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If AEW is playing The Price is Right, it would only be natural for Claudio Castagnoli to be the mountain climber. https://youtu.be/YHv5jgXz9I8

One dollar...?

A gimmick's only as good as the guy doing it. Orange Cassidy works because the person playing Orange Cassidy is a top-5-in-the-world-worker (or he's become one, anyway).

1. Punk vs Page was very good so I can't imagine Christian vs Page not being good, though it'd be better as babyface vs babyface probably. 2. I can see the idea that Page was overshadowed by Punk vs MJF. I think a bigger issue was that Cole was a uniquely poor opponent for him. There were Bullet Club/Elite elements to it and he was fresh after the jump, but Page really needed to be up against monsters (like Archer, sure; or the Big Bill match from over the weekend). He needed to be Anxious Millennial Bruno or Anxious Millennial Hogan. He needed a Stokely before they had a Stokely, or maybe, I guess Tully in the meantime? They had a plan for Page to win the war, but never to win the peace. Again, and I've said this three times, but here it is again, there's something compelling about the guy who wins the big one then having to live with what he'd done and the weight on his shoulders. If they played to its logical conclusion the Page As Champion stuff the way they're showing the strain on Cassidy now (though more melodramatic given the stakes and the differences in personalities) there would have been something hugely compelling there and I think something a lot of the fanbase could have really gotten behind.

TWO DOLLARS, BOB! The only dick move that's on par with with one person bidding one dollar higher than the previous person and the next person bidding just one dollar more. I always thought the audience should boo that.

I dunno man. I tried that last week and still ended up with 13 videos with guns.

Ah man, should've been clearer - you are correct, I was seconding that he's a top five guy as it stands today; I've been really, really enjoying the hell out of this reign. On your second point: I'll agree there too. The wrong guy doing the OC schtick (for example) could kill it dead in the water. OC happening to be a fantastic worker is what makes it work and separates him from the (no offense to the guy) Luigi Primas of the world Edit: But to your point, Danhausen is a great example I think of someone who's elevated tenfold by the gimmick - I'm not trying to come off as one of those weirdos who think Rick and Morty is like a Bible story or something, but I DO think his Gimmick hausen is a little more high concept/cerebral than people give it credit for

And yeah. Star-Lord went from "We are not killing anybody." to "We're killing everyone." pretty fast when Rocket's life was on the line.

https://twitter.com/VRTLPROS/status/1657822455405113344?t=H1FL-WYKDeHsFGRUZrS_-A&s=19 Mike from VRTLPROS podcast has converted dvdvrs to pdf

Something else to consider is that WBD is going all in on sports and reality content. And with a writers strike currently happening and now an actor's strike likely to happen in the next month or two (I may be off on that timeline because something tells me it may be September, but I'll have to check with my friend in Hollywood), WBD could be sensing, shit, let's pay them what they're worth and lock down our content that isn't going to get interrupted by strikes.

Continuing to put all the blame for Punk's narcissistic scorched earth temper tantrums and subsequent total bitching out when his punk card is picked up on the one throwaway line from a Page promo is cute.

Second to High Evolutionary being a fantastic villain. I'm guessing based on us not actually seeing his death that we're going to get some timey wimey fuckery by our buddy Kang and we'll see him again at some point. Hopefully they'll get Chukwudi back (assuming he's not busy being John Stewart). I'm really glad though that Gunn decided to make a team movie that wasn't just about the leader. Like we've had two Star-Lord movies, now we've had a proper Rocket Raccoon movie. Very good and definitely felt like Gunn leaving with a friendly note to his remaining friends at Disney saying, "Top that."

The irony of the Evolutionary not knowing how his creation knew was fucking great. The relationship between The Evolutionary and Rocket obviously runs parallel to Mary Shelly's back and forth between Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, even down to the part where the Evolutionary sets out to destroy Rocket out of fear of what Rocket may become.. Mostly because the creator feels inferior in relation to the creation. Chukwudi Iwuji hammed it up awesomely in that scene and it still did not feel like he went completely over the top. His overall performance was tremendous. Even though he was totally chewing on scenery at numerous points in the movie, it looked natural.

Punk is 45 and injury prone and has less matches left than what he's put in. There's no reason for him not to put over Hangman at some point.

