AxB

WWE likes to keep the odd babyface around long after their over-ness has expired. Like Hardcore Sparkplug Bob Holly had a really long run, and was only a pushed, over guy for very little of it.

There was that time in the early years of the Wednesday Night War, when... I don't know what Dijak was saying, but Kenny responded on his twitch stream by referring to him as "Donovan Dickhead" and talking about what a sycophant he was to Triple H.

That was a part of her indie entrances too, she would always have at least a couple of ring crew members in Togas accompanying her. It was because her gimmick was that she was a Greek Goddess, and the best way to illustrate that is with worshippers. As far as why she's not doing it any more, I would guess that because it was never a permanent role for any one person but instead an interchangeable "Whoever's there" thing, they figured it was unnecessary. Or perhaps it's a faction fatigue thing.

The one thing I did like on the PPV, the crowd tried to do the acapella singalong with Metalingus once Edge's entrance music faded out, and it fell apart instantly and was horribly de-synchronised by the end. UK crowds can do it, Aussie crowds can do it, but American crowds, they can't.

Not having decisive finishes was (and is) a WWF/E trope since forever. We can't be having Superstars look weak, can we?

Two weeks into the new job, I'm settling in OK, the bosses seem to like me, I've already got a result (and you aren't expected to get anything in your first month). More importantly, my son's baby, my first Grandchild, is going to be a girl.

Whoever wins the Owen gets the title shot at All In. Ospreay wants to be World Champion, but the World title isn't defended often, and the next two title shots are already locked in. So if he wants to challenge for the belt somewhere down the line in 2025, what better place to do it than at All In, in a stadium in Texas? Then he can have his first defence at Forbidden Door, at an undisclosed location in London in August. So yeah, he brought up the Owen for that reason.

Michael Cole used to always say "If you could build a WWE Superstar from the ground up, you would create Randy Orton". But if Dave Meltzer could build a Pro-Wrestler from the ground up, he would build Will Ospreay. If Vince Russo could build a wrestler from the ground up, he would build Vince Russo, but with massive tits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW6EZyqNck8 WWE has put Stephanie Vaquer vs Giulia from last night up on YouTube. It's OK.

WWE ID prospect Marcus Mathers has, since signing the ID deal, lost a match to Nick Wayne. WWE ID guy Bryce Donovan has lost to Kris Statlander. Them doing jobs to AEW wrestlers is apparently a non-issue. Now doing jobs to unsigned wrestlers, that I don't know. On a lot of indie shows, they're tending to book ID prospect vs ID prospect lately.

AJPW. In the 90s, Kenta Kobashi would do a short-arm knee to the belly and the announcer would yell "Shin Sink" which was either a mispronunciation of Kitchen Sink, or it got mistranslated into that at some point.

I knew who Mariah May was before she went to Stardom.

The Kitchen Sink is specifically a knee to the gut. A punch to the gut is merely a "body shot".

OK, so the results of the Best Batman Movie Tournament (on the DVDVR Discord) are as follows: Round One: Batman (1989) defeats The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Batman Forever (1995) draws with The Lego Batman Movie (2017) Batman (1966) defeats Batman and Robin (1997) Batman Returns (1992) defeats Batman Begins (2005) Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) defeats Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) The Dark Knight (2008) defeats The Batman (2022) Round Two: Batman (1989) defeats Batman Forever (1995) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017) Batman Returns (1992) defeats Batman (1966) The Dark Knight (2008) defeats Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) Final: Batman (1989) defeats Batman Returns (1992) and The Dark Knight (2008) Meanwhile, in the D&D server The Dark Knight won (over 89 and Begins in the final), and in LGBTQ+ Wrestling server, Mask of the Phantasm won (beating 89 and Returns).

Apparently that part was cast* but then cut down to “MJF in The Iron Claw” levels of exposure. * Mickie James was playing her.

They were fired for bleeding.

Lumping Swerve in with the “WWE Stink” guys is foolish. He’s an indie guy who had a great Lucha Underground run, was under-utilised in NXT and then had a WWE main roster run that consisted of like one promo and possibly a squash match.

