Will Cooling
@willcooling
Followers
1,686
Following
1,201
Media
2,407
Statuses
78,163
Writes & Hosts the It Could Be Said substack & podcast. Also writes for @CityAM & podcasts for @pwtorchvip . All opinions his own & not of any employer
Wolverhampton, England
Joined April 2010
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Peanut
• 364230 Tweets
Arsenal
• 326633 Tweets
Faker
• 174163 Tweets
#Worlds2024
• 155480 Tweets
Liverpool
• 133445 Tweets
#WWECrownJewel
• 124567 Tweets
Arteta
• 80040 Tweets
Roman
• 72198 Tweets
#T1WIN
• 72110 Tweets
Bournemouth
• 64887 Tweets
Man City
• 61757 Tweets
Miami
• 59629 Tweets
Yapı
• 57223 Tweets
YAPI
• 57221 Tweets
Brighton
• 55740 Tweets
Marcelo
• 52259 Tweets
Penn State
• 52023 Tweets
Ohio State
• 43377 Tweets
Zeus
• 40947 Tweets
#BJKvKAS
• 39062 Tweets
Kasımpaşa
• 37691 Tweets
Keria
• 33675 Tweets
Sami
• 33222 Tweets
Howard
• 30700 Tweets
Duke
• 30355 Tweets
Seth
• 27287 Tweets
#StopGazaHolocaust
• 25353 Tweets
Jason Kelce
• 14777 Tweets
티원 우승
• 13427 Tweets
$KLAUS
• 13280 Tweets
Andrade
• 10997 Tweets
Bronson
• 10216 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
I'm over on BlueSky now at . Done my best to hunt out mutuals from over here, but if I've missed you, give me a shout. Likewise have some codes if anybody is looking for one.
2
0
0
Boris Johnson came to my Uni in 2006 & asked who thought there were too many mickey mouse degrees. Loads of hands went up. He then asked who there thought they were doing a mickey mouse degree. No hands went up; "See its always someone else's child who shouldn't get to go to uni"
44
672
10K
I really think Matthew Yglesias had the right take on this - elite conservatives have had political success by polarising politics on education but its actually making them miserable on a personal level because they want to be members of 'graduate' society in good standing.
9
88
1K
@jayforeman
Erm....it protects people in retail from having to work seven days a week. Indeed it would be better if they were stronger given the current version massively strengthened supermarkets against markets or independent shops
103
8
1K
@Darren_Mooney
Which is kinda the subtext of his take on The Doctor right? "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many"
1
7
721
If AEW and ROH are letting their talent appear on live GCW PPVs, can someone explain why can't PWG still can't livestream shows?
23
58
612
@cwjreynolds
Can you imaging the safeguarding plan some poor sap had to put together for that team?
3
2
533
@PhilosopherLiam
Oh he did this at Notingham. Clearly part of his shtick from back when he was HE spokesman
0
1
497
On
@davemeltzerWON
talking about WWE's antipathy 2 LGBT equality. When Darren Young came out I was commissioned by ATTITUDE (UKs biggest gay lifestyle mag) 2 do a feature on homosexuality in wrestling. Whole pitch was about how far they had come. WWE refused to let me talk to him
10
87
403
I dunno...you're really not meant to vote against the King's Speech, especially when this was made clear repeatedly beforehand. I think we need to remember what normal looks like after these years of chaos
Ratcheting it up to eleven straight away is not going to look like such a smart move when they get the first serious rebellion.
52
64
627
5
24
429
It's nothing short of disgraceful to compare Hana Kimura & Will Ospreay. I'm very sorry to hear that Ospreay has been struggling, and hope he recovers, but its not wrong to hold him or people acting on his behalf, accountable for blacklisting a rape victim.
