MJH

100% agreed. W/R/T to the first point... the flip was always far more likely anyway, surely?... he was a cunt, she did him in... (Just the fact of him being on the road so much, beaten up, tired, he's more likely to be temperamental/foul-tempered even before you factor the clear steroid abuse into it...) Yeah... but the more natural hypothesis is "the emergency" causes them to die, and he can't live with it and kills himself, right? In essence, what did happen, but without him having caused their death. There's nothing "denialist" about that - a lover's/family member's death leading to a suicide isn't uncommon at all.

Well I don't remember how quick it came out that they were strangled, but hypothetically she could've shot/stabbed, etc... I dunno, two of my best friends are uber-feminists; at this point 'if the guy can do it why can't the girl?' is just whipped into me, y'know...?

I don't see how no-showing the PPV had people all suspicious... I'd rather that be more common and Cena be expected to fly-back from a show if his dad had a stroke or something, rather than him feel the need to work it. And it being a B-PPV, a not-terribly-high-profile match, Benoit's "lifer" position in the company at the time, and him hopefully feeling "I don't need to do this date or I'll be fired...", my reaction was more "well, that's strange, something serious must've happened to them, I hope they're OK", but nothing beyond, say, a car crash, or one of them taking seriously ill... nothing like that. But with Benoit being "sacrosanct", once murder-suicide became the likeliest cause, I did/do find it a tad odd that I can't recall anyone having Nancy as the perpetrator... if you're "Not Chris...", that'd be the most obvious option, surely?

Vince McMahon?

Fun as it was... it would've been so much better had they not suddenly been fresh-as-hell each time they went on offence down the stretch (especially Cena)

Thunderqueen. (Or are we talking "best individual performance" rather than "best match X was involved in"?)

vs. Hennig, KOTR '93.

God, that's so fucking stupid. I hate the whole certificate/classification thing to begin with, but I get why they're there for parents/etc... still, does anyone over the age of 17/18, or who can get into any film with no problems, do they even look at the rating?

No... but this is also 2013, and shocking as it is that that would happen only 40 years ago, and whilst, even more unfortunately, there're still some idiots out there who'd react in a similar way today, the idea that women competing in a sport would be any kind of issue outside of those same small pockets is perhaps even more depressing simply because 1974 was a time much more conscious of that sort of thing and we've (supposedly) moved on and bettered ourselves since then. Women's sports might not have near the publicity, or fame, or money, or whatever, as male sports, and the reasons for that aren't all nearly as sexist as some feminist commentators would suggest (Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce wouldn't've stood a chance against Usain Bolt, y'know), but no one's offended at the existence of the 100m women's, or WNBA or whatever either... "But women can't punch each other in the face!", I mean, y'know...

Outside of his fans, isn't Beck (ditto O'Reilly, Hannitty, FOX in general) a general figure of mockery though? Did he do some plug for Linda in CT that I'm unaware of and so feels somewhat screwed over (though I find that hard to believe)?

Not so much a "trope", as such, but I hate how "PG" = "childish". Maybe the American system is different to ours, but I always understood ratings/certificates/etc to be about swearing, sex/nudity, violence... with the "matureness" of its theme/s being fairly minor unless we're talking gritty-realistic prostitution, drug abuse, etc. The Attitude Era was no more grown-up than Jim super-gluing his hand to his dick, y'know? This whole anti-immigration angle with Dutch/Swagger/Del Rio, my proposed atheism angle, etc, there's nothing within the PG guidelines (to me) that makes them hard to do. If anything, you're likely to do them better without having the cheap availability of what a higher rating would allow.

I turned it off as soon as they didn't emphasise "AMERICAN" English and then take a quick pop at Britain.

I think they're leaving that avenue open whilst, obviously, hoping Taker gives them a positive response. *** As for FOX, I'm still waiting for the day someone pulls the trigger on a Dawkins-esque outspoken atheist. You'd need the absolute right guy to do it, but their weakness in getting their point across is the "you must be a fucking idiot to believe in God" attitude, and that's tailor-made for wrestling.

Even if he's making $200k, or even $100k, he's not paying road expenses, he's got a whole lot less travel, he's in his home country, he's a top star... you knock that out of a downside from the WWE and it's equal if not less.

Really? Damn, that sucks. Granted, I thought he looked stoned in the mug shot, he's a history of this kind of thing, and speeding is always y'know (then again, do we know how fast/far over/where he was doing it?)... but having some beers in the car doesn't mean you're drunk, either. There's a difference between a guy doing 70 on a 65mph interstate, sober, with a bit of weed on him, and a guy doing 100 through a 30?mph residential area whilst drunk off his face...

Sorry, Will... heh. But, yeah, the idea of speeding whilst stoned, or doing anything fast, or really doing much of anything, is just... odd to me. He needs better shit.

