#Rebooked Wrestling

[g4zdtechtv]

REBOOKED Wrestling #4 (3.6.24)

This week on REBOOKED, the boys break down everything that happened at this Sunday's Revolution PPV, including Sting's final showtime! Plus, hear them lay down their predictions for WrestleMania XL in Philly, and so much more!

(THE CREAM TEAM LINKTREE)

(SUB TO REBOOKED)

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[dalekofchaos]

Rebooking Stone Cold Steve Austin's Heel turn

Looking back on how Austin's heel turn was, was ultimately disappointing and was a detriment to the wrestling industry.

Austin shaking hands with Vince told everyone that it was all fake and 4 years of storytelling didn't fucking matter. And The Invasion.

Shaking hands with Vince and being a sycophant suck up and being the death of the Attitude era, is one thing but joining the Alliance was the final nail in the coffin. Austin hated WCW, why the fuck would he join them? Made no fucking sense then and it sure as fuck doesn't now.

So here is how I would've booked his heel run

If Austin reverted back to his 96-97 type of heel, maybe it could've worked. He's hunting down the people who ran him over and taking everyone in his path down. The McMahon family, D-X, The Rock, Mick Foley, Taker and killing to get back to the top of the food chain. Like if they did it like that, it could've worked. Making Austin public enemy number 1/DOA really could have been interesting.

So when he returns in 2000 and enters the ring with Shane McMahon, he stuns Shane and beats the holy hell out of Shane McMahon.

Austin declares that he lost nearly an entire year of his career because some jackass ran him over like a deer and he is gonna get his revenge, he is hunting anyone who gets in his way and anyone who he suspects is remotely responsible for nearly ending his career is fair game and when he's done, he's taking back what's his and that's the bottom line because Stone Cold Said so.

Mick Foley gives Austin a warning. Stop now or he will be forced to suspend him and with that Austin proceeds to beat the shit out of him and put Foley in the hospital.

The following week has Austin hunting down D-Generation X. He batters X-Pac with a steel chair because how convenient was it for Austin to be ran over like a scolded dog after X-Pac led him on a wild goose chase. He gets all of D-X until all that's left is Triple H.

The following week Linda McMahon comes out and orders that Stone Cold come out. Linda tells Austin the board of directors cannot abide this revenge crusade and is about to say those three words and before she can finish the sentence, Austin stuns her. Austin gets the chair and before he can batter Linda like he did Shane, out comes Vince. "Austin, don't you dare, goddamn it. Please. Don't." and Austin does anyway. "DAMN IT AUSTIN YOU'RE FIRED" and Vince calls out the police to arrest Austin.

However, Triple H convinces Vince to reinstate Austin as he realizes he could use Austin to take his competition out.

Austin comes out like Kane did in his house arrest entrance in 2003. Followed by cops and having his neck, hands and legs cuffed. When he's released from his restraints, all hell breaks loose.

Triple H points Austin in the direction of The Rock, Mick Foley, Kane and The Undertaker. Austin tells Triple H if he finds out that he's going to beat the hell out of them and then finds out he was the one who ran him over, he's coming back for him and then for Stephanie.

Every time Austin is sent against the men he suspects ran him over, Austin breaks and batters him and takes a mic and says "did you do it?" They all say no.

And Austin and Triple H are in a handicap match against Kurt Angle. HHH is weasling is way trying to convince Austin that Angle was the one who did it. Austin says if he finds out Angle is innocent, he's done.

And as Austin is about to stun Angle, A video plays and it's the night Austin was ran over. He sees Triple H enter the car and the video ends. Austin puts Angle down and targets HHH. "You son of a bitch" HHH pleads it wasn't him and bam, stunner. Austin gets the chair and bludgens him with the chair and then stuns Stephanie. And Angle leaves with his championship with a smile on his face.

The following week, Stephanie comes out and reveals the real footage. HHH left in a different car and after we see the footage of Austin being runned over, we see someone exiting the car, it's Kurt Angle. and it shows Kurt Angle shaking hands with Vince McMahon.

Been thinking of the whole "who ran over Austin angle" And I think they missed a perfect opportunity. I think it would've been better if it had been revealed to be Kurt Angle. Who had the most to gain after Austin was gone? Kurt Angle. He won every major title and KOTR. And all while Austin was on the shelf. HHH could've been the fall guy that Austin could beat the shit out of, while it's revealed that Angle did it. It could've all been revealed by Hell In The Cell while everyone who has been blamed with the incident is locked in the cage with Angle and Austin.

Kurt reveals why he did it. He did it because Stone Cold Steve Austin was a foul mouthed beer drinking delinquent. The people needed a real champion. An American Gold Medalist. A real people's champion. Someone this company can be proud of and someone who has the three I's. "intensity, integrity and intelligence" And he's proud of what he's done. Look at what he's accomplished and look what's happened since Austin's return. He's a rabid animal and "YOU'RE WELCOME!" It's true, it's true, it's damn tru-

And then Austin chases his ass out the building.

Mick Foley gives Austin what he wants Kurt Angle in Hell in a Cell, but full with everyone who he put on the shelf all waiting to get revenge on Austin...and Angle for being the one behind it all.

Since I placed Kane in this and Rikishi is nowhere in sight, Kane would take Rikishi's place in Hell in a cell Armageddon match.

In place of the Undertaker Rikishi spot, I would have Austin stunning Angle off the top of the cell

When Vince comes out to tear down the Cell, everyone is out to get him. Vince escapes them all and when he thinks he's in the clear, Austin is right behind him. Vince begs like the pathetic little bitch he''s always been. Austin stuns him, kicks the shit out of him and pushes his head against the cell as Austin bashes it with a chair.

But as Austin relishes in his revenge against Vince, Angle steals a victory and retains and as Angle leaves, Austin stuns him.

He faces HHH at Survivor Series. Austin wants revenge for being used to do HHH's dirty work and HHH wants revenge for Austin putting him down and putting his hands on Stephanie. Near the end of the match HHH is in the car prepared to put Austin down like the mad dog he is, but Austin is prepared and drops him from the forklift like he does in our universe.

From then until the Royal Rumble, the McMahons intend to make Austin's life a living hell and intends do everything in their power to prevent Austin from becoming WWF Champion.

Rock wins the champion and Austin wins the Rumble.

Wrestlemania happens and Vince accidentally costs the Rock the champion.

Vince in the heat of the moment decides to shake Austin's hand, Austin gives him the finger and stuns him.

Throughout his run as champion he is now known as Public Enemy #1 with everyone he took out gunning for him.

The Invasion happens and this would be Austin's redemption and face turn. He stands with WWF while WCW gets their big stars, in a better world.

[allianzlistings]

Globe-Trotting Gaffes: My Hilariously Unpredictable Journey with Allianz Travel

As a seasoned (and often clumsy) traveler, I've had my fair share of travel misadventures. From missing flights to language mix-ups, I thought I'd seen it all. That was until my latest escapade, where Allianz Travel became my unexpected sidekick in a comedy of errors around the globe.

It started as a dream trip to Paris. I packed my bags, including my trusty French phrasebook (unopened since high school), and headed to the airport. But, in a plot twist worthy of a sitcom, I ended up on a plane to Paro, Bhutan. Yes, that's right – wrong continent, wrong hemisphere, but hey, the airline food was a delightful surprise!

Landing in Bhutan, I realized my first challenge: I didn't have travel insurance for Bhutan. Panic ensued until I remembered my Allianz Travel policy. A quick call, and voilà, they had my back, even in the Himalayas. They even chuckled when I said, "I thought the Eiffel Tower would be bigger."

Next stop, Tokyo. My intention? To immerse myself in the culture. The reality? Accidentally joining a sumo wrestling match. I thought it was a hug convention! Thankfully, Allianz covered 'accidental sumo injuries' – who knew?

In Italy, I decided to rent a Vespa to explore Rome. Picture it: Me, the Colosseum, a Vespa, and... a pigeon. Our feathery friend decided my head was a perfect landing spot, causing a Vespa wobble and a spectacular (but safe) tumble into a fountain. I emerged like a less graceful Neptune, but Allianz was there to cover my Vespa boo-boo and my dignity.

Finally, I made it to Paris. The Eiffel Tower was as magnificent as I imagined, but I celebrated a bit too hard and missed my flight home. Allianz to the rescue again! They helped me rebook a flight, no fuss, no muss.

In conclusion, my travel blunders were many, but thanks to Allianz Travel, each mishap became a funny story rather than a travel tragedy. They turned my globe-trotting gaffes into memorable adventures, and for that, I say, "Merci, Allianz!" (and sorry to that pigeon in Rome).

[nerdcorp]

Rebooking: World Wrestling All-Stars first pay per view - The Inception

Continue reading Untitled

[atlanticcanada]

Fire damages Spryfield rink, cancels pro wrestling event this weekend

A fire has damaged the Spryfield Lions Rink and has forced organizers of a professional wrestling promotion to cancel their scheduled event for this weekend.

Halifax Fire responded to the call around 9:30 a.m., from a staff member at the rink who reported the fire and when crews arrived on the scene, they found heavy smoke billowing from a vent at the rear of the arena.

District Fire Chief Jim Stymiest told CTV News that there was considerable damage to the back of the arena in a kitchen facility but the fire didn’t appear to spread or damage the front of the building or the second floor.

No injuries were reported but the investigation into the cause of the fire continues.

Damage from the fire has forced Ultimate Championships Wrestling (UCW), a Halifax-based professional wrestling promotion company to cancel its event at the arena Saturday night.

UCW general manager Kevin “KD” Daniels said they had already sold more than 280 tickets for the event and were expecting it to be standing-room only with another 100 to 150 fans anticipated at the gate.

“It’s really disappointing for us,” said Daniels. “We searched high a low across the city to try and find another venue that would work but we weren’t able to find anywhere else we could host.”

The Spryfield Lions Centre has been the wrestling company's home base in Halifax and they hold anywhere from eight to 10 events in Spryfield each year.

Daniels said UCW are going to postpone the event for now and look to rebook the event soon and will honour all tickets sold but said they would also be offering full refunds for anyone who purchases tickets.

We have some very unfortunate news to pass along, due to a fire at the Spryfield Lion's Rink today we have to postpone tomorrows event. We tried to do everything we could to move the show but unfortunately we could not. We will provide an update on ticket refunds shortly. pic.twitter.com/jVU9A7FP8Z

— UCW PRO WRESTLING (@ProUcw) April 28, 2023

“As soon as we find out from the venue, what the status is and whether or not we can run again, we’ll set up a postponement date and if people can’t make it, we’ll do a refund,” said Daniels.

