Doog

I know MJF was the main event Sunday, and the go home shows he was featured in the "main event" spot, but other than those the whole build up to Full Gear he was pretty much in the mid card, this tournament now feels like it'll again take precedence over the World Title, can already see the main event of dynamite and Collision for the next 6 weeks will be matches for this tournament.

All well and good, but for me the World Title and World Champion should be the focal point of your shows, I don't care what else is going on. It just feels like again this is something that will take away from that. Absolute waste of time a shit tournament.

Hah yeah - That's the other thing, very much a street walker too, don't go for the "sights" which adds to the dullness I guess, just walk round the estates near me on loops etc, so don't touch fields or anything like that. It's for the exercise for me so don't really take in where I am just try to keep the pace up. Anyway yeah that's mine!

I don't think the average non watcher of wrestling would say it's dull, boring etc. Stupid, childish, ridiculous etc but not really in keeping with the point of the thread.

Mine would probably be walking, I walk Minimum 30,000 steps a day, generally takes me about 4 hours (weekends in one go, weekdays split into 2 hours 1 hour 1 hour. Obviously walking is fine but people can't understand how I can walk for that long and say how boring it must be etc. I love it, obv I've got podcasts I listen to, so I find it perfect. It's a lot of walking  and at quite a fast past too so I get it.

Obv I wouldn't say walking is boring per se, but to the extent I do it then I get why people wouldn't dream of doing it, not just from.a fitness stand point but just trying to stay interested for that long. Fuck it  I love nothing more than getting up at 5.30 on a Saturday, doing my 30k and being home by 10am to do what I want with the day all in the knowledge I've already burnt over 2000 calories.

Was a good PPV, everything had its place and entertained throughout. Felt like a proper attitude era style PPV with the show long storyline with the MJF injury angle.

Was convinced Cole would be revealed as the Devil by the end of it, on the pre show he held MJF whilst he could see the Gunns getting ready to attack him and he basically let White have the ROH belt anf the Diamond Ring to whack MJF with so I'm still convinced he'll eventually be revealed as it with Strong and company in toe. Surprised there was no involvement of jt tonight, but as has been said the angle was talked about throughout. 

Enjoyed all the matches and the stories, plenty of momentum heading into Worlds End, hopefully not too many of the stories get bogged down in the Continental Classic but by the looks of the wrestlers already announced for it the stars on this show won't be in it.

Tag match was wild, hopefully everyone was well enough to shake FTRs hands properly after it.

If it was to happen, then this is the perfect season for it to happen for them.

Even with the deduction they're still only 2 points off safety, and hilariously even above Burnley. They've started this season pretty well to be fair and look in decent nick, we've also got 3 of the worse teams the PL has ever seen this season so they'll be absolutely fine to stay up.

Yeah, it's got to be a big name from the indy scene so to speak- if it was a big star ala Goldberg or even Rousey, he'd surely have worded it "wrestling fans", same for any of the WWE releases who have been there years, specifically saying AEW fans makes me think he's leaning into the more hard-core fan that follows AEW than your typical wrestling fan. Osprey has obviously wrestled there already so it would make the most sense, and like has been said sign the contract and its starting from next year.

Noticed it myself at the time and went back, but when Roddy is backstage talking to Cole on the screen, when he's accusing MJF of being The Devil, when he says on his life he is the Devil, he points both his hands at the screen where Cole is on. AEW are clever sometimes with the little bits you don't notice but you're meant to if you pay attention (Hangman standing at the back of the curtain when Young Bucks and Kenny were celebrating etc), definitely felt like this was one of them and it being Cole would make sense.

I guess it just depends how long Cole is unable to wrestle for before they do the reveal.

It's getting embarrassing now mate, you lost, get over it.

This all goes back to last Christmas when we had the audacity to come to the Emirates, and, rather than play open expansive football and get battered we decided to play defensive and utilise some time wasting tactics, you might not like it but you were a lot better than us so to get a result we had to play differently. I find the arrogance that we shouldn't play like that embarrassing, like little old Newcastle should just come to Arsenal and roll over, how dare they play to their strengths to try and get a result (which we got) there is only one way to play football etc etc.

That was one match, we don't play like that against Crystal Palace and Bournemouth. You don't score as many goals as we do by playing turgid shut up shop football, we can play when we want to and need to, on the other hand we can also adapt to try and get a result against better teams if we have to as well. We're not Man City, can't play lovely football every week, we're not good enough. You do what you do to get a result.

