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Look, it’s not my fault. When I started a column for Uproxx Sports premised on NXT and AEW Dynamite sharing one night, I didn’t know they were going to be on different nights for weeks on end. Last week, AEW was on Saturday, which happened to be when NXT was having a TakeOver. This week, AEW was on Thursday night, and next week NXT’s on Tuesday. I’m just trying to keep up. Welcome to Wednesday Night’s Alright (plus sometimes other nights, too) on Uproxx Sports.

Shocking Departure: Karrion Kross

Karrion Kross apparently separated his shoulder in the match with Keith Lee at TakeOver XXX, so he had to open this week’s NXT by relinquishing the NXT Championship. Of course, Kross doesn’t talk like regular people talk, but he managed to convey what had happened, and that even though he might enjoy the pain of his injury, he knows NXT won’t let him defend, so he has to go heal up. It’s impressive how much they managed to keep him in character for this segment, but it was still impossible to avoid feeling a little bad for the relentless pitiless monster with the separated shoulder.

As for the title, William Regal filled us in later that a new NXT Champion will be decided in an hour-long, four-way Iron Man Match between Johnny Gargano, Finn Bálor, Adam Cole, and Tommaso Ciampa. So somebody who’s been NXT champion before soon will be again, and it won’t be Keith Lee because he lives on Raw now. This should be a fun match, and will almost certainly last longer than an hour because two guys will be tied. That’s how these things go.

Runners Up

It looks like Cody is going to be taking time off to sell his kayfabe injuries from last week’s beating at the hands of Mr. Brodie Lee and the Dark Order. Cody’s obvious really important to AEW, but I think it’s a good move to keep him out of sight for a while. It will give other performers more room to shine, especially without those weekly 20+ minute TNT Championship Open Challenge matches.

NXT’s Jake Atlas will also have to be off TV for a while after what Tommaso Ciampa did to him, but let’s save that for the next section…

Nefarious Heel Behavior: Tommaso Ciampa beats Jake Atlas to a pulp

Tommaso Ciampa beat Jake Atlas like Atlas was a sewer juggalo and Ciampa was Vengeance. He squashed him in the ring, and then destroyed him outside of it, culminating with Jake’s face being driven into the underside of the ring. And then Ciampa just sat there while medics scurried around hoping to save Jake’s career.

So with this return, Ciampa’s Face/Tweener time is done, and this is the return of the absolutely brutal “Sicilian Psychopath” Ciampa. And this is Ciampa who’ll be sharing a ring with Gargano, Cole, and Bálor on Tuesday. I don’t know that he’ll win that match, but it will definitely be twice as violent just by him being there.

Runners Up

The long-simmering tension between the Young Bucks and Hangman Adam Page started to come to a head this week, when Hangman grabbed Nick Jackson’s ankle and stopped him from doing a springboard that would have kept Matt from getting pinned by Trent. The only reason I didn’t put this above Ciampa is that I’m not convinced Adam Page is the heel. Interfering in a match to make your friends lose because they’ve been annoying you lately is absolutely a heel move, but the Young Bucks so often seem like jerks in their interactions with Page, and didn’t come off any better later in the show when they confronted Hangman about his actions.

It looks like Santos Escobar has a loaded lucha mask, which is a pretty weird way to cheat when you’ve just recently decided to wrestle maskless, but I appreciate the innovation.

Disappointing Women’s Booking: Shotzi Blackheart and Mia Yim barely get started

Shotzi got to run over Robert Stone with her tank again, which I think everybody except Stone can enjoy. Then she had an impromptu match with Mia Yim, which was just starting to get really good, and then ended after like three minutes. The NXT women were also in the main event with a strong match this week, so I can’t complain about that division in general. But I really did want to see Shotzi and Mia really go at each other for a while.

