Chris B

6 minutes ago, Loki said:

And was heavily rejected.  You might want these things, I might want these things, but if championing them means returning a hefty Tory majority then it's pointless to keep shouting them at the electorate.

The manifesto was:

• released too close to the election to be all that useful
• ridiculed as unrealistic ('magic money tree')
• associated entirely with Corbyn, who was painted as an extremist.

I don't think most people could tell you what was in the damn thing anyway - so it turning out to have actually countered most of what the tories are now doing is something that could be useful.

Also worth pointing out that turnout was half what it was in 2019. While Labour are the beneficiaries, I think the jury is out as to whether it's because people are attracted to them or because people dissatisfied with the Tories and the SNP just haven't gone to vote.

42 minutes ago, Dead Mike said:

Got some resale tickets for the NFL at Tottenham this Sunday. Train gets into Euston about 11am & I ideally want to be at the stadium for 1.30pm. Any recommendations for food & drink spots in between the two would be welcome (pub food is fine, don't realy wanna be eating kebabs midday on a Sunday). Ta x

Assuming you're changing at Seven Sisters, there's a very good pizza + bar place just up the road from there called True Craft. A bit further up is a small place called Cafe Lemon that does really nice food, and all day breakfasts and so on. Both about 5-10 minutes walk away from Seven Sisters station. 

1 hour ago, thatvinylgeek said:

Yeah the video didn't do much for me either, but watching the media scrum it seemed like it was something he wanted to do himself (Copeland and Darby filmed it), and he loved having the chance to drive around and have a laugh. Also side note, the fireworks at the stadium while he drove past just happened to be going off because some team won something, nice coincidence.

Last thing, just cause I like being a dickhead, it didn't say "you think you know me", it said "you think you know HIM" nice touch...

Really liked him in that media scrum - he sounded like he was having a blast, and he seems genuinely into the filming side of things. It was something the @WrestleMe! lads talked about when they reviewed Money Plane - that Copeland had clearly worked quite hard on what was a pants film.

Personally, I liked the video - and it was the kind of thing where you only find out if it works by trying it.

Saw some talk somewhere about Sting seeming a step off - to me, it looked like Luchasaurus wasn't where he should have been for the next spot, so he was just looking around for him.

Overall, though, that was a blast of a PPV, and the Adam Copeland stuff was really feel-good. Came away from that one grinning and looking forward to what's next.

3 hours ago, Loki said:

If one of my clients wants me overseas for a meeting, I'm getting them to book flights and accommodation.

You're also probably not messing around with Visa and tax implications. Some wrestlers are just visiting and sight-seeing, honest, guv.

59 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

CHRIS B GOES TO FAR RIGHT RALLIES!!!! Watch him try and weasel out of it and say he was counter protesting or something. What was the tune for that chant, out of interest?

Rumbled, damn it.

And the tune was 'If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands'.

24 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

When he used to show up to far-right rallies in Honor Oak (which Fox is apparently doing tomorrow), he was regularly drowned out by chants of "You're not a real vicar".

I was pretty pleased to kick off a chant of 'There are more people here than watch your show' at one of those.

I tend to think Skyfall makes more sense if you assume the first draft leant into the multiple-Bonds thing.

The old boy, Kincaide, at the Bond home, was originally written for Sean Connery, and it would have been more ambiguous about who he actually was, outside of him being a retired 00-agent.

Then you've got a former secret agent that M left for dead, before she got her new Bond. While this would have been a story that would have only worked for me, I think, imagine if that had been Brosnan. The former Bond, gone mad at his betrayal, taking out M and being taken out by the first and the most recent Bond.

In the 'written specifically for me' version, that would have been so much fun.

1 hour ago, FelatioLips said:

Jade Cargill was a perfect superstar that had a perfect run. She was presented and pushed as a big star and had the charisma to hide her shortcomings. She had a huge celebrity tag match, a Goldberg undefeated streak without killing the entire women’s roster doing it and then put the next in line over huge on her way out. She went to a bigger company I would imagine on a better deal.

In terms of what a wrestler should want from the business she got all of it.

And she came out of AEW bigger than she went in. Which, considering there were questions about how AEW could build stars, wasn't a given. Yes, it would have been nice to get more time out of her in AEW, but - much like with the recent releases - there's a point in there about how good competition is for the performers, after years of a monopoly.

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Let's not forget that the Mox feud was basically an accident. They faced eachother in a nothing tournament match and Hangman was shoot knocked out cold and the entire story built out of that incident. Without that there's no indication that a Mox/Hangman feud would have even happened. 

I'm not saying it would have been the exact same feud. But a big, violent feud that decisively puts over Hangman? I'd be shocked if that wasn't the plan.

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Won the title after an epic story then booked his reign as an afterthought and after he lost the title had nothing worthwhile for him for absolutely ages.

Then Mox bled buckets and damn near killed himself to get Hangman hot again and they booked him as an afterthought again straight after it and now they have to build him back up again! 

