Statto

People using "brainchild" the wrong way round. "So-and-so was the brainchild of this idea." NO THEY FUCKING WEREN'T.

It was a historic day of chaos - the first time in the history of the AP poll (dating back to 1936) where 5 of the top 7 in the rankings lost on the same day. Were it not for some rather questionable officiating in OT of Miami-Florida State (see below), it would have been 6 of 7 losing - with one winner being guaranteed due to there being a #4 vs #5 game! And topping it all off - here's how several of those games ended: College football is the fucking best. (I'm not liking your post, though.)

Tangential to the thread, but saw a clip of Booker doing a Van Vliet interview the other week where he said the original pitch was for it to culminate in a hair-vs-hair match, which makes the lost Japanese shampoo endorsement make a little more sense as the basis for the grudge.

Even at very short notice, you could have found more fitting music for Regal than that, surely? Pretty much any piece of royalty-free classical music would have done the job.

Love that. As I said earlier in the thread, Full Gear is the ideal time to annually remember Pac as he was ultimately the inspiration behind the name.

So I was planning to take you off the beaten path a bit for this week's college football on Disney+ recommendation anyway as I'm conscious I've recommended games involving SEC teams pretty much every week, but with the news breaking that the College Football Playoff will be expanding to 24 teams from next year (having been a 4-team playoff just 3 years ago) it seems more important than ever to remember the rich and varied tapestry that is this sport. So on that basis - Florida A&M @ Jackson State at 8pm could be a fun watch. Two of the historic powers of the HBCU-centric (historically black colleges & universities) SWAC. Florida A&M are in the midst of a down year but it'll be a different cultural experience than anything I've recommended before, for sure. (Pssst... it's the 3rd Saturday in October so #6 Alabama @ #14 Tennessee with both teams wearing their traditional home colours for the first time since 1970 [the SEC outlawed colour-on-colour games in 1971] is a biggie)

If we're doing announcers - Adnan Virk. Previously an ESPN studio host (until he was let go after investigation into company information being leaked) he was hired and thrust into the PBP spot on Raw, and was dreadful at it. He miraculously made it 6 weeks before leaving via mutual consent (claiming the schedule didn't suit him/his family).

Oh yeah, good shout - and it was before, I think. They ended up debuting as a trio. Trey Miguel - can't remember why they ditched him. Went straight back to TNA.

Another pre-debut release - Aloisia, the super tall one who was supposed to be in NXT season 3. Announced as a contestant but let go prior to the first episode for having made some spicy content (as they call it these days). Total tenure under contract of a couple of weeks, IIRC. It brought Kaitlyn into our lives though so all good 😍

Think I mentioned this prior to All In but during Forbidden Door last year (where we sat in the very back row) my wife said to me "You should get yourself a ticket down the front one day. You never treat yourself to anything". Well, I did. TBH it was a little more than I'd like but what the hell. Should hear about my bonus around that time so hoping it's a decent one 😆 Front row basically behind the announcers. Hoping I'm behind Schiavone or Taz rather than Paul Wight. Will prepare a range of UKFF signs (thinking "KWESH", "Chippy Tea" and "Loki Pokey") for any on camera opportunities.

Well I didn't even get an email so you're one up on me!

It was.

Great taste in knitwear, too. Your Week 6 College Football recommendation is one based primarily on the reasons I fell for CFB in a way I never have for the NFL - tradition, pageantry and truly intense rivalry. It'll be one of the great scenes of the season as #1 Texas meet Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout. Always a neutral site game, taking place at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas as part of the Texas State Fair festivities. Despite being on Texas soil, it's basically precisely halfway between the two schools. Crowd allocation is 50/50 too, and unlike the usual mix at US sporting events they split this one like a Wembley final over here - one end Longhorn burnt orange, one end Sooners crimson bifurcated at the 50 yard line. It's quite a sight from the air in the Texas sun. Will it be much of a game...? Well JR's boys have been garbage on offense thus far and are now missing their starting left tackle to boot, but it's a rivalry game and they play it on grass not paper, so who knows!

Fair point... but how are we ensuring this? Have we just told everyone to behave this once, please? If this match isn't anything goes and competitor A hits competitor B with a chair, competitor A gets DQ'd. If it's in the first section, they're eliminated. If it's in the second - does competitor B get awarded a fall? Or does competitor A get docked one (even if that puts them onto -1)? Either is fine, I guess (with my preference being the latter). But if someone interferes and attacks someone... if they're affiliated to another competitor in the match, do you make the assumption they are working on their behalf? And if they're not associated with anyone...? I'll concede it's less lazy here - and maybe lazy is too much generally. Incomplete, perhaps? I'm cool with extra emphasis on no outside interference for particular matches, but just tell me how you're enforcing that (i.e. 6 month suspension without pay for anyone who interferes). Otherwise my mind goes straight to "there won't be outside interference in this match because we won't book it to happen". Maybe that's a me problem, though.

They did of course make a point of placing the current usual AEW emphasis on NO OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE like outside interference isn't illegal basically all the time. As I've said before, I'd not mind so much if they presented it as an overarching concept that the promotion was very keen to stamp out outside interference full stop, and that anyone caught interfering in any match at any time would be subject to hefty fine/lengthy suspension (even if missed by the assigned match official - if you're caught on camera, you'll get the punishment). It really rankles me how they lazily throw it out there as a tagline for certain matches.

Gonna try to get myself some tickets for that I think. I grew up on Blackadder and Bean.

So this is apparently a thing: https://thenationalwrestlingleague.com Concept is kinda interesting, although it reads like the matches are 15 minutes long total - with 6 teams in the league you'd assume 3 'fixtures' a night, so a maximum of 45 mins action a show. Even Wrestlemania had more than that. Perhaps it's two 15-minute halves though which would be a bit more like it, particularly as each match appears to be a team (trio, I'm gonna guess?) iron-man match. Can see a cease and desist in their future for the Glasgow Hitmen name/logo/colour scheme, though. Edit: just clicked through to their Twitter and apparently it works like this (which isn't on the website): Way less interesting than the matches actually being contested between teams, IMO.