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Looooool oh holy shit. “That dude look like a Skinemax vampire” is going into my lexicon. The last time a DVDVR insult stuck with me, it was DEAN’s description of Jim Hellwig in a suit, “he looks like landscaper with a court date.”

Happy heavenly 50th birthday to Shannon Claire Sprull, Daffney. We love and miss you.

per luchablog, Hechicero has signed with AEW. It's a dual deal, so he'll still be working CMLL shows too.

also shout out to Kip Sabian for looking like every vampire in a Cinemax softcore porn last night

I don't think I saw it mentioned in the All In thread, but Cash Wheeler saying, "Is it weird that I wish Mother Wayne was my mother?" during the tag title match get a laugh out of me.

That's actually perfect. Paul Jones was once a main event wrestler before he was a manager, so Jimmy's end goal was always to get Jones in the ring, beat him up, and someday shave his head. Which I got to see live from the third row in Greensboro at Starrcade 86, when Boogie finally beat him and shaved him bald to end the nearly three year feud.

If they can hang on til October, I think they could do a pretty fun classic horror thing with Toni.

Look. We all loved Okada's theme. I loved Okada's theme. Shit, in case I decided to do a handyman business I filed an LLC with Rainmaker in the name. But Okada is a full on heel now. He's not a cutesy heel. He's a heel. And you gotta get rid of his old music that would pop the crowd or make them think this guy isn't here to fuck around and he doesn't need your support. I'll miss the music, but I think when he has his inevitable face turn, he'll use the old music again. Pour one out for the old Rainmaker music.

Time moves fast, but Hangman tweaked his knee on the Dynamite either week or two weeks before the go home Dynamite. He’s been limping ever since. He was moving real slow and limping at the All In media scrum. He should probably, I don’t know, stop doing that fucking moonsault. I don’t think my heart could handle him being out for a year.

He hasn't been a Marvel writer in a long time, but Ed Brubaker once did me a huge solid. This was actually back when he was at DC, but for some reason my local comic shop didn't get in an issue of his book Sleeper despite it being on my pull list. I mentioned this on the old Jinxworld message board. Ed private messaged me, told me he would send me one of his reserve copies, asked for my mailing address Fast forward a couple weeks and a whole damn box shows up. Had the issue of Sleeper, a couple issues of Detective Comics, and the entirety of the most recent arc of his Catwoman book. Son of a bitch, wouldn't you know it that my comic shop had finally gotten my copy of Sleeper in a few days before the box arrived. And, of course, Catwoman wound up on my pull list for the rest of his run.

If she's going to have a larger TV presence, Mama Wayne needs to cut a certain kind of promo on Dynamite one of these days, where she explains how she grew up in the wrestling industry and is the daughter of a Moondog. It turns out none of the AEW diehards I talk to on other boards know about her background,so I have to imagine live crowds don't know either. It gives her instant credibility. It gives Nick a little extra cred too - there's no reason he couldn't work a year as Moondog Wayne when he's 30 and fat. and while we're spitballing, here's why Don Callis should call his new charge "Big Zooch"...

As always, when Nick and Matt are eating shit, they're at their best. I can't believe Okada actually changed his theme; I understand why someone might pull the trigger, but that is an iconic theme, man. The way I'm describing how AEW is being booked right now is PRECISE. They are pushing all the right buttons and know when to be direct and when to sow chaos. Symphonic, really. An amazing turnaround for the company over the past few months.

When I was 10 I got sent to the principal's office for singing "You know she got those nice boobs" at the top of my lungs on the playground. My best friend J.R. loved it. my teacher, Ms. Linteris, did not.

First, the Aragon is awesome. I mentioned it in the Discord, but that’s where I first saw Weezer. I also saw someone else there, maybe Ted Leo? I can’t remember for sure. But it still looks cool to this day and it’s great to be there live. Second, the thing on Kyle’s head is probably a benign fatty tumor or a benign cyst. My niece’s husband has the exact same lump on the side of his head. I asked him before why he didn’t remove it and he said the doctor said there was no need to and it wasn’t something that would bust so there was no point in having a scar on the side of his head and having the area constantly drain. I’m guessing Kyle has the same thing.

I was thinking "Peep Show guest star who sells Super Hans fake drugs"

i started a new job in early March. it's my first time coming into a job cold as a "manager". The industry is tangentially familiar to me, and one of my departments is well within my history, but it's been a weird experience. I've never heard anybody talk about stepping in with little-to-no direct knowledge but still being expected to answer questions and make decisions. Luckily, my teams have been great and were understanding and helpful. Yesterday, one of my team leads (two steps below me on the ladder but significantly more experience in the company) paid me what i consider a pretty big compliment: "you've been here less than 6 months? Wow, you really learned a lot and know your stuff already."

