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“Your loan, personal Jesus”

Alexa Bliss bleeding goo coincidentally only puts back the wrestling business back 29 years.

The people who work at the company that just had goo pouring out of Alexa Bliss live on PPV can mind their own business and get their own house in order, please and thank you.

I get why old sports dudes shit on modern players - they were high-level athletes playing zero-sum games. Most ex-All Stars are hyper competitive semi-sociopaths who made millions of dollars by conditioning themselves to dislike people in jerseys other than their own. When these fifty-somethings watch and groan about post-Steph Curry three pointer theory, they're imagining what they'd do if they were on the other team and how they'd beat modern players using the skills they had in their prime. Wrestling isn't a zero-sum game. When old wrestlers imagine how they'd interact with the stars of today, they often admit that they're thinking about the stories they could tell and the way they'd pop a crowd together. They get back in there and work a tag match at some flea market and the old guy's happy to be an influence and the young guy's happy to get the rub and everybody smiles and sells autographs and hurts their hips instead of their egos. Jim Cornette can't wrap his thick fucking head around the idea that new trends in pro-wrestling don't take anything away from his accomplishments and he isn't even a wrestler. He almost assuredly wouldn't feel the exact way he feels if he was. Jim is the quintessential Smart Mark Made Good. The things that got him to where he is are his one-in-a-million passion for the artform, bottomless capacity for knowledge and effortlessly platinum tongue. No athletic background, no family ties to the business, no profit generating long game. His negative personality traits are just the flipside of the things he's supremely gifted in. He's a talker, so he's insulting (reinforced because that's what got his character over). He's smart, so he's dismissive to any knowledge outside his own. He cares more, so he's aggressively sensitive. Wrestlers make him feel physically insecure. Promoters and bookers who are more politically and financially savvy make himself feel socially insecure. And people who succeed in the industry despite being less passionate about it than him are affronts to everything he is as a person.

I just wrote in the Dynamite thread about how AEW is, despite some of their faults, carrying the mantle of the actual pro wrestling we grew up with. If AEW is setting wrestling back 35 years and "modern wrestling" means nonsensical storylines, 50/50 booking, burning through characters and angles like a good meal on payday, endless rematches, and in general being a "content creator" first and being a wrestling company somewhere around 11th, I'll take AEW thanks.

30 years, eh? Let me count... yup, that's pretty much exactly where I'd want it to be, so great job, Blood and Guts!

LOOK AT MY AQUARIUM!

Man, y'all sure love to Barry Goldwater the "Jade Cargill looks like Shelton Benjamin in a wig" guy. What happened to ignoring him? I like it when we do that.

My favourite DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight title change is how Suge D lost it to the entire live crowd at Americanrana '13. He did the "If you don't shut up, I'm leaving" schtick and the ref considered it a technical submission. Then the fans started chanting We Deserve It, only there's no chairs or barriers, so the front row were pounding the mat instead of clapping. And that's a tap out, so Suge got the belt back.

This really gets me because Cornette identifies as liberal but throws around some pretty hateful racist and homophobic rhetoric in the service of criticizing people in wrestling.

The story that a bunch of wrestlers thought Pillman was having plastic surgery to look like Shawn Michaels in order to come to WWF as his evil doppelganger is just another reason to remember that a lot of wrestlers are not the brightest bulbs.

They ran an angle where Seth Rollins repeatedly tried to put Rey Jr's eye out and that culminated in a match where Seth jammed Rey's eye into the corner of the steps and they had a gimmicked eyeball hanging out. But sure, Blood and Guts went WAY too far...

My dad is moving to Mexico so the family went over to lay claim to his stuff this weekend and among other things I got all the family photos. So now I finally have documentation of the cake I picked out for my 4th birthday: I don't know why I'm the way I am, but I have always been like this.

I like making the Booker of the Year joke more as a rag on Metzler's dopey spot loving perspective which has poisoned his audience. Cornette (much to my consternation) is correct that Tony is a okay match maker but his ability to tell a story is suspect to say the least. AEW's agents are really more to blame as they can't seem to give the talent any direction beyond "do a bunch of stuff" and are really bad at protecting movesets and wrestlers. Cornette is a awful person who gives pretty good analysis if you understand a few action items. Once you do anything Cornette thinks makes the business look silly, you're dead to him for life. This level is normally the higher level of wrestling garbage like invisible men, blow up dolls and that level of nonsense. If you're a woman, Cornette thinks you ought to work 5 minute sideshow matches. Any longer than that and he's not watching it. If you've breathed a word that may be considered conservative in any way, he hates you on principle. When Cornette is in a situation where he doesn't have those biases, he can give you pretty good insight. If not, you may as well throw his opinion in the trash because he is never going to give Marko Stunt a fair shake. This is coming from someone who thinks Marko Stunt sucks. As to why he reviews AEW, he does it for the views because his audience waits around waiting for him to bury the product.

