Bitesize: #8

It's been four months since I did a Bitesize post. I don't try to do them too often, I'd rather do full articles, listings or reviews than to mix a few topics together into one post. I had intended on doing an article on my thoughts on The Undertaker vs Triple H for Wrestlemania again but it's getting a little late now and I haven't even started. But that will be a starting point for this Bitesize post.

In a nutshell (I would have delved more into this if it was the full article, but keeping short), have mixed feelings about Undertaker/HHH Part III. It's not about the quality of the match, but rather seeing the same spectacle yet again.

I loved Undertaker/HHH last year. It was fresh, the feud made sense and it was a cracking match. John Cena/CM Punk at Money in the Bank aside it was the match of 2011. I absolutely loved it. But this time round, what can they do that's different? Rumours are high that Shawn Michaels might be involved this year, probably as special guest referee. But why? What is to gain either way? It will be a great match yes, but for storyline purposes I just don't see why it should happen. If Shawn Michaels is involved as referee, it's bad no matter who wins. If Undertaker wins, and extends his Wrestlemania streak to 20-0 the streak still stands, and then what? I don't know if The Undertaker is actually planning on retiring if he hits 20-0, but if he is, why doesn't he have his last match against an up and coming guy? Or someone he hasn't wrestled at 'Mania before? And if Triple H wins, and the streak ends, then it makes Triple H look bad, for having to use Shawn Michaels in his corner to end the streak. And would The Undertaker retire then? Wouldn't it taint the streak a little this way? I don't know. I'm just not a fan of Taker/HHH Part III. If it happens it'll be a phenomenal match, quite likely the match of the card in terms of quality, but it just doesn't feel that good this time round, having done it last year and the storyline seeming a little stale.

What would I do instead? There is only one man that, schedules, contracts and agreements permitted, that would grab my attention for this match this year, and that is Brock Lesnar. I don't know how available Brock Lesnar is for a match at Wrestlemania, and if he would agree to it, but if it could happen, the WWE need to do everything in their power to MAKE it happen. Lesnar is finished in MMA, and it's possible he could come back to the WWE. He's never said never for coming back, and it would be a great pay-check for him if he came back. It would further boost the PPV in terms of star-power, proof of this is in Lesnar being the best box office draw in MMA by some distance in his time there. And of course, last year, an altercation occurred between Taker and Lesnar when Taker watched Lesnar lose his MMA bout against Cain Velasquez. It all depends on how available Lesnar is, and if he'd agree a match so soon. I reckon Lesnar could put on a good match at Wrestlemania. It's enough time between his last MMA fight, and with wrestling naturally being a lot less dangerous than MMA is, I'm sure The Undertaker, with his vast experience can protect him well enough for Lesnar not to get legitimately injured in the match. Lesnar is only 34 and was a phenomenal wrestler before he left the WWE, I reckon he could still go, and really well.

If Lesnar isn't available who else should take his place? I really don't know. For me, The Undertaker, at 19-0, and being so banged up that he can only have what seems like one match per year at the moment, he really needs to retire soon. It would have been better if The Undertaker took the year off, and then come back for one more match next year against John Cena. That is if Lesnar isn't available of course. John Cena has his hands tied with The Rock, so it's not an option this year. The Undertaker could have been inducted next year into the Hall of Fame, and Cena could challenge him when announced for induction. Hopefully Cena would be heel by then (we can all dream) and it would be a great match, completely fresh, and it would be The Undertaker's retirement match. Brock Lesnar and John Cena for me are the only two people who haven't challenged The Undertaker at Wrestlemania who are credible enough to take on the challenge.

Onto football now and Liverpool are in a good bout of form. We're taking on Tottenham Hotspur tomorrow and with Luis Suarez back as well, it's a big chance to make a big statement against the team currently in third place. I'll cover that match tomorrow on this site. Chelsea just drew today, and what with Arsenal and Newcastle winning, a win against Spurs would take us back to sixth, only two points behind Chelsea. It would be three points between the four teams fighting for fourth place, and we need to stay in this pack if we want Champions League football this year. Do I think we can get fourth place? Certainly. But it's really hard with Chelsea and Arsenal to battle against, and with Newcastle still arguably fighting above their weight, we have tough competition and need to continue with this vein of form to get there. I'm telling you now, a Carling Cup trophy and fourth place for me means an excellent season, coming on the back of our torrid season last year. And an FA Cup too? At this stage we can all dream.

