Ryback Hates Bullies

Yeah the equipment standards are variable. When we do Meadows Curls, the other has to press on the Preacher Bench to keep it stable. But the old school Technogym equipment they have is mostly pretty solid. They basically have 2 chest presses - this and a Cybex Eagle. The Cybex Eagle is a very good machine, but the Technogym avoids shoulder wear and tear from the angle as well as having the foot pedal. Not going to lie, I put quite a lot into those sets - I don't look too wasted after them but fatigue did creep up on me later. In terms of chest work, I just did one set of machine flyes for a quick pump later in the workout. And had DOMS for a couple of days. Which included this morning. Now at the gym, I FORGOT HALF MY TIB BAR! Ugh. Anyway, I decided I would actually Bench for the first time in sometime. After a couple of ramp up sets, I literally did singles only from 70kg-110kg in 5kg increments. I'm pretty happy with that because it felt pretty good even though I haven't flat benched in months & realistically still had lower/mid pec fatigue from Sunday. I attribute this to building my upper back and lats as much as anything else. I did 3 x 8 on VCGBP at 70kg and I've got to be honest - it felt weirdly very challenging though I honestly wonder how much carryover is really there given the grip differential. If I'm honest though, I'm beginning to think the 140kg bench *might* yet be a go. But I don't really want to do a lot of volume work. Also started doing one armed db preacher curl with full supination. It hits different. I can see why people gravitate towards the EZ Bar Curl, but definite danger it becomes a brachs exercise. No more of this, I want a cricket ball inside my arm. I've got a lot of footage from last year on my Google Drive, I'll try to knock some of it together soon.

Because you asked, I had the gf film 4 of my sets today: https://youtu.be/7YgQFG73xuQ

Looking stacked, jacked succulent and dense there Sharty. We definitely have slightly different training philosophies around ROM, but it clearly works for you. I did take quite a lot of footage last year, less so recently. Last few months have been continuing to train mostly with the girlfriend. Well I say that, in October we moved her to 3 days a week because she really got burnt out on any more. I usually do a 4th day, occasionally a 5th. So right now the 'split' basically goes: Tuesday: Hamstring, Adductor/Abductor, Upper Chest/Front Delts, Triceps, Upper Abs Thursday: Upper Back, Side/Rear Delts, Brachs/Biceps, Obliques Saturday (Longer Session): Lats, Pecs (usually Dips & Flyes), Quads, Glutes, Lower Abs, usually a bit more arms Sunday/Monday (just me): Calves/Tibs (I bought a Tib Bar), Extra Side/Rear Delt and Traps I'm in a diet phase. I actually pretty successfully leanish bulked from about 113kg to 118kg between mid-August and the end of the year. After 2 1/2 weeks, I'm at 115kg and tbh, I think I'm pretty much where I was in terms of my belly at 113kg. I'd probably do better but it's bloody cold and my step count has definitely not been great. Hit a 4 plate T-Bar Row for 4.5 reps yesterday which I was quite pleased with. I think if I strapped I could probably have got the 5th rep in full and maybe a 6th. I applied chalk for 3.5 plates and got 8, then 3 plates and got 11 reps. I'm pretty happy with that. I realised 2 weeks ago that although I was feeling the assisted dips pretty well, that I was definitely capable of going a bit heavier whilst maintaining really deep ROM. So I did a set with 5kg assist last week for 6 reps. I can definitely do crappier ones with bodyweight, but I choose not to. Similarly can do a triple with 10kg on the chin-ups - I use the Temu knock-off Angles60 handles, and I tend to twist from pronated to neutral. Again, I could probably do some bad pushups with no assistance but no need right now. I haven't benched in *ages*. Despite split above, I ended up doing some wide grip high incline presses yesterday - 10x60kg, 12x55kg. I feel like if I wanted to get the bench back on road I could, but just hasn't felt like a priority. I did the presses for upper chest yesterday as I (partly due to a busy January gym) ended up doing the ol BTN press on Tuesday. When I was doing them before, tbh it was kind of a half press-half overhead extension. So what I did this time was start correcting the elbow position at the bottom on every rep, so at least the concentric would be right. After a couple of sets I was able to do it properly - empty bar, then 22.5kg. I had my partner work similarly with DBs. ----- All that being said, looks like work is going to see me a bit more mobile and we'll have to see what that ends up looking like. I do want to get back to 100kg ideally, though my girlfriend has thoughts about that.

