The No Kayfabe Era Begins!

As some of you may have noticed, and I apologize for how abrupt the change in the page and URL went about, Rican's Beach House (www.strawhatrican.blogspost.com) has been wholly absorbed and changed into "The No Kayfabe Zone" (www.syanandrican.blogspot.com). And there's a few reasons why this came about.

"The House is closed, for now..."

Number one was the need of a cohesive webspace for our columns and a platform to spread our podcast audience instead of solely relying on Podomatic's page. We are obviously less constricted here (and Syan would tell you I'm the tech guy in this particular case), and we can change the page more to our liking and post more than just podcast episodes. Which, because of our vast array of opinions on wholly different shows/interests/genres is a good thing.

Number two, we can only cover so much on an episodic format (even if some episodes are a staggering 2+ hours, for which I apologize - unless you enjoy it, in which case "You're welcome...?"), but with this Blog space, and our separate Twitter accounts; which we do try and use for live tweeting and breaking certain news/interests/random factoids, we feel confident this was the best route to go and hopefully you will all enjoy the journey as Syan and I attempt to take you all along for the ride.

Number three, and this goes without saying, and judging from the decor on the site at the moment (which I consider to be very much an "Alpha approaching a Beta" Phase) we are extremely wrestling inclined, but we still have a passion for other avenues of storytelling (and make no mistake, our love for the "sport" comes from almost unanimously its unique method of storytelling)

Let us know what you think: as always I'm available @strawhatrican on the Twitterverse, as is my partner in crime @syanofflame!

TBE? Floyd Mayweather v. Manny Pacquiao

The Match of the Century has come and gone and despite there being a unanimous decision, there is still a huge controversy amongst those who watched the fight.

Honest to God, every time with this! 

Outboxers win on points, swarmers win on KOs. It rolls like that almost every time.

Your reigning WBA, WBC, WBO, and The Ring Welterweight Champion

Don't get mad at Floyd for "running." Get mad at Manny for not having the pressure to put him down. 

The Return of the King

  16 years... No, not the time the Beach House has been on hiatus (though it certainly feels that way), but rather how long it has been since the last time Godzilla was given a Hollywood treatment. The 1998 Roland Emmerich title was a bust and considered by most Godzilla fans (perhaps even non-fans) as a pretty horrible movie. So, for this long, Godzilla has been gestating, waiting for the right time to appear in American cinema, and to leave his mark as he has done with the countless (and I mean countless) appearances in Japanese cinema. This is Gareth Edwards' vision of Godzilla!

"Guys, hold up, I seriously can't find my contacts!"

The Top (Arguably) Ten Shonen Anime Themes

  People love top ten lists... they really do. I've slowly realized that I am drawn to them even if the subject matter isn't particularly engrossing. Last week I was perusing the internet and found good ol' Nostalgia Critic doing a Top Ten F*ck Yeah Theme Songs (literally named this way). Which got me to thinking about anime related theme songs or just regular music in anime, specifically in the shonen genre. The genre lends itself to some great visuals and over dramatic situations, the music surely has to follow suit right? As I took a stroll down memory lane, I found out this was exactly the case, and I've decided to dig up the Top Ten (Arguably, of course) Shonen Anime Themes.

Who will make the cut!?

Truly Amazing

  Not even one week after I said I was keeping these short... ay ay ay! And "The Amazing Spider-Man" comes along. A movie that by no stretch of the imagination was going to be a small splash this Summer, but had become sort of a small blip in my movie radar. I knew I was going to go watch it, mind you, just because I love me some Spidey; but there was something about this movie that didn't click with me during the trailers. And man, I'm glad my hunch was wrong this time. Dead wrong.

Also known as: The Quirky, The Flexible and The Emotional Spider-Man.

UTF's Royal Ramble

Phew!

Errrmeeegheddd sshhuu teeerrrddd!!!

Been gone for a hot minute.

