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Wrestling without live crowds takes some figuring out. It’s led different companies in different directions, with varying degrees of success. But while WWE is inventing its own counter cultures, and AEW is continuing their impressively long build to Sept. 5’s All Out PPV while keeping their women’s tournament to YouTube, Impact Wrestling is over on AXS TV just putting on pretty solid wrestling shows.

I really enjoyed Impact’s last PPV, so I figured I’d check out the weekly show as they build to their two-week Impact Emergence event. This week’s episode opened in media res, with Willie Mack and Eric Young beating the ever-living crap out of each other backstage. Commentary was quick to give context, although I already figured it was because EY severely beat Willie’s best friend Rich Swann at Slammiversary. Apparently that led Swann to appear on TV and announce his retirement, and Eric showed up to beat him up again.

So it’s no wonder that Mack couldn’t wait for the official start of their match to start fighting with Young. And when they do eventually make it to the ring and the bell is rung, it’s Willie Mack’s desire for violent revenge that leads to his defeat at Eric Young’s hands. Willie Mack is usually a pretty upbeat character, so it’s interesting to see him furious and scowling. He’s quite good at it, and it’s a very intimidating look for him.

There were three women’s matches on this week’s episode, and they each had something going for them. Newly signed indie vet Kimber Lee went up against former champion Jordynne Grace, who is making questionable hair choices lately. Kimber got to show off some of what she can do, but Jordynne got the win, just in time for the announcement that her rematch with Deonna Purrazzo for the Knockouts Championship at Emergence will be a thirty-minute Iron Man Match. Jordynne and Deonna are going to tear it up in two weeks! For a full half-hour!

Not to make it about comparison, but how many years do you think it will be before AEW gives two women a full quarter of the show to have a banger of a match?

There was also a hardcore women’s tag team match, with Kiera Hogan and Tasha Steelz facing Havok and Nevaeh. Unless I missed some crucial recent character development, this is a heel versus heel match, and it certainly seemed like one. Kiera and Tasha aren’t nice people, but Havok and Nevaeh are straight-up monsters. And honestly that sums up my issues with the latter team. I’d like to see more human personality from Havok and Nevaeh, because right now I’m finding it hard to invest in them.

The third women’s match was Susie versus Alisha Edwards, which really wasn’t much of a match, but it was part of “Wrestle House,” which is a recurring segment throughout the show where a bunch of the Impact Roster are living together in an “MTV’s Real World” type situation, but with a wrestling ring in the backyard that they use for settling all disputes. Most of the Wrestle House stuff this week was pretty light, but it did set up a backyard match for next week between Taya and Kylie Rae, and hopefully they give that one some real time, because it ought to be real good. Also, the Susie/Alisha match featured Susie yelling “I have the runs!” which was a great payoff to an earlier bit.

My least favorite thing on the whole show was a segment where Madison Rayne interviewed RVD and Katie Forbes, who are still doing their “inappropriate displays of affection” gimmick that just grosses me out a little. But I imagine it’s supposed to.

I wasn’t wildly thrilled when Brian Myers (WWE’s Curt Hawkins) showed up to challenge Eddie Edwards in the main event. But like Eric Young, and also EC3 and Heath, who both had quick video promos on this episode, Myers is here to try and prove that he can be much more entertaining than WWE gave him space to be. We’ll see how that goes, but it’s nice to see these guys (and Deonna) not just finding work but blossoming in the light of a company that’s thrilled to have pretty much every wrestler they can get, instead of hanging on to a bloated roster just because they can.

Finally, if you’ve watched Impact before, the experience of watching it without a live crowd isn’t much different. That sounds like a dig about Impact’s small audiences, but there’s truth to it — Impact wasn’t in the habit of shooting vast seas of faces to punctuate moments. They already had their hard cam facing the entrance ramp. The only real difference between Impact before COVID-19 and Impact now is that they fired a bunch of problematic people who were outed as part of the #SpeakingOut thing back in June. And that’s a difference I don’t mind seeing.

