Category: Worldwide

Jean Smart’s legendary comic timing has never been a secret and hails way back to her Designing Women days, and she absolutely crushed her Watchmen role with a wickedly funny air. As FBI Agent Laurie Blake, Smart was magnificently inappropriate, whether she was antagonizing Tim Blake Nelson’s “Mirror Guy,” clashing with Jeremy Irons’ Ozymandias, or longingly stroking a big blue dildo. Now Smart’s moving from that HBO role to an HBO Max series where she’ll play the lead character, a Las Vegas diva.

The project carries even more promise than that brief description, considering that Parks And Recreation co-creator Michael Schur is executive producing alongside three co-creators, Broad City alums Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky (who will also write). All involved are more than well-versed in throwing down with complex female characters, and the inclusion of two powerful female voices as writers is fantastic news. The project will explore a “dark mentorship” between Smart and a 25-year-old newcomer (casting not yet announced) to the Vegas scene.

From HBO Max’s press release, here’s the official explanation of how this gathering of talent happened, straight from Head of Original Content Sarah Aubrey:

“When this dream team came to us, we jumped at the chance to develop this project, which features two complex female characters working in comedy and facing the professional and personal challenges that come along with it. When Jean Smart came aboard, we were even more delighted to move forward. We’re excited to be working with this winning combination of talent and confident the show will fit perfectly into our robust slate of HBO Max Originals.”

In the release, Paul W. Downs added that he’s thrilled to work again with Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky again because “[f]or far too long, male voices dominated” writers rooms while crafting female characters. Damn straight, and this project is only the latest in a vast swath of HBO Max Originals to come. Although the Smart-starring series obviously won’t materialize until some point in the future, HBO’s newcomer streaming program will offer a handful of original series (along with over 10,000+ hours of library content) when it launches on May 27. Here’s everything we know about the service, which looks to be a real contender in the streaming universe.

(Via HBO Max)

WWE Money in the Bank 2020 airs this Sunday, March 10, live on WWE Network. WWE Superstars will try to Climb The Corporate Ladder and win one of two concurrent Money in the Bank ladder matches happening at WWE Headquarters, involving them starting at the ground floor and fighting through an office building before going up on the roof and, purportedly, falling off. Here’s the complete card as of publication.

WWE Money In The Bank 2020 card:

**note: these two matches are happening simultaneously**
1A. Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Daniel Bryan vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Aleister Black vs. King Corbin vs. Otis vs. AJ Styles
1B. Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Asuka vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Nia Jax vs. Dana Brooke vs. Lacey Evans vs. Carmella

2. Universal Championship Match: Braun Strowman (c) vs. Bray Wyatt
3. WWE Championship Match: Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Seth Rollins
4. Smackdown Women’s Championship Match: Bayley (c) vs. Tamina
5. Smackdown Tag Team Championship Match: The New Day (c) vs. Forgotten Sons vs. The Miz and John Morrison vs. Lucha House Party

As always, we’ve got your complete rundown of the card and analysis below, featuring predictions for all six-ish matches. Make sure to drop a comment and let us know who you think’s winning, and be here on Sunday night to see if you’re correct.

Here’s what we think will go down inside WWE Headquarters at Money in the Bank.

Smackdown Tag Team Championship Match: The New Day (c) vs. Forgotten Sons vs. The Miz and John Morrison vs. Lucha House Party

What You Need To Know: New Day was challenged by their top three challengers on Smackdown. Okay, their top challenger (Miz and Morrison) and two teams who are barely even on the show. But we’re in the “Brendan Vink winning matches on Raw” stage of this apocalypse, so I’ll allow it. New Day got pinned by the Forgotten Sons in a non-title match, which somehow set up everybody getting a title shot. I don’t know. These are a bunch of people willing to come to work during a pandemic.

What Will Happen: How much does Fox want a group of freedom-loving Marines to be Tag Team Champions? Two Marines and a real live cowboy, even! I could a thousand percent see the Sons getting the upset win, but there’s honestly no reason for New Day to drop the titles. If I’m WWE, I’m keeping title changes in an empty gym to a minimum. Save that kind of stuff for when people are around to react to it. Jaxson Ryker leading a team to championship victory on pay-per-view in front of zero fans is too seven-years-ago Impact Wrestling for me to handle.

