The Gaffer

Brian Gewritz is still far too under the radar for my liking, in proportion to the baskets of shit he's brought to wrestling over the years. I don't know why but I wasted a free Audible trial on his book about a year ago and it just hammered home his awfulness. "So I pitched to Vince that we should rhyme it with poo and needless to say HE LOVED IT!" Total hack who used wrestling to larp his actual dream of writing terrible SNL skits, who has now lucked into being Pinky to Rock's Brain. If you're seeing, hearing or reading something shite from Rock, it's Gewritz. 

Aye, it feels like a mobile/spin off game given to a young, inexperienced developer. Gutted everything that was whimsy and insane about Dead Rising's mechanics, banged a "LOL CHRISTMAS! LIKE DIE HARD!" skin on to it and called it a day. 

1 hour ago, Mr_Danger said:

At least all the Final Fantasy and Persona nonces on here are being catered to.

22 minutes ago, Duke said:

How could anyone look at how they're dressed and not know the answer to that question?

I mean I get it, but I'm also not convinced if they were playing it straight this isn't how they'd do it. It's a marmite thing with their character work, I guess, and that blurring of "Everything we do's a kind of zany pisstake" schtick's not for me. 

Is the Buck's latest "Are they super serious now or are they cosplaying as wrestlers kinda meta funny serious?" shit gimmick going to move beyond two of them going "Hey use our REALLL names please!" every single week? 

It's harder than it seems, right? The temptation's to think of all your favourite songs that would fit hand in glove or be so inane a choice that they'd stand out, but when you listen to them in your head they just don't suit the flow of someone coming down the ring. Makes you appreciate all those Jim Johnson riffs and his Spinal Tap turn in Beyond the Mat where he explained succinctly "He walks down to the ring like womp-womp-womp and the song has to reflect that so it's chung-chung-chug."

For a left of field choice I think Monolith would suit a laconic, absolute prick of a free spirit sort of heel perfectly. Like Buzzkill in WCW but way more subtle. Crossed with a bit of John Morrison but not shit. Imagine someone strolling out to this pointing at the crowd with a stoney smile, returning love heart gestures they're not actually getting:

Then on the more contemporary, obvious side Sleep Token strike me as a total wrestling band. Hypnosis is one of their few songs that doesn't take seventeen years to kick in so it'd be great for your Goth-of-the-Month type gimmick:

And last but not least - at the risk of slightly contradicting my previous "But does it really fit or do you just want to mention it?" it's criminal that Scooter have not been utilised in wrestling yet. 

I don't care what the gimmick is. Build the fucking gimmick around the song. Just make it happen and make the crowd happy:

On 1/23/2024 at 8:36 AM, The Gaffer said:

getting green lit

Double post onanist but speaking of:

That's the best thing Punk has done since getting back to the WWE. 

They're completely insane if the current plan isn't to go full Pillman 96/Austin 97 and have him involved as much as humanly possible in every way but working a full match. 

At this rate Cody's going to get caught up in a bizarre gardening accident and we'll have Reigns Vs. Orton Vs. Big Dave to look forward to. Can Roman's Reign survive Evolution? Find out this Sunday! 

2 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

I don’t even think you have to be a paedo to get your name changed anymore, Moo does it for free. 

You get a polite shakedown post name change alright. I chucked him a few bob because I've done this place rent free for 16 years in fairness, but if he slaps 'Paid Member' on me I might throw him another tenner to take it back off. 

This is your benchmark moment for Triple H moving from "Benevolent creative future of the company" to "The guy in charge is an evil villain" right here. Took him literal hours after Vince leaving. 

The Super Extra Evil final boss music from Streets of Rage. Especially when those early 90s house piano arpeggios kick in:

And I feel like everyone hears different dialogue in their head when they listen to this one:

"IT IS USELESS. I CAN READ YOUR EVERY THOUGHT!"

If he's to be believed - and attaching Triple H to a lie like this really does seem like a terrible career move - Ryan Nemeth was sounding the alarm on Triple H covering up stuff like this eight years ago:

Remember, Bill DeMott was running roughshod over trainees on his watch too. And we all know he has a certain panache for humour that goes from sophomoric to incredibly vulgar.

Years and years of My Lovely Horse mediocrity and finally RTE have given up, gave into the prevailing madness, and put a satanic witch from Macroom into the Eurosong.

It's driving the #notmyireland dickheads around the bend. This is what you get when you allow Goosebumps in the local library.

I love it. 

4 hours ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

WWE doesnt need to die. Its just three letters and lots of great human beings work there. It also serves a purpose for so many kids over the world, like myself when I was a small autistic boy with bags of imagination and energy.

What needs to die is the culture in that tower, and everyone who knew and accepted it needs to go. Every single one of them. Lance Storm was spot on. Every one with even a sniff of knowledge needs to be thrown out of that company. Maybe WWE will actually be better without that lot who has festered away in that office for 30 years.

