CavemanLynn

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

I'm  a pretty well-qualified mid-high level systems professional, which I figured gave me options. Looking at the job market here and there, the value for my role is way higher there, with average advertised salaries being 15-20% higher than similar ones in the UK, even factoring in added taxes. I also have naturalised extended family in Colorado (father-in-law), but that likely won't be relevant. The work visa point is the type of thing I was most unsure on, and will need to research more; I was going to chance it and just apply for jobs in the area I'm interested in, but knew there might be legal blockers/hoops.

Does anyone have any advice on getting a job in America from the UK? 

The missus and I have been hooked on Montana for a few years, and we've just got back from a road trip up the Midwest which confirmed it for me. I want to get things moving re: moving out there, and assume that getting work there is the best first step. I know we've got some defectors on here, so I'd really like some advice on how to go about things, what to prioritise and what to watch out for.

27 minutes ago, Loki said:

Isn't there a McMahon biopic in production?  Bet they're fucked now.

Only after signing an NDA and accepting £100k of Vince's money (allegedly).

9 minutes ago, Duke said:

I didn't see this, have they concluded that just for the pay off, or for the salary increase as well?

The Bloomberg article uses the term "settlements" for what they say Vince paid for himself, so that sounds like the payoff only.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-15/wwe-probes-3-million-ceo-paid-to-female-employee-journal-says

57 minutes ago, The Dart said:

It’s not the infidelity and misogyny that are being investigated.  It’s using company money to pay the woman off.  That’s a massive deal.

The board have already concluded he used his own money, which, if it doesn't absolve Vince of the bulk of legal trouble, certainly sounds like the kind of detail that can bury a case in technicalities.

I can't see this being a big deal, sadly. Yes, it paints Vince and his cohorts as scumbags, which we all knew, but it'll be too easy for them to spin this with "it was consensual"/"she took the money"/"she signed the NDA"/etc. It'll be a brief scandal in the wrestling press, an even briefer one in the mainstream. Unless the case determines rape or abuse was committed, infidelity and misogyny aren't technically illegal.

Is Britwres really at the point that a company can release a statement saying "But his mum said he didn't abuse anyone"? A professional, for-profit company?? What the actual fuck. 

If he isn't already, then it's time for Tony K to start delegating. It's mad that both WWE and AEW appear to live and die by the direction of one guy at the top for day-to-day running. The company I work for has a CEO, but he's not putting together daily work plans and testing new machinery; he has a team of department heads for that. It's a running joke that Vince surrounds himself with yes men, but at least having a team of trusted advisors reduces his required input to yesses and nos (anything else is on him, his micromanagement and the toxic culture he's allowed to fester).

With a bloated roster, key network business deals, and attempting multiple interpromotional projects, it's taken just a month for things to come apart at the seams. It was always coming eventually, but instead of a steady decline, it's been a sheer drop.

He needs to start compartmentalising and being less hands-on (if what we hear is to be believed). If the shows are still being booked by division leads, then they need a kicking to get things back on track, or cycling out for a new team for a 'season' or two.

I love the idea of Little Tone fulfilling his dream and getting to play in a wrestling sandbox, but there's a balance to be made between that and professionally managing a televised company with hundreds of on-screen employees. If he wants to give everyone a job, then he needs to review his product and start individually branding and allocating resources so he isn't the be-all and end-all of all decisions while still ensuring each show has a clear direction. A clear issue like Jeff should not be allowed to slip through the cracks, and those cracks need dealing with ASAP before they have a scandal on their hands.

I've only seen clips as I skipped the show last week, but I think it might just be that Thunder Rosa isn't that good. She's clearly over, and I heard her name mentioned as one of the good bits of the NWA revival a few years ago, but every time I've seen her, she's sloppy and awkward when the bell rings. Except, of course, when she's in there with one of her trainees; she seems to have no issues doling out an uncomfortable kicking to her juniors. Her "big" dropkick in the ropes, where she basically jumps down on them, is going to pop an implant one day.

1 hour ago, Infinity Land said:

AEW haven't really explained anything about the All-Atlantic title. Just about everything that's followed the announcement has been guesswork online.

 

Which is standard practice at the moment, it seems.

1 hour ago, Chris B said:

So, thoughts based on NJPW stuff:

  Reveal hidden contents

This could be pretty good, storyline-wise, for Page, actually. Him going up against Okada would have been a marquee match, but there's an existing storyline with Jay White for them to tap into. I'm not a big White fan, but I've thawed on him (not least after realising how young he was, and likely out of his depth a few years ago).

This is from a few years ago, and you can see White burrowing under Hangman's skin. 

So, you have a Hangman that now has more confidence, firing up to take on the best of the best... and then the guy that's had his number for years takes the title and tells him he's never getting a shot, 'you big dumb bitch'. And then, post-match, coming out with 'You had to have your friends create a company for you to shine in, because you couldn't fucking shine here'.

