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This take didn’t even have long enough to get room temperature!

For the record, I do not have any kind of details about what happened with Mr. Punk and Mr. Boy, but I am *really* fucking glad I banned that idiot earlier this month.

Mr. Khan and me generating heat backstage and we, under-book beautiful women there’s a dozen to use Oh no no I’ll only book three I wanna be Verne Gagne but I don’t know why, and I don’t know And when everybody’s got heat aw, dad, it’s just about as stressful as it can be

I mean... RIPPA did ban Fat Spanish Waiter before.

However you can both start the sleaze thread and live long enough to contribute to it.

I don’t know if there was anything that showed Punk’s true character than when he took a shot at “EVPs not able to manage a Target.” What a piece of garbage, dismissive thing to say about retail work, especially from someone who openly compares himself to Joe Strummer. Also - managing a Target is hard as hell. There is absolutely no way Phil Brooks could manage a Target. Can you imagine how he’d act regarding a customer return issue? Let alone some of the very complicated and hard things that come up in managing an incredibly busy store that is a 24-hour operation? He would last one day and probably put the company in litigation.

This might be uncharacteristically positive, but think about this: We were alive when Terry Funk was alive. That's not too bad, is it?

Leave the singer from Counting Crows out of this

Lots of 6 year olds on the internet apparently.

I'm still on hiatus from these boards, but this is (to me anyway) too good not to share. Three wrestlers from Nepal: Himalayan Tiger, the first Nepalese pro wrestler, Unika, the first female wrestler from Nepal,and the staggeringly gorgeous Jureli, came to Osaka for the first time today. Cooger hosted the welcome party, and I along with my friends Kenji, Ji-sama, and Bodyguard,(and indy wrestler Moriya, from FUCK and AJPW and etc etc) were on the welcoming committee. It was fucking amazing. Cooger's friends and the Osaka Nepalese community coming together. Tiger, Unika, and Jureli are big celebrities in Nepal but they are totally down to earth and I think it was mind-blowing for the Nepalese folks to just hang with them at a rooftop BBQ party. For my part, I bonded hard with Unika and Jureli. I hung out speaking English and Japanese with the Osaka natives and Nepalese immigrants. I had the time of my fucking life. How I wish DEAN were still with us. I bet he knew who these wrestlers are! If there's anywhere in the world where someone might know, it's surely here... *puts up the secunda caida signal* Gonna post, like, 20 pictures. Hang on, it'll take a while.

This show was absolutely amazing. Having never been to any type of stadium show before, it really was an experience like no other. Have lost my voice now after so much shouting, as has my 11 year old, who has picked up Will Ospreay as his new favorite wrestler over the past couple of weeks. It was brilliant to see Joe-Punk in-person again, 18 years after I last saw them at the Skydome in Coventry. It speaks volumes how far they've come on since then. From where we were, it sounded like the crowd were mostly against Punk, but we were cheering him. Thought the Funk tribute was brilliant, having just watched Funk do the same stick in the main event of No Way Out 1998! The Omega and friends match was solid. Crowd really wanted Omega etc to win and he was over like a God. Ibushi seemed better than his first appearance. Robinson and White are phenomenal live. Callis got incredible heat whenever he appeared on screen. The Stampede match seemed bonkers. Brilliant to see Eddie live. Will be rewatching this show on TV primarily to see how this match came off, as there was so much going on that we couldn't see. FTR - Bucks was just outstanding. I don't think anyone saw FTR retaining and we were jumping out of our seats when they did. Bucks were definite heels from where we were. Didn't get the Queen reference! Women's match was predictable. Don't how it came off on TV but it seemed a very mixed reaction for Saraya. The Sting/Darby match was exactly what I thought it would be. Just amazing to see Sting go at this stage of his career, and I think Jericho needs to call Darby and have a word like he did with Ospreay, the guy's a lunatic out there! My wife is a bigger Metallica fan than a wrestling fan, so loved the Seek and Destroy entrance. Ospreay- Jericho was fantastic. Having seen Ospreay at Rev Pro the night before, it is absolutely crazy what this guy does on a day in day out basis. The Jericho entrance was perfect. Jericho must have ticked off a bucket list item there. Again, we went ballistic when Ospreay won, which was absolutely the right result for the crowd. How was it played on TV, as they had Callis managing Ospreay, so he was presented as a heel? The Acclaimed match was nothing special, but it was brilliant to do the scissoring stuff etc. Almost wish they could have kept the Gunn return for the night itself, rather than having it take place on the previous Dynamite. The main event was perfect. I don't think I've ever seen a match with such a brilliant story running throughout. No one turning just felt right. The double clothesline spot and restart was amazing. Strong played his role to perfection. Who would hsve imagined these three headlining the biggest paid attendance ever just a few years ago??! Already looking forward to next year. Here's a photo, hope my son's language didn't offend anyone. He's autistic and had the time of his life, we agreed 'what happens in Wembley stays in Wembley' He certainly enjoyed joining in with the chants and heckling! https://ibb.co/BGLBdQq

