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Socially distant meetings sound fine to me as long I have a sec to pay my complements to the person. Heck, we went to a live show featuring two Youtubers recently and from what I heard their VIP thing had people legit 9 feet away. Nobody had an issue as they were just happy to be in the same room. And while I won't go on about creeps there's tons of places where you can pay $130 and expect contact with a woman. Wrestling shows aren't it. And I've been very fortunate to have met a ton of wrestlers be it at wrestling shows or fan conventions. They might not remember the interaction much later on because we're all human but there is something satisfying in having the chance to say thank you. For example the last convention I went to had a ton of people to meet and about half were AEW wrestlers. That and the Hardys and Sting had huge lines for them. So with all that going on Jake Roberts was there and his line was small if not nonexistent. So we go up there and before I can say anything my wife was tearfully telling him how much she fondly remembered watching him on TV with her dad. As she's going on I see Jake starting to get a bit misty as well and he was just an absolute sweetheart. Then my friend talked to him about she had to fight her way through cancer but overcame it which he was really happy to hear. I gave my appreciation as well but there was something really wonderful about seeing them have that moment with Jake The photo op didn't cost that much but the memories are priceless.

This is total speculation, and I know no more than anyone else here, but my personal theory has always been that they had originally planned to do Flair/Andrade vs Sting/Darby and the DSOTR episode fallout on Ric derailed the whole thing. As for the rest of your post, it's accurate but doesn't tell the whole story. Ratings are down across the board for every single cable network except Fox News (I'll save my jokes) because everyone's starting to leave the house again Edit: You know what I think the coolest thing to do with Andrade is? When Pac's AA title run is over, he should be the next champ and take it to Mexico. I have been loving these defenses on Dark.

I watched this match on my phone this morning while stuck at the train crossing on Branders Bridge Road on my way to work. I think the guy in the car behind me laughed when I threw my hands up in the air and shouted "Oh, fuck! She's dead!"

MJF slander?!

I mean, I definitely consider "only shows up once or twice a year" a big part of the appeal to the old Jack "On The Take" Tunney approach to on-air authority figures even 90's WCW brought Bockwinkel and Dillon out a bit too regularly

It would be pretty dope if they started negotiating trades. It seems like the type of thing TK would be into with his sports background.

YES PLEASE

Jamie Hayter really should get that belt soon. I think she might be AEW's Sasha Banks in the sense that she was initially a supporting character that got organically over and progressively steals more and more spotlight each time she's out there. She's winning the fans over and hopefully TK realizes this is his real star in the women's division. When it comes to Rosa, I love her presentation, the wardrobe, and the effort and enthusiasm she brings, but yeah... She's kinda floundering right now. Luckily, AEW believes in cycling people out, so I think a break would do her good. Let her come back to a good spot and rebuild that momentum she had when she won the belt.

Don’t know about Rhea’s chances, but that’s Carol Burnett’s Emmy for guest actress next year locked up.

Apparently it's Rukus doing a spot-on Jane's take: It's really accurate. I wonder who is singing? Maybe the guy from The Ghadarvas? Jane's Addiction was my favourite band for several years. Probably seen them live third-most out of all bands that are not my friend's bands (Pearl Jam and DOA are prob 1 and 2 on that list). The lyrics are legitimately funny. You can read them in the comments section of the video. Probably the only time I will ever recommend reading a YouTube comments section. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out if that was a Jane's or Porno for Pyros or Satellite Party or Ghadarvas song I hadn't heard before. "Cash In" is a pretty good Jane's reference, too.

This out of focus kid is an amazing fan:

When you saw Tunney on the tv, you knew whatever was being addressed was a big deal. I'm fine with AEW's approach of wrestler X challenges wrestler Y and the announcers let it know it was made official during the break. I don't need more info than that.

TK said on an interview recently that Black's got like 5 years left on his AEW deal. FTR ain't going back. Miro is doing more acting, apparently. One thing I think we're discounting is the appeal of the AEW schedule as opposed to WWE's. You're home more. You have more leeway with your likeness ie third party appearances and whatnot. WWE is still a publicly traded company. Nick Khan still has a lot of sway. Some folks will flock back toward WWE, sure. But I don't think it's an exodus of talent TK needs to worry about so much as it is a rabid cost-cutter in the driver's seat at WBD.

Booking ROH on the AEW programming was a mistake that watered down and diluted the product.

I highly recommend watching the A&E Lex Luger documentary. I highly enjoyed looking back at Luger's career and his personal struggles/mistakes/generally being an idiot.

I don't think the Neutralizer really works in a federation where people actually hit piledrivers reasonably frequently. Britt's reign was fine, though it did need to end. Rosa's now needs to end too.

This is the last time I'll post about the Wrestle Queerdom mess because it's one big pile of yikes, but this latest part made me so upset. https://twitter.com/aiden_v_e/status/1556821144644337669 (tweets aren't embedding, but this is a thread from Aiden Von Engeland explaining that TransGraps' mother had taken out a loan and liquidated her savings to prop this show up). So... I have no relationship with my parents, specifically because I am trans. I mentor young adults whose parents/family have abandoned them for seeking their transition. I adopted my daughter because after she came out to her biological parents, they destroyed all of the belongings she didn't take with her to college and tried to have her institutionalized. Needless to say, if someone is trans and has supportive parents, my personal feeling is that they have been given a gift that they should cherish with everything they have, because quite a lot of trans people simply don't have that luxury. And TransGraps took her gift of a loving mother who it appears would do anything for her, and did this to her? It makes me so goddamned furious that I find it hard to put it into words. There are people who will make the excuse that because she's only 23, she should be given the benefit of the doubt, and that mistakes can happen, but I am running out of ways to give her the benefit of any doubt. My daughter's 21 and would never think of doing something like this. Her way of helping the trans community is volunteerism that doesn't prop her name up as the savior of an alleged woebegone community that didn't ask for her to be its martyr like TransGraps appears to have wanted to be for the trans wrestling community. Maybe that's harsh. I don't care. She needs to grow up and face reality anyway. There will be people that will proclaim that an all-trans/gender-expansive show is a good thing, and will laud her for trying. There's a reason that the aphorism "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" exists.