That Mox feud was exactly what he needed as champion, I think. And I wouldn't be surprised if it was the plan before Punk got hot-shotted into the title picture and Mox got tied up with him for a while.

The Hangman title reign was telling a story about him becoming more confident as champion - it felt like that needed a big, signature win, before plans presumably changed. With any story, how it finishes is always really important, and the story of Hangman gaining confidence in his reign and being able to hang with the legends got absolutely stamped down by a guy who made clear he wasn't in his league, and then badmouthed him for the next year.

The Mox feud as a showpiece in his reign, before losing it to... let's say MJF... would have made it seem like a much bigger deal.

There's still been good stuff with Hangman, and there's still a main eventer there. The Swerve storyline seems like it should be a really good thing for both of them. They seem like a really good fit.

Full songs, cast singing, plot-relevant and a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic backing music. With dancing.

It's a musical.

Except for all the singing.

2 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

The only decent musical.

A fantastic film.

The Wicker Man contests that theory.

9 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

at the risk of being overly morbid about it, it's also Lyndhurst's first acting role since his son died a few years back. It's all very peculiar. 

Lyndhurst and Grammer were on the West End together in 2019 in a (poorly reviewed) production of Man of La Mancha for a few months. Assuming they became friends, wouldn't be a surprise if Grammer lobbied for him, especially with his son dying not long after they met.

Back in my e-fedding days (he says with impeccable cool), I came up with two I quite liked:

Total Tag Hell

An Ultimate X match, but in a cage. With ladders. The idea being that it's actually fairly easy to get to the X/Titles, but it's all about cutting people off and setting up stunts.

My World Match

I Quit/Last Man Standing blend - feud ender match, for the most part. To win, you have to either make your opponent say I Quit or knock them out.

And a simple one someone else came up with that I really liked - Odd Man Out match. Two start in the ring, one on the apron. The one on the apron can be tagged in at any point. 

One small detail that I really, really like - AEW portrays being champion as being exhausting.

In kayfabe, it makes so much sense. You're constantly having championship matches, and they're hardships because they're treated as serious things that the opponents are desperately trying to win. Champions tend to take time off when they're defeated - I still love Omega's 'Seriously, Hangman, congrats' promo when he took time off. Orange Cassidy is still exhausted after physically falling apart trying to be champion. MJF is exhausted and injured. 

I'm not saying it's entirely consistent - the main exception is Mox, who is just an unstoppable monster. But even occasionally, the idea that being champion is tiring, exhausting work? I love it. I never want to see a champion shrugging off a loss and just going onto the next show.

Considering a lot of tickets were at the £30 mark, I can see people more people writing off the tickets because of the train strikes than might have happened for other events. 

He looks like someone drew fake hair and a moustache on the picture.

5 hours ago, The King Of Swing said:

Cult of Personality hits. 

In a rare turnaround, I believe Tony Khan has the rights to use that song, not CM Punk.

(I still want Jack Perry to get it)

While I'm not convinced by the storyline, I was pleasantly surprised by CJ Perry's promo - you can tell she's had acting training and been involved in Miro's promos (according to something I saw on Reddit anyway). So it feels like this is going somewhere.

Part of them having brought back some relatively big names like Joe, Miro and Andrade while not giving them much to do feels like contingency planning for exactly what's happened with Punk (or how injury prone he was anyway). They might have deliberately not stuck them into anything they couldn't quickly get them out of so they could do what they're doing now with Joe and just slotting him into the main event for a bit.

2001 has a lot to answer for generally, music-wise.

A Knight's Tale is one of those films that massively over-achieved. It looked fun with a great cast, and I was expecting a decent date movie and not much more. But it's just generally an absolute banger of a film, and in the middle of all the fun, you get the scene of William reuniting with his father.

Just brilliant, genuinely emotional stuff. Gets me every time. Not least because, for such a short scene, it subverts expectations - it looks like it's setting up that William is lying, and it'll be later in the film that the father realises. But instead, it's immediate. Also, it's not really been set up that much - we get a flashback, but I wasn't expecting the father to be a story element again. 

Some really good stuff in there. Swerve/Hangman feels like a big deal in the making - they're both just so good. And Joe. Fucking hell, Joe. What a presence. Just grinning the entire way through that segment - including Joe shrugging off the jokes from MJF, then getting right under his skin. He's also just about the only wrestler that can pull off 'bitch' as an insult like that. Just amazing stuff.

Absolutely tremendous show. In terms of booking, the right people went over in the right places, but pretty much everyone came out looking great - which so rarely happens.

With Punk gone and all the hoo-ha, they needed to build some of their stars. This wasn't the time for Mox or Danielson to lose - but Orange and Starks both looked so good in defeat. Cassidy in particular looked like he took Mox to the limit while injured and beaten up. That main event was thrilling, even knowing the outcome. Must have been amazing not knowing it.

And yeah, even Nigel McGuinness was decent on this one - and I hated him recently. 

What a PPV though. Didn't feel like the spectacle of All In, but felt like a better wrestling show, and both are valid. This felt like AEW's Canadian Stampede 97.