Runners Up

Not to be outdone, AEW also had a supremely short women’s match, but of course it was the only one on their show. That was the handicap match with Big Swole taking on Rebel/Reba and Penelope Ford, who were fighting on behalf of Britt Baker. By winning the match, Swole won the right to whatever kind of match she wants with Doctor Baker at All Out, by which time Britt’s expected to be healed and cleared for in-ring action. That should be a good match, and I’m looking forward to it. This match was short and sloppy, and Rebel’s wrestling in particular is what it is, and what it is is not great.

Best Promo: Jon Moxley

I’m sorry, but there’s no denying it: Jon Moxley is cool. I don’t know how he does it either. Yes, on one level he is a kind of pug-faced 30-something man with thinning hair. But somehow, at the same time, he’s Cry-Baby. He’s the Leader of the Pack. He’s the Fonz. He can just slouch lazily in a chair while MJF energetically fumes at him, and Moxley seems like the coolest guy in the world. Compared to MJF, he’s Chris Isaak.

So it’s even better when Moxley outsmarts his opponents. Like here, when he is forced to sign a contract for a title match in which he won’t be allowed to use his finishing move, the Paradigm Shift, but he’s added an extra page to everyone’s contract, so now Moxley gets a run at Mark Sterling, MJF’s lawyer, and can Paradigm Shift him as much as he wants. So whatever happens at All Out, Moxley at least gets to have fun next week.

Runners Up

The Dark Order had a whole segment where they had a mock funeral for Cody, and then Brodie Lee formally introduced Anna Jay as a member of the group, and “the Queenslayer” which is an impressive if ambitious title for her. I will never pass up a chance to listen to Brodie Lee talk.

The Order came back later to offer a job to Anna Jay’s partner in the recent Women’s Tag Team Tournament, former NXT Superstar Tay Conti (apparently WWE only copyrighted the “nara”). So if Tay’s going to be in the Dark Order, surely that must mean she’s signing with AEW? And if there’s any reason at all for her and Jay to stay a team, doesn’t that imply that the women’s tag division is going to be a thing going forward (and hopefully have belts?). Don’t mind me, I’m just getting my hopes up out loud.

Candice LeRae showed up to talk about Tegan Nox and whether or not they’re still friends. In contrast to psychos like Ciampa and cult-leaders like Brodie, I really enjoy the human scale of Candice’s villainy. She and Johnny aren’t world-conquerers and you probably couldn’t even call them “evil.” They’re just bad people. Petty jerks who take their failings out on others and don’t let things go. They’re all of us, on our worst days.

Best Match: Imperium vs Breezango

Breezango deserved this. Those two guys aren’t just funny and handsome, they’re genuinely great wrestlers, and them being champs is awesome, as was this match. Imperium have no sense of humor and like hurting people, which makes them perfect villains for Chaotic Good heroes like Breezango. Fandango did great work here as a Face in Peril, and Tyler got the most out of those hot tags. But in the end, it was Fandango who got the pin. I’d like to see these two hold the belts for a little while, and build up some new teams along the way.

As for Imperium, they’re no doubt returning to NXT UK when it comes back next month, and will probably take those Tag Titles sooner or later.

Runners Up

Santos Escobar had a great Cruiserweight Title Defense against Isiah “Swerve” Scott, with all the excitement you want from that division, plus added tag team run-ins. Then there was the ending, with Escobar putting on a lucha mask and delivering a head butt, which I’m sure we’ll get more on soon.

The strongest match on AEW Dynamite was the Young Bucks vs the Best Friends, which was one section of the Tag Team Gauntlet. This was where Hangman Page grabbed the ankle, but it was a lot of fun even outside of that drama bomb.

Io Shirai and Rhea Ripley also teamed up to take on Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez in the Main Event of NXT, which was another really excellent match, with plenty of “real team vs people who don’t like each other” storytelling. The Robert Stone Brand also got involved, with Mercedes Martinez pulling Ripley off the apron and into the steel steps. It’s clear that Rhea’s going to have to deal with Robert Stone (and presumably fight Mercedes) before she can go on to accomplish anything else, because they’ll never stop bothering her.

