Tamura

What I'm saying isn't a finished propsal, it isn't even a first draft. But what I do know is that if the government and the promotions aren't going to take action, simply sitting around complaining about it isn't going to change anything.

I suggest you read the article about the Casualties that was conveniently linked to in my original post. Jorge Herrera hasn't been prosecuted or convicted, yet action was taken by multiple venues as a result of the grass-roots activism. Is the government going to take action? It's hard to imagine a group of MPs deciding to ban El Ligero from wrestling isn't it? Are promotions going to take action? Some have and should be applauded for that, but others are going to take no action and hide their inaction behind a DBS check fig-leaf. So who else is left? I don't see writing a letter to the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen changing much, so it's up to the wrestlers and/or fans to make their voices heard.

Bringing this post back from the dead, since it's still relevant now. Boycott The Casualties had tremendous success in convincing promoters and venues to not book gigs by punk band The Casualties. They weren't some government created body or watchdog composed of a group of senior promoters, they were a people that decided to put their DIY ethics into action and do what needed to be done themselves. One thing that appears to be missing (to the best of my knowledge) is an easily accessible list of which wrestler has been accused of what, it's no use expecting promoters and venues to scour wrestling newz sites or read all 128 pages of this thread. Once you have that, it's a lot easier to inform venues and promoters that a wrong un will be appearing on their show, by flooding their email and/or social media channels with complaints for starters.

Days after being tricked into saying "Up the 'RA"' for money, Farage puts his foot in it again by being tricked into wishing Gerry Adams a happy birthday and saying "Tiocfaidh ár lá". You wouldn't have thought such a rabid British nationalist would be so sympethetic to militant Irish republicanism would you?

I seem to recall Johnson's advice after the end of restrictions in July was something like "continue to wear a mask if you can" or something equally wishy-washy. The government's current published advice on the subject is here and says A rather unscientific sampling of the several different supermarkets I use at several different times of the week shows about 90% of the people don't bother wearing a mask. I really don't understand why, since given the significant number of people that visit the supermarkets every day they are the last possible place I'd want to visit without a mask on. The chief executive of the NHS Confederation today called for the government to implement the back-up strategy which includes the mandatory wearing of masks in public spaces, the Tory business secretary has dismissed the suggestion like it was a return to the dark days of the first lockdown. As usual, the Tories will ignore doctors and scientists and delay introducing anything until it's too late, you only have to look at the study that said an additional 20,000 people died because of a one week delay going into lockdown. The economy isn't going to suffer in the slightest if Johnson goes on TV tonight and says "Face masks in shops are once again mandatory" is it?

Looks delicious.

Yes, it was live (including prelims) on BBC iPlayer.

Dan Miragliotta made the right call, during the fight and afterwards, although you could argue he should have seen the foul live he did the next best thing. Stopping the fight for a replay during a potential fight ending sequence is the worst possible idea, it's why in football the linespeople let play go for potential offside now and let VAR deal with it since there's no way to turn the clock back if the player happened to be onside. If Dan Miragliotta breaks the action for a replay then decides it wasn't an accidental headbutt it's already too late, Holland has been given time to recover and social media will be up in arms. So he let the fight carry on, then checked the replay to see if the fight ending sequence was a direct result of an accidental foul, and having decided Holland was clearly severely compromised as a direct result of the headbutt correctly called it a no-contest.

Selected excerpts from the MMA Fighting article. Only in America could damaging a car be a more serious crime than smacking a woman in the face...

It's possibly exacerbated by Brexit, but the problems in the industry are long-standing and have been getting worse for a long time. My mate has an HGV class 2 licence, but says there's no way he'd drive for a living again. Long hours, poor conditions (there used to be a lorry park with facilities in most towns, not any more), time away from home and so on. The fact he seriously injured himself in a traffic accident didn't help matters either, he struggled to cope with knowing even the smallest lapse of concentration meant he could easily end up killing someone and be sent to prison. Not that many young people want to become truck drivers, so you're looking at an ageing workforce where people who retire or leave to work elsewhere aren't being replaced by a younger generation. I don't think there's a simple solution to all those problems, since for starters any pay rise would almost certainly have to be funded by price rises across the board, and that's not going to be a popular move. Hopefully it all gets fixed soon, I've almost run out of Ardennes coarse pork liver pâté.

Does Flair actually think this is some kind of defence? People have heard about this incident for years, Flair's antics on the flight aren't something that suddenly came to light only in 2021. It's almost as bad as Tommy Dreamer's "I’ve never seen him try to force his will against anybody" line. Can you imagine someone standing up in court as a character witness in a murder trial and saying "I've never seen him try and murder anyone". It's a complete and total non-defence, saying someone couldn't possibly be guilty of doing something just one time because they don't do it all the time. Can you imagine a defendant taking the stand and saying "Well I couldn't possibly have sexually assaulted that one woman, because if I was that kind of person there would be more victims". It's hardly beyond the realms of possibility that Flair stepped a long way across the line of acceptable behaviour one time when drunk, and it's equally just as possible that he has no memory of the incident. How many people haven't had hazy memories of what went on the night before after a heavy drinking session? How many people haven't done something when drunk that they wouldn't consider doing when sober?

According to various media reports (and I don't mean wrestling newz sits, I'm talking proper Japanese media) Hakuho is retiring. He retires as the winningest riskishi in history, holding the records for most wins, most championship, most undefeated championships, most playoff wins, most consecutive championships and most wins in a calendar year. A bit more about this in my comments on the tournament, bit difficult to talk about what's next for sumo without talking about the tournament results.