grilledcheese

I guess that was likely a poor choice of words. I meant it in the sense that his shit with Okada & Tanahashi or his work in the AJPW Junior League or his PWG stuff or his G1 runs was of a more serious nature. Even the beginning of the Cleaner stuff was pretty well straightforward and then the goofball shit started to creep in. I mean, the idea of a wrestler wanting to be Albert Wesker or Marion Cobretti is inherently silly, but I didn't really start to see the jokey stuff in that run until a little later on.

That's an excellent point. I hadn't even thought about the chainsaw stubble or the cold spray obsession or the sweeping to the beat of his theme. He really reminds me of Angle with the mix of comedy and then at the flip of a switch he's a stone cold killer. The difference being is that Kenny kind of does them at the same time, whereas Kurt typically was all business or all comedy.

Do you think it's gotten worse? His facials have always been so goddamn goofy. Like Davey Richards / Tessa Blanchard / Seth Rollins silly. I'll have to go back and see if I see an evolution towards cartoon. I feel like it might be hard to draw a line as to when he went all the way over the top.

I'm not sure. Screenprinting is like a mystical art I don't understand. The way my wife makes them is via photo editing software to create whatever design she is coming up with, she feeds that info to her vinyl cutter, it cuts that pattern out of heat transfer vinyl, then she presses them in place. Like you used to get at T Shirts Plus or Shirtique in the mall, only not just cheesedicky single letters like Greg Valentine's "Wahoo's Leg" shirt. She can do all kinds of wild shit.

It does have a very Buzz Sawyer-y vibe. I have done it as a grappling drill. Pro Wres grappling, not actual feasible fighting technique. It's the beginning of a go-behind so you can grab a waistlock. If you play Tekken, King's sidestep to multithrow starts with a similar movement, except without the descent all the way to one knee. If you don't, then disregard all the nerdy shit I just said about Tekken.

That is like the absolute number 2 team I would want to see them against after the Bucks. The shit those two boys would talk about all the flipping and flopping that PP do would be super top-flight.

My wife has a vinyl cutter and a heat press, I think you just came up with the next t-shirt she's going to make me.

I think that pro wrestling needs more unpredictability. I would love to see job guys get a chance to shine. Not that they can't still get squashed by big stars, but it would be fun to see a company roll with the idea that anybody might get cradled for a three count, or that some local schlub has a super dope short arm scissors that no one escapes.

It would make perfect sense as to why they decided to get shit popping off tonight with the Bucks, knowing that the rest of the Elite would come down and help out so they could rat pack them all. That would be pretty goddamn solid. And a fucking excellent way to bring on Marty as a big deal for folks that don't know who he is. Although, realistically, how many people watching are not indy fans? I would imagine their demo is basically every pro wres nerd out there, right?

I'm totally on board with the Dark Order. As is my oldest. He just had me go and sign up for whatever their horseshit is on joindarkorder.com, so we'll see what comes of that. I do find it pretty odd that the show ended with a jobber team being the main focus of joining a faction, but I'll trust that they know where they are going with it. Maybe Dark Order is going to be a long-running big bad for AEW, and this is the beginning of their dominance? Commercial break fuckery still irks the hell out of me, but whatever. Britt Baker is not good. I hate to bust her balls every time she is on TV, but all her shit looks like it's done at one quarter speed, and nothing has any crispness. Kris Statlander is weird and fun and looks like maybe she has a real grasp on whatever the fuck this alien deal is, even if I don't. Any chance that they run with her dethroning Riho? The main didn't really click for me. Maybe it was the face vs face setup, but I didn't get enough urgency of either team really trying to get the job done. Jungle Boy and Jericho was FUN AS FUCK. This whole deal of Jericho being the guy to make everyone look good is unreal, man. He's such a good goddamn pro wrestler, and it is so evident how seriously he is taking the role of being the lead guy for AEW in its infancy. Kong squash was whatever, I get that she makes the division credible, but if she can't work real matches, who gives a shit that she's there? Page / Omega v Lucha Bros was about what I was expecting, but I thought Hangman was turning for sure tonight. PAC abducting Nakazawa extends his eventual turn out a few weeks I guess? Once again, two hours that absolutely flew by. Good stuff.

All the moves they have made to clear money and stick a guy like Bum in the mix with all the young pitching is pretty good work. I don't see them jumping over LAD with this, but to put yourself in a mix where you can be a WC team with a guy with that kind of postseason resume? Not too bad. Fuck AZ and all who may support them. Let's see if they hang on for three years or four before they offload him and the remainder of his deal like they did Greinke after this doesn't get them into the playoff mix either.

