95th Academy Awards Preview & Predictions

This Sunday it's the 95th Annual Academy Awards, and my associate Mike Drinan (@mdrinan380) are back to offer our preview and predictions.  Mike is probably gonna sweep these damn things yet again and I'll just end up getting upset, but we're gonna do this anyway.

I'm in the exact same position I was at this time last year, having seen half of the Best Picture nominees and hoping to bang out a couple more over the weekend before the show.  The five I've seen have ranged from stunningly great to "Why the fuck is this movie even nominated?" (You know which one you are Maverick....)  

This disturbing trend where the Academy is obligated to include at least one or two popcorn movies just to attract a bigger Nielsen rating feels like straight-up pandering to me, not to mention they always give the award to one of the smaller films anyway.  And they didn't even include the one popcorn movie from 2022 that actually deserves to be there (Had The Batman actually crossed the billion-dollar mark you know goddamn well they would have).  Fortunately I don't think any of the three fluff movies have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning Best Picture.  But it just feels wrong to have to refer to the Top Gun remake sequel or the reeeeeally delayed Avatar followup as a Best Picture nominee.  Hollywood's been churning out too many remakes and sequels and reboots and prequels and spinoffs and requels as it is, do they really need to win awards for it?

Ok enough old-man sky-yelling, let's pick some winners!

Best Picture

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar: The Way of Water

The Banshees of Inisherin

Elvis

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

Tar

Top Gun: Maverick

Triangle of Sadness

Women Talking

Justin: Alright, I've seen All Quiet which was amazing, Banshees which was pretty great, Elvis which was pedestrian despite a really strong lead performance, EEAAO which was fun and original, and Top Gun which was paint-by-numbers shite despite really impressive flight sequences.  Of those five my favorite was All Quiet; just a beautifully made, harrowing, immersive war film.  But that's all moot, because Everything Everywhere All at Once is a mortal lock to take this award and probably most of the awards it's nominated for.  That movie is on fire right now, and I'm not even mad.  It wasn't my favorite of the field but it was imaginative as hell, and that should be rewarded.  Not to mention one of its directors, Daniel Kwan, is from my hometown of Westborough, MA.  REPRESENT!!!

Pick: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Mike: I’ll forgive the insolence in your tone,  Top Gun: Maverick is really well positioned to get the upset. The action laced with dramatic overtones and a splash of nostalgia, not to mention the outstanding performances that will literally take your breath away while in the danger zone, makes it such a considerable film. How do you go against it?

Pick: Kidding. Everything Everywhere All At Once for sure.

Oscar Film Journal: The Full Monty (1997)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

This year's awards are just days away and as always I'm behind on the current nominees (five outta ten in the bag), so naturally I'm wasting time looking at old nominees.  

Case in point, the 1997 dramedy The Full Monty, about a gaggle of unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield, England who get the kooky idea to become male strippers.  In doing so they reckon they'll carve out a cushy living, while also gaining self-confidence and an offbeat sense of respect about town.  The film stars Robert Carlyle as Gaz, the mastermind behind the whole plan, who's desperate to come up with child support back payments so his ex-wife doesn't take away custody of their son Nathan.  Gaz's best friend Dave (Mark Addy, in the film's strongest performance) is rather portly and so down on himself, both in terms of his job prospects and his physical state, that he can hardly bear to be touched by his wife Jean.  The pair pester their old factory foreman Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) - a dance instructor on the side - to help them put together choreography for their burlesque show, and while dismissive at first, Gerald finds solace and self-worth in their budding friendship.  Meanwhile they audition other fellas around town to join the act, becoming a sextet of misfits who generate a buzz by promising to do what the professional Chippendales dancers won't: take it ALL off.

AEW Revolution 2023: Bryan Danielson is the GOAT

Holy jumpin' Jeezus what a show AEW Revolution was....

At a time when the company is struggling to regain the momentum they had in late 2021/early 2022, AEW desperately needed a buzz-generating hit of a PPV, and by god they gave us one.  Revolution 2023 featured not one, but two Match of the Year candidates, plus a few other four-star efforts.  Maybe even more importantly for the long-term, the emphasis was squarely on making the young homegrown talent look like major stars, most of them getting big, decisive wins up and down the card.

After a fun little trios match on the pre-show (I reckon Mark Briscoe and the Lucha Brothers should be in line for an AEW Trios Title match soon), the main card kicked off with Chris Jericho vs. Ricky Starks.  This very good opening bout saw Jericho go after Starks' injured ribs and stay one step ahead of his young opponent's signature offense.  Jericho countered a spear attempt with a Codebreaker for a nearfall, and foiled an early Rochambeau attempt.  Starks finally hit a spear but Jericho locked him in the Walls of Jericho, which Starks then countered into a single-leg crab.  Despite the JAS being banned from ringside, Sammy Guevara nonetheless attempted to interfere but was tackled immediately by Action Andretti.  Jericho used his baseball bat during the ref distraction and got a close nearfall, but Starks blocked the Judas Effect and hit Rochambeau for the clean win.  A very well-worked opening match with the right result set the tone for the show.  ****

AEW Revolution 2023 Preview & Predictions

It feels like Full Gear 2022 was eons ago, doesn't it?  Welp, the wait for AEW's next PPV is finally over, this Sunday it's time for a Revolution!

As of this writing we have a lean eight-match lineup, due of course to the fact that the main event of this show will go 60 minutes.  Iron Man matches are always a challenge, as the average person usually doesn't have the attention span for a match that's guaranteed to go the full hour.  It's different when you have a regular match that just happens to go that long - there's suspense over how and when it will end - but when the format is inherently designed to go a certain length a lot of people tend to tune out till the final stretch.  That's certainly been the case when Iron Man matches are broadcast on free TV, the ratings always seem to suffer for most of it.  But hopefully the promise of an epic pro wrestling match featuring one of the best pro wrestlers to ever do it will draw people in, not to mention the promo work from both guys has been stellar.  Even aside from Danielson vs. MJF though, there's a pretty loaded undercard with a couple potential show stealers.  Let's take a look....

