twiztor

11/5/2009. the following week. We open with Dixie Carter addressing the TNA roster and staff. This is not in front of the crowd, this is earlier in the day. Let me just transcribe exactly what she says (spoilered for length): Holy fuck, if i was working for TNA i would be looking for another job. FUCK anybody that tells you "i cannot allow you to question me." If this was supposed to be a rah-rah speech, it doesn't look like it landed. Most of the roster looked uninterested. IMO this makes Dixie look less like the leader she thinks she is, and more like somebody who thinks they know what they are doing, but are just flailing. i have led a number of teams/people both at work and in extracurricular activities. I constantly TELL my team to question me, or to call me out (professionally if in public or any way they want if in private) if I am doing something that doesn't make sense. it would never cross my mind to stand in front of my team and tell them to fall in line and do what i say, or get to stepping. The live show starts with AJ Styles coming to the ring, cementing that he is fully behind TNA's choices and talking about how great it is that Hulk Hogan is coming in. This just REEKS of trying to sell your audience something they're not buying. edited to add: as this show goes on, i'm getting real Poochie vibes. I know Hogan is a huge signing, but this is ridiculous. Whenever Poochie Hulk's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Poochie Hulk Hogan?" to continue the theme of my post from yesterday, the pace of the war drums increases.

i'm getting a little misty-eyed as the mortality of this board stares directly into my soul. this is not the worst idea. we're at 12 1/2 years on this version of the board. it's obviously had its share of issues. toss a header banner up or something that links/mentions the new home for any old timers or sporadic visitors that stumble back. and if we could get a public archive of any previous boards that still exist up, that would be a major bonus too.

i thought you were making a joke, but now i can't believe this is a real thing.

pardon my ignorance, but what is a FAST channel?

that Alex-Buck sequence isn't even remotely close to what Steve was doing vs. Tiger Mask. But i've seen Alex do all of those moves. I guess i'm saying that they should have chosen a better clip to compare.

and here's the music video / security footage referenced:

Happy belated bday @The Natural! i know i already said it on fb but i wanted to shout it out here too. Hope you're having a great weekend!!

i love this movie. it's definitely not good. i think i have the 2 issue comic book series from this too

Watching TNA Impact this morning. 10/29/2009. they just made an announcement that Hulk Hogan has joined TNA. Your ears perk at the deep thumping of distant of war drums. In the recesses of your mind you know the end was coming, but your pulse rate quickens.

Warrior #01 Ultimate Creations, May 1996 story by Warrior art by Jim Callahan I'm going to take a lesson from this book and start off with the definition of "destrucity", since i believe that is going to be the entire theme of this series (formatting is taken as originally printed): I'm going to attempt to take this series at face value, so if you see on the news that some guy in Iowa is starting his own religion, or cult, or self-help empire, you can look backwards in time and know that this is the inciting incident. Warrior kicks off this book by writing a diatrabe explaining the concept's we're (assumedly) about to explore. It is as batshit insane as you might expect, but it does define the "World of Parts Unknown" ("a resting place, so to speak, that holds captive those Higher Selves between evolutions searching for lifetimes, offering challenges not yet experienced in prior lifetimes. For this reason, the 'World of Parts Unkown' is literally the 'melting pot' of all Higher Selves who are evolving at different stages of strength in the disciplnes of 'Self-Belief' (i.e. Destrucity). Although at different levels of evolution, all the Higher Selves who exist here are still influenced by some form of the 'System Beliefs' and not completely evolved or true of Self.") Warrior's consciousness awakes, having been pulled into the mortal form. It rests through the seasons, then finally rises, seemingly called forth by the essence of the Warrior. He is visited by the spirit of his/a father, who tells him to be true to himself and that he will be challenged by an adversary "of eight minds...eight bodies...and just as many souls." Warrior dives into the water (?) to get himself FOKED ("focused"). But others can now also FOKE on him, so he bursts out of the water, attacking men in cloaks (??). This includes ripping one of their faces off via yanking their nostrils (?!!). Upon defeating the hoodes ones, the survivors disappear/teleport away. Warrior carves his symbol into the flesh of a fallen foe, who then disappears/bursts into flame. This release/transfer of energy transforms Warrior into the ULTIMATE WARRIOR (he's not actually referred to as that, but i feel like we're using Warrior as frequently as the Smurfs do with their name: the writer, the consciousness, the physical form, the essence, and now this final (?) incarnation) Meanwhile, a man is in a hospital bed, seemingly in a coma. His wife cries for him. Then there is a man/cyborg/wizard (?) that is obviously our villain. He says, with no context or reference, "Believe this...." Then there's a backup tale of a woman struggling with identity and bigotry. She downs a bottleful of pills, choosing to take her life rather than embracing the one she has. He is touched by the spirit of the warrior, returning to life and discarding the pills. OK, there's a LOT happening in this book. I had to read it in 1/2/3 page chunks and take time to digest what i had read. The writing is just so dense and verbose, but so much of this is concepts and ideas that exist solely to rationalize the psychotic. It's a lot of self-help psychobabble, which i do not buy into as a whole. So that means the story is more metaphorical rather than visual. But how about the art? Well, Callahan's not a terrible artist, but he clearly went to the Lieeld School of Anatomy. I know it is distinct and the new hotness back then, but it just lacks any emotion or sense of motion for me. Everything feels so static, so 'bedroom wall poster'. That possibly works better for a heady book like this, but i honestly don't know if that's a positive or negative.

that line is crazy just because it's kind of a cool concept, but in reality it's just dumb. nobody needs liontamer chris jericho (BTW it's weird seeing jericho with the new wcw logo) or construction worker goldberg (with jackhammer) or executioner lex luger (ok how did he never use "Lexecutioner", especially with his finisher being the torture rack?). but i can totally get why they thought it would work.

i mean, he could still be el Gigante, and it would still work with the gimmick.

oh, that's a good and thought provoking. With you 100% about those two HIAC matches in particular. One of the first tape comps i made was HIAC after tracking down the couple from summer '98 Raws. Hard to balance matches that are overdone but have some real standouts (i'm looking at you, Dog Collar matches!) Barbed Wire Match, Ladder Match/TLC, Ultimate X, Hell in a Cell

i enjoyed most of Snyder's runs, but definitely think he's overrated amongst the bat-fans. I didn't really like the Superheavy arc that saw Gordon take on an armored version of the Bat, and the Year Zero stuff left me cold. And once it got to all the multiversal stuff i felt pretty bleh about it all. But i did enjoy most of the Batman Who Laughs stuff, and Snyder's early run on the book i thought was pretty great (including Court of Owls). And of course the "Black Mirror" storyline with Dick Grayson was phenomenal. Absolute Batman is definitely not for me, however.

i skimmed this way too fast and thought it was "The rise and fall of X-Factor" and i thought, 'who asked for this?!?'