Leaderboard

So true. This is the first we’re all hearing about any of AEW’s potential shortcomings. We never discuss this here. Thank you, brave truth-teller.

Imagine a whole lotta people enjoying a thing for what it is, and a couple people constantly telling them what they like is bad or going to fail or whatever - you're being a fucking drag and masking it as "concern," which I suppose is better than just being an outright troll but still isn't "fruitful." However, if you keep trying to push the conversation into a place most people have no interest in going, you're bound to get pushback. Long story short, let people like things and learn to step back sometimes.

In AEW's short history they have on occasion produced some near perfect television. Every other week, save for maybe one or four that I'm forgetting, they've had good to great segments and some shitty ones. I don't quite see this Fall/Winter 2023 set of TV as any worse. Yeah, they were hotter when Danielson and Punk debuted. I don't get this ignorant idea that AEW is immune to ups and downs. What Pro Wrestling company, or any company for that matter, hasn't had ups and downs? I'd be curious to know what weekly Wrestling TV show in the past 20 or so years has been more consistent or better than AEW Dynamite? That's not to say there aren't issues with the product. I'm solidly with the too many belts talk. There's also an ongoing issue with Referees being made to look ridiculous, and far too many non-managers at ringside. I also find the phasing in/out of the roster week to week a bit problematic (I sense the live gates have suffered more for this reason than discussed). Especially without Video packages and promos to keep up with the stories/characters, but it's something I'm seeing being worked on (that's all I ask). I also find the hiatus/injured wrestler disappearances very irritating. And unnecessary. But I recall Meltzer on WOR talking about injuries not being legally allowed to be discussed. I'm not sure I got that quite right or how that works, but it seems like the secrecy could be better limited or worked around. All this said, I don't find these qualms enough to hate on a product I find consistently fun. It's par for the course. As far as AEW being number 2, what the fuck do you expect? WWE was number 1 with an outdated senile booker presenting the shittiest wrestling possible. In general, that company, the well established McDonalds/Marvel/Coca-Cola of the industry, clearly appeals to a far wider fanbase. I'm happy AEW doesn't. I want blood and workrate and unscripted promos. If they don't always work out, but the batting average remains high, oh fucking well!? I'm not on top of all the sales figures, nor do the bellyachers seem to be, but from a distance the profits look pretty strong. And the Billionaire responsible for the overhead is happy. My overall opinion remains: AEDUB still rules the fucking world.

There were many times @DEAN said AEW RULES or RULES THE WORD. But my favorite was when he’d say RULES THE MOTHER FUCKING WORKD. I did some digging and I think this was the first time that combination of words was combined by him: I feel he would have loooooved the Classic. I didn’t know him personally outside of some friendly messages. But I really miss his posts and the Caps lettering as if he was shouting things like GREAT!

Pretty sure they’re talking about Pillman.

“People calling me on my bullshit means I’m over the target. My persecution proves my virtue!”

As I posted before, the best option for AEW (or any company, really), would be to cast as wide a net as possible and go with a property that has both a cable and a streaming environment. Unfortunately, that "best option" may not be an actual option, because NBC Universal/Peacock is definitely out. I don't see them getting on a Disney property and bundling up with Hulu. A CBS/Paramount property doesn't have the cable home for them that would fit in terms of a channel people watch for sports. Staying with WBD and going on the sports tier of Max would probably be their best bet, assuming Max doesn't completely crater. AEW having their own streaming service is a bad idea, especially as people are struggling to justify costs and there needs to be some kind of value added service to make them want to part with their $10-15 each month. It also wouldn't hurt for them to have a FAST channel, similar to Impact. They've got five years of a library built up now, just run old shows in whatever order and run it with ad support on Pluto TV. The cost is phenomenally cheap to do. Heck, do it on YouTube too. In this environment the goal should be to capture as many eyes as possible. Putting all ones' eggs in one basket, whether it's just cable or just streaming, is a bad idea. You're trying to sell a product, cast a wide net.

