Bodyslams!: Memoirs of A Wrestling Pitchman (PDF)

They’re held captive by the glamour and the grotesque of the oldest spectacle known to man. But the inquisitive public at large, along with a vast international network of pro wrestling aficionados, yearn for more than the intriguing soap opera scenarios and daring athleticism that they view every week on television and live at venues around the world. They want a behind-the-scenes view beyond what is routinely represented to the public. In short, curious observers and ardent wrestling fans will be captivated by what Gary Michael Cappetta has delivered in Bodyslams! Memoirs of a Wrestling Pitchman. A tome about one of those guys who rents a tuxedo and tells us who's about to enter the ring? How informative could that be? The answer is: “Very, if you open your mind and open the book.” Unenlightened fans may be quick to dismiss ring announcers when considering who is part of wrestling's inner circle. They fail to realize these people occupy the same locker rooms, hotels and vehicles as their athletic counterparts, and deal with the same bosses, road temptations and co-workers. Though a mike man shares only a fraction of the glory, he is definitely “one of the boys.” Originally a schoolteacher, Cappetta spent over 20 years working the wrestling arenas. Starting as a part-timer with the WWWF in 1974, when he was paid the sum of $25 per show, Cappetta stuck with it until he lost his spot in the asylum that was WCW in 1995. It would be an exaggeration to say Gary has known everyone and seen everything - but only a slight one. The author was in the thick of things when Vince McMahon began his take-no-prisoners national expansion, and later watched Verne Gagne destroy the once-mighty AWA and Eric Bischoff resurrect WCW. Who was there when the infamous hotel bloodbath between Arn Anderson and Sid Vicious erupted? Who wound up with Mick Foley's ear when it was torn off in Germany? The only witness to an incident wherein rookie Mark Callaway nearly sent Buzz Sawyer to meet a real undertaker? The one and the same G.M. Cappetta. Bodyslams! seamlessly weaves commentary about the business and the people who populate it, travel tales and insight into the personal life of its author. Unlike many other mat biographies, this is neither a boast or a bitch-fest―and there is no promotion behind the publication attempting to rewrite history to its liking. Bodyslams! is the first book to shed light on the dangerous games that both the performing wrestlers and their corporate employers play in order to acquire power, fame and wealth. The book runs chronologically and serves as both a history and an expose of American wrestling as Mr. Cappetta has witnessed during the three decades he spent as an announcer for America's two dominant wrestling promotions.

Download Now 

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (GBA)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a 2000 beat 'em up game developed by GameBrains and published by THQ. Based on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the game features Buffy Summers, who fights vampires, demons, and other supernatural entities as the Slayer. The player controls Buffy through eight side-scrolling levels, and gameplay centers on one-on-one fights with vampires.

Download Now 

Sentech's Freevision Delists eMedia's Openview Channels From Their Platforms

Sentech's Freevision which serves as one of the various rivals for eMedia Investments' Openview platform alongside PremiumFree TV started its services back in 2015. Similar to DStv's Easyview package, it mainly consisted of religious and provincial stations alongside various SABC and e.tv channels.

According to several consumers, e.tv channels had been ousted from the platform and this would include eExtra, eMovies and eToonz which serve as the initial offering on the platform. This would only leave mainly SABC channels particularly SABC 1-3, SABC Sport, SABC Education, SABC Lehae and SABC Variety.

eMedia Investments is already running through a similar hurdle with MultiChoice after they made the decision to exclude these services from DStv by 2022. Unlike Sentech's Freevision, these channels have a lot more viewers there of course with its pending demise one could say eMedia Investments is under siege.

With MultiChoice betting their odds on Showmax, Sentech had made similar pursuits with Freevision Play featuring a range of local content from various provincial stations some of which like Cape Town TV were exclusive to DStv.

Freevision Play taps into the same market as SABC+ and eVOD which is free and if we had to compare the three they're all winners in some way. Freevision Play has a catalogue of local content and TV channels, SABC+ is good for sports and local news and eVOD offers a mixture local and international content.

But the reality to all this only one out of three favour eMedia Investments and it's sort of this scenario of them being less reachable by fans. Right now, they're fighting to prevent analogue signals from going off the deep end as there's still households dependant on them for content and contribute to their ad revenue.

Michael Jackson's Relationship With Sonic The Hedgehog Explained

Yuji Naka has put an end to more than 25 years of mystery. The creator of Sonic has been scandalized on his social media before the latest compilation game of the character, the remarkable Sonic Origins, because it changes the soundtrack of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. And why has this detail bothered him so much? Because, as Naka himself admits, the original soundtrack was composed by Michael Jackson!

Michael Jackson in video games

Since the game was released back in 1994, rumors about the link between Michael Jackson and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 have been continuous. The singer was always an avowed fan of video games, appearing for the first time in three different versions of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker released for DOS, arcades and Master System. In these three games, based on the movie of the same name, Moonwalker, the King of Pop signed on as designer and composer. The title was a nice beat'em up with horizontal scroll in which we tried to rescue, through music and dance, several kids kidnapped by the clutches of the fearsome Mr. Big.

