Well, welcome to our readers here in New Zealand, & around the world, I'm Whetu Ngapo & you're tuning in to my KiwiAvenger blog here on blogger (And it's good Friday out here today as part of the long Easter weekend so I decided to post it today so that's why), but first in the tennis department that Jakub Mensik from Czechia (Who was the 4th Czech player to win the tournament after Karel Novacek way back in 1991 then Jiri Novak also way back in 1996 & Jiri Vesely back in 2015) has won the men's ASB Classic after a commanding win against Sebastian Baez from Argentina during the men's singles final just a day before the Australian Tennis Open gets underway, but there was once a dreadful but shocking story that I remember from the late Carole who was telling about it about Serena Williams who never came back to Indian Wells for 14 years in which she returned in 2015 due to that terrible incident involving her being booed by the crowd in wake of a racist outburst hurled at her after Serena's sister Venus, who had to pull out of the semi through a injured knee that resulted in a boycott for Serena (Who won in the women's singles final in the aftermath of beating the Belgian competitor Kim Clijsters) back in 2001 in which she vowed never to return as the event was dogged or blighted I should say by an aggressive crowd who put her off by showing hostility towards the Williams family due to Venus who pulled out of the last minute citing a injured knee from her match in the semi against her sister Serena with their dad & coach of the late Richard (Who was immortalized in a movie of King Richard that was released in 2021) who had been accused of match-fixing claims, but there has been an update in the Australian tennis open that Elena Rybakina (Who won the first set then dropped the 2nd & during the 3rd that she took the lead after being 3 - 0 down, but maintained it until the finish) has beaten twice champion Aryna Sabalenka to win the women's singles crown, while in the men it went to Spain's world number 1 Carlos Alcaraz who dispatched 10 time champion Novak Djokovic to dominate the last 3 sets after Novak won the opening set for which was I thought it's good according to Andy on Messenger.
And secondly onto the rugby stuff that it's official, Scott Robertson is out, as the All Blacks coach (His record against stronger opposition of teams such as South Africa (Who will play the All Blacks in a record 4 tests this year against the 4 time world champions of the Springboks, 3 in South Africa such as Joburg twice (At Ellis Park then FNB Stadium (AKA Soccer City) in Soweto), Cape Town, & one in the United States in Baltimore, Maryland (Both sides could pull out due to a boycott being issued against the US (Especially the World Cup in which European teams could pull out if the US potentially could start a war on Greenland owned by Denmark) because of its authoritarian regime by that dreadful American leader & their administration that has moved to weaponize visa loopholes as they are introducing outright suspensions for some nationalities, citing national security as a reason regarding to the ICE murders in Minnesota in wake of the government immigration war that took the lives of both people, while the Baltimore test was noted as drawing in broader issues of politics, with potential for protests and scrutiny of enforcement, including potential involvement of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the broader context of political events surrounding the match) to showcase rugby there in America when the nation gears up to host the 2031 men's Rugby World Cup (And it'll be the 3rd straight year the All Blacks will come over to the US where they played against Fiji in San Diego, California the year before, & against Ireland (Who will be without Bundee Aki who has been stood down for the next 3 Six Nations matches against France, then England & Italy through suspension as a result for hurling abuse towards the referee during a United Rugby Championship game between Ulster & Leinster in which he broke misbehaviour loopholes that World Rugby has already launched a war on hate towards the officials in rugby, & it is similar to hate speech because this is just exactly like racism, homophobia, islamophobia & antisemitism) in Chicago, Illinois (That's the hometown of famous pro wrestler CM Punk (An ageing WWE superstar who is currently the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, & is in his late 40's because he's 47 now, but it has been 2 decades since he made his World Wrestling Entertainment (For which has once been taken over by Seth Rollins who used to spearhead his villainous faction called The Vision (Consisting of him, former Intercontinental champions Bron Breakker & Aussie Bronson Reed, with Paul 'The Ringmaster' Heyman as its manager, but now includes Logan Paul & Austin Theory) in which social media superstar Logan Paul who set his sights of leading