I'm currently having a discussion about the belts in this thread and neither side of the issue is doing snark or push back. So that disputes that any criticism of issues is automatically returned with snark. I don't even think the most diehard AEW fans would deny a lot of what you're saying about ticket sales and pure facts like that. I think the vibe your posts have given off in the recent past in just this thread (not everywhere, not always, just this conversation) isn't so much a conversation as it is a confrontation. You have a lot of valid points. 3k people in 10k seat buildings looks bad no matter what company does it as an example. But the way you present it is more that it's an undisputed fact that your side of the argument is the only rational side. I think we all feel like that sometimes but that's not entirely true for any of us. Like I agree AEW looks bad losing Jade & Cody. They were day 1 homegrown kind of AEW projects. Cody was the whole identity of the company in a lot of ways. And he went from a meh presentation in AEW to a star in WWE. Jade has a huge upside and bright future. They were patient and treated her like a big deal ad she lefgt without really giving anything back. Punk tho I think that's debatable. I have already stated my way to handle it in TK's shoes is get them in a room and fix it. TK rode the fence too long and tried to keep everyone happy. But I don't think AEW looks bad here, I think Punk does. Gigantic hypocrite. But the way you receive that shouldn't be that I'm challenging you with push back or snark. That's all. The old JR saying about McMahon. Remember go in and converse with the old man, not confront.

What is this? Third grade? Is the teacher going put people in opposing corners until time out is over? Listen. Anything regarding potential dispute resolution is just based on conjecture. Up until real life hits, it's tough to say how anything is going to be handled. That's my whole point. Everyone hopes people will play ball, but that's not always the case. Whether you're firmly in the camp of supporting CM Punk or those against him, the truth is it wouldn't be surprising if their relationship dissolved tomorrow or shortly down the road. WWE doesn't need him and Punk doesn't need them. It's peaches and cream until it's not. That's generally how it goes. No one back here is (1) working backstage in WWE and (2) in the mind of Phil Brooks and able to read what he will do next.

Punk wasn’t the only person that needed to be reeled in. No efforts were made to reconcile the two parties. And keep in mind everyone involved works for Tony Khan, no matter if they’re an EVP or not. And speaking of that title - screams professional for three of them to go out there and lampoon Punk and the Brawl Out scenario, but refuse to patch things up and claim it almost made them want to quit the business. What pros!

No. It's possible to be both non-binary and a woman, as it's not an either/or thing. Gender isn't necessarily a hard-coded thing so if they feel that "girl" represents them, but she/her pronouns don't, that's just who they are.

You leave Lexis Nexis out of this.

The multicolor ropes were good and Tony was a coward for backing down.

Very Heyman-esque in working towards a workers strength. You could still tell she was green but for most of it the title run came across very special. I think her working in the PC for a while is really going to do her wonders. Cody is an interesting case. His first year or so in AEW he was arguably the face of the company. To me, the start of the company felt more like Dusty’s Revenge and I knew very little about Tony Khan. Eventually, a few character and story missteps it felt like the only option would be a heel turn (maybe they would have done that eventually if he stayed, despite what was being said). Punk was a wild situation that was very mishandled and maybe unavoidable (of course there is no way to know that). I’m excited he’s back in wrestling. The three of them are going to make a lot of money in WWE with a much more established merchandise machine. Cody and Punk came at perfect timing to give an already great story longer legs when there was an arguably potential to get stale. Next wrestlers move up an hopefully can fill those voids. Julia Hart? The Danielson semi-retirement run? MJF melodrama? Kingston Kawadaing? Idk, maybe something can hit and get the train moving. There’s stuff I don’t care for and there’s stuff that I’m having a blast with. Wrestling is wrestling and hopefully can still be wrestling. It’s not new. That style of posting was present in the previous WrestleMania thread when he was openly misquoting people so he could be overly confrontational. Many times previously of bad faith posts when people disagree with him and claims the other side is being [insert dismissal here]

I mean the alternative is just get rid of him. Some people have a Werner Herzog/Klaus Kinski love mostly hate type working relationship, but otherwise, you just get rid of em or he/she quits. I am not sure it's a situation of knowing how to handle someone.

