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The motivation should be that she carried the division for months as a fighting champion and the fans got behind Hayter instead.

We have to get Bandido/Takeshita now. What a killer Revolution opener that would be. Why? Why not?

Moving quick. I struggled watching the first match last night and actually tapped after a few minutes. I get why they couldn't have done a ten bell salute and everything else, but starting with Sonjay/Danhausen comedy, something I am usually fine with, just felt tonally wrong. I can even see on paper why making people happy seemed a good way to stop but I just wasn't feeling it. I came back this morning and this was good and used the gaga well. Jarrett is so over the topic and ridiculous that it's almost unsettling. He's MMA Jarrett. But you can't say it's not entertaining. At some point a year or two down the line, Trent is going to turn heel on Cassidy and it'll be great, but they reset things for now. Bring on Jarrett vs Cassidy already. I thought about keeping the gag going and doing Bockwinkel/Lanza vs Baba/Jumbo as a bonus match, but nope. I'll be honest, the only thing I remember about Starks vs Hager is the rope walk with the hat on. Can you imagine Brian Cage if he had the hat gimmick too? It still would have been better to have Starks go through the JAS BEFORE Jericho but what are you going to do? Oh wait, I really like Starks' big hammers in the corner. Danielson vs Bandido was very complete, a great tease of what Danielson would have looked like against llave maestros and something that let him stretch from what he'd been doing lately. There was a minute stretch in here where he helped Bandido (who has the raw talent) look like the most impressive guy in the world. More on Monday night. Women's match hit really hard. It's amazing how good Willow's stuff (missile dropkick off the second rope, the pounce) looked, which was part her and part Toni throwing herself around for her. Toni can absolutely feed even if some of her mean mugging is something to get used to. Main event was excellent. KUSHIDA had a lot of interesting, compelling wears to tear at the arm and they had some clever set pieces when it came to positioning and counters. I'll have to write this up for Monday too. Reading the ROH results, it feels more like a shadow pilot than a tribute show but if this is Khan saying "Ok, if we can't do it on TV, I'm just going to honor Jay and his love for ROH, change my plans, and jump in and film my first episode of the ROH TV show earlier than I planned to," I mean, that's kind of a perfect passive aggressive message board decision and I support it.

Jeff Jarrett & his crew falling for Bugs Bunny costume changes is oddly amusing. Could Jarrett be the new Col. Parker I’ve always desired?

That Bandido/Dragon match was so so good. I loved how they made every move feel "heavy", as if they were always trying to dead lift the other guy into arm drags, suplexes, holds, etc. THIS is how it should always be IMO, it just added so much. Some lovely stiffness in every kick too. Have we ever had Bandido vs Hangman? I'm all for more Hangman/Bandido/Takeshita type of guys in every show please.

He likes that hat.

Hot dog! Danielson vs Bandido had what I love about wrestling. Struggling for position where everything feels earned, strikes that make slapping noises, and charismatic likable taunting.

8/16/1997 episode of Worldwide

PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING: MEN IN TIGHTS

What an amazing two hours of pro wrestling! It just flew by! Bandido / Danielson was pretty fucking awesome. I like Cage but after Danileson's match with Bandido, The Swoleverine being the next rung on American Dragon's ladder climb to greatness feels a bit anticlimactic. KUSHIDA / Allin was an instant classic and I think that there needs to be a rematch once Darby's anti-inflammatory meds kick in and they KT Tape his shoulder back together. That fucker is a goddamned suicidal maniac. Khan must hold his breath during every spot. I am not surprised that Toni and Saraya turned heel. Women's division needs a bit of a shake-up. It was getting a bit baby face heavy. I personally would've put Willow over in that match as she could use a high profile victory to stay in the title contender discussion. Toni Storm does not need wins to stay relevant; she's a former champ. I'd also have Britt and Rebel stab Jamie Hayter in the back during a non-title match and turn Jamie into a face. That is the only way that Britt will ever get booed for a heel move. I think Jamie Hayter could stomp on a kitten and still get face pops. OC vs. JL was by the book but still fun. OC is the Dean Malenko of AEW holding the mid-card together with a belt that seems more important than it actually is. RIP Jay Briscoe.

