Podcast: Talkin’ Draft on The Morning Glory Show

In case you missed the live stream this morning, fret not. I’ve got you covered here on SoBros Network dot com. I had the distinct honor and pleasure of hopping on The Morning Glory Show with Jonathan Miller and Jake Robertson. If you haven’t been keeping up with these guys on Thursday mornings, make it apart of your routine. Alongside BWill, who is normally on the show with ’em, these are some Grade A ball-knowers delivering informed content to fans of the Tennessee Titans.

On this morning’s episode, we talked about L’Jarius Sneed, outside-the-box options for the Titans at 7 should Joe Alt and the top three wide receivers be off the board, offensive tackle options for the team at 38 if they don’t snag one at 7, some of my NFL Draft player comps, and of course, we talk about which NFL mascots would stand the best chance in a death match tournament. It’s a great way to spend a Thursday morning, but it’s worth catching up on if you missed it live!

Follow Jake on Twitter, Jonathan on Twitter, and follow Glory Day Sports on YouTube!

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

SoBros Network and Stacking The Inbox have teamed up for the greatest premium content collaboration in the history of Nashville. Get all of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft coverage you need on top of premium SoBros Network content such as The Movie Review Rewind Podcast, Sports Punch, and much more! Only $5/month gets you instant access to an exhaustive content library of articles, podcasts, and videos created exclusively for our subscribers! Sign up on Substack today!

Nashville Hot Chicken Review: Prince’s

Holy shit – I can’t believe it’s been over two years since I wrote a Nashville Hot Chicken Review here on SoBros Network. Yikes – where has the time gone? Let’s get the awkward part of this out of the way early – I tried Prince’s Hot Chicken for the first time last Friday night, and as you’ll see below, I did not find it to be the best hot chicken in this city. I have to be honest with you guys – I’m nothing as a journalist if not transparent. These are my feelings.

Now, my experience raises an important debate, because both my wife and Outspoken Owen Reed said the same thing to me. I ate Prince’s at Assembly Food Hall. They both told me I can’t judge Prince’s based on that experience because it’s “not the real Prince’s.” I get the sentiment. I can certainly understand how location can impact quality. But, my counterpoint to that was that if you’re going to put your name and your brand on the sign, you damn well better be confident that the product coming out lines up with the real thing. That’s why I said it was fair game to write this review. Whether you agree with me or not is your prerogative, but I can’t review spots for you…I’m sharing my experience in pieces like this. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, I’m talking about this as if I’m going to slam Prince’s in this review. I’m not. I liked it. It was a great meal, and I’d undoubtedly eat it again. I just didn’t think it was revelatory that way some people in this city talk about it. I didn’t see it the same way so many of y’all do. It was fine Nashville hot chicken. Fine. But, there’s an interesting dynamic at play here in how hyped up this establishment is. Through word of mouth for decades, Prince’s has become apart of Nashville’s DNA. Hearing some of y’all talk about it made me think I was going to have my brain blown out of my skull. Maybe that sets unfair standards to live up to. I don’t know. Again, I’m just saying how I feel.

Pics

Hold up, let’s zoom in on the texture of this chicken:

Ratings

Flavor: 5/10 – It’s the thing that really grounds this hot chicken….right down the middle, it is spice and heat and that’s about it. I like a little sweetness in my hot chicken. At the very least, I like a little variance in the flavor. This felt like blunt cayenne right to the dome.

Texture: 8.47/10 – Oh my, this was the highlight of the meal to me. The chicken was so fresh. Juice rolled down my chin with every bite. It was cooked to perfection, and the breading gave it a nice, crispy exterior. Regardless of what your heat tolerance is, this is exactly what you want your chicken to be. It was legitimately the perfect tender.

Heat: 8.24/10 – They nailed the hit. I ordered medium, and sometimes, places will serve it up like you’re a bitch if you do that and the result is a chicken that lacks in the heat department. Or, you’ll get the people who try to blow your intestines out with the medium. Prince’s gets it just right – the medium isn’t hot enough to overpower the rest of the experience, but it is just enough to clear out your sinuses.

