Statto

Was doing 1-to-1 with a lad I manage last week and it became apparent he was at school when covid lockdown happened. Actual school. 

My mate Ben swears blind the opposite is true and football has become increasingly a young man's game since the 90s. We argue about it regularly. 

Anyway, not to turn this into a football thread... couple of commentary moments that always stick in my head in this field - Lawler screeching "He's fifty-three years old!" as Austin stomped away at Vince at KOTR 99 (as if he was assaulting a senior citizen), ' and Nigel McGuinness saying Adam Cole was "Like a young Shawn Micheals" on an NXT show at which point Cole was the same age as HBK was when he initially retired (at which point Shawn was young, but still...) 

I also recall @BomberPatof this parish noting that when LA Knight got called up to the main roster and the comparisons with early Steve Austin were flying, Knight was actually older than Ted DiBiase was when Ted was managing young(ish) Steve Austin. 

6 hours ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

Smokey And The Bandit (first watch) - hoo boy, young Sally Field. Dang. She better be in the sequels. 3/5

As it's your first time I hope you got the proper version rather than the heavily edited/dubbed for a PG rating version that seems ubiquitous these days. 

Last time I watched it was on Sky Movies and it was the first time I'd seen the proper movie for years. Both the VHS & DVD copies I own are the PG version cos it seemed impossible to get the original anywhere. 

It's mental to think this man will be having a match a full quarter century after he was so fucked physically even Vince McMahon told him to pack it in. 

Visa issues for Kyle Fletcher apparently. Currently unable to work in the US. 

19 hours ago, Sergio Mendacious said:

When you hear about biscuits and gravy, that’s the gravy. It’s a peppery cream sauce that sometimes has sausage crumbled in it, it’s… okay.

It's incredible is what it is. 

Proper biscuits and gravy is genuinely the thing I miss most in my veganism.

That makes sense @Hannibal Scorch. It's a £9 difference without AEW+ & I get very little opportunity to revisit old wrestling these days so I'll probably go the YouTube route. 

YouTube appears to be considerably cheaper than Triller (if you're not on AEW+ which I'm not any more) and I'm not sure why? 

Assuming YouTube won't insert ads on paid content even if you're not a Premium subscriber? 

Bloody good music too:

3 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

I haven't seen it in years but when I was a kid, I got the UK Rampage tape and I fucking loved that Warlord/Anvil opener.

The thing I remember most about that was them fucking up the entrances so Anvil's music plays and Mel Phillips is 90% of the way through announcing him, then the camera pans to Warlord halfway down the aisle.

"Well that's hardly the Anvil" says Vince on commentary. Bet that wasn't what he said when he pressed the talkback button. 

Big respect to New Day for turning up properly dressed for a street fight. Blue jeans with kneepads over the top. 

Love this Moxley entrance. Walks straight off the street, wearing an eye patch, to challenge for the belt:

Whisper it quietly, but I like this theme way more than Wild Thing too. 

22 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Card looks pretty spectacular with numerous potential classics. The only negative is MEAT MADNESS not being remotely mad enough. A triple threat with Lance Archer 100% guaranteed to take the pin does not scream madness to me. They should add as many guys as possible to this and make it no dq - Brody King, Kill Switch, Jake Hager, JD Drake, Killswitch, Brian Cage, Toa Liona, Shane Taylor, even throw in Johnny Hungee for a laugh. Just go absolutely fucking bananas with it.

I now really want them to run an angle where someone new joins The Patriarchy, Christian does the re-naming gimmick again and calls the new guy Kill Switch. 

Kill Switch & Killswitch then chase the tag belts. 

I bloody love this thread already. I think I like entrances more than I like actual wrestling. (I definitely do) 

Some recency bias here but this one springs to mind - I'm probably wrong but in my head this is the start of Swerve's ascension to the top of AEW. Looking every inch the genuine hip hop mogul here:

22 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

Just felt like a 4 hour advert of why you should holiday in Western Australia.

They certainly bigged up WA on the pre-show, when Megan Morant stated that WA was "bigger than the whole of Europe combined". I think Russia would like a word, for a start. (I think she was probably meant to say it was bigger than Western Europe, which is true). 

