Grecian

Rio Ferdinand. 

Wonderful footballer who bears more than a passing resemblance to my class weirdo at school, who the last I heard, was serving four years at Her Majesty's pleasure for offering young girls cash to do things young girls shouldn't be doing. No matter what Rio has done or will do, I'll never be able to watch him without feeling creeped out. 

2 hours ago, Shy Dad said:

And it could still realistically happen. If Randy dethrones Drew, Dominik turns 24 the week or so after WrestleMania, Drew vs Reigns and Dominik vs Randy could be two huge main events. I know the hope is for Edge vs Orton (or was) once he returns from injury but that could easily be a match at the Rumble. Have Dominik win the Rumble, have Orton take out Rey as a warning, have the Mysterios celebrate to end Mania, maybe even have that the event for Rey to "pass on" the mask for the first time. 

 

Orton was 24 and 4 months (born in April, Summerslam is late August). Dominick was also born in April so pretty much has until Summerslam 2021 to do it. 

1 hour ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

He’s only got 8 months or so to do it, Dominik is 23 already. 

Really? I had him for 19 or 20!

50 minutes ago, Supremo said:

 

In other news, Dominik Mysterio is great. Super colourful gear, throws a great punch, great at selling, super flashy high-flying. The best new prospect in forever, another example of how much their developmental system is not fit for purpose and everyone would benefit from skipping it entirely.

That sunset flip off the apron on Murphy was a work of art. Odds of him beating Orton's record as youngest world champ in the next few years...? 

Actually, thats a ready made feud for some point. Orton as champ, defending his record and legacy vs Dominick. Has to happen. 

My win came on Fall Mountain, the two who were miles ahead both missed the crown and I snuck through to grab it. Since then, I've barely made any finals. 

Aubrey Gold is up on murder charges, apparently:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/porn-star-aubrey-gold-charged-22598761

There was a lot to like, I thought... 

Keith Lee goes clean over Orton. 

Shayna Bazsler looks great, Sasha has no belts because Bayley taps out. The eventual split between those two could be awesome. 

Big E's push continues, in a nicely understated way. I don't like the way it's been telegraphed that E is being pushed, but he's doing great. 

Roman's heel turn is complete and has been done really well. I guess AJ is currently the lead face on SD, but given the history between him and Heyman, will they go with it? Or Bryan? 

Charles Robinson's bump was great, as was Michael Cole vaulting over the barricade. 

Dominik Mysterio... I wanted to hate him, dispel him as only being used because of his dad, but good lord, he's good. His selling was great, bang on time for everything... He's got a hell of a future. 

Only gripe for me was Sheamus going back to black trunks, I think he looks better in the white vest / trousers combo he sported in the bar fight with Hardy. 

Aside from that, a hell of a lot happened in 2.5 hours, much of it good. 

Amazon keeps recommending that I buy the New Jack book. Is it worth a read? 

4 hours ago, RedRooster said:

Anyone here playing Fall Guys, and if so has anyone actually managed to win a crown?

I...haven't but it's still probably my favourite game of 2020 so far. It's the perfect antidote to the misery of a global pandemic. 

I just won!!!! 

I've come second and third numerous times. I always seem to get Fall Mountain and never do well. Great game though, until Slime Climb. 

I've seen something on Twitter this morning where someone got footage of an execution played on their screen. Wrestling fans really don't help themselves. 

The WWE Network managed to ruin the ending for me. The damned thing crashed just as Fiend was making his entrance, so I reloaded it, went to chapter select and skipped to end... only for the final chapter heading to tell me exactly what was coming.

Good show overall, but Strowman dropping the title so quickly just made me think what a waste of time it was putting it on Goldberg / Strowman in the first place.

I enjoyed Drew vs Randy, but when was the last time a world title match ended on a backslide?

13 minutes ago, The Maestro said:

Alcohol. Not just people being pissed, but more the culture around it. One of the lads in my office goes on and on about it all the time. And not in a way where he's sampling different drinks and new things. Just droning on and on about getting shitfaced off Southern Comfort and Fosters. 

There were two bellends in the shop yesterday buying loads and one was on the phone talking about smashing down bottles of Grey Goose taking an eternity to buy their shit and bugger off out the way. 

I enjoy a drink as much as the next man but I think it's people that treat it as a personality trait that really get on my tits. 

Add craft beers too. One of my mates got married a few years back and his new bro-in-law decided to pay for the booze as his gift. They had an afternoon reception so he'd bought a ton of craft beers and spent the whole time banging on about what a wonderful selection he'd got, the microbreweries he visited, why 'this' beer complimented the colour of someone's tie and pretty much being a pretentious arse. At one point, someone said how nice the bride looked, to which he rolled his eyes and said 'Yes, but what about the beer?' 

He saw me drinking Diet Coke, told me through gritted teeth how much he respected designated drivers. I told him I wasn't driving and that I'm teetotal, he spent the next twenty minutes telling me I was only teetotal because I'd never tried this beer, tried to force a bottle into my mouth and only stopped when his sister (the bride) told him to stop being such a wanker. 

I cannot hear the words 'craft beer' or 'microbrewery' without feeling angry. 

18 minutes ago, JNLister said:

The problem is that a lot of spaces have been taken up by the inevitable chunk of private school/small class pupils who would have underperformed expectations by fucking up the exam but instead have had their forecast top grades accepted.

There are more spaces this year because of the drop in EU and overseas applicants, not to mention the fact that grades and Ucas points on entry are used in many of the league tables. If there is suddenly a glut of students with AAA grades available, believe me, universities will find a way to get them in. 