  Ok, so here's the update! I'm co-hosting a wrestling podcast with UTF (his Twitter username @IAmNotImportant) and we just unleashed episode 2. One more and we'll start going to iTunes :O! Here's the link for both his blog and the podcast:

Once in a Lifetime

  "Rocky, Rocky, Rocky!!!"

  "Cena, Cena, Cena!!!"

"Wanna get a latte after this?"

  The "Grandest Stage of Them All" is around the corner, on April 1st 2012, Wrestlemania XXVIII goes live on Pay Per View. And while the "Super Bowl of professional wrestling" has always been hype-worthy, this year's Main Event (booked a full year before the fact) is one of those rare dream matches that are hard to define. Sure, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has wrestled Hulk Hogan before at Wrestlemania XIX, but by then Hogan had sort of washed away from the public eye. The Rock has remained relevant via his movie roles; while not Oscar worthy performances, they are indeed relevant enough to allow him to continue working on movies that break well over $200 million in the box-office. His opponent, one John Cena has remained the top baby faced wrestler of the WWE for a good portion of the New Millennium and, by default, the World. But John Cena is in a weird spot, he's the hero everybody seems to hate. Much especially when placed next to The People's Champion (and yours truly's favorite wrestler of the 90's) in this, even stranger, PG climate in wrestling.

Can the People's Champion prevail against the once formidable Doctor of Thuganomics? Or will he be Rock Bottomed by the man who is immune to his verbal jabs with his mantra to "Rise Above Hate?"

Oh, there's also the matter of this Wrestlemania being stacked from top to bottom, so why not look at the full card?

Home

  Man, this summer season has brought out some big guns when it comes to blockbusters. Between the Marvel entries (Thor/Captain America) and Harry Potter 7 (right?) there has been everything under the sun offered at your local cinema, with maybe the exception of a new Star Trek/Star Wars movie. But with all these summer blockbusters and remakes there was one that ALMOST went undetected in my radar. The movie in question is the reboot/retelling of the Planet of the Apes franchise, dubbed Rise of the Planet of the Apes (ow... my long titles). Initially, I had brushed this movie off due to the fact that: the Tim Burton reboot was pretty horrible (the makeup was good, I guess?) and the franchise had not aged well after it's fourth movie (there was what... 6 of these?). So naturally I was planning to skip the movie until I realized who was being used as the human model for Cesar the ape.

"Hobbittseessssss..."

  For the uninitiated (and how the hell did you find this website then?) the man in question here is Andy Serkis, who voiced/played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings (and upcoming Hobbit movies) trilogy and was also the actor who portrayed the titular character in Peter Jackson's King Kong. The man is a motion capture acting genius and this movie will be the sole reason the Oscars will probably have to finally make a category for this type of work. To be perfectly blunt, Andy Serkis MAKES this movie and his character of Cesar is easily one of the crowning achievements in the medium. But what about the movie itself? One man can make a movie sure, but can he carry the whole thing on his shoulders? Time to find out... (SPOILERS GALORE AHEAD!!!)

5 reasons to be psyched for Star Wars: The Old Republic

  Phew, it's been a long time since I relaxed in the Beach House! I have decided to drop the whole "weekly One Piece chapter reviews" since it was entirely too time consuming (and there are far better reviewers out there) and decided to write about stuff that I feel a bit more passionate for. While wrestling is certainly within that category ("I love me some wrasslin'"), those needs will be taken care of in my wrestling column section in the soon to be operational www.wrestlingbully.com. When that site is up you can double dip on some more SHR goodness, but for now this will do. Today, however, I want to speak to my geekiest of fans; I'm talking to you, my Star Wars peeps.

Exactly how I imagined the Second Coming of Christ.

Future Endeavors

   So after a few weeks to ponder on what to do with this site, I decided to keep it but with the intention of it being more of a practice ground for "other" things more than anything. Basically more of a personal blog than a review/list/column site. I'll be doing columns for a wrestling website here soon (we're still building the site) and that will probably take my time; watching over 4 hours of programming to write a column is serious business. So until next time, ya'll have fun and I'll post my new "home" soon™.

With that being said.
 

The REAL Champ is here!