Craig H

Regarding the desk, if they’re going to do desk spots, they need to go the WWE route and find a manufacturer that basically creates the desk out of laser cut sections that snap together and can be sturdy enough to stand on, but will also give and fall apart when someone is slammed on it. What they had on Wednesday was clearly like a weird half ass attempt at building the bones for the desk out of 2x4s and likely just used CA glue (basically super glue) to hold the joints together, but not as securely as wood glue or fasteners like nails or screws. The problem being is that even if that shit is framed with 2x4s held together with super glue, you’re taking a bump onto something really, really sturdy.

What in the fuck is with kids/teens/high schoolers wearing Crocs? How is this utter garbage popular again?!

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about the Outer Wilds before, but it’s easily in my top 5 games of all time and one of the best experiences I’ve had with my daughter playing games. A YouTube guy named FightinCowboy recently did a let’s play for all of Outer Wilds and the DLC. It was such an entertaining watch seeing someone go through the same struggles we did. It gave my daughter and me to try and find something like the Outer Wilds. Let me tell you, there’s nothing like this game. There are some that kinda come close though. We first tried out the Witness, but man, fuck that game. It’s really pretty, but it’s void of any character, there’s hardly any story, and it’s the most Jonathan Blow shit ever. The puzzles get nearly impossible just a few hours in and there’s like 500 puzzles to solve. So that brought us to Detroit Become Human. This wasn’t quite what we were looking for, but for a game I totally wrote off, it’s something we’ll come back to. Feels pretty special but we’re not hooked just yet. Then we started the Talos Principle. Hook this shit into my veins. This was almost exactly what we’re looking for. I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but I’m really digging the mystery of it and the puzzles are challenging without being impossible. There’s only been one I struggled with and had to go to YouTube only to see that lasers can go through purple walls. I never would have tried that on my own. So we’re looking forward to more of this and then playing the sequel. Others on our radar are Alan Wake, having her play Control but the abilities and controls may be too complex for her, Alan Wake 2, maybe the Forgotten City?, Ghost Trick if it’s on the Switch, and maybe some others. We also have a goal to try and do a no death run through Celeste. I’ve beaten it, she’s beaten it, but we both died hundreds of times in the process. This might be our beat Punch Out blindfolded thing. Probably impossible, but we’ll give it a shot.

There’s a definite argument to be made that Samoa Joe has been the best and worst used wrestler in maybe history. Joe being champ again makes me think of this:

OH! Triple post, sorry. Toni getting both Deonna and Renee to break at the same time ruled. She’s on the level of Sami getting everyone to break. God help anyone that has promo segments against Toni. I hope they have nerves of steel.

Rest of the show was great. I can’t believe it has already been a year since Jay passed. I was crying a lot. Jay never getting the big run at the top of a major company is like one of those crimes in wrestling that promoters should look at to make sure never happens again. Like Hook, Jay had such a unique look, aura, and style to him that you can’t replicate and maybe that’s because he was a real motherfucker. Christian vs Dustin was like the “DEAN~! Memorial This is Pro Wrestling Motherfuckers” match if I ever saw one. TK is onto something with this quasi-face run for BCG. I’m hoping it leads to the unification of the Trios titles. It’s time to get them off of the Acclaimed. Even though I know Roddy vs OC will be great, I’m really not feeling this Undisputed Kingdom run or faction. Part of that is the best Mike Bennett ever was was in TNA in the wedding angle. Taven is….basically the most OK wrestler in existence. Together they’re incredibly milquetoast. Imagine a world where fucking Roderick Strong of all people has more charisma and is more entertaining than almost everyone else in the faction. Anna Jay looks like she’s back to cosplaying as Zatara and that’s ok with me. Deonna had a fine match with her and the post match angle was hilarious. The Bucks interview. Ugh. Rarely have I been a fan of the character change into the “respect me for who I really am” thing. It also doesn’t help that Matt is usually all over the place in his interviews. Sometimes that works, other times it doesn’t. So we’re trying to make Private Party a thing again. Coooool… Finally, I can definitely get behind “Trent: Fed Up Shitkicker” If that’s his character change. Plus, Chucky sighting!!! Glad he’s on the mend. At some point this year, I’m hoping Trent and Chuck get fed up over being one of the last original teams and not getting the respect they deserve and finally winning AEW tag gold.