Nick Wayne reminded me a bit of Bret Hart in his promo. He even threw in a weird mispronunciation ("I'm going to win plenty of champions") and said it twice! Okada music change will take some getting used to. I liked it better toward the end where the lyrics switched to Japanese, maybe a remix is in order Bucks stuff was great, like the uneasy alliance with Callis. Excaliber's "any port in a storm" after that cracked me up. Loved the "we just teamed together a couple weeks ago!" after getting clowned on by Ricochet. Everyone treating the Bucks like shit is fun! Also liked the little touch of them messing up their signature spots more often than usual in the match, showing they were off their games. They both caught the other with an accidental superkick in a way that doesn't happen that often Show had a botched start on max (sorry hbomax. just when the branding permanence was taking hold too....). Started a minute late, then cut immediately to commercial seconds after Hangman's music hit, and came back with Tony handing him the mic. I was curious if Tony K/production knew what was happening and got them to stall in the ring before Hangman started talking, because they got going right when hbomax fixed itself

He was limping when he came down for the opening promo. I think (hope) he's just selling from the All In match or maybe has a slight injury that's uncomfortable, but not enough to miss time.

Also, if anybody has interest in the topic, check out the books Tokyo Vice and The Last Yakuza by Jake Adelstein. They're crazy and fascinating. Tokyo Vice is his experience as a foreign journalist integrating himself into Japanese press and the underworld, and The Last Yakuza is from the perspective of a Yakuza's personal... career, could you say? up until the modern era, an actual gangster who decided to come clean and be represented in print after the demise of his profession. Wild stuff.

I just emailed one of our network guys asking the range of our Wireless Access Points. Not really thinking about it, the subject line is "WAPs." Now I'm hoping he doesn't know anything about Cardi B, lest he mistakenly thinks I'm asking about self lubrication.

Nope. We can't. Unless he goes back to WWE. So best to make him Paul Jones instead. I think ROH this year would have hit much better if Big Bill had won the ROH Title with Jericho as his mouthpiece.

I thought it looked like a Chi Chi's. Which made me really miss Chi Chi's. I can't find comparable fried ice cream anywhere. Two other quick thoughts as I haven't finished the show yet: What the living fuck is that bump on the side of Fletcher's head? It's been there a while and might be getting bigger. My bedtime edible was kicking in and I found myself thinking, out of the blue, "...I want to poke that thing with a hot screwdriver...." The Bucks are the absolute best stooges.

I joked about Brevoort (and that always did stick with me because it was a very weird interaction to have). But he's always been very open to fans and he was always kind to me. I got a no-prize from him and even more than that, he sent one to a friend of mine (my resident advisor in my freshman year of college, years later) who had bought every single marvel comic every month for decades and that was a great thing I could do for him. He'd read essays of mine, etc. There were a number of other good interactions too over the years. I had sent Axel Alonso an e-mail in the midst of his run and he responded back saying it was one of the nicest letters he'd ever received from a fan. I'd sent something similar to levitz as he retired and got a nice message back. I've had good interactions with Rucka too years ago. This is all ancient history. I was much more apt to reach out years ago. Actually, one of the best I ever got was when I was a teenager, from Mark Oakley who was the creator of Thieves and Kings which was a wonderful black and white fantasy comic in the 90s. He gave me a really nice letter back. Now I just hear from wrestlers. Often without prompting. It's been a strange year.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjy51cUXBjs Best Young Bucks entrance ever.

I don't think so, no. Me, I'm still annoyed Mike Bailey didn't start wearing shoes after his win.

See I feel like this is ignoring the obvious: the turnaround also coincides with Rampage going away and I think cutting one show per week resulting in the booking tightening up considerably is sort of a "well yeah, obviously" situation. I also understand why TK wouldn't want to say that aloud, if he even recognizes it.

Yeah, love the look of the Aragon Ballroom.

I liked Thekla joining up with Skye and Julia. Might as well get all the spooky chicks in one faction.

Damn, pro wrestling is good.

I think once it became the Hangman redemption arc, it clicked and I still don’t know how they could’ve seen anyone else as the guy to finally dethrone Mox. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that AEW got really hot once they made Hangman the focus, because there was so much history to mine. It also gave Ospreay a lot of depth and focus instead of just being the golden retriever (as they call him on Bluesky).

Evidently Nintendo has their leads for the LOZ movie that's supposed to come out in a couple of years. Must be a pair of dream jobs: one role that's in the title and crucially important but appears on-screen for 46 femtoseconds, and the other who's there all the time but never utters a word besides "Ggghh!" and "Hyah!"

