Unnatural
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Posts posted by Unnatural
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33 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:
Well AEW is doing a mystery guy. This could be somebody already signed, or it could be a guy that was released recently. I just hope this isn’t Gulak.
Well if it isn't Invisible Stan then what's the point of a mystery participant?
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OSJ you betcha, that was the first one I read based on the talk about the corncob scene being based on a real story, and then I started with the Header and Bighead stories and was hooked hahahaha. I have to look through my list and see if I have Shifters, theres a few I haven't read of his yet that I'm saving for after Gideon/Bleakwarrior/Black Company.
In that vein, are there other writers-collections-books you might recommend, please? With all the down time working from home I'm loving being able to read through so many of my "pending" list. Got through the Warhammer Gaunts Ghosts series quickly and dove into Goon and the Header stories and I might do a reread of some Faerun setting novels. Just hoping to see other titles worth a read.
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Thanks to this board I've done a DEEP dive on Edward Lee books. Love the humor and the HOLY FUCKING WOW SHIT levels they go to. I want to get into Bleakwarrior next after finishing Gideon the 9th, is there a collection of other works that tie into Bleakwarrior? I'm thinking about either Bleakwarrior and its related books or Black Company series since that one seems to have some omnibus collections. Any recommendations on which to go with next is appreciated, thanks.
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11 hours ago, Control said:
Also, don’t get a rat. There’s a plague across the globe and you’re gonna get the avatar of pestilence?
This makes me want to paint up my Skaven/Nurgle allies and throw them headfirst against some Nids. Can't wait.
I'd advise against fish and aquariums, so much hassle to maintain, imo. Cleaning the water, checking the levels, temperatures, etc. My brother in law got us some Bettas because his own aquarium was lit up and with the lights out it looks very Avatar/Pandora-ish but oh man so much work, imo. Never mind trying to add other fish to the aquarium because them Bettas trip out like it's gang wars or something whenever we've tried to add new fish.
Instead of rats, may I suggest an ant farm if they're sold anywhere locally. Super interesting, imo, so industrious and seemingly always on the move. Loved visiting my cousin as a kid to see his setup, which was in a gerbil cage maybe, something that wasn't an aquarium but had glass to see them scurrying through.
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Here comes the money
Here we go, money money
Dollar dollar, bling
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9 hours ago, Southside Jim said:
20/20 did all sorts of pop culture stories to pop ratings back during the Hugh Downes/Barbara Walters era. A bunch of us school kids ended up watching an episode in summer 1988 because they were talking about the popularity of Nintendo and showed 30 seconds of footage of Super Mario Bros. 2 before it was released.
I remember watching this one flick with Fred Savage as a kid just because it was about him competing in some video game contest and the movie had the first footage, that I'd seen, of Super Mario Bros 3. I could care less about the movie I just wanted a preview of the latest Mario game when I went to see it.
On topic, what happened to Dr D in Japan? The show mentions him slapping a Japanese reporter and Dr D just makes a dismissive face about his time in Japan, like things didn't work out or something, and then they drop the topic completely.
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Speaking of JR and credibility, I personally hated how it seems like he always had a word for his detractors, or just detractors towards the sport of wrestling who were tuning in for that broadcast. He'd get defensive about these are real athletes taking real damage and they matter and he'd make these points in the middle of a match seemingly out of nowhere.
He'd randomly bring up strawmen like "well people say these wrestlers know how to fall" or some other example and then he'd counterargue the point like HOW DARE they besmirch the world of professional wrestling?!?! That he'd, if memory serves, bring this up during wild brawls or stunt epics with ladders and stuff, like chill dude! If you're calling a PPV or the 2nd or 3rd hour of live tv and you start bringing this up out of nowhere, just who are you trying to convince? I doubt any detractors or haters are sticking around that long during a live event that he felt the need to address them back when there was no internet and social media.
You're calling a heated contest live on tv/ppv, why in the world do you gotta take a few minutes from calling the action to address these voices in your head? was my question.
That's my personal peeve when it comes to JR at the height of his being in the announce booth. People bring up how grumpy he gets with the modern scene and not going for pins, too many kickouts, etc and sure they're annoying to have him shit on the guys he's supposed to be putting over. But I feel like he's always been an angry man, with his distracted ranting at these invisible voices and nowadays with the overkill that goes into the matches.*
*Not saying he's wrong on the modern criticism he brings, some matches do drag on and the finisher kickouts can get overdone.