As for replacing John Terry for the England captaincy? Steven Gerrard, simple. The man rarely lets the team down and while people might point at the World Cup as reason not to have Gerrard as captain, I think it'd be a tad unfair to put all the responsibility on Stevie G as the reason why England failed in that tournament. England weren't good enough and Germany were phenomenal. It's as simple as that. Rio Ferdinand has took himself out of the running due to the controversy that would occur if he was captain, what with Anton Ferdinand, his brother, being the reason behind John Terry being stripped from the captaincy for the second time. Gerrard has all the credentials and experience. It's the only option, in my opinion.

Onto games now. I just did my second Old School Game Review, reviewing the disappointingly forgotten Speedball 2. It was a great game and for some reason most people seemed to have forgotten about it. You can read that review here. Next on my list of games to review is Plants vs Zombies. I've been playing the PC version for years and recently downloaded the XBox Arcade version, so I'm still unsure what version I'll review. I'll probably compare the both, as there are differences between the two. I'll probably review that in the next week or two.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 was released on Friday. When it was announced I was really excited by it. I looked at the trailers and it looked quite interesting. The Japanese reviewed it last month when it was released there and gave it rave reviews. Then it was released in the US a few weeks ago and it got mixed reviews. It's amazing, the difference in opinion between the West and the East when it comes to RPG games. I've got to be honest, based on how many reviews I've read on the game from the States and the UK, it seems to be the same issues that we have with the game here in the West. I don't think I'm going to get the game for a while yet, mainly because I can't afford it, but also because the issues with the game are relevant and put me off slightly. I'll still get it, I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan and I've got pretty much every offline release they have done. I'll eventually get it, and of course, review it when I'm ready to. It will be a very long time from now mind. If you haven't' seen it already, I reviewed the original Final Fantasy XIII on this site, you can read that here.

In music, I'll be reviewing Florence and the Machine's "Ceremonials", probably on Wednesday. Also planned is Kasabian's "Velociraptor!" album, and PJ Harvey's "Let England Shake". I did the latest in my monthly "Yearly Music Review" on Wednesday just gone, reviewing the year 1993. You can read that here, it's a good read on what was a difficult year to review. I've been preparing 1992 recently and it's looking like a fabulous year in comparison. Look forward to reading that at the start of March.

Rumours are high that Marilyn Manson has retracted his February release date of "Born Villain". As I've said a few times, I'm planning a Marilyn Manson tribute on this site. It will begin the day the album comes out, and stretch for two or three weeks, ending in the review of the new album. It's a tribute I've been looking forward to doing, for one of my favourite music artists of all time. If you're a Manson fan I hope you'll love it too. I'm sure you will.

On a personal note, I'm sure you've noticed by now but I appeared on TV two weeks ago. I was "John II" on Winter Wipeout. I had an amazing time, and I documented my entire experience, with going to Argentina, meeting Amanda Byram, seeing how the show is done first hand and attempted the course itself, including the big red balls. To read all about it, in its 31,000 word glory, click here.

I reached 6,000 pageviews in a month for the first time last month. My website has been growing slowly but surely, and I'm really happy with the support I've been getting for it. I put a lot of effort into this and it's what I want to do long term and maybe as a profession one day. Thank you all so much for sharing an interest in what I do. I really appreciate it.

I'll end it on that. I hope you all enjoy your Sunday night and I hope to see you back here tomorrow when I cover the match between Liverpool and Tottenham. Take care!

For the latest updates on my work, 'like' me on Facebook here!

Bitesize: #7

Hey there, welcome to another edition of Bitesize. Just in case you're not too familiar, my bitesize posts are there to talk about a group of things in one go, either because a lot has happened or I haven't the time to touch on all of it in great detail. I also use Bitesize to announce site news.

Let’s start with site news. I’ve done a few Mixtapes here, paying homage to the soundtracks of two of my favourite game series, GuitarHero and Final Fantasy. Video game music is important and it was good to pay attention to the detail in which video game developers have put into their content. I don’t know how many video game related Mixtapes I’m going to do, I can’t see any happening for a while now, but it was good to do two in the last few weeks.

