Wrestling: Diva Gail Kim to the WWE?

Gail Kim - WWE bound?

So I never mentioned I also enjoy professional wrestling?  Shame on me.  I loved wrestling as a child and tweener.  I was totally into the WWF, WCCW, NWA, UWF, AWA, and so many other quirky promotions.

Then as a late teenager and college student, I drifted away from pro-wrestling.  It wasn’t until the later half of 1996 did I get back into wrestling and boy did the landscape ever change.  There seemed to only be the WWF and and WCW now on what was then dubbed the ‘Monday Night Wars’.  Some of the classics like Hulk and Sting were still there, but I was introduced to a whole new roster of characters such as The Rock, and Steve Austin and even came across a hardcore promotion called ECW (a far cry from the current brand that carries the ECW name…a bloody shame at that too).

The only women I knew were still Miss Elizabeth, Fabulous Moolah and a few others.  by the early part of this decade the landscape changed yet again.  Now there was Victoria, Molly Holly, Daphne, Sable, and Sunny just to name a few.  They took on much more active rolls and started developing and showcasing their skills.  Among that batch was Gail Kim.  In a fluke accident on the night she debuted in 2002, Gail Kim captured the WWF Women’s title when then champion Jazz was injured (legit).  She stayed with WWF/WWE until 2004 when she was let go and ended up in TNA.

In TNA she was paired with Jeff jarret as a heel valet for quite some time, and then went up to be a valet for the tag team America’s Most Wanted.  Unfortunately while she played a great heel, her in-rings talents were limited to interference and run-ins.

Thankfully in 2007 she more or less began a turn to ‘baby-face’ as TNA was beginning to really launch it’s women division, headlined by Gail Kim and Awesome Kong.  Whereas many scoff at the WWE womens division where the most talented, like Victoria, didn’t get a puch, they would elevate the lamest girls who couldn’t wrestle, and were even worse actresses.  In TNA however, the women’s division actually seemed to mean something.  Gail’d fued with Kong was epic, and the women’s matches overall were much more exciting that what ever WWE was doing at the time.

However, as of yesterday, August 20th, it appears Gail Kim and TNA have parted ways.  TNA has removed Gail Kim from their website in a matter of hours.  I can only assume that WWE made her a really good offer, one she couldn’t refuse.  It probably didn’t help that lead TNA writer/booker Vince Russo has recently watered down the TNA women’s division in recent weeks.  There’s been a lot more gimmick matches and silliness going on that detracts from the strong debut of the TNA Women’s division this past year.  With the likes of Moose, ODB, Roxie, and the Beautiful People, perhaps Gail saw a disaster coming and decied to jump ship.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks, if Gail does indeed re-debut with the WWE and gets a push and hopefully not lost in the ever changing WWE roster debacles, or how the TNA division holds up in credibility with the loss of one of it’s best female performers.

Comics: New Avengers #43

Captain Skrull? - Get this book.

Wow.

In a word: Wow.  The whole Secret Invasion is so well executed over at Marvel right now I don’t know how they are gonna top this in the future.  The original idea was not that original, but they way Marvel is able to execute both the main story, the individual on-shots, and all the tie-in books is phenominal.  In my opinion, it just blows away last years Civil War, World War Hulk, and the prior M-day events.  The idividual talents of the writers and artists is to be highly commended because everything just seems to fit so much better than anything DC is putting out now in Final Crisis.

This issue is a great tie-in issue which further explores and explains how some of the Skrulls infiltrated the Marvel universe and took over some of the top heros and impersonated them.  Whil much of the book takes place in the Savage Land during current storyline arc, there is just enough great background and origin information in flashback sequences (ala LOST) you can really understand the motivation and depth of the Skrull Queen’s plans and mindset.  You see and understand just how much the Skrulls are willing to sacrifice and what they are willing to do to achieve their goals.  And it’s actually scary and fascinating at the same time.

There is some excellent dialogue moments with Spiderman and how he reacts to seeing Captain America (whom everyone thinks is dead) in the Savage Land.  The resoultion of these events is shocking, all the way laced with Peter’s wit and sensibilities.  I’d react the same way which just makes Peter Parker that so much more believable and acceptable to the reader.

And what was great as this was a fabulous story all contained within the Savage Land, leaving the other books to deal with the larger story.  I guess you could say this was a complimentary book in every definition of the term, but not needed, but greatly appreciated to the Secret Invasion.

Wii’re here.

Finally, it’s here.  Persistence paid off.

Today at about 10:07am PST, I was able to secure myself a Wii Fit for the non-blackmarketed, eBay speculatative price of $89.95. 

I was able to leave work for 10 minutes as the store is just down the street and they open at 10:00am.  They receive shipments on Mondays and Thursdays and so after the last six weeks or checking, they had three of them and I got my grubby little hands on one of them.

It’s actually kind of heavy in the box.  Anyway, it’ll be a surprise to my wife that I got a hold of one today out of the blue, and hopefully by the weekend I can begin to devote 15-20 minutes a few times a week for some in-home exercise that will help compliment the Lindora diet I’m currently on (BTW: I’ve lost 4 lbs in the first two weeks), though I cheated today with a chicken burrito, chips & salsa and a single fish taco for lunch….too many carbs.