we’re here

Cosmic karma is alive and well, when one insane troll get's Cash'd a new one will appear and fill the power vacuum. Let's see what you got you weird angry man lol

We Quaken ovah

Congratulations on your retirement, Mr. Funk. You've earned it.

And let's give respect to the person who this show was truly all about, who unfortunately couldn't be there tonight The man who stared impossible odds in the face and dared to dream anyway. The man who made this whole show possible. Thank you, Jungle Boy.

What pisses me off the most is all the missed opportunities Punk could have taken advantage of if he was willing to play ball. When they ran Punk v Eddie and Kingston hit the back first to open the match my brain instantly booked Kingston winning in 5 seconds and then Punk having to work for a rematch. Give Punk a hurdle in AEW in the form of the "skinny fat line cook" looking guy. When Punk was cutting promos sitting cross legged, I was imagining the lights going out and Malakai Black appearing in the ring, sitting cross legged, in front of him. Punk v HOB would have been great. Punk v Hangman. Punk v Omega Punk v Danielson So many possibilities, and instead they feed his ego, steamroll him to the title, and then give him his own show with the roster of his choice. He became everything he hated about the part timers like Rock and Goldberg. In hindsight he didn't hate them, he was just jealous. Punk in name. Punk in nature. Fuck that guy.

Nobody has backstage fighting bonafides like Edge. That one Wrestlemania I watched him brawl with Randy back there for what must’ve been seven hours.

Professional wrestling just lost its soul today. He is everything that defines this. The promos, the actual wrestling skills, the bat shit craziness. Everything.

I’m glad Punk isn’t lurking. He’d lunge at you guys violently for spending the last ten pages not talking about him.

The title of this thread is stellar. That is all.

I hope that he comes out and confronts Ricky Starks, not to defend Ricky Steamboat but because he thinks that Starks is the son of John Starks from the Knicks and Rodman has heat with him.

As an invertebrate, I take offense to these “spineless” remarks.

Man, this really bums me out. I might be the biggest Bray fan on here. I think the Wyatts run is some of the best stuff we had in wrestling this decade. 1) His NXT stuff is what brought me and some others to start to watch. He was not the reason why NXT popped off but NXT would not ne what it was without him. So many great weirdo promos. His goodbye promo is one of the best conquering hero promos ever. 2) Their feud with The Shield is probably my favorite ever. It was so simple and just absolute badass. Their Eliminator Chamber match might be my favorite match ever. Sami/Roman probably passed it this year. But the Elim Chamber match was so special. I am going to watch that later. They also had some other MOTYs in their less remembered matches like the Chicago Raw where Seth walked out because Roman and Dean were beefing and one on an early Main Event that brought the house down. 3) A huge reason why The YES Movement got so big was because of his feud with DB. People bugged out when DB surrendered to Bray. Like threatening to never watch WWE level stuff for what was a pretty clear angle. DB then got the pop of the century on the cage when he broke free. You don’t get anything that insanely over without a kickass protagonist. Nobody remembers the Royal Rumble match they had — I think it’s my favorite DB match in the WWE. It is so fucking nasty. 4) Maybe the best entrance song ever? Breaking Out In Love is a legitimately great song. The dude who made the song was in the Jesus and Mary Chain for a minute. The guy who helped Bray find the song was DVDVR alum Rob Naylor. 5) His feud with Cena and the crazy shit with the children’s choir and all of that was so fucked up and awesome. Their WM match sucked but their Last Man Standing rematch is one of Cena’s best matches. 6) Man, I spent so much time just watching random Wyatt promos. Religious cult Bray is one of the absolute bust characters ever. I did not get so into The Fiend or the funhouse stuff, but I really appreciated the creativity. Nobody else even can conceive of anything like that. You have to give that credit. And the insane cinema match with Cena was also something else. RIP to one of the best of his era. I hope there is a revisiting of a lot of Bray’s stuff because he was magnificent.

