unfitfinlay

55 minutes ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

The only person I know in that conversation is "E", who - considering he suffers massively from manic depression - is being surprisingly rational.

It's like that line from Se7en, where Brad Pitt wonders if crazy people realise they're crazy. I'm baffled as to how "O" can type that shite without stopping and thinking "You know what? None of what I'm saying makes any sense at all".

But yeah, WAKE UP!

I think there comes a point in conspiracy theories where you get in so deep that you completely lose the ability to think critically about it. My mate was part of a conspiracy group on Facebook and would forward me stuff like photos of "1G Phone Masts during the Spanish Flu!!!!!". He's not a moron - he just likes Aliens - but he said people in the group were actually discussing whether it was evidence of fucking time travel.

I also think fear plays a part as well. A lot of folk would rather believe that some mysterious group is secretly controlling everything because at least someone would be in control. Reality is actually more terrifying.

I watched Being The Elite immediately after Dynamite. It's insane that the amazing "Fuck Hangman" storyline was on the semi-cannon Youtube show while that awful segment with Cody, Jade Cargill and Brandi made it to the main show. I'm all for AEW giving people opportunities but it's a really brave move to expect someone that green to carry a segment like that. Especially since it wasn't that long ago that they did practically the same angle, far better, with Jake Roberts. I'm not sure what Brandi was doing either. I was relieved when she came out but got immediately distracted with the weird way she was talking. She's been a featured member of the roster since the company started. We know how she talks.

The good thing about AEW though, is that they always seem to recognise when something isn't working and change course. Hopefully they'll do that here, and quickly.

8 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

So now Trump is on the way out, does that means there is more of a chance of sorting this independent contractor bullshit out?

Nah. No President is ever going to sort it out. America just isn't built that way.

The only way it'll get fixed is if a wrestler manages to get to court and win. That would take a wrestler with a shit load of money to burn, who has only recently left the company and who is willing to sacrifice their future wrestling career to help everybody else. It'll never happen.

Daffney's lawsuit against TNA is probably the closest it was ever going to get.

1 hour ago, honor87 said:

I wonder how the US will look one year from now, the hyper-partisan media on both sides has painted that anyone with a differing political opinion as evil and not to be trusted. In recent days a CNN Anchor, for example said they have cut people out of their life for even considering voting Trump. This is cult-like levels when people can’t even have discourse on who you vote for, when they very likely share many commonalities that are then ignored and instead shunned away.

That's a bad example. Considering some of the shit Trump has said about the media, and CNN specifically, I can completely understand their employees expecting their friends not to support him. They got sent Pipe Bombs by a Trump supporter and Trump's response was to call them "Enemies of the People" and essentially say that they deserved it.

Regardless of political opinion, he's put their lives at risk. If they had friends who were still willing to vote for him after that then they were shitty friends to begin with. I mean, how do you even begin to justify that?

3 hours ago, Daaaaaad! said:

This will be an extended version of that “McMahon!” documentary they released a few years ago, which basically revealed nothing and added no real insight to anything.

Was that not the one where they casually talked about Vince proposing that he and Stephanie do an incest storyline where he'd be revealed as the father of her child?

That's the fascinating thing about stuff like this. The McMahons live in such an isolated, oddball world that they don't know just how fucking weird they are. They'll obviously try and make themselves look awesome but, they've got such a skewed vision of right and wrong, that it could still end up being really interesting all the same.

3 hours ago, simonworden said:

As quite a few people on here do, I have an odd fascination with 2000 WCW from the Russo reset until the end. The Slamboree match as you say wasn't that bad and is actually a fairly entertaining gimmick match. One thought for me on why it gets shitcanned as an angle is that it was so far removed from what many WCW fans took to be WCW's style of booking especially in it's good years. However there's plenty of worse dross throughout the companies history that really makes the Arquette title win no surprise. As someone who was only just getting into wrestling in 2000 it surprises me still to this day how much shit WCW get for that title win but Vince pinning the newly crowned WWF champ in Triple H was fairly glossed over. I guess thats partly due to Vince being in the business but also how a hot streak can mask a streak of piss while WCW had the stench all over it from a mix of a boring 1999 and the mental title changes that occurred from Autumn 1999 up to this point.  

