19 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

i have no doubt Khan and his missus will be on every celebrity based gameshow for the next few years.

They won't get very far. I saw a clip of him on that jungle show. And he asked Boris Johnsons dad, if this country had ever had a female prime minister before.  And that was when Theresa May was PM.

I've jumping between 1989 to 1992 WCW, watching random PPV's.  It is bemusing how shit Bill Watts was in 1992. People say WrestleWar was his first PPV, but it's Beach Blast where he's got his fingers on it. Mainly he's put his boys, Gordy & Williams aka Miracle Violence Connection in the main event against The Steiners. Although it was Kip Frey who secured a deal with New Japan to bring them over. Watts put them in the main event on their first PPV. Beach Blast had the lowest PPV buyrate for WCW up til that point. They equalled that with the Great American Bash buyrate.

At their 2nd PPV, Great American Bash, they won the NWA tag titles in the main event. Bar Sting vs Vader. (in a typically awesome match between the pair) The rest of the show is tag team title tournament matches. And the matches are not short, most are 20 minutes long. When Miracle Violence win the belts, the crowd don't even react. 5000 peoples unequivocal nonchalance to it is quite funny. They just get up and start leaving.

On the next PPV, Halloween Havoc opens with a generic 6 man match. Shane Douglas, Z-Man & Johnny Gunn (Tom Brandi) vs. Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson & Michael Hayes. But the crowd do not care for the babyfaces one bit. Whenever Arn & Bobby get some offence in, the crowd love it, cheering loudly. And when the babyfaces win, the crowd boos loudly. Also on the show is Ricky Steamboat vs. Brian Pillman. In a match where you would think awesome on paper but it's distinctly average. Pillman not being allowed to be flyin cuts off his legs. At one point he does a flying crossbody from the 2nd rope which looks so archaic. And also Steamboat does a top rope sunset flip for the win but it's somehow not a DQ, Somehow this PPV gets a buyrate of 165,000 buys. Over double that of Beach Blast. I don't really get why. Were the audience that excited to see Jake Roberts vs Sting?!

Also on the show is the first PPV defence of Ron Simmons' WCW World Title against....The Barbarian. It's cool Ron Simmons is recognised as the first African American WCW Heavyweight Champion. But his run was so piss poor. He became no.1 contender for Vader's title in a lottery.  His only other PPV title defence was against Dr Death Steve Williams (Watt's boy) at Starrcade, who replaced Rick Rude because he was injured. And they couldn't even let Simmons win that one clean. It was a double count out then got changed to a DQ. And to make it worse, Williams left WCW after the PPV.

Whenever I see promotions with no ring mats. It just makes me think they couldn't afford them. And with a show that's on TV or PPV, there's cables everywhere taped to the floor. Having mats down hides all of that from the viewer. Also for Great American Bash & Halloween Havoc the cool elevated walk way to the ring was gone. Wrestlers just come out from behind a curtain with a primary school play, lighting rig set up.

Kip Frey also started WCW Saturday Night. I think it was Dusty who was booking the end of Jim Herd's run and Kip Frey's. Then Bill Watts took everything over himself.

Looks like that's a one fight show from the card.

Not heard of anyone on the undercard, especially as it's the Cinco De Mayo weekend show.

I did see BBC were showing the Katie Taylor/Amanda Serrano fight the other night. It's now on iPlayer if you haven't seen it.

Work with a lad in his mid 20s who rented his first property two doors down from where we work for convenience mainly. We live in South Lincolnshire so prices are relatively cheap. He pays £600 for a 2 bed 1980s built semi-detached house.

He should have really had someone to go with him to take a look. He was living with a 60 year old woman who was very noisy, so just wanted to get out. The problems with the house, the letting agents said would be sorted and the place would have a good clean.

When he moved in, I don't think the place had even been touched with a j-cloth. I went to have a look when he got the keys and there were two roasting trays in the oven covered in months old grease. The bedroom ceiling is coming down. Where the plasterboard sheet is screwed to the ceiling joist that's just come away and the sheet is hanging down. When you open one of the kitchen cupboards there is a big hole that leads to the outside. I imagine there would have been a vent there and that's just been left bare. He's now got birds in his loft. They must be getting in through the roof somehow.