Staff Picks

Elle Collins – The New Day retains. There’s no reason to pass it right back to Miz and Morrison so soon, the Forgotten Sons aren’t ready, and Lucha House Party just isn’t going to happen as talented as those guys are. So New Day it is.

Emily Pratt – There would be no more fitting tag team champions for the no-fans era of the Fox era of Smackdown than the Forgotten Sons, whose individual names I have never been able to remember for more than fifteen minutes at a time. As for the quality of the match, I think the presence of Lucha House Party should cancel out the Sons, and overall it should be alright.

Scott Heisel – Trading the Usos for the Forgotten Sons is like trading a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card for the Forgotten Sons. Miz and Morrison re-gain the titles after making the Sons do their dirty work — just like any good member of the upper class, they’re pitting the lower classes against each other so they can reap the benefits. Hey hey, ho ho?

Raj Prashad – It doesn’t seem out of this realm for the Forgotten Sons to earn the tag titles here, but sticking with my guns and picking the New Day to retain.

Smackdown Women’s Championship Match: Bayley (c) vs. Tamina

What You Need To Know: Bayley and Sasha Banks pointed out in a (later edited) promo that Tamina sucks and barely even wrestles anymore. That reminded WWE that Tamina exists, so we got a WrestleMania title match build where she’s suddenly unstoppable and everybody’s afraid of her. She got eliminated from the WrestleMania match almost immediately, and began a singles pay-per-view title build. Her finisher is a superkick she can barely get higher than her waist. It’s not a good situation.

What Will Happen: Are they really going to put the title on Tamina? Really? The only story beat that makes sense, at least in my head as I’m typing this, is Sasha Banks costing Bayley the championship, seeing how often they’ve gone to the “Sasha’s mad about still being friends with Bayley and it’s costing her matches” well on Smackdown. Maybe Sasha TRIES to cost Bayley the match, Bayley survives (probably by disqualification), and we quickly and calmly move into another Bayley vs. Sasha feud? Just keep the championship on the person who doesn’t look like they could hyperventilate at any moment.

Staff Picks

Elle Collins – Sometimes in WWE, you get things just because of how long you’ve been around, regardless of whether you’ve ever been good. That was enough to get Tamina this PPV title shot, but I don’t think it gets her the title. Bayley retains.

Emily Pratt – I feel like the reaction to this match could end up being, “Huh, that was a surprisingly good Tamina match” because Bayley is pretty great and can bring the best out of her opponents. Because of that and the future Bayley vs. Sasha feud I might be hallucinating on the horizon, I’d say Bayley retains here.

Scott Heisel – Fuck it. Tamina.

Raj Prashad – This is another one that seems pretty clear for the champ to retain. Normally it would feel like the match a cash-in could happen, but if things are split between the Performance Center and WWE HQ, I guess I’ll go with Bayley to keep the belt.

WWE Championship Match: Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Seth Rollins

What You Need To Know: Seth Rollins is Jesus. Drew McIntyre can kick Jesus’ ass.

What Will Happen: Unless we’ve entered a truly nihilistic era from which there is no escape, Rollins gets flipped (for real) by 1-5 Claymore Kicks and McIntyre retains. The world does not need another Seth Rollins title run right now, and, perhaps more importantly, Drew McIntyre doesn’t deserve to have the entirety of his WWE Championship run happen in an otherwise empty gym. The man’s got to get love from the WWE Universe at some point, doesn’t he? Are we so evil that we won’t let him stand on the turnbuckles and pose with the championship at least once while everyone chants “you deserve it?”

Staff Picks

Elle Collins – I feel like Drew really ought to win here. He’s still establishing himself as a main event star, and doing a pretty great job at it, all things considered. But I do worry that the recent low ratings might push WWE’s booking in a “new things aren’t working, let’s go back to things we’ve done before” direction, which would mean heel WWE Champion Seth Rollins. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still predicting Drew McIntyre to retain, I’m just eyeing the whole thing a bit nervously.

