HarmonicGenerator
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Posts posted by HarmonicGenerator
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It’s felt like most of the matches the last two weeks have been AEW Star vs Someone From ROH and we’re meant to consider them equals. But they’re not, and I don’t. I think I enjoyed Battle Of The Belts more than Collision this week, which shouldn’t ever be the case.
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9 minutes ago, Merzbow said:
I think they've almost nailed the production here, yeah there are a tonne of LED screens but it's all lit right.
Did anyone ever collect these figures? They look like shit wrestling knock offs you'd find.
Absolutely I did! I’ll still have them somewhere along with a Gladiators annual. The backpack, soundtrack cassette and foam hand I got at an International Gladiators taping are sadly all long lost though.
I enjoyed the new episode tonight, it felt like it had the spirit of the original show, and was loads more fun than the soulless Sky One reboot.
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I was at the SmackDown show in Newcastle - my last WWE show to date. I bought a ticket quite late because I wanted to see Nakamura / Nakamura’s entrance live. Pity he had to be in there with Ziggler. AJ Styles being on the card was a reason too, I hadn’t seen him in person before. Pity he had to be in there with Jinder. I remember Orton got by far the biggest pop of the night.
I couldn’t tell you much more of the card. I vaguely recall the UK six man, and I’m confident in saying Zayn vs Owens was match of the night. Not because of work rate or anything, more because Owens decided to have fun going full panto villain and it felt like a proper “house show” match due to all the crowd work.
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Attenborough is a good shout. It’s going to be a sad sad day when it happens.Â
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I’m with you on Springsteen, @Frankie Crisp. He’s had a profound effect on my life, getting me through some of the worst times and being part of the best. I get quite upset just at the thought of him no longer being here, and I think I’ll be inconsolable for some time should anything happen to him.
I’d maybe also say John Williams. Similar to what @Devon Malcolm said about Spielberg - it’s the effect he’s had on cinema, and it’s my childhood … and adulthood. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Jurassic Park, ET…
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I think having Tag and Trios belts has muddied the waters in a way they probably didn’t intend. A lot of the trios feel like tag team + one other, rather than a unit of three people, which in turn means more people in the tag division are two parts of a trio or a larger group rather than a duo in their own right. I don’t think it needs fully segregating but a bit more focus on them as separate divisions would help.
On another title note, I don’t know how I feel about how hard Eddie Kingston had to work to win the Continental Classic - how hard everyone in the tournament had to work, for that matter - when they could have all just hung on a week and won a quick four way to get a title shot.
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18 minutes ago, Supremo said:
A year or two ago, you could argue Jericho was a 50/50 guy, who might shit the bed one month but then knock something out of the park the next. In 2023 though? We’re looking at 80/20 or even 90/10. Genuinely couldn’t tell you anything he’s done this year worth a shit.
I could just about make a case for his Falls Count Anywhere against Roderick Strong, but my feelings on him at the moment are closer to the other seven guys in the match on Saturday, so I'll just say maybe that was the 10 in 90/10.
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It might not be funniest, but it appealed to my sense of humour the most - Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I couldn’t breathe for laughing the first time I saw the rabbit scene.
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January is a bit limboish for me this year as I’m on jury service from the 4th, and won’t know til then if it’s going to be a day, or a week, or longer, or nothing at all. So I’ve tried not to plan too much, but we will be watching Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma in around 3 weeks time. Should be good theatre - haven’t seen either on them on stage before. Macbeth definitely did it - guilty.
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2, 3, 5, 7, 11
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Samantha Irvin - so that’s her name! Yeah, I don’t like her work. Although, I’d probably feel the same if I hadn’t seen AEW before and heard Justin Roberts do his “Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeon Moxley” announcing.
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It's the end of the year and @Onyx2Â asked where my annual post going through all the new films I watched this year was. It's here Onyx, I'm doing it.
As usual, there'll be objectively good films that I didn't like as much as I should have, and there'll be rubbish films (or superhero ones) that I did. I already know my opinions on quite a few films are totally different from the excellent regular posters in this thread. Sorry about that.