He sent the letting agent a snagging list when he moved in. The only thing that got sorted was trimming the 20 foot bushes outside which they said they would do before he moved in. He had to wait a few months for that to happen. The other one was sorting the windows so they actually lock. You could close the window and put it into the lock position. But you could push the window and it would open a few inches. That one they had to do something about because it invalidated his house insurance.

Letting agents, estate agents. They're all fucking shit.

I sold my house in 2020. Estate agent had it on Rightmove for months. 1000s of views on the website. Equated to one physical viewing. Luckily that one person liked it so much they bought the house. 

On 5/3/2022 at 10:20 AM, Egg Shen said:

 

* Liam Smith's win over Jesse Vargas was quality. People expected him to win, but being the first man to stop Vargas was a real feather in his cap considering who Vargas has fought previously. I expect Liam gets a World Title shot next.

I think Vargas is living off name value now. He's only 32 and he had not fought for two years before this fight. This was his first fight at 154lbs. He's fought a lot of high level calibre fighters and hasn't beaten any of them.

In the last 8 years, he beat Sadam Ali, journeyman Aaron Herrera & a 38 year old Humberto Soto.

The fight was pretty equal over 4 rounds. But Smith's pacing and power took over.  154lbs is his weight and he showed Vargas that.

3 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

Any good shitcoms getting rebooted for the precious content meter? I couldn’t sit through Jerry Stillerless King of Queens. This also explains why there’s no catch up service for Yellowstone.

Yellowstone is on the My5 app. They're showing it from the start on Saturday nights on 5USA. Then putting them up on My5 afterwards. I think they're halfway through Season 2 at the moment.

I'm bout to watch it. Kazakhstan TV have the full fight and ring entrances on YouTube.

Not a shirt but I saw these on AliExpress for £1.50 a pair.

I don't think Khan has officially retired. There was talk of him invoking the rematch clause against Kell Brook.

Never heard of Florian Marku until BBC Sport did a piece on him this week. Sounds like a character. They call him the King of Albania. He had about 110 kickboxing fights and only lost 4.

I see he's had 12 fights and won 11, drawn 1. Jenkins will be his toughest opponent by far. He beat former world champ Julius Indongo in his last fight and has held British and commonwealth titles.

Warrington really smelled blood in there. That's after he's headbutted you in the face and caused the cut.

That's a bit of a decline for Ritson. I remember when he was on that knockout streak, 4 years ago. And they packed 9,000 into the same venue to see him take on Francesco Patera for the European title.

Caught the David Avanesyan fight the other day. I thought he was going to get a hostile reception with his Russian heritage. He had nothing to worry about, Frank Warren had booked Wembley Arena and no-one turned up to watch it. All of the tiered seating was empty. His Finnish opponent looked like a 12 year old and got battered within 1 round.

I saw in April 1993 WCW ran MSG and were charging $25 for ringside seats. Imagine what they charged at that gym house show and the attendance. No wonder Bischoff stopped running all house shows when he got the power to do so. It was Bob Dhue who was in charge of the house show business in 1993. According to Bischoff on his podcast, he said Dhue knew they were badly losing money on house shows, so to alleviate this, his remedy was to...do even more house shows.

I saw WCW also use to run shows for trainees and experienced wrestlers at a place called the Crystal Chandelier in Georgia. You were lucky on those shows if you got more than 50 people to show up.

Hopefully they managed to catch him before his head hit the floor. They're not showing any replays on Dazn and it's quite a sombre tone.

It was a brilliant, rollercoaster of a fight, both took and gave a lot of punishment throughout.

The last three rounds of that fight were a one way onslaught. I read that Gill perforated both of his ear drums so that was the major contributor to his wobbly legs. The big punches Guerfi was landing didn't help either. For the last two rounds he was a sitting duck, backed into his corner just to regain his balance.  Dave Coldwell perched onto the apron right next to him shouting one to one instructions.  That looked so surreal, like it was from a movie. The big shot that ended the fight and the crowds reaction to it made it a great domestic boxing moment.

The selling on that DDT made it look deadly.

I had it 115 -112 Catterall. I see Paddy Power are refunding bets on Catterall to win now.

I gave Catterall pretty much all of the first 6 rounds. He landed a lot more, caught Taylor with the jab a lot. There was a lot of holding which upset Taylor's rhythm through the whole of the fight. Reminded me a lot of Klitschko. A lot of Taylor's shots were missing or hitting shoulders or cuffing round the side of the body. Taylor did better in the 2nd half but he didn't land anything clean all fight. Best shot was when he nutted Catterall in the 9th.

