.

The previous Instagram record is difficult to ascertain, as previous livestreams to tout that feat included Drake and Tory Lanez on Quarantine Radio, with over 310,000 viewers, and Babyface VS. Teddy Riley on Verzuz with over 400,000 viewers, but Tekashi’s stream easily blew those numbers away by quite a bit. As he bragged during the Live, “I’m the biggest artist in the world.” With numbers like that, it’s hard to argue.

Tekashi preceded his record-breaking feat with the release of his new music video “Gooba,” a rainbow-hued affair full of twerking beauties that showed off both 69’s new shark pendant and his house arrest tracking anklet. He was released early from prison less than a month ago but has already been busy, buying a billboard in Times Square to promote his new single and using social media to poke fun at himself for being considered a “snitch.”

Watch part of Tekashi’s Instagram Live above.

2020 has been the biggest year of Nav’s career so far. Earlier this year, the Canadian rapper dropped “Turks,” which became his highest-charting song and preceded his now-released album, Good Intentions. He has received some assists during his rise to the top, and the latest comes from Young Thug, who joins him a video for the collaboration, “No Debate.”

On the song, the two flaunt their success, prowess in a number of endeavors, and cover similar topics that have found their way into hip-hop songs for years now. Nav gets explicit on the chorus: “Name a block, we’ll pull up and we’ll spray it / You can’t keep up with the smoke, there’s no debate / I don’t got a vibe I can’t replace / Take the condom off and paint her face.” The video is a direction reflection of the song’s themes, as it includes plenty of shots of jewelry, cars, and the like.

This is far from the first meet-up between the two, as they are frequent collaborators. In fact, this isn’t even Thugger’s only guest spot on Good Intentions as he also features on “Spend It.” Before this album, they linked up on Nav’s “Tussin” and on Thug’s “Boy Back,” both from 2019.

Watch the “No Debate” video above.

Kehlani has been teasing her a new era of music for some time. After revealing her the release date to her sophomore album, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, just a few weeks ago, the full record has now arrived. Kehlani celebrates her highly-anticipated release with a video accompanying her track “Open (Passionate).”

The “Open (Passionate)” visual follows a handful of videos Kehlani released in quarantine. Trailing her self-recorded “Toxic” video, Kehlani shared her powerful “Everybody’s Business” as well as the steamy “F&MU.” Now, Kehlani expands the bounds of her quarantine for “Open (Passionate).” Directed by Hyphy Williams, the visual bounces around between clips of Kehlani in scenic areas as she ponders whether or not she’s ready to trust her partner, and if she can even trust herself. “Can you hold me down when I’m across the ocean? / Can you control it? / Do I got you way too open to be open? Would you let it twist up all of your emotions?” she sings.

It Was Good Until It Wasn’t features a broad range of collaborations. For her sophomore album, Kehlani tapped singers like Jhene Aiko for “Change Your Life” and James Blake for “Grieving.” The singer’s album also features collaborations from Tory Lanez, Masego, and Lucky Daye.

Watch Kehlani’s “Open (Passionate)” video above.

It Was Good Until It Wasn’t is out now via TSNMI. Get it here.

Kehlani is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

As NBA teams begin the process of reopening their facilities for players to work out, one problem that has not yet been addressed is what to do about international players, many of whom flocked home, primarily to Europe, when the NBA paused its season.

According to Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, many players simply don’t see the point of risking their health returning to the workplace, let alone traveling internationally, unless there is a concrete plan toward resuming the season.

“Some guys will stay out of market, and some guys will be in market and not go (to a practice facility),” a Western Conference player told Shelburne. “And some will choose to use it.”

More from Shelburne

Some executives believe there would be a greater eagerness in these workouts if the league opened facilities with a step-by-step plan to proceed to a training camp. “If this was tied to a return to play, you’d see something of a different attitude,” one Western Conference GM said.

As one playoff team prepares to open its facility in the coming weeks, one of its top basketball executives cautions: “Once we have clearance, I’d be surprised if any of our players flew back into market for this.”

That includes players like Luka Doncic, whom Shelburne reports flew back to Slovenia to be with his family while the NBA went on hiatus.

An agent told Shelburne, “It took two to three weeks for everything to unwind when we shut down. It’ll take at least that long for guys to get back to town. And they’re not going to start flying back until they hear the league is starting up again.”

Players seem to be growing weary, which led to a scheduled call on Friday. It is unclear exactly what will happen on said call, but it will include commissioner Adam Silver, National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts, and many players and other parts of the league infrastructure.

