Over in one corner of the internet, a whole lot of wild stuff is going on involving Reddit, GameStop, day traders, the Robinhood app, people making money in ways that people who already have money do not like, and more. In another, NBA fans are allowed to start voting for players to make the 2021 All-Star Game in whatever form that ends up taking amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, some team was going to use the former as a way to juice numbers for someone on their team with aspirations of becoming an All-Star. That honor ends up going to the Indiana Pacers, which are among the surprise teams in the league due to their 11-7 record that has them sitting in third place in the Eastern Conference.
A major reason for this is Myles Turner, the standout center who has spent this season racking up blocks like people in Ben Roethlisberger’s mentions. As a result, the Pacers did some quick photoshop work to one of my favorite memes, “Stonks,” and made the following:
time to show that r/pavers is just as influential as r/wallstreetbets
Turner certainly has a case for being an All-Star selection — in addition to his work protecting the rim, he’s finding other ways to impact games, averaging 14.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.3 steals, and a league-best 4.2 blocks in 32.4 minutes a night.
In most cases, we’re more concerned with the liquid inside a bottle than the bottle itself. If a whiskey, rum, tequila, gin, or vodka is high-quality, we don’t care if it comes in the ugliest bottle of all-time. We’d still drink it.
Serve our favorite bourbon whiskeys in an old hat and we’d still probably take a sip or two.
But while we spend most of our time focused on the spirits themselves, we can still find time to appreciate vibrant, unique, and overall cool bottle designs when we see them. Especially when they give off midcentury, Mad Men vibes. This is doubly true when the spirit also happens to be delicious.
We’ve rounded up twelve of our bottle designs ever created below. Consider these “investments in the look of your bar cart.” While we’re not doing our usual tasting notes, we vouch that the juice inside is definitely worth tasting, too.
This expression from the island of Barbados was aged for a minimum of ten years in oak casks. This creates a nuanced, well-balanced nutty, and vanilla-filled expression that’s perfectly suited for slow sipping on the rocks.
The Bottle:
At first glance, the bottle image appears to be warped. But the bottle itself is warped and slumping to one side. It’s a tribute to the ancient, leather sacks pirates once filled with rum. And if you can’t appreciate that little bit of #brandstory, then you’ve gotten too jaded for your own good.
Dave Phinney hand selects each barrel that goes into this blended bourbon. They come from three different distilleries — one in Indiana, one in Kentucky, and one in Tennessee. It’s matured in new, charred American oak barrels before bottling.
The Bottle:
The bottle itself is black and opaque, so you can’t see the spirit inside. It’s adorned with a black and white image of a literal chair on fire (hence the name). The “given to me by a wandering stranger” vibe is spooky, interesting, and perfect for showing off.
This award-winning vodka was made from corn and water from the cascade mountains. It’s naturally gluten-free, distilled, and filtered five times, and comes in a sleek decanter instead of a regular bottle.
The Bottle:
The decanter bottle is designed by industrial engineer Karim Rashid and looks like one of those awards this vodka has been racking up.
One of the most awarded gins in the world, this German spirit is made using 47 botanicals and herbs found in the Black Forest. These include unusual ingredients like lingonberries and honey pomelo.
The Bottle:
At first glance, this bottle doesn’t seem all that interesting. But it’s the simplicity and classic old-timey look that make it special. The gin is encased in a brown bottle with a stamp-like label that features a coat of arms-like image with a monkey in the center.
This Diageo-owned brand really moves around a lot before it reaches your bottle. It’s distilled at the New Bernheim Distillery, aged for fifteen years at Stitzel-Weller, and bottled in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
The Bottle:
This elegant, timeless bottle looks like an expensive decanter. Square, uniform, and perfect for a shelf. Pure Mad Men — that alone might be worth the price of the juice inside.
This añejo tequila was aged between 24 and 28 months in Cincoro’s underground cellar. Aging for this amount of time, especially underground, imparts rich charred wood and vanilla flavors to this highly sippable spirit.
The Bottle:
Sure, you’re going to pay a little more to get your hands on this elegant, sleek bottle. But most of that is the juice itself — which is high quality. The bottle definitely grabs eyes, though — it’s tall, visually pleasing, and the perfect addition to your tequila shelf.
Citadelle is a French gin brand that’s been produced since 1996 by Maison Ferrand, a brand more well-known for its Cognac. This heavy juniper flavored gin also has 18 other herbs and botanicals to give it a unique, well-rounded flavor perfect for your favorite gin & tonic.
The Bottle:
There’s something classic and homey about the Citadell bottle. It’s blue, elegantly designed, and adorned with an eye-pleasing white label. Feels like something from a Gatsby party.
