BomberPat

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 He told Bill Goldberg when he wanted to turn him heel if you're gonna hit me when they were in catering. What did Goldberg do? Nothing. Cause wrestlers and stooges never do anything. They walk around paranoid, paranoid they might lose their money, lose their job, they don't do or say anything in real life.

 

There's nothing "paranoid" about thinking you might lose your job for punching a colleague at work. That's a rational thought process that the vast majority of us share.

I'm not sure, but it would have been one hell of a Sgt. Slaughter knockoff for someone to have tried on the tribute circuit.

A lot old-timers put a lot of stock in the "WWE Legend" thing - some of them pay a reasonable chunk of change to be able to bill themselves as a "WWE Legend" on independent shows. Still a little odd to put it on an autograph - but, then, I got a gig ticket signed by Dennis Dunaway from the original Alice Cooper Group, and he wrote "HOF" at the end of his signature.

Yeah, Jimmy Jacobs is a writer. From what I understand, he was brought in a year or two back to help book NXT and make it feel more like an "indie" promotion than a WWE product, and has since written for RAW. I haven't heard anything about him being head writer for NXT, though.

I just think he's a great talent that, while an asset to creative, could offer a lot on-screen as well. They've got a ton of people like that. He's not got a lot to offer in-ring at this point, and is tiny by WWE standards, but his size would be a benefit as a manager, throw in an eye-catching look, great mic skills and a creative mind, and I think he'd make a great manager for struggling talent.

Yeah, Adam Pearce used to be an agent for NXT, but got called up to main roster duties after the brand split. Steve Corino's working at the Performance Centre. Perhaps the maddest ex-indie guy they have on staff is R.D. Evans/Archibald Peck, currently writing for Smackdown.

Balor was one of Triple H's boys in NXT, wasn't he? Really the first to get that big endorsement, before Trips starting posing like a proud dad with every new signing.

I'd say they need more managers, but babyface manager is a horrendous spot to give anyone. Just standing around like a lemon.

Hell, they've got Jimmy Jacobs under contract, he'd make a hell of a manager for them, and has history with Rollins to excite the smark crowd.

As for them having nothing to do with Balor, how do you go from giving someone a PPV main event to "sorry mate, can't find a spot for you on a three hour TV show"? Baffling.

When Rollins was a heel, I thought that - aside from having an irritating voice, and the odd glimmer of a sadistic edge in one or two angles - he never fit the role, and should play face because he wrestled like a babyface; I've said it plenty of times, but no heel in WWE should be busting out a sodding Phoenix Splash.

Now that he's a face, he's still whiny and irritating, he's got the worst catchphrase ever in "Seth FREAKING Rollins", and he somehow wrestles face even worse than he wrestled heel. Doesn't sell for shit, and seems incapable of garnering any kind of sympathy whatsoever.

He's clearly talented, and has a spot on the roster, but that spot is around the secondary belts, or as an energetic hot tag guy in a tag team, not as the second-to-top babyface on the brand. The only reason to keep him as a credible main eventer is for the eventual, inevitable Shield reunion.

16 hours ago, scotswizard said:

You do realise that the people that watch UFC and MMA don't watch wrestling right?

And likewise wrestling fans don't watch MMA or UFC. Wrestling fans don't watch real sports. They don't.

This is utter, utter bollocks and even you must realise it. Brock Lesnar is the second biggest draw in UFC history, because he drew wrestling fans to UFC. Every single wrestling fan I know also watches UFC. The core demographics are near identical.

I don't know a single wrestling fan who doesn't watch any real sports. It's a preposterous suggestion, and you're going to have to really work hard to back that one up beyond "Russo said".

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People that want to watch people get really hurt can watch MMA or boxing. People that watch wrestling or lets the vast majority of people that watch wrestling want to be entertained. Look at the WWE Roster. Fat guys and midgets and just in general ugly people that don't even belong on TV. There's no man on there that a woman would want to shag and the women? Apart from Lana maybe Alexa? The rest? Maybe if you're into certain types of women I guess you'd maybe go for a Sasha Banks or a Bayley. Even Stephanie McMahon with her manly voice and the big shoulders.....what man finds her attractive? All covered up, and the marks? They love that. I guarantee you if Alexa Bliss or Lana knocked on fan's doors in a dressing gown the fans would tell them to put their clothes back on and fake fight lol. They wouldn't even get their dick hard, they wouldn't know what to do with their dick hard or where to put it. That's the marks for you. That's the millennials for you.

