Statto

I noticed they very clearly termed it an "intimate" event.

Fuck. Edit: YEAH! Needed a LB with 0 to finish it.

Over the last 20 seasons, teams in college football in possession of the ball in the final 10 seconds of regulation were 1,046-1. And then... The punchline is that they determined there was a second remaining on the clock so Vandy kicked the extra point to win by 4, having been a 3.5 point favourite. All time bad beat for those holding NC State tickets.

I've posted it a couple of times on here over the quarter century we've been at this but - BritWres feds, stick someone in a shiny silver mask and cape, have him come out to that music, announce from P.O. Box 2240 in Middlesex and call him "The Silver Vision". You can have that one for free. (Actually might send this to Evil Uno if Mystery Wrestling come back in February).

Ah ok - so the guys they've tagged up are rivals?

Maybe more of a discussion for the lucha thread than here, but... how are they explaining the motivations of the 4-way tag leading into the apuestas main event? It was always my perception that in lucha losing your mask/hair was close to a fate worse than death - is being in the main event of this show presented as prestigious (or lucrative?) enough to risk it? My Spanish is good enough to understand what they're going for with "final suicida" but it's all a bit Feast or Fired isn't it?

Lovely stuff. Had a similar instance a few weeks ago where we arrived at a car park in the Peak District where the smallest increment is "Up to 4 hours" and found someone had put a ticket purchased about 45mins previously back into the slot on the machine, which covered us nicely. It was either that or no-one had arrived in the last 45mins and the last people who did forgot to take the ticket out.

BBC Sport article on it suggesting they've shifted (distributed might be a better term...) 60k tickets for it, which sounds alright. Honestly if there were still a reliable place I could watch (all of) Bama/FSU in London after, I think I'd be getting the train in the morning...

Wonder if they're thinking there might be people out there who had bought AEW tickets but would stick them on resale in favour of going to the WWE show (because Punk in Chicago), those tickets won't sell (because Punk in Chicago) leaving AEW with swathes of empty seats they can't shuffle people to cover? Or is that all a bit 3D chess?

I hadn't heard of him before this morning but since then I've remembered this fella:

And therein lies the beauty of CFB... even when it's bad it's good! (Which is making me think maybe I should go to Wembley on Saturday...)

If they lose again Saturday (which they probably won't, but...) they might be paying you to go to Bobby Dodd the rest of the year! To avoid the risk of the double-post, going early with my Disney+ game of the week (that's not on in the middle of the night) recommendation of #16 SMU @ #23 Louisville (8:30pm). More than just being a ranked-on-ranked match-up, it should be a really fun quarterback duel (the current #1 vs current #4 nationally in yards per attempt) and a game that could be an early eliminator in the race for the ACC championship. (Yes that's SMU from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex among the favourites to win the Atlantic Coast Conference - a conference that now includes 2 teams from California. Ah, college football in 2026...)

I'll give my usual advice - if you happen to be paying for Spotify or some other premium music service, ditch that for YouTube Premium. Ad-free YouTube plus pretty much everything you'd want on YouTube Music plus being able to have the audio of that video some put up of a rare live performance from that German TV show in 1967 in your music library.

The entrance/music definitely did plenty of heavy lifting for him - which makes it a good shout for here. He also benefited from existing in that pre-AEW/peak "black and gold" window of having been a name in TNA (or Japan or RoH) who turned up in the crowd on a NXT Takeover then had a solid run there. That was basically a magic formula for getting a thunderous reception on main roster debut.