Don promoted him for 12 years even counting the years in prison. There was shit going on before 1998 where it's clear Mike had signed his life away to Don. That's why I mentioned Don already three fights for Tyson lined up even before he became a free man. He was essentially his manager AND promoter, which thanks to the Ali Act, is illegal. I know some of Mike's friends and entourage were "his representation", but those dudes weren't going to be any match for Don King. Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton (his managers) were largely responsible for the rise of Mike Tyson. Jim Jacobs died suddenly of cancer in 1988. Bill Cayton and Tyson basically went at it until Cayton got fired. Then, Tyson eventually fired Kevin Rooney who took over as his trainer when Cus D'Amato passed away. Really Rooney and Teddy Atlas (another student under Cus D'Amato just like Rooney) from the get-go were responsible for training Tyson in the Catskills area where the D'Amato family home/training camp was. Atlas, around the time Mike started to gain some notoriety, left after he had a heated confrontation with Mike after supposedly Mike accosted a female relative of Atlas. So there was no intermediary between Tyson and Don King anymore. So Don King preceded to royally fuck him over for the next decade until it all came apart. Then, Mike signed with Dan Goossen and money man Matt Tinley under the short lived America Presents promotional banner right after the WrestleMania XIV stuff. However, Mike never really recovered from that. Realistically, Mike ALWAYS knew Don couldn't be trusted. However, the first part of his career, he was too young to realize what was going on. His life was way too hectic with a lot of that being his fault. When he got released from prison, he tried to change his image and was acting like he was this new man. However, the way he was being covered and the circus that came with it, he was going to be the villain no matter what. What was going on started to bubble over.

the report from March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/24/sports/boxing-big-money-big-fallout-for-tyson-ex-champion-blames-promoter-for-financial.html

I made this point at the time of the brawl and have occasionally been making it since to push back, but I think there is a distinction. Eddie and Max were both taking stiff shots about things from the past or Punk’s ego or suggesting Punk should/would quit or that nobody wanted him in AEW. Hangman’s line was accusatory regarding Punk’s contemporary behind the scenes conduct in a manner nobody else had come close to. People use the Max and Eddie promos to make your point regularly, and I think it does good to watch all of it back because not all shooty bullshit uttered is equal. To be clear, I’m not accusating Hangman of any malicious intent. In all likelihood, he probably thought it was fair game to get a little edgy with a guy who’d made his bones that way in an effort to gin up interest in the match. Likewise, if people want to level “will dish it but can’t take it” at Punk, have at it. I just think the Hangman remark was unlike the Max/Eddie stuff.

Yeah...I've heard that it's Punk with the legal threats, I've heard it's the Bucks that have made legal threats, I've heard Punk wants to apologize to the Bucks but the Bucks don't want to speak with him, I've heard Kenny and Hangman are fine with Punk, and on and on and on. It's hard to keep track of it all. I've heard so many different things that it's hard to even make a half-hearted attempt at seeing which of these is the most likely. For me, what it comes down to is that these are all adults in the wrestling business and they need to stop acting like babies. Should Hangman have cut his workers rights promo? No. On the other hand, that seemed far less inflammatory that anything Eddie or Mox said in their promos. Should Punk have blown up during the media scrum? No. It makes everyone, Punk included, look bad. It never goes well for pro sports teams when that happens. It certainly didn't go well for Punk, Tony, Hangman, the Bucks, etc. Should the Bucks and Kenny and fucking Brandon and Nakasawa of all people gone straight to Punk's locker room even if Punk said if you have a problem with him than come speak to him about it? No. Give that some time to breathe. Immediately going after someone who is already heated isn't going to turn out well. Should Ace Steel have even been there? No. Should any of the suspensions happened? No. And finally, should all of these guys just sit in a room and hash their shit out with an open mind? Yes. No one pissed on a family member's grave. No one did anything unforgiveable. All of them are grown ass adults who should be able to apologize for their role and get back to ground zero. None of them have to even like each other. Punk doesn't need to go to church with the Bucks. The Bucks don't need to go to...ok...Punk is pretty much a shut in with a few exceptions. All you need to do is just come to work and work with each other and have each other's backs to make the most money you can. Shit ain't hard. I also realize that there are some personality issues at play here. The Bucks seemingly always being cocky and jock bros and sneakerheads don't seem like they'd mesh well with Punk's personality. That's fine. Again, it's not high school. People can be who they are as long as when they're in that ring they're all protecting each other.

Doc’s drawing up plays ?

