forameus

The special over WM weekend was still a good watch, although not quite Black and Gold levels. It's a weird mix though that I don't think they've really managed to balance yet. I can appreciate they want to keep it as a proper developmental place and try people out, but it meshes a bit with them still trying to treat it as a product.

My memory of Jakubiak's contribution was at the Dunfermline game. Drew in the full-back and knocked it round him brilliantly to bear down on the box, then promptly shinned it high into the stands.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sky are getting a noticeable dip in subs they could attribute to specifically international games. You'll get your regular subscribers that want to watch all the sport they offer, but for someone that couldn't give a shit about the EPL, or doesn't want to watch Rangers/Celtic vs Guests, it's either a massive fucking outlay on a contract or absolute theft through Now TV. Or, the third option for a big and growing group is to just stream it. Try and stop them, another site will just pop up. So have Sky just shrugged and not really been arsed about losing games they probably make f**k all from anyway? The separate subs question is one that'll likely become a big one in the near future. I read something about Netflix's recent issues, and it made a decent point - when they first went streaming, they'd have an enormous catalogue of stuff from all kinds of providers. It was great and it was successful, which led to those providers wanting a bigger slice. They take all their stuff away to their own bespoke place and here we are now with a million different sites. It's a shame, because as someone who really would like to not pirate stuff and get it legally (apart from football, f**k that), streaming sites allow you to do that pretty cheaply if you use it a lot. That's becoming less of a thing now.

It'll be a sad day when League D loses its spot. Guaranteed to happen, but I liked the idea of having at least one relative diddy getting a spot they'd never otherwise have gotten. North Macedonia didn't completely embarrass themselves. In fact, they weren't even the side with the worst record. I mean, joint worst (with Turkey) but they had their moments. Much more interesting prospect as a neutral than another pot 3 jobber getting in.

If they were overly bothered by that, it'd be a two legged affair to be able to sell two matches instead of one. This is purely down to scheduling. There isn't time to do it the traditional way, so you either have one team at home or a neutral venue. The home draw for semi finals makes sense, it's a reward for best record. The final is a bit shite that it's a random draw, agree with Craig that something should be done about that. Personally I'd hold all the playoffs at neutral venues, and if we're going full fantasy then put them in the country due to host the tournament as a sort of mini-confederations cup dress rehearsal. Or just the final to remove the unearned advantage. One other way you could do it I guess is to assign the two best finishers the home draw in the semis, then just give the home final to the best team left standing after the semis. So we'd know that if we won our semi, we'd be guaranteed a home final. If we got put out, then whoever was 2nd gets it, or 3rd if it comes to that. At least then the home draw is earned.

Seems a properly mental schedule for us to get through, but good to at least get some clarity and let people start to plan for what is our biggest match in fucking ages. We're going to be absolutely dead on our feet by the time we reach Dublin, let alone Armenia.

Yeah, think that's a decent point. I played it for something like 40-50 hours, and I enjoyed it, but wouldn't say I fell for it in the same way as I have for stuff like Skyrim, Witcher, or Death Stranding. It was good, but I've no real interest in going back to it now I've finished it.

If we're going down that route, I demand we go full Saudi. Undertaker/Goldberg in the ultimate blowoff to their feud where somebody dies. Women to wrestle in 1800s swimming gear. And Boris Johnson to hold them on the tarmac at Cardiff Airport over unpaid TV deals.

Do some hair vs mask match, have Luchasaurus lose, and then properly kayfabe it that it's not a mask, and he's a dinosaur. Scalp him, you cowards.

Ha! I'd basically based what I said on the incremental versions of GTAV adding in decent improvements, and had completely forgot the degree to which they shat the bed with the old GTA remasters. Hopefully it's more of the former.