But they were not Michael's only cameo in the industry. If in Moonwalker we moved to the rhythm of Beat It and Smooth Criminal, in other games like Space Channel 5 and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 we also did the same thanks to Jackson's different cameos. But not content with his crossovers in his own works and collaborations, the artist also wanted to collaborate with the most popular character of the time: Sonic.

The romance between Sonic and Michael Jackson

An absolute fan of the blue hedgehog, there are many photos of Michael Jackson visiting the Sega offices in Japan. Images in which he appears accompanied by illustrious figures such as Mark Cerny, or playing the great classics of the time, such as Power Drift and Galaxy Force 2.

Considering their interest and that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 featured vintage composers like Bobby Brooks, Brad Buxer, Cirocco Jones, Darryl Ross, Doug Grigsby or Geoff Grace, how on earth did Sega want us to think that Michael Jackson wasn't also approached about the opportunity? The company denied it over and over again, he wasn't even in the credits, but more than a few users found reasonable resemblances between songs like Jam and game tunes like Carnival Night, or Stranger in Moscow and the game's credits.

Michael Jackson didn't like the result of Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Brad Buxer himself confirmed in a controversial interview that yes, indeed, if we noticed the imprint of the King of Pop it was because he had participated in it. "We did compose the music. Michael called me at the time for give him a helping hand on this project, and that's what I did. I've never played and I do not know what the developers have kept the tracks on which Michael and I have worked, but we did compose the music."

Many fans were reluctant to believe him because, then, what was the reason for excluding him from the credits? Why were the game producers denying his collaboration? According to the wonderful article Michael Jackson: The Video Game Conspiracy, it seems that the singer ended up dissatisfied with his work and removed his name from the credits of the game. Jackson didn't like the fact that they had to compress the music to make room for the graphics, as the mix didn't sound the way he wanted it to and he had to cut several tracks where the singer even beatboxed. The report claims that Sega got mad at him for that and started stating from then on that they had scrapped the whole thing.

Yuji Naka's statements close the story. They confirm what the report and Buxter's words told. Both hints seemed solid, but Sega stuck to its guns when they came out and never officially acknowledged the collaboration. The company claimed that both were not proof of anything, but how could they discredit the head of Sonic Team himself? So much for the unknown: the most famous musician in history and the most famous video game mascot of the 90s were best friends.

The story was originally published at Meristation

Comcast Considering Spinning Off TV Networks As More Households Opt For Streaming

During a tumultuous moment for the TV business, NBCUniversal owner Comcast says that it may pursue some major deals to adapt to the changing environment.

For starters, Comcast president Mike Cavanagh said that the company is weighing a spinoff of its cable networks, which include USA Network, Bravo, MSNBC, CNBC and Syfy. He emphasized that the NBC broadcast network and Peacock would remain with the core company.

“Like many of our peers in media, we are experiencing the effects of the transition in our video businesses, and have been studying the best path forward for these assets. We are now exploring whether creating a new well-capitalized company owned by our shareholders and comprised of our strong portfolio of cable networks would position them to take advantage of opportunities in the changing media landscape and create value for our shareholders,” Cavanagh told Comcast’s third-quarter earnings conference call on Thursday. “We are not ready to talk about any specifics yet, but we’ll be back to you if and when we reach firm conclusions.”

And he added that the company is interested in seeking a partner for its Peacock streaming service in a bid to grow the business.

“As you know, we chose not to participate in the M&A process around Paramount in the earlier part of this year, but we would consider partnerships in streaming despite their complexities,” he said.

Spinning out the cable channels would transform the company’s TV business and would lead to complications for MSNBC and CNBC, which are currently integrated into NBC News. Similarly, shows from Bravo (like Watch What Happens Live and the Real Housewives franchise) are popular on streaming service Peacock.

There has been speculation in the industry that a legacy company with cable channels could launch a rollup vehicle, something that could acquire other channels to build scale, giving it the ability to drive harder bargains with pay TV providers and pursuing other options in streaming.

Cavanagh declined to address that directly on the call, but said that if the company pursues a spinoff, it could “play some offense.”

On the streaming front, while Peacock has acceptable scale (it now has 36 million subscribers), Comcast clearly thinks that working with another partner can make it a more compelling competitor to Netflix. The two logical possible partners are Paramount+ — with executives there openly discussing a partnership — or Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max.

As for the choice to announce their decision to look into the possibilities, Cavanagh said that they wanted to disclose the idea to Wall Street early, rather than have it leak out later.

“The reason we’re announcing here is that we want to study it, there are a lot of questions to which we don’t have answers,” Cavanagh said. “So we want to do the work, with transparency around it, so that — as you know, rumors fly and the like, you know, we expect that — but we want our shareholders to understand what we’re willing to look at.”