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If only astronomy was advanced enough to accurately predict when the sun will set! A pox upon those charlatans who study the solar system and it's arcane workings. - RAF

Finally finished my first-ever watch of the 10-hour AJW Big Egg Wrestling Universe after slowly hacking away at it throughout the last week. I am loving that Akira Hokuto's reaction after winning the tournament isn't a triumphant "I won, I am the best" but an exhausted "I won, I never want to do that again...EXISTENCE IS PUNISHMENT"

Remember I told you guys about my friends who produced those cool videos that AEW featured on Dynamite? One of them, Harv Glazer, directed a movie on Sweet Daddy Siki, which is now available on the American version of Amazon Prime. Y'all should check it out! Edit: here's the link to the trailer

Hold up. Are you telling me that ROH, born and raised in Philadelphia, has moved to Bel Air after their life got flipped-turned upside down (by Covid)?

I feel I should be the one to drop a couple Hara tidbits as I have, as of writing, decided to make a photo of Hara my avatar on this forum.* I already told this story on PWO, where people had been confused by Hara's involvement in the postmatch angle for Tenryu/Choshu from 6/21/85. But Hara had been sketchy long before the 1988 stuff. He'd been forwarded money to promote a show in Nagasaki, but he entrusted a "friend" with the money and the responsibility, and when said friend bounced, Hara vanished. The story goes that no tickets had been sold for the show, and they didn't even see any posters. He got a second chance in April, and eventually became a member of Kokusai Ketsumeigun (the ex-IWE faction). However, even before the debt collectors started coming to shows, Baba had apparently been writing out Hara's checks to his wife. *It's from this glorious sleeve for a duet he recorded with Mieko Enomoto. Enomoto's story isn't related to wrestling at all, but it's too wild for me not to acknowledge, and it is the perfect backstory for one who would record a duet with a man like Ashura Hara. Her initial fame in the early 80s stemmed from testifying against her husband, the secretary under prime minister Tanaka, who'd accepted bribes from the Lockheed Corporation to purchase aircraft from them instead of McDonnell Douglas. (This scandal was what finally ended the career of major underworld player Yoshio Kodama, even if he survived the suicide attack that sexploitation actor Mitsuyasu Maeno had made in protest by crashing a plane into his house.) Then she posed for Penthouse, and became a celebrity for a couple years.

I don't think it's healthy for anyone to judge the show that you want them to be making instead of the show that they're trying to make. I'm not saying you can't do it, but you're just going to get aggravated. The purpose of the show doesn't seem to be about moving the plot ahead every week but instead to tell stylized stories that let them do western/monster/samurai style stories that occasionally move the broader plot along. It's more Doctor Who than Game of Thrones. It's ok to prefer the latter to the former, but I'm pretty sure they're doing exactly what they're setting out to do here.

I recommend Rogue One.

Hulk's so full of shit. Doesn't he remember when Taker broke his neck in the 70's?

Awful news. Hopefully Rave will be able to reinvent himself as a commentary guy, a road agent, or maybe a trainer. He lost his arm, but not his brain or his heart. I think he still has a lot to offer a company in terms of knowledge of the business and ring psychology. I hope that there are feds out there that will give him a chance to pass on what he's learned and keep earning a paycheck.

Isn't this kind of progressive, in way? Like, not virtual signalling and treating them as tokens, letting them be full characters instead of being reduced to one aspect about them. Imagine if the commentators felt the need to remind the audience that Hobbs is black. ?

And poor Lee Evans wasn't even playing!

Oh for fucks sake. Trying not to get into politics or anything, but I had hoped Macron winning would mean that Le Pen would fuck off into obscurity. This is the first time I've seen her name come up in awhile so maybe that is the case, but it also looks like Le Pen is still a despicable piece of shit.

Best looking belt in wrestling, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. A beauty.

There should be a law against wearing that hairstyle at Taker's age.

I saw it. I'm trying to save others. ?

You missed The Last Jedi, which is great

If I ever knew this, I completely forgot. Mind blow.

This is tremendous

You joke but the real reason is just as silly

That album cover photo is like... everything I want in a potential sleezy no hit wonder album cover.

Jesus Christ, this dude also put the sick players on a bus from Houston to El Paso, which is a 10+ hour drive. If I get sick playing football for you for no money and you put me on a 10 hour bus trip it is on sight for the rest of our days.

Well that's the latest it can go. Any more positives on either side really means they have to go to Week 18

I thought Cage's Impact run was his best, often working as an almost underdog babyface type, fighting back from injury or against a numbers advantage. But I've enjoyed his AEW run so far.

Even the eras I really like in CMLL aren't exactly "booked." You might get one angle that they milk for a few months or something teased forever that sort of feels like storytelling just because they take so long to pull a trigger, but it's usually just plug and play.

I kinda give AEW a pass on Nyla becuse it's a new company, it's her first time on a national stage, and a trans woman in sports is a whole other kettle of fish as opposed to a gay man. Wrestling has never been able to deal with anything with any type of subtlety, so I feel like it's better to leave her trans status as something known but not super pushed, because it could easily become a really tasteless gimmick, a Fallon Fox type heel that all the cisgender woman complain about having an unfair advantage. Someone in AEW quite obviously telling JR to never say a word about it is absolutely for the best.