So if you have AXS TV, and especially if WWE and AEW haven’t been giving you everything you want, consider giving Impact a look. It might not be your thing, but it’s worth letting go of old assumptions and checking it out with fresh eyes.

While fans have the opportunity to create their own legends in the completely revamped Career Mode, UFC 4 has released its top-50 UFC fighters ahead of the game’s release on Friday. The two-division GOAT, Amanda Nunes, is the top pound-for-pound fighter in the game, slightly edging Jon Jones at No. 2, Khabib Nurmagomedov at No. 3 and Valentina Schevchenko at No. 4 as the only five-star fighters in the game.

The No. 1 ranked bantamweight and featherweight champion’s placement is well-deserved, with wins over Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate, Schevchenko, Cris Cyborg and Holly Holm over the last four years. Despite close decision victories over the likes of Dominick Reyes and Thiago Santos in recent years, Jones’ record remains unblemished aside from a disqualification loss to Matt Hamill in 2009.

Jones was able to fend off Nurmagomedov’s equally impressive stretch, where he’s earned wins over Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. Schevchenko rounds out the five-star fighters with five-consecutive wins since her loss to Nunes in 2017.

See the rest of the top 50 below, which correlates stars 1-5 as a representation of each fighter’s overall ability.

1. Amanda Nunes, 5
2. Jon Jones, 5
3. Khabib Nurmagomedov, 5
4. Valentina Schevchenko, 5
5. Henry Cejudo, 4.5
6. Israel Adesanjay, 4.5
7. Weili Zhang, 4.5
8. Stipe Miocic, 4.5
9. Georges St-Pierre, 4.5
10. Kamaru Usman, 4.5
11. Demetrious Johnson, 4.5
12. Alex Volkanowski, 4.5
13. Max Holloway, 4.5
14. Jorge Masvidal, 4.5
15. TJ Dillashaw, 4.5
16. Daniel Cormier, 4.5
17. Rose Namajunas, 4.5
18. Justin Gaethje, 4.5
19. Petr Yan, 4.5
20. Conor McGregor, 4.5
21. Deiveson Figueiredo, 4.5
22. Francis Ngannou, 4.5
23. Cris Cyborg, 4.5
24. Tony Ferguson, 4.5
25. Joanna Jedrzejcyk, 4.5
26. Marlon Moraes, 4.5
27. Jose Aldo, 4.5
28. Tyron Woodley, 4.5
29. Robert Whittaker, 4.5
30. Glover Teixeira, 4.5
31. Yoel Romero, 4.5
32. Jessica Andrade, 4.5
33. Aljamain Sterling, 4.5
34. Curtis Blaydes, 4.5
35. Alistair Overeem, 4.5
36. Cain Velasquez, 4.5
37. Joseph Benavidez, 4.5
38. Ronaldo Souza, 4.5
39. Holly Holm, 4.5
40. Colby Covington, 4.5
41. Leon Edwards, 4
42. Rafael Dos Anjos, 4
43. Dustin Poirier, 4
44. Ronda Rousey 4
45. Tatiana Suarez, 4
46. Cody Garbrandt, 4
47. Dominick Reyes, 4
48. Anthony Johnson, 4
49. Paulo Costa, 4
50. Darren Till, 4

While these are the ratings as they currently stand, depending on fighter performances in the real world, a fighter update will be released after major UFC events with new attributes and move updates. UFC 4 hits shelves on Playstation 4 and Xbox One Friday, August 14.

Over the weekend, word broke out that Louis C.K. had made a couple appearances at Dave Chappelle’s summer comedy series. At the time it wasn’t clear if C.K. had done sets or if he was simply there as a non-performing guest. But now Entertainment Weekly has word from an anonymous attendee that he did, in fact, perform at least one set, and that it wasn’t, well, the best.

The source said C.K. — whose career was all but obliterated nearly three years ago after revelations emerged of his past sexual misconduct with multiple women — was the “secret headliner” on the night that also included Michelle Wolf and Mo Amer, as well as copious social distancing. After Chappelle gave him a brief introduction, referring to him as “somebody whose comedy I admired for his whole career,” C.K. performed for 20 minutes, and at least at the beginning the reaction was, the source said, “mixed-to-positive.”

