SturmCRF

Gared O' Donnell, the singer from Planes Mistaken For Stars, died yesterday. Amazing band that I'm really grateful I finally got round to getting into five years ago, and saw live in London a couple of years back. All their stuff is good, but they really hit their stride on their last two albums, Mercy and Prey. I'm at a weird point in my life where almost nothing makes me cry these days, but I listened to 'Penitence' by them yesterday and was on the verge. Listening to a fifteen year old song where a man who's just died in real life imagines saying goodbye to his family and apologises for all his mistakes will do that, especially when the song's that incredible. One of the most genuinely difficult to describe bands I can think of, they sound totally singular and it was mainly down to his voice, which started gravelly and got gravellier from there. I guess they come under post hardcore, but that covers so much ground it's not much use. Just do yourself a favour and listen to Mercy.

Along similar lines, I guess, I was watching Dynamite with my girlfriend last night and during the Billy Gunn match, the subject of steroids came up while we were marvelling at a nearly 60 year old man being in such great shape. She's wholeheartedly got into wrestling since meeting me last year, mainly AEW with a bit of NJPW, and has read Jim Smallman's history book, but doesn't have the insane reserves of pointless nerd knowledge I've built up in 30 years of being a fan. So, I was explaining the Ass: Origins story as far as him being fired from his agent/trainer job in WWE for preparing too enthusiastically for a bodybuilding competition, and had to acknowledge that, as far as I knew, AEW didn't drug test (correct me if I'm wrong, but if they do it'd be the first I'd heard of it). Which is not ideal, and it'd be great if they did, but it got me thinking that what might be more beneficial than testing for steroids etc. is creating an environment where wrestlers aren't pressurised into doing them. They've demonstrated so far that, if you can project as a star, wrestle good matches and get over with the crowd, you can look like Darby Allin or a Young Buck (this is where someone who can spot these things tells me they're juiced to infinity) and still get a major push. And if you have to take time off, for whatever reason, you can rest assured you'll get a huge, featured comeback to a major pop, instead of going in the boss's black book of unreliable talent. That sort of culture seems like a better deal than rigorous wellness testing that still seems to mysteriously miss anyone above a certain level in the hierarchy, although some form of drug testing may obviously still be worthwhile, even at the cost of a slightly less vast Ass Gentleman.

Looking back, he was kind of a giant, Kenta Kobashi move stealing incel. In defence of the totally well adjusted teenager who was writing for him, the narrator usually kept at least a bit of ironic distance from his actions.

My favourite Wrestlemania 2000/No Mercy CAW was Carl Sturm, (concept - what if me, but Kevin Nash?) and he then graduated to being an e-fed character (what if ECW Rhino, but more misogynistic and with the vocabulary of an eighteen year old who writes a lot of English literature essays?) CRF is the initials of a line from the second Glassjaw album.

Can't believe this was posted an hour ago and still nobody has made enquiries into whether or not you will stop.

The Carmelo cash in was done well if you take it in isolation, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why use it on the North American title? It's like someone using MITB to become Intercontinental Champion. I suppose you can handwave it and say that he's a heel now, so saw some easy prey and took his shot, and they did sew a bit of tension with Swerve, but it's still pretty stupid. Bron and Ciampa are having a gruelling title match soon, just show some patience and get the big belt. Also, while I'm complaining, Mandy Rose was disturbingly orange. Maybe the red lighting didn't help, but that woman looked irradiated.

Oh yeah, she spoke pure nonsense but she did it with seamless confidence, she's a pro wrestler through and through.

Rewound it twice to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, but Mandy Rose definitely said "Where were you guys when my face was batteredly and beatened?"

Delighted for Big E, and that I watched it unspoiled after getting wind that they may be desperate enough to do something interesting on Raw for once. Also very happy that he won the proper WWE title, not that artificial, almost historyless brand split prop that Roman's dragging around.

Bit of a copout there keeping it to the WWF title, the WWE title is the same lineage and then we'd get into some huge stars like Cena, Lesnar, Mahal.

I did. What the fuck was that?! I never watch BTE because I imagine it will be badly mic'd high school banter and Jacksons talking about trainers - and it literally is! Fair play to Tony Khan for making it clear early on that nothing like this would ever make it to TV.

I'm not going to forget today in a hurry. I woke up at 3:30AM UK time, saw an email confirming I tested positive for Covid (I'm fine, I'm double vaxxed and already feeling better than a couple of days ago), so thought I might as well stick on Fite TV and see Rampage almost live. That whole thing was like an out of body experience, the crowd noise, the promo, CM Punk could actually start a cult and I wouldn't be surprised, I might even join. As comically shitty as the MITB 2011 followup was, with the Nash and the Del Rio and the HHH, nothing could actually have lived up to the pipe bomb promo short of giving CM Punk significant creative control over the company. He made such a convincing case that the whole enterprise was rotten, and the last ten years have mainly been a whole lot of proving him right. AEW, more than most of us could ever have dreamed, is the closest thing possible to a wrestling company run on the principles of that promo. Young talent gets built up, the wrestlers get to organically convey character through their words and actions rather than someone else's hack job sitcom script, titles are treated with importance, the fans aren't held in complete contempt. Whoever dropped the line about leaving out cookies and Pepsi on CM Punk Eve and wasn't sure who to credit it to, I'm going to do the same and recycle it here, because it makes me grin every time, and this whole morning, from the insanely early start to the wrestling, minus the Covid, has been like a surreal portal back to the sort of excitement I felt as a five year old at Christmas.

I dunno, the preachy, evangelical, hypocritical MMA fighters he's (hopefully) parodying are at least as offensive to me in the wild as edgelord comedians, it's just hard not to find it charming when Miro does it, because Miro rules.

