The 2020 Wrestle Buddies Awards, The Buddiesies | Wrestle Buddies Episode 35

Goodbye 2020. See you later. What better way to wrap up that give a bunch of arbitrary awards away to wrestling companies, wrestlers, and random people? Well, that’s what the Wrestle Buddies are doing in this extra-long episode!

Returning to the show is official Wrestle Buddy and TVLine editor Keisha Hatchett, who you’ve heard on the show numerous times in the past–and someone who is almost mentioned weekly by hosts Chris E. Hayner and Mat Elfring. So what is The Buddiesies? It’s like every other award show, honoring the greats from the past year–for the most part–along with awards the speak to fans of the show.

What was Gangrel’s best tweet of the year? Which person in wrestling was the most Shane Helms-like this year? Which storyline contained the most interesting “murder?” Those questions are answered during this show, and in addition, it’s the return of the worst toy we’ve ever seen, WWF Bangerz.

Below, you’ll find all the awards and nominees for the show in order they’re announced, so you can follow along at home. Note: This episode was recorded before the passing of Jon Huber (Brodie Lee, Luke Harper), and we’ll be discussing his life and the joy he brought us on the January 7 episode.

2020 Wrestle Buddies awards:

Wrestler of the year:

  • Roman Reigns
  • Kenny Omega
  • Asuka
  • Alexa Bliss
  • John Moxley

Tag team of the year:

  • The North
  • The Good Brothers
  • Young Bucks
  • The Street Profits

Gangrel Tweet of the year:

Wrestle Buddies guest of the year:

  • Sonny Kiss
  • The Good Brothers
  • Todd Sinclair
  • Dalton Castle
  • Adam Cole
  • Johnny Gargano
  • Lilian Garcia
  • Kenny Omega
  • Tyler Breeze
  • Brian Meyers
  • Darby Allin

Best WrestlePiece Theater read:

  • Kallie Plagge
  • Will Potter
  • Tamoor Hussain
  • Chris Hayner
  • Keisha Hatchett

Best men’s singles division:

  • WWE
  • AEW
  • Impact
  • ROH

Best women’s singles division:

  • WWE
  • AEW
  • Impact
  • ROH

Best tag team division:

  • WWE
  • AEW
  • Impact
  • ROH

Best match:

  • Boneyard Match
  • Money in the Bank
  • The Boneryard Match
  • Firefly Fun House Match
  • Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns TLC
  • Young Bucks vs. FTR

Best stable of the year:

  • The New Day
  • Undisputed Era
  • The Hurt Business
  • The Inner Circle
  • The Dark Order
  • The Elite

Best storyline:

  • Roman Reigns head of the table
  • Fiend vs. John Cena
  • MJF wants to join the Inner Circle
  • Wrestle House
  • R-Truth’s 24/7 Title Dominance

Best character gimmick:

  • The Fiend
  • Roman Reigns
  • Orange Cassidy
  • R-Truth

Taz’s Early WWE Gimmick Memorial Award (Best YouTube Channel):

  • UpUpDownDown
  • Major Wrestling Figure Pod
  • Being The Elite

Shane Helms Award For Excellence In Shane Helms-ing

  • Shane Helms
  • Shane Helms
  • Shane Helms
  • Shane Helms
  • Shane Helms

Best Segment of 2020:

  • The MJF/Jericho musical
  • Every episode of Firefly Funhouse
  • Wrestle House

Coolest title belt:

  • AEW Championship
  • NXT North American Championship
  • WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship
  • The BTE Title
  • The TNA Championship of a dead promotion
  • FTW Championship

Breakout of 2020

  • John Silver
  • Orange Cassidy
  • Jey Uso
  • Brodie Lee

Best wrestle murder of 2020

  • Baron Corbin throws people off of a roof
  • Randy Orton sets the Fiend on fire

MVP of 2020:

  • R-Truth
  • The fans
  • Pyro
  • Xavier Woods
  • LRLR
  • MVP

WWF Bangerz award

  • Mat picks it during the show

The Award For Things That Will Be A Future Wrestle Buddies Segment

  • Corporate Money in the Bank
  • Mimosa Mayhem Match
  • Slammiversary
  • WWE’s Black Wednesday
  • MJF and Jericho’s musical
  • Inner Circle Vegas Vacation

New episodes of Wrestle Buddies are released every Thursday on the podcast platform or app of your choice, including Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts. You can also keep up to date with the podcast by following it on Twitter.

