djchapsticks

On the subject, who do folk think WWE would/will be contacting when their deals are up from AEW? Aside from the obvious in MJF. Think Malakai Black and Swerve would be locked in for returns for sure. HHH would never have gotten rid of either. Always feel it's just a matter of time before Mox and Renee are back. Mox in terms of they will 100% want one last bite at the Shield at some point. Renee because she's good at what she does and admitted it was Vince's verbal abuse that drove her out., Adam Cole, Kyle O'Riley? Again with injuries has that ship sailed? Would they go all out for Cole so long as Britt was part of the deal? With regards to folk who have never worked there, Starks and Hobbs are both obvious. Darby, probably not so much as although WWE audiences would love him, they'd 100% curtail his insistence of trying to kill himself in a Darwin award level manner in his spare time. The Gunns, the Acclaimed, Anna Jay (maybe not if she sticks with Jungle Boy) and Julia Hart all would fit as well in terms of already having that look about them.

In a world where you have a young and fit Omega , I think WWE could pivot and make it work. Again though, there's too many other factors. Kenny Omega is in a spot where he's massively respected by hardcore wrestling fans for his ring work but doesn't have the profile for casuals to instantly recognise him showing up on WWE telly, certainly not on the reduced schedule he's need to work even at full fitness. He also doesn't have the body that will allow for a full time schedule any more and is pushing 40 so that 'grind' never will be for him, even before illness and injury had wrecked him. He's sort of in the spot that Danielson was upon joining WWE only a fair whack older. I think WWE would find something worthwhile for him though to be fair, he's good mates with a load of guys there and could offer up plenty.

Appears so. He's distanced himself from the whole EVP thing. Doesn't fancy it, never has, whilst you get impression that the Bucks revel in it. Though I do think that the 'other factor' he was alluding to that prevented a grown up conversation happening at Brawl Out between him and Punk was Ace Steel going tonto. Through everything that's happened though, it's notable that Punk has never, ever so much as alluded to saying a strong word about Omega. So you do get impression there is no issue between the two of them.

Is it any surprise Clement is a p***k? He's a whining baldy c**t when they win FFS. Was obvious how much of the 'canny take its' he'd have when they get beat.

Clement is both baldy and speccy

This season? Seems low.

I like to think that @Sonam has just spammed this into existence.

It will be 3 home, 2 away. The SPFL prioritise 19 home and 19 away games over the season ahead of a 2 home 2 away breakdown of head to heads. We currently have 16 home and 17 away games played. We will have Killie and Celtic at home and Rangers away which balances out fine over the season will leave us on 18 home 18 away. We then have Hearts and Dundee both of whom we are due to travel to but SPFL won't push us in 18 home and 20 away games so one of those sides will visit us for a third time (or get both at home and visit Killie a 3rd time which won't happen as that would mean 3 fixture flips for us instead of one) My guess would be Hearts visiting us for a 3rd time as this is a meaningless match for them and us away to Dundee in the interests of fairness... otherwise we'd then end up with 3 home games vs Dundee in a straight battle for 5th, something we'd be up in arms at if the roles were reversed and we were forced to visit Dens 3 times.

Grant is just full on yer da at this point.

We've apparently sweetened the deal a wee bit.

Agreed on the first three but Taylor hasn't been out the team for full post winter break until Motherwell. If he'd stayed in the side and performing to level he was, I'd agree that he'd be my leading shout for POTY but it's hard to put him in contention when he's missed a third of the season.

Strawman choo choos and them turning Alesteir Black's entrance from looking pretty cool to adding a creaky door noise when he enters up through the fog were the worst offenders

Thing is, I reckon most of us on here want AEW to do well. But in terms of development and storyline, they are so so weak and they definitely need help there. A strong scene in general helps everyone. Even HHHs perceived dig at Ospreay shouldn't be seen as such. Some folk love the grind, others don't so its good to have the option and not be like 'well you either do it our way or there is nowhere else for you'. I can guarantee if Lesnar was just breaking in now he'd pick an AEW schedule over a WWE one as he hated the constant travel and road life. Osprey taking it as a personal sleight against him is ridiculously thin skinned instead of accepting that 'yeah, that way isn't for me just now but this is'.