“He was not really on his game and he got some hecklers about halfway through,” said the anonymous patron.

At one point C.K. started doing “silly, non-distinct” impressions and asked the audience to give him suggestions. One person near the back chimed in, saying, “How about the toilet seat you jerked off on?” That got some attention.

“People were like, ‘Oh, crap. That was brutal,’” recalls EW’s source. “And then he had a pretty good comeback, which was, ‘I don’t do my best material on these shows.’”

It was said that C.K.’ set “generally felt like [he] was either phoning it in or workshopping half-baked material,” according to EW. He even had a notebook in his hand. He also steered clear of controversial material, unlike the notorious leaked 2018 set in which he mocked trans people and even Parkland shooting survivors.

Ever since the revelations about his misconduct emerged, Chappelle has supported C.K., even defending his right to mount a comeback in his Sticks & Stones special, saying, “They ruined this n*****’s life, and now he’s coming back playing comedy clubs and they’re acting like if he’s able to do that that’s going to hurt women. What the f*ck is your agenda, ladies?”

(Via EW)

The Dallas Wings launched its I Am campaign on Wednesday amplifying the work of the team’s forward Isabelle Harrison who began the I Am movement back in July. The campaign will feature a video series that the team created as part of its social justice platform under the WNBA’s Justice Movement.

Harrison was featured in the first video the Wings produced for the series, speaking on using her platform to educate as best she can.

“I started the campaign after seeing the social injustices and atrocities in our country,” Harrison said in the announcement. “The purpose is to show all that their struggles are seen and show how alike we really are. I also wanted to make something that we could all come together on.”

Wings President and CEO Greg Bibb said in a statement, “I’m proud of the Izzy for her vision and our organization for working hard to make it come to life. Once again, our players are leading the way and using their voice to drive the conversation around social justice.”

The I Am t-shirts the Wings released nearly sold out on the first day, with all proceeds from the shirts going to Black Lives Matter, but select sizes are still available.

It’s just the latest effort from the WNBA which has long been on the front lines of the fight for social justice, as its players use their voices and platforms to push for change and continue to get support from their teams and the league to amplify those voices.

After more than two years without a project, this past second weekend Amine returned with his second album, Limbo, which served as the follow-up to his 2018 “EP/LP/Mixtape/Album” OnePointFive. Led by a trio of singles, including the braggadocious “Shimmy” and the Young Thug-featured “Compensating,” Amine delivered what is arguably his strongest release to date. Backed by 14 songs and a strong supporting cast that featured JID, Summer Walker, Vince Staples, and more, Limbo lived up to expectations and then some.

In a normal world, Amine would have packed his bags and went on tour. Unfortunately, that was not the case, as the coronavirus pandemic has halted performances in all forms for the foreseeable future. Refusing to let the circumstances stop him, Amine assembled a band to bring the album to fans via a YouTube livestream. Billed as Live From Limbo, it finds the Portland native performing the album in its entirety for viewers. Backed by bright neon colors filling the room and a full-fledged band that included a guitarist, bassist, drummer, DJ, and background vocalists, Amine achieves his goal of bringing the album live to fans.

Check out our review of Amine’s Limbo album here.

You can watch Amine’s performance in the video above.

Twelve years is a long time to do anything, and the cast of The Big Bang Theory — like the actors on any long-running program — deserve medals for sheer endurance. But one member of the cast almost didn’t make it. Jim Parsons, the once (and future?) Sheldon, has spoken briefly before about why he left the show, but in a recent Entertainment Tonight interview, the actor opened up about the “really intense” summer that led up to the final season, a time that convinced him that Season 12 should definitely but definitely be his last.

Parsons recalls that he entered the twelfth season, which would have been the end of his two-year contract, with “suspicion in my heart” that he’d sign up for another round or two. After wrapping the 11th season, he realized he should trust his gut.