Aside from the fact that you're literally just parroting Russo's opinions almost word for word, you do realise that women aren't on television for the sole purpose of getting you off, right?

I have female friends who wrestle. I hate this bullshit. They do not exist for your fucking gratification.

@scotswizard, considering last month you were saying Brock Lesnar "could beat anyone up", why is he now unbelievable? What changed?

One minute you slag off "fake fighting", the next you criticise today's wrestler's for working too stiff. Do you even realise how shockingly inconsistent your points are?

What do you actually like about wrestling? Not just now, but ever. You've never had anything positive to say about it, why do you even post here?

1 hour ago, Pinc said:

What is the usual Lesnar formula? I can't think of two matches he's had since WrestleMania 30 that were especially similar.

The Suplex City squash matches he was doing on the Network specials and house shows before Goldberg came along, basically.

34 minutes ago, Ambulance Chaser said:

Personally I don't look at Joe like that, I see him as a Mark Hunt type, somebody who aint ripped, but would certainly rip your head off. In my mind, if you asked me who can legitimately take on Brock on this roster, the first answer without thinking about it would be Joe. He is thick, a whole load of beef on that man.

Absolutely. I keep saying it, but UFC has taught people that you don't need to be a musclebound 6'6" freak to win a fight - someone who looks like Joe, booked well, comes across as far more of a threat now than he ever would have done 10-15 years ago.

They need to keep making him look strong, keep having him carry himself and cut promos in such a way that sound more like a legitimate fighter than a pro-wrestler, and present him as at least being in with a chance against Lesnar, and people will buy it. Brock Lesnar is taken seriously to such an extent that even the smarkiest of fans, and the "you know it's all fake, right?"-iest of fans' Dads immediately see a wrestler as more credible if they can hold their own against Lesnar, even in a worked match. He's the epitome of the old Johnny Valentine adage; "I might not be able to convince you wrestling's real, but I sure as hell can convince you that I am". Letting even some of that rub off on Joe would be great.

Ever since Heyman started bringing them up before Reigns' first match with Brock, I've wanted them to involve Reigns' family a little more.

On a mad tangent, but back when they were building to Reigns/Triple H, the big question was how you get Reigns over as a face to a hostile argument, and my fantasy booking was that you focus more on making people hate Triple H than on forcing them to like Reigns. I would have had Vince on TV more often, aligned with Triple H, basically talking down Reigns' family all the time - bring up that, the entire time the WWF has existed, a member of Reigns' family has worked there, with Vince basically saying that he owns Reigns' family and if Reigns wants to earn a living, or his cousins, daughters, nieces and nephews to ever earn a living in this business again, he has to play ball with The Authority. Have Vince say that he took pride in breaking Reigns' family - that he took two proud Samoan warriors in Afa and Sika and made them wear bones through their noses and act like animals, that he took a man like Rikishi and turned him into a dancing joke, dressed Rosey up as a Superhero In Training, and all the rest of it. Even trot out members of the family to either humiliate or beat them up on RAW.

14 hours ago, Tommy! said:

The most obscure is Max Bygraves singing about pit safety for the NBC

Bloody hell, I have to hear that.

When I was 18/19 I worked in a record shop, and used to go mad for all the weird novelty, obscurity and educational records we got in.

7 minutes ago, PunkStep said:

Did you not see their match on Raw, Joe's main roster debut I think? It was brilliant. They had a cracking little brawl. I'd be well up for a full-blown feud between the two.

I didn't - barely watch RAW, to be honest, so I'll check it out. It definitely felt like they were teasing something when they gave them a bit of a staredown, followed by them both going for Samoan Drops on each other at Extreme Rules. Got me thinking they could do a great programme together, and obviously there's the Samoan connection to draw from too. Off the top of my head, could maybe talk of Joe resenting Reigns' family their success when he's had to claw his way from the ground up or something.