I haven’t read any of the comments yet, but I’ve been looking forward to Joe vs Hook all week. I don’t think there’s another prospect in wrestling that excites me more than Hook does and Joe is one of the all time bests. This may be hyperbole, I don’t know, but there isn’t a single wrestler for any of the last few generations that brings a big fight feel to a match like Joe does. There is a definite difference to the feel Joe brings to a match than anyone else does. I mean, Roman, MJF, Mox, Seth, Punk…none of those guys makes a match feel like a big time fight. Samoa Joe does. Look no further than Joe vs Brock. So for this match, I don’t know if it was just Joe, the presentation, or what, but there was a palpable difference between this and every other title match and I loved it. I was on the edge of my seat that entire match. It ruled so fucking much. AEW’s track record of how challengers that lose title matches isn’t the best. The challenger just kinda fades away for a bit. Right now, Hook is a made man. You gotta capitalize on this someway somehow and make this the year of Hook and start building this kid up to win it all at the end of the year. Feel free to disagree, but wrestling needs someone like Hook. AEW needs someone like Hook. He stands out in the same way OC does. His look, aura, attitude, and style is entirely unique.

Also, it’s wild that Omar from the Mars Volta showed up for Brodie’s party… Anyway, man, Daily’s Place is magical for bringing out the best in these videos.

Again, changing this to BTDO was the BEST decision. The Bucks and Kenny should have done this a lot sooner because it was clear they ran out of steam for this 2 years ago.

Oh man, when Elora showed up as Bonnie and when the woman from the clinic showed up I was in heaven. Sucks that Big was only in it for the one episode. I’m through three episodes and love it. This is fantastic. Also had no idea that the actress for Maya is both deaf and an amputee and she was bitten in the face by a dog when she was a kid. Before getting cast as Echo, she was working at a nursing home. She had what sounds like a rough ass life on the reservation so Good on her for doing everything she’s done.

I’m reading through the Marvel Multiverse RPG rulebook and man, this thing is so well put together. There’s a chapter that covers the 616 history and I’m shocked it includes details of Hickman’s X-Men run that he started, like locations and events that happened after Hickman. Looks like it was just first published in April 2023. I’m impressed by the amount of detail. I think before I start a game I may get everyone together for an introductory night to go over the history of everything and where we’re at now. Only thing is, I don’t feel like putting a PowerPoint together and the Comics Explained dude on YouTube has videos that are too long and he gets on my nerves. Everything to him is always “And this is AMAZING” or “And this is DOPE” or “such and such is so powerful he could beat so and so and be home in time for cornflakes.” I keep the channel on in the background when I’m working on stuff, but it’s going to be really off putting to a group that isn’t all in on comic books.

I thought that street fight ruled primarily because it was a fucking street fight and not the dumb as fuck street fight that’s really just a no holds barred match in and around the ring. It brought back memories of Al Snow or whoever it was getting dumped into the Mississippi River or some of the Dreamer and Brian Lee brawls that would spill outside the ECW Arena. I also disagree with this notion that they’re trying to hide Jericho. That’s twice now he’s been cheered just fine. It’s just a way to protect Jericho while also putting over the tag champs.

Strong Patriots vibes from the Chiefs. Guess they really are going to be that team now.

The only time I saw Joe live was at the Chicago Reborn where he defended the world title against…Striker? I think that was his name? It was a shit dude in ROH with bad hair. My favorite memory of that match is Joe turning to our section because we, as well as everyone, were yelling out shit from Chappelle’s Show, and Joe goes, “Is Samoa Joe gonna have to choke a bitch?” I don’t recall Joe being on the Thanksgiving Eve Dynamite I went to in 2022… And the first match of his I saw period was an early early early ROH match. It was Samoa Joe vs Low Ki. At the time, it basically blew my mind. They had a ridiculous opening sequence that was likely choreographed but who cares because it fucking ruled and it looked great. It looked like something out of the Matrix. That turned me into an instant fan. It’s unfortunate he spent so much time in TNA, but what are you going to do when your other options were WWE where they wanted him to be Umaga and not cut promos, ROH which was in worse shape than TNA, NJPW which was in really rough shape but starting to to get better, or NOAH which was worse off than NJPW. He’d also be in total obscurity over in Japan so at least he got to build his legend in TNA. And now he’s at his rightful place at the top of a major company.