I haven’t been writing as much this week for two reasons, firstly as I have my sister down for the whole week, and secondly it was my daughter’s third birthday. My daughter is named Vivi by the way, after the video game character. Call me a nerd, I don’t care, I think it’s a lovely name and she suits it very well But that’s why I haven’t been writing much. I’ll be covering Liverpool vs Manchester United this weekend, so at least that’s one big piece. I also have plans to review Resident Evil 4 HD. Why? Because it’s one of my favourite games of all time, and the fact that they have ported it to the Xbox 360 in HD gives me a reason to review it.

Speaking of reviews, I am going to review older games and albums in the future. Since I’ve made this site over a year ago I’ve been trying to avoid going down that route of reviewing old material. But why not? Some of my favourite games and albums are over ten years old. And in the end, I want to draw attention to these games and these albums, just in case you haven’t played them. I hope to encourage people to give a chance on these things if they haven’t already. And if you have played them, then hopefully you’ll like the homage I pay to these great pieces of entertainment.

Wrestling now. I’ve heard overwhelmingly negative things about Monday Night Raw. I understand exactly where people are coming from. Only last week I was praising the booking team. Now it makes me look like a fool as they fucked everything up bad this week. There were plot holes everywhere, from the fact that Triple H is still COO of the company yet he has no power on Raw or from what we can tell, Smackdown!. John Laurinaitis is now running Raw while Teddy Long is still the GM of Smackdown!. But Triple H is the COO that can’t make any decisions on either show? Backwards. Also the question of who raised the cage to let The Miz and R-Truth in and then lowered it so no one else could at Hell in a Cell remains a mystery, a mystery that doesn’t look like it’s even attempted at being solved at all. In terms of matches, Raw’s main event is John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio but they barely got on TV this week. Yes I’m complaining over a lack of John Cena. But only because he’s the champ and he’s supposed to be on. Cena/Del Rio should be the main focus but it isn’t. The writing team is shoving the Triple H angle down our throats and in the end, who runs the show shouldn’t matter as much as it apparently does. What should matter is Cena vs Del Rio. It’s stupid.

That being said, I’m not going to be as critical as some people are. There is hope in this believe it or not. Yes there are plot holes, but let’s give the creative writing team the chance to fill in those holes for next week. Apparently the WWE are preparing long term now more than ever before. They are planning feuds and storylines for the future more now than before. So with that being said, let’s see what happens next week, before slamming them down to the ground completely. The Raw rating drop from the start to finish of the show is a big slap in the face of the WWE and they’ll definitely attempt to redeem themselves next week.

In music I have a few albums still lined up ready to review. I need to listen to these albums a bit more before getting to the nitty gritty. First is “Alpocalypse” by Weird Al Yankovic, and that should be up in the next fortnight I hope. After that is “Gold Cobra” by Limp Bizkit. So that’s just a taster of what albums I’ll be reviewing on the site in the next few weeks, but there won’t be anything for the moment. Also long term I will be doing my pretty big homage to Marilyn Manson that should hopefully ready before Christmas. That’s my plan anyway, but if it has to be delayed yet again that’s not a problem, the idea was for it to fit around the release of his new album, but with his plans to release the album in early 2012 the delay of that homage might be a good idea afterall.

Football now, and England qualified for Euro 2012 and Ireland made the playoffs. It was announced yesterday that Ireland will go against Estonia in the playoff finals, which is the best they could have hoped for. I’m English and support England but I want all the British Isles and Ireland to do well. I love Ireland, it’s a fantastic country and it’s one I have minor connections with in my family, and I have good friends there. So to hope that Ireland go through and join England in the Euros would be fantastic, and it would be sweet justice for their cruel exit to the World Cup two years ago when they controversially got kicked out in a similar fashion against France.

