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Not for nothing nor to deny seriousness of these or the allegations against Gulak, the idea of Shawn Michaels chewing someone out for not being professional tickles me greatly. "Back in my day you didn't take advantage of your opponent in the ring, you might stomp on him and curse him out or maybe make an overt reference on live TV to them cheating on their wife, or you just showed up to work high and/or drunk..."

Here's my write up of the show: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/05/dean.html

Outside of the obviously vile humans in the business, Seth Rollins is my least favorite wrestler to ever exist. Pictures like this just solidify that opinion.

And of course HHH snidely quipping to the person asking about Gulak, who mentioned Sapp and another site as sources, “you need to find better sources” or something like that. Like the post Vince comments, it seems like every damn time this goof speaks on something official, he just steps on his dick, either by being tone deaf or by being a petty bitch. At what point does TKO realize he’s just a meathead in a suit?

Posted before reading anything. Legit lost in thought with other things. But for some reason I felt SUMMONED!!!!!! BRING ME JOY, TONY! QUAKE OR NOTHING 2024!

When someone comes forward about a matter of sexual assault - and let's not get it twisted, what Gulak tried to do was sexual assault - I'm not especially interested in whether the victim was a good person or not. I'm more interested in making sure that the next person doesn't have it happen to them.

I think the correct answer here is Sidball.

Been thinking about DEAN on his one year anniversary today. Scary it's a year. I don't have the way with words. Just wanted to say I love and miss you, fella from Paul xxx.

This other stuff is being put out there to distract from the other story involving Drew that's the real reason he got sent packing. Also want to say the smarmy pricks doing the "he wasn't released, his contract expired and that's not the same thing" thing thinking they are so smart and clever are room temperature IQ clowns.

Re: the WrestlePurists tweet This seems very much like left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. That or someone is embellishing a little bit since he is already on his way out. Cause the waistband thing is already enough to get you out of the paint. The other allegations are extremely serious as well. So was he not punished each incident? He was just allowed to get back in there as if nothing happened? A reprimand is one thing. Each someone is doing it repeatedly, then there has to be a system in place. People are bringing up Sexy Star and Yoshiko, but AFAIK, those two only did it once with the latter being extremely egregious. If WWE is so on the ball and has all their ducks in a row, then why was this allowed to just happen? That is on top of the Rousey story, which is its own fireable offense. So with that in mind, how do we end up with, "well, his contract wasn't renewed." Let me get this right. A person under your employ was doing all that (allegedly), BUT you were waiting for his contract to run out? What in the entire fuck?

Wow. Drew found the one thing that will truly get him cancelled by other wrestlers: being purposefully unsafe in the ring. As if he already didn't deserve a job before, this is the nail in the coffin. (...watch him show up in AAA anyway)

Oh, would YOU like to tell Haku that his son doesn't get to be in WWE, just because he "sucks"?

https://twitter.com/WrestlePurists/status/1786945738133413968 Drew Gulak is a piece of shit.

If Jacob wasn’t presumably signed already and just waiting to debut, you’d think someone pulled a Johnny Ace and hired the wrong second generation Polynesian wrestler.

A year today we lost DEAN on this date. Love and miss you, mate. Paul xxx.

It worked for Lex.

If one especially shitty human says another person is shitty, I'm not quick to believe shitty person no.1, but if other folks can attest to person no.2 indeed being a piece of shit, well, that's enough for me.

Big Ten footprint. Run Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St Louis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh & Philly regularly.

Like I was saying... Drew Gulak is a creep. Can't wait to see the justification from people about why this sort of stuff happened and should get a pass because they like his wrestling.

would be big with certain Quakers on the board

Saw this earlier. Going off of this I assume Ronda's comments were more of a last straw, and they just chose to let his contract expire since it was nearly up.

Double or Nothing should be moved to Minneapolis then. AEW loves them some Chicagoland shows, they should try to build some brand loyalty in the other NFC North cities.

Belt up Chase once, shame on you..

Death, taxes, Leafs.

What did denim shirt guy ever do to Jose?