This might be a long post so it's going in spoiler tags so I don't muck up the thread and you don't have to look at my thoughts if you don't want to.
SpoilerAltogether I saw 48 new release films this year. That's not a lot, but it's slightly more than last year's 44.
I'll go through them roughly by theme because I can't remember the order I saw everything in, and a ranking will reveal itself because it normally does.
SpoilerSpoiler box within the spoiler box. Tar will be at the top of the list.Â
Okay then...
BARBENHEIMER
May as well start with the biggest film weekend of the year. We did do the double-bill, Oppenheimer followed by Barbie. I... liked Oppenheimer more. It could have been half an hour shorter and lost nothing, but I was interested and it kept my attention throughout. I also was able to follow what was happening the entire time, which by itself makes this a vast improvement over Tenet. Barbie is one of those objectively good films that just didn't click with me like it should have. I liked lots of things about it, but for me the first half had a lot more going for it than the second. I felt bad about this until it turned out my wife liked it less than I did. I should probably rewatch it.Â
Barbie had a John Cena mermaid (one of the objectively good things about it) so that will link nicely to
MERMAIDS AND OTHER DISNEY RELATED STUFF
The Little Mermaid live action remake is not good. Halle Bailey does a good job, but as with most of these films the soul is missing. And I'm a Lin-Manuel Miranda fan but that song he wrote for Awkwafina to do here is maybe the worst song he's ever done.Â
The Haunted Mansion is a tiny bit better than The Little Mermaid, and I think this is because I remember the latter's worst moments but I can barely remember anything about the former. Except that it added way more story than "lots of ghosts in haunted house" needs.
Oh, speaking of films with ghosts that were instantly forgettable, it's not Disney but We Have A Ghost on Netflix left me totally cold. I remember unlocking the Galactic Legend Luke Skywalker on Galaxy of Heroes while it was on. Maybe that distracted me.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny probably fits in this section too. Didn't like it. It's a bit better than Crystal Skull - the reliance on CG was less egregious, no Shia LeBeouf - but I wasn't keen on Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character and it probably didn't helped that we'd rewatched Last Crusade earlier in the week. The best part is the chase through Morocco, but we'd been shown that whole sequence at Star Wars Celebration, and maybe that heightened my expectations, because I watched that and actually got quite excited for the film. Turned out the rest of it was not so good. Worst part is the pointless diving eel Antonio Banderas section.Â
(Antonio Banderas, you say... Puss In Boots: The Last Wish - here's another objectively good film that just didn't click with me like it should have. It's fun, it's funny, it's got a lot going for it and I should have really liked it, I know ... but I thought it was just fine.)
And while we're on Disney-owned films...
SUPERHEROES
Three MCU films this year. One I had low expectations for that turned out to be tons of fun (The Marvels), one I had low expectations for that turned out to hit me right in the emotions (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3), and one I had low expectations for that will, by the end of this, be my least favourite film of the year (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania).
Taking those in release order... Quantumania was a pile of shite. Not that it matters now, but the big bad of the next two phases of the whole thing gets his arse kicked by Ant-Man. The entire film's a CG fuckfest where you can feel the greenscreen all the way through, and the whole concept of shrinky superhero going to realm where being shrinky means nothing because there's no sense of anything else's size to compare it to was a fatal flaw. I try never to nip off to the loo during films at the cinema but I did not mind (i) doing so and (ii) taking my time during this.
On the flipside, I'm in a minority but I really enjoyed The Marvels. I thought Iman Vellani's Kamala Khan and her family had just the right amount of levity, there's a whole thing with the cats that had me chuckling, and
SpoilerKate Bishop popping up at the end had me (silently) cheering.
