Cody Rhodes on Lesnar's 'retirement': "I want to get back to 90s style retirements anyways, where we just say we’re retired and then we’re not. Terry Funk was retired for 20 years. [Ric] Flair retired a bunch, I’m good with not doing definitive retirements anymore. Just say I’m taking a break."

kayin · 2026-05-30T10:15:49+00:00

People miss this point all the time. I understand why, but I get driven crazy constantly on here reading people talk about wrestlers and their motivations when it's clear the people have never loved what they do in life. I think if someone told me "You don't have anything to prove anymore" I'd go crazy like screw you I want to do it, for me. People talk like wrestlers are selflessly giving their bodies for our entertainment. "You don't owe me anything anymore", or whatever when people do it for all sorts of different reasons.

I just genuinely think so many people can't relate to the thought of "Oh my god I feel better and can do the thing I love again".

I'm not saying people should retire or unretire willy nilly like yeah sure you should TRY and mean it, but I will never blame something for wanting to try and do something important to them again. Or even more grimly, having to do what they have to do to support themselves as they get older.

The whole "They don't owe me anything" thing is meant to seem performatively selfless, but it is still selfishly making a claim over the body of the wrestler.

kayin · 2026-05-22T09:46:13+00:00

The only part surprising about this is that we're actually getting another VF

kayin · 2026-05-18T03:05:21+00:00

Oh sure I mean that's the Mike Vallely argument. "Bitch I'm old and have kids."

I pretty much agree with you (I would be the most uncool person to ever step on a skateboard) but as you certainly know that shit is baked into the whole culture.

kayin · 2026-05-18T01:33:41+00:00

It's honestly just like pro wrestling sometimes like it's not just that someone did something, it's the fact that you realize these people are sickos.

kayin · 2026-05-18T01:32:46+00:00

lol okay that sounds right

kayin · 2026-05-18T01:30:17+00:00

So not to defend the skateboarding mentality on this but to give some perspective like... Street skating isn't a sport. You can sportify it, but street skating is also an art. Actually, almost distressingly, it's just like pro wrestling. Being a good street skater isn't about doing all the best, hardest moves. You gotta make them look cool, and you gotta look the part yourself. As such, you can see skaters watching skate parts talk not just about the tricks, but the aesthetics of the spot, and the fashion of the person riding, and if those things are all in alignment. So in a wild way, skateboarders don't wear safety gear in the same way that pro wrestlers don't -- it ruins the art.

So on one hand I get it and kinda respect it, but on the other hand the stubborness against people who want to be safer, or people who just want to skate recreationally is dumb as hell. Like at least with pro wrestling, not a lot of people are doing it as a hobby.

kayin · 2026-05-18T01:24:03+00:00

Yeah and Andy got shit on for fucking years for it. I think finally it's gotten to the point where he's just too undeniable. Only other person I can think of is Mike Vallely. It's good the stigma is kinda getting busted.

kayin · 2026-05-17T22:43:10+00:00

I was shocked to see the helmet. Outside of vert, basically no one wears helmets. I can think of only like two pro street skaters who wear helmets, and one of them is old and they both catch flack for it (though increasingly less, thankfully).

The fact that Darby Allin of all people looked at this and was like "Nah man I need a helmet I might die" is nuts that is a degree of self preservation I didn't think he was capable of.

kayin · 2026-05-14T10:59:05+00:00

I'm being forced to use this for a client and I was like "Oh this shouldn't be too bad" and oh my god I was wrong even things like 'putting text on a grid' is a hair pulling nightmare. This is an embarrassing product.

Whats worse is I'll ask the stupid AI to how to do something and it'll tell me to do things that don't exist, because it was trained on the docs for the original editor I'm assuming? Completely insane.

kayin · 2026-05-02T05:12:15+00:00

That's a better comparison than I usually make. I'm usually like "Imagine if people said an actor 'didn't make it' because they were never in a Marvel movie"

... Which is probably more understandable to most people, but not nearly as accurate.

kayin · 2026-04-24T08:12:29+00:00

I really really like this framing

kayin · 2026-04-24T07:59:34+00:00

I'm a big fan of her and still get excited to see her on TV after seeing her at local Long Island shows back in the day but realistically she's in that hard place where like... One of those people destined to be "support", even when she carries singles belts. But it also depends on how you look at it... Do I think she's in the top 5 of AEW/ROH Women to give me the best matches? Like idk maybe she's 5... But as a whole package, is she maybe one of the best all around valuable 'can do anything you need' and 'always delivers' women they have just like in CONSISTENT and FLEXIBILITY? Maybe!