In the whiskey world, even though it’s one of the most popular brands, Jack Daniel’s doesn’t really get a lot of respect. Its flagship whiskey is cheap, sweet, and perfect for mixing. But its 94-proof Single Barrel Select with its robust, rich, subtly sweet flavor is more a sipper than a mixer — in fact, we’ve given it a lot of shine this year.
The Bottle:
Another whiskey that comes in a decanter, Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select is simple, clean, and classic in its design.
Nixta Licor de Elote is a corn liqueur produced in Jilotepec, Mexico. It’s sweet, rich, and was designed to be used by bartenders as a cocktail ingredient. As such, it’s well suited for mixing into tequila-based cocktails — though quite pleasant to sip on its own.
The Bottle:
Take one look at this bottle and you absolutely know what you’re in for. First of all, it’s shaped like an ear of corn. Secondly, there’s an image of corn on the label. It doesn’t get much cornier than that. But damn, if this doesn’t look cool.
This 100% organic spirit is made using 100% Blue Weber agave. It’s aged for ten months in French limousine casks. The result is a refined, well-rounded, rich tequila with a nice mix of vegetal sweetness and buttery caramel.
The Bottle:
Each bottle is a work of art. The yellow skull with the fire and devil was created to pay tribute to the Day of the Dead celebrations.
Yes, this is a celebrity whiskey brand. It was created by spirits entrepreneur Brent Hocking and rapper Drake. It’s a blend of high rye bourbons that were mixed to create a rich, balanced, easy to sip whiskey.
The Bottle:
This elegant, streamlined, futuristic-looking bottle might look more like a bottle of cologne than a whiskey. But that just means it will pop even harder when it’s displayed in your liquor cabinet or on your bar cart.
At first glance, you see all flash and no substance. But this award-winning 100% Blue Weber agave tequila is incredibly well-made. It’s double-distilled before aging to produce a mellow, sweet tequila perfectly suited for slow sipping.
The Bottle:
This extremely unique bottle is shaped like the head of a jaguar. It’s bright, vibrant, and decorated with chaquira beads. If you can afford to give this one away, it makes a gift that won’t soon be forgotten.
Our minds jump to SNL when we hear the term “sketch comedy.” Or maybe to earlier variety shows like The Carol Burnett Show or Your Show Of Shows. Chappelle’s Show, In Living Color, Kids In The Hall, The State, and Key & Peele are others that have defined the form in the last 30 years, but as veteran sketch performer (and writer and producer) Keegan-Michael Key makes clear in his new Audible Original podcast, The History Of Sketch Comedy (which is now available), sketch predates screens, stretching back centuries, woven into storytelling and theater. It’s a fascinating journey and one Key takes his time taking listeners through, tossing out references and stories about more modern sketch performers and shows along the way.
Before you go dive into the podcast, though, let’s explore the battle of craft vs. topicality in sketch and one of Key’s own creations, Luther The Anger Translator, his hidden backstory, evident durability, and relatability, as told by Key when we spoke recently. Though first, please do indulge us as the conversation begins, as all conversations should when featuring someone from Detroit, with a question about coney dog allegiances.
I’m not from there, but I’ve been and I feel like it’s required that I ask anybody with Detroit roots: Lafayette or American?
Oh, American. I actually just switched over. I switched over. I don’t know what happened to me. It might be an issue of cleanliness for me now. There’s something about the grittiness of Lafayette. I think that the word grittiness could also be interpreted in other ways. You know what I mean? [Laughs]
There is a theatricality to Lafayette that doesn’t exist at American, though. There’s always this little guy… there’s a guy there, who for years would order a carton of milk and he would bring a plastic glass, like a cheap plastic glass. He would take the milk carton and open it and then he’d pour the glass. And somehow he could manage to get the stream of milk a foot and a half away from the cup and still be pouring it into the cup. So I will always appreciate the theatricality of it. Where else do you go to a restaurant and order, “I’ll have a carton of milk, please?” Just so I can watch this spectacle. That’s something that Lafayette will always have going for it.
That’s craft, right there. That’s like a hotdog cocktail. That’s great.
Exactly, exactly.
So, with the podcast, it was interesting the way you started talking about the roots of sketch comedy in one of the later episodes, the proverb about planting a tree, and the Bob Odenkirk/Birthday Boys analogy. Is the podcast, itself, your effort to speak to the future and plant the seeds for the future of sketch comedy? Because you really go in-depth on the entire history of sketch comedy here. Not just, “it all started with SNL.” Like, you go all the way back to the ancient Sumerians.
