Vamp

4 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

He IS a good wrestler. A good wrestler who can't pull together a decent character ever.

It's purely my opinion, and I know others will disagree, but being a decent character is part of being a good wrestler in my book. 

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

People are excited for the weirdness of him being there, but is anyone champing at the bit for a fifteen minute match against Seth Rollins that nobody will remember by the next morning?

There are definitely people who are chomping (is it actually champing, mind blown) at the bit to see Punk vs. Rollins. I mean, they're the same people that think Rollins is a good wrestler, but still, they are out there...

5 hours ago, Loki said:

I think to be completely honest we may be overthinking this.

Khan loves Sting, and Sting is going to retire in AEW.  I think Sting asked for Flair to be a part of it, and Khan said yes.  It strikes me as more of a personal favour than a business decision.

To be fair, I think you're overthinking it too. I imagine it's more a case of Khan loves Flair and has wanted to bring him in for ages. 

3 hours ago, Carbomb said:

From what I've seen, there's not much evidence that most right-wing gentiles give a fuck about Jews, either - it's just the most convenient form of racism to weaponise as a stick to beat the left with. Any other form of racism, particularly that against people of colour, is a vote-winner for such types.

Oh, absolutely. 

Part of the problem for the left, or anyone critical of Israel, is that Israel is the Jewish state in a way that's fairly unique. You can criticise a 'Muslim country' but you're not criticising every 'Muslim country'. You can criticise a 'Christian country' but you're not criticising every 'Christian country'. 

42 minutes ago, BigJag said:

What's the logic behind suppressing support for Palestine? We've had massive demonstrations all over the country in support of Palestine. These were barely covered in national media. There have been incidents at Liverpool FC and now Man Utd where supporters were removed from the ground or had their Palestine sweatshirt and flag removed/confiscated. That's in stark contrast to Celtic FC. Is that due to the strong links that Celtic have with Ireland? There have also been incidents of people being reprimanded by their employer because they showed support for Palestine. We had, predominantly Western, high ranking politicians parroting "Israel has a right to defend itself." Brazenly ignoring how ridiculous that made them look.  Is Israeli state propaganda and it's position in the Middle East really this important to people with decision making influence?

I think it's because any mass demonstrations of support for Palestine will also be accompanied by demonstrations of anti-semitism and so much of our national identity has been wrapped up in "we spanked Hitler and saved the Jews" even though Britain has its own long history with anti-semitism. 

Britain doesn't genuinely give a toss about Israel. It never has. 

Ryback was dead in the water after his HIAC match with Punk where they booked themselves into a corner because they wanted Punk to have the longest reign in the modern era. He could have easily won that night and then dropped it at TLC in a screwy finish and you'd have shown he has everything to be a champion and got to Punk dropping the title to The Rock. People will say it that it would have ruined the impact of that but its bollocks because its The Rock.

It didn't help that the match did nothing to make Ryback look like a bad ass. I don't know if it was whoever put the match together or Punk calling it or what, but Ryback needed to smash him. He didn't. 

The thing about Reigns title run at this point is that there's always going to be reasons not to pull the trigger on someone defeating him. It's Taker WM streak all over again. Do you give it to a youngster who has years on his side but might not be experience enough to run with it or might not stick around anyway? Do you give it to a proven commodity knowing that they're likely going to be able to run with it? Eventually you have to do it, and if you don't pull the trigger sooner you night end up being forced in a corner where you give the rub to someone just because you have to.

I'm not a fan of Friends, not helped by everyone else around me thinking it was the best thing ever, but it takes a lot of talent to make a comfortable show that almost anyone can watch and at least tolerate. 

I think it's a credit to the cast that the most loved episodes were the bottle episodes. From what I watched of it  which is probably most of the episodes by osmosis, most of the characters became increasingly one dimensional as the show went on, but his had a slither of depth or humanity to him which is why I think people related to his character. I don't think Chandler ever comes across as insufferable as Ross and that's definitely down to the performer and not the writing. 

Is it true that there aren't any promotions out there that aren't at least trying to do the right thing? 

That's the thing to me. Neither AEW or WWE are trying. But I'm sure there must be promotions out there, no matter how small, who are at least trying. 

The worst thing about is it'll be couch in the usual WWE/AEW format where everybody has to compare and contrast them rather than saying "they're both shit and they both should be held to account." It'll be "yeah, well WWE has done more of this." 

I imagine he had a stat for working out how long it would take for people to be okay with bringing that person in. "People will remember that story for X weeks, divide it by how many good matches he's had, multiply that by how serious the offence was, divide that by how pathetic wrestling journalism is equals X number of weeks."

15 hours ago, Tommy! said:

Officious busy bodies going massively out their way to moan about something that doesn't really affect them?

We lead the world in that, surely.

Every year down my road people do fireworks in their drive, putting rockers in glass bottles and aiming them out towards the pavement. 

That's not to mention that the fireworks people in my area use are bigger than the fireworks I've seen professional firework people use (I'm friends with a couple of people who do professional fireworks shows). 