But he seems like someone who always has an axe to grind about one thing or another and he takes that live mic and lets it out which, tldr I find annoying and unnecessary during a very heated match. It's one thing bringing this up during the downtime between matches but he'd typically do this right in the middle of the match.
Was he arguing with someone talking to him over the headset? Was he being antagonized by someone in his ear? I'm not sure but that would take me out of a match quicker than Mauros too cool for school references.
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2 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:
Boy is that an understatement.
I like the guy in that Cain clip that looks like either a Goomba from Mario the movie or Pinhead from Puppet Master.
Real talk, hahaha, I have this mechanic who does jobs for my car and my dads, I met him through my stepbrother so the guy always takes care of us
But I had to quote and reply because the guys name is Mario and legit he looks like a Goomba facially from the Super Mario movie!
First time I met him in person I had to text my siblings and send them a screenshot of the live action Goombas since they probably hadn't seen the movie since elementary school
Now they'd met Mario plenty of times so when I mentioned how he looked like a Goomba oh man we were all LAUGHING the rest of the afternoon hahahahaha!
Cain to Bloodsport, to get on topic, would be sick! I've only seen one Bloodsport, where Allie came out and there were some big Japanese stars headlining, but damn that's one fed I'd love to see holding quarterly events when shows pop back up, whenever that may happen.
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One announcer who would crack us up was this RoH guy who would yell DANGEROUS at certain "instant death" spots. Someone even went and made a YouTube compilation of him yelling it during various matches on KILLER MOVES!! Lmao he was meh on commentary but then someone hits a crazy finisher or dive and he just yells DANGEROUS like the whole ring gonna collapse.
Not saying he was a fave, just his Dangerous yell always cracked me and my cousins up when we'd toss a new VHS tape in and sit down to catch matches we'd heard praised for months.
Cole and Tazz were a fave of mine, what little I actually remember about them at least.
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I love wrestling for what it is, to me personally, an escape. Chikara and its ants and invisible grenades crack me tf up. Wcw with the hotly contested cruiserweight matches, the squash matches on syndicated weekend shows, that was my jam. Jake the Snake scaring wrestlers shitless with Damian, Warriors crazy over the top promos. That countdown before the next buzzer as your next Royal Rumble entrant walks out from behind the back. ECW and the crazy Awesome Bombs or the tazmissions, Whipwreck and Tajiri, the giant killer Spike Dudley, 3d's for everyone, TOTAL ELIMINATION, all that. AAA with its Hell Brothers and six man tags, Verano de Escandalo, NJPW with the G1 tournament and the crazy fighting spirit never say die battles.
Tldr I don't watch every last thing, I barely follow weekly shows unless something is heavily pimped with highlights recapped on YouTube, y'know? But for me, as an 80s kid, wrestling is just a getaway from the mundane every day. I love the random matches of recent crowdless shows that remind me of being a kid and sitting back grinning ear to ear at the comedy or being blown away by the athleticism and spectacle.
If I'm going anywhere with this, my question would be- What drew you in when you got into following wrestling weekly, that you had to watch and just couldn't miss the next week?
I remember it was a Saturday morning for me, and Jake the Snake had just done his short arm clothesline to set up a journeyman guy for the DDT. I was blown away seeing him wipe out the guy, like "Damn, he just killed him on tv and all those fans are cheering for him." That was my 'I don't wanna miss out next week' moment. Just curious what yours might be, is all.
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1 hour ago, HarryArchieGus said:
That's fair, but I don't think anybody is asking for amateur style or UWFi presentation. The request is for logic and the minimization of how much suspension of disbelief the viewer must offer.
The question is really more about the 'magic camera' and it's diminishing effects on the product than whether AEW is truly a sports presentation.
Well okay but if we're talking logic and sports presentation, please tell me in the 60s or 70s what sport was going around with wildmen and savages or sports leagues that had characters like a Baron Von Raschke or Fritz Von Erich? What league had "foreigner who hates host country pops in to take the title" as a narrative?
I was watching clips wrestling pre 80s and it's so blatantly showmanship, so blatantly sideshow entertainment compared to pro sports, with its colorful gimmicks like mummies and Worlds Strongest Man types. There isn't uncivilized wildmen competing in boxing or baseball or football or whatever "sports presentation" sports are being compared to wrestling. You don't have your Kamalas and Wild Samoans and Moondogs etc. I wouldn't imagine in any other league that wasn't pro wrestling.