I like JD Drake a lot. In another era he seems like a guy whose Worldwide matches we would be gushing about.

Which part of the quote are you talking about? It sounds like you mean the OC being one of the best in the world, in which case, sure, absolutely. But circling back to "A gimmick's only as good as the guy doing it" - that part is debatable IMO. I would say the right gimmick can in fact lift a mediocre or even poor worker to something fun and entertaining. Hell, even OC without the gimmick would just be a guy who wrestles really well in a promotion full of guys who wrestle really well. Great as he is, I doubt I'd think much of him if his fun gimmick didn't give me a reason to care.

Yeah, all this. It's implied far more than it's shown, but to the film's credit, you're made to care so much about these CG creatures that you maybe leave sort of thinking you saw more than you did, if you catch my meaning. But yeah, it's not like this is the Requiem for a Dream of animal cruelty or anything. It's more like those god damn Sarah McLachlan commercials. Oh man, the "BUT HOW DID YOU KNOW?!" scene was amazing.

I'm pre-emptively quoting this for TRUTH. Anyone arguing/disagreeing has not watched nearly enough of this awesome Int'l Title reign. OC is running out of stuff he *can't* do IMO.

This is nonsense. I’ve seen this injury prone stuff pop up every time he’s discussed since the gripebomb. He’s was injured twice in 2022, and only one of those was from a match. The first injury was from his (cool, but stupid) pseudo stage-diving, and the second was during the Mox match at All Out. Hangman should apologize before anything happens between them again in-ring. Again, whether you want to admit it or whether or not you understood it at the time, Hangman took the first shot.

Not really a hot take, but people complaining about the animal cruelty in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 realize the ones committing the acts of cruelty are the bad guys right? I respect people loving animals and not wanting to see animals get hurt on screen, but the point is to show that the Guardians value the lives of these creatures and The High Evolutionary does not. The movie is the opposite of pro-animal cruelty.

Dammit, Gordlow!!!

Oh, and one thing that really did get to me was Nebula, Drax, and Mantis realizing Rocket was okay - especially Nebula nearly breaking down. I'm getting misty just thinking about it.

ALL CHAMPIONSHIPS DEFENDED~! (except (AT LEAST) one!) ALL KINDS OF SHITTY TAKES INCOMING~! WELCOME TO JEDDAH, KSA! THE CARD! TOURNAMENT FINAL FOR THE INAUGURAL WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP - Seth F. Rollins vs. AJ Styles FOR THE UNDISPUTED TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - Les Ours du Canada (Owens / Zayn, c) vs. The Bloodline (Reigns/Sikoa) FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP - GUNTHER (C) vs. Mustafa Ali FOR THE RAW WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP - Bianca Bel Air (c) vs. Asuka FOR THE SMACKDOWN WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP - Rhea Ripley (c) vs. Natalya Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar *Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus

the heat-getting dynamic of Baby Doll being taller than Tully probably wouldn't make it to the 2020s either, instead Baby Doll would have been more of an asskicker while a heel hell, this might be perspective, but Baby Doll is taller than Abdullah (or close to it), so by today's standards, she'd be booked like Rhea Ripley

Or prime Ali vs Buddy Rogers.

Seriously. Thankfully, someone reuploaded the Wrestling Challenge episodes from the mid 90s when they were being dropped from syndication in many markets something fierce. The wrestling generally is nothing to write home about. However, the commercials are still attached and usually are amazing. For example, because it's taped off the Fox 5 affiliate, you had a commercial for The Wiz (the store, not the amazing Diana Ross/Michael Jackson movie with Nipsey Russell). The commercial suffice to say doesn't age well cause it's hyping up how awesome their sales were cause of the ridiculous cheap prices you can buy CDs for versus their competitors. Yeah, they been out of business now for 20 years. Anyway, my larger point was about the two Skittles "How Many Combinations" ads with all the teenagers in them that air damn near every Challenge episode where I am at timeline wise. One features Marty Belafsky. You will know his face if you don't know the name. The other one features Dante Basco, who for five or six years straight, played the young, racially ambiguous hip kid in virtually everything. He had that market cornered. They were both either 17 or 18 when those commercials were shot. They are both 47 (!). Holy fuck.

