SturmCRF

Shit on why? That match sounds like great fun. If it's because The Learning Tree are exactly the kind of nonsense Moxley claims to be against, I agree, but maybe that will play out in the match?

They've had Claudio Castagnoli winning matches by cheating. It's total cowardice, either push them as a bunch of dangerous thugs who might just have a point when they claim the rest of AEW is soft, or don't bother. Not all heels need to cheat to win, MJF sure, Ren Narita yes, Pac and Claudio and Moxley?! It's lazy, it's the same logic that gives us first fall wins three and four way matches. Grow some balls and have guys lose, it makes the wins mean more. The promos are good though.

They should have debuted someone. I would have even been excited to see Hikuleo debut in the Roman vs Solo match. He's one of the least exciting wrestlers you'll ever see, but he'd be new in this context, and novelty is the lifeblood of pro wrestling. Debuts and returns are much easier to do than all time classic matches like Omega vs Kidd, and the company controls when they happen. Why didn't anyone from NXT get a callup for this show? Everything moves like treacle, I should feel like I'm missing out only watching the PPVs, and if anything it feels like I only need to bother with three of them a year.

I thought Punk vs Rollins was decent from what little I absorbed while baby wrangling but the show as a whole was as intensely dull as it has been for several years. Yeah, the presentation is better and they say 'wrestling', but they also have even less of it than ever and parcel it out in a sea of filler and dross like they're doing the viewer a favour. That's not to even get into the Hulk Hogan, Riyadh Season plumbing of the depths, which I guess I'm complicit in if I still watch sometimes, but Jesus fuck.

One of my few shining moments at university was drunkenly DDTing a pinâta at a house party and cleanly decapitating it. Considering that's the only time I've ever even seen a pinâta in this country, and that this was on a concrete patio and I managed not to injure myself, the whole thing seems like something out of a fever dream, but I have excellent drunk recall and it definitely happened.

I often just let the Rampage ad break theme play while I go and get a drink or check my phone, mainly so I can mutter along to the theme. It's definitely Balls Are Made Of Stone, I refuse to countenance it being bones.

Didn't it end with Samoa Joe beating MJF to become world champ? I liked that PPV!

Preston Vance can pretend to be English and have a mild speech impediment, right?

Speaking with all the authority of a soft southerner, I think the default stereotype of the Geordie is of an amiable but semi feral alcoholic who rarely wears a shirt even in freezing temperatures, so Pac sort of half fits. But usually when people picture a Geordie caricature it's 80% the tragic former footballer Paul Gascoigne bringing chicken and a fishing rod to an on-the-run murderer, with 15% Michael The Geordie from Alan Partridge throwing a monkey in the sea and 5% the cast of Geordie Shore talking about tashing on and going to get some scran. And throw in light entertainment double act Ant and Dec, who I can think of no US equivalent for. Maybe the Street Profits back when they acted as an irritating Greek chorus for Monday Night Raw, but if they were really short white guys being witty about disgraced politicians eating cockroaches in an Australian jungle. This tangent won't have explained Pac any better to most of you though, I'm sorry.

He isn't from Scotland. He's from Newcastle, one of the most northern parts of England where the accent and dialect can be even less intelligible than some parts of Scotland.

That's a tough one. The Better Lovers album disappointed me a bit, though I owe it some more listens, but I love the EP and live they were phenomenal. I think Greg's choruses at their best are genuinely as good as it gets, but his screamy vocals can't quite live up to the unmatched expressiveness of Keith Buckley. I have grown to love Calculating, but it will still only ever represent half of what makes Dillinger my all time favourite band, because once Greg joined they made five albums in a row of exactly what I want music to sound like. Melody and noise both up to 11 in a beautiful mad intertwining dance. I 100% respect the sentiment of your preferring Better Lovers though, I don't trust the impulse to rate stuff based on its influence and make every band's early material a sacred cow that can't be topped, even when they spend nearly two decades building and improving on it. I am really happy and relieved that they added Ricochet vs Takeshita to this PPV.

Yeah, they're doing a Dimitri era reunion tour. No suggestion of any new material, but I'm trying not to begrudge them the pay day, even if I will always be a Greg guy.

He really did. It was a relatively slow and arty track off the Arc EP I'm pretty sure, rather than one of their 5 second long seizures where they shriek about doing acid joining a cult, but still.

I enjoy Malakai as a wrestler, but I really love that he has good, eclectic taste in music. That Amenra theme is maybe the best wrestling entrance of all time. And in Progress Wrestling he came out to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, so he's not just into big scary beard dude music, he's also into small scary craft beer guy music. He's like me if I was taller, more handsome, better at fighting people, and Dutch. His promos are a bit rambly and bollocks though.

Having Okada cheat to win when he doesn't have to, to emphasise what a heel he is, is fine in isolation. Doing it in a company where most of the heels cheat to win already, and more matches than not seem to end in interference, is a load of shite and bollocks. He's fucking Okada, just have him beat people clean, because he's fucking Okada, and then be a dickhead about it afterwards.