Statto

On my 12th birthday (will be 29 years ago tomorrow by coincidence) we went to Nottingham Goose Fair for the day and went to the boxing/wrestling booth.

The usual challenges to "punters" was made, and the wrestling one resulted in the bloke from the crowd taking a pasting for a few minutes but then making a big comeback resulting in the heel powdering out and fleeing back through the curtain.

"Well, I've never seen that before!" exclaimed the MC.

"I'll bet you fookin 'ave!" an unconvinced patron bellowed from the side.

Just a guess - only became aware of Kerry at the tail end of his career but assumed he'd been around that long and could imagine him doing a surf gimmick!

Currently learning to play myself and finding some success after a few previously aborted attempts, and the advice I'd offer/back up what's been offered before is:

- For me, getting actual lessons has been a big help in providing structure & accountability, but I get that's not necessarily right for everyone

- I'd very much echo finding a couple of simple versions of songs you know & like once you have a few chords under your belt, it's really empowering to be able to play a recognisable singalong version of something you love after just a few weeks. For me it was Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd (just C, G, Am over and over and over again). As a non-player (even one who was singing in bands) I'd always assumed that every song must be mega complex with loads of chords, the reality is quite different! Here's a bunch of good examples:

Big Courtney fan myself.

Couple of my real biggies (just) within my last 12 months.

Having been a proper sedentary fat bastard after leaving uni (where to be fair I was a fairly sedentary fat bastard but made the most of my fatness by playing prop for the 2nd XV) I started going to the gym in the summer of 2018 then started running ourdoors at the end of the year. During 2019 I got fairly into it (to the point of doing 10k anyhow) and started saying stuff like "I'll do a full marathon before I'm 40". Well a year ago today, days before my 40th birthday, I did:

The other one was just about a fortnight ago when I played guitar and sang a song (a fairly sparse acoustic version of Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones) in front of an audience for the first time.

I've sung in bands off and on since my early teens but have always been a bit frustrated that I'm always reliant on someone else to facilitate the music side. Had tried to learn guitar a couple of times previously but given up very quickly, but decided to start taking lessons in March on the back of the "I can do anything I put my mind to" marathon high and although I didn't really feel ready to both play & sing in front of others, the opportunity presented itself and thought "fuck it". It was a long way from flawless but it hung together, and that was good enough for me on the day.

On 9/26/2023 at 6:35 PM, Arthur B. Funky said:

There was also Kerry the Surfboy, who wrestled in a wetsuit & carried a surf-board to the ring.

Later known as Kerry Cabrero?

3 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

I liked Maximum Male Models and thought they were criminally underused.

That is all. 

Fully agreed. Whilst I very much like the twist of Maxine setting out to recruit Otis as a model and it ending up with Alpha Academy recruiting HER to their camp, the fact it did for MMM is a shame. Perfectly good lower card heel gimmick. Once Maxine moved on they maybe could have done with a few more bodies added and become a modern day Spirit Squad - a collection of lower card guys who are a minor threat when they outnumber you, but invariably get their comeuppance whenever they step up to the wrong opponents.

RE: Elias, it's just come back to me that during the period he was getting a good push he/they picked up a legitimate endorsement deal with Fender, and the very first thing they did was to gimmick a brand new Fender acoustic so the neck just randomly broke mid-song, with no context or follow up. Absolute insanity.

16 minutes ago, Big'Olympic_Hero'Pete said:

But on the flip side, does AEW really need any more 'fillers' on an already overly bloated roster?

It doesn't, at all. But yet...

Shelton Benjamin was in RoH in the 2010s so I'll be astounded if Tony doesn't call him.

52 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

IIRC that was the Builder's Cage match that WAW used to do back in the day. Don't know if they still do it though.

Yep, the builder's cage matches in WAW had that leave the cage = submission stip.

They don't do those specific matches anymore as they got a proper steel cage a while ago now, and I don't think they use the same leave = quit rules. I wouldn't swear to it but I vividly remember a(n even) young(er) RKJ doing a stupendous sell job after getting caught trying to climb out, hanging from the top of the cage then dropping to the floor after some punches. Whole place went quiet as the grave when he started screaming and clutching his leg, everyone in the room was genuinely convinced he'd broken his leg/ankle. (He hadn't and later returned to the match, so they don't do escape = win either, at least for tag matches).

WWE/TKO getting a lot of good luck at the right time, it seems. Just at the merger goes through and the exclusive negotiation period with Fox expires (which I think would have led to a fairly stacked Smackdown anyway):

- the strikes in Hollywood leave John Cena at a loose end and he comes back for his first extended run in years

- ESPN choose to take College Gameday to just down the road from Smackdown, bringing Pat McAfee to town

- The Rock also has a free schedule and is in town too - he is going to be the celebrity guest picker on Gameday today. I don't honestly know if WWE brought him to town allowing ESPN to use him or vice versa (suspect possibly the latter the due to his relationship with them through the XFL), but regardless he's there and goes on McAfee's (massively popular) show to tease both of them turning up to Smackdown.

One day, we might look back and cite Hollywood strikes & Colorado's decision to appoint Deion Sanders as head coach (and the circus that follows) as important moments in WWE/TKO making shedloads of money off a TV deal.

My favourite part is when he identifies "Action Brunson" as one of the wrestlers to get rid of.