This is the right comparison, this is the symptom of the worst human instinct people bring with them when they argue about the entertainment in front of them. It goes so far beyond Charles Barkley saying stupid shit about teams who rest their starters or Cornette hating anything that doesn't remind him of Watts or Crockett. The kneejerk thing that makes people feel that any new idea that emerges after your late twenties (and especially after you age beyond the "key demo") is somehow less valid than the entertainment that existed in your formative years - it's arbitrary, it's self-centered, it's dismissive, reductive, ignorant, a helpless yelp against your own mortality turned outward to a world who has their own shit to deal with. It's a (maybe the) cornerstone of socially conservative propaganda, fear-based political manipulation, predatory marketing tactics, whathefuckever. And it generates clicks. Corny and every other talking head that wallows in the muck of false, self-serving nostalgia are only able to do so because it's a proven commodity. If you agree with them, they make money. If you disagree and click on their pages to let them know, they make money. And that's the only thing that votes people like Cornette into the office of having a considered public opinion. If you say his name, you give him power. Ignore him. And don't ever be that guy who harps about how music or movies or wrestling was so much better when you were 12-to-25 years old, because every motherfucker you're arguing with just so happens to be arguing for their same thing.

Some of ya'lls hate boner for Khan winning Booker of the Year in a dirtsheet awards poll is really sad.

Holy shit. That rules. Conti has gone from bad green to good green really fucking quick.

I can't wait for either Cody to leave or Omega to leave so I can hear them bitch about each other. The stories about Cody are going to be great because if this is what we're seeing think of the shit we don't see.

My friend, you need to wrap your head around the fact that any content the #1 promotion deigns to beam to your eyeballs = modern wrestling. If a 75 year old man whose brain is blown from too much coke, roids, and steak wraps decides a 30 year old woman dressed like a Toddlers and Tiaras participant doing magic IS MODERN WRESTLING, then that's the end of the argument.

clickbait.com sites are reporting that WWE thinks the Blood and Guts match set Wrestling back 30 years. Just think, if only it had set Wrestling back 45 years, Cornette would have loved it.

Cornette, to me, reminds me of the former players that do TV and radio for baseball now. These washed up goofs can't stop talking about how much better their sports were when they were involved, all the while deriding far better athletes for their inability to do the things that made for a successful wrestler/hitter 30 years ago. Which would be fine, if it were thirty years ago. It isn't. At the end of the day, they're all bitter old men yelling into the void about a sport that has passed them by.

"Look at him Tony. Just look at him. Dominating the other man. Just look at him."

That was tough to watch. Also, not excusing Melanie Pillman, but Brian Pillman himself was not blameless in that whole situation. Not to mention being left as the mother and sole provider after her husband died and also taking care of his other kids he had out of wedlock. I'm sorry, but both Pillman and Melanie came off like bad guys in that situation. I don't know much about Kim Woods, but I did just hear him on Wrestling Observer and I dunno. Something seemed off about him in this documentary. Like him not being so trustworthy. I get that Pillman was this tortured artist. I mean he was in WCW for 7 years and dude never got the respect or due he was deserved. He always over-performed in every role he was given, but he was never seen as anything above a midcard guy. At the same time, it seemed like he couldn't control himself when it came to women and substance. As bad as I feel for Pillman, I feel worse for the women and children in his life. And yes, I even feel bad for Melanie on some level, on a human level. I'm not saying Melanie is a good person, but she was likely vulnerable to vices just as Pillman was. I can somewhat respect that Pillman was willing to take care of and provide for his illegitimate children, but it's also hard for me to respect a guy who sees and treats women like this. Linda Pillman did come out looking the best out of all this and like a true surrogate parent to the whole Pillman family. I just hope Brian Jr. and the rest of his kids will have happy lives. I do worry about Brian Pillman Jr. I think he's decent, but I hope he doesn't spend his whole career chasing his father's shadow. This is a rough business as Dark Side clearly shows.

I like when the camera zooms way in and you realize he looks like a Romulan.