His US title win over Raven is good, and his matches against Roadblock, Reese, and The Giant where cool for a feats of strength perspective

I wouldn't be too surprised if they decide to go with SummerSlam in Minneapolis over WrestleMania, just based on their booking trends of using the summer events to take a chance on stadium shows outside of top-20 population (Nashville in 2022, Detroit in 2023, Cleveland in 2024). Minneapolis would fit that criteria.

Unseen Home Video: WWF Wrestling at a Wisconsin Fieldhouse (October 28, 1990) (youtube.com) A YouTuber finds a VHS tape containing a little over an hour of fan-cam footage from a 1990 WWF house show in Marshfield, Wisconsin.

i'd think that being owned by the same group that owns UFC might have been a big factor in putting Wrestlemania in the same city that has run a bunch of UFC cards

When was an undergrad, you had the option of "speaking" French, "reading/writing" French or normal French. I took reading/writing, which, given all the Fench New Wave I would see, may have been the wrong option. Good for reading Caheirs du Cinema, bad for actually watching the movies.

With wrestling, you can hire 100 people from anywhere and 99 of them probably aren't going to work out for whatever reason. With WWE's system, they hire 100 college athletes, cut 99 of them, and the one they have left over is Bianca Belair. That's going to be their case for their system working, and it's hard to argue that it doesn't.

HHH whiffing on Okada and Ospreay and instead bringing in all the worst Bullet Club guys is a great fucking bit. Let’s keep it going with Chase Owens next.

It's been a year today. Not a day goes by where I don't miss the big guy and his presence. I don't watch a new match without wondering what his one line thought on it in a massive stream of consciousness paragraph would have been (though, I can imagine it at least because you learned to anticipate the patterns, which is its own sort of blessing). I should have my review of the Action show going up tonight on SC. I talked to my parents this morning. Took the 6 year old to swim lesson. Am reaching out to you guys now. Nothing is assured in this life. Go say hi to your loved ones today.

My parents, in their wisdom, sent their Dyslexic ADD riddled son to a bilingual school in NYC in the 70s. I'm convinced every teacher there were ex-Vichy regime members. My moment of triumph came in grade 2. Still in remedial French, the assignment was to construct and recite a sentence in French, in class for the end of the week. I, being the smart Aleck 7 year old recited "Je déteste Mon professeur de Français" I was sent to the principals office and sat awaiting my father, who had been called in from his job in the financial district because my mom was visiting relatives in Florida. Dad arrives. Shoots me an unamused look and asks what I did. The Principal and teacher explain and say my behavior is unacceptable. My Dad sits there for a moment and then looked Madame Whatahername (oh all teachers were referred to as Madame or Monsieur) in the eye and asks "Did he complete the assignment?" The teacher and principal were confused and insisted that wasn't the point. So again my father asked "but did he complete the assignment?". The teacher grumpily said yes so, my father followed up with the question of "So why am I here?" The Pass/Fail exercise was changed to Pass, despite my teacher's angry protest. To cap it off, my Dad turned to the principal and stated "For the record? I hate his French teacher too. Next time, consider if it's worth your time and mine to make me leave work before calling me". I miss my Dad. Now back to movie discussion! James

Not to bring this back, but I love the indirect Ospreay shot coming from the entity that went all in on Gable Steveson. But yeah, Paul Levesque is Paul Levesque and this isn't what he's initially trained in. Could someone become better suited at this especially over time? Sure, but one of people's first defense mechanisms is "well, he's just working the marks" like it's 1997 and everyone is still insulated in the wrestling bubble. As said as much weeks ago when this was a hot button issue, the sooner he comes out of that, the better he will be at his job. If he doesn't, that is what we have to look forward to. Overall, maybe it's a Dana White (another person who wasn't someone who came from a corporate environment) thing where he's only there to act as a middle man and to make folks feel like that the corporate overlords haven't fully taken over the field. The only difference is Dana has been with the UFC long enough where his vision has been fully realized twice over, and Mick Maynard and Sean Shelby can do their jobs without him. Do people at TKO feel like Paul is just so integral that he cannot be replaced with someone just as knowledgeable and with similar expertise?

The crowd was feisty but in a lot of ways detracted from the matches. If you watched Ospreay vs Danielson, you saw the crowd lose it based on what they were seeing in real time and really elevate and already great match. Here you had the crowd breaking out into song over the word phenomenal regardless of what was happening before their eyes. The only time in the main they lose it for what they were seeing was after the burning hammer kicked out. It didn't elevate anything. It was loud and fun and all that. But I wish it was harnessed into the story they were watching.