Fixins: 5.78/10 – Fries were fine, but it’s really the macaroni and cheese that pull this score above average. It was rich and creamy and helped to cool down my palate after the heat from the chicken set in. Loved the pickles. Loved the bread.

Overall: 6.87/10 – Again, my issue isn’t that this was a bad meal because it certainly wasn’t. It hit pretty damn hard after a few gin and tonics on a Friday night. It was good. My issue is that for no telling how long, I have been building this chicken up in my head as the best thing I’ve ever eaten, and it wasn’t. Prince’s offers up a good, classical style Nashville hot chicken and a quality of meal that you just won’t get everywhere else.

CURRENT NASHVILLE HOT CHICKEN POWER RANKINGS

  1. Hurt’s Hot Chicken (8.53/10)
  2. Red’s 615 Kitchen (7.23/10)
  3. Prince’s Hot Chicken (6.87/10)
  4. Scoreboard (6.62/10)
  5. Nectar: Urban Cantina (6.5/10)

Important qualifier: I’ve literally only reviewed 12 places around town. Don’t @ me with the “where’s Hattie B’s? Where’s Bolton’s? Where’s Prince’s?” I KNOW – we’re working on getting out to the heavyweights in the Nashville hot chicken scene this year. This portfolio has to start somewhere, and right now, it’s starting east of town because that’s the easiest for me to get to. *shrugs*

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

SoBros Network and Stacking The Inbox have teamed up for the greatest premium content collaboration in the history of Nashville. Get all of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft coverage you need on top of premium SoBros Network content such as The Movie Review Rewind Podcast, Sports Punch, and much more! Only $5/month gets you instant access to an exhaustive content library of articles, podcasts, and videos created exclusively for our subscribers! Sign up on Substack today!

The Biggest Misfires in WrestleMania History

I’m nearly 11 years into my writing career. That’s a lot of articles throughout the years. I love writing about WrestleMania – it’s the biggest pro wrestling show of the year. It’s featured iconic moments, adrenaline-pumping matches, and pop culture crossovers that make it one of the most unique nights (or two) in entertainment each and every year. If Werner Herzog is infatuated with it, you know it has a special place in the fabric of Americana. But, for me personally, I’ve really stretched the content bank thin when it comes to WrestleMania. Nonetheless, WrestleMania XL is next weekend, and it has me dancing with anticipation for the veritable wrestling holiday that is to come. I’ll write a drinking game, for sure, but the usual avenues writers go down this time of year – best matches, best moments, best shows, etc. – are all avenues I have already traveled down and then some. That’s a roundabout way of me saying, “what the hell else am I going to write at this point?

Well, thanks to our buddy Steve, I was scrolling Twitter yesterday, saw him tweet about the Triple H vs. Booker T match from 2003, and thought to myself, “holy shit what a misfire that whole thing was.” That sparked the idea that brings us here this morning. I started playing back all of the WrestleManias I remembered from my days as a wrestling fan, looking for equally bizarre misfires…matches and moments that, quite simply, just didn’t hit the way the WWE drew things up. Time gives us the benefit of hindsight in all walks of life…pro wrestling is no different. So, here’s my list. Keep in mind I’m 37 years old…the first WrestleMania I can actually remember the weekly build to was WrestleMania XIV. Otherwise, I was renting WrestleMania tapes from Mt. Juliet Video & Comics having no connection to the show and not knowing anything about the build-up beyond the little recap videos they aired before matches. If you’re wondering why there isn’t any older shit on this list, that’s why. Here’s what I came up with.