How so? Before Punk’s bullshit, they got a lot out of him. Jade, they did all they could with her. Cody was allowed to book himself and we got Death of Superman angles and gender reveals. None of that illustrates a lack of ability to get something out of talent on Khan’s part. I’m amused by the sentiment in some circles that Jade is going to become a great worker now that she’s (spending one day a week) at the performance center. I’d love to be proven wrong but I feel like she’s missing something that can’t be improved with more reps.

It’s wild that they signed Jade and then realized that AEW had basically worked miracles with her matches and that she’s almost totally raw.

I try not to read any comments about Final Battle, as I only got until the end of Lee vs Shane Taylor (did watch the entire Zero Hour as well). Outrunners tried their best and even tried to play Freebirds for the Von Erichs, but it wasn't too great. Ross' timing seemed off, despite him looking in fantastic shape. Marshall with his more conservative move set looked better in ring-wise. Still, nice to see Von Erichs in a bigger stage. Taya Valkyrie looked amazing as usual. Her wrestling was ok. Jack Cartwheel lived up to his name and then some! Awesome showing, although Bounty Hunter prevailed. Garcia vs Blake Christian was a great surprise andca really exciting match. Blake does not look like he could be as exciting inside the ring as he is. He surprises me every time out there! Holy shit was Vikingo vs Taurus every bit as awesome as I wanted it to be. Some spots took too long but both men gave it their all! Six man tag title match was good and got better by the end. Bad Dude Tito looked a lot like Adam Bomb/Wrath, and fuck you, I mean that as a compliment! Nicholls could have taken young boys' spot and we could have had new champions, but the kid got splattered after a good showing. Nyla vs Vertvixen was a match. Nyla could even have ended the match earlier and chose not to. Ok, then. Survival of the fittest was crazy by the end. I was shocked Dalton was eliminated so early, but my other pick prevailed. The match was way better than I expected. The I quit match had many cool surprises and told a good story with a couple big bumps. I figured they would take this opportunity to pull off a good match, but this was better than I thought it would be. ...forgot that I also saw the Pure title match. Wheeler being a total shit and Lawlor was on the ropes during the pinfall! Kicks to the nads for everyone after the match. Hook needs to end this guy! Lee vs Taylor was intense and had a few huge moves maybe not a decade in a making match, but definitely worth seeing. That's it so far, but for the price of monthly subscription, this was awesome so far. In fact, Vikingo vs Taurus was worth that price on its own.

Grrr board ate my original post. Let's try again. You should take a look at this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2023/10/10/with-cord-cutting-cable-tv-industry-is-facing-financial-challenges/?sh=36754b24756c Here's the big beats though: - The peak of households for cable was in 2011 with 105.1 million, or 90.7% of all TV households. It's at 75.3 million (60.8%) now. - In August 2022, the audience share for cable was 34.5%, and for streaming it was 35.0%. One year later, for cable it's 30.2% and for streaming it's 38.3%. - At the peak, 19 cable channels averaged a million viewers in prime time. Now, only three do it - ESPN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Viewers' habits are changing as cable costs continue to grow and people decide it's not worth it to maintain. People need to shift accordingly or get left behind.

The problem is that you're being histrionic and it isn't conducive to a healthy, fruitful discussion about some of the better points you bring up. You need to calm down.

I don't know. I doubt they'd want to do a triple threat semi-final for the very first Continental Classic. They need to establish how it's supposed to work for a year or two before they start messing with it. It's like - it's questionable whether having Royal Rumble co-winners was ever a good idea, but it would have been a really bad idea to do that for the inaugural Royal Rumble. I agree with all this being the most likely scenario. My expectation going into the Swerve-Moxley match was that they'd wrestle again in the semis, with whoever lost in the round robin winning then. That hasn't changed. Eddie over Swerve in the grand finals is my pick.

