The Gaffer

Drew's current promo energy sort of reminds me of call centre middle managers who smugly flex into their new roles and hide dick behaviour behind an "It's my 'challenger' personality type" excuse. 

He's not as bad as Rollins, though. Crucially, there's a bit of truth and belief to what he's saying. Whereas Rollins is one of the few top of the card stars probably ever, really, where seemingly nothing he's doing is coming from that classic "The guys are just themselves turned up to 11" mentality. Seth Rollins probably shies from fights (not saying it's a bad thing) and likes to hang out playing Madden, listening to Alexisonfire or whatever. 

That's why (someone said to me it was a low bar before, granted) his initial corporate heel solo breakout is probably still his best character work, in hindsight. Him flying around gurning his head off dressed Roxy Music era Eno is just impossible to buy because it reeks of someone who has the run of the boss and is able to write in their own fanfic. 

And whilst it was fun for awhile, that then clashes brutally when you're suddenly tasked with being the "I'm the man around here, and this belt? This belt's the biggest belt of all the belts!" type figure. 

I always saw his good public relationship with those nations as being part of the whole strong man club fetishisation moreso than anything to do with real mutual respect for policy or endeavouring to form closer ties. Kinda like how Steven Seagal abruptly just thinks Putin and Kim Jong seem like real stand up guys. I guess that probably just all a lot of surface level foreign relations is though.  

Cannibal Man has - as usual - the right taste of it. It's a hilarious train wreck bit of minor wrestling intrigue - hence why we're all in here - and it should be encouraged at all costs. 

The fact that he does a post about Jinder Mahal and still signs it off with the promotional "#AEWDynamite TOMORROW on TBS!" line is absolute gas.

I feel like this is going to be the match that lights the next unexpected, weird thing in wrestling: Jinder Mahal becoming a massively entertaining on screen character. 

20 hours ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

"Bond is problematic. Outdated attitudes"

So, what's the solution? 

007 in Live and Let Live. 

What a cool, composed 147 from Ding. About to get whitewashed by Ronnie and he comes out with that. 

Love these two playing together! 

Quite surprised by how many of these alternate history 'Mania matches look great/as if not more logical than what we got in those years:

I'm not normally into mods - kind of a weird "I want to consume it as it was intended/with the limitations it had at the time" thing going on - but this looks incredible. Well...it looks like 2015's Fallout 4 but in London. So incredible, to me. Really wish I had a PC to play it on as I can't see it coming out for the consoles but hey, stranger things have happend:

Aha okay. Surely a smaller Venn diagram of people who might pick up on that? 

I'm just glad it wasn't an SS thing. I've listened to far too much shitty black metal to suddenly stop recognising nazi insignia half baked into things!  

Sorry if i'm being a bit dense, but are you saying you don't like that other people might be offended by the views, even if you agree with them yourself? 

Good, solid start to the year. Quick thoughts:

- Schiavone getting in early with the line of the year, referring to the Devil as "A long, drawn out swerve" at the top of the show. 

- And what a relief to have it come to an end! Compared to some of the tripe that happened over the last few weeks it was a fresh pleasure seeing a good, justifiable heel faction open up the show with no spooky bollocks, and Bullet Club Gold more or less flip face for them.

- Wardlow/Joe could be fun for a quiet month as well, though Adam planting the "And I'd HATE for Wardlow to turn on me!" seed was painfully obvious. 

- Good to see Deonna Purrazzo show up as well, someone who I thought for awhile now had a star power that was bigger than the places Impact/TeeEnAy run.

- Mother Wayne was the missing piece for Christian's weird, creepy group. 

Gotta be Judas!

Only kidding.

It's Kingston's, come to think of it. That hard edge hip-hop sound with the crazy prog rock church organ over the top is bursting with character, sounds like Eddie Kingston looks and feels big time. Also ticks that most excellent "Sounds like he walks to the ring" box. Everything you'd want in a theme really:

Christian's a decent runner up for having possibly one of the better ever examples of a 'generic' wrestler's theme. It's a TNA best-of sound font from the mid noughties and upon first listen sounds like it should be completely forgettable but then it never leaves you. There's also a weird sort of subdued glam to it that perfectly suits Christian's character. Someone who doesn't look, sound or even particularly act tough at all but can put the beating on you when needs be:

A few other runner ups from AEW: Love that analogue 80s purr of FTR's theme, Hook's suits him down to the ground as well, and Julia Heart having the more Scandi-goth version of House of Black's entrance theme works great. 

WWE have lost it with themes, for me. They reached a modern golden age when CFO$ or whatever they were called went on a crazy run of almost every NXT call up having a great, recognisable theme but now everything sounds like an overproduced, womp-stomp with orchestral bits and lyrics that go "I'M THE BEST I'M THE TOUGHEST YEAH!" 

Going in on the Vince croaks too, as my one and only prediction. 

It's mad how Rock's final form has ended up as this galactic size, utterly rubbish WWE character. There's no point refuting the business sense in getting him involved as much as they can, but from the moment I saw the thumbnail on YouTube I just knew what we were in for.

