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I think the New Day are both in and out of kayfabe the greatest WWE stable of all-time. In-story: Longest reigning tag champs, if I'm reading Wiki right they've had 11 separate tag title reigns, two world champions, one Grand Slam champ in Kofi and another Triple Crown champion now in Big E. That's an unimpeachable record and may they never break up. Out-of-kayfabe: Saddled with a DOA gimmick that they made work by finding their collective voice as irritating nerds. Along the way, they became the voice of a certain section of WWE fandom who are into gaming and comic books and other parts of nerd culture, with Woods becoming a celebrity in that world. KofiMania is on the short-list of best stories the WWE has ever told -- his breakout in the Gauntlet match, the awesome Gauntlet where his partners had to win to save his opportunity (with The Usos doing the "We respect you and forfeit!" segment). On top of being a WrestleMania Main Event Act, they can also carve out a lot of time in the mid-card or in a comedy role and it's almost always entertaining, which is ridiculously entertaining. And, most importantly, being three black men having all of this success is the exact opposite of pro wrestling's racial dynamics over the years. Their podcast addressing George Floyd and injustice legitimately hit me harder than anything else I listened to or watched on those issues. Also:

You don't see it here, but Chioda's reaction might've been even better than Bryan's (who masterminded this).

I’m watching Elevation, and I’ll be dammed. Bryan and Punk are one thing, but it looks like WWE lost Day Glo Suit Couple to AEW too. Vince really may be in trouble.

He's Preston Vance, but I'm not sure what that's got to do with anything.

It really is wild looking back in kayfabe that for all the effort that Blassie put into getting the championship back in his stable, and all the blood, sweat, tears, and poisoning of friendships that Heenan pulled off, and for the time that Jimmy Hart was able to control the Tag Team and Intercontinental Championships, that it was fucking MR. FUJI that ended the scourge of Hulkamania in the WWF.

As far as the amount of time the women have gotten on Dynamite, I do think it’s important to keep in mind that the vast majority of AEW’s women’s roster has been composed of developmental talents who are largely not ready to be put on prime time TV on a weekly basis. Honestly, they are doing most of these green talents a long-term favor by NOT putting them in positions to be exposed as such on a regular basis. Like, there is zero doubt that Abadon is in a much better place career-wise right now having people wanting to see more of her, rather than if she had been on Dynamite stinking out the joint every other week or whatever. Most of them are better off focusing on getting better on Dark (where they can be saved in the editing booth) and then making the most of their live Dynamite opportunities when they come around. A great example of this is Red Velvet, who is a promising young talent but was put in a spot she was not at all ready for in a title program with Britt and is now essentially a heel with the audience (to the extent that they care about her at all) because she was so bad in that program.

congratulations to Big E and Becky Lynch on becoming the first-ever stepfather/stepdaughter pair of champions in wrestling history.

From watching some 1986 WCW, JJ Dillon might be the manager whose on-screen persona suggests that he’s currently involved in some sort of high stakes fraud. Paul Jones would be engaging in petty crimes, Gary Hart would be contracting his guys out to “help” medical bill collectors, and JJ would be smuggling diamonds out of an African war zone using child soldiers. JJ didn’t ask questions when he made a deal to send planes and 30,000 rubber bands to Colombia, he just knew there was some money in it.

Amazing stuff. Excited to see what these 2 do in the future on the AEW stage.

The Hardcore Legend, The Man and a fan

@Stefanie the Humanhit on some of my biggest gripes. The lack of stories for the women is sad. Their match is often in the death slot of the seventh quarter-hour, to cool down the crowd before the main event. They push no other women beside Britt Baker. Hikaru Shida was champion for over a year, yet she can't get any TV time these days. Nyla Rose isn't in a much better spot. Big Swole and Diamante's feud should have been featured on Dynamite. Hopefully with the arrival of Ruby Soho, we'll see the women's division get more focus. Though Ruby getting her big moment on All Out only because of PAC's travel issues doesn't give me a lot of hope. But at least the women who've been champion have been diverse. That's more than I can say for the men. Save for Scorpio Sky and now the Lucha Bros, no man of color has been in a high spot. It looked like Sky was going to get a solo push, but he's back in a tag team. It reeks of AEW being a private club where only those with big names or who are friends of The Elite. Someone recently put together a list of 500 black wrestlers, many of whom are indie. AEW could have easily signed several of these wrestlers, but are just now getting around to offering Lee Moriarty a contract. The excuse of them still being a young company doesn't fly with me. If anything, that means they can look at decades of wrestling being embarrassingly late to diversify and avoid the same problems. Powerhouse Hobbs and Ricky Starks are being set up to work with Punk, it seems. So maybe things will get better on that front, too. I have some other issues with AEW, but those two are huge. They built their company on a platform of inclusivity, but I'm not seeing it.

I’m sure I’ll regret this, but please pretty please go ahead and put your foot in your ignorant-ass mouth and enumerate maybe 5-10 “politically correct” things AEW has done. Bonus points if you can articulately explain why you feel any of these things should not have been done. I try to be patient but this dog whistle shit is maddening. You can’t just drop some bullshit like that and not back it up.

Tag him with Chuck Taylor. They've been in stables together before.

Has any manager in wrestling history traded up like JJ Dillion did between Fall 1985 and Spring 1986? From: Buddy Landell, Black Bart, and Ron Bass (while also wearing very frilly over-the-top wrestling manager tuxedos) To: THE HORSEMEN (while also upgrading his suit game x1000)

Just the best.