FREAKY!

Well it's awesome that he can have a perfect Puroresu style match with a great purveyor of Strong Style and the NEXT WEEK have a great Lucha Libre mat match with a guy who turned down the WWE because he didn't want to move his children from Mexico. What a fucking awesome run.

Bryan Danielson approves.

I still say that if you can’t do Danielson Vs. Blue Panther, then convince CMLL that Danielson Vs. Atlantis Jr. would be the right match to make.

Jay died on the other side of the country just a day beforehand and those close to him are no doubt shaken and rallying around his wife and kids. Any proper tribute show for him should involve as many of his family and friends plus other guys in the business that knew him as want to be involved and in front of an audience that was as familiar with him as possible. Even though it's not till the end of March, I'd use the buy in hour of the next ROH PPV to pay tribute to him. I hope this isn't the last time we see Danielson and Bandido hook it up, or more matches featuring Danielson against some of the other Lucha guys. Even though he's been relegated to Dark forever, I'd love to see Angelico come up and watch he and Danielson just do wacky lucha submissions on eachother for 20 minutes.

A few things that pop out to me: 1) It seems likely that this was what the board referenced about non-public information. But who knows at this point. "A New York law recently opened a one-year window that allows victims of sex crimes to file lawsuits that would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations. Ms. Chatterton’s attorney sought $11.75 million damages in a legal demand letter sent to Mr. McMahon’s attorney in November, weeks before the window opened." Basically, the state of New York passed a law that allows for one year that any adult who believes they were victimized in a sexual assault to file a lawsuit against the perpetrator no matter when it occurred. The start date for this one year time period isn't in effect for a few more weeks. This feels like to me that Vince wanted to settle this to make it go away before Rita could file a lawsuit and that could open up many cans of worms. In like 99% of American corporations, Vince would be long gone. He'd especially be gone after paying off someone who says they were raped. That would happen within minutes. It explains why a whole bunch of independent board members stepped down, too. Why ruin your reputation over something like this? Interesting board fact: The WWE pays its independent board members $200K a year to be on the board, plus bonuses for being part of different sub-committees or being the lead independent director. Board members also get compensated for the time they spent working on company affairs/travel costs/etc. Out of the original $200K, $90K gets paid in cash and the rest is in shares of the company. None of this is unusual. The general thinking why board members get shares of a company as part of the compensation is that it incentivizes them to a better job for all shareholders. It's also potentially pretty lucrative. Board members for companies like WWE all have high-ranking positions (or are possibly even the CEO) of other big companies. I forget exactly which ones. But it's all people who make a good amount of money already. The pay is nice, but it's not life-or-death money for your typical board member.

It was me, I'm WB.

Preventing a memorial show for a wrestler based on some comments from a decade ago and then showing Dana White's Concussion Extravaganza is... about right for Warner, actually.

It's almost too bad Daryby/Kushida had to take place the same week as Danielson/Bandido. I think it'd be getting more love on any other week. It's pretty cool that we're getting overlapping Danielson and Darby dream matches every week. Hmmmm. Maybe soon their paths will cross?

That would be great because Tennessee Lee joining Jarrett in the WWF improved Double J greatly.

I didn’t because Renee reminded him the company is All Elite Wrestling, and as soon as she said Elite it looked like a lightbulb went off over his head. Plus Hangman saying he needs to talk to some people seemed like an obvious hint he’s going to try to get back with Kenny and The Bucks. Which would make for a good team for Blood and Guts against Mox, Bryan, Claudio, and Wheeler.

Bandido is so fucking awesome.

