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It's the holidays. He's probably vacationing at Vader's White Castle of Fear

FTFY

In lieu of Sid EC3 also did Sid's Meet and Greet as Sid including signing all his photos as Sid EC3 is the best

He’s a free agent and doesn’t wanna get injured prior to Spring Training. Man, now I wish Sid showed up earlier than his run with HBK in ‘95. I really wanna see him and Savage play home run derby in ‘94 at the charity game for The SummerSlam.

That was a much more serious answer than I was expecting...

My latest pickup was "Westerns Collection", which is How The West Was Won, Rio Bravo, Pale Rider, The Searchers and The Wild Bunch.

In hindsight, the fact that the next part of the angle was Nick having amnesia (brain damage) is even sadder.

WWE Extreme Rules 2014. El Torito Vs Hornswoggle (kickoff match): WeeLC. A mix of bad comedy and ridiculous bumps. Fun. Cesaro Vs Rob van Dam Vs Jack Swagger: Elimination rules. Cesaro is a Heyman guy now. I don't think any of us expected that to stall his career quite the way it did. Swag is the first to be eliminated. Cesaro does that deadlift superplex on him, and RVD follows up with a frog splash. Cesaro and RVD then have a spirited little match, made really to showcase Cesaro I think, and he gets the win with the Neutralizer onto a trash can. Alexander Rusev Vs R-Truth and Xavier Woods: Rusev! Wasn't expecting him for a bit. He looks good in this handicap squash match. Lana chants already. Big E Vs Bad News Barrett: BNB won a tournament to earn a shot at the IC title, and he's very much the fan favourite here. Another guy who was super over but never moved to the next level. Interesting how much he's playing to the fans here, encouraging them to clap along with him. Decent hard-hitting match, with Barrett going over thanks to the Bullhammer, and much to the crowd's delight. The Shield Vs Evolution: Evolution is one of my least favourite acts ever, but I always trust the Shield to have a good match, and that trust is paid off yet again. This is solid when it's in the ring, but gets really good when it descends into chaos. Another big performance from Rollins, flying around with reckless abandon, including that big dive off the balcony. Ambrose brings the selling, and he was great as soon as the Shield turned babyface. Once again it's left to Roman to be the hero in the ring. I'm a big Roman fan, but watching these back two things are clear; 1, they are really forcing the idea that Roman is the star of the group, and 2, at this point, he's the least interesting of the 3, at least to me. Batista does the job via spear. Bray Wyatt Vs John Cena: Steel cage match. This is a joke. A cage match to keep the Wyatts out when Cena has already handled the Wyatts all at once. Harper and Rowan interfere here more than they do in a normal match, including Harper being in the cage. And Cena still dominating. And then the little boy with the vocoder to finally cost Cena the match. I don't know if Wyatt ever recovered from this feud with Cena honestly. Just terrible from start to finish. Paige Vs Tamina Snuka: Another bad match. Tamina is awful. She walks out looking like she's just woken up from a too-long nap and isn't quite sure where she is. Paige looks shitty too. Daniel Bryan Vs Kane: I think we all wish that Bryan had been paired with someone else for his first (and sadly, only) title programme, but it is what it is. Bryan brings the passion like only he can, and Kane walks through offence about as well as anyone, so they craft a decent brawl. When it goes to the back is when it loses me, as Bryan beats Kane with a tire iron and then brings him back into the arena on a forklift. Neat idea, but it's a lot of dead time which hurt the match. Diving headbutt off the raised forks is a good visual. Kane makes a comeback and we get a flaming table spot, which took me by surprise. Bryan managed to send Kane through the table and then hit the knee for the win. That would have been fine for a one and done, but then Kane sits up and Bryan acts all shocked, so you know the plan was for another match. Did they announce what that match was going to be? Well, time to get ready for life after Bryan I guess. At least for now. Match of the night: The Shield-Evolution match is the one that stands out here. 3 3/4 stars. Bryan/Kane and Cesaro/Swagger/RVD are both 3 star matches. Show rating: Not a great show all around - the cage match is a major knock against it - but some good matches and other fun stuff to make it worth a watch. 3 stars.

Happy Rusev Day!

English needs to win this. After all it's on Rusev Day.

I re-watched that Elimination Chamber and holy balls is it good. Is it the best one? Maybe the interference brings it down but not for me. And as Yo-Yo said, knowing how it turns out, it's not so disheartening that Bryan lost. Also, I miss Hawaiian shirt Bray Wyatt. Somehow those shirts grounded the character.

I've found your problem. You actually watched Jets games.