Those Max Payne remasters should be brilliant*. Rockstar - for all their faults - at least treat remasters as a chance to right some of the wrongs and add cool shit, and the first two games are absolutely wonderful. Max Payne 2 remains one of my favourite gaming memories at the time. It was one of the first games to offer a fairly realistic physics engine with its environments (or at least one of the first I actually got to play). The demo let you play one of the levels and I played it again and again and again just mucking about with shooting items and watching them roll around. Such a simple thing now but it was mind-blowing back then. * Until they put Mark Wahlberg's face on him...

You're the one that thought the Witcher was an absolute masterpiece, and that its cutscenes were pure unadulterated art, right? But seriously, as someone who has played a stupid amount of Witcher 3, you end up seeing that they've used the same template to build Cyberpunk. You hated the long-winded cutscenes in Witcher, but I think they're all but eliminated here. Most of your interactions are in engine stuff rather than on-rails interactions, so if that was your biggest problem there, you should be good here. The world is wonderfully put together, even if it is maaaaybe a bit of style over substance. If you can get it reduced I'd say it's definitely worth it at this stage.

It's a fairly recent thing but was really noticeable for WM. They were usually quite good at having backstage segments while they (I presume) wiped up whatever bodily fluids were spread around the ring and rejigged the announce table or whatever. You were watching something that usually furthered the show or the story. Now they seem to want to throw to pre-recorded filler. I mean, it's a lot easier and less prone to go wrong than doing a live promo, but it makes the show much worse to watch.

I can't see that being an option. Moving it to June has already caused a fair few headaches for scheduling, with the possibility of 5 games in June. But I think you can just about get away with that in June. To move to September, you'd need to shift the two games already meant for that window around and either postpone those, or make it a 3 match window. Then you'd be mucking about the other sides in our Nations League group, as well as those due to face Wales. I think there'll be a decision made either way for June. Either Ukraine are available and we play, or they have to forfeit. It's going to make those making the decision sound like c***s to your average r/soccer visitor, but I imagine if it's gotten to that point, Ukraine will simply have no option or desire to complete the fixture, so likely won't be too many arguments from their side. I think it'll happen though.

I think bits that stuck out with Belair was their big desire to show just how strong she is. In true WWE fashion it was subtle as a brick to the face when she was first brought in. The bit that sticks out was in her WM match last year with Banks when she walked up the ring steps with her in the suplex position. Endlessly impressive, absolutely, but it kind of takes you out of it in the context of a wrestling match to just have her slowly move her opponent around like that while she holds on. I know it's nitpicking, but it's something that stuck out with her. Maybe I'm just being a contrarian dickhead! Rousey's kind of the opposite, and I've really enjoyed a lot of what she's brought since she started. There's a certain roughness to the way she works that makes her a bit more exciting. Probably not as naturally good in a lot of areas as Belair is, but her weird mix of janky wrestling and legitimate judo is exciting to watch for me. Granted the newness of it all has pretty much worn off now.

To be fair, I was watching the whole thing pretty broken up. Night 1 I had to watch in bits, night 2 in slightly less but still similar. Also probably wasn't giving it as undivided attention as it perhaps could have. Also, in the severe minority, but I don't quite "get" Belair in the way that most do. She's obviously really good, but I wouldn't say I'd put her way up on the list of personal favourites.

I'd honestly rather not have a bye. Obviously if you were sat down and told that there's two options - you're getting put out in a match, or you're going through with a bye, you'd choose the latter, but if at all possible, you want to earn your way to a competition. We've got the biggest match we've had in ages set for Hampden and it would be a shame if that ended up getting cancelled (although a bye would certainly be salve to those wounds). As to what will happen, it sounds like at least those in charge in Ukrainian football want the match to go ahead. If the players share those sentiments, I expect it will. The big unknown is just how those players are going to feel though. Obviously they'll want to reach the World Cup, it's likely the pinnacle of their profession, but are they really going to hold that above the horrible stuff that is happening in the country they're holed up in? Would they feel like they could leave to play the match in good conscience? Honestly, it's hard to tell from our perspective.

When your cold open needs to be pure freezing.