I just feel like Punk is, from all appearances, a really paranoid guy who is constantly on guard for real and perceived betrayals from friends. I don't know the guy; just judging from 3rd & 4th hand shit and from behavior we've seen and heard about. I don't think any of that's changed in 8 months unless he found the world's greatest therapist and that's highly unlikely since a former friend of his explained in a podcast (1st hand info!) that Punk doesn't believe in therapy. So yeah, I don't think any amount of apologies, hand holding, roster splitting, etc. is going to help here. Something's going to happen to set this guy off because when you're a hammer, everything is a nail. That's been my unqualified internet psychologist take. Thanks for reading!

Halloween Havoc ’97 notes: The opener between Ultimo Dragon and Yuji Nagata was interesting. At first, it felt a bit meandering, but at one point, Tenay mentions floating bone chips in Dragon’s arm, and not long after that, Nagata counters a top-rope rana by knocking Dragon to the apron and then draping his arm across the cables. That played into a great finish where Dragon locked on the Dragon Sleeper for the second time, but Nagata quickly and easily slips out and locks on a nasty armbar for the submission win. Post-match, Onoo puts Dragon out of wrestling with a kick, which I guess means that Dragon was headed back to Japan or Mexico for the upcoming future. Besides some sweet Nagata kicks, the best move in the match was a fan using his sign to revive Dragon after Dragon hit a moonsault to the floor and tumbled down the aisle. How thoughtful! Disco risks making some casual misogynistic remarks while cutting an interview backstage, so Jacquelyn comes to the table and tries to give Disco the business. Jackie's wearing a sweet Harlem Heat-themed bit of wrestling gear. It's Gedo?! Of Jado and Gedo?! OK, sure! Ah, he's wrestling Chris Jericho. They just threw this match on the card, which makes sense because this card seemed like it was missing a match or two compared to other PPV cards around this time. Tenay puts Gedo over on commentary, and while TNA Tenay was a joke and the man isn't a very good lead PBP man, he is perfect in his role as secondary knowledgeable PBP/commentator hybrid in a three-person booth. I prefer three-person booths to two-person booths, but you have to be wise about how you book the two color commentator roles, or it can be awful. This is a four-man booth for the early matches as both Dusty and Heenan are there along with Tony S., but even though sometimes Dusty and Heenan are quiet for awhile, it still works. Oh, the match! It's fine. Gedo is a dick and Jericho is a fiery babyface, and both men play their roles well. Jericho's not a good enough athlete to do that top-rope Frankensteiner, though. The match sort of gets ugly after that spot, though I did like Gedo's kneebreaker reversal. Gedo badly misses a top-rope dive, like he wasn't even close to Jericho, and submits to the Lion Tamer. They show the botched Frankensteiner again for some reason on replay. Tenay tried to sell it as Gedo blocking it, but Jericho was the one who crawled over and tried to get the cover after it happened. Hey, they can't all be winners, but no need to show it again! Debra correctly tells Gene Okerlund that he talks too much, and therefore, this interview was a success. Mongo storms in and wants his money back from Debra, but that didn't really work for Randy Savage w/r/t Elizabeth. Mongo should know since he spent some of that money as a Horseman. There's not much I can say about one of the greatest matches to take place on American soil ever. Rey Misterio Jr. and Eddy Guerrero put on an all-time classic. I genuinely don't know how any booker worth his salt could watch this match and not think that he has two future main eventers. Rey's not the greatest on the mic, but he's fine and is the perfect fiery, never-say-die babyface. He's basically Ricky Steamboat for that era. Eddy is an elite heel and a pretty great face, though in fairness he only became a great face in his WWE run. Still, these two are clearly money and guys that you should build a company around. For as much as Vinnie Jr. gets shit for not pushing guys who are smaller, etc., even he mostly understood the money that was in these two. Misterio couldn't even get to U.S. Championship status in WCW, if I recall correctly. They had this guy in the mix for the Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship instead of in Hugh Morrus's spot. I digress, but only because there's nothing else to say about the tight work, wild counters, and despicable heel Eddy getting his comeuppance