I STILL haven't finished watching the whole show, and even put it right next to the computer to visually shame myself last night, but no dice. I did watch an NJPW 10-man and a Mayumi Ozaki match from 2024 however. He would approve. I have tomorrow off work so there are no more excuses.

And I was like, "yeah, but why Wolverine, tho?" for a minute, before I went "Oh yeah, LOGAN Paul!" So don't worry!

I just think it's silly to think people are gonna want to conserve their money in Vegas of all places

Orton/KO vs. Solo/Tama was good. Loved how it started with the big brawl and chaos pre-match before Aldis turned it into a street fight. Despite being the worst of the Tongans I did like how they screwed with expectations again and had Tanga Loa pop up here instead of Jacob Fatu. Makes me curious just what the coming Bloodline Civil War in the Fall will look like. Bayley vs. Naomi vs. Tiffany was good with nice action and everyone getting moments to shine. Finish could have been a bit stronger though it wasn't bad. Priest/Jey was surprisingly better than expected with crowd hanging on to everything going on and even buying into the nearfall from Priest's first chokeslam. They were ecstatic when Jey kicked out. Thought the Judgement Day interference was used well enough without getting in the way. Kabuki Warriors vs. Bianca/Jade was a little frustrating as it was gearing up to the best women's tag titles match in forever with the pacing, action, and build. Unfortunately someone screwed up and got lost late in during Jade's longer segment. The sad thing is I'm pretty sure it was on Kairi and Asuka based on how the ref acted. Things came back together well enough a minute or two later, but it brought this one down from a decent high. Cody/AJ delivered the big main event match you would expect with a fantastic crowd adding a lot to an already good match. Only wish it went just a few minutes shorter as you started to feel the length towards the end. The matches were solid-good even with the frustrating aspects of the tag titles match. The hot crowd added a ton and make me hope they hit up France again next year. Good show overall.

"GUERILLA WARFARE HAS ARRIVED" "DESTINY HAS BROUGHT HIM HERE" That was... ridiculously cute. Totally hyped for what I'm hoping is the inevitable Usos vs. GoD match. That street fight was loads of fun too. The crowd singing Orton's theme, can't believe they kept that energy all night too. Stratton vs. Bayley vs. Naomi was great too. I've hated the Alabama Slam for reasons that are petty and old but I really dig Tiffy's cartwheel into it. Cody/AJ totally delivered too, all around great great great show

I love everything about how terrible that trade is turning out for the Browns.

Oh god...

WOOOF.....

With all of the defective tables at N2R97, hopefully the people of Monaca eventually got better tables

Nor do I - but in a strange way, I'm really eager to see Jericho in with a guy at Shibata's level after the Hook match just to get a better sense of what specifically went wrong there (meaning - was it on Hook's greenery, was it on Jericho needing to listen to his body and slow the pace a bit, was it simply an off-night, is it a layout or agenting thing similarly to my theory on the Cole match from last summer, etc). Edit for clarity: since everyone knows I'm a long time Jericho guy despite his recent overexposure, I thought I should emphasize here that I'm not like, warming up and winding up my pitch to shit on Hook or anything - I'm equally prepared for the outcome here to be that '22 was Jericho's last great year as a full timer.

I covered Danielson vs BP here: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/04/aewcmll-five-fingers-of-death-41-47.html

Reached 90 days the day before last. Not bad I guess. Unfortunately I went to my group session today and go figure, one of the newbies in the class is an old friend and bandmate who skipped town after raping his girlfriend*. He's back (walked up a couple weeks ago at the place with this absurd handle-bar mustache like it was a fucking disguise) because his dad has cancer, and I guess he's trying to clean up his act. We already did the reintroduction thing so I'm just gonna keep my distance and hope he gets the message. At the very least he lost the mustache... We also just started on the faith portion of this precious little journey and I don't know how long it lasts. Let's just hope they don't ask for any more inspirational songs for musical therapy or I'm gonna tell her to play Nunslaughter. * This would be Friend #3, if anyone's counting