Put bluntly, universities are businesses. They are not going to give up potentially millions of pounds of income easily. They'll find a way. 

1 hour ago, LariatTom said:

That's excellent, hopefully other universities are going to follow suit with that. January intake could work, are they then going to have two intakes running alongside each other or bring them together over time?

Most places already offer February starts at Masters level. Just means you teach through the summer, have a longer break over Christmas and January. Lecturers aren't keen because they're teaching all year round, but it's not the hardest thing to introduce. And if it's the difference between keeping your job or massive drop in income and redundancy there's not much of a choice to make. 

Each student is £27750 over three years. Missing out on 100 students means almost three million quid od missed income. Uni's will find a way for that not to happen. 

26 minutes ago, LariatTom said:

 

A-Levels is a shitshow. Students/schools can appeal, but their choices for uni have refused them based on grades. Those universities aren't going to be able to do a u-turn in 6 weeks time and suddenly be massively oversubscribed for a course because things get reversed. I have colleagues with children who have been in the 40% to be downgraded which means they didn't get into university. Having been predicted As, they've come out with Cs because the system decided that only a handful of her class could get an A. I'm so disappointed in the system.

Leicester Uni has announced they're going to offer places based on mock exam results or confirmed grades, whichever is higher. Some are looking at doing a January intake. 

Universities need the tuition fees far too much to not take people. Given the drop in international students due to Covid, where there's a tuition fee to be had, there's a way... 

I did a twelve hour stint running at Clearing call-centre yesterday. Everyone that called to come to my uni - without exception - all said they'd be appealing their grades. I've seen people who got a C in As-level get U grades. It's an absolute mess. But at least they'll make a fortune out of appeals fees... 

So this morning anyone coming back from France now has to quarantine. Any shouts for which country will be added to the quarantine list next Thursday to distract from the incoming GSCE results mess? 

Isn't it a right of passage for wrestlers offspring to get the hell beaten out of them, to show they're tough and deserve to be there, rather than milking their name? I remember the absolute shellacking Garett Bischoff took in TNA to try and show he wasn't just employeed because of his dad. I'm guessing Dominick is trying the same thing. All Guerrero's have a name to live up to... 

Got an afternoon to myself, so thought I'd break out MK11 to see if I can finally get through the bloody tutorials. I've only got two trophies left until I have the platinum. 

The advanced tutorials are an absolute nightmare. Finally managed to knock two of them off, then went to the menu to see what I have left. Then found out the two I've done - spent a solid half an hour of button mashing, trying to get the combo down to the exact frame rate for timing - haven't saved. So, so annoying! 

17 hours ago, Supremo said:

 

At first, I thought this would be a good idea for WWE. But then, it’s pro-wrestling fans. I wouldn’t trust a portion of them to not be wanking themselves silly at some point in the show.

Knowing Vince and Kevin Dunn, it'd either be a bunch of celebs like Maria Menounos or Kid Rock, or a group of incredibly attractive actors. They couldn't possibly have an actual wrestling fan on Zoom who'd probably bust out a 'CM Punk' chant two hours in. 

Scripted Zoom chanting, its the future.

12 minutes ago, hallicks said:

Thought it was all paid off and the Glazers are just extracting money as and when because Utd are a mega cash cow

Nope, their debt is around £430 million. 

https://www.espn.com/soccer/manchester-united/story/4097446/man-united-announce-debt-rises-to-close-to-430-million

Kyle O'Reilly is always great to watch, Murphy when he's allowed to do his in-ring thing. I still love watching Daniel Bryan and the New Day. 

With apologies for even naming the series but the episode of The Big Bang Theory with James Earl Jones taking Sheldon on a night out is one I've always liked. 

Feel free to bring back down votes. 

The main difference between the two ideas that I can see is that Cena and Bray had history together, their whole run up to Mania 30, what Bray winning would have done for his career, the 'Cena buries everyone!' accusations... as it was, he lost and that started being when Bray started becoming known for losing all the big matches. I think I'm right in saying that's when the creepy cult leader started doing all the supernatural stuff, with the kid singing to Cena and all that and it's easy to point at this particular run as the moment Bray jumped the shark, and within three years, we've got maggots on the ring canvas. I still thank various deities that match between Balor's Demon and 'Sister Abigail' never actually happened.

Whereas with Strowman, he just appeared as a member of the Family and then left in the Draft when he got put on Raw and Bray was on Smackdown. There was no big split - teased or actual - so for the Swamp match, they tried to create all this tension and history between the two that simply wasn't there. 

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days and this may be the wrong thread, but it occurs to me that Bray is the wrestling version of Stephen King. They both come up with some pretty cool concepts, when Bray introduces a new character, it's awesome (see: Fiend, cult leader, Firefly Funhouse) but then he's got no idea how to carry them on. I've read a lot of Stephen King books and quite a few times there's a sense he has no idea how to finish the story so he shrugs and writes in aliens or a supernatural entity. It's like that with Bray, the Fiend was amazing when he faced Finn Balor, then jumped off a cliff vs Rollins; the cult leader was amazing in his rocking chair then went to pieces vs Cena... the best, most intriguing character he has for me is the kids TV host, purely because he's hardly ever seen actually wrestling.

What happens when Vince kicks the bucket? I know WWE have a few VP's of various areas, but does he have a designated number 2? Or is it just accepted that Steph and Trips take over and run the show? Would shareholder's have to approve whomever takes over?