Chris B

If the online experience hadn't been waiting and waiting and waiting for anyone to join, I'd have enjoyed this a lot more, I think. The handful of matches I had online were fun, and the couple of times the Anarchy match wasn't just bots, they were fun.

Frustrating one - it was way too expensive for what it was, but it was a fun game to pick up and play. Enjoyed it, and if there were more there to keep me around, I'd still be playing.

[Redacted] is presumably Lita, and the Cryme Tyme segment. Happened the month before Tribute to the Troops as well.

Comes off well for a guy who isn't acknowledging how much this was endemic in the company he's worked for, isn't acknowledging his boss who claimed not to read the lawsuit, and has only attacked the person the company has clearly agreed to try and take all the blame.

There are low bars and there's fucking limbo.

Hangman/Swerve was a genuine work of art.

I typed 'was like a work of art' and then corrected myself. If wrestling is an art form, which I believe, then this was absolutely that. It actually took me through emotional responses watching it, and it was also somehow believable, and heightened beyond reality, and absolutely thrilling all at once. 

This is always my go-to, and while Hangman Page's entrance is clearly a rip-off, I'd fucking love him - just once - to come out to the real thing. 

Using that database, I can see it's been used once. I remember one time we talked about it on here, someone said Terry Funk had used it, but he actually used Man With A Harmonica (which is also badass). 

When it kicks properly in, it's absolutely amazing. Would be an amazing babyface entrance.

1 hour ago, Factotum said:

A lot of people knew things about Harvey Weinstein. There were NDAs, reports that were started and then fell apart etc. There were also people who heard things. The issue with journalism is it takes a lot of time, money and bravery to nail one of these people.

If you read the two main the books on the Weinstein reporting, you can see just how difficult it is. The women they interviewed that wouldn't go on record for a variety of reasons. The NDA legal problems they faced. Hell the Times story on him was only first concentrating on the NDAs and they had to be meticulously fact checked. Throw in financial pressure and legal threatening and it isn't as easy as saying 'why didn't they report it?'

We all know Vince had NDAs, we all knew about Rita Chatterton or the sex abuse scandal in the 90s. We knew this. So did journalists who reported on it. I imagine their are a lot of journalists in mainstream media now looking at this. It's a big story. Perhaps now more women or employees feel they can come forward. We can only hope.

The thing is, though, according to the write-up, Meltzer claimed to have no idea, and to have found all this shocking. The friend of someone in WWE called him naive.

My take on this is that this has been really open for years, a huge amount of people know about it, and Meltzer didn't want to know about it, so never dug into it. If he gave the slightest shit, he could have done something about it. But he didn't. 

In fact, he's made clear that one difference with Jerry McDevitt no longer running things is that he no longer gets sent background checks on people as soon as any scandal turns up. Which is probably why, during the Ashley Massaro thing, he went on about how people wouldn't find her to be a credible person.

Basically, all this stuff leaves Meltzer so far out of his depth that, despite all his contacts and knowledge, I actually believe that this came as a shock.

A succulent woman wrestler?

13 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

On the passing around photos to random tech guys thing, I would say there's an option there that could read slightly more generously than taking his texts at face value. Based on the other texts, Vince clearly fantasises about her being assaulted by multiple men, objectified by multiple men, and being passed around - the story about showing her off to all of these unnamed men might have been an unpleasant sexual fantasy or a weird power play rather than something he actually did. If it's not something he actually did, then it doesn't necessarily follow that all of the people in his inner circle would all be aware of this, though he's done nothing to deserve that benefit of the doubt. And this next point isn't remotely to excuse anything, but I suspect that when he talks about "tech", he's not meaning random roadies and production crew so much as somebody like Kevin Dunn and his crew who are basically just as embedded in the abusive culture of WWE as Vince was.

I did think this as well - a whole bunch of the text message stuff read as fantasy more than definitely real. But then there's the real stuff as well, and the power dynamic right in the middle of it. 

5 minutes ago, air_raid said:

"Harrass women"....

.... to Vince.

Okay, I find it fucked up that he was cheering on the man who sexually harrassed his wife while he harrasses other people.

One thing that I'm finding weird and unpleasant in the middle of all of this. Brock Lesnar's wife sued Vince for sexual harassment 20 years ago. And now, he's joining in with Vince to harass women.

Eh, Zack got Ross but entirely by accident - his logic didn't stand up at all because Zack wasn't a traitor at the time or involved in any decisions. It's one thing to come up with a hypothetical, but to assume it's correct is disastrous. Ross's response was both immediate and correct - 'If I knew someone downstairs had a shield and didn't know who, why would I take the chance?'.  It absolutely relied on a traitor not knowing that Harry had a shield - but there was no hypothetical for 'What if the traitors knew Harry had a shield'. 

He's not an idiot, but he thinks he's a lot smarter than he is. As someone on twitter pointed out, he overlooks Harry because he thinks there's no way Harry could outsmart him.

I want Zack to not only lose, but also lose an arm or something somehow.