I like the idea of Page being, basically, back up against some of his old bullies, but without the friendship ties with Omega. Unlike the Okada match, this one could have a real face/heel dynamic.

If he ends up facing Okada, no matter what happens, he's been outsmarted by White. If he takes on White, the Okada match can still happen down the line. Either way, Page was looking for redemption and it was ruined by a dickhead - and I'm actually more interested in that as a story either way.

 

All good stuff, but this is us fan-booking a hot angle to justify the match because AEW aren't giving us one themselves. NJPW guys standing at the top of the ramp and pointing at AEW wrestlers in the ring is almost as bad a trope as pointing at the WM sign already.

My other concern is that, for all that this appears to be Tony Khan dream-booking, the NJPW talent he's thinking of is from 10+ years ago. We didn't get the burly tough mean of Minoru Suzuki and Yuji Nagata from the classic G1s; we got two old men looking intense while Moxley run at half speed. You're not getting the One in a Century talent in fantastic shape and the true Ace of NJPW if not all pro wrestling; you're getting lucha-bellied Tanahashi firing up on bow legs.

I bet every match starts with the opponents sitting in the corners for a minute so the crowd can go "UUUUWAAA" too.

Fuck whatever reskinned mess the AEW wrestling game is descending into, that they can't show more than a few seconds of gameplay every 6 months. Give me AEW Kart, with Hookhausen in their buggies. 

(Plus Hangman on a lawnmower, Statlander in a UFO, and Trent? in Sue's minivan.)

Surely most of the AEW wrestlers are there because they think they have more creative options than elsewhere?

If all you've got to bring to the show is "yeah I can wrestle a fair bit", then honestly you should be down in the jobber pack rather than taken up TV where you should be finding ways to get people to part money to come see you wrestle without giving away you wrestling for free on TV every week. That's why MJF was such an asset. Counting Dynamite and Rampage as two and a half hours of TV, Tony must have known he could guarantee a quality 15 minutes a week (10%), that would pop a rating and sell more tickets for future shows, without the guy acing up his boots and chipping away at his bump card. Now the roster's full of workrate wankers who "love wrestling", and who are filling the show with the WWE tropes that couldn't stop them getting the boot from the other company. If you've got a week to think of how to make the most of some backstage camera time, and all you have is "stand me there with Schiavone and a mic", well, I'm sorry, but you're not that interesting. If you get that several times in one show, it looks like a training reel that belongs in Matt Bloom's recycle bin. At least Jericho was savvy enough to dub his promo segments with OTT names like "War Council" and "Town Hall Meeting" to give them a bit of flavour.

Vince has injected a shot of poison into the heart of AEW.

3 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

People putting their own RE: into email subject lines when its not a reply.

You're fooling no one!!!

Related, but I do overwrite or add to subject lines if the actual email content is nothing like the current header, usually because the sender is too lazy. Headers like "issues" or "Questoin" (sic) or "Fwd: BOB MCCUSTOMER mentioned you JEFF MCACCOUNTMANAGER in Kelio case comment #123456789101112" can fuck right off.

Bollocks to the lot of yous. Hangman, the guy who only just lost the belt after having a reign which included going 90 minutes with and beating the best in the world, and going from having nerves going into death matches with giants to challenging opponents to them, all while making time to be a father to his newborn kid, is strutting in and battering fools. He's got form, being the winning Joker of the first Casino Battle Royale, and a score to settle to win back the belt and defend AEW from a broken part-timer who couldn't go a week without breaking his hip (kayfabe). He's then having a banger with Mox, but beating him, which'll shit up your accas for assuming this is all to set up a dream match for Jon. And finally he's having a minor classic with Tanahashi and his sawdust knees, but winning after unseen interference from Jay White, a member of Page's old Bullet Club who's already warned that Forbidden Door will be all about Undisputed Elite and the BC.

The funniest thing about MJF's "not dropping people on their heads" line is that that it is actually one of his finishers. Having read the reactions on here beforehand, I feared it would be the standard smarmy alienating bullshit that worked shoots usually become, but as someone rightly pointed out, the delivery was absolutely spot-on and kept it right. No pausing after a flat zinger that no one in the arena cares about. Just a bitter, embarrassed brat lashing out.

Poor Wardlow. Without the guards and cuffs, he's just a lonely guy walking out to silence. They tried to make a big deal of his dreadful tinnitus-inciting music a big deal and it fell completely flat. He needs direction fucking sharpish, and Sterling had better have some burly associates to throw in Wardlow's way.

I think I'm the only person who thinks Jericho's hair looks boss. Not objectively good, but perfect for that aging GNR rock star look. Loved the gang in white cutoff jackets. Brilliant angle from start to finish, from finally cutting his own music, to Eddie giving it prime lary fat kid, to getting me hyped for not one but two matches. 

Lol at Johnny Placeholder coming in to get twatted about the place. A decade ago, I'd've classed him as one of my boys, but his look belies his actual years which seem to be creeping up with him. I genuinely thought he was on drugs at DoN, and his timing kept falling off here. But meh. The greatest man who ever lived is back, and he's coming for God. 

