BrodyGraham

4 hours ago, Dead Mike said:

They've absolutely nailed the flavour in these, taste exactly like pork & apple. Wasn't mad keen on them though & wouldn't get them again. 

Too acidic. The cheese and honey ones are fucking delicious though. Polished off a big bag in about 5 minutes.

7 hours ago, SaitoRyo said:

Player of the season: Joelinton. Remarkable turn around in form, going from derided 'flop' striker to one of the best midfielders in the league. 

Goal of the season: Miguel Almiron against Crystal Palace at home. Tremendous assist from Bruno, great pace and strength by Miggy followed by a top corner finish. Won the game, too. 

Best performance: There have been some really good ones under Howe, but we looked like a proper team doing Arsenal this past Monday. Very encouraging signs for next season.

Worst performance: There were some really bad ones under Bruce, but the home 3-0 loss at home to Chelsea stands out as one of the worse ones. There were some drubbings under Howe initially, too, but he managed to turn it around once he'd had time to work on the squad and implement his own ideas. 

Worst player: Ciaran Clark. Championship-quality player who never looks up for it. He also got that ridiculous red card about eight minutes into a then-crucial home game against Norwich. Liability. 

One to watch: Bruno Guimaraes. What a piece of business he has been. Someone to build the team around going forward. 

Highlight: End of the Mike Ashley era/finally getting rid of Bruce and bringing in Eddie Howe. Also pretty incredible that we managed to survive and get comfortably mid-table, considering the position we were in when Howe came in. January signings helped, yes, but we were without Callum Wilson for basically all of our good run and Trippier got injured a few games in. The others we signed, like Dan Burn, Chris Wood and Matt Targett (on loan) were hardly bank-breaking superstar signings. 

Hard to disagree with any of that really. There's such a lot to enjoy about being a Newcastle supporter at the moment, hand wringing over the ownership aside.

One interesting highlight for me, which cuts across a couple of the things that you mentioned, was Ciaran Clark's sending of against Norwich. It's weird to think of one of your players getting red carded as a highlight, but it was the impetus for Joelinton getting moved into the midfield enforcer role where he's excelled. It also basically put a full stop on Clark's time in our XI.

32 minutes ago, Ultimate Hitman said:

Does anybody else find it weird that the majority of posters on a forum for UK wrestling fans appear to want this UK wrestling event to fail? Wouldn’t it be more productive for everybody, that if you don’t want to support it then at least not be negative about it. It’s almost as it some will gain gratification from it failing. Strange 

A. You've never read the discourse on BritWres on here, have you?

B. It's not really a UK event is it? From what I can see it's funded by Gulf State concerns, NFT grifters or both and by all accounts this is just a trial run for when they start in earnest in the Middle East.

C. That card is filled to the brim with the worst PC brewed WWE cast offs that they could find. The only match that looks even half decent is the women's tag.

D. No one's willing for it to fail. They just expect it to.

It would be a better tribute to not put people through Harry Smith.

When you look at something and think, "Not as good as 5Star", you know it's gonna be a special kind of shit.

Every once in a while Fightful will publish something that's full kayfabe, so I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that it's a work that SRS is in on.

3 hours ago, air_raid said:

My work did some work for them in 2015 and I promised myself I'd check them out. Should probably get round to it.

Go to the one in town. The Didsbury one isn't quite as good.

Might be a bit of a niche one but George Perez, one of the most influential comic book artists of the last 50 years passed away this week. He probably did his most famous work for DC in the 80's where his run on Teen Titans with Marv Wolfman is still heralded as a high watermark run in super hero comics and is the basis for the glut of Teen Titans/Titans shows that have come out in the last 20 years. His most iconic work is probably Crisis on Infinite Earth's, which for good and bad pretty much shaped main stream comics to this day. Perez's art is brilliant in it, clean but detailed, dense but distinct. The cover he did of anguished Superman cradling the fallen body of Supergirl is a masterpiece of comics art.

He was also a huge advocate for creator's rights in the comics industry, a murky as fuck field.

Brewing good beer has become exponentially more expensive for a lot of brewers in the last few years since Brexit and COVID. A lot of brewing supplies are imported through the EU and brewers who rely chiefly on cask have suffered immensely.

We're currently involved in a gold rush to get the last barrels of Kelham Island beer after they announced their closure last week. It sucks, Pale Rider is a great beer, I hope the brewers land on their feet elsewhere.

Living in Manchester and working in town, I've always kind of taken for granted that I've got an embarrassment of riches when it comes to pretty much any kind of food I want.

Burger wise I think the best around here is SoLita but it's kinda pricey. They piss all over Almost Famous in terms of the actual burger, but you very much pay for it.

For Mexican, there's a bunch of good places but I'll always swear by Pancho's in Arndale Market or Oxford Road.

Anyway, I just had a Full English. In a pie. In a barm.

3 hours ago, Tommy! said:

My apologies if I've missed it skimming through the thread but I think former poster NEWM does a podcast, can anyone tell me the name? 

He works for WhatCulture and does their review podcasts. He's Michael Hamflet and he's excellent. The other regular analyst, Sidgwick veers too often into juvenile obnoxious stropping for my tastes though.

Dominion is between then and now. I'd be surprised if they've got the belts on Fale and Chase coming out of there.

4 minutes ago, King Mal the Glorious said:

I've read that Eddie has long-standing heat with Hero, so that seems unlikely. Homicide and Hernandez maybe? Homicide has already showed up once.

