Category: lance archer

My Year in Hobbies 2019: October!

October 2019:

Professional wrestler Kris Statlander, a woman with white skin and brown hair, wearing powder blue wrestling gear with purple trim and "KS" written on her tank top, yells for the crowd at a Beyond Wrestling show in Worcester, MA.
Professional wrestler Kris Statlander, a woman with white skin and brown hair, wearing powder blue wrestling gear with purple trim and “KS” written on her tank top, yells for the crowd at a Beyond Wrestling show in Worcester, MA.

What’s up, Kris Statlander?

I started out the month at the Season 2 premiere of Beyond Wrestling‘s “Uncharted Territory” TV series, which airs on Internet Wrestling Television. Yes, I really was this close to the action, as everyone who wants to be is at Beyond events. (I could’ve actually been even closer, but I grabbed a second row seat instead of a first row seat so I didn’t end up with any flying human beings in my lap.)

Beyond is one of the best independent professional wrestling promotions in the world, and chances are, if you’ve watched WWE, AEW, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Ring of Honor, Impact, MLW or any of the other somewhat major wrestling promotions over the past decade, you’ve seen a whole bunch of Beyond alumni. Their shows are available on the aforementioned IWTV streaming service, which is some of the most fun you can have watching television and only $10 a month. I don’t work for Beyond or IWTV, but with the future of every small business in jeopardy right now (along with, well, everything and everyone else), I have to represent for them, because a great chunk of my last year has been spent enjoying their offerings. Please consider signing up for IWTV, buying some merch from Beyond on their site, or hitting an event (if and when events happen again) if you’ve ever got the means.

Here are a few more pictures from the Beyond show I went to…

Professional wrestler Lance Archer, a shirtless man with white skin and a red "murderhawk" hairstyle, stands at the back end of a wrestling ring and prepares to attack fellow pro wrestler Josh Briggs, a man with white skin and brown hair in black wrestling trunks and various knee and shoulder braces, laying prone at the front of the wrestling ring, at a Beyond Wrestling show in Worcester, MA.
Professional wrestler Lance Archer, a shirtless man with white skin and a red “murderhawk” hairstyle, stands at the back end of a wrestling ring and prepares to attack fellow pro wrestler Josh Briggs, a man with white skin and brown hair in black wrestling trunks and various knee and shoulder braces, laying prone at the front of the wrestling ring, at a Beyond Wrestling show in Worcester, MA.

Hey, remember Lance Archer from the New Japan show in September? He came to Beyond a few days later, too! This is him getting ready to maul Josh Briggs (and he did).

Professional wrestler Orange Cassidy, a man with white skin, red hair, and brown aviator sunglasses, wearing a light blue jean jacket and a white t-shirt, looks directly at the camera from a distance in front of a maroon curtain at a Beyond Wrestling show in Worcester, MA, as a photographer to his right tries to get a picture of him.
Professional wrestler Orange Cassidy, a man with white skin, red hair, and brown aviator sunglasses, wearing a light blue jean jacket and a white t-shirt, looks directly at the camera from a distance in front of a maroon curtain at a Beyond Wrestling show in Worcester, MA, as a photographer to his right tries to get a picture of him.

Orange Cassidy totally caught me taking a picture of him when he walked through the curtain. He’s doing better after his encounter with The Boogeyman, though he’s had a few run-ins with PAC and the Lucha Bros recently that haven’t been great for him.

Assuming life is anywhere near normal for the foreseeable future, you can see Kris Statlander, Lance Archer and Orange Cassidy on All Elite Wrestling‘s shows these days. (See what I mean about everyone passing through Beyond?) They run Wednesday nights on TNT in the States, and on YouTube.