Let me just lead with this was an amazing Collision, outstanding weekend of wrestling between ROH and Collision. So, we are deep enough in the game that I think I can tell the direction the booking is going to go last next week. My predictions for the last results on each side Mark defeats Jay to get on the board. Swerve defeats Rush. Feels like that was always the expectation, and draws him even with Mox. White beats Moxley, thus creating a 3 way tie on top of Gold league. This will lead to a triple threat as each of the 3 are 1-1 against each other. Blue league is more spicy. Danielson beats Claudio, eliminating Claudio from the competition and securing Danielson one of the 2 spots. Garcia gets his 1 win of the tournament, upsetting King. this eliminates King and Garcia can feel like he finds himself. Kingston defeats Andrade in the main event. This pulls him to a tie with Andrade, but since he just beat him head to head, Kingston wins the tiebreaker, thus giving him the second spot in the Blue league finals and a rematch against Danielson. Gold League can go a lot of ways. My gut says Moxley wins, pinning White, avenging his loss and keeping Swerve decently protected. The Blue league is Kingston securing the biggest win of his career beating Danielson and giving him his match with Moxley to keep his belts.

Do you know how weird it is seeing Rippa in a box score?

CM Punk has a history of not doing business. See, you always to be prepared for the other answer or response which is. "No, I am going to do that." So you either acquiesce or say, "Goodbye." That's pretty much it. So if Punk says, "No, I'm right in the case...fuck him", is WWE just going to consider that No a "yes, I will cooperate" and go about their merry business? That would be the same thing people would believe AEW would do. We're making too many predictions and assumptions. If everything was easy, Punk would have never been in AEW in the first place and using that as a fuck you to WWE.

See. If you just work safer, then this wouldn't have happened!

There's no praxis for Lexis Nexis, and I'll thank you to not remind me that "praxis" isn't pronounced the same.

Punk was fired because he was an out of control, paranoid goof. They didn’t “lose” him. Jade has undeniable charisma, but there’s only so long a more “work rate” type company can book around her obvious limitations. She’ll eventually debut in WWE and we’ll see, I guess. I don’t personally consider her a big loss. Not sure who the third one is. Cody? I’m sure many of us are fine without him.

I for one miss the simpler problems, like the ropes being a distracting color.

So true. In dunking on you for being tedious, I’m actually pretending they’ve got packed houses every week. You’re still so good at reading.

The snark and pushback on any attempt to have a discussion about some of AEW's issues are only proving what I said to be true. It's the "this is fine" meme come to life.

Why? I really think Christian benefits a lot from the TNT Title, and Cassidy the International Title. I mean, yeah I can sort of see why some wrestling fans would find more clearly defined structures psychologically more satisfying, but if you could go back 12 months and scrap a title....I'd be curious to see you justify that in practical terms.

We've already seem the advent of "stream cutting" once they all seemingly started both raising prices and removing content.

Usually 3-5 per ROH TV episode.

