Chris B

On 6/15/2023 at 7:52 PM, SuperBacon said:

Surprised you got sick from a fast food place but another reason to hate BK.

Never heard of Supermacs but this is good #eatclean.

They also do a bucket of sausages because why not?

Supermacs rocks. Those garlic and cheese fries are amazing, but the fries are chunky and closer to chips, and perfect for mopping up vinegar.

On 6/16/2023 at 3:50 PM, Carbomb said:

I remember @Chris B telling me about how they were never able to get outside Ireland because of some copyright/trademark thing with McDonalds, but that the case has now been resolved, and it looks like they could very well be coming to the UK at some point.

Basically, McDonald's blocked it on the basis that 'Supermacs' was too close to 'Big Macs'. It was successfully argued recently and McDonald's lost (not least because nobody thinks that McDonald's calls their restaurants 'Big Macs').

18 hours ago, FelatioLips said:

Absolutely baffles me the thought process behind the Collision launch. Barely advertised, barely built, and then the matches they do finally announce are Dynamite level at best. Who decided putting Buddy Murphy in a singles match instead of at least a HoB Trios was a good idea? The team is barely a draw, never mind the weakest member of it.
Also Miro in action, who cares? It's clearly not against anyone decent or they'd have announced it.

It could end up being a ten out of ten show but you would never predict it based on the card or build. It looks abysmal and they've given nobody any reason to think otherwise.

 

It's sounded to me like the date was forced on them by the channel, and they were clear they wanted Punk. So everything's been contingent on getting that sorted - and likely on shorter notice than they originally hoped. Meanwhile, whether they could get Punk or not probably made a difference to where they booked. Same with storylines, etc.

And, on top of that, Punk not necessarily meaning what he meant in the last run. A whole bunch of people who liked him a lot seem like they've just got sick of him (including me).

Hopefully, they'll get things sorted once they're up and running, but it's not an inspiring start.

36 minutes ago, Loki said:

I was watching Dynamite and saw the trailer for his comeback.  "I don't know what I'm going to say... ooh live mic... ooh sit down in ring... ooh pipebomb".

That said, it shows what a stroke of genius it was to have the sit-down promo and the 'Best In The World' shirt when Punk returned - because they can refer to the Pipebomb promo people remember from 2011 while using their own footage.

She's also mentioned being dyslexic before.

On 6/7/2023 at 7:18 AM, Mr_Danger said:

I enjoyed the ending of Barry and liked how they wrapped it up but that entire last season felt a bit tacked on for me. It still had everything I love about the show and all the characters stepped up their acting game (Stephen Root was really great) but for me it would have had a great ending at series 3.  The whole Sally thing just felt a bit too weird and unreal. Whatever the Barry code is it starts at 3. That fucking chase.

See, I could not disagree more. I was really unsure about Season 4 at first, because it really did feel like Season 3 was the right ending. But holy shit, Season 4 is spectacular, and it's what moved it into being a genuine work of art for me.

The way it concentrated on ideas of good, evil, redemption and forgiveness, while becoming more and more unsettling and dark - then pivoting to laugh-out-loud funny and then to something else altogether was remarkable. I've never seen a series stick the landing as well as this one did. And it's partly in what it didn't do. Phenomenal stuff.

16 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

The involvement of Bullet Club & AEW being light on faces has me worried KENTA will turn up to challenge Punk. The fact he's talked about it online is the only hope that's not happening. 

See, I think that sounds like a great option. Outside of Tanahashi, because they set it up last year, there's not really anyone I'm burningly desperate to see Punk face. Whereas the KENTA thing has been a fun idea for a long time.

4 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Thanks. I mean you can tell by looking at all 3 of them that Page is the only one packing, so I assume it's an ironic name?

I think it might have something to do with the name 'Hangman'...

2 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Their surname is Jackson, not Johnson.

Edit: oh wait, that's an actual thing that they call themselves? Jesus Christ. 

Trios team with Hangman.

Taskeshita also had an eliminator match against MJF a couple of months ago.

One of the things I like about the eliminator matches is that the challenger usually loses. A bit too often in the past, non-title matches were a giveaway that the champ was losing to set up the title match. This way adds a little unpredictability to it.

6 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I think it's what they call the WWE booking trope of "if you pin the champion non-title, you get a title match".

That's exactly it - while they've quietly retired the rankings, it was a way a non-ranked competitor could get a title match.

While they've had a fair few over the years, there have been very few times the challenger has won. I don't think it's ever happened for the men's world title.

12 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

My mum and my sister are big fans of an American comedian called Matt Rife who as far as I know is reasonably well known but it's not like he is massive like Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle or someone like that. He's over here on tour next year and I wanted to get them tickets. Today was the presale and the cheapest were £133 each plus booking fee. They can watch him on YouTube because that is fucking ridiculous. 

Just looking at youtube, Rife's had almost 10 million views in the last two months on his last special. And that's just the special - not even mentioning the clips on tiktok etc. I've only been aware of him recently, but fair play to him.

Rita Slayworth is a cracking name.

1 hour ago, Jesse said:

I think there's an impulse to see something get a lot of praise and want to find that same thing in the thing you specifically love. So I think some of this comes from the big threads for like Hangman/Omega 

That *was* a banger of a thread.

*whistles innocently while walking away*

22 hours ago, Fatty Facesitter said:

👎 Hardy/Page bollocks - Still not even remotely arsed. 