Emily Pratt – These are two guys who have not done it for me at all in the no-audience era, and I doubt this match will be the exception. It will probably be as good as it can be in bleak silence, and McIntyre will retain. WWE invested so much in getting him to this point that it would be weird to move him down the card now.

Scott Heisel – I can’t fathom a situation in which this match ends decisively. Rollins is coming off a WrestleMania loss and needs to be rebuilt, whereas McIntyre is desperately in need of a strong title defense that doesn’t involve the Big Show in the year of our lord 2020. (No offense, Show.) Neither man can afford to lose, so expect a whole bunch of interference that eventually gets the match thrown out and a rematch booked at Extreme Rules in July. (Can you fit a Hell In A Cell inside the Performance Center? Maybe we’ll get to find out!)

Raj Prashad – So Rollins loses at Mania, then drops the champ with two stomps and earns a title shot? I can’t imagine Rollins wins the belt here, so I’m going with McIntyre to keep his reign going.

Universal Championship Match: Braun Strowman (c) vs. Bray Wyatt

What You Need To Know: Braun and Bray are back to back, Thursday nights on NBC.

What You Actually Need To Know: Braun Strowman used to be Bray Wyatt’s henchman in the Wyatt Family. Everyone went their separate ways — Luke Harper went to AEW, Wyatt turned into a haunted children’s show host that transmogrifies into a sadistic shadow clown, Strowman won a championship with a 10-year old and flipped an ambulance, and Rowan bought an animatronic tarantula off Amazon and ran home crying when it got broken — but now that Strowman is Universal Champion, Wyatt’s like, “hey big man let me hold a dollar.”

What Will Happen: I either want to see (1) Bray Wyatt regain control over Strowman and use him as a championship-caliber puppet, because The Unstoppable Fiend’s really only problematic if it’s holding a championship and Strowman’s got the personality of a kumquat, (2) a Firefly Fun House match that chronicles Strowman’s development from “cursed hillbilly” to “unlikable hillbilly,” or (3) Wyatt winning with a re-do of the spooky children’s choir bit from his John Cena feud, only with da legend Nicholas Cone as the lead sheep.

Staff Picks

Elle Collins – If it seemed like Roman Reigns was just about to come back, I might expect them to put the belt on Bray just so he could drop it to Roman and put us back where we expected to be (what seems like) ages ago. But considering the pandemic is still ongoing, we have no idea when Roman will return, and WWE is editing him out of recaps and refusing to say his name, I’m guessing Braun retains.

Emily Pratt – The weirder and more supernatural this match gets, the better. Even if it’s bad, I’d rather watch bad spooky stuff and talk about that with people than a match like Braun vs. Goldberg. I’ll predict Wyatt gets his belt back because the character who has worked best in pre-recorded segments seems like the best one to have as the face of Smackdown right now. Also, though I don’t think someone from Smackdown is winning the men’s MITB match, I love the idea of hearing people say “cash in on The Fiend,” and of someone actually attempting to cash in on The Fiend.

Scott Heisel – If Braun loses to non-Fiend Bray, he’s the ultimate paper champ and will be nerfed forever — unless they go the route of ~MIND GAEMZ~, in which Bray brainwashes (Bray-nwashes?) Braun to rejoin his flock, surrendering the title in the process. That would be interesting, at least, which means it probably won’t happen. Powerslam, powerslam, powerslam, 1-2-3, Braun retains.

Raj Prashad – If Strowman is defending against normal Wyatt, this one seems pretty cut and dry, unless we get an unexpected appearance by The Fiend and all Hell breaks loose. If it’s a straight up 1v1, I’m going with Strowman.

Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Asuka vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Nia Jax vs. Dana Brooke vs. Lacey Evans vs. Carmella

What You Need To Know: As mentioned earlier, this year’s Money in the Bank matches are happening at the same time and will take place at WWE Headquarters, with the bouts starting on the ground floor and working their way up to the roof, where there’s a full set, a bunch of ladders, and a pair of hanging briefcases. It’s the dream of any 6-year old’s action figure wresting promotion.