9
85
357
Sabre turning them down after the CWC
Floslam launching
Fear and Loathing getting six thousand people at the Hydro
World of Sport NYE Special
World of Sport Season
RevPro on FreeSports
NJPW Royal Quest
9
44
372
This is brilliant. I think Sky News should give them weapons
5
48
330
The more i think about the Ospreay angle, the more angry I get. It's easy to focus on the dispute with Pollyanna but he has numerous allegations about him treating women in wrestling poorly. Why would you choose to play a wife beater if you were genuinely trying to make amends!?!
13
77
290
For you old cunts to stay retired and for WWE to actually book younger performers effectively
Edge on criticism over his and Randy Orton
#Backlash
match: "After nine years and a triple fusion in my neck, I went out there for 41 minutes. People complained that Goldberg and Brock Lesnar go out and do 4 minutes. So what is it? What do you want?"
69
64
429
16
19
238
That's not a cool thing though. In a sane world he'd be working two or three times a weekend against a variety of opponents and in front of diverse crowds. He's not going to learn what unique things he can bring to wrestling by doing endless drills with the same guy every week.
A cool thing Jake Atlas told me this week was how he was doing extra sessions with Roderick Strong at the Performance Center every single week for like a year.
5
42
848
15
23
229
I'm a fan of the original song but my god does
@HeymanHustle
belt out his own Brockified version!
#raw
#summerslam
0
128
224
People highlighted the WWE quote but this is a bigger shot at everything wrong with that company
4
51
197
So reading through the Ofcom guidance, it's increasing clear that I actually understated the extent of Tony Khan's lies about
#AEWDynamite
in the UK. Let's take a look:
25
87
195
The
@NSPCC
is currently campaigning to
#closetheloophole
so sports coaches are legally recognised as having a position of authority over their trainees Sign their petition to make it 100% clear that what Travis Banks, Ligero and many
others did is illegal
3
140
197
Any journalist who signed an anti-disparagement cluase to sit ringside at UFC in the middle of a pandemic should never again be taken seriously as independent sources of information
1
27
191
So here's an interesting thing. The last time I spoke to David Starr he mentioned that Tony Khan had said to others he wanted to hire him, but couldn't. We know the Bucks wanted to hire Ryan, but couldn't. Maybe AEW's personel department is properly vetting its American wrestlers
11
26
173
And for the billionth time, the online bullying of Hana Kimura was by reality show fans not wrestling fans. People in the wrestling business trying to use her death as an excuse to evade criticism is ghoulish behaviour that shouldn't be tolerated.
6
33
167
It's remarkable that Council Tax is too much for people to pay and doesn't raise enough revenue. It takes some doing to design a tax that badly
NEW: Council tax debts have trebled over the last three years in some areas amid the impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis
Council tax debt trebled in Hackney and Bristol, and more than doubled in 25 other areas
By me, for
@BigIssue
10
34
51
4
29
161
Seeing d anti-Meltzer dweebs accept a blatant non-apology just underlines how bad faith d whole furore was. It was an OTT joke which people can obviously find insensitive but it was clearly aimed at WWE and Saudi Arabia. You'd have to be an idiot to think the joke was antisemitic
7
17
159
This a red alarm fire for the Tories. That the left united whilst they suffered protest rights on their hard-right and centrist flanks really does put some of the more outlandish GE results into play
I've seen enough: the Liberal Democrats' strong performance, which freaked out a lot of Labour people (and indeed a lot of Liberal Democrat people, and, uh, this is awkward, ME) last night was actually bad news for the Tories, not good.
16
41
255
4
33
149
@SeanRossSapp
Okay this is Elite/Punk stuff but hear me out. AEWGAMES is a subsidary of AEW right? So is Omega able to work on the game whilst being suspended from the parent company?
5
0
144
I'm really not cool with demanding that every Western resident with Russian heritage denounces Putin lest they be ostracised. It's demeaning and potentially puts any family in Russia at risk. Absent evidence of links to Putin, we shouldn't try to make windows into people's souls
AEW's Leyla Hirsch issues statement on Russian invasion of Ukraine
3
8
28
0
25
137
This is why I just can't enjoy Ospreay's undoubtedly excellent performances since Summer 2021. He is quite frankly a force for bad in British pro wrestling and the more his international prestige recovers, the more promotions are likely to meet his demands over Robinson
PROGRESS Wrestling and TNT Extreme Wrestling Statement.