He's made a deliberate point to bring up his name and Cesaro's in more than one interview or podcast. I always honestly just took it as him playing with Kayfabe.

I think I heard that they used to be roomies back in the day, so it could go both ways.

5 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

The KOW don't really fit the narrative for me, I think a couple of obvious choices would be Homicide and Low Ki. He can easily play them up as a pair of killers and there's a super long history there.

 

I could see Homicide, but I don't see them going anywhere near Low Ki based on the gymnastics they were doing not to acknowledge him during the Daniels/Danielson match and all the ROH hooplah.

26 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I thought the biggest news coming out of this show was how the World Title finally has main event energy about it. An almost tangible sense of, “right, the proper stars are fighting for the belt now.”

Between the pop the Punk vs. Hangman graphic got, followed by Punk’s brilliant promo, I honestly don’t know how Adam Cole even showed his face later on. I’d have retired out of embarrassment. Cole’s entire run in the Title picture has felt like when someone stays at your house long past their welcome and won’t take the hint to leave. We’ve all had run just suffer through it and wait for him to fuck off. It’s such a relief that he’s finally gone.

I can’t figure out where the Jericho Appreciation vs. LAX thing is heading. Blood & Guts? Or another Stadium Stampede? I do like the idea of Daddy Magic doing some mad skits around the stadium, coked out of his mind. I also can’t figure out who Kingston is going to being in to even the odds. Danielson and Moxley felt like the natural fit until Yuta joined the Blackpool Combat Club. Maybe FTR?

Because it's the kind of thing that Tony Khan would mark out for and it would fit in with Kingston's canon my mind went to who would Eddie call if he was more desperate than he'd ever been? Who has he fought before that he hates, but that would stand up for Pro Wrestling against the evils of Sports Entertainment? 

Well, Garth, he might call on The Kings of Wrestling. 

With all the people in and around AEW in good positions, I'm honestly shocked that neither is in already. Of course the major question is what shape Hero is in or if he's left the house yet?

6 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Examples of me taking shots at a wrestling company would be appreciated. 

Fair fucks Keith, on further investigation, I've conflated the constant digs at Tony Khan with sniping at AEW. I've really dropped the ball.

4 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

I don’t watch wrestling but can you link where I take umbrage at the existence of AEW?

I'd say that taking umbrage with its existence is probably misspeaking to be honest. I'd say you genuinely enjoy trolling and running a joke into the ground, to the point where even bringing it up feels passé. 

I don't know, I guess I don't understand why you'd constantly take shots at a wrestling company, when you don't watch wrestling?

38 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Who?

I'll bite.

You and Houchen do gold standard work in Off Topic.

There are certain, otherwise very good, posters on here who aren't interested in if AEW is actually any good but seem to take umbrage at it's existence.

Most people are enjoying the Punk run. Some people want to talk about Tony Khan's jacket. It's a milder form of the internet, but it's still the internet.

2 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Facebook doesn't half recommend some weird stuff to me sometimes. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0843GRHXR/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_BD7F7TPSA22Z4GK74JHR

If that had been a touch cheaper it would be on the way to my house as I type this. I mean, it's fucking awful but it's also terrible enough to be my exact brand of kitsch.

More like Wheeler Muta, amirite?

9 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Wasn't he slap bang in the middle of the first half of a 2 night card? That doesn't scream main event to me. I watched the start of his entrance on twitter, and that crowd sounded very sweetened. Good to hear Rollins dragged him to a 4 star match though. 

That's it though isn't it? Rollins dragged him to a 4 star match. At Mania. After 6/8 weeks of cock teasing. Rollins for all that he's the cringiest man in wrestling, which goes some way, very rarely has anything less than a very good match.

How's Cody going to look after a month of perfunctory 5 minute matches with Madcap Moss?

3 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Really enjoyed the first episode of Moon Knight, thought Oscar Isaac played Steven very well indeed, The chase scene was fun, the confusion was fun, the bizarreness was fun. I think the last shot of the episode was probably the most disappointing bit, only because of how much I'd enjoyed everything up to then and the realisation that that part of the show's probably over now.

Having read a non spoiler review of the first four episodes, I wouldn't worry about that part being over per se.

I watched it twice. Once on my own and once with my wife who went in thinking it was going to be bollocks and came out deciding it was fun, crazy, bollocks and was disappointed about there only being one ep up so far.

'The Influencer Chris Jericho' doesn't want the people to boo him, he wants the adulation. That's why he jettisoned Proud and Powerful when they called him on his shit and replaced them with a couple of goombas who'll lick his arse, because they're indebted to him. It's why he's replaced overly showboaty Sammy Guevara with the much more vicious and meat and potatoes Daniel Garcia who is also indebted to him. It's why he's not replacing Judas. He's not The Influencer because he doesn't care what people think. He's the Influencer because that's all he cares about and his ego is so fragile he's surrounded himself in sycophants to get what he needs.

I think we've all been pleasantly surprised by how good this Punk run has been and, seemingly how happy he is to be doing it.

I still think that Danielson edges it though. Even as ostensibly the third man in that Blackpool Combat Club segment last night, I couldn't take my eyes off him. He radiates so much smug, menacing joy in this run that it's genuinely a pleasure to watch.

7 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said:

I think Julia Garner is a tremendous actress but I can’t commit to watching Inventing Anna with her doing that mad accent.

Worryingly, it's a bang on impression of the actual Anna Delvey/Sorkin.