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1. Cody out 2. JR marginalized 3. Punk fired 4. Jade out I have no idea how I personally got the ear of the wrestling gods but I'm not complaining.

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.

Ok so I’ve been meaning to post but I’ve been busy as hell. I’ve been a contract academic for fucking ever. At worst, this means teaching on a course-by-course basis for like $5 grand a pop. At best, I’ve gotten 10-month contracts with some benefits. It has been a bad gig but really I have no other talents to pay the bills. Anyway, I got a fucking faculty job over the summer. I have a permanent position. No more applying for my job every four months. No more uncertainty. I have a good salary, and a pension plan, and spending accounts, and I’m now full-time member of a department. So I bought a goddamn house. I honestly never thought I’d have any of this stuff and I still haven’t wrapped my head around it.

Yeah, I was about to say, "Bill Maher has writers and they come up with THAT?!"

I think the only missed opportunity is that Jade and Mercedes Mone are going to pass each other like ships in the night. That could’ve been a good program. Or Mercedes might’ve gotten seriously hurt trying to make it good, so maybe it’s for the best.

Samoa Joe rules the motherfucking world?

I've always just gone with calling them records. I've never got the "vinyl" thing. We don't call CDs, "plastic". "Oh, I've got that one on plastic!" Even when CDs were my main physical media, I'd say a band had a new record out.

"ADAM! ADAM! ADAM!' "ADAM! I CAN'T SEE YOU!" as the shocking neck impingement cuts off his optic nerve

Fun opener, the first time Moxley has bled in weeks! Liked the random little Orange/Hook segment, that was amusing. Popped for MJF busting out the full on Steiner Math on Joe, that was fantastic. Hangman/Cage ruled. Nice finish from Darby and Nick Wayne. Great main event, dig coming back around to Joe being the guy that put Strong in the neck brace to begin with and loved the post-match angle. Roderick's dramatic overselling as soon as he saw Adam coming was hysterical. "ADAM I can't see you!!" as he's been loaded onto the stretcher, Bennett & Taven blocking Cole from following the stretcher, all classic. Kinda surprised Jade's rematch is just being thrown on Rampage, but next week looks pretty nicely stacked for Grand Slam.

why would he listen to music? he's got Elias!

Was having a celebratory dinner with my gf at an Indian place Monday for our moving in. She went to town on the garlic naan. And she calls me the Black Hole princess...

Ultimate AEW dream match. Bring back the Triple Cage from WCW. In the ring you have Adam Page, Ethan Page, Diamond Dallas Page, and Rickey Shane Page. Saraya is special guest ref. After these four men battle it out they ascend to the second cage where... They find Christian Cage and Brian Cage, already duking it out. The winner of Page v Page v Page v Page from the first cage takes on the winner of Cage v Cage from the second cage to ascend to the third cage where, already waiting for them is a fresh... NICK FUCKING GAGE! The third cage is filled with light tubes, obviously. Winner gets a three-tiered trophy and the tile of King of All -Ages

Guys like Strong are being built as temporary main eventers for angles, no reason that can't also put over younger guys at some point. Starks is feuding with Punk, Mox, Danielson, he's not exactly wallowing as a curtain-jerker.

Adam Cole vs Adam Page vs Ethan Page vs Brian Cage vs Christian Cage vs Blake Christian in a "Maybe the WWE had a point about names" match

I laughed so fucking hard at "ADAM! ADAM! ADAM! I CAN'T SEE YOU! ADAM!" I was dying. Like, it's not good acting or anything, but it's good enough for wrestling and it's also silly enough where it sounds like something out of Step Brothers. I always thought Roddy sounded like Stevie from Eastbound and Down and now he's leaning into being such an over important doofus that I can't help but love the act. This is the best character Roddy has ever had. Moxley made Big Bill look like a fucking killer. Moxley is such an unassuming giant of a person and his physical build is kinda awkward, so when he steps in there with a guy that's bigger and taller than him, that other guy looks really big. I'm not thrilled with so many titles having an "open challenge" story to them, but I don't mind it with the International Title. And for next week, Fenix, please don't die. I love Orange Cassidy so much. "Renee...I'm just so tired." I feel ya buddy. I feel ya. That line also killed me. OC is probably my favorite active wrestler right now, which is nuts because you can look back on here to when AEW was getting formed where I didn't want OC to be in AEW.

Well his hair is certainly back in black.

It’s only funny if this stays the official thread, guys.