Ben Davison told Taylor at the end of the 11th, you need a stoppage to win. They all knew he lost the fight, but they're not going to come out and admit it now. If there's any inkling Taylor thinks he didn't win. One of the 4 boxing organisations are going to make him do a rematch or strip him of the belt, if he can't make the weight again.

Big fan of Taylor's and he's achieved a lot in a short career and he's never backed down from a fight. It's not his fault the judges fucked this up so badly. Ian John Lewis again, absolute conman.

We talked about self belief before and needed that in spades to be a successful boxer. Josh Taylor has that by the bucket load, super competitive guy. But now from the post fight press conference, he comes across almost egotistical. Insulting the intelligence of the fans, saying people think Catterall won because he did better than people expected. He says he won the fight about 20 times in 13 minutes. Not sure who he's trying to convince there. Now just seen the post fight in-ring interview, fuck me. Taylor must have said, I won the fight another 10 times there in 3 minutes.

Promoter Ben Shalom called it embarrassing for boxing and as the promoter. He said there should be some kind of inquest in this. Then in the post fight press conference, he didn't say anything. He's new to the promoting game, I think he's about to find out about the shady side. Top Rank will be telling him to keep quiet. And nothing will come of it.

Been checking out the Top Rank youtube channel. They've got a lot of Marvin Hagler fights on there and little bits of unseen videos from his career.

Hagler's fight with Algerian Loucif Hamani. This is Haglers first fight after his controversial world title fight loss with Vito Antuofermo. Hagler was such an awesome finisher. He blasted Hamani to the point he ended up in the arms of his trainers, the Petronelli's in the front row.

Here's Haglers first world title win against Alan Minter. Racial tension boiled over in the pre-fight build-up, which made Haglers victory even sweeter. Vicious punches from Hagler ripped through Minter's delicate skin opening up old wounds and causing the stoppage.

A very 80's, Marvin Hagler training/promo package for his fight with "The Beast" John Mugabi

4 minutes of Marvin Haglers' best lines.

Round 1 of Marvin Hagler vs Thomas Hearns aka Best Boxing Round Of All Time

That puts that to bed then again. I think at this stage in his career Amir Khan was running on fumes.  He's taking big shots before in the past, got up and carried on, but here everything that touched him, wobbled him. The hand speed and quick feet went after round one. Kell looked invincible, nothing Khan landed, hurt him or even marked him. Their faces in the post fight press conference tell the story. Khan didn't throw a punch in the 6th round and took 15 power shots in the 5th round. Only thing they could do is stop the fight. Good to see them bury their differences at the end.

Kell is in a difficult spot now if he wants to fight on. He was campaigning at light middleweight, then dropped back down to welterweight for the Terence Crawford fight. Now he's not ranked at light middleweight anymore. Eubank Jr at middleweight is probably a step too far in weight.

Really looking forward to this one now. I don't think I can split them apart for a winner.

Khan bringing in Terence Crawford's trainer is a shrewd move. Both have fought Crawford so will know pros and weaknesses.

Khan has almost had a 3 year layoff since his last fight and that was an exhibition bout. Brook has been about 18 months since his loss to Crawford.

Although he still has the hand speed, Khan's power at welterweight has been limited. He managed to stop Phil Lo Greco in 40 seconds and Billy Dib (a natural super-featherweight) but more competent competition has heard the final bell.

Brook the more natural welterweight, so is closer to the 149lb catchweight,  has strengths in timing and punching power.

Both do have weaknesses in punch resistance. Khan's chin and Brook's eyes. He says they are steel plated now but I can't see them ever being right after the Canelo/Spence fights.

9 hours ago, David said:

Well, what do you expect him to say? I honestly believe Williams thought everything he said was true. You don't get to the level of the sport he has by admitting defeat before you even lace up the gloves. 

Someone has to win, and someone has to lose. It's how it goes, but it doesn't mean that a fighter who believed he was capable of beating his opponent in all areas has "made a twat of himself." He was soundly beaten on the night, but it won't be long before he convinces himself that it was an off-night for him, or that something wasn't done correctly in his training or so forth. That's why so many fighters change trainers after a loss. They either believe it's something they did in preparation that cost them the fight, but that can be fixed, or they admit they're just not up to it and lost because they aren't as good as they think they are.