There was a lot of work that went on behind the scenes to pull off the wrestling show and it not only affects the fans who purchases tickets but everyone in the company said Daniels, including the management and wrestlers.

“We had wrestlers coming in from Ontario and others from all across the Maritimes,” said Daniels. “There’s a lot of work that goes into an event like this from booking talent to booking hotels and flights, to truck rentals and that, it’s a real kick in the gut.”

Spryfield area MLA Brendan Maguire posted on social media that the fire began in the recreation space’s kitchen.

“I spoke to firefighters on sight (sic), there is significant damage to the backroom,” said Maguire on social media. “They do no (sic) have a full assessment of the damage, they will let me know when they do.”

<br />

The arena is also the home of the Halifax Hurricanes Lacrosse Association.

HRM closed the Spryfield arena in 2018 for several months to complete construction work to reinforce the roof structure and to bring it up to National Building Code to ensure it could meet engineering requirements for heavy snow load.

For the latest Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/bjWagli

[writingquestionsanswered]

Tattoo Shop AU - a quick, practical guide for writers

Guest Post by lebanon-hangover

lebanon-hangover said: this is based on my personal experience with the industry only, so depending on the era and country you are portraying, it may not be 100% accurate for your setting.

Hygiene

It may not be obvious at first glance, but most tattooists are clean freaks. We work with human blood every day, and we get clients from all ages, ethnic and social economic backgrounds, with all sorts of medical conditions.

We usually mop frequently, bleach the sinks, wipe down everything, and use cling film or bags to wrap everything. I mean fucking everything. We also scrub in, and sanitise the area on the person we work on.

Needles are collected in a sharps bin, and handled very carefully. Medical waste goes in yellow bags, and both are collected by a professional service.

Used ink caps may look full, but the ink gets diluted by blood. Like you dip the inky needle into the person, but you also dip the person’s blood into your ink. These are medical waste too.

Cleaning up must be done promptly after the session. Bin everything disposable, put things through the ultrasonic and the autoclave, and sanitise the area. We may take machines apart, but more for maintenance than cleaning, sometimes we swap parts in them too.

We have two sinks, one for hand washing, one for cleaning.

All inks and needles have use by dates.

The internal dynamics of a studio

Depending on the country, some tattoo shops tend to have ties to biker gangs, and some of those internal dynamics and unwritten rules are often present.

There’s a pecking order and it’s dead serious. Basically the longer you’ve been in a shop, the higher ‘rank’ you are, you get the better positioned stations, first pick of walk-ins, etc (Unless the client is asking for someone by name). Regardless of your actual experience in the industry, like if you move into your old apprentice’s shop, they are still senior to you. If the owner or their partner is an artist, obviously they are on top of the chain by default.

We are self employed, but we have a boss. You are only making money if you are working, but you still have set work hours.

We get paid by the clients, and we pay the studio a cut. In return, there are some items provided by them, and some we buy for ourselves. Usually the chairs, tattoo beds, gloves, cleaning products, clip cord covers, masks, aprons, ink caps, vaseline, green soap, and some basic ink is provided by the shop. We buy our own machines, arm rests, stations, pedals, power supplies, clipcords, tips and grips, needles, special colours, stencil fluid…these are a personal preference, and often depend on the artists’ style.

We totally ask to try out each other’s equipment sometimes, or ask for a certain type of needle if we ran out.

The receptionist is usually just one of us, maybe a piercer, but it also can be a hired person in top studios.

The apprentice in the traditional system is often mistreated, and they have to pay for their education, have to be there multiple days a week and don’t make any money. It’s kind of like a tear them down, build them back up again thing to see if they are really serious about the job. Times are slowly changing, but 99% of them will always need a second job. Most of them are working as bar staff.

When you open a new studio, you must visit all the existing local ones and introduce yourself, otherwise you may get a brick through the window. Otherwise there’s not much beef among individual artists, they are often friends, go to conventions together and party after, etc.

The Artists

Tattooing is a fairly physical job, stretching skin is very important. We have to also keep our clients safely still, so we often use positions to pin them down a bit. Sometimes you hit a reflex point on the foot or under a knee, and you don’t want to get kicked. Sometimes you have to pull away super fast, cos they are sneezing, yawning or giggling.

Most tattooists drink a lot of coffee, tea or energy drinks.

Some people are all rounders, some have specific styles, but we recognise each other’s art styles. Sometimes we delegate work to each other, if we think our coworkers style fits the concept better. For example if there’s a person who does script well, we give them those projects.

We don’t like when people come in with designs from other artists. Art theft is frowned upon, and we work best with our own drawings.

Most apprentices practice on their own legs, and sometimes we tattoo each other when it’s quiet. Most people have cover ups, or bad pieces from their early days. The artists’ own tattoos sometimes are in a different style than what they do, but we like to collect ink from friends or colleagues we admire.

In the first 1-2 years one is an apprentice, then junior artist. At 5-8 years of tattooing, you have earned your stripes and are considered an experienced artist.

Conventions are really fun, but can be stressful. You can make good money working at one, and sometimes get awarded for it too. We can also spend a lot at a convention.

Sometimes we poke our fingers by accident, and it’s a scary thing. Good case scenario is just some random dots on your fingers. Let’s not go into the bad case scenario.

We do guest spots sometimes, just to meet new clients, and change it up a bit.

We spend a lot of time drawing up things, and designs are meant to fall on specific muscles, stretch with the skin a certain way, so they are tailored to the body proportions of the client. A good tattoo is also an optical illusion, complimenting the body shape.

Social media presence is like a second job, you need good photos, and you need to market yourself.

Tattoo ink does not wash out, so some stains are inevitable when pouring it out. Those ink bottles get stuck so easily, and we wrestle them a lot. We try to avoid it, but wearing all dark colours is a thing for a reason.

The Clients

Tattooists need to have a good ‘bedside manners’ too. We get nervous or self conscious people, and we are told personal things during long sessions. For example scar coverups and memorial pieces can be very emotional.

We have pretty good poker faces and first aid trainings. People can faint, get shaky, throw up, some have seizures, have b.o., get sweaty, etc the same way as at a blood donation event? It’s no big deal really. We sit them down, give them some water and some sugar, and re-book them if necessary. Most artists keep some wet wipes, mouth wash, deodorant, sweets, maybe even some clean clothes at work, just in case.

If someone comes in with a wild idea for a jobstopper, we would sit down and have a long talk. If they haven’t got many tattoos, we usually try to stir them towards more safe choices, offering them creative ideas. It’s like those jedi mind tricks sometimes.

If someone is undecided, we show them our own hand drawn flash sheets. Once its gone, its gone tho, we don’t use the designs twice.

Pinterest is full of photoshopped fake tattoos, some that won’t even work as real ink. Many people also touch up their work digitally on photos, so some clients have really unrealistic expectations.

We can totally tell if someone is intoxicated or hangover. It thins the blood, and they bleed out the ink, and it’s super annoying. if it’s bad, they will be sent home and rebooked.

Some folks are self conscious about body hair, their size, stretch marks and scars. Chances are, we have seen similar, and we aren’t bothered by it, because it’s work. Surgery scars, scars from accidents, self harm scars, burns, we see it all the time. We shave some really hairy dudes all the time girl, your legs are fine. Seriously. If something makes tattooing you dangerous we will tell you.

Fit, muscular people are harder to tattoo because they are really firm. Its a workout for us.

Everyone gets midnight messages about the aftercare from nervous clients, and drunken booty calls about getting inked right at this second. We have copy paste replies…

We get creeps sometimes. Stalking, weird conversations, tmi info dumps etc.

Other things to include (for fun, or for plot reasons)

We sometimes have those “oh fuck” moments. We all do, but mistakes can be fixed, and we play it cool.

Tattooing takes time. Usually 30 minutes to multiple sessions though years and years.

Healing tattoos takes about 2-4ish weeks, and your characters shouldn’t go roll around in dirt, sunbathe, swim, pick at the scabs. Nasty infections, and messed up tattoos would be the results.

If you have a strong immune system, and you get a lot of work done in one sitting, you may get a brief bit of a temperature. It’s normal, and will go away.

Its a lot easier to get seriously drunk after getting a tattoo. Be careful.

We sometimes draw on each other for practice with our marker pens.

Tattoos are inside the skin, not on top of it. Imagine a low opacity, skin toned layer over the ink, adding to the healed tattoos’ colour. Please stop making your characters skin fully transparent.

Heavy blackwork and palms are done in multiple sessions.

You can’t cover up moles, because if they develop skin cancer, the dermatologist can’t see the signs.

There’s a stereotype about piercers having blacked out sleeves.

Stencil fluid looks just like cum.

You get that annoying itch on your face when you scrubbed in, put on gloves and finally ready to go.

Some artists have a strong preference for coil or rotary machines, and they bicker about it a lot. Coils are louder, more punchy, and more traditional, perfect for lineart. They can be customised, and they last forever. They are also called glorified doorbells by people who prefer rotaries. Rotary machines are smoother, lighter, and often use needles that are pulled back into the cartridges for safety. They are better for shading and delicate line work. Older tattooists often say they are dildo or butt plug shaped, overly delicate and are for “soft millennials” only.

Every artist owns like 5 to 20 machines, and they have specific machine builders they are loyal to.

The “which cable is broken and cutting out” guessing game. Clip cords and pedal cables get worn out easily, and that results in your machine running really jerky.

Walk-in always show up 10 minutes before closing.

We often look quite silly at work. Sleeves rolled up, folks use all sorts of plastic ppe, headlamps, and we tie up our hair. Add couple of purple smears from carbon paper, and we aren’t scary at all.

[mjfass]

Hey! Not sure if anyone's mentioned it but that Birthright pair idea came from Adam Blampied on the Parts Funknown YouTube channel; it's a great idea and I can't blame the other person for submitting it for you to think about, just wanted to make sure credit landed where it was due.

He does a lot of great fantasy booking stuff (both in booking future angles/matches/shows like the Cody Rhodes return or his annual Royal Rumble bookings and rebooking old ones like The Invasion or the Straight Edge Society), just wanted to mention it so that if anyone was a fan of the idea they could check his other stuff out too! He also used to have a fantasy booking series on WhatCulture Wrestling as well that was spot on, which is where his Invasion and SES angles are hosted.

Oh. Thank you for mentioning it. It’s important the the credit is given, yes.