Star Trek: Discovery Review – ‘There Is a Tide…’

Full spoilers follow for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Episode 12. Read our review of Discovery Season 3, Episode 11 for where we left off.

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After last week’s excellent trip inside the Verubin Nebula, that cliffhanger gets another cliffhanger that focuses entirely on what’s happening on the hijacked Discovery. Saru, Culber and Adira, still trapped in the nebula with the clock ticking, will have to wait until next week. But in the meantime, we get a Jonathan Frakes-directed two-fisted tale in the spirit of The Next Generation’s “Starship Mine,” as Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) works from the shadows to take on the hostile force that has coopted her ship.

The Emerald Chain’s leader Osyraa (Janet Kidder) has taken command of the Discovery and, as the episode starts here, she’s got the crew on her flagship the Viridian simulating an attack on the Disco in order to get inside Starfleet’s shield barrier. As the Federation ship seems to be in distress, it’s the perfect way to infiltrate her enemy’s base of operations and attack. Except… she doesn’t attack once inside.

burnham-there-is-a-tide-star-trek-discoveryIt turns out Osyraa wants the Emerald Chain to join forces with the Federation, as the Chain’s dilithium shortage will soon leave it vulnerable. This is an unexpected turn of events, and it gives Oded Fehr’s Admiral Vance a good amount of screen time as he finds himself in talks with his enemy/possible new ally. Fehr has been a nice addition to the Discovery roster of players, and here not only does he convey Vance’s need to do something to change the course of things for the Federation, but also that the principles of Starfleet haven’t changed in 900 years, no matter how tough times have gotten.

The breaking point for him in these peace talks is that Osyraa refuses to stand trial for the crimes she has committed. “The past cannot be undone,” she says. “But it can be made right,” Vance counters. Even Osyraa, who has been a pretty one-dimensional villain so far this season, gets a little shading in these scenes, as we realize that she is trying to build and maintain something. As she points out, they all had to make hard choices because of The Burn.

Elsewhere, in the bowels of the Discovery, Michael is sending people out airlocks and otherwise messing with the Emerald Chain forces that are onboard. It’s Disco by way of “Starship Mine” by way of Die Hard, and it’s lots of fun. Frakes’ kinetic direction keeps things interesting, like in the early scene where Book and Burnham crash their ship into the Discovery’s shuttle bay, and we’re given succeeding push-in shots of the ship and the Disco from different angles until… BOOM.

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Michael’s adventure also ends on a real gut-punch, where she realizes she has to sacrifice her friends back in the nebula in order to keep the spore drive out of Osyraa’s hands. This leads to Stamets (Anthony Rapp) begging her to go back to help Hugh and the rest while she ejects him from the ship (and to safety) in an energy capsule of some kind. “We came to the future for you!” he yells. “We followed you! Hugh followed you!” Great stuff from Rapp and Martin-Green as we finish out our second cliffhanger in as many weeks.

Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

  • We knew the Sphere Data was gonna show up again, and the DOT-7 worker bots have been conspicuous by their presence in the opening credits all season, so it makes sense that it is presumably gonna help save the day while inside them.
  • And that’s the end of Noah Averbach-Katz as Ryn, Book’s Andorian buddy. Feels like he deserved more.
  • Jake Weber returns as Zareh from the second episode of this season, but he still doesn’t have a ton to do.
  • Haven’t seen Michael use the Vulcan nerve pinch in a while!
  • It probably would’ve been easier for Osyraa to just hail Admiral Vance and tell him she wanted to get down to some peace talks, right?
  • Vance finally said what we’ve all known for decades: Replicated food is basically shit.

Halloween Director In Talks To Film New The Exorcist Movie

Any horror fan knows that the best monsters never truly die. David Gordon Green brought Michael Myers back in the well-received 2018 reboot of Halloween, and now he’s in talks to film a brand-new Exorcist film according a report from The Observer.

Blumhouse Productions, the studio that brought us modern horror favorites like Get Out, Paranormal Activity, and the Purge, is reportedly developing a new Exorcist film, with Green as the director. Jason Blum, David Robinson, and James Robinson will produce.

