Shartnado

Windsor with a huge win and Mone's belt count drops drastically to 10. One more and she's back to (gasp!) single-digits! This is definitely to correct way to go about this, that's for sure, because the match was good, too. Probably better than their TBS-title matches, but not quite sure? Speedball vs Jungle Man was exciting. Now there's another story with Perry's ankle and the fact that biting will now be one of his counter moves going forward. I had a feeling Perry might take this one, as Speedball is beginning to be an odds on favorite and everyone else has gotten overconfident at that point. Okada vs Knight was a shocker, but it was neat that Bailey failed to take the momentum of his previous victory to another win, yet Knight who promised to use the momentum of a great losing effort to his match against Okada, actually pulled off a shocking victory here! Man, this is all up for grabs here! This loss really got to Okada, who will probably blame this on Takeshita, as well!

Went for a 5km run this morning because my Polar Ignite 3 cardio level went from maintenance to inactive already yesterday. Well, it didn't help, but the run was pretty decent and the weather was ok. Basically no snow, very little ice but cold enough for the ground to be frozen solid and not muddy like on Friday. Oh, and while it was evening weight and totally doesn't count, the scale went up to 197 last night, which was more than a little shocking, but I'll take it!

Yeah, I have to give respect for Jake Paul hanging in there until round 6, eventhough rounds 5 and 6 were getting a little pathetic. Still, THIS is what by all intensts and purposes SHOULD have already happened in the Tyson match and didn't. The fact that he went in there outmatched in every possible regard and should have been pounded into a puddle of shit in the first round and it didn't happen here, either, is a miracle in and of itself. Announcers backpedaling once again about this proving nothing was pretty sad. It doesn't prove anything you'd like it to prove, sure, but it either proves that boxing is fake too, or Jake Paul is tougher and crazier than a lot of people want to admit, due to him being such a turd. Layla Ali said that if Joshua doesn't get it done by round 3 or 4, it'll be embarrassing for him, and it took him longer than that, but considering how good he looked between rounds, he could have been toying around with Paul until he felt like finishing it? And of course, I don't watch boxing so I don't really know shit about shit, so there's that to consider as well.

You know, that may just have been another case of Young Bucks abusing the budget while still EVP's!

Let's hope this was NOT the real reason Mick Foley just cut ties with WWE a few days ago (i.e wanting to retire once more with MORE grace than ever before).

Boy, if there is ever going to be a match between Zaria and Kendal Grey, I'm going to be seriously torn over who to root for. Izzy is about be in deep shit yet, with Paxley and I'm here for every second of it! Also, Thea seems totally together as well as a calm and relaxed person. Maybe she should hang out with poor Tatum, so they could be positive influence on each other? The title win was so awkward that it came off like a genuine mishap, but Thea's reaction after the first few seconds told that it was supposed to go that way, otherwise thinking on her feet like that (e.g. crying and clutching the title like that) would have been pretty spectacular! Hank and Tank returning and stealing a win against OTG was surprisng and heart-warming. When I was asking for more serious contenders for Ethan Page, you can't get literally more serious than Moose! He was painfully serious even in those TNA retro comedy episodes. So I definitely got what I asked for in more ways than one! Saints getting to be the bag of dicks that he truly is, will probably work out better for him, although he has already held both singles titles without being one, so who knows? The 4-way was all action and the winner was an absolute shocker! Would not have called that one!

I'd be very wary of exposing any soft spots to Marina F'n Safir, though! You know she'll exploit that as a weakness and probably stomp on it with her bare feet with shards of glass on them like she did to Mina in Blood and Guts. You have been warned! And this goes doubly for @Nice Guy Eddie 😏

There was some really nifty counter-wrestling in OC vs Dorada, but Orange outsmarted Dorada in the end. A loss here makes Dorada's victory over Claudio all the more shocking (compounded further by the fact that Takeshita was only able to take him to a draw). Booking of the tournament has been pretty stellar this year, so far. So many interesting little stories going on, besides the amazing matches. Really captivating programming, to be honest. Hayter vs Dawn was surprisingly competitive but I guess the real point of interest was the aftermath. Thekla looked very good in that leather outfit, but Stat was on a tear until the errant Hayter-ade, which didn't seem to bother Jamie all that much. While Thekla is probably on route to face whoever comes out on top, Stat vs Hayter should be one hell of a match, once again. Mercedes and Athena challenging for the tag titles should be interesting, as it seemed like Athena had very little time for Mone's nonsense (despite very much wanting the tag titles). For an absolute super team, their cohesion is like at 30% or thereabouts. Going back to the Dynamite Diamond battle royal, this is a really unceremonious way to get that damn thing away from MJF, not even having him there. He's never been in the situation, where he should legally and officially give up the possession of it to someone else before, right? I wonder if he'll stage a coup in order to try and avoid it? Nonetheless, Ricochet vs Bandido is definitely a super match for the finals, or would have been. Not sure how Prickochet vs Bandido will live up to those expectations, however? The tag title match ended up being terrific. There where times where it looked like BBG was actually going to take it. I'm not sure if the announcers pointed it out during the build-up, but on top of the recent non-title victory, both Juice and Austin have victories over FTR with different partners (and members of BBG), so they were much more credible challengers than their ring gear would have suggested. On a side note, Juice should probably face Dalton Castle in a match so we could decide which one of those two makes weirder sounds during a match? Of course, this being a tag match it gave Juice more of a reason to be even more vocal, when cheering on Austin and so forth.