Wouldn't completely surprise me if Private Party regroup and eventually beat Hurt Syndicate, but tbh Shelton looks like he's all about this run and Lashley is still Lashley so I wouldn't be in a hurry to see that happen. It was a pretty bad loss though - even The Gunns got a bit of heat on FTR and the 'Many Men' entrance. When they lost, it was like - 'yeah, but they're here to stay'. With Private Party it felt more like 'hope you enjoyed your moment guys!'. I dunno, we'll see, but they didn't exactly come off as main characters. Tbh tag-team wrestling is a bit under-emphasised in WWE at the moment with the titles NOT being unified - noone really cares about DIY or the War Raiders. So right now I'm definitely all for putting the belts on a team that can really stand front-and-centre. I'd be curious as to what The Bucks think though. So is Hangman doing the Two-Winged-Angel now?

My youngest brother remains an A-ha fan. I listened to New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84 the other day, but I must admit to really ot being able to abide their arena rock stuff.

I think the train of logic was to run UE against the Elite, but then Adam Cole got injured and the stuff with Punk happened etc. Agree it was a mistake bringing in Fish & O'Reilly - Strong is a great hand and obviously Adam Cole had something - the extent he has it now I'm less sure. Tbh one reason I think having weight classes is a great idea was that you could stick Cole in the two bottom divisions and get something useful out of him. I sort of hope Kyle O'Reilly gets MJF's ring and he becomes Champagne Kyle or something, tbh I doubt it'll work any better than Cool Kyle but it might be fun wrestlecrap.

I am reluctant to go back and relitigate this, but I literally mentioned Darby Allin vs Brody King, and had mentioned Darby Allin before that. Though, resisting the temptation to be snarky as much as I can, it's not like that last match exactly popped a rating now is it? 461K at the end I believe. Overall I understand the show was 300K down on same time last year. And look, they're being paid good money to do that match and it's better than them doing it in front of a few hundred people at PWG, and then a few thousand DVD viewers and a few thousand more bootleggers. I completely get that. So maybe the slow slide into oblivion is the better option. May well be.

That's great. I can respect that and would have engaged with that argument.

No it's you trying to make a sneaky argument that's annoying to unpick. Just say 'well actually I really want to see Jack Perry wrestle Luchasaurus'. My guess is that you won't because you don't. And I have pointed out that there are still a myriad ways you can have those matches. Admittedly if you think small man vs little man matches are the apex of pro wrestling, yes I can see how you wouldn't like my idea. I think a Kevin Nash is likely to have a better match with a smaller guy. But I don't think that's as true of the larger wrestlers today in all honesty. Styles do make matches I agree, but you're oversimplifying things. A lot. That in no way is the essence of what I'm positioning at all, and it's pointless to continue if all you can do is attack strawmen.

I actually profoundly disagree with the framing that having to vaguely operate within the bounds of realism and logic is artificially handcuffing yourself. And it's that kind of thinking that has got pro wres into all sorts of issues at certain times. AEW hasn't been much good at storytelling in some time. But even if they were, WWE exists and in a profoundly more competent way than 5 years ago. That isn't likely to change. They produce 2 A shows, & a B show that has developed into a quirkier show that usually outrates AEW even though they are working with a pretty inexperienced talent base. That's the reality. Why do people need a less interesting version of all that with more flips? You dun changed brah. Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker wrestled for WWE; you're not getting that match in AEW. This might seem like a really asinine point, but it's not because if you said 'A world with no Jack Perry vs Luchasaurus** matches is not a world I want to live in' people would think you were insane and that's kind of the point really. And you might say, 'ah but what about Darby Allin vs Brody King?'. But I've already articulated how you can still have those matches. The reality is though that AEW hasn't been all that good at booking for size discrepancies either, so why you advocate for centering around them I'm not really sure. In all honesty, if you're having to essentially pretend the Undertaker still exists and wrestles in AEW then you may want to re-examine things - because an argument like that is essentially doing that. 'Oh obviously I didn't mean that', will you stop?'....well don't say it then The truth is a 199lb guy against a 185lb guy is still a big man vs little man match. And so is 225 v 280. Strickland vs Lashley for the title could still happen. Garcia vs Lashley no. Good. People watch sports movies, including ones not based on true stories. You can use the actually devices of real sport in a creative and artistic way to tell a story in a way that doesn't easily happen within the messy confines of real life. I'm not saying you have to completely restrict yourself to that by any means, but I really don't agree with any of your framing. And as for people want real fights...sure some people do, other people want strong looking action that's more reliably interesting than the majority of MMA. I do believe, to an extent, in the 'Strength of the Job' (a phrase that William Regal uses a lot). In all seriousness, I have said that 'I can defend my pov to a point' - and I recognise the limitations here because someone with standard preconceived ideas of what wrestling is will very naturally struggle with what I am suggesting - trying to unpick all that would be very tedious, time-consuming & quite likely to be unpersuasive even if I presented a highly logical argument. So the temptation is to be slightly flippant/snarky but the point is that I basically disagree with all of your framing and I don't think they are helpful to the point at hand. Ultimately what I have said is " My slightly more abstract point is that AEW will likely need to change in some significant way in order to get the feeling back". I don't think essentially being a WWE clone is going to be the thing, and whatever vibe the Elite & their Indy friends brought 5 years ago has left the building and is not coming back. ** I realise Luchasaurus has not been doing so well healthwise, and I realise wrestlers do read this sometimes - so nothing against the guy and hope he does well and gets back to wrestling if he wants that.