I used to see his videos on WhatCulture but I haven’t been following him that much. But I remember his fantasy bookings and they were incredible, I love how he made me think of ideas I could have never considered and they sound great! Thank you for the clarification and the suggestion, I’ll probably go check some of his ideas.

[twoflipstwotwists]

After the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, many of the gymnasts likely to make up the gold-medal-favorite U.S. women’s squad quickly signaled they planned to press ahead. The superstar of the team, Simone Biles, stayed quiet.

The 23-year-old Biles wrestled for nine days with what to say about the impact of a year-long delay on her plans to defend her Olympic crowns. Now, she almost has an answer.

“We’re just kind of playing it by ear,” she said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. “I haven’t decided not to do it, but I haven’t really decided to do it.”

Biles said she can’t fully figure out her next move until she’s able to get back in the gym—she is currently sheltering in place at home—and see what it’s like then.

“I really have to listen to my body and my mind,” she said. She added that it would take a lot to be able to push on for longer, given everything she’d already put in, but that she was also reluctant to throw her work away.

Biles has been carrying an extraordinary load for years—often overlooked because of the apparent ease with which she’s defied the boundaries of her sport to come back and then take back-to-back world all-around titles again in 2018 and 2019.

And she had long made it clear to anyone who asked that she was absolutely ready to retire by August 2020. “It’s really in my mind, if I can keep going mentally, because I was already starting to check out,” she said Wednesday.

On top of everything else, she carried the additional burden of being the only self-identified victim of Larry Nassar’s abuse still competing in elite gymnastics, fielding questions and learning more about what had gone wrong at her sport’s governing body USA Gymnastics even as she was preparing to represent them by performing skills that could kill her if they go wrong.

“Mentally I don’t know if I can deal with USAG for another year,” Biles said. “It was hard enough to come back and deal with them again.”

She learned from a Wall Street Journal story last year that she was among the first three athletes who had been flagged to USA Gymnastics officials as being uncomfortable with Nassar, but that the federation did not follow up with her about it. New leaders at the organization have apologized to Biles, but she has continued to criticize them for what she says are other mis-steps.

Biles said that ultimately she had reached her conclusion alone, and without being influenced by anyone else. “Nobody can tell me what to do, I’m 23 years old,” she said.

Still, the hoped-for one-year delay to Tokyo carries higher financial stakes where Simone is concerned. There is a documentary crew trailing her. She is the leading face for some of her sponsors—who include Visa, Nike, gymnastics equipment manufacturer Spieth America and the World Champions Centre gym that her family operates—as well as for the broadcaster NBC, which without a Michael Phelps or a Usain Bolt, lacks household names for these Games.

“It’s your decision to make. You are in charge of this,” Janey Miller, Biles’s agent, said she told her, though she didn’t know how much it registered.

“She has an amazing ability to compartmentalize, but she’s also very aware of the big picture and the magnitude of what she’s taken on,” Miller said.

There’s also the post-Olympics tour that Biles announced last year, effectively seizing control of an event formerly run by USA Gymnastics. Biles said that whatever happened, she was still looking forward to doing that.

The tour will feature her friends, Olympic teammates as well as former collegiate gymnasts, with choreography by the former UCLA coach Val Kondos Field, who made her name by shaking up the rigid styles of elite gymnastics.

Now it will be delayed like the Olympics. Kondos Field said that while the tour didn’t need Biles to have competed at the Tokyo Games, it would certainly matter. Either way, the tour will now still take place just as it would have, a year later. Lee Marshall, the tour producer, said 40 new dates had already been rebooked for next year instead.

Biles had gone back and forth in her mind about what she was going to do about the Games, her coach Cecile Landi said, before texting and then FaceTiming with her Monday about the decision.

Last Tuesday, when the Olympics’ postponement was announced, a very small group of elite gymnasts was still training at the World Champions Centre gym.

Landi said she spoke briefly to everyone about the situation, and then followed up individually with Biles during her workout and stretching. Landi’s husband Laurent, another of Biles’s coaches, talked to her while she was on the uneven bars. Both were trying to make it a low-key chat.

“I told her not to make an emotional decision,” Cecile Landi said. She added: “You don’t have to speak up right away, you don’t have to tell us if you want to do it. You go home, you talk to your family, you talk to yourself… We understand if you want to be done, we understand if you don’t want to be done.”

Biles’s mind seemed to jump from signaling no way, to the idea that she’d put in too much work already to give up now, before swinging back.

By Thursday, the last day before the gymnasts were sent home, Biles was saying she was frustrated by what she was reading on Twitter, especially people suggesting that throwing away months of careful preparation, or readjusting to a new calendar, was no big deal.

“Your brain is wired for that time, and having it shut down, as much as we know why and there was no way we could have gone forward, it hurts,” Landi said.

Time outside of the gym will be painful too, Landi said. Gymnasts come back to sore wrists and shoulders as they go back on their hands after even a week’s break of walking on their feet. Her athletes will not be taking chances by tumbling in their backyards either, she said—even an ankle roll on the grass, she has told them, could add a six-week setback.

An extra year of intensive training is just an extra year of chances for injury in a sport where a two-second turn can change the course of your career. At the same time, she said, Biles has a broken toe that is currently “on and off,” which could benefit from resting.

“I can’t speak on her behalf, but knowing her, there’s no way this is the way she wants to finish her career. But at the same time, it’s a 16-month road from today,” said Landi.

[emblem-333]

Rebooking WrestleMania 35

What stays the same:

Kofi beats Bryan

Whatever else I didn’t care enough about to mention.

Brock Lesnar retains vs Seth Rollins

Why: Is Brock a good champion? No. He works very few dates and his best in-ring days are long gone. But give me him over Rollins as a Babyface. Rollins is a fine wrestler, one of the best in the WWE. However, his microphone skills are nonexistent and his feuds subsequent winning the strap from Lesnar have either been uninspiring or downright pathetic.

Still, there was a groundswell of support from fans eager to see the Universal Championship around the waist of a full timer once more. The secondary WWE title has had many misadventures. It’s inaugural champion Finn Balor suffered a legitimate shoulder injury and relinquished the belt the day after winning it at SummerSlam. WWE held a fatal-4-way match on Raw a week later between Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Big Cass, and Seth Rollins - the winner being Owens. He went on to hold the belt for nearly 200 days, but his reign came to a screeching halt when Goldberg returned and steamrolled him.

Since Owens ate a Goldberg spear, the belt spent nearly two-years around the waists PF part-timers. Frankly, I’ve forgotten it’s existed at points. To be honest, I was glad to see Rollins win initially for these reasons alone. Then came the night after ‘Mania, Rollins is in the middle of the ring out comes Triple H, his former rival who tried to derail his career... and they hug. THEY HUG. Instantly I get this feeling Rollins is a corporate backed champion packaged as a Babyface. While every WWE champion is a corporate champion at the very least give me the veneer Rollins isn’t a suck up behind the scenes by making him one during the show.

But the WWE is infatuated with themselves. They were so satisfied to have pulled off the angle and believed to have gotten Rollins over as a Babyface they couldn’t help but rub it in for all of us to see.

Lesnar, in hindsight, needed to remain champion. Rollins simply wasn’t the guy. But Vince McMahon isn’t going to put over someone like Samoa Joe- and let’s be honest, neither is Triple H or Stephenie. Whoever beats Lesnar has to be a creation of the WWE laboratory. If not Rollins, then there’s nobody on the Raw roster worth giving a look at.

If I was booking the WWE, I’d have Kurt Angle’s last match be against Lesnar and call it a night.

Sasha Banks and Bayley retain vs The IIconics, Nia Jax & Tamina, Beth Phoenix and Natalya

Why: The Women’s Tag Titles are the offspring of Bayley and Sasha’s constant lobbying. It is odd the women’s division does not have a tag championship in the first place. For all this talk of a “Women’s Revolution” and the idiotic elevation of “The Four Horsewomen” as if on par with “The Four Horseman,” the whole thing proves to be a farce despite the wrestlers being insanely talented and effective.

Heading into the eight women tag match the “Boss ‘n Hug Connection,” the inaugural champs had held the belts for 49 days. While their defense wasn’t something to write home about the whole point of their run was supposed to add legitimacy and mystic to the strap. Yeah, the IIconics are solid heels, but after winning the titles their reign didn’t last long either ending in 120 days before dropping them to Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross, who later lost it to the current champions Asuka and Kairi Sane after their heel turn. (Why are the tag titles primarily held by heels?)

Just let Bayley and Sasha keep the belts. Since ‘Mania, Bayley’s won Money in the Bank, cashing in on Charlotte Flair and is still the champion today. Holding the belt for 197 of the last 202 days. The interim period occurred when Flair beat Bayley at Hell in a Cell. On the following Smackdown, Bayley returned for her rematch with a new look and a new attitude. The lovable hugger with a back bone became a chicken shit heel over night. Instantly undercutting months of booking. While she did get a main event slot at pay-per-view at Survivor Series, she was treated as an afterthought by many inside and out of the company. The morning after Shayna Baszler made Bayley submit, the WWE twitter account reminded fans that Baszler didn’t beat “The Man” a.k.a the champion they actually care about. (https://twitter.com/wwe/status/1198805122681147392?s=21)

It’s a damn shame how Bayley’s been booked. A complete waste of her character and even from the standpoint of solely caring about making money, WWE circumvented an avenue of revenue by turning her heel. Bayley’s whole character is designed to appeal to young kids, girls in particular. Changing her to someone who makes them cry is a fun thing to do on paper, but in actual practice is awful.

Batista def. Triple H

Why: Triple H is 46. He sucks as a Babyface and is a fraud. He should retire. He does the same goddamn thing every year where he wears a suit, acts as an authority figure and then takes the suit off because things have gotten serious. This happens every year. It’s beyond annoying.

Bobby Lashley retains vs “The Demon” Finn Balor

Why: Poor Finn. Never able to find his footing on the main roster. Such a big star at NXT putting on clinics against Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens. Ironically, neither of them have been properly booked since their NXT days came to a close. WWE has a habit of restraining their talent. Balor fell prey to this and his run as Intercontinental Champion wasn’t relevant and later would lose it to fellow roamer of purgatory Shinsuke Nakamura.

I don’t see a reality where Balor as I.C champion works out. He was a lukewarm, forgetful player on the main roster. It’s good he’s back at NXT. They let their talent express themselves a little more than WWE. Best thing for him.

