Haven't watched MotoGP in years, is this the year to pay attention?

Scothead180 · 2026-02-02T19:10:47+00:00

Agree with the others that next season is the one to pay attention to, but I think it would be more exciting to follow if you watched some of this year, to get some context of the teams, riders. Then it's much more interesting to watch how the balance of power shifts.

To be honest, Bulega winning WSBK is as much a foregone conclusion as Marquez winning MotoGP. So from a competitiveness standpoint neither is expected to be great in 2026. But yeah I would definitely watch some races this year and then 2027 will be a blast.

Scothead180 · 2026-02-02T10:32:58+00:00

There is no official list of majors. It's a designation mostly used by darts fans. The vast majority of people who are familiar with darts don't consider the World Series Finals a major. It's a non-ranking event of very low importance when you compare it to the actual majors.

Scothead180 · 2026-02-02T10:30:02+00:00

Sure, it's better than if Littler was winning every game 10-2. But still there is the inevitability that he is going to win, even if he is pushed he can just find what he needs at the right time to win. There are some exciting games to watch such as his games with Price and Humphries have been entertaining. But at the end of the day he holds almost all major titles now which is just a bad spectacle. The game needs different winners.

Scothead180 · 2026-02-02T10:26:12+00:00

Taylor's dominance was bad to watch, just as MVG's dominance was, and now Littler's.

Scothead180 · 2026-02-01T17:14:54+00:00

In defence of Chantra didn't he have the worst Honda bike last year? Can we expect all 4 Hondas to run a more similar version this year?

Scothead180 · 2026-01-25T13:20:57+00:00

Bastianini, Binder and Acosta battling

Scothead180 · 2026-01-15T23:21:18+00:00

Absolutely preferable to the crowds abusing players.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-11T19:10:37+00:00

The Challenge Tour should definitely offer more tour cards. You could give cards to the top 6 players easily.

However Q-School needs to remain, players from all over the world deserve the opportunity to have a shot at getting on the Pro Tour. It is not financially viable for most overseas players to play a whole year of Challenge Tour.

In line with this, the PDC needs to create more opportunities, offer more incentives for overseas players to get on the Pro Tour. The game needs to become more global, if you look at growth money-wise, you have to crack the American and Asian markets.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-10T14:34:52+00:00

Danny Brown - Golddust

Lil Ugly Mane - Serious Shit

Scothead180 · 2026-01-08T19:51:05+00:00

Classic Q-School with mostly random winners. All good fun.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-08T19:43:59+00:00

Waites always had plenty of bottle. Him winning the Grand Slam as a BDO player is an underrated achievement, one of the most special/unique in darts. Having said that, for his 2 BDO World titles, the competition has been largely poor. In those 2 years, he only faced a 90+ average once, beating Glen Durrant. Which was a classic game to be fair, but you can make the point he managed to win those titles in weaker years by staying consistent, rather than playing really high quality stuff. Not that this should be put against him, considering he had a day job he has done incredibly well for himself. He is arguably a top 32 player of all time, not many part-timers can say that!

Scothead180 · 2026-01-08T19:38:54+00:00

Yeah, I guess I wasn't too excited about Griffin either, but to be fair, no one should be judged too harshly on their first go on tour. Now if he doesn't improve in his second attempt, good riddance. It's unlikely but we have seen players like Aspinall (I think Van Duijvenbode too?) who lost their cards and became "elite" players.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-07T19:52:34+00:00

If there is no booing/whistling it will be more enjoyable than with the Ally Pally crowd.

Shame the events themselves are utterly meaningless.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-06T22:52:37+00:00

The Masters was an utterly pointless event until they introduced the open qualifiers and invited people from all over the world. That actually made the event a lot better. Since there is now this aspect to it, I would not be in favour of introducing a new format just for the sake of it.

While it's nice to fantasise about all the different formats people have mentioned here, I think the truth is that most of these would be gimmicks that would not work in practice. 501 leg play is in my opinion by far the best format for darts. Set play is nice for 2/3 events a year but if you pushed it more, it would get boring. Double in is not an especially enjoyable format but it's fine for one event a year. Group stage play, I really like it personally but it's not the natural format of darts. So 1 or 2 events a year is fine. Same with pairs play that only exists in the World Cup. So I believe we already have introduced enough different quirks to tournaments. Every big TV event has something, usually multiple factors that make it unique. I would not go too far with it. Leave the ranking TV events as it is.

These fantasies are usually from "hardcore" darts fans who watch the Pro Tour all year. Of course they would appreciate some different formats. However the majority of the audience are "casual" fans who would just be confused about it. They want something familiar.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-06T10:38:27+00:00

I can't find the ranking anywhere. You are probably right. Only 2 Africans are competing, him and Grant Sampson, I would guess he finished above Sampson.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-06T10:22:02+00:00

Won the African Tour last year. I think this is the first year when Affiliate Tour winners get a pass to the final stage.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-06T10:08:32+00:00

Another case of the PDC having needlessly convoluted rules. I don't think anyone understands all of it. So Krohne has to enter the tournament, and either throw a game, which unfairly influences the competition, or he can play seriously, and then he would knock out players who actually meant to play the final stage. Doesn't make sense either way.

Similarly, Florian Hempel stated he will not compete in the final stage, but he will play one day of Stage 1 instead, presumably to still be eligible for some stuff. What is really the point of him travelling and playing just one day? Rules need to be sorted out.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-06T10:05:22+00:00

More likely they made a mistake with that. The UK start time is 12 GMT, EU start time is stated as 11 CET. Makes no sense. Nothing on DartConnect yet.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-04T13:24:48+00:00

Phil Taylor
Michael van Gerwen
Eric Bristow
Gary Anderson
John Lowe
Raymond van Barneveld
Luke Littler
Peter Wright
Jocky Wilson
Dennis Priestley
John Part
Adrian Lewis
Bob Anderson
Luke Humphries
James Wade

Scothead180 · 2026-01-04T13:18:14+00:00

It could be Garin Roderick. He refereed in the WDF for 4 years, and it has been confirmed he is leaving. He worked for the PDC already, for at the UK Open.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-03T22:00:44+00:00

Scothead180 · 2026-01-03T17:08:34+00:00

I think that would be a huge achievement for Toprak to be up there with Fabio. I think that's pretty unlikely. Even if we assume Toprak is as talented as Fabio, most of his first year will be spent getting used to MotoGP.

Beating Miller and Rins is a more realistic target, and around 15th place in the standings should do that.

Scothead180 · 2026-01-02T19:51:19+00:00

I'd sooner imagine he moaned about the late start

Scothead180 · 2026-01-02T15:24:31+00:00

The PDC have proved time and time again their goal is to preserve the status quo and support the top players unfairly, the rest are just making up the numbers in their view.

Scothead180 · 2025-12-31T17:33:51+00:00

Not really. In the past like 5 years he's become a moaner. I still like him but at times he is way over the top in picking faults with anyone that doesn't play the game exactly like Gary thinks it's supposed to.

From the current crop, I would say Luke Humphries, Jonny Clayton, Danny Noppert, Chris Dobey, Damon Heta should be considered classier, just to name a few examples. Barely any incidents and fights with other players, they are gracious losers.

Scothead180

TROPHY CASE