AEW World Tag Team Championship: The Gunns vs. The Acclaimed vs. Triple J vs. Orange Cassidy & Danhausen

This match is just....odd.  I figured when the Gunns won/stole the tag belts we'd just see a straight-up rematch with The Acclaimed to give them another big title win, but then AEW booked the two battle royals (neither of which was particularly good) to determine two additional challengers.  And oddly teams like Top Flight and Lucha Bros weren't the winners, when this match really could've used teams of that caliber.  I'm really not sure why Jeff Jarrett keeps getting PPV matches; this guy must be the world's greatest self-promoter because he's on the show every week despite never being someone who moves the needle.  Anyway it's nice to see Cassidy getting so much screen time of late as he's super over and a really great worker.  Also, Danhausen is making his AEW PPV debut!  This match should be fine, an enjoyable clusterfuck, and I assume Caster and Bowens will win back their titles, as it was way too soon for them to lose them.  

Pick: The Acclaimed

Chris Jericho vs. Ricky Starks

It's a rematch between the aging superstar and the plucky babyface up-and-comer.  These two had a fine match on Dynamite in January and should be able to top that on this larger stage.  JAS is barred from ringside for this match but I wonder if Jericho has another friend who might run in for the assist.  They did do an angle last night where JAS beat up Ricky ahead of this match, maybe that was Jericho's big swerve after agreeing to the stips here.  Regardless I think Ricky winning is the move unless they have some debut planned to set up a rubber match.

Pick: Ricky

Oscar Film Journal: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Time to set the wayback machine for the early 1930s in this installment of Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

The Great Depression: one of the darkest periods in American history, when millions were suddenly left in poverty, jobs were scarce, everyday necessities became luxuries, and many were forced to resort to extralegal measures to survive.  And as in Dickensian England, some who weren't lucky enough to escape the consequences would face a Draconian penal system that chewed up and spat out its victims, often leaving them worse off once their debt to society was paid.

Such is the subject of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, the Mervyn Leroy-directed Best Picture nominee from 1932, starring Paul Muni as just such a poor sap.  Chain Gang was adapted from an autobiographical work by war vet-turned-convict-turned-activist Robert Elliott Burns, who found holding down a job near impossible after serving in World War I thanks to his severe shellshock.  Burns became a drifter and was duped into helping rob a grocery store, for which he was sentenced to ten years on a Georgia chain gang, subjected to cruel labor conditions, malnutrition, and physical and mental torture.  Burns escaped, fled to Chicago, and became a successful magazine editor, only to be apprehended some years later and returned to the chain gang system.  He escaped again but was unable to find steady work due to the Depression, and then found new success telling his story and raising public awareness of the appalling conditions prisoners like him were forced to endure.  Burns was fortunate enough to have built such a high profile he'd finally earn a commuted sentence, and never returned to prison again.

Oscar Film Journal: All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

We're back with another entry in the Oscar Film Journal!  Plugging away at this year's Best Picture nominees (I'm halfway through them), I sat down and endured Edward Berger's German-language remake of the 1930 classic All Quiet on the Western Front...

Time to update my old Top Ten Things article ranking the great war films, as there's a new candidate to add to the list.  Berger's remake, somewhat loosely based on the original film and novel, joins films like Saving Private Ryan and Come and See in taking a brutally honest (and I do mean BRUTAL) look at the experience, and in this case futility, of being on the battlefield.  This film begins by dropping us right in the middle of a gory World War I trench skirmish, as a soldier empties his rifle and proceeds to charge at his enemy using only his shovel.  Cut ahead a few months, and that now-dead soldier's uniform is being repurposed along with thousands of others, for a new batch of German teenage recruits duped by those in power into believing that enlisting and shipping off to the front will make them patriotic heroes.  

We follow a group of four young friends, led by Paul Baumer (newcomer Felix Kammerer in a prodigiously stunning performance) who forges his parental consent papers in order to join, and they quickly learn all the heroism and romance they were fed about the war was a lie.  The film immerses us in the harrowing hellscape that was trench warfare, as men are picked off by the dozens during muddy raids, losing limbs and lives in the fruitless pursuit of a tiny swath of terrain.  One of the film's most gut-wrenching scenes involves a Paul killing a French soldier with a knife and then having to listen to him gasp, gargle and flail as he clings to life; this sequence is upsetting on the same level as the knife fight in SPR.

Oscar Film Journal: From Here to Eternity (1953)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal!  We're headed back to the repressed early 50s once again, for a look at director Fred Zinnemann's second of three Best Picture nominees, From Here to Eternity...

Based on the James Jones novel, From Here to Eternity is considered a romantic war film, centered around a Private named Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) stationed in Hawaii just before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Prewitt gets transferred to a post on Oahu because the commanding officer Captain Holmes wants to add him to his boxing team, in the hopes that a strong showing will get Holmes noticed for a promotion.  Only problem is Prewitt has vowed never to box again after accidentally blinding a fellow soldier during a sparring session.  Holmes orders a series of cruel hazing rituals over several months, and Prewitt quietly endures it all.  Meanwhile Prewitt becomes close friends with fellow soldier Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra in an award-winning performance) and begins an odd romance with a social club girl (changed from a prostitute in the novel, due to Hays Code restrictions) named Lorene (Donna Reed), and the two try to decide if his military career will ever line up with her ambition to save up money and move back home to Oregon.  In a side plot, the base's Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) has a torrid affair with Captain Holmes's wife Karen (Hence the iconic image of Lancaster and Deborah Kerr making out on the beach).  These numerous melodramatic threads intersect until the Pearl Harbor attack takes place in the film's climax.

WWE Elimination Chamber 2023 Recap, plus NJPW Battle in the Valley

It was a big weekend of wrasslin', between WWE's biggest-ever gate for a B-level PPV and NJPW's sold-out show on US soil.  Lots of stuff happened, most of it good, so let's do a quick recap, shall we?

First Elimination Chamber, which was a good show overall.  The molten Montreal crowd elevated this show beyond its in-ring quality, which was quite solid in its own right.  

