I overslept again.
This happens from time to time with me, the guy who never overslept while he had a regular job to go to.
But now, things have kind of slowed down for me, and I really don’t have to get up like I did in the past.
I mean, I get up early enough as it is, but there is no urgency to rise as I once had, so sleep I do.
Such are the perks of being semi-retired … and yes, I still wish that I had found a job and that I would be working full time, but it simply wasn’t in the cards for me to do so.
So why did I oversleep today?
Last night, the WWE had its Hall of Fame broadcast, and while it doesn’t really have a physical Hall of Fame that you can go to and visit, it does have a Hall of Fame roster that includes wrestlers like Bruno Sammartino and Trish Stratus and the Undertaker and now, Kane and the Great Khali.
The broadcast was done virtually, of course, and two years were covered—2020 and 2021—because last year’s event was trashed because of COVID.
Yes, even something as unreal as pro wrestling is impacted by something as real as the coronavirus.
Combining the two years made for a three-hour broadcast on the new Peacock Network, which has taken over the online broadcast of major WWE events, including this one and Wrestlemania this weekend.
That is a story in itself.
Critics said that the WWE Network was doomed to failure for a number of reasons, one of them being that wrestling fans would not have to pay for the lucrative pay per views anymore, as it was included in the basic $9.99 a month package to get the network.
But millions of people around the world signed up for the network, totally negating the belief, more than making up for those who did not sign up for the service, and who could still get the pay per views individually if they wanted them.
The WWE Network became an unacknowledged trailblazer in sports programming—much like the porn industry became the unacknowledged trailblazer in the home video industry—and it was an unqualified success.
But its recent pairing with NBC’s Peacock Network has given it a broader, more mainstream stance, and while the WWE Network still exists, certain events can only be found on the Peacock Network, including the Hall of Fame special.
As an original WWE Network subscriber, I have to say that I am a bit annoyed at WWE for taking that unique platform basically away from people like myself and my son, but I guess that is how the ball bounces, and yes, we did sign up for the Peacock Network, which offers a lot of other programming, including older TV shows, movies and other new shows that you can only get on that site.
Personally, I went through what they had and had no interest, but these types of sites are the wave of the future starting now, and you have to be in it to win it, and that is what WWE’s thinking is.
So my son and I watched the three-hour WWE Hall of Fame show last night, saw all the old wrestlers being inducted, and saw the current crop of grapplers praising them, some in their current characters, and others simply as people, human beings and fans, not the cartoon characters that they portray on screen every week.
It is always a fun night, and even virtually, it kept our interest, and I, personally, stayed up for the entire show, matching my son for once.
Thus, it was around 11 p.m. when it was over, and I simply wasn’t tired, so I stayed up a bit, not going into the bed for 11:30 p.m. or so.
I checked out the score of the New York Yankees game—they won, 7-2 over the Baltimore Orioles in a game that I saw only four innings of before deferring to the Hall of Fame broadcast—and then I went into dreamland.
So yes, I overslept today, but at least I had a good reason to sleep a little late today.
As I have said many times, professional wrestling is the current equivalent of the old three-ring circus.
It is in a world of its own, an alternative reality that really amounts to soap opera for males, although an increasing number of females are also joining up with their male counterparts to make this the worldwide phenomenon that it is.
It is fun, a diversion from reality, and it like watching a TV show that you love and making believe that, say, William Shatner is really “Captain Kirk” in real life … and sometimes those people do, in fact, become their characters …
And oh, that’s right, one of the WWE Hall of Fame inductees last night was …
William Shatner.
Don’t ask, please don’t ask.
This happens from time to time with me, the guy who never overslept while he had a regular job to go to.
But now, things have kind of slowed down for me, and I really don’t have to get up like I did in the past.
I mean, I get up early enough as it is, but there is no urgency to rise as I once had, so sleep I do.
Such are the perks of being semi-retired … and yes, I still wish that I had found a job and that I would be working full time, but it simply wasn’t in the cards for me to do so.
So why did I oversleep today?
Last night, the WWE had its Hall of Fame broadcast, and while it doesn’t really have a physical Hall of Fame that you can go to and visit, it does have a Hall of Fame roster that includes wrestlers like Bruno Sammartino and Trish Stratus and the Undertaker and now, Kane and the Great Khali.
The broadcast was done virtually, of course, and two years were covered—2020 and 2021—because last year’s event was trashed because of COVID.
Yes, even something as unreal as pro wrestling is impacted by something as real as the coronavirus.
Combining the two years made for a three-hour broadcast on the new Peacock Network, which has taken over the online broadcast of major WWE events, including this one and Wrestlemania this weekend.
That is a story in itself.
Critics said that the WWE Network was doomed to failure for a number of reasons, one of them being that wrestling fans would not have to pay for the lucrative pay per views anymore, as it was included in the basic $9.99 a month package to get the network.
But millions of people around the world signed up for the network, totally negating the belief, more than making up for those who did not sign up for the service, and who could still get the pay per views individually if they wanted them.
The WWE Network became an unacknowledged trailblazer in sports programming—much like the porn industry became the unacknowledged trailblazer in the home video industry—and it was an unqualified success.
But its recent pairing with NBC’s Peacock Network has given it a broader, more mainstream stance, and while the WWE Network still exists, certain events can only be found on the Peacock Network, including the Hall of Fame special.
As an original WWE Network subscriber, I have to say that I am a bit annoyed at WWE for taking that unique platform basically away from people like myself and my son, but I guess that is how the ball bounces, and yes, we did sign up for the Peacock Network, which offers a lot of other programming, including older TV shows, movies and other new shows that you can only get on that site.
Personally, I went through what they had and had no interest, but these types of sites are the wave of the future starting now, and you have to be in it to win it, and that is what WWE’s thinking is.
So my son and I watched the three-hour WWE Hall of Fame show last night, saw all the old wrestlers being inducted, and saw the current crop of grapplers praising them, some in their current characters, and others simply as people, human beings and fans, not the cartoon characters that they portray on screen every week.
It is always a fun night, and even virtually, it kept our interest, and I, personally, stayed up for the entire show, matching my son for once.
Thus, it was around 11 p.m. when it was over, and I simply wasn’t tired, so I stayed up a bit, not going into the bed for 11:30 p.m. or so.
I checked out the score of the New York Yankees game—they won, 7-2 over the Baltimore Orioles in a game that I saw only four innings of before deferring to the Hall of Fame broadcast—and then I went into dreamland.
So yes, I overslept today, but at least I had a good reason to sleep a little late today.
As I have said many times, professional wrestling is the current equivalent of the old three-ring circus.
It is in a world of its own, an alternative reality that really amounts to soap opera for males, although an increasing number of females are also joining up with their male counterparts to make this the worldwide phenomenon that it is.
It is fun, a diversion from reality, and it like watching a TV show that you love and making believe that, say, William Shatner is really “Captain Kirk” in real life … and sometimes those people do, in fact, become their characters …
And oh, that’s right, one of the WWE Hall of Fame inductees last night was …
William Shatner.
Don’t ask, please don’t ask.
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