I didn't have a lot of interest in Guardians 3 and I might not even have gone along if I wasn't such an MCU completist. I'm glad I did though, because this was far closer to the first Guardians (the good one) than the second one (the bad one). I didn't expect that. I definitely didn't expect to be bawling my eyes out at the end, and yet, I did. The main story is over, things are wrapping up, and James Gunn drops in the perfect song at the perfect moment and suddenly I'm in floods of happy tears. At Guardians of the Galaxy, for fuck's sake. They got me. And then, and then, they have the gall to set me off again during the credits by playing 'Badlands'! The BASTARDS!
So yeah, I've got an Marvel film in my top 5 of the year because of that. And because Chukwudi Iwuji hams it up spectacularly as one of the best baddies they've had in years.
There are actually two Marvel films in my top 5, because Christ, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a beautiful film. Saw this one twice, and I'm glad I did. I had a few issues with it on first viewing that vanished on a rewatch. I can't say it's flawless because it is just half a story, but it's close. Gwen's universe is stunning; Renaissance Vulture is insane; Mumbattan is spectacular; Miles and Gwen just talking is maybe the most thrilling part of the movie; Spider-Punk is crazy; the visuals are astonishing. Etc etc.
I didn't see any DC films this year.
Ranking 2023: so far
1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
3. Oppenheimer
4. Barbie
5. The Marvels
6. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
7. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
8. The Haunted Mansion
9. The Little Mermaid
10. We Have a Ghost
11. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
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OTHER ANIMATION
Elemental should have probably been in the Disney section because it's Pixar. Oh well. We managed to catch this just at the end of its theatrical run, in a little cinema in the Lake District where we were practically the only people there, on our wedding anniversary. So it's going to rank highly because of the circumstances, but it's also a lovely film. It didn't get me emotionally in a Wall-E/Coco/Up kind of way, but it's a hell of a lot better than Lightyear last year. It makes you care about the characters, it's inventive, and it's just nice seeing a Pixar film on the big screen after Soul and Luca and Turning Red all got stuck on streaming.
It's kind of a live-action/animation mix but it was nominated for Animation at the Oscars, so... Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Am I getting upset and having my heartbroken by a tiny animated shell? Me?Â
Yes. That beautiful sweet tiny animated shell. Seek this film out if you didn't catch it at the start of the year. Your heart will thank you.
Of the two Netflix animations I got round to this year, Nimona was very good. It's got style, it's got heart (heart again, heart is important), it's interesting visually, it's cool.Â
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget ... not so much. I wondered beforehand why Aardman decided to make a sequel to Chicken Run 23 years later, and what new thing they had to say that meant they just had to do this film. After watching it, still not sure. It's okay.
It is better than The Super Mario Bros Movie which could not have been more generic, but at least looked Mario-ish and Chris Pratt wasn't as bad a voice fit as I'd expected.
(While I'm mentioning a movie based on a game, Tetris was surprisingly compelling. I didn't know much of the backstory behind the game, other than it was created in Russia, so everything in the film was new to me. Taron Egerton's very good in it. If you have Apple TV, it's worth a watch.)
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DOCUMENTARIES
Linked from above because I mentioned Apple TV, and my favourite documentary I saw this year - and admittedly there've only been three - is on there. Still: The Michael J Fox Story was moving, illuminating and inspirational. Recommended.
The other two documentaries were both about music. Little Richard: I Am Everything did a great job of showcasing just how important Little Richard was to the development of rock, and how unfair it was that he wasn't listed among its pioneers in the way he should have been - but at the same time, it felt like there were a lot of gaps left untold, and I definitely still had questions after it finished (and after I'd downloaded the Best Of Sister Rosetta Tharpe on iTunes). Squaring the Circle: the Story of Hipgnosis has recently arrived on Netflix, and as a fan of a fair few of the albums they designed the covers for, I had a great time. Just hearing the stories behind Dark Side of the Moon, Houses of the Holy, Band on the Run... it was fascinating, and very much my jam.
