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We hear that a lot.

Kenny Oh Megha hold this dog for a second.

Jericho waiting until he knew which side management was going to come down on before he leaked his self-aggrandizing story is why he's been on top for 20 years.

Now that’s long-term storytelling.

That would make a lot of sense. I think about it like this: There's folks like you and I, like a lot of folks on here and other people we know... Let's call us "passionate fans of pro wrestling in general and AEW in particular" The ones we know and like, the ones we haven met yet... quite a few of us, all around the world. Over the last year-plus (or however long) since the show went back out on the road, if AEW came to town - or anywhere within driving distance - all those passionate fans were online, day one, scrambling to get tickets. For themselves and for friends and family. And judging by the road reports I have heard and read, even for a lot of the passionate fans four plus hours of pro wrestling is an awful lot of a good thing and following that up with a long drive home with some heavy traffic at the start of the journey... I could easily see those same passionate fans making the trip without (as many) friends and family along for the ride this year. You know, maybe the kids don't need to come this time, maybe my buddy from work has other plans... Also: I kind of think they are swerving away from catering so directly to their passionate hardcore indie/Japan/weird wrestling fanbase. We still get Danielson vs Garcia or, like, Kingston vs Takeshita type stuff aimed right at our bullseyes... We still get deeply awesome very niche appeal stuff like Cutler vs Pretty Peter and Abadon vs Freya and on and on. But the sense I kind of get is that AEW was more like Shake Shack or In-N-Out or something, a plucky independent company with a hardcore passionate big-niche crowd who were really into the good stuff but now they are perhaps striving to be more like Burger King, a challenger brand with designs on a much broader appeal. Tony Khan has said as much, in interviews. Which is fine. I do not begrudge them their success. It's still appointment viewing for me. They still reliably hit my personal bullseye week in and week out. They are leaning a little harder on the viral stuff and catchphrases, maybe pushing some of the ex-WWE and WWE-wannabe personalities a little harder than some of the the ex-indie and weirder ones. Whatever. I still get tons of what I want to see I'm still a fan. A big fan. I wore my AEW hoodie today. With pride. I was stoked the weather was cool enough for me to put it on again today for the first time since maybe May. Not sure if I'm quite so passionate any more. Which is fine. Being frothing-at-the-mouth passionate for three years for any kind of pop culture is pretty impressive. And I'm still well into this current Burger King-ish AEW. (A&W AEW)? FTR are fighting for New Japan in Osaka next week. I might go. I might not. That kind of surprises me. If AEW came over here, but only to Tokyo... I might not go. If you had asked me last year, there would have been zero doubt. I 100 percent would have made the long and costly trip to Tokyo. I'd have bought my NJPW tickets the day FTR in Osaka was announced. AEW still rules. AEW is still my favourite non-local-indie pro wrestling company. I still very much want to see a live AEW show some day. But, it's maybe no longer quite a "bucket list" item. So: I could see non-passionate fans maybe not wanting to watch that much wrestling being a big factor in the ticket sales downturn. I could also see even passionate fans being less eager to make a long trip and book a hotel or fight traffic late at night...

All else aside, I can't help but picture Jericho saying all that in his promo voice.

SRS reporting that Jericho confronted Punk after the Gripe Bomb and subsequent scuffle. Allegedly told him, to his face, that he was “a cancer to the locker room and a detriment to the company.” Punk’s response? “This is none of your business.” Two things; even “trained ufc fighter” knows better than to swing on Jericho in a locker room. Jericho is to backstage areas what Ty Domi (sp) is to ice, and Phil knows it. Second, after explicitly saying “if you have a problem with me, come talk to me and we’ll work it out,” Punk tells someone doing exactly that that it isn’t their business. Fuck that dude.

New Malakai tweet just dropped. First in two months. Maybe another trio coming back?

Even in that sparsely-replied-to Dynamite thread, here's someone correctly assessing it and getting a decent amount likes seemingly endorsing that assessment. I'm sure there's even more of that in other heavily populated parts of the internet. Plenty of people knew the second it came out of Page's mouth. Punk drew greater attention to it, but it's demonstrably false to say "no one even had a clue."

This week it hit me that Hayter is really good at looking like she's trying to win a match. That's a cool skill. So many wrestlers go out and look like they're trying to have a good match. She looks like she wants to win. Moxley does the same on the mens' side.

Chris Jericho: “you know, after the press conference I saw Larry in the hallway and I asked how he was, he said “ruff” and I immediately knew something had went down”

Right now the #1 thing to show that Vince is long long gone is how Sami Zayn has made almost every Bloodline member break character multiple times and he is almost getting rewarded for it. this week was the closest we got from just all them losing it. Jey definitely did

Have him headline every PPV and be the first guy at every scrum. Problem solved.

I know you hate me but I'm gonna do you a solid and give you advice. Stop being so petty about this. You were paintedbynumbers. Now you're Pedro. It's not a secret. The mods haven't banned you again, not because they don't know, but because they don't care. If you stop fighting posters about it and let it go everything is gonna be fine. They would have banned you by now if they planned on doing it. Don't give them a reason to. Go back to posting thoughts and opinions like the rest of us and quit fighting the tide. Let it wash over you. AKA don't be a weirdo this time and there won't be a reason to be banned.