On the women’s side, Raw is contributing two legitimate bad-asses and Nia Jax, while Smackdown’s contributing three increasingly nonthreatening blondes.

What Will Happen: Shayna Baszler seems like a lay-up here, but honestly? I think it’s going to be Lacey Evans. Lacey’s had a non-stop stream of title opportunities across both brands, and it would be extremely Smackdown to see Bayley and Sasha Banks get into a blood feud over the Smackdown Women’s Championship and heel each other to death only for Lacey goddamn Evans to sass in and punch them in their faces. Going Lacey, with “oh no, Nia Jax” as a dark horse.

Staff Picks

Elle Collins – I can’t imagine anyone winning the Women’s MITB Briefcase but Shayna Baszler. Even though she didn’t get the win at WrestleMania, they still seem to be building her up, and she’ll do a great job of carrying that briefcase around and holding it over Becky’s head. She’s inevitable.

Emily Pratt – It looks like the Shayna vs. Becky feud is continuing some way or another and she had the most convoluted entrance into this match, so I’ll say Shayna win MITB. Maybe she’ll do it by choking someone on the ladder! That could be fun.

Scott Heisel – I’m all in on this gimmick match — anything to break up the monotony of wrestling in an empty gymnasium, really. And frankly, the fact that all 12 competitors will be fighting at the same time makes it much harder for me to pick winners, mainly because I’m hoping we see some new intergender alliances form. Tell me you wouldn’t be stoked if AJ Styles and Shayna Baszler teamed up, or Aleister Black and Asuka came together for the ultimate Strike Force reboot. Shayna seems like the obvious winner for the women’s side, since her program with Becky Lynch doesn’t seem finished yet. The only other option is Lacey Evans, which she can use to call out Bayley at SummerSlam like a Real American Hero would or whatever. (Part of me hopes Sasha Banks helicopters in at the last second and steals the briefcase, too.) But if the men’s briefcase is going to Smackdown, I say this one’s going to Raw, so Shayna it is.

Raj Prashad – Despite dropping her shot at WWE gold at WrestleMania, I’ve got Baszler brutalizing her competition en route to winning the Women’s Money in the Bank match.

Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Daniel Bryan vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Aleister Black vs. King Corbin vs. Otis vs. AJ Styles

What You Need To Know: Daniel Bryan wants to win Money in the Bank to show that he’s still passionate about making his dreams fight for him. Rey Mysterio is terrified of falling off the building. Aleister Black wants to win Money in the Bank so he can draw the Grim Reaper all over the briefcase. King Corbin feels entitled to the briefcase and wants to right the wrongs of his previous, awful cash-in attempt. Otis should not be at the top of a ladder on the roof of a building. AJ Styles, who is a ghost, wants to win Money in the Bank so he can something something phenomenal. Also, presumably as protection against anyone else murdering his friends, throwing him in a hole, and covering him with dirt.

What Will Happen: Somebody’s going off the side of the building, and since it can’t be the Big Show — shout-out to Halloween Havoc 1995 — I think it’ll be Styles. Styles was killed for real at WrestleMania and came back all, “so what, I got buried, big deal.” I want him to get launched off the side of the tower to his death, only to show up a week before the next pay-per-view like, “so what, I got thrown off a building and hit the pavement and my body exploded, who cares.” Until quarantine’s over, they should kill him at every major show in increasingly ridiculous ways, like he’s Kenny from South Park. None of this is canon, anyway.

Also King Corbin will win, because they hate us.

Staff Picks

Elle Collins – I’d love to see Aleister Black with the MITB Briefcase, and I don’t think that’s entirely out of the question. It would just require WWE to be a little more daring than they’ve been with MITB winners lately. So with that in mind, I feel like AJ Styles is the most likely winner.

