If you've been a long time reader, friend, or passerby, you know of the quest every D Days...the quest to find...Tom Brokaw.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with D Days, ( I actually get readers not from this area, which leads me to think two things. 1. That's awesome. 2. What is wrong with you!? Just kidding, keep reading!) D Days is my alma mater's yearly parade/reunion/football game/drunkfest that happens at the beginning of every October. We've covered it before here, so that will be the last refresher.
The running joke for the past few years has been #findbrokaw. That plan would ultimately serve two purposes. A promotion for this website (the first year we actually put #findbrokaw pictures around campus, even though I didn't live here at the time. The winner got...haha NOTHING! There was a shot of liquor promised, plans fell through, I'll still pay up if you find me) and second, to somehow find Tom Brokaw and buy him a drink.
Did we find Tom Brokaw? Yes, yes we did. Was it at D Days? Well...
Not exactly. He was here to promote his book basically at a discussion on our campus about Russia's influence on the election (I'm sure some Trump's avoided it, thinking it's fake news and all...). But a few things before we get in to who we find next? Brokaw was found, just a few weeks later. Is he going to be back at D Days? Who knows? He's getting older, he seems to have claimed the University of Iowa now (stupid, I know), and he may have had some bad press this past year...so we found him. It's time to move on to a new hashtag find (#find!).
But who? Who should we set our sights on trying to find this year for Dakota Days? I have compiled a list to figure out just that (oddly with current events, I've found everyone I've needed to find this past year, but you'll find that out in a future blog)!
Let's begin with the obvious.
Jim Abbott
Still the greatest USD president of all time! Will he be here? Yeah, probably. Will he be hard to find? Yeah...probably not, huh? But will it be worth it. Duh.
This dude is the Bret Hart (look it up) of presidents, the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. He will be under strong consideration.
John Thune
That's gonna be a hard pass (pun both intended and not intended). Also can you believe this photo exists!? Incredible.
Eugene
Eugene is going to be there!? I'm so down on this. Eugene, you might be reading this blog, so I'm going to find you, I'm going to buy you a shot, and then we're gonna talk which one of your wrestlers needs a charismatic manager.
All white suit. Maybe I'll have a walking cane with powder in it? Just a thought. We'll discuss at D Days after Pro Wrestling at the Eagles in Vermillion, SD at 6 PM!
The Squabbit
It's time for you to show your face buddy! I heard about you in 2005. Why haven't I seen you, huh!? Who are you avoiding? What are you avoiding!? The guy DEFINITELY is gone who told us about you. He's probably living, hopping train to train just to avoid the memory of you...and I want to know why!
Mary Hart
We can't get Pat O' Brien for obvious reasons (seriously Pat, come back! We have Pepsi), so let's go with Sioux Falls own, Mary Hart. Why haven't you been to a D Days Mary!? Maybe they could make you like a parade marshal or something!?
On a related note, we need a big name to come every year and be our parade marshal. If SDSU can get Joey Fatone for a pillow fight, you're frickin' right we can get Chris Kirkpatrick. He's not doing anything, I know this, my cousin met the guy!
I'll even take him with or without the haircut.
Finally...the main event. Who do we need to find this D Days you may ask!?
Kyle Jensen
This photo is the reverse photo of the John Thune one.
In my experience there is a Mount Rushmore of USD sports fans. In no particular order its:
1. President Abbott
2. Nick "Tick" Severson
3. Bad Green
4. Kyle Jensen
This man should be flown in the night before the parade every single year. It's not that expensive. People should pool money together to bring him and his family out here, just so their kid can get some candy in the parade. Then get him the heck out of here the next morning. He will be the D Days version of Santa Claus, except instead of gifts he will come bearing U S D Coyotes!!!! chants.
Let's make this happen.
If you have anyone I missed, feel free to comment on my FB page, or in the comment section here.
What's coming up next on this site? Two things... a new "Favorite. Biggest. Best" with a twist. And the long awaited "People Who Need to Go"...that one won't make anyone mad...
We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcasting of top 4 lists, hating Facebook and Trump and humble bragging about my sperm working to bringing you a blog about the WWE DRAFT!
YEAH! I know what you're thinking, a draft for a "fake" wrestling show. Yup. Because if you know me, I like professional wrestling and I like drafts. Drafts of all kinds (non-military)! So I would like to give you non-wrestling fans the opportunity to depart right now (thanks for the website hit!). Later this week I'll play Nintendo and take some pictures, and boom, back to normal. Until then...
