BomberPat

Could do without them booking unrepentant wife-beaters, though. 

This one as well

And probably other variations that we haven't spotted yet. Absolutely disgraceful, yet it'll likely go unreported and unpunished.

There also examples of him unapologetically using it himself in SMW.

Been chatting about it on Twitter - it hits the nostalgia notes, but doesn't feel thematically like a Ghostbusters movie. I really hope they're not going down the "gritty" route, because it's a franchise that absolutely doesn't need it, so I'm hoping that it's just a case of the trailer not being representative of the film as a whole.

I really don't like the slow, lingering shots of things like the car, the ghost capture box, or the suits. It reminds me of R2D2 being revealed in The Force Awakens, and BB-8 looking up at him dramatically as if it's a significant moment for the tiny robot, not for the audience. Or the kids finding the old Jurassic Park jeeps in Jurassic World, and it lovingly panning across the old movie logo as a minor key version of the theme plays. It's lazy nostalgia porn, elevating something of meaning to the audience - not the characters - to the position of an in-universe fetish item, even if it doesn't make sense in continuity.

And that's especially egregious for Ghostbusters, because kind of the point of Ghostbusters is that they're just workaday nobodies and that even when they are successful and save the world, give it a minute and nobody remembers or cares. The idea of anyone in the Ghostbusters universe looking longingly and nostalgically over a bit of Ghostbusters kit feels completely at odds with the series to date.

2 minutes ago, Supremo said:

In the Twitter replies to WWE announcing this there's a bewildering amount of people campaigning for Christian to be inducted.

If that isn't a testament to how few top stars they've got left to induct I don't know what is.

There is an enormous class of people who think Christian was a huge star. 

He falls into that hinterland of guys who came about post-2002 (or thereabouts), and before the rise of Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, or before John Cena as a fully established top flight guy, who never really felt like stars to me, and then had that period of people thinking he was the most underused guy on the roster before he jumped to TNA which, even at the time, I never really got. But he was hovering around the main event scene in 2003-2005, so there's probably people around now who grew up with that as their formative experience of wrestling and look back fondly on it.

It's really clear how few of the people involved have experience wrestling on TV, and how the people who do aren't really sharing the love with their colleagues. Cody carries himself like a star, because he has experience of being a star. Chris Jericho knows when he can colour outside the lines and ad-lib, but that comes from having spent years knowing how to do it properly, so he still hits all the right notes and gets his point across - and honestly at this point every single person in the company should be pushing to get some time in an angle with Jericho, because every single time he gets the mic he uses it to put over someone else's gimmick at a time when the company is doing precious little to that end.

I do think there's been a disconnect in promises and expectation - a lot of fans, and a lot of the wrestling gutter press, acted from before AEW even had a name as if they were immediately going to be taking WWE to the cleaners, that they were looking to sign CM Punk, The Undertaker and Sting, that half the WWE roster were jumping ship...and absolutely none of it was based on anything that AEW were actually saying. There's a fair few promises that I feel AEW haven't delivered on, but I also feel like they're being judged harshly for not having lived up to expectations that they were never setting in the first place.

Ultimately, they still have an air of "realistic and down to earth, but crawling with magical robots". They crow about wins and losses mattering, and have a ranking system, and fans and critics alike have clung to that phrase "sports-like presentation", but they also have Luchasaurus, Orange Cassidy et al, and a fair bit of hokey comedy. I don't think comedy in wrestling is a bad thing by any means, I think it's essential, but so far they're not nailing the "three ring circus" approach of feeling like they have something for everyone so much as they're feeling disjointed and unfocused.

The beauty of WCW at their best was that each match felt like it could offer something different - your main event might be Nash vs. Hogan in a WWF style heavyweight match, but before that you've got Dean Malenko vs. Psicosis, Jushin Liger vs. Rey Misterio Jr, Steven Regal vs. Fit Finlay, and a mad Nasty Boys brawl to get through, or whatever. That's how you do "a bit of everything", and it feels like that's what AEW are aiming for, but they're lacking the consistent agenting/production to make the matches feel significantly different from one another unless you have a Dustin Rhodes or a Chris Jericho involved, and wrestling is a whole is so homogenised now that you have to really work hard to find two styles of match/styles of wrestler as drastically different today as Misterio was to Regal or to Nash in the '90s. 

Waltman going in two years running, as part of a group each time, sucks. No one considers Waltman synonymous with the nWo the way Nash, Hall and Hogan are, and they can't make the "original line-up" argument (though that's how they're reporting it, it seems) because then they'd have to put in Giant, DiBiase and nWo Sting before him!

