Up Chuck

Especially as he'd been wrestling for almost ten years prior to their main roster debut. Takes a lot to turn it around after that long.

The only upside to the Ascension joining Evolution would be that their farewell promo on NXT might have a shot of being conceptually pleasing to nerds like me who pay too much attention. Those guys definitely need something different to make the step up, because their current schtick screams "developmental", but Evolution ain't it. I say let 'em fester in NXT for ages 'til they come up with something good, like Adam Rose.

Close-ups of that look exactly like the whatever-it's-called from behind a boat (wake? I think it's wake. Maybe not).

Yeah, you're not wrong. It's shitty facts with the consolation prize of it being woven into a great narrative with the perfect guy to conquer burial mountain. I'm enjoying this for what it is, and the video did make me chuckle, but there's a bit of uncomfortable truth behind it.

This Rumble sounds amazing!

Hadn't looked at Birmingham much because I'm fairly certain the commuting costs would be prohibitive at this point, but I do look within a pretty big radius. The one I had the interview for was in Nottinghamshire.

Got a call this morning to tell me that an application I'd presumed had quietly died is, in fact, still active, as the deadline for applications isn't for another week. Reasonably confident of an interview there. Despite my moping, things are moving in the right direction.

Cheers guys. I did, in fact, immediately email back asking for feedback. They said the successful candidate had more experience of long-term project planning for the thing I would've been doing, and that they'd keep my details on record (I replied saying thanks and don't hesitate to get in touch if something comes up etc etc etc). It's a pretty big organisation and they mentioned aiming to double in size, so hopefully they weren't just saying that to get the over-keen loser off their backs.

The situation's probably not as bleak as I felt like it was. It's just a kick in the teeth when you feel like you've nailed it for once, and then you get slapped down yet again. I think the thing that hit me, before they emailed back, was that I'd asked the golden question "Is there any part of the job you think I can't do?" (recruitment agency recommended, that - gives you that last shot at negating their doubts, or something) and she'd ummed and ahed for a sec then flat out said "no", so not getting it made me think "Well what the fuck am I supposed to do *now*?"

I dunno. I guess it's alright, all things considered. Definitely better than just not hearing back, which is where I was a few months ago.

Gave probably my best interview performance ever on Tuesday, ticked pretty much every box, had a great rapport with the interviewer, was told they'd get back to me next week-ish. Two days later, rejected. Just stumped. No idea what went wrong. I feel like I want to give up and go in a whole new direction now. Every single PR, copywriting, social media or whatever other job I'm qualified and experienced for seems to have something unidentifiable that trips me up. I fall just short every single bloody time and I'm sick of this horrible feeling. To the point where, despite everyone in the profession I know constantly having a horrible time, I'm genuinely thinking about training to teach. Because there seems to be an omnipresent consensus that I can't fucking do.

IIRC, he was a writer before they got him on telly, and they swapped him in for Daivari because he was shorter, which made Khali look even bigger.

"I am random and crazy" isn't a good thing.

 

 

People that claim to be that arnt. Define being random?

Using comic sans in your emails.

Seeing as Fish can never seem to get into Canada.

What's that all about then? Criminal record or something?

Caught some ROH for the first time in years the other day when my mate made me watch Tomasso Ciampa vs Hanson from whatever the recent PPV was. Enjoyed that a lot. I'd never seen either guy before but they had a fun match with just the right amount of indy to make it fresh compared to all the WWE I've been watching. Love Ciampa's finisher too, especially as he can hit it on a big guy.

We watched the latest TV episode afterwards and that was pretty decent too. Wasn't a massive fan of Elgin coming out and outright asking for Hanson and that nazi-biker-looking guy's help - seems like it'd have served a high-up babyface better if he'd just stopped at "I've got your back", then they voluntarily had his later on when he was getting beaten down or something. Some solidarity in action against the heels, rather than your crusading babyface actively recruiting.

Can't remember much else other than the fact that Steve Corino looks like a different person and I still really feel like I'm missing whatever everybody else is seeing in Kevin Steen.

The animal TV shows bit was great when I saw him touring the stuff. The fella going to the toilet put it over the top.

I understand this is the internet age, but I shouldn't have to risk some dodgy streaming website to watch one of the biggest shows of the year.

