DCW

Really enjoyed it. Bianca/Becky was fantastic. Bianca really is a cracking babyface. Delighted with the KO/Austin stuff. They definitely could have advertised it as a proper match too. I've never seen that Boogz lad but he seemed a bit of craic, shite about the injury. Cody looked a star, even if its all downhill after this, he was right to jump back. 

The only things that bring it down are the stupid 3D models, the commentary (the 3 Raw lads may as well be robots & Cole interrupting that annoying twat McAfee when he was trying to actually tell a story about what we were seeing in ring was infuriating.) The endless videos and not one backstage interview was bizarre as well. 

Not a hope tonight can top night 1. Also are the Dallas Cowboys now just called the NFL Cowboys? sounded odd when commentary kept repeating it!

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yeah Taker was proper floundering before 96, for years. Aside from the Yokozuna stuff (and even some of that was silly shite) he was arsing about with the likes of Mabel, Bundy, Kama, IRS, fucking Gonzalez and so on. Even when he got Bret and Diesel in early 96 it was always gonna be short lived with Bret about to go on hiatus and Nash off to WCW.

I think a lot of people forget just how shite most of Taker’s run in 92-95 was. Up until the series with Mankind, the routine seemed to be - some big slug attacks him on Superstars or whatever, or robs his urn, they have a (crap) match, Taker wins and that’d be it. One and done. And it was usually so rotten you didn’t wanna see more than one match anyway. The Mankind run gave him a completely new lease of (deadman) life as a character, gave him someone he could finally have good matches with and I think it also played a big part in him changing up his in ring style as well and going a bit faster paced. Without that Foley feud, 96 would’ve most likely been another rotten year and I’m really not sure how many more of them he’d have survived. If Foley doesn’t come in when he does, Taker probably wouldn’t have had his little title run in 97. The Paul Bearer turn mightn’t have happened either, and if it did then I don’t think it’d have been as good as it was with him going with Mankind. 96 would’ve been another year of Taker doing sod all and we’d have probably got him against the bastard Sultan and Justin ‘Hawk’ Bradshaw on PPV.

I’ve rambled but to sum up, I think that Mankind feud was absolutely pivotal and saved The Undertaker character. If it didn’t happen I really think there’d have been a good chance Taker would’ve ended up going to WCW to don the NWO shirt at the first opportunity in 96/97. You look at him pre-Mankind in 96 and then after 96. It was definitely, 100% the turning point. 

Ah I never thought of it that way. I wasn't watching regularly back then so only saw the early feud mentioned in passing in the odd compilation or whatever. Never realised twas that a big deal for himself. 

Was Foley not the one to benefit from the Taker HIAC stuff? Taker was already a made man many years before that stuff really. A quick mention would have sufficed like. He didn't mention Austin or Rock either, and they're not on the shitlist presumably. 

I'm sure Foley is tweeting all his favourite wank fodder divas to complain anyway. 

The US just sneaked qualification too didn't they? a handy looking group for yourselves. If ye get to November with Kane and Rice fully fit definitely are in with a good shout anyway.

Its going to be shite having a winter world cup all the same. The only proper benefit I got from the tournament (seeing as Ireland haven't qualified in 20 years and are in no danger of doing so) was a good excuse to have pints in a beer garden on a workday. Auld Fifa couldn't even leave that for us!

Aye, WWE was a major part of my younger years and somewhere in my strange mind I would like for it to return to something resembling a watchable, exciting show. That's why I always dip in at this time of year to ascertain the current state of play. I know I always end up more disappointed that things have gotten markedly worse in terms of presentation and performers than the previous year, but I still have to check in vain hope. I'm like the lad in Dirty Harry, I gotsta know!

What are H's biggest 'political' crimes? holding back RVD (who said himself he wasn't that arsed with WWE and turned down a romance angle with Steph that wouldn't have put him in Vince's good books anyway) and the crap fairly racist feud with Booker T are the two biggest I can think of. 

He didn't seem in great nick in nxt/wwe. He doesn't have Joe/Vader level big lad charisma/badassery about him to carry it off either. Just looks like an out of shape Dave Otunga. 

I had to go to court yesterday cos one of my lads was getting sentenced. While waiting for his case they were dealing with the lads arrested the previous evening to see if they get bail or go in on remand. The prison officers and the police we're all sort of giggling when they brought the next lad out from the cells. 

The court clerk shouts ' now, we're dealing with Mr. Off.' The judge asked for the name again from her and she explained that he'd no ID and the only name he'd given when lifted was 'Fuck Off' so thats what he was being called on the charge sheet. Judge goes 'Yes alright. Fuck Off, are you applying for bail?'. How he kept a straight face I do not know.

Cans of Bavaria, a horrible tasting swill of a beer. Sitting around fields drinking them and 'keeping sketch' in case the police came and jailed us all for the dastardly crime of having cans at 16!

When I started going properly out to clubs I'd get a malibu and red lemonade cos it tasted like those cola bottle sweets. Not having learned the process of pacing oneself, I'd down 4 pints of the cheapest beer on draught and 3 of those in about an hour, get sick somewhere stupid (puked on the bar once) and then be escorted from the premises in quick order. I was an idiot.

