Rant #2,185: I Don't Want To Miss a Thing

I'm back ...

This was kind of a laid-back weekend for myself and my family, in particular with myself and my wife off on Friday.

But it only came off the hook when watching the latest edition of the Yankees-Mets Subway Series clash in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium, which was supposed to take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Yankees had previously taken two of three at CitiField, and hoped to improve upon that mark back at home.

They ended up splitting the first two games that were played, but the focus seemed to be not on the games, but on the Mets' ineptitude when it came to handling injuries to its players.

A final game in the series might take away the shine on that, but it was never played, with the New York City area experiencing what amounted to a weekend nor-easter that dumped lots of rain and accelerated winds on the Big Apple, but not that much nearby, like where I live on Long Island.

Anyway, with no game to be played on Sunday--with the makeup scheduled for August 13--what could we do to while away the now open evening?

My son and I watched "Slammiversary 2018," Impact Wrestling's annual showcase of their top talent, which was broadcast yesterday evening from Toronto, Canada.

As I have said in the past, Impact Wrestling is the No. 2 wrestling group in the country, but it is really like talking about David and Goliath, because WWE Wrestling is so huge. If WWE has about 95 percent of the audience, Impact is really lucky to get 5 percent of the domestic wrestling audience, and it probably doesn't even get that.

But if that makes it Hertz to WWE's Avis (or is it the other way around), it simply means that Impact tries harder with its group of talented male and female wrestlers.

It offers a unique product, because it has working relationships with a number of other wrestling alliances around the world, so it brings much more international talent to its weekly TV show on the Pop Network than WWE does, and these shows, while scripted just like WWE's shows are, are often more outside the box and for lack of a better expression, more "out there" than the WWE product, which is geared to families.

Impact is geared to young males in the 15 to 35 year old age frame, so few punches are pulled to how it delivers its product. It is much more violent than WWE currently is, replicating how WWE was maybe 20 or 25 years ago, right before its product became mainstream.

Anyway, we watched that show last night--I managed to watch the first two hours before dozing off--and I have to say that Impact does try to put on something different from WWE, and it mostly succeeds.

Its talent is not as well known as WWE's is, but it offers as much action as it possibly can for a more mature audience.

Winners last night included "Johnny Impact"--the former John Morrison and Johnny Nitro from WWE who is going to become known to mainstream fans with his upcoming appearance as a contestant on "Survivor," which became the big newsworthy announcement on the show last night--and other wrestlers who are well known to wrestling fans, including Tessa Blanchard, Eddie Edwards--in the bloodiest match of the evening, beating former WWE star Tommy Dreamer--Brian Cage, Su Yung, the LAX tag team, Pentagon Jr., and former WWE wrestler Austin Aries, who defeated former NFL player Moose for the Impact Wrestling World Title.

The show was good, fast moving and interesting.

No, it was not a WWE pay per view, so it did not have all the glitz and glamor that that type of show provides. There are lots of rough edges on the Impact product, all of which makes it impressive.

So for a night that could have been a dead one, my son and I ended up being fully engaged, which is a good thing, a nice end to the weekend.

Now, onto another engaging workweek.