SturmCRF

Happy FA Cup Final day! I mainly just lurk, but as probably DVDVR's only Watford fan, I feel responsible for pointing out that we're going to/literally in Wembley, and I'm already drunk and imagine if we won the cup.

Just saw off the last boss of Sekiro and feel like I've won an Olympic gold medal. I'm not good at games, and I'll often tap out if a final boss puts up more than token resistance, but I finished all the Soulsbournes up till now and I wasn't letting this one beat me. Took me four hours today, and must have been close to ten over the last few days on this one bastard, but I could feel myself getting better, and slowly coming to see each of his attacks as potential openings. Amazing game, but someone needs to tell Fromsoft that this is the absolute peak of how difficult they should ever go. The mechanics are masterful, it's always fair even when it doesn't feel like it, but they need to slam their multiple healthbar boner in a car door, they're spirit crushing, especially when they're hidden.

Mainly when I've been before I've had issues with the shitty sound system at York Hall for the entrances, and Andy Quildan's ring announcing, which makes me cringe roughly as much as every British ring announcer who isn't Jim Smallman. I'm mostly fine with current wrestling, but I do think every show everywhere should have a strictly imposed limit of one dive. And that's being generous. If I never see another cluster of wrestlers half heartedly pretending to brawl outside the ring while they wait to catch their opponent/tag partner who's risking severe injury for diminishing returns, I can very much live with it. Oh, and one more - compete ban on backflipping out of a German Suplex. Sorry Messrs Dunne and Riddle, it was cool at first but it's outstayed its welcome and it makes me fucking nervous.

Personally, I'm not watching it because- There's too much wrestling to watch already. I don't much fancy the idea of watching selected highlights from a company if I won't be watching any of their major shows because they're on a streaming service. Having been to a couple of Rev Pro shows, the decent to excellent quality of the wrestling has always struggled against the naffness of the presentation. I'm a Progress season ticket holder, so have a bit of a WWF vs WCW style prejudice against the other London company. Plus, NXT UK is already testing my tolerance for seeing the same guys face off, and the prospect of that plus added James Castle doesn't do much to challenge it. In fairness though, most of the above also applies to Impact, which I've currently allowed into my rotation as something to stick on for an hour over Saturday breakfast, so I'm open to swapping in Rev Pro if I hear good things.

It's not out until the 26th, but Daughters- You Won't Get What You Want is my album of the year and maybe decade. On balance, I'm willing to endure the fact that any criticism of it will feel like an attack on a close family member, as I want to read as much serious analysis of it as I possibly can.

I stood right behind Sekimoto during the Sasuke vs Janela match in April, and am none the wiser as to how he works, proportionally speaking. I'm 5'11 and he didn't seem that much shorter than me, but most of him is just chest, with limbs and a head just kind of thrown in as a bonus.

Yeah, I tried adding Impact back into my viewing rotation fairly begrudgingly when their last PPV got rave reviews, but it's starting to grow on me. The one thing it does that WWE sorely misses is that different feuds cross over and interact with each other sometimes. Two guys starting a programme doesn't seem to automatically lock them into a bubble for three months until they've had five matches where you know the first four won't matter, there are diversions to keep it interesting. That way you can have corny bollocks like Scarlet Bordeaux appearing out of thin air and LAX running over children, but maintain the integrity of the ludicrous world they're presenting.

Do we still have a DVDVR Fantasy Premier League group? If not, I'm happy to make one...

I'm sure the wrestling will be good too, but I doubt anything will top the kid who just ambled past me in the Superdome, who must barely have been born when Mark Henry had his big run, singing 'Beat him up, beat him up, break his neck, break his neck!'

I've been at all the WWN shows so far, Evolve 103's audience was decimated by people heading off to the Rev Pro show (plus I guess mainly having different configurations of the same wrestlers who were on 102 and Mercury Rising), but it might be my favourite overall card so far, everyone worked like madmen. Munenori Sawa vs Jaka was right up there with AR Fox vs Will Ospreay for the match of the week, but I think Ospreay vs Riddle just topped everything, those guys have the best chemistry. The crowd was back up to a much more respectable level for the supershow too.