Yeah. I think that what we wanted to do was to put together a fully rounded history of this particular art form. It only occurred to us in the midst of making it that there was this interesting thing where you kind of say, “Well, gosh, at the end of the day, performance is performance.” Whether you’re watching on a screen or you’re watching live in a theater space, that dynamic should always exist. There will always be one person watching another person tell a story. And so there was a bit of a desire… I would say it kind of came to us that it would come full circle like that as opposed to… it wasn’t by design. If that makes any sense.
It does. Speaking of SNL, which is obviously the focal point of sketch comedy. The cliche is it’s never as good as you remember it. I try to cut it some slack because of the craft that’s involved. And so I wonder sometimes if the craft of sketch gets lost behind the topicality of these shows.
I think sometimes the craft does get lost. I think as we get swept up into the tide of topicality, there are certain things… Especially on SNL during a cold open, there are things that you want to include that are a touchstone for that week that everybody in society has experienced at large. So you kind of want to make sure… “let’s make sure we get that joke in or that observation in,” and sometimes the structure, that very foundational structure of “premise plus escalation equals sketch” does get lost a little bit. I think to expound on it just a little bit more, there’s the craft and the craft is always at the crossroads of one other thing, which is, is it going to make an audience laugh? Is it making me laugh? And I think sometimes when we’re dealing with topicality, this maelstrom of things that are ripped from the headlines that we’re trying to include all of that… we might get shortsighted. And I’m not talking about SNL in particular, just when you’re doing topical comedy in general, that sometimes we do lose that piece of the craft a little bit. A little bit. I would say it’s minutia. It’s negligible. But I agree that we do sometimes get swept away by recent events. And then we loosen our grip on form and structure a little bit.
Does that come from a want to just be on people’s minds and to continue being in the conversation? Or is it more internal? Is it more of, “I’ve got something to say about the situation right now, and this is the way I say things through sketch comedy?” You guys worked in some political stuff in Key & Peele. What’s the motivation when you have to kind of break those rules a little bit to meet the moment and the topic?
Well, the one thing is, Jordan [Peele] and I were, in a manner of speaking, by necessity pushed into a certain direction, which was that we had to write things that resonated with us at a deep evergreen level. So most of our observations, most of them, not all of them, most of our observations on Barack Obama were the fact that we shared a similar history to him and similar social dynamics to him in our lives. Being raised by single parents, being biracial in this society were things that made us fascinated to write about him. And so as you’ll notice in sketches like Luther and Obama, a lot of what’s going on is that it’s more an observation and an exercise in learning about who he is as a person. If that makes sense. We could have done that without him being the president. We could’ve just done a study on mild-mannered African-American men. Right? But the sketch wouldn’t have held as much weight. And the reason it resonated with so many people is because it was about the leader of the free world, and the fact that he happened to be a man of color, and all of the racial dynamics that exist in our country in specific.
But the necessity was that we knew how long it would take us to write and record the sketches. So we couldn’t do topical things for the most part. We had to find overarching human themes to work from, and large, long-standing tropes to work from as opposed to being able to stay in this kind of ephemeral immediate place. You get into that shoehorn place when you’re going, “I really want to get the topicality in there. I’m going to sacrifice a little bit of the craft.” You know? Or, “I could work probably a little bit harder on this setup and maybe find an even more clever way to present the premise, but I really don’t have the time.” And the thing is we were very fortunate that Jordan and I had the time. We had a 13-week writing process for two months of shooting. And it was actually a luxury, it was wonderful.
Thinking about the podcast and some things that have advanced the form are amazing performers, but also amazing sketches that just transcend time. And Luther is one of those. Years removed from it, how did the relationship change between you and that character once it hit big? Once it broke out and you’re doing the correspondence dinner with Obama?
It’s interesting. That’s an interesting question. It didn’t change my relationship with the character much at all, to be quite honest with you. He always lived within strict parameters. It’s very much the opposite of a lot of other characters that I played, where we wanted them to grow and wanted to see other aspects of their lives. Whereas he always stayed in that same place. The only time he pushed the parameter was when the other person… and the one time that we did it most successfully, obviously, was where Barack Obama himself was getting agitated and angry during his speech. And then I had to calm him down. And that’s the furthest we ever pushed the parameters of that character. Because really he is, I guess to use psychological terms, we were just providing Barack Obama with an id. Because it almost seems like he was so controlled and so graceful that he was only superego. He was only a precise thinking person who thought things out, and we just wanted to provide him with an id. So in a manner of speaking, I was just providing that for him. We didn’t get to learn any other aspects of Luther’s life.
We discussed it quite a lot. He has a whole backstory; he’s from my hometown, he’s from Detroit. He wanted to be a motivational speaker when he was a teenager, he was the one black guy on his lacrosse team. I had a whole backstory for the guy. He actually served a singular purpose.