As for England, I have a poll to your right asking how far they’ll go in the Euros. My opinion? I reckon we’ll get through our group stage but advance no further. We’re not as good some fans think we are, and I don’t think we’re good enough to take on the likes of Spain, Germany and Holland. But you never know, if we beat one of the elite European sides we might gain a lot of confidence and become a big threat that way. I do believe that England’s main confidence is confidence on the pitch. We’re too afraid to lose so end up screwing up. The media influence is responsible for this, they just can’t let England play their game of football. Everything is under scrutiny, and the players don’t want to lose the match because they hate the bad press. So they screw up due to nerves. But if we work that round, and get a good result against a great team, that should hopefully put the creative spark into our play, and make us dangerous. Let’s hope so, as I would like to see England as a national football team put back on the map as one of the best sides in the world.

Well that’s me done for today. I’ll be covering the Liverpool/Manchester United match tomorrow and then I’ll be back on Monday or Tuesday with something else. Thanks for your time.

For the latest updates on my work, 'like' me on Facebook here!

Bitesize: #6

Hey there, welcome to another edition of Bitesize. Just in case you're not too familiar, my bitesize posts are there to talk about a group of things in one go, either because a lot has happened and I haven't the time to touch on all of it in great detail, or to announce site news.

Let's start off with the wrestling. Night of Champions was on Sunday and then Raw was yesterday. Both shows were mediocre, which is a shame as the WWE was on a decent roll until then. Let's hope it's a blip. My main topic to do with wrestling is the booking. There has been some questionable booking on both shows in the past two days. Let's start with John Cena winning his twelfth world title. I mean that's just stupid saying it. He's now on par with Hulk Hogan in total title reigns, and one behind Triple H, and four behind Ric Flair. And he's only 34. It's just a pathetic statistic really. An even worse statistic? He's won the title three times in four months. Even more pathetic.

I've talked about my feelings on John Cena before. Yes his in ring ability sometimes leaves a lot to be desired (not to say he can't wrestle, his matches with CM Punk shows he can, but sometimes he has to depend on a good quality opponent for him to demonstrate how good he is), but he's today's biggest star for the right reasons. He makes the most money. He's the biggest role model for the business. He can be great on the mic. I have no problems with Cena being the main man most of the time. But he's already up there with Hogan, Flair and Hunter. At the age of 34 it's just not right. He could continue wrestling into his forties if he wants to. He's in great shape, and has been more fortunate than others with injuries. Where does it end? At this rate he could be at World Title #25 before he's fourty. He's won these twelve titles in six years. Who's to say he won't win another thirteen in the next six? It's not an unrealistic statistic.

Another booking decision I wasn't happy with was the divas match.In the words of Booker T, "whut da hayle"? Why book Beth Phoenix and Natalya like dominant women bullying barbies and then when the matches occur have them lose? It doesn't make sense. No one is going to buy "The Divas of Doom" if they don't win matches. Yes, these two PPV matches between Beth and Kelly Kelly have been relatively entertaining, and Kelly Kelly has won with a rollup in them. But she still won. Twice. It makes her look like the better wrestler. If she's the better wrestler, how is she being bullied? Bullies are strong. They are brutes. They lack intelligence, but they are brutes. Having Kelly Kelly win all the time yet still be scared of the bullies lacks logic. It would have been a brilliant storyline for Beth Phoenix to win the title, and The Divas of Doom just wreck havoc on the division. In a few months time Kelly Kelly starts to stand up to these bullies and eventually wins her title back. It would in the long term make Kelly Kelly look good to stand up to these bullies after months of relentless punishment. But now we have two big girls who talk big and lose matches. It's just silly booking.


Okay enough about wrestling. Onto video games. I played a bit of Dead Island the other day and while I don't want to do any mini review on it just yet on this site, it's worth picking up and renting at least, if you like FPS games. It's like a mixture of Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising and Borderlands in one. If you've been unsure whether or not you'll like it, rent it instead. It's worth the risk of renting at least, trust me. I'm going to buy a copy in the next few months, when I can afford to anyway!


Another video game I'm going to get is Resident Evil 4 in HD. I got a lovely HD TV the other month and playing what I believe is one of the best games of all time in true HD sounds fantastic. I'll probably do a review on that, despite the game being a few years old now. I'm not afraid to review old games or albums. It's something I'm thinking of doing more in a few months. I'll be reviewing Super Street Fighter 4 in the next fortnight. Not sure on when yet. I have a few other things I want to get through first before getting stuck into that.