Guys, don’t let Matt guilt you into thinking the problem with the show is your expectations! The problem with the show is that it’s not a very good version of the show it’s trying to be. Filoni and Favreau have created some fantastic toys but too frequently they put them in the wrong sandbox. I prefer the episodes that are more tightly focused on the main storyline, not because I have some preference for serialized shows (I don’t) but because that is when the show is clearly at its best and the standalone eps are often quite bad. There is nothing inherently wrong with the format of interspersing “mythology” eps (to use the old X-Files verbiage) with a bunch of standalone eps that sprinkle bread crumbs to the next big thing. That was kind of the standard format for most genre shows (and a lot of great ones) for a long time. But there was a key difference between the shows that did that successfully and the Mandalorian: format. They were long-form shows, with significantly longer episode orders and and, often, longer episodes in general. There was less pressure on those shows to be about their business. Conversely, Mandalorian is 8 episodes per year, with most eps clocking in at a little over half an hour. We spend precious little time in this world with these characters, and that’s why it just intinrisically feels bad when they, say, waste 50 minutes on a wild goose chase on Tatooine. On top of that, the standalone episodes tend to drift away from the central dynamic that drives the series (Mando protecting/relating to the Grogu). Every time Mando pawns Grogu off to a babysitter to do some random job, all the air goes out of the show. It becomes a pretty generic sci-fi action show when Mando is on his own, and the standalone plots are seldom good enough to support the weight of the show without the central Mando/Grogu dynamic at play, no matter how many killer guest stars they line up.

I didn't recognize him! I spent the whole episode thinking, "man this guys is familiar!" My wife is a massive Terminator fan and she didn't recognize him, either. Time is a harsh mistress, bros. I need to get with @Matt D's interpretation of this show and relax a little, because I'm getting impatient with the fetch quest nature of it. I love the show and the look and feel of it and all that, but "Mando goes to a place, gets into some local mess, solves the locals' problem, gets a clue at the end which leads him to a new place, rinse, repeat" is wearing on me. Also, Boba Fett shows up at the end of episode 1 and then we probably won't see him again until the finale or something. Come on.

It was great if like me you enjoy ribs with pork chow mein on the side. Not so great was the fact that cabs don't go to that neighborhood after dark. Thankfully we were rescued by Mrs. Abdullah, who kindly gave us a ride back to the hotel in the Abby-van... Sadly, we didn't get to meet the great man (and I use the word "great" in all senses), himself, but at least he called the hotel the next day and spoke with Kathy, kept calling her "sweetie" in his oddly high-pitched voice for such a large man.

So apparently the Lions fans have donated a ton of money to Deshaun Watson's charity in the last couple days. I would like to think they are doing in the spirit of the holidays but I am assume this is there way of say "thanks for beating the crap out of us so bad that they fired 2 of the top positions" on the team

So he's... All Out???????

I'll throw my hat into the "TLJ was great" ring. I liked TFA as pure fan service, then TLJ swerved hard and made shit actually interesting. Honestly, if there's a better example of "entitled fans are never happy," it's the mixed reactions to both of those films. Meanwhile, I haven't seen RoSW and I'm in no rush to. It'll definitely happen since I have D+, and I know what to expect - but yeah, apparently I'm one of those rare folks who appreciated both Episode 7 and 8 ?

@BobbyWhioux.

My dad was a fan of Jimmy Valiant. Then we went to a stop on the Great American Bash '88 tour in Johnson City, TN. Valiant was facing Barbarian or Teijo Khan or some such. Valiant dodged a shoulder charge in the corner, and while his opponent was stunned and bent over thin the buckles, Jimmy proceeded to air-hump the Barbarian from behind. My dad never did look at Jimmy Valiant the same way afterwards.

Also, a note on representation - I've watched a lot of Youtube reaction videos because I love seeing people mark the fuck out and just be openly joyous (AJ Styles debut is a good one, for example). Watching women who are longtime SW fans cry with happiness truly should make one appreciate what representation means to others. It's hard not to understand it until you witness it. When my fam watched Avengers: Endgame, I felt that the "girl power" scene seemed like pandering until my wife and daughter raved about it on the drive home. Seeing women overjoyed at Ahsoka's arrival (as are many men) is fucking AWESOME.

I fucking love this show. Space Western with occasional Space Samurai bits, and so many good actors even if they're small parts. Imagine going back in time five years ago and saying there'd be a show like this and it would include people like Rosario Dawson, Carl Weathers, Amy Sedaris, Tim Olyphant, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Burr, Michael Biehn, WENER HERZOG, and Sasha fucking Banks?! It's wild. Thank fucking God it's Grogu and not like Yaggo or Yody.

Professional wrestling

My favorite long term WWE story telling is how Regal and Dunne just glare each other like they are seconds away from throwing down. Has been a constant since the moment Dunne showed up in the WWE

Massive difference between Dean Ambrose return to WWE and how badly booked it was to Jon Moxley in NJPW and AEW.

Thunder Rosa's mask game is on point

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

I knew Lady Frost when she was a server at a Pittsburgh bar/restaurant I used to be a regular at some 10+ years ago. Happy to see her get a chance to work with AEW. Her and her husband are both really good people.