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Speak for yourself. I have like 70 people on ignore right now.

They came over to my house and interviewed me for three hours. I gave them every detail of that night of FMW in one sitting without notes. It was a lot, mentally fried me the rest of the interview, as it was very detailed. So they had all the information, but time wise cut to the chase. Don't know why they said school yard when I specifically told them a park. I also got them Ricky, Arai's daughter, and Hayabusa's daughter for the show.

Hey, @The NaturalI know you've been through a lot and you seem like a really incredible guy. So after talking about it with some on Discord I got you a Cameo from a special somebody and hope this finds you well. Special thanks to @Craig H and @Sammo~!for helping contribute, really appreciate that.

If AEW ever did bring in Brawn Strowman Id only be happy if he was used as “Mega John Silver”. Like Johnny Hungy goes under the ring with a giant mushroom, out pops Brawn for 30 seconds, destroys everything and goes back under the ring only for regular Silver to reappear.

Further adventures of introducing wrestling to my wife, Malakai Black/Dante Martin edition: "Oh, I really like this. It seems more like what I think of wrestling in my head instead of just one guy doing his moves and waiting for the other guy to do his moves." If I don't screw this up I'm pretty sure I can get my wife to watch Battlarts with me.

Just rewatched the main event and a little detail I liked was right at the beginning when OC went for his hands-in-pockets pose and PAC stopped him. But didn’t act heelish or angry like in the past, he just went like “cmon mate I know you can go, cut the shit, let’s do this” and Orange went with it. Small thing but makes sense given their history and it’s subtle character development for both.

I think the other big change is that wrestling has become a full time job now. It used to be that alot of these guys held day jobs. Especially if they were midcarders. They were garbage men, dentists, male models, speedway drivers... They ran funeral homes or played in rock bands. Guys like the Bucks or Seth Rollins have never had to work a real job before. They are the "Instagram Influencers" of wrestling. How was a guy like Dean Douglas supposed to master a Phoenix Splash from the top of a ladder when he had papers that needed grading?

Suzuki/Danielson was fucking motherfucking fucking AWESOME.

You did that TWICE?

I don't mark out much anymore at my ripe old age of 39, but I'll be damned if I didn't mark out like an 8-year-old last night. What a sweetheart.

Nice!

Learning how to shut the fuck up is an underrated skill. How many people fuck up their money, because they just had to say some racist, sexist, and/or homophobic bullshit? Wouldn't happen if they just learned how to shut the fuck up. It's so easy, you don't even have to do anything. Just keep your mouth closed, your fingers off your keyboard, and move on with your motherfucking day. I'm not even asking you to be a better person, just shut the fuck up. The world really would be a better place.

Arn taking Ric's spot. The way it should have been.

I'm hoping for a nice year-long run by Brian Danielson for the TCM Pure Wrestling title (all matches in black and white and introduced by Ben Mankiewicz).

So. I've just come back from Gay Bowl XXI where I got to ref 11(!) flag football games in a weekend. The weekend brings together members of the LGBT+ community and their allies for a fun and extremely competitive weekend. I'm exhausted, but thrilled I got to referee my first championship game, and see friends I hadn't seen in a couple of years. The reason I mention it here is because the Arizona Cardinals made a $50,000 donation and were largely financially responsible for making it happen. Bill Bidwell himself addressed us during the opening ceremonies at Sun Devil Stadium. So, if you see me wearing a Cardinals hat at some point, you know why. Anyway, Fuck The Jets. Here's week 5.

Reminder to self: add “virtue signaling” to that list, next to “pc” and “sjw,” of terms where, when you see them, it’s a dead giveaway the person using them is straight up garbage.

Also if you were wondering why Jade was flipping off the crowd when she made her entrance: Jade don't take no shit, motherfuckers.

Hearing 20,000 people chant for Homicide made me so happy. Yes, I realize that sentence looks horrible out of context but he deserved every bit of that adulation.

Thank you so much, @NikoBaltimore, those on Discord (sorry my tablet doesn't allow me on despite attempts to do so), @Craig H, @Sammo~! and Bret Hart for doing this for me. I'm honestly speechless. I enjoy my time on the board and for you to do this, it's greatly appreciated. Thank you. Love, Paul xxx.

So, like i didn't have enough to mark out about already today... My friend Juan tipped me off about a pop-up puroresu shop that was set up in a local mall this weekend. Something I'd naively hoped would happen all the time over here, but in fact this was the first time I've seen anything like this anywhere outside Tokyo since Mr. Hito's shop closed. Giant Baba's boots: Giant Baba's t-shirt: Tiger Mask's mask: And I'll spoiler the rest, and post the t-shirts I bought in the merch thread:

Taz had it right during Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki: "If you are not watching this on YouTube you are a dumbass. Sorry. You're as dumb as a box of rocks."

