Duke

I watched night two after reading the results for night one and figuring the second night was probably worth a punt. 

I've been off WWE viewing for just over a year now as I only really have time for one wrestling show and I decided that's going to be AEW (having babyfaces I could get behind helped)

Anyway, the main thing I noticed is just how slow all the in ring stuff felt. Hot take, I know, but because I'd never got into much outside of WWE I'd never really felt it before like I did for Mania. It's not like they tell better stories either.

He's also (now) exactly what Vince wants from his performers. He has a brilliant look, tattoo aside, he's a legacy (no pun intended), he's got a great promo in him in the right circumstances, he's consistent (in unspectacular) in the ring and he's extremely marketable. He didn't have this so much before he left (although he did have that amazing tag run with Dustin) but he's worked on his skills and in particular his presentation and now he looks the business. Hell, he probably reminds Vince of himself in his 30s, especially since he struck out on his own and made something of himself. 

As long as he keeps the audience of one happy, he could be one of the faces of the company. Maybe he'll be like Cena and take that ball and use it to massively improve. Maybe he'll be like Miz and be pointless and terrible. He might thrive with an editor, who knows?

This weekend Tony Khan signed Samoa Joe, having recently signed CM Punk and Bryan Danielson. I think he'll be able to hold back the dark thoughts that Average Cody Rhodes has left.

Good promo though.

At least one person who replies to this thread saying no will be lying.

1 hour ago, Statto said:

"Oh my! Seth Rollins' Wrestlemania dream has turned into a nightmare!"

If it is Cody I think this is nailed on what he'll say

47 minutes ago, AshC said:

Olympic Gold Medalist gets a starmaking debut, beating a former World champ on WrestleMania, after getting the green light from Vince McMahon himself... or former tag champ from Legacy comes out. There are people there who'll be thinking that. And if we look at the former's potential upside for the company, as a mainstream name with real world credibility... it's not madness, is it? 

Might deflate ten or twenty thousand hatewatchers in the crowd, but anything less than a re-enactment of WrestleMania 17 often does.

Yeah it is, like. Far better to debut him on Raw with way more people watching and preferably with some actual build. 

A surprise match at Mania when maybe 10% will recognise him IS madness. 

Cody's a much bigger star to the hardcore's that will travel to mania, but I wouldn't redebut him there either 

Seth gets squashed by Veer/Taker/Lars Sullivan/Giant Haystacks at Mania, Cody debuts next night on Raw when Seth is in the ring complaining.

16 minutes ago, Kfogg1991 said:

Yeah man I agree completely with this. I can't help but feel this is going to be a massive disappointment in terms of what everyone is expecting 

You say that, but I'm not sure Cody Rhodes is actually an upgrade on The Undertaker.

Imagine typing that sentence 5 years ago, yikes.

Anyway, I sort of think Cody's star is at its biggest before he debuts. Hell have one feud and everyone will go "oh yeah, it's Cody Rhodes. Didn't he used to have a tache?". Keep the myth of the genre defying renegade alive, never actually put him on the show.

8 hours ago, Kamran said:

 

 

First thought: what the hell has happened to Seth Rollins? Are all their heels Dolph Ziggler now?

Second thought: if you ignore the Cody rumours, this feels far more like a build to a surprise squash with the undertaker than it does a competitive match with a new debut.

13 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

Will Smith certainly slaps like someone who lets his wife cheat on him to keep her happy and then cries about it.

Is this 4chan?

40 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Ah, ok. I thought it was them trying to be antisemitic dicks. 

I honestly assumed it was to with MJF referring to himself as Satan. The fan explanation makes way more sense 

12 minutes ago, Louch said:

How can he be listening to the crowd when he’s breathing out his arse? He must be concentrating like fuck on just surviving 

Well, a few ways I reckon. Firstly, he's been doing this for a while so it probably takes less mental energy than you'd think. Secondly, he can probably get feedback from guys in the back, his opponents, etc. Thirdly, he can probably watch the show back afterward and reflect then. Fourthly, he's married to a pro wrestler so she could watch the show and feed back week on week to help. But I've heard lots of vets say that you need a crowd reacting to get a good sense of what's working.

