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Why has nobody said they want to see Cash vs Yuta? Battle of the Wheelers!

That's okay, he can take the year off tv wrestling by remaining with ROH.

It’s highly possible that like any workplace (especially in a creative field) some people enjoy the opportunities they are given, some want to do more and are happy to keep trying, some are really frustrated and some people just want a paycheck. And like any workplace it’s highly possible some have bought into TK’s vision, others think he is a goof they can work, and others think he’s a clown and see WWE as a much better chance to lock up a paycheck to secure their future in a few years. There’s also a highly likely chance that even when Vince was running the show there were people who enjoyed working for the WWE for many different reasons, and there is also a highly likely chance that not everyone is on board with HHH. That’s just the workplace. Some people are going to want to leave.

Is this the new metric I am going to have to start using? ”Guys in the NFL who went to college with one of Dean’s kids”

Why would he grind his feet on Ric Flair's couch like it's the thing to do? He's got a little more sense than that. But yeah, he ground his feet on Ric Flair's couch.

"Fuck yo couch, Naitcha, fuck yo couch!"

Special Whole-Buncha-Gordlow's-Favourites Edition of Elevation Write-up Legit way more stoked for this than I was for RAMPAGE Higane Shinno is from Ehime! I have been to Ehime several times, as my mother-in-law is from the neighbouring prefecture. I love Ehime! I think even most gaijin who live in Japan never make it out there. The small city of Matsuyama is in my top 5 or 10 places in Japan. The onsen there looks just like the one from Spirited Away. i was gonna say "Too bad Nicky Boy's gonna kill him" but then AEW gave us the SHOCKING UPSET (spoiler). Hot damn! I wonder who will team with Shinno vs Nicky Boy & Solo. Maybe Lard Lad?!?! Comoroto, like Hobbs, somehow seems to keep getting MORE jacked. Unreal. LOVE the ending to that match! I generally enjoy Nyla more as a Twitter personality than as a wrestler, but Shafir tying ladies in knots and Nyla subsequently crushing them really works as a tag team deal. Plus they are building an intriguing "Disinterested Vickie" storyline here, too! LOVE Kittie LeFleur's Old School look! Kiera Hogan looks great in there, in both senses, but I was hoping she'd work more as a face and play to the crowd a bit, now that she's an ex-baddie. Outrunners also have a great old-school look and style! I am intrigued by the Indianapolis Indie Scene. Is this a thing there? I like it! Outrunners vs FTR, please! Maybe next time AEW hits Indiana. Top Flight gets a big crowd chant right away, then goes out and EARNS it. The Ethan/Matt/PP story they are telling here is pretty great. I love YouTube-exclusive stories. Way to reward the really hardcore fans, AEW! If they put Madison over Emi, I riot! We Will Chop You gets more over with the crowd every week. Sadly, they didn't pop for Tea Time this week. Tigastyle! Sir Pentico!! Jacked Up Luther!!! Big Cass. Will Luther and Cass get into it on the outside? Sadly, no. Big Paul adds some frisson to the match by saying Serp is 99-0 in AEW. Even heel announcer Matt Menard excitedly pulls for the underdog here. To no avail. (spoiler). I am enjoying ALL OF THIS so very much. Then we get GATES OF AGONY & Brian Cage. Local Guy Dan Adams, who wears glasses and dad shorts, is a huge crowd favourite. Awesome. Cage catching Neon Ninja in vertical suplex position is totally sick! YES! Dalton & The Boys come out to challenge the hoss team! Team Castle representing 2020s style wrestling. Cage & GoA representing 1990s hoss style! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Presumably on the ROH PPV. Great addition! Reynolds vs Kip! Another fun YouTube-exclusive minifeud! Announcers do a great job of explaining it without over-explaining. And you can feel the hatred in the ring. TAKESHITA gets the YouTube main event! And Nicky Boy comes out with Solo! Oh baby! Takeshita & Shinno vs The Factory! Give it me! Takeshita gets a MASSIVE POP and they are maybe doing an Elite Recruits Lard Lad Story! That was GREAT! Thank you, DEAN, for the heads up. Also, w/r/t Ehime. Their mandarin oranges are famously delicious. They make a special orange juice there named Pon Juice. If you go to a convenience store in Matsuyama you can buy Pon Juice flavoured EVERYTHING. Pon Juice flavoured Pocky, chewing gum, hard candies, gummy candies, etc etc etc. I recommend treating that stuff like Takeshita treats Cinnabon. Also try the grilled fish cakes called jakoten.

