Hannibal Scorch

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

Apologies for this being an utterly tedious pedantic fact, but Roy Orbison's version was recorded first, even though it wasn't released until a couple of years after Cyndi's.

Not at all, I assume his version wasn’t publicly released until the 90’s, but it’s one of those interesting music facts. Regardless as much as I do actually enjoy both versions, they are really creepy. Let’s not bring up Céline Dions version (forgetting her whole creepy marriage).

Back on topic, I’ve seen a lot of people defending SBC as that’s just how it is. And I don’t accept that because he plays dubious characters gives him a free pass to behave that way. I’m pretty disappointed because I thought he was a pretty sound person with strong morals, other than his Zionist views. 

25 minutes ago, King Coconut said:

Roy Orbison drove all night, crept in her room, woke her from her sleep to make love to her. Is that alright? He drove all night!

Cyndi Lauper did the same, first, and we still love her

11 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

😬

If you haven't seen what Rhea has been doing on house shows, you can see on Twitter. Just make sure you're sitting down is my advice.

I don’t want to see Punk give either Cody or Drew a stink face

9 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

Interesting choices - particularly the first two. I wonder if they would stand out as much as they did back then in the modern era, given how many spectacular wrestlers are active right now, or if there's a case to be made that they might have ended up being less of a big deal? 

Shane Helms had a bit of a bland look and his promo ability was middling; and while he was good in ring, the competition is fierce in that respect. I need to rewatch his matches I think, but it would be a challenge for him to stand out over the competition in both AEW and WWE. 

Outside of (the admittedly amazing) walking the cage moment, I can't think of many stand out matches for Elix Skipper in TNA, at a time when they really were letting the X Division go balls-to-the-wall. Again, I think I'd have to go back and watch his stuff. He'd face the same problem as Helms though in that the wrestling talent around him is so good, he'd find it harder to stand out. 

To be clear, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you - they're choices that got me thinking. 

I think both were held back by where they were. Shane Helms was really developing after the break up of 3 count. I wouldn't say he was bland looking, especially not at the time, Everyone remembers the cage with Elix, but he was someone who looked like he could have been more if he had the right people helping him develop, something WCW nor TNA were offering at the time.

Shane "Hurricane" Helms - A cross between Kanyon and AJ Styles, innovative, dynamic and a hell of a finishing move. I thought he had it. Certainly more than just being a (successful) comedy act.

Primetime Elix Skipper - Another one who seemed to me ahead of the curve, never really got a big push

Mark Jindrak - One of wrestlings greatest What If's with him and Evolution, but he had a look which would probably put him in the upper mid card in my opinion.

This is a by proxy, but I was involved.

I was about 7, my brother about 3, and we were walking down a street near to our house. Me and my brother were just messing about in the street, pushing each other, nothing major. But my mum asks as a few times to stop it. We didn't and then she bellowed out, "Stop Bloody Fighting" and who should stick his head out of a parked car but Nigel Benn, whose family lived in the street we were on. My Mum was apologizing profusely, but he was just laughing at her explanation.

33 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

If Rock had won the Rumble, I’m not sure ‘We want Cody’ would have happened. I don’t agree with most of your takes on this feud (such as Cody ‘not being a face’…I’m not sure how you’d back that statement up, but I think you’d struggle to make the case for it) - but I think you’re probably correct as far as that is concerned. 

Cheers. As to Cody not being a face, what I meant was he’s not a traditional face. Cody does things in his own way (it’s why the Codyverse became such a millstone). The guy even called out the Homelander comparison of himself for Christs sake. For every few face traits there are underlying heel ones. Now, I’m not saying you need to be straight face or straight heel, gray has been a popular wrestling colour for years. But if you want to be the white meat baby face, you can’t do the heel bits.

We Want Cody only happened because The Rock swooped in and made Cody back out of the Roman fight. Cody could have won the Rumble, had an in ring with Roman and Seth about making a decision, and made the decision that he didn’t feel Roman deserved the same spotlight as Cody, so I’ve decided I’m fighting Seth, and than said but I spoke to someone willing to and the Rocks music hit. I mean the most telling thing about when they did that segment was how Cody looked, and his body language, with the Rock all smiles. Because they assumed that match was what the fans really wanted. As much as they have tried damage control with the situation, it’s still left a sour taste for a lot of people. Because you have people in both Cody and Rock v Roman camps.

2 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Yeah, I mean this is exactly the problem.

He's a huge star. I don't personally love his act, but accept I'm in the minority, and he's come in at the last moment and made everything feel small and insignificant in comparison.

Then, in a few weeks, he'll go again and it'll all just be a bit flatter than it could have been.

He'd be a great tool to use in down years or to heat up acts or add starpower to something that needs that; as it is he's been plonked in the middle of the one year where they had something that felt like a huge main event without relying on nostalgia or celebrity.