That’s all for this week. Next’s week things still aren’t normal, schedule-wise but at the very least this column should be out on Thursday again.

The Mavs will restart their series with the Clippers on Sunday, facing a Game 6 to extend the series, and like in Game 4 and Game 5 they will have to proceed without the services of star big man Kristaps Porzingis.

Porzingis has been out with right knee soreness for the last two games, but as that has persisted the Mavs decided to have an MRI done on Porzingis to determine if anything structural is wrong that’s bothering him. As it turns out, Porzingis has a mensicus tear in his right knee that will keep him out for the remainder of the first round series, at minimum, with the team announcing further evaluation is ongoing to determine what the next steps are.

The right knee is not the same knee that he suffered his ACL tear that ultimately ended his tenure with the New York Knicks, but it is still extremely concerning for a young star that has battled injuries for much of his career thus far. Hopefully for Porzingis and the Mavericks this will be something he can fully recover from for next season, as they look to build off of the momentum of this year. In the immediate, the burden will once again fall on the shoulders of Luka Doncic to be spectacular in Game 6 to try and extend the series to a deciding seventh game.

With the NBA set to resume play on Saturday, players from around the league continue to speak out on social issues and look to impact change in their communities. It’s why they refused to play Wednesday and Thursday, protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, which sparked tons of excellent conversation on race, racism, and police on sports networks, as well as leading to some tangible efforts to effect change.

The Bucks, who started the movement not to play (to the surprise of others), were able to begin a push to get the Wisconsin state legislature called back for a special session to vote on a police reform bill. The league and players union announced a three-part plan of action, creating a social justice coalition, offering PSAs and advertising about voting throughout the playoffs, and turning all team-owned arenas into voting locations.

For Draymond Green, while he’s not in the Bubble, he’s been proud watching his NBA brethren from the outside as they fight for this change, and went on CNN — where he was announced as a new CNN contributor — to talk with Jake Tapper about what’s going on in the NBA. Tapper played a clip of president Donald Trump’s recent comments on the NBA, to which Green had a strong retort, via Sopan Deb of the New York Times.

Green also explained why he was glad to see the players choose to resume the season, citing the platform they have while games are happening as the biggest microphone for them to continue speaking out, and also offered thoughts on what needs to be changed and what the NBA can do to impact that.

It is an, unsurprisingly, well thought out and articulated argument from one of the league’s most vocal players. Green is expanding his commentary from working with TNT as an analyst during the Bubble seeding round and now joining CNN to speak on much more than just basketball.

Saweetie dropped her anticipated track “Tap In” back in January and the rapper began hinting at a high-profile remix shortly thereafter. Saweetie teased her fans endlessly about which secret big-name artist was lending a verse on a new version of the track. The rapper’s “Tap In” remix drops Friday and fans were anticipating to see empowering musicians like Beyonce or Kash Doll on the remix. Thats why many of Saweetie’s fans expressed their disappointment upon learning the secret feature was Post Malone.

Hours ahead of her “Tap In” remix debut, Saweetie officially announced she secured Post Malone, DaBaby, and Jack Harlow on the track. But fans did not shy away from saying they were let down by the fact that Saweetie didn’t seek out a female rapper to lend a verse.

Other fans offered their picks for the remix, which included artists like Doja Cat, Flo Milli, and City Girls.

The fan reactions arrived before the “Tap In” remix was officially released, so time will tell if the song will be able to win over the upset Icy Gang members.

See Saweetie’s fans react to Post Malone, DaBaby, and Jack Harlow’s feature above.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

JK Rowling’s various beefs have apparently evolved from involving “most of the pro-LGBTQ internet” to one of America’s most notable political families. The Harry Potter author reportedly returned an award to a Kennedy human rights organization as part of the fallout from her recent spate of poor press regarding activity on social media.

