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Teemu Selanne has made his choice about coming back:

I stared at this thing for 30 minutes. I can't see the fucking sailboat!!!!!!

Go for it - the world could use a few more podcasts.

Just to get it out of the way.

Well, maybe this will cheer you up. http://www.wrestlecrap.com/sbt/rd-reynolds-needs-your-help/

This is all fair. When I teach public speaking in the summers (when the classes are long), I have a special topics day where we do promos. I have a .ppt with a solid hour of promos from Flair, Macho, Austin, Rock, Heenan, Heyman, Jericho, Hogan, etc. and we run down the basics of heels/faces, turns, managers, selling. We'll throw in a little analysis of race/class/gender roles. The second hour of class, I bring in my box of Halloween paraphernalia (including lucha masks, a Flair robe, and all kinds of stuff from years of dressing up as wrestlers and 80s cartoon characters) and have them cut their own promos. Some of the students are absolutely repulsed by what we're doing, and others totally run with it. Also, in a mass lecture in a media law course I teach, I showed a picture of Jim Brown, leading into his lawsuit with EA. I asked the class if anyone recognized him, and one girl raised her hand and said, "That's that guy who says "Damn!" It was so hard not to lose my shit.

I will never stop loving that man.

"Arrgh, Solomon Crowe want pants too!"

So I'm going to defend The Masked Man. Curious though, are there any lib arts/humanities/social science academics or folks with that graduate academic background on the thread other than myself? I'm assuming there are? Because in relation to academe, you'll be hard pressed to find someone that hates shit like this in the social sciences more than me. But, having been around people putting theses together over, say, Project Runway and seeing the absurd content of those documents, I don't get the impression that The Masked Man is trying to do anything like that. His columns, like the rest of Grantland, do come off a bit too pseudo-New Yorker, but they remind me more of the kind of conversation you'd have in a grad seminar on pop culture, or at the bar afterward. And as someone who enjoys that type of casual interaction, I actually enjoy this style of writing. It's conversational, it's light hearted, and it's fun. "Post-modern chair shot" is a ridiculous thing to say, but hearing something like that in relation to wrestling makes me laugh and I appreciate the effort. His CM Punk fandom is another thing that I like about his writing and about Grantland in general - there's plenty of fanboys there. Be it Simmons and Boston, Rembrendt and the Falcons, or Shoemaker and Punk. It adds to the site and gives it that vibe of a bunch of friends overthinking their hobbies with you. I do agree with some of the other criticism leveraged at the site - it's got some really annoying cats up in there, and the way that the whole thing is subsidized by ESPN to give them some long form cred is kind of terrible. But I think the Masked Man catches way too much shit on these boards. And as for Dead Wrestler of the Week, it's bar none the best wrestling column on the Internet. You can tell that Shoemaker does love pro wrestling and is a huge nerd for the business. That's the reason that so many casual fans follow his work. As for Deadspin in general, talk about Simmons and his ilk all you want, at least they're trying, unlike Drew Magary. What a one trick pony annoying motherfucker that dude is. Give me nerdy dudes using big words they don't quite understand over some obnoxious slob showing off how creative he is at cussing.

Are you not aroused?

For me, that trailer is like a food challenge on Fear Factor. See if you can make it to the end without puking.

Dude, Larry The Cable Guy fucking blows. No "nerds" defense is gonna change that.

http://www.theraffon.net/~spookcentral/scblog/index.php/2012/09/28/the-ghostbusters-n-wrestling-connection

"Roddy Piper drew heat with fans by playing the bagpipe section from "It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll" for 45 minutes."

Wait, are we role playing, because I am so turned on right now.

When my wife and I first got serious, I made her promise never to risk our relationship in a ladder match. I'm old school. Texas bullrope match or nothing!

Why the fuck are you guys reading so much Grantland? I've never even heard of this site except the stuff that people like to from this board and we've been discussing it for 715 pages.

The amount of Grantland writers who come from prep school/rich kid backgrounds is staggering. Simmons went to a boarding school. The truly awful Katie Baker is landed gentry who worked at Goldman Sachs before she made the "brave" decision to become a sportswriter (and paid zero dues). Jay Caspian Kang's parents were both professors and he's written about how he spent time in Southeast Asia to understand humanity or some such (and I'm sure he paid for it). Chris Ryan did a whole Philly thing about Silver Linings Playbook and talked about the $30,000 a year Quaker school he went to.Also, the amount of dumb writer's photos on that thing is telling. Rembert Browne might be the worst of the lot. His picture says it all -- all style, no substance, nothing real. Same with a whole bunch of others. I also wonder if Michael Weinreb popped champagne the first days the Sandusky scandal broke since he's from State College. How quickly did that dude get on the phone to NPR?There are a few good dudes at that site. I don't want to slag on everyone. Uhm, isn't Barnwell one of us? My online buddy Dave Hill writes about horse writing for them time-to-time and rules. Zach Lowe is the best sportswriter alive today -- he combines basketball statistical analysis and access to teams and players magnificently well and explains it so simply. He's also legitimately funny and not "REMEMBER ALF!" funny.

