Congratulations are in order for Pusha T as he welcomes his baby son with wife Virginia to the world. Pusha, who just two years ago mocked Drake for “hiding a child,” was excited to share the first public photos of his son with his followers on Instagram, revealing the baby’s birthdate and name: Nigel Brixx Thornton was born on June 11, 2020 and apparently shares a lot in common with much of Pusha’s rap material.

Unfortunately for Pusha and Nigel, like Drake’s recent photos of his own son, Adonis, Push’s revelation led to more than a few comments on Twitter cracking wise at his son’s name. “He’s so committed to the coke bars, baby’s middle name is Brixx,” wrote one commenter, while another observed yet another tie between Pusha and his rival: “Nigel Brixx sounds like a character on Top Boy.” Meanwhile, one eager fan of the beef between the two rappers noted that they were already “ready to see Adonis and Nigel Brixx beef.” It looks like hip-hop may have its own version of the Hatfields and the McCoys — that is, if some fans get their way.

Jokes aside, it’s good to see Pusha’s firstborn is healthy and Pusha is so happy to be a dad. Check out the photos and the reactions from the peanut gallery above.

It’s been over a year since we saw Chris Evans’ maiden voyage with the MCU, with Avengers: Endgame giving Captain America a bittersweet farewell. But he’ll likely spend the rest of his life talking about his stint as Steve Rogers. In fact, his head’s still very much in Marvel mode, as he revealed in a new interview that there’s another major Avenger he would have to loved to have played.

“I love Captain America, but Spider-Man was my childhood hero. I would have loved doing scenes like attaching myself to the sides of buildings and trying to spring from one building to the next,” Evans told SCMP (as caught by ComicBook.com).

Alas, there’s one catch: “But I would have hated to wear Spider-Man’s mask. I’m very claustrophobic, and I doubt whether I could have worn that kind of full suit and mask for hours a day on a set. I much prefer my Captain America outfit, which I think is cooler anyway!”

Note, of course, that as Cap, Evans’ headgear was relegated to a helmet, which he eventually ditched entirely, allowing viewers to admire his excellent hair. And of course, Evans as Spidey would have had to happen in another life, as Peter Parker’s quite a bit younger than he is.

But it probably worked out in the end — for his second go as a comic book superhero, Evans got to revive and rework a character who’d previously been seen as a product of older, more jingoistic times, turning someone who was little more than a symbol of American might into one of the franchise’s deepest and most soulful characters. Still, an actor can dream.

(Via SCMP and ComicBook.com)

Tonight, in the barfoid-free With Spandex WWE Raw open discussion thread:

The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever is in the books, and Randy Orton emerged victorious in a physically and emotionally draining battle against his former friend Edge. Now, The Viper will open Monday Night Raw just one night after proving his in-ring supremacy against The Rated-R Superstar.

After last night’s grueling battle, rumors have been swirling that BOTH Superstars sustained injuries in the match.

What condition will both Superstars be in after such a brutal marathon of a match? Will Orton look to close the book on his rivalry with Edge after such a demanding battle? Is there another Superstar that will find himself in The Viper’s path? (via WWE.com)

The post-Backlash edition of Raw has a gloating Randy Orton probably trying to kick Christian’s ass now, Rey Mysterio and Dominick Guerrero returning to confront Seth Rollins, an Asuka vs. Nia Jax championship rematch, Drew McIntyre and R-Truth as a tag team, and more.

As always, +1 your favorite comments from tonight’s open thread and give them a thumbs up and we’ll include 10 of the best in tomorrow’s Best and Worst of Raw column. Make sure to flip your comments to “newest” in the drop down menu under “discussion,” and enjoy the show!

Just days after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred declared emphatically that there was a “100 percent” chance of baseball in 2020, his tune changed considerably on Monday. As part of an ESPN special titled “The Return of Sports,” Manfred sat for an interview with Mike Greenberg and, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the tenor of that interview was far different from what transpired previously on MLB Network.

