Loki

He strikes me as something of a classic narcissist. His entire world view is predicated on the assumption that he is the good guy, always does the right thing, and is always the aggrieved party in whatever happens. As long as you feed that narcissism he’ll be your best mate, he’ll buy you a house or talk about what a great boss you are. Look at the Orton interview where they’re suddenly best mates. Orton is feeding Punk’s ego and he loves it. You go up to him backstage as a young wrestler and ask his advice, he’ll be generous and sing your praises. The minute you go against that narrative, he’s done with you. You’re banned from Collision. Wait until Orton wants to go over in their feud, see if Punk hugs it out then. Listening to Punk is like listening to Trump sometimes. “People say I could have killed him, and I could of course. I’m a very good fighter, very dangerous, everyone says that.” He’s as big a bullshitter as Hogan but without the decades of Wrestlemania main events. They both believe their own bullshit absolutely. Punk is fascinating, mercurial, occasionally brilliant and absolutely not a guy to ever build your business around. Better to have someone like Samoa Joe, who probably is genuinely dangerous but has never claimed to know karate, and just works incredibly hard and professionally at all times.

I haven’t seen it but apparently there’s a suggestion that the Uncle Howdy character (and therefore Bo Dallas) is coming back. I always thought Dallas was the better wrestler, and has just never had a gimmick that would allow him into the main event level. Although I’m not really interested in any more spoopy bollocks I really hope they give him something good to work with. He deserves it.

Andrade in the André. Better than Rampage I guess. Andrade might be low key the shittest wrestler of the 2020s. Three runs in the big 2 companies, absolutely no memorable moments at all. He’ll be best remembered as Mr Charlotte.

It turns out that a decade plus of sitting on (and acting on) movie sets, watching directors, cinematographers, lighting specialists, acting a wide variety of scripts, working with top notch actors, might have rubbed off on Rocky. Whether he can still do anything in the ring remains to be seen, but he’s absolutely firing on all cylinders now.

@RedRooster How are we planning to deal with games like Mario Kart? I suspect a lot of people will cast a vote for various different iterations of what is, fundamentally, one long-running game? Very hard to pick a "best" Mario Kart. I'm trying to think of other examples - FIFA or Championship Manager or SmackdownvRaw? I thought the first one of these was brilliant but the sequel was a massive let-down wasn't it? I remember the single player being a shell of its former self.

Err...

I do find it sad there’s no place for teams like this nowadays I guess The Viking Raiders are the closest but they are expected to do flips and all that. I like huge guys the faces just bounce off.

Al tale of Blood and SweatyCocks?

Ospreay is great. He and Joe bookended the show nicely as the two biggest AEW stars right now. So much charisma in very different ways, keep them apart for a bit and that should be an amazing match. Takeshita continues to look like the future as well. How long have they been calling him "the Alpha" as opposed to "the Ace"? A reference to Kenny Omega I guess, it reminds me that he's missing from all this at the moment. Clearly, he'd do brilliantly in WWE but it's interesting that so many free agents have landed in AEW - the overall package is too good. It will be VERY interesting to see what happens when Becky Lynch is out of contract after Wrestlemania. At the very least she can get a lot more money post-Moné but I wonder if a lighter schedule and more regular trips home might tempt her too.

The Dynamite Merch Stand last night. That was the full product line. Whoever is in charge of their merch division needs to be fired!

Jesus Fucking Christ.

So... this is going to be a thing isn’t it? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51708550 It does feel like we’ve probably missed the boat on containing this virus and it’s going to get into the general population. For most of us it’ll be fine, but as someone with elderly parents, if they contract it they could be toast. So yeah... general thread for what will either be the end of all life as we know it, or over by Easter.