Kingston & Xavier had no future on TV as singles wrestlers. They've split the tag belts, hell they've even got secondary women's titles on both shows - this is not a good time to be a midcard dude, especially with Wrestlemania season beginning. And (so)...practically everyone in the midcard is in some kind of group. Tbh I think they might be better on Smackdown feuding with the MCMGs anyway, but I'm sure that can happen soon enough.

A month ago I might have agreed with you. I should probably stop there. Well Tone does like him some lucha, and this pretty much backs up my point about weight classes. If AEW makes stars in the different divisions, they'll be good. A heavyweight title would actually be good for AEW's big guys, as tbh they've actually really struggled with booking them well (except maybe Joe). But equally there's guys at lower weights that would clearly benefit from the lower weight classes. There's people who might not so much, like Darby Allin, but there's nothing to stop him fighting catchweight bouts and being the exceptional small guy who can take the big guys (especially in gimmick matches)....so really it's all about execution.

1. Any reponse that doesn't even acknowledge McGregor, scumbag as he might be, can safely be pigeon-holed as not entirely in good faith 2. "Heavyweight, despite having the least amount of talent, is among the most" is a pretty classic retreat from the bailey to the motte. 3. I'm not really proposing AEW has a Flyweight division. I'm probably proposing the lowest weight class limit be 180. So I think the arguments about the lowest weight divisions in UFC aren't really applicable. 4. I said 'more or less'. Allow me to clarify (you can see this as a retreat if you want), I think in practice the 200 and certainly the 180 belts would likely be seen as slightly less important. This matters less in wrestling because one or both of the 200/220 belts are likely to be defended at any given PPV/PLE, but the key point is they should be presented seriously and not as stepping stones. 5. WoS-era BritWres would probably be the most obvious example of a precedent. Which is not really to deny that the Heavyweights were not an important spectacle, and a guy like Finlay bulked up so that he could be a top guy in Germany. But clearly some of the most iconic and well-loved stars came from other weight divisions - Johnny Saint, Les Kellett, Mick McManus, Jim Breaks et al. 6. It's a big change, & yes it would require commitment. My slightly more abstract point is that AEW will likely need to change in some significant way in order to get the feeling back. Feeling != Business, & I don't claim to have the access to data TK has or the time to use it. But I stand by my statement that there will be no new golden era if they keep doing what they have been doing. What they do exactly, well again others are probably better placed. I have my opinion, & can defend it to a point.

But anyway I would lean on the UFC paradigm. Basically you can set Light-Heavy at 220ish, Cruiserweight at 200ish, MIddleweight at 180ish. Two divisions for women.

I'm not claiming every belt in UFC is equal by any means, but I think you need to look at some match cards and some other stats around prize money and I think you'd probably want to walk that opinion back.