For those of you still around. Let's do this! Because this is a really interesting time for the land of the written reality. Splitting up the two shows and going separate ways is the best thing for their business. Getting new match-ups and some fresh stories is essential. So I've decided to do a top 10 (see, still a list!) of who will get picked. Later this month we'll do a Fantasy Football one of these too, so get used to this.
First let's begin with some people who will just miss the top 10, but I want to list because they are awesome anyway. In no particular order:
- Shinsuke Nakamura (will be in NXT for a bit, but if he's called out tomorrow I"ll probably yell out loud at home, he's amazing).
- Brock Lesnar (he's a part timer, and he just got busted for roids, so top 10? Who knows? But not worth it).
- Cesaro (one of the best performers on the show, except for the whole talking thing).
- Rusev (two reasons, he's awesome is first, second: Lana)
- Finn Balor (he'll be picked tomorrow for sure, and that's exciting, but not top 10 material, he's like drafting Tom Brady in Fantasy Football, you know he's a stud, but there's better positions to fill first).
- Sami Zayn (he's awesome, a future champion, but not happening in the top 10)
- Charlotte (she's Ric Flair's daughter, kind of a b on the show, current champion, but there's better women out there).
- Paige (if you read this site, you know this pains me, I AM SO SORRY PAIGE!!!!).
So let's get in to this top 10 shall we?
10. Big Cass
Big Cass is awesome. His tag team partner is this guy:
They just scream pro wrestling. Unfortunately, they are both so awesome, I can see them being split up. It just makes sense...sadly.
So Big Cass goes his separate ways from Enzo. Who knows, maybe they'll let his girlfriend Carmella come along for the ride.
Either way, Cass wins. 9. The New Day
Apparently not all tag teams get split up so...... you gotta keep these guys together.
If they are broken up, people will revolt. I mean seriously, they bring a trombone to the ring. A TROMBONE!!!
They have unicorn heads and talk about everything from Lil Boosie to Pokemon. Keep them together.
NEXT!
8. Sasha Banks
She is the most popular girl on their show, best female wrestler and hall pass of Brad Simons.
She is also Snoop Dogg's cousin, so again Sasha, if you're reading this, give this guy a chance!!!
You are the best girl on the show, number 8 in the draft you go Sasha! Sorry Paige! I AM SO SORRY!
7. Bray Wyatt
This is a guy who they've been f'ing around with the past few years. He always loses big matches.
Then they have him come back and start another feud, just to lose it again. This guy should be awesome, I mean look at him!
He is simply terrifying.
Fact is, he's supposed to be the new Undertaker, so let's start treating him like it.
6. A.J. Styles
The best performer on their show all year? Dean Ambrose? Roman Reigns? Nope. It's the guy from TNA who looks like Billy Ray Cyrus.
He is definitely a top 10 pick. He's the equivalent to taking Drew Brees with a top 10 pick if you want to get in comparisons. A bit older but still awesome. 5. Kevin Owens
Kevin Owens possibly might be my favorite person on the show. He's kind of a Stone Cold Steve Austin kinda character. He's great. His Twitter is legit awesome. And he looks like he can kick almost anyone's ass.
Whoops, wrong picture.
Easily a main eventer for years to come.
4. John Cena
Let's get this outta the way. John Cena is this generations Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold. He seems to legitimately be one of the nicest guys out of the ring with his Make-A-Wish visits. He also is in a lot of good movies and surprisingly good in them. Also, also (also squared) he was a great host of the ESPY's last week.
With that being said, he's getting old. He's not top 3. And his character needs to follow the likes of Hogan and Austin and become an unbelievable heel (bad guy for those of you who decided to read this blog who don't know the lingo).
3. Roman Reigns
I dislike him immensely but I see the appeal, kinda like Justin Bieber. He will eventually be their number 1 guy if he learns how to talk and stops using steroids.
Seriously, stop pushing him down our throats.
2. Dean Ambrose
He is the current champion. He's my favorite, characterwise he's great. He's like a new Roddy Piper, minus the kilt.
RIP RODDY! So Ambrose is damn near the complete package. He's great. There's only one better than him. But don't worry because you have the coolest interview person ever Ambrose.
1. Seth Rollins
He's the new Shawn Michaels.
I should rephrase that, Rollis is a new Shawn Michaels with better hair but a worse fashion sense.
He can be the best face (good guy) or best heel (again, bad guy) hands down, which is amazing because his ceiling before turning on The Shield was at best being the next Jeff Hardy.
So here is your number 1 pick...Seth Rollins!
Thanks for reading everyone! Have a great evening. Or morning. Or afternoon. Whenever you're reading this, I just sure hope it's great!
