Ramblings of an Englishman

Being far enough removed from Supercard of Honor I think it is time to discuss how Ring of Honor (ROH) has done since the takeover from Tony Khan. Supercard of Honor marked 1 year of shows since ROH was bought so it is a good marker on where the brand is.  To begin with interest and money into the company seems to be up. Subscriber count for ROH Honor Club is on the rise and they are posting PPV numbers on the high end of ROH records which is always good. With interest higher it shows it is a product fans are interested in. If you compare this to where ROH was prior to takeover it is night and day. Interest was at its lowest and tickets couldn't be given away it felt like a company on its last legs and it did feel that coming out of the pandemic that ROH was a company on its last legs. To go from that to being a product that is has and holds fan interest is a good sign. However, it is hard to see this constantly. With ROH being taped alongside AEW Dynamite or at Universal (which I ...

2023 is upon us and with that is the first AEW PPV of the five on the schedule in Revolution. It's one of those things where I really dislike Iron Man matches or maybe Tony Khan's priorities are elswhere but I have found the build to this very hit and miss. Some things I like but others not so much. Either way regarding the wrestling on the night for AEW PPV's always seems to have a positive impact on my thoughts by the end so maybe it will be the same this time around. Zero Hour Mark Briscoe and The Lucha Brothers (Penta El Zero Miedo and Rey Fenix) vs. Ari Daivari and The Varsity Athletes (Josh Woods and Tony Nese) The first time I have really been able to talk about it but I am glad to see Mark Briscoe is now allowed to be on AEW TV after what was a terrible tragedy for his family. I wasn't a constant ROH watcher but Jay Briscoe always was a stand out and someone that felt real. A terrible loss for wrestling. This was a fun match better then I thought. The idea of th...

 "There are two countries in Europe with professional referees, Italy & England. Not one English referee will go to the World Cup" - Arsène Wenger, 2018 Another day which has been riddled by erros not from players and managers but the highlights from the Professional Game Match Officials Limited once again getting so many decisions wrong to a baffling degree. From Brentford's offside goal standing and the VAR official 'forgot' to draw the offside line (so doing his job), West Ham's Tomáš Souček getting away with a blatant handball against Chelsea, Brighton's Pervis Estupiñán having a goal ruled out because the VAR official looked at the wrong player in the offside call and finally Mario Lemina sent off for running towards the referee. These will all be wiped off as human error and the officials given a week off before coming back no punishment at all. It continues to be a point of contention for fans that no accountability is seen from these officials,...

The balance of power at DC has changed. James Gunn & Peter Safran are the co-Chairmen and co-CEO's for DC and their film efforts. What came next was a strong reboot of all, we saw cancellation of film and actor contract before a big announcement at some point soon for how this cinematic universe (or is it now a multiverse with how the MCU is moving). One thing we know that hasn't been cancelled is that of The Batman 2. Matt Reeves directed a great film and it got me thinking, with a reboot of DC as a whole will everything be moved into that Batman universe or will Batman be on his own. On the later as per the post title I was wondering does Batman have enough to sustain a cinematic universe in his own mythos and will look how to break that down now. I am not basing this in Matt Reeve's film and tv series which is why I won't mention any large film ideas but just characters and as such this is something that would take a good while to develop all the characters you c...

Now with Final Battle out of the way we know about the future of Ring of Honor. With an on demand weekly show on Honor Club now is the time to see what the roster will be going forward. I am excited for this as now you can build towards shows with a card fully focussed on Ring of Honor. The irony of the report that it will be taped at the former Impact Zone does make me laugh but we will see how this looks when it happens and once we get a date for the first ROH on Demand TV Show I will be subscribing. However, this post is about the roster. We don't have a full idea as of yet so I wanted to speculate. Judging by what we have seen from Tony Khan's ROH I imagine those on the roster for sure are as follows: ROH World Champion: Claudio Castagnoli  ROH Women's World Champion: Athena  ROH Pure Champion: Wheeler Yuta ROH World TV Champion: Samoa Joe  ROH World Tag Team Champions: The Briscoes ROH World Six-Man Champions: The Embassy Dalton Castle & The Boys  Mercedes M...

Another year brings another Pokémon game which seems to be the case now (that or DLC expansion) with multiple teams working on multiple games at once it seems the content, content, content approach is being taken which has hurt the performance of the game. I played Scarlet with my switch docked and the only issues I had were some lag and frame rate drops. I understand these are issues but to me it didn't hurt my enjoyment of the game, in fact I would say the free roam aspect was really fund and a great addition, I think it is something to keep but also improve. Whatever Generation Ten holds (which I can see as the first modern day Japan region since Generation 4 and Sinnoh as a big 10 generations of Pokémon celebration) I do think that we need level scaling for this format otherwise the game isn't maximising how free roaming it is you still really have a path to follow you can get your starter to level 10 and then go and beat gym 8 you are likely bound by the levels of your opp...

Spoilers for God of War 2018 & God of War Ragnarok to follow Having just finished God of War Ragnarok I have been wondering what can the series go. After God of War 2018 I thought we would be getting a Norse trilogy which I do not think is the case anymore. I wanted to look at how God of War Ragnarok sets up any potential future for the series. You could say Ragnarok is the end of the series it wraps up this story well but with sales figures for the game booming you can bet we will get another game. It broke records, it won awards (well deserved for Christopher Judge and his performance as Kratos) it is almost guaranteed we will get another game.  So where is the world of God of War now. Odin is dead, Thor is dead, Asgard has fallen and Loki is off on his own adventure to find his people, the lost giants. A lot has changed in the realms and with that they seem peaceful. Kratos becomes a God worshiped by the realms but what now? I don't think it is a controversial take to say No...