Re: Zero Hour Valkyrie v Allure was alright. I sometimes wish Taya's furry boots made her more of a classic Bruiser. Von Erichs v Outrunners was not particularly good. The Von Erichs looked rusty or sloppy or both. Still, kinda fun watching the Outrunners bump their asses off. Bryan Keith v Jack Cartwheel was excellent. I like this booking choice. Local boy makes good, and a fun local story. Keith sure does like a high wasted pant. Garcia v Blake Christian was hurt by the babyface v babyface dynamic. This didn't look quite like Blake's A game. Re: Final Battle Vikingo v Taurus was fun. Vikingo's set-ups were lengthier than usual, but didn't take me entirely out. I always love Black Taurus. I sometimes wish I could make some small tweaks to his presentation. Here's hoping he sticks around. The Top Rope Gorilla Slam! Mogul Embassy v TMDK was 'perfectly fine'. I sense the NJPW tour helped Kaun/Toa. I thought Bad Dude Tito looked good there. Tony Nese v Ethan Page had numerous boneheaded booking choices. What was the point of handcuffing Sterling and then having him interfere constantly? Er having Mark Henry lumber out and then just leave? Sorta like the Men of the Year reunion, but not sure about them as babyfaces. Ethan Page is a terrible babyface. He comes off as whiny and fake (see that ridiculous promo on ROHTV this week). Perfect traits for his far superior heel act. Underrated Nese wrestled a solid match. There was a great effort and lots of blood and I wanted to like this, but it fell short for me. I skipped Nyla v Vertvixen, but glad to see Nyla in ROH. I had a tough time with the Survival of the Fittest. All the touchstones of all the scrambles I hate. Die Multi-man matches, die! I like all these guys, but it just didn't come together until Fletcher v Kommander. I really dug those two pairing off to finish things out. Fletcher threw too much at him, but fun nonetheless. Of all the poor choices on this show, none worse than that awful looking red paint Fletcher was sporting. I'm just happy it wasn't a tattoo. For a moment, it reminded me of the night the Nightmare Factory neck tattoo was revealed. And all the disappointment that came with it. I also enjoyed Yuta v Lawlor. Love to see more of Filthy in ROH. He'd be a good hand. I also liked seeing Hook down here. For fuck sake, get him some reps on Honor Club. How bizarre to have this inexperienced performer so in need of reps and he's yet to perform on a single Honorclub show. Loved Yuta's antics post match. Shane Taylor v Keith Lee didn't quite MEAT my expectations, but it had its moments. Some fun spots. I always get the sense that Keith Lee is not in any kind of shape to be pushed up the card. I'd like to be wrong about that. Bryan Keith promo was fun. OC v Keith sounds like a party. BCC v FTR/Briscoe was kinda hit and miss for me. Things got clumsy at points - like putting Cash in a submission with barbed wire, and then not having him saved nor submitted, and then just quietly dropping the hold. But when this was on it was fucking on. 6 of the best. I'm with Dax on phone zombies, but the optics were questionable. Anthony Henry v Kingston felt like a poor addition. I like Henry, but this felt like a waste of time on a 5 fucking hour show. I don't like how the ROH World Title was repped on this show. I don't particularly like where that title is going either. Athena v Billie Starks was, of course, excellent. Definitely hurt by the babyface v babyface dynamic. I'm not sure it needed more time to build to but @MattD is right on this being a poor location for the match. Still, fine effort and excellent result. A strong main event. More than enough high points to recommend the show.

20+ minutes of Bob Luce doing commercial reads? 20+ minutes of Bob Luce doing commercial reads!

I do agree with you, but I will admit that I thought the All-Atlantic belt was dumb and it lead to some good stuff. Maybe Danielson wins and they wiggle it to have the Wrestle Kingdom Okada match be for that belt. Or Eddie wins and Akiyama, Kawada, Kobashi, and Taue come out and they all hug. Of Swerve wins and bleeds in more people’s mouths. It’s all up hill, baby!!!

TWO WOMENS MATCHES !! Awesome episode of Collision. Killer opener from Claudio and Andrade. Skye suddenly turning and joining Julia after going out of the way to not do that just recently was a little strange and I liked the tease of Skye & Abadon joining forces, but I loved the whole setup leading to the return of Thunder Rosa! And Thunder aligning with Abadon. Great segment and set up for a tag match next week. the Texas Street Fight Deathmatch came out of nowhere but was crazy as hell. Willow and Diamante bleeding within minutes, Mercedes spider german on Kris on the chairs looked killer, glass and thumbtacks. Some absolutely wild stuff here. Was not expecting all this but loved it. Comparable to the last couple years similar versions. (I think TayJay vs BunnyPenelope will always be the best) Bryan Keith vs Orange was fun, great weekend for BK. Looks like we're finally getting back around to Keith Lee vs Swerve after all. Epic main event from Bryan and Brody, more blood and violence. Agreed with the above on how the tournament plays out (except I think Moxley/White draw just to say we got one draw), a hell of a tournament it's been.