But yeah, I'm just howling at the moon and my bedspread now. It is what it is. We should never be surprised when this company chooses to entrench nostalgia and the supremacy of the late 90's. They choose that as readily as I choose crisps over salads. It is what it is.

I think we’re singing from the same bed sheet. Because I can see why for some it’s the biggest match they could put on, but it’s not what I wanted to see. But as I still don’t see Cody finishing the story at Mania, Rock v Roman would have been fine, had they not ballsed it up in the set up.

3 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

That's an odd way to look at it. How about you say that every other babyface since the dawn of time has been a gullible idiot because they believed what the heel said and that Cody knew Roman was untrustworthy so brought the backup that he knew he'd need. Cody looks smart, Roman looks out maneuvered and we roll on to Mania. It's showing Roman that someone might finally be on his level. To just think "Well they are both liars" is an odd take to me. 

Faces are gullible, that’s kind of the gimmick. But Cody isn’t a face is he, he’s is own thing, I guess. But my biggest issue wasn’t with them both lying, it was what they did. The heels would normally blindside the poor face in the ring. But they didn’t even get in the ring. They just stood outside grinning. To do what? And then when Cody revealed he had back up, we just had Seth laughing as he always does, and Sami just there.
 

Maybe I expected the usual and I should be grateful that we had something fresh, rather than thinking everyone looked like a chump and we didn’t get any kind of fight. Instead the crowd were flat (other than gobbo next to Roman) and the momentum is dipping. I’m certain by the go home show they would have fixed it, but for now there seems this problem of not being able to keep the momentum going 1) On a weekly basis 2) without The Rock. maybe they should  have stuck with Roman/Rock after all.
 

The worst thing about Roman/Cody’s trap, isn’t they both lied to each other, it’s that they came through the crowd and rather than get into the ring, they just walked around it so they could look silly standing with Roman to stare at Cody. I didn’t get that at all.

Maybe because the reviews were awful, but I had a lot of fun with Frozen Empire. They are trying to make Ghostbusters for a new generation, whilst keeping enough of the old guard in it to keep fans of the originals happy. I heard one bloke grumble that the film would have been better if the film didn’t have an agenda, “why does every film have an agenda?” he said to his poor suffering partner. which made me laugh louder than I should have done.

Acaster and Nanjiani were welcome additions to the cast. I’d be happy to see a 3rd if they turn down the family melodrama a smidge.

After that, I feel even stronger that WrestleMania Night 2 ends with Roman Reigns standing over Cody, Belt held above, Seth Rollins by his side. Decent promo from them both.

44 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I went into the match thinking "I hope they end on a cliffhanger to bridge between Dynamite and Rampage, would be a missed opportunity otherwise". I wasn't expecting it to just abruptly end without even giving the announcers time to tell you to stay tuned. If ever an opportunity arose for a Tony Schiavone "WE'RE OUT OF TIME!"

Weirdly while watching live there was no abrupt stop or AEW 2024 at the bottom or anything, the feed just continued into Rampage.

7 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

The Beekeeper

Absolute fucking nonsense. A decent revenge film, that I don't regret watching, while also being a load of barely sketched out bollocks that aims way too high with the plot in the third act.

Best part is when a character says to Jason Statham's character, "do I detect a hint of British Isles in your accent?", which had to have been written in late into shooting by a director exasperated at Statham not being able to keep up an American accent for more than two words at a time. Two or three other actors in it with Randomly Occurring Accent Syndrome too, and not one character who can keep their bee metaphors straight - who are the bees, what is the hive, and who is the hornet? Completely changes scene-to-scene. 

A ridiculous mess, would recommend.

I slagged this off big time after walking out of the cinema. However after seeing Madame Web and Drive Away Dolls, it wasn't so bad after all. I think my favorite line was when the police officer said she'd lost her virginity in the barn that had been burnt down.

49 minutes ago, Supremo said:

My first time seeing Zack Knight. Oof. Like an even shitter Karrion Kross! I hope Saraya is getting a high percentage. He owes her everything.

The fact Bully Ray loves him and has been pulling for a US promotion to sign him should tell you everything

1 hour ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Who wants to pay for a 3 month extended advert for a new Netflix show? Like you say I'm sure a deal will be struck somewhere. 

They could just stick it on the Network surely?

Oh.

I think the real winner in here today as we’ve moved away from that awful promo last night that sounded like it was written by Brandi.

35 minutes ago, JLM said:

You’d better not be enjoying that. 

Wouldn’t be a bad advertising slogan

45 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said:

That’d be 90% of the AEW ‘fandom’ then.  Singling out a brand is like saying Man United have the worse fans. No, football has the worse fans. Well, second worse obviously wrestling fans take the top spot. Just ahead of football fans, gamers and billionaire shaggers.