I hated Seger’s music when I was 10 and I hate his music at 53. Hangman and Toni with killer promos, of course very different but totally in line with their characters. Superstars. Womens 4-way was good stuff, even though I had the Sisters of Sin spoiled for me. Honestly I couldn’t get super into the main event trios match. Felt too soon after the big PPV blowoff, I don’t know. I enjoyed the rest of the matches fine. Fletcher and Dorado was great, and Fletcher doing lots of character and slow body work during the picture-in-picture was excellent, didn’t miss any of the big high-flying comeback.

The Bucks stuff was great and makes sense that everyone from the production truck to the ring announcer would needle them after how they've been treating everyone the last year plus. The payoff is probably Callis treating them like shit and then reuniting with Kenny to take down the family, which is neither here nor there, but the pop for Carry On My Wayward Son will be huge. I was surprised how much I liked the Matriarchy promo. Shayna has clearly done some homework on promos since the last time they put her on the mic, so respect there. Julia/Skye/Thekla is the coolest stable that will never do anything. Swerve/Okada? Sure why not? I took the finish of the show to mean that Hangman is done with the Death Riders and they're Darby's problem now.

yeah, i feel like i'm going to enjoy this for the popcorn book it is. i'm fairly hit-or-miss with Snyder, but when he aims for 'fun', he's usually on point.

It seems that WXW (Germany) is now on IWTV, as they've just added a bunch of previous year's 16 Karat Gold tournaments.

I rremember hearing that Mother Wayne's father was a wrestler, but totally forgot he was a Moondog! Yeah, totally with you on her promoing about her legacy. I forgot to mention in my recap, but Nick Wayne's promo was very good. Kip was good there too, and Mother Wayne speaking... was like a sonic boom! "My Boys." Fanfuckintastic!

Willow is nice. I used to be on the Standard Attrition forum and she was real active on there and a total pleasure. David Lapham, Ivan Brandon, Darick Robertson, and Ryan Kelly were all super nice on there as well. Despite launching it, Jason Aaron wasn't there much but he was real solid when he was. Brian Wood was always kinda a dick while also being the most chronically online there. I miss the vibes, but the reason it combusted was too inevitable to make it possible to try again. Half the users were lurking comics 'journalists' looking for scoops, eventually creating a controversy when Darick Robertson expressing frustration with not being able to do 100% of the art for the end of the Boys was deliberately misconstrued as him having an issue with John McCrea who did a few arcs there. But before that it was the most unguarded 'creators and fans just vibe together' space I've seen and never shall its like be seen again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJiokAem8M&ab_channel=LIVE4W*ING W*ING - THE CURSE OF THE BARBED WIRE BAT This is for Tromatagon (he hasn't been around in awhile and I'm definitely misspelling the name, but he's the biggest W*ING fan. I've definitely seen his real name before but can't recall). I was reminded of it from an old DVDVR where Ray, I think, did a transcription of Jason the Terrible's broken English promo at the beginning of this, which is hilarious, along with the Japanese speech he gives later which is clearly a voiceover from somebody else. Then I started watching the rest and there is not only a Damiencito and a Cicloncito Ramirez but MR. NIEBLA in the flesh doing the best moonsault ever. I'm not done with the video but if it is as good as the start then holy shit.

I've spent some time playing RDR2 most days. I haven't left Chapter 2 of the game yet and am doing as much as I conceivably can as Arthur in this chapter before I speed along the rest of the game so I can slow down again and collect all the stuff in New Austin and the heavily-surveilled part of West Elizabeth as John. Mostly, now that I understand how to do a better job of getting perfect pelts, I've lately spent time gathering them and crafting outfits, saddles, satchels, etc. I had to go back to camp and get locked into a certain Strauss mission just to unlock the mission that opened up fishing, so now I'm doing that and only somewhat enjoying it because the fishing mechanics are sort of annoying. I guess the struggle of trying to catch legendary fish makes up for the easy legendary land animal hunts. I decided to use the internet more often for guidance, mostly so that I could figure out where to find a panther, but also to actually exterminate the rest of the Carolina Parakeets this time around (I don't feel as bad about this compared to killing bison in the first game because Carolina Parakeets were all dying of inbreeding anyway at this point in their existence). Today's happy little random thing: I was riding down to Annesburg after catching a legendary fish at the falls all the way up in the northeast part of the map when a cougar randomly popped out onto the path and tried to murder me. I popped off a shot as best as I could, but I only got the cougar in the leg before my horse bucked me to the ground. The cougar ran off a bit, and I was waiting for him to circle back and try to maul me when he collapsed to the ground. I got an artery. Not only was I able to study the cougar as it died to complete my compendium entry on cougars, but it yielded me a perfect pelt to boot. Happy accidents! I won't be done playing through this for months at the pace I'm going. It took me something like a half-year to do a third playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn that I started last year and ended two or three months ago. I like these slow replays of big open-world games that I love and will probably do this in the background more often. I'm thinking I'll play the first RD Redemption game on Switch after this. I'm sort of annoyed that I started playing RDR2 on PS4 right before rumors of an RDR2 Switch 2 port hit the internet, but whatever. Beyond that, I finished up what are probably the last five bots that Astro Bot will ever have to collect. It was nice practice for playing DK Bonanza over the next handful of weeks as I make my way through that. I'm also excited to strum a lute along with Atsu in Ghost of Yotei later this year. There are two hundred Peach Medallions in Mario Kart World! I'm at around ninety, but I'm thinking I'll come back to the free roam when it gets updates and I can use coins and Peach Medallions for things other than mostly-pointless stickers. I did start trying to perfect trophy the 100cc races, though, so I'll probably come back to that game occasionally. The OST is insanely good. I bought RetroMania Wrestling on sale the other night, and it's a decent enough WWF Wrestlefest clone. It took a bit to figure out how to win grapples. I'll probably talk about that more over in the wrestling games thread when I get in a bit more time with it during my travels this summer.