So thinking about how the last week of matches is likely to go, I came up with what I think is the most absurd idea for Collision: Claudio beats Danielson, Kingston beats Andrade, and Brody beats Garcia. That would put Garcia at 0 points and everybody else tied at 9. Making the whole Blue League essentially just an elaborate way to make Daniel Garcia look bad.

Happy 44th birthday to the late great Mr. Brodie Lee. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can save the devil angle, the devil is Julius Smokes and the henchmen are low-ki, homicide, Dan maff and monsta Mack. It allows TK to keep scratching his ROH itch and will entertain me enormously

Just like with the weird/interesting/violent trio of matches that Casey gave me last week, I wasn't intending to watch all three of these right away. But, like a kid in a candy store (or Gordlow at a Chinese buffet) I just couldn't help myself. Three really fun confections here. Pure pleasure without too much nutrition or fibre. DEFINITELY three matches I would NEVER have chosen for myself. Shibata, Inoue, & Giant Singh vs Wagner Jr, Shocker, & Giant Silva This match is *literally* unwatchable! I don't mean that the wrestling is the drizzling shits (though, presumably, some of it is) but that the video quality *completely* craps out every few seconds during the match. I will add screen shots later to illustrate this. I have to use one browser to type, if I want paragraph breaks, and another to insert pictures or videos or tag people. So, somtimes you get this visual, with sound: And sometimes this, with no sound at all: And it's literally every few seconds once the match gets going, which really makes it hard to even guess what's going on. The introductions and ring entrances, however, are quite watchable and very entertaining in their own right. El Puma Inoue comes out first and... It's Wataru Inoue! I had totally forgotten about him. His legs look great here. Really muscular. I assume he was really enjoying the more liberal sales policies of the pharmacies in Mexico while he was on excursion. Then Shibata comes out and his entrance music is "Looks That Kill" by Motley Crue! I find that really amusing. Later, Dr. Wagner comes out to "Bad Medicine" setting this up as a battle between The Crue and Bon Jovi. In 2002! Giant Singh is aka Great Khali. Not my personal favourite giant wrestler. I believe Black Cat is acting as Hype Man for this team. Which is awesome. Wagner Jr and Shocker are both accompanied to the ring by a pair of smoking hawt women. For whatever reason, Giant Silva is not. Perhaps WWE Universe residents primarily remember Silva as an Oddity? I personally revere Bigfoot for his time as a Pride Freakshow Fight mainstay and a member of the Hustle Roster. I think his team with Mark Coleman is probably the pro wrestling tag team that I'd least like to get into a shoot fight with. Or maybe the Colossal Connection. Shocker looks a bit like, and carries himself like, a Mexican Cody Rhodes. Never noticed that before. I bet it was an interesting match! The video clears up briefly around the 16-minute mark, when the two giants are in the ring. Which seems unfair to the viewer. But we do get to see Bigfoot Silva do a Superfly Splash onto Singh, which is a very impressive visual. I think the Mostly-Mexican team won with Shocker and The Doctor hitting their big moves in the ring while the giants brawled on the outside. That seems like the right way to book this. From the tiny glimpses we get of Shibata, he seems to be wrestling nothing like the Shibata that we all know and love now. Rhino vs Masa Kitamiya What are the rules for Spelling Rhyno with a "y" or with an "i"? I like to imagine him going into a coffee shop and saying "It's Rhyno with a 'y'" and they spell it "Rhinoy" Anyway, the reason I would never pick this for myself is that I have near-zero nostalgia for ECW. I was living in The Czech Republic while that particular revolution was going on. I enjoyed several of the matches I saw when I got into tape trading after returning to Canada, but also found a good deal of it (the general attitude toward women, in particular) pretty off-putting. So ECW has never been 'my thing' in particular. Though, I mean, Sabu and Cactus and Terry Funk all rule. Obviously. I am predisposed to like Rhyno because we have the same birthday. He's exactly ten years younger than me. Also he's short and thick. Like me. And Bodyguard. And Quiet Storm. And Kensuke. And Masa Kitamiya. And Jeff Cobb! I wanna make a comeback, wear a Cobb/Rhino type singlet, form a faction of relatively short and thick guys who call ourselves The Choad Warriors. I am predisposed to like Masa Kitamiya because he's very roughly my size (shorter and more roidy-looking, but close enough) so I can imagine "oh, that's what I might look like in the ring against that guy" while watching him (also feel that way about Kensuke...) Also, I like that he likes Masa Saito. Good and interesting choice, there. This match definitely doesn't overstay its welcome. They run into each other full speed, slug each other hard, both of them get to show off their strength and toughness, each of them sells a little for the other (but not too much), Rhino hits a couple of power moves, blocks the Saito Suplex... Then, boom! Gore! And that's all you need, in my opinion. It's in my beloved furitsu taiikukan so I am a little disappointed the Osaka crowd didn't get more into this one. I think it might have been part of the 2019 N1. Jon Moxley, Jeff Cobb, and Lance Archer were in the G1 that year so as usual, lately, New Japan got more of my attention than NOAH. I could have seen this live. Too bad. I would really have enjoyed that. Roadblock vs Goldberg I was in The Czech Republic during the rise of Goldberg. I went back to Canada for a summer when he and Stone Cold were at their peaks and the Monday Night Wars were in full swing, and I was pleased to see two muscular bald guys with little beards on top of the pro wrestling world! Nice to have a look back at the beginning of the Goldberg experiment. Due to my general lack of ECW nostalgia, I had basically no opinion of Roadblock going into this. Now, I have an opinion: He fills a great and unappreciated and sadly often missing role here. An ENORMOUS, physically ugly dude with a bad body who is nimble enough in the ring to (one presumes) believably squash lower card guys and also bump for the guys you want to put over. (EDIT: I was actually under the impression that Roadblock was the same big guy who was 911 in ECW. Apparently not! Thanks for pointing that out, below, Casey. I am wildly underinformed - and, mostly, disinterested - when it comes to the pro wrestling that was on TV and popular while I was living in Europe). Roadblock is *ideal* in this role here. Goldberg hitting the jackhammer on this dude is legitimately impressive. And I'd still feel bad for the next lower-card guy that Roadblock got in the ring with even though he was convincingly beaten here. I guess Lance Archer plays a similar role in AEW these days (though Archer has a good body). Guys like that are super valuable. Matches like this are so much fun. Thank you, Porksweats! I had a blast watching those. Even the one I couldn't actually see.

