Dai

Of course the show starts with Rob Black front and center. Necro looked way better than what Ive previously seen for the last few years, which was great to see. Whatever he had, it looks like hes overcome it. Hightlights include about 8 unprotected headshots, and Necro going for his classic Tiger Driver but not having the strength, so just plants the guy on his head.

There was a roughly 40 minute wait for the final match as they had to set up the no rope barbed wire gimmick. Cant imagine what it would have been like to be in the crowd at 4am and having to wait 40 minutes to see the final. Suprised most of the crowd hadnt left by then. The end just seemed like classic Rob Black, adding stuff like the promo and that woman for absolutley no reason. Instead of just having two of the biggest death match wrestlers having a match, stupid stuff was added to just for the sake of it.

If anyone deserved a second chance, surely a girl with the best body hes ever seen would be it! Cant believe he decided against it, considering there was a pretty logical reason behind the smell.

Cant find it by searching this topic, but thanks to whoever recommended Athletico Mince with Bob Mortimer. Absolutley fantastic stuff. Just getting to the episodes where the Jeremy Corbyn stuff has started, which I think is even funnier than the Alderman and McClaren stuff. Great half hour podcast,

As someone whose musical tastes havent changed in 20 years, Ive been enjoying the new Cypress Hill album. Its fully on Youtube and Ive given it several plays already and am enjoying it. Straight from the 90s, which is a positive for me.

Also have listened to Cappadonna's new one, Slow Motion, as well, and have been enjoying that one. Some highlights for me:

One last Wu Tang related thing. Ive got Tidal Premium, went to play Raekwon's stuff, and theres a load of stuff missing from him, which is annoying. Only Built For Cuban Linx Pt 2, which is fantastic, is not on there. I assume its stuck in some sort of publishing issue rights hell, which is a shame.

Seems this was a disaster. Not even talking about the fight, but the actual coverage. I chucked it on at 9pm, and it was nothing but a feed from a camera that was clearly just resting in the ring. It was like that for ages. I flick off and try and watch again 15 minutes later, and get nothing at all. Seems like everyone else was in the same boat judging by twitter. "I feel ripped off, even though its free" was a good tweet I saw. Managed to refresh it in the middle of R3. It was Ok for what it was. If anything, it was disappointingly reserved and professional. Would have been way better if it was a Bob Sapp-esque fight where theyre completley gassed after a few minutes, and throwing everything into every punch and it only lasting a couple of rounds,

Cheers for the Regal recomendation. Just listened to it and its fantastic. Its crazy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of these health issues were reported at the time. In this day and age, you think the word would have spread about at least one of these incidents.

I get the vibe listening from this, that Regal has spent alot of time thinking about his mortality. With all the health issues hes gone through recently, I guess that would be normal.

Thought Id add some video links associated with his stories from the pod:

Regal breaks his neck during the German Suplex finish (the replay shows a better angle). He doesnt know/get it fixed until over 20 years later. By the time he gets it fixed, the doctors looking at his neck say he should be in a wheelchair. He has to have 4 disks fused, which apparantly is very rare. The unfixed neck problems lead to big sleeping issues in his life, which in turn leads to the pill problems.

Danielson vs Regal. Regal tears his meniscus in his knee the night before. He has to be helped into the building that day. Thinking it will be his last match, he wants to put Danielson over, so goes through with the match. Regal gets emotional about how Danielson is so good that he even works on the bad leg through the match (Regal says its his right knee that is torn but Danielson works on the left leg during this match, so not sure if this is accurate) and doesnt make things worse. Despite being Superstars, Vince McMahon greets them both when they walk back and shakes their hands. Vince says to Regal "That guy will make a great villan one day".

Regal gets emotional about this picture. He was given two days to get 16 (plus reserves) UK wrestlers for a tournment, whilst being in Australia at the time. You can even see from this pic how proud he is.

Yeah, the main event wasnt up to much, neither was the Borg fight. Lee has to be in Wands Top 5 most hated current MMA, fighters, along with Conor, Hardy, Lego Head and a few others I cant think of at the moment 😄 Could imagine the glee you had when Lee was having his leg chopped down by a has-been 40 year old, in front of about 50 fans. Quite the come down for him. I guess its more his fanboys, rather than the man himself, buts its funny none the less.

The main event played out how everyone thought it would. I think by the start of Round 3, when Colby got the easy takedown and Masvidal was happy to be in full guard for the first time in the match, was the point of no return in my eyes for Jorge. When Jorge wobbled Colby in R4, nearly every person in the building, commentators included, was willing Jorge to empty his gastank and go for the finish, but it was clear his gas tank for already running on fumes.