Now maybe I'm misunderstanding the point entirely and that's possible, the talking point to me seems ---pro wrestling is on the same level as other pro leagues in its presentation--- and I could definitely be wrong.
Never mind the predetermined finishes part, skip that, wrestling in my (and anyone is welcome to link to matches or cards that they feel captured the "real sports" feel being discussed) opinion, is more closer to Harlem Globetrotters with its athleticism and entertainment value, than competitive pro sports. I get why McMahon decided to go with 'sports entertainment' over "wrestling" because to a degree yeah its athleticism and the wrestlers are taking real bumps, but its entertainment presentation with all the spectacle and razzle dazzle of carnie barkers pulling in the marks.
About suspension of disbelief, what leagues allowed their athletes to compete with masks, allow handicap matches and valets who help distract the ref? Let their players antagonize the fans to near riots, brawl through the arena and into the crowd, make for ironman stipulations, tuxedo matches, 2/3 falls, last man standing, blindfold matches? Pro wrestling seems like it was always about the sideshow, the gimmicks that drew paying fans in. Top rope attacks, tag team moves, 10 counts on rope break, another 10 count if you leave the ring. Irish whips?
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I've got a question about the "presented as a sport" talking point that seems to be getting tagged to AEW on the webz.
Is this something that AEW themselves came out and said? Like some mission statement somewhere in black and white with the AEW logo front and center over it?
I'm legit asking because in a company with barb wire nets and mouse trap boards, with eye spiking angles, not one but two invading factions looking to change the look and feel of AEW, and this is all before the lockdowns and no fans allowed started happening... So okay, all that, guys like Orange Cassidy and Nakazawa doing their thing, what would "presented as a real sport" have to do with these things?
I'm saying, my point being, they're hammy wrestling time to time with a heavier dose of solid wrestling the majority of the time, like Nitro but with the violence turned up. Or ECW if they had sillier gimmicks now and again.
How is invading factions a sports feel? Barb wire nets, DDT's through glass tables, thumb tacks and cracker barrel matches and spiked skateboards, all of this back when they had crowds, how would any of that be a "sport presentation?"
Just rambling an opinion here, with shitty references, but AEW=Serious Sport doesn't seem to line up, in my uneducated mark mind. Not when you've got camera zooms on best friends hugging, not when they're being broadcast from a cruise ship. That's just tv fare like your WMAC or something, just my thoughts.
Some people seem set on this talking point but I've never seen it through that lens, with all the different examples I was trying to remember.
ETA- In my mind if wrestling and sports presentation are in the same sentence I immediately picture amateur, collegiate or Olympic wrestling. Wrestling inside a ring with ropes is not my idea of sport presentation wrestling. I say that as an 80s kid who grew up with lots of cartoonish characters in the ring and so my stance, again, isnt the most educated.
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20 hours ago, Tarheel Moneghetti said:
Does anyone know anything about DC's animated Harley Quinn series airing on SYFY? I'm watching a bit of the Battlestar Galactica marathon and a commercial came on for Harley Quinn. Fairly certain they said the show is going to re-air on SyFy but I didn't catch the date and time.
Edit: Found the answer on Twitter. For anyone interested, SyFy is going to rebroadcast the entire season on Sunday nights in May. Multiple eps. will air each Sunday beginning at 11 pm.
Ton of profanity and zany over the top antics, and season 2 just started. Pretty funny, her supporting cast fill their spots perfectly, imo. Ron Funches as King Shark kills me, I think that's him?
Okay wait, how is my post anti Semitic? Profanity, zany antics, ron funches, king shark? That description alone, minus King Shark, could be about the second season of Final Space. I disagree, I never referenced anything anti semitic. Welcome to DVDVR maybe? Is this "hazing the new guy"?
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Would Mortal Kombat Legends Revenge of Scorpion go here? I enjoyed so much of it but holy hell was lots of the voice acting just wretched.
So this is a WB animated film BUT its gory as fuck with enough profanity that its absolutely not for kids. Take the fatalities of the more recent games or basically imagine Eli Roth slumming and making an animated movie based on Kombat and that gives an idea of the violence and gore portion.
For voices they've got Debra from Dexter as Sonya Blade (damn did she phone it in, I had no clue it was her as the lines were so cheesy and just "how many more lines left? Just pay me and let's wrap!" level of uninspired) and Joel McHale as Cage I think? Thankfully he delivered some lines like he gave a shit but for the most part its flat which is genius if his voice acting was a shot at how Johnny Cage would talk if he was a real person?