48
50
214
7
14
140
There are too many allegations of problematic behaviour to dismiss the idea that Ospresy is a misogynist. And despite people repeatedly promising that he will learn his lesson and improve his behaviour, he never does. Enough is a fucking enough.
2
19
125
This is very good. This has been a remarkably unpleasant conference and I really think too many commentators are sleeping on just how malevolent key Tories are being and the potential long-time damage such behaviour may cause even if they are out of office by February 2025.
London Assembly chair Andrew Boff is exactly the sort of liberal, urban voter the Conservative Party has not just lost, but told to piss off, writes
@JonnElledge
.
5
75
183
3
32
132
It's bizarre how much more of a big deal Omega looks in NJPW than in the promotion he's meant to be senior management of
10
7
129
What makes it even more infuriating is I had him, unprompted, in my DMs moaning about people always wanting to think the worst of him. He even told me that a show I had done that only held him to account had made him consider suicide in an attempt to get me to change my coverage
3
20
121
I don't want Ospreay chased out of the business, but I also don't want people to be afraid of reporting abuse because they never who their abuser is friends with. Ospreay fucked up. He should apologise properly, be open about what happened and accept a fair punishment
What sucks the most is the people who get the most outraged are the ones who are the most afraid of situations actually being looked into, as they only want victims, not solutions, nor to find out truth from fiction.
8
23
179
2
19
116
@EleanorMorton
When Python first aired on American television, lots of Americans assumed they were all gay due to how often they donned drag
4
2
121
This is really good, and captures a point I've been making. The fall of Afghanistan is vindication not of isolationism but anti-colonialism. You can protect allies from external threats but you can't change their fundamental character or politics
My thoughts on the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, in light of the U.S. occupation of Japan.
If we understood how little we actually transformed Japan, maybe we wouldn't have expected to transform Afghanistan.
82
165
856
7
14
117
You'd never bet against Vince surviving but these are serious allegation. This isn't just a question of sexual harassment, if the allegations are true it sure sounds like he defrauded WWE by misusing the company's funds to pay his mistress. People go to jail for shit like that
7
31
111
I didn't change my coverage but against my better judgement I didnt reveal that fact last autumn out of concern for Ospreay's mental health. But c'mon, if he's now willing to court this "heat", do you really think he cared? He was just trying to use Hana Kimura to silence critics
1
14
103
The length is a red herring. 4 hours is a perfectly fine length for a PPV. The problem is how they've paced. Nothing on Saturday was given chance to breathe, including the audience.
AEW is planning on keeping their Pay-Per-Views four hours long
17
4
157
14
6
103
We mock NXT UK for being clueless on social media, but FFS New Japan
7
6
99
It's disgraceful of the Guardian to run the clip of the LibDem Somerset & Frome candidate clearly having some form of panic attack as she comprehends the enormity of what's ahead of her. The respectable media would never punish a non-politician who froze in an interview like that
9
9
94
I really think this is one
@Mr_John_Oxley
's point is right - politics has been left behind the evolving standards of comparable white collar professions and that is increasingly bringing it into disrepute
not to be tediously wonky on this but I think it's been fascinating to watch a certain sphere - in this case the political one - properly discuss an issue for the first time and trying to delineate rules around what's acceptable and what's not
5
16
157
5
8
99
Why is Meltzer taking victory laps on AEW selling so many tickets for Wembley or getting a new TV deal when a few weeks ago he was trying to claim that 20,000 would be a success and saying the company resembled WCW in 1998?