Here was the complete Xmas haul in my household: Thief (Criterion) The Long Good Friday (Region 2, thank fuck for the VLC player) Gremlins Westworld Green Room The Sopranos Season 2 (finally) Green Room was a special surprise snuck in on me, pretty happy about that. Still need to watch it though

This is actually a pretty complete review.

Even if Wade and Rondo had still been at their peaks, last year's Bulls team would've greatly struggled with pacing and spacing.

I've never seen the tag title match from TLC and had forgotten it existed (if I'd ever known in the first place). Fun to see Rey and Show teaming and Goldy was next-level. What a great run. Another quality pick, Roomie.

Games I beat this year Ys chronicles (#2 is fucking amazing) Ys Oath in Felghana (goddamned miracle game) Ys Ark of Napishtim (needed the crystal warp) Ys 7 Ys Memories of Celceta (lame last boss) Gremlins 2 new zelda new mario blaster master zero played a shit ton of binding of issac cave story (hated the whole last part) golf story (GREAT) rayman legends got to the dark world on End is Nigh. donkey kong country returns 3D 3DS Metroid Nayuta no Kiseki (GREAT) Wolfenstein Old blood (shitty last boss) Moai Kun Death's cold embrace thief fan campaign accountant 1&2 dark mod missions Been playing Ys origins as my christmas game.

WWE Elimination Chamber 2014. Big E Vs Jack Swagger: IC title on the line, and this is a fun hoss match. Crowd is very pro-Swag. Big Ending for the win. The New Age Outlaws Vs The Usos: After the great run of tag team title matches, it's fucking embarrassing that these two old bastards are now carrying the belts. Cody and Goldust deserved better than that. And now they go over the Usos too. Titus O'Neill Vs Darren Young: Another tag team broken up for no good reason. They have a hard-fought, but not particularly good match with Titus going over. The Shield Vs The Wyatt Family: Okay, here we go. Never seen this before, super pumped for it, not disappointed at all. This is awesome. The electricity even before the match begins is awesome. I'm noticing that they're positioning Roman as the leader of the group now. He's always standing in the middle, whereas before it was always Ambrose. Although it's Wyatt and Ambrose who are really the focus of this match. Ambrose is so good as that unhinged soldier willing to die on his sword. This is everything you'd want it to be- hard-hitting, chaotic, lots of good character work. Everyone looks great in this match, but Harper and Rollins stand out as the MVPs of their respective teams. The Wyatts do 'a Shield' and eliminate Ambrose (who never comes back after brawling with Wyatt through the crowd) and Rollins (slammed through a table by Harper and Rowan), and isolate Reigns. Reigns gets a good flurry in but ends up falling to Sister Abigail. Tremendous match. AJ Lee Vs Cameron: Oh boy, this is rough. Now this is a match AJ should have won clean in about 90 seconds. Instead, Tamina accidentally kicks AJ, and then attacks Cameron to make up for it, resulting in a DQ win for Cameron. Batista Vs Alberto Del Rio: Poor Batista. The guy gets absolutely crucified. Del Rio comes out on crutches, but does a Jerry Lawler and attacks Batista. This is a standard rumble winner warm-up match, with Batista taking a beating but coming out on top. I wonder at which point they realised that an Orton/Batista main event was going to be a disaster. Randy Orton Vs Daniel Bryan Vs John Cena Vs Cesaro Vs Christian Vs Sheamus: Elimination chamber match. This is an epic war. Nearly half an hour before the first guy is even eliminated. Sheamus and Cesaro start and just beat the shit out of each other as you'd expect. Then Bryan joins in. My favourite spot was Sheamus Brogue kicking Orton's pod. I knew it was coming, but it was still awesome. Sheamus is first to go when Christian splashes him off the top of a pod. Then Christian eats a running knee to go out. Cesaro gets a really strong showing before he's eliminated by Cena, then the Wyatts show up. They take out Cena to 'Thank you Wyatt' chants and leave us with Bryan and Orton. Kane is in the chamber too after trying to get the Wyatts out, and he stops the refs count after Bryan hits the knee. Bryan kicks out of an RKO and the pop is amazing. The crowd must have really thought Bryan was going to win at the point, but Kane gets involved again and a second RKO keeps Bryan down. Cole has a JR-esque meltdown about how Bryan keeps getting screwed and how ridiculous it is. Knowing how this pays off at WrestleMania, I can enjoy this for the great piece of fan manipulation it is. At the time I'm sure I was cursing the company's name. Match of the night: The 6-man tag, 4 1/2 stars. Main event, 4 stars. Big E/Swagger, 3 stars. Show rating: Any card with 2 4 star matches on is definitely recommended. This show also features numerous Bad News Barrett sightings as he delivers bad news after several of the matches. So it has that gong for it too. 3 3/4 stars.

