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And my final thoughts on Punk, because man this is going to take up too much oxygen: * The dude got into at least two fights with co-workers. That’s so lame. * He went off-script on TV because ha had boo boos about Adam Page (that alone should have benched him) and then he did so even worse in his press conference where he put Colt Cabana’s mom on blast. * His biggest beef were apparently with The Bucks and Omega and etc. I am not a fan of their in-ring style. But those guys have done everything outside of the corporate wrestling structure, built up a brand completely on their own, and essentially started a new national TV promotion. Want to talk about DIY punk ethos? * Punk got paid a lot of money to perform in the promotion they were the backbone of. Punk had creative freedom, which he abused. Then TK even gave Punk his own TV show and he flamed out on that for who knows why. That is not a guy who should be rewarded with a big spot in any promotion. The WWE has been REALLY great and for a while now. I know a lot of big wrestling fans will never like WWE, and that’s fine, different tastes. But for people who like big US mainstream wrestling — it has been awesome. The Bloodline story was awesome. They do things like have a 20-minute Raw Main Event with Chad Gable and Gunther (as good a Raw TV match as anything)or will have Ivar of the Viking team go for a multi-segment match against Kofi. The anchor of the promotion right now is arguably Rhea Ripley. Cena ate like 19 Samoan Spikes. And the main core of dudes — Sami/KO/Cody/Seth/Jey Uso/Finn/Damian Priest/Drew/Dom Mysterio— is a really weird and awesome mix, and they can all chew up TV time with good mic work and back it up with high-end matches. I really don’t want those guys or a lot of other people a little further down the card like Santos Escobar to get less time because of a guy who is a spoiled brat AND also does a mic work style I am completely over.

I used to put on shows with my wrestling figures. When my stuffed animals started complaining about the stories I booked them even harder in spite.

ECW lost top stars for years and kept their core fanbase till the end. TK won't have Heyman's check-cashing problems. AEW can survive this, and should. They just need to stay the course, keep their fanbase, which is still pretty good, and slowly try to draw new folks with a mixture of continued quality and occasional surprises.

I'm still playing catch up, but we're getting Andrade vs Garcia, Kingston vs Danielson, and King vs Claudio on Saturday, right? Because that sounds like the best wrestling TV show of the year maybe.

I’ve been enjoying AEW lately. But then I head on over here and it’s all doom and gloom. Last few PPVs have been awesome. There’s a round robin tourney with literally twelve of the best wrestlers in the world going on right now on free (ish) tv. I mean, I get that some stories aren’t really firing right now, but let’s be honest. That’s been AEW all along.

at this rate i'm expecting Jeff Jarrett to show up because nobody noticed that his contract expired a few weeks ago

@TheVileOne was right. This really is the beginning of the end.

Wasn’t Punk getting boo boos because he couldn’t main event WM but The Miz did? The Miz is a pretty remarkable WWE performer and also a very solid wrestler who does absolutely anything needed and works to get everything he can over. Or he makes others go above and beyond to cement their spot — LA Knight. He is a PROFESSIONAL and the kind of performer who should get big spots.

"Do the opposite of what I did and you'll be golden"

This could probably go in the media section but it works here, too. Alex Smith calls out Tom Brady for criticizing "this era" of the NFL and then says the quiet part out loud - that Brady and the Pats benefited from "the softest division in history". All while sitting next to Randy Moss, Teddy Bruschi, and Rex Ryan: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/alex-smith-roasts-espn-colleagues-while-calling-out-tom-brady

I’ve been away since Friday. When I left everyone was really excited about the tournament. Did they cancel it because of CM Punk? What a jerk, that guy.

This is definitely a heat-of-the-moment overreaction, BUT... I also think losing QT is unironically worse than losing Punk. Not for anything on-screen obviously, but having a never-WWE guy in a position of creative and development is an underrated aspect of having and sustaining a truly alternative product. That said, I think if they build around their real 4 pillars of MJF, Ospreay, Swerve, and Hangman, they'll be fine.

I think Rush/Briscoe has some serious potential to get crazy.

The QT tweet is a work to distract from the fact that he's obviously the Devil.

Wearing the Hawaiian shirt from TNA.

I hope he just keeps getting fired from places until he's in the middle of a Coliseo Coacalco ring talking about how he's "en casa".

That promo sucked ass. Let's hurry up and get to the Punk and Rollins pissing contest. Maybe one of them will go too far.

holup let this man cook.

Enough top guys get injured and they'll have to push RUSH dammit.