So I guess Bill Hicks was wrong after all?

Thought the show was pretty good but nothing I'm liable to remember in a few months' time... Del Rio/Show was alright, though I think Show is much better against a guy like Sheamus who, whilst probably no better than Del Rio generally, can lay it in and be physical back at him. The botch was hilarious, made even worse by the fact that Show was well within reaching distance of the ropes and had to extend his arm bent when he tried to grab it. Cesaro/Miz was a solid match. I'm not seeing anything particularly special in it that others have, but it was pretty good. I still think Cesaro is missing something, a presence maybe, but as others have mentioned, he stands out in a very positive way that bodes well for him. I'm gonna go against the grain on the finish. I'd've much rather seen Cesaro win clean and Miz relegated to FCW or something but, for what it was, I thought it was a pretty clever way to do the cheap finish. The Chamber was pretty pedestrian before Henry cleaned house, and he was clearly the star of it. Though once he went I thought the other three picked up the pace quite well, the two eliminations/falls at the end being a particularly nice little sequence. The six-man wasn't as strong as the TLC version, suffering for the lack of weapons and what-not, but was really, really well done, and as others are, I'm both impressed and very glad at how they've handed the Shield thus far. Easily the best match on the show. Dolph/Kofi was what it was, though the front suplex across the turnbuckle drew a wince from me. The divas match, well... they are what they are too, though Tamina at least presents herself as a wrestler. The main event? Pretty meh, really. The finish felt flat to me. The rolling-across-the-ankle ref bump was better done and far less contrived than they tend to be. Though if you're gonna have to do chinlocks to cover for the Rock's cardio they need to at least be synched in somewhat. I'm surprised they didn't have Heyman slap Punk at some point and get the Rock DQ'd, I figured that was the obvious reasoning behind the stip, but I guess it's a "Punk believes he can beat him clean" thing... still, as a desperation measure down the stretch maybe? I dunno.

He was probably well aware that his match/feud with Austin would be far more memorable than Taker/Sid and in his mind the real main event...

I like Okada. I can see him doing OK. But the difference in his take-home probably wouldn't be that much assuming he doesn't get past a decent enough mid-card spot, and factoring in the schedule/travel, being a top guy in NJ, staying at home, if I was in his ear I'd suggest staying put.

Either way, he's done really fucking well for an in-joke.

It depends. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but really, it's complicated. Depends on the move in question, to a great extent. The bump-taker has much more control on some moves than others; with a hurricanrana, for example, the guy taking the move has to fling himself forward and basically controls the move from start to finish while the other guy spins around him and pretends he's actually doing stuff. But if it's a powerbomb, that's almost entirely on the guy doing the move; the guy taking it basically just tucks his chin, pulls in his elbows, jumps up for the move and prays that everything goes safely and that his opponent knows what he's doing. From experience, the powerbomb is much more on the guy receiving the move than you're giving credit to. Or, rather, it can be. The guy taking the move posts off the legs, throws himself with the momentum of the lift, sits up as high as he can going round, etc... we ended up doing some throw-away alley-oop (?) spot one time when he was expecting to do most of the work lifting me for the crucifix... it can be done moreorless dead-weight, but it wouldn't look very good. The tiger driver, on the other hand, is a lot more on the guy delivering the move. Provided the grip is tight in the underhook you can delay it (they do delayed butterflies in Joshi but I've never seen a tiger driver stalled), and the guy taking it needs only make sure his feet go straight up (a la a delayed suplex), the guy hitting the move can arch back just enough to balance him, and then with a combination of his hands behind the back and his stomach, pops the guy up and out into the powerbomb portion. You'd think the moves would be the opposite way around, right? (I certainly did only to have the guy taking the tiger driver land with his lower back right on my groin). Delayed suplex is all about the guy taking the move making himself as light as possible, but it's still predominently on the guy hitting it. Posts, kicks his legs straight up, the more vertical his body is the easier the move is, and you can stall it for a lot longer than most guys do. On the actual delivery, though, it's on the deliverer. I'm surprised more people haven't nicked Kobashi's trick of taking a bump as he hits the move, the impact is so much stronger visually/aurally as a result. Incidentally, body slams always freaked me out the most. The angle of the movement for one (because you're generally not lifted right around the horizontal in the air), and the bump itself (breaking your fall) was always that bit harder to gauge than on a lot of other, apparently harder, spots. At least, for me.

Natives/gaikokujin then, if you must. But if they're happy to call themselves such...

Henry was great. Just great. BUT... Lesnar. I seriously think though, you could totally build to such a great Lesnar/Henry match.

Even by then, though, with only the chop, how many variations did the guy do? There's some six man I remember seeing where he does almost an Orange Crush with a chop thrown in... silly, but the guy was clearly still trying to do a lot of stuff and have as big an offence as he was physically capable, his "attitude" hadn't changed on that.