I get welcome flashbacks of watching Police Academy 1-6 with my Mum and Sister growing up. Mahoney, Jones, Tackleberry, Hightower, Harris and Proctor. Harris > Mouser by far for me.

Regal is the best. For comedy alone he should be in the HOF. I joke a lot, but he really is one of the best.

Boy one of John's cats really hates Joe Morgan.

Edson's takedown defence has improved over the years to the point where it's awesome. He stuffed both of the takedowns Dariush attempted against him, but Khabib is a whole other type of monster. I'm pulling for Edson to pull off the upset but if I were betting on it, I'd go Khabib by decision. We've seen Edson wilt under intense pressure when he can't stay just outside of the pocket to pick guys off with his kicks and jabs. Nurmagomedov isn't a flawless fighter though, he's there to be hit on the feet as Michael Johnson showed before Khabib took over the fight with his wrestling. I know MJ beat Edson but Edson's a far more technical fighter and has faster hands (and most certainly feet), so I'm hoping Barboza can knock Khabib loopy early. Other than Ferguson/Khabib, I think this is one of the most interesting and exciting fights that could be made at any weight class. As for the main event, I don't see Cyborg making big enough mistakes to get taken out by several headkicks. I think it would take more than one of Holly's headkicks to put her down because Holly, to me at least, never seems like she fully commits to her strikes because she's scared of the counter. The Rousey fight was perhaps the only time I've seen her sit down on strikes because Ronda's stand-up was still super rudimentary. Cyborg is way more methodical, patient, and technical now and because of that, I don't see Holm enjoying much success. Has Joey Diaz gone on Rogan's show to yell about "kalibeeb"? That shit was hilarious. "THAT'S THE SEED!" edit: lots of good shit on this card. Khalil on the prelims, MAGNY/CONDIT (holy shit yes), Diakese.

I LOVED the burning warehouse intro

Or redo the burning warehouse intro.

You know how to follow up all these disturbing Mick Foley bumps?

So Sid no showed a match due to the Trump travel ban. What a startling killer of kayfabe. Clearly not from wherever he damn well pleases.

Taco Bell did win the Franchise Wars

Praise the Lord. No Moraes/Rivera but at least neither Khabib or Cyborg missed weight. Hopefully this is just the beginning of Cyborg at 145 and it's not too draining on her body to make weight as she gets older.

WHEN I do this exact call at the next CWF show.

M Night Shyamalan wishes he could come up with a twist half as good as the one in this video.

The main event is official already: Cyborg - 145, Holm - 144.

Today's the day that marks me getting a 100th Platinum! My 100th Platinum is Sly Cooper & The Thievius Racconnus for Vita. Which turns out to be my 1st Platinum six years ago. I have to say trophy hunting and Platinum hunting has changed my life for the better. When I started doing this six years ago, I couldn't find work and I didn't have enough self-confidence to feel like I would be able to find a decent job again. I started Platinum hunting as an outlet and it taught me a lot of things. It taught me patience, perservance, and helped me realize my strengths as a person to become a better person. Six years later, I have a full-time job that I've been working since 2014 and I'm excited to take that same kind of mentality to where I work. Although where I work will not be the final destination for me in my career, I have used trophy hunting and Platinum hunting on PSN during job interviews. I'm very grateful to share this with you and here's to 1000 more!

Maybe because I'm sorta indifferent on Moonlight, but I don't even consider that coming-of-age. The timejumps are too weird for me. I think they basically tried to cram an LGBT film into a coming-of-age film in 90 minutes. IMO Pariah, directed by the same woman who just did Mudbound with Mary J. Blige, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, and Jonathan Banks, did a better job with that except I consider it a true coming-of-age film since it deals with a little girl dealing with her sexual identity and she isn't 30+ years old like an hour and 15 minutes into the film. I also consider it a much better film in terms of acting. Kim Wayans and the guy who played the dad did a really job considering they were working with novice actors and actresses. I would say Cooley High, Crooklyn, Lean on Me, and A Piece of the Action (the lesser known third film of the trilogy Sidney Poitier and Cosby put together w/ Uptown Saturday Night and Let's Do It Again) off the top of my head. I would say all of the breakdancing/hip hop films of the 80s/early 90s like Wild Style, Breakin, Breakin 2, and Krush Groove, and House Party were coming-of-age even though they interjected white leads here and there. There are a bunch of films that could fit into the coming-of-age/crime films like The Harder They Come, Juice, Above the Rim, Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, Higher Learning, Paid in Full, and Clockers. You can slide Poetic Justice and She's Gotta Have It in there as well. The most recent ones I can I think of that come out right before Moonlight would be Kicks (my introduction to Kofi Siriboe who fucking murders it), Morris from America (excellent), and Dope (good but mileage may vary). I liked all those better than Moonlight FWIW. The Fits was solid but on the same level as Moonlight for me. The Mexican ones would be like Mi Vida Loca, Blood In, Blood Out (on the long side but great), My Family, American Me (crime/coming-of-age like Blood In, Blood Out), Stand and Deliver (basically the Mexican equivalent of A Piece of the Action and Lean On Me). Lowriders with Theo Rossi and Demian Bichir is really good.