Starks and Bill should add a third member of their group. And for the purpose of maximum befuddlement, the third member should be Billie Starkz.

Justin Roberts

This is one of those cultural differences where 'safely' means something different in the UK, right?

Finding out this morning that it’s really difficult to explain to a 6-year-old who still believes wrestling is real that a wrestler got fired for fighting with another wrestler backstage when he sees that happen every week.

I dunno, I feel like he was not very Punk at all. It kinda felt, and I'm armchair mindreading here, like he thought he could show up in AEW and be all of the things he thought he should've been in WWE. The locker room leader, the guy who draws the house, and teaches the youngsters how to "do business the right way." I'd say in this case AEW was "Punk" and Punk was the guy who thought he was punk but really just wanted to be the establishment. But what do I know. I don't know these people. I've heard the locker room was pretty toxic before he ever got there, and some of the folks being labeled as "hard to work with" are victims of clique bullshit. So maybe they're all lame balls and there is no hero in this story.

Hear me out: a six-month Eddie Kingston vs RUSH feud.

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Not that I needed more reasons - as if main eventing against Hogan and Flair, making Mick Foley's career with their series of legendary matches, calling Dusty Rhodes an egg sucking dog, putting ECW and Sabu on the wrestling map, and brawling with Steve Austin after calling Jim Ross an "Okie ASSHOLE!" wasn't enough - but Terry Funk fully cemented my fandom of his forever one Sunday 23 years ago in Northern Michigan. I shared this story a few years back in a thread about my favorite live wrestling experiences. Thank you Terry for making the town that night even though you were also needed somewhere more important. ----- R.A.W. COMES TO TOWN!" (R.A.W. = "Renegades Alliance of Wrestling") and Terry Funk makes an indie date on the same night as a WCW PPV booking two hours later and 700 miles away. I went to college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a small city called Marquette, home to Northern Michigan University. The local celebrity was Mike Shaw (Bastion Booger/Norman The Lunatic), who was a native to the region and retired there to raise his family once his WWF days were over. He would work at a local copper mine during the summer, and while school was in session, he would work nights/weekends as a doorman/bouncer at one of the more popular college bars in town. About once a year, a money mark would try to promote a wrestling show in the area using Shaw as a draw, but would never be more than a one-off. I recall there was one with a local casino that brought in Brooklyn Brawler to work Shaw, and there was another one at one of the area hockey arenas that had a fake Doink and a fake La Parka but somehow had real Meng while he was still under WCW contract. But the most notorious of these one-offs was when "R.A.W." came to town. And when I say "R.A.W.", I mean the Renegades Alliance of Wrestling. The main event was Typhoon vs Tatanka, the semi-main was a tag team match of Sabu/Bruce Hart vs. Brutus Beefcake/Greg Valentine. The promoters rented a frigging BOXING ring from a local gym, which would have been bad enough if it just meant guys bumping on a hard boxing canvas, but they used the boxing ROPES as well, so damn near anything involving running the ropes or climbing the ropes looked like shit, though god bless him that didn't stop Sabu from making three attempts at a springboard bodypress to the outside onto Beefcake, who didn't make any effort to protect Sabu when the rope sagged forward and he went splat on the floor. But this was also the night that Terry Funk endeared himself in my heart forever. The week after flyers/radio commercials for the show started floating around the area and he was advertised as one of the wrestlers appearing, Terry Funk started showing up on WCW TV again. An angle ran that lead to Terry Funk being booked against Kevin Nash at WCW Souled Out 2000...on the same night as the "R.A.W." show. So naturally, my friends and I assumed that Funk would not be appearing on our show. Before doors open, we ran into Eric Ingles working for the local TV station who was there in the afternoon recording pre-show interviews for the 6PM news broadcast that would air a couple of hours before bell time for last-minute promo. He told us Funk was there (side note: the same promoter ran another town three hours away the night before, and one of the undercard wrestlers has since told me that Funk worked the night before in a falls-count-anywhere hardcore match against Shaw and got Muta-level juice when a trash can spot went wrong, which of course is now a holy grail match for me if anyone recorded it that night), and the plan was that Funk would go out to open the show and then immediately hop on a plane to the WCW PPV, which was in Ohio that night so a quick flight was doable provided weather panned out. The show opened with one of Shaw's trainees - "The Irish Luchador" Billy McNeill who ended up working St. Louis indies for a while and running in the same circles as folks like Matt Sydal and Delirious prior to their ROH days - receiving the "R.A.W. Rookie of the Year" award, and then Terry Funk comes storming out of the locker room and assaulting McNeill and issuing an open challenge to anyone in the locker room, which summons Bruce Hart. Bruce Hart and Terry Funk then do a wild five-minute brawl all over the gymnasium before they end up tumbling through a door to outside the gym, where I assume a car was waiting for Funk. Bruce Hart of course being Bruce Hart, comes back to the ring, and on a show that was in a high school and had been promoted as "family-friendly" immediately starts calling Funk a "chicken shit" on the mic. It may not have been a proper match, but Terry Funk cemented my fandom forever that night by still showing up on the same night as a WCW PPV booking, when everyone would have understood if he canceled off the show. And yes, the promoters really did say "R.A.W. Comes to Marquette!" on the flyers/posters promoting the show. In January 2000. When WWE RAW was red-hot.