I'd say it's as simple as the storylines.

Vince winning the title was a big surprise but it made sense, added heat to HHH's feud with Austin and, because it was portrayed as a total fluke, it didn't hurt anyone at all. The story on screen wasn't so much "Vince McMahon won the title!!" as "Triple H LOST the title to Vince McMahon!", which is evidenced by the fact that Vince immediately vacated it. If anything, I'd argue that it actually helped establish HHH as a legitimate top guy. He was the focal point of the story.

Arquette's win, on the other hand, was a total mess. They'd JUST had DDP win the title after months of chasing it and he immediately loses it to his mate, in a tag match, without being pinned.....and he's fucking happy about it? The follow up was nonsense as well. Arquette's character changed between ripping off Mikey Whipwreck - the terrified underdog who won the title in a fluke and just wanted to hand it back - and Crash Holly - a delusional guy who doesn't realise that he's in over his head. He'd do that several times in a single episode of Nitro!

And, of course, the pay off was utter shite as well. "It was a set up all along!" So Arquette was merely pretending to be DDP's mate and was really allied with Jarrett the whole time. So not only was DDP happy about losing the title to Arquette, Jarrett helped plan for it to happen. So that was three consecutive Champions who didn't give two fucks about the World Title.

I do like Arquette though. He worked his arse off for them, and took some pretty impressive bumps if I remember right, He's completely blameless for any of it.

3 hours ago, Pogue said:

I was watching at the time and never understood why they didn't just put the US title on him, they still would've got Kurt Russell and Courtney Cox in pretty much the same segments and the same publicity but not completely killed off their already massively damaged World title 

Because Scott Steiner was U.S Champion.

4 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Most contracts will have a gross misconduct term which allows instant termination for a serious breach or crime. I think he's just a chancer

He’s definitely a chancer.

It’s a bit like Lesnar’s five year no-compete when he left WWE, or their death clause for that matter. You can put whatever you like in a contract but it doesn’t mean it’ll hold up in a court of law.

Regardless of what his contract says, there’s no way Impact could be expected to keep employing a guy accused of multiple sex offences, especially when his on-screen character was essentially a comedic sex offender as well. How could they ever use him again?

Besides if they hadn’t sacked him immediately, they’d have been seen as supporting him, and that could’ve killed them.

He’s just looking for a pay off. The only way it’s happening is if Impact want to avoid the negative publicity of a lawsuit. He’s getting fuck all otherwise.

He had a clause saying that he couldn't be fired for anything he'd done before the contract was signed? That seems really dodgy. Who on earth asks for something like that?

Doubt it'll get to court. Pretty sure he's just hoping that they'll give him some money so he'll go away. 

I don't think the difficulty in suing WWE is really the issue here.

They work for one of the only companies still running shows during a global pandemic and who just released a shitload of people, including people you would've assumed would've been lifers. Unless you've already established yourself as a star, or you're extremely confident about getting picked up elsewhere, then you'd have to be daft to cause trouble, no matter what the provocation is.

I don't know how much they make from Twitch but I doubt any of them will consider it worth risking their push or their pay, if not their actual job. Plus a huge portion of the roster are people who grew up dreaming about making it to WWE. They surely aren't going to risk that coming to an end over this are they?

I'm fine with the companies existing separately and building themselves up. I don't know if they necessarily need each other at this point anyway. Is anyone going to watch AEW for Okada or Naito that isn't already watching? Same with New Japan to an extent. They've already got access to Moxley and Jericho if they need to attract AEW fans.

The other thing is that the more that companies work together, the less special it feels. Ibushi signing for AEW, for example, would be pretty great but, it wouldn't feel half as special if he'd already appeared on their shows and worked with all their top guys already. Now that I think about it, it would also hurt wrestlers in contract negotiations. Can't really play two sides off against each other if they are working together.

The thing is, it wasn't JUST Andre's size and look that made him feel so special. It was his entire presentation. They'd move him round different territories to stop the mystique wearing off, they had wee tricks to make him look taller in interview segments and he very very rarely lost. They even set up the wee rings at Wrestlemania 3 solely to hide the fact that Andre could hardly walk.