I visited Keene, New Hampshire for the first time in October, and can heartily recommend both Bull Moose (a small regional chain of entertainment media stores packed with things I like to spend money on) and The Toadstool Bookshop, if you’re in the area. Both are great places to browse, and both will probably need your business when things open back up. (Notice a new, recurring theme here?) Keene, in general, is like a lot of mid-sized New England towns with a Main Street, fun to walk around. Enjoyed my time there. Almost ready to forgive the place for the Pumpkin Festival Riot of 2014 and the town’s handling of it.

a plastic and rubber bendable action figure of a white skeleton lays on a scanner bed.
a plastic and rubber bendable action figure of a white skeleton lays on a scanner bed.

It took me a couple of years, but I finally got ahold of one of the Mego-scale skeletons that they sell at Target around Halloween. I’d get a picture of it with the usual group shot, but we’re running late here, so this is the skeleton on a scanner bed, which looks kinda weird and cool.

I got, and played a fair amount of Stardew Valley for Playstation 4, but I wanna start over, as I totally had no idea what I was doing before I kinda backed my character into a corner. If you like games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, but also like them to be a little less…Nintendo…this is a great game for that.

On the last flea market trip of the year, I saw this beauty of a Soundesign stereo…

A beige 1980s-era Soundesign stereo system sits on a flea market table.
A beige 1980s-era Soundesign stereo system sits on a flea market table.

No, I didn’t buy it. From my past experience owning a Soundesign (my first stereo was one), albeit one that wasn’t quite as beige, I was afraid to even touch it (those cassette deck buttons will snap on you as soon as look at you).

I did buy this on that trip, though…

A copy of Lou Reed's "Transformer" album plays on a turntable, with the album cover (featuring a black and white picture of Lou Reed, wearing makeup, and holding a guitar while standing at a microphone) standing on top of the turntable cover.
A copy of Lou Reed’s “Transformer” album plays on a turntable, with the album cover (featuring a black and white picture of Lou Reed, wearing makeup, and holding a guitar while standing at a microphone) standing on top of the turntable cover.

Lou was a mess, but he was one of the greatest messes.

Television seasons binge-watched in October 2019 (2): The End Of The Fucking World Season 2 (enjoyable television based on Charles Forsman‘s comics; Chuck and TEOTFW show-runner Jonathan Entwistle have Chuck’s I Am Not OK With This on Netflix now, too…), Scott Kelly: A Year In Space (this was an amazing thing to watch, even if it was done like a pretty hardcore NASA propaganda film).

First-run movies watched in August 2019 (1): El Camino (fun little TV movie, but they need to give Huell Babineaux his own spin-off now).

My Year in Hobbies 2019: September, Part III!

After spending my summer watching New Japan Pro-Wrestling, I jumped at the opportunity to see a show live when they announced their Fighting Spirit Unleashed U.S. tour.

A promotional image for New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Fighting Spirit Unleashed tour. Against a grey background, to the left, a red and white fist appears above the words "FIGHTING SPIRIT UNLEASHED NEW JAPAN PRO-WRESTLING BOSTON PHILADELPHIA NEW YORK", with New Japan's red, yellow and black Lion Mark logo at bottom center. To the right, clockwise from top, pictures of Japanese wrestlers Kazuchika Okada (a Japanese man with short bleached blonde hair), Hiroshi Tanahashi (a muscular Japanese man with shoulder length messy blonde hair and a short black goatee, shown from the neck up), Kota Ibushi (a muscular Japanese man with short brown hair that hangs over his eyes) and Tetsuya Naito (a Japanese man with dyed red hair, wearing and tipping a black baseball cap, and wearing a red wristband on his right arm) appear. (Image Credit: New Japan Pro-Wrestling)
A promotional image for New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Fighting Spirit Unleashed tour. Against a grey background, to the left, a red and white fist appears above the words “FIGHTING SPIRIT UNLEASHED NEW JAPAN PRO-WRESTLING BOSTON PHILADELPHIA NEW YORK”, with New Japan’s red, yellow and black Lion Mark logo at bottom center. To the right, clockwise from top, pictures of Japanese wrestlers Kazuchika Okada (a Japanese man with short bleached blonde hair), Hiroshi Tanahashi (a muscular Japanese man with shoulder length messy blonde hair and a short black goatee, shown from the neck up), Kota Ibushi (a muscular Japanese man with short brown hair that hangs over his eyes) and Tetsuya Naito (a Japanese man with dyed red hair, wearing and tipping a black baseball cap, and wearing a red wristband on his right arm) appear. (Image Credit: New Japan Pro-Wrestling)

I made it to the first night, which was labelled as being in Boston, but was actually in Lowell, MA at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium.