Think I’m going to go to the WWE thread every week and post photos from Twitter of half-full arenas.

Jarrett as Traveling NWA Champ/Cosplay Flair is better than HHH Traveling NWA Champ/Cosplay Harley Race. Jarrett could have great Hometown baby face v Traveling champ matches against guys like Jay Lethal and Chase Stevens @SirSmellingtonofCascadiaI liked Jarretts WCW US title run but don't remember what his best match would be. I didn't care for the No gimmick need Jarrett, Country Singer 2.0, or Woman beater Jarrett (although his Hair match v X-pac seemed decent at the time)

Grief. Phase 4's direction was grief, and overcoming it.

I don't get this "everyone want's to leave" Narrative when it seems like guys such as AmDrag, Dax and Jericho are having the time of their lives (and some of those guys have had hot and cold realtionships with HHH)

I don't want to overreact, but I'm beginning to suspect that the Dallas Cowboys might be a better football team than the Indianapolis Colts.

Kerning fail yet again

I'm gonna miss Regal thirsting over Excalibur.

I'm in, this'll give me something positive to do. After watching all this Territories stuff I would really like to see some good World Class and surely some more Mid-South. Vintage joshi (or more GAIA) would be another option, or any new stuff from any company in the world that's up MY territory... which you know what that means.

@GuerrillaMonsoon mentioned the Giant match on PPV, which is legitimately dope. That's at Havoc '96. The Starrcade '96 match with Benoit goes hard, too. He's also good for a fun match almost every week he's on Nitro, including a surprisingly enjoyable match against a washed Bubba Rogers on the 10/14/96 Nitro. Hmm, I looked back really quickly at what I've written about him in the Nitro re-watch thread I'm writing and would suggest those three matches plus these from Nitro as a quick smattering of what Jarrett was doing at that time: Jarrett/Alex Wright on 11/25/96 Another decent match against Bubba on 12/2/96 Jarrett/DDP on 12/9/96 which is excellent, definitely one of the better Nitro matches in its history Jarrett/Eddy Guerrero on 1/27/97 I think what's cool about the Jarrett Nitro matches is that he always wrestles them with a plan in mind and often will work around some major concept - Jimmy Hart liberally involving himself in his match, knocking out his opponent's mobility, etc. - that is threaded through the match and that often leads to its conclusion in a satisfying way. He feels more like a complete worker than he'd ever felt. I was extremely low on him before the rewatch and I will note that as the weeks passed, I flipped my opinion on Jarrett's work in the ring entirely.

I think Jarrett's work in WWF isn't as good as there's such a mentality for heels, especially as he wasn't a big guy and low on the card, to show ass and not much else. I find his work leans too much into that and he's not as athletically impressive as a Shawn or a Hennig to make it work beyond being a better talent than the dregs of a 94/95 or late 97 midcard, and he doesn't have the heat in much of his stuff that wasn't with Shawn or Razor to make his Memphis stalling schtique matter. (or look significantly less when Lawler was regularly on the same card and doing it far better). Once he goes to WCW, he's allowed to take a decent chunk of the match, and get a reaction from the crowd. The match on a PPV with The Giant was a great example of that. Even his stuff with Mongo is far more tolerable because he's not as restricted by, or leaning into shitty cowardly heel tropes.

I agree with your overall assessment of Jarrett's proper level, but his short WCW stint after this is his high-water mark, IMO. He has good-to-great matches on TV and on PPV against a wide range of people. Then he goes back to WWF and immediately starts a downhill trend in his work that he never recovered from.

Well played. I personally think Dax wants take a year off just to drink beer and turn in to a true BAH GAWD hoss. Did I say think? I meant hope.

I disagree with most of this. Mayfield was smoke and mirrors from the beginning. He was one of those quarterbacks who looked great when everything worked exactly how it was drawn up, but showed little to no ability to make a positive play if anything went wrong. He also seemed to alienate his teammates, which is a huge red flag for a quarterback. You have to be Aaron Rodgers or young Russell Wilson for people to tolerate your bullshit. If you're average and an asshole, your best wide receiver's dad might make YouTube videos about you.

