FMKK

Stalin as an anti-statist is a new one on me.

They seem to be way out from consensus on this one. I've seen no one else try to argue that the men's match was better than the women's. Tbf, almost everything Alvarez says comes off as patronising to me.

That's entirely untrue.

Ronda apparently going to be on the show tonight

I don't see what was all that wrong with Ronda's promo. Yeah she was stilted a bit and it didn't sound like a pro wrestling promo but I thought it came off more like she was thinking about what she was saying rather than 'performing' or being scripted. Like in an interview on TV. She'll get better in time hopefully but really she's fine.

I was kinda hoping the mixed tags would have had the match ups not look so predictable so you didnt know who was winning. It's round one, there's always going to be some more obvious matches

I don't know why people get so het up about the carny hall of fame anyway. It's just a nice way to bring back old characters and let them talk about their careers.

But thats sophistry really. Just because Vince is seemingly untouchable doesnt mean others should be, nor does it mean that theres an excuse for reporting not to be up to standard because its not about Vince.

There seems to be an odd phenomenon on some parts of the American right where 'government' is somehow distinct from its coercive institutions. So people somehow manage to simultaneously argue that 'Big Government' is bad but having a gigantic military budget beyond anyone else in the world is good and necessary. For sure. Even more troubling has been the emergence over the past 13 months of the part of the nominal “left” (or hashtag resistance, rather) that, aside from offering no opposition to runaway military expansion and imperialism, loves to lick the boots of other sectors of the military/police apparatus like the FBI, the Woke CIA, and the NSA as part of a hope that a retired FBI director is going to save the world and take us back to the magical time before 11/8/16. A time when everything was terrific and that oddly had no bearing on what happened that day. The Resistance people are the worst. We have similar to that in U.K. with the anti-Brexit people. I voted to stay in the EU but there's a weird cadre of professional political types who base their entire politics around the EU, overturning the referendum and all sorts of nonsense, as if we lived in a perfect country prior to 23rd June 2016. As if the years before didn't lead up to the event itself. It's especially maddening when we finally have a party and leadership capable of transforming the country for real and they keep trying to sabotage it. I think the Woke CIA thing might just be the most egregious and historically ignorant thing I've ever seen though, to the point that it's genuinely disgusting. But I feel like I'm getting off topic now lol

And being in PPV main events. In 2018.

There seems to be an odd phenomenon on some parts of the American right where 'government' is somehow distinct from its coercive institutions. So people somehow manage to simultaneously argue that 'Big Government' is bad but having a gigantic military budget beyond anyone else in the world is good and necessary.

No one said she was running for office. You are allowed to dislike Stephanie McMahon as a TV performer without being misogynist.

This sounds like another step in the succession plan for Vince then. Get Stephanie out front and centre as a public face, delegate more control to HHH, promote Barrios etc. They're laying the groundwork for Vince stepping away.

Number 2 is like a Chomskian media analysis. Ever read Manufacturing Consent? Or see the movie?

What a carny Booker T is to this day. Masterful job.

I feel like it's a pretty damn bad run considering what talent they have on the roster. It's not just the bad booking on screen, but the fact that people like Naomi, Becky Lynch and even Jinder can just not appear or have anything to do for weeks. A year ago they managed to book people like Natalya, Heath Slater, Rhyno and James Ellsworth into good angles and now there's just nothing going on. Charlotte was presented as possibly their biggest acquisition in the Shakeup and she's done a grand total of nothing story-wise in the 9 months or so since. Imagine having AJ Styles as your ace champion and having him bogged down as the fifth most important act in a GM plot instead of having him out there working Rusev or Mojo or Chad Gable or Kofi or any of the other acts that would benefit from having a great match with him. Imagine booking Owens and Zayn as a channel changing top heel duo when Raw last year was bogged down with the exact same boring shit on top. It may not be as bad as like, 1994 Raw but there are so many potential upsides that go unutilised and the drop off in quality in a 12 month period has been so drastic as to make it seem even worse.

I think they may have switched the Raw team and Smackdown team over at around the time of the shakeup? I feel like Ive heard that somewhere anyway. Imagine telling smarks 4-5 years ago that there would be a WWE title main event between Styles, Owens, Zayn and Ziggler and that it would be met with derision.

Smackdown is a terrible, terrible programme.

People have been entertained by Booker and mentioning it on Twitter for quite a while. Maybe the guy is a hot head but I dont think personality flaws should keep anyone back from enjoying a performer in pro-wrestling. Otherwise, youd have to stop watching altogether. Obviously no one in the company thought Graves was going too hard on him in the booth, given how much Vince overproduces the commentary. Indeed, its probably the sort of shit he encouraged. I assume they had always planned to shuffle Booker down if they were bringing in Coach. Maybe he was a last minute appointment I guess but he certainly wouldnt come back just to do kick-offs and backstage interviews. He kinda sucks on Raw though.

The Usos are the only worthwhile thing on the show. AJ is still incredible but he's lost in the shuffle of this god awful Owens shit. He's fifth billing in the top angle.

Could say that about the entirety of Smackdown.

A year ago Smackdown was incredible. Now it's dogshit.

Bobby Roode is such a cold, nothing act that there's no excuse not to switch the belt to the far hotter Rusev here

No idea why anyone would want to pay to watch Bryan looking at his computer while he rants about Nitro or whatever but it takes all sorts I guess

Enjoyed following along with this project, though I signed up for the Facebook group etc. too late in the day to really do enough work to submit a ballot. Will there be any audio for the top 100? I enjoyed the For Your Consideration shows a lot.