I'd have made the same argument for inducting DX - the New Age Outlaws and Waltman could easily justify solo inductions. It's so clear that they're just desperate for "main event" headliners to sell tickets and get press, even if it means reinducting the Hogans and Michaelses of the world. Mad when they've got Batista in and he's presumably far more likely to garner mainstream attention than Hulk Hogan these days.

Waltman's an absolutely deserving solo inductee - two distinct influential runs, as 1-2-3 Kid and as X-Pac, with a ton of great work in and around that too, and underrated in terms of his influence on faster-paced, smaller guys being seen as viable stars. 

Yeah, he's a natural heel and, as far as I recall, never really had an "official" face turn, they just started tagging him with British Strong Style without much of an angle to set it up, or else had him start working against heels because the Full Sail crowd were cheering him. It was always a bit annoying hearing announcers talk up him, Tyler and Trent as lifelong friends, when their only real interaction before that had been Pete trying to break Tyler's fingers repeatedly to win the UK title.

The sooner he's back heel the better.

2 minutes ago, westlondonmist said:

Bit disappointed Liger isn't getting a singles match at Wrestle Kingdom 

Same, I was expecting a singles match with Hiromu.

I had to look up his tag partner in that match, and I get that it's clearly someone who means a lot to Liger's career, and to him personally - but they're doing the "Liger with people important to his career" match the following night!

I'm also disappointed in the lack of a New Japan Rumble. That on night two would be great.

That, combined with his general anti-immigrant/cutting numbers spiel, plus his seemingly bizarre suggestion that Brexit could lead to a "baby boom" is all adding up to a very obvious white supremacist dog-whistle. In one moment he's complaining about immigrants not integrating, the next it's that they're integrating too well. It's all about rhetorically redefining what it means to be a British citizen as being white. The baby boom stuff alongside that is designed to appeal to the "great replacement" racist conspiracy theorists.

22 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

 It makes me wonder if Brexit is such a massive priority as is made out. 
 

Anecdotally, it doesn't seem to be. Everyone I know that's campaigning/doorstepping for Labour has said that the only people bringing it up are the frothing-at-the-mouth diehard "leave means leave" Brexiters.

I think NXT has lost a ton of focus in the last 12-18 months, because it almost entirely shifted in focus from being a developmental brand. 

People seem to forget that NXT didn't get a ton of plaudits early on just for putting out Good Wrestling, but by having a simplistic, back-to-basics approach, and logical storytelling. A large part of that was that it was clear that after a title programme or two, the top talent would be called up to the main roster. It meant that everyone's story had an end-point, no one outstayed their welcome, and it felt like the main event talent went through a logical character/story arc of the kind you rarely see in wrestling when everyone has to be on TV every week.

Since the main event scene became The Undisputed Era, Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa and little else, the show has felt largely stagnant, I don't feel like anything's developing or going anywhere, and every Takeover feels like, Good Wrestling aside, it's more or less just the same as what came before. It's no surprise that the emergence of Keith Lee as a major star feels like the best thing in NXT for a while, because it's a little novelty back in the mix.

What's worrying for AEW, though, is how quickly it feels that they have fallen into a predictable formula. They've been around for five minutes, yet already some matches feel like "more of the same", and some talent feel overexposed. We're already on our second iteration of "Chris Jericho defends the World Title against a tag team competitor because he was goaded into it in a promo". 

Oh, absolutely - if he were to show up in AEW this week, he's been away from the limelight long enough, and still has enough of an aura around him, that he'd be a major acquisition, and there'd be a ton of big matches waiting for him there. Because he basically wasn't on TV at all for so long, he doesn't feel like an afterthought the way that Sin Cara would, nor was he booked into oblivion like The Ascension, so it doesn't feel like he's a WWE cast-off, it feels more like a Jon Moxley situation, or Christian in TNA, where it's someone leaving WWE on their own terms to prove what they're capable of elsewhere, and that always brings with it a lot of momentum and goodwill.

Mad that, aside from the Crown Jewel Battle Royal, the last time he was on TV was a PPV match mixing it up with Bryan and Reigns, though. 

14 hours ago, Divorced Dad said:

There's a really good episode of Netflix's new series 'The Movies That Made Us' dedicated to Ghostbusters. Goes into all the troubles they had getting the film made etc. 

The Dirty Dancing, Home Alone and Die Hard episodes are good too. 

That series is great, though I think has less substance to it than The Toys That Made Us, most likely because the nature of the beast is that they couldn't get the major players involved in a movie series the way they could in a toy one. Pretty depressing how every episode seems to end with, "and now here's five minutes talking about everyone involved that's dead now", though. 

