regmcfly wrote:

g.man wrote:

I'm totally in for Hitman Hollis v Jake Frost at Clash At The Castle.

I'd call in my big pal Gav McIntyre, biggest Gers fan I know.

If anyone wants to approach me in the locker room and offer an alliance where I turn heel on my tag partner for money/a shot at gold, I can be got at. I have my price.

GOLD

Yeah it's been a bit weird. AEW has had a bad week, hold they will recover from it. Osprey is my current Boo. Think Frosty is right in nailing the NOT MAD HONESTLY.

It is absolutely not worth watching. I felt like I had it on for ages but must have only been halfway through. Total garbage but was fine to have on while I was working.

Did you see the other good news of the weekend? Matt Hardy's contract has expired and he is now a free agent. Hopefully he turns up on raw and I never need to see him again

Also @Dogfingers can you to dm me the special links to the cmll match against the bcc and the Danielson match against blue panther if you have them? No idea where to get cmll shows it turns out.

Last five minutes of clusterfuck was class. Final 3 of Microman, Yoshihiko and Nick Gage and all to play for. 

Nick Gage has an aura and him beating the shit out of Yoshihiko and playing it totally straight was just a really fun time.

Definitely not worth the preceeding two hours of the match though

Really enjoyed the second night of Wrestlemania. Watched the whole thing. Highlights were the first match and the last but there was lots of good stuff in between. Incredible that that main event was something they had to pull out of their asses. They got everything right.
Other stray observations having watched almost no wrestling in about two decades -
I haven't seen much of Seth Rollins but I hate him and his outfits and his stupid walk to the ring and was glad he repeatedly got the shit kicked out of him across several events.

Randy Orton is great. Logan Paul is the best heel they've got.

Finishers have gone wrong. Every match seemed to need multiple finishers to er finish someone. I noticed it last night and it was even worse in the second night. Aside from the finishers there were some really good moves that could have been used to finish a match but didn't. That avalanche German suplex by LA Knight was brilliant.

Jesus Reg you must be absolutely dead. Hopefully the Rocks mana keeps you going until you can finally sleep.  I am glad you had such a lovely time this weekend.

Should do a big forum trip to wrestlemania for the lads.

monkey wrote:

Finishers have gone wrong. Every match seemed to need multiple finishers to er finish someone. I noticed it last night and it was even worse in the second night. Aside from the finishers there were some really good moves that could have been used to finish a match but didn't.

The finisher stuff has been going on for ages in North American wrestling "epics". In the big ppv matches the baby face never gives up and the heels are too tough to be put down that they all need multiple finishers to get it done.  Usually the finish is whoever is winning has to find another way to get it done as the regular finisher isn't working so it's usually 3 of them, the finisher but off the top rope, or if it's the heel then it's a belt shot or a low blow.

Think it started with John Cena but not sure. I don't think it's great as it's been totally overdone but it is what it is. Think I prefer the more counter based finishes where they can't get it off as I don't normally buy the near falls from regular finishers in the big US matches anymore.

I really loved the Danielson approach when in the lead up to his match with Hangman Page he worked his way through the dark order and in each match established a different move as a match finisher so that in the big ppv match if he locked in one of the 5 or 6 moves he'd established as a finisher you didn't know if that was going to be it. Drama out the ass.

Twice in a Lifetime I remember was laughed at as being Smackdown Vs Raw with infinite finishers enabled.

There are ways to get around multiple finishers being an issue. The most obvious one is that the opponent rolls out of the ring. Another is that it takes too long to get a cover, or can only drape themselves over rather than hooking the leg. Or they can be too close to the ropes and we get a rope break. If there is a manager, they can cause a distraction so the ref misses the count, or delays it.

I do also like the 'debuts a new finisher,' but obviously this is going to have to be fairly limited. Bryan had another great example of this in the SummerSlam match where the flying knee came out. It felt like he had to win, but we couldn't see how he was going to beat Cena with a submission. Then he did the knee and we went "oh yeah, that will do it".

Decided my favourite moment of all Wrestlemania was Kevin Owens telling a truck to suck it.

That's some good stuff, that.

Is the thing in the hand known? Also what's the official reason Rocky is offski?

Rock is making a movie, back in time for Summerslam, no one knows what the thing in hand is. A new macguffin.

The belt bit is the best bit of the whole segment, real sleaze hitting rock, fair play to him for doing that.

afgavinstan wrote:

Watched a history of Cody Rhodes thing. Knew about AEW and how that all happened but didn't know much about before that. Fair play to him. There's something about him I like but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe because every time I see him I think of that Real Bout Fatal Fury cover.

I think the thing about Cody is that's he's not afraid to be absolutely earnest, and handled correctly that can make for incredibly powerful connections with the audience. He doesn't come off as fake, with the exception of the brief fuck up where he handed the Mania keys to Rock, but they fortunately course corrected that pretty quick and it resulted in possibly the greatest WrestleMania main event of all time.

He's what we could have had with John Cena if Vince had fucked off years ago.

I can't help but dislike Rhodes. Probably because he is 'too real' when I'm used to wrestlers being so gloriously OTT. U get the same with Zayn.

The guy who took over from Kevin Dunn (rest in piss) came from ESPN, so he actually knows what he's doing.

Honestly H, it's the same guys that have been doing the ringside cams for more years than I could begin to guess. Amazingly talented crew they have. Some of the best handheld work in the entire tv industry tbh, and that's a hell of a tough shift. These guys go for hours where my back would give out in a matter of minutes, and from a professional point of view, I'm consistently in awe of their work. Worth noting that several of their mainstay operators are quite old to still be doing that sort of work, which makes it all the more impressive.
I haven't seen the Raw one take, as I only get to see highlights on YouTube, but I have noticed them doing a lot more of that sort of thing in recent months. The Sami Zayn entrance at Wrestlemania was brilliant. I'd be lying if I said I was paying that much attention to the camerawork at that point in proceedings, but it'll probably be done on a steadicam rather than just a handheld.

These things are really just production decisions tbh. They're clearly just being more receptive to new (old*) ideas to make the show better.
*it's such a 90s thing tbh, and back then the long one takes were all done on cabled handheld cams. Think things like TFI Friday and pretty much every live kids Saturday show for the origins of this sort of move being popular. When I started in tv, I used to have to cable-bash they guys doing these moves, and after a few years, I'd be doing the actual camerawork myself.
Those days are long gone for me now. Body just isn't up to it. The people that do predominantly handheld work make a good living, because the truth is, most of us just don't want to know about it any more. We're all getting old.