The Main Event:

The main event between Ronda, Becky and Flair was.. okay. Nothing special. I was happy for Becky. Initially booked to turn heel after SummerSlam in 2018, her promo the night after Flair stole her title made her a star overnight and plans changed to have her turn Babyface and keep Flair heel. Despite numerous attempts by WWE to make Lynch a heel fans simply weren’t allowing it just so Flair could win another title. That didn’t stop them from giving Flair titles, but at least it won’t be at Becky’s expense anymore.

Why did this culmination of months long storytelling feel so underwhelming in its conclusion? Simply put, it wasn’t a good story. Every participant was an absolute fool and the WWE doesn't remember how to book Babyfaces anymore. Becky failed at the Royal Rumble losing to Asuka clean. Then hijacks the No. 30 spot in the rumble when there were more deserving candidates available. What makes matters worse is Asuka would have the rug pulled out from under her a week before WrestleMania losing the belt to Flair. So why bother having her retain against Lynch and making things more complicated?

Following the rumble, Flair and Lynch battled for the right to go to WrestleMania. Despite being cleared to compete weeks before the PPV she still entered the ring on crutches and got the crap beaten out of her before Rousey inexplicably crashed the party, got Flair DQ'd and doubled the chances of her losing her title making the match a triple-threat.

The main event of WrestleMania didn’t need to be a triple-threat. It didn’t need Charlotte. And most certainly didn’t need to have both belts on the line. You had an actual fighter in Ronda Rousey and someone from the wrestling world who took an actual punch to the face, broke her nose and suffered a concussion so both participants had credibility entering.

In my eyes, the WWE could’ve done the following, dominate the headlines for their inclusivity, make everyone who needed to look good look good, and not marginalize Asuka in the process:

Becky Lynch def. Asuka for Smackdown Women’s Title at the Royal Rumble, Flair wins the rumble:

Asuka submits to the “Dis-Arm-Her” and Lynch is once again on top of the world after being unceremoniously knocked off by Nia Jax. Flair wins the rumble, and demands both belts are on the line to prove she’s the “Queen.” Both parties oblige and volià! There’s your WrestleMania main event done without unnecessary detours.

Or

Asuka retains vs Becky Lynch, faces Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville in a triple-threat for the title; Banks wins vs Rousey, Ronda is the one to enter No. 30 into the rumble and turning heel in the process.

Pushing Flair to the side here. She’s had enough moments in the spotlight and she’ll have tons more. Being omitted from me, WrestleMania isn’t the end or the world. This year belonged to Becky and Ronda. Let them have the spotlight.

I kind of think a Ronda heel turn would have worked if they paired her up with Paul Heyman. Would’ve made sense since she isn’t much of a talker and is from the ultimate fighting background as Lesnar. But that’s far too simple! And we can’t forget about The Queen. Heavens, no!

Sasha Banks wins vs Rousey; Flair wins the rumble. Lynch vs Rousey has no belt on the line. Banks vs Flair for ‘Mania:

Oooh, this is probably my worst take, but c’mon the Becky Two Belts story didn’t really lead to anything besides Bayley’s revival when a simple win over whoever was champion at the time would’ve done the trick.

Sasha Banks and Ronda had a very nice battle for the Raw Women’s Title. Perhaps the best match of Ronda’s one year stint in the WWE. If anyone doubts Banks’ in-ring capabilities, tell them to look at how she guides the green Rousey through the match. Booking Banks to win the title is a risky proposition. Ronda built a mystic of being unbeatable. A real fighter. Not a fake entertainer pumping ‘roids. Beating her essentially undos all of that. I guess Banks’ could have turned heel here and used a chair when the referee is unconscious and smashed it over Ronda’s head knocking her out of commission for a couple of weeks.

Anyways, Banks defends the title versus Flair. Asuka defends vs Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose; Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey have an old fashioned grudge match settled at ‘Mania. How’s that for inclusivity? Why aren’t I working for the WWE? Is it because my ideas suck and have no basis in reality? Probably.

[danwhobrowses]

AEW Full Gear 2021 - Does AEW Replace Jon Moxley in the Finals?

Today the wrestling world has been hit with news of AEW’s Jon Moxley entering an inpatient alcohol treatment program. It is extremely brave of Jon to confront his demons like this for his health and family and we should and do support him in his efforts.

For AEW’s narrative however this does cause a bit of a wrinkle, because Moxley was a dead cert to face Bryan Danielson as a finalist in the AEW World Title Eliminator. With Moxley stepping away from the ring, AEW lack a growing heel character to insert into the mix, so now we will look at the options of what they can do from here. Bear in mind though, I am fully supporting of Moxley in this endeavour and hope he makes a full recovery, I want to be clear that this isn’t a post meant to imply that Jon is causing AEW a problem by seeking help, this is more of a who could we see fill the spot kinda post.

While there are a lot of worthy candidates to compete in this tournament, we must also remember that a lot of AEW’s top non-champion men are already engaged in feuds; Adam Cole vs Jungle Boy, MJF vs Darby (and by extension Wardlow and Sting will be occupied), Kingston vs Punk, Jericho and the Inner Circle vs ATT and the likes of PAC, Andrade and Malakai are warped into the Codyverse. So unfortunately that does mean that some great challengers are unlikely options.

We can however break this down to 2 simpler options: Replace or Not Replace.

Not Replace

The simplest option of course is to not replace, and with Jon’s withdrawal we have the option to either give the win to Orange Cassidy or give another challenger eliminated a second chance. Unfortunately with Archer’s injury this limits the options to Hobbs, Kingston, Dustin or 10.

Hobbs and 10 have a lot of promise and Dustin is like fine wine - someone I will always be hyped to see, but sadly I don’t see either being a fitting replacement for someone of Moxley’s calibre, the finals should exude a Dream Match aura after all. Since Dustin already lost cleanly to Bryan, Hobbs cleanly to Cassidy and 10 was decimated by Moxley, it does limit our options to 2.

Sticking with Orange Cassidy is by no means a bad choice. Cassidy has already been cheated out of victory by Don and Kenny during their Triple Threat at Double or Nothing, and a match against Bryan can still be a clash of styles; fighter vs entertainer. What deflates the prospect is that it’s face vs face, which will either influence fans’ predictions towards the main event and the outcome of this match. Since neither have stake or beef should Hangman win, it means a lot more work would have to be put into making both of them possible challengers for Hangman, having only been established for Kenny.

Because of this there would be a potential option to delay Punk vs Kingston and try to top the excellent Bryan vs Kingston semi-final match by having Kingston fight in his friend’s stead. Using his building anger to press a heel turn from Eddie and using that to ease Moxley’s return into the heel turn they were building up beforehand. Given their friendship, there is a coherent story there they can apply, and since Kingston did not submit against Bryan there’s reason to give him another chance.

Of these options for the Not Replace path, there is perhaps more stock in giving Eddie the second crack, while this does mean that AEW will then have to rebook an opponent for Punk, they can always Send Hook, or better yet make it a 4-Way between OC, Bryan, Kingston and Punk (this is unlikely if they are planning a 4-Way between those in the Codyverse though, and they would probably want Punk’s first L to be momentous).

Replace

Another route is of course giving the slot to someone else previously not in the tournament to fight in Moxley’s stead. Doing this does imply that they will also likely fill Moxley’s slot in the finals, but there are still a few candidates to go for.

Like Kingston, we may simply delay some feuds for the finale. Punk for instance does want that match with Bryan, and what better stage to do it? Putting Punk in Moxley’s spot could further infuriate Kingston to progress their feud post-Full Gear. Jungle Boy too could have his return delayed and allow Adam Cole Baybay to cross paths with Bryan - while also sowing tension on what happens if the Elite win as planned. The Codyverse 4-Way could also be used as a means to pick a finalist, even though Cody shouldn’t qualify given how he intends to stick to his failed gambit back when Jericho was champ. While not feuding, Wardlow is currently occupied in MJF and Darby’s clash, but that doesn’t mean he can’t consider branching out; he was after all a part of last year’s tournament, and he would be a good powerhouse to pit against Bryan.

Although AEW have been successful in keeping their top stars busy, not all of them have ended up being booked so far. Questions can be made over whether Moxley’s spot should go to a younger talent looking for a dream match with Bryan such as Daniel Garcia (what a first TV win it’d be to qualify), Dante Martin, Ricky Starks, returns for Kip Sabian or Anthony Ogogo, or Brian Pillman Jr. Other more veteran figures such as Matt Hardy (seeking revenge on OC, same for Jack Evans), Christian Cage, Disgruntled Powerhouse Brian Cage, Lio Rush (again, a good stage for a debut), Matt Sydal, Frankie Kazarian, a returning Christopher Daniels or CIMA may also throw their names into the gauntlet.

Of those that remain, there is one option that shines above the others: Miro. God’s Forsaken Champion has been delivering promo packages for some time now, if entered into the tournament it could be seen as Divine Providence, a test by God to get back into his good graces. As a narrative, it ties well into Miro’s self-absorbed monomyth, but Miro as a world champion is also something people would like to see, and pitted against Bryan would prove to be a fantastic match.

The final option of course is the Forbidden Door, where all manner of things are possible. I’m sure many would bite at the chance to fight Bryan and OC, ranging from Ospreay, Okada, Tanahashi, Shibata, ZSJ, KENTA, Danhausen, RUSH, Bandido, Nick Aldis, Jeff Cobb, Jay White, Dragon Lee, Moose, Alexander (if he’s fit), Eric Young, Ace Austin and more.

In the pile of options to replace Moxley I could easily see the Forbidden Door or Miro being used, which’d still seal a dream match feel. Overall what AEW chooses is yet to be seen, but they do still have a wealth of options before them

[g4zdtechtv]

REBOOKED Wrestling #3 (2.28.24)

This week on REBOOKED, our boys are talking about the Fallout from the Chamber (+ the RAW after), discuss Sting's last match, and talk all about the element of surprise in wrestling!

They may be right about the Bloodline angle, but who knows?

(THE CREAM TEAM LINKTREE)

(SUB TO REBOOKED)

(4GTV - 24/7. LIVE. WATCH NOW.)

[marypsue]

Something Borrowed, Something Blues 3 / ?

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / ?

I’m also on AO3 as MaryPSue!

...

In the Mindscape, something stirred.

Dipper felt the ripples, less like a water droplet landing in a still pond and more like the aftershocks of an earthquake. He stopped in the middle of seeding a particularly good Ghost of Presidents' Day Past nightmare in the mind of a slumbering corrupt public official, and listened, hard.

The ripples died away, slowly, to a faint tremor and then only a dissatisfied grumbling. But something had changed - something had shifted. The tenor of the Mindscape had modulated to a different key. And by the sounds of things, that key was minor.