Greg Hardy getting his head pounded in is always satisfying. That, and the great Holland/Cowboy fight were the most memorable moments of the show. The RDA and Barboza fights also played out like how alot of people thought too. RDA's stock doesnt go up at all from this fight, but at least he gets paid I guess. Bryce looked good and stuck to the gameplan well, he should be in line for a nice fight next time.

On 2/14/2022 at 3:48 PM, Egg Shen said:

Gracie/Storley is solid, its a big fight at 170lb and considering this is a powerhouse wrestler against a Gracie, i expect it to play out on the feet.

Correct! Unfortunately so, as well, because apart from a spell in R4, it was a dull 5 rounds of standup, with no activity on the ground, which was a shame.

The rest of the card was enjoyable. Franklin is great to watch as hes constantly trying to decapitate the other guy. Has that Ngannou vibe of scary power. Great return for Brennan Ward, and fair play to his opponent. He was 10-10 going into the fight, so obviously not the highest level of opponent, but he stood there and traded with Ward, which is clearly the most stupid thing you could do from a gameplan point of view, but it made for a great fight.

Koreshkov landed a super nasty spin kick to the ribs. Looked brutal. The Piccolotti fight was a fun ground scrap as well.

Mendes still has (PED enhanced) dynamite in his hands. He certainly wasn't shy in using it in R2. Lucky he connected at the 10th time in trying, as surely he would have been gassed later in the fight with all the bombs he was throwing.

I was only interested in this and the Perry fight, and both were worth a watch if you can track them down. Perry looked fairly solid in this, considering it was his first BK fight. The main and the women's match seemed dull even in 4x speed. 

Yeah, didn't he have/had cancer? There's a vid you can find on YouTube of his CZW Hall of Fame where he looks in rough shape, to the point they've disabled comments. There was also that match with Shlak where he looked really bad too. 

I watched the first rebooted XPW show and it was awful, and had about 30 people there. The end of the show was some Russo-riffic BS with Rob Black booking himself as the focal point. Wouldn't have done much to convince people to watch the next show, that's for sure. 

2 hours ago, King Coconut said:

I've survived and enjoyed the following cities without an excel table, so let's not pretend this level of planning is normal.

London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Prague, Barcelona, Munich, Ooh Vienna, Washington D.C., Madrid and Athens.

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I was quoting someone who said it was necessary for a city trip and merely pointing out that it isn't but I agree, you can do what you like. 

A spreadsheet, I agree with you there. But you still need a fair amount of planning for places that youve mentioned "to get the best of it", which is what I said. Going to Paris, Rome, Barcelona, etc with little to no planning would still be good, but youd end up wasting a huge amount of time wandering aimlessly, or spending hours on public transport doubling back on yourself countless times. If youre spending a fair chunk of change on going somewhere, then surely spending a few hours planning on what you want to see and the best way to see them is the bare minimum that should be done

Definately checking out this show. Perry/Lane should be fantastic.

Seeing Mendes juiced to the gills made me think back to what someone here said ages ago, about having a promotion that allows the fighters to take whatever they want. Think it would be great. Imagine the amount of fighters in their late 30's/40's who would have a second wind if they were allowed to take PEDs, would add years to their career.

Busch Gardens is only worth doing if you can drive there yourself, I think, as you can spend the rest of the day exploring the surrounding area/shopping/places to eat. The actual park is very poor, I think. A few very good rides, but definately somewhere you can miss if youre short on time/money. For the last two times Ive been there, Sheikra has been closed, and usually one of the other big rides has been shut down too, which has made the experience even worse. Think Ive been to Busch 5 times, and theres no atmosphere at all there. My main memory of it would be the initial 10 minute walk from the entrance to where the rides are, where theres nothing of note in between. Youre just walking for ages through lifeless nothingness. Sort of sums up the whole park for me.

Agree with what others are saying. To get the best out of the trip, you need a huge amount of planning and a very detailed itinery. That said, with any city trip, thats the case. To get the most out of a holiday, say for example NYC, you need to plan that lots too, as if you just go rock up there with no plan, youre going to waste an insane amount of time wandering around or doing what you want inefficiently.

@PunkSteptheDibb is usually the one people go to, and they have a very nifty itinerary builder where you can add times and places easily. The Dibb is pretty much THE place to go for all your Florida needs.

