AxB

They used to do lots and lots of squash matches, but Dark and Elevation got killed. It's funny, because whenever The Acclaimed had a tag squash, unlike most of the roster who would go 4-6 six minutes (and give the unsigned indie guy a full sequence of offence), they would go over in 30 seconds without taking or selling anything.

The creator of The White Lotus is a right-wing person who is trying to make a show about how great rich people are. It's just his perspective is so politically skewed that the things he's depicting neutrally, that he thinks are impressive displays of exceptionalism, they look like asshole behaviour to most observers.

To create... FUBU? Kevin Nash will be thrilled!

Because of that Mox vs Yuta match, where Yuta couldn't join the BCC unless he bled with Mox, and then he hit that extreme gusher and his blood was getting everywhere.

We do Tournaments on the Discord now. Right now, 'Kiss' by Prince is kicking the shit out of 'Soma' by The Smashing Pumpkins in the "Best song with a four letter title" tournament.

The Speaking Out movement couldn't have happened in the 70s or 80s the way it did in the 2020s. It would have required massive assistance from either journalism or law enforcement, or it wouldn't have happened. BUT the fact that it did happen is clear proof that there was serious misbehaviour to expose. Booker T giving a seminar at Chasyn Rance's school is a big stain of Booker's legacy, because if you know who Chasyn Rance is, you know he's a convicted sex offender

Bam Bam told that story in a shoot interview, yes.

Stumbling on? He started it.

Didn't Sid shit himself during a match at Wrestlemania one year? Also, Sabu threw up in an ECW match once. Crawled over to the ropes, stuck his head out and vommed on the floor, then turned back to face his opponent and continued the match like it was nothing.

As far as Anthony Bowens' new theme goes, I was going to say that it was nice that Jane's Addiction were back on good enough terms with one another to agree to license a song. But then I remembered that Perry has a 62.5% vote share of everything the band does (and earns), so it doesn't actually matter if Dave, Steven and the other one weren't up for it. I did see a rumour that the reason Anthony Bowens was at the LA premiere of The Last of Us Season 2 was not simply because he's a HBO Max performer doing some cross promotion, but in fact because he's actually an actor in the show, but I'm not sure it's true. It seems something that would be talked about, rather than something that would be kept quiet for the surprise pop.

Robert Pattinson has been cast in Dune Part Three, which will push back the filming on The Batman 2: Bat-lectric Boogaloo until early 2026. So it's coming later, not sooner.

And not a few days later, back to the top. The top 3 is really tight though, I can see it coming down to Goal Difference. It's going to be a real injustice if whichever team finishes third doesn't go on to win the Playoffs.

I liked how Adam Cole wore brown gear, thus symbolising how every time he's feuded with a champion in AEW, their title reign has turned to shit. He not only marred Hangman's World title run, he ruined MJF's World title run (and both times the feud was overextended way too long, despite the first big match underwhelming in the ring). As far as Moxley goes, he has a similar disconnect in his career to that which Mick Foley had; What he's most proud of, and what the fans love him for, are two different things. With Foley, he very much saw himself as primarily a storyteller. He's gone into detail in his books about how he envisaged his matches not a series of moves that are sold, but as a series of story beats, as one character interacting with another, within the context of a wrestling match. But a lot of his fans, they didn't really get that. For most of his career, and now in his post-career legacy, he's widely thought of as Mr Blood and Mayhem. Mr Death Bump. Now Mox, it's a similar thing, but not exactly the same. He did want to be a Blood and Mayhem guy, early in his career. And then he signed for WWE before he'd fulfilled his ambitions in that direction, and spent years frustrated that he had to portray the PG version of a Deathmatch wrestler (meaning, he had to be kooky). Then he got out of WWE, and was finally able to fulfil those Deathmatch yearnings, on a far bigger stage than he would ever otherwise have been able to do... but times change and people change, and it seems like he's a lot less in love with blood nowadays. Seems like he's a lot more in love with technical wrestling and his Jiu Jitsu classes, and he wants his matches to feature more shoot(ish) grappling. Which is not what the fans want to see from him* (and some of his opponents *COPE* can't really keep up with him at the tekkers either, which compounds the issue). So between that and the very WWE-ish Heel Champion booking he's getting, it's no wonder his performances are being considered so unsatisfactory. * There is also the issue that he's not actually that good at it. I mean, he was never going to move like ZSJ or Gresham in there, but he's not a guy who moves fluidly, he's a guy who moves stiffly. Needs to watch WoS HEAVYWEIGHT matches, doesn't he? More Pete Roberts, less Johnny Saint.