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FILMS ABOUT MUSIC, BUT NOT MUSICALS YET
Tar was one of the first films we saw this year. It was mid-January, and it's stayed in my head ever since. Every great film I've seen this year, I've thought "was that as good as Tar?" and it's always been "no, not really". Cate Blanchett is astonishing in this film. I was gripped from the first scene, which is just Lydia Tar being interviewed on stage and yet is totally cinematic, to the very end which left me with that "ooooooofff" gut-punch-but-in-a-satisfying-way feeling. It's magnificent. I said it in the spoiler box above, but nothing's beating Tar this year.
Especially not Maestro, which joins the other objectively good films I just didn't get on with. I know it's good, I know it's worthy, but the feeling I was left with was that bit in the Father Ted Christmas special where Father Jack shouts "Award! Award! Award!" over and over again.
Bradley Cooper at the next Academy Awards, there.
That's as good a link as any to some of the other Oscar-y films I saw this year.
I liked, didn't love, The Fabelmans. Some beautiful Spielberg-y moments, but it hasn't stayed with me since we saw it in January, and the clip of Jack just above very much applies to Michelle Williams in that film.
Past Lives and Killers of the Flower Moon are likely to get a bunch of nominations next year, and deservedly so in both cases. Past Lives had a big emotional impact, in a wonderfully confused and complicated "I don't know how to feel and I know that not knowing is how I'm meant to feel" kind of way. It's excellent, even if I didn't fall as deeply in love with it as a lot of reviewers. Meanwhile, if Lily Gladstone doesn't win an Oscar for Flower Moon there's something wrong. Hers is an incredible performance; she's in there with DiCaprio and De Niro and is by far the most interesting presence on the screen. The film as a whole was another like-not-love for me. I was never bored, and while I'm very glad it's a feature film we saw in a cinema, it felt at times like it could have worked just as well if they'd made it a four hour miniseries.
But! There's one more film about a composer I haven't mentioned. 2023 was a good year for films about composers, wasn't it? Chevalier came and went at the cinema very quickly, and just as quickly got buried in the Disney+ algorithm, but if you've got an interest in history it's well worth checking out. A Black composer in 18th century France, on the level of Mozart at one time but virtually written out of history by the 19th century, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges is an absolutely fascinating figure, and the film almost does him justice. It also has Samara Weaving, and that by itself deserves your attention.
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OTHER FILMS ABOUT FRENCH HISTORY
If you didn't catch The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady at the cinema, you missed out. Fantastic French adaptation of the novel, the splitting into two parts actually works (though I'm counting them as one), it's very well cast (Eva Green's never been better), looks great, and the plot canters along at a great pace with loads of action. And their HATS. I wish I could wear a hat as well as anyone in these films.
Napoleon has lots of good things in it, but suffers overall from not really having a point. It's mainly just a bunch of stuff that happened, in order. There's no angle, and it kind of needed an angle. Ridley Scott knows how to film a battle, though, and Joaquin Phoenix is brilliantly able to balance his character as someone who's simultaneously incredibly awkward and weird in a one-on-one or social situation, but who, when you stick him on a battlefield, is so completely in control that he only has to move a hand and thousands obey him.
We're getting there.
Ranking 2023 so far
1. Tar
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
4. Oppenheimer
5. Still: The Michael J Fox Story
6. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
7. Elemental
8. The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady
10. Past Lives
11. Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis
12. Barbie
13. Killers of the Flower Moon
14. Little Richard: I Am Everything
15. The Marvels
16. Napoleon
17. Nimona
18. Tetris
19. The Fabelmans
20. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
21. Chevalier
22. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
23. Maestro
24. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
25. The Super Mario Bros Movie
26. The Haunted Mansion
27. The Little Mermaid
28. We Have a Ghost
29. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
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FUNNY FILMS (OR FILMS THAT WERE MEANT TO BE)
It was a decent year for comedy. Theater Camp, which has just arrived on Disney+, had me laughing out loud a lot, it's great fun even if it wastes Ayo Edebiri. It's about musicals, but it's not technically a musical itself, which might make it safe for some of you to watch. Unlike Wonka which is 100% very much a musical. The songs are okay - Timothee Chalamet can hold a tune, and a few of them have stuck around in my head since seeing it, which is a good sign - but the best thing about Wonka is that very Paul King-y heightened sense of reality he creates in his films, where magical things can happen and feel completely believable within that world. It's no Paddington or Paddington 2, but then what is.