In music, I'll be posting my "Psycho Jukebox" review probably towards the weekend. That's the debut album by Jon Fratelli, lead singer of The Fratellis going solo. I hope you'll enjoy that. As always at the start of each month I'm continuing to do my Yearly Music Review and October's year is 1997. It was a decent year now that I'm close to finishing writing it up. I preferred it to 1998. That should be good too I hope.


Last but not least is football. I don't really want to discuss much more about the Liverpool match we had on Sunday, primarily because I covered it live here, but also because it was an awful performance. Tomorrow I'll be covering the match against Brighton, where I'm hoping we can bounce back quickly and prepare for the match against Wolves with aplomb. Fingers crossed.


Well that's all from me in this edition of Bitesize. I'll be back tomorrow with my Live Thoughts against Brighton. Fingers crossed on Friday I'll have my "Psycho Jukebox" album review ready. Keep coming on my site for my views on music, wrestling, football and video games. Have a good night.

Bitesize: #5

Hey there,

This is the first Bitesize post in two weeks. I'll do them once in a while just to get a few things off my chest in one go rather than do full articles about everything. It's just not possible to do that.


First let's start with the wrasslin'. I wrote about The Hardy Boyz this week before Raw was on so that's why I haven't talked about current storylines as of yet. Before I do, give that article a look, if you haven't already, it's about the problems both of the Hardy's are having and how their lifestyles and and attitudes piss me off. In terms of quantities of people, it's the most praise I've had for a piece of work I've done.


Onto Raw, it was a very good show all around, the promos were very good, the matches were very good. What they're doing with Nash and Punk is intriguing, although it does seem to be leading to a long term Punk/Triple H feud which is fine by me. Keep going. As for Cena going against Del Rio, that's also fine. I hope Cena puts Del Rio over, and they can have a good match as well. I doubt it will be a classic like the two Cena/Punk matches were, but it should be still hopefully go into the **** star range. As for Smackdown, I haven't read the spoilers but last week we saw Mark Henry crowned as the no. 1 contender. While he isn't the most technically gifted wrestler on the show he has been a very entertaining character on TV recently and Randy Orton having a fresh opponent is fine by me. Christian/Orton was great and they booked the right time to end the feud. It'll easily be considered the feud of the year, unless this Punk/HHH feud is igniting into a huge thing that will go all the way to Wrestlemania, which isn't out of the realms of possibility.


In football, Liverpool beat Exeter 1-3 away. While they're not the best of opponents they were still a decent test despite us fielding a strong side. We still put in a very mature performance, we defended well and scored when we had the opportunity. Just because they're not a Premier League side doesn't mean we can dominate for ninety minutes, you'll always have shakes it's just being able to stay strong and composed when you're pressed a bit. And it was a mature performance, and the goals were good as well. Good performance. I'm quietly confident about this season, not that I predict we'll even come close to the title, but a Top 4 finish is something realistic I'm hoping.


As for site news, I'm introducing a few new things to the site recently, some you've already seen. On a monthly basis I'll be covering a year in music, this month I covered 1999, and at the start of September I'll cover 1998, and keep on going backwards. Another thing is I'm starting to do live football thoughts while a match is on; you can view my biased rambles on what happens during a Liverpool match here once in a while when I can. I did my first one here, when we beat Arsenal last weekend. I will be covering Liverpool against Bolton tomorrow in the same way. Once in a while I'll start introducing the Mercyside Licks, which is 10 songs (with Youtube videos if I can find them) that I really like, and will recommend. The only rule? No music singles. They have to not have been released as a single, so in theory, if you're not a big fan of the band you probably haven't heard the track. I'll try and follow a form of music theme as well, like heavy tracks or soft indie stuff, but that might not always be possible. There are other things too, like I'm trying to do a Q&A post once a month if I can too. So yeah, I'm adding some structure to my site.


So there you go, keep supporting me! I have a Facebook page you can 'like' me below. Have a good day.

Bitesize: #4

Hey everyone,

This is my first Bitesize post since December. I basically just run down a few things that are on my mind about anything. It's just a merge of interests into one.