This was less than a minute after she'd made the statement "For the first time ever, Rhea Ripley is home". Which also seems unlikely.

I've been a CAMRA member for a similar amount of time and I've never been near a meeting or social event.

My membership lets me skip the queue at Norwich Beer Festival and not have to pay to get in. If I go to 4 sessions over the week it pays for itself. 

Sadly there is no festival this year as the venue is closed for repairs to stop it falling down. So membership is basically pointless. 

I've mentioned this a bunch of times on here I know, but I once had a 10 minute chat about Serie A with Mike Chioda in a bar in Memphis. He does indeed have a cracking mob enforcer voice, even when talking about Totti et al. 

7 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

"Don't bury the ref" seems to be a weird sticking point with the higher ups at WWE. 

It's extra odd given the same man/company also passed an edict that refs were so unimportant/should blend into the background so much that they weren't allowed names.

21 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Yes, definitely Sam Fatu and not Rikishi in this video:

 

 

 

Just had a squiz at this. Love the fact that the ref (who I think might be Scott Conway?) is in a Newcastle shirt. And not just any one, that one from the mid 90s that had the shield on the back to put the number in. It's blank, and I'm not sure if that's better or worse than having a number on it when using it for this purpose. 

36 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Assuming they refresh the line up for series 2, I think I’d bin off Apollo and Athena who have done very little of note and frankly just don’t look the part.

I keep meaning to have a look to see if there is anyone out there keeping stats on appearances & in which games etc.

It's maybe not true, but it feels to me like there are some real workhorses (Diamond, Sabre & Fury on the ladies side, Nitro the main one on the men's) whilst others have maybe done 3 or 4 games all series, making up the numbers when a game requires 4 Glads (the two you mentioned, plus Bionic). 

I'm fairly sure Comet actually has only made 2 appearances, but I've seen she screwed up her leg in an unscreened accident so that explains that one. 

20 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

That's one hell of a flyer. Can anyone please share everything they know about the guy in the bottom right corner who I assume is Karl "The Bull" Anthony because that is a very strong look. 

My assumption is he was the promoter or paid for the flyers to be printed or something cos there's no other logical reason to have him pictured on that flyer given that every other name mentioned is either more recognisable or just looks more like a wrestler than your man there. 

Contrary to others, I was well behind wrestler Wes from the start despite him entering the quarters as an alternate - I don't think you can worry too much about the competitive integrity of the show when hitherto uberface Sabre gets a gentle prod from a contender, responds in a sarky manner then shockingly gets herself intentionally DQ'd from the other contender's go at the game. (There's been some hints of work on occasion since the bloke they were trying to set up as top heel just so happened to go rogue & get himself thrown out of the swingy bridge game in week 1)

But I was extra behind Wes when solider boy decided to wuss out of the actual Gladiators bit of Gladiators and bet on the fact he's basically a professional obstacle course completer. Genuinely punched the air when Wes pipped him to the post. (As I imagine did family friendly promoters around the country who are already dreaming of putting "Winner of BBC's Gladiators" on posters). 

Final takeaway from this week is that Mark Clattenburg must have zero rhythm. Finds it impossible to count down from 3 in time with the beeps. 

Whilst I suspect "it was a ruse to bring the Bloodline down from within all along" is the most likely payoff currently (as I said a couple of pages ago), regardless of if you go that way with the story or not, it should be fairly easy to explain the beginning without massively contradicting anything that happened before. 

Cody has resolved that taking the title from Roman isn't enough, he wants to take everything away from him - i.e. his position as Tribal Chief. Cody can't actually displace Roman there as he's not part of the family. So he called someone who could to do that part of the job. 

2 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

Now I’m convinced that The Rock is infiltrating The Bloodline to take them down from the inside.

I've wondered if this is where they've been going since the pivot at the press conference.

Cody takes the belt, Rock destroys The Bloodline from within, the next night on Raw Cody points out how through this clever ruse he's paid off on his promise to take everything from Roman.

Reigns vs Rock at Summerslam.