Magical things? Must be time for Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves. It's a proper shame this didn't do well on release because it's loads of fun - Jarnathan and Rege-Jean Page alone make it worth watching - and while I am biased because I saw some of it being filmed and got to spend time with Michelle Rodriguez and Chris Pine (HE'S SO HANDSOME), I genuinely had a good time with the finished movie. It'll be streaming on Paramount+ now. If you have that, get on this, it's good, honest.
Another one that went right under the radar (albeit on a smaller scale) was Polite Society. Nida Manzoor created the utterly brilliant We Are Lady Parts (get to Channel 4 right now and watch it if you haven't yet) so I was really excited to see her debut feature. It goes to some strange places, but there's great stuff in there, and it owes a big debt to Edgar Wright's filmmaking style, so if you like his stuff, definitely seek this one out.
Sticking with British films, Rye Lane was super charming, but sadly joins the list of objectively good films that didn't completely click for me. This was a Disney+ rather than cinema watch, though, which can make a difference sometimes. Bank of Dave certainly didn't require a cinema release. Brit-film-by-numbers, but I watched it with my parents and they had a good time, so that should count for something.
Next Goal Wins and Asteroid City have a few things in common. Okay, maybe one thing. The latter is Wes Anderson at his most Wes Anderson-y, it could not be more Wes Anderson-y and if you like his stuff that's probably a good thing. Not as good as French Dispatch but still good. The former veers into Taika Waititi at his most Taika Waititi-ish, to the point where you wonder if every character really needs to act like Korg from the Thor films. There's some unpleasant stuff with a trans character in the film. It gets better in the way it treats that storyline by the end, but by that point it's like it's fighting against itself... that aspect is not good. But it does succeed in making you root for the group of characters in that traditional sports-movie way.
Finally, I remember having a lot of fun watching Joy Ride, but admittedly I've forgotten most of it since. And while I haven't forgotten Renfield, it's mainly because I remember being disappointed by it. The best bits where the scenes with the guy who plays Isaac in the American Ghosts, which really shouldn't be the case when you've got Nic Cage playing Dracula.
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FILMS ABOUT BIG LIZARDS
This section is mainly an excuse to rave about how AMAZING Godzilla Minus One was. I'd heard so many good things, including from Godzilla-loving friends, but I didn't expect to love it quite as much as I did. I laughed, I was moved, I was terrified, I was thrilled, it was EXCELLENT on every level. If you can catch a screening, go, go, GO. It's SO GOOD. Straight into the top 3.
65Â didn't live up to its premise. Meh.
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EVERYTHING ELSE
I found myself enjoying Extraction 2 despite myself, and despite not liking the first one. They just went all-out with the action and that was fun. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One had what was my favourite action sequence of the year (until Godzilla Minus One) even if several of its big set-pieces were very similar to ones I'd played on Uncharted games. The train sequence had me gasping constantly. But I really didn't like the big character decision that happens about two-thirds of the way through. The film lost me there, and while the train stuff got me back to an extent, I couldn't completely engage with it after that moment.
Rebel Moon Part One is objectively not good, and I know this, but it was perfectly fine to have on in the background while wrapping Christmas presents.
The Creator is one I liked more than I should have. I give it a pass because I like Gareth Edwards, and I like Alison Janney, and I like Gemma Chan, and it was just nice to see a film like this that, formulaic as it was, started off as a film and not a comic or a novel.
No One Will Save You had some cool alien designs, but I felt it struggling to stick to its gimmick in a way I never did with the Quiet Place filims.
Cassandro was oddly uneventful for a film about somebody so interesting - great as it was to see a film about someone so interesting from the world of lucha.
