RedTwoster

I totally agree - unlike Danielson, I don't need to see him win the World Title again before he retires. I would, however, be perfectly fine with seeing him challenge for the belt one last time unsuccessfully. For that to work as effectively as it can, it would need to be a strong heel like MJF rather than Ospreay - although I suppose there's value in him putting Ospreay over. I don't want them to retire together - I'd like a bit more of Christian before he hangs up his boots - but there isn't a more appropriate final opponent for him than Christian Cage; with Christian going full heel on him heading into that final bout, wanting end Edge's wrestling career by proving he's always been the better of the two of them. I think you're probably right. I'm not sure Copeland would see it that way, though.

Like @westlondonmist, I loved Wonder and I thought the consensus was that it was the best 2D Mario platformer since World on the SNES, but perhaps I've missed some division between fans on social media. One game that is definitely divisive is Mario Kart World and I think most people prefer 8. I'm not one of them. I really loved World and have put hours into it. The open world could have had a bit more to do - or at least a way of logging your progress, but I still enjoyed farting around in it and doing challenges. In terms of recommendations - Splatoon Raiders is a very enjoyable game, and I say that as someone who has not given much love to the Splatoon series in general. Donkey Kong Bananza is my favourite Nintendo platformer - 2D or 3D - in years, and it's so creative and clever that I can't imagine you would not have fun playing your way through it. Pokopia is something you could easily sink hours/days/weeks into. If you're into tactical RPGs, you can't go wrong with the new Fire Emblem. Althought it's available on other systems, I loved playing Pragmata on the Switch and almost every AAA port I've played so far has worked incredibly well, with the portability more than outweighing the graphical downgrade. The Elden Ring port has given me another excuse to play through that game again and the port of Oblivion has been my favourite way to play that particular game. The Indiana Jones and Cyberpunk ports are also fantastic - and both on the cartridge, rather than being Game Keycards. So yeah, you've a lot of great gaming ahead of you.

I wonder if it'll be held in Canada, with Copeland having his final World title match there as you're suggesting. I know not everyone here has been a fan of Copeland's AEW run, but what a fantastic ambassador for the company he's been. In every interview he talks glowingly about the company and how much he's enjoying himself and he really makes it sound like a company you'd want to work for if you were a wrestler, or watch if you're a fan. I imagine Tony Khan has viewed him as a very worthwhile investment. I wouldn't be shocked if Christian Cage decided to retire alongside him, but I hope we have a little bit more of him before he calls it a day. The Patriarch character is one of the best AEW creations of all, and he's had the run of his career in that company. The show on the whole was a little mediocre, but I can't do anything other than give them a pass considering the horrific circumstances they had do deal with in between All Out and Wrestledream. It's perfectly understandable why the build to the show has been so rushed. I still don't think there was any need to run with the predictable qualifying matches, though. Why on earth should Myron Reed, Lee Moriarty or Ace Austin be in contention for a World Title match? If they want to run a series of qualifiers like that, frame it as a themed set - an 'opportunity of a lifetime' in which younger wrestlers are being given the chance to prove themselves against the best, and have one of them actually succeed. The New Level segment was painful. Fair enough, they were probably obliged to give that guy the chance to promote whatever he was promoting but fucking hell, that was the opposite of promotion, it made me never want to see that guy ever again. It was definitely the worst segment AEW has run this year. Talking of painful, that segment with Andrade, Ospreay and The Brawling Birds...my goodness. It was very WWE, wrestlers uttering the same tired lines and the same old catchphrases. I can do without hearing Alex Windsor saying "slags" and Andrade asking "How you know?" ever again. And the selfie spot? Bin it. Stop. It's shit and adds nothing to his matches. First time round it was fun, now it's the wrestling equivalent of a Little Britain catchphrase. Wrestledream should be a fun show and although I hope they're able to move on to their next big storyline as soon as it's done, whatever it may be.

I’ll add another AEW one to the list…Trench. I’m not even joking when I say I’m more intrigued about this man’s story than almost any other AEW wrestler ever. I’m not even sure I can call him a wrestler, as he doesn’t seem to have ever been in a match. How did he even end up on television, in a company that prioritises ring work over anything else? Why was he released so quickly? What is he doing now?

He had a few other matches, including one against Umaga and another against Khali where he did...this beforehand: Harley Cameron, eat your heart out.