That was a freaking amazing 2 hours of pro wres! Danielson/Bandido was EPIC. So fucking good. Darby/Kushida was pretty amazing too. I forgot how good Kushida is. And Darby was Darby. They clicked so well. Everything else was at least really fun. Glad to see Top Flight get a big win. I'm a sucker for Jarrett & Co. Interested to see where they are going with Saraya and Toni. I almost expected Ruby to turn when she came out for the save lol. Is it me or did Sting's makeup look...weird? The black paint around his face that framed the white paint looked almost distractingly messy me lol. I can't wait to see Takeshita and Bandido take on more of the AEW roster. Imagine Bandido vs Omega! Killer show. Thanks TK!

This put a smile on my face.

These go hand and hand. That said...Rhea Ripley's booty shorts: The Match. The Movie. The Wrestling Promotion. $17.99 on PPV.

At this point, damn near every name has been taken by some car mechanic who "promotes" pro wrestling on the weekend. You've had every permutation of "World", "(E)xtreme", "Global", "US/A", "International", "Universal", "Federation", and "Championship Wrestling" you can think of. If I had my druthers, I would go for something classy and not something as derivative or corny. I thought Grand Prix was a good name and since it's no longer in use, I would probably go with that. That said, not doing shows in the Maritimes. Not trying to make "wrestling" sound like a dirty word ("It says wrestling up on the marquee" - Arn Anderson), but I feel like you wanna be instantly recognizable without having to throw wrestling in there. When someone says World Class, you think Dallas, the Sportatorium, and Reunion Arena. When someone says Mid South, you think Jackson, MS, New Orleans, Tulsa, Little Rock, and the Boys and Girls club in Shreveport. When someone says Mid Atlantic, you think of the Greensboro Coliseum, Dorton Arena, and some of the stops in the Virginias. It would probably be more closer to a regional promotion since that would be what I probably go for in terms of authenticity, but I don't want it to feel like just another fly by night indy fad on name recognition alone.

Shit, one day and hopefully soon, someone will settle out of court for millions with me cause they wanted to avoid the cost of litigation.

I really, really dug this show. I don't have tons of time so I'll hit the highlights; Starting the show with "Jane" is always a good idea. Just the right amount of nonsense in this, and anytime Danhausen is nonsensing on my screen is a good time. Jay Lethal is just solid. Solid in every aspect of the game. Who'd have thought in 2023 Jeff Jarrett would be such a valuable asset to that company? Jesus. Something seemed off with Starks/Hager, but I'm enjoying Starks continuing to get the better of the JAS. That tag next week oughta be fun, depending on the Rampage result. Part of me thinks there's gonna be an Andretti heel turn. Part of me doesn't. Top Flight vs. the Jacksons was fine. Kind of a study in "how much of a match can someone take and still lose?" I'm still irked about the Jacksons not doing right by FTR that second time and going over Kingston and Mox. That was horrid. Ruby's gonna turn on WIllow, isn't she? Sad. They have good chemistry. I love Willow Nightingale. Girl is a STAR. Bryan/Bandido wasn't the main event. That's how loaded this card was. What an outstanding bit of business that match was. I'm calling it now: MJF already paid Cage, so Cage isn't gonna follow through. That's what you get for slapping a guy you still need something from. Dummy. I'm a big KUSHIDA fan, so Darby's being extremely "not for me" was cancelled out. I know the roster is already too big, but KUSHIDA should get "the graphic." Why not? Rampage looks good as hell. Pretty good show.

Driver wearing a seatbelt also died, so this really seems like an odd time and place to even have this debate.

This would RULE. Give me a Studd Stable of JD Drake, Nick Gage, the Gunn Club just being grimy as shit with Dubba J cutting Memphis promos. Satnam can stick around as Meng.

I def liked the Takeshita match better but they are my two favorite young wrestlers in aew and they need all the belts. This is a nice start.

