d-d-d-dAz

Best part of Raw was realising they'd allowed @Supremo to script Sami finally. 'The Bloodline was only good when I joined...' 'I took this business to new heights...' He hit all the marks.

But it all alludes to stuff that happened behind the curtain, or in the mists of time. I personally think it's boring. I want to watch a show that's based on itself, and things happen that I can see, interpret and enjoy watching the consequences unfold. For me, it'd be like if 'what's in the box' at the end of Seven is a load of notes about how Kevin Spacey is a problematic sex pest and that's why Brad Pitt's character goes crazy. It's nonsense. Just make telly better.

I think being given the 'not liking Punk' angle is the worst thing that can happen to any wrestler. It's the #1 most tedious thing that happens at the top of the WWE card, and it's a pretty long list. The fact we're at the point where we're saying 'I don't really know you, but I know people that know you and they don't like you so I don't like you' is fucking mindblowing. I have no interest whether people like Punk or not. I hate the fact Drew is still trying to live the gimmick away from TV. I hate that KO is doing it. Just stop. Plus, he's not really this incendiary locker room bogeyman anymore. He's clearly been voluntarily institutionalised; just a juicy, middle aged, Saudi loving, buy-one-get-one-free-extravaganza enthusiast, company man now. I suspect no one cares enough to dislike him anyway.

I didn't believe you and googled it. Madness. Always been Mongoose to me.

Someone made the point earlier about it not being like boxing, but i'd disagree. I'd just say the way boxing dispatches boring fighters is more cynical. The way boxing promoters work, you can throttle someone on their way up if you'd rather they didn't continue to improve - get them beat early - or just simply not offer them the right fights, or any fights. One very well known promoter once said to me of a very fancied young prospect, with lots of very serious backers... 'the problem with this kid is, one day he'll beat everyone and not make a penny for anyone. If we don't get him beat soon, we're all fucked.' Dana often gets finished products and has to put them publicly out of their misery. Boxing is very often able to kill off the problem before anyone notices.

If you want an example of fighting being more about psychology than skill, that was it. Wardley started the first fight well, before having his heart broke. He wasn't mentally over that tonight, and I thought it was apparent he hadn't prepared particularly well, hadn't conditioned well, didn't believe he could win and didn't want to be there. Daniel owned him after the first fight, and no one believed it more than Wardley himself.

That picture of Damian Priest. Good grief.

Historically, i've had very tricky bouts of anxiety. My earliest memories of struggling were panic attacks relating to a fear of mortality as a child. Recent years I seem to have had really bad flare ups around specific, diffuse issues; but i'm turning 40 in 6 months and all those issues seem to have built to send me back to my childhood, and I feel just completely overwhelmed by waves of existential dread. Just a real sinking feeling in my stomach, heart palpitations, panic rising. It's really quite awful, and I hope it'll pass as it's utterly unbearable. Sorry, I appreciate that isnt as serious as the stuff in this thread but I just need to get it off my chest as it's really hard to talk to someone about it and be taken seriously. Everyone gets old, I know. I need to get over it, I know. But that doesn't make it feel any less awful right now.

They could put on a re-run of Fast and the Furious on the big screens or a resurrrcted prime Ali v Foreman and the crowd would still be feral. If Frank was at the wheel, they'd put on (admittedly very exciting) low cost British tear ups. The Americans and Netflix might not settle for it, but I think it'd be a shame if the main card wasn't made up of rematches between Brad Foster v James Beech Jr and Shabaz Masoud v Liam Davies. It's the traditional way.

There is virtually no incentive to pay well for an undercard, other than the vanity of the promoters. It's sold out. The streams/PPV will do well. The cynical move is just put a load of bin men in against security guards and save the cash. You could headline somewhere else with Wilder/Opetaia and make some more money.