I think Ricochet was the cause of the epidemic of Accidental Yellowface in AEW that lasted for a few months. Like everyone was wearing fake tan that made them look unhealthily Yellow (Adam Cole being the most obvious offender), but it started right after Ricochet showed up, and now everyone else has stopped wearing bright yellow fake tan except Ricochet. Dralistico was very impressive, in that early in the match, the fans were chanting Lucha Lucha Lucha and treating it like an all-Babyface match, cheering for the action. But then he managed to turn himself heel (on the fans in the building; he was already a heel, but not having RUSH walk out with him might not have clued them in) during the body of the match, by wrestling like a dick. And that got Hologram over as the babyface on the night.

Everton fans are NOT HAPPY. In general, most of the time. But also right now they are specifically not happy about Charlie Adam being added to their coaching staff, as Set Piece Specialist. Now as a guy who played for Stoke under Tony Pulis, he does know quite a lot about Set Pieces. But before that, he played for Liverpool, so the Merseyside Blues don't accept him. They're also bringing up that he has a manly hairline and is fond of his food, but football fans in general aren't really considerate about such issues.

Comorotto leaving AEW and Hammerstone leaving TNA at the same time... tag them up and send them to NJPW, they can be the new Roid Warriors over there.

Tonight, I was at New Wave West Midlands' "Grapple in Newchapel" show. It was really good. The show was 3 miles from my house, so I walked there (and back). Main event was Brendan White vs Visage, Visage being the babyface. It's a family friendly All Ages show (the couple next to me brought their baby) and our main event babyface is a wrestling Drag Queen. It was really good, the kids loved it. They had this International Scramble match where there was loads of guys in it, but they were all actually International. Hazz Hype and Man Like Dereiss, they're both English, but there was an Italian guy, two Spanish guys, a Norweigan Death Metal guy, a South Asian guy who was representing Wales, and this Vietnamese Catboy dude. It was really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zHPsmXCjB0 Last of Us Season 2 trailer.

Matt Tremont isn't washed in 2025, what you talking about? Because he's visibly aged in the face quite a lot, people nowadays assume he's a contemporary of Nick Gage and in his mid to late-40s. He's not, he's 35 (well, he turns 36 tomorrow). But when he showed up in CZW in 2011, he was only 22 years old, and facially resembled a 6 month old baby that had somehow grown a beard.

I do find it very funny that, when Dark and Elevation still existed and The Acclaimed had a squash match, they would usually eschew "the five minutes, let the indie guys gat a move or two in" style and just demolish them in under 30 seconds. And now that Caster is on a run of jobbing, he still has the same "No, we don't need any ring time, give it to one of the other matches" approach.

Having finally watched Dynamite (my new work schedule means watching live is out of the question), I really like most of the show. But I did not enjoy the Cope vs Yuta match. It felt like a sidestep in the story, like we'd been told that Copeland was going to take out the Death Riders one by one, and he got rid of Claudio and Pac (and Willow got rid of Marina) by hitting them in the head with chairs. So the expectation was he'd be caving Yoots' skull in too. But instead, the storyline was he took him out by outwrestling him and earning his respect. But the thing was, Cope isn't actually the technician to do an "I'm outwrestling the tekker" match, and Yuta isn't quite at that Gresham/ Thatcher/ ZSJ level where he can have a broomstick credibly outwrestle him by putting himself into holds. So it looked less like Yuta was being outwrestled, and more like Copeland was just arbitrarily popping out of holds whenever he felt like it. Like he was trapped in the Cattle Mutilation, a hold that is built up as danerous and inescapable, and then he just... stood up. Like it was nothing. He didn't struggle to escape the hold, he just teleported out of it. It was one of those things, it didn't make Copeland look skilled and resourceful, it made Yuta look inept. So it was another bad chapter in a bad book about Copeland vs Moxley by proxy, basically. And all of this "Moxley has no backup going into the big match, usually he relies on his buddies running interference, but they're all hurt or alienated now" story, it feels... disingenuous. Like the classic Cage match build, where the idea is "Nobody gets in, nobody gets out, it's strictly one on one to a finish", that only works if you actually build to a decisive finish. End it on a run-in or a distraction too many times, and people start to not believe it, and you have to invent a new, more serious Cage match (Hell in the Cell) just to hook them into believing it'll be up and up this time. It doesn't feel like they're teasing Moxley's comeuppance, it feels like they're teasing someone turning on Copeland. And that kind of sucks. Main Event Mariah and Toni, please.