Deadline reported on Friday that Rowling — who has penned a number of tweets and long essays about said tweets that have generally been described as transphobic, including by Harry Potter actors and others associated with the movies and books — returned the humanitarian award the Kennedy family gave her less than a year ago. The move came after Kerry Kennedy, president of The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Organization that awarded the humanitarian honor to Rowling last December, criticized Rowling and her anti-trans rights comments in the context of the organization itself.

Kennedy had directly expressed “profound disappointment” over the ongoing saga:

I have spoken with J.K. Rowling to express my profound disappointment that she has chosen to use her remarkable gifts to create a narrative that diminishes the identity of trans and nonbinary people, undermining the validity and integrity of the entire transgender community—one that disproportionately suffers from violence, discrimination, harassment, and exclusion and, as a result, experiences high rates of suicide, suicide attempts, homelessness, and mental and bodily harm. Black trans women and trans youth in particular are targeted.

On Thurdsay, Rowling published a 600-word statement about the award on her website entitled “Statement from J.K. Rowling regarding the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award.” In it, the author denied that her thoughts are transphobic.

It’s the latest instance where Rowling has distanced herself from those who have criticized her, even after initially showing support for them or accepting their praise. Earlier in the summer, for example, she deleted praise for author Stephen King after he criticized her stance on trans rights.

(Via Deadline)

Back in March, Kendrick Lamar cryptically teased a new media company with Dave Free, PgLang. Fans were hoping the project would result in new music from the rapper, whose latest work appeared in the form of the Black Panther soundtrack. But rather than release new music, instead Kendrick continues to thwart a multitude of copyright infringement cases.

According to HipHopDX, Kendrick and his label Top Dawg Entertainment were hit with yet another copyright lawsuit this week. This time, it’s over his DAMN track “Loyalty” with Rihanna. The lawsuit was brought on by a musician named Terrance Hayes, who alleges elements of his own track, also named “Loyalty,” were heavily lifted for Kendrick’s number.

Hayes’ lawsuit claims Kendrick’s producer, Terrace Martin, had access to Hayes’ track at the time he worked on “Loyalty.” The court documents allege Kendrick and Martin “copied the entire composition, including title, melody, harmony and rhythm” of Hayes’ song, “slowed it down through a synthesizer, and combined it with another sample to disguise the copying.”

Hayes filed the copyright infringement suit seeking money and asks to be awarded all profits from Kendrick’s track, as well as “any other monetary advantage gained by the Defendants through their infringement.” He says no one reached out to him prior to DAMN‘s release to ask permission or offer him a cut of profits.

Kendrick’s “Loyalty” suit is his latest in a succession of copyright infringement lawsuits. Most recently, defunct indie group Yeasayer dropped a high-profile case against the rapper over his Black Panther track “Pray For Me,” which the band alleged had aspects taken from their 2007 song “Sunrise.” Before that, Kendrick and SZA faced a suit over the video to their song “All The Stars,” which was dismissed in December of 2018.

The NBA Playoffs got put on hold on Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play in their Game 5 against the Magic, protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Bucks stayed in their locker room, calling Wisconsin’s attorney general and lieutenant governor to determine what action they could take — the result has been Wisconsin’s state legislature being called back into a special session to vote on a police reform bill.

In the aftermath, the remainder of the league’s teams chose to join the Bucks in protest by refusing to play their games and the NBA was forced to postpone action indefinitely. After player meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, the decision to resume play was made but players pushed ownership to do more, resulting in the formation of a social justice coalition and a pledge to turn every arena owned by the team owners to be turned into a voting center.

It’s the start of some change, and if nothing else the resulting dialogue of the last two days has been some of the best conversations around race, racism, and policing on any television networks, much less on sports TV. On Saturday, games will resume with the Wednesday slate of Bucks-Magic, Thunder-Rockets, and Lakers-Blazers, as the league announced on Friday afternoon.

