ThunderPower_14

surprise surprise

Just on Bryan, he's only so popular because everyone else in the WWE is so boring these days. I can't believe i'm saying something like "back in my day", but he'd have been a solid midcarder eclipsed by a swath far more interesting and charismatic wrestlers a decade ago.

Dead on Stevo. I don't know if it was an ego driven thing with Vince, I imagine it was pretty bitter between WWE and WCW at that stage, but the marginalising of WCW stars was incredibly poor creatively. He could have had two strong federations duking it out with epic matches that had only occured in dreams up until then. He really needed to give Sting a blank cheque as one of the only big names who hadn't wrestled in WWF earlier in their careers. They could have had WCW takeover smackdown and had massive cross promotional rivalries over the next couple of years with long built up feuds. It's a shame really. It killed wrestling for me.

Yeah, the merger and the subsequent doubling of the roster size made it really difficult to manage. In reality they should have cut a lot of guys or moved them back to developmental federations instead of trying to manage 100 wrestlers. The draft was a really poor attempt at it IMO.

Was it though? I feel like it was totally botched compared to the potential it had. I remember thinking it was Christmas when I heard that WCW and WWE were basically merging. Then they just marginalised the WCW talent, missed out on Sting, and totally dismantled everything that had made WCW good. They simply absorbed WCW without really utilising any of the stuff that made WCW good in a meaningful way. They should have kept Nitro going for a lot longer, even having it take over Smackdown would have been great, then they could have slowly integrated the two brands with each having pot shots at the other over a much longer time before WWE finally killed off WCW. Instead the solution to having way too many wrestlers on the roster was the awful draft system with two separate WWE championships which they are finally getting rid of thankfully.

I haven't watched the WWE for a decade, but they've really painted themselves into a corner with John Cena. He's had the same superboring gimmick for 10 years and even the kids who lapped it up in 2004 are old enough now that they get that it's a terrible gimmick. Nobody can talk on a microphone to save their lives. The headliners are totally devoid of charisma. Orton is just okay, Cena is boring, Batista is boring, CM Punk is pass mark, Lesnar has Paul Heyman do his talking for him. It's just match after match of cookie cutter boredom. They need an original nWo level shakeup IMO. Something that really factionally divides the locker room and gets people to care about these boring wrestlers. Even the up and comers are boring. Dan Bryan sucks. The shield might be okay but they need to change their gimmick. The most interesting person to talk on a microphone today was the Road Dogg.

The A league can have one player exempt from the salary cap though. And if Messi or Ronaldo wanted to come to Australia they'd forget the rules in the blink of an eye obviously.

Can be bought from the club online shop Unless you are really in love with Mita Copiers or something.

Bringing a game home from a position like that will always mean more than total runs or strike rate (well to me, anyway. Faulkner might prefer one of the other innings). It's why Australians still revere Michael Bevan for the 4 off the last ball to beat the Windies on New Years day in 1996. He controlled the game from an almost certain loss to a glorious win.

Faulkner played the innings of his life. Stokes and Bresnan putting a few balls in the slot probably helped, but with T20 these days players seem to be able to manufacture boundaries from anything.

Really good loan deal for us, great work Villa.

It was 45 here in Adelaide today. I am not an elite athlete, but I am a reasonably fit dude. Today just walking outside was a struggle. Playing football in this sort of weather would be absolute madness.

After finishing 2nd in the first year of the Premier League, Doug Ellis realises how money is about to totally change football and heavily invests over the next few seasons, buying some of the top players in Europe and winning Premier League titles in 1994/95 and 95/96. Aston Villa enter the race for 24 year old Bordeaux superstar Zinedine Zidane, and Doug Ellis nabs him with a very significant financial offer. Aston Villa dominate the next decade of European soccer, adding two further European Cups to their trophy cabinet and becoming one of the biggest sporting brands in the world. Aston Villa shirt sales dwarfing every other club worldwide.

I think you need to stick with Cook and this is a big part of the reason. He's presided over a pretty good period for your test side. You'd barely lost a test under his captaincy until this series apart from against a once in a generation South African side, including winning a series in India. He's still only young and his captaincy will develop. Dropping him after one dodgy series would be a huge mistake.

We'll play them back into form

I don't see the need for a massive change for you guys. Prior is gone. Swann is gone. It will be a bonus if you ever see Trott in the side again. Other than that, your core is pretty good. Cook, Bell, Broad and Anderson should all be mainstays for a while yet, and guys like Bairstow, Finn, Stokes and Root are just kids and have 5 years before they are even approaching their peak as Test cricketers. I think it would be a bit of a tragedy if Pietersen retired so young so you'd hope despite the rumours he hangs around. I think Cook will have learned a lot from this series about playing a bit more aggressively. He's an incredibly conservative captain but you'd hope he opens up a bit now. You'll never field that badly across a series again. How Cook rallies the group for the next series is pretty important.

Ah. I get it now.

Simple as that. No idea why they didn't think of doing it. Not simple at all. But some ambition and investment in the 90s could have made a lot of difference. If Randy Lerner had come along a decade earlier who knows where we might be now. Kind of pointless entertaining it, though isn't it? Pointless AND depressing

Simple as that. No idea why they didn't think of doing it. Not simple at all. But some ambition and investment in the 90s could have made a lot of difference. If Randy Lerner had come along a decade earlier who knows where we might be now.

Everyone on this site seems to hate Morrissey. I have no idea about anything about him other than The Smiths, whom I love. What's the deal?

We were in such a good position to kick on in the early 90s, all it would have taken was a bit of foresight and investment and we could easily have risen with the big clubs. Even after missing the boat we were still around the mark in the late 90s and early 2000s but we just pissed it away by not striking while the iron was hot. If we'd gotten in, invested well, and built a global brand, like Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal did as the Premier League started and football became all about money, we could be a big club now. That said we could also be Leeds Utd I guess. I wasn't old enough to follow football over the other side of the world in the early 90s, but it feels to me like we missed the boat big time. Now with the absolute horseshit that is FFP and post Abramovich and Abu Dhabi injecting silly money into football, we're under a big glass ceiling and our best hope is probably to be like Everton, constantly competitive but never actually winning anything or playing in the CL.

Jerry Stiller Patricia Routledge Jeff Hardy Ben Cousins Gough Whitlam

Any chance of an updated version of this?

I don't expect us to be pushing the top sides, but we're getting destroyed all over the pitch in every game we play. I honestly feel that bar the opening game against Arsenal (who we comfortably outplayed IMO, I was incredibly confident of a good season at that stage), we've been outplayed in every single match. The stats don't say everything but 26% possession and 56% pass accuracy is what you'd expect if we played the academy team in the premier league. We have been a counter attacking side for a while now so you don't necessarily expect us to dominate possession, but you can't ignore those sorts of statistics. I feel less hopeful going into games now than I did last season, because despite shipping goals, we were always a chance to score and nick a result last season you felt. This season I just don't see where the goals are coming from unless the opposition gift them to us, and we're still shipping goals.

Being sold to an Oil Shiek or the like would be equally depressing and exciting. On the one hand i'd feel really dirty that the club I love is a willing and central participant in the ruining of football with money On the other hand we might win trophies and be relevant and exciting and not have to put up with the utter garbage we have over the past few seasons and football is screwed anyway so why not enjoy the ride? At the moment being bought out by the mega-rich would be an absolute dream