The Biggest Misfires in WrestleMania History

Turning Stone Cold Steve Austin heel (2001) – In a lot of ways, 2001 marked a transition period for the WWE. A lot of the stuff they were running throughout the Attitude Era just wasn’t sustainable. Not to mention, the sponsorship options they had the time were much more kid-friendly, so they knew they had to dial it back a bit. It wasn’t a hard PG reboot, but in some ways, WrestleMania X-Seven marked the end of one area and the beginning of another. The seminal moment in that was the idea to turn Stone Cold Steve Austin heel following his main event championship match against The Rock. Again…we’re headed in a different direction now, I can see the vision behind pulling the trigger on an Austin heel turn. But, in execution, it was a little confusing. I remember being 15 at the time and not really understanding what was happening. Maybe it was my dumb teenage brain, but I thought, “is Vince turning face?” That’s how engrained the idea that Austin was a hero was in our brains. It proved to be an arduous task to follow up on. How do you take someone so beloved and try to get people to hate him? WWE parlayed the Two Man Power Trip into the Invasion angle, and while I’ve always felt like the year was a little underrated because of all the shenanigans, nothing seemed to hit the way they wanted it to. The trickle down effect of this decision gave the dynamic of WWE programming a weird vibe for the rest of the year. If they had it to do all over again, would they run this the same way?

Triple H over Booker T (2003) – Even as a teenager watching this buildup unfold, I thought it felt a little gross. Like, “guys, we’re teetering a liiiiiiittle too close to some truly hateful shit.” To tell this story the way that they did and then to have Booker T lose the match? Tough scene, y’all. Tough scene. Now that we’re here 21 years after the fact – what would a Booker T title reign in 2003 have hurt? I still don’t get that call to this day.

The main event stipulation (2009) – The build to the main event of WrestleMania 25 between Randy Orton and Triple H was red hot. I’ll never forget Triple H showing up at Orton’s house, Orton handcuffing Triple H to the ropes and kissing his unconscious wife in front of him…I mean, hell…we were getting personal personal. It was one of my favorite WrestleMania builds ever, and then they decided to just kill the vibe with the stipulation for that match. Triple H would lose the title if the match ended in DQ or count-out. What? You’re telling me this man watched his unconscious wife get assaulted and they decided the way to go was to make the match less violent? It totally killed what would’ve been an all-timer of a bloodbath.

Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose (2016) – Y’know…I can see the vision here…but they had to know that Lesnar wasn’t going to get down in the mud with Ambrose here, right?!?! I mean, to hear Ambrose tell it, he was down to do some wild shit, but Lesnar wasn’t. The result was a lackluster fight that had me as disinterested in it as Lesnar was. They should’ve known better.

Kurt Angle’s last match (2019) – It’s nothing against Baron Corbin because I do feel like he’s had a rather underrated career so far, but this being Angle’s retirement match was stupid. It should’ve been Cena like Angle wanted.

Before you comment, no, I don’t think last year’s main event was a misfire. Last year’s main event ruled. But, if you have what you consider to be a major misfire at the Granddaddy of Them All, feel free to drop it in the comments.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

SoBros Network and Stacking The Inbox have teamed up for the greatest premium content collaboration in the history of Nashville. Get all of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft coverage you need on top of premium SoBros Network content such as The Movie Review Rewind Podcast, Sports Punch, and much more! Only $5/month gets you instant access to an exhaustive content library of articles, podcasts, and videos created exclusively for our subscribers! Sign up on Substack today!

I Want to Live in the Vintage Toys R Us Replica

I can’t say that I was frequenting the local Toys R Us at the time it was announced that all of the stores closed down. But, I can say that I can distinctly remember how I felt when I saw the news that Toys R Us was going under. That was a feeling of disappointment…like the inevitable passing of time had claimed another victim…like a small piece of my childhood had died that day. When I was growing up, nothing beat a Friday night at Sir Pizza in Antioch followed up by a trip through Hickory Hollow, and if I was good, maybe a stop at Toys R Us before they closed. So, yeah – any kind of Toys R Us nostalgia is going to get me right square in my feels. That’s why this clip from Historic Vids stopped me dead in my tracks when I saw it the other day, and I felt compelled to share these feelings with you all today.