In the middle of January, I have to give props to two wrestlers that have significantly improved in my eyes and have really made a difference in watching AEW programing: Brian Cage and Ethan Page Both were just dreadful, unentertaining vacuums of charisma prior, I'd usually change the channel when they came on. I'm totally digging the path (so far) they've made with Cage as far as having a longer, more entertaining and competitive match with local talent he's been doing lately. Coupled with Prince Nana who is absolutely great, he's improved so much since his Team Tazz days. Ethan Page (like I mentioned in the Youtube thread) was just awful during the Men Of The Year/ATT days, as his stint there was very boring to me. I'm absolutely loving what he's been doing with Hardy Party, it really makes entertaining viewing during Dark Elevation and Dark, despite Cranky-Ass Isiah trying to stop him.

I'm going to need a .gif of Avalon/Nemeth/Serpentico/Luther doing hip gyrations post-haste, that was possibly my favorite thing ever done in this company, ever. Edit: Also, I know I've been critical of Ethan Page before, saying he was boring and such (to be fair, he was, the Men of The Year/ATT was just DREADFUL) but I'm all for this new character taking down the Hardy name a peg, absolutely am loving him singing the lyrics to their theme song, and the dancing, and him calling out Cranky-Ass Isiah, he's truly made me look forward to their matches, which is an impressive feat indeed.

I think Britt and Hayter don't officially turn, but stay popular tweeners. 3 way feud - Saraya/Storm v Willow/Ruby v Britt/Hayter with Shida as the chaos bringer...or maybe teams with the one person she trusts to be able to murder people....Serena Deeb

What a match that was!

I had an ablation on my heart this morning. They put me under, went up through my groin to my heart with catheters, gave me adrenaline to induce arrhythmia and then burned the spots where it appeared. Unexpectedly I had a second spot, when most people only have one, so they zapped that one too. The hole(s) they left hurt so fuckin’ much and it hurts to even walk really, but the hard and scary parts are over with. Now I just have to heal up. From what the doctor says, the ablation supposedly fixes this issue so no more 260 beats per minute attacks. Bedridden for two days, and oh thank god for streaming services and my SteamDeck.

Whoa! After Brian Cage and Willie Mack had an extra-fun Big Meaty Men Getting Their Shit In match on Dynamite, I asked for a Cage vs Mack Best of Seven... AND WE ARE GETTING A REMATCH ON RAMPAGE! YESSS! Those two big men match up very well, in my opinion. We are also getting: A Jade & Leila squash match! It's Jade's 50th match, I believe. Will Red Velvet show up? Action Andretti vs Daniel Garcia where if Garcia wins he takes Sammy's place tagging with Jericho so I am assuming Andretti wins because that's the more interesting story. I like that Andretti beat Jericho FIRST and now he's working his way through the JAS. It's a nice little twist on the usual way of doing things. And Jungle Boy vs All Ego. Will the mostly-on-YouTube and quite entertaining Ethan/Hardy Party story be continued here? I hope so! Also we'll get a Mad King promo or interview. I want him and Monkey to stay friends! I don't think they will, though. Him and Monkey fighting could be really good. So there's that.

Echoing the love for the hard hitting stylings of Danielson, Bandito, Takeshita and Hangman. Those guys have heavy physics. Like to use a Smash Bros analogy, those dudes have Captain Falcon physics. It just feels about perfect. I’ve admitted having trouble getting into Riho and, historically, guys like Christopher Daniels because to me, they have Jigglypuff physics, and I don’t really want that in my wrestling. It’s too loose and floaty. I realize this is a “me” problem and Riho is awesome.