God damn that one hurts. I was a big fan of Norm MacDonald. I just recently watched Dirty Work for like the 40th time and it's STILL funny as hell. His Burt Reynolds and Bob Dole impressions were always hilarious too.

Show, Kingston, and Schiavone are so much fun on commentary together. ”Cauliflower Alley Club, you heard of it Schiavone?” ”Yeah, I’m a lifetime member, dumbass.”

What could have been responsible for Norm's death? You guessed it...Frank Stallone.

If the question is who I'd like to watch wrestle, Charlotte is over Mandy Rose. If the question is who I would like to wrestle, Mandy Rose goes over Charlotte.

I like Johnny gargano, but I don't want him in AEW. TK needs to be like, sorry, door's closed. EDIT: Unless you're Io, Asuka, Bayley, and maybe a couple other women.

An idea for Daniel Garcia… Have him be a hired gun. Like he won’t win all the matches, but by the time you are done wrestling with him you’ll walk away with a really bad limp. maybe the Elite pay him to hurt Brian in a match coming up, and it leads to him going into the title match with a really fucked up injury that ends up costing him the win. Then that goes into a grudge match against Garcia at the next pay-per-view.

Yeah, curse Vickie and that nun costume making me feel stuff below the title belt.

That is both hilarious and utterly terrifying

Good lord does that really date it. Daniel Bryan appears to be the actual Forbidden Door now. At least on that truck.

God, it was a slasherfic too. Incredible and I thank you.

Pretty sure it's Gargano?

Man, I missed The Butcher. Now also in BUFF BUTCHER version. Love it!

KiLynn King is a better version of Kamille so her match with Leyla Hirsch was fucking great. I assume Leyla and Cargill will be good. I love this version of Dark. I It is very reminiscent of WCW Saturday Night.

Bob Dole is our Prince Philip.* Out of all the comedians I love, Norm is the one that remained the biggest mystery to me in this sense: Any of the other ones I feel like after seeing enough of their work, listening to interviews, podcasts, etc., you have some idea what they are like in real life, what their inner emotional life was like, even what it might be like to hang out with them. Norm was just inscrutable that way, though. He never let the performance face down. Like, I feel like I can imagine Patton Oswalt or Bob Odenkirk on vacation, struggling with a bunch of luggage and kids getting into a cab and grumbling like a normal person. But I can't imagine Norm ever having any look on his face other than a distant bemused smirk. I can imagine Seinfeld in an argument with someone or Bill Burr sending his food back and looking embarrassed about it. But I can't imagine Norm in those situations without the other person having to stop and say "Wait, do you really want to send these back or are you joking" and him being like "yeah, yeah, I'm sending these back to the chef to cook them better so I can eat them and not die." and the waiter studying his face and being like "So this is a bit..." It's like he was a machine just built by aliens to produce irony and that was all he was programmed for. There was something comforting about the solidity of that. Almost like nothing in the world could be so bad that Norm McDonald couldn't make a joke about it. Even his own most humiliating experiences. Nothing could shake him loose of that, at least nothing that's happened so far. It's like optimistic Nihilism or something. * I feel like Norm would approve of this comparison

Yeah Khan talked about this recently on Busted Open for the lead up to All Out. Khan credited Bear Country, Kris Statlander, Max Caster, Anthony Bowens, and Leyla Hirsch with being recommended by MJF.

Kevin Dunn working NXT tonight.

TRUE STORY

RIP Norm MacDonald. I guess they will try to pin his death on OJ as well.

That reminds me that my parents put a big picture of a laughing clown over my bed once when I was a kid. It was straight out of The Simpsons ("can't sleep clown'll eat me"). I think I eventually complained and they took it down. Strangely I have no problem with Pennywise or anything, they just irritate me if they aren't Bozo, who was awesome. And in further hilarity my dad just bought me a $5 scary clown shirt at Walmart, which I refuse to wear for fear of being called a juggalo.

Curse you Zimbra!

I wanted to address this 'prestige' television concept as it came up later in the next few pages. I think one of the issues with treating wrestling in that format is that wrestling as a story is always ongoing. Television shows like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad have a season of new episodes, stop and then start up again. This gives us a chance to go back and study the limited content in whole as there is nothing new to engage the audience. I think its much more rare for someone to go back and watch a whole wrestling television show although I certainly think people go back to segments or matches. This ala cart veiwing may actually hurt my argument, I'm not sure as there are so many narratives going at the same time so I could possibly examine "Cameron Grimes being rich" in depth much more quickly than I could watch a whole season of Breaking Bad (but it might take more time to find all of those individual segments and order them correctly). But I think in general, wrestling is a nesesarily disposable from of entertainment where you watch the show once and never watch the whole show ever again. Because there's another show coming on in less than a week and then another every week forever. A hardcore AEW fan has 4 shows of wrestling a week plus Sammy Vlogs plus BTE plus whatever else content. How are they going to go back to study nuances when its a marathon just to keep up with the current output?

WWE Production truck is All Elite!

a magnificent capstone to a strong opening week of incredibly realistic sports action from the NFL and it's new official Sports Book Partners if you loved the refs before, just you wait until the league's most influential underpaid & overworked part time employees start racking up huge debts

Fuck Miro. Octopus is The True Redeemer after purifying this thread. #blessed

Mind if I have a go?

I don't think this Al Davis memorial fire at the LV stadium is really representative. It should be shaped like a Dumpster, full of tires.

"What's this? Extremely high voltage! Well, I don't need safety gloves because I'm Vince McMah..." *is electrocuted*

That's why the TBS Saturday Night show was so great. 6:05 to 8:05 you could drink some malt liquor and get ready to face the night!