This encouraged me to check and see how many people I have blocked/muted on Twitter, and come to find I'm over 20,000 accounts. This would explain why I never seem to have the issues some of y'all have with social media. If I see somebody say something irredeemable, into the block pile they go. Sure, someone could be all "but why would you want to block out the opinions of others, you're building an echo chamber, blah blah blah", to which I say I only block people for being bigoted or vile, and yet my number is that high. Also, I don't owe bigots my attention.

I don't understand why Baybay thought he should go for a pinfall after a basic simple transition move like the Canadian Destroyer.

The Bucks/Cole kiss on the cheek spot was beautiful comedy. And even moreso beautiful for the way it surely enraged the humorless contingency on DVDVR that feel the need to make it known weekly that they hate said fantastic pro wrestlers Nick Jackson, Matt Jackson and Adam Cole.

How on earth is, "you should probably keep your kids away from the pro wrestling business," a controversial opinion? Putting a 13 year old anywhere close to the internal workings of this business is insufficient parenting. What are the odds of that turning out well?

I was really impressed with Bobby Fish. He fucking layed it in, That was a fucking BattlARTS match.

If you look really carefully, there are also birds, possibly seagulls, in that picture.

I could write a thesis about this. Pro Wrestling is an artform where you can create your own context. Things literally mean what you make them mean. One of my biggest issues with modern wrestling is that the workers have made it so they literally have to almost kill each other to make something feel meaningful. They ignore their ability to create context and try to build matches around in a "realistic" context which is pretty dumb. We get to the point where a top rope head drop is a 2-count in the name of "realism," but some of the most over moves of all time are things like a stunner, sweet chin music, and a fucking leg drop. Those moves meant something, because they were protected. A top rope head drop doesn't really mean anything, because we are all used to seeing them as big spots that get the dramatic 2 count. Making a German Suplex feel like a big spot isn't even hard, it's just a matter of selling it like it is a big spot. One of Darby's biggest attributes is how well he sells big moves. He's a smaller guy, and he uses his lack of size to make his opponent's offense look extremely impactful. He also has great, "I'm on the edge of consciousness" facial expressions. Everyone doesn't have his attributes, but almost everyone can decide to take an extra few seconds to sell a move. Everyone's instincts seem to be to rush to the next spot, when the right thing to do is often to do the exact opposite. Wrestling is like jazz, sometimes the notes that mean the most are the ones you don't play.

Now that's a fucking picture. It's like when the horror villain comes out of nowhere.

Was that the final of that year's King of the Rim?

That shit looks like a bootleg reboot of Aladdin.

It gets better....

And now that we have definitive proof that a Dragon is stronger than a Fish, the next logical step for Bobby is to challenge Taz's son. Because Fish vs Hook is a natural rivalry.

I kind of hate that idea, but then, I'm already pretty sick of Bobby Fish. I respect guys who commit to a gimmick. Bobby doesn't wrestle like a fish, so to Hell with him.

Pretty cool that they've hired Amanda to be on the Community Outreach team.

No, no blockbots. Sometimes I'll wade into the responses to a tweet about, say, police brutality or something supporting JK Rowling, and I'll find a nice batch of racists, white nationalists, or TERFs to block. No interaction by me required. Just report/block/move on, no engagement by me with the account ever takes place. It's my lunchtime hobby on days where I'm already in a sour mood and feel like playing a little whack-a-bigot.

Brandon Cutler was the fucking all star of that Rampage.

i can't agree with this. Wrestling needs both Brets AND Shawns. And Vaders. And Lugers. And all body shapes and all styles and all of everything else too. Variety is the spice of life.

There's been a little bit of talk about toxicity in the fan base and it touching our happy little slice of the internet, so I wanted to get overly positive for a minute or two. Not to get too hyperbolic, but intentionally or not Tony Khan has helped save and boost independent wrestling after a very trying time. There's obviously the idea of actually allowing your talent to be independent contractors and wrestle for smaller promotions, which means smaller bookers can have television stars at their shows and draw more tickets. Unintentionally though, and I don't know if anybody could have predicted this, but the brief little war between AEW and NXT forcing a rebrand of the WWE mega indy means there's no longer an arms race to sign every hot up and coming wrestler. Instead you have the bigger promotion going back to its formula of in-house training and bigger, more physically impressive talent. Meanwhile AEW does have unsigned talent come in for Dark and Elevation, which furthers their careers and again brings more attention to their matches at smaller promotions. All in all it makes things all the more exciting to be a wrestling fan again, whether you are watching the world's biggest sports entertainment promotion introducing new stars and taking risks again, or the rapidly rising new kid on the block, while also having a wealth of smaller televised and independent promotions thriving. And the best thing about it is the primary driving force behind the whole thing is a guy from DVDVR

Emi Sakura is so awesome.

A buddy pointed out that Double A pulled a great boomer promo by calling the millennial a loser and invoking the Second Amendment.