Now the movie itself, dumbed down voice acting aside, I thought was very solid. It's a reboot of sorts of the first live action movie with some lines and scenes directly lifted from that movie BUT theres so much more backstory fleshed out with some decent subplots. We get the gist of the Scorpion vs Sub Zero backstory, Scorpion having a trip to the Nether Realm where Quan Chi signs him up for vengeance, and then theres the heroic trio of Liu and Sonya and Cage all showing up on a boat and Cage being himself from the live action version with some funny gags.
Theres a TON of characters from the Kombat story that pop up at the feast Shang Tsung throws, just like in the live action version. This scene was like a Mos Eisley cantina scene with all the races and creatures and cameos(!).
As a reboot of sorts it was really great and absolutely lived up to the reputation of carnage and violence that the games always had. To quote Raiden Mortal Kombat isn't about death, but life and I hope this injects life into more animated films from WB on the Kombat universe. So much I appreciated, that the nitpicks about any subplots with Cage and Blade, are easily removed and almost forgotten.
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Apologies for bringing back a dead thread, I may have missed any talk about Bloodshot the movie. Holy cow just what were they thinking, it was so cheesy and bah gawd awful! Diesel plays this as Toretto with powers, being he's mostly in wifebeaters for the majority of the movie and of course his cars go zoom fetish. Theres so much padding in the film, making so many scenes with slow-motion that I thought didn't really need it. Another of those "plot hammer- the movie" type films where everything HAS to happen in a certain sequence of events to get to the ending instead of anything feeling logical and thought out.
Full disclosure I don't remember reading any of the Bloodshot series since the Valiant reboot and only read less than a handful of comics during the original run, so if the series was all plot hammer logic the whole time then my bad for lack of familiarity. Don't call it Bloodshot, give it another name and a half decent team of writers and maybe this could be something worth a watch.
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4 hours ago, Tarheel Moneghetti said:
Vince gets carnier by the day.
Sarah Logan was scheduled for last night's RAW, but pulled at the last minute. She hasn't been rehired, but according to Meltzer:
Lol. I'm pro-business and all, so I don't have a problem with Vince laying off employees (fired, furloughed, whatever), but maybe make an effort to not treat them like property?
Here's the link to the actual story:
That may be the wrestler that was heavily teased by some of the TweetSheets. Saw posts that someone let go last week was back at the PC and could be on the show, things were up in the air, etc. Some sort of "Well you thought they got released but they're at the PC and things may not be what they seem" speculation but they dropped all the speculation by the time Raw went live and I was scratching my head wondering who it was they might bring back. This explains so much.
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1 hour ago, Edwin said:
That's possibly the worst match up for either. It's going to look a like choreographed dance routine.
Their best matches are usually them playing the much tinnier underdogs against giants. WALTER/Darby and Lio/Keith Lee from EVOLVE for example.To me they're Rey Mysterio and Rey Fenix all over again, a unique matchup with two guys with exclusive offense to their arsenal and seeing what they bring when they match up is where the fun lies. Hence the to me personally part. You want a worst matchup for Darby, give him Marko. You want a worst matchup for Lio, give him Nakazawa. High flyers with unique offense going toe to toe is probably 50/50 tied with David vs Goliath matches when it comes to using smaller flyers, although that probably comes down to individual taste?
Choreographed dance routine? Like most go-go-go matches these days don't come off like that already?
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Did Lio Rush and Darby Allin ever meet in a singles match? Tbh that's the one dream opponent I see for Lio with their fast forward style of dodging and countering moves in, to me personally, unique ways. They each have a version of spinning away from attacks running to the side out of harm's way that I think looks neat and I'm curious if this a match worth tracking down if it happened?
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If there's going to be a psychological impact on indy wrestlers I imagine it was losing out on all their bookings wrestlemania weekend. No way to recoup any of those lost paydays, not anytime soon at least. and with how wrestlemania weekend makes up a nice chunk of their bookings in terms of exposure and more opportunities for future bookings, according to different tweets recently I think, I would guess that plays a bigger worry than a bunch of releases all at once.
Not to mention theres no guarantee that out of everyone released they'd be looking to get hired elsewhere much less stay in the biz. Admittedly that's only an uneducated guess on my part but with most indies closed for now I can almost picture a handful of folks who just hang up the boots and call it a day. All blind guesswork on my part.
