Carbomb

I'll have to defer on that, then. It's been some time since I read wand's post; he went into some detail about it. The main thing I remember is the smaller cage, but I figured there must have been more to it than that.

I disagree. There's a whole load of ways to change things, and, as I said to Dai, I'm not saying they should make it all about the sports side of it. I'm just saying they should try to bakance things a bit to ensure that good fighters aren't ditched for doing their jobs well just because certain people don't like how they do them. A good way to do that is to change their fight rules to close "loopholes" that boring fighters can use to win. If they have a style that wins fights for them, the defence against that style should be by fighters in the cage, not by promoters shaming them outside it, or screwing their careers. Like I mentioned above, wand talked a long time ago about how WEC's ruleset and cage size was conducive to having much more exciting matches. It may not be a guarantee of making things more interesting overall, but it's surely worth a try. If I were a promoter, I'd rather attempt to make assets than just dump them; I'd rather re-arrange things to make an exciting, elite fighter out of a boring, elite fighter.

That's too far in the opposite direction; I'm not arguing that they should make it purely results based - there are plenty of legendary matches that happened simply because they made sense at the time, and if they'd booked purely in line with results, we'd have never got them. I'm saying there should be a balance between pure entertainment and sport - hell, I'm saying that a big part of the entertainment is knowing that the sport you're watching is of people at the highest level of it. Accommodating decision merchants won't really affect their bottom line, though - it's the brand which draws these days, and they've deliberately made it that way. They've spent years booking Do-Nothing cards in a shed, and basically cruising by on brand recognition, barely making any effort to really excite their fanbase (the White House show is probably the only exception to that). I still say they should change up the ruleset and the set-up, but that would actually require them to do their actual jobs as promoters. So much easier to just blame the fighters. Consequently, we have a promotion that will hold on to wife-beaters and rapists who lose matches like Hardy, Sedriques, and Dumas, and release undefeated fighters like Basharat.

I say "Gen Zed", for the simple reason that saying "zee" actually feels discrepant to say. Cannot explain why it hits that way. (However, I don't do that for stage names, so it isn't "Jay-Zed" and "50 Pence". For the same reason air_raid stated.)

Yeh, I've just remembered you weren't here for that. It was several months ago, I think.

It was a response to a request from the wider forum that we don't give Twitter/X traffic any more; Moo disabled the embedding function for it. Bluesky embeds fine though.

Good to hear he does well with other dogs. A dog-owner friend told me that a lot of rescued ex-racer greyhounds find themselves unable to socialise with other breeds because of how they're often raised in greyhound-only environments, so it's nice that he doesn't find it so difficult to make friends.

I love this. Was a big fan of Rab C. as a kid, and I love my cooking videos, so this is pure gallus. Must say, though: if you hadn't told me who it was initially, it would've taken me a little while to recognise him - he's changed so much.

Bring back the flanges on yoghurt pots

Genuine question: do you not, at all? I understand having a preference or a leaning, but not understanding why other fans who have a different perspective on the sport might have an issue with an elite, undefeated fighter being released? You surely do at least a bit, no? The thing that annoys me about this sort of thing is that it's meant to be a professional sport. Yes, entertainment is important, but ability is important too. If you're cutting undefeated fighters because their styles are boring, you're basically saying you don't care about being a promotion where the absolute best compete, and a big part of the appeal of sports is the best people fighting the best. Whatever the sport you watch, there is always room for a sportsperson or team that grinds out audience-unfriendly results. Imagine if the FA expelled Arsenal in the early 90s for being boring as sin to watch, or UEFA for banning Greece from the Euros for shit-housing their way to the trophy in 2004? And I daresay there are a lot of people who hated Mayweather's style - imagine if he'd had his boxing licence revoked for being such a defensive fighter? Or Steve Davis in the 80s missing out on all those world championships. Also, entertainment can be a highly subjective thing. At the moment, it seems the criteria for "fun" in MMA are decided purely by one man who's come to think that Power Slap is entertaining, and insists on pushing it. I dread to think what the Dana White of now might have thought about, say, Demian Maia. As far as I'm concerned, if there's a problem, that's on the promotion. A fighter's career is based on his winning and earning the purses that come from it. Why should they change up what works for them if it's going to affect their numbers and therefore their earnings? If promoters don't like fighters grinding, they should change the rules to force them to change it up, not bitch about it and try to shame them. If anything, that's actively showing favouritism to strikers, which is corrupt. It's like those fighters who complain about wrestlers and grapplers - it's mixed martial arts. If you don't like grappling, do kickboxing instead. Don't allow grappling when you know what it involves, then complain when grapplers grapple. I remember wand on here talking about how a big part of WEC's appeal was that they set everything up to make it as likely as possible that the matches would be mayhem, and draw people in, with the ruleset and the small cage. So clearly it can be done.

Wellington Turman's name is probably the only thing he's got going for him as a fighter though.

WOOHOO

Recently, I discovered where @BomberPat's tattoo came from - someone else on social media posted a picture of an album they were a fan of, and I recognised the cover design. Figured, if Pat loved it enough to get it tattooed on his chest, I should have a listen. It's pretty damn good - not that I'd get a tattoo of the cover, but it's definitely great. Lal & Mike Waterson - Bright Phoebus

DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING

The promo he cut was genius too.

Yep. When they had Cannon Palmer as the SD GM, and Burchill was doing the pirate gimmick. They brought in Super Porky, and the whole thing was wound up a couple of weeks later, I think.

That's not fair. I daresay plumbers also say the same thing.

I remember the TNA/Andromeda-Cassandro debacle. IIRC Cassandro was getting quite over outside Mexico, so it seemed only a matter of time before they hit a big promotion. TNA were still doing quite well then, so this seemed like a positive jump at the time. Some good mentions here. So I'll mention one that hasn't been so far - David Flair in WWE. Really only there as a stepping stone for the Taker/Flair feud, but there nevertheless. Also, Manu. Think he only had a couple of matches as a member of Legacy, then was ditched for being shit and having a bad attitude.

On any e-bike, really. Those things are motorised/powered vehicles, and they can and have severely hurt people when their riders don't deign to stop at reds or zebras.

Kizarny had two match appearances. Apparently he was in a segment too (I don't remember that, but it's on Wiki).

Yeh, it's only OK for promoters to be lazy. Fucking cunt.

🤣 I really hope people use that and it sticks.

Heheheh, she's looking very happy and healthy. What a handsome girl.

Plays for NSW? More like NSFW, amirite lads? Eh?

Just had a cross-trivia moment. I realised I didn't know what made Padel different from tennis and squash, so looked it up, and saw this in the history of it. Which reminded me of this posted yesterday, and @Fog Dude's follow-up that it's an old posho German family.