Another Black Friday is in the books, and as usual, it didn’t disappoint. Not so much for anything I bought of course, but rather for the unbridled fun of simply going out and watching slightly insane being, well, slightly insane. I say ‘slightly’ because honestly, in all my years of venturing out, I very rarely felt in any actual danger (well, except that year that some dude at Walmart pulled out a giant knife so he could cut open unopened packages instead of waiting for an employee to do so). It’s more of “this is an actual person in the world in which I live, and I get to experience them being a goofball in the hopes of getting a ‘deal’ on something.
So Mrs. Deal and I headed out and as has become our custom, it’s been a little later each year. I mean, Black Friday ain’t what it used to be – you can get most of the deals online, so there’s not a massive advantage to standing in line outside of Best Buy at 4am like we used to do. Still, we went out and got a couple of things, and we wound up at the mall about 9am. Now the mall on Black Friday isn’t anyone’s first choice I don’t think. It’s the place you go after you’ve hit the biggies (Walmart, Target, Kohl’s) and figured, “Hey, I’m up, might as well see what that place has to offer.” I wasn’t expecting huge crowds there as in the past, but let me tell you, it was still hoppin’! Mrs. Deal wanted to check out Old Navy, which is the ultimate in take it or leave it places for me, so I decided to go hang out at the food court instead. All the restaurants were open whether they served breakfast or not. You want a sausage biscuit? No problem. However if you want a 9″ slab of pizza, we’ve got you covered there too. Even the Chinese place was open, and that’s where our fun begins.
If you’ve ever been to a mall food court Chinese place, you know the drill – it’s a cafeteria style serving line where you can tell the person behind the counter what you want. Eggrolls, rice, and five kinds of chicken in a sauce that it’s likely been swimming in since last weekend. Most of them also have someone out offering free samples and nine times out of ten, it’s for Bourbon Chicken. Not sure why that is the freebie of choice, but always seems to be at least in my neck of the woods. On Black Friday however, they were very slow to offer the samples, and that had one guy hovering about in a somewhat menacing manner. He didn’t SAY anything, but his physical movements told the story – he was ready to pounce on his prize like a hungry lion. After about five minutes of no freebies, I saw him wander off and thought little more of it. However, a couple minutes later he came BACK and his pacing was ever the more frantic. And it almost felt like the workers at the Chinese place were like, “you know what weirdo, NO BOURBON CHICKEN FOR YOU!” in the weirdest game of poker ever. Finally, FINALLY, the guy get his little one ounce cup of greasy chicken. You’d think he would slowly chew and enjoy it but no – he just tilted his head back and downed it like a shot at the local pub. He then vanished, never to be seen again. I’m really underselling the weirdness of all this but suffice to say, THIS is Black Friday. And I can’t wait until next year to experience it again. Onto the mailbag!
David B kicks us off with…”Does the Blacktop Bully deserve his own induction like mentioned in King of the Road, or is there just not enough material there?”
I think I’d be onboard with doing a deep dive on the Bully, yeah. Not sure there’s a ton of material, but Barry Darsow always threw everything he had into a character. That’s something I largely missed back in the day and it’s always fun to look back and see just how wacky he was actually being.
Tim S wants to know…”Question: What would be a logical reason to hold onto a time out in the 4th quarter with 32 seconds left on the clock and your just outside field goal range to tie and force overtime on Thanksgiving. Asking for a Windy City…….”
I watched that game and was absolutely gobsmacked. You can blame Eberflus all you want (and RIGHTLY SO!), but at some level Williams had to have some concept of time management and do, well, ANYTHING. Just standing around to watch the game end was completely baffling.
Dan T takes us back to the dark ages with…”Who handled the empty venue pandemic era better, AEW or WWE?”
I guess I’d say AEW, but both kinda sucked. And to be fair, it was not their fault at all. They played the hand they were dealt the best they could, I just preferred a dozen life people to the Thunderdome, which looked like something out of some wacky low budget sci-fi film. Again, though, I was not a fan of either
Chad A asks…”Have you seen the WWE Vault channel? It’s a Godsend and what they should’ve been doing with the Network from the beginning”
LOVE the Vault! It’s actually led to at least one induction (WCW Nitro Grill opening) with more to come I am sure. That’s the kind of stuff I’ve dreamed of seeing, nice to see them rewarding my years of patience.
David B wants to know…”If you could make a Tuesday Night Titans style segment with any AEW wrestler who and what would it be?”
I think RJ City does a great job with this with the Hey EW show.
The one with Beast Mortos is worth it just to hear about his first piercings!
Sean B asks…”What are your thoughts on the Blade Braxton approved Detroit Lions season this year?”
Thrilled of course! Every week I tell Mrs. Deal I wish Blade was here to see this.
Charles B wants to know…”What would you say is the perfect length for a ppv in your opinion?”
No more than three hours. I really think you start to lose a crowd after that. And no TV show should be more than two EVER. I hear rumblings of all the WWE and AEW shows going to three hours on their new platforms and all I can think is how horrible Raw was when it went to three hours.
Rafique T wraps us up with…”I hate to even bring life to this, but any thoughts on the Ricky Starks situation in AEW? Is your tree up yet?”
I have zero idea what is going on with Starks, which is kinda the case with the promotion as a whole right now. So many things are just not working despite having an incredible roster putting on amazing matches. I really think it’s time to pull the plug on the Moxley thing and have someone beat him for the strap and move on. Logic would say that Kenny Omega or maybe Eddie Kingston coming out of the blue would be fun, but honestly it’s time to stop playing around and put the rocket on Will Ospreay. He’s by far your best worker and the guy that was on fire earlier this year, only to see him cooling off with each program he’s inserted into. Rant over. And the tree is going up right after I finish this column…which is right now in fact! 🙂
That’s our fun for this week! Keep sending in questions and I’ll keep answering ’em!