Here's to a couple of weeks of him coming out looking like one of their augmented reality graphics, doing his big stagey verbiage that's a cross between quasi-spiritual cheap pop machine and 8 Mile rap battle grade put downs from the mind of Brian Gewirtz - who has somehow landed from writing some of the most embarrassing, tawdry Raw segments ever to being the biggest star on the planet's court jester - as Michael Cole goes complete randymarshcumsplatter.png in the corner. 

WrestleMania 50 will be built around the first ever incumbent president of the United States being in a match. Chalk it down. 

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story. 

It just nails everything. Absurdity, daft one liners, long setups. 

This Is Spinal Tap came close but it suffers worse from overfamiliar pacing for me. Walk Hard always fucks me over still for how abrupt and endless its good jokes are. 

Now open your mind and learn to play the fucking theramin. 

29 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

For what it’s worth, I always enjoy your posts on here. Whether I agree with you or disagree with you (or neither) you always have something worth reading to say, and you always come across as a brilliant person. Here’s hoping 2024 is a better year for you. 

Ditto. 

Hanging out with my family tonight which makes it a whole hell of a lot better than last year. I don't normally hold much truck with New Years but for the year it's been and how much I'm looking forward to the fresh start I'm definitely ritualising it a bit this time around to take it out of being arbitrary and into being a wee launch pad and just a good old Gregorian excuse to try and feel good I suppose. 

Have a good one whatever you're up to, UKFF. 

If anyone needs any ideas always remember if you play Blind by Korn at 11:59:09 Jonathan Davies will say "ARE YOU READY?!" at midnight. 

Happy Nu Year! 

6 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

No. It was a post show media scrum, not a presser about sexual misconduct. 

It's still really poor judgement - even from a cynical optics perspective - given how questions about it were extremely likely to come up. 

"Well...we're the best of a bad bunch. That's for sure!" 

13 minutes ago, Daddymagic said:

You're right. But this is wrestling. 
 

Wonder if any NDAs were on Vinces watch.

People go on about Vince doing it - and used to go on about 'Taker doing it - but feared ex-WWE lawyer on speed dial Jerry McDevitt is clearly the best fantasy tell-all pick possible. 

It's the way he's presenting the videos as though you're not a wrestling fan or don't know anything about the inside of the business. There's just something really fresh about it - none of the bitter encumbrance of shoot interviews - that's enjoyable to listen to even if it's validating things you could probably have already guessed about the roster. It helps that his time was the Ruthless Aggression era which - in terms of behind the scenes stuff - hasn't been too overexposed. 

37 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

What is 'sports entertainment', though? I find the term very nebulous. People tend to use it as a disparaging term for the wilder aspects of Vince McMahon's booking; but surely almost everything that happens outside of the ring contains elements of sports entertainment?

La Dinner Debonair was very well received, that's surely sports entertainment. The Kenny Omega/Hangman Page saga could have been plucked right out of a TV drama - it was high level storytelling, but absolutely sports entertainment. The Stadium Stampede matches during the pandemic and Sting's cinematic matches from that time period were great, but also surely could be classed as sports entertainment. Toni Storm has been arguably the most successful women's gimmick in AEW history, and what is that but sports entertainment? The MJF/Adam Cole saga - the good bits - were certainly sports entertainment. Mr Brodie Lee and The Dark Order - great fun, and great sports entertainment. 

Sports entertainment doesn't have to be a bad thing, and I'd go as far as to say it's been a huge part of AEW throughout its history. I'd also say, to me at least, the majority of AEW's best storylines have been...well, sports entertainment. 

The Continental Classic seems to have gone well, but if they focus more on ring work and less on out-of-ring storytelling, I'm not convinced it will work. It really depends on what Tony Khan means by 'sports-like' presentation. 

Great post, I agree with all of this. 

I definitely do want AEW to lean more into its obvious alternative niche with a more sports-like presentation, but there should be a balance.

Personally I'll always enjoy characters where no particular element of their characterisation theoretically helps with being better in a fight, and stories where there would be a thousand better civic or legal recourses to solving a personal issue instead of meeting up in some building and having a wrestle. 

That inherent lunacy of it is probably the primary reason I watch. I wouldn't be arsed if it was entirely "The commentators mentioned two weeks ago his dorsal interossei muscle was sprained which is why he wasn't as good this week DO YOU SEE?" 

Basically, something that's not real being played and presented like its completely real isn't my kind of disco. I'm trash, though, when it comes to wrestling tastes. 

Great to see Spears get some love. Him and Brian Cage are like two generic Streets of Rage end of level bosses for me. Wrestling needs its big supergoons. 

Double post but the reaction at 1:00 gives me goosebumps. On a night CM Punk has his first match back and by any other standards gets a giant reaction, the Dashing one showed up and was basically Bruce fucking Sammartino. 

That episode of EastEnders was fucking wild. Boom period.