forameus

In Camden and about to head over, really looking forward to the show but fucking hell it's going to be long.

Having someone have a gimmick where they largely go after people whose Dads have died so they can cut promos on them is certainly a choice. Still think the Wembley card could have been better - and it really showed how they've brought both shows down when they ran down the current state of All Out and gave two matches you probably wouldn't glance at for Dynamite - but really looking forward to it now. Should be a great show.

Reports seem to be suggesting that FTR are still planned to participate in their match at Wembley. Guess that's wholly dependent on whether he gets stopped at the border for being a tit. Absolute scenes when Brawl Out 2 happens with Cash in the Ace Steel role.

The train strike stuff doesn't seem quite as bad as I thought. Stansted Express still seems to be running, and the train I need out to where my pal lives is too, albeit a "reduced service" (with more regular trains than a normal Scotrail service...hmm). But I guess with everything up in the air, could well turn up and everything's fucked. I only got my flights end of last month. Had to pay slightly more than I usually would for flights to London and could only get Stansted when Luton would have been better, but wasn't too bad. And not paying for accommodation obviously helps. Having only ever been to Wembley for either gigs (relatively short compared to All In, and standing) or football (much shorter) I've never been arsed getting refreshments or anything like that. Assume Wembley fare is just as shite as anything you'd get at any major stadium, only you can probably buy alcohol?

In an era where any old shite gets released in the knowledge that they can update to their heart's content later with no consequences, Nintendo seem to stand out for actually making sure their games are polished prior to release. I don't think I've played any first-party Switch game where I've noticed anything really serious in terms of bugs. Mario Odyssey was an absolute joy from start-to-finish, and even though I've not really got on with the Zelda games, both BOTW and TOTK are pretty much faultless from a technical standpoint.

I'll also be there, although just All In. Staying with a pal near enough to Luton, so really, really looking forward to making it out that way during the train strikes on Saturday. Hoping that everything's a bit better by the Sunday.

Sounds like all AEW have said is that they're "monitoring the situation". Surely at this point you just say he's suspended to head off the chat? Not to belittle what Enzo Amore supposedly did at the time, but the likes of sexual assault are often pretty difficult to prove either way and harder to unpick. Easy enough to suspend, let the justice system work through, and then hopefully everything ends up alright. This though? It's unlikely that that would ever happen, and maybe best case being a sort of stand-your-ground situation. He needs to be taken out of the firing (lol) line quickly, no matter what the truth ends up being.

Jesus... That's really not a good look for AEW with the timing of the thing. Unless it's something they're absolutely sure would be cleared, it's surely not a good idea to have him continue to appear on TV. Not guilty plea suggests maybe so, but...well, he would say that wouldn't he? Good time to be the Gunns though, imagine unless it gets cleared up really quickly, they're getting a spot against the Bucks at Wembley.

That was...certainly an episode. Some good stuff as always, but some really, really odd stuff. Khan clearly rattled by everyone rightly pointing out that he's a complete wet wipe by shoehorning himself into the MJF/Cole stuff giving them a bollocking (was it even him shouting?). That Texas match was only very, very slightly above that zombies match that WWE put on. But most of all, despite them now realising they probably need to play up that this is a really, really massive show they're doing, they still seem absolutely set on cutting it off at the legs with a pretty meh card. Stadium Stampede will likely be good nonsense, but it all seems a bit thrown together, and trying its best to wring out every last bit of juice from the "BCC are pure nasty by the way" story. Kingston will go down well of course, but given AEW's propensity for questionable production, I fully expect to miss most of the spots while in the stadium. Putting Ospreay with Jericho is pretty criminal. He's a legend obviously, but I'm not sure he's got it in him to rise to the levels that Ospreay can, and reminds me of him vs Vader but not quite as bad. When you could have had him vs Omega, it's a bit shit. Even him vs Guevara I'd rather have had, as at least the annoyingly beautiful wee c**t could get closer to the high-flying stuff and pick up the pace. Not sure Omega is really being used to his full potential either in a trios match, particularly if Ibushi is in similar shape to how he was at Blood and Guts. Having said all that though, at least they seem like they're now trying to build something. f**k knows what they're going to do for All Out with just one week.

Probably depends how the game goes. The atmosphere for a game like that will never be flat, but where it sits along the lines depends on the game. If they're pumping us, it'll likely be pretty flat. If we're pumping them, it'll be jumping. The moment that said it all in that one was at half time. They were winning, and up came an advert that invited fans to text in for "Lion of the Match" award or something similar, to vote for the best Ukrainian player. Now i know why they're doing it, but at half time in one of the biggest games we'd had in ages when we're already losing just seemed like we may as well have just done what some of the roasters were suggesting and forfeited. The approach was all wrong, and it wasn't for Wales. They just shitfested their way to a win anyway.

Aye, complete failure on their part, particularly the insistence to have All In so close behind. It's like they didn't fully plan having a Wembley show at all, and at some point it just became a thing they could do that they jumped on. All In was obviously booked in well in advance with their schedule, so they felt like there was no real way to cancel that one, and they felt like the opportunity to do Wembley either couldn't be moved to another date, or they couldn't countenance passing on it. Nothing else really makes sense, particularly as the card starts to take shape. Even All In seems like it's going to suffer, as they're struggling to build that one too. Ideal would have been to position All In so that it was THE show, and build accordingly. Instead, there seems this reticence to prioritise Wembley (which they should) which is leading to both All In and All Out being considerably worse than they should have been. There's a genuine chance that a show in front of near enough 80000 people in a "new" market could be the worst PPV they've ever put on. Obviously not going to be bad by any means, but the bar is high.