Is it that much of a stretch to think that musician Sting will be front row for wrestler Sting’s final match?

Hey! Another Jericho Cruise right at the same time as another Covid surge! Hopefully all of the dudes going to that sausage fest mask up. Narrator: They didn’t mask up.

Triple post, but it does suck that Revolution should basically be the ultimate tribute show for Sting and WWE owns the bulk of classic Sting footage that could be used in video packages. There’s the TNA footage, but I want clips of Sting vs Flair, or Vader, or Sid, or Hogan, or Bret, or his entrance from WM, or the War Games matches, and so on. Maybe there’s a chance, albeit very slim, that WWE rents the footage out to AEW for a hefty sum. I mean, it couldn’t be more than the cost to use The Final Countdown. It’s HHH kind of in charge so maybe he sees the importance of letting it happen. I just have this image in my head of Sting’s final entrance where it starts out with a look alike without the jacket with pauldrons coming out to: That being his best music…To me anyway…Then we get the look alike with jacket and pauldrons coming out to The Man They Call Sting. Then another look alike in the sad makeup and trenchcoat comes out to: Do a red and black look alike coming out to Metallica’s Seek and Destroy even if he came out to that at Wembley. And then finally have him come out to his AEW entrance. And yeah, Jericho did something similar, but this entrance for Sting’s final match would be so fucking epic. I just know one thing, I’m going to be in tears. I’m not ready for it to be over. I was a WWF kid, but man, if my favorite as a kid wasn’t Ricky Steamboat then it was definitely Sting. He’s the reason I got into WCW/NWA. His matches with Muta are likely the reason I got into Japanese wrestling. The entire storyline of him going into silence and waiting forever to challenge Hogan is still one of the best ever even if they didn’t stick the landing (because what is wrestling without a great story and not sticking the landing). Dude is one of my all time favorites, didn’t need to do any of this stuff, and yet he did anyway. To kinda quote Moneyball, how can you not be romantic about pro wrestling?

The only other team I could see maybe being a better fit is some kind of combination from the HoB, but the prospect of that is legitimately terrifying.

This board is weird, I swear. Look, I get the Bucks aren’t all of y’all’s cup of tea, but Sting can’t do a singles match. Hell, he even has to do cinematic matches as a tag match. So who else would be better to put Sting and Darby up against than the Bucks. As characters, the Bucks are dickheads, they want to send Sting out with a loss, but in reality, there’s fewer teams more appropriate than the Bucks that can ALSO protect Sting and bump around like pinballs for him. This is the logical and best conclusion given Sting’s capabilities. Now, if maybe Sting wasn’t going full Cactus Jack in most of his tag matches then he’d be able to physically do the singles match against Darby, but he looked seriously fucked up at the end of that match last night. I don’t want to see Sting all broken down looking sad as fuck in his final match like Flair did. Give him the tag match against the Bucks and let Nick and Matt bump around the ring for Sting like crazy. I am almost sure that if it were physically possible that Sting would want to do the honors for Darby, but I just don’t think he’s capable of doing it.

Also, there is a dire lack of using the term “shit-ass” on Echo. Anyway, that first episode is 10/10. Just fucking outstanding.

Holy shit. That opening to episode 1 of Echo is so unbelievable sad and also heartwarming. I was in tears until Fisk showed up. Probably the dad in me. My oldest’s name is also Maya, so that was getting to me too. And I guess coincidentally enough she’s talking ASL when she starts high school in August. So just a lot got to me in a way not much else from the MCU has.

It was a Violent Gentlemen shirt being sold right after Brodie passed with proceeds going to Brodie’s family. I remember trying to buy one and they were all sold out online and I went back some months later and they were no longer being sold. It would be cool if they would sell them again.

Heh, I just finished my rewatch of Justified with my wife and she remarked that Kaitlyn Dever should be in more stuff.

Paul doesn’t like cosmic Marvel stuff.

We can’t use Lone Wolf and Cub, even though this is basically influenced by it, so let’s just call it the Mandalorian and Grogu. Basic name aside, I’m down for this. GIVE ME MORE COBB VANTH YOU FUCKS. I need more space Raylan Givens in my life.