Really Big Shoe

Have Spike UK aired the correct episode yet or will it be shown this Friday?. 

2 hours ago, Ambulance Chaser said:

The lad that catches my eye these days wears a Green t shirt with what look like a pair of eyes on or something, he looks like James Ellsworth's dad. Very Goblin like.

Yea I've noticed him a lot of times. theres also the guy with the Warriors lost a 3-0 lead sign too which they sometimes switch it up to another sport score/team. Back in the day you had Vlad and he popped up at One Night Stand but haven't seen him at any recent shows/PPVs. There's also the guy who was at the ECW shows Tye Dye Guy he's still there sometimes. 

Faith No More guy was at both the WWE and ECW shows but no recent sighting of him. I assume some of the super fans get comp tickets/are friends with some of the wrestlers.

16 hours ago, Gus Mears said:

I agree with regard to his popularity for sure. He is absolutely miles ahead of most of his contemporaries as a performer and writer. When I first got into him years back, I didn't quite understand why he wasn't one of the most popular acts of all time. The fact that he was a not very attractive bloke who didn't move much on stage surely played a significant role. Definitely added a certain mystique to him and his songs though. Some terrible vulnerability that you couldn't quite put your finger on.

Cheers for the Iplayer tip, Shoe, will take a look. 

You're welcome, there's also a doc they showed as well which was shown on Big O night like Keith says.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06t3vb9

As for Roy's popularity, he was soft spoken, didn't have a ego and seemed like just a cool guy. Maybe his Everyman type persona meant he wasn't really seen as the star he should have been.

Looks played a part too but Johnny Cash didn't have a movie star look either yet he's more of a pop culture icon what with his rebellious attitude, the prison concerts he did and his Man in Black persona. Roy's similar to Buddy Holly in a way that they were real talented yet didn't have the marquee idol looks.

If Roy looked like one of the pop idols of that time I think Elvis would have a run for his money popularity wise. I wonder say if The Big O made more country recordings like he did with his Don Gibson and Hank Williams tribute albums whether he'd have been more embraced by that fanbase.

I think if we used pro wrestling as a comparison, Elvis is Hulk/Rock/Flair, Johnny Cash is Austin, Roy Orbison would be say Bobby Eaton, respected by his peers and a great worker. That's no way a knock on The Big O just an observation on his popularity with the mainstream. He's influenced quite a lot of artists Chris Isaac, KD Lang, Jeff Lynne of ELO has said he was influenced by him, Elvis Costello has a touch of the Big O in his music too to name but a few. Maybe they need to remix one of Roy's songs like they did with Elvis "A Little Less Conservation" so his music is heard by a younger audience and he becomes more popular or a cult hero like Johnny Cash.

Roy re recorded In Dreams for the "Blue Velvet" movie. The original has a slightly slower tempo 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LZuF_ei8nsM

The Big Os songs had an almost operatic feel which he used to great effect in the majority of his post Sun recordings. Songs like Runnin Scared, Crying, Walk On, It's Over, Too Soon to Know are just a few examples. I have all of Roy's albums and I think his best work is arguably in the early to mid 60s. The Mystery Girl album was a great return to form but I would say there's no bad album in his discography.

He even recorded a disco influenced album called "Laminar Flow" and covered Otis "I'll be loving you too long" on the "Memphis" LP. Roy's someone who should be up there with Elvis in terms of popularity because he was a great singer/songwriter and was almost an amalgamation of say Elvis, Johnny Cash with the all black attire and Mario Lanza for the operatic vocal stylings. For Big O fans or those getting into his music I recommend checking out the Black and White night concert which is currently on iplayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00g6349

Rather than making a new topic as I'm guessing it's been discussed already but when was WCW really finished as a promotion?. When they fired Bischoff and brought in Russo & Ferrera and tried to be WWF 2.0.? when the Fusinet deal fell thru and Kellner cancelled Nitro and Thunder is the obvious answer but in hindsight unless they brought in some top free agents WCWs roster circa 2001 wasn't going to overtake WWE in the ratings and would have continued to be a money pit. It's likely Hulk would have came back and I see a similar situation to when he and Eric turned up in TNA where it was Hulk and his buddies.

Also could it be said that WCW was done once they heavy weighted it down with guaranteed contacts, bloated roster (at one time they had 80+ wrestlers under contact), gave creative control to Hogan et al and didn't elevate Eddie, Y2J et al. 

Could anyone have came in to reverse the damage and get WCW out of the red and become profitable or had the ship sailed by then. Say WCW was better financially managed and smarter booked could they have kept their momentum going and pulled way ahead of the WWE. Or was it just another case of lightning striking twice with wrestling being more popular again the mainstream like it was during the Rock and Wrestling era and WCW being more family friendly compared to the Attitude Era WWF and ECW.

If it's still on iPlayer, there's a doc about Elvis called Arena: The burger and the King about Elvis and the food he ate. One of his favourites was fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. 

Elvis Presley, who was renowned for his food cravings such as the Fool's Gold Loaf, a loaf of Italian bread filled with a pound of bacon,peanut butter, and grape jelly.