They have that pyro for the explosion at the end of Omega/Moxley there would've been zero complaints. This guy is The Most Extra. It's turned into something I enjoy for the lols like shitty JR commentary. Instead we got Cody throne breaker pyro.

For a guy that primarily used one move, Chono had a helluva move.

I feel bad about giving a "laugh" icon to this, but I did in fact laugh.

Werdum vs. Ferreira has been overturned by the New Jersey commission into a no contest.

Aimed for Death of Superman, hit My Chemical Romance. Dude looks like Depeche Mode's loan officer. Ted Kaczynski looked at that and said, "damn, dude, that's a little too much pyro."

Lemieux was just an unbelievable freak. It's scary to think what his numbers would look like if his body hadn't completely betrayed him. I think that Lemieux playoff run that produced *that* permanent highlight reel finals goal against Minnesota was probably just about the 2 best months of hockey I ever saw anyone have. McDavid manages to excite me in the same way. Hopefully something big about to go off in these playoffs.

Missing textures and model glitches just screams either "we're totally new at this and have no idea what we're doing," or "we're not really serious about fixing this game." I can deal with the former as long as there is a genuine effort to eventually deliver a working product, but I still think that it takes time away from putting the next gen port on store shelves before the end of the year. I'll continue to occasionally tinker with the game after patch releases, but I'm not going to put any serious effort into beating 2077 until the S/X optimized version comes out.... hopefully with far fewer bugs than this version.

I've been trying to wrap my head around the idea some AEW obsessives have that any criticism of their preferred wrestling product is a result of the critic's mind being warped by years of watching WWE. Just now occurred to me that this rationale is massive projection. People using their own baggage as a cudgel rather than taking their own entertainment on its merits or lack thereof. Figured I'd just leave this thought here because it's not interesting enough to write six paragraphs about and start a new thread for.

Can't wait for the mid-season QB controversy if Lawrence doesn't pan out.

Another one for @Infinit

A company who aired this on PPV complaining about anything "setting wrestling back 30 years' is freaking hilarious

*laughs for other reasons

To add to that, he talked shit on Joey Janela's physique but I'd argue Janela is built better than Eaton or Condrey ever were. Really, for any opinion he gives on wrestling, you could probably go back and find something in his past that directly contradicts it. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's a carny con man with no integrity whose "beliefs" and "convictions" change depending on what's going to make him some money on any give day.

I miss the tradition of people getting irrationally furious about the DVDVR 500. Also, who covers wrestling and hadn't heard of any Toryumon guys in 2001? Read a goddamn book.

Jacksonville Dixie sounds like the name a band that would have opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd.

My experience with M. Night mirrors @twiztorand has led to his films being channel changers fo me much like John Cena.

Because Pro-Wrestling was imported into Japan from the United States? Have you not noticed how the Refs count in English?

Butch cuts a screaming promo on Buddy Rose as Luke bleeds

I gotta be honest, I bet kids do. I can still recite billed heights, weights, and places of birth off of random '90s WWF wrestlers who I loved as a kid. Razor Ramon, 6'7, 287 from Miami, Florida. Bret Hart, 6'1, 235 from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The Undertaker, 6'10 and 1/2, 328 from Death Valley. I think stating the size of a wrestler really does add to that larger-than-life feel that the company is going for. EDIT: For example, I just saw @Matt D's post and immediately had Howard Finkel's voice in my head: "weighing in at 303 pounds, from Venice Beach, California...Huuuuullllllk HOOOOOgan."

It looks like I'll be bidding farewell to my part time weekend side gig come July. My wife is currently a teaching assistant, but has made it clear to the Principal that she'd like to be working in the LIbrary, which is a position that has needed filling for quite a while now. She had her meeting with the Principal on Tuesday, and she was told that they need to post the job opening and wait 30 days for people to apply. However (read between the lines here), it's up to the Principal who gets the job, and it's based on not just qualificatons but also who is clearly passionate about it, as well as who she feels is the right fit for the school. And this comes with a huge bump in pay. She'd already told my wife that she can expect a hefty raise, and when she put some numbers on the table, hefty is actually an understatement........

EDIT: I did a "too soon" thing so here's a different opinion On Limelight = Gambler (fuck yes Gambler) I'm legitimately curious how many of these year-long AEW Dark jobbers are gonna go back to their regional indies and all of a sudden command a little bit more pay + a lot more love at the merch stand. We're probably gonna see at least one major success story from somebody who got a lot of exposure on Dark, will stop being needed when the company goes back to touring, but parlays all of that into bigger things down the road.