Second to the last workout was a bench and Seal Row pyramids with decent results, actually. I haven't done Seal Row consistently in a good while, but it seems like the "4-5 decent reps and crap after that"-level has moved from 264 to 286. Bench went up to 274, but none of those reps were even close to being half decent. 252 went well on the way up as well as down. Tried racking and re-racking 384 and was able to keep the weight up for a few seconds two times. Last night decided to do conventional deadlift and the full workout was 5x220, 3x330, 2x396,5, 2x440,5, 1x451,5, 1x462,5, 1x473,5 off the floor and then 2x484,5, 2x506,5 and 3x550,5 off the full blocks. The 550 one was an obvious record from that height and the 473,5 was as much as I've ever lifted off the floor. So, now I can take some time off and concentrate on cultivating mass and recovering from this (another) crazy year.

We found a live one!!!

PAC with my favorite snap mare (or hair beel) takeover-level move ever, an avalanche poison rana to set up Black Arrow for a huge win! Roddy v Mox got really good by the end stretch, but Roddy clearly wasn't prepared for this tournament, being the first guy mathematically eliminated (aside from Darby who was medically eliminated) from winning. MJF threw a wrench into the 3-way plans and that's amazing, because we've already seen that particular 3-way and he has issues (a bit manufactured with Swerve, but I'll take it) with everyone involved! Good action in the women's tag, with Megan Bayne's top rope rana being the highlight! Mercedes sure brought a team of killers here!

That would be terrible! These days SO much of my gym music is instrumental, that it would very seldom be an issue, but it would totally ruin the mood, that's for sure!

Well, I need to check that cover our right away!

The underlined sentence does hit the nail on the head. It would be quite a chore to keep booking in such an order that matches which happened a few years back would still matter in general context. But I do love it when announcers spew out stats are somehow relevant to the match that is happening or is just about to happen. It was great to hear that Speedball and The Jet had faced each other twice before, and Bailey had come out on top in both of them, for example. I think this aspect has gotten way better in recent times in both big companies, as it seems like the announce team(s) do seem to make more of an effort to make matches seem more important by referring to previous matches and other trivia of the match participants, even when those things have happened outside of their respective "universes".

I actually remember Solo beating Cena, despite not actually ever seeing the match itself. Oh, and the crowd knows that if they let their feelings get affected, Gunther will chop the shit out of them.

Wow, there's a WM match with Cena and Theory? That's one of those years I missed, in that case!

This would be one of the few Type O songs I still listen to, ever so often, along with We Hate Everyone and Christian Woman. Kinda odd, given how big of a fan I was in the late 90's.

At one point, before his retirement tour starting and the brief heel turn bringing him a few more big victories, he was on a 5-year losing streak or something like that? At some point it was said (probably on this board) that the only thing that actually puts you over when facing Cena is the title you win by beating him. Facing him and having a great performance while losing, or beating him when there is no title to win doesn't actually put you over. So with him being without a title for so long would therefore mean that all those losses didn't do too much for the guys who were lucky enough to get to beat him. Personally, I liked that he gave back after winning so much for so long, but you can be sure that at the 5- year mark beating him was very similar to beating Foley or Flair once they were well past their respective primes. Not special because everyone else has already done it.

Now THAT is a team right there!

Speedball vs The Jet also delivered big time and Bailey is now in a position to be this year's Mark Briscoe with these surprising victories in Continental Classic. Also, that was an emphatic NO from Mercedes at the thought of getting her arse waxed by Toni Storm. She went super awkward super quick at the mere mention of it! I wonder who she'll bring with her, since Triangle of Madness would be a little redundant? Briscoe vs Garcia was solid but no way Danny boy was winning this one!

Takeshita vs Claudio, a wonderful heavyweight struggle got me thinking: For those more well-versed in CMLL's lineages (if this title was the one that MJF renamed or not, I'm not sure) what would be some other CMLL champ vs IWGP champ matches that could have happened in a (fictional) tournament, with interesting champions in both promotions at the same time? Tony called it a historical match or something similar, just because the champions of those promotions have not faced each other before (certainly not in AEW, but possibly ever, anywhere). What could have been the most legendary match possible within these parameters (well, not the AEW part)?

Two down, two more to go! Sunday evening was pretty rough to start with, as the biking weather was rather difficult. But once I made it there, the workout was intense and pretty good. Once again 3 heavy sets of dumbell incline bench and after the first set I hiked up the back of the bench one step higher. 10 reps with 79's and 83,5's, then 9 with 88's. A set of hammer curls after each set, as usual. After each of thoses combos, I did a set of lat pull downs, body weight reverse shrugs, cable flys with resistance bands and on a few occasions, side delt work. After the 3 heavy sets, I switched to moderate Arnold presses and then seated curls with the same weights. Last night was time for the squat machine and EZ bar curls on the Scott bench. Squat machine was definitely ok, but nothing special. Had to get a slight assistance from a co-worker to get the first rep up with 153 but ended up getting 5. I guess 155 has to wait until next year. Not sure what I'm gonna do the next two nights, but I'll figure something out.

Yeah, @The Natural referred and linked the said interview and I have been referring to it in serious AND joking manner on numerous occasions since then. I'm on a winter bulking myself and it has been hard.

I don't know how to react to that, quite honestly, but yeah. I have a mirror on my left hand side (and behind), so fortunately, I don't see this guy, otherwise I might.

Once the regular clothes come off, yeah, same here. But as someone on Instagram (or whatever) has written, "the work it takes to have a cleanish home and a mid physique is astounding", so let's not think he's not trying very F'n hard to do so!