We now interrupt the previously scheduled blog, to type about the night it all went to hail. Not literally, it was still a fantastic night. As you can see from the picture above, that I so graciously borrowed from someone I've never met (great pic!), we had quite the storm in Lincoln yesterday.
Now usually I love storms. I LOVE ME SOME STORMS! I like the rain. I like hearing thunder, seeing the lightning... reminds me of a Selena Gomez song.
But not on this night. This night, I had me some Monday Night Raw to attend! So I live in Lincoln, Nebraska, the show was in Omaha. A good 45 minute trip. My friend/wife's coworker/wife's friend-as-well named Adam, had scored some awesome tickets to see the show. I've been a wrestling fan since I was a kid, so I was in. Unfortunately, the weather hates us and had different ideas.
Day of the event (yesterday), the weather was amazing, until literally it was time to leave. Then like a Texas Tornado (get it!?) we got Tornado Punched in to submission by the weather.
Ouch town Mr. Perefct. RIP to the both of you.
A tornado was spotted in Lincoln, 4:30 PM, CT. Show's at 7 PM, so whatevs. Warnings done at 5 PM, we got plenty of time for the tornado to leave, then we head to see some glorious pro wrestling.
Yup....no problem at all. That is until 5 PM hits and it's extended to 5:15 PM, CT. WHY!?
Because of certain rules and regulations, I won't say what my friends job is (not a drug dealer), but he had to finish a part of work for the day. So around 5:45 PM, CT (I don't know why I find it funny I'm putting in CT, but I'm gonna keep doing it) he's done. His coworker (also, not a drug dealer) alerts us that it is still hailing and raining hard outside, which we ignore (she called us idiots...repeatedly), we got wrestling to go see!
We out!
Upon leaving my friend gets a call, current time 5:53 PM, CT (still doing it). His basement has flooded. DAMN IT! We gotta go back and clean that sucker out!
The water was FREEZING on that floor
I would say for a solid 20 minutes, he with a Swiffer and I with a broom, waded the water over to the side of a house with a drain. And I'd like to brag about this, I feel we got rid of a decent sum, AND I found an Inception blu-ray floating towards me, which made me wonder if this was all a dream to begin with!
It was only just a dream - Nelly
6:15 PM, CT, boom, we out. Wrestling time. Are we driving through a rain storm with hail? Um, yes. Did I make 3-4 Halestorm jokes during the drive. Maybe I did...
She gets off...on you!
Show's at 7:00 PM, if we hit it just right, we can get there for the pyro and all that jazz (not literally jazz, think mid-2000's rock). One problem. Lincoln, NE is set up horrendously to get to the interstate, especially if you live in the middle of town. Now I love Lincoln, NE. I'm moving soon, and I will quite miss it, even you crazy Husker fans. But what I will not miss, is your horrendous ROAD SET UP!
6:30 PM, CT, we're on the interstate. Still raining. It is the worst! And in true wrestling speak, us faces, we met our heel. The Basic Bandana Bitch. Triple B. Driving like a mad woman, and this is no fury road (references galore today!). She is a lane changing! Woooo! Hydo-planing! Wooo! Non-personal landscaping (assuming)! Woo! Son of a gun. She is pure evil. And if she is still alive after how she drove, you are unstoppable, and even the 4 Horsemen (of the Apocalypse or wrestlers) couldn't stop you.
Your'e driving crazy tonight! - Ric Flair, probs at one point
7:08 PM, CT. We made it. Homeboy Adam (not his real nickname) got us parking passes directly in the arena area. Baller status. We did it, wrestling time.
If you're unfamiliar with my wrestling recaps (and most of you are), let me explain the process here. I like to recap for people who may not watch WWE, in a humorous, yet informative way. So I'll go match by match, providing recaps, real time stories and personal thoughts on the night. So let's start where every story usually does (non-Tarantino ones anyway) at the beginning.
7 Feet Tall
We got in right as the legendary Chris Jericho was "getting in to it" with the new up-and-comer Big Cass...who is SEVEN FEET TALL AND YOU CAN'T TEACH THAT!
Cass has a side-kick/tag team partner named Enzo Amore, but he is injured after damn near being guillotined by the ropes last week. So here he is, confronting Jericho and being awesome. In five years, Big Cass will be huge, feel free to reference this site.
Guess which one I've met!?
The next match was Dolph Ziggler (Amy Schumer ex, Jeff Kleeman hater), fan favorite, loser of all matches, but should be more famous and higher on the card then he is, versus Baron Corbin, recent call up, former Arizona Cardinal and future endorser of Rogaine.
Average match, the crowd was oddly in to Corbin who is the bad guy. Fans are so fickle these days!