Notable absences, Hangman and Danielson. Obviously there's a Friday show, so selling the effects of the PPV makes sense for at least one week. Patience, Cave.

It'd be morbid curiosity, at this point. We've seen how bland and boring most of the "held back" NXT castoffs have been, so it could be fascinating seeing how Wyatt, someone who apparently DID have a lot of creative control and opportunities to succeed and was invariably mired in dross, would fare outside the WWE.

It's almost catch-22 though. You highlight all the PM's disasters in office, and they launch the "the opposition don't have any policies so have to resort to finger-pointing" defence; you don't, and risk your own support base seeing you as copping out. Or, even worse, the whole race descends into a farce of fruitless 'debates' about the Tories' laundry list of misdemeanours, all frustratingly and huffily sidestepped or deflected, so when polling day comes around, no one is any the wiser on who's worthy of the actual election, meaning the chance of sticking with the status quo is that much higher, because "it's all the same." It's a calculated campaign of disenfranchisement, designed to ensure only the hardline or habitual voters remain. They know what they're doing, manipulating FPTP to their advantage.

The best booked angle on this show, and it gets mired in shooty bollocks at the eleventh hour. This has been a cursed quarter for AEW. 

1 hour ago, hallicks said:

nudging in one direction

I felt to me like the Pavlovian crowd cheering muddied the waters in the Hangman-Punk faceoff. Punk spent the whole segment being a smug, disingenuous, condescending shitbag. He was practically sticking his chin out begging for a punch. And Punk knows this. One thing Punk is always sure to get across is how intelligent he is. He KNOWS the crowd will cheer for him, and he KNOWS that Hangman still doubts himself as champion, so he totally played into that. You could see in previous weeks how Hangman was realising too late how he was jumping through Punk's hoops and acting totally out of character. The almost-instant regret on his face after the punch, underlined by Punk's grinning reaction from the mat, and an actual really good call from JR about who had truly won that round, told the story.

Page has been done dirty as champion though. Paternity may play a factor, but Tony Khan's front-loading of shows means Page as champ has been sat in the midcard, compounded by a conveyor belt of main events featuring midcarders or outside talent making that spot feel even less prestigious. The Elite may have run rampant on the shows when Omega was champ, but at least that meant the champion was on TV in high-profile angles that frequently closed out the show.

In general, one of the reasons Dynamite has gone off the boil is the lacklustre second-half just ... ends; there's no cliffhanger or compelling reason you HAVE to tune in next week. As good as the shows are (and there have been some stellar moments and matches this quarter), when the final taste is blah, the lingering feeling is disappointment. Maybe it wouldn't have been any different, having Page's angles close the shows, but at least your champion would have been front and centre as you fade to black.

28 minutes ago, CAREBEAR LUVVA said:

I don't think anyone's willing the show to fail, but a lot of people have been around long enough to have seen big ideas like these fall on their arse countless times over the years. It's more a general sense of apathy than anything else.

Exactly. The majority of us are in or actually support the UK scene, so when a new name suddenly appears, boasting expensive import talent, in an arena that the majority of UK promotions would struggle to half-fill, with a botched website countdown, it sets off alarm bells.

6 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

You couldn’t really hear it over the live crowd. Very Munsters, little Tequila, a bit Dr Who.

Someone's been listening to "Vampira" by Devin Townsend, I reckon.

And of course, the bastid fades out, so there's no way of getting rid of the earworm...

57 minutes ago, hallicks said:

Have we had “people signing off work emails with only their first initial” yet? We had the ludicrous situation at my last job of 3 people in the same email chain all signing off their emails with “R”. Lads, this is an office of 200+ people, you clearly don’t have dibs on the initial R. 

Is it their initial, or is it a further abbreviation from the abominable "KR" some at my work have started adding, instead of the perfunctory "Kind regards"? 

1 hour ago, Nick James said:

Admittedly, I have only seen a few clips on the AEW Twitter account this morning, but the House of Black segment with Julia Hart made me quite uncomfortable for some reason. It seemed a lot stronger than the usual 'spooky guy coerces people', into a more menacing abusive type of control. The House of Black are shit as well.

This is actually how I feel about the BCC, to be honest. I enjoy Regal's jolly violent gentleman shtick on comms, but the angle reminds me too much of the toxic-masculine bullshit I've seen pushed by old cranky washed-up vets who can't accept that wrestling is a world of panto and athletic skill, which clashes with their fragile self-image of being real, hard, working MEN. This usually translates to giving kids nothing but stiff bombs and throws in holiday camp matches to 'smarten them up', and laughing as nervous trainees stand toe-to-toe legitimately battering each other with forearms on the promise that this will help them. I'm sure this isn't the angle they're coming from, but when the slo-mo VT is of three grown men standing in the corner of Total Fitness weights area beating up one skinny kid, it doesn't sit well with me. I can't get behind them if I think they're bullies.