I didn't really care about the Ocarina of Time remake, but today the previews have been published (link to a VGC preview by the excellent Chris Scullion...who is also a wrestling fan, so may well be a poster on here...) and they're absolutely glowing. It seems it's not, as it first appeared, a 1:1 remake and the gameplay is sensational. You can fuck your GTA VI, this is the November game I'm most excited about (assuming I'm finished with Final Fantasy Resonance by that point, which I'm also buzzing for) I'd been a bit down on the most recent Nintendo Direct, but goodness me, I've had a great year of gaming with my Switch 2. My PS5 has been gathering dust.

And fair play to him too, he quit when Vince McMahon made his return as he didn't want to work for him. I can't imagine he's someone who is sitting on a particularly sizeable bank balance, so I can't but respect the fact he seemingly stuck to his morals. There are plenty of people with much less to lose who've been unable to do the same. Huh, how did that get there?

On the subject of ECW, there was the BWO's short-lived run on Smackdown, on the back of JBL legitimately assaulting Blue Meanie on the ECW One Night Stand show for calling him a bully (perfect way to prove an allegation like that wrong - well done, Bradshaw) It resulted in Meanie getting a win over JBL on Smackdown - presumably to discourage him from suing the company: Then the BWO briefly reformed on Smackdown, taking on the Mexicools in a match before the gimmick was dumped and Meanie was never seen on WWE television again. As far as announcers go, whatever happened to Goldenboy with AEW? He announced a show, was genuinely excellent, the company gave him the All Elite graphic... And then he completely disappeared.

Ah yeah, when they tried to do the whole Undertaker/Kane thing with Abyss! And then Judas Mesias would go on to become the brilliant Mil Muertes, so it seems they might have actually been on to something with the wrestler, though perhaps not the character.

While I'm shouting at the clouds, I'm going to say I'm definitely in favour of a ban on the public sale of fireworks. My cousin's dog literally died of fear during a particularly lengthy display. My own pets live in absolute terror every time they're in use. I can only imagine what impact they have on wild animals. Then you do have situations every year in which they're tossed through letterboxes, thrown at emergency service workers and just generally used to cause terror. I hate them.

I'm amazed there hasn't been a more visible public awareness campaign on the fact e-scooters are not road or pavement legal. There are quite a few primary school kids in my area who whizz about on them, some with helmets, some without and it makes driving quite scary. I've had to slam the brakes on a number of times when a child has zoomed out of a blind junction without paying any attention to what might be coming their way. They go so fast on pavements with them, if they were to hit a younger child or pensioner it would surely result in serious injury. While some people definitely don't give a shit, I suspect there is a staggering lack of awareness when it comes to the laws surrounding these things.

Network Representative Palmer Canon - Teddy Long was still GM at the time, and Canon was presented as the thorn in his side. I think he briefly feuded with Miz without ever wrestling, before quitting for real; accusing JBL of harassing/bullying him.

He had a great career in my EWR game if that's of any consolation to him. Multiple time WWE champion. I remember him from Tough Enough, but I had no idea that he'd been rebranded as Rodman, or that he had actually wrestled matches. And then there was an entire division that came and went in the blink of an eye - anyone remember the Junior Division?

Oh yeah, you could probably get enough material for a book from TNA's short termers - The Nasty Boys, coming in, defeating Team 3D and getting sacked after disgracing themselves and the company in front of Spike TV executives at an event. Bubba the Love Sponge, Orlando Jordan and Sean Morley. Then moving outside of the Hogan-era, you had... Disgraceland! An evil Elvis impersonator, who was feuding with the non-evil Elvis impersonators, the Flying Elvises (the first ever Elvis vs. Elvis feud in wrestling?) - he definitely had one match, which he lost, but may have had two, I'm not certain. Big Fat Oily Guy! A parody of an already awful character, WWE's Big Dick Johnson. He wrestled Christy Hemme once. More of a gimmick being binned quickly than a person though, he was with the company for years as Tiny the Bellkeeper. The Johnsons! A fairly well known one. The Shane Twins portraying wrestling penises. They appeared on TNA's debut show, wrestled again for them two weeks later then were dumped by the company. But that's OK, as they would go on to portray the wildly successful Gymini in WWE. Jethro Holliday! A slightly longer stint for Trevor Murdoch - a five month run in TNA in 2009 - my impression is that it's widely forgotten about though, and I'm mentioning it because around half of his matches aired online only. I could keep going, but you get the point.

So obscure that I can't even find the tease in question, but TNA promoted the upcoming debut of a wrestler named 'Andromeda', who was supposed to be portrayed by exotico wrestler Cassandro. He was released before debuting. Seems like there are conflicting accounts of why this happened, with Cassandro saying he left after experiencing homophobia and the company saying it was due to visa issues.