The XFL 30 for 30 is on BT Sports tonight at 10.15pm

Yea Shawn took a long to get to the point but some people are like that. If he said "Well I'd come back if I went over you (to AJ) and had another run on top" that would be like only a 30 sec segment. By breaking it down and talking about it in more detail I think it was a more thought out statement. Also I think the Table for 3s should be longer if there's good conversation and/or they are fun like the "Book the Golden Truth" one. The Corny/PS Hayes/Bischoff one will either be fun and interesting or Cornette throwing shade at Bischoff and Bisch rolling his eyes.

The UK show was broadcast on Sky One. A review of it here

http://www.dawrestlingsite.com/wrestling/flashback_reviews/wwe/house_shows/london_101089.php

the full show was up on YouTube but I'm assuming WWE had it taken down. IIRC some of the matches were included on the World Tour 89/90 tape as were some from a TV special from France.

The end of the Paddy fight was cut off on the recording on BT Sports. It's repeated again on Wednesday on BT Sports 3 though.

Watched the Bears 30 for 30 earlier, really good. There's a Football Life about Mike Ditka too. He also wrote a book about the 85 Bears.

Haven't seen the XFL one yet but will once it airs on BT. Believeland didn't air today it recorded a College basketball game instead. I assume it will air again soon though.

Also they have the OJ 6 part doc on iPlayer now its in 3 parts instead of about 3 hours each. Don't think it was on BBC2 or BBC4 so maybe its just an iPlayer thing.

I've DVRed the Bears one so I'll definitely check it out. If you're a NFL fan again the Football Life and Americas Game ones are really good too. There's Two more 30 for 30s today on BT/ESPN, Believeland and Catholics vs Convicts.

No book to my knowledge, unless Vlade Divac has written one. The wiki page about it is quite interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Brothers

It's really about the Yugoslavia war and the division between Croatians and Serbians caused by the war.

Some 30 for 30s are based upon a book or cover an important story. Such as the Playing for the Mob one is all about Henry Hill and his associates involvement in Point shaving at Boston College. This is talked about in the Goodfellas film and is what prosecutors used to put away Jimmy and Paulie since they didn't really get them for the Heist where they stole over $5m.

Best there never was is based on a book called the courting of Marcus Dupree. Prince of PA is essentially a documentary to the Foxcatcher movie. Surprised they couldn't have included it as a DVD extra. One night in Vegas is about Tupacs murder in Las Vegas and the events leading up to it since he attended a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM grand. There's quite a lot of coverage about that. Some 30 for 30s do need a companion book to accompany them as they don't really tell the entire story.

The ESPN films docs are worth checking out. Catching Hell, The Announcement, The Real Rocky are just a few examples and they are connected to the 30 for 30 series.

For NFL fans the Americas Game and a Football Life are really recommended too. The Steve Gleason one is upsetting as it tells the story of his battle with ALS/MND. However how Steve is dealing with such a debilitating disease is incredibly inspiring.

For the 30 for 30s I'd say check out the ones you have a interest in first of all, for example if you like boxing there's No Mas, Chasing Tyson, One night in Vegas etc. However I can say I haven't seen one bad 30 for 30 documentary. They vary in quality depending on the subject matter but on the whole they are good to great. Some of my favorites are (in no particular order):

No Crossover - Trial of Allen Iverson

Winning Time

When the Garden was Eden

Four Falls of Buffalo

One Night in Vegas

Chasing Tyson

No Mas

Muhammad & Larry

Bad Boys

The U Pt 1 & 2 (the first one is the better of the two though)

Broke

Straight Outta LA

The Band that wouldn't die (about the Baltimore Colts marching band)

Silly Little Game

June 17th 1994 (really recommend this one, as I said a while back about the OJ one, this is like an unofficial companion piece)

OJ Made in America (definitely recommended too, in 5 parts)

Jordan rides the bus

Elway to Marino

You Don't Know Bo

Bernie & Ernie

Run Ricky Run

The best there never was (Marcus dupree)

Playing for the Mob

Bad Boys (about the Pistons)

Brian & The Boz

I Hate Christian Laettner

The Prince of Pennsylvania (Foxcatcher)

As for the saddest ones, definitely those Baz mentioned. Also Benji, Once Brothers, Survive & Advance come to mind.

Does anyone know if the 85 Bears one has aired in the UK yet & This Magic Moment (about Shaq, Penny and the Magic). A few other 30 for 30's haven't aired either.

What Primo is doing is live sampling the track and playing it back via his laptop. Back in the day they used either a MPC or a Synth and built it from there. Due to the tech limitations of the time early albums by PE for example show how they got a lot out of technology at the time. It's more so digital sampling now which in some ways makes it easy for wannabe produces to make beats as most people with a PC/Laptop, some old soul LPs and a music producing software can create something. Guys like DJ Premier et al did it the old school way though so I think when you're one of the originators you can rely on technology more. He's got nothing to prove, Gangstarr are of the all time great groups or duos to be correct and Premo was really the guy who Dilla, Madlib et al emulate.