And finally, the last film to mention, is one which will end up somewhere middling on the final list. Honestly if you've read this far you deserve something more than The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which was okay. I like the world-building it does, and the ending plays more convincingly on film than it did in the book. Rachel Zegler's good in it.
That's the lot!
Ranking 2023: the final list
1. Tar
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
3. Godzilla Minus One
4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
5. Oppenheimer
6. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
7. Still: The Michael J Fox Story
8. Theater Camp
9. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
10. Elemental
11. The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady
13. Past Lives
14. Squaring the Circle: the Story of Hipgnosis
15. Wonka
16. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One
17. The Creator
18. Polite Society
19. Barbie
20. Killers of the Flower Moon
21. Little Richard: I Am Everything
22. The Marvels
23. Rye Lane
24. Napoleon
25. The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
26. Nimona
27. Joy Ride
28. Tetris
29. Extraction 2
30. Asteroid City
31. The Fabelmans
32. Puss In Boots: The Last Wish
33. Chevalier
34 Next Goal Wins
35. No One Will Save You
36. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
37. Rebel Moon Part One
38. Cassandro
39. 65
40. Renfield
41. Maestro
42. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
43. The Super Mario Bros Movie
44. Bank of Dave
45. The Haunted Mansion
46. The Little Mermaid
47. We Have A Ghost
48. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
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BUT ACTUALLY
On Valentine's Day we went to see the 25th anniversary re-release of Titanic and that was far and away the best film I saw this year. Never watched Titanic on the big screen before, and my god. It's a masterpiece. It's a fucking masterpiece and I'll hear no arguments. Spectacular filmmaking.Â
So it's technically Tar... but really it's Titanic.
If you don't want to read my pointless thoughts but still want to know, Tar was my favourite new film I saw this year, and the third Ant-Man was my least favourite.
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I always like reading the nominations, it’s good seeing what everyone’s enjoyed during the year and normally points me in the direction of great matches I’ve missed. Get nominating, everybody!
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What a Christmas present! Rick’s back and so are the stats!Â
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Quick Continental question - Eddie advances to the final but he had the same number of points as Andrade, didn’t he? But in the Gold league Swerve and Jay White had the same number of points but they both advanced? Did I miss the easy explanation?
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2 hours ago, Loki said:
I really like Born On the 4th July too, for which he won the Oscar of course.
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Fraid not! Nominated but he’s never won one.
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THE GOOD
Best Women's Wrestler: I wouldn’t have expected this at the start of the year, but Julia Hart has been great in 2023. She’s got to grips with her character, has improved loads in the ring, and gets reactions. She’s ace.
The more obvious choice is Timeless Toni Storm. She’s reinvented herself this year and become a highlight of AEW. Chin up, tits out, watch out for the shoe.
I'll nominate Skye Blue as well. She might not be the best of the best but I've always enjoyed her matches this year.
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Best Men's Wrestler: The clear first choice for me is Orange Cassidy. He’s lost all his momentum in the last couple of months, but January through to September he carried AEW.
Swerve Strickland should absolutely be considered here. WWE didn’t know what they had. AEW didn’t at first either - why was this star faffing about with Keith Lee for a year?
For a WWE choice, it’d be Gunther. I’ve barely seen WWE this year, but for a great showing in the Rumble and the best match at WrestleMania alone, he’s up there.
And then Bryan Danielson. Even with the constant injuries, this year he’s had the Iron Man with MJF, the Zack Sabre Jr match, the Strap match with Ricky Starks, and Continental Classic bangers with Eddie Kingston and Daniel Garcia. Imagine how good his year could have been if he wasn’t broken for most of it.
Last one is Samoa Joe. Partly because he's had a very good year, partly because he's one of my wife's favourites and she liked cheering for him at Wembley.
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Best Tag Team: I’ve struggled to think of options here. I’m going to say The Acclaimed because my wife likes how silly and immature they are, and Better Than You Bay-Bay because it’s the most I’ve enjoyed Adam Cole ever.