the Vision at WrestleMania, & he said that Logan would get his head kicked on Rollins (Who always cops plenty of beef towards 'The Straight Edge Superstar' due to the grudge rivalry between the two, but the reaction of 'The Visionary' was like when 'The Best in the World' appeared as cover athlete of the new game that he threw up to bits, even though he lost the title to Punk months ago, and Roman Reigns had to appear on the Pat McAfee show about being 40, then having his habit of going to the gym just like one of his rivals Brock Lesnar, as well as he was being overly impressed about his performance of winning the men's Royal Rumble in which he sets his sights on his key rival of Punk, & of course being a San Francisco 49ers fanatic in which they missed out on a chance of reaching the NFC playoff game which had gone in the Seattle Seahawks way in the divisional round) debut back in 2006 (His unofficial appearance was at WrestleMania 22 20 years ago back in 2006 in Rosemont which near his hometown of Chicago were he was an extra dressing up as a 1920's prohibition era mafia member for the WWE Champion at the time of John Cena's entrance against Triple H for his defence of the title) as part of being in the ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling that lasted until 2010) roster, 7 years before he left in either 2013 or 2014, then he returned in 2023 after spending most of the time in the rival wrestling promotion company of AEW (All-Elite Wrestling), & now he is the cover athlete of WWE 2K26 (For which I already got on the PS5 with the Monday Night War edition, but I started to follow wrestling once again since the female African American wrestler formerly from AEW who crossed over to make her WWE debut in 2023, of Jade Cargill who ended the utter dominance of the young lady known as 'Tiffy Time' of Tiffany Stratton (She made her debut in the same year as her new rival of Jade following her graduation from NXT) in the women's wrestling division, to claim the WWE Women's Championship, but Cargill had been heavily criticised for her outdated appearance in the game according to the news report related to wrestling) in which the showcase mode focuses the career of 'The Second City Saint' in which he'll appear in the latest wrestling game which will be the largest in WWE 2K series history alongside the Rock (One of the legends of wrestling who will appear alongside 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin, the Undertaker, Triple H, Kurt Angle, the late Chyna, the late 'Hollywood' Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Goldberg, Booker T (Who will be part of the commentary team alongside former British pro wrestler Wade Barrett to join the likes of Byron Saxton, ex-wrestler turned broadcaster Corey Graves & 'The voice of the WWE', Michael Cole), & Eric Bischoff & others like Kane, Trish Stratus, Lita, Stephanie 'Steph' McMahon, & the Dudley Boyz of Bubba Ray & D-Von), John Cena, Rhea Ripley (One of the 4 Aussies in action alongside Grayson Waller, Indie Hartwell, & Reed, but Rhea is a bit of a slight lookalike of the former female German tennis player of Andrea Petkovic better known as 'Petko'), Rey Fenix, & others like Roman, Seth, Iyo Sky (Also one of the Japanese wrestlers involved along with Asuka & Kairi Sane), Naomi, Joel Hendry (Who has been labelled as the next Drew McIntyre due to him appearing on NXT, & one of the Scottish wrestlers appearing along with McIntyre, Nikki Cross from the Wyatt family, & the Secret Hervice consisting of both Alba Fyre & Piper Niven (Security managers & protectors of female Canadian wrestler Chelsea Green who is a leader of the Green Regime, an all-girl villainous tag team stable (Compared to Team Rhiyo which is a Aussie-Japanese all-girl tag team duo pair consisting of Iyo & Rhea), Penta (The one who ended the reign of 'Dirty' Dominik Mysterio of becoming the Intercontinental champion), Rey Mysterio, Rey's son of 'Dirty' Dominik (An apparent heir of the late 'Latino Heat' of Eddie Guerrero), Belair, Cody (The Undisputed WWE Champion who is set to take on one of his former friend of Randy Orton), & Punk) last year in which we managed to erase the painful memories we had from 2016, but of course that the Americans will have a love affair of getting hooked into rugby after being used to follow the sport of gridiron mainly such as the National Football League (NFL, as there has an update about the teams who'll play at Superbowl LX is set, it'll be the New England Patriots, who are up against the Seattle Seahawks, in a rematch of Superbowl XLIX where the Patriots led by Tom Brady at the time had denied the Seahawks a chance of defending the Vince Lombardi trophy (That honour went to the Kansas City Chiefs who won it when Superbowl LVIII was played when they beat the San Francisco 49ers, before missing out last year to the Philadelphia Eagles (Who lost it to the 49ers during the NFC playoff wildcard