Duke

You know the discussion has gone on too long when David is doing the one line summary to try and draw a line under it.

13 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

"I'm the ELITE HUNTER!" ...loses every single match he has with any of the Elite. What a goon. Not sure why they're bothering to be honest, Kaz offers basically nothing unique or special. He's a perfectly fine average veteran to feed to younger guys.

Well, yeah. All that's gonna happen is he's probably going to lose to Scorpio Sky. It's just setting up the match and reminding us all of their history. Maybe Kaz will turn heel at the end of it. Maybe someone will kill Kaz and come take the spot. It's not a proper push, just a minor build for the match they'll have. 

I think there's something to be said for AEW not doing enough to build matches in the immediate future, but I'm not sure the FTR match is the best example. It was what it was, a match that wasn't actually that important but had significant undercurrents because they were fighting each other. It really didn't warrant an on-air video package on dynamite.

The TNT title match probably did though. As much as we're all a bit fed of it, it was meant to be a feud ending title match. It feels a little like the whole feud has been a bit "subject to change" and dragged out because they've recognised they needed to turn Sammy heel, but this is supposed to be the end of it. 

I'd also have seriously considered a package for Daunhausen vs Hook. It's clearly the main draw for rampage this week, so it wouldn't hurt to put some more focus on it.

That being said, the matches are too long and the odd video package or highlight reel would do them some good. Tightening up some timings would help them a lot, but I think they'll get there, it's a comparatively minor thing.

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So there is no answer then.

Well, there is. Cut matches shorter to put packages for later in the show or for next week's dynamite. Plenty of people are giving you that answer. You might not like it, but it is the answer

Until Real get hammered by City and Ancelotti loses his job, of course.

Spurs need a clear rebuild with a longer term manager. I'm not sure if Poch is right to do that again, but Conte definitely isn't that guy, so I guess it makes sense.

Hasn't Moxley been calling out Tanahashi for months? Seems like a suitable place to do it 

4 hours ago, Supremo said:

Miro, too. It’s a shame injuries seem to be keeping him on the shelf for ages but his run as TNT champion shat over everything he ever did as Rusev and proved how wasted he was sitting at home whilst contracted to WWE.

Now hang on. Rusevs anti American US title run where they pretended he was russian culminating in him coming into Mania on a tank was absolutely wonderful and just as good as the TNT run.

5 hours ago, PunkStep said:

Ffs Duke stop being such a nice Chelsea fan!

I've clearly been watching too much Ted Lasso.

#Jadon&Marcus&Bukayo

On 4/20/2022 at 9:55 PM, SuperBacon said:

There is Liverpool and Man City, then 18 dreadful, awful teams. They're all as bad as each other.

Alan Smith commented "Who could see this one coming?" All of us Alan. 

Only because there's a ridiculous conspiracy by the FA FORCING Chelsea to play at Stamford Bridge. Ridiculous.

On 4/20/2022 at 9:44 PM, PunkStep said:

Saka scoring a penalty as the Chelsea knuckle draggers chant 'you let your country down'. Beautiful.

I didn't watch the game, but considering the penalty had no bearing on the result I am absolutely thrilled that that happened. Those idiots deserve their humbling.

Hey, they're elaborating on Danhausen and letting us find out a bit more about what he is, and even giving him a match. This is exactly what we were asking for. I look forward to seeing Hook crush him and him getting a bit more to do. I still don't get it, but I'm closer to seeing what it is.

5 hours ago, Uncle Zeb said:

Some of the best games I've ever played only took an hour or three to finish. People might have complained if they'd cost sixty quid but I've much fonder memories of them than longer games that did.

Absolutely. The best game ever made (Portal) is only a few hours long, but it's worth it because of how it was bundled. This is where the joy of indie games can come in.

re: Shadow of Mordor, I enjoyed the sequel a lot, but it definitely felt overstuffed, took too long to get into the stronghold management, and yeah, the loot boxes. Those orcs are completely amazing though

Alvarez is absolutely right about Danhausen, bubble or not. I have no idea what he is supposed to be, other than particularly nice and especially evil. For example, are his curses real or not? The first couple of times I thought the joke was they weren't, they were just distractions, but because they distracted people they lost and so he could claim they were cursed. That would mean that Hook is just ignoring an idiot. But I increasingly get the sense that they're supposed to be real and Hook is immune for different reasons? Why is he hanging out with the Best Friends? Why did he try and curse Hook in the first place? 