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Best British Wrestler: I don’t know if I like him, but it’s probably Will Ospreay isn’t it? I wish PAC had been around enough to vote for him.
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Best Non-wrestler: Taz has had a good year. RJ City was a big benefit in getting the Timeless One over at first. And Prince Nana invented the Swerve Dance.Â
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Best Event: It has to be AEW All In: London. What a day that was.
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Best Wrestling Show: Probably Dynamite I guess? When it’s good it’s really good.
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Best Feud or Angle: The Bloodline was doing really well through January and February, and was good enough at its best that even though the wind went completely out of its sails after Sami lost, we shouldn’t forget about it.
Better Than You Bay-Bay made me like Adam Cole and turned the despicable MJF babyface. Good angle.
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Funniest Moment: Jeff Jarrett dicking about on the Briscoe farm has to be up there.
Sue turning up in the minivan at Wembley had my wife laughing and chanting “Sue, Sue, Sue”. She’d never watched a full wrestling show before this. I call that a win.
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Best Heel: First has to be Christian Cage. Horrible man.
Swerve Strickland, also a horrible man.
Dominik Mysterio, a horrible young man.
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Best Babyface: I haven’t paid attention to the second half of his year, but in those early months Sami Zayn was at his babyface best.
Hangman Page has still gotta be up there.
Orange Cassidy during his first title run, each and every match had me rooting for him.
Mark Briscoe is a superb underdog.
And then probably Willow Nightingale because she has the happiest entrance music and how can she not make you smile?
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Best Podcast: Still Wrestle Me. Nothing better.
G’dayEW is an Aussie AEW podcast by one of the Four Finger Discount guys and was usually a decent listen with episodes under an hour. They haven’t done one in a month though so it may be dead.
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Moment of the Year: Sami Zayn turning on the Bloodline had to happen, and they got it right.
For a jump I never thought I’d see, honestly Adam Copeland debuting in AEW was the biggest shocker of the year, even including that other one in November. Although maybe "go fuck yourself" was an even better moment.
The huge, positive crowd reaction to Anthony Bowens telling Harley Cameron “I’m gay” on Rampage in, I wanna say July? Heartwarming to hear a wrestling crowd react like that - unimaginable even just a few years ago.
And for a smaller one, being at Wembley for the shot of Jon Moxley with the cooking skewers in his head was unforgettable. 80,000ish people all going “urrrrggh” at the same time.
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Match of the Year: Swerve Strickland vs Hangman Page in the Texas Death Match at Full Gear. Grim, barbaric, spectacular.
Jon Moxley vs Orange Cassidy at All Out in September. They fucked it with the follow up, but this match was an absolute bloodbath that saw me desperate, desperate for OC to win while always knowing there was just no way he’d ever do it. Brilliant stuff.
Gunther vs Sheamus vs Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania was a cracker, and leagues ahead of any other of the limited WWE matches I saw in full this year.
Kenny Omega vs Will Ospreay at Forbidden Door. Not usually my kind of thing but dammit, they got me.
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Promo of the Year: Cody Rhodes and Paul Heyman promoing each other in the ring on Raw, in the lead up to WrestleMania. I can’t recall the date but it’s the one where they both got emotional talking about Dusty. Impact lessens when you know Cody doesn’t win at Mania but still tremendous work from both.
More general, but any Christian Cage “dead dad” promo.Â
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Breakout Star: Swerve Strickland again. Has to be.
Daniel Garcia is probably a decent shout here too.
I couldn't stand Juice Robinson when he turned up in AEW but (one incredibly ill-judged promo aside) he properly turned it around.
LA Knight seems to have done well this year.
And you know what, I’ll throw in Julia Hart again. I think she’s believable as a champion right now, and wouldn’t have done a year ago.
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THE BAD
Biggest Letdown: Cody Rhodes not winning at WrestleMania. Easy.