Yeah I hope my city can become more like Detroit. In fact, I think all American cities should model themselves after the Motor City. But seriously, anything to help their economy is a good thing.

Maybe Hogan had that overturned. If he can have Bully's divorce finalized without his consent, he can do that. Joseph Park Esq. does some amazing things.

AJ's promo needs to be seen to be believed, it was the "shoot" version of that Genesis of McGillicutty promo. Next time they send AJ out to do one of those they need to give him breadcrumbs so he can find his way back. He did so badly on it TNA should knock 10% off their contract offer to him.

From Tampa tonight

And horrible watermarks

The update is going to be late again this week, because I'm going to see PWG's Battle of Los Angeles! Woo! And I'm front row on the second night! Expect the update on... Monday night, I think. Tuesday morning at the latest.

Was Kurt's abstinence promo around that time? "Join me in Olympic Heros for Abstinence. The best sex is no sex." And he delivered his message at Penn State. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7hcde_kurt-angle-funniest-moments_sport I'm always partial to his disgusted response to HHH's rehab time. "I tear my quadriceps all the time. I tore it this morning - I'm fine. I'm here, I'm jumping around."

Well, there was the post just two above this one where i mentioned being in the BGSU pop culture program and, i think in this thread, mentioned writing a paper about cultural zeitgeist of wrestling. I'd guess that means you had me on ignore, but if that's true, you wouldn't see this either.

Gordman this time coming from regular Mexico. Also, this video shows three reasons why I love watching tapes from 1970's WWF: 1) That classy ring color scheme, dark blue with silver ropes and posts (not a fan of the red middle turnbuckle, though) 2) Vince shilling non-wrestling things, in this case a BOWLING tournament 3) That the audience is a mix of blue collar workers, kids, and pimps with their women

Himself.

They're all relevant right now. After Jones crushes the spirit of Gustafsson, he's probably going to fight Glover and there's not anything else for him at LHW except the hypothetical Cormier fight that probably won't happen. So I see maybe a couple more defenses at LHW before he moves to HW, meaning all of these guys will be trying to climb a ladder that doesn't end with Jon Jones at the top and all of these matchups are very relevant.

HHH falls into the same trap as a lot of other wrestling nerds who find nothing but scorn from their peers. He likes what they don't like.

I like the fight. I liked the Chael/Phil match too though. I don't have any delusions of it being an exiting fight but it's still an interesting one to me to see how they match up against each other.

Also, I did a legit spit-take at my computer when Steve guessed Joe was 250 pounds.

How are you enjoying that PC version of Red Dead?

I don't know. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't seen TNA in forever, but I didn't mind AJ's promo.

I enjoyed AJ's postmodern take on CM Punk's pipebomb speech. /MaskedMan

I never get tired of Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discussing "trapping" Is that what passes as a hipster these days? A white guy who speaks in a nerdy voice about street shit?

Nikki is looking good.

When I first saw that performance, in absolutely no way did 'race' enter my mind. I just thought it was awkward as hell and figured that's what the all the controversy was about. Now, granted while I had encountered the phrase "twerking" online, I had absolutely no idea what it referred to (assumed it was some youtube meme). The next day on the internet, it seemed as if it was mostly Americans (mostly black Americans?) jumped on it as a racial issue. I think outside of the US, the racial element is practically non-existant Which is probably very true. American's are a neurotic mess. Are we slut shaming, objectifying, racial profiling, culturally appropriating, sexist, agist, homophobic being generally offensive, abusive, insensitive, or politically incorrect? Most people have to ask themselves all of these questions before even speaking, and if they don't think about them and say something to the wrong person they are fucked. We've backed ourselves into a corner with political correctness to the point where we can't even talk about actual problems for fear of upsetting some one. And we're constantly aware of everyone else's otherness, that we can't even function normally socially. It's no wonder we like burying our head in our TVs or stare into our cellphones on the train. It's why we build big boxes for us to live in with lots of locks and really high "privacy" fences. You take a look out the window and there's so many goddamn eggshells it feels insurmountable.

We are way too busy arguing about hip hop to... wait a sec...

Hawaiian shirt Joker and Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair.

The Skin I Live In is stunning. Both visually, and thematically. It's the kind of movie that you need to see knowing as little as possible. All I can say is that it involves a surgeon who has a mysterious, beautiful woman locked up in a room in his mansion. It's been a long time since I've watched something this... original and bizarre.

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is finally getting a US release. It should be out the weekend of Septermber 6th.

Feel like writing an article for the Wrestling Observer front page about WWE's sickening Irishsploitation: Rebecca "Knox" Quin is has turned ginger