I think you can be both realistic whilst thinking that "AEW has long established it's strengths and weaknesses if you're pushing against either and expecting something they aren't" is a pretty fatalistic pov. Tbh I don't really see where particularly recently they have learnt from mistakes. I have seen them try to do things about mistakes they have made; I'm not entirely sure that's the same thing though. The thing is, you can't really tag me with the 'toxic crusader' line because I haven't really said anything at all; I had literally not posed about wrestling in a long time. And I don't want AEW to fail. The fact that so many people are getting a paycheque for wrestling is tremendous, as is the energy they have provided the competition. What I will say though is that whilst WWE in some sense may be forever, I don't think the paradigm that AEW rests upon is necessarily so and that I think AEW will not have another golden age under the current paradigm. We have seen companies come back before.....NJPW 2006ish, WWE in the 2020s (I know that is hardly the same thing because WWE was always making loads of cash, but still)......AEW can come back, but it will not be with what it was doing, and tbh I don't think the Death Riders are going to provide the reset needed to have that, though obviously I don't have a crystal ball and Tony Khan could well be smarter than me. Maybe they'll never have another golden age, and they'll just meander along giving people a chance to make a living from wrestling and I'll continue finding it less and less interesting - this is fine for me in all honesty though I think it will eventually shrink in size, probably when the Khans finally decide it's a distraction and sell it. I had suggested it for Ring of Honor, but now I really, genuinely think that the future (and I don't mean next week, next month or even necessarily next year) is weight classes. There's costs and benefits to such an approach, it is a paradigm shift, but I really think guys like Garcia and Yuta just make more sense when you have weight classes when you don't have to pretend they can likely beat Powerhouse Hobbs in a straight 1 on 1 match. Given Darbs his run, and then start to make the transition. AEW just has to be willing to treat the weight divisions as more or less equal and you're good. Some people might think the meandering mediocrity is the better option and I can respect that though.

Idk maybe this is me not hanging out on wrestling forums much this year, but who is really the complainer here? I think you may have to allow that people may take a less fatalistic view than you. Punk's comment about 'understanding of the business' was trolling to a point, but I think there's a truth to it. The Elite come from a different mindset of pro wrestling - what I call post-carny (Essentially the PWG mindset, though Fight Club Pro and Progress put their own spin on it in the UK). It's what made AEW charming and the biggest missed opportunity is not so much failing to scale that as not bothering to really try i.e. deciding to make CM Punk the face of the company over Hanger.

The point with Shelton is that, like with Christian, they are giving a guy a chance they never really got in WWE. That can easily look like 'bringing in WWE midcarder and having him/her eat your roster', but I thnk this case can more easily be made for Mercedes than for Shelton. Rumblings indicated Guerrera was offered a more prominent spot on AEW, but as a heel - he decided he didn't want that, so he's in the spot he's in, which is fine - he's one half of the ROH Tag Champs and out of the Jericho vortex. There's a lot wrong with AEW, & I may talk about that at some point. But the above ain't it.

Mox used the term 'land of opportunity', which I thought was a pretty clear reference to Shane McMahon.

Just a few notes n my recent training: For the last 6 weeks I have trained almost exclusively with my gf, sometimes I get in a bit earlier but not so much recently. There is a degree of compromise in turns of the workouts, but I generally try to make it stuff we both want to do. I *mostly* pick the exercises. Roughly speaking the breakdown has been: Tues - Chins & Dips until recently, though this has become more of a push + high-rep bicep day now. Weds - Hamstring & (Upper) Back. This was deadlifts & RDLs, then leg curls and barbell rows mostly. Some Quad work towards the end. Sat - General Upper Body. Recently this has meant close-grip Smith Machine 45 degree Incline & wide mag grip pulldowns as primaries. Top sets on each today sets of 8 for 88kg & 75kg respectively. Yes I actually walk into the gym with the mag grip handle. Sun - Quads & Rear Delts (Cable Reverse-Flyes mostly). Sounds like a funny combo, but it works. We have been doing Hyperextensions on this day too. The quad work is mostly high-rep & not too serious - we grind but it's more an athletic/mobility thing. I mean yeah we do leg extensions too but actually my gf wanted them in. The point is I suppose is that I've tried to slightly specialise on upper back, chest & to an extent delts. I think it has lead to a somewhat more aesthetic appearance in a t-shirt. There's a big bodybuilding show in town this weekend, and there were 2 female competitors in doing some pumping and in 1 case posing - she had the clear heels and everything. My gf was staring a lot.