With that singular purpose and with that success, when it pops do you start thinking about, “okay, where’s the off-ramp? How do we make sure we don’t overdo this?”
Yeah. It is a consideration. I haven’t had to explore it too much recently. I always wanted to do a retirement video for him. Or does Joe Biden need his services? Maybe Luther can go work for the Biden-Harris administration. He can jump between both of them. He can work for Kamala too, if he wanted to. I always wanted to see if there’s a world where Luther has a sandwich board that says, “Will get angry for work,” or, “Will get angry for food.” I do think there is a chance of him being worn out, but we certainly haven’t reached that yet. We certainly haven’t reached that. I think he has actually a very long shelf life because, again, he’s much less a person than he is a quality that exists within every human, and that won’t go away.
Absolutely. This is great. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure to talk with you.
You too, Jason. Next time you go to Detroit, go get a carton of milk at Lafayette.
‘The History Of Sketch Comedy’ Audible Original podcast is available now.
Billboard‘s cover story on The Weeknd ahead of his Super Bowl Halftime Show on February 7 reveals an interesting tidbit about the show, as noted by Variety‘s Justin Curto: The show is planned to be 24 minutes long — twice as long as any show in the past. The Weeknd is performing live in-stadium at Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadium before a 22,000-person audience — way below the stadium’s full capacity of 65,890 — so those folks will at least be getting their money’s worth for the concert, if not the full-on live football experience of going to the Super Bowl would usually afford them.
The extra-long run time is possible as Pepsi and Coca-Cola have pulled many of their ads, which usually make up the bulk of Super Bowl programming, and can run a company up to $5 million on average. That’s a lot of money to spend on a 30-second or minute-long clip as the pandemic continues to chew up profits. Fortunately for The Weeknd, their loss is his gain, as the extra time will allow him to fulfill his vision. He told Billboard, “We’ve been really focusing on dialing in on the fans at home and making performances a cinematic experience, and we want to do that with the Super Bowl,” and he even put up $7 million of his own money.
He also says he’ll retire his After Hours look sometime after. While it’s certainly been a wild ride seeing the character’s transformation from bandaged, battered loser to Handsome Squidward, The Weeknd is ready to evolve into his next form — whatever that will be.
Brooklyn rapper Casanova, who surrendered to authorities in December on charges of racketeering and murder, was denied bond today, according to the NY Daily News. The bail would have been set at $2.5 million but Manhattan Federal Judge Philip Halpern made it clear that he believed the rapper to be too great a risk for release. Casanova — real name Caswell Senior — is accused of not just being a member of the Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation gang, but Assistant US Attorney David Felton called him the “full-fledged, committed leader of the gang.”
The prosecution’s case presented enough evidence to convince Judge Halpern “that violence seems to be perpetuated by associates of Mr. Senior… it’s plausible to interpret that as evidence … Mr. Senior doesn’t have to get his hands dirty.” However, Cas’s defense, James Kousouros, disagrees, believing as reported by the Daily News that “the government’s case boiled down to comments by other accused gangsters about Casanova, as well as photos of him with large amounts of weed.”
Cas and members of GSN stand accused of selling crack, cocaine, and ecstasy, and firearms offenses, while other members are accused of identity fraud and accessory to murder, with one member driving an accomplice to kill a 15-year-old. Casanova faces a minimum of 15 years if convicted.
For many Megan Thee Stallion fans, their introduction to the Houston hip-hop star was through her detailed cosplays of anime characters like My Hero Academia‘s Todoroki. While it was far from a first for a female rapper to dress up as their favorite character from a cartoon or a video game (Missy Elliott as Mega Man, anyone?), it may have been the first time one so openly expressed their love for a hobby that some in the hip-hop world might consider “too nerdy.” Of course, those people are overlooking a long history of “nerdy” hip-hop heroes like Wu-Tang Clan and MF DOOM, but that’s beside the point.
Megan’s love for animation, video games, and dressing up has led to a huge opportunity for her, as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment tapped the “Body” rapper to help announce the latest round of downloadable content for its Mortal Kombat 11, the latest game in the long-running franchise which is still receiving support in the form of Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate. To help make the announcement, Megan got to dress up as one of her favorite characters, the fanged ninja Mileena, who returned to the franchise after being absent from MK11‘s original release.
Thee Stallion had previously cosplayed as Mileena for Halloween 2019, but her look was even more game-accurate in her announcement video, where she strutted and preened with Mileena’s signature sai and her mouthful of razor-sharp, opponent chomping dentitions. The game’s been out for a couple of months, and now, Uproxx and Megan got to talk about her impressive cosplay, her love for video games, and how she finds time to enjoy her hobbies while promoting her debut album, Good News. My big takeaway: We really need a new Def Jam Vendetta game with Meg as a fighter.