Speaking of the prelims, Brennan Ward is back for the first time in five years. Used to be a favourate back in the day, was a super exciting fighter to watch. Thought he was going to go on to bigger things in Bellator, but it never came to that. Also thought he came across as one of those Team Alpha Male-esque meatheads, and a little delve into his Wiki proves thats the case:

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On July 4, 2016, at approximately 12:10pm, Ward was arrested by the Waterford Police Department on the charges of breach of peace, interfering with a police officer, threatening a public safety officer, and assault on a public safety officer.^[31] According to the police report, an inebriated Ward got into an altercation with his female companion (who was also arrested for breach of peace) and subsequently resisted arrest by physically and verbally assaulting the officers present. Officers were also unable to process Ward at the time of his arrest due to his continued belligerence as he repeatedly banged his head on the Plexiglas divider of the squad car and “continued extreme aggression” in his jail cell. Ward proceeded to call three of the four policemen by their first names as well as threatened them and their families. Police also noted that Ward urinated all over the floor and door of his jail cell. He was released on a $100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on August 16, 2016.^[32] In December 2019, news surfaced that Ward was sentenced to 120 days in prison and is expected to be released early 2020.

Looks like hes clean and sober now, and hes still only 33, so will be very interesting to see how he gets on. Heres an article that I found when searching for him, havent read it yet but will have a gander at it at some point:

https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2022/01/brennan-ward-opens-up-drug-addiction-bellator-retirement-rizin

At no point in the fight did I think that Whitaker was winning, or even close to winning. Izzy looked like he never left second gear. Thats probably to do with Whitaker being so good, but from a viewing spectacle, it fell flat. Dont think this fight would wet the appetite of any fan wanting them to fight again any time soon.

Best and most memorable moment from the whole show must be Tuivasa, on his knees getting up, taking multiple unprotected bombs from Lewis to the face, then looking pissed off when stood up and just swinging right back at him. Was a belter of a replay. Not many in the UFC who could withstand those Black Beast punches and walk straight through them.

Brunson seemed to do what the commentators said hes ironed out of his game on this winning streak. During the first round he went way too hard, and put on way too much pressure. Despite the commentators saying he could do that all day, he clearly couldnt, as he was gassed at the start of R2, and was made to pay for it.

The Haqparast match was very odd to me. Green was clearly absolutley owning him in the standup, yet there was no change in gameplan at all. The whole of the third round played out exactly the same as the previous two rounds, which from Haqparasts corner point of view makes no sense. No attempt to try and even win this, it seems.

Have to love Arlovski winning and being on a three fight winning streak in 2022. The funniest part of Wand saying about his slump is that you could mean his UFC five fight slump in 16-17, or go even further back to when Brett Rogers, Kharitonov and Fedor made it seem like he had a glass jaw all the way back in 2009. Plenty of people thought he was done all the way back then, so great to see him still getting it done in 2022.

I think the top 2 fights are those sorts of fights which are impossible to be boring. Beast/Tuivasa should be edge of your seat stuff, which could end at any moment. You get the feeling watching Izzy that youre watching something special. Not the same aura as Anderson Silva had, but not too far away, Cant really explain it properly, but its somehting you only get with a few fighters each generation, and hes definately in that group right now.

I would bet a lot of cash on the Modaferri and Arlovski fights both being stinkers, but its always fun to root for fighters from this era, as there arent many of them left (in the UFC, anyway). Arlovski still getting it done at the elite level somehow makes me feel better about myself getting old.

Theres quite a few 'sit down' places where I live that dont use card readers as well. Ive always assumed its 50% saving on fees, and 50% youre almost always going to say 'keep the change' if your bill is £18.69 and youve given them a twenty quid note, whereas you'd give that exact amount when using a card. All those mini tips would add up to a fair chunk of change over the course of a month.

Due to the iPlayer, I watched the prelims of this too. Im definately going to keep an eye out for Rosta and Mikhailov from now on. Surely both will be on the main cards from now on. Two people you can see getting a lot of hype if they carry on like this.

How sweet is that Team Fedor Tee as well? Easily the best MMA shirt of all time. Heres a link to it, but the ones at this Bellator show had 'Team Fedor' on the back, instead of the advert:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234399033348?hash=item3693456804:g:l7QAAOSw~JFh9kGn

Hes reacted like all the other times hes not gotten his own way. Nothing seperates this lot of spouting compared to the hundreds of other examples when hes throwing his toys out of his pram.