Hey hey. Still training an' ting. Not skinny by any means, but got the weight down to 110kg for my bro's wedding. Currently walking around between 113-114kg but I started back on the creatine. Dealing with some left elbow issues though, have had to rein the arm work in. I bit the bullet and bought a Ninja Creami. Tbh it's amazing - we now eat a lot of protein ice-cream with really pretty excellent macros. For Europeans, I can say that the Amfit protein is not the best for mixing into shakes, but the flavours I have tried taste great and it works really well for ice-cream. I've actually got quite a lot of video footage, so I'll do a montage or something lol. But today's workout was Leg Curls (I'm a rep or two off my previous at 60kg, but at much lowerbody weight) Angles90 (fake Temu version) Grip Smith Machine Rows (first time, these are v. nice if I do say so myself) Barbell Rows (2 x 10 90kg - PR) 20 rep Leg Press sets with superset calves Leg Raises (I've been better at getting some ab work in) ----------------------------------------------- @deathfromabove - I generally found on my recent diet phase that the thing to do is to try to find things that are small and supersweet to satiate cravings. I ate quite a lot of rice krispie squares - they're quite tricky to binge on. I also sucked boiled sweets - obviously you shouldn't do that all day but 2-3 a day won't really kill your macros if you're dieting as opposed to cutting. For me, if I mess up it tends to be right at the end of the day - that's largely what the protein ice-cream is for, but sometimes I'll mix yoghurt with flavoured whey protein. Ultimately popcorn is probably the best option in terms of salty treats. I actually have never tried mixing with flavoured whey but there are plenty of recipes for 'anabolic popcorn' out there.

Do you mean your body fat percentage has gone down 10%, or the amount of fat has gone down 10%? Tbh I reckon I've lost a pretty decent amount in the last 40 days. Idk the number tbh - I actually intend to buy some scales next week and see where I'm at. I'm probably somewhere round 30% BF right now, though again I am intending to to get some callipers to find out in the next week. Workout was sadly a bit dogshit today - not enough carbs, not enough sleep, too much leg yesterday. Tbf an 85kg single on AD Press isn't bad, it might be a PR actually, but that two backoff sets, supersetted with 3 plates on the t-bar row for 2 sets of 8 an 55kg for a set of 11...kinda broke me. I squeezed out 3 sets of seated flyes and 2 sets of 20 on some frankly janky uprightish rows and crawled out.

So last leg day of the mesocycle - big PRs on seated leg curl (60kg - 9+1, 10+1, two backoff sets), Adductor (full stack 70kg, 13, 18, then 65g for 17) and Standing Side Raise (60kg, 1 x 20 both sides). Tbh I only started pushing the weight on the seated leg curl a couple of weeks ago, but I think you can push a bit too hard too quickly - or at least you don't really make many more gains that way, despite the YouTube meta telling you to go balls out every session.

Yeah weight continues to drop I think, I actually felt like I looked a bit flat today which made me a bit sad but it is what it is. So because monthly memberships etc, my gf's mesocycle is ending this weekend. What is great is that....she finally seems to have busted through a plateau, hitting big PRs on chins, dips, leg curl, unilateral lateral raises and glute pushdowns this week...and it really not killing her or anything. Couple more training sessions to go, but very proud lol. I myself put the dip assistance to 12.5 kg and hit 5 reps with full ROM. Tbh I probably didn't work the dips hard enough recently, but I can live with it given the above. I also maxed out the stack plus the 2.5kg add on the glute pushdown for the first time, and in socks...just for 8 reps a side, but a PR is a PR, and we will take it - I think this is probably a result of the glute volume, and maybe some of the sissy squat volume. I think tomorrow we're actually going to do AD Press and chest-supported T-Bar Row as our main movements. I get some workouts on my own next week, which is nice in its own way. Will actually 'diet break' in 1 week, though we did infact go to McDonalds today and thanks to vouchers I had a Royale w/ cheese, small fries, small orange juice, small coffee milkshake and an apple pie (also small lol). Which is 1319 calories lol. Tbh though I'm pretty sure I remain in a deficit for the day - I also ate a 50g bag of soya nuts, 1 large bowl of choco-muesli with 2.8% milk, 1 small piece of bread with peanut butter, and 1 bowl of live yogurt with strawberry shortcake diet whey and sliced apple, a little bit of homemade sports drink (raspberry syrup) and 1 lavender boiled sweet. So somewhere around 3000 calories probably, easily a 500 calorie deficit and maybe slightly more. Also more carbs than usual - but probably the right way to go as planning to go to be at the gym next 3 days. I probably do need a plan to eat more veggies in the next cut cycle, though tbf tomorrow is market day so Friday is not necessarily the best representation. I am hungry; going to drink fizzy water now.