Matt D

I've liked Halt and Catch Fire a decent amount, but then I've also never seen Mad Men, which may be why I like Suits so much too? I think the worst stuff is when they show the main programmer guy losing it to be more like Walter White or whatever? there's an entire episode based around Adventure, so there's that. Lee Pace is Lee Pace and I'd watch just about anything with the guy in it. The most interesting characters are the secondary ones though.

It's the thing he does at 4:40 here.

Wait a sec, they're pitting Sheamus against Rusev on Main Event tomorrow night. The idea of them putting the US belt on Rusev....

Watching on youtube now, I can't help but think how much better the Steph getting arrested bit would have been if Naylor was running around in the background.

I feel like they would make a Captain Marvel movie way too dark in the current environment

What if Plan C turns out to be Cesaro and they continued the long-running tension between HHH/Stephanie and Heyman by having the Authority poach Cesaro away by claiming that Heyman is neglecting him? The guy Heath Slater eliminated last night? That's some scary stuff. It should really be Plan T. El Torito has Road Runner like powers of avoiding traps and what not.

From a fantasy booking perspective, I think the key to the Jericho/Bray stuff is all the talk Chris has been doing lately on his podcast about getting deep into his heel character persona while playing them, to the point where he needs time to get out of it. I think that's the big difference with Cena who really didn't have that "dark side" established to go to. Even when he was a heel, he was a jokey heel. It blurs the lines a bit but I think they can do it in a kayfabe-protected way, where Bray manages to draw out the monotone-speaking Jericho. If they really wanted to get Wyatt over, they'd have Jericho feud with a babyface in that mode afterwards, something actually independent of Wyatt, to show the damage that Bray could do to someone's soul.

If it's a serial type of show, you really can't. Some episodes of Mad Men might be better than others, but saying the whole series or season sucks until you see the finished product doesn't work. I think its very rare for a serialized show to have a string of bad episodes and then to suddenly be able to turn it around to the point where those bad episodes are no longer considered bad. "But it was really this all along?" almost never makes the previous poor episodes better in retrospect, even if you ultimately consider the greater whole pretty good. In fact, this happens so rarely, that I feel perfectly fine judging how something is going in the moment. In general, I feel perfectly fine judging anything that I've seen a lot of at any point, though, on the idea that I can always change my mind later. If I've seen four thousand first 5 minutes of matches, I feel pretty fine judging the first five minutes of a match as I'm watching it. Sometimes I'm even happily surprised by the end.

You're basically saying that you can't judge an individual episode of a TV show until the entire season's over (or maybe even the series).

I don't think Bryan was bullshitting there at all, to be honest. The Daniel Bryan storyline, once they shifted gears after the Rumble, only worked because the fans have been conditioned to expect shitty booking. This wasn't a ten year plan to book terribly for one big payoff in 2014. It was a constant pattern that they finally decided to become self-aware about because the fans (more specialized than ever with less casuals than ever and more tied into the internet than ever) for once absolutely refused to play along with what they wanted them to do.

I will say that I really hate the Badd Day as a finisher.

I'm just starting now as I got it from the library and just a few pages in this almost feels like the Confederacy of Dunces of Academia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-19tpyEumo 94 WCW is a self-imposed black hole for me until I really need it, but what the hell WCW? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTObs-sd5o There are about 60 Badd matches on youtube that sound interesting.

I did have to hit refresh a bunch of times last night but that cleared things up quickly. It was offputting on so many levels to get frozen when Dolph was upside down on the apron with Sheamus and come back to see Miz celebrating though.

I did Willie Scott and then decided to go harder and go with Piper from They Live. And all of that was impressive but then I tried Crazy Harry and that sent me down the muppet path which is pretty disappointing with the number of muppets you have to get through to get to him.

I was annoyed everytime they cut away from Charles Robinson selling in the main.

You're trolling us, right? Alternatively "who are you and what did you do with ebbie?"

Remember a few months ago when the Shield squashed Kane and the Outlaws, Cesaro won the Andre battle royal, and HHH had probably the match of his career since it wasn't a bloated mess putting over Bryan, who then went on to win the title. Good times.

They never really recovered from losing Shaul.

I'm going to a homeowner's association meeting.

I feel like if I was around in the 60s I'd have gone to see every movie he made that decade.

I kind of want to see them have a little run vs Maximo and Marco and someone to play up Rush's association with them.

I could write a few thousand words about this seven minute match, easily. It's beautiful. It's so simple and so rushed because it was pouring and they just wanted to get the hell out of there, but it's so primal and perfect. First off, I'm SURE there had to be some Sullivan and Andre in Florida, but I've never seen or read about it, so to see Lewin and Sullivan up against Andre in any way is totally awesome. Then there's Bundy as the third member of the group and Bundy is awesome in that role, just in general. You could just see him emerging out of the depths or through the mists or whatever, with Fallen Angel or Luna hanging over him as he talked into his hand and bellowed with dead eyes. The match is structured exactly as it should be. Collins gets destroyed from the get go, with a bit of Andre interference letting him get a hope spot and then the hot tag to Mosca. Mosca can handle Sullivan and Lewin (and Sullivan's selling is hilariously great), and even Bundy a bit, but he goes for the slam, fails, and Bundy takes over. This only lasts a minute or so because Mosca wasn't about to look bad in a seven minute match. Bundy's selling for him was nuts by the way. Anyway, he manages to tag in Andre and Andre beats everyone up, including the necessary triple squish in the corner spot. They set up for a finish with Andre about to toss Collins on people, but Sullivan tosses the powder for the DQ. They try to beat up Andre afterwards but he fights them off and that's your match. Obviously some of it could have breathed more but it was frigging pouring and it was great not despite its simplicity but because of it.

Wasn't the deal there that they uploaded the first bunch to tease people who were doing the free trial and they'll do the rest once it's over?

The match itself was a little frustrating. They were building to something a lot of fun but then everything just sort of petered out in Niebla comedy spots, which are fine in the right place (see: most matches actually) but here felt really disjointed with the primera, where you had Sombra biting Niebla's face and what not. There wasn't really a comeback to the beatdown in the beginning (which in and of itself had a way more back and forth finish than you'd expect in a match like this) as they just came back from break with Casas' team having the advantage. Then Niebla got payback by biting Sombra on the ass. I guess they have to pace this a bit since we'll probably see six more or these matches before the hair match. Ah well.