whaletail

Interesting takes on here vs. Pyles' unequivocal outrage. Seems like the consensus is that the first step out should have been continuation, but no one's challenging over such low stakes that early in a match. The other two major calls seem to have proponents on both sides, so it sounds like Pyles' fandom overcame his judgment.

That's about where I am. Don't mind sacrificing a little purity if it helps wrestlers feed their families, and don't really mind the MMA crossover matches at all. I wouldn't be in business with Danis, or YouTubers (absent really compelling circumstances), and I'd let rivalries and any other drama grow organically. When that stuff feels manufactured, it's embarrassing for everyone. But they've built a professional product that spotlights many of the coolest aspects of freestyle, and I suspect youth clubs have grown as a result.

I don't see how Jax makes 57 either, and I'd only pick him if I were confident the cut didn't destroy him. But his frame seems more suited to 65 than 57, and long run, I think he outgrows 65 too. Wouldn't shock me if wrestles 165 by his 5th year, and is a solid 74kg hammer in Brisbane 2032. Rightly or wrongly, the consensus seems to be that Davino is a smaller 133 than say Seidel, and if he can make 57 without compromising himself, I do think he and Spencer wrestle for the spot (again, assuming Jax is up at 65).

I'm hugely biased, and always pick Jax over anyone. If he's at 65, I'll convince myself he can beat Bo. It's not about diminishing Spencer at all, I'm just a Jax fan. Thinking about it, I may have been a bit careless picking Davino. I think he's an unbelievable talent, with a mind that simply won't countenance defeat, but Spencer is something else. I also can't fathom how someone can even compete on a torn ACL, let alone compete effectively. I know some people have more stability with a torn ACL than others, and I imagine really strengthening your quads can help stabilize the knee, but Spencer's ability to wrestle after his first tear, as a high school senior, blew my mind, and that was with a massive brace.

I was thinking the council of nicaea, but also things like a 6th century debate (the details of which escape me at the moment) that IIRC, led to the establishment of a hallmark Christian concept, but generally, the notion that the Bible, and many features of "the church" are products of poltical will, and represent interpretations of God. Even something as seemingly straightforward and objective as translating an Aramaic (sp?) text to medieval English, and eventually modern English, is anything but an objective process. As an aside, what I wouldn't give to spend a year in the Vatican archives, with complete access. I'm not deeply familiar with ID's conceptual foundation, but I don't think it's relevant that, for example, we still haven't found fossil evidence of the missing link. Fossilization requires such specific environmental conditions to occur, and finding those fossils even more, making it surprising to me that we've even found what we have. If we evolved in a marine environment, we'd have a much more fleshed out fossil lineage, but terrestrial animal fossils are so much rarer and buried so much deeper that completely unknown human civilizations could be be buried just out of reach.

Fair enough, but I don't think Amouzad evaded the final 4s stint, and while we'll never know, I wouldn't be shocked if the ref was going to hit him with the C+1 unless he shot off the whistle. Obviously, Amouzad shouldn't have let it come down to that, but I don't believe that justifies a ref altering the match outcome after the fact. Mind, It's not as if Tavanyen did a thing the first 5:40 of the match, and only spent the last twenty seconds diving at Amouzad, or charging at him.

Favoring Jax and Davino over a less than 100% Spencer isn't claiming he's overrated.

I'm not sure they need to be in business with whackjobs like Dillon Danis, but Eric Bishoff's claim to fame is building a pro wrestling organization willing to wade deeper into outrageousness than even the WWE for a brief moment in the mid 90s. I've never been a pro wrestling fan, but from documentaries I've seen, the competition for cable ratings was a race to the very edge of what they could get away with, and ended up leading to some tragic deaths (Owen Hart, I think, dying in a stunt gone awry, even more steroid and drug abuse, and one wrestler killing himself and his family in murder/suicide). I'm not claiming Bishoff is even a villain necessarily, but it doesn't shock me that his recipe for success is to generate casual fan interest with outrageousness, and hope they stick around. So far it's been far more successful than I'd have guessed. I thought they'd flop like grand slam track, but these MMA crossover, and influencer matches seem to have captured the zeitgeist. Personally, I hope they don't double down on the outrageousness, but rather use stars like Tsurukyan to maybe build up some wrestlers profiles. I realize sports are entertainment, but I prefer the spotlight on sport, not pure entertainment. We'll just have to see how RAF evolves, but as much as I disagree with Willie ideologically, I'm glad he's in a position of influence at RAF.