The women's Elimination Chamber opened the show and featured very capable action.  Raquel Rodriguez looked like a star in the making, with a powerful performance that only ended after she was double-teamed by Asuka and Carmella.  Nikki Cross got to be her old crazy self again.  Liv Morgan once again played the role of plucky underdog babyface and it took a double submission from Asuka and Natalya to eliminate her.  And of course Asuka was a destroyer, eliminating or co-eliminating three opponents in short order, on her way to becoming Bianca Belair's new #1 contender.  This was 100% the right move and the resulting match at WrestleMania should be another show stealer (for my money Bianca's had the best match of the weekend the last two 'Manias).  Solid work to open the show.  ***1/2

Not so solid was the next match, as Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley once again did a short finisher-spamming sprint with another dumb finish.  I do not understand why anyone likes these Lesnar matches; they're literally all the same.  Brock picks the opponent up, drives him into the corner, hits a few shoulder blocks, hits a few German suplexes, hits an F5, opponent kicks out, opponent hits his two big moves, Brock kicks out, repeat, repeat, repeat.  Stop booking Brock like this!  Would it kill you to have Brock get into a stiff striking battle to start the match, being that Brock and Bobby are both legit MMA guys as well?  Imagine how awesome a G1-style match would be between these two.  This ended after four-and-a-half minutes when Lashley had Brock in the full nelson and Brock kicked him in the groin to draw a disqualification.  So now the plan is Lashley vs. Wyatt, and Brock vs., wait for it.....Omos.  Fuckin' seriously guys?  You're passing up Brock vs. Gunther for this.  Absolute drivel.  *

NJPW Battle in the Valley 2023 Preview & Predictions

This Saturday we'll be treated to not just one, but two big PPV events, the second of which is brought to us by New Japan Pro Wrestling!

That's right, NJPW returns to San Jose with a huge card that will not only feature a legendary bout for the IWGP World Title, but also the New Japan in-ring debut of Mercedes Mone!  The former Sasha Banks hopes to bring NJPW to a whole new audience as she vies for the company's new Women's Championship.  

But first let's look at the undercard.

Máscara Dorada, Josh Alexander, Adrian Quest & Rocky Romero vs. Kushida, Volador Jr., Kevin Knight and The DKC

I'm glad to see Dorada back in New Japan after WWE did absolutely zilch with the guy.  Back in 2015 when I first saw some of his matches I was very impressed, and when he signed with WWE I was hugely disappointed-but-not-surprised Vince didn't see any potential there.  If we added up all the wasted potential of WWE signees over the years we could just about squeeze it all into the Grand fuckin' Canyon.  Anyway I have no idea who wins this, but I'll pick team Dorada just for shits and giggles.

Pick: Dorada/Alexander/Quest/Romero

Strong Openweight Championship: Fred Rosser vs. Kenta

It's former NXT hopeful Darren Young vs. former NXT hopeful Hideo Itami!  Fred is the company's first Strong Openweight Champion and he's held the title since last May, so I could easily see Kenta taking it here to start some kinda US-based feud.

Pick: Kenta

WWE Elimination Chamber 2023 Preview & Predictions

This Saturday is the return of WWE Elimination Chamber!

Well WWE under Triple H's creative direction has actually become a pretty watchable product all-told, with clear plans for WrestleMania season and multiple top stars actually drawing ratings and ticket sales.  Weird how simple that concept is.  Anyway, after an uneven but overall pretty good Royal Rumble PPV, the stage is set for this five-match show which should hopefully be a fairly easy watch.  We have a huge WWE Universal Title match with WrestleMania implications, plus the usual two Chamber bouts, and a special attraction rematch from last year's Rumble that could either be really good or really lazy and predictable.  Let's take a look...

Edge & Beth Phoenix vs. Finn Balor & Rhea Ripley

This is the least important match on the show and I assume it'll lead to a one-on-one WrestleMania match between the dudes involved; we already know Ripley is busy at the Show of Shows, challenging Charlotte Flair.  There's plenty of talent to go around here so this should be a solid affair.  I assume the heels win here to set up the singles match.

Pick: Finn and Rhea

Men's Elimination Chamber: Austin Theory vs. Seth Rollins vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Damian Priest vs. Bronson Reed vs. Montez Ford

Some good talent in this match as well, and this will hopefully be booked in such a way that the US Title gains back some of the prestige it's lost over the last fifteen years or so.  Rumor has it they want to do Theory vs. John Cena at 'Mania, which is a lukewarm proposition for me.  It would obviously be good for the championship, the guy who used to do open challenges to make the title feel important vs. the guy everyone's pretending is the next John Cena.  But I'd rather see Theory vs. Gargano I think.  Anywho, I think Theory retains through underhanded means.

Pick: Theory retains

Oscar Film Journal: Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

And we're back to review one of the current Best Picture nominees, and in this case I use the phrase "Best Picture nominee" very loosely....

Yeah that's right, I'm about to pop a lot of balloons over 2022's most shameless nostalgia cash-grab, Top Gun: Maverick!  

Before I get into why I found this movie just cosmically overrated and maybe the most preposterous Best Picture nominee since Ghost, let me divulge what I did enjoy about it.  The action sequences are first rate, technically marvelous, mindbogglingly dangerous, and Tom Cruise proves himself a crazy person yet again for some of the stunts he does in this film.  Of course the main objective of the pilots is lifted almost beat for beat from Star Wars: A New Hope.  Like seriously, how didn't every film critic who lauded this movie like it's the greatest action fare ever produced seem to pick up on this?  "You must maneuver down this trench ravine, staying below radar and anti-aircraft cannons, and skim the surface till you reach the target area, which is only two three meters wide, then you must pull out in time to avoid crashing, while also evading enemy fighters.  Maverick, at that speed will you be able to pull out in time??"  Christ, the loudmouth jerk pilot even swoops in at the last minute to save the day, and one of the pilots has to take the shot blind when his targeting system fails.  Corporate needs you to find the differences between these two pictures.  

That said, the flying scenes are exhilarating in the same way those of the first movie are exhilarating.  I actually found the training exercises more fun than the actual mission, which is presented in such a way that there's no doubt the good guys will not only accomplish said mission but also escape with their lives.  The fun is in Maverick attempting to get these youngsters (minus Rooster, who by my math has to be about forty years old in this story) to simulate this impossible mission (TM) in the time allotted.  One question though, why'd they pick the tallest part of the mountain as their egress instead of banking slightly to the left or right, toward one of the smaller peaks of the crater?  Second question, wouldn't a team of American pilots blowing up an enemy's uranium plant be met with retaliation?  No one thinks to address this?  Anyway, aside from the insipid banter of the pilots and running commentary ("I'm out of ammunition, I'll just have to evade them" - yeah we can see that, this isn't a radio program), the flight scenes are a lot of fun, made more immersive by the use of IMAX cameras.  The team who made Wings will take their royalty check now...  

