HumanChessgame

I get what they're trying to do by going that route, but there was just sooo much shit going over so many years that I can't buy that it was -all- just a smokescreen by the super secret government group. It's like the villain from Spectre's plot to an nth degree. Tonight's episode was considerably better, a callback to the MOTW episodes from earlier seasons and a little of the mythology added in without it going overboard.

Good show overall. AJ/Jericho was a nice match and AJ came off pretty impressive. I'm not as down on midlife crisis Jericho as most people, but I have no desire to see he and AJ get into a program. Kalisto/Miz was surprisingly good and I say this as someone who avoids Miz when he's wrestling at all costs. Maybe they assume that Brock will murder both Reigns and Ambrose for their amusement like he destroyed Cena and Rollins last year? They had to put up the title shot to get this match because Lesnar ain't wrestling unless he can get the shot. Why not Lesnar vs. Ambrose then? This shit makes less than zero sense. Because they want Reigns killed dead too? I agree that it makes no sense, but we have to assume that they're sadists who want to use their monster to inflict pain, and giving him a title shot via that match is the only way to get him to fight. Making him fight his best friend and some unstoppable killing machine is a great way to screw with the guy you're trying to keep down. I'm just wondering if this leads to Roman and Dean turning on or just getting pissed off at eachother that leads to a Mania match while Brock goes on to face HHH, but that would be a totally anticlimactic and diversionary way to take the Authority/Roman program.

I'm a huge fan of the show and was pretty meh when they announced the return as I thought it had more than jumped the shark in the last few seasons. Regardless of that I'll be watching the whole thing, though I'm not going to expect much. This episode was just kind of there. Mulder going from thinking teabagger Alex Jones guy was full of shit to hanging on his every word in the span of a few minutes was too hard to buy. Retconning the entire mythology to have the illuminati or whomever being behind all the abductions and other conspiracy shit in the original series is also straining credulity, even for a show like this where logic is not all that strictly adhered to.

Before last year's Rumble I watched most of the prior Rumble matches themselves and noticed how fast and loose they played with these rules over the years- In the 92 match, Randy Savage goes over the top rope to go after someone, but isn't eliminated because according to Gorilla "Someone else has to be involved in sending you out of the ring" or something along those lines. In 97, Mil Mascaras gets eliminated by jumping off the top rope onto Peirroth, whom he had just eliminated and was on the floor, then Farooq gets eliminated when Ahmed Johnson came back out and attacked him. The rules about being eliminated by someone not in the match/already eliminated also change based on what angles they're trying to run. Giant Gonzales comes in and throws out The Undertaker, even though Gonzales wasn't even in the match. In 96, Vader gets eliminated then comes back in and clears everyone out of the ring, but none of them are counted as eliminated. I realize a lot of this is done to capitalize on various angles or protect certain guys in the match, but this year it really seemed to get ridiculous. As has been mentioned, it made no sense for the Wyatts or the LON to leave the ringside area and stop helping their comrades who were still in the ring when it became established that they could do so without repercussions.

Reigns/HHH has been built up forever, but there's no reason to have to incorporate the world title, which could be used to make other people look good in more interesting matches, in a feud like this. The evil powers that be vs the defiant outsider they're trying to keep down is enough of an angle on its own. It really is. Though a lot of that has to do with the mostly awful angles and promos they've been given to work with since. He was easily the MVP of last year's Rumble match with Cena and Brock. Booking him like a weak chickenshit champ didn't do him any favors, but saying he sucks in-ring is highly off base.

So who else DVRed this to watch the Rumble and ended up getting a bunch of football highlights and 30 minutes of show?

With Owens/Ambrose going on first, it gave me hope one or both guys would be back for the Rumble. The match started going in the direction of the average WWE garbage match, but they kept things from getting over the top stupid and it was a solid match overall. New Day/Usos was also solid, but has been done to death. They really need to get some new team in there as they've gotten all their going to get out of that feud. Kaliso/Del Rio keep the string of good undercard matches going. Nothing special but perfectly good for what it was. Charlotte/Becky was a decent match with an absolutely shit finish. Sasha coming out saved it, but poor Becky looked like an afterthought when it was over. Ever since they had announced Roman would be coming in as number one, myself and probably most of the rest of you were dreading them doing some spot where he gets dragged out of the ring, beaten down, then miraculously comes back in the last few minutes. Then there were the dire predictions of HHH inserting himself in and winning. Of course this being the WWE they had to do both of those things. It's a shame because the Rumble match itself was really good for the most part. Great debut by AJ Styles setting up a possible program with Owens, or re-igniting Owens vs Sami, The Wyatts looking strong with some good spots between them and Brock, and lots of other entertaining stuff throughout. Ending it with a completely awful finish setting up a HHH/Roman main event that will get shit on completely took the wind out of things.

They still didn't reveal whose grave it was on Arrow did they? It looks like Felicity is becoming Oracle, but with all the otherworldly tech at Star Labs I find it kind of hard to believe they couldn't come up with some tech to help her, but plot devices are what they are.