that hasn't been said before. Hogan and Bischoff do a kayfabe version of Shawn Michaels declaring the workplace to be entirely unsafe and refusing to wrestle unless Bret Hart Sting isn't allowed back in the building. This thing goes on FOREVER, though. Geez, man, they needed to fill some time this PPV, didn't they? Debra is out here with Alex Wright, which is a downer. I was hoping for Goldberg after the go-home Nitro. Wright/Mongo's not the worst matchup, and they did plant some seeds for Debra first abhorring and then being desperate enough to turn to Wright weeks ago, but I wanted to see Goldberg/Mongo. BOOOOO. Wright's jacket is dope. However, his snazzy jacket probably isn't going to make him the favorite against Mongo. He does manage to outwrestle the guy for the most part, but Mongo has the POWAAAAA. They have an okay match, but the end is the best part, as we get GOLDBEEEERG running in after Mongo hits a Tombstone and spearing and Jackhammering Mongo right behind the distracted ref who SOMEHOW hears and feels none of Goldberg murdering Mongo. The guy refuses to turn around! I mean, if it were on the other side of the ring, okay, I could suspend my disbelief, but come on. They should have had a ref knockout instead. Anyway, Goldberg is paid with Mongo's Super Bowl ring for killing Mongo. Goldberg kills Wright post-match just for fun. Whatever, as dumb as the ref distraction came off, I still enjoyed the match. Now Savage and Liz are backstage to talk about stuff. By "stuff," I mean "Page." Also, Liz doesn't really talk, per the typical routine. Savage manages to promote Slim Jim while cutting his promo. What a professional. Disco gets to do a solid stalling heel act here in his match against Jacquelyn. Quality work on his part. A DISCO SUCKS chant fires up even though people enjoyed dancing like goofs during his entrance five minutes ago. The desk has been terrible during this match talking about Hogan's walkout instead of helping to build the anticipation of Jackie getting her hands on Disco. She finally does (and gets two on a sunset flip). I was going to say something about Jackie not wearing, like, a sports bra or a top that would be more functional, but I didn't want to get all Smellynetico, and sure enough, her boob came out on a drop-toehold. The crowd popped for it, as did the desk. They do a great spot where Disco circles the ring, and Jackie's just smart enough to wait at a cutoff point and catch him. She beats his ass for a bit, and he bails and decides to take the countout loss...except Jackie chases him down and tackles him in the aisle. She backs him toward the ring and basically outsmarts him the whole time they're back in there. It's like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, sort of. Specifically one where Bugs is dressed up as a woman and has coconuts in his chest area to stand in for boobs. I mean, I can't believe they let her go out there in that top! Anyway, she hits a nice floatover DDT to a huge pop and it WAS very cool. Disco rolls through a crossbody for two, but is upset that it wasn't three and gets schoolboyed - schoolgirled, I mean - for three. I enjoyed it! Disco could have just done this months ago and kept getting paid. Imagine. Ric Flair is all fire and brimstone righteous anger when he gets in the ring with Curt Hennig. Flair gets his robe back that the nWo took and cut the arms out of last PPV, but of course, commentary has fallen apart and is talking about Hogan. Terrible. We have this blood feud going on in the ring, it's been built up so well, and commentary have the orders to talk about Hogan. It's maybe the first time that it's been so bad that I think it is now detracting from the show. Hennig and Flair have this good back-and-forth match where Hennig tries to take as many shortcuts as possible and Flair fires up and through it; the U.S. Championship belt comes into play, and Flair eventually wraps it around Hennig's face and stomps it. Flair gets DQ'ed and destroys a couple refs so that he can try to strangle Hennig. Konnan and Vincent have to pull Hennig away while the refs peel Flair away. This was a good match that was hurt pretty badly by the awful commentary. Savage cuts an '80s-ass Real Audio WCWwrestling.com promo with Mark Madden, but he's so good at this because he's playing the yelling down a bit and just doing VINTAGE MACHO MAN on the mic. I think there's room for his promo style in 1997, but he needs to cut the yelling a bit. J.J. Dillon is back to talk about contract shenanigans with Gene Okerlund. Lots of UPS truck-level flash and sizzle! Bischoff comes out to talk office politics with Dillon and, look, the main event is