Yeah it's become a bit of a witch hunt - needs to be reined in a bit to separate the legit abuse stories from the stories that are more about personal issues or just somebody being a dick in general.

Vince has been and still can be a genius wrestling promoter, I don't think anyone could argue otherwise. With that said he is badly out of touch with the modern audience. His shows have been declining in ratings and attendence for close to a decade now. There are no new stars on the level of anybody from the attitude or ruthless aggression era. Those stars continue to be run into the ground despite their advanced ages, and are routinely put over the newer generation enhancing the percpetion that the old is better than the new. The only product that resonates with a modern audience is NXT, but even then it has a significant over-50s audience share, which also correlates with Raw & Smackdown's demographics. We have seen time and time again how NXT's brightest talents are misued and destroyed on the main roster. The vast majority see their value plummet in the space of months if not weeks. Eventually WWE is going to run out of older generation stars who are still able to go, and I have no idea what they will do at that point as they haven't built any replacements. Even Roman Reigns doesn't really draw outside of the current core fanbase.

Great to see Evans come back from a scary injury and put in that kind of performance.

Jeez this sexual harrassment stuff just keeps coming out. She was 17 at the time, JFC. "I fucking love you dick head" - how did that line not win her back?

It's just Vince being Vince. He was distracted by the XFL when NXT made the move to TV, so Triple H and Shawn Michaels were probably able to run it without any major interference. With the XFL on hiatus due to COVID Vince now has his eyes firmly set back on WWE and it looks like NXT is part of that.

@Blue blood this is what Meltzer wrote this week about NXT: Looks like sadly it is on its way to becoming the C show.

As per my last post, Lagana has resigned his position and NWA has temporarily halted production:

Dave Lagana is also being accused now which could spell trouble for NWA Powerrr as he's one of if not the main force behind it.

There's a pretty huge sexual misconduct scandal exploding at the moment - originally started with David Starr and focused on the UK Independent scene, but is quickly branching out to OVW (specifically Jim Cornette and his wife) and NXTUK. Looks like some serious shit is about to hit the fan. Dark Side of the Ring won't have to worry about content for the foreseeable future.

It took me a very long time to get through FFVIII when I originally replayed it a few years ago on the OG PS1 - at least a couple of months. I imagine a significant amount of time was spent drawing spells to junction to my characters. The x3 speed on the remaster is definitely a massive improvement. I got up to Lunatic Pandora on FFVIII then other games took over. I'll get back to it eventually. I've put another 100+ hours into Persona 5 Royal, having already put over 200 hours into the original game. Granted some of that time is just on the pause menu whilst I'm doing other things, but it's scary how addictive the gameplay is. There's always something to do and a reward just around the corner. When you finish the game you can restart under "New Game +" which has more extra stuff to do, plus you carry over your money, weapons, etc from the previous playthrough which makes the early stages of the game a breeze. I'm kind of sad to report I have very little motivation to play the FF7 Remake at the moment. I'm in no rush as the next instalment won't be out for a long time, but it definitely doesn't have the same pull for me as the original. Beautiful graphics though.

Completely agree. It's different with football because at its core it is a competitive sport so even though the crowd is a big part of it, the game itself is still interesting enough for me to watch without it. Wrestling is entertainment and as you say designed for crowd reaction, so when there isn't one it just feels weird and flat. It's a real shame as before the pandemic I was hugely into what AEW are doing, but now I'm just not that interested in watching until the crowds are back.

There have been so many potential "big" moments in AEW that would have been amazing with a crowd reaction - Matt Hardy's first appearance, Brody Lee (who would have been debuting in his home state I believe), Jericho/Tyson, The Revival's debut... it really sucks that all of this stuff is happening with zero crowd. As you say the intensity that makes these kinds of moments memorable just isn't there. It's kind of depressing which is why I've stopped watching for now. Kudos to AEW for continuing to put out a great product but without the crowd reaction it just isn't the same.

The Championship and L1 lost their integrity after the Bolton debacle IMV, especially L1 with a bunch of teams playing Bolton's youth squad at the start of the season compared to a still-awful-but-mostly-professional team afterwards.

