forameus

Half expecting him just to decide to go off season given how little regard he seems to have. Seems like he hadn't really bothered training much either, if I was responsible for keeping these kinds of people alive up there, I'd be flat out refusing. Hopefully he can spend a year being constantly told not to be such a tit and take it seriously.

I've no idea what make it is, but I've just moved into a new office at work and I'm not sure I've ever had a chair of that kind as comfy as that one. I'm sure it's one that's an absolutely ridiculous price though, so scared to look. I'm currently using some Amazon jobber option that the stitching is mostly fucked on, and the other room has a shite Ikea one that we didn't spend enough on. It's about as comfy as sitting on the floor.

It's always been a bit of a meme of him jumping in when someone's hot, but that had to be the most egregious example yet. "Here, Hook, I remember when your da battered me ages ago. Then you battered me too!" Only acceptable way for this to end is an extended 30 minute segment where both Hook and Taz kick the shit out of him in the middle of the ring, then he goes away. He's got a wealth of experience and I expect having someone like that around your company is probably a net positive (despite the personal problems), but he doesn't need to be constantly inserted alongside or opposite people so he can leech the heat.

I assume Darby Allin gets sent back to his home planet next week then?

Realised I'd missed an NXT PLE over the weekend so thought I'd catch up. Greeted at the start with "you won't miss a minute of the action here". 5 minutes in to the first match, a near 4 minute advert for Wrestlemania and other Network programming. I know WWE have always been about this kind of stuff, but they've gotten far worse recently. AEW cram about 3hrs50mins of wrestling into a 4 hour show, WWE must be nearing about half their show not being matches at this stage. EDIT: Actually, looks like this wasn't one from the weekend, and was just one of their branded weekly shows, which would explain the abundance of ad breaks. Still, grumble grumble grumble.

I didn't see it as quite as good as some have here, but that's probably more that AEW have performed at such a generally high level that it's hard to differentiate. In terms of negatives, definitely that scramble match. Not really sure what the point of it all was, and you could have achieved the end result in any other way. Wasn't bad by any means, just...meh. One other one that stood out, particularly early in the show, is that AEW still really doesn't let moment's breathe. Early in their life they were putting on long, sprawling 5 hour shows, and to be fair to them they seem to now be pretty set on sticking to four hours on the dot. That's good. But they're still trying to cram too much in to those 4 hours that certain moments just get lost with the commentary team already quickly moving them on to the next bit. I think when Wardlow won the scramble match, there can't have been more than about 8 seconds before they threw to a video package. Even just giving 10-15 seconds more, and a closing line about what this means for the Undisputed Kingdom and the title going forward would have capped it off, but it all just seems a bit rushed. Definitely got better later in the show a maybe their timings were going better, but if they just dropped one match to zero hour, they could still have an incredible show, and give the moments that need it that little extra. They also presumably wouldn't have had to cut to black on the PPV feed with Sting's immortal line "hold on I'm getting a cue". But they're all pretty minor things in what was a very good show. Really looking forward to being able to see more of Ospreay having never really watched NJPW. Going to be quite the moment when he wins the title at Wembley presumably I echo the question of where the f**k did Sting's boys go? Understandable why they did it, but don't think the opening of the match quite hit if the plan was always for them just to wander off in time for the Bucks to take back control. Should've peppered them in through the match. Darby is just fucking mental. I mean, as a visual, that spot was incredible, but...fucking hell. I bet CM Punk's fucking raging watching that. Hopefully they can still find something good for Cassidy going forward. He's too good and important to the company to just push into the background with comedy spots, even if the decision to take the title was probably the right one. Can't say I usually like to watch people in their mid-70s get kicked in the head, but I'll forgive it with Flair. He's obviously got personal...issues from his past, but even discounting those, he looks like a ghoul and is in incredibly bad shape. He shouldn't be anywhere near any role that isn't just a cheerleader for whatever company is paying him (not that AEW are paying him). Granted there's a four year difference, but Steamboat came out looking incredible at 71, highlighting even more what a state Flair was in. Hopefully he can just get to f**k now before he dies on television. And speaking of the condition of elderly men, shall we just reverse the retirement and let Sting keep going for another decade? Honestly looks like he's good for it. Joins the rare pantheon of wrestlers who managed to go out on their own terms, in presumably good health, and to adulation. And he's done it with little more than being a mad shagger in his younger years before finding religion. Good on him.

