forameus

I usually read the recaps for RAW and Smackdown and then pick up any of the clips if the segment sounds good. When they said Orton came back with a mask, I was imagining what Cody Rhodes wore. What I wasn't expecting was some cross between first-era Cyberman and El Santo after he'd been at the jam. Jesus Fucking Christ WWE...

So that'll be an emphatic 9 then.

Think I might go back to this tonight. God help me. Fucked it for getting all the Swaps tokens, but assume I've still got a fair few available should I go for them?

Ah, the "got legs don't you?" clause. It's still pretty woolly. Given that we're only just about at the point where we're starting to stop people flowing into the country, I can't imagine there'll be complete travel bans come summer. If you physically can get across Europe, I could still see them arguing it's valid. This just all seems pointless right now. They either need to bring this fabled March decision forward, make a choice and stick to it, or let people choose once they've decided. It's pretty shady to expect people to make these financial decisions based on stuff that might be completely void in a couple of months time.

Guaranteed to be some kind of record they pulled from somewhere anyway. Going to be weird to see it in front of crowds again. It's already weird enough looking back to seeing shows like that.

I'd say if we were talking 10-15 years ago, you'd probably be right. But modern football just makes "football without fans is nothing" seem a bit hollow. I'd imagine UEFA are going to pocket many times more money from broadcasters than they ever would from fans attending, so there's your reason for it happening. It's shite, but so is modern football a lot of the time.

People were saying this would need a NMS job to save it, but they certainly haven't started out that way. Looks like they're more concerned with trying to salvage public image still, having spats over twitter with journalists while capital G Gamers stand around the sidelines shrieking. Take the fucking L guys, just lock yourselves away and fix the thing.

But John Cena's deid isn't he? f**k sake kayfabe. Bold decision...saw that there were crowds at some of the NFL Playoff matches, so surely they're aiming for some here? Guess anything could happen between now and then, but the authorities in the US certainly don't seem as reticent as they might over here. Actually just noticed the superbowl will be there in February, so there's yer preview. To be honest, if they can manage to nail down two good, shorter nights of Wrestlemania in front of a crowd for the first time in a year, and dont completely shit the bed, it could be brilliant.

Yeah, not a fan of that. I have no idea who Adam Pearce is, I haven't seen his career in the indies, but it was something different and another story to tell. What is there left to tell with Owens? He'll get the shit kicked out of him for 20-some minutes, look like he's got him, then it'll either be interference, or Reigns just comes out on top. It won't be a bad match, just...meh.

Which opens up another (several hundred) can(s) of worms. I assume they have to offer sides up for Europe for next season contractually, and you'd assume the title would still "count" (be still, Old Firm fans) so can you realistically just cancel relegation and only relegation? If so, what's the point in the league outside of, I guess, the lower European spots? I get that's all utterly pointless to worry about when compared to the growing health crisis, but all these questions just point back to it being fucking mental that we're sitting here and even asking them. At the start of the season, all the clubs should have agreed on a "what if" for every scenario. I'm not one of the doomsayers that believes we'll be in lockdown until the 2040s, but it was hardly a surprise that something like this has happened. Is it really a surprise to them?

I wonder how long they'll give themselves to make a decision either way. It looked hopeful towards the end of last year, but the events of December mean that it's looking decreasingly likely the Euros will happen "as normal" from our perspective. I expect it'll still happen, but any option on the table seems more likely than it being hosted all over Europe with full stadiums. But how long can you leave that decision? It's not like there's magically going to be this turning point. It's basically whether or not the current vaccine plans in country make it seem realistic, and - although I can't speak for other countries - it looks like we'll be nowhere near. By time the tournament comes around, it looks like we'll be done with at risk people, but what percentage of those would likely have been sitting in Hampden for our first game? Hopefully their idea of making a decision isn't what it seems like now - shutter up the ticket office and hope no-one complains.

So if that's not "consistency and fairness" then what is allowing the clubs to vote one season, and then denying them that the year after? It's a shite situation all round, we got fucked too, but they're not directly comparable.