Oscar Film Journal: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal!

Today I'll be talking about a highly influential film from the 1940s, considered a career highlight for its writer/director and its two main stars, and essentially a film noir/Western mashup, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  One of John Huston's most acclaimed works, based on the 1927 novel by mysterious author B. Traven, this is the story of three gold prospectors who venture into the unforgiving Sierras to dig for gold and find their fortune.  

The main character in the book is grizzled prospector Howard (played to perfection in this film by John's father Walter Huston in one of his last film roles), the only one in the group with gold mining experience and the most likable of the story's three scoundrels.  In the film version the focus is shifted a bit more to Fred Dobbs, played by Humphrey Bogart in a dirtbag performance delivered with scummy relish (Bogart was infamously snubbed by the Academy for this role).  Dobbs begins the film as a down-on-his-luck American drifter in Mexico, looking for work and begging for cash, and that's about as nice as this character ever gets.  As he and his partners amass a fortune in gold, Dobbs descends into paranoia and violence, providing the film's strongest character arc.  The third partner Bob Curtin is played by veteran Western actor Tim Holt, in a performance that sort of takes the opposite trajectory to Bogart's.  Curtin starts out as a fellow drifter and gradually becomes more honorable as the story progresses; if we root for anyone in this film it's Curtin.

Oscar Film Journal: A Star Is Born (1937)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal here at Enuffa.com, where I go back and review a Best Picture nominee of years past, in my near-futile attempt to watch all 591 of them (I'm now at 269 and counting...)!

Today it's the original version (and I use the word "original" loosely for reasons I'll get to shortly) of A Star Is Born, directed by William A. Wellman (of Wings fame) and starring Fredric March and Janet Gaynor.  By now most of you should be familiar with the basic premise of this film, given that it's been remade not once, not twice, but thrice, and the newest version starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga was a mega-hit.  Ordinary young woman with untapped talent dreams of becoming a star, gets discovered by older male star whose fame is fading, becomes a huge star herself, marries the guy, the guy self-destructs due to his rampant alcoholism, and so on.  It's a compelling narrative to be sure, and one that's universal enough to remain relevant generation after generation, hence all the remakes.  

But did you know?  The original 1937 film, written by Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell and Robert Carson, was the subject of a potential plagiarism lawsuit?  It's true, there was a film five years earlier called What Price Hollywood? whose story is almost beat for beat the same as this one.  In the end that film's distributor RKO Pictures opted not to pursue litigation against David O. Selznick for this movie, though I'm honestly not sure why; they'd easily have had a compelling case from where I sit.  Seriously, it's basically the same damn movie.

Oscar Film Journal: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Hi there, welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

We're back in the present day, with a look at one of the 2022 Best Pic nominees, Martin McDonough's dark comedy The Banshees of Inisherin, which reunites his two stars from In Bruges, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.  But unlike McDonough's comedic crime debut, Banshees is a slow, meditative "tragicomedy" that would feel somewhat at home in the Coen Brothers' filmography.

Farrell and Gleeson play former lifelong best friends on the fictional island of Inisherin, during the Irish Civil War.  One day milk farmer Padraic (Farrell) heads over to meet musician Colm (Gleeson) for their daily 2pm ritual of sharing a few pints at the local pub, only to find Colm sitting silently at his cottage, ignoring Padraic.  Agonizing over whether he's done or said something to offend his best friend, Padraic confronts Colm, who tells him he's too dull to spend any more of his remaining time with.  Colm instead opts to focus on composing music and only consorting with people he finds interesting.  When Padraic tries to reason with his friend, Colm tells him that for every time Padraic bothers him, he'll sever one of his own fingers and send it to Padraic's house.  

Oscar Film Journal: Wings (1927)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal here at Enuffa.com!

We're setting the way-back machine nearly a century for this one.  That's right, all the way back to 1927, and the first-ever Academy Award winner for Best Picture (in addition to being the only silent film to achieve said accolade, until 2011's The Artist).  Today's subject is the World War I flying epic Wings, starring Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen.

Directed by former military pilot William A. Wellman (whose legitimate combat flight credentials sold Paramount Studios on his being the perfect candidate to helm this picture), Wings focuses on a sort of love triangle between three (or more accurately four) small-town characters, whose lives are impacted significantly by The Great War.  Fresh-faced Jack Powell's lifelong dream is to fly a plane, but being a young fellow of modest means he's settled for fixing up an old jalopy and calling it the Shooting Star.  His neighbor Mary Preston (a wonderfully expressive Clara Bow) is desperately in love with him, but Jack's got designs on the glamorous Sylvia, who in turn is in love with the town's richest bachelor David Armstrong.  Once the characters and their relationships are established, the film wastes no time plunging us headlong into Jack and David's exploits as Army Air cadets-turned-star pilots.  

Oscar Film Journal: Belfast (2021)

Rolling into the 2023 Oscar season, I'm back with another Oscar Film Journal entry!

I'm still catching up with a few movies from last year's Oscar season, including Kenneth Branagh's intimate, autobiographical piece Belfast, about a young boy navigating family relationships, peer pressure, his first romantic feelings, and the escalating sectarian Protestant-Catholic war which would come to be known as The Troubles.  When we first meet nine-year-old Buddy, he's playing with his friends in the street, wielding a wooden sword and a trash can lid as a shield, when suddenly a Protestant gang loots his neighborhood, smashing windows and setting a car on fire.  

This opening scene establishes both the film's economy of storytelling and its small-scope look at this world-coming-apart from Buddy's point of view.  We see very little of Northern Ireland's civil unrest through a big-picture lens, instead only catching snippets of news reports, overheard parental conversations, and isolated incidents Buddy sees with his own eyes.  But The Troubles are primarily a backdrop, in front of which the film explores Buddy's close relationship with his grandparents and his older cousin Moira, who turns out to be a bad influence.  There's also his parents' central conflict, whether or not to move out of Belfast and out of harm's way.  Buddy's father is a tradesman who works in England, only coming home every couple weeks to spend time with his family.  His mother raises Buddy and his older brother mostly alone and is so entrenched in their neighborhood and its close friendships she can't imagine leaving Belfast.