No picture needed for the next match. It's too depressing, although one of my favorites, Tyler Breeze, made it on the show which is nice.
If Zoolander was a wrestler.
For those of you who don't know who he is, and you should because he's great, Breeze is a male model, Zoolander type and walks out with a selfie stick, so clearly he's a bad guy. I think they even won, I tried to get food because I was starving so I have no clue.
This is her house!!! Sort of...
Luckily I made it back from my food fail, because up next is WWE Women's Champion Charlotte versus my personal favorite lady on the show, Paige (shown above). Think a goth lady, possibly suffers from being bi-polar, and loves wearing black.
Her opponent Charlotte is Ric Flair's daughter, which, while she is great, means they draw back on everything her dad did, robe included.
Woooooo!
Only thing missing is three lackey's for her to be the boss of...which won't be far off, and would be a great idea actually (Emma, Dana Brooke and Summer maybe?).
Ole ole ole ole!
Up next was the match of the night. The Miz, the bad guy "Hollywood" guy with his pretty wife Maryse (spotted below) and up and comer Sami Zayn. Sami Zayn is one of their most talented people they have, and the crowd was way in to it. The Miz is great at being a bad guy, I believe I even threw a couple zingers about his Real World past (nobody got my Coral joke, look it up). I'm 33 by the way. You'll be reminded of that later on.
The Miz and Maryse
Next is the WWE WORLD CHAMPION Roman Reigns and his cousins the Uso's versus AJ Styles and, let's just call them the Bullet Club...or "The Club" as they are now referred to.
The champ...is....hated.
Roman Reigns is cousins with the Rock. So they are trying to make him in to a hybrid version of The Rock and John Cena, so older, smarter people hate him. Kids love him. Simple as that. His opponent is AJ Styles, one of the best wrestlers in the world AND Billy Ray Cyrus lookalike.
Don't tear his heart!
The match was pretty fun, and insanely loud, again, quite the surprise as the WWE are starting a "new era" so guys like AJ Styles and Sami Zayn are still incredibly new, but the fans were really getting behind them, which is promising. Match ended in a DQ because on these shows, you can never have either side convincingly win, because they need you to buy the pay per view or the WWE Network, for the convenient price of $9.99 (they may have said that a time or two last night)!
Perfect timing on the picture
That beautiful man is Kevin Owens. He is a dick. And he is awesome. He's an awesome dick. He faced off against Zach Ryder, beat him, end of story. Kevin Owens deserves the world, and you should follow him on Twitter, he is such a great family man and calls out jerks on the internet (I hope he's not mad I called him a dick! It was a compliment!).
Some kids just hit puberty
That saucy minx above is Lana. She is the manager of her real life fiance Rusev, who is this guy.
Rusev crush
Moral of the story, don't even look at Lana. I won't get too in to this one, because I ran to get some swag. And also because he faced a team called the Lucha Dragons, and they kinda bore me. And that's not hating on lucha libre, because I LOVE Lucha Underground, I just can't get in to them. Sorry, not sorry. But at least you got some Lana!
It's a NEW DAY!
The part that my wife and I were most excited for, was a group called The New Day. They consist of Xavier Woods, Big E and Kofi Kingston. Here they are...
Best photo bomb ever from the wife.
They are amazing. Their swag has shirts of them riding a unicorn, unicorn horns, and my personal favorite...a cereal box. Did I buy one? Damn right I did. I'm 33.
These ain't booty!
They faced off against the Dudley Boyz. Sadly they lost, but they won that night...they won all of Omaha's hearts.
The final part of the night, was surprisingly not a match, as Chris Jericho was jumped by his rival Dean Ambrose. As you can see below, Ambrose stole his coat, and proceeded to cut it with scissors, ruining that beautiful jacket.
Ruined a perfectly good jacket!
Thankfully that was the end of the night, as we were exhausted. It was a perfect storm...if you will, of a memorable night. One that Adam surely will never forget, being his first (probably last) wrestling event. As you can see below, you can flood his home and take away his sleep, but you can't take away his fun (I have no reverse flood analogy, that just sucks what happened to the house)!
He will never be the same.
And as always, to my lovely wife Heather, who goes on these trips with no fuss and arguably gets more in to it than me, you rule. Below is her selfie with Chris Jericho yelling at us behind her!
Behind us, Jericho is VERY UPSET about the jacket!
As always, thank you all for reading, eventually I'll get around to this Nintendo game blog, but dammit, I'm an adult, I don't have time for such childish stuff! You'll be getting some other stuff as well, including a reflection on my three years here in Lincoln, Nebraska coming to a close. That should be a good one!