I've never understood the spittle-flecked fury from our fans over this. I know its something every set of fans will complain about, but there always seemed to be extra vitriol from where I was sitting.

I took Forrest too, as he was utterly brilliant the year before. But of course they made the big mad Korn loving VL Kent the meta's meta.

Likely so. I never got as many as other people seem to, but you get the pause, then a few seconds later "x has added you to a chat", then it's here we fucking go time. From there it's a mix of a few possibilities. Opening message can either be long-winded and fawning, very short and abrupt, or somewhere in between, but the conclusion is always the same. Frothy fucking rage when I tell them no thanks. Every time. Last one even reported me (and I got a warning) for calling him tragic.

But like with everything else EA do that's shit, people give them absolutely no incentive to do so. I've never understood the people that constantly put themselves through the WL regularly considering what's likely to be their reward. I completely get from a customer stand-point that they are absolutely shite, but from EA's perspective there's not a chance they'll do anything more than the bare minimum when they've no real reason to.

Nothing to do with the article itself, but I can't fucking stand that Andy Murray guy, and I'm not really sure why.

Yeah, it's certainly not the worst thing they could have done. Seemed pretty unimaginative at the time, but if it turns out they were without way more than just Drew and Trips was fine then makes sense.

It's quite telling really. Their number one guy is unavailable, so they need to pull something out. When the entire company was being held in Saudi Arabia, they pulled out an NXT "Invasion" that led to a pretty decent Survivor Series. What do they do here? Bring oot the gehm! Shameful, WWE. Once again putting their stars at risk.

It's hard to see the league coming back at all, to be honest, at least not in the form it's currently in. If - and it's a fucking huge if at this stage by the looks of it - it does resume in 3 weeks time, we'll have enough Saturday's between now and the presumed end of the season to complete, with a few mid-weeks thrown in to help out. But say we lift at the end of February, we're down to enforced midweeks. Into March and it dwindles down further. There's slight hope given we don't seem to be in as much of the shit as England are, but it's hard to imagine this happening and then everything to be alright enough to start again in 3 weeks. 6 weeks? 12 weeks? f**k knows.

Just watched WWE's clip of the segment. It's painting Drew worryingly as the bad guy in this, just not really a face move. Unless they'll still have him win and turn heel or something. The push was also laughably bad, leaving big Drew on his arse and then giving a proper footballers haud me back header. I've also seen the Hulk Hogan opening vignette. Jesus fucking Christ. Of course there was a plan. But that was Tuesday afternoon's plan. We're several plans beyond that now.

^^ Needs more Randy Orton setting shit on fire. Surely there must be an edited version of that involving panicked JR commentary?

With the "like wrestling my da" line, are they going for some kind of plucky aged underdog story with Goldberg? I'll join in with the "If goldberg wins" chat, because if they do that, they may as well just give up. I can only assume - and give them the benefit of the doubt - that they think they need a "big" (like anyone actually wants to see it) match for one of their bigger shows, and to give McIntyre a one-and-done before he goes on to face someone more important at Wrestlemania. A quick five minute match like the really good Lesnar/Goldberg car crash would be fine. But of course, with WWE there's always the chance that they want Big Granda Bill to have the title going into WM. If they do that, they've lost the fucking plot.

Maybe that kind of stuff is rife in football, I can't pretend I know much about the professional side of things. But my layman's common sense would always think that purposefully getting games called off in such an obvious way wouldn't necessarily be a great example of sporting integrity. It's not too far away from the sort of shit the likes of Barry Fry used to do to noise up opponents. It seems tinpot. Not to mention that there's signs this January is going to stay just as cold, so a decent chance of stacking games up needing to be played. Say we get 2 or 3 more called off, does that look like such a great decision to shite it from Clyde?

Would we be liable for any kind of punishment for this? Not like ots some freak unforeseen dip, so it's pretty obvious we just didn't switch it on last night. Any other club stupid enough to do it to us would deserve it so don't see why this would be any different.