For a bit of context, Manfred left very little wiggle room in speaking on the night of the 2020 MLB Draft.

“We’re going to play baseball in 2020, 100%,” Manfred said. “If it has to be under the March 26 agreement, if we get to that point in the calendar, so be it. But one way or the other, we’re playing Major League Baseball.”

With that as the backdrop, Manfred reportedly told Greenberg that he is “not confident” in the 2020 season transpiring, citing the absence of dialogue with the MLB Players Association.

“The owners are 100 percent committed to getting baseball back on the field,” Manfred told ESPN. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that I’m 100 percent certain that’s gonna happen.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, the commissioner’s office told the MLBPA on Monday that “games would not be scheduled unless the union waives legal claims against the league” and, “in particular, the owners want the players to sign away the right to a potential grievance hearing.”

Predictably, this overture did not go over well with Tony Clark and the MLBPA, with a firm statement issued on Monday evening.

While an agreement could still be reached, this feels like an undeniable setback in the negotiations. In fact, Manfred even acknowledged in the ESPN interview that “it’s just a disaster for our game” to have this kind of impasse and “it shouldn’t be happening.”

In the end, however, ownership and the commissioner’s office are seemingly unwilling to yield to facilitate an agreement and, while there is time to resuscitate the situation, baseball fans have to be less confident in the potential of baseball in 2020 than they were just a few days ago.

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Over the weekend, a number of NBA players participated in video conference calls to discuss the league’s restart plan and, most importantly, voice the concerns and questions they have about the feasibility of the plan and whether it’s the right thing for players to do.

One concern is health, particularly with a lack of firm details on exactly how shut-off players will be from the outside world in the bubble (making matters more difficult is there are players that want more freedom than the league’s plan allows and some that don’t think it’s restrictive enough). How the league will keep rising COVID-19 cases in the Orange County, Florida area from infiltrating the league’s bubble in Disney is of chief concern of many, particularly given there being no indication Disney employees would likewise be confined to the bubble, thus making it more of a wiffle ball with holes in it.

Beyond the health questions, there are some like Kyrie Irving and Avery Bradley that worry restarting the season will distract from the Black Lives Matter movement that has garnered more support in the last month than it ever has previously, with global protests that have been taking place for weeks on end against police brutality and systemic racism following the recent killings of a number of Black Americans by police like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, David McAtee, and more.

The discussions internally within the players union are debating whether getting back to basketball would hurt the cause, by offering an escape, or enhance it, by giving players a national platform to continue pushing for equality and racial justice. The result of all of this has been the establishment of a new players coalition, led by Irving and Bradley, that includes NBA and WNBA players, as well as some from the world of entertainment, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Malika Andrews.

The coalition issued a statement to ESPN, which included a call for the league to be more transparent about how it plans to protect players health in the restart as well as backing their efforts in activism.

“We are combating the issues that matter most: We will not accept the racial injustices that continue to be ignored in our communities. We will not be kept in the dark when it comes to our health and well-being. And we will not ignore the financial motivations/expectations that have prevented us historically from making sound decisions.

“This is not about individual players, athletes or entertainers. This is about our group of strong men and women uniting for change. We have our respective fields, however, we will not just shut up and play to distract us from what this whole system has been about: Use and Abuse.

“We are all fathers, daughters leaders and so much more. So what is our BIG picture? We are in this for UNITY and CHANGE!”

How large the coalition is and who exactly is in it beyond Irving and Bradley is unknown, but it’s also the job of Irving as an NBPA VP to use his platform to help those that might not be as comfortable with their place in the league to voice their concerns. That’s the point of the coalition and while it’s not a majority of players its important that those that do have worries have support within the union to be able to make those known.

The NBPA and NBA have been adamant that they will be able to assuage the concerns of players and make sure the restart is handled as best as possible, with the understanding that positive tests are inevitable and it’s impossible to assure complete safety of players. There are also plenty of financial reasons for players to want to return, and some also believe getting back on the court is the best way for them to reach a wider audience and keep the BLM movement in the forefront of people’s minds. The WNBA addressed the activism piece of the puzzle on Monday with its restart plans, pledging to do its part in pushing for social justice even as games restart.