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17 hours ago, Sammo~! said:
It comes from the OSW Review podcast, a Boy Stable are your favorite boys: wrestlers who were essentially glorified jobbers or midcarders for life. There are a bunch of criteria for being a "boy" but generally you have to have a shitty gimmick and have never won a major world title.
Thanks so much for breaking this down, no freaking way I was gonna run that term through any search engine
Such a weird concept, favorite glorified jobbers/midcarders? So if my faves growing up were say, Tito Santana, Ricky Steamboat and maybe Flying Brian, guys with flashy offense compared to your powerhouse types, are they a *** stable? Why not just call them favorites or something?
Nvm
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Backtracking to the Roman talk for a bit, just imagine a generation of fans is going to grow up seeing Cena or Roman as the GOATS and their voice of wrestling won't be Solie or Ross but Michael Cole.
They'll hold these guys in the highest regards, which I'm not saying is a bad thing or a terrible thing. Im just talking to my nephew about releases and who's been let go so far and he's mentioned how his two personalities he wants to survive the cuts are Roman and Cole. He's 13, so I can't make any flippant remarks about his tastes since I was a Hulkamaniac at 11 and fully behind Diesel when he beat Backlund. Just found it interesting of all the roster they're his personal faves, and wondered what future generations might look on from today's wrestlers as the GOATS of their time?
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I think that's a great talk, home grown talent from developmental like OVW FCW NXT who left the E and how things went from there.
Haas and Benjamin got a, imho, great run in RoH while Enzo and Cass stumbled around a few indies and kinda fell off the earth far as I've read, which honestly I wasn't trying to keep up with them beyond Enzo and Lil Haku on Twitter.
Cliff Compton,assuming he was straight from OVW, did several indies, Impact I think with Aces n 8s, while Ted Dibiase Jr left the bizz and then got swept up in the big scandal recently.
I don't follow all the indies nor do I watch all the shoots or listen to a fraction of the hundreds of podcasts so I could be completely wrong on some of these examples being home grown, forgive that assumption.
But it's a good discussion I think, home grown superstars and how far they go in the biz after leaving the E.
Like whatever happened to the other half of Deuce and Domino, the one who was Snukas son I think? Where did he go?
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19 hours ago, Casey said:
Well ain't that something
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My petty nitpicks about gargano/ciampa
1- stupid lighting, why black out the arena just to throw those giant spotlights all over? Feels like I'm watching The Flash on CW where Flash always conceals his face by standing in front of bright GLARING lights. To me this was JJ Abrams: Lens flare the match
2- if they're going to exclude commentary and let them shit talk each other using a cinematic lens for the match, why censor all the cuss words with bleeps for Gotch sake? If you don't want the audience at home hearing them cussing, mute the bad words and stop bleeping it like we're watching family programming at four in the afternoon. That's a pet peeve of mine but if we're going for a cinematic look without commentary, bleeping the cuss words is just about as frustrating as the lens flares with all those spotlight shots
3- ciampa takes a good few minutes to expose the boards beneath the mat to make the bumps extra hurty. I get that part. Instead they take a giant bump to the outside and the moment they get back in the ring with all the exposed hardwood planks, they start trading shots with the crutch?
I feel like I went into this with curiosity about how it would play out, being the one final match, but that curiosity is rewarded with stupid lighting, especially the exterior shots in the parking lot, and match logic that makes no sense. "I've stripped the mat down to the boards, then spend 10ish minutes or so with the exposed floor untouched so I can hit this guy with a crutch over and over." Fuck me for giving it a chance.
MAY 2020 WRESTLING CHAT.
in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING
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Is there a consensus on agile/talented 80s big guys?
Just between Big Bossman, One Man Gang, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Tenta (earthquake) if you were gonna build a big monster heel to fight your top face, at least of those four who would you go with?
And heres where I'm guilty of sleeping on the guy, but Shockmaster/Tugboat... Would he belong in the discussion?
I'm on an 80s kick watching that Ricky Steamboat doc that WWE had made and seeing Steamboat against Haku had me dying to see the best of the 80s big guys.
(Not including Vader in the list because in my head hes way more violent and unhinged in his aura, like he could legit snap at any minute and kill a journeyman, compared to the above guys. But that's just an opinion and maybe he does deserve to be ranked among them, I'm open to seeing others thoughts or any match recommendations)