Of all the characters in the Mortal Kombat mythology/franchise, why is Mileena your favorite, and what does it mean to have her back in the franchise for Mortal Kombat 11?
You already know Mileena’s on some Real Hot Girl Sh*t! I have always loved Mileena because she presents as this really sexy, dominating character who has such allure, but underneath the mask and mystery, she’s also this super terrifying mutant. I like that when she takes her mask off in Mortal Kombat 11, she can eat all the characters… basically, she is a man-eater.
Can you detail the work that went into your transformation into Mileena? How does it compare to some of the other elaborate looks and cosplay you have done over the years?
Mileena in Mortal Kombat 11 was one of my favorite cosplays ever. We spent a lot of time planning everything down to the minor details so the look would be accurate. Alicia Marie made the costume and sai weapons and Kelton Ching created the prosthetics.
How did you first learn about cosplay and what about it interested you? What was your first cosplay? Who are some other characters that you really want to dress up as?
I have been watching anime forever and a part of why I love it so much is because of how intricate the graphics are. When I started seeing people online and cosplaying and going all out with it, I knew I had to try it for myself. I like to take a character and give them a Megan spin. I like to see myself as my favorite character. I really want to do my own spin on Naruto and Diane from 7 Deadly Sins.
When it comes to the Mortal Kombat franchise, there are so many iconic moments. What are some of the moments that stick out in your memory?
It’s not so much “moments in the game that stand out,” but I remember loving going to an arcade and playing the standalone Mortal Kombat game for hours.
What videogames did you play growing up? Did you have any memories of playing games that you’re particularly fond of?
Growing up I played every single version of GTA, Bloody Roar 3, and I loved Def Jam Vendetta, and Def Jam Vendetta: Fight For NY. They were hilarious and over the top with Lil Kim and Redman. Some of the fondest memories I have are of playing videogames with my dad.
It seems like it’d be very hard to keep up with games while going to school and finishing up Good News. How do you manage to do it all?
I work hard, but it is all about priorities. I find time to make it all happen because school is important to me and my grandmother and it was important to my mother.
Gaming is an opportunity for me to escape. My mind is always working on what’s next… the next photoshoot, the next concert, the next music video, so for me, gaming is a way for me to relax and decompress.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The Royal Rumble is WWE’s second biggest match every year. Thirty wrestlers stream into the ring, one at a time, until only one of them has avoided being thrown over the top rope. The prize is a spot in the biggest match, the main event at WrestleMania.
Those who spend the longest time in the ring end up taking the most damage, meaning most of the event’s champions have entered the ring at No. 23 or later. It’s billed as a grueling endurance test, especially for early entrants, who must last an hour or more just to make the final two.
But here’s the thing: it’s actually very easy to win.
Seemingly every year, the announcers draw attention to the quirk of the event’s main rule: A wrestler can leave the ring and still remain eligible so long as they leave under the top rope. Usually, as soon as an announcer points this out, someone will be knocked through the middle of the ropes, do something cool, and come back in. That’s usually the end of that.
What I am urging you to do, wrestling villains, is to actually capitalize on this dumb rule.
When one plays a wrestling video game, one can’t help but note that the surest Royal Rumble strategy is to avoid conflict. Stand in a corner, do taunts, and let everyone else beat each other up. Only fight when you have to. Reach the end with more health than the other finalist, and essentially win a one-on-one match instead of a one-on-29 match.
But for some reason, entering the Royal Rumble makes all wrestlers become bloodlusted berserkers. Each new entrant charges into the ring, meddles in all of the ring’s ongoing engagements, and becomes as big a target for elimination as possible. Announcers sometimes complain about opponents preventing each other from eliminating common enemies, but it happens anyway, several times every year.
The way to increase your odds of winning the Royal Rumble is to get in as few fights as possible while you’re in there. If no one is fighting you, no one can throw you out.
It is completely legal, per the rules of the match, take this to the extreme. Roll under a rope, flee until any pursuers become entangled in new disputes, hide somewhere, and jump back in after the last contender is gone. Every year, to watch the Royal Rumble is to wonder why nobody is trying this.
What’s even more frustrating is that there is precedent for this plan, and one time, it worked far better than the perpetrator ever intended.
In 1999, toward the end of the legendary feud between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon, the two wound up entering the Royal Rumble at No. 1 and No. 2. Both made it clear that their rivalry mattered more than winning the Rumble. Austin wanted to punish the company’s tyrannical CEO, while McMahon just wanted two-time reigning champ Austin to lose, even putting a $100,000 bounty on Austin’s elimination.