That'd be Arizona State and Kansas but the sentiment is appreciated 😁 Been expecting that for a little while - this whole thing has turned slightly farcical. Whilst there is definitely growing interest in the college game in the UK (and God knows I'm trying with you fuckers 😆) it's not been marketed well and the pricing was iffy - I've not actually done the comparison myself but understand the get-in price (£56) was higher than for the NFL games. If they'd done a load of £20 tickets you might have sold a load more on curiosity. They've closed the upper tier this week meaning a load of people who did buy tickets (including fans travelling from the States) who'd chosen upper tier seats around the 50 (a pretty damn good place to watch a football game) are now in the bottom tier at one endzone and they're calling it an upgrade... I think they really wanted to put the game in Week 0 too (where the overseas games usually sit) but couldn't because Wembley was unavailable (some wrestling show IIRC...) In and of itself it's not a terrible match-up to have over here - it's a conference game and will likely be much less lopsided than some of the Dublin games have been. When it was first announced I was gung ho about going, but actually don't think I'm going to bother (even though my wife had Blue Light as do 2 of the 3 guys I'd discussed possibly going with) - mostly because the bar in Westminster I'd have wanted to shoot over to afterwards to watch the Bama game seems to have changed hands and isn't doing the CFB until 5am thing anymore, which is a shame. Finally - if you stayed up for OSU & Texas, you're welcome. If you watched Bama & Kentucky, I hope you turned on at half time.

So with the NFL just getting underway, week 2 of college football brings us what is on paper quite possibly the regular season game of the year with #1Ohio State @ #4Texas. If you were in the market for a game to give you a flavour of what college football is all about, two of the bluest bloods in the game meeting in front of over 100k people would be the one. But whilst it's on Disney+ that's a 1am Sunday kick-off so by my own rules I'm recommending you join me at 8:30pm for #12Alabama @ Kentucky. Another meeting of two college sports blue bloods... just the wrong sport for Kentucky's hoopers. Nonetheless it's an intriguing conference matchup with Kentucky having an exciting offensive innovator as their new head coach and many people putting Alabama on upset alert with it being the first road start for new starting QB Keelon Russell (who is by the way the highest rated recruit in Alabama history which is saying something). If you do watch - feel free to become an Alabama fan, but be warned it could well be like signing up to be a Man Utd fan in 2016 (couple of years removed from the retirement of the greatest coach the sport has ever seen and getting left behind in a financial arms race meaning that while you'll continue to actually be pretty good in the grand scheme, you won't be anywhere near as good as you were in the preceeding 2 decades so everyone will want to give you pelters for *only* being like the 7th or 8th best team in the land)

Regardless of incompetence, obesity or rank odour? A work related one for me that's becoming a major annoyance - we moved into a lovely new expensive office approximately 2 years ago. We've got 3 big and loads of small meeting rooms with the latest tech. And yet every other function in the office always does their calls with colleagues from other offices all sat next to one another at their desks with headsets on so we all have to hear between 50-90% of the conversation.

It's been his gimmick for 30 years now, hasn't it? "Controversy creates cash". He knows saying mad shit creates impressions. Having finally found time to do a TV rewatch yesterday afternoon, just a couple of final notes of stuff I'm not sure I've seen mentioned here: - save for 3 chops and a bite of the toes (all to Mike Bailey), Ciampa got absolutely zero offence in the Gauntlet. Every single other involvement was him charging wildly at an opponent and getting countered. And even the Bailey sequence began that way. - Just before starting my rewatch, I saw a Tom "Deep Caaaht" Green short in which he presented McGuinness' C3 run as an artistic representation of his career (started all guns blazing, took an injury that he had to work around, ultimately he's unable to overcome the injury whilst millimeters from his goal) and it made me appreciate the finish all the more. - Was really pleased to see how good the stadium production looked on TV. It felt like it was by far the best of the 3 shows from that aspect whilst in there, and I'm glad it felt the same on TV.

Cheers Mike - hopefully it helps someone out and it's broken up my run of posts 😊 We're only at the appetiser stage of Week 1 and college football already providing the dramatic finishes and special teams adventures it does so often: In the second of the series of "Statto recommends a college football game you might want to dip into until someone expressly tells him to stop", I'm left in the slightly awkward position of telling you to give Baylor @ Auburn a try. This is because it meets my self-imposed parameters of 1) available on Disney+ & 2) not on in the middle of the night (this one's at 8:30pm). You've got a pair of dynamic, mobile QBs (trying) to run a couple of wide-open offences. If it's good it could ve fun, if it's not it could be hilarious. If you do give it a try, please don't become an Auburn fan. (This could also act as bait to bring @Lion_of_the_Midlands back) Edit: WE ARE SO BACK BABY!! Western Michigan got hosed.