Odyssey Jones. I'm not really sure what the situation was with him, but it seemed a little murky and unclear, as far as those things go. He's ended up wrestling for All Japan and MLW.

Inspired by this post by Lorne Malvo and, of course, by Max Caster being sacked by TNA for comments made within the first few seconds of his debut for the company. I don't want to limit this to just sackings for bad behaviour, but what are the best examples of companies binning wrestlers following their first appearances? Here's my pick - if it even counts... Brian Kendrick was dumped from AEW before even making his debut after clips of him resurfaced spouting out mad conspiracy theories including Holocaust denial. He didn't even get beyond the graphic hyping a match...

From that apology, I can kind of see why companies would be wary of him. "If I get a reaction, as far as I see it, I'm doing my job" - stupid logic that people often apply to wrestling. If it were that simple, everyone would go out there and say the most extreme things they possibly could every week and the audience would be fine with it. What you say needs to have purpose behind it beyond 'getting a reaction'. "I can't apologise if I offended you, but just know, I'm trying to entertain." - again, really dumb logic. "But...I was trying to entertain" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card when you mess up. If he's stubborn to the point he's sticking to that way of thinking after crossing the line several times in multiple companies, it has to make the prospect of working with him extremely challenging. And that's a shame, in spite of those flaws he's a talented guy.

MLW is a great shout actually, I could absolutely see that happening. I'd like to see him stay with AEW, although the fact his contract has expired makes me think that's unlikely. He's really good on the mic and great in ring - when he finds the right character, I could see him becoming a big star wherever he lands.

I could see Tony Khan eventually taking pity on him and bringing him back to AEW in some form. If the opportunity ever arises to reform The Acclaimed, it's a bit of a no-brainer for me that you might want to do that.

As far as this goes, to be fair on Caster, that might have been down to the fact they attracted a crowd of around 2,500 in a venue that could accommodate 10,000. I've admittedly not watched the show, but I can't imagine it was an electric atmosphere at any point of the show.

According to who? Given that he left WWE after being asked to take a pay cut, the odds of him joining a company which would pay him even less seem extremely low. Anyway, TNA have now formally confirmed that Caster is no longer with them (link to Fightful). I'd always wanted to see AEW do more with Caster, but incidents like this help you understand why they didn't - he's an absolute liability. Referencing an attack that resulted in multiple deaths is stupid in itself, but given TNA's links with Saudi money-superfans WWE it's down right idiotic to do something like that. He obviously has form for this - referring to a real-life rape during a rap on Dark and (to be honest, I've only just learned about this one) forcing them to cut a rap on Rampage that referred to the Luigi Mangione case (link to Sports Illustrated) then complaining when they cut it. The other thing I've learned from this incident is that he's 37, making me think he perhaps doesn't have it in him to learn from his mistakes.

That first clip with Jacy Jayne is one of the most terrifying spots I've seen in quite some time. They're incredibly lucky that the head knock on the ropes didn't lead to a neck break or worse.

Totally this - going from a ranking system to Myron Reed, Lee Moriarty and Ace Austin in contention for a World Title match is quite something. The death of PAC has presumably affected planning, but they have an enormous roster and could still have gone with better qualifiers. Everyone is rooting for Daniel Garcia right now - give him a qualifier against Okada or Copeland and have him take them to the limit. Claudio Castagnoli is a perfectly feasible World Title challenger - put him in there. Maybe you do Darby vs. Nick Wayne, given that Wayne just defeated Jericho. Maybe you continue the friction between Fletcher and Knight by having one of them enter a qualifier, with the other accusing them of prioritising their singles career over their tag title opportunity. You have Orange Cassidy and Eddie Kingston - both credible options. I can't stand him, but Kyle O'Reilly has been presented as a credible force, what about him? Heck, Juice Robinson is a more interesting option than Ace Austin - put him in a qualifier. It's a very underwhelming line-up for Dynamite.

The fact there are so many champions in these qualifiers does leave me thinking there surely will be a few upsets. I can't imagine we won't have any of the men's singles titles defended on that card outside of the National title, otherwise it'll be an extremely light card. I guess you could have someone pull double duty, but that doesn't seem likely either. EDIT: I forgot about the Continental title. Still, I could see either Darby losing by interference to set up a match at the PPV. Not a chance in hell Okada is losing to Myron Reed, though.