The concerns of Irving and others are more than valid, and making them known is important, if for no other reason than pushing the NBA to do the right thing and give players a wide berth when it comes to what they can do to protest police brutality and systemic racism when the restart happens.

Previously on NJPW: Ibushi and Tanahashi won the tag titles, Nakanishi retired, and Tiger Hattori also retired, but only from the referee part of his job. If you want an actual substantial recap of what was going in NJPW’s 2020 before coronavirus hit, I wrote one here!

You can watch New Japan Pro Wrestling shows on their streaming service, NJPW World, which costs 999 yen (about 9 USD.)

You can keep up with With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook, follow our home site Uproxx on Twitter, and even follow me on Twitter @emilyofpratt. Don’t forget to share this column on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social media you use, and leave a comment with your thoughts on the show and/or article. All feedback is appreciated and will help us keep up the NJPW coverage now that there’s once again NJPW to cover.

Best: The Boys Are Back In Town

The NJPW Together Project Special was New Japan’s comeback over after 100 days on hiatus, and it’s named after the NJPW World programming series from the period when they weren’t putting on wrestling matches, a collection of talk shows, wrestlers talking about their favorite finishes and entrances, and Tele Pro-Wrestling, or wrestlers doing commentary on their old matches over Zoom. The card, which was a mystery until the beginning of the show, was that of a New Japan Road or Road To [Important Show Name] event, but after three months of no New Japan at all, it felt like a bigger deal than that.

NJPW leaned into the special occasional atmosphere and made this not just a preview for the New Japan Cup, but a celebration of all their hiatus programming and of their ability to responsibly end the hiatus. Japan isn’t New Zealand-level crushing COVID-19, but they’re on the list of countries handling the coronavirus exceptionally well, and New Japan’s return coincides with the end of the national state of emergency and the return of baseball.

That obviously doesn’t mean Japan is out of the woods, but it does mean that NJPW can play the “Let’s get through this together!” opening video and have Tanahashi come out at the beginning of the show and make his encouraging speech and it feels like an appropriate response to current events, not like this industry-leading company is trying to preach the necessity of “escapism” while sweeping the current state of the world under the rug far enough that their real-life response to it isn’t questioned. It’s easy to sit back and enjoy a bunch of six and eight-man tags because of both the knowledge the New Japan Cup is starting the following day and we’ll be getting singles, and because of overall goodwill towards the company.

NJPW also managed to make these matches easily digestible despite the absence of an audience, an entity whose critical importance to the medium of pro wrestling can’t be overstated. A huge part of up-and-coming wrestlers proving their worth is demonstrating their ability “to get over,” and crowd response is one of the most important factors in determining in the success of a character, match, move, promo, or angle. Plus, as anyone who’s been watching pandemic-era pro wrestling has seen by now, no-fans wrestling done wrong can slide into very silly or very eerie territory and not achieve what it was meant to do.

New Japan avoids the pitfalls of no-fans wrestling in the Together Special by consistently making the show feel very human. They don’t use faux-audience groups like WWE, AEW, and Dragon Gate, to name a few examples, have done, but they still manage to avoid the coldness that can often emanate from empty arenas. The venue, which looks like a new one for them, is only lit, as far as those watching on NJPW World can see, around the ring and the entranceway, and the setup doesn’t remind the viewer of the absence of an audience.

There’s also a lot a character and a fair amount of drama in every match besides maybe the opener, and that makes it easy to focus on what’s happening on the show rather than what isn’t. Another important element is the commentary team of Shinpei Nogami, Milano Collection A.T., and Jushin Thunder Liger, who sound enthusiastic throughout, filling the dead air and injecting what feels like genuine fan energy into the event, something that Liger also did as a guest commentator for Stardom’s first empty arena show. I’m still much more excited for NJPW to have (limited capacity) fans back than I am to watch more no-audience shows, but the Together Special at least demonstrates that New Japan knows how to work around that obstacle.