NJPW The New Beginning 2023 Preview & Predictions

This weekend is the start of the proper NJPW The New Beginning shows (I skipped the Nagoya show in my predictions because there was little of interest), and there are some big bouts on tap, with numerous titles at stake.

It's a busy month for NJPW, between the two Sapporo shows this weekend, the Osaka show next weekend, and the huge Battle in the Valley card the following weekend.  For the first time since before the pandemic it feels like NJPW's schedule is back to normal and they're offering consistent shows that aren't skippable.  Last month's WrestleKingdom was something of a return to form and it looks like the rest of the year will follow suit.  Good to have you back guys.

As I usually do with these multi-night shows that only feature a few matches of consequence, I'll just be picking winners in said matches of consequence.  

Sapporo Night 1

IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship: Catch 2/2 vs. Douki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru

Not much to this one - Douki and Kanemaru are there to give Catch 2/2 a successful title defense and that's about it.  I don't see this being any kind of epic tag match, but it should be fine.

Pick: Catch 2/2 retains

Will Ospreay vs. Taichi

This is an odd pairing, as far as I know these two aren't really feuding.  Maybe I missed the inciting incident that led to this?  Anyway, Ospreay is coming off one of the best matches of his career, but a tough loss at that.  Time to regroup, rack up some wins, and challenge Kenny Omega at Forbidden Door II for the IWGP US Title he lost.

Pick: Ospreay

Shota Umino vs. Tetsuya Naito

This one will be interesting.  Umino scored the pinfall over Naito's stablemate Bushi at the Dome to help establish him as an up and coming star.  This kid is so very close to finding his groove and a match like this should help him get there.  I think Naito probably ekes out a win but Umino comes off like a budding star in the process.

Pick: Naito

WWE Royal Rumble 2023 Review: Cody's Rhode to WrestleMania

Welp, this show was certainly better than last year's.  By a wide margin.  WWE Royal Rumble 2023 was no instant classic PPV by any means, and WWE keeps insisting on tacking on thirty-plus minutes of nothing across their PPVs, thus stretching this 210-minute show to well over 240 minutes (Fortunately I didn't watch it live and I was able to fast-forward - I'm particularly glad I wasn't subjected to that Hardy country-rock shit).  But this Royal Rumble boasted one of the better Rumble matches they've ever done, plus a hot angle to close the show, which right away makes it one of the best Rumble PPVs of the last five years.  

For the first time in seemingly forever, the men's Rumble match had actual stories woven throughout and was designed to set up numerous WrestleMania matches, which is really the bare minimum that should be expected for any Rumble match.  If you just spend a little time creating and/or furthering individual conflicts and sprinkle those things across the hour-long Rumble match, that automatically makes it stand out from the others.  It gives everyone a reason to become invested and makes the 60-plus minutes fly by.  WWE did this in the men's Rumble this year.  Not so much with the women's unfortunately, but I'll take what I can get at this point.  The 2023 men's Royal Rumble was for me a top-five Rumble match, boosted by the work of Gunther, who entered at number one and was the last man eliminated, breaking the longevity record for a 30-man Rumble (Bryan Danielson still holds the overall record but that Rumble was a 50-man field).  Brock Lesnar entered surprisingly early and after a dominant few minutes was even more surprisingly ousted by Bobby Lashley, thus setting up their inevitable WrestleMania clash (Let's hope Brock-Bobby II is actually good).  Rey Mysterio no-showed his number 17 entrance and it became apparent when his son Dominik entered at 18 wearing Rey's mask that he was attacked backstage (in reality Rey was injured the night before on Smackdown, but this was a pretty good way to cover it up).  Other standouts included Sheamus and Drew McIntyre, who teamed up for most of their time together and looked dominant, Ricochet and Logan Paul, who provided one of the coolest-looking spots ever in a Rumble match, a simultaneous springboard leap that resulted in a massive midair collision, and of course Cody Rhodes, who made his triumphant return at number 30 and survived a brutal seven-minute finale with Gunther to win the whole thing.  This is how you book a Royal Rumble match.  Sadly it was the opening contest and the show never reached these heights again.  ****

Participants: Gunther, Sheamus, The Miz, Kofi Kingston, Johnny Gargano, Xavier Woods, Karrion Kross, Chad Gable, Drew McIntyre, Santos Escobar, Angelo Dawkins, Brock Lesnar, Bobby Lashley, Baron Corbin, Seth Rollins, Otis, (Rey Mysterio), Dominik Mysterio, Elias, Finn Balor, Booker T, Damian Priest, Montez Ford, Edge, Austin Theory, Omos, Braun Strowman, Ricochet, Logan Paul, Cody Rhodes

Final Four: Cody Rhodes, Gunther, Logan Paul, Seth Rollins

Long Man: Gunther (1:11:40)

Oscar Film Journal: Elvis (2022)

It's Oscar season once again, and that means it's time for me to resume my futile quest to see every Best Picture nominee of all time.  That's right, the Oscar Film Journal is back for its third season!  Of the ten brand new nominees I've only seen two thus far, starting with today's topic, Elvis....

Baz Luhrmann's stylish, epic biopic on the life of Elvis Presley (by way of Col. Tom Parker) is another energetic-to-a-fault entry in his Broadway-influenced filmography, full of lively music-driven set pieces and lots of kinetic cinematography, with a pretty stellar lead performance at its center.  Say what you will about the rest of the film (and I will), Austin Butler as the title character is basically note-perfect (no pun intended).  Butler splendidly captures Elvis's mix of good ol' boy southern charm and subversive sexual energy, admirably recreating what it must've been like for repressed 1950s audiences to glimpse this rockabilly powderkeg for the first time.  Elvis had a stage energy and physical presence like no other musical artist of his generation, and Butler gives every moment his all, disappearing into the role and earning every one of the season's accolades.

But as with the last biopic to earn an Academy Best Picture nod, Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis doesn't have a ton of depth beyond the main performance.  Yes the last hour of the film presents a compelling conflict between the iconic star who wants to do something more serious with his career and his parasitic manager who will do anything not to lose his meal ticket, but the first two acts feel like the usual Oscar-bait biopic tropes.  

WWE Royal Rumble 2023 Preview & Predictions

Oh it's Royal Rumble time again.  Weird...