This week, AEW Dynamite returned to live broadcast, with stars like SCU, Nyla Rose, Proud & Powerful, and MJF appearing in the arena for the first time in over a month, and a completely bonkers main event. NXT has pre-taped, but still featured two title matches, the debut of Karrion “Killer” Kross, and the use of the word “TakeOver” in its promotion. Ultimately, however, Dynamite won the night once again, although both shows received more viewers than last week.

According to Showbuzz Daily, AEW Dynamite had 732,000 viewers on Wednesday, an improvement over last week’s 693,000. NXT had 663,000 viewers, which is better than the 637,000 they had last week, without getting them close to AEW..

Both shows also did slightly better in their ratings with the key 18-49 demo. Dynamite got a 0.28, just slightly up from 0.27 last week. NXT had a 0.18 rating, compared to last week’s 0.16.

This was the best vieweship and highest demo rating that AEW Dynamite has had since March.

In the Cable Top 150, Dynamite went up to #12, from #16 last week. NXT climbed from #51 to #33, making it back into the Top 50. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills had the highest ratings on cable Wednesday night, with a 0.57 in the key demo. Hannity on FOX News had the highest viewership of the night with 4.403 million viewers.

An interesting quirk about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is that despite the fact that it’s bordered by the two best places for pizza on earth — New York to the north, New Jersey to the east — it’s not a particularly amazing state when it comes to producing really great pizza. At least in my personal experience.

My qualifications for making this proclamation stem from the following facts:

1. As a high school junior, I moved to Pennsylvania and did not leave the state until a decade later.
2. I eat far too much pizza, something that was underscored the last time my blood pressure was taken.
3. I am originally from the great pizza state of New Jersey and therefore an expert.

While conceding that I have never had Old Forge pizza — which my friends from the northeastern corner of PA swear by — I have never, in all my time as a Pennsylvanian, had a slice of pizza that truly knocked my socks off. Mind you, most places to get a slice or pie in the state are perfectly fine (good, even), they’re just generally unable to live up to the standards set by the best pies their neighboring states, is all.

That said, the Keystone State has a very cool habit of coming up with regional takes on pizza within the commonwealth. Pennsylvania is a remarkably unique state in how populations and cultures are clustered — which is reflected in some of its regional pies. Philadelphia’s tomato pie was the result of the influx of Italian immigrants that came to the area in the 19th century, while the aforementioned Old Forge pizza was born out of the need to feed miners in coal country. This eclecticism reminds us that food is a wonderful medium through which you can learn and experience history and cultural diversity first-hand.

With all of this as a backdrop, my curiosity was immediately piqued when a friend passed me this Facebook post by a restaurant in Altoona, a city in Blair County, Penn. just a tick above 45,000 people.

Quick backstory: Altoona is the home to Penn State Altoona, one of the school’s “commonwealth campuses.” You’ve probably heard of the University Park campus, but of the 73,000 or so of the non-online undergraduate students in the school’s system, 27,100 of them attend commonwealth campuses, with Altoona being the fourth largest among them.

I was one such student, spending two years in Altoona before making the trek to University Park. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard Altoona had its own regional pizza that 1) I’d never encountered, and 2) looked like a punishment from a wrathful god. A quick Google search confirmed this was A Thing, so I took a screenshot of the first picture I could find and tweeted this out.

The next two days made me laugh a lot. Seemingly everyone who had ever known someone from Altoona was getting tagged by friends demanding an explanation. Some people who were born and raised in or around Toon Town swore that they’d never heard of it. A pair of friends who grew up in the area were flummoxed as to how this ostensibly regional delicacy that they’d never heard of could possibly be real. Curious, they asked their respective moms about it. Both confirmed the distinctive pie’s place in the pizza firmament.

According to an absolutely wonderful piece done by Ryan Deto of Pittsburgh City Paper and a whole lot of folks on Twitter, the now-former Altoona Hotel was the birthplace of the pie. One Pennsylvanian seems to confirm my personal hunch: it was born out of the desire for pizza by the area’s Italian immigrants, who could not always get what they needed to make a classic pie. A true case of necessity being the mother of invention.

Once this started to pick up, I figured I had to try it. The issue is there is a pandemic going on right now and I cannot get to Altoona (in case you hadn’t heard). But I do have an oven, a sheet tray, and the ability to go to a grocery store. So I decided to step into the kitchen to make a pizza featuring one of the weirdest meat, cheese, and veggie mixtures ever to hit a pie.