4 hours ago, Supremo said:

Knowing how they book, this suggests he’s going to beat Cody at Wrestlemania. I’ll laugh my arse off.

He does need a new.nickname. They've probably already designed their "nightmare slayer" t-shirts 

1 hour ago, Louch said:

Reps are better done behind closed doors than huffing and puffing about a ring at near midnight. 

Not when you're trying to adapt your style by hearing how the crowd reacts, it's not, which I think Infinity Khan's point.

I'm not sure having Seth lose a bunch of matches is the best way to prepare him for whatever his big match is.

18 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

I'm sure it'd be a solid 3 star match. 

4 in the Tokyo Dome so maybe 3.5 in Cardiff.

1 hour ago, Project Nim said:

No your post didn’t make sense you patronising cunt.

It did though. Dunne is young so this stupid gimmick, which may well lead to him getting released, isn't a killer for his career as he may well be south of 30 when it happens. Having good stable money is probably pretty good for him in his life stage. Totally get it.

1 hour ago, Healy52003 said:

How good would a Roman vs Cody Rhodes main event be

Not. Not good. 

Thanks for the heads up, Hannibal.

That many men are so uncomfortable with periods is why they should watch it.

Im pretty uncomfortable with them, only child, went to all boys schools, never really had an education on it, but I have a daughter now. A Pixar film where periods are represented as a big cuddly panda is probably a good level for me.

Just now, Factotum said:

Yes and that was shameful. There have been journalists digging into this, but we all know the legal threats Roman has been wielding over people who have dug in all these years, Its all out there. I think we broadly agree on this, I just think that someone like Tuchel cannot plead ignorance on it.

Agree on the Howe point

And I don't think he is. I think he's doing the best he can be expected to be doing considering there seems to be a massive wall between him and the people with actual knowledge of the situation. He's not doing a Howe or a Moyes and saying "I'm just a football man, dunno". He's trying to speak into the situation as best he can, but he's not been prepared for it.

I'm definitely not arguing that journalists should think "well Bruce Buck isn't here so we won't ask the  questions", it's their job to ask. It just shouldn't be Tuchel's job to answer. There's no reason Petr Cech or someone even higher up couldn't sit in one of these conferences and answer questions, they're hardly going to be asked anything they won't see coming. But they won't, because that's not how Chelsea do things. And that's pathetic.

33 minutes ago, Factotum said:

As much as I think he's answered well enough, if you take such a job, you should be asked on this and can't complain when you are. Football has put its head in the sand for too long on stuff like this. If you were a highly sought after coach you don't HAVE to go to work for a place where the ownership situation is extremely well know. He's paid very well.  It should be the same for Guardiola and Howe (less sought after obviously) but they should be asked if they're comfortable working for people with such links.

 

Yeah, I get this, except the problem is no one asked any of this stuff until Russia invaded Ukraine, something that I don't think it's reasonable for Tuchel to have predicted. Let's not kid ourselves, the culture hasn't changed because of the slow build up of changing values, it's changed because of War in Europe, and if Abramovich had done everything that he'd done except be from a different state, we still wouldn't be asking those questions.  Tuchel joined a club that, honestly, we were generally fine with ownership wise up until now. We didn't even do this when Putin annexed Chechnya.

I have less of a problem with the media asking Tuchel and more of a problem that the people above him (apart from a few words from Petr Cech) haven't shielded him from this at all. This is, surely, part of their job. I also agree with Houchen that it's a dodgy line to draw.

The Howe comparison doesn't really hold up as Howe's owners aren't just businessmen connected with the Saudi Government, they ARE the Saudi government. He is, explicitly, being employed by the Saudis. 