The thing I liked about Pac vs Cash was, the way they filmed Cash's tope. Usually when someone gets thrown out of the ring, they cut to a wide shot of the ring, showing the guy hyping the crowd and setting up his dive, and then he dives and splatters his opponent at ringside, and everyone goes "That guy totally saw him coming, why didn't he move?". Whereas here, the camera stayed on Pac as he sold the discombobulation of being thrown out of the ring, and his head only came back to looking in the ring (and the camera only slid over to show what he was seeing) a second before Cash came flying out only him. So it's clear that he didn't see him coming, and couldn't have gotten out of the way in time. So that was really good.

I think possibly Tony looked at WWE, and thought "I know! We'll have an overlong storyline where a former member of The Shield holds the World title for absolutely ages and does nothing with it, just cuts a bunch of rambling promos that don't really make any sense and wins all of the time!" and doesn't understand why it's not equally beloved.

I don't get how someone could pull an "Everyone on the board knows me", and yet apparently not know that Elsavajeloco is a black man. If someone were to say "I don't mind it* when people make racist jokes against black people", that's offensive to everyone who's not a white supremacist, obviously, but it's personally offensive to any black person who reads it. But fuck it BloodyChamp, you've dug your way into a hole, keep digging and we'll see if you find your way out of it. * Which is always going to read as "I like it". It's like that thing about if there's nine people at the table and one Nazi, and nobody is objecting to the Nazi being there, there might as well be ten nazis at the table.

Fucking Austria changed it's name to Fugging Austria to deter the sign thieves. In Australia, there's a band called Parkway Drive, that is named after the street they used to rehearse on. The city ended up not replacing the street sign, but instead painting the street name on the road surface itself.

I live near Butt Lane. Which is a town, not a road.

https://youtu.be/hY4TgKp8JZA?si=Z1wZkOTvTSWyRuEb Jun Kasai documentary, with English subtitles.

The Red Bank that Tremont will be running H2O out of is near Chattanooga TN, sorry.

As soon as we saw the Battery, we figured "Oh, well that's obviously flat", so when he sparked the clamps against each other we freaked out.

In other US Indie news, Matt Tremont has shut down the H2O centre in New Jersey and moved his family to Tennessee, H2O will continue to exist and start running shows again soon, but they'll be in the TWE centre in Red Bank. What happens to the rest of the regular H2O roster, I don't know.

They aren't giving anyone a HoF ring while they're active in AEW. And I don't see any way Mercedes Mone isn't still in AEW a year from now.