This whole thing will be fine if he gets his comeuppance in the blowoff match via Julia Hart counteracting their boom box interference by chucking one of the Varsities a replica Eiffel Tower paperweight to brain him with.

There's not much I'd change about AEW's overall booking, but I'd love them to cut way back on the distractions/shitty reffing, and give us a time limit draw a few times a year.

Skipped this week's show because I watched last week's, but one thing that struck me is the sheer misery of them having two separate 'contender matches' where someone has to beat the Champions to earn a title shot. I might have had some passing interest in Sheamus vs Priest if they put any effort into building to it, but they think the way to build anticipation in an eventual title match is having multiple, unsatisfying versions of it first. It can't be that they have a small roster, because they have a huge roster, they just choose to rarely do NXT callups, and treat their Cedric Alexanderses as worthless job guys rather than potential contenders.

Are they maybe not using Scarlet because they think two hot blonde occultist gimmicks would be too many? Seems a shame if so, they could just have gone all in with Alexa ridiculousness and had her summon Kross and Scarlet from a haunted tea set or something. Personally, I've always quite liked Kross in NXT, at least he stands out there, and as big goofs go he's perfectly serviceable. With his whole act in tow he could have done well on the main roster, but this was just baffling. I watched Raw for the first time in months because it at least looked set to be eventful, and yeah, what a disgrace. It was an easy watch because it had returns, a debut and a title change, but they can't do that every week, and the basic booking logic and presentation is still rancid nonsense.

As I remember it, the main thing in Sekiro is to always be attacking whenever possible, every second that you're not dodging or parrying attacks. That doesn't remove the need to time your defensive maneouvres, but it means you don't need to land them as many times, as you'll overload the enemy endurance bar quicker. It's still the hardest From game I've played, but it's beatable, I managed it and I'm far from a games wizard.

I'm sure I'm not, but sometimes I feel like one of the only people who thinks Kenny Omega is fantastic, and one of the best wrestlers in the world despite his various much discussed irritating habits, while The Bucks are unbearable one trick ponies who look like they couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. I know both those opinions separately are quite widely held, but it's mad how rarely they get expressed together, considering that they're objectively the correct ones.

Aren't Bear Country's masks a reference to the film Wrong Turn? I'm sure I heard them get announced as from Bear Mountain, which is where that film happens. Not that anyone gets their face caught in a bear trap in it, but there's general murder and mayhem at the hands of mutant Leatherface knockoffs.

That's kind of mind blowing, Brazil's quite a big place for one of its all time great sportspeople and Phillipe Coutinho to have gone to the same school. Also random tangent that arguably doesn't deserve its own post but belongs in the AEW thread, I had a dream a couple of weeks ago that Hollywood Hunk Ryan Nemeth drugged me and stole my PS5. Ever since then it's been clear to me that he's the biggest heel in the company, the thieving piece of shit.

British Bulldog, Crush and Max Moon were my absolute favourites early on. Plus a very brief Ultimate Warrior phase. The first wrestling show I ever saw though was Rumble 91, and the main reason I came back for more was that the Undertaker was so green and scary, and Earthquake and Tugboat were so fat.

It used to be that the one big problem with NXT was that you'd end up cheering your favourites on to lose big matches, so they could get called up. Sure, main roster was bad then too, but I still wanted to see a Balor or a Nakamura in the big leagues where they belong, getting a shot, and hopefully freshening up one show while leaving a spot for someone to move up into in the other. Now, hardly anyone ever leaves, some are so traumatised by main roster shittery that they ask to come back, and the show is incredibly stale as a result. Still the best WWE show, but stale. I don't make a habit of talking to my TV, but I actually screamed at it when Io Shirai appeared the other night. Why is she still there?! Smackdown has about five women at the moment, Raw basically has three who are taken seriously, why do we need Io in midcard NXT purgatory when they could be using her to massively improve one of them? Don't get me started on Gargano, Ciampa and Cole. All excellent wrestlers (if they have an editor, but still, top level talents overall) and I'm sick of the sight of them in this context.

WWE should be calling up about ten men and ten women minimum, it would instantly freshen up all three of their main rosters. It wouldn't solve the general wretchedness of Raw in particular, but it'd make me and a lot of people at least tune in for a few weeks to see something new. AEW should absolutely sign Andrade, Joe, Murphy, Tommy End, Kalisto. Obviously Bryan too but I can't quite see it happening. The thing they're maybe best at is not running anything into the ground, creating genuine anticipation for matches between pushed acts, I don't see how they don't get huge benefits from bringing in a bunch of world class wrestlers, all of whom were misused and underutilised where they were. Roster size is less of an issue because you can trust AEW to rotate someone off TV for a few weeks without making everyone assume they've given up on or forgotten about them. A Samoa Joe can cut a killer promo one week, batter Trent or someone backstage the next, and build to a match that'll have people foaming at the mouth. In WWE they'd have him wrestling Jeff Hardy three weeks in a row and consider it storytelling to build from a DQ to a countout to a pinfall. As far as their women's division, yeah, give anyone they've released a shot. My opinion on Ruby Riott is currently clouded by that embarrassing wheelbarrow double team botch last week, but that might have been Liv's fault, and I hear she was great on the indies, so sure, put her in the mix. I don't really want anyone to go to New Japan at the moment, because they can barely run shows as it is. Sure, Murphy in the G1 sounds fantastic, but I didn't have that much patience for how slow they are to push newcomers even before the pandemic, let alone now they know they can't rely on their ability to get in and out of the country easily.

You'd hope so, surely going on his delusional rant while wearing his official company uniform would be enough. I'm sick of seeing his face, NXT is the only WWE show I can usually sit through in full but he puts a damper on the whole thing.