DE.

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.

You're thinking of Enzo, and yeah he was great on the mic but a total bellend backstage. Neville/PAC was so incensed at being asked to drop the cruiserweight title to him that he walked out. I imagine when the rape accusation was announced they were more than happy to get rid. The fact they never brought him back once he was cleared kind of says it all. Yeah in the States there are a lot of areas where you're a minor if you're under the age of 18. It's obviously a bit weird for us to see a 17 year old described as a minor due to the age of consent being 16 in the UK. I did read that one of the boys Dream was allegedly in contact with was 15 though which is obviously bad times in most countries. Again though there's no specific proof so until he's charged by the police I don't think anyone should assume his guilt. As for how Vince will react, who knows at this point, the guy is completely unpredictable.

To be honest Vince would probably have ruined him if he had gotten called up anyway, but he certainly has all the tools to be a huge success. Considering the charges against him his ring name is slightly unfortunate now though ?

I really hope he turns out to be innocent in all of this and it is just a very sophisticated hack by somebody with a grudge. It's beyond stupid otherwise if he genuinely did do this.

Oh yeah, Persona 5's music score is immense. A lot of it is not traditionally what I listen to but it sounds great. All of the battle and boss themes are top notch, as good as any Final Fantasy game. I think the music is especially important in an RPG as you play it for so long and will hear a lot of the same songs repeated (especially battle themes) so they need to be good or they end up being annoying.

Come to think of it, whilst I'm talking about Final Fantasy music I'd be remiss in failing to mention The Black Mages. Basically a rock/metal group formed by the guy who created the music for all of the classic FF games, Nobou Uematsu. I guess it's basically how the music would have sounded if not for the hardware limitations of the NES/SNES/PS1. Some of the tracks are absolutely incredible. Well worth checking out their first album from 2003. Force Your Way and The Decisive Battle are the pinnacle of music, and I won't hear any arguments otherwise. All the FFVII tracks sound great too.

No gaming update to share, only Powerglove who I forgot about, just rediscovered and remembered how amazing they are. My favourite version of the FF7 battle theme, period. They should have used this in the remake. For any FF6 fans they also did an incredible version of that game's boss theme.

Oh yeah, Vince alone could have three seasons dedicated to himself I imagine. This is just the stuff we know about.

Dark Side of the Ring is a TV series produced by Vice. It's really good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Ring You can find most of the episodes on DailyMotion uploaded by Vice themselves, and I think there's a bunch of reuploads on YouTube as well.

Dark Side of the Ring certainly isn't running out of stories any time soon. I really hope Dream has legitimately been hacked, but if it is a hack then it must be somebody with one hell of a grudge against him to go to these lengths.

Quite a big story developing regarding Velveteen Dream allegedly sending naked pictures to underage boys. I caught the initial post on Reddit this morning before the mods locked and deleted it, when the accuser first posted some pictures from Instagram. Since then some audio which is supposed to be Dream has leaked as well, and the number he was supposed to have called some of the boys on has been confirmed as his legitimate mobile number (in the recent past at least). Dream has tweeted a denial but it's looking bad for him at the moment. Don't think he'll be around for a while, at least whilst the police investigation which is inevitably due to follow concludes. He was a future main eventer with his current gimmick and talent for sure, so this will be a massive shame to say the least if it does turn out to be true as his career will be over - and that may be the least of his worries.

01/02 was a great game for sure. I really liked 97/98 and 03/04 as well. I probably wouldn't go back to them now as I'm too used to the newer versions and features but they are timeless nonetheless!