It's not fair comparing him to OC, because OC had matches to explain his character and a few specific feuds. Danhausen, because of his injury, has done bugger all so far.

3 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

It has irked me for many years that all the Chelsea fans on this board are all nice, reasonable chaps. Makes my Chelsea hatred very confusing.

I feel the same way about the Arsenal fans. All the ones I know in real life have terrible opinions on football, but the ones here are thoroughly pleasant

On 4/17/2022 at 4:48 PM, PunkStep said:

Chelsea's top scorer in the league is midfielder Mason Mount with 10 goals, City's top scorer is midfielder Kevin De Bruyne with 11 goals. Also it's not as though Chelsea don't have two prolific strikers in their squad, but for whatever reason Tuchel can't get them to score like they did for their previous clubs. 

I mean, yeah, but City are set up in such a way to not require a number 9 after years of Pep's work. Chelsea aren't.  That City's top scorer is higher than Chelsea's kind of proves my point. You're right though that that's their own fault, Chelsea's run of ruining strikers continues.  In retrospect, maybe Didier Drogba is the best striker in the history of football, because he was still pretty good despite being under the Chelsea striker curse.

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I think the quality City and Liverpool have is more superior to Chelsea everywhere on the pitch and the difference between them is not limited to Chelsea not having a prolific goalscorer.

This, I think, is where Cleetus' point comes in. Chelsea are absolutely knackered. They've played more games than everyone else and didn't get the rub of the COVID rules despite having a fairly significant outbreak (I think it 7 cases the day of the Wolves game). Until December Chelsea were top of the league and fairly comfortable, but December hit very, very hard and I don't think the club has fully recovered from that, so the team isn't playing to form. I think Chelsea have been well below their ability this season, so 2 cup finals isn't bad considering that.

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I think this says more about how big the gulf is between Chelsea and the 4th place chasing pack to be honest. United, Spurs and Arsenal are bloody poor and wildly inconsistent.

Sorry, yeah, that was my point, I didn't explain that well. There had been some chat about the difference between Chelsea and Liverpool/City in the league being huge and the gap with  the chasers being small, and it's just not the case.

17 hours ago, CleetusVanDamme said:

The only reason the gap between Chelsea and fourth is so small is because Chelsea had to play through their Covid and injury crisis, fulfilling all their fixtures during the most demanding spell of the season playing artificially more rested opponents, while everyone else got numerous (a lot of them unneeded) holidays.

If Liverpool had to do the same, the gap between them and Chelsea likely wouldn't be very "monstrous" at all. The three games they've played against each other this season paints the fairest picture: there's not much in it and luck has most definitely shined more favourably on Liverpool this season.

I think Cleetus is overstating the case a bit (the gap between the top two and Chelsea is precisely the size of a reliable goalscorer, and City didn't have the relieved fixture list that others have), but this point is underrepresented.

It's also worth saying that if Chelsea win their two games in hand they will be 11 points ahead of Spurs, which would be a bigger gap than the one to Liverpool (8, assuming they win their game in hand)

19 hours ago, CavemanLynn said:

That's just bad working though. The idea that a ref would hear a tag he doesn't see but see a different guy in the ring and therefore assume a tag had occurred is fine.

No it's not! Part of the refs job is to see the tags because there are visual indicators as to whether it's a legit tag or not. Is the partner holding the tag rope? Are they even in their corner? Did I actually hear someone slap someone else and mistake it for the sound of a tag?

The ref is also supposed to signal the tag is legal so he can keep track of the legal men in the match.  I know noone pays any attention to this any more, but it's definitely an inconsistency that makes the ref look bad out of laziness 

1 hour ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Page is a credible choice as champion, he needs big challengers and triumphant victories to cement himself as a top, top player. He’s not had that chance.

He beat Bryan Danielson by outwrestling him and beat Archer in a Texas death match (something Moxley couldn't do). After finishing Cole off, he's probably going into a match with Punk.