Dipper groaned, and twisted together the ends of the dream, leaving it on a cliffhanger with a heavily-implied 'to be continued'. He'd be back the next night to give the lady Presidents' Days Present and Future and work the moral in there. Probably. Unless whatever had caused the ripples was more interesting, or he forgot.

It took some tracking to locate the source of the ripples - they'd all but died away by the time Dipper started to look, and there were enough echoes and distortions around the Pacific coast what with all the pockets of residual demonic energy that were still hanging around even a full millennium after he'd destroyed half the coastline, it was like California itself was holding a grudge - but eventually, Dipper managed to narrow down the epicentre to a few square miles.

And groaned, again.

He knew exactly where the ripple had started. Because, of course, right smack-dab in the middle of those few square miles was the town of Gravity Falls.

"How is it that, even after the entire world gets turned into a museum of the weird, this is still the weirdest place in it?" Dipper asked the town at large.

Gravity Falls, obviously, didn't answer, sitting innocuously quiet and cheerful in the summer sun.

A metaphysical tug pulled Dipper's attention away from the town before he could spend too much time staring at it and reflecting on one of the few secrets of the universe he still, for all his omniscience, hadn't managed to crack. Mira was calling, with apparently impeccable timing.

"What's up?" Dipper asked, popping into Mira's living room. Mira was beaming head to toe, wearing what looked like every petticoat she owned, and holding Ian's hand with the hand that wasn't waving a bag of candy-coated chocolate-covered peanuts. 

"Guess what? We're moving this wedding to Gravity Falls! Like, right now. As in we are eloping. Candy-coated peanuts in exchange for a little help getting there?" She gave the bag another wave.

Dipper looked from Mira, to Ian, and back to Mira again.

"You're kidding me, right?" he asked, finally.

Mira glanced over at Ian, both of their smiles slipping slightly.

"Oh no," she said, her voice dropping. "Now what?"

"Okay, I'm putting Niagara back on the table," Ian said. "The tourists aren't as bad after the summer season...or we could take the rebooking the Castle on the Hill offered us, and that'll give us time to find that shipment of bridesmaid dresses -"

"No," Mira said, not looking away from Dipper’s face. “What’s going on, Alcor? I thought you'd be happy we'd picked somewhere that was so important to you." Her voice was too sweet, her smile too tight. Dipper had to stuff down a shudder.

“I...actually don’t know yet,” he admitted. He scowled at the way Mira rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey, a random magic ripple came out of there not five minutes ago! The whole Mindscape’s still humming! And then you summon me up and want to go there? Something is weird here.”

Mira's eyes narrowed, and Dipper had to resist the sudden and almost overpowering urge to look over at Ian.

"Yeah, I'm actually with the literal demon on this one," Ian said, finally giving Dipper an excuse to turn in his direction. "No offence, but last time we got mixed up with mysterious forces beyond our comprehension..." He finished the sentence by waving one hand vaguely in the direction of his prosthetic eye.

Mira sucked in a long breath, her expression terrible, and then slowly let it out again.

"Can you find out what this magic ripple was?" she asked, her voice the particular kind of tight of a very angry person trying to be calm and rational.

"Probably, but it might take a little while," Dipper answered, honestly.

"Great. How about an overbooking at our venue? Can you fix that? And find my lost order of bridesmaid dresses? And while you're at it, do you want to finish our seating chart? Please bear in mind that I'm pretty sure one of Ian's relatives may actually drop dead if she gets startled or touched by a cool breeze, and that my sister is planning on bringing an actual baby Chinese Fireball as her plus one." Mira set the bag of candy-coated peanuts down on the couch behind her, ticking off things on her fingers as she listed them. "Oh, and we still need to sort out whether or not Grandmother is coming and whether or not she's bringing her boyfriend, and whether he's bringing his boyfriend, and get the rest of the invitees who haven't RSVP'd to get on that so we can get numbers and any food sensitivities to the caterer so that we know how much we're going to have to pay them so we can decide how much budget we have left for flowers -"

"All right, I get it!" Dipper interrupted, and Mira sucked in another long breath, this time less like she was trying to keep her patience and more like she was trying to catch her breath. "Seriously, I get it, this wedding planning stuff sounds like a nightmare. But can't you, I don't know, just go down the street to the JP and get it done this afternoon?"

Mira slowly sank down onto the couch, her pile of petticoats enveloping her and the bag of candy-coated peanuts.

"Yeah," she muttered, from somewhere within the cloud of tulle. "I guess so." Even if Dipper hadn't been able to see and feel the soggy concrete-coloured blanket that fell over her aura, the defeat was obvious in her voice.

Ian shot Dipper a helpless look, and Dipper winced in sympathy. 

"Look, give me twenty-four hours," Dipper finally said, making up his mind. "I'll figure out what's going on in Gravity Falls and whether or not it's safe for you guys to go up there. And if it's not, or if I can't..."

He sucked in a deep breath he didn't really need, feeling lungs he hadn't had a second before inflate. "Then I'll help you with your - ugh - seating chart."

...

Gravity Falls was nothing like Dipper remembered it, and yet, somehow, it was exactly the same.

Oh, on the surface it had changed a lot over the years. The forest had grown up, and been cut back; businesses and families had come and gone; a city had sprung up around the protective magical bubble surrounding the site of the world’s greatest magical disaster, and then withered away again as magic became more commonplace, its birthplace protected by a national park. Generations had come and gone, each leaving its small but significant mark. The statue of Nathaniel Northwest had been pulled down and replaced by, of all things, a buffalo.

But the UFO-shaped hole in the cliffs still loomed over the town, protectively cupped in its little hollow. The five-times-great-grandchildren of the Manotaurs Dipper had met on his and Mabel’s first summer there still roamed the mountainside, challenging unwary travellers to arm-wrestling competitions and antagonising the Multibear. The gnomes still migrated underground every winter, only to emerge, freshly energized and doubly annoying, every spring. Dinosaurs still slumbered, encased in ancient sap, beneath the townsfolk’s very feet. Something still lurked in the lake, dropping the occasional enormous tooth or eyelash to wash up on the shore. 

But more than anything, Gravity Falls had still somehow kept its sense of mystery. Dipper Pines had been a demon for a little over a millennium, now. He’d survived having his puny human skull cracked open and the whole universe crammed inside. He’d had a little more than a thousand years of experience of the world. He rarely, if ever, got infodumps anymore, because he’d grown into his near-omniscience, learned how to handle and harness it. Very little remained hidden from him anymore, and even less shocked him.

And yet, every time he arrived in Gravity Falls, it still felt like the first time. Like there was something bigger going on than even he knew, something hidden, like he was only glimpsing the very nearest curve of something impossibly vast and mostly buried. That same old, familiar thrill of stumbling over a mystery that had been hidden in plain sight all along.

And, even a full thousand years since magic had become mundane, Gravity Falls still kept its mysteries closely guarded.

Dipper popped into the Stanley Pines Memorial Library of the Supernatural first, in its airy, sleek new building at the edge of town. He’d lost track of how many new buildings the Library had had since it had finally had to be moved out of the crumbling Mystery Shack several centuries ago, but this one was still pretty new, less than a hundred years old. There were still a few people living in Gravity Falls who could trace their family history back to Willow Pines, but only one of them still worked at the Library, and none of them could still see Dipper if he didn’t want to be seen.

He concentrated for a moment on perfecting his ‘Tyrone Pines’ disguise before venturing out of the basement stacks, climbing the stairs and shooting the reference librarian on duty his most charming grin. Too late, he remembered to make sure his teeth were appropriately blunted. It hadn’t been fashionable to wear fangs for at least three decades. If he got caught out because of a fashion faux pas, Mira’d never let him live it down.

“Hey,” he said, strolling up to the reference desk as casually as he could. Did people still use ‘hey’ as a greeting? Dipper couldn’t remember. “How’s your afternoon going?”

The reference librarian smiled toothily at Dipper, and that was when he realised she was a hologram. He was talking to a customer service AI. Well, great. She probably wasn’t going to have the gossip he was really there for.

“It is a pleasant afternoon,” the AI agreed. “Is there some information I can help you look up? A book or resource you’re looking for?”

Dipper considered for a moment. “Is there any social media chatter about any recent, strange phenomena in Gravity Falls?” He thought about it for another moment, before adding, “Strange by Gravity Falls terms, that is. And - only within the last day.”

The reference librarian beamed, literally, the holopixels in her teeth emitting a fraction more light than before. Her expression went a little still for a moment, before she blinked and said, “Nope! If you’d like, I can expand your parameters and do another search.”

Dipper managed not to sigh. That was pretty much what he’d been expecting. “Sure, all right. Give me anything out of the ordinary in Gravity Falls in the last week.”

The reference librarian went still again, her smile glowing a perfect white. It glowed, and glowed, and glowed, until it got hard for Dipper to look at with his jelly-filled human eyeballs. The reference librarian blinked, and then blinked again, and again, the blinks speeding up until her eyes were a blur, her head beginning to twitch spasmodically back and forth - 

“Oh no no no,” a voice said from behind Dipper, and he stepped out of the way for the harried-looking young person who ran up and leaned over the desk, toggling a switch behind the desk back and forth. “What did you ask her?”

Feeling a little sheepish, Dipper said, “Uh, for anything out of the ordinary in Gravity Falls in the last week...?”

The young person fixed Dipper with a stare that clearly said they thought he was as stupid as he felt just then. “Well, that’d be why she overloaded, yep,” they said, hopping up and vaulting over the reference desk to land beside the frozen hologram, still flickering with glitch. They knelt down so that Dipper could only see the top of their head over the desk, shaved almost bald and with what looked like a metal mohawk glittering with tiny LEDs sticking out of it. “What were you doing asking for something like that?”

They must have pressed some button or crossed some wire, because the hologram jerked, the top of its head and the middle of its torso stretching away in opposite directions, turned abruptly into a tall, attractive man, then into a small bowl of petunias, and then vanished. The person with the metal mohawk re-emerged from behind the desk, breathing hard and not looking particularly impressed, to give Dipper a searching look. “You’re a new face around here.”

“Tyrone Pines,” Dipper said, extending a hand. Metal mohawk looked down at it like they were trying to work out whether it was likely to explode. Dipper tucked the hand back down at his side, feeling self-conscious. “Our instruments picked up an unusual surge of magic from somewhere in this area about half an hour ago, and I’m trying to figure out what might have caused it. Have you seen or heard about anything out of the ordinary for Gravity Falls occurring recently?”