Road Report: ICW No Holds Barred vs Rise:Underground / ICW NHB 72 in Sheffield, West Yorkshire So, a week ago I went to the ICW No Holds Barred double header in Sheffield (there was a Friday night Rise: Underground show that made it a triple header, but I didn't go to that one). I was meeting up with a couple of lads (Atti and Scott) from the AEW Dynamite Discord, and then a fourth guy (Valo) joined us for the evening show as well. It was... really fucking good. The hotel I booked in Sheffield, it was really weird. It was an old (like pre-WW1) office building that had been converted into a Hotel very slightly, and the person who owned it didn't seem to have very much experience of actually running hotels. Or indeed staying in hotels other people had run. It had no on-site staff, just a load of cameras in the corridors and above the doors and stuff. You typed a secret code into the main door to get in, and another into an internal console to unlock the tiny box your room key was in... after the show the three of us staying there went to hang out in Atti's room (it was stupidly large, it looked less like a hotel room and more like a set from a porn movie set in a hotel), and the hotel phoned him up to tell him he'd only booked for one person to stay and he wasn't allowed guests. Luckily he was 10 pints deep by that point so they didn't really argue with him. Much. Also I'd booked a double room just for myself but Scott was also staying there, and they thought we should have paid extra for that. Like it's a double room with two single beds, so the fact that both beds would be slept in instead of just one shouldn't matter, but they were quite adamant. Although they didn't actually charge me anything extra for doing that, so either they weren't watching the cameras assiduously enough, or they'd just given up. Anyway, the shows. The opening match of the afternoon show was Gary Jay vs Kody Manhorn. Really hard hitting... I've been watching Gary Jay via the internet for years, and the stiffness of his chops has always seemed terrifying, but being there live, well, he was slapping hands on his way around the ring on his entrance, and I was front row so of course I tagged hands with him, and that really hurt. Dread to think what actually being hit by one feels like. In person, his chops are less of the loud SLAP and more of a deep, resonant THUD. Also on show one we had Malcolm Monroe the third vs (Danny) Darko (it still mystifies me that Danny Darko is called Danny Darko, but isn't in any way doing a Donny Darko gimmick; Then again Alice Crowley isn't doing an Aleister Crowley gimmick either, so never mind), which was rather notable for... right, you know how ICW NHB's whole USP is The Chains? They don't use regular ring ropes in the ring, they use actual steel chains instead? Well, MM3 had Darko down in the corner, puts a light tube on his chest, runs up with a chair and does a low dropkick, Darko falls back into the corner, THE FUCKING CHAIN SNAPS and he ends up taking an unplanned bump out of the ring to the concrete! Fucking insane. Also the match was really good. They weren't able to fix the bottom chain for the whole rest of the show. Tim Strange vs Iceman vs Big Fucking Joe vs Michael Caden was a ton of fun... Iceman got busted up pretty bad, took a nasty chair to the head and looked right in my eyes and I was like "That guy is fucked up", which was concerning, considering the match he was booked in for the evening show. Drew Parker vs Tommy Vendetta was marked by TOV's being a Deathmatch heel by wrestling in a hoodie. This served him well for defence on Drew's darts spot (the two aimed at his back bounced off, the one aimed into his arse cheek stuck in), but then backfired on him when Parker smashed a tube over his head, then picked him up for a delayed vertical suplex and we could see all of the shards that had gone down his back raining out while he was upside down. Dr Redacted (along with ring announcer Bobby Banks) had had trouble flying into the show due the shit at Heathrow the day before, so his open challenge spot was taken up by ICW NHB owner Danny Demanto. Answering the open challenge was a returning (from injury) Clint Margera, who didn't look like a guy who'd been out of the ring for 8 months. We all had a lot of fun singing Danny is a Cunt (fun fact: ICW NHB ring crew guy Mittens, Danny Demanto's 'adopted son', was the guy who started that song; We just went along with it) and Danny got to call us all a bunch of ungrateful sons of bitches, it was great. Otis Cogar vs Jack Harrop was a lot of fun, although the result wasn't in doubt (being as Otis was challenging his brother Atticus Cogar for the title in the evening show; Jack Harrop's evening match was against Iceman. Iceman's real name is Isaac Harrop. He is Jack Harrop's dad. This was their 4th match against each other, and they are ridiculously violent every fucking time). And the main event of Show number one was a non-title Superfight between European Deathmatch Champion Big Lou Nixon, and American Deathmatch World Champion Atticus Cogar. They brawled around the building, so we started a Please Come Back chant during the match because we couldn't see. A lot of the matches on show number one were comparatively bloodless, presumably because they were saving themselves for show number two. But anyway, Otis Cogar interfered to give Atticus the win, the show ended, and we headed out Outside, we wandered the streets of Sheffield trying to find where Valo had parked, get lost twice looking for a Cash Machine (my fault), crossed a river we never realised existed (I was seized by an urgent curiosity to know what river it was; It's the River Sheif), lost track of time, never did find a cash machine, and went to the second show. Now the thing about Valo is, he's a wrestler and promoter himself, he's 20 years in (he has a 2-0 record in singles matches against Will Ospreay). And walking into the show, he suddenly saw like 15 people he knew, and who knew him. Also, our friend Atti? The reason we call him that is, his username in the Discord is Atticus Cogar, after his favourite wrestler, Atticus Cogar. And this was the first time in his life he'd been in the same building as the real Atticus. So obviously we try to get Atti to go up to Atti and ask for a selfie, and he gets really nervous schoolgirl, like he's scared his favourite wrestler won't like him. Despite the fact that he's five pints deep (he works in a pub though, he's got tolerance), we really have to build him up to go and say hello and ask for a photo. And when he does, the real Atticus is as nice as pie "You're my favourite wrestler, I was the only guy cheering for