Best: Getting Through This Together

I promise I’ll get to the actual wrestling in the next section, but first I want to talk about how NJPW handled the pandemic part of running their first show after a pandemic-induced hiatus. While they celebrate circumstances improving enough for them to responsibly be able to resume shows, they don’t pretend like the coronavirus is gone. They released their detailed health and safety guidelines in Japanese and English ahead of the comeback, and they show their commitment to these during the pre-show (another thing that makes this feel like a special event; I can’t remember NJPW ever doing this format of pre-show before) and the main card.

We see wrestlers get off the bus wearing masks and getting their temperature taken backstage. The announcers are sitting at three separate tables with plexiglass in between them – something they make up for, again, with that extra enthusiasm and a little goofiness that feels fueled by a period of Staying Home. In what seems like overkill because they’ll be wrestling soon, tag teams being interviewed backstage stand about six feet apart. We’re also told that intermission for the two-and-a-half-hour event is for “cleaning and disinfection” and see people in plastic sanitizing the ring (something that AAA has also shown on their programming.) It might be the most this promotion full of neck bumps has ever promoted healthy behavior to their audience.

The acknowledgment of coronavirus isn’t one hundred percent solemn, and NJPW can pull off the more jokey references to COVID-19 because they’ve convincingly shown they are taking the situation seriously. Desperado “disinfects” his hands with Kanemaru’s whiskey, Bushi coyly forgoes spitting mist, and Yano wants to social distance from Bullet Club. These more light-hearted references to tough times add to the feeling that everyone involved in the show is going through them together, and the characters acknowledging the real world makes them feel just a little bit more human and easier to care about.

The First Young Lion Match In Three Months!

Like many NJPW shows of the past and many NJPW shows to come, the Together Project Special opens with a Young Lion match. It’s Gabriel Kidd vs. Yota Tsuji and it is fine! These two both look basically the same as when we last saw them. Kidd is still clearly at the bottom of the dojo hierarchy; everything he does in the ring is the slightly worse version of what his contemporaries are doing. But that doesn’t really mean anything about Gabe’s New Japan future; Tsuji looked like a colossally awkward goon for months after he debuted, and now he looks really good in the ring and it’s easy to visualize a successful future of him. NJPW probably could have started this show in a more exciting way even if they just opened with a bunch of old guys in a tag match instead, but Kidd vs. Tsuji worked as a warmup.

Best: Stone Pitbull Comes Out Of Cage, Does Just Fine

The first Real Match of the show, and I think the second-best of the whole thing behind the main event, is Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Yuya Uemura, and it’s a strong tag match with a bit of everything. There’s quality tag team wrestling from the former junior champs, Ishii being a badass, Desperado being the best version of himself as both a character and a wrestler, and Uemura bursting with the aggression and focus of someone who was just cooped up in the dojo for months with nothing to do but train and put on like fifteen pounds of muscle.

This is the match that makes it feel like New Japan is really back. It also makes the upcoming Ishii vs. Despy match look like a reason to tune in again – and to expect Desperado to try to submit Ishii in it after strategically working one of his knees.

Worst: NJPW, Characters Welcome

The worst match of this show on paper was Jado, Gedo, Taiji Ishimori, and Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hirooki Goto, Toru Yano, Yoshi-Hashi, and Tomoaki Honma, and it completely lived up to expectations. The rosiest of rose-colored classes could not make this match good.

It definitely has its upsides – the weirdness of the Bullet Club team feeling more like heel-era Chaos group, Ishimori showing up looking like the human embodiment of a sports car, and the commentary team’s level of enthusiasm for Kokeshis – but it drags, the wrestling is mostly not great, and it feels even lower stakes than the other matches on the card because of how low-level most of the wrestlers involved are. Anyone would be forgiven for using this as their pee break match, then coming back to discover that the show had a built-in pee break.

