Pinc

Punk just firing back at hostile crowds feels so organic after a decade+ of Cena/Batista/Reigns cutting face promos to overwhelming boos. So refreshing.

41 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Football would be so ace without the fans.

Hoping for a 'both these guys' chant from the away end.

Psychology of the Merseyside derby tonight is all over the place. Some blues hoping we get tonked so Benitez leaves. Likewise some reds who wouldn't mind a draw to avoid being the ones to cost him his job. Can't see anything but a 3 or 4-0 in Liverpool's favour. No one goes home happy.

1 hour ago, Gay as FOOK said:

Other than the obvious stuff, it's definitely there.

The prominence of those bright, jangly guitar parts against the pitter patter simplicity of the drums, the shouting-into-the-void style vocals. That's Beatles out the door. 

Go Let It Out couldn't be more of a Beatles song. 

I did think about Go Let It Out but I think it counts as an overt reference to the Beatles rather than (organically) sounding like them. It literally samples Strawberry Fields Forever doesn't it?

It's maybe an edge case like, sure.

Oasis’s Beatles ‘influence’ is really weird when you stop and think about it. They didn’t sound like them apart from when they were overtly referencing them. They didn’t share an aesthetic either, except where they cut-and-pasted Beatles iconograhy on to their own stuff. Like whichever single it was that had Aunt Mimi’s house on the cover, or the speaker stack at Knebworth having pictures of John Lennon literally stuck to it.

I can’t think of another act in all of pop that made frequent references to another group, without actually showing much/any influence in their albums/look?

What was even the point?

Do all the people saying Britpop was shit include Pulp in that? Surely everyone loves Pulp?

I like MJF and everything but he should lose the scarf. Punk was always about changing his look up every year or two to stay fresh. The scarf is a very indy looking prop. You're in the big leagues now kidder.

Cody Rhodes seconded by Arn 'pull out my glock' Anderson is one of the strangest acts there's ever been in wrestling. Each time I see the entrance with all the pyro I think 'oh they are building to a heel turn' but nothing else is pointing that way. I seem to be in a minority on here who thinks Cody's pretty great (I even liked the tag match at Full Gear) but yeah, its all very strange and difficult to parse. I don't hate it though.

I'm worried they don't know what they have in Eddie Kingston. There's about a dozen guys in AEW who consistently have a proper feud on the go, and Eddie's only peripheral to that group when he should be central. I know part of his appeal is that he shouldn't fucking be here and you compromise that by making him a franchise player, but comedy feuds over catering feels like a waste. Him and Punk blew the roof off the last PPV and there's been hardly a mention of it since.

Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville looking like a porn parody Triple H and Stephanie in that egg segment.

They’ll definitely go back to Kingston/Punk but it’ll only add to Eddie’s righteous indignation if Punk swans off for a while. I always thought MJF would get the first win over Punk. Maybe it’ll be thanks to a Kingston assist?

TIL Kevin Von Erich was an absolute ringer for Philip Olivier.

Nicholas va Big T at Survivor Series to settle this once and for all.

Ah I didn’t catch that! I recall about a month or so out from Punk’s debut MJF dropped a pipebomb line into a promo. “As you lay there hopefully in as much pain as you possibly can be…” if I remember right.

Has there been any word on if AEW have actively discouraged talent from ripping on Punk for shitting the bed in UFC? Seems the type of thing MJF would usually go straight for, but they might feel it takes some shine off what is essentially their biggest drawing card.

Darby Allin is one of the cringiest characters on telly at the moment. Needs to be kept away from the mic. And was he standing on a Yellow Pages talking to Tone?

7 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

Hangman/Bryan will be great don't get me wrong, but a Hangman/Punk programme next year culminating at say Double or Nothing is the one for me. 

Leading to Eddie Kingston unseating Punk at next year's Full Gear? This thing writes itself.

3 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

Punk's an absolute pro too. For everything Eddie delivered here, the man on the other side of the ring knew exactly what he was doing. He knows how to play a crowd. He knows how to tell a story. I know a fair few people have called his run underwhelming so far, portraying a man who's just 'happy to be there' but that wasn't the man we got at Full Gear.

I’ve been thinking about Punk and his character and had worried they weren’t going to find the right niche for him. In WWE his character was built on being an anti-company man. Which is great when the company is a heel, but everyone loves AEW so that’s not going to work. So does he just… have wrestling matches with a smile on his face? Wasn’t working for me Clive.