Another of those 'quiet part out loud' things was that Colorado's AD admitted on Sunday that he "currently" doesn't have the money to pay Deion the $5.5M for his salary this year (nor the full value of his contract, obviously). He's confident he'll get the money for it, but still. And I'm sure that interview was aimed directly at the alums/boosters to pony up. Because I'm sure the Colorado state government isn't keen to throw around an additional $2 million at CU because they thought they needed a big name HC that hasn't beaten anyone above a My Little Sister State-level college.

You'd think the Colts' head coach had never coached a professional game before.

I’m game. MY TERMS: Gotta be free on YouTube or similar as I currently have no streaming subscriptions, nor do I have any plans to get one. No WWE or any of its subsidiaries, acquisitions or “partners,” as I am a petulant child and will not let go of an almost-sixteen-year grudge. Beyond that? Anything goes.

I could see him entering the Rumble as either 1-2-3 Kid or X-Pac. The nostalgia pop is one of my favorite things about the Rumble...

And, if I remember correctly, that was the end of WWE. So, once again, we are forced to admit that the doomsayers are making a great point. Also, let's remember the story of the boy who cried "Wolf!" As I recall, the boy kept yelling that there was a wolf among the sheep or goats and disaster was immanent and everyone came running and he got to be the centre of attention for a while and everyone was happy and said, "Gee whiz, boy who keeps crying wolf even though there is no wolf, you sure are smart and cool." And everybody liked him and we all learned something . So there's that as well.

Since Regal is signing with WWE (per Fightful and Meltzer today) - wouldn't that mean that definitely means they are killing Scott off?

My God; I never realized how much a GTA game world could easily be a Territories-era wrestling life game. Missions are constant driving from town to town to make the shows; working your way up the card makes you more money; then at the end of a chapter the promoter finishes you up and you drive off to a newly-unlocked territory on the other side of the country. Evading the police, petty crime side missions, avoiding hostile fans. Set it beginning in 1983 and the background plot is a Vince figure going national and taking over the game map.

Could you imagine, if the pec injury left a hideous blotch on his torso?

The Usos take on Matt Riddle and Kevin Owens! Owens is awesome. He starts off by beating the crap out of Jey. Moonsault on Jimmy! Riddle tags in one has to assume that he is going to become our face in peril and before I can finish typing, he is already taking an ass beating. Riddle makes the hot tag and Owens starts off with a Swanton! SUPERKICK PARTY! Solo Sikoa and Kevin Owens would be fun. Usos hit a Dudley Death Drop on Riddle for the win. That was good. Postmatch, Solo Sikoa does the Umaga Spike onto Riddle! HE then CRUSHES Riddle's head in a chair! OH NO! A TRIPLE THREAT MATCH! I hate triple threat matches. It's Asuka versus Rhea Ripley versus Bayley! Ripley is still VADER and she is a total monster, throwing Asuka and Bayley all around the ring. Asuka and Bayley finally start double teaming Ripley and then turn on each other. Asuka is awesome battling against Ripley. They do very elaborate things. Asuka is the glue to the match. I want to see Ripley versus Bayley. They have a lot of nearfalls with the third person making the save. Ripley with a beautiful Northern Lights Suplex. Ripley takes herself out. Bayley pins Asuka! That was like every triple threat match where there were a lot of hints at how good a singles match would be between all of those involved. Rhea Ripley is so awesome. That was good for a triple threat match. Mustafa Ali and Austin Theory have a match for the US belt! Nice Tope by Ali! Ali bumps all over the ring for Theory. Awkward moment off the top in the corner into a beautiful DDT by Ali as Theory sells it like a circus acrobat. Dolph Ziggler comes in and randomly causes a dq. BOOOOOO! The OC takes on Baron Corbin and the Alpha Academy. Chad Gable is top six in the world so we await Gable versus number five, AJ Styles. En Lieu of that, he battles the Good Brothers which is fine. Great Lariat by Corbin. Styles finally tags in and he succumbs to the treachery of the Alpha Academy. We finally get Gable and Styles in the ring together. Nice Blue Thunder Bomb by Corbin. Nice Spinebuster by Karl Anderson. NICE Suplex by Otis on Luke Gallows. The Good Brothers hit the Magic Killer on Chad Gable for the win. That was really good. Akira Tozawa takes on Dominick Mysterio! Dominick hits a nice Love Machine Splash for the win. OH NO! A TRIPLE THREAT MATCH! I hate triple threat match. So what I'm taking away early is that I really need to see Big Time Becks versus Alexa Bliss. Becky hits an EXPLOIDER on Nikki Cross! Becky outclasses Cross and Bliss by a lot and Bayley versus Becky will be good. They still do the match. Nikki Cross is the glue to this match. IYO SKY and Dakota Kai hit the ring and take out Becky! Alexa Bliss pins Nikki Cross! I imagine Bliss loses to Bayley next week. That was a good episode of RAW.

