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Re: AEW Rampage OC/Von Erichs v Hager/Menard/Parker was a nice little spectacle. Hager is a great, great hand. The Von Erichs looked far better here than with the Outrunners. I’d love to see ‘Pants’ Von Erich find more of family presentation. Kevin Von Erich is an inspiration. So heartwarming seeing him apply that Claw atop Hager’s head. Mark Briscoe/Jay Lethal Promo was fucking awesome. Really fun stuff. I sense more and more ppl are seeing that Mark Briscoe could be a top guy in this company. Fletcher/Hobbs squash *fart sound. Don Callis promo was his regular industry standard. Ruby promo was alright. I sense there’s some good comedy to be had with Saraya. A reason for some 'good' writers. This isn’t 2019 anymore. I skimmed Red Velvet v Anna Jay. Both ladies should be working ROH regularly/weekly. Anna Jay is gonna be a huge star one day. I really like Daddy Magic in Anna's corner. There’s some Heenan in Menard, and it's time to let it shine. Velvet will never amount to anything until she submits to her inner heel. Both would benefit from regular reps on ROH! Martins/Andretti v Penta/Kommander/Vikingo was sensational! M-Pro 97 vibes. Absolutely loved this. Really hoping Andretti/Martins take the Trios titles and restore some excitement to the Division. One of the better all time Rampages. Re: Collision Fun Opening Montage. Both Brody and Andrade are hanging at the hotel. Andrade's mean mug antics are hilarious (hold that shot). Andrade v Claudio was beautiful, fucking beautiful! Minus the overbooking on the finish. No need for Claudio to low blow him. I didn’t not like it tho. Sharpshooter into the Figure Four was the highlight for me. I skimmed passed Abadon v Allure and saw the poorly timed and silly SKYE BLACK turn. I do like Skye and Julia as a team. This reminded me of Julia’s silly overlong turn on Pillman/Griff. I liked seeing Rosa here. Not a huge fan of her last run, but let’s see what she has upon return. Acclaimed promo was fine. Dad Ass is sometimes a very shitty promo. Bowens' catchphrase feels Heel at this point. Let’s pass along those titles to the Young Stallions. OC v Bryan Keith was excellent. Keith did very well with his minutes this weekend. Loved that Headbutt he threw OC in the corner. Miro promo. Do I sense a pivot from the tone deaf shit from last week? FTR/HOB promo was good. I wonder if Dax didn’t get some sort of comeuppance in that ROH Trios bout? Maybe not. I just wonder. Cash was good here. He should lead more. So too Buddy on the other side. Coherence from the HOB is a step-up. I’m totally game for an FTR v HOB feud. I hope we can get this started soon. Keith Lee Video was good. Wow, Swerve v Keith Lee is finally happening!? Statlander/Willow v Mercedes/Diamante was a lot of fun. I very much dug the Jules Winnfield/Vincent Vegas homage. They should form a true team and just run with that presentation. I don’t feel the need for weapons like this regularly, but they should let the ladies do more brawls. Toni/Mariah May/Renee promo was good. What a goddamn sight for sore eyes. Mariah May has great character. I sense she’s about to become AEW’s biggest star. Brian Cage squash was excellent. Far better facepaint presentation here. Say what you will about Cage, but he knows how to do a squash! Will Hobbs amongst others could learn a thing or two about how to truly be ‘In Action’. I really liked the fun Cage/Nana/Embassy promo that followed. I'm ticked by the idea of these four living in Swerve's house, and bragging about living in Swerve's house! Kingston v Daniel Garcia was a wonderful pro wrestling match. I felt Big Brother vibes between these two and it was endearing thru the ass beating. I’m all for any reason to get Menard on commentary. Garcia v Menard smells like a plan. Danielson v Brody King was wonderful violent Art. This Danielson's Orbital Bone injury is too ‘real to me dammit’. This tournament continues to provide nothing but great television segments, while dominating the shows, and, I continue to feel nothing but ‘AEWRTMFW’ vibes.

This took a SHARP left turn at the basketball talk, and I don't think we can ever return from it. Sorry, Niners. I think you broke my brain and even A_K and dude who confused someone here with someone who stole money from his "friend" couldn't do that w/ the same type of hot garbage. You won. Your jiu jitsu is too strong. I tap out. I don't know the meaning of the word quit but I do know the meaning of uncle. WHO WILL GAIN THE PARENTAL RIGHTS FOR CROATIAN SENSATION TONI KUKOC?