She wants to be a star, not a wrestler. That’s what’s missing.

Watching the success of James Cook since Brady took over as OC makes me think Dorsey wasn't just a scapegoat but an active part of the problem. Bills offense has looked totally different since Brady took over. I do wish they could get Diggs more involved but they stopped forcing the ball to him and letting the run game cook, its just clicking so much better.

Might be worth watching the show before posting. I’m not sure there’s been a single episode that has had only one women’s match. Set your aim on WBD not the bookerman.

@Sparkleface just beat me to some of the things I was gonna bring up so I will put it like this: 3 million, even in this landscape, is on the conservative side. We're talking about network TV. That's bare minimum. Thing is, WBD would be expecting the same thing because they don't have anything else. Even their marquee basketball games top off at 2-2.5 million. I don't think that's troubling for AEW as much as it is for WWE ten or fifteen years down the road. If the bubble does indeed burst or the numbers on the rights deal, they're going to start cutting costs like crazy and that's going to include personnel (i.e. talent). I think over the last few years and the reason I haven't really about hasty decisions regarding removing AEW programming is it's clear the folks in charge unlike the olden days with WCW post Ted Turner falling from power is they're willing allow AEW to grow. The thing here is will WBD make the foolhardy decision of saying, "we're running out of patience so let's get WWE" or will they do the big increase and expect AEW to move to the next level. Either way, both promotions are going to a TON of expectations over the life of their next deal. I think folks are kinda losing sight of that in favor of "LOL AEW WWE IS HERE NOW" like WWE is getting a bunch of money to do nothing. WWE losing out on Fox means it's going to be tougher for ANYONE to get back on Fox or networks, period. Even though they do have a strong relationship with NBC Universal, if WWE does have some NBC specials, they have to be successful.