I honestly don't know if he means Action Andretti, Bronson of the Iron Savages, or the bloke who did Hook's music (who, to be fair, did work a match a year ago).

I've not watched it in a while so I'm not certain how well it meets your "no lengthy laying outside" criteria, but this is always my first thought when someone asks for a good triple threat:

If only they had some kind of record-based rankings on which to determine title contenders... 😉

11 hours ago, Supremo said:

The thing about Orange Cassidy is that he’s the best wrestler in the world. This show was the perfect example.

Absolutely this.

I love Jeff Jarrett as much as the next man, and he has been tremendous value in AEW, but I very much hope he doesn't get a partly ironic Wrestler of the Year nod in the UKFF awards. Because it's Orange by a mile IMO.

Double J is a worthy runner up.

10 hours ago, simonworden said:

Missed quite a few pages on the thread and still watching through the event. Did anyone else watch Kip Sabian try to use the famous Summerslam 92 quote about the bulldog twice during Zero Hour to absolutely no reaction from his cohosts? 

I was fine with the fact it got no reaction, it just made it a nice little Easter egg nod to the past. If everyone had acknowledged it and guffawed and done the Captain America "I understood that reference" bit it would have made it super cheesy IMO.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Kip as he's a Norfolk boy, but I thought he did very well on the pre-show panel, and interacted well with Wight. Suffolk scumbag Anthony Ogogo not so much, but he was passable I guess.

My highlight of the pre-show panel was Wight telling Renee not to push Ogogo to make a match pick because "he's new in the company". Pretty much a day 1 signee, IIRC. Guess he's been gone long enough to be completely forgotten even by his co-workers.

Just popping in here without prejudice as it's something that really stuck in my head & the same phrasing was used here - beginning of last season The Athletic did an article on the ownership of the 20 Premier League clubs, and IIRC they used the phrase "the only one of the 20 that resembles a traditional business" about Norwich (my club).

It's why we always finish bottom.

19 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Ospreay really impressed me last night, and the match with Jericho was way better than I was expecting. He’s just so smooth and slick when he wrestles.

Yep, I had to eat my words a bit on Ospreay last night. I'm not fan of the "bruv mate bruv wanker bruv" chav act(...?) but last night in that gear with that presentation he looked like an absolute star, and matched that in the ring.

Someone else who looked every inch the megastar last night - Swerve. I'm a fan in general and he's been on fire the last few months, but with the entrance with the rappers etc he came across a a true tippy-top of the mountain guy, and a legit hip hop mogul. Programme with babyface MJF for the belt, please.

41 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

He did a superb Terry Funk wobbly sell caught between the top and middle rope earlier in the match too

On the subject of Funk tributes, did Moxley use a branding iron as a weapon early in the Stampede, grinding the point into someone? Was hard to tell on the screen but that's what it looked like.

After Eddie's promo on Collision when he promised to "burn" & "mark" Claudio I was expecting him to do the flaming branding iron gimmick in tribute, but perhaps they couldn't get clearance to even light it up, even if it doesn't get used.

Imagine someone telling you 5 years ago that a company other than WWE would put 80k+ into Wembley Stadium.

Then imagine them telling you that show would go off air with the Ring of Honor tag champs celebrating with their belts as Roderick Strong, Mike Bennett & Matt Taven watch from the aisle.

15 hours ago, westlondonmist said:

To be honest it could be just that I played it on a Switch rather than a PS5/X Box Series and Switch just struggles with 30 online players.

If you're on Switch you've been very lucky to get a go at it at all, I'd say! Mad that they've made it all online when there's seemingly so few players out there, I've not even been able to get a 1-on-1 opponent for weeks!

It's extra annoying as it is a really good hand-held game, and otherwise runs really well on Switch.

A story I've shared here a dozen times over the years, probably. Once more for the Funker.

FWA British Uprising 3. Part of our "ringside" package (must've been front 3 rows at least as we were in the 3rd) was to meet Terry post show.

Typical FWA late start/finish. From basically the moment we were gathered to meet Terry, Skydome staff were trying to get everyone out of the building.

Terry, politely but firmly, absolutely refused to let that happen until he'd met/signed for everyone. "These folks have come out to see me and I'm damn sure gonna shake every one of their hands".

Proper legend.

Edit: and I always forget to add, no money changing hands here so there was no financial incentive for Terry to not just let it get called off.

Obviously it's a good name. And playing college football in North Carolina is exactly where you'd expect to find such a name.

You'd probably not expect him to be a posh white English bloke who went to Eton, though.

2 hours ago, 69MeDon said:

Yeah, that's what it sounded like to me. They said a picture of the barcode won't get you in, although not sure how'd they know the difference at the gates.

On the Ticketmaster app itself there is a purple line tracing the edge of the barcode box to evidence that it's "live".

In the Google wallet, though, I don't really know how you'd tell at a glance if it's a screenshot or not.

4 hours ago, Supremo said:

As an aside, Penta looked an absolute beast with his top off. No idea why he doesn’t wrestle like that regularly.

I feel like maybe he's got himself into improved shape recently as he's been ditching the top more of late - IIRC he had it ripped off in the match with BCC a few weeks ago, and there was a photo of him doing the rounds on Twitter where he was posing with an owl (as you do) with tights and no top.

But yeah, he looks great.