First I'd like to talk about the Liverpool vs Sunderland match that was on today. In our first match in the Premier League we drew 1-1, with Suarez getting our goal. He missed a penalty earlier in what was a god awful miss. He redeemed himself though. Our first half performance was excellent, you wouldn't have thought that four of the eleven players on the pitch were making their official debut. We passed the ball around nicely and Charlie Adam was definitely the catalyst in the middle which makes me happy. But the second half performance left a lot to be desired and we conceded a goal which should have been avoided. Don't get me wrong it was an excellent goal that they scored, but we probably could have done something about it before it got to their player. We're going against Arsenal next week and we really could have done with a win here. Getting three points next week is going to be a harder task, and to think about us drawing or losing against the Gunners is horrible considering it would mean a pretty bad start to the campaign. Let's remain optimistic though.

In wrestling news Summerslam is on Sunday and I can't wait to watch it on Monday. John Cena vs CM Punk is obviously the main event and rightfully so. But let's not take anything away from Randy Orton and Christian, who have definitely had the feud of the year so far. I've talked a lot about Cena and Punk, here and here to be exact. Christian and Randy Orton have been having stellar ****+ star matches for months now and this match, which could possibly end the entire feud, could be the pick of the bunch. The No Holds Barred element makes it a fresh encounter and as a fan I desperately want to see Christian retain. Edge could be involved in the match, who knows. Summerslam is a PPV I'm really looking forward to, although it's unlikely as a 3 hour production, to match last month's Money in the Bank PPV. It should be good nevertheless.

In video games, the game I'm looking to getting next is the full HD port of Resident Evil 4 on the XBox 360. I've played it on the PS2 and the Wii already, yet now that I have a full HD TV, I really look forward to playing that game on it, it's easily one of the best games ever made and to see the graphics polished up and to get achievements on it is worth the pennies I'll put towards it. Who knows, I might review it? I haven't reviewed a Resi game ever before. I've been thinking of doing a Resi 5 review but it's never been done for one reason or another. In article news, I'm preparing a Resident Evil article, it should be up in the next week or so. I'm not going to reveal anything else on it yet though. Stay tuned.

In music, I have an abundance of music albums that I want to review. The first being Radiohead's King of Limbs, but I also have albums by the Foo Fighters, Saul Williams and Jon Fratelli that I'd like to put my thoughts to soon. Writing album reviews is always the hardest thing for me personally. I always struggle to write how I feel about the sound of music. I can easily tell the difference between a good and a bad album in my head, but getting it down in text isn't always an easy thing. But these pieces should be done at some point or another, with the Radiohead album review up first, once again, in the next week or so.

I haven't felt too good recently, I've been ill with some coldy fluey thing. Again. In the middle of summer it really sucks. But writing isn't too much of a problem, as long as I keep the keyboard clean naturally. It's just contagious, as I know a few people have had this before me. Hey ho.

Well that's my bitesize post done.  I'll be back in a few days with either the Resident Evil article, or the Radiohead one. Who knows what will come first, I've got them both pretty much finished, I just need to touch them up a bit before releasing them into the wild. What? You're all savage wolves! Don't deny it! Anyway, until next time, take care.

Bitesize: #3

Hey everyone,


I hope your Christmas has been good, and that your New Year is full of joy. I had a good Christmas personally, most particularly for my daughter Vivi, who is two, she got lots of presents and lots of love from all three sides of her family. I saw my mum and siblings for the first time in 8 months, and as short as it was, it was very good. It's just a shame I've caught a stomach bug from my sister Tara, and haven't gone back to work as expected. But at least it gives me some time to plan ahead on this site, and in my personal life too. I'll be back at work on Tuesday because this bug just won't die unfortunately.


Enough about my personal life, I rarely talk about it on this site and try to keep it that way. If you've been keeping up to date on this site, I've announced my major project, which is Noughtie, the best in music from 2000-2009. If you want more details on it, check the post below. I'm making slow progress on it, but I should start it in the early part of the new year, that's for sure. I'll get a few more posts done in that time hopefully.


Now about footie. What a shambles last night's match was for Liverpool. The Hodge is getting himself some serious stick at the moment. I'm starting to lose faith as well, I'm quite the optimist usually. If we're going to sack him, I think we should do it NOW, so the new manager gets the transfer kitty in two days time. Otherwise, stick with him until the end of the season, give him the kitty, and see what he does with it. If there's progress second half of the season, keep him for next season, otherwise boot him at the end of the season. My take? Keep him, I like the guy and feel sorry for him. I think he's better than people are believing him to be. I want Hodgson to be a success, I really do. But it's up to the owners really.


