John E. Dynamite

Blessed to have a good view of the plunder hiding under the ring. I'm gonna get blood on me.

Good lord if I can find anybody to go with me on a Thursday. This'll be a new experience.

Given the face/heel splits, I think Takeshita being the one to dethrone Copeland makes the most sense. Cope vs. Callis Family seems so easy and obvious, and they've got some other Canadian shows theyre running in May and I think the timing for it would be perfect. And since Callis Family in-fighting is an established scenario following Ospreay's matches, there's no reason you can't run a Hobbes-Wants-His-Belt-Back match as a Collision main or something.

Weirdly enough the Young Bucks have an uncanny ability to make Private Party seem important. I struggle to say this without grinding my teeth, but any haters and habitual fast-forwarders should keep an eye on what they're doing under their new gimmick.

Ospreay/Shibata awakened some classic DVDVR haterade within me. Nothing mattered and nobody cared who won. It made me want to shout at some kid on reddit about how Taue's better than Kobashi.

What's been lost in the AEW free agent talk is that they were bidding against a company owned by the most anti-worker entity in American pro sports. I think the number has been about 15% of the UFC's revenue goes to the fighters. Thr big four sports leagues are a hair under 50/50.

Oh yeah, nah, it's a battle for second. Nagata vs. Sasaki is gross.

from that weird, good Bridge of Dreams card Barbed Wire Board & Barbed Wire Baseball Bat Bunkhouse Death Match Leatherface, Shoji Nakamaki & Terry Funk vs. The Headhunters (Headhunter A & Headhunter B) & Cactus Jack https://archive.org/details/bridge-of-dreams-dome-spring-full-bloom/1995.04.02g-IWAJ-Barbed+Wire+Board+Super+Scramble+Bunkhouse+6-Man+Tag+Death+Match-Funk%2C+Leatherface%2C+Nakamaki+VS+Cactus%2C+Headhunters.mp4

I too do not know why I liked the PS2 version. I think it might be on account of the fact that it trimmed some fat, but my better theory is that the framerate made me ditch sniper rifles and make that big blue fancy sword my main weapon, which wound up being a very fun way to play.

I like how it implied that Horner's opponent was always his husband and he was gonna murder him on account of all the cheatin'.

There's no reason we can't make the news again. I'm not gonna start the "Steve Maclin > Cody Rhodes" thread but I'll post in it.

Has the recent surge of WWE success led to an influx of children infilrating online wrestling discussion? Is the continued practice of less moderation inviting negative actors to create abad takes -> more arguments -> more clicks reaching a saturation point? Does the wrestling I like suck now? Am I just terribly depressed? Why does talking about wrestling on the internet suck more now that it ever has? This board doesn't even feel right. I just don't want to do it. I think of conversations worth starting, or matches worth sharing,, and then I consider the effort that it would take to post them *anywhere* and then I don't.

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Why is Jericho getting the best guys. Ugh. It never ends. At least Kevin Kelley will harp at length about Jericho's beef with LIJ.

Jack was fun when he was the go-to upper midcard underdog/hero of the children, but when he was asked to do more - mainly, be a competent and believeable promo - he couldn't. He couldn't sell a program, he couldn't garner main event heat, he couldn't tell a story unless a vet like Christian was telling it for him. And he's one of several day-one AEW guys who hit that wall. Good in-ring, solid character and/or mic work, physical credibility. You need two out of three, and he has one. Granted the heel turn seemed like a plan to help him develop the second point.

They should have that conversation in NJPW.

This is a Twitter take. Darby was telling him to go home for like three or four minutes.

Please, please, please. Let Darby turn on Sting.

You know you've banked a legit KO of the Year contender when the booth is audibly depressed over it.

Alright. The game is done. Close enough to 100% to be happy with. Think I got all the bosses knocked out, save for maybe one or two I left in an unfinished catacomb. The game is too big. I really think they could have cut an entire continent's worth of content and they would have been better for it. There were separate moments in Liurnia, Altus and especially the snow areas where it felt like I was stuck in a loop. Just no need for all that copy & pasting. And the obtuseness of the sidequests and certain mechanics are still dumb but that's a problem Fromsoft doesn't want to ever fix so at this point it is what it is. The open world was a blessing and a curse. Being able to put a marker on the map and return to an area when you were ready is the difficulty solution the series has always been looking for, especially given how subjective any given area's difficulty can be depending on your build. But stumbling across a really cool area you missed only to find you're melting everything it in because you're 40 levels too high always stunk. Still a beyond brilliant game, but a notch below Bloodborne in my book. The endgame bosses were what I hoped they would be. Malenia was really fun, probably took me about two dozen tries. It was the only point in the game where I immediately realized I needed to re-spec (lord knows they give you enough Larval Tears). So I played the menu game and slowly started to figure out a buncha neat stuff, like how STR is a way better stat than DEX or how really really good the Brass Shield is, or how I'd been sleeping on the Comet and Gravity Well spells for the whole game (not that they helped with Malenia) or how abusable the infinite FP physik is. After having gone 80 hours basing my game around the Death's Poker ashes and sorcery I would up dropping proper weapons completely and beat the endgame bosses right-handing my Lusat's Scepter like a goof while hiding behind a Brass Shield with the very good Barricade Shield ashes. The run where I beat her was a trainwreck. Popped a crab but completely forgot to Rune Arc or anything else. Tische got wiped out Phase 1 and I completely botched my big Comet Azur Phase 2 opening purely out of unfamiliarity with its icon. But the stuff that worked continued to work, which was staying at medium range to keep her offensive AI indecisive, shielding through one part of Waterfowl before dodging towards her, and a nonstop barrage of fully-charged Spiral Shard with Godfrey's Icon buffing them. I probably only saw her second phase less than 10 times and I wish I could get back in there and fight her again and again. Elden Beast was all about loading way up on Holy Damage negation through buffs, equip and the Erdtree Shield. I hadn't crafted a liver the entire game but those Holyproof Livers were crucial. Once again I didn't even bother with a proper weapon. Comet for Radagon, Spiral and Loretta's Mastery for the big stardog. Spacing, spacing, spacing. Learning when to shield. Rolling into the big sword projectiles. Fully charged everything. Eating crab, hon.

Not if you plop your hog on St. Peter's desk. A sincere RIP

I really wish I was fluent in Spanish because I love me some background teevee when I'm playing old games on handheld. I can kinda perk my head up for the competitive stuff and the meaty bits when I have territorial stuff on, or all the old TNA PPVs they have up for free. If I could 100% parse the undercard commentary while my eyes were preoccupied until the tercera I'd be in heaven. I guess baseball is the platonic application of this concept.

AJ McKee looked like a Top 10 P4P fighter hiding in plain sight. That wasn't the dude who should have lost to Roberto de Souza, that's the guy who beat Pitbull.

Talking soft and saying nothing. I'll get cynical here and say he sounds like an accomplice. But his is one of dozens of public takes I'd say the same about

Makachev taught Volk how to lose + Topuria's right would have KO'ed an elephant if he'd caught it EXACTLY on the point of the chin like that. It was a dream punch and he earned it. His striking work when his opponent is against the fence is top level.