I assume Bloodline win the tag match, otherwise the stipulation becomes a bit pointless. Cody then beats the odds to best Reigns on night 2, and Rock probably turns on Reigns to help. I can't see his ego or image wanting to remain the bad guy and end up on the losing side. It's all going to look very Hogan and overshadow what should just be Cody winning clean, but hey ho. I wonder how many matches they'll try and pretend are main events over the weekend? Reigns essentially now taking up both available true main event slots, and I imagine there'll be a few people more than a bit miffed about that. Bayley fucking should be. That's got the potential to be an absolutely huge moment, and it'll probably get chucked on midway through night 1.

As much as I can't stand the Bucks, had to feel sorry for them for having to sell getting battered by a 70 year old Ric Flair on live TV. Fucking ooft.

Shawn Spears/Tye Dillinger also returned to NXT completely out of the blue. Nice that stuff like that can still happen, even if it isn't the biggest name.

They are starting to take the piss a bit with all the completely unnecessary footage they have in every single show, particularly when it's ones you're ultimately paying for. And particularly hilarious that they're placed there instead of ads, made out like it's some kind of bonus like it's fucking EasyJet speedy boarding or something, and then basically advertise WWE rather than other products. Some of them are interesting, but that's the first time you see them. I was quite interested to see Bobby Lashley's journey to the WWE, but only once, not the 10-20 times that video got played. And now on top of that, seemingly as part of the deal, we get to learn why you absolutely should come to "insert place here". I do wonder if they went mental and played a big show at Hampden what these videos would look like though. The Barras? The St Enoch centre? Four corners? Probably one of the weakest WWE-on-a-jolly shows that one. Even some of the Saudi ones held a bit more for a viewer. Elimination Chamber matches don't really ever live up to the hype of how they sound, and probably haven't since they decided to be spoilsports and made the thing actually safe for the wrestlers involved (the b*****ds). I don't think there was anything particularly bad, but just a very middling show. I liked the commitment to hating Logan Paul. I liked that Rhea Ripley decided not to do the "this is just so lovely" tearful homecoming and opted instead for "coked up and off to the darts". I liked Kevin Owens in general, from his stealing a koala to just being generally mental in the chamber match. One thing that did stand out early on though is what a good job NXT is doing if they're producing people like Stratton. The chamber match started, and Naomi and Lynch looked pretty awkward, stiff and ultimately slow. And that's two very experienced people, one of which at least you'd probably put at the top of the bracket. Stratton came in and easily matched them, but actually looked like she was moving at some pace. She's one of many in the new look NXT that seem to be getting thrown in at the deep end and thriving. I'm sure I saw that some of the more high profile names have a ridiculously low number of actual televised matches, and a lot of them are holding their own against veterans. Great job they're doing with them.

Christian following his grand tradition of only feuding with people who he can berate for their Da being dead. Extra touch to it this time though - the address he gave during his promo? A graveyard. Ooft.

They're shaping up to have a fair blockbuster of a WM at this rate. Probably confirmed Rock/Reigns vs Rollins/Rhodes (Night 1) Reigns vs Rhodes (Night 2) Rollins vs ? (Night 2) Bayley vs Iyo Sky Potential Lynch v Ripley Gunther vs ? (seemed to be Jey Uso, but they're chucking that on RAW next week apparently) Jey Uso vs Jimmy Uso (heavily rumoured previously) LA Knight vs Styles Logan Paul vs ? (probably KO I'd imagine to blow off the feud) Something tag title related Belair vs Cargill (can't see Belair not doing something) Just going by all of those, you're pushing about the number of matches we had last year (8 on night , 7 on night 2, although 1 on each night was Miz getting a booting for a couple of minutes). HHH seems to like the smaller cards to give the matches room to breathe, so can't imagine they'd go too many more than this (probably chuck some onto Wrestlemania Smackdown or whatever they call it). Chuck in a few stipulations to matches, and this is shaping up to be rather good.

Someone mentioned it on a podcast, but say they manage to nail the main event, Rock's proper heeling it up and it looks like, once again, Reigns is about to retain with help...then the glass breaks. Can you fucking imagine? Was thinking earlier, 2024 wrestling is just fucking wild, isn't it? Ten years ago there was the infamous Royal Rumble where everything seemed to be going off the rails. Just prior to WM30, so Batista won the Rumble to a chorus of boos, and Punk immediately abandoned ship. Some of the parallels from that show and what's happened since are mental. On the pre-show, of the RR, Cody lost the tag titles to the New Age Outlaws. Ten years later, Cody left WWE, helped start up a whole new fucking company which has formed genuine competition, left again, and has come back to be probably the biggest deal in wrestling. Goldust is STILL going in that company, as is Billy Gunn. Punk spent a while away, had a spell in the company too, fought with pretty much everyone, threatened his boss, and ended up back in WWE 10 years later. Out of the 30 in that Rumble match, just about half as many as are still in the WWE are now in AEW, almost as many as are retired. and in that ten years, we've seen the likes of Edge and Christian return for great runs, Stone Cold having a final match, Daniel Bryan Danielson was fine, completely fucked, retired, left, and is now riding out his career across the world, Vince McMahon has essentially torched a legacy. A company other than WWE has played Wembley Fucking Stadium and near enough filled it. Mad shit.