Some intriguing news wrestling wise has come around recently. On a personal level for Christmas I got Chris Jericho's Breaking the Code DVD, which is tremendous. I love that guy, my favourite wrestler of all time. We've got The Miz/John Morrison on Raw next week, which, if given time, should be a cracker. They have good chemistry and could pull a 4 star match off if given the chance. It's just a shame that it inevitably means that The Miz retains and John Morrison won't be given the chance at the Royal Rumble. John Canton reckons it will be Jerry "The King" Lawler/The Miz at the Rumble, and if he's right, that's awful. A semi retired, 60+ wrestler given the big paycheck over a guy who is trying his very hardest to reach the top? Poor business. I know the opinion on Morrison is mixed, but I like the guy, yes he is poor on the mic, but his in ring offense is unique and works well. He'll make The Miz look good next week that's for sure.
More news wrestling wise was Cena's injury, it turns out that it's only bruising so it's not too bad. He might not wrestle next week, or be on a light scheduled match (a tag maybe) but should be fine long term. Like him or hate him Cena draws the WWE money. The most out of any of the current wrestlers at the moment. WWE have had a torrid year as it is, with so many key wrestlers leaving, or being injured, or retiring. If Cena was to be injured long term, it's going to get worse. And it's not good for the bloke either, I like the guy as a person, even if his on screen character can piss me off sometimes.
Last bit of wrestling news, is of Awesome Kong rumoured heavily to have signed a contract with WWE. If so, that's the best piece of news in the Divas division in a long time. Kong could be a brilliant signing, she's so big she'd make all the pretty blondy divas terrified. It'd be great television, and you never know, could actually make women's wrestling interesting again. I really don't understand WWE's logic in terms of what they look for in a female wrestler. The apparently logic is that sex draws money, it did in the nineties. But if you've got this PG barrier, and no women are flaunting their "goods", then people aren't interested. Which then leaves the focal point of the show, wrestling. Because they're all models, they barely are capable of wrestling. So where is the logic? They need to get the balance right, they need all of it - divas who can wrestle solidly (Kong, ODB, Hamada) but aren't particularly much to look at, divas who are eye candy (Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Maria) and a mixture of both (Mickie James, Melina, Natalya). So we have everything covered. The best moulds of the past were Lita and Trish Stratus, they were good looking and could wrestle well. Why can't we have a good divas division again? It's not too hard a logical thought is it? We have an opportunity with the signing of Kong to resurrect the division again, that's for sure.


That's it from me today, once again, I hope you all have a fab New Year, and I hope my stomach settles soon. Take care.

Bitesize: #2

Hey everyone, just a quick few things that I'll sum up in a quick blog.

I've just hit 4000 page views on this site, in under 4 months, I'm flabbergasted yet chuffed to bits with that statistic. I've been talking about different forms of media, which makes it more remarkable, I don't have one topic to juggle, I have about four. So to keep people interested in my writing about four different forms of media is going to be difficult, but I'm going to do my best to talk about these, and keep myself busy, and hopefully interest you further! I also broke my daily pageview record when I revealed the Top 10 in my Top 50 Greatest Catchphrases, Past and Present listing, when I hit 217 pageviews two days ago. That's just ridiculous for me, but once again, thanks for showing the interest I want you to show in my work!

In wrestling news Smackdown sounded similar to previous weeks, which is average to slightly above average. The Kane/Edge feud started off intriguing, with the "monster" being tamed by Edge by taking the only thing Kane loves in his life away from him, that being Paul Bearer. It started off quite fresh in terms of WWE storylines of late, but every week has been the same, Kane runs after Edge and Paul Bearer and when Kane thinks he's got Paul back it's a dummy. It's been this way for weeks and weeks now though and it's boring. But it seems like it's come to an end now that Kane has accidentally "killed" Paul Bearer for mistaking him for a dummy again, but it wasn't this time. Hopefully that's the end of it, although I'm disappointed Paul Bearer didn't get used properly, he's a great manager, one of the best of all time, and deserved to be used better than he way. Nay'mind.