Not joking, I was pulling for Impact to close the deal so bad, just give him the book and let him turn it into the Collision Zone. Praying for better times.

somehow WBD fumbles the ball and AEW ends up with 5 hours a week on the NFL Network because Shad called in a favor.

considering the pacing of this angle, maybe he's training the Devil at his wrestling school

Finally watching the whole card. God bless The Miz for making me give a shit about a match that looked like a joke the second they booked it

I'd have to assume this poster's thoughtless hot takes have long earned them an ignore. For those not ignoring I'd have to think the relentless negativity has earned little more than a few yawns. But if you're going to give weight to this spicy stand then go ahead and show the arithmetic.

would the NDA apply if CM Punk had a ventriloquist dummy, can't prove that the dummy wasn't the guy saying the things!

I try not to say anymore if a match is “good” or “bad.” Just whether I liked/enjoyed it or not.

One thing is for sure, Punk got me to watch Dynamite and Collision but nobody can get me to watch all of Raw live. If he ain’t opening the show I’ll see him on YouTube

Meltzer has no conviction when it comes to his opinions on star ratings. All I heard on his show was criticism about the match. He clearly overrates all the AEW matches than he normally would any other promotion. Same thing happened with Omega and Moxley’s death match. But this is why I don’t like star ratings anymore. There’s no true standard. I used to think if a match was five stars it was nigh perfect or a standard of excellence. But if you are suddenly rating things six or seven stars, you’ve lost the plot.

I understand the grander point you're trying to make but after seeing how he's run ROH it's pretty clear he'd just create Elite Club if he couldn't get legitimate TV for AEW. Is that sustainable? For a normal person no. But TK is a billionaire. AEW will exist as long as TK wants it to exist. This is his baby. This is his first really big lone business venture. He's not pulling the plug unless it somehow drains him of a significant portion of his wealth. We are all in agreement AEW's product is down. But they sold 80k tickets to a single event. All this doom and gloom and pontificating about a war eradicating them is crazy. Their highest paid attendance is more than TWICE the biggest paid attendance WCW ever had. My final point is this, TNA. They've existed for 20+ years. With and without TV. If a small hillbilly carry turned semi professional Canadian carry can last two decades I think AEW's future is pretty secure.

I think (and hope) what happened over the weekend lights a fire under Tony and AEWs top players asses. Just go balls out and make the product as hot as it was a year and a half ago, there are some things they can’t do on the same level as WWE but if they focus on what works for them it should make it a great time for fans.

really the main cause for concern would be over TV rights and WBD being run by careless idiots

I've decided the funniest storyline for CM Punk in the WWE would be "CM Punk, insincere Triple H stan/superfan". Where CM Punk is going after various people for not being as loyal to Hunter as him, while Hunter keeps insisting he doesn't want Punk doing that and the fact that Punk will keep doing variations of his "who farted" face that he made in the Double Fingerpoint pic from last night. Maybe add an element of Punk just acting like he hasn't worked a match since 2014 to make fun of the whole "WWE doesn't acknowledge history" thing that they did at times.

"You staying out of jail, kiddo?" "Well, I try my best"

I think for me, I don't personally feel as though AEW respects my time as a viewer. The breakup of Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland is probably the best example of this. They were building tension between the two, they lost the titles, they stayed together for nearly three months after, then they just... did nothing. Swerve started his own group, but there was never a match between him and Keith Lee to play off of the tension that they had. If the story they wanted to tell was that Swerve turned and as a result Keith drifted away from him, fine. If it was a health thing from one of them, fine. But we didn't get a true conclusion to their story, it just sort of ended, and to me, I struggle to see why I should have gotten invested in Swerve and Keith as a team or in the tension they had because it was all just thrown away to move onto the next story. All it takes is one angle someone really enjoys being blown off with an unsatisfactory conclusion to completely tank someone's interest. The primary hook a lot of people fall on is "but there are great matches", but there are great matches everywhere. What's the incentive if you want more than that? Not only that, but there's six hours of regular TV each week. How do I know which show will have my favorites, if any? I don't. AEW used to be really good about advertising what matches would happen the next week, and nowadays you might not get an announcement of what's happening on each show until the day before. It's almost as if AEW relies on their audience to just watch each week and they don't need to say what they're going to be delivering. You can't try and sell as much product as AEW does while also not saying what's inside the package.

Triple H gets Jelly Roll... a huge step up from Vince who wanted Conway Twitty.

Vanilla ass Disney PG Punk. No thanks.