back on, that's all you need to know. Scott Hall and Lex Luger (w/special guest ref Larry Zbyszko) is a match that I'm into, though very weirdly, Luger hasn't had much TV time on Nitro to hype this match. Hall and Larry Z. have been all up in the videos, though. Hall toothpicks Larry Z. at the start and gets punished for it, but the match settles into lots of holds and Hall trying to cheat with Larry Z. watching him like a hawk. Hall's tan is a bit much, even for a group with Hulk Hogan in it. I'm not sure this match needed long surfboard spots, though. I mean, it's really dull and slow-moving, lots of "sit in a hold" spots. I'm not asking for another Rey/Eddie or anything, but these guys can go, and Hall knows how to wrestle as the overwhelmed smaller wrestler against a babyface powerhouse, even as big as he is. Hall tries to swing at Larry Z. and gets backdropped over the top rope as Z. ducks. The crowd is very, very into Larry Zbyszko, Troubleshootin' Ref. Finally, the match picks up, as Syxx and Bischoff try to run interference outside. Syxx is able to kick Luger when Bischoff has Larry Z. distracted, and Hall hits a Razor's Edge for three. Larry Z. asks for instant replay, though, and once he sees it, he restarts the match, which makes me wonder why all refs don't do this. Hall finally comes back to the ring and gets racked, so Syxx hits a kick and causes the DQ, and Bischoff and Hall jump Larry Z. Luger was a complete afterthought in this whole match. I think it stunk from booking to the work itself. Randy Savage/Dallas Page is fine, I suppose. The crowd is tired and only somewhat wakes up when there's a crowd brawl, and I blame the previous match. The brawling is probably more exciting back in 1997, but man, Page head-first tossing Savage into the tombstones in the mock graveyard and bashing him over the head with them is great in any year. They try to wake the crowd up with all sorts of plunder, and they're generally successful at it - most of the credit goes to Liz breaking shit over the ref's head and choking Page with a cable. That was pretty good, and a great escalation of this match, because of her actions contrasting with her formerly demure character portrayal. Kimberly coming out to drag her away also riled up the crowd. But this is just okay, I think. It's an okay match in an okay-ish quadrilogy of PPV matches. I also don't get jobbing Page for like the third time in a row. This needed to be a feud ender won definitively by Page, underdog status be damned. The underdog's got to win the big one sometimes. Of course, Savage attacks Page on the stretcher post-match, so I'm sure WCW will continue this IMO somewhat mediocre feud all the way through to Starrcade. Hogan and Piper have had two WCW PPV matches to diminishing returns, but the first one was legitimately a very good match and the second one was solid. I was interested in this third match, a cage match main event between the two, because I remember more of the discourse surrounding the match more than I remember the match itself. I don't think that Hogan and Piper deserve shit for being old guys who don't work hard because they absolutely do. I think the issues with the match largely surround the use of the cage, which is opened almost immediately with little struggle and which leads to a ringside brawl that basically we just saw a more amplified version of in the previous match. Consider the Michaels/Undertaker HiaC match at Badd Blood; Michaels got murdered and had to resort to utterly desperate measures halfway through the match to bust out of there. He had to jack a cameraman up and take advantage of the medics coming to scramble out. Here, everyone's out of the cage inside the first five minutes and there's run-in interference. The cage is rendered meaningless almost immediately. Hogan's trying his hardest to get over a desperation to escape Piper and the cage with his vocalizing, but it's not convincing considering how easily the confines of the cage are subverted. It also doesn't help that we get a multiple Stings gambit as part of the match - and the aftermath, in which a face wins and is immediately beaten up rather than the crowd getting a chance to enjoy a win for themselves. Honestly, you can criticize this match for being poor for a lot of reasons, but the workers aren't one of them. They genuinely put in as much effort as they could. But the cage being a non-factor + many Stings = dud. Especially having a "fan" run in and get beaten up. This show went south almost immediately after Jackie/Disco, though you could make the argument that the commentary for that match was so bad that the show tanked during the match.