What are you talking about? I like much of AEW for what it is (I do think they can be better creatively in some areas) and have especially liked all of their PPVs, and that's why I have some concerns over it. I want it to be as successful as it can possibly be. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't care as much about it. These are legitimate concerns. I'm not sure why it's a "bad thing" to discuss them. Also, it's nonsense that I am always in here throwing cold water on everything. That's not true at all. I go months without posting at all. You must have me confused with someone else. Check my post history and you'll see that I don't post on here for weeks at a time over the past year or so.

I'll draw the next round later on today. It's been a crazy week (after the end of a crazy few) but Paul gave me Rhino vs Christian in the goofy goofy TNA cage and Bret vs Kid which is, if you had made me guess, exactly what I thought Paul might give me. And I'm cool with it. I watched both. I have seen Bret vs Kid many times and will write it up more fully at some point. I think it was on a comp tape some guy on Prodigy gave me back in 98 or so which is when I first encountered it. This time around, the trappings of mid 90s WWF were what stood out the most: the entrance, Savage on commentary saying he still had it, Owen coming out beforehand, etc. The other thing I'd mention is Bret's facial expression of begrudging admiration after the first Kid move. It's not something he was so blatant about often. That sort of over the top emoting is much more of a Shawn thing, but I liked it in the moment. A little more detail for the Christian match. This was from 05, on the night Angle had his first match and it's just an insane stip match. Six sided cage. With barbed wire on top. With a bunch of matches setting it up where people could "Win" things like a straightjacket or the key (rhino) or chairs or bolt cutters (Christian). The build here was all about Christian concussing Rhino over and over again which would never be an angle now. In some ways it was kind of gripping. You couldn't escape the cage without dealing with the wire, right? But on the other hand, all of the added gimmicks just kind of put it over the top in that unique TNA way. I kind of didn't mind it. I like the idea of a bunch of logical matches leading to the match, and they somehow made it work in the story. Rhino got the key but then threw it away to trap Christian with him. He got the straightjacket but then Christian got to use it to really take over. Christian had the chair and made a mistake going back to use it when he could have won the match. And that should have been his hubris that led to Rhino's win but it's TNA so it just led to the comeback and Christian winning after he got gored through the cage. Just a bit too much overbooking. IT has to be that balance of being so much that it gets over the absurdity of a little TNA booking and works but not so much that it comes back around again. It did here. So credit to them for it almost working and credit for Christian for some of the individual spots. We miss the transition and also Christian getting fully bloodied so that's a shame (Commercial breaks without PiP, what a world). In general, in a gimmick match like this, it was hard to figure out just how good Christian was or not in 05. I don't think he fully gets it becomes the savant until a few years later. He's there by 09 but I just haven't watched this stuff so I don't know. I'd be curious to figure it out at some point. Thanks Paul. I draw later on today.

I'm still not sure how you fire a coach that's coached 15+ seasons and never had a losing one. They've basically been beaten by math most seasons they didn't get to the playoffs. I don't like The Steelers much, but I do like Mike Tomlin a lot. He's not some scheming genius. But he's just a really solid and accountable dude that always gets winning seasons out of pretty bad rosters. And this roster is one of the worst. They've always been carried by defensive units but you have to have competent offensive play to compliment it and they just don't. And haven't for a few years. That feels like a GM issue more than coaching.

Except for the C2 being universally enjoyed, being #1 in cable on Weds, a great looking ROH PPV tonight, and awesome sales #s for Revolution and All In. Plus Ospreay won’t even debut for a few weeks.

TK called in the code red after that segment on Wednesday.