In order to be completely thorough, I decided to undertake this experiment three ways. The first two pizzas I made were the standard Altoona pies — green peppers, salami, cheese — but since there was disagreement over whether yellow American or Velveeta was called for, I decided to do both. The third was to do the Binging with Babish thing where I attempted to keep the spirit of the dish but make it, uh, less weird.

The good news is that picking up the necessary items was pretty easy. I cut one corner — Wegman’s has pre-made pizza dough that works in a pinch, especially when you’re like me and don’t always have the time to dedicate to making your own dough. Most other ingredients in play were easy to find in every supermarket — packaged and sliced salami, the two kinds of cheese, and green bell peppers.

As penance for taking the easy way out with the dough, I made my own sauce. This is the easiest thing on earth — some garlic in some warmed up olive oil, dump in a can of tomatoes, season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and Italian seasoning. My last name ends with an O, so you can trust me when I say this takes like 10 minutes and is better than anything you’d get from a jar. It was specified that this is a sweet tomato sauce, so I added a bit of sugar, too.

For the assembly, I decided to do two personal pizzas, because I am one human (albeit one with a healthy appetite) and my hunch was that one bite was all I really needed of these monstrosities. Per this Facebook post a friend showed me, the layering goes sauce, then salami, then uncooked peppers, then cheese. Behold:

Despite liking, individually, everything on this pie, it’s a brutal image. Like a frame from a montage made by Mother Nature, urging us to change our ways. Here is what they look like after 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

I, as you can surely tell, messed up the rolling out the dough portion of this and got these weird mondo pies where certain corners were thoroughly cooked while others were not, in part because the cheese to everything else ratio was just off. Still, I was able to get a few bites of both pies where everything sat together on completely cooked crust. It wasn’t bad, necessarily, it just tasted like what would happen if Subway made pizza. There are times when a person wants that, maybe. And I can absolutely see how this regional branch of the pizza family tree could be born out of the needs of Italian immigrants.

Still, raw strips of green bell peppers don’t quite cook up when hidden under cheese, the Velveeta just doesn’t work, and the salami needed some crisp edges and to not be in such gigantic pieces. But I figured there must be a path in which all of these ingredients could be used to make something legitimately solid. They’re all good-tasting things, after all.

Then it hit me. The answer is in Pennsylvania, but we have to leave Altoona in order to find it. In a phrase that also applied to Allen Iverson from the summer of 1996 through early 2007 — the answer is in Philadelphia. Cheesesteaks have meat, cheese, and potentially peppers of some sort on them. Traveling a stone’s throw north from Philly, we get to Lehigh Valley, which puts a sweet red sauce on its cheesesteaks. There’s some controversy over this, as you may imagine, but I asked my friend Ted, who is from that area, about whether this is a regional thing, and he promptly replied: “it’s delicious.”

I decided I could work with the cheesesteak approach and reverse engineer a pizza from there. I kept the sauce the same, and because it can be good on cheesesteaks, used the same yellow American (I am a provolone guy when it comes to cheesesteaks, but that’s neither here nor there). The peppers being uncooked before going on the pizza had to be fixed, and to make this more cheesesteak friendly, I diced them and cooked them up with some onions. For the meat, I prepared some shaved steak, then tossed the salami in and got it nice and crispy.

The result, before and after 25 minutes and 450 degrees:

It certainly looked a little better, even if the cheese looks like a bunch of weird scabs on the surface of the pizza. The taste was better, too: the steak and onions were welcome additions, with the steak serving as a good balance to the salami and the onions providing some sweetness and rounding out the dish. The cheese is still a problem, particularly because longer exposure to high heat is not something that works for processed American cheese. But between the add-ons and pre-cooking the peppers and salami, this was legitimately kinda tasty.

Trust me, I was just as stunned as you are.

One question remains after all this: Should you make and eat either of these? The answer is, of course, no. But if you insist on making one, you should absolutely make the original version. If there’s one thing we are learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that you only have so many opportunities to try and experience weird, quirky, interesting things. Life is fleeting. Death stalks us all.

Why not, then, make a dish that harkens back to a different era in a little Pennsylvanian city that you’ve never heard of? It’s a unique thing that you can experience while we’re all locked inside, bogged down by monotony and driven to distraction. If there’s ever a time to try a totally out of left field thing in the confines of your home or apartment, it’s now.