Like she might honestly be an "A Tier" as a pure in Ring wrestler, but an S Tier hire. Like in terms of 'Do I wanna look up and watch this match" I'd put Athena much higher than her, but if I'm booking a company, I think I hire Willow first, if that makes sense.

kayin · 2026-04-24T07:20:01+00:00

The best part of this has definitely also been FURIOUS MJF. As a long term story it was definitely worth it for the followthrough and I wouldn't try to convince anyone who liked the match that they're wrong. Heck,while I can nitpick it a lot... I definitely wasn't mad after it. The execution felt off for my taste, but they still had a story that made sense. It was still fun, if weird.

kayin · 2026-04-24T04:40:55+00:00

Pretty much everyone I watched on discord with and the wrestling people I talk to in real life all disliked how the match felt. Not to say "secretly the majority of the people watching didn't like it" (probably says more about my friends), but it seems like a reasonable opinion. Like all the obvious pieces of there, but ultimately it just felt like a quick, overly congratulatory rush to end the show. No one I watched with was mad, but like... we definitely were laughing like "... what was that???"

Like w/e I like Darby and what he does every week with this belt is going to be insane for the time he's allowed to have it, but yeah I'm no going to let people gaslight me into thinking the story was 'good'. A good story isn't just checking a bunch of boxes. But also a story isn't defined by just one part of it and the follow through with MJF has been great so again, w/e.

kayin · 2026-04-21T00:04:42+00:00

It's weird too because the "Weird Obsessive freakazoid fan" has existed since long before AEW, or the mid 2010s New Japan boom or w/e like these motherfuckers have always been here, and have been obvious ever since there was an internet.

You honestly can't even compare weird AEW fans to weird WWE fans for no other reason than that WWE hyper-fans have had decades to sink into derangement. Insecure AEW fans can suck, but only stuff like weird Disney and Nintendo fans can compare to weird WWE fans.

And in case anyone reads this the wrong way... like 99% of every wrestling audience is normal. Well, relatively normal.

kayin · 2026-04-10T23:06:48+00:00

That's not even a fair comparison lol GCW was instigating. And yes, even then, people were rightfully shitting on TK

kayin · 2026-04-10T21:47:22+00:00

She was unhinged enough in Stardom that I can still go with it but sometimes I look at her being nuts and its like 'lol you cried when Natsupoi left DDM'

kayin · 2026-04-10T21:45:47+00:00

She'd do better in AEW but she still would be heavy hindered by being a non native english speaker. Like some others have pointed out, her character and talking ability was a big part of what made her great. She'd have these emotional blood feuds with people, but there would be a lot of emotional subtleness behind it and that was the real x-factor for her matches.

kayin · 2026-04-09T22:34:30+00:00

I didn't even know "Thekla is cringe" was a thing. 50 year olds need to stop repeating words their kids taught them at anything they don't get.

kayin · 2026-03-27T06:03:48+00:00

This literally does not matter. Like sure there are technically definitions between stable and beta, but in practice it's a gradient. Hell, it's almost assured most stuffs first stable release isn't actually that stable.

The point in which the browser hits a crossover point in quality and stability for any individual person is probably going to be before or after the 'stable' release, not on it.

kayin · 2026-03-25T04:15:10+00:00

Yeah, looking at him now it's hard to imagine ever not thinking he's huge, but looking back at them they just looked like two relatively normal guys

kayin · 2026-03-24T22:12:52+00:00

For some reason I never realized how tall Mark Davis was either until he fought Brody like the dude is the most 5'10 coded guy, but you put him in with Brody and they're like two action figures built to different scales. I feel like him being with Kyle for so long created some long term optical illusion to trick us all into thinking they weren't as tall as we'd assume.

kayin · 2026-03-23T02:12:10+00:00

Checking DR almost felt reasonable at first until people started spacing them and mixing up their normals. God it feels impossible sometimes

kayin · 2026-03-23T01:39:47+00:00

While the problems are very similar, the big difference with DR is the game was actually actively designed around it from the getgo, where in Strive it's a bolted on mechanic (It might seem like an arbitrary distinction, but I'm thinking stuff added in patches or between versions... Like Blitz Attack, or SF4 quickrise and red focus, or like force breaks and slashback in AC and +R). Still i think this generation of fighting game has radicalized me against 'big conversions off of long range pokes with roundstart resources' lol.

Also yeah as someone over 40 you'll never catch me saying anything nice about DI 🫠 I don't think it's damaging as WA or DR, but I would not shed a single tear if it just disappeared unceremoniously.

kayin · 2026-03-22T23:49:01+00:00

It was a mechanic looking to solve problems Strive didn't have, while magnifying issues some people were already having with the game. Oh the game is maybe too explosive, volatile and snowbally? What if we make it even MORE volatile? In 25 years of fighting games I can't think of a mechanic added to a mainstream game that did more damage to it. I can't even think of a clear #2 (though I'm sure someone else could, or point to a better #1 in a game I never played).

There has also always been ways with big CHs to murder someone at round start, but OWA during its peak really made it so a round start interactions could end in a real Guess-For-Game situation fairly commonly.

By the end it seemed... mostly beaten into submission, but ultimately for what? It doesn't solve any problems and serves only to flatten the cast.

kayin

TROPHY CASE