All in all, far from the worst WM we've had in recent years, but far from perfect too. Given how absolutely shite WWE have been recently, you'd probably put it as pretty good, but it's a low bar. Hard to say which night edged it - night 1 probably just about, but only because it looked like 2 would be waaaay better, and never quite managed it. Pros Hot start to night 1 with Creatine Freddie Mercury Boogs starting things off. Unfortunate that his knee couldn't muster the same energy. Charlotte/Rousey was a good watch. Really should be making more out of Rousey, always find her brand of slightly rough sports entertainment thrilling to watch. Assume she takes the title at Summerslam and we start the long build to her and Becky again. Austin/Owens was brilliant. Can't help but feel like they could have built it slightly better than the bait and switch about a match, but once it got started, you can't really fault it. Was a bit worried at the start as Austin looked noticeably slower (fair enough, he's been away almost 20 years) but he fair warmed up, and Owens is one of the best you could put in that spot. He deserves it and must have fucking loved it. I might be in the minority, but I liked the whole Theory/McAfee/Vince part. It got a bit hairy during the "match" as McAfee channeled HBK against Hogan with his selling, but I said before WM that everything looked like it was just going to blend into one, just wrestling matches one after the other. The dessicated corpse of Vince playing to the crowd, and then ultimately having a match was the sort of mad shit something like WM needs (along with other spots). And of course the traditional Vince not going over with Stone Cold coming down. But Jesus Christ...that stunner. Ooft. Worth it though for Austin absolutely pissing himself laughing for a good few minutes afterward Knoxville/Zayn was brilliant for similar reasons. It was always going to be a bit of a car crash, but I think they booked it quite smartly to just make it fun, start to finish. So often WWE's idea of fun or funny is a million miles from where it should be, but this one they got just right. And massive credit to Sami for his spot-on performance, especially in the Wee Man spot. He made you believe that he was actually getting slammed for real. Really hope he gets to do a lot more in WWE in the future, just like Owens he massively deserves it. Both nights the crowd seemed really into everything, which made a big difference. So often the punishing schedule of WM means that after the decent. match in the middle, everyone is just completely fucked. If they were, you couldn't really tell, and they actually managed to structure a card in a decent way for once. Cons I know you're supposed to, but I can't fucking stand Logan Paul appearing in any sense. I'm not some Da that thinks anyone who is a YouTuber is a c**t - I watch plenty who are engaging and seem like nice people. This guy is nothing but a c**t, and I assume Miz's post-match stuff and the way it was framed means he might be back at some point. Shite. What is Omos? I get he's new, he's still learning, not expecting great things, but you've got guys down in NXT where so much is made of how they've only had a tiny amount of matches on TV, and several of them look more believable in the ring than Omos does. It's a throwback to the past in the worst possible way, just a lumbering guy bellowing around the ring. Lashley tried his best, bless him, but you're fighting a losing battle. If they really want him to work, send him down to NXT where the whole point seems to be getting guys to do better. New Day/Peaky Blinders and Friends...what's the point? Match wouldn't have looked out of place on RAW, so why not just put it there? Or not at all? The new WWE trope of putting recaps or introductory promo videos like it's fucking X Factor is really grating. I can get it on NXT, you're trying to get these guys over. Do we really need to see that same Lashley video again? I get that they use stuff like that to disguise them clearing up the ring etc, but they've always had to do that, and they were always a lot better at putting promos or backstage segments in those spots to take attention away. Where's the traditional Ron Simmons DAMN skit? Where's the legends trying to hawk some shite WWE toy? Where's just your standard promo from someone like Paul Heyman about the main event? Surely that's a better use of time than reminding people at length about a match they watched 24 hours earlier? Seth FREAKIN Rollins. Sick of hearing that after the first couple. The branding. Similar to above, but you can definitely hear "stupendous" too much, and if you keep telling people how they should feel about matches and how important they are, it's going to start sounding a bit ridiculous. Build matches to where you want them to go, then let them actually reach that point. And on that note... Reigns/Lesnar. Just fell flat unfortunately. Before it started, to their credit it did feel big. They've built it quite well, so perhaps no surprise. But even comparing this to their match at 31, it just never really clicked into gear. Maybe the dynamic just isn't there with Reigns being the heel, maybe Reigns just isn't good enough to play that kind of role, maybe Lesnar isn't booked in such a way to make the match work, or maybe he just doesn't want to be booked any other way. But the match just devolved into big move, pause, oh no he's up, big move, repeat. And can only assume they called an audible with Reigns' shoulder to end it when they did, as if that was the planned finish...not good. Overall, as others have said I think they had the makings of a brilliant one night WM. A few of the weaker matches lopped off, a few on the pre-show, get rid of a lot of the recap stuff, you've probably got a 4+ hour show you could be really proud of.