Thanks for this. I'm not even close to being a victim in all this shite but as a lowly fan I think you're singing the one true god here (as per usual with your infrequent contributions) amongst all the well intentioned discourse. WWE is a planet, sustained by far too many imaginations. Burn the cancer from it but christ, save the planet. 

I'm not throwing my hat into it now but if there was a "Did WWE ever pull you back from the brink?" thread well then...shit...yeah. I'm there. 

Completely shocked. But the earnest reasoning is about what you'd expect it might be once you absorb the headline:

Quote

“It is that I am, how can I say it, running out of energy. I have no problem now, obviously, I knew it already for longer that I will have to announce it at one point, but I am absolutely fine now. I know that I cannot do the job again and again and again and again.

“After the years we had together and after all the time we spent together and after all the things we went through together, the respect grew for you, the love grew for you and the least I owe you is the truth – and that is the truth.”

Part of the shock is the what he's doing right now is arguably the most impressive work he's ever done. But then you think back to last season and there was games where you were worried he'd just hit the deck on the touchline. I joked a few weeks ago with my dad that it was going to be a real kick in the balls when he gets a heart attack in the next few years. Evidently he feels that himself. 

Utterly irreplaceable. A sad day for the neutral's favourites and media darlings. 

Consequentially I'm going to be in Liverpool for his final home game! So delighted with the minor personal historical relevance of that. 

AEW started with the kind of good faith and momentum you could never really buy or plan for. It's unbelievable, looking back. Just the sheer fact that they outdrew TNA's biggest ever gate on night one. By 2018 there had been a crucible building for years online with people dissatisfied with WWE's tone deaf, spiteful booking but nobody quite new how big that disenfranchised audience was. It turns out if was more than enough to do 10k in major markets and get a TV deal. 

And they rode that wave for a few years. Honestly, whilst last year was rough it's not like the product really changed that much despite what a clickbaity subgenre The Rise & Fall of AEW has become. I think the buzz just wore off. WWE getting better and half the audience taking the handling of the Punk thing as a big wet fart whereupon Tony 'failed' his first massive hurdle in taking the promotion to the next height didn't help, but I do think both those factors merely happened along a trajectory that was always going to see the promotion cool down a bit. 

The thing with AEW is the PPVs were almost always shit hot, you got that nice part-of-a-movement alternative bloom on the rose and for the first few years you were just seeing them for your first few times in your local market. First shows in the Chicago area. First shows in the LA area. First shows in the Tri-state area. That gets you a decent few return gates. Big ones you can count on one hand. Decent ones you can count on the other. 

Now you're counting on your toes, the "Is this the guy to take them to the next level" moment's come and gone, and really they're just at the exact level a number two promotion should be at, but the internet's hysterical and tribal and awful so it is being viewed as a massive failure by the kind of self-loathing wankers who complained about no competition for years that now find it hilarious that a second place for wrestlers to go and for fans to watch is doing 'bad'. 

That's why their current 'respectable' streak is probably the best thing they could be doing until the next spark comes along. If we were in the Dixie timeline, Mojo Rawley and Fandango would have been snapped up by now. We're still doing pretty good. But yeah, book smaller venues. 

1 minute ago, RedRooster said:

I hate to be so cynical, but unless Netflix insists on it, I’m not convinced that this will oust McMahon. This isn’t a criminal case, and the rich and powerful have learned that it’s possible to simply ride these things out. It really depends on how much it snowballs, if it does in the first place. After the initial thud these things land with, the news cycle generally moves on, to the benefit of those embroiled in the scandal. 

It's well placed cynicism but Khan, Steph and Paul all wanted him out before right? Then he practically crowbarred his way back in and Steph left. 

He's PR poison, and only held on for so long by virtue of WWE being a sort of hermit state in the entertainment world that shareholders were constantly told only he could really understand and run. 

All he is now is some deranged fuckhead sucking up all them good shares. He can barely string a text together, let alone contribute a solid idea. 

I'd imagine TKO's weight is behind this as well, especially given the level of detail in the case. The Netflix deal has just been locked in and now they can use this to try and get Satan out of the optics for good. 

Valium for the eyes:

I hope he wins the big one so we can be even more unbearable to the rest of Ireland. 

A heel turn is the only way Rock's ever going to be interest again to me. That video where he's practically playing a new heel character has just calcified that for me. He's the most boring fucking man in the world. To rob from one of the comments on the video, he should just come back as Dwayne 'The Stock' Johnson. 

They definitely sacked off mentioning it as Monday Night Raw during the Attitude Era. It was seen as quite old fashioned at the time, and even for TV advertising purposes it was split into Raw is War and the Warzone. It was only when the brand split became a thing with Bischoff coming in as GM that they started referring to it as Monday Night Raw again. 

Hoping Bezos has a sniff at Tony now and we get Rosamund Pike as women's champ.