McIntyre Wins The Gold, What Happens Next?!

I thought WWE's decision to strap up Drew McIntyre as Undisputed WWE Champion was quite a cool move when I saw it play out live as I watched Smackdown yesterday evening.

The Scot won the Three Stages of Hell match against Cody Rhodes in the main event from the show filmed in Berlin. It now opens up many side streets along the road to April's biggest show on the WWE calendar.

I had a feeling Rhodes would carry the title all the way through to WrestleMania 42 where he would face-off against Roman Reigns in the marquee bout of April 19th.

It could still happen. Obviously. However, we now get to see how the title finds its way back to Rhodes. Or to Reigns.

Or not?

I'm keen to see who McIntyre defends the title against at the Royal Rumble in three weeks from today. On Smackdown, it was announced that there will be four singles matches on next Friday's show from Wembley Arena. The winners of those contests will then square-off in a Fatal 4-Way match on the January 24th edition of Saturday Night's Main Event. 

The four qualifiers are:

Damian Priest .vs. Solo Sikoa

Matt Cardona .vs. Trick Williams

Randy Orton .vs. The Miz

Sami Zayn .vs. Ilja Dragunov

I made what I believe to be a reasonable prediction in THIS POST last night. I stated that Sami Zayn winning the title shot for the Rumble makes sense to me when you consider Zayn will be a strong babyface to the Saudi audience. 

Seems quite perfect on paper, if I say so myself.

No, I'm not suggesting Zayn beats McIntyre for the strap. I'm stating it's a perfect babyface versus strong heel match for that night. 

The Fascinating WildEarth Channel

For the past few weeks, I've had the WildEarth channel playing continuously on my TV whenever there isn't anything else on.

I had never heard about this British-South African broadcaster which airs live safaris across the day. It truly is one of the most fascinating concepts on TV today.

Late night is when I seem to have it on the most. By then, they're airing repeats from that day's safari drives. 

I felt compelled to write about WildEarth today because - as I watched it last night - I was stunned at something I saw.

A lioness was being filmed walking along a path with a bunch of her cubs. I counted them at one point, but think I may be a couple short. Either way, there were at least six little ones. They would stop when their mother would pause. 

But, it got better.

The lioness and her offspring stopped metres from the jeep where the driver/host and camera were filming live. The lioness sat down beside the vehicle and stayed there for a short time. Even though it was a repeat from earlier in the day, I became anxious for the two broadcasters being that close to the animal and her cubs.

Yes, I noted how anxious I felt. But, it was an excited anxiety as well knowing that I was witnessing something fascinating. 

When I was younger, my mum would encourage me to watch nature programmes by saying 'you could see things you'll never get to see again'. I knew what she meant back then, but I feel that advice was even more significant last night as the interaction between the lioness, her cubs and the crew played out on my television screen.

WildEarth airs on Freeview Channel 91. It's also available to Sky viewers but the content can also be found on YouTube.

Two Managers, One Story

I was just about to write about one thing this morning, when breaking news came our way. It then dawned on me that both stories are really one story. Kind of.

What I had originally planned for today was to write about Kevin Keegan. It was announced yesterday that he was having treatment for cancer. I wanted to share my best wishes for one of my favourite people in football. I also intended to draw attention to the fact that today, of all days, is the anniversary of one of his three departures from Newcastle United.

I'm sure I've written about it in posts of the past, but - when I was a toddler - I had a football annual given to me for Christmas. I had no idea which player was which, but remember a lot of my family members would point Kevin Keegan out to me.

As a teen, I fell in love with Newcastle United under Keegan. They played some great (sometimes not so great!) football. I think it's safe to say that 75% of my best football following memories were from that period of time.

It all came crashing to a halt on January 8th 1997 when Keegan left Newcastle from his first spell as manager. I remember where I was when I found out: the then named National Sports Centre for Wales. I walked into the building for weight training classes that were run by the sixth form college I attended. I was met by one of my friends, who pointed at the Newcastle United shirt I was wearing, and he relayed the news to me.

I was stunned.

Back in that era, I supported two domestic league football teams. It wasn't abnormal to have a Premier League team to support plus whichever team was local. Mine was Cardiff City. 

One of the managers of City, around that period of time, was Terry Yorath. He had also been manager of the national team after spending his playing career as captain of Wales and played for sides like Bradford, Coventry and most significant of all: Leeds.

It was at Leeds United when Yorath became the first Welshman to play in a European Cup Final. The game, which concluded the tournament for the 1974/75 season, was won 2-0 by Bayern Munich.

Yorath has passed away, aged 75, after a short illness.

Upon reading the news of Terry Yorath's death, I thought back to a time when I actually saw him out in the wild. Not standing, or sitting, around a football dugout at a game. It was inside the foyer of National Sports Centre for Wales - the very same place where I first found out about Kevin Keegan leaving Newcastle.

It would have made for a 'wow' moment to claim that I had seen Yorath on the same day I got the Kevin Keegan news. Unfortunately, the Gods of eerie coincidences didn't go all-in. I would have seen Terry Yorath up to a year before January 8th 1997. Still - it is a surreal link considering the recent news.

CAL '25

As I was looking through old photos last night, I came across an image I used on a blog post last year. It reminded me of something.