The Disco Godfather

This was bloody extraordinary. I have a semi-regular "Bad Movie Night" at a mate's place, but this was our first foray into blaxploitation. I was told we'd be watching The Human Tornado, so was not prepared for this. It's Rudy Ray Moore playing a character that's Not Quite Dolemite, trying to tackle a drug trafficking ring in LA (though at various times he refers to it being a "small town"). The combat is janky, the hallucination sequences low-budget but insane, the dialogue is often completely bonkers, and at one point a hitman character is introduced who dresses as a cowboy for no discernible reason. The final ten minutes are an absolute trip. When people talk about movies being "so bad they're good", it's absolutely this sort of thing they're talking about.

Dolemite Is My Name

Then, obviously, I had to go and watch this. It's brilliant. I wouldn't have changed a thing. Stellar cast, superbly acted. With the exception of Chris Rock's role, I don't think there was a single point where I found myself focusing too much on the actor behind the character - Eddie Murphy was Rudy Ray Moore, and given what a powerful personality Murphy is in the majority of his films, to see him completely disappear into a role like this was so impressive. Wesley Snipes is a delight throughout as well. I would say the only thing that comes close to a criticism is that it never really feels like Moore is up against adversity - we're constantly told that he is, but then every scheme pays off better than expected in every single instance. But then the film is joyous for it, and there's more than enough "struggling artist" stories out there anyway.

I've been a big fan of Luke Harper since his CHIKARA days, and honestly think he could have been a star in any time period, in any territory, so I'm excited to see what he does next. 

For his bank balance and his family, and at his age, working AEW is probably the most sensible bet, but selfishly I don't want to see him jump straight into another TV gig where, as great as it will be to see him wrestling every week, he'll still have the WWE issue of wrestling the same few people repeatedly.

The indie/international scene has changed so much since he was last available, that I want to see him mix it up everywhere. Go back to CHIKARA and murder all the flippy lads who debuted since he left. Be a Bruiser Brody tribute act in the NWA. Have some old-fashioned hoss fights in NOAH, mix it up with Rhyno over there as a tag team or as opponents. Do a few token BritWres shows. Incongruously show up at Triplemania. Knock about with Daisuke Sekimoto in BJPW. There's so much I'd want to see from him before he does a "lights go out and he attacks Cody Rhodes" spot.

Rob Naylor, who used to work for FCW/early NXT, has been really high on the Ascension, saying that Viktor basically carried early FCW house shows, had a great programme with Rollins, and was held back by the gimmick. I don't want to see those two just doing a WWF tribute run on the indies, I want to see them completely reinvent themselves and get away from the gimmick altogether. It's a riskier move, but could be more beneficial for them in the long run, and the indies will always benefit from having people with big league and TV experience who are prepared to try something new.

OWE UK never ran a show, so you can't really include them as a company that "stopped running shows". 

About half 10 last night in Somerset

We've had kids come to training at 16-18, and they talk about the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era as if it was some mythical golden age that they could only dream to have lived through. They've grown up on nothing but the WWE version of events around it, and it really does make you feel old. 

Someone posted that they thought they felt an earthquake as they got to bed last night, this was the comment in response;

No, there was an actual earthquake.

17 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

More of a WWE trope is Trent's last name having disappeared!

That actually happened when he left WWE. They got shirty about him being Trent Baretta on indies, so he briefly just wrestled as Baretta, and then as Trent?. 

16 hours ago, cobra_gordo said:

This is my biggest gripe. Not sure if they're scared of booking some of the mid-card tweeners as proper heels or what but I've found it confusing at times and it has led to a couple of flat reactions from the crowd. 

I think a lot of this comes down to what's been discussed, of some of the roster genuinely believing that "heels and faces" are a thing of the past. 

Cody's the most egregious, though he at least seems to have settled in to heroic babyface territory now that they're on TV. In the early PPVs, though, he'd be cutting babyface promos then wrestling heel, or wrestling face with a heel manager, and just generally flip-flopping all over the place. The worst was the Darby Allin match, where he wrestled as a heel throughout, then Shawn Spears turned heel by attacking him. 

The thing is, face or heel isn't just about whether one particular crowd cheers or boos you. It's about long-term stories and, more importantly, it's about the entire dynamic of a wrestling match. While it's possible to have face vs. face or heel vs. heel matches, the vast majority rely on a face/heel dynamic to function, and if you start changing that up, it's much harder to get invested.

16 hours ago, FelatioLips said:

With all due respect neither The Young Bucks or Trent/Chuck have any upside as singles guys and you’re comparing them to the Harts and Bulldogs.

I disagree here, purely on Chuck Taylor. I think he has far more value as a singles guy than he ever has as one of Best Friends.