Yeah, Wolfie hit some fantastic out shots during the match, especially at the business end of it.

To be fair, it was better on the production and presentation side of things today. Theyve added the kick drum, which makes thing sound alot better. At least the scoreboard was there for every match. Still a few low budget things, such as the microphone not working for the Taylor interview, but generally OK. What the hell does Ray Stubbs look like, though? Unshaven, hands in pocket, and a wrinkled shirt that is far too big for him. Looks like someone standing at the bar at Wetherspoons rather than a presenter.

Judging from Taylor tonight, Thornton at around 9/2 or 11/2 seems like insane value for money. Not just outright, but an EW bet too if he gets to the final. Cant see how hes such big odds when hes averaging 90 in both games.

I dont think Dana gives a shit about this management team, or any other agents and what not. In his mind, hes untouchable, and lets be honest, he is, and the UFC are. They've successfully turned the brand into the 'draw', and not the individual fighters. Id say the vast majority of the people who buy the PPVs are regulars, who buy a 'UFC' event, and are not really arsed about who the main draws are. You have a small portion who then decide based on who is fighting.

There is no strength in numbers. Dana could sack off the entire Top 5 of every divison, and the UFC wouldnt miss a beat. Not giving two shits that mega stars like Jon Jones andn Francis are sitting out indefinetley just show that. If all of the Top 5 of every divison upped sticks to Bellator, they'd all quickly be forgotten and replaced by new people in the UFC. A new company? Not a chance in hell of succeeding. Its a shitty situation, but the UFC hold all the cards in this game.

14 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Spoiler- Breaking Kayfabe

The should of darts hitting a board these days is faked. Even when you’re chalking a game you don’t hear anything as loud unless you’re throwing darts at a wooden board. What they do is have a sensory board behind the dartboard, when it is triggered by a dart hitting the board, the sound you hear on TV is a sample of a bass/kick drum. 

😲 That is a shocker! I just thought it was some really good mics which amplified the noise. I had to google it to find a picture, but couldnt find any. True sign of Kayfabe being alive and well! Google did point to this though:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/is-the-sound-of-televised-darts-actually-a-triggered-kick-drum-sample

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James later followed-up with his own on-air ‘investigation’ on Wednesday, reading an email from Dave Allen, Head of Media for the Professional Darts Corporation which disputed the claim.

“Unfortunately, it’s not true that it’s a kick drum." Allen says. "There are four holes in the wooden backboard and these have microphones in them to pick up the sound. They’re behind the 20, 19, 6, 11. If people listen carefully they can hear the difference between his, ie. the triple-20 is different to the double-18, for instance.”

Is this literally the same as a wrestler in the 80's trying to keep Kayfabe alive, and hes full of shit?

Helen Chamberlain used to be on the PDC coverage too years back, but I assume shes thought of as too old by TV people to be involved any more.

I watched the bulk of this, and agree with everything Magnum said. Was a true train wreck in terms of production. I genuinely restarted my Firestick because I thought the connection had messed up. It was like a 480p video on Youtube, which is unforgivable. Sound of the crowd and the darts board were non existant. They should have taken the microphone of Nicholson, who's unbearable and did every bloody match, and chucked it near the stage. Something super strange when watching darts when you cant hear the darts going into the board. The biggest blunder, of course, was the on screen graphics. Painter/OShea, despite being very ropey on the scoring, should have been a very tense and exciting game to watch, but was ruined as you didnt know what their scores were, so were completley taken out of the game. They were missing doubles all over the shop too.

Thornton, despite looking huge, played well and surely will get far in this. I havent seen Fitton for years, but I assume hes too fat and out of shape to do his trademark entrance any more.

The Ronda fight was over six years ago, and shes somehow still dining out on that all these years later. Ive gone down a Holm Wikipedia rabbit hole and come up with some facts of her post-Ronda career:

- Shes 4-5 since that fight.

- Shes headlined 3 Fight Nights, and all other fights have been on PPV

- The only people shes beaten since are Wand's favourate Correia, Megan Anderson, Raquel Pennington and Irene Aldana

- She headlined a PPV against Germaine de Randamie, which sounds like the worst PPV main event of all time.

Crazy that its all off the back of the Ronda headkick. Must be some very strange data the UFC have which must keep justfying putting her onto PPVs and headlining shows. I doubt theres many fighters, male or female, who have been on UFC PPVs for 7 of their last 10 fights, with the amount of Fight Nights they produce now.