Professional wrestler Lance Archer (left), a tall man with white skin, several arm tattoos, a dark brown beard, a hint of dark brown hair with a red braid weaved into it, and a black t-shirt that says "ARCHER" across the top of it in bloody looking red letters, raises his right hand above his head in a claw position and makes a mean looking face, next to the author of this piece (right), a man with white skin, brown hair with black sunglasses on top of it, a brown goatee, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a black t-shirt with a black and white picture of a man on it that's obscured by a black bag strap. The man is also making a mean face, and is making a claw gesture with his left hand. Bronze laques are visible on the marble walls behind the two men.
Professional wrestler Lance Archer (left), a tall man with white skin, several arm tattoos, a dark brown beard, a hint of dark brown hair with a red braid weaved into it, and a black t-shirt that says “ARCHER” across the top of it in bloody looking red letters, raises his right hand above his head in a claw position and makes a mean looking face, next to the author of this piece (right), a man with white skin, brown hair with black sunglasses on top of it, a brown goatee, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a black t-shirt with a black and white picture of a man on it that’s obscured by a black bag strap. The man is also making a mean face, and is making a claw gesture with his left hand. Bronze laques are visible on the marble walls behind the two men.

Not only that, I got to meet a few of the wrestlers! Here I am with Lance Archer, who did the first of what would be a couple surprise meet-and-greets in the lobby of the venue.

After I met Lance, I headed up to my seat, and was talking to the people in my section, when one of them casually mentioned that Tomohiro Ishii was also taking pictures and signing things for people downstairs, in a part of the venue that I didn’t make it over to.

An animated gif of the beginning of the Tomohiro Ishii/Katsuyori Shibata fight from NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10, 2016. Two Japanese wrestlers beat the living hell out of each other at extremely high speeds to start a wrestling match. "Red Shoes" Unno is your referee.
An animated gif of the beginning of the Tomohiro Ishii/Katsuyori Shibata fight from NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10, 2016. Two Japanese wrestlers try to beat the living hell out of each other at extremely high speeds, matching each other move for move, to start a wrestling match. “Red Shoes” Unno is your referee.

?!?!?!?!?!

You have never seen someone with bad knees and equally bad feet traverse two flights of stairs quicker.

Those of you who don’t care about pro wrestling, or who are unfamiliar or uninterested in NJPW might not get why I ran, so I’ll do my best here, above and beyond what you’d read at the Wikipedia entry, or see in that so-fast-it’s-blurry GIF of him and Shibata: Tomohiro Ishii is maybe the toughest, most shit-talkingest, punch way above his weight class badass in the world. He’s a billed height of 5’7″, but built like a tank, impossibly strong (I’ve seen him throw around Bad Luck Fale, who’s around 400 pounds), deceptively fast, and fearless. Due to the scripted nature of pro wrestling, he doesn’t win the big matches quite as often as many of us feel he should, but I can guarantee you that everyone he’s in those matches with walks away feeling like they got their ass kicked, and with their self-esteem pretty wounded by the demoralizing things they’ve had him say about them, but probably strangely proud and grateful for the experience. My Japanese isn’t good enough to pick up on all of what he says, and Chris Charlton, the resident Japanese translator on the English broadcast team, doesn’t repeat some of what he says, for what I assume are obvious reasons. He’s one of the people who the wrestlers themselves tend to stop and watch, because he’s great at his craft (he can carry just about anyone to a very good to great match), seemingly able to turn off his pain response at will, and also incredibly entertaining.

