WWE Comes to the US Open w/ Daniil Medvedev playing the Tennis Heel role

Pro Wrestling has come to The US Open:

Places listening - Australia in 2nd place, followed by Brazil, UK, Mexico, Vietnam, amongst others.

#1 City this week, Gosnells Australia which is a suburb of Perth out there in Western Australia.

The introductions of the players on the main court — they now dim the lights and play music when players come out

Star Singles players are now pairing up for doubles and playing before sellout crowds - like Tag Teams

Andy Murray is playing - Coco Gauff is teamed with Katie McNally - they’re 15 and 17 respectively

Kristie Ahn is a local kid born 2 miles away in Flushing hospital. This is storybook stuff.

Naomi Osaka brought Coco out for post match interview - going for the Tear Jerking moment on live TV - whether spontaneous or planned - it was both authentic and made for TV.

Djokovic gets booed because he has to withdraw from the match against Stan Wawrinka. “Joker” is in the midst of a run in which he’s won 4 of the past 5 majors and injury bug finally catches him.

People Booed because they wanted a longer match — but he handled it great.

13th mid-match retirement for Djokovic, 6th in a major

Now openly stating his goal to break Federer’s record - this has got to be killing him.

Stan Wawrinka seeded 23 - finally seeded again after a few rough years of injuries. Two knee surgeries. He’s just 6-19 against Joker but has now won 2 in a row including when he won the US Open against Joker. Stan is a 3 time major champion and the crowd is going to be ALL IN on him in his next match.

Because Stan’s next match is against the guy who we’re actually here to talk about today.

#5 Seed, Daniil Medvedev of Russia. Perfect wrestling heel behavior. He was rude to a ball boy in public. He gave a thinly veiled middle finger during his 3rd round match.

Crowd started booing him and in his post match press conference.

He basically went all Ravishing Rick Rude on them.

Told them in a very sarcastic / mocking tone that the energy they gave him motivated him to keep pushing, and that if they keep that same level of energy for him, he’d have enough energy to win 5 more matches and take the title.

He followed that up against a German Qualifier, Dominik Koepfer, who played at Tulane. Crowd was literally chanting “Let’s Go Koepfer” in unison like it was a Yankees Game.

He got down a set - and then came back to win the match in 4 sets. He again mocked the crowd in sarcastic fashion and essentially is “DRINKING IN THE BOOS”.

But. this is genius. The guy is #5 seed in tournament and nobody outside of tennis circles knew him or was talking about him before this. In a world in which everybody is talking about the Big Three and Serena… he’s a top five player in the world toiling in anonymity.

My take is, he’s seen how much attention Nick Kygrios (sp?) gets for his antics, and he’s like - I’m way more consistent than that guy - I’m as good as pretty much anybody. If they won’t love me, and if they won’t acknowledge me as a really good player… i’m going to brand myself as the heel.

And that’s working this week. The interesting part will be if he embraces this long-term and how that plays out if he does.

Luke warm take - if he wins the US Open - I bet the President congratulates him on twitter, and might even invite Medvedev to White House.

But Stan Wawrinka looks like he’s all the way back - so we’ll see if he even gets to the Quarterfinals. NYC loves a hero, but they also love a villain.

Last thing, How about Nadal and Federer have never met each other in the US Open ever, in any round of the tournament.

The Ronda Rousey is Batman Theory - plus Outlandish theories on Brock Lesnar & Holly Holm

UFC on Fox 20 w Andrew Patterson - Hot Takes on Ronda Rousey, Brock Lesnar & Holly Holm

UFC on Fox 20 - Holly Holm loses to Valentina Shevchenko — a week after Amanda Nunes beat Miesha Tate. 

Nunes has already beaten Shevchenko

If you’re Ronda Rousey do you even come back? Does she (personally even need to)? The UFC certainly needs her back — but certainly Rousey vs Holm 2 — doesn’t sound very compelling right now — but if you’re Ronda do you want Holm now, or do you use this as a reason to not need to fight her again? 

Seems like this’ll go one of two ways - she comes back, wins the title and retires or she comes back gets beat and retires? That said, the third alternative is that the time off and the removal of pressure from being undefeated, may open things up for her again. In addition — she’s kept a super low profile since her loss, which means she’s either super focused on training or “main stream american advertisers” are staying away - kind of like how olympic athletes usually only get play right after the olympics. 

if she is both focused and has a chip on her shoulder for being ignored — there’s a shot she reals of three or 4 wins in a row at which point she’ll likely get her “status back”.

What;s the Hot Take on Edson Barboza (won’t fight the champ and his teammate Eddie Alvarez) and what is the take of Francis Ngannou. Felice Herrig seems like an interesting character - certainly has some mind related obstacles to overcome leading up to the fight  

Brock Lesnar tests positive for banned substance — outlandish theory. Ok Jon “Bones” Jones got busted for testing positive within a week of his match with Daniel Cormier but Lesner supposedly tested positive in Late June - but they didn’t find out results for like 3 weeks.

Let’s get into conspiracy theories — Is the “positive test a hoax” to help boost Lesnar’s profile as a real life WWE heel for Summer Slam? Even if the test results are not a hoax — here’s why it makes sense for WWE to not suspend him and to potentially play it up— 1) he’s not a full-time WWE guy either 2) Randy Orton is coming back from Legit injury. The McMahon’s love Randy Orton - but he’s never been able to get over as a “face” like The Rock or Steve Austin or John Cena

Lesnar is one of the few people who make the 6’5” Orton appear to be a physical underdog. Lesnar is a beast and now is a real life heel for testing positive. Orton defeating Lesnar would help get him over — Lesnar winning “cheaply” via interference would to the same for Orton, maybe more

Buster Douglas / Holly Holm comparison - Unfair to Buster Douglas — He was 29-4-1 when he faced Tyson — So he lost to Holyfield and then won his next 6 in a row and 8 of his last 9 fights - Never lost two fights in a row

NBA is removing the All-Star game from Charlotte, NC in 2017 - good. If you want to be big time, you need to present grown-up policies to reflect life in 2016 — NC State legislature decided to act in a backward and provincial manner. They deserve this embarrassment they’ve created and the negative economic impact they’ll create with the game not being in Charlotte. 2 time NBA MVP was coming back to his hometown — and you botched it Charlotte's "Prime Time moment" over a restroom law, which is rooted in fear mongering and bigotry.