After bringing Halloween back to life, Green filmed a sequel, Halloween Kills. COVID-19 delayed the movie significantly, but the film is now set to hit theaters in October 2021. The Exorcist premiered in 1973, directed by William Friedkin, starring Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, and Max von Sydow as a 12-year-old girl possessed by a demon and the priest trying to free her of the possession.

The Exorcist was a watershed moment for horror films as the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy Awards. Since then, the film has received two sequels, Exorcist II: The Heretic and Exorcist III. The franchise also received two prequel films–Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. The film was also adapted into a television show by Fox that ran for two seasons in 2016 and 2017.

It’s unclear currently whether the movie is a sequel or a full reboot. Previous reporting referred to the film as a reboot, but the Observer’s report refers to the film as a sequel. It’s worth noting that the new Halloween film is a continuation of the original series, and Jason Blum himself told us that he wasn’t interested in rebooting or remaking classic horror films back in November. We also don’t know yet where the movie will sit on Green’s slate, as he has a third Halloween film and a Hellraiser TV series already in development.

January’s PlayStation Plus Free Games Include Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, Greedfall, And More

As we move into the new year with some countries considering new lockdowns to guard against increasing cases of COVID-19, PlayStation Plus subscribers will have a handful of new free games to keep them occupied. This month, subscribers will be able to pick up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall on PS4, as well as shark simulator Maneater, which will be free exclusively on PS5.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the most recent instalment in the rebooted Tomb Raider series, bringing Lara Croft’s ongoing adventure to the jungles of South America to save the world from a Mayan apocalypse. As the classic AAA adventure game you would expect, GameSpot’s review of Shadow praised the thrill of exploration and the challenge of solving ancient tomb puzzles, but warned that the game’s traditional mechanics can make the journey a frustrating one.

Greedfall is a 2019 RPG that tasks players with exploring a mysterious island called Teer Fradee, filled with magical secrets to explore and monsters to hunt. The game caters to traditional RPG fans with character builds comprising of different abilities, spells, and skills, and objectives that can be completed in a myriad of different ways. GameSpot’s review of the game compared its compelling exploration and combat mechanics favorably to Witcher 3, though criticized its reliance on colonialist themes.

Maneater is this month’s PS5-exclusive game–while it’s also available on PS4, only players on the PS5 will be able to redeem it for free. Maneater is described as a ShaRkPG, an RPG where you take the role of a man-eating shark. Starting as a small pup, the player is tasked first to survive, and then to thrive as one of the ocean’s top predators. Just like RPGs with human characters, you’ll be able to tailor your shark’s skills to your play-style as it grows in size and strength.

As with previous PS+ games, all January’s games are PS4 titles that are also playable on the PS5. The recently launched next-gen console can play most PS4 games, with enhancements that vary between games including reduced load times, more stable frame rates, and increased resolutions. Greedfall’s developer has announced that the game will get an update and additional content for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, though it’s unclear as yet whether this will be a free update for all next-gen players.

December’s free gamesJust Cause 4, Rocket Arena, Worms Rumble, and Bugsnax (for PS5)–are still available until January 4.

Now Playing: GameSpot’s Top 10 Games Of 2020

Transformers: War for Cybertron – Earthrise Review

This is a mostly spoiler-free review of the second chapter for Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy, titled “Earthrise.” All six episodes are currently available to binge on Netflix.

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Raw Fury Breaks Precedent By Sharing Its Publishing Agreement Publicly

One thing the gaming industry is somewhat notorious for is the secrecy surrounding its different practices. Most studios don’t reveal the intricacies of their day-to-day operations or contracts, keeping gamers and industry workers alike in the dark. But Raw Fury has made a bold move in opposition to this standard, releasing several templates used in its business dealings, including the details of their standard contract with game studios publicly in a statement on December 22.

Raw Fury has developed a reputation as a developer-friendly publisher over the years, even supporting one of its indie teams for a full-year past release despite small profits, and this move seems to be another step in line with that ethos. According to its statement, the reasoning for this decision was based in empathy for developers trying to navigate the confusing landscape of the industry.

“A lot of the humans working at Raw Fury have at some point been a developer, working for some of the most recognized AAA game studios to fledgling indie outfits. Learning which sorts of deals were out there was tough, if not impossible, unless you knew the right people who could then share that information (broadly) with you. We believe having publisher contracts out in the open helps level the playing field, and allows devs to have a more intimate understanding of the machinations of different deals when they start looking for partnerships. We hope sharing this knowledge can help combat shady practices where predatory people and companies fleece devs by virtue of this knowledge being so scarce, trapping developers in bad deals through the obscurity of legal jargon. When you’ve been in the industry for a while you start hearing the horror stories, and while this is not going to end all of that — it is a step in the right direction.”