In that sense though, Punk went after arguably the most important people in the company with Brawl Out. He made the owner look like a complete dildo, then went on to start a fight with the people who basically made the company a thing. And not only did he basically get no punishment (his suspension was during his injury anyway), he was arguably rewarded on returning by giving him a safe space with his pals where he can seemingly bar anyone he wants. To be fair, Butterbean is doing pretty well these days, I'd happily see him knock f**k out of Punk. I mean, we'd be in uncharted waters in seeing how Phil gets on in actual fight, aren't we?

When I thought that bringing back Punk would all end in tears, I assumed he wouldn't find new and exciting ways to burn bridges, but here we are. We've now gone beyond him just having his own show created for him, and now have him sitting on the door like some crazed bouncer deciding who is allowed in. To have people be told to fly into town to do whatever, and then suddenly be asked not to go to the arena once they've already travelled, all (supposedly) because of one guy's fragile ego is wild. As Sheriff said, good fucking luck to anyone whose job it is to keep the peace when they're all supposed to be in the same arena for both All In and All Out. At least we've moved on from feuding wrestlers stabbing each other ala Arn and Sid when they get to the UK I suppose. All In is starting to look more and more like an absolutely epic missed opportunity for the company. They've built their brand to the point where they can come extremely close to selling out one of the most iconic stadiums in sport, and instead of taking that and building a show to fit the event, they're seemingly (it could change, of course) putting on a glorified house show. If that doesn't change, at best you're going to have a lot of very disappointed people, and at worst you could seriously damage how your product is seen to fans. Clash at the Castle was basically WWE holding you at gunpoint and shaking you until the coins came out, but at least they attempted to put on a show that felt big. Just asking for something untoward to happen. I can only assume they're putting it there to not really be a match, and be a much safer angle, but knowing the way AEW does things, I expect they're planning it to be some 30 minute gruelling work-rate match. Unless they are planning on swerving and changing the main event, but that would be stupid in so many other ways.

These projects always seem populated with people who have believed at some point that the reason the likes of FIFA and FM aren't perfect isn't at all because to do so is actually quite hard. When FM Live died, there were people wanting to create an alternative, and the project died. There have been a few alternatives to the likes of PES and FIFA, all with the usual fanfare and talk of how this is definitely going to be the killer of the big titles, and they never do. Because it's hard to even provide a solid game in this genre, let alone a really great one. Maybe this one will break the mould. I definitely think the likes of Pro Clubs in FIFA isn't as well fleshed out as it should be, so there's a gap there. But unless I'm mistaken (I flicked through it muted just there) there's nothing in the video in the OP that shows you what the game is actually going to be like.

They could well still hit it out the park, but can't help feeling that they're not making the best of the opportunity by insisting All Out happens so close. They could have put down an incredible marker by putting near 80000 in Wembley and building all their stories to a head there, but now surely at least one of the shows ends up being less than it should be, or perhaps more likely both of them.

Problem with putting any title on anyone is that you've got arguably your two most important titles tied up on two people you don't want to lose. Gunther is clearly beating the record, so you've only really got the US title to put people over with, and seems like it isn't the way they're wanting to go.

I'll be a bit miffed if All In ends up just being matches for the sake of it. I might be in the minority but story is the most important part of wrestling. I'd always rather see a solid match with an incredible story attached than two guys putting on a great match just because they're really good.

It's just baffling to imagine how many hands that cover passed through as the first piece of promotional material for what's ostensibly a completely new product and they all thought "aye, that looks great". It's just so, sooooo bad.

I wonder what they'd do if we had this kind of show at the Hydro. Can't imagine it'd be a long sequence.

Nice that the character trait that's basically "Puerto Rican maws like to beat the shit out of their kids with shoes" got no-sold by the crowd here.

Haven't they already announced WM for like 3 or 4 years? It's almost a lock really at this stage though, AEW have absolutely fucked them with the Wembley show. EDIT: WM41 and 42 unannounced...

Big John keeping his bunnet on this time to hide that horrific bald spot.

I assume Big Brocktopus is almost certainly going to come in and set up Summerslam

MITB match was a bit meh I thought, apart from Ricochet trying to slice open Logan Paul. Priest probably deserves it, but noone in there really had a ready made story there with a win, just call an audible and give it to the guy people want.

They've gone from treating Sting exactly how you should with someone like him to seemingly trying to kill him. I really doubt they're making him do anything he doesn't want to do, but you don't exactly need to look very far to show exactly what can happen when you take someone like him for granted. Rollins almost stopped him ever wrestling again with a completely innocuous spot, and at this stage you could ruin what is a totally deserved send-off for the guy, all for a random episode of Dynamite. I assume it was a picture-in-picture thing, but what the f**k was up with that Sammy spot with his fucking cue cards. It was cute when he was announcing his wee girl on the way, but fucking hell that was awkward as he went through his 400 cards to essentially say "Aye, ah like fightin' Darby soahdo, we've also got a game out". I'm sure we've heard Moxley say something along the lines of the BCC vs The Elite coming to an end a million times before. Blood and Guts will likely be great fun to watch, but how often have we had various combinations of these guys put together in big stipulation matches? Do you really have nothing else for them to do? Not sold on Jack Perry at all after that. Not convincing at all as a heel.