you against Lou Nixon" (he was; everyone else cheering for Atticus vs Lou was a girl). So Scott goes to take the photo, and as soon as he does Wrestler Atticus pops up on his tiptoes so he can look taller than Atticus the fan, despite being shorter IRL. Then Atti gets a photo with Otis as well, and Otis' split tongue looks freaky in person. I got a couple of photos with Mittens and this trainee called Skylar, a couple of the non-booked wrestlers attending as fans admired my Act Two shirt (Act Two is the tag team of Benjamin Harland and Jack Knudsen, they were wrestling on a completely different show in a completely different town at the time, but they're a top act in my local indie, and quite a lot of other local indies as well). Oh yeah, and someone had managed to fix/ replace the bottom chain, so we were back to having three again, instead of just the top two. SHOW 2! woo-hoo! Gary Jay vs Danny Darko was hard hitting. So was Tommy Vendetta vs Big Joe (it was announced as The Pillars vs Joe and Leonardo Darwin, but MM3 took Dr Redacted's spot so this was changed to a singles). It was largely notable for Vendetta deciding to bust out a couple of John Cena spots, be rewarded with us singing "Vendetta Sucks" to the tune of Cena's entrance music, and Tommy grinning his face off at the thought that he now has a chant that should follow him for his entire career. Also Big Joe should change his name to Svelte Joe, dude has slimmed down a ton. Speaking of WWE-influenced chants, fans have been chanting B A Rose's name to the New Day rhythm for years now, and MM3 being booked against him (and having gotten himself over with us earlier in the night; Someone said to him "I hear Detroit sucks" and he without hesitation responded "I hear your Mom swallows") we all started chanting M... M3 to the New... Day Rocks rhythm too, and he looked well happy with that. Also this match had a barbed wire spidernet at ringside and a bed of nails in the ring, so it was probably the most violent one so far. Like they did a Tiger Dirver 98 onto the nails and shit, it fucking ruled. Drew Parker decided to draw some heat from Danny Demanto by showing up the match wearing a GCW shirt (at one point Danny Demanto co-owned and co-booked GCW with Brett Lauderdale; He was forced out, bought ICW New York and renamed it ICW NHB, and GCW has been in a creative rut ever since). Drew Parker, we go from cheering him because he's British, to booing him when he's announced as being from North Wales, and then cheering him again in the space of a few seconds. I met him in the train station on Sunday morning, he's a really nice guy. We changed our Demanto song from Danny is a Cunt to Danny's Still a Cunt (and yes, Mittens started this one too), so he got to call us Ungrateful SOBs again. Clint Margera had his second match back from injury, challenging Big Lou Nixon for the European Deathmatch Championship, and it was really, really good (some people dislike the Lou is using shootstyle in Deathmatches and having a rear naked choke as his finish; I think it's great). But rhen came Jack Harrop vs Iceman, which... like they're both in that 20 stone area, they're big dudes, and Iceman is in his late 40s. Athletically, they're limited, so they make up for that (in a Deathmatch sense) by wrestling a style that's excessively violent by deathmatch standards. And so it was here. It was bloody, glass everywhere, they were both exhausted a few minutes in, but Iceman in particular looked to have no energy left. So Jack goes and gets a couple of short chains and ties his Dad's arms to the middle chain, like they're setting up the old Raven/Dreamer crucufixion chair shot. Then he leaves the ring and comes back with a set of jump leads and a car battery. Hooks them to the battery, and then sparks tham against each other, so we know the battery is charged and not flat. And then he hooks the jump cables to the chain on either side of Iceman's hands, and Iceman acts like he's being electrocuted, and Jack wins by ref stoppage. And then, we get the main event. For the American Deathmatch (World) title (It's the American Deathmatch Championship, but it's being defended internationally, so it's a World title; I don't make the rules) Champion Atticus Cogar vs number one contender Otis Cogar, his brother. Our friend Atti starts chanting Fuck You Otis and Atticus is like "That's my brother, man" and Atti gets all embarrassed. Atticus takes off his strangely Elvis-esque entrance attire and we get the bell, and the staredown, and it looks like they're going skewers vs straight razor from the get go... then they do a fingerpoke of doom, Atticus wins in under a minute and they both flip us all off. And then Danny Demanto comes out, outraged that they promised him they wouldn't do that and then went and did it anyway, so he orders them to have an actual match or he'll cancel their flights and they'll have to stay in England forever. And it turns into the Glassiest, Bloodiest match on the show. Like there was blood everywhere. You get the rarely heard "What the fucking, what the fucking, what the fucking hell is that?" chant as they brought a large wooden structure holding a bed of light tubes into the ring, and both guys are up on the platform (it's tricky to do top rope moves from a chain your feet can't grip, so they have a wooden board on top of some of the corner posts to stand on) trying to throw each other through it. The match is long, it's epic, it's great, it's probably Atticus' best title defence since he won it 11 months ago, and the locker room empties so Danny can do his Send 'em home happy speech (our song changes again, to Danny's NOT a Cunt; Mittens didn't start that one). And then we leave, Valo tries to give us a lift back to the hotel but we accidentally go to a posh wine bar of the same name, and no sooner are we dropped off than Atti decides we should go on a munchies run to a late night shop. And that's where the story ends, more or less. They were a couple of really good shows, you should watch them when they hit IWTV. Whenever that is, apparently they're coming out on DVD first so it might be delayed. ICW NHB is returning to the UK in September, in Perth (Scotland) right before my Birthday for another 3 shows in two days deal, and I'm probably going to that too. And some of the lads might also be going too. Maybe even more than the 4 man crew we had this time.

So you know how a few wrestlers have started calling themselves two-time Hall of Famers, because they've gone in as a solo performer and as part of a team or faction? Triple H is going to eventually make sure that both Shawn and Flair have more HoF rings than Bret does, isn't he?