Only time I can recall Regal ever looking even a bit frazzled whilst cutting a promo, and even then it was better than any scripted word for word robotic one you'll see in WWE all year. Great stuff. Also, I could never see the hype about yer man Keith Lee and he looks completely lost in the shuffle now already, hopefully for his own sake he can get the show back on the road. Can't blame Vince if this run fails.

If he was coming back to to wrestle/hit his big spots then surely a tag match where a younger lad gets the rub of being Austin's partner (and who does all the selling) would have been the way to go. I don't watch WWE regularly enough to know who that young guy would be, but team Owens vs Team Austin sounds much better than a special edition of the poxy KO show.

Interesting to see what Regal gets up to. You'd reckon Bryan and Mox are above storylines involving them being told off by Regal or whatever though. Star wise they're head and shoulders above a tag title run as well. Suppose it would be good craic the 3 of them just palling around, but feels like a bit of a waste too.

At this stage one of Punk/Mox/MJF has to get involved in the world title feud. Poor Hangman's reign has been fairly lacklustre, not helped by being saddled with wasters like Cole.

Is the upside basically the video library so? I hadn't thought ROH was anyway relevant beyond that these days. 

They had definitely given up on Orton at that point, HHH had beat him in the rematch at Unforgiven and he was relegated to wrestling Flair at the next PPV. Was a great way to test the waters with Big Dave though, and he passed with flying carpets. Cracking angle.

I hope they give him lots of promo time to prove why WWE were absolutely correct in not using him in anything beyond the lower/mid card. He's a dullard and the last thing AEW need to be featuring prominently considering the actual talent they have warehoused.

Though fair play to him all the same if manages to grift a good payday out of TK.

I feel a bit sorry for JR, even if he is a puppy murderer. He got royally fucked over and humiliated by WWE/Vince, his Mrs died in a freak accident and now he's battling cancer. He sounds so out of place on AEW weekly TV and it really doesn't sound like he's able for it anymore or even that he enjoys it. If Khan was feeling charitable, just use JR for a few big-ish matches a year and let him go recruit college athletes or whatever for AEW the rest of the time, Something that he enjoys and was quite good at in WWE.

Maybe you can praise Allah by watching sports entertainment? like the time Ted told Dougal you can praise god by being quiet.

I've seen wrestle or met at meet and greet/book signings etc every wrestler I wanted I think. Austin, Rock, Hogan, Foley, Taker, Cena, RVD, Punk, Bryan, Eddie, Benoit, HBK, Flair and Triple H. But one man I've never seen live and in living colour is Vince himself. I'd love to see the mad old bastard one time before he pops his clogs and heads down below. 

I'd have liked to have seen Stacy Keibler too in fairness. Teenage me was an extremely big fan. 

Spilled water on my ancient (but still working perfectly) asus win 8.1 laptop and whole lefthand side of the keyboard is fecked. I bought a cheap bluetooth board & mouse that work grand, but I can't disable the actual keyboard on laptop itself. which is annoying as I'd like to just lie new board on top of it without it mashing the buttons that are still in service. When I look in device manager to uninstall it, its not listed at all.  Tried updating drivers etc, but still no joy.

I only use this laptop for torrenting & old saves of FM 07 (which apparently doesn't work/fiddly on newer windows versions) so not arsed replacing the damaged board, just want rid of its functions!

Found my copy of Edge's (shite) autobiography over my Christmas internment and its amazing reading the bit where JBL emerges in the shower behind Edge (who's new and pretty powerless in the company) and soaps Edge's ass is just laughed off as boys will be boys and testing the newbie. He then battered Edge in a match a few weeks later, but Edge didn't complain about either so he passed the test. Sleeping on frozen Canadian gym floors and surviving on a can of tuna a day on the indies isn't enough of a test like.

Fucking hell, what an awful business.

Happy Christmas lads. One of my delightful clients I was in a small room with for an hour on Wednesday tested positive yesterday when he was PCR'd in prison, so I'm on lockdown until January 2nd. Luckily one of my mates did a big Christmas Eve shop for me so I'm laden down with food and booze at least.

Hopefully a bit more insight into mad auld Vince at least. I'd say it'll be safe enough though, WWE are a handy earner for himself and Rock.

A horrendous show, easily the worst (non UK) PPV WWE has ever done. Tommy Dreamer vs The Great Khali and Balls Mahoney vs Matt Striker live on PPV like. Plus Taking Sabu out of the chamber and replacing him with Bob poxy Holly was the final kick in the teeth. That and woefully green Bobby Lashley winning the title. Don't see how anybody could secretly like it!

Match wasn't my sort of thing, I liked their confrontation/promo though. Was a flash of the old Punk in there & Kingston was great.

I dunno, I thought the Punk/MJF promo went on a good bit too long. MJF basically repeating himself and Punk slagging him off by comparing him to lad from another company that he's still jealous of. Apart from his return night, Punk's done nothing for me. Stale as feck. There was a hellish hint of something initially with Kingston, but it's not re-emerged. 

Polar opposite of Bryan who just gets better and was great again last night. Just the little touches, like doing the flex pose before locking in the la belle lock on Cabana, are so good.