I finally got a chance to go back and watch some of the press conference, and fucking hell the Rock is a revelation returning to that kind of role. I know why he doesn't want to play the bad guy in any of his movies, but....I just don't get why he doesn't want to play the bad guy in any of his movies. He pisses charisma, and with his absolutely-totally-not-juiced physique, he's genuinely frightening. I've never got the impression of him being particularly intimidating in his previous roles. He's too attitude-era-japes with his promos, and no amount of him talking in the 3rd person and threatening a booting to someone really sold it. But when he slowly walked over to Cody and spoke slowly, quietly and calmly, I could absolutely see it. It's a fool's game doing it given it'll probably be different on Monday again, but at this stage I could see Rock basically being the Bloodline enforcer in the lead up, and maybe into WM. Then they either keep him on that side, or just have him face turn back and clear the decks for Cody to win clean. But at this stage, who the f**k knows what they've got in mind. I don't think even they do.

I tried to find out what happened via Bleacher Report like I usually do with Raw/Smackdown, but they seem to be as confused as anyone. I gather it's now probably Rhodes vs Reigns, but Rock slapped Rhodes for mentioning family? EDIT: Found a better rundown of it, and now looks like I'll need to seek out the video. The b*****ds seem like they've done it and pulled it off, so far at least. Well, unless you're Seth Rollins. Starting to feel really sorry for him basically getting shat on by everyone around. Half expecting HHH to kneel behind him so someone can push him over.

I assumed they'd fucked up with that Boston announcement (fucked it up is obviously pretty strong, I'm sure it was absolutely intentional, even if I will always disagree about teasing surprises) by showing the Boss part in the background and basically telegraphing that fka Sasha Banks was going to debut, but would the boss stuff not be one of those WWE only things? Either that or Bruce Springsteen is finally making his long awaited debut in the ring If ever you want to see how best to use blood for the image it'll bring, watch the ending there. The blood on the white suits is such an effective image compared to how it's previously been used in AEW.

As someone who won't be travelling so not needing to hope for good away trips, Croatia, Hungary and Poland I guess. Although to be honest, there's not too many combinations where we'd be expected to do much. Avoiding relegation would be a massive achievement. Shame we can't go Friends Across the Euros and draw Germany, Hungary and Switzerland again. I'd settle for Hungary and Switzerland though, so we can pump them again. It'll be in the Autumn, September, October, November windows I'd imagine, with the World Cup Qualifiers beginning in the Spring through to the next Autumn.

At the risk of answering my own post...aye, it kind of will. People are fucking raging. However, given how this has blown up, and how WWE seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears so much, I wonder if this is all just a big work, or at least that they're already moving on the path to the "Bryan Protocol". We're going into a WM that ends in 0, and it seems like their default setting for one of those appears to be "have a triple threat". They kind of lucked into the WM30 story, as I don't believe for a second that they intended it to play out that way until the last few weeks before the event, but it just worked out so incredibly well for them that I wonder if they're testing the waters to do it again. Granted, I think it's an arse backwards way of going about it, and the resulting match would be a much worse version of what they could have had, but I could see them making it a triple threat, and sending Rock out there knowing that Cody will be the overwhelming face and Reigns the overwhelming heel. And unlike Batista at 30, Rock wouldn't go in a massive huff to be the baddy (maybe, he has built the sacharine, sanitised brand in cinema, but wonder whether wrestling would be the one place he'd be happy to turn up the charisma and be an arsehole again).

Given the dirtsheets seem to be pinning all of this on Punk getting injured, saw a good wee rundown on Reddit of how this is all Christian's fault. He turned on Jungle Boy, and that feud ended up leading towards the latter getting tired of being the face everyone cheered for, turning him into Jack Perry. This eventually led towards the confrontation with Punk over "real glass", which ultimately led to Punk getting his marching orders. Punk ends up back in the WWE, to get injured in the Royal Rumble, which leads to plans changing, and Rhodes losing his spot. f**k sake Christian, all because his dad's deid... I suppose you can also argue he did it to himself. If Rhodes hadn't made that little bet with Dave Meltzer, AEW isn't a thing, and Christian likely doesn't come back to WWE in the same capacity, and certainly doesn't turn into the uber-b*****d he is now. Rhodes screwed Rhodes.