New Type Of Guy Alert

The Together Special also includes, just before intermission, a vignette for THE GRANDMASTER, a man who does martial arts in a bamboo forest. Everything about this immediately makes my brain think “Donnie Yen.” The most popular theory about this guy’s identity, and the one that I subscribe to, is that he’s Hirai Kawato, who seems like he quietly finished up his CMLL excursion earlier this year. Every time I decided to check out how Kawato-San was doing in Mexico the answer seemed to be “very badly,” so he could easily feel like he has a lot of “overcome,” which fits the dramatic narration.

Best: Have You Heard The Good News About The New Japan Cup?

The show returns from intermission with a stronger second half (still New Japan Road show strong and not, like, Dominion strong), starting with former 6-Man champs Bushi, Sanada, and Evil vs. old married couple TenCozy and their weird next-door neighbor Ryusuke Taguchi. This match is elevated, like the show as a whole, by it just being really nice to see everybody back doing their thing. Also, by the sheer amount of yelling from wrestlers and commentary.

Evil, with his mannerisms and cocky pin attempts, looks like the character most out to make a point and establish himself here, but Taguchi is the MVP performer, pulling off every comedic moment and hip attack sequence with the freshness of a guy who just had three months off, but somehow none of the ring rust.

The Suzukigun (Douki, Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr., and Taichi) vs. Togi Makabe, Kota Ibushi, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Yuji Nagata match is just as fun, with the bonus of more interpersonal drama. Suzuki and Nagata kick off the match like they just want to go one-on-one right then and there and they sell the heck out of their upcoming singles match. Tanahashi and Taichi work well together too, and Taichi of course trying to neg Tana for having any percentage of body fat when they have almost the exact same torso (when Tana’s not flexing) is a great post-match bit.

ZSJ and Ibushi keep their rivalry alive and make it look like the same people who were very into past ZSJ-Ibushi matches will enjoy their next one. But also, man, Zack really shows off all the cons of him being a wrestler in about a minute here with his insistence on getting into strike battles and his tendency to weirdly no-sell high-impact moves and transition them into submissions, all things he does while being very physically non-threatening.

This match also includes possibly the weirdest moment of the entire show: Makabe’s actual theme playing on the NJPW World broadcast. Did they actually spring for the rights to it after losing however much money they lost from like 50 show cancelations or was this a mistake? This might be the number one thing I’m looking forward to seeing from Makabe vs. Tsuji now.

Best: The Main Event Level Main Event

The Together Project Special finishes up with L.I.J. (Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi, and Shingo Takagi) vs. Kazuchika Okada, Sho, and Yoh in a six-man tag with substance. If you weren’t excited by this combination of people ahead of the match, the entrances reveal three (3!!) new gears – and I’m obsessed with Yoh’s streetwear-ish entrance getup and whatever thought process inspired Sho to get Jay White’s old haircut. When the wrestling starts, it’s quickly some of the best on the show, with a Naito vs. Okada opening sequence with some tension, Sho vs. Shingo stoking each other’s aggression, and quality teamwork from Roppongi 3K and the Los Ingos trio.

The only time someone doesn’t look great is when Naito hits his new pre-finisher. Him not having to do two Destinos in a row to end matches could be good, but this new DDT-variation-thing causes him to land hard flat on his back, and it the impact makes it look like it’s harder for him to get up from this than from after doing most kinds of DDTs. Maybe the move will grow on me or we’ll see it evolve a little, but my main impression from its first use was that could it be easily reversed into a pin in a way that would make Naito look stupid.

The quality main event is followed by the introduction of some intra-L.I.J. drama just in time for tournament season. Like Sanada ahead of the 2018 G1 and Evil with the 2019 G1, Shingo and Hiromu (to a lesser extent) are being angsty about fighting their friends. It’s not inevitable that they will, but they really, really want to get to the point where they have to, so it’s a slightly different dynamic than G1 drama. And Hiromu and Takagi, with their very different personalities and wrestling styles, finally interacting is a win, and even though L.I.J. vs. L.I.J. has always worked out in the past, the group’s spirit of internal competition is always fun and tense to watch.