Joe feels real and legitimately menacing in a way absolutely nobody on the main roster has done in years, it's great. And that's coming from someone who wasn't a fan of his for years, who hates his name, and hates his shitty shorts. A competitive match with Lesnar could make him a star, but I doubt we'll get that.

At best, I think he'll do well enough against Brock purely to move him up the ladder into Strowman's spot as a rival for Reigns. Which I don't have much of a problem with, really, I think those two could work some magic together.

2 hours ago, PunkStep said:

The ref in the Miz/Ambrose was a bit too hokey for me, bordering on the lines of pantomime near the end. Sending Maryse to the back got a brilliant reaction though.

Yeah, he was definitely a little OTT, but the ref often has to be when doing that kind of spot to really draw attention to what's happening. It's not a time for small gestures.

Had to laugh, though, at him taking a fairly nasty ref bump through the ropes to the floor and popping right back up as if nothing happened, when a gentle shove normally takes a ref out for ten minutes.

At a guess I'd say maybe Kalisto eventually beats Neville, or potentially someone like Johnny Gargano when he gets called up, but chances are he'll drop it to sodding TJP when he gets the Virgil turn.

With Submission matches, logically, they should only end by Submission. But then they become functionally identical to an I Quit match, which is always presented as a far more "hardcore" stipulation, about beating your opponent until they can't take it any more, whereas a Submission match tends to be presented more about outclassing your opponent with your choice of holds...in that sense, if it were up to me, I'd probably opt for a Submission match still allowing for DQ or Count Out wins just to differentiate between the two. Again, though, it should be up for the company to get these rules across to the audience rather than leave us to figure them out!

As for why a heel would break on five if he can't get DQ'd for it - they wouldn't, but the referee is there to enforce the rules even if they can't punish those who break them. Personally, if I were in that position, if they didn't break after five I'd step in and try and physically force them to break the hold.

As for the difference between No Holds Barred, No DQ, Street Fight, Extreme Rules, Hardcore Match etc., again I think there are distinctions, but the way the WWE have booked them they've become irrelevant.

For me, "No Holds Barred" means exactly that - you're allowed to use moves and holds that would otherwise be illegal, like how the Piledriver used to be illegal in Tennessee. It's a great blow-off match for something like a heel authority figure banning a babyface champion's finisher, for example. But the stipulation should strictly refer to holds - any other means of disqualification still should be in play, so, for example, you shouldn't be able to hit someone with a chair in a No Holds Barred match.

No DQ is what it says on the tin - can't be disqualified for anything. Count outs would theoretically still apply. And then you move up to the interchangeable Hardcore Match/Extreme Rules which, to me, means No DQ, no count out, no time limit. I suppose the old WWF Hardcore matches were also Falls Count Anywhere, so that's what differentiates them.

Finally, Street Fight, I'm a sucker for the point of this stipulation being that, in addition to it being No DQ and No Count Out, the competitors should wear their "street clothes" rather than ring gear. Really hammer home the "it's a fight, not a match" angle.

As you say, though, the rules are there to be bent to fit the story. That's the outlines I'd approach for those match types, though.

Note: I have booked wrestling shows, so there's a reason my brain does this. Not just a mental.

I've not watched the match, so I can't comment on the specifics, but as a referee, I would still count for a rope break in a No DQ match, and attempt to break it up if they reached 5. I was once given a finish where, in a No DQ match, the babyface was to give up in a submission hold while tied up to the ropes with electrical tape - if memory serves, I was over-ruled, but I objected, on the grounds that just because I can't disqualify the heel for not breaking when the face is in the ropes, it doesn't mean that a submission in the ropes is legal.

My job is still to try and keep what's happening within the rules, even if I don't have the authority to actually disqualify the heel for breaking them.

That said, if he was actually threatening a DQ, or counting them out while they were outside the ring, then that's a failing of WWE not making the rules clear enough.

22 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I really like the sound of that, but I found Gormenghast an absolute slog to get through. Is Rotherweird written in a Peake-ish style or will I be alright with it? 

Far, far easier to read than Gormenghast. It's a very easy, quite light-hearted read - the Peake comparisons don't go quite that far.