I think that first quote goes for everyone, which begs the question who the intended audience is? It cannot be combat sports fans. I am one of the hardest of hardcore fight fans, and that's not even something I would think about watching. There is a reason why no one has devoted an entire league around a slam dunk contest or HR derby. As a ceremonial and annual one off as part of a league break, it works (no longer in the NBA but you get the point). It makes no sense to take out everything that makes boxing or MMA competitive or fun and just skip to the concussive part. At least feign that you're trying to make it make sense. Once I saw the Twitter clip of homegirl getting slapped, falling down limp, and failing to get back on her feet of her own power to the point of doing a forward roll cause her motor skills and coordination have been shut down, I realized that isn't for me. Even out of morbid curiosity, it doesn't really work for me. I mean I used "slapped" above loosely just because if you cannot move your head or attempt to parry/block the strike coming at you, you might as well get punched right on the jaw by someone standing point blank in front of you. It also begs the question of how this got sanctioned in Nevada. Nothing about this coalesces into a watchable and enjoyable TV product.

Jericho just interviewed him, so you might get your wish:

I would love to see a fued between Jericho Vs Jarrett. I think it would be a lot of fun.

If your TV supports it you can also do screen mirroring/AirPlay from a computer or phone/tablet to your TV. I have an old ipad that's pretty much just for streaming wrestling from google drive to my roku.

Hold up, isn’t the story on AEW’s creation that Tony took the startup money from his own inheritance fund? And Shad told him it was a bad idea? I realize this is maybe splitting hairs (and, oh, what a life, to have a multi-million dollar inheritance fund to borrow from), but that’s a very different thing from Shad just cutting Tony a check because he wanted something. He was essentially borrowing from his future self, so there actually was an element of personal risk for him. (Although, admittedly, the “risk” would be, like, having one less super yacht.)

Speaking of Ovie... (yes, this is from a couple of weeks ago, but still lol)

Bryan/Bandido was amazing. Bandido keeps on killing it every time he shows up and has me wanting more of him on Dynamite often. He looked excellent tonight. I loved the delayed vertical spot, super impressive. I'm surprised Saraya turned heel so soon after her debut, considering the monster pop she got then, but it should be interesting. Orange/Lethal and Bucks/Flight were both fun. Really good main event. Kushida looked awesome and it was cool for this to get the main event spot. The armbar catch counter on the outside was epic. Dug the counters leading in to the finish, great stuff from both. Darby's reign is killer already.

It's not like Vince wasn't gifted a pro-wrestling promotion by his dad, too. Yes, he may have had to buy out Gorilla & co., but I believe the notion that he paid his dying father for the family business, gifted to Vincent J. by his father, has been debunked.

And here I was, expecting to see " Toni! Toni! Toni Has done it again", instead: (BTW, never go without home internet for 2+weeks. Especially when your tv and music needs require internet.

It’s funny that the comedy and shenanigans finally sort of detracted from what could have been another great OC match. It never really hit a stride. I’m glad Top Flight got the big win but I’m pretty annoyed that the Bucks got to dominate so much and make it seem like a fluke rather than an earned win. The powerbomb/nosedive (or whatever) combo was boss. Hoping Dante was just selling and didn’t actually hurt his knee on the jump to the floor/superkick. Didn’t hear a lick of Hangman’s promo, sound was awful. Starks looked good and got to show a lot of character. Hager served his role well. That’s about all I have to say about that. Bryan-Bandido was amazing, spoke about it above. Nice change of pace for Bryan, elevated Bandido. Loved the fighting over the Romero special. Also both of them are strong and fit AF, some crazy core strength moves. MJF stunk it up again, although I missed some parts. Yawn. Brian Cage just isn’t for me and I’m not looking forward to that match. Couldn’t hear most of the Saraya-Toni-Shida backstage, but it definitely was telegraphing the heel turn. Toni wrestled the match heel, which works since Willow is now a solid fan favorite baby face, and Toni really put her over. Post-match sealed the deal, although I half expected Ruby to turn as well. What will probably happen is a tease of another “outsider” for everyone to expect Mone, only for it to be Ruby turning...and then Mone shows up as the fourth. Main event was a lot of fun. Darby is so gifted at selling a body part. Lots of innovative offense and big moves. I would enjoy more of Kushida, and it’s also nice when Darby isn’t having to totally be David fighting underneath against Goliath but instead gets to show some mat skills.