His kicks are better, I dunno if his overall game is anywhere close, but I'm a huge fan and it'd be great to see him do well. He's awesome in tags, but a lot of his singles matches tend to go short. Maybe he just likes that MMA style element of surprise, but it's still disappointing when, say, Tommy End vs Dave Mastiff ends up going four minutes. Also he apparently grew up watching Puro, so it's anyone's guess how he'll take to WWE style TV wrestling, but there's definite potential. His matches vs Rampage Brown and Chris Hero from this year's Progress SSS16 tournament are worth the month's subscription to their on demand alone.

ZSJ is fantastic in matches where his opponent forces him out of his comfort zone and puts him under some real duress. When someone slaps the smugness off his face and makes him work to do the clever stuff there are few wrestlers I'd rather watch, but the CWC match was like the first half of that story. I still don't know how he'll take to WWE TV wrestling if he becomes a regular NXT fixture, but it'd be great to see someone adapt such a different style to the mainstream.

Not to be a pedant (ok, mainly to be a pedant), Paige's off puttingly irritating accent is Norfolk, not Cockney. It's from the Easternmost one of the various parts of the UK that we make fun of for inbreeding and general yokelry, as opposed to the specific part of London that makes Cockneys, or any of the places in and around London where they try to sound like Cockneys. She's basically from Alan Partridge country, plus with that transatlantic Kelly Osbourne twang to make her voice extra nails on a chalkboard.

I think she had a match in NXT a few months back. She was dressed like some kind of gladiator and lost to Nia Jax or possibly someone else.

I like to think of myself as a good person, but I don't know if I can reconcile that with how angry all these Bayley votes are making me. My heel supporting inner child is having flashbacks to renting old PPVs from Blockbuster and wondering if Hulk Hogan would just win every Royal Rumble, forever, like Orwell alludes to in that quote from '1984'.

I was there and I didn't. Mainly cos I couldn't see, also because I'm a Sasha Banks loyalist, maybe even because I'm not creepy. Mostly the first two though.

Obviously Sasha deserves to win this more, I haven't heard any majestic metal cover versions of Bayley's daft wavy arm men song over the last year. The Boss was also fully responsible for all the vocals on the above.

When I was, um, 20, I was in drunken high spirits at a party and DDT'd a donkey pinàta on a concrete patio, cleanly decapitating it.

Seen Strong live a few times in Progress, plus the Ishii match and BOLA. He's great on several levels now and nowhere near as bland as he used to be, but I'm going to go watch some Hechichero now, what I saw of him for last year's MM was excellent.

I like Kenny well enough, but Crush was my favourite wrestler as a child and Corbin is my favourite now. Big, metal-as-fuck looking hosses ARE pro wrestling. The fact that Baron's made huge strides towards actually being good is the icing on the cake.

'Minnesota' on Converge's split with Agoraphobic Nosebleed starts with a sample of Flair winning a title and has lyrics about life on the road, so I'd assume that was intended for the Flair compilation.

I voted Honma. Match wise, I have them about level for quality, with Honma obviously walking it in terms of quantity. The fact that he clearly fucking loves wrestling, to a possibly deranged extent, more than gives him the edge over Brock, who goes above and beyond the call of duty for a mercenary, but is still a mercenary. Above all else, while it's hardly Brock's fault, his title reign has been a disaster in terms of there being a watchable show on a week to week, and sometimes even PPV to PPV basis. Hulk Hogan showing up every three months to defend the WWF Title works when you only have to fill about an hour of television a week. Brock being a seasonal special attraction has absolutely killed most Monday Night Raws for over half a year now, and has turned already throwaway non-big four PPVs into predictable filler. Bring back the 30 day rule, Honma all the way.

I love both guys, voted Ishii mainly because of Cesaro's dispiriting booking if I'm honest, but am kind of regretting it when I think back to the Sami Zayn matches.

I'll second Jimmy Havoc. Not only is he incredibly versatile in ring, but over the last year at Progress he's consistently drawn something close to genuine hatred from several hundred of the smarkiest possible London wrestling fans. Also, Noam Dar. His matches are nearly always the best of the night, he carries himself like a major star, and he's made the Khali Chop more over than you could possibly have imagined.

I'm also SturmCRF on PSN. Feel free to add me on there, I just got a PS4 and Destiny is in the post...