I love Mervyn Peake, have written extensively on his work, and think the first two books of Gormenghast are amongst the best fantasy literature the UK has ever produced, but even I'd admit it's hard work. You really do need to commit a fair amount of time to just getting into the right head-space to tune yourself into his style.

But I think the whole concept of Gormenghast as this archaic, labyrinthine, oppressive structure obsessed with ritual, wouldn't come across nearly as well if it were written in a more conventional style, the language helps put you in that world. The only comparison that comes to mind is HP Lovecraft - his stories are made weirder still by the sort of staid, old-fashioned (even for the time) language he uses, they feel like something out-of-time and always at arm's length.

Getting off topic now, but a lot of serious scholars of Peake's work hated the BBC adaptation of Gormenghast for being too light and silly, but I bloody love it. Gormenghast is a very silly, very funny, often joyous, book in amongst everything else, and it would have been far worse for them to create something that looked and felt like Game of Thrones, only with random scenes of slapstick and farce in the middle than to create something silly with the occasional moment of pathos.

In the past, there has been talk of them using connections through Full Sail University to effectively run "NXT Music" as a brand to promote certain artists.

Beyond that, they have allowed talent to pick Takeover themes before - Bayley picked Halestorm, Enzo picked Yelawolf and Finn Balor picked Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes - and, prior to that, and prior to him becoming a commentator, part of Corey Graves' role in NXT was choosing themes for wrestlers and events.

Case in point: Before that post, I genuinely thought they'd stopped doing RAW Talk and just stuck with Talking Smack, because it doesn't seem to exist anywhere logical on the Network.

If it's anything like Talking Smack, it's inexplicably filed under "In-Ring".

I actually loved UFC2, but it does have one hell of a steep learning curve, and I'll add that I never played another game in the series. In my career mode, I ended up focusing everything on striking ability as I struggled so much with takedowns and ground fighting. Even by the end, if I couldn't get a knock-out with a flashy kick or high knee in the first round, chances are I was done for. I quite enjoyed that, though, it made victories feel far more deserved than most games. I keep meaning to go back to it and have another stab at the career mode as a heavyweight and focus more on ground game.

I'm worried that I might end up agreeing with you guys on Tekken 7 - bought it on Saturday, and it's fun, but I have no idea how much longevity it'll have for me. I've not played a Tekken game since maybe 3, so it's still a bit of a novelty, and dressing King up as Okada, and Bob in a Bullet Club T-shirt, is fun, but hardly enough to keep me coming back to it. Single player is pretty bare bones, so I'm not sure how much I'll actually go for that, and don't see myself playing online much at all. It'll be a trade-in job unless I keep it as something to have a go on when I have mates round.

Just finished Sisterhood of the Squared Circle; it's patchy, but mostly enjoyable. Early on, when it's recounting the Mildred Burke/Billy Wolfe era, it feels very informative and well-researched, and a fun read even to someone who knows the stories already, but it kind of tails off towards the end, with some later stars' write-ups reading a bit too much like an essay cribbed from Wikipedia - too much, "they did this, then they did this", which just got samey, and didn't really feel like it added anything to the wider context. Minor quibble, though. Would have liked a little more insight into the international scenes, and the politics thereof - there was a nice, but brief, write-up of how AJW operated, and a great chapter on the Crush Gals, but beyond that the Joshi coverage fell into that "this, then this" pattern, and women's wrestling around the rest of the world was pretty much summed up with a catch-all "and then there's the rest!".

Started reading Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott yesterday. It's about an English town that's been purposefully cut off from the rest of the country since Elizabethan times, with no MP, and its own legal statutes, home to prodigiously smart children and advanced technologies, but where it's illegal to study the town's history before 1800. It's good fun so far - I've seen it compared to Gormenghast, and I can see why; characters have very Mervyn Peake-esque expressive names, and it has his ability to hop around thematically, so it feels like a serious mystery story one moment, high fantasy the next, and then farce.

How long before Cornette takes credit for them booking Joe/Lesnar?

When I worked for a mail order company, I had to send something to Scott Hall Road once, made me smile. I immediately set out to find out if I could send anything to Adrian Street or Stan Lane.