While I agree on the point from the Hardy side of things, this was the first time I've seen Page displaying the put-upon everyman that he plays on Danhausen's videos, and made me a fan of his in the first place. He can be really funny, especially when he's basically being a slightly slow-on-the-uptake guy who is utterly confused as to all the weirdness he's surrounded by.

I'm not saying this is the use of him that'll make him a star, but that did make me find him really likeable. Again, Hardys aren't where I'd do it, but I'm happy to see a little more of the Page that made me like him in the first place. 

36 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Ah, so it’s one of those “well they explained it on Being The Elite” scenarios, just like in the early days.

I don't know that it's so complicated that it needs explaining. It's a song they like. They've used it on the indies and they used it on BTE in the past. This isn't some secret origin you're missing. It's like assuming there was some massive explanation needed for Punk starting to use Cult of Personality.

10 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

The Elite have been coming out to Carry On Wayward Son for nearly 9 months. You don’t think those opening lines arn’t aimed at Punk?

Erm... no. They've used it in BTE in the past, they've talked about how it's one of their favourite songs, and it's a good entrance tune.

Since the song is clearly from the POV of the wayward son as well, I don't really see how it could be about Punk. Unless you're just hearing 'don't you cry no more' and reading a lot into it. 

To be fair, I think the string of announcements were always planned. An announcement each week leading up to the event feels pretty par for the course.

I don't think anyone was expecting CM Punk's return to be anything like the level of the last time - after all, last time was his return after 7 years, and a really big deal. This time isn't that.

Band plays venue. Whining ensues, for some reason.

1 minute ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

No one is drawing are they, apart from the London show ticket sales are sluggish everywhere, and when they have spent time snidely slagging Punk off to their fans why would he draw?

Have they? Outside of Omega and The Bucks clowning it up a little in one match, and Mox's immediate response, it seems like AEW has been really careful around how they've talked about Punk.

32 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Remember last year, when despite delivering on the night, Forbidden Door had one of the most disappointing, lacklustre cards imaginable? Leading into that show, the whole thing just felt like a terrible waste of time. IWGP Title defended in a shitty four-way featuring Adam Cole?! Rubbish!

I think last year was something of a trust run. Keep in mind that there was still some bad feeling over The Elite leaving at a key point in NJPW to form AEW in the first place. Would AEW represent them well and work well in a give-and-take relationship, or would they just cherry-pick and then just concentrate on making their own guys look good?

That was part of why they sent over more of their elder statesmen for a few runs while things were more open in the US than Japan, and AEW proved that they could treat the company as a whole with respect. Follow that up with a relatively cautious first Forbidden Door, which went successfully, and then they got Kenny Omega and others back over the last while for big NJPW shows.

At this point, it seems like there's a comfortable working relationship and NJPW now feels comfortable putting up their main guys in big matches. Okada/Danielson is a genuine dream match. We've also got CM Punk returning the week before - I suspect he won't be on it, but we might also get that Tanahashi/Punk match that was planned last year. Although I'd rather see Tanahashi/MJF.

Really, in hindsight, AEW owes Jon Moxley a lot for keeping that NJPW conversation going at all in the early days of AEW. 

You're overestimating how many friends some of us had in the 90s, @theringmaster...

I reckon an online multiplayer equivalent of No Mercy sounds like a lot of fun, to be honest. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

On 5/28/2023 at 5:20 PM, DavidB6937 said:

Not sure why but I found most of it pretty boring and I've really enjoyed the previous ones.

There were no stakes. Absolutely none.

This was a film begging for something - anything - to happen to indicate that this phase has something going on. Pfeiffer or Douglas killed off? Ant Man and Wasp stuck in the Quantum Zone? Everything going wrong somehow?

But no. They couldn't even kill off the fucking jelly guy, and that's absolutely baffling. Your new big bad couldn't even competently take out the jelly guy.

It's been the biggest problem with most of the movies post-Endgame. They're terrified to actually do anything, so nothing is moving on - all that's happening is that there's more of the same. There are no consequences and no stakes, and there's no reason to be worried about Kang, and certainly not enough to give us a tease that he'll be turning up on another meaningless Disney + series.

At times, they luck into some decent fun, but Jesus. Who fucking cares at this point?

I mean, I was almost worried about spoilers for Quantumania in this post, but there was literally nothing to spoil because nothing of interest happened.

And Taskeshita! Holy shit, that guy just pisses charisma. He came across as a complete heel, just in terms of how he held himself and his facial expressions. He was an absolutely fire babyface, to the point where I wasn't sure how effective a heel he'd be, but he came across like a different person, and that was without barely doing anything. Excited for what he can do.

Possibly because of the negative responses, my expectations were pretty low going in and I enjoyed it more because of it.

The Battle Royal was great, and threw up a whole load of stuff I want to see. Swerve, though - my god. What a star.

7 hours ago, IronSheik said:

Also, the flying head butt was a worked move, some lazy journalists said his concussions were a result of that move which I always found ridiculous. 

Benoit leaping into a flat forward bump from a height so regularly was likely a factor in his concussions.

Concussions can be a result of full-body impact as well as straight head trauma. It's the sudden impact, especially when it can't be controlled. It's one of the reasons American football tackles caused so much - it wasn't that they were headbutting each other. It's that the impact still effectively rattled the brain.

Think whiplash rather than head-on collision.