I think it's just a case of what you get used to. Sugar by itself is very addictive so I imagine a fair few Americans think our chocolate doesn't taste right. Similarly whenever I eat American chocolate it tastes far too sweet and I can practically feel my teeth starting to decay as soon as I take a bite. I noticed a big difference between our Coca Cola and theirs, too. They use Fructose Corn Syrup which isn't used much over here due to lack of availability. The taste difference is really obvious, with their version of Coke being a lot sweeter than ours. I'm taking the thread off topic too tbf ? but it's lockdown so whatever, everyone is having decent, non-aggressive discussions so it's fine by me.

You can certainly understand how so many of them end up obese when you combine the taste of the food, the portion sizes and the addictive elements clandestinely added to a lot of their food. The last time I went the prices were extremely reasonable as well, even in LA, compared to what you get over here for the same price. I had an American girlfriend a long time ago and whilst she didn't drink, so I never got her take on our alcohol, she did develop a bizarre affinity for our bread (and Coronation Street). I've always found American bread kind of gross as it generally tastes like it's been coated in sugar - it's the same with their baked beans. I'll go English on those items any day.

Completely agree with you on that. The reason American food tastes good is because it's smothered with additives which cause your brain to want more of it, as are their sodas which most restaurants provide unlimited free refills for. I would never advocate adopting American food standards over here, and I hope we never do.

Yeah I'd agree the buffet food as a whole was generally pretty poor quality, but it's also usually very cheap so I guess you get what you pay for. It's not too different over here in fairness.

I've been to Florida, Connecticut and LA, and the only bad experience I had with food was a Chinese in Florida which was terrible. I enjoyed pretty much everything else, although there was a lot more sugar and salt than I was used to, and the portion sizes were insane across the board.

No problem with the debate lads, good points being discussed, but maybe time to take a break and move on? Once it starts getting personal it's better to leave it alone I think. Thanks.

Honestly I've just stopped watching modern wrestling entirely. I still watch the odd Nitro or Raw from the 90s if I want something playing in the background that I don't have to pay much attention to, but wrestling without crowd reactions is just boring to me. I'm not sure I'll watch again until crowds are allowed back into the arenas.

I haven't played any of 1-5, so I can't comment on them, although from what I gather they are very grindy as old school JRPG's tend to be. FFVI is really good. I wasn't blown away by it as so many others are, but it might be because I never played it growing up, so the nostalgia factor isn't there for me. I still enjoyed playing it but it was just okay, and there's a difficulty spike at one point in the game which practically ruins it IMO. FFVIII is one of my favourites, just behind VII, but the Junction system is kind of broken and makes it really easy to overpower yourself early on and basically destroy every enemy in the game with ease. The story is completely insane but if you're okay with that you will probably enjoy it. FFIX gets a lot of praise but personally I've never gotten on with it. I've tried to play it a few times and just became bored every time. It's a shame as I want to like it, but I can't. It might change one day but not right now!

I'm a bit shamed to say I've never played Chrono Trigger! It's on my list though. I've got it on my SNES classic console so I don't have an excuse really! The Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack is one of my favourites. I've played through that game a ton of times (probably more than any other Mega Drive game) and the soundtrack is super nostalgic for me. Even the intro is killer! The full OST, with practically every song a classic. I also found this which I wasn't expecting... a live performance of the SoR soundtrack in Paris from 2018!

It looks like Shad Gaspard (formerly of Cryme Tyme) has sadly drowned after being caught in a riptide whilst swimming. He asked the lifeguards to save his ten year old son before himself, which they did, but he was pulled under a wave before they could get back to him. Really tragic situation, by all accounts he was one of the nicest guys in the business.

I remember Brett Emerton having an absolute stormer on his debut against Wolves, but he rarely came close to hitting that kind of performance again. He ended up being decent but nothing special on the right wing, and from memory had a good spell at RB/RWB as well, but never fulfilled his potential.

Good to hear you're back on the mend mate, fingers crossed it's all upwards from here.