The multi-colored letters. The old toys. The goofy looking giraffe on the front of the building. The stripes on the front of the building. Man, this was the life back in the day on a Friday night. I know I’m not alone in this given how we glamorize Toys R Us today. There’s a lot of memories there for a lot of people. I don’t know any context behind this replica existing – it’s a 23-second video on Twitter and that’s all I know about it. But, if there’s an actual journalist in me, I swear I’m going to find this thing, figure out what it was used for, and if it still exists. Why? Because if it still exists, I want to find it and live in it. I feel safe in the replica Toys R Us because it brings back those safe feelings of being a kid. Sorry – I didn’t mean for this to take such a dark turn. My point is this thing is pretty cool. Historic Vids has been on one lately. I don’t know where Toys R Us fits into the grand scheme of history, but I’m not complaining.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

SoBros Network and Stacking The Inbox have teamed up for the greatest premium content collaboration in the history of Nashville. Get all of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft coverage you need on top of premium SoBros Network content such as The Movie Review Rewind Podcast, Sports Punch, and much more! Only $5/month gets you instant access to an exhaustive content library of articles, podcasts, and videos created exclusively for our subscribers! Sign up on Substack today!

Nashville Food Truck Reviews: Taste of Aloha

It’s been quite some time since I’ve reviewed a food truck…since September of 2023, to be exact. That’s one thing I do miss about the covid quarantine. With restaurants closed, we had to get creative for date nights…or, well…really any time we wanted to break up the routine of sitting on the couch all day. It became a veritable ritual in our household to open up the MacBook every morning and see what was popping on BestFoodTrucks and StreetFoodFinder. I was thinking about those days last week on a Wednesday that didn’t have any dinner plans lined up. So, I poked around and saw that Taste of Aloha was going to be over on our side of town. I found their Instagram profile some time ago and after scrolling the feed, knew it was a spot I had to try. Thankfully, the stars aligned last week and I got to cross this one off my list.

Pics

Ratings

Food: 7.89/10 – I had the spam bowl (with an ice cold Dr. Pepper), and while I’d like to try some stuff from the rest of the menu, it’s hard to imagine I’m ever going to veer off course from this thing. It was fantastic. Just from the variation in texture alone, it was a pleasurable experience between the soft, fluffy rice with the crunch of the onion in it. But, the combination of flavors is what really set this dish apart. The spam supplies it with a hefty dose of saltiness, but it’s balanced out nicely by the pineapple chunks that burst with juice in every bite and the tangy sauce (that I can’t remember the name of for the life of me). The onions provide the slightest bit of bite, yet it’s all grounded in the white rice. Without the rice, I’d imagine this would be a pretty powerful, overpowering taste. But, it’s like the flavor from each ingredient spreads throughout the grains and mellows it out a bit. A fine work of craftsmanship, this dish is.

Value: 5.12/10 – Fair is fair. Right down the middle, my spam bowl and my mother’s kid’s menu chicken tenders cost $26. You can’t eat at too many places these days for that amount for two people. It’s certainly not a trip through the McDonald’s drive-thru, but I will happily spend that amount for such a quality meal. Very fair given today’s economic climate.

Overall: 6.51/10 – I was ecstatic to find Taste of Aloha after scoping out the Instagram profile months ago and thinking it looked like something I had to try. Food trucks and restaurants don’t always live up to the hype, but I can safely say that Tase of Aloha does. It’s a truck you should definitely seek out.

CURRENT NASHVILLE FOOD TRUCK RANKINGS

  1. The Rolling Recipe – 7.67/10
  2. Red’s 615 Kitchen – 7/10
  3. Califarmia – 6.93/10
  4. Tennessee Tatercakes – 6.85/10
  5. Hurt’s Hot Chicken – 6.67/10

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

SoBros Network and Stacking The Inbox have teamed up for the greatest premium content collaboration in the history of Nashville. Get all of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft coverage you need on top of premium SoBros Network content such as The Movie Review Rewind Podcast, Sports Punch, and much more! Only $5/month gets you instant access to an exhaustive content library of articles, podcasts, and videos created exclusively for our subscribers! Sign up on Substack today!

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