Take it as a compliment we played like that at the Emirates, anyone who watches us regularly will know we don't always play like that. Look at PSG, Man Utd last week, Palace the other week, Villa opening weekend to name a few this season where we've played some good stuff and gave teams a hiding.

The narrative about us being like a Stoke or Burnley are way off the mark and stinks of sour grapes because like I say we didn't roll over and actually try and compete now.

I should also add, the all conquering, total elite football playing Arsenal had just one shot on target against us last Saturday. Can't always play like Brazil in the 70s.

7 hours ago, PunkStep said:

Are you?

I think so yeah - to qualify this year will arguably be harder/a bigger achievement than last year in some ways (though 5th place getting in will help) but there's no doubt we're on an upwards trajectory and I'd be mildly confident over the next ten years we make it more times than we don't.

Won't be easy of course but the squad is only going to get better and we've been playing very well for 2 years now so it's not some fluke.

Its a weird one because obviously we were never going to win it anyway so going out isn't the end of the world. We're going to be regulars in the Champions League now so this year was all about gaining some experience, and obviously with how stretched the squad is at the minute it was always going to be difficult.

Also, to be fair destroying PSG 4-1 is never going to mean nothing mind, it's a great highlight of the campaign and gave us a great night, of which there'll be many many more in the years to come, just not this year.

Slightly off topic but something ive been thinking about, and with how good last nights match was to watch. I know some don't like certain commentators and Neville can grate on people etc, but I must say in the era of VAR and everything I much prefer watching premier league football in the TV than in the stadium these days.

It's a controversial take and I've never wanted to conform to that "armchair fan" but I've realised the past few weeks/months that its just so much better. You know exactly what's going on, you see things you simply wouldn't see in the stadium, you can follow the game much better and pick up what's happening and if there is a VAR check at least the commentary are doing their best to explain what's happening. Yeah you miss out on the atmosphere, but you can be at home with a few beers and I'm always pretty lively watching games anyway. I went to Wembley for the cup final last year and we lost which obviously didn't help, but the whole experience was just awful, I know Wembley is shit anyway but I'd dreamed of going to watch Newcastle at Wembley for years but when I was there it just felt like I'd rather be at home/the pub. The bars around there are shit, they don't have enough to support 80000+ crowd's and obviously costs are a rip off

I had a Season Ticket at Newcastle from 2008 up until last season, didn't go much last year so sacked it off this year, and now even though we're good now and yhe next few years are going to be amazing, I don't regret it one bit, majority of our matches are on TV now anyway and the odd ones that aren't you can stream or I could get a ticket if I really wanted to. I miss the away days a bit but to be fair there's so many dickheads in away fanbases these days more interested in snorting coke that it ruins it anyway.

I do go and watch my local non league side regularly so I get the live football fix there, and that's brilliant but for Newcastle I just prefer the TV.

If they do I hope to god they announce Orton before the show or its definitely getting hijacked with CM Punk chants and then a pissed off crowd ruining the main event when it isn't him.

On that note also, I was reading that Triple H wants Ortons return to be a massive thing and all anyone talks aboit etc and it'll be promoted across social media, if that is the case then they're not having Punk show up as well so that should put to bed those rumours if/when Orton is announced.

Was that the worse hat trick of all time? 3 tap ins against 9 men, missed loads before that and generally looked awful throughout, him nearly falling over for the 3rd goal would have topped it off as well.

Honestly, it felt like Sterling and Jackson were trying not to score at one point in that second half. The way Jackson celebrated his goals was embarrassing too, he can't be proud of that 

Even WWE don't seem to view the RAW "World" Title that important, it's never the main focus of RAW, its never involved in the main event and the segments involving it are typically randomly in thr middle of the show (usually not even top of the hour or what not). It's just odd. What's the point of winning it. May as well go for the IC which has a lot more prestige.

Won the same amount of trohpies as Arsenal last season, dare say it'll be the same this season (community shield doesn't count).

People can chuck the Saudi Arabia stuff around all they like, but the fact is a lot of the big club fans just don't like another club challenging them. It's alright saying how much they like Newcastle when they're shit, deserve so much more etc, but when they actually challenge its all, LOL never won a trophy etc. Just don't like it up them. 

Newcastle are here to stay, the money isn't goirng away, but even without that Howe has transformed the club. Longstaff, Joelinton, Shchar, Murphy even Lascslles now are much better players since Howe arrived, the money spent has improved them but its hardly been a Chelsea style spending spree, little by little a giant is being built and it'll only get stronger. Unless you're due to die within the next couple of years I think you'll be very wrong about the trophies Newcastle will win.

Severe Red warning issued by the Met Office for North London tonight for tears around a M. Arteta's residence.