Unused, sold tickets are more common than you think. Brokers buying tickets in bulk for travel packages that don't sell through, giving tickets away to sponsors/resellers and counting them as "sold" because they're no longer part of the economy, companies purchasing tickets to use for giveaways that the recipients don't use, those are all sold tickets that don't see the holders go through the turnstiles. Then you have the direct buyers that buy tickets and for whatever reason don't go through. Family emergency, kid got sick, car broke down, mass transit issue, passport issue, whatever. It happens. I have no doubts they legitimately moved that many tickets, but how those tickets were counted is basically picking nits. If the turnstile count is within 85-90% of your ticket distribution, you did pretty good.

I feel bad that I'm too stoned to post more. this was a really good show and everyone worked hard. they deserve better than this shitty post. I liked all of the matches. I'm gonna drink a beer and smoke some more pot. AEW Rules the motherfucker world. RIP Dean. Bye for now.

It's finally time! It's finally here! You probably thought I was talking about NWA, but nope, I'm talking about AEW Dynamite motherfuckers! Tony Khan brings us another week of wrestling. Yes - punching, monsters, bad acting, overacting, explosions of color, a plot that gets dropped. But who cares?! You fill your face with wrestling you dumb fat cows. Eat the slop before the slaughter you fucking pigs! There's like wrestling and stuff tonight, but much like Orange Cassidy, I'm too lazy to look up what's happening. However, I did feel like ripping off Red Letter Media's Batman v Superman intro for that first paragraph just to amuse myself. ENJOY THE WRESTLING AND MAY AEW RULE THE FUCKING WORLD!

Flair's issue was always going to be two fold even if he was well intentioned trying to help get Hogan into WCW. His problem for much of his post JCP NWA/WCW runs were he was INHERITED. He's like a star QB you can never cut because he is the pride of the city for what he is accomplished there. You can bench him once his play slips below a certain level, but cutting him is absolutely out of the question. He would have to quit or walk away somehow. He's basically a less arrogant and probably infinitely more likeable Aaron Rodgers except Rodgers to his credit won one Super Bowl. At no point was a Flair led promotion going to match or exceed WWF during the height of the expansion. A lot of it is no fault of his own, but wrestlers much like players don't get escape blame from armchair quarterbacks and also in this case the promoters/bookers. Herd tried to get him out of there early on. IMO I think Bischoff has a good deal of respect for Flair but to an obvious extent. Flair was able to be the life support that kept the promotion having a stable pulse to where you couldn't pull the plug yet. Hogan, for whatever you think of him, was able to get WCW off that life support, up, and walking around with vitality. He was going to get the lionshare of the credit even if it was TOO much. Bischoff was never going to get Flair that much leverage when Flair's prime years as a draw happened before Bischoff was even just a low level announcer for WCW. Everyone wants to draft their own franchise QB especially if they have a win now mentality. Bischoff was and (based on 83 Weeks) still is the ULTIMATE win now guy. He is giving up all the future 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round draft picks just so he can move up to #1 overall or get a big name free agent just so he can win immediately. Who gave him more of a chance to do that? Hogan or Flair? Flair had no chance backstage.

Pfft, they can pile on the calamari and the garlic bread for me. Suckers! That's what I came there for!

This made me realize I haven't had a pu-pu platter in probably 30 years and I could absolutely demolish one of those right about now.

Honkytonk Man could’ve easily been one of those WCW cases where he slips through the cracks and gets paid stupid money to work a handful of C-shows a year, or even just sits at home and hopes no one notices he’s still on payroll. Instead he irritated Bischoff and burned his bridge with Hogan by trying to do business like it was 1987. He never even got signed to a proper contract at a time when anyone who’d worked for Titan in the past decade was almost guaranteed a deal. Knowing your worth goes both ways.

It’s unfortunate Red Velvet has been plagued with injuries because her beating Jade is a Finish the Story if I’ve ever seen one.

Bar-ian Cage

I don't think MJF would be getting the push he is now without being committed to AEW. I have a feeling that the "bidding war of 2024" stuff is all a work and he signed a new deal probably as far back as winning the "not-MITB" chip, and at the very least before they committed to a face turn and headlining All In. Even Cody never got a rocket strapped to him like MJF has now. I could see Ricky being frustrated with his start and stop booking, and most recently getting dicked over by Punk. I'd be giving him the International belt at Wrestledream so there's always a reason to give him TV mains and PPV angles.

I don't think Jade leaving would matter. Starks and MJF leaving would be massive though. They need to do way more with Starks. I get doing things with Adam Cole, but trying to turn Roderick Strong into a main eventer while bringing Taven and Bennett with him is fucking dumb. They're an entertaining mid card act, but nothing more. They could also be just as good on ROH without taking up so much time on AEW. Starks should be positioned closer to the top of the card. I get that Tony loves ROH, but holy shit, there's a reason why ROH was usually behind TNA.