Emily Pratt – When they get to WWE HQ, the wrestlers notice a layer of dust on everyone’s desk and realize that WWE’s actual employees have been working from home for weeks and not touching each other in speedos during a pandemic. This leads to another revelation that there would be more benefit in the WWE roster organizing and fighting for their rights as workers than fighting each other during a pandemic – not just for the safety of the wrestlers themselves, but for that of their families and communities. Everyone walks out on the match except for AJ Styles, who decides to be a scab, take the elevator to the roof, and unhook the briefcase to become Mr. Phenomenal In The Bank or whatever.

Scott Heisel – Picking a male winner is tough because of who the current champions are: AJ Styles is probably next in line for a main event feud with Drew McIntyre anyway, briefcase or no briefcase, and I don’t see Aleister Black carrying a briefcase around (nor does Rey Mysterio seem like the sneaky cash-in type). On the Smackdown side of things, my beloved beef boy Otis is a non-entity in this match, and Daniel Bryan doesn’t need a briefcase for anything, so I guess that leaves King Corbin, ugh. Well, I guess I’ll be looking forward to him losing a second Money In The Bank cash-in later this year.

Raj Prashad – Styles seems like the pick to add to his illustrious WWE career, but I’m going with Aleister Black, who would benefit the most from taking home the briefcase. He seems primed to take the next step and earning a future title would go a long way in helping him reach that phase in his career.

So there you have it. That’s what we think will happen at the Elimination Chamber. Agree? Disagree? You know what to do. Drop down into the comments and let us know, and then make sure you’re here on Sunday night to find out if Otis falls off Titan Tower, builds up speed, and hits the ground like a meteor, destroying the foundation of the building and killing everyone. It should be a fun time!

Oh, and since it’s not this year’s theme song, here’s what the build for the event’s been missing:

See you this Sunday!

The world is changing rapidly, there’s no getting around that. The travel industry, especially air travel, has been shaken to its foundation (and that foundation has been proven unstable). Entire fleets have been grounded, airports are shuttering, international borders are still closed, and people are rightfully skittish about what travel will look like going forward. Airlines are racing to keep up with the new “norms” — like social distancing and face masks.

One U.S. budget airline, Frontier Airlines (which we’ve often quoted as having the cheapest one-way flights in the U.S.), is tackling the issue of social distancing on their planes by passing the buck. Literally, to you.

Frontier Airlines is planning to set aside 18 “More Room” seat assignments wherein the middle seat in those rows would be guaranteed to be unoccupied. If you want to sit in one of those seats, you’re going to have to pay anywhere from $39 to $89 extra (depending on how long the flight is).

This comes in contrast to other U.S. airlines like United, Southwest, Delta, and American which have said they’ve simply limited or stopped sales on middle seats to comply with social distancing guidelines. However, those airlines have also stated that they will seat passengers in those unsold middle seats if they need to. So… it’s a bit of a wash.

For now, this isn’t a permanent thing. Frontier only plans to charge passengers for the right to maintain social distancing on flights until August 31st. After that, they plan to go back to their standard seat selling procedure — which, like Spirit Airlines, features a base-fare and a series of incremental costs.

In the meantime, the company has implemented a face mask policy for passengers on all flights, along with other health protections. Frontier’s “healthy travel tips” presented online include passengers complying with the following before boarding a plane: A temperature check before going to the airport, “attest” that they or no one in their household has been in contact with someone with COVID-19-like symptoms in the last 14 days, and washing hands and using hand sanitizer before boarding. While these precautions are likely to become common in some form, they all pass the onus and costs onto the customer — an approach that is already receiving blowback online.

Ever since his release from federal custody last month as a precaution against a prison outbreak of coronavirus, Tekashi 69 has teased at his big social media comeback. After using Instagram and Twitter to become famous — or infamous, as he was as notorious for his trolling antics as he was for his music — the rainbow-haired, 23-year-old rabble rouser has poked his head into streams by Tory Lanez and The Shade Room’s comment section. However, yesterday he teased his proper comeback, warning his followers: “Don’t get scared now.”

This Friday at noon EST, Tekashi plans to join the trend of artists livestreaming with fans during the ongoing COVID-19 quarantine, promoting his return with a simple, bold-lettered post that promised (or threatened), “I’m going live Friday,” with the time of the planned livestream listed.