One of those options isn't conducive to continuing with a successful career.

These Gloves Are Off and other face to face hype shows would be really fucking dull if it was just both guys saying "yeah, I'll give it my best shot, but he's a great fighter so it could go either way. May the best man win." It's worth remembering that those shows are entirely geared towards ensuring as many eyeballs are watching Sky Sports on the night of the fight as possible. 

I expected it to be an entertaining conversation between the pair. I didn't realise Liam Williams' personality was so horrible & he was so full of shit. His arrogant attitude towards Eubank, giving him no credit. Saying he wanted to kill him. (which the BBBoC are now investigating) Williams' even told Eubank he couldn't punch. This is a guy who almost killed Nick Blackwell from hitting him too hard.

Yes you need massive self-belief and massive balls to be a boxer. I have massive respect for every boxer who steps in the ring. But you also have to respect your opponent and Williams gave none to Eubank, and the reasons why were so feeble.

There is also a level of reality you need too. Liam William's said he could beat Chris Eubank any way. But Liam Williams doesn't possess those skills, not many fighters are the complete package. That's the realistic side of it. That's why he's stepped up 4 times now and lost everytime. Being at the level of British champion is nothing to sniff at.

And he didn't make a twat out of himself because he lost. It was the way he conducted himself afterwards. No post fight hand shake, no post fight interviews, thanking his home fans for supporting him. No praising Eubank for being the better man/fighter. He promised so much and delivered so little. Whereas the stigma with Eubank is, he's so flash, he's so arrogant. In this fight and build-up he's only come across quiet & humble.

Only just seen this fight from the past weekend. Srisaket Sor Rungvisai got sick and couldn't fight Carlos Cuadras for the vacant super flyweight world title. Light flyweight prospect Jesse Rodriguez stepped in at a weeks notice, moving up two weight divisions for the opportunity.

The 22 year old Rodriguez seized the opportunity with both hands easily outpointing Cuadras. The big wow factor for Rodriguez is his speed. He's Loma slick on his feet. The knockdown he scored in round 3, was like he was shape shifting.

Watched the Williams/Eubank fight. I was rooting for Williams because I was expecting him to put on a show. But it was really over by round 4. Enzo on commentary probably had a few too many Peroni's again and only had Williams 2 points behind at the end of round 10. Usual biased commentary from Sky.

I watched the Gloves Are Off episode after the fight. Williams didn't half make a twat of himself on there. I get you need to big yourself up and put on a bravado. But everything he said was bollocks.

Told Eubank he couldn't punch - Got knocked down twice in two rounds.

Bring it and you're going to get chinned - Didn't hurt Eubank in any way.

You can't box - Sweet counter-punch put him on his arse in the first three minutes.

Eubank on the other hand was calm and batted away all the stupid comments.

When Eubank discussed fighters talking a big game on Twitter and failing to deliver in the fight. Williams turned into Billy Big Bollocks & said if he and Eubank went into the backroom he's going to "punch his head in" and "mess him up so bad." That hit a bit close to home for Williams because that's basically what happened. He didn't do a post fight interview. He hasn't surfaced on social media since.

No post fight handshake because this was "personal." But Williams never explained what his problem was with Eubank. Generic answers like, I don't like his personality, he rubs me up the wrong way. In Eubank fights I always come out liking him more.

5 hours ago, Big'Olympic_Hero'Pete said:

Love it. Miss characters like him around the game and seeing the deals being negotiated like that.

 

'How much? You ain't getting that son'

He's still at Posh doing the deals 

If we get Lampard. Unless he turns up with his shopping list. There's going to be no reinforcements in this window. And with some of shithouses we have, it's going to be a dog-arse 2nd half of the season. 

Watching the WCW 1989, one thing I've noticed is how generic and similar a lot of the wrestlers look.

On one show in mid July. Mike Awesome (in job guy role), Dan Spivey & Scott Steiner are all wearing the same gear. Yellow trunks, yellow boots. If that was WWF, Vince would have gone ballistic and put a stop to that.

There was one episode in January with the original Midnight Express getting some heat in a squash match ready for their feud with the new Midnight Express. In this squash match, Randy Rose looked identical to the job guy, Trent Knight. Not just in ring gear but body shape, mullet, tasche.