9
13
93
Did Ospreay think about how triggering doing a wife-beating angle might be for the women who watched it? Did he hell!!! He just did whatever he wanted to salvage his heel run & prove he's above all the criticism he's recieved. Much like his money bags instagram photo last summer
2
16
88
Absolutely. And this is why Osborne is wrong to say austerity preserved the fiscal headroom for COVID - the cheap credit had to go somewhere and absent sufficient public sector borrowing it was subsidising personal consumption and corporate unproductivity
“Conservative government from 2010 to 2024 was a zero interest rate policy phenomenon.” Discuss
17
34
276
2
20
95
I've always been clear that in my opinion none of the proven allegations against required him to be banned or even suspended. Likewise there are no allegations of him sexually assaulting anyone, and so people who group him with the likes of Starr or Scurll are wrong. BUT...
1
10
86
Now again. As I've said repeatedly, there are good reasons why ITV may think this is all too much hassle. But blaming ad breaks is a fucking lie, and people shouldn't fall for it.
21
7
88
At some point wrestling as an industry may be ready to have a conversation about how weird it is that Triple-H has spent the past six years progressively becoming ever more brazen about having Rhea Ripley dress up as his dead ex-fiancée
97
20
91
The
@PWTorch
is back up and running. Read my article about
@ThisIs_Progress
's finances and how raise some questions about worker compensation, their relationship with WWE and when it's reasonable to ask fans for support.
12
28
86
John Curtice has forgotten more about elections than I'll ever know but there's something unbecoming about him finally raising the "Tories may be facing a 1997 wipeout" flag after badly misreading the 2023 local elections to claim Labour was falling short
4
18
85
@jake_jmc20985
But that's the point. Conservatives used to have a bit of both, and they were happier with that deal
1
0
83
Sure is strange that Mr Social Justice himself, Zack Sabre Jr has not had a single word to say about sex abuse in pro wrestling.
11
15
81
I think they need to show the Brass Eye Paedophile Special to wrestlers at the performance centre
8
4
83
New Japan bending over backwards to get Dragon Lee back, happily using Jericho and Moxley but freezing out The Elite all makes sense if you've been paying attention. NJPW feel like Omega et al betrayed them, and they're in no rush to do business again.
7
8
77
This may be the biggest way Johnson was Britain's Trump; him merely occupying the top office did enough to 'own the libs' that it created the space for all sorts of vote-winning heresies. Problem is that the British system places more premium on action than the American one
It's remarkable how many of the Tories who say "We need to be more like 2019" seem to forget that, Brexit aside, the 2019 campaign was built around increasing spending, reversing austerity, committing to Net Zero and fairly minimal tax cuts.
10
65
294
0
19
77
@Darren_Mooney
Not to be super literal, two people starting a relationship after one of theirs ex dies is not "cuckolding" either!
5
0
72
The way the recently fired WWE guys are going, the only criticism you can have of WWE is not firing them into the sun
“If he really did that, you have to prove it.
You can’t just be a guy on the internet, and there’s a lot of people who just accuse somebody for the sake of getting famous.
You have to go to the police.”
- Alexander Wolfe on Velveteen Dreams accusations
15
3
49
2
5
75
Only thing worse than British politics obsession with reading across from American politics, is our lack of interest in comparing ourselves to France. So many "unique" things about Britain (overly large capital city, centralisation, imperial legacy) strangely appear there as well
This week’s column: UKSA! UKSA! UKSA!
Westminster’s obsession with America leads to bad policy, silly economics, dull conversation and homogeneous bookshelves
37
123
707
2
9
75
One is in the eighth tier of its sport's pyramid, the other is Enfield Town
Today I’m proud to announce a first-of-its-kind partnership between
@NXTUK
and
@ETFCofficial
. Enfield Town, ARE YOU READY?
#WeAreNXTUK
201
553
4K
3
9
72
@Samfr
A good management consultant would at least ensure the targets are SMART and properly focused on outcomes
2
3
73
Honestly, if there is britwres next year, i hope we all agree to higher ticket prices in return for wrestlers not hawking merchandise at every opportunity. Feels like the wrestlers having to cultivate superfans to buy so much merch was part of what olibeterated so many boundaries
17
4
70
Hey but guys, remember when
@TheProductDS
stamped on WWE's ninth most prestigious male singles belt?