This was mine;

I do enjoy how incongruous it is with "Dance rock" alongside those particular artists and songs, though I'm annoyed by Savuka and Johnny Clegg being up there as two separate acts, as that's mostly from me blasting one "Best Of" album for most of the summer.

Setsuko & Seita and, to a lesser extent, Maggot Brain are probably over-represented from a period of insomnia where I put together a playlist of tracks to help me sleep. 

I did a Twitter thing on this a while back, so I'll just recycle most of that...

• Shane McMahon is the same age that Sgt Slaughter was when he was named WWF Commissioner
• The Undertaker is older than Sgt Slaughter was when Sarge was in the Gimmick Battle Royal at Wrestlemania 17.
  I used the Gimmick Battle Royal as a key point because it was a time when all the talent involved were presented as washed up relics of a previous era, the idea of pushing them in the present day seemed demonstrably absurd...
   
• At the time of that Battle Royal: Bushwhacker Butch and Nikolai Volkoff were the same age that The Undertaker is now
• Typhoon & The Goon were younger then than Triple H is now
• Hillbilly Jim was the same age Triple H is now
• Earthquake was younger than John Cena, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Shayna Baszler, and only a few months older than Finn Balor
• Brother Love was younger than John Cena
• Michael Hayes was the same age as Cena.
• One Man Gang, same age as Brock Lesnar
• Kamala, younger than The Undertaker
• The Repo Man was younger than Matt Hardy
• Duke Droese was 33 years old. Younger than everyone already mentioned. Younger than Roman Reigns.

When Dustin Rhodes debuted, none of the following wrestlers had been born;
Andrade, The Authors of Pain, Buddy Murphy, Cedric Alexander, Ricochet, Billie Kay, Peyton Royce, Kairi Sane, Liv Morgan, Ruby Riott, Sarah Logan, Zelina Vega, Alexa Bliss, Bayley, Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans, Mandy Rose, Nikki Cross, Sasha Banks, Sonya Deville
Adam Cole, Humberto Garza, Cameron Grimes, Kona Reeves, Lio Rush, Pete Dunne, Raul Mendoza, Riddick Moss, Deonna Purazzo, Aliyah, Io Shirai, Mia Yim, Taynari Conti, Tegan Nox, Ariyah Daivari, Jack Gallagher
Fabian Aichner, Flash Morgan Webster, Ilja Dragunov, James Drake, Jordan Devlin, Marcel Barthel, Mark Andrews, Mark Coffey, Noam Dar, Zack Gibson, Jinny, Kay Lee Ray, Killer Kelly, Piper Niven
Nick Jackson, Hangman Page, Joey Janela, Kip Sabian, Peter Avalon, Rey Fenix, Sammy Guavera, Stu Grayson, Britt Baker, Sadie Gibbs
Will Ospreay, Hiromu Takahashi, Chase Owens, David Finlay Jr., Jay White, Toa Henare, Bandido, Dragon Lee, Flip Gordon, Robbie Eagles, Sho Tanaka, 

The following were born after he debuted as Goldust:
Rhea Ripley, Humberto Carillo, Mansoor, A-Kid, Tyler Bate, Toni Storm, Xia Brookside
MJF, Darby Allin, Jungle Boy, Bea Priestley, Riho

Velveteen Dream was born one day before Goldust's first vignette aired.

When Vader faced Will Ospreay in 2016, Vader had already been wrestling for five years longer than Will Ospreay has been alive now. 

I think it's less about people not giving a fuck as it being a slow Chinese water torture of unacceptability.

I can't remember the exact quote, but someone was asked how the German people didn't kick off against what the Nazis were doing, and the point was that it didn't become beyond the pale overnight. It's a slow, gradual move towards that point. But if you don't think Point A is enough to storm the streets about, then Point B comes along and it's only a little worse than Point A...and so on and so on. If they'd jumped straight to Point E or F, there would be rioting in the streets, but doing it in increments, human nature is really just to think, "well is it that much worse than where we're at now?", because we're so quick to adjust to a new normal.

But homelessness has risen by more than 100% under the Tories, homeless deaths at a record high, the "fit for work" insanity you mentioned. Think tanks have estimated 130,000 people died as a result of austerity policies since 2012. The NHS slowed to a crawl compared to other countries on its ability to reduce preventable diseases. Governments will absolutely reside over the deaths of their own people in the name of ideological purity (and austerity has always been an ideological choice), so long as there's just enough plausible deniability that government policy can't be directly blamed (i.e., Boris Johnson isn't actually out in the streets shooting the poors, so how is it his fault?).