DE.

I think he's more stubborn than slow. When push comes to shove Mowbray can change things around and it normally works, but he's so bloody-minded in his approach that it takes a lot of pressure before he finally concedes and makes an alteration.

Tony needs to have a serious think about SG once the season is over. The way he's been used this season hasn't been effective enough, Statistically not a disaster but still far from what we need. Mowbray needs to figure out how to utilise whatever strengths Gallagher has and how best to incoprorate that into our starting eleven. As it stands the lad looks frequently lost and ineffective when he's on the pitch, especially when he's asked to play a wide role he clearly isn't suited to.

We had a rough start and some scary moments towards the end of the half, but have been fairly comfortable overall. We're struggling to create any decent chances in open play - our best efforts have come from a couple of direct free kicks. Bennett & Gallagher are by far the worst performers out there, really struggling today. Brereton and Nyambe have been our best attacking threats, with Holtby having some nice touches as well. We need to get Armstrong on the pitch and hope he has his shooting boots on, as this Wigan defence has gaps to be exploited. Our does too, though, so we need to keep them as far away from our penalty box as possible.

He seems to think converted strikers can do the job instead... which has largely not been the case. Arma perhaps the only success story as far as that philosophy is concerned.

Looking a lot better now after a shaky start. Just lacking any major goal throat which is where we miss the likes of Graham, Dack and Armstrong.

Sadly it looks like NWA Powerrr is done. A lot of releases recently and Zicky Dice (their TV champ) has also been granted his release. With Dave Lagana resigning due to the Speaking Out movement it's not looking good.

Yeah for sure, it's amazing that Joey Ryan's schtick was never really questioned and anybody who did was called boring or stuck in the past. At the very least shitty, creepy gimmicks like that should now be - to quote Matt Hardy - obsolete. The fact Gallagher went straight past suspension to outright sacked is what makes me think there's more evidence to his case than the others.

I agree on Joey Ryan, I always thought the gimmick was weird and creepy but I guess the assumption was that the performers had agreed to being a part of his act, whereas the accusers didn't. The thing with Gallagher is that a fair few low level NXT UK guys have been involved in this but none have been released yet. For Gallagher to be so quickly dismissed suggests to me there is something more to his story. Perhaps he admitted to it or at least indicated he did something he shouldn't have. Either way I don't think we'll be seeing him wrestle again any time soon.

Yeah but there have been other WWE guys accused and none of them fired, only Jack Gallagher. Reading between the lines that has to say something. Nah his gimmick plays on the gay aspect but he's straight and judging by the tsunami of accusations a serial sexual predator who has hidden behind his gimmick to act like a creep. You can dismiss one or two accusations as misunderstandings or attempts at defaming him, but there are so many at his point - most made by female wrestlers who have no obvious reason to lie - that it's very unlikely he's being set up. The guy is just a piece of shit, full stop. Of course every case has to be judged on its merits, though. The Matt Riddle accusation, for example, was made by a woman who had been stalking and harrassing him for two years. That's not to say it isn't true because we don't know, but it's the kind of accusation that requires serious investigation by the authorities before anybody makes any judgements.

Jack Gallagher & Jimmy Havoc I believe have both been accused of rape with substancial evidence. Gallagher was straight up fired by WWE which I think tells you enough. Havoc has gone to some kind of rehab facility and I believe has basically admitted to his actions. Dude is well known for being a horrible human being.

There have been some guys speaking up as well (largely talking about other men being the abusers, though) but yeah the Cornette stuff was treated more like "ha ha" than outrage. With that said the Cornette stuff is nowhere near as clear cut as the allegations against the likes of Joey Ryan, David Starr, Jimmy Havoc, Jack Gallagher, Dave Crist, etc. These dudes have basically been outed as legit sexual predators/rapists which is seriously fucked up. Sammy Guevara has also been suspended from AEW for a comment on a podcast from 4 years ago where he joked that he wanted to rape Sasha Banks. An incredibly stupid and immature thing to say but it's weird to see that comment getting more attention than the actual stories of rape and sexual abuse.

I should note that the Cornette stuff is pretty flaky and far from proven.

He already has - he and his wife were accused of sexual harrassment by some people who were in OVW. The jist of it was the Cornette liked to watch his wife with other guys, and they would pressure guys into being with her, threatening to essentially blackball them if they didn't go along with it.

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.