Before the opening bell rang, ring announcer Howard Finkel explained and re-explained the “over the top rope” rule, telegraphing the inbound mockery of said rule.
Austin had a chance to eliminate McMahon with ease early in the Rumble, but preferred beating up his boss over not beating up his boss. Entrant No. 3, some guy I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of otherwise, distracted Austin, and McMahon fled under the ropes to the arena’s concourse. Austin rolled under the ropes in pursuit, and McMahon goons ambushed Austin, beating him until he had to be carried to an ambulance.
Oh right, the Rumble itself. The production returned its attention to the ring, where little had been planned, other than the overwhelming Austin-McMahon storyline. There ensued a C plot about the Undertaker’s cult kidnapping Mabel (the lights went out during Mabel’s exit, so there is no indisputable visual evidence Mabel was ever eliminated), but since the entire hour-long event was built around a story that’d literally left the building, the middle was shockingly boring and low on star power.
“Nearly a quarter of the participants wouldn’t make it into that summer’s WWF Attitude, a game that included Head as a playable character. Most of the Rumble match could be re-created by a seven-year-old whose mom only bought him the cheap action figures left on the Toys ‘R’ Us shelf (and having grown up with three Giant Gonzalez dolls, I know what I’m talking about). Frankly, besides Austin and McMahon, the only two men in the Rumble with even the remotest chance of winning were Kane (whose one-day WWF title reign made him the only other former world champ in the match) and Triple H (who at that point was maybe the 5th-most over member of D-X)[Okay, I exaggerate, but most of the other DX members got louder pops during their entrances on this night].”
Every few minutes, neutral commentator Michael Cole wondered about McMahon’s whereabouts, only to be shushed by the complicit villain apologist Jerry Lawler.
McMahon still influenced proceedings from afar, and not just because he actually owned the ring and was literally in charge of the entire pay-per-view event’s script. His character managed to get rid of viable threat Kane, the Rumble’s annual biggest ring-clearer, by [problematic 1999 vibes] sending “insane asylum” orderlies until Kane fled the ring over the top rope, eliminating himself because very tall wrestlers have never figured out how to enter or exit a ring without stepping over all the ropes.
It wasn’t until Kane cleared the ring of wrestlers, including himself, that McMahon returned, nearly 26 minutes after he’d fled under the bottom rope. Half of the non-Austin/non-McMahon field had since been eliminated. Here he is, confirming he still considered himself eligible:
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McMahon ally Ken Shamrock then entered the ring opposite McMahon, and so…
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…McMahon returned to the job he’d held before he became a meddling despot who gets pummeled by Stone Cold Steve Austin: wearing a headset (which he IRL owns) at the commentary table (which he IRL owns) next to Cole (whom McMahon also IRL owns), claiming all the day’s tasks had been accomplished, since the injured Austin wouldn’t win. As Cole and Lawler continued to remind the viewer McMahon was still in the match, McMahon insisted he had no interest in rejoining the fight.
The plan hit a snag when Austin returned to the arena, driving his own ambulance. An all-time meme face legend went to work.
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Austin chased McMahon around the ring, but the villain managed to lead Austin through traffic within it, ensuring a safe return to the announcers table, Austin taking more damage, and Austin eliminating more wrestlers. Another effective piece of character work: despite having a headset, McMahon did not slip back into the commentator mode of his previous three decades. His remarks focused on Austin and who could eliminate him.
Austin seemingly became dumb again, doing very normal wrestling against Triple H and X-Pac and everyone else, forgetting about the guy at ringside who’d sent him toward the hospital during this very hour. But it really wouldn’t have made sense to pursue McMahon until the elimination of Big Boss Man, another McMahon ally. And Austin showed he hadn’t forgotten about McMahon by leaving the ring to dump water in McMahon’s face.
(You know the other really dumb thing wrestlers do during Royal Rumbles? When they prevent an opponent from eliminating another opponent, for no reason other than sheer desire to hit somebody? In this match, the $100,000 bounty on Austin provided an explanation for once. When Triple H prevented two guys from throwing out Austin, it made sense. Triple H wanted the bounty for himself.)
Finally, Austin eliminated Big Boss Man, then left the ring to drag McMahon in. Once again, Austin declined to eliminate his rival, instead gloating and … yelling at materialized distraction The Rock, yet another McMahon ally at the time. Oh hey, it’s The Rock. (Earlier in the night, he’d had a heated gamer moment and beaten Mick Foley with a chair for real.)