Speaking of Hip Hop, I'm kinda out of the loop. I prefer listening to rare Soul/Funk and discovering new stuff there. Along the way I've heard familiar samples since guys like J Dilla really were digging in the crates for rare stuff to sample. There's a series of sampling/record collection videos on YouTube where producers go through their record collections and sometimes say which records they used in their samples. Some are super obscure which you'd think there would be nothing worth sampling from but they often have a bassline/drums etc which can be used as a foundation to build something new on.

If I find the videos I'll add them here as some are super interesting. I also think the more organic back to the roots hip hop is more appealing than the commercial stuff. Although stuff by Quik, Battlecat and Terrace Martin is worth checking out.

Just watched Bellator Greatest Hits Volume 1 that aired on 5 last night. Excellent stuff. I never manage to see any of these shows when they stick 'em on those non-HD (on Virgin Media anyway) channels like 5* or Spike.

 

Have they got a PPV that we can buy to promote or something? Just seemed odd to stick that on the main 5 channel all of a sudden, although it was at midnight. Hopefully this is a sign that they'll move the Bellator shows onto that channel in the near future.

It's up on the 5onDemand player too. IIRC, didn't Channel 5 show some highlight UFC shows at one point?. I'd rather they move Bellator to 5 so we get the shows in HD. But it's good we get the shows anyway. Only thing and not sure if happened to anyone else, but during the most recent Bellator card they messed up showing the Gallagher fight, for some reason it replayed the fight before hand. Maybe a tech error on Spike/5 part on the live broadcast.

It was just going to be called "Your Bottom"

Yep, I thought it was something like that. I think Rik said he wanted people to say "I saw your bottom last night on TV", IIRC it's mentioned on the documentary tribute the BBC did about him when he passed away. 

The theme for Hulk Hogan's Rock & Wrestling cartoon, written by Jim Steinman. Bonnie Tyler used the same music for her song "Ravishing".  

Someone made a Sheiky version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYcqToQzzGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTt05xDgzXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nCqRmx3Dnw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjImwACuh7w

Reading Brian Wilsons autobiography at the moment. The newer one not the co author or ghostwritten by Dr Eugene Landy. Some stories are similar though just told in a different tone (the first one seems more angry etc) and more reflective. There's also books out about Carl and Dennis Wilson but I don't know how in depth or good they are. The BBC did a good doc about Dennis a few years ago. One not that known story or known to the mainstream is Dennis Wilson co wrote "You are so beautiful" with Billy Preston. His name isn't listed on the song credits though. Brian covered the song with one of his daughters (Carnie IIRC) on a compilation album and Dennis used to sing it live. It's on the Knebworth show the Beach Boys did as one example. If there's proof that Dennis did write the song they should amend the song credits so he's credited as a co author. He has wrote similar songs and he wouldn't have performed it if he hadn't had a hand in writing it. Unless he gave the song publishing away but that was more of a 50s/60s practice so writers could get their songs recorded.

Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet but The A-Team theme. IIRC it was written by the same guy who wrote the "Quantum Leap" theme. Another catchy one is the theme for "Tales of the Unexpected". At the end of one episode there's a cool steel drum version of it.

Also a bit of Trivia about the Bottom end theme. It's a cover of "Last Night" by The Mad Lads who were on Stax records. Bottom was originally going to be called "I saw your bottom on TV last night" or something similar, hence why they went with "Last night".

Been watching some random Network stuff tonight. Bring It To The Table (?) - the new show that I really don't get, they're going for a shoot thing picking on internet fans but just come off looking a bit out of touch with JBL and Heyman in character both ranting and raving.

I watched some of that, it's based on an ESPN show called 'Pardon the Interruption' where they are given like 30 seconds to discuss a topic. I think WWE/ESPN work together in some capacity (they have wrestlers/divas sometimes on a show with Coach on), so I guess they gave them the OK. I'd prefer they bring back the Legends of Wrestling roundtable format, which I think are one of the best original shows they've made. I also like Table for 3, the recent one with Hacksaw, Sarge & Nikolai is a bit hit & miss though. Best one IMO is the Giants one with Show/Kane/Henry. On paper, it's one you'd think "Nah" but avoiding spoilers it's a fun episode. 

There's a best of Bellator on tonight on channel 5. Their next show is the Tito/Chael one if I'm correct.

I'm still keeping up but have missed a few games. The Bulls have been better than I thought but I think Rondos getting traded. GSW haven't been the force everyone expected them to be but I still think they'll make the finals. The Cavs will make the finals again too, so another repeat. I'd like to see it more competitive but who knows a wildcard team might surprise us.

Great work on the Gameboy. The Raspberry Pi mod looks cool too. As for a boxed SNES CEX buy them in for £59. I'd try and sell it via EBay or find a retro collector as I think it's worth more than what CEX are paying. Condition also will up the value. If the box is in pristine quality or very good condition that would up the value tenfold with collectors.

Field of Dreams

Back to the Future