Pay for the WWE Network then. Or get the free trial, it's still going on til this weekend.

I've had to use UJ to apply for a job where the description is a copy and paste job of a "two weeks but advertised as 6 months to permanent" position I fell for a couple of years back.

Surf's heard this story already, I think, but: my missus, who isn't on JSA, uses UJ to look for jobs occasionally. The other day, she found an article writing one that looked promising (

It's such a shame that Quackenbush is a po-faced self-important wanker, because everything else about Chikara is, to me, infinitely likeable. And sometimes it transcends that tongue-in-cheek style to be something really special and engaging. But to listen to Quack talk you'd think he'd written fucking Watchmen or something.

Anyway, the reason I came in here. Just spotted the mother of all [citation needed]s on the 1PW Wiki page:

Nameing rights and name rights?! What a bargain. I hope they make Mojo Rawley the new Dragon Aisu.

On a slightly similar note, I'm watching Wrestlemania 26 and I forgot how enjoyable Triple H v Sheamus was. A really good midcard battle between two heavyweight types. Mental looking back that they stuck Triple H in such a clear midcard spot.

He wanted it. Sheamus was his workout buddy.

Quick note for the Brits/Euros. Clocks went forward over the weekend in America, so if you plan on watching RAW, will be starting at midnight GMT

Cheers for that. Just checked the planner and our Virgin box had, as usual, decided to ditch the series link because the time's changed.

So out of vague interest, I just had a peek at the Lethal Lockdown bit where Hardy showed up as Willow. From what I can tell, the deal was: Hardy was shut out of the building by Dixie, so Willow, who's had some vignettes on Impact, showed up instead. The thing I have no idea about is whether they're trying to disguise, in storyline terms, the fact that Willow is Hardy. Is it just supposed to be obvious? Because, like, you could see his tats, the dive off the cage was pure Hardy, and he came out to a song that sounded like it was by Hardy's band, with Hardy singing. What's going on here? If it's supposed to be obvious that it's the same guy, is that supposed to hint that Dixie sabotaged her own team or something? Please tell me I missed some massive contextual qualifiers by only watching about five minutes of the show.

Yeah, I've heard enough horror stories about that prevailing assumption to be glad the staff at my place are, for the most part, extremely nice.

So, slight dilemma for me: I've got an interview for a job that matches superbly with my skills, but is a two-hour 3-bus commute and is only 16 hours a week with a pro rata salary that works out at about half what I need to move in with my fianc

That absolutely sucks, Surf. How much contact have you had with the Jobcentre about it? Is there likely to be someone more sympathetic (read: someone who isn't gunning for sanctions) who you'll get to speak to?

If it makes you feel any better, I've just clocked exactly why your sig is great.

I'm sure I have a bunch of stuff like this, probably centred around my super-intricate wrestling figure booking, but it wasn't a patch on this. If nothing else, Lister, it set you up for a life of writing absolutely shitloads of words.

I do recall doing full results sheets for my figures, including illustrations of the key moments using one of those nifty four-colour clicky pens. It being the Attitude Era, black obviously ran out pretty quickly. I probably still have a bunch of those things with blue, green and red still half full.

I wonder sometimes if they've given Bryan a bit too much free reign on the mic because the same leeway paid off with Punk in the past. Either way, however his promos are getting put together, it ain't working. Which is a bloody shame, because as Pitcos said above, it's the only missing piece of the puzzle.

Funniest thing there is that Triple H and Walter White are very analogous characters. Self-involved, driven by ego, with a destructive badass streak, and they get an inordinate amount of the cool lines on the show. You'd think they'd get along with Trips more if they fucking beatify Walt like every other idiot who missed all the subtleties of Breaking Bad.

If you're using Windows, Googling it should lead you to some forums where you'll get good advice. If you're on a Mac, there's Screenflow, but unless you pay for the full version it slaps a big watermark across the video.

Anyway, thought this was fantastic, predictably enough. Chris Morris in the Iannucci role is tremendous, and the material was never going to be anything other than sublime. I'd heard most of it before live, some of it twice, but I could watch pretty much everything the guy does a hundred times and it'd never feel anything but fresh and cutting. Light years ahead of any other stand-up on TV. As if we didn't know that already.