By providing its contract publicly, Raw Fury has made the industry a bit more transparent, providing insight into what developers should be looking to add and avoid when it comes to signing on with a publisher. Virtual Economy has a more thorough breakdown of what all the Raw Fury contract says and what it means for developers more broadly, but there are some basic takeaways. Instead of using milestone-based payouts, where developers get more money for production after hitting certain key points in development, Raw Fury uses a monthly disbursement plan instead. This allows developers to have a schedule of when they’ll get their funding ahead of time. Raw Fury also provides funding at the contract’s effective date, so studios have access to money as soon as the project gets started.

For now it remains to be seen how Raw Fury’s transparency will be taken by the rest of the industry. Hopefully it will be a catalyst for more ethical and honest practices going forward.

Why Vikings Season 6 Brought Back That Major Character

The end of Vikings has come and with it, a number of surprises that wrapped up the long-running series. The final 10 episodes of the series have debuted first on Amazon Prime Video, giving fans the opportunity to watch them all at once, rather than waiting week-to-week for new installments.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for the final season of Vikings. If you haven’t watched all 10 episodes of the second half of Season 6 yet, stop reading now. They are currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

In the penultimate episode, after arriving in the new world, Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith) and his fellow Vikings were introduced to the person known to the indigenous people as “crazy man.” Imagine everyone’s surprise when said crazy man was actually Floki (Gustaf Skarsgård), who hadn’t been seen since he was essentially buried alive inside an erupting volcano. Miraculously, he wasn’t alive. Instead, he wound up in Newfoundland, where he was finally reunited with a son of Ragnar.

According to series creator Michael Hirst, not giving Floki the closure the character–and fans–deserved wasn’t an option. “I couldn’t have left Floki under the mountain, sort of forgotten and not brought him back for a proper ending,” he explained to GameSpot. “He was the kind of life force. He was so important to me and so important to the show.”

Instead, there’s a sense of redemption for the character after everything he’s been through over the past few seasons. What’s more important, though, it shows how Floki has grown and aged since we last saw him.

“He’s found some peace. But I did have a line in his final little colloquia with Uber when he’s talking about what’s happened to him since coming to America,” Hirst said. “I had a line in there that he said, ‘My mind’s not right.’ But I do think you get that sense that he’s been profoundly changed. [And] there may even be a touch of Alzheimer’s. He doesn’t engage really with the Vikings when they turn up.”

He does engage with Ubbe, though, even telling him how much he looks like his father and admitting he still hears Ragnar’s voice asking him to build boats. It’s such an appropriate place for the series to end. Floki is the only character left that’s been there since the beginning, so having him there for the final episode–and even the final scene–is as fitting as it gets.

What did you think of Floki’s return for the final season of Vikings? Sound off in the comments below.

James Bond Movie Studio MGM Exploring Sale

MGM Holdings, the studio behind the James Bond franchise, is reportedly exploring a sale. Variety, citing “a source close to the situation” says the company is specifically eyeing streaming services or other film companies looking to establish their streaming sectors. Based on privately traded shares, the company has a market value of $5.5 billion, including debt.

In addition to James Bond, MGM’s film library has more than 4,000 titles and 17,000 hours of television programming, including film franchises like Rocky and The Hobbit as well as television shows like The Handmaid’s Tale and Vikings.

MGM has not yet commented publicly on the trial balloon signs pointing to a sale–the Wall Street Journal first reported recently that MGM had engaged Morgan Stanley and LionTree Advisors to begin the formal sale process.

However, a sale would not be a total shock as COVID-19 has effectively kneecapped smaller players (like MGM) who are unable to release their releases in theaters. While MGM is much bigger than just James Bond, one need only look to that franchise to gain an insight into what might be happening at the studio: No Time To Die, the upcoming 007 flick, has gone from a November 2019 scheduled release date to enduring several releases before (for now) seemingly holding firm to an April 2, 2021 release. James Bond is just one of many properties MGM owns, but given the recently announced James Bond 007 video game, there’s still plenty of gas left in the studio’s tank and strong interest in its franchises.