LCJ

17 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

 Sure Pete will get round to posting in the dead yhread, but still. 

Listening to Evertonians calling TalkSport during Drive Time yesterday was really sad. They were talking about how the Moyes and Kenwright partnership was a successful double act that allowed Everton to hold their own in the Premier League for a while with limited resources. But in recent years, a lot of Everton fans had given Kenwright a hard time due to how poorly Everton have been doing. I have no affiliation with Everton at all but that was an emotional listen.

2 hours ago, andrew "the ref" coyne said:

Did he in anyway shape or form draw for ecw?

I don’t have access to ECW’s accounts from when Al Snow was there on loan from WWE but the promotion seemed to lose money more often than not over the years. I suppose they held shows in small arenas and before they were on TNN, they were on even smaller TV stations across the States and in poor time-slots. For all I know, a lot of States probably had no access to ECW at all. It’s fair to say that Al Snow “found his feet” in ECW though when he started using the Head gimmick and he was definitely over. Probably only with a niche audience though.

42 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

Plenty will though. He has a particularly dedicated fanbase, amazingly enough.

Wasn’t he charging like £200 an autograph or photo at For the Love of Wrestling in Liverpool just before the pandemic? They sold in no time and he was even hid behind a cretin in case the great unwashed even got a glimpse of him.

 

Think it was around £150 for a photo and £150 for an autograph. Probably a bit more. Even so, still a lot of money. And a Hell of a lot of people queued for that so God only knows how much money Mark made from that weekend. His one man show that he’s been doing around the world before the big WWE PLEs isn’t cheap either. Nor was his Inside The Ropes show where they weren’t allowed to do a Q&A (presumably because WWE complained).

2 hours ago, Tommy! said:

I agree, but my point still stands he's over rated by the WWE lense through selective memory.

That’s fair enough. Calaway probably would’ve fallen by the wayside if he’d have stayed as Mean Mark.

18 hours ago, Tommy! said:

Not quite on topic but I think undertaker is overrated because of the WWE hype machine. Post 91 to 96 was shit and post summerslam to him fucking off was shit.

His 2000 return was good until mania 17 then he was on and off until mania 24.

I'm not saying he's not good, he's just not as good as wwe says and so not as good as people looking only through the WWE lense say 

I think that WWE gave Mark Calaway the perfect gimmick. Undertaker suited him perfectly and covered up his limited mic skills, especially in the early years.

16 minutes ago, air_raid said:

Vince tolerates anything from nearly anyone if they’ve got the balls to push him. Depending on which Steve Austin standard you’re holding him to - if it’s reprehensible actions of an abusive/criminal nature, he kept a murderer on the books for years. (I’ve never seen one before, no one has, but I’m guessing it’s a White Hole). If you simply mean playing the Hulk Hogan “doesn’t work for me, brother” card and getting creative changed, everyone either side of Austin, Shawn, Hogan and Bret whined their way into getting it plans changed on major shows, from Honky Tonk Man to Alberto Del Rio and numerous other historical footnotes. It would be quicker to list the wrestlers that just kept their head down and did whatever they were told than all those that got away with bad behaviour.

I was referring more to the creative side of things and people not doing as they were told or going into business for themselves rather than what went on in the private life of certain wrestlers.

As an example of my point, I couldn’t envisage CM Punk doing what he did at the media scrum last year if he’d have been working for WWE and sitting next to Vince McMahon. I’d bet my mortgage on Vince firing him for something like that. Which to be honest, is probably what Punk wanted at the time (and it happened a year later instead) but that’s beside the point.

Well, I did say Vince was a cunt. He probably found the Flair story funny which is why it ended up as a cartoon on the Network. And to be honest, half of the stuff from the Attitude Era wouldn’t fly today as we know (and some of it is cut from the Network). Times were different then. Society has changed. It was a quarter of a century ago.

1 minute ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

He covered up murders, the flight from hell, Nailz, pushed steroids, backstage brawls. Yeah, he certainly took no shit

How did he cover up the plane ride from Hell? It was widely reported at the time and Curt Hennig got fired. Going further back, Nailz was fired too(?).

33 minutes ago, TheBurningRed said:

One day, there’s going to be a book or documentary or even both on Tony Khan with Herb Abrams type of stories. And it’s going to be great. I’d love to know the bat shit stuff he says and does around the wrestlers. He’s already weird enough at the post show scrums with facial expressions and certain things he says. That time he awkwardly hugged Okada always springs to mind. There’s got to be some great stories behind the scenes already. Bet those WhatsApp groups are popping.