“That summer I went to New York to do Boys in the Band on Broadway and I think anything I felt got affirmed,” he said. “It was a very intense summer. Partly because of the part and the experience of doing the play, but more because [I was so busy].”

Indeed, he had no downtime between The Big Bang Theory’s season finale and the landmark queer play’s rehearsals. He had even scheduled to shoot a commercial on his first day off. He says he was already “exhausted,” as well as emotionally strung out, the latter due to the declining health of his and his husband Todd Spiewak’s 14-year-old dog.

“I’ll never forget that walk around the park to let him go to the bathroom before we went to the commercial, he just looked so bad and I was so tired and Todd was like, ‘We’ve got to go. We’ve scheduled this. They fit everything around your schedule.’ And I just started crying,” Parsons said, through tears. “It makes me upset now. I was like, ‘This dog’s gonna die while I’m off working. I feel so bad.’”

He continued:

“So I went and did the commercial, I came back, and then Monday I went to do the play and he had a really bad seizure that night, so I knew that we had to make a decision… We called somebody and the person comes to put the dog to sleep at home … So that happened Tuesday. It really upset me. Still does.”

And then he broke his foot. During the next Saturday’s matinee performance, an already depleted Parsons walked out for his curtain call and slipped. To him it was a breaking point:

“It was the scariest moment for the next couple of days because… I felt like I was at the edge of a cliff and I was teetering and I saw something really dark below, between the death of the dog and [the fact that] I don’t know what they would’ve done if I couldn’t have gotten back on for the play.”

The summer, which he described as “very intense,” led to a breakthrough. “I had this moment of clarity — that I think you’re very fortunate to get in a lot of ways — of going, ‘Don’t keep speeding by… Use this time to take a look around,’” Parsons remembered. “And I did. I was like, ‘I gotta make a move.’”

He also thought about his late father. “My dad had passed years before, but he was 52. And I realized that at the end of season 12 I would be 46,” Parsons said. “… It was just a context thing.”

When he got back to Los Angeles, he broke the news to Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre and writer Steve Molaro.

“I said, ‘If you told me that like my father I had six years left to live, I think there’s other things I need to try and do. I don’t know what they are, but I can tell that I need to try,’” he recalled. “… It was kind of clarity thrust upon you, as Shakespeare might have said… I was like, ‘OK. Let’s take charge here.’ And so that’s exactly what happened.”

Parsons started playing Sheldon in 2007 and concluded in 2019. Of course, the character has lived on, in short form, since 2017 with Young Sheldon.

(Via Entertainment Tonight)

With the NBA on hiatus for the past several months, the coaching carousel has been somewhat quiet as well. Typically, head coaches start to find themselves in the hot seat as the season winds down and organizations start to recalibrate and look toward the future. Now that the restarted season is back in full swing, we’re starting to hear some more whispers about coming changes around the league.

The Knicks made the first splash with the hiring of Tom Thibodeau, after what initially appeared to be a two-man race between him and Lakers assistant Jason Kidd. There were rumors about Nate McMillan losing favor in Indiana, but the Pacers put that to rest by announcing they’d come to terms on a four-year extension.

Still, there could be several front offices looking to make changes, and according to the latest report, Clippers assistant Tyronn Lue is on a lot of people’s shortlist to fill potential vacancies, via Chris Mannix of SI.com.

Lue is expected to be a leading candidate for what could be several NBA coaching openings, multiple league executives told Sports Illustrated. The Knicks recently filled its coaching vacancy, hiring Tom Thibodeau. But in the coming weeks, other jobs could open.

Lue’s last head coaching job was with the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he was at the helm during the team’s 2016 championship, but was dismissed during the 2018-2019 season. Lue was also in line to become the next head coach of the Lakers, but reportedly walked away from negotiations when the offer was below what he felt was deserved from a championship coach. With teams like New Orleans — where Alvin Gentry is reportedly likely to be on the outs — finishing their seasons in the coming days, more movement could be on the horizon in the coaching world and Lue figures to be firmly in the mix.