3 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

In that two hours everyone got pretty drunk, buying consoling brandies for his partner and drinking many toasts to his memory. When time came to take him to the crematorium the undertakers had to clear a considerable number of glasses off the coffin. 

Reminds me of a cracking line from the Steptoe and Son movie, where they're doing the same thing, with the glasses on the coffin.

"Well, that's a new experience."

"What is, Albert?"

"First time I ever had a drink on him!"

That feels like the polar opposite of this thread.

On 1/20/2024 at 4:40 PM, Loki said:

Why do fake banana flavoured things not taste like bananas?

 Because that fake banana flavour is based on the Gros Michel type of banana, which was the main banana eaten around the world until the 1950s when it was almost wiped out by a fungal disease.

 Banana exporters switched to the Cavendish banana which is the one you find in the supermarket today.  Cavendish bananas taste quite different to Gros Michel.

But wait!  All Cavendish bananas are clones and unfortunately a new disease is beginning to rip through banana plantations again.  So bananas might become quite scarce in the future.

Gros MIchel skins were also more oily than Cavendish bananas - so the whole 'slipped on a banana peel' thing probably wouldn't be a thing now if they were new, because the skins aren't that slippy.

2 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I think the holding back of (or on?) Punk is with a view to a fairly imminent heel turn. I get the feeling they're not interested in presenting AEW's version of Punk nor the Summer of Punk Punk, but one who obnoxiously believes the whole world even outside Chicago loves him and is about to be disappointed. He'll perhaps address the erasure of some of his history then. I think this was sewing those seeds well but who knows.

This was most of his run in AEW for me. Constantly trying to figure out if CM Punk is sewing seeds for being a heel or just a really weird and obnoxious face.

Saltburn was okay, but I'm baffled as to why they played it like the ending was some big reveal. In fact, I think they did the final scene purely to prevent people going 'was... was that it?' at the end. Overall, if it wasn't for the more outrageous stuff, I think nobody would have paid attention.

3 hours ago, Carbomb said:

I think I speak for the majority of people on this forum when I say

 

I preferred the Statey Funes.

4 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I've always used the former. As in "I wouldn't set foot in that place" right?

In fact, this is the first time I've seen "step foot" I think. 

'Step foot' is used a whole load in wrestling, especially promos. "Since I first stepped foot into this ring", etc.

'Quickness' seems to be used a lot by commentators as well, for some reason, instead of the word 'speed'.

38 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

people on the same side of the centre point as you.

Do you think the centre point has remained stable?

18 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

As a completist I had to see Jersey Girl as a Kevin Smith film I hadn't seen and do you know what, it's not that bad. Ben Affleck is my spirit guide and I'll always have time for him in anything, the massive faced goon.

Jersey Girl is fine, but you can also pinpoint the exact moment Kevin Smith shat the bed and went from being an exciting film-maker to coasting.

Affleck went into this as an Oscar-winning writer, who looked up to Smith. And not surprisingly - between his speeches in Chasing Amy and Dogma, Smith had probably given him his best moments. Because Ben Affleck can deliver the hell out of a monologue, and particularly one by Kevin Smith.

So, you have a Affleck as a character where his whole thing is being able to sell people on things. And one of the biggest points in the film comes where he gives a monologue to convince everyone to vote a different way. The big, big moment is a monologue, written by Smith and performed by Affleck.

And it's shown as a montage. It's clear they filmed it, as it's in the montage. Which means they wrote it. And Smith couldn't get it right. It needed to be knocked out of the park and it wasn't. So, instead, we get this shitty montage.

And I'm not convinced Smith has taken a serious risk since.

Currently playing Arkham City and... weirdly, I'm just not feeling it. It's keeping me going, but possibly I'm feeling a bit spoilt after playing Spider-Man and Sleeping Dogs, and feeling they do everything better. I don't dislike it - but I'm just finding it okay.

That was one of the best hours of TV I've seen in ages. Just consistently thrilling and hilarious. Miles seeing Diane was one of my favourite things in forever.

Harry's playing the game amazingly, but Miles almost turned it round on Paul. The lack of questioning 'why hasn't Paul been murdered' at this point is astonishing.

39 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Not quite as lovely, but still nice, and it deserves a mention as the first ever cinema in the UK - the Regent Street Cinema was refurbished and reopened as a cinema a few years ago, after a couple of decades as a lecture theatre. They did a nice job with it:

 

I'm very fond of this place too.

Here's me as The Babadook for a Halloween all-nighter there. Won a whole bunch of Shameless horror DVDs for the costume too - really great night, and a shame they haven't done more like it.

22 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Just look at the Savoy in Heaton Moor.

I've visited Stockport so many times to see family over the years and only had that terrible cinema in Grand Central to go to this entire time, and none of the arseholes ever mentioned this place nearby? Fuck's sake.

(Edit: The Plaza is awesome - they've just rarely been showing much when I've been around. The projectionist showed me the booth etc though last time I visited and that was amazing)