69 was also recently cleared to shoot music videos in his backyard and spend time in his basement recording studio, meaning that new music may very well be on the way as well. They’ll be his first releases since being granted an early release himself after he pled guilty to racketeering charges and was denounced by much of hip-hop as a “snitch” for testifying against his former enforcers in the Nine Trey Bloods gang.

We’ll see if that ban on Tekashi can overcome hip-hop’s overwhelming curiosity this Friday, 12pm EST.

To promote the series finale of Brockmire, the great IFC series that you should absolutely catch up with (it’s available on Hulu), Hank Azaria dropped by Conan on Tuesday. Naturally, the two ended up discussing The Simpsons, as Conan O’Brien wrote for the show from 1991-1993, penning such classic episodes as “Marge vs. the Monorail” and “Homer Goes to College,” while Hank Azaria still voices dozens of Springfield residents to this day. Azaria noted that Moe is his favorite Simpsons voice to do, and also shared his least favorite, the one that he saves for the end of a VO session.

“There are certain voices I save, like Duffman will blow me out in a second,” he told Conan. “I have to save Duffman for the end and I actually dread it. It actually does hurt, but I am not complaining.” Azaria then told a story that is every voice over actor’s worst nightmare. “My voice blows out rather easily, so I have to watch it. I was having a rough time in my life, and I got into a screaming match,” he said. “I totally blew out my voice and it didn’t come back for almost two weeks. I scared myself so bad that I actually got my vocal cords insured. Really.” Vocal cords are to Azaria as butt is to Kylie Minogue.

The Brockmire series finale (give Azaria an Emmy!) airs tonight on IFC.

As the coronavirus continues to spread, the live music industry has taken a major hit. Nearly every summer festival and concert tour have been postponed or canceled entirely. Now, Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival is following suit and has decided to cancel its 2020 iteration.

This summer, the festival was supposed to be celebrating its 15th year running. Slated for the weekend of July 17, the festival’s lineup had boasted headliners ranging from nostalgia acts like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs to big-name artists like Angel Olsen, Run The Jewels, Big Thief, Sharon Van Etten, and more.

Pitchfork’s decision to cancel arrived a day following Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker announced the state’s plan to re-open. Large-scale events and gatherings of more than 50 people won’t be permitted until there is “a vaccine or highly effective treatment widely available or the elimination of any new cases.”

In a statement, the festival detailed their decision and urged music lovers to stay safe:

We’re heartbroken to announce the cancellation of Pitchfork Music Festival 2020, due to COVID-19. Ticketholders will be contacted directly via email with full refund options; thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we work through all of this.

It can be pretty daunting to think about the future of live music right now, but know that we are fully committed to bringing Pitchfork Music Festival back in 2021, if the public health situation allows for it. In the meantime, we urge everyone to follow local health department guidelines. We are in this together, and, if we all do our part, we’ll celebrate next year in person.

In the meantime, we have plans for more livestreams, and more ways to use the full weight of Pitchfork to support musicians and the community around our festival. We’re not going anywhere—stay tuned, stay positive, and see you soon.

Read Pitchfork’s full statement above and revisit Uproxx’s review of last year’s iteration here.

UK producer Jamie xx recently released his first solo single in over five years. His return arrived with “Idontknow,” the club-ready track with a thumping beat. Now, Jamie has shared a visual accompanying his comeback single.

Co-directed by Oona Doherty and Luca Truffarelli, the visual sees Doherty moving through the quiet, lamp-lit streets of Belfast at night. In unison with the ebb and flow of mixed synths, Doherty unfolds with a range of emotions. Her body heaves with anger, jerks with frustration, and sways with a euphoric release. Doherty wanders aimlessly before stumbling upon the source of all her pent-up emotions, a woman in a blue car, who she runs over to and longingly embraces.