Yeah, so this Saturday is WWE's second-most popular PPV of the year once again, the 36th edition of the Royal Rumble.  Aaaand, they've announced a combined total of 22 people for TWO Rumble matches (WWE's website didn't even bother to make up a graphic for either match).  Guys, I know everyone goes ga-ga over "surprise entrants" in these stupid matches these days, but you're taking it way too far now.  Back in MY day they'd announce the entire field ahead of time.  Did anyone complain that there were no surprises?  Nope.  Because the Rumble back then wasn't so much about cheap entrance pops as it was about kicking off WrestleMania season with a story.  Either a babyface was overcoming the odds or returning from injury to punch their ticket to the biggest main event of the year, or a dominant heel was making his mark on his way to conquering the babyface champion at the Show of Shows.  Plus numerous other 'Mania matches would be set up.  Ya know, STORYTELLING.  That thing WWE prides itself on, that today's Royal Rumble matches are totally lacking.  Last year's Rumble PPV featured not one but two surprise entrants going on to win their respective Rumbles, with literally nothing of interest happening aside from that.  No stories within each Rumble match, no real feuds set up or explored (aside from Sami Zayn vs. Johnny Knoxville, which sadly stole the show at 'Mania Night 2, very much by default).  Just a bunch of guys and women doing moves until it was time for the important folks to show up.  And from the looks of this year's lineup that's what they plan on doing again.  Yeah, let's just throw a buncha whoevers in there, the crowd will pop for the entrances, and then we don't have to bother telling an actual story.  Crap like this is why so many of us former diehard fans have deserted WWE over the years.  If the pops are so goddamn important, why not just turn the Rumble into an entrance pageant and save everyone an hour?

Anyway, here's the lineup for the 2023 Rumble....

Mountain Dew Pitch Black Match: Bray Wyatt vs. LA Knight

Yes, what screams "terrifying horror character" more than a match sponsored by Mountain fucking Dew?  "Everyone's favorite piss-colored soft drink presents SCARY GIMMICK MATCH!"  I have no idea what the rules of this shitshow are, nor do I much care.  The upshot is likely to be that Bray Wyatt under Triple H's creative direction isn't much more watchable than he was under Vince's creative direction.  Wyatt has crafted a great outside-the-box persona who can't pay off any of his unorthodox ideas in a wrestling match.  And really that's what everything is supposed to lead to.  You build a rivalry or a story, in a way that makes people want to see the two guys beat each other up in the ring.  When the payoff is cartoonish B-movie tropes instead of an engaging athletic contest, there's no payoff.

Pick: Wyatt, obviously

The 2022 Enuffa.com Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to the 9th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I celebrate the highs (and lows) of the year that was, inside the squared circle!

What a wild year 2022 was.  Like, pretty batshit crazy when you think about it all.  

The biggest story of the year was of course WWE kingpin Vince McMahon stepping down from his duties as Chairman amid a rash of sex scandals and payoffs.  In his place running the big picture stuff, are his daughter Stephanie (who only weeks before assuming this role had announced her intention to take time away from the business) and Nick Khan, while all-but-ousted protege Triple H was made the new head of Creative.  WWE's business thrived through the second half of the year as curiosity over the Vince situation and later Triple H's new direction drove up ratings for a while, and improvements in overall programming quality kept people lining up to buy tickets.  While I personally still find WWE's product very stilted and pretty unexciting, there's no denying that the company is doing very well right now, and Vince's legal woes have so far been a blessing in disguise.

UPDATE: Turns out Vince installed himself back on the Board of Directors so he can sell the company.  What a shit show.

On the other side of the fence, AEW experienced its first real growing pains in 2022, most of it stemming from the year's second-biggest story, the Brawl Out fiasco (but also due an unprecedented rash of talent injuries).  The scene was Chicago, just after their highly successful All Out PPV wherein hometown hero CM Punk had just defeated Jon Moxley to regain the AEW Title.  But then Punk proceeded to publicly bury the company and its Executive VPs over rumors that he'd gotten former friend Colt Cabana reassigned to Ring of Honor (more on them in a bit), which led to the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega going to Punk's dressing room to confront him.  What followed was all Hell breaking loose over the next several minutes, as Punk made the confrontation physical and half a dozen people had to step in and break up the melee.  Numerous details have been bandied about by both sides, but what an independent investigation confirmed was a) Punk threw the first punch at Matt Jackson, b) Punk's friend Ace Steel threw a chair at Nick Jackson, and c) Steel also bit Kenny Omega.  All parties involved were immediately suspended pending the investigation, and Steel was fired.  The months-long controversy surrounding the incident led many to believe Punk would never be seen on AEW television again and also seemed to hurt AEW's attendance (TV ratings were up and down over the rest of the year). 

However AEW does seem to have renewed their focus on pushing younger, homegrown talent and in recent weeks it feels like they've won back much of the goodwill Brawl Out lost them.  They also managed to draw five separate million-dollar live gates in 2022, including the Grand Slam episode of Dynamite.  No other wrestling company aside from WWE has ever done this, least of all for a weekly television episode (though to be fair a few of WCW's big gates do break a million when adjusted for inflation).

In AEW-adjacent news, Tony Khan also dropped the bombshell in 2022 that he'd purchased Ring of Honor and planned to create a new weekly show while also running new PPV events.  The first two ROH PPVs completely under Tony's banner were rousing successes for the company, drawing some of their best attendance figures and buyrates.  As for the new weekly show, it will be streamed on the relaunched Honor Club streaming service, which will also include the ROH library and new PPV events 90 days after they take place.  With a massive talent roster under his umbrella TK has more than enough stars to populate the stalwart promotion.

Across the Pacific, New Japan Pro Wrestling, once an annual lock for Best Promotion of the Year, again struggled to maintain the quality they'd so long been known for.  For the first time in nearly a decade their flagship PPV WrestleKingdom was a rather underwhelming affair, and the company's attendance, though slowly improving from pandemic numbers, was still not back to normal.  But help did arrive in the form of AEW, as the joint AEW-NJPW PPV Forbidden Door shattered expectations, selling out Chicago's United Center in minutes and drawing a highly respectable 125,000 buys.  More than enough to justify making the crossover an annual event.  Between their expanded collaboration with AEW and Japan's loosening of attendance and noise restrictions, 2023 should see NJPW regain their mojo, at least somewhat.