It doesn't matter how impressive someone looks nowadays. If they are on TV every week, doing in ring interviews, posting pictures of their lunch on Twitter and selling shout outs on Cameo then people are going to get used to them very quickly.

So, nah, I don't see anybody else pulling off a 10th Wonder gimmick, unless it's to get heel heat.

I genuinely think we're fucked. I am anyway.

The Tories response to the virus has been a joke since the beginning but, coming out of lockdown has probably been the worst of the entire ordeal.  Firstly, case numbers were around the same level when they lifted restrictions as they were when we went into lockdown, which is insane. They not only did still did it but they tried to put pressure on the devolved Governments to follow suit, and encouraged people to travel the country.

Aside from that, it's only been about two weeks since they were bribing folk to go to restaurants and trying to guilt people into stopping working from home. What the fuck did they think was going to happen?

The big concern is whether people will even obey a second lockdown and, for me personally, whether I'll still have a job. I work in a hotel. We lost an ungodly amount of money from being closed. If we lockdown again, it wouldn't shock me if they just sack everybody and stay closed until things stabilise.

7 minutes ago, Joe Blog said:

I don't agree with bending the rules to suit your own narrative but it's bloody easy to see why people are utterly exhausted by it all. 

Same.

I will say that I like Nicola Sturgeon but our version of the rule of six is particularly shit. Limiting gatherings to six people from two households disproportionately hurts people who live alone and means people are less likely to follow it. I can think of so many flaws in it - I can work for twelve hours with three work colleagues but we can't go for a pint afterwards? - that it's impossible to really take it seriously. Even some of the most sensible people I know, who've followed every other rule, have said that they aren't going to stick to that.

I'm uncomfortable with those groups too. Worse though are the folk who stream protests to get accused/convicted paedophiles moved from the area. There's been loads of that round here recently, including one where the accused was completely innocent. Because the guy streaming was more concerned with views and shares than whether the guy had actually done anything.

It must be horrible for the Police. They can't force people to leave their homes, especially if they haven't even been charged, or have served their time. They end up just taking the cunt away until everyone fucks off and then bringing them back again. That leads to accusations that they are "protecting the beasts!!"

It's only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt and all those groups get banned, which would be a shame, because if they'd just work with the Police rather than against them, they'd be a great thing.

Sorry to read this Shy Dad.

Hope things improve for you. I agree with Nostalgia Nonce about setting up a zoom room or something. The last thing you need right now is isolation, even though I'm sure your brain is telling you the opposite.

5 hours ago, CavemanLynn said:

Unless I missed something, I thought it was pretty clear the Bucks hated Hangman, and Kenny, up until recently, was torn. But FTR's meddling with Hangman has convinced Kenny he was holding the team together and didn't need Hangman, hence his blase attitude to the tag title loss and decision that the next step of his AEW career was singles competition. This is on top of him repeatedly stating that the Bucks were the best tag team in the world, while him and Hangman had the belts, so no doubt Kenny is happy for the Bucks to take the tags from Dax and Cash while he gets singles gold and the Elite are all belted up.

To be clear, all I'm saying is that I don't think it was FTR that convinced Hangman to cost the Bucks the title shot. It was Kenny.

Here's the interview segment with FTR and Page and Omega from before the PPV. Look at Omega's body language when Dax is demanding Hangman tell everybody who put him up to it? Look at his reaction to Dax saying "It wasn't us" and the look on his face when he says "It was you". He practically sighs in relief. I might well be overanalysing it, like, but Omega seems the type to do wee things like that for a reason.

I hope this is the direction they go in anyway. Hangman being manipulated by one his best friends and his tag team partner is a lot better than him being manipulated by a couple of guys who bought him some beer. It also makes Omega a far far more compelling heel and gives a really legitimate reason for the Bucks to hate both of them, whenever they decide to pull the trigger on it.

.

1 hour ago, Pinc said:

Na Brock walked into UFC and became their heavyweight champion, after already effectively being a superworker within pro wrestling. He has a credibility in both worlds that will probably never be matched by anyone. Sure booking big hosses strong will get them over, but Lesnar is a really special case.

Oh sure, I get that. Lesnar obviously has more name value and sheer talent than those guys. He'd obviously create more of a buzz and draw more than anyone on the roster. That's unarguable.