AEW’s women’s division booking. The only thing my wife didn’t like about Wembley was the fact that in five hours of wrestling there was only one women’s match. Sort it out.
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Worst Wrestler: Gravity. Oh, and maybe Kota Ibushi because every time he's turned up in AEW he probably shouldn't have bothered. Karrion Kross.
ÂWorst Non Wrestler: whoever does the ring announcing on WWE PLEs these days because her fake dramatic big voice is so atrocious it's honestly one of the things putting me off trying to get back into WWE fully again. All entrances on mute.
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Worst Event: The episode of Dynamite from last week (so 13th December) solely for that Golden Jets segment.
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The episode happened to be on More 4 tonight and after the last few posts I had to watch it again. It’s definitely my favourite Ted episode.
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35 minutes ago, air_raid said:
Hell of a lot by the traditional route.
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He'd have just taken the train straight down the East Coast Main Line if it hadn't been for trains to King's Cross being off that weekend.
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2 hours ago, SaitoRyo said:
Haven't been watching closely but my money is on PAC.Â
He's out injured at the minute (with some unspecified 'internal injuries') and this could be a way to bring him back in a big way.Â
Also, not too much of a stretch to go from being a self-proclaimed bastard to thinking he's the devil himself.Â
I hadn't thought of PAC but I don't mind it being him at all. You could easily justify him thinking he missed out on being at Wembley, and sitting at home injured while the biggest show ever happens just down the road* would drive a bastard mad and make him a devil. How does he guarantee main eventing Wembley next year? Target the champion, take the title.Â
There's no brilliant answer for the Devil identity, but I'm more happy with it being PAC than pretty much any other candidate.
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*I know there's more than one road between Gateshead and Wembley
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I’d seen her when they showed her at commentary and still didn’t recognise her when she did the run-in!
On the plus side, this was an AEW episode with multiple women’s segments. That shouldn’t be something to praise them for, especially if it’s a one-off, but come on Tony, that wasn’t so hard was it? The tag team street fight was great as well, all four of them were really going for it.
Garcia-Kingston was also very good, Garcia’s story has been the highlight of CC up to now and I’d love for him to get a win in his last match next week.
Edge and Christian No DQ at World’s End could be excellent.
How do we think the Continental Classic is going to end up?
(fantasy booking alert)
I can only see Swerve beating Rush on Dynamite so that we get a Moxley rematch as the final for Gold League.
In Blue, provided Danielson doesn’t mess his eye up again too much, I would have Eddie win against Andrade so that he’s clawed his way back into contention. We then get him and Danielson again.
From there, whoever wins, we win. Moxley vs Danielson. Swerve vs Danielson. Moxley vs Kingston. Swerve vs Kingston. I’ll take any of those please.
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4 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:
Go see the new Wonka movie Surf, then you can tell me if it's any good ...
I saw it last night, it’s good! The songs weren’t my favourite part of it but they’re decent and Chalamet can hold a tune. It’s got that same Paul King aesthetic from the Paddington films that you’d want (in terms of visuals and in terms of tone), and the cast are all really enjoyable. It’s not on the level of either Paddington, but if you liked those, and can tolerate musicals, you’ll have fun.
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The Acclaimed have barely been mentioned since they got written off. Considering they’re Trios champions and that’s supposed to be a whole division, it’s a bit weird. You could scrap those belts and nobody would really notice.
I was thinking this morning about who my favourite tag teams of the year would be (awards season is coming) and I’m struggling - the tag titles really do feel insignificant at the moment, and have done since Collision started and FTR only worked on Saturdays.
For a company that has so many belts to use as excuses for matches, loads of them feel like they mean very little recently (hi International Title - victim of injury booking but its interest is gone now).
The Springsteen Thread
in Off Topic
Posted
The director of Crazy Heart has a Springsteen biopic in the works.
Supposed to centre around the making of Nebraska.
Who plays Bruce?! My first thought went to Jeremy Allen White off of The Bear but there could be many better choices out there.