I'm all over the place on the Chelsea stuff.

Abramovich hasn't been sanctioned because he's a bad man, or because he's a crook (although he undoubtedly is), but because the government thinks doing so will put pressure on Putin. The Chelsea fans saying "but look at all his charity work" are missing that. His money could be entirely legit, but he is clearly influential in Russia and Russia clearly use his international companies for supplies, so sanctioning him is the way to go because it might save some lives in Ukraine. That's just good politics.

On the other hand, some of the outrage from Chelski fans is that the government are clearly just sanctioning him because it's now in their best interests because of the pressure Labour have put them under. It feels like they were giving him lots of opportunity to get out of the country on his terms and was selling Chelsea in such a way that, if you take his stated intent seriously, he would not profit from. That being said, the man has defrauded governments in the past, so why would you take that intent seriously? The moral outrage from some in the government (and indeed many others) also sounds completely absurd so close to the Newcastle takeover. Some have been consistent in their anger, but plenty haven't and are using the opportunity to score some points.

Watching Panorama the other night was helpful. I started paying attention to football and Chelsea specifically long after he'd arrived, so I've been ignorant as to what the specific morality charges are against him, in terms of what's provable. He is, clearly, a crook and a bad man who the UK should've been more wary of than they were (though he's far from alone on that when it comes to football investment). I tend to think that the story of him borrowing money from the government to buy the oil companies from the government at a knockdown price to then sell them back for a huge profit years later is the sort of story that would be turned into a Clooney film in other circumstances, but his money is clearly filthy, probably bloody and not the kind of man that we want to do business with.

Not that that's ever stopped anyone in power in the UK before....

In all, this is a rambly way of saying the sanctions are obviously a good thing as they may help save some Ukrainian lives, and while they've not been done for reasons of morality, they are getting someone like him out of a position of influence in the country and that's a good thing.

It is sad for Chelsea fans that the club is going to, almost certainly, be more Spurs than City by a few years time. I don't really buy into the trophies being "tainted", the PL knew what they were getting into and allowed it, and let's face it, if we're going to argue Chelsea are tainted we might want to forget the last 20 years of football all together and start over, but I get the accusation. 

Asking for the Middlesbrough game to be behind closed doors was incredibly arrogant, and really speaks to the club living a different narrative to everyone else.  I used to work with a guy who just saw all his interactions with people totally differently to how everyone else, he was always the hero and the victim. He resigned after hurting an awful lot of people. That's what that request was, total narcissism. Proper narcissist.  The logic, presumably, was that Middlesbrough would have even more of a home field advantage, but obviously the better solution is to let Middlesbrough have all of the money from the ticket allocation and ask that they let some chelsea fans in. Or just suck it up. You have every other conceivable advantage. Read the room!

I feel sorry for Thomas Tuchel, who is somehow now expected to be an expert in geopolitics and business because his employers have hung him out to dry.

I feel most sorry for all the non-playing staff who have their jobs dangling in front of them whilst most of the country jeers and laughs.

1 hour ago, scratchdj said:

With Nike, Three and now Hyundai all backing out, I assumed they wouldn’t be able to wear their current kit which has the logos of all three of those companies on them.

Nike haven't backed out have they? Last I saw was them confirming that they wouldn't.

Anyway, I came here to post that Kai Havertz' deadpan serious suggestions that his justification for elbowing Dan Burn in the head is because Burn is "7...8 foot tall" (and therefore he had to jump extra high which involves using your arms) is Hogan level brilliance.

4 hours ago, air_raid said:

Eh. It’s not the same if it’s a tag team champion losing a singles match, is it? He’s not a singles champion, so every singles match he wrestles has to be non title. At least the Usos, tag team champions, didn’t get beaten by another tag team in a tag team match. This week.

I was referring to asking lots of obvious questions rather than just making statements.

Did my joke fall flat? Yes it did.