Again, it was neither an active jab at Ospreay nor was it on WWE TV, it was on McAfee's ESPN show. The comments were basically HHH being asked to assess who might be a good fit for WWE and said 'If you're at the point in your career where you're still pretty young and would rather pick the reduced dates and easier schedule than the grind when you are fit, healthy and able to do so, then this probably isn't the company for you and it's probably for the best we didn't hire you'. The fact that Ospreay in particular has reacted without being named suggests that there's an element of truth there (in fact, didn't Omega once call out his work ethic as well in this regard?) but personally I saw it more as a broad swipe at anyone WWE might have been interested in such as Jay White, Mercedes Mone, Ospreay, maybe not so much Okada as he's now firmly in the 'veteran' categor,y but the fact that Ospreay of all people has taken such umbrage to it despite not even being close to getting named is quite telling to be honest.

Poor Tony Schiavone realising that this is a no win situation.

Yeah this. One of my biggest gripes in recent years was that WWE felt so sterile, robotic, everyone had to almost say everything on point all the time. So I'm not going to get annoyed when someone gets a bit of emotion in them. It was the same through 2022 with Zayn cracking up the Usos and Reigns on the regular. Was it professional? Almost certainly not but it struck a chord with folk because it felt (and was) genuine and people k ow and understand that it's all a show and all theatre, but like to see a wee bit of truth thrown in there now and then.

Stand by my original comments. This doesn't make AEW, Perry or Khan look good at all. It went down exactly how Punk said, he didn't throw any punches (there were two hard shoves before he choked him) and Perry certainly didn't easily escape it as was suggested with two folk, including Joe, dragging him out of there. It also looks like the entire flash point was over in seconds so how Tony could fear for his life I've no idea.

It took me a long, long time to get over this feeling at my work and in life in general and accept that I'm actually quite good at my job. Two things I learned from it though and hopefully one or both will help: 1) Nobody is watching you 24/7 or pre-occupied with what you are or are not doing on a micro-level. Even if you are having a shite day or week, it won't make a difference in the big picture. What you think is a catalogue of stupid errors will likely not even be noticed by those in charge as they are too busy trying not to make and arse of it to their gaffers, who in turn....you get the picture. 2) Self-awareness is never, ever a bad thing. Some of the most dangerous and reckless people I've ever worked with had the perfect blend of utter stupidity, an absence of self-awareness and misplaced supreme confidence that what they were doing was 100% correct and they were infallible. Impostor syndrome is horrible, though. It's a little more palatable when you realise that everyone bar the most ridiculously stupid in life will suffer from it at some point though. To me, I try and see it as a conscious acceptance that I don't know everything and there will always be a knowledge gap somewhere if someone else knows but I don't...but these gaps can be filled.

Agreed on this. However, Gogic is already one of our highest paid players - we already burst the budget to sign him in the first place a couple of seasons ago and he's definitely been worth it. If we were to keep him on the same wage or a nominal increase would I be happy? Absolutely I would. I definitely think there has to be an upper limit as to what we could and should offer, though. He's a good player at our level but I'm wary of us putting too much stock in one player.

Because he was literally the only player trying to drag you forward and he was so isolated there that it was noticeable. Trying to do everything himself because there simply wasn't anyone else about, even the usual pain in our arse Nicky Clark was playing almost like a holding mid. Think coming out the game, he was a talking point (because of course he collapsed at FT) but a few folk around when talking about him and hopefully hoping he was OK, were mentioning how he looked like your only player who potentially looked like they could have caused us an issue.

I think I said after your awful performance against us a few weeks back that Sidibeh looked like the one player in the team that was impressive and an absolute wild card. Dangerous, lively, a wee bit raw or rash but a proper pain in the arse so it's not really a shock to see him kick on and do well.

This is exactly the boat I'm in. Somewhat predictably though, some folk appear to have not understood what I've said and decided it's me saying Gogic is shite and we ought to get rid.

You have clearly chosen to skim over the part where I said 'I would rather we kept him'. As someone who is almost certainly already one of our highest paid players and someone who we've apparently already offered a deal to but is humming and hawwing over signing it, do we make him a daft offer to stay? I'd say nope. Whatever the offer is will likely be lucrative in terms of what we can offer so I would definitely not be pushing the boat out any further.

Nope, not for me. If we insist of blowing an eye-watering wage on a keeper then I'd rather we tried to throw it at someone Luke Southwood or Benjamin Siegrest.

Perhaps unpopular opinion here but i would not be pushing the boat out for Gogic. He's consistent enough on the whole but he has had far too many enormous and costly brain farts and so many more that he's gotten away with. I'd rather we kept him but I wouldn't be pushing our budget to any extremes to do so.