game this season) during Superbowl LIX in Santa Clara, California at Levi's Stadium (Home of the San Francisco 49ers), Argentina, England (Including Ardie Savea's dreadful performance as an All Black in that game which led to his downfall) & France was poor but wayward on that occasion even though our next test is against the French in Christchurch due in July this year for the historic first ever game of the new World Rugby Nations Championship, at a brand new stadium near them, that is at One New Zealand Stadium in Christchurch (A new home of the reigning champion Crusaders in Super Rugby Pacific & current holders Canterbury in the National Provincial Championship (NPC) sponsored by Bunnings), with the national team seeking to replace the man they call 'Razor' with 3 possible candidates such as the former Wallabies coach Dave 'Renns/Renn' Rennie, as well as the Springboks assistant coach Tony 'Brownie' Brown, & the Highlanders head coach Jamie 'Joe' Joseph, even though with the trio are expected to be in the frame to become the next AB's coach (And unlike the greatest achievement of Sir Graham 'Ted' Henry's life was winning the men's Rugby World Cup for the All Blacks in 2011 after 24 years of heartbreak & disappointment, & being appointed again following the failure of the 2007 tournament (The first & only time New Zealand had tasted defeat in a men's RWC quarterfinal game (But our likely opponent for the quarters for the next men's RWC will be South Africa if we beat the host nation of the Wallabies during pool play), & it should've gone to Robbie Deans anyway as Ted's replacement who instead went to our old foe of Australia from 2008, until he left in 2013 post-British & Irish Lions series) according to Sir Graham presents the World Cups: 1987 to 2015 book that I still got in my bedroom for which I have not read that book for a long time, & I've had that book since 2016 a year after the AB's had last won the men's Rugby World Cup to date back in 2015).
And thirdly in motor racing that 5 years have passed since the most iconic voice of motor racing named Murray Walker (One of my fave racing commentators of all time if not one of the best & most entertaining) who was from the UK (He even served in World War II for the British armed forces) who passed away in 2021 due to old age at 98 as he was respected throughout the entire motorsport community in the UK, & around the world known for his skills of calling motor races, especially in Formula One where he was once the original voice of F1 (And now they have David Croft who has taken over as the current voice of Formula 1, while Alex Jacques is the other voice of F1 as well, then Harry Benjamin as another one of the voices of F1, compared to Will Buxton being the voice of IndyCar when Fox took over the broadcasting rights from NBC since last year as he took over from Leigh Diffey, then Kevin Lee, & Neil Crompton the former Aussie race car driver who is the voice of the Supercars Championship since 2016 from 'Rusty' of Greg Rust), but his most iconic moment of calling a race was Damon Hill (Who was the first second generation world champion before German born Nico Rosberg (Son of Finnish driver who was the 1982 world champ Keke) who did it in 2016 even before retiring for good) where he followed his late dad Graeme's footsteps of becoming champion of the world in both 1962 & 1968) finally becoming world champion in 1996 (2 years after he fell short by the barest of margins way back in 1994 (For that was the year which had been marred by the fatal accident in Imola, Italy during the San Marino Grand Prix that took the life of one of the all-time greats of the sport of the Brazilian hero, Ayrton Senna who was a 3 time Formula One world champion) against the ever controversial German of Michael Schumacher who thought that he deliberately took out Hill in which the collision between the two during the Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide who would host the Grand Prix for the penultimate time, had decided the world championship resulting in the British driver's retirement that handed 'Schumi' the title (And that would have been a penalty for avoidable contact as of today) with Walker's iconic line which will be remembered of "And I've got to stop, because I've got a lump in my throat", & there was another one that the late Austrian of Niki Lauda had pulled out in Mount Fuji, Japan 1976 thinking that it was unsafe to continue for him due to the wet weather conditions (He made an incredible comeback in Italy after he defied his doctors orders) meaning that he did not want to take a risk, citing fears about the near fatal crash that he experienced in Germany therefore causing him to miss a couple of races, allowing also the late British driver of James Hunt who sniffed a chance to beat Lauda for the world title, & he delivered for that was immortalized already in the 2013 movie Rush (Which was released