I'm enjoying Pages run, but if there's a problem with it it's that he hasn't figured out how to make his character work when he's not the underdog. He'll get there.

5 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Signing Adam Cole was an act of vandalism. It’s the only right answer here.

Every other mis-step is broadly fine because Tony’s got deep pockets and they can just be used to fill the card without causing any damage.

The minute you sign Adam Cole (and Tony might not have had much choice because of his friendships with the EVP Club) you’re getting someone who you have to push as a big star. He’s coming in with a bit of profile, a bit of reputation but crucially - as mentioned before - he’s bezzie mates with the lads.

He’s held Adam Page’s title reign under water for months because he oozes whatever the opposite of star power is. ‘Black-hole weakness’, maybe?

He looks and acts like a local leisure center, flip-twat.

If they’d have been able to just keep him on the undercard tossing about with comedy acts, fine… but they’d have known what they were getting and did it anyway.

This take is completely overcooked.

I know Cole isn't popular on here, but he was hugely popular in NXT and is well over to a big proportion of AEWs audience. He's a decent to very good worker (as long as someone reins in his finisher spam). His first match with Page was really fun, and his college fratboy schitck works with lots of people and has worked for years. It doesn't translate well over here, but he's clearly a high level guy in AEW, and it'll be great when Kenny comes back and knees him in the face.

That debut was really terrible wasn't it? Aside from being a very, very WWE thing to do, it was worse than how WWE would do it. Rather than have the lights go out (again), he should have walked down the aisle slowly to give everyone the time to go "bloody hell that guy's massive" before attacking Joe. Instead it was just "oh lights off. Oh now they're on. Wait, who's that? He's big. Oh, he's terrible"

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We all know who everyone wants Joe to be facing or interacting with. 

I don't. BCC? Punk? When the lights went out I thought it was for the House of Black and I got really excited for that match, but I assume that's not who you mean.

He does some remarkable quality of life work for the canine population, which I don't think should go unnoticed.

Guys, I think CavemannLynn might be Lance Storm.

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

I’m not sure winning a cup is a fluke. Winning an individual game can be but not six or seven. 

You can get fluky circumstances in a cup though. Get the better side of a draw, you win a game against the run of play, two favourites have to play each other, one of the favourite screws up once against inferior opposition. You can get much flukier in a cup. Chelsea were definitely not the best team in the champions League 2012 for eg.

That said, a fluke is one of the most common fish in the ocean. So if you go fishing for a fluke, you just might catch one.

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

Much like when $tevie Me slipped, that was one moment in one game out of 38 games. You can’t define a season long points and goals tally by a few seconds. Dropping “Easy” points in a season has more of an impact as you had 90 minutes to sort it out. 
 

Except when the FA conspired against Liverpool, because it’s never Snitsky FCs fault. 

Yeah I think there's a big difference between winning a cup, which can be fluked, and winning a league which can't really. If it's not for Stevie Gs slip and all the other points they dropped, Liverpool win the league.

They should probably hold off on expanding the BCC for a little while, as the way they showed Yuta was.good enough was by kicking out of the Death Rider (amongst other things). Noone else should be doing that.There shouldn't really be more than one guy who can take the kind of beating that Yuta did. If there were 5 of them they should have all the belts all the time.

23 minutes ago, Vamp said:

Pretty obvious why they've gone for Gunther too. It's harsher sounding. Walter is a very soft sound, even if you capitalise it.

Strongly disagree. The emphasised V, the strength of the T vs the softer "th" and the Gu which should really have an umlaut on it. Walter is much stronger, and a lot more fun to say. They've changed it because Walter is actually his name. 

Hate what they've done with WALTER. The new music is a massive downgrade, calling him Gunther and Bartel Ludwig Kaiser is proper 80s. May as well just call him Adolf Sauerkraut. Horrendous. I even hate the ring gear. WALTER was always about tradition and the understated black was part of that. NXT WALTER would consider bright red too flashy. And it doesn't make him look more German, it makes him look Russian. They'll make him dye his hair blond next.

Good to see the next challenger (coming off a loss) has already been punked out