For all of Vinces worst aspects as a human being and some of the stuff he has come up with, you feel like he’s someone the wrestlers respect and also fear in some ways. He was/is an actual boss. The locker room must just laugh at Khan and take the piss. 

This is the main difference. Although Vince McMahon is a cunt, he doesn’t tolerate any bad behaviour from wrestlers (with the exception of maybe Shawn Michaels in the 90s and Steve Austin later on). McMahon is an actual authority figure who the wrestlers fear but also respect. Tony Khan is like you say, Herb Abrams but with even more money to spend. If Tony Khan really wants to compete with WWE, he needs to write the cheques and step aside for someone who actually knows how to run a wrestling promotion who isn’t a mark for the talent roster.

Suppose it was a case of Gundogan and Mahrez winning everything they could at City so both moved on. Gundogan in particular is a definite hard act to follow. Kovacic started the season quite well but looked like a liability today.

It wasn’t a good game at all. Just boring. Brighton v Liverpool before it was far better.

Arsenal were fortunate to be playing a City team without KDB and Rodri but they still deserved the win. City just didn’t play well enough today. I still think Rodri strangled that Forest player because he fancied three games off.

1 minute ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Yeah, it's never going to happen and we're just going to sleepwalk into fascism unfortunately.

Could argue we’ve already been there for years. Especially since Brexit.

Brilliant.

2 hours ago, Chili said:

So in a way a bit of Thatcher with Liverpool, the fuck em who cares attitude to it because it's up here yeah.

Pretty much. That “Northern Powerhouse”slogan can fuck off too. Patronising, lying cunts.

I’m certain the project would’ve been completed had it started in Manchester and finished in London. The Government would’ve found the money then.

One of my friends who’s always been a diehard Tory (I put political differences aside) is livid about the HS2 Northern line cancellation. It will impact his job. Whether it will stop him voting Conservative is another matter.

It’s always good if you can afford a few lessons from a grade 8 pro but who can also teach well. Tends to be expensive though but it’s still worth doing as they can point out what you’re doing right and wrong etc..

I often find Justin Sandercoe’s videos quite helpful. Yousician is also quite a fun learning tool if you’re happy to pay the monthly subscription and it’s far cheaper than guitar lessons in person. If you try the lessons on there and stick to it, you will improve. Maybe your local college does a guitar beginners or intermediate course as an evening class? That’s how I started ten years ago.

And with the rail service being an overpriced shambles, it’s often cheaper to fly than it is to go by train. Never mind the carbon footprint of course.

HS2 to Manchester believed to be scrapped according to Sky News. So much for “levelling up”.

Can’t see Sancho leaving Man United unless it’s on loan (or on a free at the end of his contract). United decided to pay him 350k a week and I can’t see him wanting to give up that wage or anyone else agreeing that kind of wage for him. I can see why ETH isn’t happy with Sancho. There’s no way his performances have warranted the huge weekly wage he’s getting but on the other hand, there’s an argument that what ETH said should’ve been kept behind closed doors and not said for the world to hear at a press conference. Can only guess Sancho will go out on loan abroad eventually with United paying half his wages (unless ETH gets the sack).

Suppose Al was part of WWE when they were arguably at their peak (ie. ‘98 to ‘01) but as he was just a mid-card act, proclaiming himself to be a draw is stretching things.

Couldn’t quite believe my ears when I heard Al Snow say that he used to bring the Mannequin Head with him to restaurants and have conversations with it (literally living the gimmick). Also said he’d been kicked out of tonnes of restaurants because of that said behaviour. Bloody nutter!

3 hours ago, chokeout said:

I'm wondering if Riddle (rightfully) shitting on UFC and Dana for years or being a garbage human more recently was the reason for his release. 

Dana is 100% petty enough to want to fire Riddle twice. 

Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.

Wyman married Mandy Smith around 1989 I think when she was 18. They’d been in a relationship for years before that though (definitely before she was 16). 
 

Steven Tyler had an underage girlfriend who he got pregnant and forced her into having an abortion in the 1970s when he was in his mid twenties.

And while I’m not condoning what Ric Flair did on the plane ride from Hell, proven wife beater Steve Austin seemingly escaping criticism from the IWC and being a talking head on that particular series of Dark Side of the Ring didn’t sit well with me. I’m guessing the Dark Side creators won’t do an episode on Austin refusing to job to Brock Lesnar and going home where he beat Debra because he was one of their favourite wrestlers. Double standards I suppose.