in cinemas 12 years before the Brad Pitt film called F1: the Movie (Which is about Sonny Hayes making his comeback by returning to the sport 30 years after his near fatal accident that he was involved with had cut short his promising F1 career) that came out last year for which was better than the Gran Turismo Based on a True Story movie that was released in 2023, but far better than the 2001 CART Champ Car movie starring Sylvester Stallone (Of both Rambo & Rocky fame who portrayed Joe 'Hummer' Tanto who is tempted to come out of retirement to aid a rookie of Jimmy Bly who dominated the first part of the season, until he struggled mid-season with his German rival of Beau Brandenburg (A character inspired by the most controversial German F1 legend of Michael Schumacher (Compared to the late Brazilian hero of Ayrton Senna who was the greatest Formula One driver of all-time), with German movie star Til Schweiger reprising that role) closing in of ending Bly's chances of becoming the CART World Series champion) of Driven (It was originally conceived as an F1 movie, but they ended up making a film about the CART World Series), & also in 1986 that Nigel Mansell's chances of becoming a maiden world champion had been blown up with a flattie (A tyre delamination I should say) that cost him a big chance over in Adelaide, Australia, therefore handing the world championship to Frenchman Alain Prost who dominated the Australian Grand Prix in a McLaren (And the reason why I'm backing McLaren is that it's a British car manufacturer, but it's founded by a late New Zealander who was the Le Mans 24 Hours winning driver of Bruce McLaren despite that the fact that I'm a Liam Lawson fan throughout (He made his debut in the Netherlands in 2023 for Alphatauri therefore subbing in for the injured Aussie Daniel Ricciardo until he returned in the US GP in Austin until he left a year later the year before allowing Lawson to take back his race seat which outraged most Aussie F1 fans (Especially on social media), until Lawson (Well, security must've been arranged to guard the New Zealander in time for the Mexican GP for that was the year before) transferred to the main Red Bull team in which he had an unsuccessful tenure after 2 races in that he chose to return to RB Racing Bulls where he has been there since) meaning that Mansell had to wait 6 years later, of becoming the world champion way back in 1992 in a car equipped with electronic gizmos for which is motor racing's version of cricket's bodyline in 1932-33 where the English fielders had employed brutal tactics against the Aussie batters during the Ashes series.
And finally in the cricket that India led the ODI series 1 - 0, but it was the Black Caps (Who are without our frontline players such as Tom Latham, Kane Williamson, Mitchell Santner, Jacob Duffy & others) turn to dominate the last 2 One Day Internationals with our start batter Daryl Mitchell scoring none other than back to back centuries (He scored an unbeaten 131 in the 2nd One Day International where he hit the winning runs, then 137 in the 3rd & deciding ODI) along with Will Young who posted a ton in the 3rd ODI to win the series after being 1 - 0 down for a historic One Day International series win against the Indians on Indian soil even though we have a T20I series in hand against India which is our last series hit-out before the men's T20 Cricket World Cup gets underway on February 7th where the Indians will defend their title after their success the year before against South Africa (Who completed a redemption story as they erased their painful memories in Barbados to win the World Test Championship against the defending champions at the time of the Aussies in front of a packed crowd although the WTC final was completed inside 4 days out of the originally scheduled 5 then a reserve day at Lord's in London, England last year) in the final at Kensington Oval in Barbados in which they redeemed themselves a year after losing to Australia (Whose pathway began after not making the semifinal stages of their home men's T20 Cricket World Cup in 2022 therefore failing to defend their title that they won in 2021 in the UAE & Oman, but first, they had to win their first WTC crown by beating India in the final at the Oval in London, then they retained the Ashes against England despite a drawn series) in 2023 during the men's ODI Cricket World Cup at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
So that is my 673rd blog of the year 2026 (MMXXVI) & my 25th of this year, viva Ukraine.
P.S. And it is within deep sadness as the entertainment world is in mourning as martial artist & film star Chuck Norris has recently passed away aged 86 just 9 days after his birthday, so rest in paradise, but all thoughts, prayers, & heartfelt condolences go to his family back in the United States for that sad but tough time.
Chuck Norris
1940 - 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment