CavemanLynn

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

We definitely need to stop lionising the idea of working injured. Everyone works hurt or banged up, but working through actual injuries and the whole "show must go on" mentality should be a thing of the past. I've been at shows a few times where the whole show was stopped, either entirely or for a prolonged period while waiting for an ambulance, after an injury - much smaller scale than AEW, admittedly, but in every case the audience have been very patient, understanding, and happy to prioritise wrestlers' safety over continuing the match. So if the crowd would rather the match be called off, the "show must go on" attitude has no justification any more, the match should just be stopped.

Years ago, wrestlers were using steroids, alcohol and pain pills to keep working, and that was in rings far stiffer and more dangerous than today. Every time rings have been amended to make them "safer" (thicker padding, more flexible springs, bouncier ropes, etc.), all that's happened is that many workers take it as safer to do MORE and more dangerous bumps. Combine that with many workers coming up from a "weekend warrior" background where they had one or more weeks to recover from every self-inflicted battering in front of low-three-figures crowds, and you've got workers working less realistically and getting more beat up than before, all for crowds who can see through the charade and never get the emotional, personal connection required for business to take off. Now instead of hidden steroids, it's visible kinesiotape. You've got Kota and Darby destroying themselves at the top, and Johnny Kickpads (still a thing after 20 years, unbelievably) at the bottom posting pictures of chests bloodied from chops and boards under the ring with captions like "Show this to your frends (sic) when they say wrestlings fake." There's nothing glorious or heroic about CHOOSING to take risks that the paying crowds don't need or ask for. If all you've got to offer is a willingness to take punishment in an art built on fooling the crowd into thinking for a moment it's real, then you need a different kind of help, one that Kota certainly sorely needs.

26 minutes ago, Dead Mike said:

TIL that Stanley Tucci has got merch?!?!

The Midas Tucc has a couple of pretty decent cookbooks too, including this one which has pride of place in my (admittedly limited) kitchen library:

The Tucci Cookbook https://a.co/d/71DSaJC

If I understand the news correctly, and he really did start the match with one broken ankle, then FFS, who's letting him get to the ring, regardless of the match? Kota is an extreme case because he's seemingly sought out ways to destroy himself for years, but even so, I still go back to this recent plea from Stevie Richards (posted after the notorious Mox vs Fenix finish):

(from about the 3 minute mark)

I suspected when Kota came to the CWC looking doughy and slow that he was propped up by chemicals, but if 18 months either away or being "protected" by multi-mans still can't stop him smashing his ankles to bits and (also FFS) just picking up handfuls of thumbtacks and sticking them in himself, then something else needs to be done.

I'm also looking forward to seeing footage of the post-match promos by Jake Lee and Kiyomiya, because apparently (according to Reddit, anyway) they came off legitimately pissed that Ibushi had been brought in at the top of the card, beat one of their top names over 30+ minutes, only to have to disappear again.

1, 12, 13, 18, 25

6 minutes ago, organizedkaos said:

"Kenny is dead, he's a corpse being puppetted by his opponent"

Yoshihiko is Kenny Omega. Kenny Omega is Yoshihiko.

21 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

Punk/Austin 😂

That's never happening.

Is this all based on the promo package off WWE All Stars 12 years ago, or has there actually been legit talk or hints of this in the real world?

Who is Danielson's next match against? Because, although it'd never happen, I'd love it if the match went less than a minute and he lost by stoppage because the opponent just kept smashing the protective shield into Danielson's face.

I hate the Johnson thumb point. There's something very staged and focus-grouped about it, as if pointing with the index finger has been deemed too judgey, so instead we get a stubby little sausage jabbed at us on the end of a fist - "I'm being authoritative but DON'T YOU DARE QUESTION ME."

In presentations, hands should be in front of you, not flailing out to the sides, and should be used to help visualise what you're describing. I'm in data, so a lot of the time I'm having to describe pretty abstract processes to a set of stakeholders that don't have the technical knowledge; essentially miming how things connect together helps translate things, even if they might not understand the terminology.

I'm also wary of filler phrases. I have to stop myself saying "The most important thing is..." when that's just the next thing on my list, or "Not being funny, but..." just because I'm countering my own point. "So", "and", and "but" are the worst offenders, creating run-on sentences which make your audience tune out because they don't know when you've finished making your current point. I'm teaching myself to take a breath as a full stop, then move onto my next point as a new thing.

Considering Punk blew out his feet stage-diving and flipping into the ring under his own control, the most interesting thing about a Seth match for me is seeing whether Punk explodes into dust taking Rollins' ridiculous superplex-falcon arrow combo.

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

I think I'll have to disagree with that. None of my favourite stories, feuds, matches or angles have had any worked shoot stuff in them. I don't really like the real life blending in at all. When it comes to wrestling I basically want a compelling and exciting complete work of fiction with a beginning, middle and end. When they start incorporating real life stuff in it for I find it removes the escapism element of it - which is what I watch wrestling for in the first place. 

Agreed. Believable and real are two very different things. I could believe the Macho King hated the Ultimate Warrior, and wanted to beat him so bad he was happy to put his career on the line; I couldn't care less if Randall Poffo was going to have a great match with Jim the face-painted loose cannon. In fact, if you have to make it real to get the heat you want, I'd say you suck at wrestling. What applies to strikes applies to the mic.

1 hour ago, CharlesTuckerTheThird said:

Today I found out there's a whole subset of people who believe in voluntary trepanning to help with things like anxiety and depression. Well, it'd give them something else to focus on, I guess...

20 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

You'll find the rest of them on GREAT! Christmas.

And Movies24, which has calling itself Christmas24 since September.

Spot which veteran TV/film elderstatesman/lady has boat payments to make.

Michael Ironside turned up in one, and gave Russell Crowe a run for his money for Best Fat Version,  but for giving far too much to a nothing script instead of accents on scooters. Has his arm in a sling too, for added Starship Troopers headcanon.

1 hour ago, jazzygeofferz said:

The US and UK were instrumental in getting the Israeli state established as well post World War II, so sometimes i think there's a bit of having to look the other way rather than admit that they were at least partially responsible for this whole thing in the first place. 

This is definitely a part of it, and, in my opinion, deliberate. Splitting the region and purposefully having a land wall of Israelis between two densely-populated areas of underprivileged Arabs was a surefire recipe for instability requiring constant "assistance" from the West.

I don't know much about the West Bank (though I can imagine Israel are warier going near it due to its closer proximity to powerful Arab allies) but within years of being established, Israel essentially reduced Gaza to an internment camp through naval blockades, military checkpoints, and physical walls. They've got the ability to raze Gaza to the ground, then control the rate and amount of aid that gets in afterwards.

They may argue tit for tat now, but when the US and UK stepped away, Israel made the first strike.

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Atsushi Onita talked in an interview once about he did violent deathmatches because they left powerful images in the audience's mind, that you could see a perfectly executed wrestling match, but you'd have forgotten all of it by the next day, whereas what he did lingered and you remembered it. I don't want to go as far as WWE booking for Wrestlemania Moments™ , but I do think really great matches have those moments and visuals that stick with you long after the match is over - Austin bleeding in the Sharpshooter is the obvious example that comes to mind - and I have never got that out of Rollins as a singles wrestler, he has technically excellent matches and then they're over and you move on, and I'd struggle to tell you what happened in one Seth Rollins match over any other.

I think another problem with trying to find those defining moments in the current roster's careers is the longer time they've been there on our screens. I always use Stone Cold as the example - he debuted in the WWF in 95 (after only 6 years elsewhere), and 8 years later was retired, and for a chunk of the mid and latter part of that was injured or in a huff respectively. Finding the top 5 moments of a guy is much easier when there's only a few years to choose from, in the way that your brain naturally filters out memories that are similar to one another; I might've had an absolutely bangin' breakfast 2 years ago, but I've had so many breakfasts since then that I simply won't recall it. Seth Rollins is in his 11th main roster year wrestling the same style he always has, against opponents wrestling the same style they always have, in storylines that don't affect the in-match storytelling (the Cody cage match notably aside) wearing different skins to keep the toy lines running.

It's an issue affecting the majority of the roster, but it stands out more with Seth because he's so fxxxin' loud, and the disconnect between his in-ring work and out-ring persona is so massive.

35 minutes ago, air_raid said:

…. ((unsure if this is accidental redundancy or intentional trying to sound like a menu)) ….. 

…. I actually associate mushroom soup far more with Christmas than prawn cocktail. Technically many years ago mama raid did a prawn cocktail starter once for Christmas Day then decided it was too much faff and everyone wanted more room for poultry, pig and potatoes anyway. Far more recently Mrs raid made mushroom soup as part of making whatever she wants literally every day bar 25th from about 20th to New Year - fish, dumplings, salad, whatever - and it’s one of the best things I’ve eaten.

Wouldn’t slap a Christmas bag on mushroom crisps mind.

My other half has extended family in the States, so because I'm hilarious and a delight to live with, I regularly tease her that she's American rather than from Rugby, but this did mean I ended up doing some Thanksgiving-style roast dinners with my go at American sides. Green bean casserole is now a regular at Christmas - it's basically runner beans baked in mushroom soup with cheese and onions on top, so dead easy and great with your drier bits of turkey.

1 hour ago, BigJag said:

It's very worrying with the way pro-palestinian support is being gaslit by powerful elements of government and media. I guess it shows the pervasiveness of Israeli lobbying. You'd think though that the optics of the news coming out of Gaza would make these people see sense, and bring some balance to their rhetoric.

But the Palestinians are brown.

19 minutes ago, air_raid said:

Why the fuck would you not want WrestleMania XXXX to BE "WrestleMania XXXX"?

Shame they wouldn't host it in Australia.

56 minutes ago, Loki said:

Someone posted a video of Stevie Richards going into detail on Bret Hart's power bomb onto the knee, and how it was done so Hart takes the weight properly across the knee and then his opponent takes a safe flat back bump, and that led me down a rabbit hole of those videos showing how to safely land moves.

Watching MJF and Omega repeatedly drop each other on their heads or take bumps on one shoulder, I did wonder if either these younger wrestlers know something the older ones didn't, or if the fundamental desire to not injure your opponent is just less now in the sport.  MJF did the power bomb onto the knee, failed to have a base and just dropped Omega onto his shoulder.  And there were many pretty sloppy looking bumps in this match.

I mean, a really fun and enjoyable main event but I can't imagine Omega can do this for that much longer, he looks physically wrecked, his back is bowed and his hips look shot and his neck seems quite fucked. And MJF went for a whole load of moves he doesn't normally perform, and messed quite a few up.  Given the number of injuries recently in AEW, perhaps the road agents need to slow these guys down a bit?

As someone who got back into working after several years out, I spend more time trying to STOP my young opponents from taking stuff. It doesn't matter if you "don't mind taking it" - you don't win points with me at least by offering yourself up as a crash test dummy. I think it betrays the actual insecurity in today's wrestlers that so many feel the need to smash their bump card to pieces, as if, without running off or making money being factors in who keeps working, this is the new paying of your dues. Despite being constantly told that it's about making the crowd care and making everything matter, they seem insistent on undercutting that through no-selling and refusing to do anything without counting to three all the time.

It's why I find hotshotting so insulting for the wrestlers. It reads like the booker trusts you to bash yourself up for a star rating, but doesn't trust you to build an angle to draw a gate. Again, it's probably because gates don't seem to matter anymore either. I also don't know if any of the talent get bonuses for taking extra risks or being booked in dangerous stipulation matches.

Omega has never looked better than when he obliterated Sonny Kiss in a minute, and MJF is at his best when he's talking shit and getting the bare bones basics over. This week's match was exciting popcorn, unrealistic bullshit, but worse for both their healths.

Grrr, argh, kids these days, blah blah, etc.

IMO, a decent summary from Vox, covering 75 years of conflict and political movement in 15 minutes:

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Both men's formulas were about selling, but Hogan's was built on babyface selling to build sympathy leading into the superman comeback, and Flair's was about begging off and heel selling to facilitate the babyface's shine. You say that Flair's formula was built around wrestling holds, but 99% of it isn't - it's begging off, the Flair flop, the Harley Race corner bump, the top rope cut-off, which is all structured so that Flair can basically wrestle himself, and only has to rely on the actual wrestling when in there against an opponent like Steamboat or Funk. Even when Flair's on offence, it's knee drops, chops, punches, and leg work - all stuff that doesn't rely on his opponent controlling their bump or really having to cooperate at all, all stuff that he could perform on anyone, and that's where the "Flair could have a good match with a broomstick" stuff comes from.

Kind of the opposite to this topic, but I'm sure it was something similar to this that you posted that suddenly made Ric Flair click for me. When you look at what he was doing, then all you can see is the limited moveset and clowning. But then you look at what he's doing when he's NOT "doing" anything, and you see how incredible he was. The positioning, the crowd working, the timing, the adapting to his opponent, the teaching he's giving them live right there in front of you. Every vet claims that all a rookie needs to do is follow them, but Flair is the only one I've seen that truly did that, the subtle body language combined with ridiculously simple cues for the young guy that gets both over as heel and face respectively without a single hold being exchanged.

On topic, I know they've both been massively influential to workers that I've actually liked, but it's Dynamite Kid and (winces) Owen Hart.

Dynamite Kid might have pioneered the breakneck light heavyweight style, but he always seemed to me to be nothing more than a vicious little cxxt, whose fragile masculinity refused to let him sell anything once he had an ounce of gassed-up muscle. Rocco had the viciousness but with the character and personality befitted his size. Bret had the technical skill and tank but with the regard for his opponent and ability to build sympathy through work. Davey Boy had the look with a bit of guileless charm. Billington was just a boring nasty bastard.

Owen was good, but I never found him as good as many apparently did. He never seemed to have that breakout performance, and a lot of his career seems to be other people advocating for him, or keeping him around because he was well-liked. He was definitely a great worker, but always a step behind Bret in terms of execution, with not enough fire to be a truly great face nor enough bile for a heel (where being a deluded goof will only get you so far, and being too entertaining in that way undermining any real sense of threat to generate heat for the face).

28 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

It's not going to win any awards but if you want a game where you play as Robocop blowing shit up and handing out parking tickets then this is the game for you.

The forum did once ask should traffic wardens be armed, so...

The Expendables franchise lost me early doors when they booked Stallone (ie Rocky, renowned for boxing) and Jean Claude Van Damme (ie all the kickboxing, all the time) in a knife fight. At that point, I knew the whole thing was the mates wanking over their own self images instead of having fun with their combined on-screen personas and satisfying all those "who'd win in a fight between" playground debates. I don't care who'd win in a fight between Oscar-baiting muscleman Stallone vs smug cigar-chomping politico Schwarzenegger; show me unhinged black ops huntsman Rambo vs an unstoppable shotgun toting killing machine. Not once did Lundgren wield a medieval war sword. Not once did the Stath end up shirtless and covered in oil. Just a bunch of blokes in identical Boss Man fatigues standing there shooting stuff. Zero stars.

Fuck it, I'm owning it - I'm in my Zbysko era. If anyone wants me, I'll be over here, avoiding bumps and turning my back on the commentary desk to soak up the cheers from the crowd at Nitro.

Larry in 91 would've been 40 - my age! Fuck.

39 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Watching a bit of Saturday Night from 92 and I know it’s not news to anyone on here but it can’t be stated enough how brilliant this lot were as a bastard faction.

Paul E, Ravishing Rick, Madusa, Double A, Beautiful Bobby, Stunning Steve and Larry Z. Incredible.

Always amazes me to think the Dangerous Alliance was only even a thing for what 7 or 8 months? I guess Halloween Havoc 91 was pretty much the beginning of the group with Rude coming in and Arn and Larry slamming Barry Windham’s hand in the car door the same night. All under Paul E’s watch. And although Arn and Bobby still teamed for a bit after, they all kind of splintered after that awesome War Games in May 92. So short lived but so memorable. WCW had a knack for that, didn’t they? I often forget how short a time the Hollywood Blonds were actually a team as well. Didn’t even last a full year and the way they split them up was arse as well.

Don’t even know what this post is but yeah. The Dangerous Alliance! 

Seems like a healthy life cycle in an era where guys would get together, make an impact, then move onto other things. It feels like in the last decade or so, teams take 6 months to even get an identity, let alone do anything memorable.

They knew the order to come out in that gif. Madusa to get your attention, then Rude and Austin as your units to put you in your place, crusty old grumps propping up the midfield, and the smooth workhorse at the back with greasy Heyman to offset his doughiness.