Metal mohawk looked Dipper up and down. “You’re a little young to be a researcher, aren’t you?”

“Grad student,” Dipper lied. “And I’m older than I look.” At least that wasn’t a lie. “And I might be missing out on the opportunity of my academic career here, so...can you help me out?”

Metal mohawk gave Dipper another long, searching look before saying, “Don’t they still teach you guys how to effectively use search engines in undergrad? AI’s come a long way, but processing power still costs money, y’know.”

“I just didn’t think,” Dipper ground out, the tips of his manufactured ears burning. He barely resisted the urge to check and make sure they hadn’t gone pointy on him. “Figured she’d have a filter for Gravity Falls background weirdness radiation.”

Metal mohawk shook their head. “How would anyone ever decide what was significant and what was ‘background weirdness radiation’? In Gravity Falls? Do you want to try coding that nightmare?” They took a deep breath, visibly composing themselves, and ran a hand down one shaved side of their skull. “What you’re looking for, basically, is gossip. Am I right?”

“You’re not wrong,” Dipper admitted. 

“Sorry,” metal mohawk said, not sounding particularly sorry. “I’m not real big on gossip.” Their LEDs all flashed once, in unison, and they said, like they were just remembering, “I do know they’re just breaking ground up by the cliffs to put in one of those awful hovervator tour centres. With the glass floors? Maybe they dug something up, people are always finding weird buried crap around here.”

“By the cliffs?” Dipper asked, a sinking feeling burrowing into the pit of his stomach for no reason he could explain and making itself at home there.

“Yeah, just at the base there. Apparently it’s a great launch platform for the hovervator cars.” Metal mohawk’s face split in a vicious smile. “Wonder what they’ve decided to do about the wonky magnetic fields up there, though. Last I heard, the company the state hired to put the thing in was six weeks behind schedule trying to figure out how to get the cars out over the valley without them falling out of the sky.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Dipper said, thinking of the UFO buried in the middle of the valley with a shudder.

Metal mohawk shrugged one shoulder. “Well, maybe if they did dig up something of magical significance, they’ll have to abandon the project, or move it somewhere else. Anything that might be part of the world’s magical heritage is super protected as part of the park, you know.” They paused, pointing one finger at Dipper. He noticed, vaguely, that their nails were all painted silver - or maybe covered in some kind of silvertoned metal plating. “Which means you and your prof are going to need alllllll kinds of clearance and paperwork if you want to remove anything for study. Don’t go getting any big ideas.”

“Definitely won’t,” Dipper agreed, with a nod. “Thanks, I think I’ll head up that way and check it out.”

“Don’t mention it,” metal mohawk said. “Oh, and if you ever short-circuit my reference librarian like this again, I’m going to personally find you and make you reboot her yourself.”

...

Dipper stepped out of the Library, and took a long, deep breath. The air seemed somehow fresher here, less tainted with smog than New California and faintly scented with pine and petrichor. Somewhere off in the trees, there was a warbling of birdsong and the firecracker rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker. The sun beamed down hot and crystal-bright, warming Dipper's fleshsack from the outside in.

He'd really forgotten what it was like to be physical - not just present in the physical plane, but inhabiting a body, tailor-made to his specifications, for no other reason than to be in a body. It was...nice. Maybe just in small ways, but they were small ways he definitely hadn't appreciated enough when he'd had a meat body full-time. Dipper wondered, vaguely, whether he'd be in town long enough to justify getting a meal. A memory of Greasy's pancake stacks drifted to the surface of his thoughts, and Dipper gave himself a moment to mourn for things lost to the passage of time. Say what you liked about the rest of the food at Greasy's Diner, they'd made really good pancakes.

It was a nice day, Dipper decided, at last. He hadn't taken the time to human properly in...a while. He didn't want to get out of practice and forget how. The hike up to the cliffs would be just the thing to enjoy the fresh air and the sunshine, and the hike back would be just the thing to work up an appetite.

He managed to get to the other side of town before giving up and teleporting himself up to the foot of the cliffs. That was another thing he'd forgotten about flesh bodies - how quickly they wore out.

"How does anyone get anything done with these noodle limbs?" Dipper complained to no one in particular as he rematerialized, just on the inside of a fence made of bright orange plastic netting.

"Hey! You! This is a private work site!" 

Dipper looked up, to see a woman built like a bear crossed with a monster truck bearing down on him, her expression thunderous under her scuffed yellow hard hat. "How'd you get in here? Where's your PPE?" she demanded, pulling to an abrupt stop only inches away from Dipper.

Dipper gulped nervously, and a bright orange hard hat popped into existence on his head.

The woman's eyes flicked up to it, and narrowed. "Damn wizards," she grumbled, turning away from Dipper. "Bet you dollars to donuts that thing's not up to international standards. Or rated for heavy construction." She started to walk away, turning and spinning when she realised Dipper wasn't behind her. "Well? It's this way."

Dipper weighed his options for a moment, and then followed her.

"We'll just need you to sign off that it's a natural formation, that it's nothing to do with the Transcendence," the woman said, as she led Dipper through torn-up dirt and between flags planted in the exposed earth, ducking under the extended arm of an enormous earthmover. "Damn national parks, damn Preservation of Magical Heritage act - this is, without a doubt, the most godawful jobsite I've ever worked on, and that's saying something."

"Is it, though?" Dipper asked. "Like, really?"

The woman snorted.

"Maybe in your line of work, it's normal for the trees to get up and start wandering around." She slowed, and then stopped, in front of a dark, gaping hole half-buried in the ground, half-sunk into the cliff face. "Well, here we are. A hole in a rock. You gonna sign off on this for me, or d'you wanna try to argue that it's somehow magically significant?"

Dipper walked closer to the cave, and then stopped.

Even before he could see anything, he felt it. That deep, constant thrumming, that minor note in the chord of the world - whatever it was, it was coming from somewhere inside the black hole before him. A breath of cold, stale air wafted out of it, smelling of dry earth and ages, and Dipper had to fight down the crawling feeling that the cave was breathing.

Dipper coughed, suddenly stricken by the overwhelming sensation that he was suffocating.

"I'll - I'll need to take a closer look," he managed, between coughs.

Beside him, the woman let out a heavy sigh. "We'll have to get some people in there to shore it up, make sure it doesn't collapse -"

"No, no," Dipper interrupted. "I'm a...wizard. It's fine."

The woman gave him a skeptical look, but she didn't push him.

Dipper conjured up a handful of soft white light with a thought, raising it over his head as he ventured closer to the cave. The light illuminated only a foot or so of the rock lining the walls, a sloped floor worn smooth leading down into the impenetrable dark. The feeling, the magic, whatever it was, pressed around and against Dipper like quicksand, flowing sluggishly but bleeding into everything until it was nearly impossible to move, to breathe. Dipper could feel his aura prickling on contact with the strange magic, bristling protectively around him.

"There's...definitely something magic here," he said, and the woman groaned, pinching her nose between thumb and forefinger. "I'm just not sure what it is, yet."

"Well, get in there and find out!" the woman snapped. Dipper raised both hands placatingly, and started forward into the dark.

The cave mouth led into a long, winding tunnel, carved into the rock of the cliffs. It looked ancient. It felt ancient. It smelled ancient, the earthy smell of the living rock around him clashing with the musty, stale smell of unused attics and basements, museum display cases, old sealed trunks full of relics from a great-great-something-or-other. This place wasn't related to the Transcendence, Dipper was sure, and he only got more sure the farther he ventured in, leaving daylight and the fresh air and the woman behind. It was much, much older than that.

It also reeked of magic, that slow, sliding, suffocating flood of primordial power that had assaulted Dipper back on the surface. The deeper he went into the cave, the more it seemed to resist him, like he was wading through molasses with every step.

But that wasn't all. The deeper he went, the more that magic started to feel...familiar. And not just the magic. Something like déjà vu washed over him as he turned around a bend, and his handful of light illuminated a natural doorway, the tunnel widening out into a larger chamber in the rock. The chamber beyond was still in shadow, Dipper's light not quite strong enough to reach its far walls, but that didn't matter. The magic surrounding him pressed on him like a physical force, but that wasn't what stopped Dipper in his tracks.

He knew what he'd find once he passed through that doorway. Knew it just as surely as he could feel its magic pushing against him.

Saw it as clearly as he could see the red markings on the cave walls.

...

In general, Ian didn't mind waiting.

Anything you cared about was, after all, worth getting right. And getting things right took time. So sometimes you didn't get what you wanted right away. So what? Still, eventually, you got what you wanted. No, so long as what he was waiting for was something good, Ian didn't mind a bit of a wait.

What he did mind was being helpless. 

There wasn't anything he could do about whatever was going on in Gravity Falls. And sitting and worrying about whether the idea to visit there had truly been his, or if there were other, sinister forces at play, really, really wasn't the way he wanted to spend the rest of his day. It was ironic, really. He'd been trying to get Alcor off his back for nearly a month, but now that the demon was actually gone, all Ian wanted was for him to hurry up and get back.

He was idly doodling on his tablet screen, having given up on actually trying to do productive work on MtM or on his vows (why was it so impossibly difficult to find the right words to say 'I love you and I literally put my eye out for you, I'm in this for the long haul'?), when Alcor blipped into existence in the middle of the living room. His face was twisted, like he'd smelled something bad, and Ian looked down at his tablet again, only to see he'd covered the entire screen in triangles of all shapes and sizes. Groaning, he closed the file without saving, putting the tablet aside.

"So what's the damage?" he asked Alcor, who gave a little shudder before answering.

"Well, the good news is that it's nothing new," he said, with a wince, and Ian braced himself for the bad news. "Actually, it's really old. They're putting a new tourist attraction in by the cliffs and the excavation opened up a cave that was used for some kind of rituals by Gravity Falls' native people before the Transcendence." 

"Okay," Mira said slowly, and Ian could tell that, like him, she was trying to figure out what the bad news was. "That doesn't sound so bad -"

"They were rituals to summon Bill Cipher."

Ian groaned, and pressed a hand over his prosthetic eye, dragging it slowly down his face.

"And to banish him," Alcor pushed on, relentless. "He used to have a cult there, but it looks like they wised up to what he was up to when he tried to get them to open him a portal into our world from his Nightmare Realm. Nobody's used that cave or those rituals for something like a thousand and thirty years. I think the leftover magic just got disturbed when it was unsealed."

"So what does that mean for us?" Mira said, a little too sharply. Alcor shrugged one shoulder in a surprisingly human gesture.