The black armbands were a nice subtle touch. Bryan gonna win DEAN's poll yet again! What a match! Looking forward to Brian on Bryan violence! I personally am glad they decided to turn the Paige. if anyone can successfully split time between NJPW and AEW, it's Kushida!

So in terms of how these types of interviews go: 1) Nick and Bill Simmons know each other and have some kind of friendship. The WWE and The Ringer (owned by Spotify) have a partnership together. So this was not going to be a hard-hitting conversation, and why Nick did the interview. The Ringer obviously has independence from the WWE, but Nick is going to do an interview where he will not get in any trouble. And I am really certain Vince had to clear him doing the interview first. The whole point of this interview is to sooth investors and let them know the WWE is a steady ship. (Hahaha.) Investors have boosted the stock price so far, but the worst thing a company can do is to not look steady. 2) It is highly likely that Bill’s question or at least his primary talking points were given to Nick ahead of time. Almost any interview involving a host and a celebrity is — late night TV, Barbara Walters, etc. You know those interviews on CNBC with money people talking about why they like certain stocks? I worked in PR for financial companies for a few years. We would get a client on CNBC or Fox Business. I would talk with the client about what they wanted to talk about for their appearance. Then I would write the suggested questions with the client’s answers and send them to the producer of the segment. The producer would give them to the host. And 90 percent of the time, the host would ask the questions I wrote. So between the rules of a publicly traded company, the shared interests of the companies and just in general how this stuff works — the interview was a “work” if you will in that they both went in on the same page. I could be wrong and this may have been a completely impromptu interview but… 3) That said -/ it was not a full softball. Bill did ask a few tough questions about all of the issues that have happened, the succession plan, etc. Nick have some insightful answers that he thought threw ahead of time. 4) Bill did not ask some questions he should have - “If things are so good right now, why did the board tell Vince it wanted no part of him coming back?” or “Are you worried about the looming SEC investigation?” and about the recent lawsuits and a bunch more. He wasn’t going to since he is not a financial reporter and not a journalist anymore (and even when he was, he was a column writer and something else entirely) and because of the relationships. 5) None of the talk about Disney was an accident. For those that do not know - Disney is also having its own backstage drama. Their CEO is Bob Iger. He was iconic among CEO types and in Wall Street and etc. He retired but never really left. His successor sorta sucked and the looming presence of the old boss did not do him any favors. So the board put Iger back in place as CEO a few weeks ago. My theory was they wanted to talk Iger up as much as possible to make it feel like Disney was a viable bidder for the company. A new CEO in an uncertain economy would usually signal that an acquisition would not be coming for a while. One of the things in the interview was them talking about how good a job Iger had been doing with ESPN since his return. He’s been back for off the top of my head three months. He has not done anything to revamp ESPN yet. 6) It felt like the talk about TK was a “stay in your lane” moment as he kept on calling him “the kid” and went out of his way to talk about how impressive his dad was (and he is.) And the “it’s easy to run a company that does not make money if you can keep getting your dad to pay for it” line was very dismissive but also incredibly true. Grubhub really did a lot of damage to the restaurant industry and Uber/Lyft did the same to taxis and Netflix did to traditional TV by being companies that did not make money but constantly getting people to invest in the company in hopes they would be profitable. We have no idea if AEW makes money. Tony can literally say anything he wants about how much revenue they make or their finances. If and when they get a new TV deal, it would likely be with a publicly traded company who would probably let the terms be known in a press release or word would leak. But as of now - take anything TK says about AEW’s finances with a big grain of salt. There is no way to know because it’s a company he owns and he does not have to tell anyone anything and he can be fully dishonest if he wants. I also do not think the WWE’s hierarchy cares about AEW or is threatened by them at all. Why would you even care? AEW might have her buzz of us nerds… and WWE still made nine figures in profit last year. But the whole AEW conversation basically felt a lot like Nick telling TK to shut the f up and they were not going to sell to them.