Tuesday, December 15, 2020

A little of this and a little of that

Fox has had a promotion this season on Fox NFL Sunday and Big Noon Saturday where viewers can go on the apps on their phones, pick 6 games, and if they win, they get some serious cheddar.

On Fox NFL Sunday, however, it seems that the "Super 6" promotion is ripping off a Comedy Central game show from the 90's.

You see, senior commentator Terry Bradshaw, the Hall of Fame QB of the Pittsburgh Steelers, is giving away $100,000 of "his own money". They give away $1,000 on Saturdays.


"Didn't someone do this before?"

Yes, they did. And that someone was Ben Stein.


Comedy Central got a few good years out of Win Ben Stein's Money, the same show from whence Fox plucked Jimmy Kimmel back in 1999 so that Kimmel could be their in-house handicapper, a gig Kimmel had until leaving for ABC in 2002. His cousin, Sal Iacono, is the current court jester/handicapper, having replaced Rob Riggle this season. Sal also debuted on Win Ben Stein's Money, after Nancy Pimental left the show (she was Kimmel's successor), and has been on cousin Jimmy's talk show.

I am begging ESPN to bring in Stein, if they haven't done it already, to test his football smarts on College GameDay someday.

As for Fox's "Super 6", if you ain't got the app, you're screwed. Shame on Fox.
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Following up on a recent story, Texas high school sports star Emmanuel Duron's senior athletic season is over.


Duron was not only arrested for assaulting a referee in a recent game, but he has been banned from participating in other sports, including wrestling, for the rest of the school year. A harsh punishment, true, and Duron has apologized for his heat-of-the-moment actions. The final takeaway is that this would be a life lesson learned the hard way.

By the same token, Cleveland Browns defensive lineman Myles Garrett was suspended for a violent incident involving Pittsburgh QB Mason Rudolph last year. This year, Garrett has turned his life around, and is a nominee for the NFL's Walter Payton Man of The Year Award, sponsored by Nationwide Insurance (which means Nationwide shill Peyton Manning will probably present the award). 

We're praying Duron uses this as a motivating point to erase the stigma of his 15 minutes of infamy.
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I've said for years that WWE CEO/Chairman/head nutcase Vince McMahon has needed to retire, despite his public declaration to the contrary.

Evidence remains that he is still creatively out to lunch.

Consider the sitch on Raw involving women's tag team champions Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax. For nearly three months, they have bullied and abused Lana (Catherine Perry-Barnyashev), putting her through the announcers' desk on several occasions. Raw women's champion Asuka has come to Lana's defense, but on Monday, after Lana defeated Jax in a singles match, Baszler ambushed Asuka backstage, leading to Lana getting abused again.

I honestly don't know what the end game is here, but the message is clear. Lana's been scratched from a tag title match scheduled for Sunday at TLC, which says that McMahon doesn't really have as much faith in Lana as he claims to. Her husband, Miro (formerly Rusev), is now with All Elite Wrestling, and many speculate that this is the reason for Lana being bullied and abused on television.

While the Be a Star anti-bullying program, which WWE has been involved with for nearly a decade, isn't getting as much play in recent years, it's still a thing. McMahon loves to recycle storylines, and this is one of them. It's rare, though, to see an underdog story done in the women's division. However, this has gone far enough, and needs to reach its end sooner rather than later.

Bottom line: While there is no place for bullying in today's society, McMahon would rather continue to use that trope, regardless of consequence.

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