At left, the author, a man with white skin and brown hair (with sunglasses in it), wearing black clothing, holding a yellow New Japan Pro-Wrestling shopping bag. At right, New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Tomohiro Ishii, a stern-looking Japanese man with a bald head, wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt that says "STONE PITBULL BITE YOU" on it.
At left, the author, a man with white skin and brown hair (with sunglasses in it), wearing black clothing, holding a yellow New Japan Pro-Wrestling shopping bag. At right, New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrestler Tomohiro Ishii, a stern-looking Japanese man with a bald head and a faint black goatee, wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt that says “STONE PITBULL BITE YOU” on it.

Holy shit.

I also met TJP outside before the show, as he’d come outside to meet up with a super-fan of his, then ended up talking and posing for pictures with what seemed like about 100 people before he found her. I didn’t get a picture with him, but I did get to say hi for a minute, and he liked my Orange Cassidy shirt.

All of the wrestlers I met were totally cool to me and everyone I saw them spend time with. Not a shocker, as, generally speaking, when I’ve met pro wrestlers, they’ve been solid citizens.

In a wrestling ring, New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrestlers Kota Ibushi (far left, a shirtless Japanese man with short, dark brown hair) and EVIL (just below Kota Ibushi, a Japanese man in black and white singlet with purple ponytail) stand head to head at left, with referee "Red Shoes" Unno (a Japanese man with black hair in black and white referee uniform, black pants, and red shoes) and wrestlers Hiroshi Tanahashi (a Japanese man with long bleached blonde to brown hair, in black and white spandex pants) and Kazuchika Okada to their right (a Japanese man with short bleached blonde hair, in red tights and boots, holding the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt over his right shoulder).
In a wrestling ring, New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrestlers Kota Ibushi (far left, a shirtless Japanese man with short, dark brown hair) and EVIL (just below Kota Ibushi, a Japanese man in black and white singlet with purple ponytail) stand head to head at left, with referee “Red Shoes” Unno (a Japanese man with black hair in black and white referee uniform, black pants, and red shoes) and wrestlers Hiroshi Tanahashi (a Japanese man with long bleached blonde to brown hair, in black and white spandex pants) and Kazuchika Okada to their right (a Japanese man with short bleached blonde hair, in red tights and boots, holding the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt over his right shoulder).

As my seats were pretty far back, I didn’t get many pictures (I also wanted to watch the show without pretending to be a photographer), and the ones I got were not great (it was tough to balance the dark arena/bright wrestling ring thing, clearly), but I figured I’d give those of you who are familiar with NJPW one shot that should give you an idea of the star power at this show.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a pretty strong case can be made at this point for Kazuchika Okada being the best professional wrestler who’s ever lived. Hiroshi Tanahashi‘s really not far behind him, and carried New Japan for many years. Kota Ibushi has singles wins over both of them (though he fell short in his match vs. Okada at Wrestle Kingdom last month), and he still has a good chance of catching up to both of them. EVIL is also an awesome, and still very steadily improving wrestler with a great gimmick (think of him sort of like a Japanese version of The Undertaker) who’s a member of New Japan’s most popular stable of wrestlers, Los Ingobernables de Japon. If the people in this picture weren’t enough, LIJ’s leader, Tetsuya Naito (who beat “Switchblade” Jay White for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship, then beat Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on consecutive nights, becoming a double champion on this level for the first time in NJPW’s history at Wrestle Kingdom) and EVIL’s partner SANADA (who many feel is a future IWGP champion, and is also one of the best wrestlers in the world right now) were both in the match, as well. (Oh, and “Red Shoes” Unno is more or less the present-day god of refereeing.)

Full results for the night are here, and it was a great night. Along with the main event, Lance Archer vs. Ren Narita, and Tomohiro Ishii and Amazing Red vs. BUSHI and Shingo Takagi (which Ishii did win) were my favorite matches of the night.

If you have the means (and you will at least have the opportunity; NJPW have announced an expansion of their company, New Japan Pro-Wrestling of America, were just over here for a tour of the Southeast, and will be back in Tampa over the first week of April when seemingly every wrestling promotion on Earth are in town to capitalize on Wrestlemania week), I highly recommend catching a NJPW show.