"It might just be a coincidence. Or you might've subconsciously picked up on the residual energy from the summoning rituals. Either way, it's...probably not a trap." Alcor shifted uncomfortably in midair, his wings twitching.

"But you think it is anyway," Mira said, thankfully voicing Ian's thoughts for him. He shot her a grateful smile, but she didn't turn to look in his direction, her gaze still fixed on Alcor.

Alcor's wings gave a nervous flutter.

"I don't know if it's a good idea for you guys to go up there," he said. "I mean, residual magic's still magic. And Bill was smart, and tricky -"

"We're going."

The words seemed to fall out of Ian's mouth without his having to push them. Adrenaline made the tips of his fingers a little numb, his lips clumsy, but the words came out crystal clear. Alcor turned to look at him, and so did Mira, a flicker of fear flashing across her eyes for a second before resolve replaced it.

"Are you sure?" Alcor started, and Mira cut him off, pressing a hand against his chest when he started to drift towards the couch.

"If Ian's okay with it, then yes. Let's get this show on the road!" Her bright, cheerful tone sounded strained, but Alcor didn't seem to notice, watching Ian carefully instead.

"Look, it's not that I don't trust you, but even the big cat enclosure at the zoo is relatively safe unless you walk into it wearing a dress made out of raw meat," Alcor said. "I'll help you guys sort out this wedding stuff, but why don't you postpone the Gravity Falls trip until this thing is safely buried under a couple thousand tons of concrete and steel?"

"No," Ian said, pushing himself up off the couch despite the fact that he couldn't properly feel his legs. "I'm sick and tired of letting a dead guy run my life. I'm done being scared of Bill Cipher." He folded his arms over his chest, staring Alcor down.

"And I'm sick and tired of whatever's been sabotaging this wedding," Mira agreed, with a pointed glance in Alcor's direction, which the demon didn't even seem to notice. "This day's going to be special, and we're going to have it right away before anything else can go wrong and get in our way!"

A whole variety of expressions flashed across Alcor's face, so fast that Ian would've given each of them their own frame if he'd been animating the scene.

"Fine," Alcor said. "It's up to you guys. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Never do," Mira said flippantly, flouncing away down the hall. "Ian, come help me pick out something to wear. We're getting married!"

...

The forest has no sense of time. Trees sprout, grow, die. New trees take their place. Fire kills and cleanses. Animals come and go. The forest goes on.

And the forest remembers.

Deep within the woods of Gravity Falls, something that had slumbered for centuries stirred. It did not have a name. Something had given it one, once, but that was a very long time ago and it was forgotten now. It did not matter. The forest went on. 

And the forest remembered.

It remembered fire, not cleansing but destroying, decimating. It remembered change, transformation, terror, agony.

It remembered the one who tried to bring the end of the forest.

Deep within the woods of Gravity Falls, something that had slumbered for centuries raised its antlered head, and sniffed the air. Caught the scent of destruction on the wind.

[orbemnews]

Millions Are Skipping Their Second Doses of Covid Vaccines Millions of Americans are not getting the second doses of their Covid-19 vaccines, and their ranks are growing. More than five million people, or nearly 8 percent of those who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, have missed their second doses, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is more than double the rate among people who got inoculated in the first several weeks of the nationwide vaccine campaign. Even as the country wrestles with the problem of millions of people who are wary about getting vaccinated at all, local health authorities are confronting an emerging challenge of ensuring that those who do get inoculated are doing so fully. The reasons vary for why people are missing their second shots. In interviews, some said they feared the side effects, which can include flulike symptoms. Others said they felt that they were sufficiently protected with a single shot. Those attitudes were expected, but another hurdle has been surprisingly prevalent. A number of vaccine providers have canceled second-dose appointments because they ran out of supply or didn’t have the right brand in stock. Walgreens, one of the biggest vaccine providers, sent some people who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to get their second doses at pharmacies that only had the other vaccine on hand. Several Walgreens customers said in interviews that they scrambled, in some cases with help from pharmacy staff, to find somewhere to get the correct second dose. Others, presumably, simply gave up. From the outset, public health experts worried that it would be difficult to get everyone to return for a second shot three or four weeks after the first dose. It is no surprise that, as vaccines are rolled out more broadly, the numbers of those skipping their second dose have gone up. But the trend is nonetheless troubling some state officials, who are rushing to keep the numbers of only partly vaccinated people from swelling. In Arkansas and Illinois, health officials have directed teams to call, text or send letters to people to remind them to get their second shots. In Pennsylvania, officials are trying to ensure that college students can get their second shots after they leave campus for the summer. South Carolina has allocated several thousand doses specifically for people who are overdue for their second shot. Mounting evidence collected in trials and from real-world immunization campaigns points to the peril of people skipping their second doses. Compared with the two-dose regimen, a single shot triggers a weaker immune response and may leave recipients more susceptible to dangerous virus variants. And even though a single dose provides partial protection against Covid, it’s not clear how long that protection will last. “I’m very worried, because you need that second dose,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel. What You Need to Know About the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pause in the U.S. On April 23, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of advisers voted to recommend lifting a pause on the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine and adding a label about an exceedingly uncommon but potentially dangerous blood clotting disorder. Federal health officials are expected to formally recommend that states lift the pause. Administration of the vaccine ground to a halt recently after reports emerged of a rare blood clotting disorder in six women who had received the vaccine. The overall risk of developing the disorder is extremely low. Women between 30 and 39 appear to be at greatest risk, with 11.8 cases per million doses given. There have been seven cases per million doses among women between 18 and 49. Nearly eight million doses of the vaccine have now been administered. Among men and women who are 50 or over, there has been less than one case per million doses. Johnson & Johnson had also decided to delay the rollout of its vaccine in Europe amid similar concerns, but it later decided to resume its campaign after the European Union’s drug regulator said a warning label should be added. South Africa, devastated by a more contagious virus variant that emerged there, also suspended use of the vaccine but later moved forward with it. The stakes are high because there is only one vaccine authorized in the United States that is given as a single shot. The use of that vaccine, made by Johnson & Johnson, was paused this month after it was linked to a very rare but serious side effect involving blood clotting. Federal health officials on Friday recommended restarting use of the vaccine, but the combination of the safety scare and ongoing production problems is likely to make that vaccine a viable option for fewer people. The C.D.C.’s count of missed second doses is through April 9. It covers only people who got a first Moderna dose by March 7 or a first Pfizer dose by March 14. While millions of people have missed their second shots, the overall rates of follow-through, with some 92 percent getting fully vaccinated, are strong by historical standards. Roughly three-quarters of adults come back for their second dose of the vaccine that protects against shingles. In some cases, problems with shipments or scheduling may be playing a role in people missing their second doses. Some vaccine providers have had to cancel appointments because they did not receive expected vaccine deliveries. People have also reported having their second-dose appointments canceled or showing up only to find out that there were no doses available of the brand they needed. Some people can be flexible about being rebooked. But that’s harder for people who lack access to reliable transportation or who have jobs with strictly scheduled hours, said Elena Cyrus, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Central Florida. Updated  April 24, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ET Walgreens booked some customers for their second appointments at places that didn’t have the same vaccine that they had received for their initial doses. The company said it fixed the problem in late March. Susan Ruel, 67, was scheduled to get her two vaccine doses at different Walgreens stores in Manhattan. She said she got her first Pfizer dose without incident in February, but when she arrived for her second appointment, she was told that the store only had Moderna doses in stock. A Walgreens pharmacist told Ms. Ruel that there was another Walgreens pharmacy less than two miles away with Pfizer doses in stock. While Ms. Ruel was waiting for the subway to take her there, she got a phone call: That Walgreens store had run out of Pfizer doses, too. Ms. Ruel managed to get the Pfizer dose at yet another Walgreens the next day. But she said many people in her situation probably wouldn’t have tried so hard. “All you need is hassles like this,” she said. In the Chicago area, for example, pharmacists at two Walgreens locations said the problem was causing headaches. They said that Walgreens’ appointment system was sending each pharmacy anywhere from 10 to 20 customers a week who need a second Pfizer shot, even though both pharmacies stock only the Moderna vaccine. It is not clear how widespread the Walgreens dose-matching problem has been or how many people have missed their second doses because of it. Jim Cohn, a spokesman for Walgreens, said that the problem affected “a small percentage” of people who had booked their appointments online and that the company contacted them to reschedule “in alignment with our vaccine availability.” He said that nearly 95 percent of people who got their first shot at Walgreens have also received their second shots from the company. Walgreens has also come under fire for, until recently, scheduling second doses of the Pfizer vaccine four weeks after the first shot, rather than the three-week gap recommended by the C.D.C. Pharmacists have been besieged by customers complaining, including about their inability to book vaccine appointments online. In other cases, though, access to vaccines is not the sole barrier; people’s attitudes contribute, too. Basith Syed, a 24-year-old consultant in Chicago, nabbed a leftover Moderna vaccine at a Walgreens in mid-February. But when the time came for his second shot, he was busy at work and preparing for his wedding. After the first shot, he had spent two days feeling drained. He didn’t want to risk a repeat, and he felt confident that a single dose would protect him. “I didn’t really feel the urgency to get that second dose,” Mr. Syed said. By early April, his schedule had calmed down a little, and he went looking for a second Moderna shot. But by then, the Walgreens where he had gotten his first shot was only offering Pfizer shots. He couldn’t find slots at other Walgreens stores. Mr. Syed is no longer actively looking for a second shot, though he still hopes to eventually get one. . The C.D.C. says there is limited data on the vaccine’s effectiveness when shots are separated by more than six weeks, although some countries, including Britain and Canada, are giving shots with a gap of up to three or four months. Mr. Syed’s experience is part of a broader shift in Illinois. When vaccines were mostly being given to health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities and people over 65, almost everyone was getting their second shots. In recent weeks, though, the number dipped below 90 percent, though it has since rebounded slightly, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. In Arkansas, about 84,000 people have missed their second shots, representing 11 percent of those eligible for those shots, said Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, the state epidemiologist. Workers recently began calling people who are due or overdue for their second shots. College students pose a particular challenge. Many recently became eligible to be vaccinated and are getting their first shots, but they will have left campus by the time they are due for their second doses. In Pennsylvania, health officials have instructed vaccine providers to give second doses to college students even if they did not receive their first doses from that location. Some vaccine providers have put on special clinics for people who need a second dose. In South Carolina, the health system Tidelands Health started a program specifically for people who received their first Pfizer doses more than 23 days earlier but hadn’t been able to find a second shot. The state health department sent the health system 2,340 doses for the effort. Demand has been strong, and Tidelands only has a few hundred doses left. The majority of takers have been people who “were having difficulty navigating all the various scheduling systems and providers,” said Gayle Resetar, the health system’s chief operating officer. In many cases, vaccine providers had canceled second-dose appointments because of bad winter weather. “It was up to the individual to reschedule themselves on a web portal or web platform, and that just became difficult for people,” Ms. Resetar said. There are rare cases in which people are supposed to forgo the second shot, such as if they had an allergic reaction after their first shot. Zvi Ish-Shalom, a religious studies professor from Boulder, Colo., had planned to get fully vaccinated. Then, an hour after his first shot of the Moderna vaccine, he developed a headache that hasn’t gone away more than a month later. There is no way to know for sure whether the vaccine triggered the headache. But after weighing what he saw as the risks and benefits of a second dose, Dr. Ish-Shalom reached a decision about how to proceed. “At this point in time, I feel very clear and very comfortable, given all the various elements of this equation, to forgo the second shot,” he said. Source link Orbem News #Covid #Doses #Millions #skipping #Vaccines