I think I remember hearing Jericho say as much at some point. That he knows in hindsight Brock would have eaten him alive, but at the moment he wasn't thinking about it.

WHOA! I see that Toni Storm put in a word.

Hey! I noticed this.

Hayter was hitting another level that night. I haven't saw exactly what everyone saw in her until then. She just clicked. Far as my overall opinion on the card it started as the best it would get and went slowly downhill until the worst match was actually the main. BUT YET! The card as a whole was indeed one of the best they ever did. Fantastic work from everyone involved.

That was the Adam Page Stay-Puff reveal

Jericho’s incredible run this year aside, he’s a trash person and he doesn’t deserve praise for high roading Punk in the middle of the chaos. And yeah, I’m sure he’s leaked stuff when it benefited him for his whole career including this.

Update from Fightful Select:

Eddy

William Henry Harrison was the CM Punk because of the physical fragility and suffering from the completely avoidable because he didn’t know when to shut the fuck up.

Hobbs vs Wardlow on tap! Hobbs and Cage reunited!!! Shiiiiiit yeah son

Sami Zayn / Sami Uso is the best character in wrestling today.

God damn, man. You really did him like that.

This reality ain’t all bad.

I'd say those were good signings if they weren't over-crowded right now and a lot of talents are being sporadically booked.

WHOA! It looks like Bandido is official now too!

I don't want any deeds done. I just don't want to pretend if he's not even gonna try. He's back, whatever, stop pretending everyone else is stupid.

Brady's finally washed up and he can't handle it. Fuck him and his hubris.

2016 was peak Miz too. He was regularly having good to great TV matches on Smackdown with guys like Ziggler and Ambrose.

Jay White taking on Eddie Kingston is a feud that I could get behind drifting to AEW. JAY WHITE, KING OF NEW YORK!

Occasionally the commentators will bring up that you need to have a manager's license or be a tag team partner to be at ringside, most recently when Orange Cassidy faced Wardlow and Best Friends cut a promo about how Danhausen had gotten them managers licenses so they could be at ringside to cheat, but obviously it's not something they regularly enforce.

This is a great gimmick that CM Punk is working where he does all this awful shit, is a complete clown, then his catchphrase is, inevitably, “what have I ever done, Dave?” Don’t know if he realizes that’s his gimmick yet, obvs.

Gordlow's post below explained it in more detail, but yes I think these long events are a potential detriment to more casual fans. I went to a show back in January and enjoyed myself despite it not being a great card on paper. The Dark taping started just after 7 and the Rampage taping concluded at almost 11. A ton of people started leaving after Dynamite was done, and I can't say I blamed them. It's a weeknight and if you've got to work in the morning or have younger kids then that's a late night after a long event and potentially a ways to drive home after. My ticket was one of the cheaper options at $50 (plus $25 of ticketmaster fees) and parking would have cost another $20 had I not walked a few blocks and concessions at these arenas don't come cheap either. Those costs would have likely been even higher in a larger city. On one hand four hours of wrestling is a good value for that much, but I think splitting their weekly events into two shows would be a good idea.

I remember this recently got a MASSIVE pop in AEW when Aubrey Edward threw someone out, she build up to it with the little hand spinny thing and the crowd was going crazy for it. What's best for me is the heel getting kicked out always has the exact same reaction: Has it EVER being explained why can't they just hang around? Do you need some sort of official license/permit to accompany someone to the ring? Will they get DQed?

I remember Chris Jericho getting in Brock Lesnar's business of all people at SummerSlam 2016 for busting open Randy Orton.

Even though it was probably the right move this talk of Miz vs. Punk makes me sad all over again we never got Miz vs. Bryan in 2016. That Talking Smack segment was so damn tremendous. Their feud could have been amazing with Miz so clearly motivated.

He actually looks pretty cool, it's just seeing him with hair... and throwing lighting bolts... I also forgot that Blackie Lawless from W.A.S.P. made the poster somehow? Maybe he was in the movie? I don't remember. EDIT: Yeah he was, the whole band had a scene in a faux rock club I think. It's a strange flick.

Parker was great at ringside in the Garcia tag. I loved the Hayter snap jackhammers. Hated the code red spot. I don't love MJF's nailbiting "should I or shouldn't I?" emoting. It was good when he was in Long Island and screwing around with Dante in the ring. Less so here.

Karate Man & Danhausen for ROH tag team champions

I'll never forget trying to get house show business up by hotshotting from Cleveland to Harrison back to Cleveland

Teddy "The Bear" Roosevelt literally used to hold bareknuckle bouts in the oval office. Plus he knew jui-jutsu.

Lincoln literally was a pro wrestler.

Ren Narita vs Tomohiro Ishii is streaming free on New Japan World. In the tounament for the strap! EDIT: This match is fucking great. https://njpwworld.com/p/s_00625_9_1_08 EDIT: They posted it to YouTube also. ========================== And Great O'Khan vs Toru Yano.