The Sunday games likewise are just the Thursday schedule, pushed back, with ESPN and TNT splitting the action. The league will continue to rewrite the schedule going forward, but one can expect the same format of teams playing every other day as it had been prior to the protest stoppage.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Bill And Ted Face The Music (VOD) — Decades in the making, the long-anticipated threequel of the greatest damn franchise ever is here. Yes, “greatest” is a subjective term (fight me, Vin Diesel), but is anyone going to argue that the reteaming of Alex Winter (as Bill S. Preston, Esq.) and Keanu Reeves (as Ted “Theodore” Logan) is an unwelcome sight in 2020? Nope. The good news (for them) is that they’re getting the hell out of 2020 to steal music from themselves in the future and save the world. And unlike The New Mutants, they’re on VOD in addition to theaters this weekend.

The Binge (Hulu film) — Vince Vaughn plays “the adult” in this movie that’s a boozy play on The Purge but without the murder. Basically, teens are allowed to get totally blitzed (alcohol, drugs, you name it) for one 24-hour stretch per year, and the endearing Skyler Gisondo (Santa Clarita Diet, Booksmart) looks like the rising star of this project.

Cobra Kai: Seasons 1 & 2 (Netflix) — Season 3 of this crowd-pleasing arrival will arrive in 2021, but you can catch up to your heart’s content on the series that started as a YouTube original. Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso faces off again with William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence and both of their respective dojo members, and the show’s still got the same energy as the original movies. Macchio promised us that “[t]he best is yet to come” for this series, and we believe him. May the franchise live on as long as possible.

Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness (HBO Max) — The star of 2014’s Meet the Patels is back to mull over deep conversations in a four-part season. Maybe some of life’s more fundamental questions shall be solved, but the journey to several different continents will fuel enough escapism that answers might not matter.

Unknown Origins (Netflix film) — This thriller follows a serial killer in Madrid, but the twist here is that people are being murdered while acting out their famous superheroes. Can a comic book store owner and a cosplay lover come together to help the city’s best detective solve the crimes? It sounds like there’s a lot of layers here.

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

Room 104 (Friday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — The fourth season of the Duplass Brothers’ bizarre playground continues with two college students about to set off on a three-month hike while confronting friendship truths.

Lovecraft Country (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — This 1950s-set dark fantasy series blew away expectations, and this week, Leti’s transforming a ramshackle Victorian home into a boarding house. Given that this happens on Chicago’s North Side, one can expect racist reactions, which will spark dormant spirits within the structure.

Love Fraud (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — This critically acclaimed Sundance Film Festival limited series feels like the lovechild of Dirty John and Tiger King, as one prolific con-man leaves a decades-long trail of destruction.

The Vow (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — The NXIVM organization (known as the “sex cult” partially led by Allison Mack) gets a deep dive that’s now surveying the seeds of doubt among long-time members.

We Hunt Together (Sunday, Showtime 10:00 p.m.) — A deadly duo (a former child soldier named Baba and Freddie) finds themselves drawn together (to commit murder), and now, it looks like they’re getting away with it.

In case you missed these offerings:

Ted Lasso (Apple TV+ series) — Jason Sudeikis is reviving his small-time college football coach character (who hails back to a 2013 advertising campaign) for this show. Lasso is somehow coaching professional English soccer, and good luck to him. What’s even more important, though, is that our own Brian Grubb calls the series “almost unreasonably good,” despite the seeming odds against it.

An American Pickle (HBO Max) — Seth Rogen‘s dual roles have arrived, and the end product is both touching and hilarious to witness. Rogen plays a 1920s Jewish immigrant who falls into a vat of pickle juice and is perfectly “brined” for 100 years, so suspend your disbelief and enjoy the surprising amount of nuance here. It’s both an interesting match-up and a truly inspired Jewish version of Encino Man.