CM Punk is Michael Jordan. Many people are saying it. So true. So true.

Time to find a new Kang!

I think the argument about tickets underperforming is a bit of a leap, personally. The current setup for this week’s Dynamite is a little over 4,400 and they’ve sold 3,616 so far. It looks like mainly the upper decks are left. Walk-ups are definitely a thing, especially for PPVs. World’s End is in two weeks, and they’re at around 7k for that I think. As with the 12/20 Dynamite, really only the upper decks are left. Revolution is doing gangbusters. Yeah, it’s off the back of Sting’s retirement, but it’s also in an area that hasn’t seen a PPV since 2001 (!!) I believe. The demand is there, Sting just adds more to it. I don’t think anyone is denying that WWE is hotter right now. A year or two ago, the reverse was true. Who knows who’ll be hot in 3 months, or 6, or a year from now. Maybe neither will be. Maybe both. It’s going to fluctuate, that’s just the nature of having two big national companies at once. As for the Saturday ratings.. say what you want, but 400k on average in prime time on a weekend on cable for wrestling is pretty good. For all the rumors about RAW going to TBS/TNT, nobody in the sheets has once said that Warner is unhappy with Collision’s ratings as far as I’m aware. And they asked for this, too.

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.

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!

In like 82 or 83, Poffo’s promotion held a show at my tiny hometown’s high school gym. Main event was Savage vs Leaping Lanny. This event became lore in my town once wrestling blew up. “You know, Macho Man wrestled here!” A friend of mine’s older brother was there. He said, during the main event, he wadded up a paper cup and threw it into the ring and yelled, “Use the cup, Macho Man!” Savage picked it up, grabbed Lanny in a headlock and grinded the cup in his face. “Use the cup, Macho Man!” became a battle cry for us.

That's it, I can't work like this. Someone get me DVDVR Collision.

This is the real root of plastic bag bans, isn't it? To force people to work together! You can't suffocate someone with a paper bag!

She had like two and a half years in a locker room with experts in work, promos, psychology, etc. Either she never asked for help or she did but couldn't put it together. Both are a problem. But after two and a half years, if your matches are still glorified squashes and your promos are just variations on your catchphrase, something's not going right. You may have something there about wanting to be a star and not necessarily a wrestler. When you come from a non-wrestling background, making money and getting famous can definitely feel more important then, you know, being good at this. I despise the gross, cynical view that they should have all "put their differences aside to make money." It's so fucking carny. The Bucks are human beings and if they decide they don't want to work with a guy who tried to assault them, that's their right. Stop romanticizing the way things used to be done.

You can if you ball it up and stuff it in their mouth.

Dude, I came into this thread to retort and make fun of Rudy Gobert being softer than baby shit. However, you got me thinking about watching "Nature Boy" Buddy Landell loosely (AND I MEAN LOOSELY) choking Dirty White Boy with a cheap, flimsy plastic bag in Smoky Mountain Wrestling over the weekend in my 1994 rewatch. Why haven't we heard more about folks in supermarkets trying to suffocate each other with plastic bags? WHY DON'T THESE FOLKS WANT TO WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE MONEY?!

I really want to believe that you ended up having beef because you were like "We don't use plastic bags in lane 7. You keep that shit on lane 2." Then a month later, during the regional manager's visit, they used em anyway, yelling about "REAL PLASTIC!" the whole time.

It's so nice that we'll be killing this thread soon

Meanwhile, fans in 2023 are still acting like Khan sinned against Fritz Von Erich, patron saint of carny scumbags, for not turning a real-life assault and battery situation into an angle. Guys, when you're on the side of Bubba Ray and Vince Russo (THINK OF THE HEAT BRO!), please rethink your shit.

You can't fuck around with diabetes having seen what it did to my much missed Mum first hand including amputations. I got checked for it this year and I'm good whereas my Dad tested this year and is borderline. Please take the disease seriously, DVDVR MB family.

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.

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]

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.

Pretty sure they’re talking about Pillman.

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

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

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.

Slow Horses is back with its third season. On Apple Plus. One of the most enjoyable spy shows (and just shows) of the past few years.