If Jax can make 57 without losing what makes him great (as we've seen happen to so many trying to cut to 57 and 65), then that's probably the best path. I suspect Davino would be his toughest competition, as I'd favor both over Spencer and Lilledahl. But as much as 65 is a minefeld, I think he gives Bo his toughest match. Unfortunately, he'll likely have to get through Blaze to get there, but if he does, I don't see Bo's pace or offense overwhelming him at all. My only concern for Jax is his size and physicality at 65. Right now, he looks significantly smaller than Bo, and like three weight classes below someone like Amouzad (who looks to me like he could wrestle 86 without issue). Whether he goes up or down, I think he goes that weight next summer. Can he build his body up like DT did when he moved to 86, and like Dake seems to have done this year, or is he going to suffer the same difficulty Vito has?

Although faith is a prominent feature of his brand, it'd be worthless without his success. I'm sure his faith extends his reach, and increases his brand's value, but success pays the mortgage.

The history of the Bible itself is beyond my expertise, but the decisions to include the specific books chosen were surely political/ideological, almost certainly polarizing, and took place hundreds of years after Jesus introduced the concept a Christian deity to the people of Judea (and the Roman government). Sure, that deity could well have been working behind the scenes during humanity's earlier history, but the seeds of morality and shame binding social animals together began well before the dawn of humanity. And those seeds don't suddenly appear in earlier primates fully formed, but had to themselves evolve from traits found in the earliest social animals. This deity would essentially need to be responsible for the introduction of life on earth, and for natural selection as the agent of life's persistence into perpituity, and the agent of change that indirectly results from such persistence. And all of this infrastructure created to eventually produce a single species in his image, three billion+ years later. Yeah, with enough chisels you can brute force his presence into a natural history that made much more sense prior, and even gloss over the inordinate number of contradictions and paradoxes (biblical, logical, moral or otherwise) that arise like whack-a-moles before the dust can even settle, but the ability to escape being inductively disproven isn't a ringing endorsement for an existence. Morality doesn't need God to exist, and suffers for his presence (and that's without mention of theodicy).

Or our views on adultery are shaped by our social/sexual dynamics and three million years of evolutionary compound interest (actually three billion+ years, as we are far from the first social beings). In our species' infancy, when small hunter/gather groups lived on the every edge of survival, expending the resources to feed and protect a mother and her offspring was a serious commitment. Especially when a nine month gestatioary period made it impossible to know you were in fact the father of her offspring. Establsihing social norms with great shame attached to adultery (and sex more generally, and especially female sexuality) strengthened familial and community ties when few communities likely survived mnore than a few generations. The stronger those ties, the higher a community's survival likelihood, and the greater their relative reproductive success. Unfortunately, this is likely also responsible for the paternalism that's been a staple of human societies from our beginning. Meanwhile, bonobos, our closest primate relatives (along with chimps and with whom we share 99.7% of our DNA), have sex publicly, and reduce community stress with what we'd label public orgies. With such different sexual and social dynamics, bonobos don't associate shame and sex the way humans do. Mind, all this began millions of years before anyone before anyone even had the opportunity to believe in a Christian deity, let alone did. Just as marketing didn't begin with Paul of Tarsus, morality didn't begin with Yahweh or Jesus or Mohammed.

I wonder if anyone will change allegiance to keep that RAF paycheck (and whatever else RAF can lead to).

Unfortunately, freestyle wrestling isn't college football or the NFL, and right now at least, the high profile squash matches and absurd behavior are subsidizing the real deal. I suspect Willie is a realist, and hopes that one day wrestling can survive on its own merits. And as 1032004 mentioned on the first page, RAF can be be doing really well while still losing money. They need to continue attracting investors, many/most of whom aren't traditional wrestling fans. But they know Armen, other UFC fighters, and influencers bring eyeballs, and they're likelier to invest.