Did they all know who was coming next, in kayfabe? My interpretation of mystery entrant/wild card is invariably that it's a surprise to the other competitors as much as (if not more so) than the fans - and that's how I saw this one. Swerve had made some veiled threats about being involved, but nothing announced. On reflection, the better way to do it (IMO) would have been for the Wild Card to be selected on the roulette wheel and Swerve's music hit just as the pre-show was timing out, leaving who his partners were as the cliffhanger for the PPV starting and giving a reason for everyone in the ring to stop - they had the same cliffhanger.

My knee-jerk reaction is Danielson, on the basis he'd been a genuine top star for WWE right up until his departure - as Pat has noted, he was in the main event of Wrestlemania not 5 months before turning up in AEW, and his only other match after that was a title vs career match vs Reigns. He's also Bryan f'n Danielson and in terms of the style of wrestling that ultimately birthed AEW, there's no-one more significant than him. Danielson walking out in AEW felt absolutely seismic to me.

I wonder if that was partly down to every other belt defended on the show changing hands? On reflection I think Darby leaving with the TNT belt was a misstep - you could have done exactly the same "match" with exactly the same stunts at the end, but sold it as an "oh god they're both dead" thing and have Knight just about drape a hand over Darby for the fall in the midst of the chaos (with the back-up plan being sending Callis to sneak out and pull him on top if they ended up too far apart to make it natural)

One or two (maybe 3) random thoughts on everything: Rushcalz vs Opps Kinda funny it started hosing it down mere moments after Lio finished his entrance with all the umbrella etc. Harley/Stat vs Sisters of Sin Second AEW show in a row I've sat near someone repeatedly thirsting for Julia Hart at the top of their voice. Costco Syndicate vs STP Went to get unhealthy food during this. It's what Big Boom AJ would want. Persephone vs Maya World For the outrage of the blokes behind me that Baker was so disrespected by being reintroduced on a pre-show, you'd think it was Terry Funk coming back. Thekla "return" Much more interesting than Baker coming back, and she's only been gone like 5 weeks. Trios thing Between the switch from pre-show and the end of New Level's entrance, a dozen blokes just stopped wrestling for a good 5 minutes in the middle of a battle royal. Loads of people I really like in this, which was actually kind of a shame. But I enjoyed it for what it was. Women's Tag Titles Has Wembley ever had an "Is there a fire drill?" chant...? Mox vs Nigel Loved the finish. International Title Would have been MOTN if not for the main event, as has been said. Top stuff from these 3. Casino Gauntlet Being misidentified is by far the most interesting Mistikommander has ever been. Glad they were able to lean into it being as funny as it was, mistakes happen in life. Tag Titles Pretty good for what it was. Not sure it ever felt like a "dream match" to me though. Tag Team parade Made myself giggle imagining the Hurt Syndicate backstage waiting to be cued to go out to join this. "Nah, you're alright fellas. We've got you lined to put over Boom & Doom next PPV pre-show". Falls Count Anywhere Finishing stunts were good, but this was probably the thing I enjoyed least on the main show other than the Women's tag. Wasn't really a match, was it? Women's Title Gutted Willow lost 😔 Main Event Kenny is such a great heel. This was truly excellent stuff from start to finish.

Kenny Omega is the heel MJF wishes he was. Wonderful stuff from him tonight. This is how I think of it too. It's the same as printing up Super Bowl champions t-shirts for both teams so they're ready as soon as the game finishes. Overall, I had a lovely time today. Didn't regret going solo one bit, posh padded seats in 144 were just about perfect and a fairly decent crowd around me. Couple that worried me slightly when they were making their 3rd beer run before the pre-show was done, but they turned out be sleepy drunks and were pretty subdued after that 3rd beer went down!