The other big news really in wrestling was the great match between Tara and Mickie James on TNA. Not only is it rare for the women to main event a show, but these women put their (very nice) bodies on the line in a cage match. Neither made it out of the cage injury free but put on a great match. Tara has ligament damage in her elbow, she did it roughly half way through the match and continued. What a woman. Anyone who says wrestling is fake is stupid. It's just frustrating that a match as good as this won't happen now for a good 3 years or so, the last time I can remember a match being considered as good as this in the women's division was probably Trish/Mickie or Trish/Lita. They were ages ago.

In football, Liverpool produced an inconsistent display yesterday which has pretty much summed our season so far. We got off to a bad start, went a goal down, then made up for it with some decent football, got a goal back, then lost concentration and conceded two. But Liverpool never make it easy for themselves do they? It's a shame, we were actually on a decent run as well. We need to recuperate and give it another bash. It's frustrating that we can't get a longer period of momentum at the moment, we always have to slip on a banana skin, it's happened so many times this season its frustrating. Let's hope we can give a decent display midweek in the Europa League, and maybe get a few kids to have a good run out as well. Come on Pacheco, score a goal!

In video games, well Laguna has been announced on the new Dissidia game, which is awesome, but the PSP is broked. Bummer. I'm really disappointed that Dissidia is remaining on the PSP because it's a great game, I was hoping they would port it to the PS2, or at least the PS3/Xbox 360, but there's no news on that so far.

Site news, I'm also doing a review on Peggle, that should be up soon. I'm also doing a review on the soundtrack for the second series of True Blood, that should be up this week too. I'm also doing another listing, a short one this time, which will also be on GameFAQs, which is the "Top 10 Underappreciated Games in Major Franchises". Should be interesting. I'm also working on a massive project long term, but I don't want to reveal much about that yet, but it should be very interesting that's for sure.

That's it from me today, I hope your weekends have been good, and that you're all ready for the week ahead. Take care.

 

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Bitesize: #1

Hey everyone, I'm not doing a big post today, I've decided once in a while to do a Bitesize piece, where I just talk about a few things that are on my mind, on a personal or media related level.

First off the biggest news in football at the moment, Russia and Qatar hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively. I, like most Englishmen, am disappointed we didn't get the bid. Is it corruption? Who knows. Innocent until proven guilty is the saying. So with that out of the way, congratulations to Russia and Qatar. In a certain way, I find it quite admirable that FIFA want to host the World Cup in places not well associated with the Western world. We get all the glamour, all the great things. We have to accept that not only have Russia or Qatar never hosted a World Cup and we have, but that we have the London Olympics. We will have many festivities here. USA will too, Australia also. We can't have everything. Did we have the best bid? Probably. It doesn't matter. What annoys me the most is that FIFA should have said right from the beginning, around 3 years ago, "Hey England, don't bother bidding for the World Cup. We want to try new places that have never been hosts before." Instead of waste what's been estimated as £50 million on something that never came close to going in our favour. All we can do now is hope that we can win the World Cup to spite FIFA!

Liverpool played yesterday, not too shabbily, bar Reina's unusual error. Nay'mind as they say. Our youngsters did us proud, and Jovanovic scored, two major plus points. The main plus point is obviously that we qualified with a game in hand as well. Let's hope we can do well in this competition, it's a promising fact, being unbeaten with rarely playing our strongest side. Hopefully we can go to Villa on the weekend and get three points, to continue to go from strength to strength. It will be difficult though. It'll be nice seeing Houllier again as well, he's still well received in Liverpool.

Biggest news in wrestling is the release of MVP. Apparently he requested his leave and it got granted. Good for him. He was very good on the mic, he drew good heat, he was decent in the ring too. I can't say it will be WWE's loss, but I can't say it's their gain either. He is a good wrestler and deserved a potential push for the title, maybe even winning it. If they want to make new stars, then it is their loss, he could have been a big star in the future, he had the potential. Hopefully TNA will snap him up, he's good enough for them to show interest.

Well that's it for my first Bitesize post. I'll do these once in a while. I hope you all have a good weekend, I'll post my 3000+ word music article tomorrow.

 

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