I don’t know if you’re being moronic or not but that’s how it comes across. Man United did have one of the worst fan bases. Why? Because they were the biggest team with the largest fan base. Certainly before Chelsea and Man City had money at least. That’s not to say a team like Yeovil Town probably don’t have awful fans, but if they have 10% of the amount of fans Man Utd do, it’s not going to be as noticeable right? Because you hear less from them. So yeah, WWE fans, because there are millions more of them on social media, are louder and have shitter opinions than AEW fans because of sheer volume. That’s not to say neither have shit takes, but one is more noticeable than the other. 
 

What grown adult chooses McDonalds by choice ffs? That’s an everything else is closed option for most people.

It's why Coldplay and U2 are the best bands in the world because they sell the most init.

@DavidB6937 you clearly glossed over the bit where I said not all WWE is shite. And yes, most people recognize it has been better recently. But lots of people thought it was great in the Thunderdome era which was a lot of trash and it was post that when they started selling more tickets than they had been pre pandemic.

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

The problem is that all those reactions are positive. I've never been big into wrestling Twitter, even when Twitter wasn't 80% bots and adverts, but if you click on trends, all you see generally is the enthusiasm and over-reaction of the moment. And any counter voices in the comments/replies are absolutely worthless because the counter 99% of the time is that someone is a WWE Drone or AEW Supermark. It's worthless from a critical POV.

WWE are going to make a load of money. For all the people criticising Kevin Dunn and praising HHH this morning on the trend I clicked on, WWE made record revenues when Kevin Dunn was inducing epilepsy on a weekly basis. Not to drag down all the people who want to turn a blind eye, but WWE made billions after a scandal that should have brought the organisation to it's knees. It's revenues, clicks, likes, shares and subscribes are not evidence of good booking.

No-one on Twitter, that I can find as a casual clicker of trends, is going to give the same well-thought out view on the poor booking as @d-d-d-dAz has in the last couple of weeks. As much as he's sometimes hyperbolic in the moment (Sorry Supes), no-one is giving things the thought that @Supremo does. 

I don't really care too much as I'm not gonna watch, but I'm interested in whether HHH is a good booker because I'm a nosey bastard lifelong wrestling fan, for my shame. Seems to me that they've muddied the waters with Cody/Roman/Rock, Roman isn't the focus he should be, Rock is a reluctant heel, Cody has lost a little bit of the clear momentum he had, Seth Rollins is a waste of space, Jey Uso hardly ever wins, Sami Zayn has gone from the most popular man on the roster to being second preference to Chad Gable and very little else of consequence is happening on 57 hours of Raw and Smackdown.

My take would be that HHH is a huge improvement on Vince, that isn't difficult because Vince is useless and none of it matters really because they'll cash in regardless. 

Completely agree. It's the market leader, which is why more people will watch Akira Tozawa vs LA Knight then Bryan Danielson vs Will Ospreay. WWE can put on any old shite and get record ratings and attendance because it's THE brand (and I am not saying all WWE is shite, but my point is being the most popular isn't always a sign of quality). Also WWE has one of the worst fandoms with the worst takes, as most big fandoms do like Star Wars. 

1 hour ago, Chili said:

 Cody is winning the belt. He HAS too, logic can't dictate a reason to not. You'd literally assume that WWE actively wants it's fans to be disappointed and upset doing that decision twice in two years. 

 

The everything in bold is what everyone was saying 12 months ago.

31 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

Drive-Away Dolls: I really wanted to like this more than I did but for so much of it it was trying far too hard to be quirky and most of the jokes fell flat. I can see it becoming a cult classic in some circles but it wasn't for me. Margaret Qualley is still utter perfection though.

I agree. That 84 minutes felt like 3 hours. I actually thought Margaret Qualley was poor with some weird quasi Miley Cyrus impersonation and a terribly written character not doing her justice. Some of the sub plots went nowhere which is unforgivable in such a short film. My screening was silent, none of the jokes landed. The trailer looked so promising.

2 hours ago, RedRooster said:

This comment might be a symptom of you not watching WWE regularly (or only watching Smackdown) as Jey Uso wrestles all the time. He’s also been brilliant, his matches are generally of a very high quality. Jimmy wrestles less for whatever reason, but he always looks good when he does. 

 

That Makes sense. I normally only watch the first hour or 2 of Raw at most, though normally all of Smackdown. 

@Statto I don’t disagree. My point was, right now it’s ice cold. When was the last time either had a match on TV, and a decent one? Feels like forever. Because they are on different shows there has been no interaction. Now, the same could have been said about Cody and Roman, except they have crossed shows. Right now it’s the equivalent of Jimmy and Jay leaving visual voice notes to each other. As @Doog said, the video package will make you care, but there has been nothing on TV to make it seem the big deal it is. I think me and David numbers have a better feud going on than half the current WrestleMania card.