So might not be needed where you are, definitely needed where I am. 

1 hour ago, RedRooster said:

So…I don’t know how I feel about this game yet. There’s a lot of padding. At one point, Spider-Man is webbing his way around the city and notices fireworks going off. A side mission begins in which Spider-Man travels across the city to let them know that fireworks are illegal in New York without a permit. Which, for all he knows, they may have. I mean…it’s only a side mission, but even so…

God I wish they'd bring that in over here. 

They must be the only promotion in the world built on Trigger's broom analogy. 

Give it 3 years and they'll be talking about how the name TNA held them back but this time they're going to make an Impact.

Easy, Octopussy has Bond disguise himself as a clown (which is clearly a fuck you to Moore's critics). I seem to remember the train stunt being pretty decent too. A stunt man injured his pelvis for your entertainment. 

You missed the best part. Bond cooking a quiche. 

To be fair to AVTAK, if they have been allowed to do the Eiffel Tower stunt the film would have probably had one of the top 10 stunts in the franchise (at least up to that point). It would have looked great. Unfortunately, someone else parachuted of the Eiffel Tower first and the local government got worried about copycats. 

47 minutes ago, Loki said:

@johnnyboy 

 By this point though the new Hollywood is establishing itself and making big money films, and the Bond producers seem to feel that they have to respond.  So you get this odd mix of a set formula with the genre-du-jour imposed on top.  For such a successful franchise Bond is often very insecure about its value.

Looking forward to the next movie now!

I think that's what makes the Craig films more interesting than they intended. I find them more politically troubling than the older films, which I'm sure I've talked about before, because they try to seriously present Bond in the real world (which I know people retroactively tried to apply to the Connery films as well but it's bollocks). Having said that, for all their navel gazing, they're still Bond films. They try and make heritage movies but they're still reliant on tropes from other movies, such as The Dark Knight, and they're maybe even less confident at being Bond than ever. Which, because of the heavy handed way they try and connect Bond's plight to the plight of Britain (especially in Skyfall) says something far more interesting about Britain than I think they ever intended and in a way that's far more Fleming than I think they realised. 

There's a thing that happens with every Bond where the producers try and convince the newspapers that the new Bond is bringing it closer to the novels. That even happens when Moore gets first cast. Then 4 films in, we're in space. 

I'd quite like to see a period movie of the Moonraker novel. Not that it would ever happen. 

For Your Eyes Only is definitely an attempt at responding to the criticisms Moonraker received. Its arguably the most down to earth of Moore's Bond films and contains a great bit of Bond murder.

I think Mistico would have worked a lot better if they didn't bring him in alone. Averno, Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Buccanero could all make him look good with their eyes closed. He needed that support. 

If you do that, gradually introduce other wrestlers in tag matches, let him get beaten up by a few bigger wrestlers because he was great at drawing sympathy, then you'd maybe have something. 

All I got from Khan's tweet was that 3 WWE stars did their lowest ever rating on the C show and still beat AEW's A show. 

Which is expected, but it's weird to me that AEW's owner is more focused on how bad WWE did than trying to sell how good his own show is. 

Looks like Ed Miliband. 

On 9/29/2023 at 10:49 AM, BomberPat said:

the Daniel Craig movies delve enough into Bond's backstory to make it clear that James Bond is his real name, and No Time To Die features a different agent being given the 007 number. 

Obviously it was never the intention of Ian Fleming, but I always thought it was a good bit of retconning, rather than trying to pretend that Connery-to-Brosnan is one continuous character. I suppose the best explanation is that it's a Simpsons-esque floating timeline, where Bond is the same character, at roughly the same age, but his backstory and experiences are shunted forward in time.

Late to the party with this but...

I don't really like the idea of James Bond being a code name. It's extra baggage that the franchise didn't need for 20 films.

Plus, it's only really important if they do an origin story each time they cast a new actor, and while I think that was interesting for Craig, I really don't need anymore Bond origin stories. 

I can see the next election period being dangerous for MPs. It feels like it'll be an even worse environment than the referendum. The referendum that resulted in a MP being murdered.

Didn't Sunak say something like "most people make the journey by car."

It's a last desperate attempt by a party surprised by its own success in a seat that anyone with an ounce of local knowledge knew they'd always retain anyway.

To be honest, even if you assume that the residents of that constituency are aware of political issues (you shouldn't) the council did more to win them that seat. 

Actually, I think if the local election had come up after the news about the central library closing down comes out (bit of a scoop for you) the result might have been closer. The council have always been very proudly Tory, and really pushed their record with libraries so I think that will knock them down a bit. 

But yeah, the fact that they've looked at Uxbridge and Ruislip to inform their national policy is completely bonkers. When I worked there one of the residents asked me to fill a personal online form for her because she'd had her nails done and her god forbade her from touching plastic. 

I quite like the Slow Chemical Kane theme. It's probably not as iconic as his original theme but it still has a fun riff.

It's quite weird that the people who would have once said "gay" about half of these things are now too woke to say "gay" and say "woke" instead. 

I guess that's progress?