Overall, the Together Project Special is an event full of entertaining wrestling that’s produced in a way that hides its limitations, and it successfully builds excitement for shows to come. The show makes it easy to feel good about New Japan’s comeback and to want to tune in for more from the King of Sports.

By all accounts Keanu Reeves is an incredibly lovely person. He’s kind, he’s easy to work with, he’s good with female fans. And he’s generous: He gave a massive chunk of his considerable earnings from the Matrix films to the special effects and make-up department. He even created a private cancer foundation! If you needed any more confirmation that Keanu is a stand-up guy, then a gushing new interview with his stunt double on the John Wick movies should do it.

The stuntman in question is Jeremy Fry, whose extensive CV includes Marvel movies like Black Panther, DCEU movies like Batman v Superman, Baby Driver, The Bourne Ultimatum, even lighter fare like Pee-wee’s Big Holiday and two episodes of The Office. Fry — who’s also doubled for the likes of Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper — spoke with Metro about some of the craziest things he’s had to do on the three Wick films. And it didn’t take long before he sang the praises of Keanu.

“He is a giver, he is selfless, he works tirelessly. Every good thing you’ve heard about him is 110% true,” Fry told the publication. They wound up bonding over their shared love of motorcycles, and soon Reeves was inviting him on trips. “He goes, “Hey, how would you like to go to Laguna Seca?’ and when Keanu Reeves asks you if you wanna go pretty much anywhere, you say yes.” When Fry got there, he found out how many people love this generous man:

‘Turns out he had rented Laguna Seca, which is a very well-known popular racetrack in California, and he rented it for two days, private rental, there were about eighty of his friends and people he knew. ‘There were celebrities there, people from different industries there, a huge cross-section of people. He put us up in local hotels, he catered breakfast, lunch, dinners.’

Of course, despite being well into AARP age, it’s clear that Reeves does a good number of his own stunts, which Fry confirmed. “There was there was a shot where we wanted Keanu to slide up the camera and we wanted to…have the camera come right up to him,” the stuntman said. “And we worked with him for a while on that one, and it’s a tricky one [but] he nailed it. He did such a good job on that.”

That doesn’t mean Reeves leaves Fry with nothing to do. “He has never said, “I want to do that. I want to do it,” Fry says, instead trusting the directors will know when it’s appropriate to call in a stunt professional.

So there you have it: The once and future Ted “Theodore” Logan is one of the good ones in this rotten world. But we already knew that.

(Via Metro)

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Just days after hinting at a new project set to precede the release of his sophomore album, PG County’s own IDK revealed that the interim project would be a follow-up to his fan-favorite 2018 EP, IDK & Friends. Over the weekend, IDK tweeted, “Before I give you my second album “USEE4YOURSELF” I’d like to drop off something me and my brother made 4 y’all. 9 Tracks, details soon.”

“Soon” turned out to be today, June 15, as IDK uploaded the pixelated album cover to his IDK & Friends 2 to Instagram and promised it would be “coming soon.” The 2018 original consists of seven tracks and as its title suggested, featured appearances from many of IDK’s closest associates including Denzel Curry, Domo Genesis, Maxo Kream, Q Da Fool, Rico Nasty, Thirty Rack, and Wale. While he kept the tracklist under wraps in his announcement post, the new project comes on the heels of IDK’s recent high-profile collaborations “495” and “Hello Pt. 4,” which established working relationships with YoungManny and Jpegmafia, among others.

Intriguingly, IDK had previously closed the door on a sequel to IDK & Friends, tweeting in 2019 that the project “was a sacrifice I had to make in order to fund #ISHEREAL without a label.” He says that while his album was “basically done before I did my partnership,” he would “never put out a project like IDK&FRIENDS again.” It looks like he’s reneged on that vow for whatever reason, but considering the quality and craftsmanship he puts into even the projects he calls his “simple sh*t,” that can only be a good thing.

Check out IDK’s IDK & Friends 2 album cover above.

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