Will give a full idea of how the show was after the often difficult second album tonight when I eventually get round to watching it. Picked a shite time to have a first day at a new job. A pretty solid first night though, even if it didn't always feel as big as it could. Definitely delivered on what it was given though, and although I'm still not convinced they built that main as effectively as they could have, you couldn't really have asked for a better way to end things.

They'll be losing a lot more than they'd gain by moving it. I'd expect there's more chance of them regretting moving it rather than regretting not. If they get put out, it won't be because there weren't enough home fans.

...I'm a tit. I knew that, but thought that counting Belgium and Germany as the 2 European sides. Not, of course, realising that we're also in Europe. Durr. In that case it opens things out a wee bit. I put Belgium in as it would probably be the most tedious choice from top pot, so it goes from tedious to just plain "they'll f**k us up" with Brazil or Argentina. Will be interesting to watch the draw, as I presume they'll start at pot 1 and move down. We'll have massively cut down on the number of groups we can be drawn into by the time it gets to us.

The next time they pull on a Scotland shirt though will either be at Hampden for a must-win home semi-final playoff against a team that the entire world will want us to lose against, or an away final in Cardiff 90 minutes from the World Cup. I don't blame him for trying to keep the momentum going as much as possible with the players that will be playing then. I'm not a football manager by any means, but how much do you actually gain from a player playing for Scotland in a friendly nowadays? It's not like the olden days where you didn't get too much of an opportunity to see what they can do, but now you've got entire industries built around getting all kinds of stats gathered, and Steve Clarke can likely queue up a million clips of a player if he so wishes. Do we really need this chucking 30 minutes at a player in amongst 400 other changes to see what he can do?

Pot 1 there's an obvious one you want. Any of the other 7, on a normal day, would ride us rotten. Who knows at a World cup though? Pot 2 is slightly better, but not sure there's anyone in there you could really say you'd want. I'd go for USA, as who really wants to face another European side, or Mexico, or get punted off the park by a smarter, bigger, cannier Uruguay side? Whisky across the ocean stuff instead please. Pot 3 is probably a similar story. Serbia or Poland would be a bit shit and boring (although we could probably give either of them a game). The African sides either seem to really turn up at World Cups, or (more often than not) stink the place out. Qatar, USA, Tunisia, Scotland would be a pleasing draw. Belgium, Germany, Iran, Scotland would probably be amongst the worst.

One of the problems with the show, aside from the obvious, is the complete lack of variety on the card. In terms of gimmicks you've got one single match in Knoxville/Zayn, and the rest - and there's a whole lot of them - are just plain singles matches or some slight variation. I know they've neutered things a little by branching certain gimmicks off into their own shows, but they've shown in the past that they can bring the likes of HIAC out if need be. They've stopped using the clusterfuck ladder match, which was always exciting. You could fit a cage match in there to add spice to something like McIntyre/Corbin, or Last Man Standing or something, just anything to break up the constant parade of normal wrestling matches. AJ/Edge is probably going to be a very good example of a standard match, so what hope do the midcard matches really have to stand out in a fucking endless show like this?