The story told by the first 56 minutes and 30 seconds of the match was that Stone Cold and Vince McMahon cared about beating each other more than anything else in the world, and that none of the 28 other contenders mattered (most of them have been largely forgotten to history or resembled rejected Adam Sandler characters, so this is partially fair). Austin wanted to brutalize McMahon more than Austin wanted to win. McMahon wanted Austin to lose more than McMahon wanted his own money.
And then, at the very end, Austin cared about yelling at The Rock more than he cared about any of this. Sure!
McMahon won the 1999 Royal Rumble by running, hiding, and sitting around for almost an hour, dealing almost literally no offense. A few pathetic slaps, that one hoist at the end, and there you have it: the greatest Royal Rumble strategy of all time, even if it only arose by accident after Austin’s surprise return to the ring.
It started and ended as a one-on-one match, with 50 minutes of useless filler in between. McMahon didn’t even keep the match’s prize, forfeiting his WWF title shot. Austin-McMahon had to happen as many times as possible, but there was no reason for it to happen in a Royal Rumble. Its only payoff was highlighting how easy it is for a supervillain to exploit the event’s dumb rules.
Were lessons learned? Did bad guys attempt this same strategy in the 2000 Rumble? Nah, The Rock won by doing normal wrestling stuff.
Every year, somebody loiters right next to the ring, gets forgotten about while selling an injury, or is a comedy wrestler just doing a version of the Coward’s Gambit for comic relief. And every year, Kofi Kingston deploys physical genius to re-enter the ring after being thrown out, hacking the event’s other rule: two feet must touch the floor. But totally vacating the premises on purpose? This remains a massive opportunity for the motivated coward.
Lawler, the McMahon apologist, had actually attempted a version of this in 1996, hiding under the ring for 36 minutes until fans reported the crime to Shawn Michaels. The subservient bootlicker Lawler failed because he only attempted a pathetic version of the Coward’s Gambit. He merely left the ring itself, when he should’ve left the floor, the arena, the neighborhood, only returning to the ring when the coast was absolutely clear.
The 1999 Royal Rumble is widely considered one of the event’s worst iterations ever, but not necessarily because of the goofy finish. Those happen all the time. And not entirely because the boss booked himself to win — he was the company’s greatest heel, and he won in the most heelish manner possible, and it’s not like he booked himself to actually win the title belt itself (until a few months later, when he rigged a far more contrived story, but that’s a whole other thing). The main problem was that two wrestlers completely overshadowed 28 others.
However, there’s absolutely a way to use the Royal Rumble’s stupid rule to tell not just one fitting story, but a multi-year story.
It’s a mystery why the company didn’t fix this rule, once it’d been fully exposed in 1999. The company’s CEO was the one who hacked the rule, but wouldn’t he want to prevent anybody else from besting his own target-of-opportunity winning strategy?
But the even bigger mystery is why all the bad guys don’t deploy this chicanery every year. It makes sense that the rule-following John Cenas sprint into the ring to deliver hardo justice, but the diabolical Seth Rollinses should don ghillie suits beneath the popcorn stands.
So here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna take over the book and establish control of WWE’s scripts. Then we’ll have a villain go full McMahon by deploying the Coward’s Gambit not just as a means of embarrassing one opponent, but specifically and intentionally as a means of winning the match. We’re gonna have this villain win the belt at WrestleMania and parade this newly minted monster heel as a genius.
Will we then fix the rule, perhaps by requiring devious under-ropers to get back into the ring within 10 seconds? No. Not yet. We will not surrender content that easily.
At the following year’s Rumble, an impossible to ignore number of bad guys will attempt the same scheme. Eventually, the viewer will realize there are 15 villains running laps around the ring, all of them too dastardly to work together in any way, each of them trying to throw their fellow scumbags into the ring so that the justice hardos can then throw them out for good. We’ve just created a MultiRumble, a Disloyal Rumble encircling the Royal Rumble itself, bad guys chasing bad guys in a NASCAR orbit around good guys chasing good guys, wheels within wheels as the prophet Ezekiel witnessed in the heavens.
And then, the year after that, we fix the rules and promise the viewer the most honest Royal Rumble of all time, straight down the middle. We then let someone win via some totally different bullshit, and voila: several years of highly memorable Rumbles, all thanks to one stupid rule.
“Sen. Bernie Sanders has raised $1.8 million for charity through the sale of merchandise inspired by the viral photo of him and his mittens on Inauguration Day,” according to CNN (the picture was taken by taken by Agence France-Presse staff photographer Brendan Smialowski). “The Vermont senator’s team began selling sweatshirts and T-shirts featuring the photo, which inspired countless memes, on his campaign store last Thursday.” All the money from the “Chairman Sanders” merchandise, the first run of which sold out in less than 30 minutes, will be distributed to charities in Vermont.