Big Sean is officially back. When he released the video for “Overtime” earlier this year, fans were excited for a new project that would finally quiet the critics and prove that Sean belongs in the upper echelons alongside peers like Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar. However, the coronavirus pandemic derailed his plans, sending him back to the drawing board and forcing fans to wait even longer for the final cut. Today, though, Sean gave us a further glimpse of what the new album might bring and from the looks of things, it’ll be well worth the wait.

On “Don Life,” Sean samples the familiar top lead from Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit “Human Nature,” adds devastating drums, and lyrically goes for broke, ripping through a high-speed, punchline-packed verse promising “world domination” with his next project. In the moody, black-and-white video accompanying the motivational track, Sean raps in the rain in various locales including a parking garage, a barbershop, and a basketball court — the latter fitting for his line that asserts “you can’t afford to miss a layup when you in the playoffs.”

Despite pandemic-related setbacks, Sean’s rollout for his album Detroit 2 has picked up steam in recent weeks with the release of his Nipsey Hussle collaboration, “Deep Reverence” and now, “Don Life.” If he can keep the momentum going, another No. 1 may be within reach — but more importantly, so will recognition for his polished rap skills.

Watch the video for “Don Life” above.

Detroit 2 is due 9/4 via Def Jam. Pre-save it here.

Taylor Lifka, a 25-year-old English teacher at Roma High School in Roma, Texas, wanted to create an inclusive environment for her online classes this school year.

So she created a virtual background with posters that read: “Black Lives Matter,” “Amiga, tu lucha es mi lucha,” (Your struggle is my struggle) and “Diverse, Inclusive, Accepting, Welcoming, Safe Space for Everyone” in rainbow colors.

Before the first day of school, she asked her incoming students to put their names and preferred pronouns in the chat box on the digital chalkboard. Then, she posted a screenshot of her classroom on her social media.

Some parents complained about the inclusive posters to the principal.

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“My assistant principal told me, ‘Please take the posters down.’ I guess once that happened, I knew that it might be a rocky road, but considering being put on leave? I never really thought that that was going to be their first step,” Lifka told The Texas Tribune.

via Change.org

However, the district did just that – put her on administrative leave. She was also told that some parents were not ready for her progressive views.

“If you’re not ready today, you’re not ready tomorrow, and if you’re not ready tomorrow you’re not going to be ready five years from now,” Lifka said according to Yahoo. “If I’m not going to say something now, then when am I going to say something? It’s been clear that people have a lot of things to say.”

Supporters fought back by starting a petition that received nearly 35,000 signatures.

“Please sign this petition to let the school district know that inclusivity and acceptance are not taboo ideas that deserve censorship; that high school students can and should be allowed to discuss the realities of the world instead of being sheltered inside a sanitized bubble; and that by reprimanding the teacher for trying to create a safe space for her students, the school is not being neutral, but is actively taking a stance that is antithetical to justice,” the petition read.

The situation then became part of the local culture wars when a photograph of the virtual classroom was shared on a pro-Trump Facebook page and then amplified by Marian Knowlton, a Republican running for the District 31 state House seat.

Knowlton claimed that the education system was “radicalizing” students in “leftist indoctrination.”

All this because Lifka was trying to create an inclusive environment for her students.

“Our nation is in a really divisive state right now, and so when something like this comes out that a teacher is being placed on administrative leave because of parents’ concerns over teaching tolerance in the classroom, that’s a bigger question,” she said.

On Tuesday, Lifka was reinstated by the district, but she refused to return to work until there were clearer inclusivity guidelines for teachers.

“I need support from the administration, knowing I can re-enter the classroom, that we are all on the same page knowing what I can and cannot say to my students,” she said.

Lifka hopes that, in the end, the situation will be a learning opportunity for the district.

“If I just reenter the classroom without any further discussion or action of how is this going to change in our community, then what was all this for?” Lifka said.