Whoa calm down, reverse Ace Cibernettico.

Per Meltz, the Rusev Day shirts have been a HUGE hit and are absolutely flying off the shelves at live events.

I just bought my first wrestling shirt since 1998 (WWF's repro Cactus Jack shirt) My, how things change in 20 years. As seen on Smackdown this week:

Settle down, Hollywood Zeidlernetico

Now I'm imagining Stephanie screaming ..."The Boss Sasha Banks!... Natalya!... Miss Money in the Bank Carmella!... Winner of the first ever women's Royal Rumble and face of the women's revolution Stephanie McMahon!... Dana Brooke!..."

In one of the earlier PWI 500s I remember seeing a guy named Tamba The Flying Elephant

That's some Scott Steiner level math right there.

FWIW I enjoyed the sleepmakeswaves album a good deal. It is very post-rock but I was in the mood for that.

The box office concern feels a bit overblown, to me. Part of the second weekend box office drop is that Christmas fell on a Monday this year, so the movie made over 30 million on a day that doesn't count towards that measurement. It's still projected to hit 800 million today, and hasn't opened in China yet. It still won't come close to TFA's 2 billion, but has already blown past Justice League (650 million), will pass Rogue One, and probably fall around 1.2 or 1.3 billion. (And hell, it might be worth noting that Empire made significantly less than A New Hope as well. Like 550 million compared to 775, I think.) Ultimately, I think this is primarily a case of a vocal minority of angry fans trying to claim victory where they have none. The same thing happened with the new EU novels, which all sold massively well, and TFA itself. (Seriously. Remember people claiming some "anti-pc/sjw" boycott worked?) It's basically toxic fandom 101.

No, it would have been glorious... Thanks, I know the way out...

The tag division is really fun right now. There's a lot of parity, but I almost feel like Gable is going to get boned about another title run when an unexpected team suddenly gets traction. First it was Rhyno and Slater, now it maybe Rusev Day. The crowd was into them big time tonight. I also love Rusev's Chong Li hyped as the crowd cheers for him... I know there's cooperation, but Gable doing the double german on E and Aiden was crazy: Also hilarious, Liv wishing everyone happy holidays as they try to make an exit

Well I'll be damned

What's at odds with Luke's portrayal in previous material is that he would run away to the ends of the galaxy and leave millions to die at the hands of his old students and the First Order. That was JJ Abrams' choice. But once that bridge has been crossed in TFA, it was up to Johnson to deal with it honestly. And to do so meant going to a very dark place, because after the events of the OT, no mere defeat or disappointment would compel THAT Luke Skywalker to wash his hands of the fate of the galaxy. It had to be a deep, personal failing, the kind that make you question if you're even the person you thought you were. Luke went to Ahch To to hide from himself. And that's what makes his sacrifice at the end so powerful. Because it's not about him returning to the fray and conquering his demons. That's not possible. All the dead storm troopers and wrecked star destroyers in the galaxy can't atone for that moment of weakness and all that came as a result. Raising his lightsaber (for real) against Kylo Ren, who exists in part because Luke raised his lightsaber against Ben Solo to begin with, would just be continuing a cycle of violence that he, himself, set in motion and a kind of evil in it's own right. It was not in his power to set this situation right through his own aggressive action. Instead, we see him summon literally every last ounce of strength he has left in a display of awesome power and, ultimately, passivity. He simply allows Kylo Ren's character to be his own undoing and gives Rey and what remains of the Resistsance the chance to live to fight another day, with hope that they will be better than him. It was beautiful and Jedi as fuck.

I wouldn't worry too much about that RT audience score. At this point, I think it's clearly being spammed by obsessives who are mad that a CGI cartoon character didn't have his background sufficiently explored and other pedantic shit. Which makes me wonder: Do you think audiences in 1983 were mad because the Emperor got killed off without explaining who he was or where he came from? He didn't even have a name in those movies! He was just the generic evil space wizard that ruled the Empire. And sometimes that's okay!