All four companies should be interesting to watch in 2023 on one level or another, and that's something I haven't said in a long time.  With WWE I'm intrigued to see how Triple H oversees WrestleMania season (if a potential company sale doesn't fuck it all up that is).  With AEW I'm excited to see which young stars truly rise to the top and become crossover sensations.  With ROH I'm hopeful they'll become more profitable than ever before.  And with NJPW I'm eager to see them get back to where they were pre-pandemic

But enough with all that, let's hand out some fake awards.....

 

NJPW WrestleKingdom 17: Omega vs. Ospreay

Welp, may as well give out the 2023 Match of the Year award now....

Not unlike what we saw exactly six years ago when Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada blew the roof off the Tokyo Dome and broke the star ratings system forever, Omega and Will Ospreay lived up to everyone's unreasonably high expectations and more, with a violent, story-driven epic that's apparently only the beginning of their feud.  Man, if this is part 1 I can't imagine what they have in store for the Forbidden Door rematch.

Omega-Ospreay served as the centerpiece for a very good WrestleKingdom show, one that didn't reach the heights of WK9, 10 or 11, but somewhat recaptured the magic of the glory years.  For the first time since pre-pandemic times, WrestleKingdom felt like a huge flagship show with a star-studded lineup, in front of an engaged audience of 26,000.  The six undercard matches were all kept short and fast-paced, while the final three bouts were given room to breathe and delivered big.  I'd have liked to see a few of the smaller matches get more time, but aside from one glaring example nothing felt terribly shortchanged.  

The main PPV kicked off in classic fashion with an energetic Jr. Tag Title match, as TJP and Francesco Akira defended against Yoh and a match-stealing Lio Rush, who took a nasty bump on the ramp that busted his eyebrow open.  It wouldn't be the first instance of blood on this show.  Rush came off like a big deal in the match but his team came up short when TJP countered Yoh's finisher into a cradle to retain.  Really fun opener that felt like a throwback to the 2015-2017 Jr. Tag openers.  ***3/4

NJPW WrestleKingdom 17 Preview & Predictions

After three years of two-night WrestleKingdom shows at the Tokyo Dome (with mixed results), NJPW is finally going back to the format that yielded some of the all-time great wrestling PPVs. 

Man, NJPW has been on the opposite of a hot streak since COVID started, but if ever a single PPV lineup had the potential to kickstart their product again, this WrestleKingdom 17 card is it.  The main show will feature ten bouts and include talent from both AEW and WWE (which I believe is a first for WrestleKingdom), not to mention one of the most hotly anticipated dream matches in many a year.  We'll also see the first wrestling-related appearance of the former Sasha Banks, post-WWE contract.  Mercedes Varnado is still everyone's prediction for Saraya's mystery opponent next week on Dynamite, but for now we'll get a public appearance to likely set up a match for the IWGP Women's Title.  On top of that, WK17 will include Keiji Muto's final NJPW match ever.  Lots of history to be made on this show, and on paper this lineup is PPV of the Year-caliber.  

Let's take a look.....

Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima and Togi Makabe vs. Tatsumi Fujinami, Minoru Suzuki and Tiger Mask

This legends six-man match is in tribute to the late Antonio Inoki and likely won't go very long, but should be a fun little way to open the proper show.  I'm gonna go with team Nagata to win and give everyone a nice warm feeling.

Pick: Nagata/Kojima/Makabe

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Catch 2/2 vs. Lio Rush & Yoh

Here's where the real show starts.  Rush and Yoh just took down the Super Jr. Tag League field to earn this title shot and I think they'll probably win here as well.  It'll be interesting to see if Lio Rush can make a run in NJPW work for him, he's been seemingly struggling to keep his head clear elsewhere.

Pick: LiYoh

IWGP Women's Championship: Kairi vs. Tam Nakano

This should be the first great match of the show, made that much bigger with the involvement of Mercedes.  Kairi's title win last month was pretty spectacular and I expect more of the same here.  It's too early to take the title off her, particularly if she's to face Varnado.

Pick: Kairi

Movie Review: Men (2022)

Cerebral British writer-director Alex Garland's latest opus Men is almost a cross between two recent psychological horror films, Darren Aronofsky's mother! and Ari Aster's Midsommar.  Like the former it is largely a parable meant to convey an easily relatable but perhaps too simplistically on-the-nose message, via nightmarishly disturbing imagery.  Like the latter it concerns a damaged woman on vacation, working through an unhealthy relationship (or in this case its aftermath). 

Men stars Jessie Buckley as Harper Marlowe, a widow who has rented a sprawling old house in the English countryside, and Rory Kinnear as the house's owner Geoffrey (among other characters).  Harper's backstory is doled out to us in dribs and drabs, and we learn that she and her husband (Paapa Essiedu) were headed for a contentious divorce when suddenly he fell from a balcony to a grisly death (Was it intentional or accidental?).  Throughout the film Harper experiences flashbacks to these horrific moments, providing some of the film's best-acted scenes.  

But quickly her vacation takes an unsettling turn as a naked, homeless man begins stalking her and at one point tries to break into the house.  Harper calls the police and the man is taken away, but her psychological trauma is far from over.  Of the plot I won't reveal any more, but this film certainly delivers the creeps in spades.

ROH Final Battle 2022 Preview & Predictions

Get ready, Ring of Honor fans, it's time for the Final Battle.....of 2022.

This Saturday afternoon marks the second ROH PPV under the Tony Khan regime, and once it's over we should finally at long last get some answers about the promotion's future programming.  Even as a longtime ROH fan I must say it's getting to be a lot, having essentially two promotions featured on AEW television.  Between having too many belts and having to find room for a whole other talent roster, it's made AEW programming very overcrowded.  I anticipate and welcome crossovers and talent exchanges between the two groups, but it needs to be done sparingly or it just gets overwhelming.  My hope is that ROH and its vast library find their new home on HBO Max.  The library alone will be so much fun to explore; I have dozens of their old DVDs but jumping around from disc to disc gets cumbersome.  Anyway, it will be interesting to see which AEW talent gets assigned to ROH full-time, if any.  It should also make Dynamite and Rampage into much more focused shows, which should help ratings.  But enough speculation, let's look at this PPV.