Yeah, it's quite an odd control scheme, at least compared to something like FIFA, but quite intuitive once you get the hang of what you're doing. I've accidentally done some decent body checks, and imagine it'll get extremely satisfying when you can start timing them right.

Will it though? Rock vs Roman is going to be an absolutely over match, built for all those tedious "stop-and-slowly-pan-to-the-crowd" looks and probably with about 5 minutes of actual action if we're lucky, but it is going to be massively over unless they completely f**k the booking. I don't get the feeling like this will go the way that Batista vs Orton did before Bryan got put in, for example. I don't think there even would be a modern equivalent of that now, as Reigns is far more over than Orton was back then. Maybe Orton now going in? a fine match on paper, but nowhere near as good as Rhodes vs Reigns would be. Think that might be where they're going. The "taking everything from you" line seems to point towards that, and it does track with how you imagined the Bloodline stuff would happen with Reigns finally losing his title, then losing everything else after. BUT, I assumed that would happen post-WM with the big title moment happening there. Maybe they genuinely think that because they've picked a big stadium in a new market, that Elimination Chamber can be made into a much bigger deal. And I guess if Rhodes does finally dethrone Reigns there, that is going to be a huge moment for that show, and it gives Reigns 6 weeks to go proper mental in the build-up to a final match against Rock. It gives Rhodes not the chance to take the title at WM, but walk in with it and get a big retention. They can also still say he earned his main event slot at WM from the Royal Rumble, as that's presumably where he'll be (because they'll probably just say there's 8 main events per night or something stupid), but... ...but it's just...a bit w**k, really, isn't it? It was all right there. And in less than a week, they've lost a big component of their WM plans in Punk (not their fault), and then in one tight 20 minute segment, they managed to burn down a story that's been, what, 16 or so months in the making? With a byproduct of making two of their top guys - and a title one of them holds - look like complete gimps. Impressive.

They've been so sure-footed on storytelling most of the time that you have to imagine there's something else to this. But, in terms of the old story of the good guy beating the bad guy, even if they do get there in the end, they've started it out with the good guy falling down a fucking well. I tried to put out some logical direction they were going based on just this promo, but there's just nothing. at this point it's just a massive, massive own goal, and one that not even company man Cody Rhodes could sell for the entire segment. Either his clear squirming discomfort is a subtle part of whatever story they think they're trying to tell, or he just couldn't hold it in any longer, because he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else towards the end. There's also the more unsavoury note to it that Rock is taking a massive risk with this. I thought that once the Vince stuff broke, big Dwayne would be massively distancing himself as much as he could from the company publicly. The dirtsheets seem to be pointing to them using this as a distraction, but I'm really surprised Dwayne Johnson The Brand would jump in at a point where there's a chance this story could grow and swallow more of WWE up. And all such a shame given that all the hype will overshadow that they've probably built a story with the potential to be one of the greatest ever told in their women's division with Bayley.

The whole JD Sports deal has been shambolic. Not only is the price of any new top absolutely mental (not a JD problem, to be fair), whenever I have actually wanted to entertain buying one for the wee man, I don't think I've ever actually managed to get one in the right size. Again it's likely not a JD problem, but surely it points to an issue somewhere that someone wants to buy a top, despite the ridiculous prices, yet they can't be arsed actually stocking it reliably enough because there might be a new one in a few months?

I gave it a go on the trial last night, and...have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm absolutely shite at the game, sitting it at the lowest possible difficulty with the screen looking a mess with all the assists, but it's really good fun. Plenty of stuff to do offline to stop me going online and getting all the enjoyment stomped out of me. I cannot get the hang of defending at all (probably just as much to do with mashing R2 from muscle memory given that was sprint in FIFA), but starting to work things out going forward.

How are the NHL games? I've obviously done FIFA and have no interest in going back, done Madden in the past, and it was...fine. But getting really into ice hockey, as is my son, so wonder if it could scratch that itch of a pick-up-and-play sporting game without the obvious cynicism EAFC brings. I know they're both EA games, but is the approach any different? If their version of FUT is just as bad, is it worth getting to play the offline modes? Reading reviews, the main complaint seems to be that it isn't much of an upgrade, but given I've had no experience of the games previously, shouldn't be an issue. Think I get a 10 hour trial with EA Play so maybe give that a shot unless it's a complete mess.