Alongside the visual’s release, Doherty, the video’s dancer and acclaimed Belfast choreographer, shared a poem that served as inspiration while working on the dance moves with Jamie:

“I don’t know
Boiling up inside ya, Like a kettle
Like a frying pan spitting hot oil out.
Roaming, soaking, empty streets
Blue tv light beaming out
A dirty beat
Our stamping feet
Don’t know whear to put it
Some times
Some times you just need a hug”

Ahead of the video, Jamie shared clips of Doherty and other dancers moving to the track. The clips served as inspiration for the full visual and even inspired a wealth of choreography clips from fans in response.

Watch Jamie xx’s “Idontknow” video above.

Charles Barkley’s role on television is to put things as bluntly as possible. It’s something he’s done quite well over the years, and it’s a character trait that has been a part of Barkley’s personality for his entire life. While that makes him one of the more compelling broadcasters in the world of sports, it has ruffled plenty of feathers over the years, and even cost him a prominent friendship.

Back in 2012, Barkley was ultra-critical of Michael Jordan’s performance as the owner of the then-Charlotte Bobcats, saying that Jordan surrounded himself with yes men and that “even though he is one of my great friends, I can’t get on here and tell you he’s done a great job.” This did not sit well with Jordan, and it led to a rift between the two that still exists to this day.

Barkley appeared on ESPN Radio in Chicago on Tuesday and spoke about where things stand with Jordan following the latest editions of The Last Dance. While he stressed that he still believes Jordan is “the greatest basketball player ever,” he’s still “really, really sad” about how things broke down between himself and a person he considered a brother.

“The thing that bothered me the most about that whole thing, I don’t think that I said anything that bad,” Barkley said, per Nick Friedell of ESPN. “I’m pretty sure I said, ‘As much as I love Michael, until he stops hiring them kiss-asses, and his best friends, he’s never going to be successful as a general manager.’ And I remember pretty much verbatim I said that. And the thing that really pissed me off about it later is Phil Jackson said the exact same thing.”

One thing made clear in The Last Dance is that no human is better at holding onto slights than Jordan, but in fairness to Barkley, MJ’s tenure as the owner of the Bobcats/Hornets hasn’t been particularly fruitful. Since 2011, Jordan’s first as the franchise’s majority owner, Charlotte has gone 286-419 with two playoff berths, both of which saw the team get knocked out in the first round. If blame starts at the top in these situations, then yes, Jordan’s tenure could objectively be going much better.

Perhaps time will lead to this situation resolving itself, although it’s hard to assume that will happen. But hopefully they get back on speaking terms, if only because the first episode of Inside the NBA with Michael Jordan would be outrageously good.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused New Japan Pro Wrestling to cancel another tour. After Japan’s state of emergency was extended through May 31, NJPW announced it had canceled the entire annual Best of the Super Juniors tournament, which was scheduled to take place between May 12 and June 6.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi responded to the announcement with a video, saying he hopes the tournament is just postponed and not canceled, and challenging the rest of his division. (That last part led him to post a (safe for work) video of himself washing his neck in the shower a couple of hours later.)

NJPW first started canceling shows in response to COVID-19 in late February. So far, the promotion has opted not to run no-audience shows, though several smaller wrestling companies in Japan have done so when possible throughout the pandemic. According to an interview with Tama Tonga and a report in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, New Japan has also committed to paying staff their usual salaries and not laying anyone off.

In a post on its website, NJPW apologized to fans looking forward to BOSJ and stated,

As eager as everyone at New Japan Pro-Wrestling is to return to the ring as soon as possible, the health and safety of our fans, wrestlers, and staff, as well as society at large is our utmost concern.

We will make announcements about events scheduled after June 6 upon careful monitoring of this developing situation. We will soon announce refund procedures for the affected events.

NJPW is continuing to explore the possibility of presenting matches without fans in attendance if staff and wrestler health and safety can be protected to the highest possible standard.

I’m losing count of how many times in the past few days I’ve seen someone post something along the lines of this tweet:

“The CDC has actually ADMITTED that they overcounted COVID-19 deaths!”

“Look at the numbers—they’re right there on the CDC website plain as day!”

“See, it’s all overblown! We did this whole shutdown thing and tanked the economy for nothing!”