When you get into audience sizes of that scale, it is. Heck, most professional football games will announce "sellouts" but the turnstile count will be half of what the sold ticket amount was, because of season tickets or giveaways not being used. The Washington football team had a 50 year "sellout" streak and there was a point where you could get seats for their games for $10 on the reseller market practically anywhere in the building because nobody was going to their games. Take a look up thread at the original article and you'll note it states most AEW events have their ticket usage around 80-90%. So if they sell out a 5,000 seat building, their average event is going to end up with 4,000-4,500 in the building. All In just scaled up their usual ticket usage ratio - rather well, actually! Tbh, when they announced 81,035 as their attendance, I expected a larger drop rate and the turnstile count to be more along the lines of 65,000, because the drop rates get bigger for larger crowds. The promoter is always going to announce the larger number, and that larger number is always going to be tickets sold.

I think numerous people have already made some salient points. However, I do want to add that for someone like Jade, AEW was probably the best place for getting her feet wet in terms of pro wrestling. At the time, it was local (during the pandemic) meaning she wasn't that far away from her family more importantly her child. She likely didn't want to do the WWE PC thing especially given the 50/50 at best success/failure ratio at the time. There were a ton of amazing success stories, but also a bunch of people that washed out. Plus, I don't think her plan is to stay in pro wrestling forever. She did her time in AEW and did about as well as she can do being as greener than fresh, crisp hundred dollar bills. Time to move on to the next territory and bigger and better things. That's always been pro wrestling.

i don't get high very often, but i've taken to eating a THC gummy before i watch AEW PPVs. I find that i get SUPER into the matches, for better or worse. the bad matches just seem to drag on forever, but the good matches are vastly improved. i am drawing connections that may or may not be intended by the wrestlers. i associate the various holds/moves with promo snippets and moments from other matches. i'm seeing more story elements that i would normally overlook. I buy into more nearfalls. technical matches are better. brawls are wilder. "epic" matches feel bigger. the biggest drawback is that i don't really recall much from the matches the next day (or by the end of the show for the earlier stuff), so i'll remember that i really liked it, but that's about it. well, that and sometimes the potency spikes so i just zone out and miss whole segments/matches. but it's a tradeoff i'm happy with. this may now be my favorite thread in the history of DVDVR. i've gotten to talk about my record collection, my gummy-induced watching habits, my grammar nazi tendencies, and tape trading. Plus read about other people's history with the hardcore punk (and other) scenes back in the day. Just to complete my BINGO card, i also am a big Nintendo fanboy and Mountain Dew enthusiast. this. is. awesome. clap clap clapclapclap

Starks is gonna be a hit anywhere. If TK lets him go he deserves corporal punishment. Push that man to the moon.

50% "I got high and watched Rampage" 40% fanny pack full of steroid/pill jokes, 10% recounting bad trips of our 20s

You mean Maher wasn't already writing his anger merchanting himself?

Mark Sterling is an excellent agent

I like Jade and she's a loss. That said, her wrestling, tho good for her experience level, was inconsistent at best. Considering how these AEW monster pushes have played out with Jade and Wardlow, one leaving for the rival company after a lengthy build/push, the other on the sidelines for no apparent reason (?) with his popularity greatly diminished and uncertain future prospects, maybe it's time reevaluate their 'Monster' booking. In both cases they relied far too much on '(said performer) in action' with not enough substance in any of their bigger programs. Jade has had some especially atrocious storylines. Assuming all this jump talk is true, it'll be interesting to see what kind of travel/dates commitment Cargill makes with WWE.

is a thread on this board where stoners go? this definitely isn't it

Good lord. Hair Dye and Sleaze Mustache Vince is almost too much. It's like a human Pepe Le Pew. EDIT: Did he do that just for this photo because he wanted to go "undercover" in public? Like he thinks nobody's gonna know he's in the photo until he points it out and they pop for it?

The theater ticket group my mom subscribes to is offering $5 ducats for Grand Slam (yes, FIVE DOLLARS). Unfortunately they currently require ID and I'm not passing for an octogenarian woman any time soon.

He always read to me like a sentient can of Axe body spray that was really into that show Entourage.

I loved my Zune too! I bought two of them! To this day I still think it was one of the better pieces of music software and hardware devices for listening to music. It was also my entry into listening to podcasts and maybe the first thing actively pimping out podcasts. People love to shit on the Zune because of its name or because they foolishly tried to take on iTunes, but man, it was so rock solid. I liked it a whole hell of a lot more than the iPod I got in a trade for some Magic cards (I wish I had those cards back because they're probably worth a ton now) and I liked it a lot more than iTunes. And all of this talk about wrestling, music, shit we did in our youth, etc. feels so cathartic after all of the craziness with Punk. It would have been amazing if Punk was everything he said he was on that first promo back instead of turning into a violent malcontent. He had so much to offer and bring to the table. It's disappointing. You know what isn't disappointing though? This whole discussion.

