WeeAl

An excellent show that was. Nagata Vs Danielson was great and it was all capped off with a corker of a main event. They managed to navigate the weird rules in the best way possible. The show flew by. 

Great post Wand, no surprise there, but with such a strong card it made for a real fun read. 👍

36 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Don’t know if anyone saw this but…

More than a pinch of salt, of course, you never know what Sakakibara’s up to and I’m not sure why he’d wanna lose these guys to the UFC. But both would be fantastic additions to the roster. Horiguchi especially I’ve been wanting to see back in the UFC for a while. He’s 33 now so it’s gonna have to happen soon really while he’s still on good form. Not sure what the motive behind this is though. All I can think is Sakakibara is looking to do some kind of trade, similar to the Mighty Mouse/Ben Askren thing between UFC and ONE years ago. I’ll believe it when I see it but I’d love to see it. Throwing these guys into an already incredible Bantamweight division would be nuts. And pretty much every fight you can make is a fresh one. 

Yeah it won't be out of this goodness of his heart or anything. He'll want something significant in return, either for them to be bought out of their deals and some compensation or else a trade like you mention there @wandshogun09 . I wonder what trade would make sense for him though, these two would seem to be more valuable for the Japanese market than anything Rizin might get back in return. He's hardly going to get Jiri P back over there on loan is he?

1 minute ago, Egg Shen said:

Really? I see Harrison riding out on top of Holm.

Careful now. 

48 minutes ago, David said:

I fully expect Holm to win a snoozefest on points after stuffing some initial takedown attempts and then outpointing Harrison on the feet over three rounds,

At least it's booked as a three rounder in that case @David

4 hours ago, simonworden said:

internet quality is so spotty in Vietnam that I spend too long buffering

You live in Vietnam? It's true, we learn something new every day. 

1, 2, 28, 29, 30

10 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

Wonder if it's a hint of acceptance that his movie career has failed a bit now? 

Failed? Don't think that can be said of him. Past it's best (I'm talking commercially here), in the rearview, going through a lull, not what it once was etc. That type of description might work.

Personally, most of his movies are nonsense but he's been one of the most financially successful movie stars that there has ever been. Much like the wrestling business, few people end up going out on top, usually you have to come down the other side of the mountain top. I wouldn't say that's failure, more the natural lifecycle of fame.

That's a shock there. Even more surprising is it's at BW. How on earth Harrison makes Bantamweight, I don't know. 

Conversation with my mum yesterday, not a football watcher of any kind. Somebody died and decided to make her Jo Brand it seems:

Mum: "Did Man United get beat again?"

Me: "When?"

Mum: "At the weekend there."

Me: "Surprisingly not, no"

Mum: "You sure?"

Me: "Well, aye. United weren't playing"

Mum: "I dunno about that. I heard Liverpool were hammering them". 

Me: "Liverpool won, yeah, but it was Bournemouth".

Mum: "Hmmm. Well. Is it not normally United that they're thumping?"

I'm not feeling this one guys. It doesn't have the depth of a lot of the PPV's around it in the calendar but it also doesn't have the top end either. I couldn't give a fiddler's about either of those title fights. Sean Strickland, try as he might outside the cage and for as incredibly unexpected and deserved as that victory over Israel Adesanya was - is a colossal dullard. He feels like the UFC's equivalent of when WWE put the title on The Miz, Jinder Mahal or Jack Swagger. "I guess it's not as good as it used to be then". 

The supporting fights on the main card range from not bad to very good, which is a positive, but I think only one of them, Allen Vs Evloev, matters a fuck as regards what's happening next in the division. That looks great on paper and I'd be surprised if it wasn't at least the best fight on the main card. 

On 1/18/2024 at 5:10 PM, LaGoosh said:

Obvious highlight being this man looking more beautiful than ever:

What a man. Push him to the moon.

Magnum AP. He's going to call for an I Quit match with Swerve and he's going for that eye. 

50 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

Im fairly certain DDP knocks Strickland out within the first 2 rounds. Strickland standing in the pocket and pressing forward against a reckless and unconventional power puncher like DDP just seems like a recipe for disaster.

Here's hoping Egg 🤞. Need to start this year off right. 

6 hours ago, Carbomb said:

It's only because of @klown, having visited his neck of the woods in Norn Iron, that I became aware of egg & onion being a thing at all. We'd stopped at a petrol station, and I'd gone to pick up a sandwich, and was so intrigued by this filling I'd never seen anywhere in England that I picked up one for lunch.

When I mentioned it to him, he said "Yeh, it's everywhere here - even at funerals, you get an aunt coming round saying 'Ah, so sorry, love - I did you a round of egg & onion...'" (His delivery was very funny.)

Well known to cure grief. . .so it does. 

I think I've read out 4 posts already from this thread to the others in the room. That involves trying to explain what this place even is. Which is a pretty fucking difficult task to be willing to take on, but I felt more people had to hear this shit. 

Being from Northern Ireland, @mim731's experience would be much more normal round these parts, whereas some of the other experiences mentioned here seem kind of alien to me.

A funeral around here is like a game of guess who. Nobody knows who the fuck anybody is, but it's the done thing to turn up at your granny's neighbours son's girlfriend's uncle's funeral, and say to the family you recognised the man's picture in the funeral times from the Spar employee of the month photo's.

"Ah. So you did son. Here, have an egg an onion bap and a cuppa. Tell me this, do you know Davy down the road, does the fencin' and a bita roofin' and that carry on?"

"I Do aye John."

"His daughter's just broke up with her fella, she's about your age. Over there look, take your tae over there and keep her company". 😉

"That's my sister."

"Best ignore the wink then."