Justified: City Primeval July 18, FX Hell yeah

Oh man, that's super sad news (if not entirely unexpected given his status as an organ transplant recipient). I got Graham's book as a tip on a job I did for WWE years ago, and having been a little too young to have seen him live, I thought it was a surprisingly great read (especially some of the parts covering his time preaching on the tent-revival circuit, and talking about Vince riding around with Dr Jerry Graham in his Caddy as a kid). I get the impression, as Dolphman alludes to, that Superstar suffers from the 'Seinfeld Isn't Funny' trope a bit with modern audiences who might've grown up with Ventura, Hogan and late-era Scott Steiner doing the cover versions

With all the Cody stuff recently, I went back and watched all the Dusty-Superstar matches. Their first Garden match was a banger, and everything after that was progressively worse. Hollywood Hogan was a blatant cosplay of Graham, and I can't even blame Hulk for doing it - the gimmick was money

If Graham passes, I'll have a bit more to say, but we've been doing a bit of a reevaluation of him as of late. It's hard to get the image of 80s Kung Fu Graham out of your head and easy to see him as a certain way in the 70s (large than life body/strength guy). Graham isn't just selling for the back row in this one. He's selling for somewhere in Newark. But more on this later if need be.

I think an important thing to keep in mind in regards to the Punk/Bucks/Hangman/Omega stuff is that no one here knows anything that they haven't heard third, fourth, fifth or more-hand from someone probably reporting it at least second-hand. And even then, the news would have come from a very self-interested place. Now, I'm not saying it's not fun to speculate, but let's not take any of this as fact.

100000% this,especially when that manchild made his bones on "toeing the line" in his promos. He's an absolute child and the quicker he goes away, the better. I'd also like to point out, that while I'm not a Bucks guy(love Omega though), they're not out there throwing caution to the wind being publicly petulant and drawing attention to themselves in this situation.

I'm looking forward to seeing this again on D+ now that I've had time that really think about it all, and especially how just badass and cold it was when Quill told Groot to kill them all.

Did you notice that Denerian Saal's GotG line "What a bunch of a-holes..." was taken from the script and pasted into Marvel Studios opening montage for GotG3?

Phil doesn't strike me as a "greater good" kind of person.

WWE In Possession Of International Championship Wrestling Tape Library

I went with both of my kids this weekend. They both loved it. My son (6) did comment afterwards that it was really sad, and my daughter (12) cried multiple times. Neither, however were referencing the animal cruelty. There are a ton of emotional beats in this movie that will get to you. Like @J.T. said, I liked how they handled breaking up the team. Going in knowing (or at least hearing the rumors) that this was going to be a few cast members' last time in the franchise had me expecting a death or two. In the end, I'm actually happy they didn't kill off any of the main characters. The biggest surprise to me came at the very, very end:

Yeah, anyone who thinks that movie condones animal cruelty is an idiot. Not only is all of the evil science being conducted by the bad guys, the Evolutionary never acknowledges Rocket's sentience or respects his right to life. He never refers to Rocket as Rocket. He only uses Rocket's serial number. Rocket and the other creations, even Ayesha and Adam Warlock, are just test subjects to the High Evolutionary. The Evolutionary is so much of a dick that he is completely baffled by how a "thing" like Rocket could solve a problem his advanced intellect couldn't. "There is no God. That's why I stepped in," has to be the best MCU bad guy line in a long time. Rocket is now officially Rocket Raccoon. Now if we can get him in his green combat skeinsuit from the comics instead of the ugly blue Guardians coveralls. The saga of Cosmo is a bad dog is the bestest.

Finally saw this yesterday with my daughter and we loved it. High Evolutionary was a total dirtbag and arguably the best Marvel villain since Thanos. Not even the Sovereign fucked with that guy. The whole Adam Warlock thing was eh. You could've left him out and the story would still be decent. Geeked out again for the members of Vance Astro's Guardian team moonlighting as Ravagers. It was a nice touch for them to simply to break up the team and explain away why some cast members won't be returning to the franchise. Much better than killing all or most them. There were a couple of times where I thought Drax was a goner. Glad I stayed spoiler free until I saw the movie. I'm assuming that the little girl on Rocket's new team was MCU Phyla-Vell. Hugged my mom's Yorkie when I went to visit mom for Mother's Day. Made sure to tell her that she was a good dog.

Just out of the theaters. I think the reports of the intensity of animal cruelty are fairly exaggerated - much more is implied than shown. I'm not trying to take away from anybody's experience having seen the film but I truly don't think any of it is cause to skip it. Granted, I experienced a lot of medical trauma from my youngest child's birth and early life, so maybe I'm a little calloused. What does happen has a purpose and leads to a worthy resolution. That aside, decent flick. Lots of emotion, excellent villain, and a good sendoff to this team of Guardians. Still can't take Warlock seriously though...

All I can think of when it comes to Jay White is when a friend of mine said "aioli is just mayonnaise they want you to pay an extra dollar for". I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide whether Jay White is the aioli to Adam Cole's mayonnaise or vice versa (or to insult my friend's taste in emulsified condiments as I have on many an evening). That said, having watched both Jay White and Adam Cole for close to a decade I'd rather have guacamole.

I am so happy this line exists because this was the EXACT way Dean gave me directions to his Richmond house the first time "You will turn left at Arthur Ashe threatening children. If you see Jefferson Davis throwing in the towel, you have gone to far"