“Jane and I were amazed by all the creativity shown by so many people over the last week, and we’re glad we can use my internet fame to help Vermonters in need,” Sanders wrote in a statement. “But even this amount of money is no substitute for action by Congress, and I will be doing everything I can in Washington to make sure working people in Vermont and across the country get the relief they need in the middle of the worst crisis we’ve faced since the Great Depression.”
As part of the licensing agreement to put the famous photo on T-shirts, sweatshirts, and stickers, Getty Images will donate its proceeds from the license to Meals on Wheels America… Burton Snowboards, which makes the coat Sanders wore on Inauguration Day, donated 50 jackets to the Burlington Department for Children and Families in the senator’s name.
The now-iconic mittens were made by Vermont school teacher Jen Ellis, who told the Washington Post that she remembers “the night [I gave him the mittens]. I was thinking to myself, ‘Is this crazy? I don’t even know this guy.’ But I wanted to make them for him, so I did.” A small act of kindness can lead to big things.
Bernie Sanders called me earlier today to tell me that the mitten frenzy has already raised an enormous amount of money for Vermont charities. I am not authorized to disclose the amount yet- but it’s BIG and it’s amazing! Thank you!! Generosity brings joy. @People4Bernie
Parkland survivor David Hogg is challenging Republicans to denounce newly elected Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after a series of incendiary videos and social media posts have recently been brought to light. A known believer and active spreader of QAnon conspiracy theories, Greene has left a digital media trail involving calls for Nancy Pelosi and FBI agents to be executed, and a video where she is seen harassing Hogg while the young activist was in Washington, D.C. and petitioning Congress to take more active measures in preventing school shootings. Greene has publicly stated that Parkland was a “false flag” operation to take away gun owner’s right and has questioned whether the event even happened. It did.
After the video of Greene harassing Hogg went viral, he stopped by CNN on Thursday morning where he recalled being accosted by the QAnon congresswoman. Following the Parkland shooting, Hogg suffers from PTSD, which made the encounter all the more jarring.
“I absolutely remember that,” Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg says about GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confronting him before she was elected. “As I was told growing up, it’s just better not to respond to bullies and just walk away.” https://t.co/oCz4TNhi7hpic.twitter.com/kt8eLmEUoZ
“Sometimes it’s just, you know, as I was told growing up, it’s just better not to respond to bullies and just walk away,” Hogg said.
He also said he “absolutely” felt it was a threat when Greene said in the video that she carried a gun, but told himself “if they shoot me, they prove my point.”
Considering the video was just one example in a growing list of Greene’s violent rhetoric, Hogg slammed Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who have yet to denounce the QAnon congresswoman. Hogg feels she should be stripped of her committee assignments and not supported by the party if she runs for re-election.
“Republicans always act as if they’re the party of decency and respect. But would the party of decency and respect questions [about] whether or not school shootings happened?” Hogg said. “Would they harass the survivors of these shootings for having different opinions than them? I don’t think so. And if Kevin McCarthy doesn’t think so either, he needs to actually stand up and do something about this congresswoman.”
2020 was the year several of today’s biggest musicians secured major brand deals. Travis Scott raked in $20 million with his McDonald’s merch collaboration, J Balvin similarly secured a McDonald’s deal, and Lady Gaga announced she was expanding the world of her Chromatica album to include Oreo cookies. While Gaga revealed the brand deal last year, the brightly-colored treats have just now hit shelves in the US.
Announcing the news, the cookie company took to social media to offer a sneak peak of the cookie’s packaging. Each cookie is neon pink and stamped with a Chromatica symbol while the cream filling has been dyed a bright green hue. “The news you’ve all been waiting for (and we couldn’t wait to reveal)… OREO x LADY GAGA packs drop today,” they wrote.
The news you’ve all been waiting for (and we couldn’t wait to reveal )… OREO x LADY GAGA packs drop today! pic.twitter.com/OPdkueC45h
Not only did Oreo announce the cookies are now available, but they are also giving fans a chance to win a package of cookies signed by Gaga herself. Launching a Twitter sweepstakes, fans have 24 hours to solve Gaga-related clues across the social media platform. Oreo’s first clue is: “Forget postage stamps. In the world of Chromatica, this mother gets her own OREO cookie for ruling with kindness.”
And away we go!
Clue 1⃣: Forget postage stamps. In the world of Chromatica, this mother gets her own OREO cookie for ruling with kindness.
Check out a clip of Gaga previewing the cookie above.
Chromatica is out now via Interscope. Get it here.
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#NBAAllStar x @Original_Turner pic.twitter.com/vEvSHFaFy6
)… OREO x LADY GAGA packs drop today! 
LADY GAGA x 
Dropping soon! 