I still think he’s going to have to turn heel eventually as Eddie is a unique character and not everyone can conjure a sense of such real hatred in about twenty minutes of TV, but for now this looks like a workable version of Punk with some nice shades of grey mixed in. Also thought this was the first AEW match he’s had where he didn’t seem blown up. More of this please.

Great show. Eddie Kingston is the new Stone Cold if they want him to be.

So obviously 'how would you have booked the Invasion?' is the most discussed counter-factual on the wrestling internet, but I was out walking around today thinking about WWF 2000 and what a shame it was that the Invasion ruined the roll they were on. It got me wondering about a different hypothetical which I can't remember seeing discussed on here before. Where do you think the WWF was heading if both WCW and ECW had stayed in business, and the WWF had stuck to their original plans for 2001 after Mania X7?

The medium-term plan from the night after X7 seems to have been for Austin and Triple H's Mega Powers angle to carry them through the Spring/Summer while Rock was away. It would've been very strange if Rock did anything but come for Austin upon his return, so it's a little difficult to work out how the original Austin and Triple H angle was meant to play out in only four months (assuming Rock still came back in the run up to SummerSlam). They'd probably have double dated with Jericho and Benoit at King of the Ring like they'd been doing with Taker and Kane at Backlash/Judgment Day. Does that mean the Mega Powers Explode at King of the Ring and we get Austin vs (babyface?) Triple H at Fully Loaded (which is never renamed InVasion)? And then Austin moves straight on to Rock for SummerSlam? That all feels way too rushed, so do they stay together as a pair until after Rock gets back?

Away from the title picture it was an interesting year for a bunch of other talent too. Does a lighter roster mean Chris Benoit gets elevated a few years earlier? Is Rikishi's comeback late in the year a bigger deal, and would he have still been an upper card heel if the world hadn't changed by the time he got back? Were there any other talents who were due a big push until the Invasion sucked up all the creative oxygen? Do their ratings still slide the way they did in real life? Do they still bottle out of the Austin heel turn by years' end or does Steve stay a baddy into X8? What do yous reckon?

In a cage, surely?

Edit: damn.

During Punk/Cena MITB in Chicago I thought to myself "if Cena wins this, I'm not watching anymore". And I think I meant it.

With how smart the booking of Hangman's story has been I do wonder whether they might have done a bit more with Danielson and Omega in the last couple of weeks to plant the seed that Kenny might actually be retaining so he can do a title feud with Bryan.

I think everyone is expecting Hangman to win on Saturday and that's totally the right move, but if Danielson had been making more noise about challenging Kenny No Balls and maybe even shown up in a couple of Kenny's segments I'd at least have a flicker of doubt about the result. Which would only make the actual Hangman win all the sweeter.

I'm basically fantasy booking here like so feel free to ignore.

34 minutes ago, kieranjennings said:

And don't forget AJ Styles hardly came in as a nobody did he. 

He's wrestled ALL OVER THE WORLD (cue that same clip of him tagging with Air Paris on a 2001 Nitro).

2 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Shows how little I follow it. The fans they have will get it, that was clear, but if they're going to grow the fanbase, they need to cut out this nonsense. No problem with them bringing in anyone, but introduce them properly and accept that new fans you want to attract will only know them from AEW.

I actually think part of why AEW seem so much cooler than WWE is because they lean in to this kind of thing. They make it clear that AEW is a part of this big wider ecosystem that includes decades of stories across a million indy companies as well as Japan and Mexico. It gives a sense of canon and backstory that a two year old company would otherwise struggle with. The clips of skinny Punk and pie-head Kingston on a 20 year old IWA-MS card earlier in the show were a good example.

Its quite an achievement, because when you actually sit and watch 90% of the indies/Japan it isn't cool at all. But AEW get the balance just right with little nods so it seems like this edgy underground subculture that the viewer should know about. I reckon if we were discussing this on a playground like we all did for Raw in the 90s, we'd all be pretending we knew who Ibushi was and in fact that our older brother saw Ibushi wrestle once at Goodison Park and he did a senton bomb off the scoreboard but the show wasn't filmed for some reason.

Fucking hell Lance that's beyond parody.

Eddie Kingston is the most likeable, believable character in wrestling. An absolute hero. His Danielson match from last week's Rampage might honestly be my favourite wrestling match ever.

An insecure beer bellied hardnut who can talk for days and throws Kawada suplexes in the ring. He's perfect.