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

Unless, of course, referring to the noble combination platter while ordering from a fine local dining establishment.

Unfortunately Bill’s grandfather disappeared one day after an incident with a whistle Coulda used this photo if they ever put Fonzie with the Full Blooded Italians

The one talent that Simmons has is hiring really good writers. I mean, he put Phil Schneider on his payroll! He's a good curator, but I could do without his actual insight/opinions.

It's funny, I'm the total opposite in that if I'm over here stoned, I will *not* STFU. I will talk and talk as though the very fate of the universe depends on whether or not FTR can get past the Gunns or whatever. I thought this was a super strong show. Even though it probably isn't time to take it off MJF yet, I'm so conflicted because Joe was way too awesome here, yet again. They're going with Kingston/Claudio at Grand Slam!!!! I'm so psyched for this one. I'm glad if seems to be on Dynamite as well - I thought they were gonna be cheeky and run that on Rampage so no one heads out early again this year Re: Jade - I'm kinda oddly fine with her leaving. Is it good for AEW? Probably not. Will it be good for Jade? 100%. As much as I enjoy her character, her skill set is probably (as things stand now) much better suited for WWE. This isn't a criticism of AEW, but I think WWE's style lends itself better to someone like Jade who possesses all the charisma and physical presence in the world, but is still putting it together bell to bell. Meaning, I think she would probably be passable in a Nia Jax type role without even needing any additional PC seasoning.

First off, I don’t recommend anyone try and watch YouTube on anything other than a computer with ad-block enabled. Holy shit. I’m 12 minutes into the Cena match and I’ve had legit probably like 10 ads already. Bray vs Cena: Usos out here to support Cena and man oh man have they changed for the better. So weird seeing them then versus now. I don’t miss Cena’s over-acting, the stuff like being conflicted over using a CHAIR in a LAST MAN STANDING match is so fucking lame. Lol, they stop the video for a split second when Bray hits Cena in the face with the steps and then later when Cena throws them over the ropes to the outside onto Bray. How dumb. The latter moment is a legit holy shit moment and they ruined it. I still love Bray’s strikes, his deep uppercut he does looks so clean every time. They really dropped the ball on this incarnation of Bray, IMO. Love, love, love that Harper & Rowan come back after the Usos wiped them out, attack Cena while Bray is down, and help Bray to his feet so the roles are reversed. Dude they are stopping the video anytime anyone gets hit in the head with a weapon, just did it for Harper bashing one of the Usos with a table when he was going to do a suicide dive WHY?! This has turned into the Wyatt’s versus the Usos while Cena and Bray are down and nobody cares. One of the Usos took a superplex to the outside through a table and nobody in that spot is in the actual match, lol. Bray’s running crossbody (through the barrier!) is great shit. Shades of Rock/Mankind during Halftime Heat with the forklift spot - Cena winning by putting Bray through a travel case and then putting another one on top of it. Not innovative, but a smart finish, I like it. But Bray losing to Cena again - I don’t like it. That was fun! Hit that spot I like for wrestling, which is a garbage match with high spots and it’s chaotic. Cena doesn’t do much for me, but he’s alright if he’s in there with someone I like. I know who Onita & Goto are, no clue about the other two. They look like they’re going to the farmer’s market on Sunday, but White Shirt is just beating the piss out of Onita holy shit. This is not how I expected this to go. The crowd is fucking HOT, too. Plaid Shirt is just waffling Goto with those Japanese chairs, and Onita clobbers him with one. Seriously what’s up with the plaid shirt, what a choice for wrestling attire (even if it’s a Texas Street Fight). Or is it a Texas Deathmatch, since they just did the pin fall and starting a get to your feet count. Hmm. Aw hell, Plaid is using his cowboy boot as a weapon yeah this straight up just feels like a bar fight, Onita wildly swinging his belt and it lashes White Shirt in the face probably. Yikes. Oh we’re doing tag outs in a match like this?!? This is somehow the most chaotic FMW match I’ve seen, but also doesn’t have the spectacle of an exploding barbwire match or anything they’d do in a deathmatch you’d expect from FMW. What a weird (but really fun to watch) match. I’m ROLLING at the post-match footage with the music. And to cap it all off: Plaid Shirt throws his cowboy boot at the cameraman to end the video. 1 billion stars.

I mean, have you seen 95% of people who still take that booking as it is?

Hasn't it been said that Vince's favorite band is AC\DC? I used to like them until the lead up for Summerslam '98. I got so sick of "Highway to Hell" that I've never recovered.