I got curious if Harry Slash ever did anything other than those ECW themes and decided to google him. Unless you have an interest in Harry Potter fan porn, I would not suggest doing the same thing.

The Authority's beef with Roman is a classic action movie trope - heel crew that runs the town wants to recruit some badass loner type, he entertains the fact but turns them down because of his principles and instead sides with the people they're holding down, they take offense to someone daring to defy them and want to destroy him.

I remember buying a vhs with ppvs 4, 5, and 6 on them and thinking that there was some decent stuff intermixed in there, but as a whole it was like watching WCW combined with what ROH and other indies were doing at the time to create something less good than either. A couple years back I wound up getting cable for free for a while and would occasionally put it on as background noise on Thursday nights. It didn't seem actively bad but there was nothing in the least bit compelling on there. The whole product reminded me what would have become of WCW if they'd kept going, only with ECW on TNN's budget and production values.

When JBL first debuted as Justin Bradshaw I thought he was going to do well as he was a big, seemingly legit tough guy who looked authentic when he was tuning people up. Then he kinda went nowhere for years and after writing a book he was suddenly on top. I didn't watch WWE much during his world title push, but from what I remember he was decent at worse and much preferable to some of the other slugs that could have been in his position instead. Plus he was good at playing a character and having an actual gimmick, which is practiced way too seldom nowadays. Speaking of the Acolytes, why was Simmons never really pushed after that team broke up? Sure he was past his prime but seemed like he still had some gas left in the tank. Nagging injuries or something?

Khali would win because by the time he got to the ring, everyone else would have been eliminated.

These books (mainly due to Stephen Gammell's artwork) were a huge staple of my childhood and if anyone can translate the aesthetic to film, it's del Toro- http://nerdist.com/guillermo-del-toro-to-adapt-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark/

Does it count if it's not humans being killed? Two from Tenebre (not lying, I'm mainly posting this for the awesome Goblin tracks)

For reasons I can't explain, I really want the ROH coloring book- I may need this mug- https://society6.com/product/smark-tears_mug#27=199

I thought The 40 Year Old Virgin looked like a typical stupid bromantic comedy in the previews, but was visiting some out of town friends who wanted to go see it, and low and behold I loved it. The Superbad previews also did nothing for me and I ended up watching the whole thing at a friend's house one night and thought it was rank. I wish I could articulate the source of my dislike better, but movies/tv shows that have some "character makes a series of increasingly stupid choices and gets in progressively deeper shit over the course of an evening" plot is generally an instant channel changer for me. One of the reasons I've pretty much never liked any sitcom ever is that so many of them use a variant of that every episode.

This is a very good question no WWE writer could ever give an answer to because they didn't put any thought into it other then "They are Heels!" Sure, Bray hates Roman, but he apparently doesn't hate him enough to do.... anything at all to him? Even fucking Breeze at least jumped into the ring. I kind of took it as being the Wyatts are bad guys and want to make things miserable for Reigns and whomever else they decide to run roughshod over, but they also don't answer to anyone but themselves. They'll go after Regins when and if they feel like it, but given that there were plenty of other people out there taking care of him, they thought it was beneath them to do the Authority's bidding.

speaking of awesome duets- and this gave me a metric fuckton of feels -

This was the first main roster promo I've seen from Becky Lynch where she really showed some fire and came off like a big deal. Amazing what someone can do when they're not handed a bunch of asinine scripts or ambiguous character direction. ADR/Kalisto was great and Kalisto came off like something special both in his promo and in the ring. It kinda makes me feel bad for Current Sin Cara Dude as he's been doing a solid job with the team and is going to be pretty much toast whenever he comes back. The JOB Squad 2k16 amuse me a lot more than they probably should.

Did they confirm the Warrior award is going to be a regular thing, or was it just a one-off for that particular kid?

Given Liger's appearance on the NXT show a while back, he gets my pick for international inductee.

With all this discussion of Bret, I wonder what would have happened if during the time leading up to the Montreal Screwjob instead of going to WCW he just decided he had enough of the business in general and retired. If he had let management know he was done after losing the belt, would they have arranged a scenario where he just dropped it clean? He never did a whole hell of a lot in WCW so I can't see his lack of presence there making a difference on the landscape of WCW. Would he have eventually come back for a brief fairwell run sometime in the 00s?

I couldn't believe how bad it was when I finally caught it on TV. I thought the parts featuring the supporting cast and other newsmen were the best bits. The multi-team gang fight was hilarious, but in general I didn't think it was anything special. Then again I think that like a lot of SNL alums, Will Farrel is massively unfunny outside of SNL.

Extreme Prejudice is a very underrated 80s action flick and pretty much a modern western with a great ensemble cast. Speaking of modern day westerns, the final shootout of Way of the Gun- Del Torro and Philipe's characters really need another movie