Tag: manchester united

Bam! Non-Factor! AEW All In 2026 Review

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

For years, and possibly to this day, the muscle memory answer to the question of the greatest wrestling PPV of all time would be Wrestlemania 17. The epic denouement of the Attitude Era! Austin’s heel turn! TLC II! Shane’s Coast to Coast! “You think your special… you do… I can see it in your eeeeeeeeeyes…”.Peak fake fighting perfection!

I’m the cool looking one

…in retrospect, of course. Mania 17 in 2001 might not just be the greatest wrestling show of all time, but the greatest example of “Fuck it, it’ll be good on the night, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” in wrestling history. Because 25 years later we can conveniently forget that the build to that historic 2001 show was pretty much dogshit.

That historic TLC II match was just the WWF throwing their hands up and thinking they may as well do the exact same match they did at Summerslam 2000, because the sweaty marks seemed to enjoy that. The Shane v Vince McMahon match is one of the greatest examples of Sports Entertainment soap opera to have ever been sweated out, but it all stems from a questionable handing of the WCW purchase in storyline that would eventually lead to the biggest example of money left on a table that you would later take a big curly dump on and set fire to in wrestling history. HHH v Undertaker was an incredible match, but only happened because the company had nothing for either star to do; the great Chris Jericho and William Regal opener was built by having Jericho piss in Regal’s tea (no, honestly); and the incredible match between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit – two of the greatest workers of that or any era – was announced the week before the show. And that historic Austin v Rock II was a complete shitshow. Remembered now as the storyline peak of their legendary rivalry and historical second match in their Mania trilogy (though not as good as their Mania 19 match #FightMe), WWF at the time instead chose to focus the feud on Stone Cold’s wife Debra becoming the Rock’s manager, because this was an era when WWF couldn’t conceive of any major wrestling angle not involving Jerry Springer level domestic nonsense. And, to ensure the challenger looked as strong as possible going into the match, they decided to have him lose to HHH on the PPV a month before! People now like to remember the story behind the match being how Austin was so desperate to get his hands on Rock’s title that he was willing to win by any means possible, but that whole idea was only introduced in a sit down interview with Austin, Rock and JR, on the Smackdown nine days before the show. It was also during this interview that Austin said the immortal words “Let’s just go ahead and take Debra out of the equation. BAM! She’s a non-factor…”

It’ll be alright on the night…

i am going somewhere with this

My Life in Albums (part 2 97-06)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

You want an intro? You got that in part one! Let’s get down to the dirty, sticky and dangerously unhygienic business:

1997

This was an important year for me, this was when shit got real. Yeah, Labour won the election, which I was aware I was supposed to celebrate but not yet conscious enough to know exactly why, just that ‘our team won*. Princess Diana died, inspiring a nationwide reaction that even 13 year old Alex Palmer recognised as being a bit fucking much**. All that was meaningless background noise though, as most importantly 1997 was the year that I became really switched on to new music. Before this point, most of the albums I’ve listed would have been discovered by me later and posthumously lusted after in the kind of nostalgic necrophilia that I would later grow to despise. Yeah, sorry if you’ve already imagined me as an incredibly cool seven year old bopping his head to Soon by My Bloody Valentine. From this point on, these important albums in my life and personal development were pretty much all discovered as contemporaries. Seriously though, ‘It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah’ was the first CD that I ever owned. Yeah. I’m that cool/weird.

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“Dad, this is why you’re only allowed to see me one weekend every other month…”

Continue reading “My Life in Albums (part 2 97-06)” →

Rumble in the Bumble pt.6

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment
part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5

Part six! This site’s previous longest series* was the (intermittently ongoing) ‘Greatest Songs Ever‘ collection, which has so far taken eighteen months to dribble to five entries, yet this trawl through my misery caused a dating app that I have since realised I really don’t want to be on is already on its sixth entry in less than ten days! Maybe I don’t actually like writing about music, and actually prefer instead cataloging my sad and emotionally draining attempts to date as a sober person. Sorry, as a non drinker of alcoholic drinks, I realise that ‘sober’ suggests a higher bar of not relying on recreational supplements that I unfortunately cannot meet.

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(*Unless, of course, you count my albums of the year lists as an ongoing series, in which case there have been around 450 posts since 2007. 2007!! My girlfriend wasn’t even born when I started this shit! She’s probably not even heard of Les Savy Fav!!)

Dating if you drink is easy. You just go to a place where people drink, you’re entertaining enough drunk and she’s drunk enough to not know any better, you have sex that neither of you 100% remembers in the morning, then you stay together for ages because the buses back to Chorley are really unreliable and it seems like the option of least resistance just to stay together. There was no widely used social media back then, so basically as far as both of you were aware this really was as good as it could get- in the late 90s and early 00s your average young adult knew of the existence of maybe twenty four people, and one of those was Toby Anstis. And, come on, Toby Anstis? Never happening.

Hmmmm… Maybe I’m not thinking of ‘people who drink’, but rather ‘people with debilitating problems with drinking’…? And maybe all you were ever likely to be matched up with were people with similarly ruinous issues…?

But it was easy, is all I’m saying!!

Anyway, let’s take a look at the latest bout of options. Most of them will be British, so some sort of ruinous drinking problem is pretty much a given.

Continue reading “Rumble in the Bumble pt.6” →

41 The Men: Drift [CANCELLED DUE TO JOSE MOURINHO]

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

I’m really sorry, Men, and I really do honestly love your album. I’d probably hypothetically put it as forty second or maybe fortieth best album of the year, if I was into stuff as bizarrely obsessive compulsive as only even enjoying art in order to list it at year’s end. And- ho-ho!- I had a straight fire bang up the elephant entry planned! It would have been so funny it would have literally blow all your collective arses out through your collective eyeballs. Literally. Literally. It’s unfortunately had to be shelved, much like my editor told me that it ‘wasn’t a good time’ to publish my ‘Top 100 Boeing Aircrafts’ on September 11th 2001. Especially as I’d planned to hold the launch party in Times Square. While dressed as Osama Bin Laden. It’s really hard to judge the mood at times like that.

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Besides, let’s face it, I’ll just write the exact same piece I was planning later on an album I’m struggling to think of what to say about. I’m looking at you, El Perro del Mar!! Erm… ‘spoiler’… I guess…

Continue reading “41 The Men: Drift [CANCELLED DUE TO JOSE MOURINHO]” →