Did they even give it to him? The ref didn't even stand them up, Gable just stood up, and it seemed like the ref just kind of agreed to go from there. But the Amouzad/Tevanyen caution and 1 may be the worst match theft I've seen in a while. After Tevanyen was warned for headbutting, the mat chair or somebody with authority pulled the ref over and seemed to be berating him about something. From body language and the subsequent caution, I think he was upset about that Amouzad was breaking contact with Tevanyen, but if the ref was going to watching for that, why wouldn't warn Amouzad before the whistle? I thought Sujeet kind of got screwed against Kudiev one mat over, but at least there was still time for him to score again.

The repetitiveness made me drop it after ~400 pages.

57 - Davino over Lee 65 - Jax over Bassett 74 - Jayden James over Carr 86 - Valencia over Haines 97 - Brooks over Snyder H - Ross over Hendrickson I'm most looking forward to 65kg, and even after seeing Bo beat Real pretty decisively last night, I'm picking Jax. Bo's greatest strength, his constant offense, gives Jax exactly what he's looking for. Constant scoring opportunities. Unless Bo's just too big and strong for Jax, which seems unlikely given Jax' potential growth, I think Marcus will remain Jax' biggest threat. As a Jax fan, I hope he's on the other side of the bracket, with Seidel to deal with. Assuming MM remains uninterested in wrestling freestyle, or competes mostly to avoid dissappointing those closest to him, Jayden James winning the 74kg Trials shouldn't shock anyone. He'll spend the next two years improving at NLWC, and unless he outgrows 74kg, I think he'll medal at Worlds next year, and own the weight domestically in 2028. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he's the clear favorite for gold in the run-up to LA 2028.

I know it's crazy to even write this, but I think Bo can beat the Iranian. The underhook will slow him down a little, for sure, but for 6 minutes?

Not only that, Bo was sniping him with outside shots, getting in, and scoring in ways I would've thought favored Woods. Bo didn't necessarily beat him at his own game, but he didn't just overwhelm with pace. Excepting the late takedown he gave up, I thought he looked as good a technician, and I didn't expect that. As an aside, did anyone else think Real looked a weight class smaller? He looked like a big 61 to me, with Bo much taller, and a bit more filled out. Unless Real reinvents himself, makes Bo respect his offense, Bassett's going to end match 2 early.

Another persuasive argument from intermat's premiere Republicuck.

I'll watch the video - and respond - as soon as I can.

You're like an Fox News has been America's dominant political media presence for two decades. And they have been much more aggressively partisan than their supposed left wing peers, MSNBC included. The number of ex-Fox News employees in Trump's current administration is unprecedented, and I'm not even sure whether Hegseth is the most ridiculous example. No wonder the dipshit can't even begin to do his job (his unsecured text chats during the Iran missile strike being the most egregious) Regarding the examples of "MSM corruption" cited in this thread, only the 60 Minutes edit is even suggestive of left wing media partisanship, and I haven't watched that video yet. I'll comment on it more definitively this afternoon. As mentioned previously, the ABC and CBS settlements actually illustrate this administration's concerted effort to silence its critics however possible. The underlying facts of neither case are indicative of media partisanship, and despite your claims to the contrary, context matters. Meanwhile, the Dominion v. Fox News defamation trial actually exposed the exact sort of corruption you mention. While consistently, and continually claiming on-air that Biden stole the 2020 election, pundits including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Jesse Whatever (among others) acknowledged in emails that they knew such claims were patently false. They knew Trump's stolen election claims were complete bullsh!t, and constantly mocked him in emails to each other, while unashamedly lying to the American public every night. I do agree that individual investigative journalists are almost universally left leaning, but they have no incentive to lie in the manner you claim. Not only are the legal teams at CNN, NYT et al. extremely cautious, their owners certainly aren't left leaning. Finally, the American public seems to be much more centrist than left leaning, with at least 30-40% are firmly on the right. Given those demographics, why would any media outlet act against its own interests in the manner you claim?

You're right we lost. But at least we're not welcoming our own ruination. When they shovel sh^t down all of our throats, at least we're not trying to convince ourselves it's chocolate. You're covered in sh!t, convinced you're on their team.

So the merger was just background noise, eh? Nothing to see there? All you're proving is that Trump and his cronies are using the government to try and silence anyone and anything they disagree with. I'm not sure why you're okay with being sh&t on by your own government like a battered wife, but jesus christ man, gain some self respect.

Interviews are always edited, and I've never seen any evidence that 60 minutes edited hers to improve her political outlook. If you can provide credible evidence suggesting otherwise, please post a link, but the above isn't it.