Nope. You have to change your username to either Casey Khan or CaseyM Punk. You have until midnight to make this decision. I’m so excited for Saturday! I always get my times mixed up so I’ll probably set an alarm clock. The Danielson vs Sabre Jr match I’m still buzzing about and is too 3 (penciled in at 2) for me all time. Hangman drinking Swerve’s blood was a fantastic moment I will now always think about for the AEW style Texas Deathmatch. The strap match was an all time icky great me uncomfortably giggling watch. I’ve become very critical but I am very positive about the things I do love. Lil Octopus has been 2 for a week now. He is all energy all the time! Loves sprinting around the living room and bodyslaming his dad. My time is very limited. I catch the Dynamites I can. If there’s good matches I’ll have a stream on my phone and half have my own wrestling match while I watch. I try to watch the hood Collisions. I don’t watch WWE but keep up to date with the fun moments. I have Peacock so in theory I can watch PLE’s when I remember. I can’t watch more outside of hyped matches. I do like wrestling podcasts though. Driving and getting ready in the morning is usually when I listen. Lil Octopus winds down around 8ish and we get him to bed (or at least attempt to) soon after that. So I’ll catch most of the last hour of one of those shows. But that’s when I get most of my wrestling watching in. Right now I’ve been doing more editing. Buuuut, work had some slow moments so yesterday secretly I rewatched El Satanico vs Gran Chocise and Negro Casa vs El Hijo Del Santos from 97. I have a desk in the basement of my work and it’s pretty chill when I’m doing stuff. But sadly it sounds like the photo finishing guy was super behind and didn’t tell anyone so my time to both fuck around and actually do my own work is going to be shortened. All wrestling is now cancelled.

I'm operating under the assumption that most people have limited free time and energy. To me, being an AEW fan is a 4+ hour/week investment, WWE 5+ hours... Plus various YouTube shows, PPV/PLEs etc. I have to make choices where to spend my time & energy during G1 season, for example. And I am ALWAYS burned out when it's over, even though I enjoy myself tremendously while it's going on. If you have time and energy to follow both companies closely, more power to you! Also, w/r/t QT leaving hitting me hard, the other reason is because he has a big role in working with and developing younger wrestlers. I LOVED watching Darby and Orange and Hobbs and Hayter and etc etc grow and develop and what hits me hard is that QT leaving feels like a VERY clear sign that the shift is away from home-growing fresh talent and hard into bringing in New Toys to play with. Doesn't mean that Ospreay in AEW won't be amazing, or that I am suddenly not stoked for Saturday's matches. Does mean that it's going to be WAY harder for the potential next Orange Cassidy or Willow Nightingale to break through. Because the FOCUS is elsewhere, now. Edit: To be clear, though, AEW remains my favourite American pro wrestling company, even if my hardcore fan passion is gone. Edit: Upside is it clears out some extra free time for me to train for the Chikara no Ishi Soja stone-lifting competition next summer, in Okayama!

Sad to see QT go. I sense his backstage contribution is indeed a big loss. As a performer, I may very well stand alone, but I think he was an excellent lower card hand and a fun heel. It was obviously not for everyone here, but QTV has been consistently excellent for some of us. Lastly, the ROH Tag title match on a Rampage, months back, with Hobbs against Penta and Fenix was pretty fucking rad.

Most labral tears can also be worked through, it just makes it easier to dislocate the shoulder and could make the eventual surgery more difficult to perform/recover from.

Chris Jericho tried to explain to Punk about what it means to go on last if no one gives a shit: https://youtu.be/yg6cyMFyeRk The one I recall the most is CM Punk's WWE documentary.

I'm just happy Colt Cabana's now freed up for an AEW World Title run.

how are we defining "worked" in the sense of WCW in late 1998/early 1999?

Thinking to myself if it would be better for the Panthers to be owned by Jon Taffer

Not sure if this bit is old, but seeing Kingston vs Danielson is on Saturday and not Wednesday has made me childishly bitter and jealous.

He's the cousin that brings a 2 buck bag of napkins and a stack of 20 paper plates to Thanksgiving.

I’ve only seen Dynamite so far, it was a busy week with a quick trip to NYC followed by a quick trip to Allentown for Thanksgiving proper, and then unwinding over the weekend now that our guests have returned home. I thought all the matches were very good to excellent. All 3 C2 matches were the tops. Like Gordlow, I was a little disappointed by the lack of an upset (was thinking Briscoe over Mox) and also kind of expected one of the matches to be a draw. Rush and Jay White just beating the shit out of each other ruled. Women’s match was more about angles than wrestling, but Skye won and hopefully will get a title shot against Timeless Toni. Most of the promos, other than the Toni Storm award segment, were below standard and MJF was pretty awful, just lazy cheap shit.

Special #1... damn that was fun! James