(SI.com)

While there is still plenty to sort out in the Western Conference over the final few days of games, things were much quieter in the East. With Milwaukee, Toronto, and Boston all locked into the top three seeds and Brooklyn and Orlando set in seventh and eighth respectively, the only remaining question was who would be the 4-5 matchup and who would face the Celtics.

The Pacers officially set the playoff picture in the East on Wednesday with their 108-104 win over the Rockets, ensuring the Sixers stay in sixth in the East to face Boston. The Pacers will now play the Heat, with Miami able to clinch the 4-seed and “homecourt” for the series with one more win. Here is the full playoff bracket for the East.

1. Milwaukee Bucks vs. 8. Orlando Magic
4. Miami Heat vs. 5. Indiana Pacers

2. Toronto Raptors vs. 7. Brooklyn Nets
3. Boston Celtics vs. 6. Philadelphia 76ers

Things set up quite well for Milwaukee in getting an Orlando team that, since the injury to Jonathan Isaac, has really struggled in the bubble. Toronto faces a Nets team that’s overachieved in Orlando, but shouldn’t be too much of an issue for the Raptors — and, hey, a nice throwback Raptors-Nets series. The marquee first round matchups are surely Heat-Pacers, as we get four-plus games of Jimmy Butler-T.J. Warren beef, and Celtics-Sixers, with Philly getting Joel Embiid back this week.

At this point, attention will fully shift West for the next few days, particularly Thursday as the four potential play-in teams — Blazers, Grizzlies, Suns, and Spurs — will all be in action and looking to earn a spot in the 8-9 series over the weekend.

Just like the many women thriving in the rap game today, City Girls have had a strong 2020. After member JT’s release from prison, the pair quickly reconnected with Yung Miami to work on their third album, but the project was unfortunately leaked before thy could complete it. Despite the leak, the pair uploaded the album, City On Lock, to streaming services and it’s been well-received by fans. Still riding high off its release, the duo stopped by The Breakfast Club to share their thoughts on hip-hop’s current state. When asked about why men feel a certain way about lyrics coming from women, they had some thoughts.

“Men is just threatened by the women dominating right now, because they are used to being in control of putting women on records,” JT replied. “Now women are starting to team up and do it without them. Now they got so much to say, because back then you had to get on a hot song with a man to go No. 1 or even chart, but now women are doing it themselves.”

Yung Miami chimed in, saying, “I say shut the f*ck up, period. Like just shut up.” She added, “They’ve been talking about this for years for decades, so why is this a problem now.”

You can watch the full interview with City Girls and The Breakfast Club above.

It’s been a while since we’ve paid much attention to Alex Jones. Ever since the chili-loving conspiracy theorist was banned from just about every online platform known to man, he’s (thankfully) been a less ubiquitous presence in all of our lives. But every now and again he does something that reminds of his existence in the world, usually because someone filmed him in a public space delivering an unhinged rant about masks or guns or vaccines or something. And such is the case this week after a video has gone viral of Jones using a comically small megaphone to verbally accost the young employees of an Austin, Texas park.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, the maskless (of course) Jones was mad because his wife was denied access to the park because she did not make a reservation to enter it, as is the park’s policy in the era of COVID-19 — an attempt to control crowds during the pandemic.

Reports the American-Statesman:

The video of his greenbelt antics show Jones yelling at park employees, who are seated outside the entrance to check people in.

“Now you guys use your COVID hoax to like set a checkpoint up to take over the parks and start charging?” he asked the masked park employees, most of whom were seated in folding camp chairs at the entrance to the greenbelt. “It’s unconstitutional.”

At one point, Jones walks over to an employee, standing just feet away from him, and asks, “Who are you, masked man?”

“I’m a lifeguard for Barton Springs,” the man replies.

“You’re a lifeguard for Barton Springs, now part of the criminal power grab,” Jones responds.

Okay, a couple of questions:

1. Was the wee megaphone really needed? Why does a shouty, bloated gasbag need a megaphone to talk to people sitting just a few feet away in an otherwise quiet area?

2. Can someone help us find this nice young lady? We’d like to buy her a drink.