7
9
73
My new
@pwtorchvip
column is up over at
@pro
. I breakdown the sad news that
@TheProductDS
has left
@wXwGermany
, and outline the full extent of his work with
@wetheindie
. This explains it all - Israel, Super Strong Style, Pete Dunne, the NXT UK Title stomp
7
15
68
Remember those 48 hours when a bunch of people bitched and moaned about how negative reviews hurts wrestlers feelings, kept piling onto a guy who was quite clearly having a nervous breakdown in front of us all? That was fun. Well done Britwres twitter.
5
0
68
@Samfr
Sunak is going to pay dearly for not more aggressively defining himself against Truss. I can't understand why he felt like he had to do that, but its just robbed him of the chance to be a fresh start
6
5
67
They came fucking damn close. And it was very clear she was punished for escaping Banks in how both Fight Club Pro and PROGRESS booked her
Imagine if Wrestling ran off Millie what a shame that would be?
3
1
29
4
10
65
Explain the UFC by making them spend 10 dollars to earn 8 dollars on the promise that maybe one day they'll be one of the lucky ones to earn 12 dollars
0
9
61
The weirdness story that nobody talks about is how deep the military/security relationship between Britain and France has become over the past ten years. It cuts against everything else happening in UK/Geopolitics but its absolutely happening
This reciprocates an announcement made by France last week exempting Brits from its own quarantine rules.
1
9
11
5
25
66
The weird thing about Theresa May is that she was agonisingly close to developing a more genuine version of the Boris Johnson's electoral offer but endless unforced errors snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. She was playing all the right notes, just not in the right order
1
5
65
Honestly have no idea what PROGRESS think they're achieving. They could've booked Cara vs Brookes weeks ago, complete with a video from Chris claiming credit for Noir's success to position him as the heel. This has just made the promotion look like the heel. Baffling.
5
3
62
One thing that "veteran" wrestlers time after time getting suckered into biting on Mad Kurt's trolling exposes is how much veterans must rely on younger wrestlers pulling their punches during backstage banter out of "respect" for the hierarchy
2
6
59
People running PROGRESS tried to create a standard that you shouldn't talk about cases. They pretended that there's no known case against Robinson because they're 2 ashamed to admit that they think its acceptable for a man to kiss & flirt with a drunk 16 year old sex abuse victim
1
14
59
I've watched a few interviews that Finkel did later in life & he has this interesting tic where he repeatedly says "and they can't take that away from me" when talking about warm memories or accolades. Never think just because people smile & endure bullying it doesn't leave scars
They don't get more honest than Paul Bearer. Remember what he says here when you see the WWE tributes to Howard.
Vince and his cronies bullied the hell out one of the nicest guys to ever work in that company.
10
96
396
1
10
56
Hahhahaha they blew off the Meiko Satomura feud so they could rush to NXT UK's attempt at spooky shit 😂
7
2
60
@GeorgeDobell1
The problem with whistle-blowers is they often have problematic pasts due to d weight of pressure to fit in. Azeem was always clear there was stuff in his past that he was ashamed off It doesn't change the weight of what he revealed, nor the scandal surrounding how it was handled
7
2
57
@Samfr
The thing as well is that journalists are just going to get bolder and bolder as they realise he's terrible and won't be prime minister after the next election
2
2
57
If a Labour government had got themselves in the absurd situation where they were paying people not to use the electricity they were heavily subsidising the purchase of, we'd never hear the end of how this proves the idiocy of socialism as a concept
BREAKING: The National Grid says it will decide by around 2:30pm today whether it will pay households not to use energy tomorrow evening.
Sky's
@hannahtpsky
gives us the latest.
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
368
338
745
0
25
53
'Which of the original AEW EVPs did a Reddit AMA the Monday before AEW ran a sold out Wembley Stadium in 2023?" will be a great trick question for a wrestling pub quiz
Got questions for the American Nightmare? He's got answers.
Join
@CodyRhodes
for a Reddit AMA, Monday at 2:30pm ET in r/squaredcircle.