I had us off of it!!!!! C'maahhhn Jaaaaaaahhhnnnnn

And oh, regarding Memphis: Read all the 1988-1992 Observers regarding the Dallas/Memphis offices (damn there goes that word again) for USWA and how each end of the promotion ran off the very few fans they had trying to do "shoot" angles based off real things. You want to talk about sad? There is a reason Killer Tim Brooks was outselling them doing shows in a bar while what was left of World Class was struggling to sell 150 tickets at the Sportatorium with the surviving Von Erich brothers on top.

YEAH WELL SCOTT SKILES SQUARED UP TO SHAQ ONCE

Yeah, discovery is a loooooooong process for anti-trust matters, which is why cases like the MLW one often get settled rather than litigated (because keeping those lawyers on retainer is often way more expensive than whatever potential damages would get paid out anyway). And discovery makes most people squeamish. It should. It's uncomfortable. Heck, my track record re: background is glistening and I've gone pale(r than usual) about vetting processes for some of my gigs.

The word seemingly is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. You have gone from dismissing views of AEW belt hierarchy as subjective, to essentially basing objectivity over some moment you can't really reference where 'they' seemingly made it clear that the US Title was below the IC Title in importance, and by implication you are arguing that most viewers permanently internalised this magical moment.....somehow even the kids who would have been too young to have even watched that. This is a ludicrous argument. The truth is that there is no strict hierarchy, you have a subjective opinion about it. That's it. And now we're talking about internet fans from the early 2000s as somehow representative of the casual fan. Wow. Yes I was there. This is Hyatte. I member.

Thanks for sticking with it, dude. I had to laugh that Discord itself would crap out as the show was about to start but was happy to see those who checked it out. Since then I feel it's only right to stream the ROH shows every Thursday from now on. I love ROH and I feel if more saw what they're doing the more they'd find to love about it as well. So why not let's fucking do it. The preshow rocked and I only saw the Jay tribute match and the main. Both were fucking awesome and the main ended like I hoped it would. And Mark crying post-match got me misty at the end but man what a tribute that was. I'll catch the other stuff at some point but I'm very happy with what I saw so far. Instead of posting again I'll just add something here. I am indeed going through with the streaming on Thursdays so as a one-time reminder if you want to check it out (please do, it's great!) then here you go. https://discord.gg/qz3KYM4kDr

Hell, where they're at right now they could pretty easily drop Kang entirely and move on to a new villain.

Which one failed? Was Bob Holly put into that abomination as a punishment?

There's a long standing history of some of the most money making stars in the business not being good in the ring at all. We're a generation or two past that now. But to say it can't be done again I think is a little naive. You either have the It Factor or you don't. Ultimate Warrior had it. Goldberg had it. Jade has it. You don't HAVE TO BE the most technically sound worker to get over and make yourself & the company a bunch of money. Everyone agrees Jade has that aura. And AEW knew it too. They debuted her in a celebrity match with Shaq. They gave her a win streak. But they just never pulled the trigger on her having a run on top of the division. WWE is going to make a ton of money for her and off of her. But no one knows if she's gonna be Goldberg or if she's gonna be Ryback. Gotta give her that sink or swim moment. And AEW just never did. Hey maybe with hindsight we'll all be able to say AEW were right. But I think the easy money is on WWE being able to get that top of the division run out of her when the time is right.

Let's peek in on the Washington basketball organization:

I used to work for a large retail store and we had our store brand for almost every snack food. If you were to look closely at the label you'd see that the store brand and the name brand both were exactly the same other than the name and the price. They just negotiated a deal with Planters to throw some of their nuts into a jar with a different label. Jacoby Brisset is as good as Deshaun Watson except the Browns are paying the name brand price.

I would like to state my enjoyment of this weekend's football contest.

08-10 is actually a lot of fun. Matt Hardy and Christian have great “Ace” runs.