Swerve In Our Glory vs. Shane Taylor Promotions

I don't think I've ever seen Shane Taylor's team so I can't speak intelligently about them.  But SIOG is oddly teaming together after Keith Lee walked out on Swerve Strickland at Full Gear.  I guess they made up during that private conversation they referenced a few weeks ago.  It would be an odd move for their actual breakup to occur during this show as opposed to on Dynamite, but I suppose if you put a major AEW angle on an ROH PPV it conditions fans to not want to miss future ones.  Not really sure who to pick here - I guess Swerve?

Pick: SIOG

WWE Survivor Series: WarGames Preview & Predictions

This weekend it's WWE Survivor Series: WarGames edition!  Seems like an odd mashup of the main roster and NXT November shows, but for the first time in a few years I'm actively curious to see what the company does with what used to be my favorite gimmick PPV.

I gotta say, I think I'd be more excited if these two big matches were just old-fashioned Survivor Series elimination bouts.  WarGames is a cool concept but it's very one-dimensional and they kinda all go the same way.  One of the inherent flaws in Dusty Rhodes's brainchild is the bit where one team has a one-man advantage - such a format necessitates that the heels win the coin toss or the qualifying match every single time, in order to create heat and drama (When WWE has tried to subvert this trope it never works).  WWE could rectify this by adding one person from each team simultaneously throughout the match, to create more possibilities for how the match progresses.  But what do I know?  Anyway, both of these WarGames matches should be quite good given the talent involved, plus we have a huge singles rematch five years in the making, with Finn Balor vs. AJ Styles battling for Bullet Club leader supremacy (Kenny would smoke 'em both, incidentally).

But let's look at the lineup....

Smackdown Women's Championship: Ronda Rousey vs. Shotzi

Not sure why Shotzi is the challenger here, as she has a snowball's chance in Orlando of winning.  This will likely be short and one-sided.

Pick: Ronda retains

US Championship: Seth Rollins vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Austin Theory

Heh, remember when Theory was supposed to be the next coming of John Cena?  Good times.  Then they had him cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase for a title he'd already held.  And he came up short.  Pure dipshittery on ice.  It's possible he wins it here anyway, but man am I glad he's no longer being pushed like the next "it" guy.  I really just don't see anything special with him, aside from his being good looking.  I don't think Lashley wins the title here because he's likely heading for a rematch with Brock, so it's either Seth retaining or Austin winning the belt back.  Eh, I'll go with Seth.

Pick: Seth retains

AEW Full Gear 2022 Review: The MJF Era Begins

The MJF Era has officially begun, kids!  Everyone's favorite wrestling anti-hero finally fulfilled his destiny on Saturday, cheating as always to unseat Jon Moxley as the new AEW Champion.  It was a very fine main event to cap off a pretty great but long PPV.  

I've read a lot of criticisms of Full Gear 2022 saying it felt too long and wasn't strong enough all the way through to justify its four-hour (plus pre-show) running time.  I guess I'd agree with that to an extent, but I'll bet if you rearranged the match order and laid it out like a NJPW show, with the lesser, shorter bouts at the beginning, it would've felt shorter.  This is one issue I've had with North American PPV events for a while now.  When you sprinkle the big matches throughout the show instead of getting the smaller ones out of the way first, it makes the show feel longer.  The only match I could see being cut from this lineup was the Jade Cargill one, which I still thought was decent.  Everything else was solid to great, including the three Zero Hour bouts.  My biggest gripe is that the three best matches were in the first half, and the middle of the show suffered from not being able to clear that bar.  Fortunately the last three matches all delivered.

The PPV proper kicked off with Jungle Boy Jack Perry (who is apparently transitioning away from his Tarzan moniker) against Luchasaurus in the big cage match.  This was a helluva strong opener, with Perry using his superior agility early on to frustrate the big man but eventually bleeding after meeting the steel with his forehead.  Luchasaurus dominated the middle portion of the match and this often reminded me of Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel and later Shawn vs. Undertaker in the Cell.  Christian Cage picked the referee's pocket to get the keys to the cage and managed to unlock the door before being ejected.  This allowed Luchasaurus to take the fight outside, catapulting Perry into the cage and grabbing a table and some chairs to bring back in.  Perry was chokeslammed through a chair, but mounted a comeback and landed a scary-looking Shawn Michaels-esque elbowsmash off the top of the cage through the table.  One Snaretrap later, Luchasaurus tapped out, giving Jungle Boy the biggest win of his young career.  Excellent cage match.  ****1/4

AEW Full Gear 2022 Preview & Predictions

Fasten your seatbelts, AEW faithful, because this Saturday night is Full Gear!

Once again AEW presents a loaded PPV lineup, at a time when the company desperately needs to generate some positive buzz again.  It will be a big test, as it's the first PPV since the CM Punk debacle, moreover the first show of any kind since then with Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks back in the fold, and hopefully the big coronation of the company's breakout homegrown star(s).  As of right now they're closing in on another million-dollar live gate, and if they hit that number and also manage a good 130,000 PPV buys (which would put it in the same ballpark as All Out) one has to consider Full Gear a win.

On paper this looks like one of their more stacked PPVs, with nearly all of their available star power on hand and a slew of potential ****+ bouts.  Let's take a look....

Zero Hour: Brian Cage vs. Ricky Starks or Lance Archer

Obviously Ricky Starks will advance to the semifinals (and likely the finals) of this year's Eliminator tournament.  His medical issue was a blessing in disguise for this show, as it forced the company to push the tournament final back to next Wednesday, thus reducing the PPV lineup to ten matches.  That should probably be the rule going forward with these contender tourneys unless they boast the necessary star power.  Starks and Ethan Page are potentially both future main event guys, but they aren't there yet.  Anyway, Starks will get past former Team Taz stablemate Brian Cage on his way to Dynamite's showdown with Page.

Pick: Ricky Starks

Sting & Darby Allin vs. Jay Lethal & Jeff Jarrett

Look, I get that Jarrett probably has a lot of experience and wisdom to offer the company in an offscreen role, but I just can't see the benefit of featuring him on television.  He's been doing the same act since 1998 and it was never a draw even back then.  That said, this should be fine if it's kept in the ten-minute range.  Darby and Jay will provide the fast-paced action, Sting will provide the big pops, and Jarrett will hopefully provide the warm body to pin at the end.

Pick: Sting & Darby