31
125
718
0
8
57
One common thread across all the testimony from women over the past 24 hours, is that Britwres has a systematic problem with male wrestlers & fans pouncing like hyenas on any new girl or woman they come into contact with, solely so they can add them to their list of conquests
4
11
57
Let's call a spade a fucking shovel - the selfish idiot drove to Durham because it would be a lot more bearable in a cottage with exclusive access to acres and acres of outside space than a London townhouse.
0
10
55
Important detail in Alex's story is d sad fact that McKenzie didn't choose to cut short her initial stay in NXT UK due to seeking other opportunities (as reported at the time) but because she wanted to stay away from Banks. Just another example of how that monster ruined her life
Multiple sources have confirmed to me that WWE has signed Mille McKenzie to their NXT UK brand.
What a great get. Check my report for details.
58
127
1K
2
11
56
Given Dave is 1 of 2 writers/editors of wrestling publications that can fairly be described as a "dirt sheet"* it's clearly bullshit to pretend you didn't mean him
*as always, dirt sheet isn't a wrestling term, but referred to self published weekly gossip (printed) rags in NYC
You should point out who lied and the specifics of the lie rather than a blanket statement and group people in one category. I explained that in detail how horrible it would be to say something bad about "wrestlers" that only applied to a small percentage of them.
83
39
474
1
7
54
… I take a look at PROGRESS's finances, which underline just how successful a company they have become. They also call into question whether the wrestlers are receiving their fair share or if the company is responding to coravirus properly
8
14
53
@stephenkb
Was indeed a strong show this week! The decision to interview each candidate's supporter seperately rather than have them do a tedious shouting match with each other is why this show is better than what the BBC is producing
4
4
55
@DrFrancesRyan
When I was Associations Officer at Nottingham I had to tell a non-disabled person that they couldn't run Students with Disabilities even if their mother was disabled, in the same way I couldn't lead the Women's Campaign even though my mum was a woman. They were not happy
3
3
52
Notice how Chakara always gets follow up bookings when she's a last-minute replacement for a promotion? Doesn't that say something about how underrated she is?
3
4
51
We're constantly asked why are politicians a bunch of psychopaths who stick to soundbites and slogans - maybe the fact that too many outlets pull crap like this rather than giving her five minutes to catch her breath and reset is a big reason.
3
4
51
Let's be frank here as well - Jericho feeding this story the day after the angle underlines its a story designed to get Jericho over rather than anybody else. The talk is only about how great it is he's selected some jobber to work with him rather than Action Andretti impressing
The way Meltzer talks about Jericho picking him on WOR is pretty funny. No mention of the fact that the Dark match got a huge crowd response too especially for those tapings , you'd think he was just some nobody who only Jericho saw potential in.
0
1
19
3
5
53
@BradCNct
@mattyglesias
Well the actual answer is that the original Street Fighter was more like Final Fight or Streets of Rage than Street Fighter II. You could only play as Ryu, going through a series of battles with non-playable baddies. Ken was the alternate skin of Ryu to allow for 2-player matches
3
0
54
A real issue for WWE is that the stock price is very sensitive to revenue/profit levels which doesnt give them d space to make changes to protect the long term viability of the product.
The right move would be to reduce programming hours. But that would really hurt d stock price
3
6
51
People focused on Scurll, understandably so, but the whole story was disgusting. That poor girl was the victim of a grooming gang, the likes of which would be infamous if it wasn't "just wrestling".
3
17
51
@stephenkb
A weird thing about this whole debate, is that England unlike Scotland has spare capacity that can soak up extra people going to University. Which in of itself is a good automatic stabliser given the employment market. Bizarre act of political self harm from the Williamson here.
3
7
52
My theory is that a lot of people who defend that Undertaker supernatural stuff in the 90s, never actual saw the shows it first appeared, and are basing their takes from the tightly edited and well produced pre-match promo packages that aired on PPV.
not one undertaker magic angle even got a fucking pop in the building. without fail people shit on it
5
1
18
9
2
48