First of all, no, the CDC did not revise anything. Let’s dive into these numbers because they actually are a bit confusing when you don’t read the whole page (and frankly, some parts are a little confusing even if you do—get it together, CDC).

---

There are different methods of counting COVID-19 deaths, and the CDC’s website includes numbers for two very different methods. We have:

1) The official CDC death count, which you can find on the CDC’s home page. This count comes directly from public health departments in each state and territory daily. As of the writing of this article, that count stands at 68,279.

2) The Provisional Death Count, which is where that ~37,000 number comes from. This count comes from the National Vital Statistics System—the system that processes and logs death certificates. The notable thing about the Provisional Death Count is that it’s not up-to-date. The CDC site itself states that the numbers on the Provisional Death chart lag weeks behind other counts:

“It is important to note that it can take several weeks for death records to be submitted to National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), processed, coded, and tabulated. Therefore, the data shown on this page may be incomplete, and will likely not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period, especially for the more recent time periods. Death counts for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. COVID-19 death counts shown here may differ from other published sources, as data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks.”

Here’s a real-world example of what this looks like:

This is a screenshot of the Provisional Death Count as of April 16, 2020 (which you can access at this CDC link). As you can see, the COVID death count for the week of 4/11/20 was 3,542.

And here is the Provisional Death Count as of the writing of this article, which you can view in real time at this CDC link. As you can see, the week of 4/11/20 has been updated from 3,542 deaths to 12,628—a nearly four-fold increase since the April 16 publication.

When the numbers were published on 4/16/20, there were still 9,086 death certificates that hadn’t been processed yet from the week prior—that’s what they mean by a lag. Three weeks later, the numbers are very different.

So that 37,000 total (well, 39,000 right now) will change as the death certificates get processed. The Provisional Death Count simply isn’t accurate yet. And the lag means it will never be an up-to-date count, so it’s not a reliable source for current death numbers.

The problem is that people have been sharing the not-up-to-date Provisional Death Count link as a way to make it sound like the COVID-19 death numbers are actually smaller. They are not.

It’s worth noting that all COVID-19 death counts include both lab-confirmed and “presumed” COVID-19 deaths. This has also been a source of confusion, not to mention conspiracy. But “presumed” doesn’t mean just a wild guess.

Test results for coronavirus have a high false negative rate—from 5% to 30%—according to Dr. Alan Wells, professor of pathology at University of Pittsburgh. So relying solely on positive lab test results for COVID deaths would miss thousands. At this point, doctors and medical examiners can generally recognize clear COVID symptoms in a critically ill or deceased patient, and if a patient meets the clinical, epidemiological, or vital records criteria for the COVID being the cause of death, that’s considered “presumed.”

Each state has different requirements for coding COVID-19 deaths, and it’s generally a very small percentage that are counted as “presumed.”

Adding to the confusion on this front, Dr. Birx, from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said that the U.S. was taking a “liberal” approach to counting COVID-19 deaths, and “”The intent is, right now, that . . . if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.”

People unfortunately did not take that statement in the context of underlying conditions, which is what Dr. Birx was talking about. Here’s what she actually said:

“There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem — some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now … if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.”

If a person has a heart condition and they get sick with COVID-19 and die, COVID is counted as a cause of their death, even if they died of a heart attack—the reasonable assumption being that the disease led the patient’s weakened heart to give in. Dr. Birx did not mean that a gunshot victim or a fatal car accident victim would be certified as a COVID-19 death just because they tested positive for the disease. That would be silly, not to mention illegal.

Read more on how COVID-19 deaths are counted from a forensic pathologist here.

You can also see an email from the Louisiana Health Department specifying how doctors are to log coronavirus deaths here:

So, no, COVID-19 death counts have not been revised downward, nor are they artificially inflated. In fact, it’s more likely that they’ve been undercounted than overcounted, since only deaths that had been confirmed by tests were being counted for at least the first month of the outbreak in the U.S.

More importantly, read the fine print on a website before you make any assumptions about what you’re seeing. Health data tracking can be a confusing to dive into under normal circumstances, much less during a novel virus pandemic where we’re all learning as we go.