He'd also cost a shit load more money though and AEW would have to ask themselves if all that extra buzz would be worth it, when they've got far cheaper options to run with, who'll be more value long term. After all, as I said, we saw big stars go to Impact and not make the slightest difference to their bottom line, and they were far more established than AEW is. Are enough people even aware of AEW's existence at this point to justify spending millions of dollars on one person? How many people will tune in to see Lesnar that aren't already watching for Jericho, Moxley, Brodie and Miro?

Putting someone else in the "Indestructible Monster runs through everyone before finally being dethroned" spot won't work as well, but it'll still work and with far less risk. 

This is all hypothetical obviously. If CM Punk was insulted by AEW's contract offer then they'll be lucky to get Lesnar to answer a phone call.

5 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

Well now I'm here for Lesnar just beating the crap out of QT every week. Sign him up.

Judging by their weird obsession with pushing QT, he'll probably go over.

30 minutes ago, Tsurutagun said:

It will probably end up being DDP

My prediction is that it was Omega that got in Hangman's head all along and the Bucks forgive Page and its Page vs Omega with Page getting his big singles win for the world title (after Omega beats Mox at Full Gear) and he becomes AEW's ace. 

I agree with this. Kenny was just a bit too understanding of Hangman costing the Buck's a title shot and getting kicked out of the Elite. I don't think he even questioned it at all did he? Besides I think it suits both their characters far more than "FTR did it".

I wouldn't have the Bucks forgive Hangman though. That's something you can leave bubbling away in the background and revisit when you need to. There's no need to wrap it up. Just have Kenny, Page and The Bucks all hate each other.

I don't see a particular upside to Lesnar going to AEW either.

He's a bigger star than they've currently got, sure, but as we've seen with Impact, that doesn't necessarily translate to an increase in ratings or PPV buys. Likewise, the idea that whoever beats him will instantly become a made man has been disproven in WWE as well. It's been well over a year since I've followed RAW or Smackdown but, one of the key things that made me tune out, was that it constantly felt like "The Lesnar show." He was so far above everybody else that, even when he lost, you knew it was only a matter of time before he was getting a title back. I don't see that improving in AEW somehow.

Plus, creatively, is there anything that Lesnar could do for AEW that someone like Lance Archer, Brian Cage or even Wardlow couldn't do adequately well for a fraction of the price? Obviously it's night and day in terms of name value and sheer talent but, if you book any of those three the way you'd book Lesnar, then they'd still get over. Anyone would really.

Except for QT Marshall.

The Hardy thing was a mess. For starters, the stipulation was pointless. Did anyone really believe Hardy was going to leave AEW? Did even one person buy the PPV because of it? I’d be very surprised.

Yet they decided to put his health - and Sammy’s for that matter - at risk because of a stipulation that nobody really cared about.

Fuck off. Stop the match, make sure he’s all right and then figure out a way to bring him back down the road. It’s not like it’s an actual rule or anything. It’s their show. Stick him under a mask or something.

21 hours ago, Hugh Thesz said:

Nicola Sturgeon has announced a locldown of visiting houses or hosting guests on the Glasgow and surrounding areas.

Initially for a fortnight, however it will be reveiwed in seven days.

Glasgow city centre was fucking jumping on Friday with limited spaces in pubs seeing  a lot of folk having to wait to go in; if being allowed at all.

In my opinion, being a Nationalist but being level headed enough to have an unbiased opinion if there are lies being told it is to limit to potential threat we are faceing.

Same.

I hate to say it but I've noticed a good bit of arrogance up here regarding the virus. People are acting like the reason we've done "better" than England is because we are so much more, intelligent and sensible. It's bollocks. Granted our leadership has been a hundred times better but the truth is that we got the virus later so it had less time to spread before the UK-wide lockdown.

I've also seen morons use the low case numbers - a result of lockdown - as evidence that we never needed to go into lockdown in the first place.

I think another country-wide lockdown is inevitable at this point, which is terrifying, because there's no way that the Tories are going fund another furlough scheme.