Hey now, Harden/Beal/Leonard together will be nearly unstoppable for the three games they're all healthy.

No matter the winner here, we all win. That's a mighty 4 way!

When I was in college there was this townie (a term that I eventually embodied so I feel okay using it) named Steve who delivered pizza on his bike because he wasn't allowed to drive. He also loved karaoke as much as I did, meaning I saw him 5 nights a week. He always sang "Turn The Page" and I hated it. At the one bar the dj would play the saxophone lines! (He also did this when another townie, Bruce, sang "All Night Long" which actually ruled) One n8ght we hit two karaoke bars and he was singing the original at one and the fucking Metallica cover at the other. I've never been more mad at karaoke.

That would actually be pretty good and not something I've seen before!

God no. It's Jericho. Jericho's should shift into becoming Paul Jones up against Mark Briscoe. It's the only role for him.

Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley, Evolution 7/13/2025 Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair, WrestleMania 4/20/2025 Jey Uso vs. Gunther, Raw 6/09/2025 Jey Uso vs. Cody Rhodes, Raw 6/23/2025 Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley, Raw 3/03/2025 Lyra Valkyria vs. Becky Lynch vs. Bayley, Evolution 7/13/2025 Lyra Valkyria vs. Becky Lynch, Money in the Bank 6/07/2025 Lyra Valkyria vs. Bayley, Raw 7/14/2025 Lyra Valkyria vs. Becky Lynch, Backlash 5/10/2025 Jordynne Grace vs. Giulia, NXT 5/06/2025 Could name a bunch of other stuff after no. 6, but Lyra has had a stupidly good past 2-3 months. Honestly, the women in general have been killing it this year even when their booking is off. There have been plenty of good matches from the men, but the women have been more memorable to me.

I would say two things: 1. In ANY feud, especially during the Macho King era, Randy was doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I think because you had enough solid to excellent heels, you didn't need the babyfaces to do much. 2. I don't think you wanted Warrior to do more than he had to. The general problem with the Warrior is so much of the excitement with him was during the chase (or during his ascent at least). Whereas Windham or Luger never got to run with the ball while they were at their hottest during their NWA/WCW runs because Flair was right there, they did go with Warrior. However, where do you go with Warrior after beating Hogan? Hulk Hogan is the biggest final boss you're going to get. There was no other worlds to conquer.

The recent uploads of Bash's to YouTube got me watching Jimmy Valiant promos & matches during his endless "WAR" with Paul Jones. That feud is all Boogie Woogie, you could have replaced Jones with any heel manager and had pretty much the same success, that's how much of a connection Valiant had with the people and how good his fun and serious promos were. Jones was great when he got then upper hand on Valiant, that I'm not sure say J.J. Dillon could pull off.

There’s so much to be said about how AEW told the story of a reluctant, self-doubting hero and his hesitant friends coming together for the common good, compared to WWE’s simplistic, alpha male, lone wolf, I am a tough guy and very badass characters and storylines. I am so thankful for AEW, its staff, and wrestlers for doing what they do and telling stories designed to appeal to more than just 14 year old white kids.

Ahem, you forgot the "Daddy!" at the end. I've been pitching Goodhelmet Will my idea for a multi disc set of the entire Jimmy Valiant vs Paul Jones feud, including when Jimmy and the Street People started beefing with the Midnight Express and a rejuvenated Tye Dye Superstar Billy Graham took over fighting Jones and his Army, for like, 15 years. You'd think a pal would make something just for the Street People and The Boogie Woogie Brigade, but no dice.