VAR did all it could to rule the goal out, we know they fuck around with the curvature of the ball these days so from whatever angles we can see we just don't know.

Arsenal were nowhere near good enough to win the game tonight regardless of that, cam cry all they like about losing 3 points, at best they've lost 1 as they weren't winning that, they weren't good enough.

Havertz could arguably have been sent off in the first half as well. Great win for Newcastle, most entertaining was Arteta crying about it. Couldn't happen to be more deserving bloke.

It's France by all accounts, makes sense but it is a shame after how good Money In The Bank weekend was, I know they're over here again next week for house shows but I'm still gutted they don't do the RAW and Smackdown double tapings in May and November anymore, used to love those trips.

Interesting timing too, only a week after SummerSlam

Yeah the days of them being these wacko shows with random matches between over the hill ancients are long gone, its unfair it still has that tag. It's turned into a big time feel event now and always has the big stars on it.

Crowd are usually a lot better now as well, it'll be a decent show.

1 minute ago, LaGoosh said:

Yeah but what if you don't give a fuck how popular WWE is, think their output is absolute shite or care what the average fan thinks? 

AEW is a niche product for a different, smaller audience with different viewing habits. That's ok.

Yeah that's fair, it is niche and that is ok. My problem is i do like AEW and do enjoy it when I watch it, but shit like this puts me off because like I say it's difficult to follow unless you've been into everything and followed careers for years/read up etc.

I appreciate that means the product isn't directed towards me, which is also fine, but I want to like it and for it to grow, but with stuff like this happening I don't think it will.

Again as stated, it's not just a criticism about this match itself, it's a lot broader than that. My advertising point was in response to why you wouldn't criticise Lance Storm v Whoever for example.

The point is generally there's too many matches just being chucked out there as selling points to watch the show, when there's little to no reason (unless you research) for it to be happening to the average viewer. There not gaining any new fans, losing them if anything (certainly live attendance wise) so it's not working. So what's the point. Even people that do watch regularly aren't following it.

Waste of time with some on here though, AEW can do no wrong.

It's not this specific match itself that has led to this discussion, it's far broader than that.

The argument about random matches in WWE isn't valid, when Lance Storm is facing Tommy Dreamer on a random 2002 Raw, that's fine, it wasn't advertised 5 days out as a selling point to the show, this is. Yeah it sounds like there is a little bit if story if you search far enough, but your average viewer isn't doing that.

It's more the advertising these matches and the reason for it generally, is as mentioned above, these are decent wrestlers this'll be good lads, watch it.

It's right that this isn't a new thing and AEW has always been like it, but that's not a plus point. Live attendances are in the toilet, TV ratings are pretty much the exact same as they have been since it started, the regular viewers are tuning it but it's not growing, and yeah there's other reasons for it but chucking matches out for the sake of it definitely isn't helping.

You can hate on WWE all you like about how they've conditioned fans for their way of presenting wrestling, but it works and that's proven in how popular it is and has been. No one wants to have to read up on every little thing to understand why a match is happening and to be invested. Some will on here aye, but the average fan will tune out.

Like I say it's not just all because of this specific match, it's not a new thing and has been going on for far too long and happens far too often. These aren't just matches randomly popping up when you watch TV, they're being advertised and sold, only for the same 900k (unless NXT is on) to tune in and watch whilst thousands of others in the town don't even show up.

7 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Yeah mate, it's wrestling. Wrestling shows have wrestling matches on them.

Usually with a bit of thought behind it mind and reason. And not just thrown out there as thr latest "dream match of the week"

Honestly it's like when you're 10 and you're at school and it's like, what would be your ultimate dream match? And someone is like I'd love to see Undertaker v Mankind v Kane v Hulk Hogan v Ric Flair v Ahmed Johnson in a flaming hell in a cell match with Andre The Giant as the referee.

Could do, but might be a bit...pointless.

Prefer my TV matches to have a reason to happen like rather than just "dream match innit"

Matches for matches sake. Good old AEW.

Or, you know, instead of waiting to hear all these stories before making a judgment how about judge how the product has been the last year or so and how everything is ticking upwards and the character development and storylines have created an interest and buzz in WWE not seen for years, smashing attendance records all over the place, ratings up and generally a feel good feeling around the place and company.

Now Triple H obviously isn't responsible for all of it, however it simply cannot be denied that since he has been more heavily involved in creative, and hell from when Vince left until Endeavour came in he was in charge of the whole company, business has been amazing. He clearly knows what he's doing and has done a fantastic job. He's the fucking man.