On 8/21/2020 at 10:08 AM, BomberPat said:

Peaky Blinders. I've never watched it. But I associate it with every 19 year old twat with a fade acting like a hard man in pubs, and every midlife crisis sad act who started wearing flat caps and waistcoats with watch chains in the last three years. Doesn't help that someone at work is mad on it, and he's a prick. His desk used to be behind mine, and I was really surprised when he had a Nick Cave song as his ringtone until I learned it was the theme tune. 

I refused to watch Quadrophenia for years for similar reasons. When I was 18, loads of boys round here got heavily into it and it turned them into total wankers. Going about shouting "We are the Mods!" and demanding to know if I was a "Mod Or a Rocker!!". In 1998.

I was quite surprised when I actually watched the film. No idea how so many people could claim to love a film and miss the fucking point so spectacularly.

10 hours ago, scratchdj said:

We had a work-shy little fucker work at our place who would have his hour for lunch and then go and have a poo for an hour, every day.

Worst I've seen was a co-worker in a factory job who would fuck off to the toilet for at least twenty minutes of every hour. Our targets were based on the amount of people on the line so it actively fucked the rest of us over, not that he did much work when he was there anyway. He lasted a couple of weeks before a supervisor finally spoke to him about it and he walked out in protest.

12 hours ago, Supremo said:

He got over as a comedy geek though. That’s what always seems to get lost in the discussion. Me and my flat mates loved, “Z! True Long Island Story,” as much as anyone, but how exactly do you make a proper star coming off a show like that, when the absolute best part every single week was the running joke that his Dad preferred John Morrison?

Yeah I've really mellowed about WWE's treatment of Ryder in the past few years. At the time I was raging that they cut the balls off someone who, at the very least, could've been a decent upper-midcarder but, realistically, the reactions he was getting were overshadowing everything else on the shows. Even The Rock had to stop and acknowledge the "We Want Ryder" chants. Their options were to either bury him, and stop the chants, or run with it and risk him failing miserably.

Looking at what he did afterwards, it's hard to argue that they made the wrong decision. He didn't freshen up his gimmick, come up with some new moves (the Rough Ryder is a really shit finisher) and generally make himself impossible to ignore. He just coasted, doing the exact same thing for nearly a decade. He's a naturally likeable guy but if he has anything else to offer beyond that then he hasn't shown it. Can anyone think of a single memorable Zack Ryder match?

His big problem now is that he's got "WWE Jobber Stink" on him and it's going to be hard to shake that off. I'm not too keen on him coming in as Cody's "close friend" either. That seems well worn territory already, and AEW's only been around for a year.

Eddie Guerrero turning heel in 2003 was fucking shit. He was so over as a babyface that it would've taken something really special to get the fans to turn on him. Instead he beat up Tajiri for scratching his car.

Nobody gave a fuck. Tajiri was only over because he was Eddie's partner and it was such a comical reason for a turn. Eddie didn't change his character at all either. It was so pointless that I can't remember if they even bothered "officially" turning him back. It was the polar opposite of his turn on Mysterio a few years later, which was brilliant.

The last years of WCW are probably an easy target but there was a few really horrible turns there. The Hogan/Flair double turn was probably the worst. It came out of nowhere, made no real sense and it led to Hogan just casually going to back to the babyface character that he'd been shitting on for years.

3 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

Looks like Muhammad Hassan has been 'Benoit'd' on the WWE Network. 

If you search for him his matches are all 'X competes in a singles match' with his name not mentioned and his image in none of the thumbnails. 

What's up with that? They that arsed about an angle from 15 years ago? 

It's the same as everything else now I'd imagine. Companies are trying to preempt any racism scandals by distancing themselves from dodgy content BEFORE people complain about it. The Mohammed episodes of South Park have been pulled offline as well as the (amazing) Advanced Dungeons and Dragons episode of Community from Netflix, but not Amazon Prime.

Hassan was such a horrible character though. Listening to Bruce Prichard talk about it on Something to Wrestle With really hit home how little respect people in wrestling have for the audience. The whole idea was that wrestling fans are all thick racists who would be incensed by American Muslims not wanting to be seen as terrorists. When that didn't get over, they just decided to just strongly imply that he was a terrorist.

He was a good promo as well but the character was just race baiting shite. I'm not surprised that they are Benoiting him.