I had forgotten to write about whether I listened to Christmas Across The Lands in 2025.

The answer: of course I did.

Kind of.

I didn't get to bed until late on Christmas Eve. I knew I would be able to find the Christmas-themed programme playing on Christmas FM out of Dublin, so tuned in there. I wasn't disappointed. I was able to catch a bit of it before falling asleep. 

Following that, I was able to listen to CAL on WCSF - a college radio station, based in Illinois, I have tuned into before for Randy Sherwyn's twelve-hour radio marathons of Christmas music and trivia notes.

With all that said, I didn't catch as much of CAL in 2025 as I would have liked. I'll try to do better this year!

Introducing My New Calendar: A Year Of Football Trivia 2026

Over the past three years, I have had a Garbage Pail Kids box calendar to tear off each day (other than Sundays!). As well as that, I also had an Indianapolis Colts calendar in 2025. So, when it came time for me to find calendars for this year, I found myself at a crossroads of sorts.

The company that made the Garbage Pail Kids calendars didn't produce one for 2026. Therefore, that hope was dashed. As for the Colts one - I was gifted the '25 edition. It was one of my favourite presents from Christmas 2024, and one I obviously used every day (other than Sundays!) last year. I didn't want to blemish that fond memory I carry from that gift by buying my own a year later. I know how odd that might come across. 

I'm not ruling out buying a Colts calendar of my own in future. I simply felt I couldn't do it in 2025. But.. with all that said... I found the best alternative:

I was told by my father to find some things on Amazon for him to buy for me. Well, I knew I needed a box calendar, so looked around and came across 'A Year of Football Trivia 2026'.

It's such a perfect pick, if I say so myself. It allows me to continue tearing off pages and uncovering American football stuff. 

As you'll see below, the first trivia question of the year was about college football, so it isn't restricted to only covering the pro version of the sport.

The answers are on the reverse of each page. I have settled on a fun approach: read the question and then spend the rest of the day thinking about it. I will then find out the answer the following morning after tearing off the page. I then get another question to think about before the following morning.

Today's question lists five NFL owners from 1976. I am now tasked with having to line each respective name with the one of five franchises listed on the sheet. I have a good feeling I have three of them correct, but need to consider which teams the other two gentlemen owned.

It would be somewhat amusing if I ended up going 3-2. Especially after what I wrote yesterday.

Throughout this post, I dropped in a couple of 'Other than Sundays!' in parenthesis. That's because, as is often the case with box calendars, weekends appear on one page.

As you can see, in the photo immediately above, the sheet for last weekend had a quote from then Las Vegas Raiders coach - Antonio Peirce. I was going to write 'previous Las Vegas Raiders head coach - Antonio Pierce' but that is no longer accurate due to Pete Carroll getting the chop yesterday. I surmise other pages for Saturdays and Sundays will consist of quotations rather than trivia. Time will prove whether that prediction is right or not.

So far, it has been enjoyable to use this calendar. I miss having to use the other two, but - as noted already - it's a perfect alternative.

Check Out Year of Football Calendars on Amazon UK

Closing The 2025 NFL Regular Season With A Winning Record

Here's how the final entry in the handicapping contest went for me over the weekend.

4-1. Not bad, I suppose. It seems like I went 4-1 a lot over the season. Looking at the weekly results, I believe I came one short five times across the eighteen weeks. 

I didn't go 5-0 at all this year. On the reverse of that, I didn't go 0-5 either. 

The worst result I had was 1-4. I had three of those.

As for the overall win-loss, I scored forty-eight wins, thirty-nine losses and three pushes. That 48-39-3 record had a strike-rate of 55.17% so it was above the key number of 52.38% gamblers see as profitable when it comes to point-spread wagering on American football.

It obviously could have gone better, but - to look on the positive - it could have been a lot worse.

All of the weekly picks were made using Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual 2025. I now get ready for the playoffs, but - deeper in the background - I'll continue putting the pieces together for the 2026 edition of my annual.

End Of A Wrestling Tradition

An annual tradition came to an end this morning.

Each January 4th, for the past handful of years, I’ve set my alarm to go off in order to give me enough time to wash, dress and get ready for that year’s NJPW WrestleKingdom. I would always stand in my shower, look up at the darkness through the window and think words along the lines of ‘the things I do for pro wrestling’.

This year is different, however. 

I feel this is a one, maybe two, match show. Three at a push. It didn’t matter if I opened my NJPW World app slightly later for this one. This year.

The main event of the night will see Hiroshi Tanahashi wrestle his last match. The retiree will square-off against Kazuchika Okada, who’s returning to New Japan for a one-off.

I haven’t missed much of the show. It seems like I have been tuned in since the second match of the main card. It's currently at the mid-point (if I were to guess).

The other match I am keen to see is the title .vs. title contest between IWGP World Heavyweight Champ - Konosuke Takeshita - and Yota Tsuji, the current IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion.

Today could be Tsuji's moment to become the standard bearer for New Japan Pro Wrestling. That's something I've been anticipating for well over a year.

As I am writing this, Aaron Wolf - an Olympic gold medallist in Judo - is set to make his professional wrestling debut. That's the third match I am pushed into caring about due to the newsworthiness of Wolf entering the business.