They've been doing Dark tapings on and off for over a year in Orlando. They aren't "moving back", what are you talking about?

I remember at the time - Jarrett in late 99/early 00 was the best in-ring part of WCW. He delivered more often than not. He had a point to prove, and I wonder if the fun garbage-y brawls age as well as I think they do. But that's a fools errand. I will take this time to say we're sleeping on how good The Total Package was as a character from his return around Fall Brawl to just before Russo/Bischoff starts. Just a fucking awesome sneaky heel. He's almost exclusively wrestling guys half his size until Hogan and Sting return and stooging for all of them. I really liked 97 superbabyface Luger, but this is the best version of Luger by far.

Champions Directed by Bobby Farrelly Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson, Ernie Hudson, Cheech Marin Based on just the trailer - Madison Tevlin will be the breakout star

From the same graphic department that gave us Wangman.

Does it say “Champions!” or is that like squiggle?

Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, Claudio Castagnoli, Darby Allin, Adam Page, Christian Cage and Konosuke Takeshita.

It’s clearly not everyone but it’s obviously more than one. The guy who made everyone hate working for WWE and crushed morale is gone. The guy who became everyone’s woogie on NXT is in charge now.

Because, while unlikely, the time travel scenario could plausably happen?

Waltman tore his bicep when he worked GCW with Janela back in Feb/March. He said at the time he was going to have surgery and then wanted to do a few more matches.

I wouldn't say Tony Khan is an idiot, but I do think he went on a way too heavy signing spree and signed way too many guys just to sign them and without really thinking about their place on the roster long-term. Also, even if Regal's time in AEW was brief, you got some pretty good mileage out of him, and he got to be in some classic wrestling segments. https://youtu.be/alncMQV-Au4 So chances are by this time, the top brass already knew Regal was gone in few weeks. So considering that, and how they wrote him out, I think that was a brilliant way to do it because it kind of brought things full circle.

You know, I think the reaction in AA would mostly be "we still won."

How are you this bad at how trademarks work? "The Elite" is a trademark for specific people. Kenny & the Bucks own that. They can be called "The Elite" anywhere they want. That ad "Being The Elite are owned by them. Just because the word 'elite' appears in both trademarks, doesn't mean they can kibosh anything using that word. The specific trademark "All Elite Wrestling" is a completely different trademark than "The Elite". It relates to the name of a business, not people. The "World' Best Wrestling" idea was actually one of The Buck's ideas before "All Elite Wrestling" came up. They (Tony & The Elite) looked into it and someone already owned that trademark. That doesn't factor into this at all. Tony & Shad Khan's LLC own "All Elite Wrestling". Full stop. Legally The Elite have no claim to that name or any possible way to force The Khans to change their trademark. I kinda hope people are right and you're just trolling lol, because this is a pretty common sense thing.

Also, Steve Austin should, in fact, be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.

Fred McGriff elected to Hall of Fame 2023 Class (mlb.com) Congrats to the "Crime Dog" on going to Cooperstown. But will he ask Tom Emanski to introduce him at his induction?

Yeah, the leap in logic from “non wrestler wants to go work with his best friend who stuck by him through multiple bouts of drug addiction AND his son, who is a very promising prospect” to “Tony Khan is a moron and everyone wants to leave” is baffling. Truly breathtaking. AEW doesn’t really have a developmental program. Whether or not they need one is another discussion, but why make a guy do a job he doesn’t want to when the job he wants to do isn’t one your company offers? As far as Mox goes, it wouldn’t shock me if he’s one of the guys who told TK just to let Regal out of his deal. What actual harm can letting a 50+ year old non wrestler go do AEW?

I've always considered this to be JJ's high water mark. Great secondary champ, didn't need to be doing main events

re: IYH singles matches HBK/Double J is pretty solid.

Not to be confused with bringing a stadium show to a minor international market "For the first time ever, The WWE is going to Bahtoo Stadium in Mandelay, Myanmar"