19th century French Greco-Roman guy. First "world champion", apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pons

Reefer comes off the table as a "drug of abuse". https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28283499/mlb-union-agree-opioid-testing-marijuana-removed-drug-abuse

Boy, they are fucking falling quick this year, eh? Dallas Keuchel didn't get a job until June! I wonder if Bum is the next one to go. If he lands in LA, I promise I will still call him out for being hella bitchmade when he whines about a strikezone, or throws at a Puerto Rican guy for no reason, or makes a pissface when someone takes him deep. He's always been super cunty, and I can't imagine a Dodger uniform will change that. It will only serve to make his horseshit ever so slightly less unbearable.

Rumors had them looking to deal for him before OAK non-tendered him. Couple of things I saw had them also looking to maybe swing deals that still land them Lindor and potentially then deal Seager for a MLB level SP.

I am personally hoping that at some point we get Schoolhouse Rock and the ABC Afterschool Specials. Who knows what the rights issues are for any of that stuff, but one would assume that they are in full control. I remember some comp tapes of Schoolhouse Rock that were branded as "Disney's" at some point, so I know at one point in time it was definitely something that they acknowledged as part of their catalog, but who knows. I would think that they might stay away from the Afterschool Specials because of subject matter in more than a handful of them, but they are chock-full of stars before they were stars, so they could potentially be a pretty cool thing to have in the library.

Saw this this morning, thought it was pretty wild. Obviously, more of the same with trash can clunks and all that jazz, but immediately after the first one, a mic picks up someone saying "breaking ball down". Fucking nuts, man.

Yo, absolutely. I'm just being callous and shitty because that is the kind of dude I am. I've never heard a bad word about the guy, so it's way more likely he's doing it because he's awesome, not because he wants internet street cred.

It doesn't take away at all from his gesture, and I don't mean to be a big old fuckhead, but there is something that rings very hollow when someone does a good deed in front of a camera. Just do the fucking deed. Now that I'm done being all bitchmade, I will say that it is awesome of him to hook that person up with clothes and food. I work in social services, and even here in California, people are cold and wet and bummed this time of year. Shelters don't exist anymore in a lot of places, and the ones that do are sometimes just as toxic as street living. Not enough people are willing to give, be it time or food or clothes or care.

Norman Smiley once goofed on me for like two days for stiffing him on a handshake. That is one A+, super cool dude. He was more than happy to just shoot the shit for a good long time about grappling, and showed me a handful of really nifty reversal / escapes. The aforementioned Norman Smiley would also make the cut if he ever lands in AEW. He tagged with Whipwreck against Malenko / Benoit, and I'm sure he made other bookings for them, but I know that one for sure.

If anyone remembers who the person on this board was that did a run of those Takayama shirts in a million different colors on American Apparel shirts was, I would be WAY fucking into getting another couple, as the two I bought 10 years or so ago are now dead and gone.

I get that it's for TV, but are those numbers actually bad? What were the houses on that "disastrous" WWE swing through Northern CA and the PNW a handful of months ago? I remember that being like 6 or 8 weeks of absolute dogshit paid attendance numbers, including a bunch of TV and a PPV. And in a situation that those numbers are bad, would a pivot to smaller venues be the right choice at this early stage in the game? Or should they continue to run these mid-sized arenas and keep on hoping that they catch fire and start filling them? I don't know fuck-all about what the right choice should be, but it seems like maybe they are in a pretty good spot. They move a metric ton of merch, or so it seems. The crowds they do pull are hot as shit, especially considering the ongoing problems we see every week with audio mixes being all kinds of wacky. Most everyone seems to agree that their TV is compelling and engaging in a way that WWE's isn't for the most part. Maybe this is just the state of pro wrestling in 2019. A boom period today likely doesn't look like it did in 1985 or 1996, simply for the fact of the entertainment world having evolved so much.

Although I am biased, I have "The Saw Is Family" in lowercase in an Old English font as a collarbone rocker-type deal.

I don't fuck with IMPACT, who is that other than Tessa? Jordynne Grace to her right I think, but the other two are mysteries.

Dana Brooke is a bad motherfucker. I wish she was a better wrestler so I could explain my unabashed fandom of her a little better. It's so goddamn unfortunate she didn't get to fuck Charlotte up a couple years ago after Charlotte was such a big old beez to her. Anything that gets that young woman a little bit of extra attention is A-OK by me, even if it doesn't translate to her winning matches on TV.