5 years after the event? Take THAT, PWG.

We have our best promotional image from AEW:

I got to moon Reagan in '85 or '86 when his motorcade was going down East River Drive after speaking there.

The Mad King's Claudio Sucks Eggs shirt is one of the best tributes I've seen AND pro wrestling as fuck.

The fuck is anyone even typing about the possibility of AEW folding. Over this?! I would get people even uttering that if it was another slap on the wrist for Punk. That would be some WCW shit. Instead they did the right thing. This is just totally bizarre to even see people type about it. They just sold 81k tickets. Do you think Punk is the reason for that? No. Just like WWE, the letters AEW were the reason. The brand was the reason. Everything associated with the brand was the reason. Punk was stuck in no man’s land on what is a good show in Collision, but it’s on a fucking Saturday. The guy wasn’t even part of AEW for their first couple of years. He was then out for nearly a year. AEW has gone through plagues of injuries, a literal plague that deprived them of an actual audience, taping a bunch of shows in QT Marshall’s warehouse training center, and more all without Punk. That the dude was fired for attacking a worker, attacking the owner, and having a history of violence isn’t going to lead to any kind of exodus. If anything, I could see wrestlers protesting if nothing was done. But anyone thinking about even the possibility of AEW being in trouble needs to get real and stop thinking like fucking Cornette.

Current reports are saying CM Punk was yelling at Tony and being very harsh and saying he quit. This happened in Punk’s dressing room and was barely audible over Tony Khan chanting “CM PUNK CM PUNK!”

2013 was a real bad year for WWE, I don’t know if anyone remembers that time. It was just bland as all hell. Wyatt Family coming along definitely injected some intrigue into the shows. Me, personally, I was obsessed with those debut vignettes. I still watch a playlist of them to this day. The one where a WWE.com “reporter” goes to the Wyatt Family Compound doesn’t even feel like a WWE made segment, honestly. All of those videos are exactly the best kind of creepy and intriguing, but that one was the peak of it (and I think the last one before they debuted? That night, maybe?) 2014 felt like a watershed year for that group and Bray himself. I still question the decision of Cena over Bray at WrestleMania. A lot of positives coming out of that ‘Mania were later undone pretty quickly, but if felt like a fresh start at the time. I could never get into anything he did post-swamp preacher gimmick, but I love love love the Firefly Funhouse match with Cena at the pandemic WrestleMania. Lots of cinematic matches during that time, but that one was VERY different and felt special. A match that is basically a deep dive into a wrestler’s psyche? What??? I have heart problems too, and stuff like this scares the fuck out of me. Last year, I had gotten COVID the weekend I was in the hospital because of heart issues. This hits way too close to home for me. I’m a little shook, to be honest. Rest easy, Windham.

This may be retrospect but we could be pretty harsh towards him on here. There was a lot of "...and then the bell rang" talk but I thought dude could work, he just got saddled with bad creative at times, and you can point that in many directions instead of just his. No matter how you feel about him he was part of the hottest runs in wrestling in the last 20 years. Anyway, this is way too young and way too sad. RIP.