And so it goes. Going to all the funerals in the parish to test out who supplied the best biscuits is the only way you can ever get back some value against the cost of the burial plot. 

Ricky Stark's eye roll when Jericho's music hit was a thing of beauty. 

They should go back to Daily's Place more often. Not so often that it doesn't feel unique when they do, but 4 times a year I think they could get away with. This was a really good show, that looked different and despite being half outside, sounded better than nearly all of their recent arena shows. 

Anyone thinking we could see a Raven/Dreamer esque win/loss ratio forming in the Hangman and Swerve feud? AEW seem to be going right back to the third match, which normally would mean Hangman is getting a win back - but Swerve is the one on a beeline for the title here. Hangman beating Swerve for the belt eventually would be the comeuppance - but that's a long way off - yet the third match is clearly coming very soon. 

It could work where Swerve is just the guy Hangman can't beat, time after time - until he eventually does and takes the title to boot. A full swerve face turn might fuck that up though. It wouldn't work nearly as well if, when the time comes, the crowd aren't almost unanimously behind Page. 

Some great parts to the show last week, with Hangman/Claudio, the Joe/Page/Swerve interaction and the HOOK SIGNAL debuting! As well as the batshit main event. 

Negatives were obviously Ric Flair, Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara still being featured pretty heavily (and probably about to win the tag titles?) Despite continuing to be shite. 

4 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

The Saudis apparently said the card wasn’t good enough 😂

And they aren't wrong! They're paying a $20M site fee for this apparently. Which is more than the UFC was getting for the Houston and Australia shows that were PPV's. But seemingly because it's less than WWE get for their Saudi shitshows, maybe the UFC felt they could go in with a lesser product at first and milk a bigger deal out of bringing a PPV down the line. 

Collision as a concept is a bust. I feel they should have upgraded Rampage to 2 hours at first before adding a third TV show. Friday night is a poor night, but it's a better night than Saturday.

You could still record a 2 hour Rampage on the same night as Dynamite as well - 1 hour of in ring matches/promos taped after Dynamite - then backstage pieces totalling 20 mins for the TV show and you have your 2 hours when you add the adverts in. 

Collision comes across as a total B show. Drop it - keep ROH if you must but record it in a small building in the same town as Dynamite on the Tuesday or Thursday, with a totally separate roster - if your stuff gets over there then you graduate to Rampage and leave ROH behind, until you happen to be exiting stage left. 

Is Islam Makhachev injured? I'd have thought this was a perfect show for he and Gaethje. 

I hope Ben Askren talks himself into another payday and puts that bulldog choke on Jorge Masvidal. 

Maybe Tyson Griffin or Roger Huerta have been dug up or defrosted to be Jim Miller's opponent. 

I'd be interested to watch Shevchenko head kick KO Ronda Rousey. That'd be a good laugh. 

Realistically though, when it comes to title fights, Edwards seems like the only champion that might line up at the right time to go on last? If it is Edwards, they have to go with Shavkat over Belal. Edwards/Belal has more than just a bit of potential to bore the pants off of everyone. That's not how I expect they would want that show to end. Shavkat Vs Edwards looks a much more exciting fight on paper. 

Chimaev should also be on this show, against who though I'm not really sure. Adesanya would be the right opponent but based on how he was talking after the title loss, it seems he wants to take longer than 6-7 months off. Unless Du Plessis/Strickland do a quick turn around to defend against Chimaev on 300?

Those are two really, really good fights that I absolutely didn't expect to be coming down the pipe. The Poirier/Saint-Denis one especially. Glad to see it. The Tsarukyan one - somebody in that upper realm had to fight him next, but I was expecting a bit of a sitting out period before there was enough arm wrangling to get a fight like this booked. 

Chris Weidman being back again? Well, that's not good news is it? 😞

Swerve wins the World title at Revolution (yay!) but loses it to Will Ospreay at Wembley (boo!), as Tony Khan's EWR save becomes complete and Meltzer has a heart attack with excitement. 

More skeletons come out of the closet, at the All In press conference, causing Tony Khan to go into a coma, like Linda McMahon that time. Shad gets Vince and Kevin Dunn in to take over. Vince takes CJ Perry away from Miro and makes her Big Bill's valet. They become a thing in real life, which Miro loves as he cry wanks through the window. Under the new regime, Bill beats Ospreay for the belt at All Out in 3 minutes. 

Malakai Black continues to be boring as sin until he ends up back in WWE, where the cycle continues. Shocked, I know. 

Cody Rhodes meanwhile, wins the belt, loses it back to Roman and then opens up negotiations with Vince about returning to AEW in 2025 to come and be the next top baby-face - since Big Bill has gotten turned into 1995 Diesel, being made to kiss all the babies, leaving Vince dumbfounded. 

5 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

His best performance is playing a mean dad in The Lego Movie. He was pretty good in Stranger Than Fiction, too. There's something to this.

I originally read that as dead man and thought, aye he could probably just about manage that alright. 

56 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

The Christmas holidays were mostly spent watching easy-going comedies with The Wife™️. Enjoyed each of Date Night, 

 I do remember us also watching Halloween Kills, which was disappointingly shite overall. 

 

I share the love for Date Night. Definitely one of the best comedies of recent times. Put it in my head to re-watch it, this evening maybe. 

And on the other end of the spectrum, Halloween Kills, and the other one, Halloween Ends? Two turds that won't flush. 

2 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

He had a 30 second fight with Jinder before the "head of the table" line so was knackered from that 😂

Ah, that makes sense now. I didn't see that part knocking about so my conclusions were that Rock may be needing the old O2 cylinder before and after he tackles Roman. 

I just saw the clips of Rock's promo on IG. Was he blown up for the whole promo or just the head of the table bit? Man sounded fucking exhausted.