Your level of intelligence is exceedingly low when it comes to making a hyperbolic statement and then trying to dig your way out of it. Others succinctly pointed out how ridiculous it is to say, "This company looks like a sinking ship right now. Nothing going right." Nothing about the company looks like a sinking ship. Kenny has been a non-factor in singles competition since returning from injury. He's good for an outstanding singles match here and there, but the dude has to rely on tags and trios to stay healthy. Others already pointed out the nonsense regarding the "3 biggest stars leaving" thing. And you keep bringing up ticket sales for the shows when that hasn't really been an issue. The company did so much business with All In both in buyrates and attendance that All Out could have had 0 buys and the company would have still been ahead. There is absolutely no debating any points with you because much like everything else, *COUGHSASHACOUGH* your heels are so firmly dug into the ground that it's just an endless, circular argument. If I wanted to have a conversation or "debate" with someone, I'd do it with someone with the capability to not consistently move goalposts, only address one single issue out of many that get brought up, and actually display the ability to understand another point of view. And while it's unfair for someone to incorrectly point out that all you do is throw cold water on the product because you do, in fact, not comment all that often anymore, when you do, it is typically some dumb bullshit that Vile One would have already regurgitated and it's the same stupid shit you'd see on r/scjerk or hear on a Cornette podcast. When and if you show some modicum of understanding or self-awareness then it would be worth debating anything with you. To date though, it's always the same shit with you. Come in with hyperbole, try to backpeddle or move goalposts, wind up in an endless argument. Had you come in here to say something like, I don't know, damn, that sucks, hope he gets better and I suppose that may be one reason why he wasn't in the C2 or doing much as of late or looked off his fucking rocker on Dynamite, but at least there's other hands on deck to carry the load, then yeah, it's easier to have a discussion. When you come in like Skip Bayless like it's any day of the week ending in "day" then yeah, you're going to get some heat and it shouldn't surprise you.

1. We're talking about degrees of fixable and irreparable. For example, you have issues regarding partners and infidelity. Some times they ultimately get corrected and in the case of Joanie Laurer, you're basically persona non grata until you pass away. Listen to Jim Ross anytime he talks about Chyna being on the way out of WWF. Wanting a ton of money was one thing, but the cheating thing she couldn't get over. Thus, the two sides had to part ways. We've already talk about Warrior and how WWE being desperate was the reason why he could get multiple chances. That's not something people got wrong. He was constantly on the outs with WWF until they needed someone they felt could draw. Then, once he fell back out of favor or asked them to buy a million copies of his comic book it was over. Each situation is kinda unique in that way. You never say never, but it goes both ways. Had Joanie lived or gotten her act clean, she probably would have done some WWE related appearances and mended fences. However, there was a good chance she lived and never did anything else with WWE. Well, it's a thing of "this could be fractured beyond repair to begin with". And you cannot honestly say what WWE will or will not do, especially knowing that very few people would have put money on WWE signing Punk back to begin with. Moreover, you're not signing CM Punk without ceding some level of creative control or input. Hell, you don't know if trying to smooth over things with Punk and whoever is PO'd at him will make it worse. That's the unknown unknown.

Christian has only had the TNT title like two months now. Don't get confused and lump Luchasaurus' reign as his lol. So to answer this I don't see either reign as anything that couldn't have existed without the titles they have. Christian could have the exact same Patricarchy story without any title involved. OC could have worked a bunch of TV matches without a title and done the same worn down story with the big Mox challenge. To emphasize the point a bit, what would have changed if the titles were swapped? Could Christian's story been the same with the International Title? Yes. Could OC's story have been the same with the TNT Title? Yes. It's all interchangeable and undefined. If you have titles you have to give them purpose for them to have a meaning to a story. Without purpose they all blend together and don't mean very much. It's not just more psychologically satisfying, it's necessary to tell coherent stories. If I had to go back 12 months and scrap one, I'd scrap The International Title. You run OC's same story with The TNT Title and your run Christian's same story with either The FTW Title or ROH TV Title. Or vice verse. Because they're all interchangeable and meaningless. Doing that doesn't change one single story beat in either story. Because the titles themselves aren't essential to the story. Any title fills the role equally. Which is kind of the problem I'm trying to point out. JCP had three separate style stories going because the three titles were different. AEW run the same style stories with every belt. Out of all the secondary titles in the whole entire company, The ROH Pure Title is the only one with a definable identity. And that helps greatly in telling the story of WHY the guys go after that title go after it. It's the technical wrestling purist's title to show they are the best at technical wrestling. That's what titles need. A thematic purpose to exist beyond 'oh look a new belt'.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!!!

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

fuck it, have the Don Callis family beat down Jericho and steal the title shot. we need more Hobbs anyway.