[natedrink]

The featherweight title fight between Amanda Nunes and Megan Anderson has been rebooked for March 6, UFC officials told Brett Okamoto. #jiujitsu #mma #motivation #kickboxing #mixedmartialarts #ufc249 #wrestling #champion #judo #sport #ufcrussia #gym #workout #khabibnurmagomedov #muaythai #karate #boxing #fighter #mmafighter #ufcfighter #fight #martialarts #training #ufcfightnight #bjj #ufc254 #conormcgregor #ufc229 #ufc223 #grappling TWITTER- https://twitter.com/Natedrink Instagram- https://Instagram.com/natedrink1 YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/c/Natedrink1ADOW DONATE- CASH APP $NathanDrinkard https://www.instagram.com/p/CJERz9_MqZU/?igshid=1fvf0nb9nvi2n

[occytipsters]

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[thesportssoundoff]

Ten Questions To Ask Post UFC 215

Joey

September 14th

1- Is the women's bantamweight division dead?

Allow for the hyperbole for a second. The UFC's bantamweight division in 2015 was a vibrant popping scene buoyed by one of the best rivalries in Miesha Tate vs Ronda Rousey. Even when the two weren't fighting, they were in competition with one another seemingly at all times. Throw in a rising Holly Holm, the "at least she's amusing" Bethe Correia,  a surging Amanda Nunes, some prospects trying to make some waves, aging pros like Marion Reneau and Sara McMann and you had a something. Maybe not a GREAT class but it's a something! Fast forward to 2017 and you have an unpopular Amanda Nunes, Valentina Shevchenko in limbo, an inconsistent Holly Holm (if not in performance than at least in weight), no Ronda, no Miesha, a missing Cat Zingano and Rocky Pennington and the likes of Marion Reneau, Sara McMann, Jessica Eye and Bethe Corriea all essentially doing a whole lot of nothing as it pertains towards career advancement. Leslie Smith may be your "breakout player" but she's a prelim creature if she's going to espouse unions on your programming.

This fight between Nunes and Shevchenko was supposed to either give us a dominant champion or set the stage for an epic rubber match in a rivalry. It ultimately did neither. It gave us more questions, seemingly at a time where an impatient fanbase is adamant about simply not wanting any more questions. After pulling out in July and giving us more time to indulge in their bad blood rivalry, we got a good fight with no real defining moments. It was a fine technical affair but one that lacked in the excitement factor and most importantly left everyone wondering who really won. The division is no better off now than it was and if anything, it's worse. Nunes is an unpopular champion (of all of Ronda's heirs, she's the one who has the most apparent "She's not Ronda!" backlash to her name), her largest threats are moving to new weight classes (Holm, Zingano and Shevchenko are all going to try their hands elsewhere) and Nunes seems to be buckling under the burden of being the adopted face of WMMA. It all makes you wonder what the future of 135 lbs. 145 lbs is a gimmick title but if Cyborg proves to be the star some think she could be then it may step over bantamweight, gimmick or not. The same I guess could be said for 125 lbs which will start with the weakest UFC champion in history BUT will likely have Valentina Shevchenko, Paige Van Zant, Joanna Champion and Katlyn Chookagian all in the division by the midway point of next year. 135 has a far less exciting path layed out for it, a million plotholes on a dirt covered road with an endless amount of deer and other wildlife darting in and out to derail it.

So is 135 lbs dead? I dunno. All I know is the UFC needs to figure it out before Nunes and company wind up with numbers that would make Mighty Mouse blush and cringe.

2- When is the best time to do Mighty Mouse vs Ray Borg?

Easy enough I guess. If Ray Borg is going to get the title shot still, when is the right time? The general consensus is UFC 216 which would probably be a not half bad set up. UFC 216's main card as of right now judging by the UFC.com line up would be:

Tony Ferguson vs Kevin Lee Derrick Lewis vs Fabricio Werdum PVZ vs Jessica Eye Walt Harris vs Mark Godbeer Beneil Dariush vs Evan Dunham

With Will Brooks vs Nik Lentz as your big FS1 headliner.

Not awful but surely not the best offering we're going to get this year. Throw in the fight with Borg vs Mighty Mouse as the main event and that's a pretty darned good fight. Now having said that, would Mighty Mouse vs Borg be better suited elsewhere? Fox in December? Icing on the cake of UFC 217? Do you kinda just punt on 216? Alvarez vs Gaethje needs five rounds so let's not think about that finale.

3- How do you prevent the seemingly unpreventable?

Fighters get hurt. That much is simply a fact of life. Nothing new nor is there much to do for major prevention. Fighters getting sick the week of from bad weight cuts? Maybe it's not a new concept but now it's exposed to the eyes of the public. The UFC has had a fight fall through either AT weigh ins or the day of the fights on all but three of their PPVs (210, 211 and 214) and at least three of those fights were main or co-main events. So how do you fix this? Fighters moving to their natural weight classes to prevent the intense weight cuts is a starter but you can't force guys to move weight classes. Stiffer punishments for fighters who pull out? Well I mean for the bloodthirsty among us you'd get a nod of approval BUT you're still essentially taxing people for having the audacity to miss weight. Probably not the best look either. So how do you prevent the unpreventable?

4- Is Henry Cejudo vs Sergio Pettis a more attractive fight than Mighty Mouse vs Ray Borg?

There's simply no doubting that Henry Cejudo was the star of UFC 215. He went out and finished Wilson Reis via strikes, something that hasn't happened since 2011 when Reis was fighting guys at 145 lbs. He finished him in less time than it took Mighty Mouse and his hands continue to take big steps forward. Cejudo is the sort of guy who at times will flash the skills and talent that reminds you why he's been such a highly regarded yet downright frustrating prospect. So all of this leads into seemingly a fight with fellow streaking 125er Sergio Pettis. Pettis' resume was wafer thin until he handled Brandon Moreno over five rounds in a pretty damn good fight. Now it looks like we're about to get a Cejudo vs Pettis rebooking and if so, is it a more appealing fight to fans than Ray Borg vs Mighty Mouse?

5- Okay Canada, NOW what?

Gavin Tucker, arguably your top prospect, just got swamped by Rick Glenn.  You seem to be lacking an exciting fight finisher of note and most of your top prospects are either losing (Elias Theodorou) or boring no buys fighters (Jeremy Kennedy and Olivier Aubin-Mercier). So....what's the plan then? There's some damn good fighters from Canada on the regional circuit but the search for the next star from Canada seems to be once again ongoing. Perhaps it's a losing battle fought by only the most desperate of us.

6- How far can this RDA at 170 lbs experiment go?

If there's one thing I've learned during this flock of lightweights moving up to 170 lbs, it's that 165 lbs is going to be one hell of a weight class when it gets opened up. The latest guy to join Donald Cerrone, Benson Henderson and Jorge Masvidal is Rafael Dos Anjos with a borderline dominant submission win over Neil Magny at UFC 215. RDA left 155 lbs after two losses, both relatively dominant losses I might add, and walked into 170 lbs with a few guys (myself included) not giving him much of a chance. He's beaten a tough stylistic challenge in Tarec Saffiedine and then walked through Neil Magny. There isn't a lot of fresh matchups at the top of 170 lbs as it stands given how Wonderboy/Woodley and Maia have faced EVERYONE but it'll be interesting to see if the UFC exercises patience re: Rafael Dos Anjos or if this performance can get him to leapfrog Robbie Lawler in the rankings.

7- Is Gil Melendez the biggest bust in UFC history?

Relatively self explanatory. The UFC has had some big signings but perhaps none have faltered as poorly as Melendez has. Hector Lombard could be argued is worse (or at the very least more expensive) but it felt like most folks acknowledged Lombard was more or less a desperate attempt at finding somebody who could eventually generate interest at 185 lbs. Cro Cop? Maybe I guess.

8- How will history look back at Sara McMann in the UFC?

McMann's UFC resume is relatively paper thin if one truly wishes to be critical about it. Sheila Gaff, Jessica Eye, Gina Mazany, Lauren Murphy and Alexis Davis mark her positives. Her losses on the other hand are pretty stellar; Ronda Rousey, Amanda Nunes, Kelten Vieira and Miesha Tate are the elite of the elites if you follow WMMA. McMann entered the UFC with a lot of fanfare but thus far hasn't made much good on it BUT at the same time, pick any women and ask her to face THAT same line up and see how they look at the end of it.

9- Is Kajan Johnson a UFC problem?

Well this is sort of dramatic I suppose. Kajan Johnson is a "problem" in a very loose borderline flimsy meaning of the word. He's an activist for fighter's rights and whether you agree or disagree with his views, it's probably better than not to have a guy looking out for fighters. Like Leslie Smith, he strikes me as a guy the UFC can just keep on prelims---but guys who win at 155 lbs will always get attention, especially if they finish tough fighters like Adriano Martins. So problem? Or no problem?

10- Did we learn something about Tyson Pedro or did we learn all we need to learn?

The general rule of thumb when it comes to prospects is that you should never trust a prospect until his wrestling is tested---repeatedly. While Paul Craig had no luck taking Tyson Pedro down, Ilir Latifi was able to find a way to drag him down again and again en route to a decision loss for the Aussie. So what did we learn? Is Tyson Pedro's wrestling always going to be a problem or was the typical strong man Ilir Latifi just a touch TOO strong for Pedro at this point in his career?