Queen Aminata shows everyone how to take Athena's finisher.

Megan Meyers looked awesome. SIGN HER, TK! Ruby Soho and Skye Blue call out Tay Jay after the match! STREET FIGHT! Is Parker Boudreaux coming out to Jane's Addiction? I never really listened to them, for whatever reason. He does a GREAT Beel. Hey! It's Queen Aminata. She's pushed hard in the Women's Wrestling Army. I don't think she will be able to use her best move, her Flying Hip Attack. JESUS! Athena hits the greatest dropkick of the MONTH! On the floor. Athena likes to tell a story. The story is that Queen Aminata is disrespectful to Athena. She gets some offense in but can't set her up for her Flying Hip Attack- which does rival Toni Storm's. Athena crushes her skull and wins. That was good. Hey! It's Freya the Slayah! I see that Leila Grey got all her friends from OVW a gig on Elevation. I love the Leila/Kiera DYNAMIC. Get some tag titles and PUT THEM ON THEM! It will become Akira Hokuto tagging with Shinobu Kandori! Remember how great that was? Instead of tagging they would smack each other upside the head. That was fucking great. Let's get these Baddies smacking each other upside the head! LET'S FUCKING DO IT! It's Lord Crewe from Championship Wrestling from Hollywood! Alex Reynolds has grown a beard! He is changing his looks so he won't be recognized and is trying to avoid getting let go! Fun finish. John Silver is safe. PRETTY PETER AVALON- THE PRETTIEST BOY IN AEW! YESSSSSSS! Of COURSE he's pretty! When we last saw Ryan Nemeth he was having a barnburner with Konosuke Takeshita! Awesome! It's PENTA. He will want to tell a little story, so the Wingmen will get in some offense. Awesome! The Wingmen are UNSTOPPABLE! PENTA must have said before the match, "Get in ANYTHING you can think of." Rey Fenix takes a DDT like RVD because the Lucha Brothers are AWESOME at making Ryan Nemeth look like a total MAN-SLAUGHTERER! They fucking totally kill PPA with a Toprope Spanish Fly into move that would be TOTALLY outlawed in Mexico- a gnarly Piledriver! Postmatch, Andrade and Rush come out to set up prolly the best match Wednesday. I am VERY excited about Alex calling out Jose the Assistant to get his ass in the ring!

When the JAS first formed, Meltzer did a segment about how hard it is to get audiences to boo aging vets near the end of their careers (Flair, for example). I’m not a huge fan of the Inner Circle or the JAS, but Jericho’s working pretty hard to be hateable and get people to boo him. I give him a lot of credit for that. I do wish he’d stop coming out to whatever Fozzy song he uses for an entrance theme. The singalong stuff is annoying for a heel act. It’d be more effective if he’d come out and tell crowds they don’t deserve Fozzy then enter without a theme. Also, not playing Fozzy would probably be be doing most of us a favor.

Chris Jericho is good in general and really good for AEW. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Do the Donkey Kong is the superior song on the Buckner & Garcia video game song album. The world does not need a cover of Pac-Man Fever by Billie Eilish.

Gotta admit, I find it hilarious that any time there's a story about wrestler X or Y maybe not being wholly content with their position within AEW, there's a reliable chorus of "AEW is fine, they can leave and I'll be just perfectly happy with wrestlers A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, and P. And they're so great at creating new stars, just look wrestlers Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, and Z. AEW's fine!" Nobody's saying AEW's not fine based on there predictably being stories and rumours about people who could be happier. The Tony defense force could really afford to turn down the energy sometimes.

At the time, Rosa did make sense as the next champ. I thought she was a great choice, personally. She just hasn't delivered since winning the belt (IMO, of course). So, I think she was a good choice to dethrone Britt, it's just not worked out so great since then. I don't put it all on her, either. She just hasn't had a compelling story since getting the belt, really.

This makes sense. "Brother" Zeke gets injured, stays out awhile to grow a beard, reappears as "Brother" Elias gunning for revenge. For all these apparently good matches every time I turned on Raw last night I just got talking or Seth Rollins' idiot face on the screen. Bad luck I guess. It's recorded though, might dig through it later. Should I really watch a Ziggler match because DEAN said it was BattlARTS-ian? What say you?

They need to do a dark part acoustic/part symphonic version of Pac-Man Fever for the trailer.

This might be unpopular but I enjoyed Dr. Britt Baker's reign as AEW Women's World Champion. Speaking of unpopular, I really like Claudio Castagnoli's Ricola Bomb but I think I prefer the Neutralizer as a finisher.

To be fair, there’s a tangible downturn in her performance since then. I care less about in ring work than just about anyone here, and even I’m like “damn. This is getting bad…”

"Palaquin" is probably the word Excalibur used.

Queen Aminata was awesome, and that dropkick bump on the rail was scaaaAAaaAAaAAary. To me, she's another Skye Blue/Willow -type "must sign."

The line of thinking I've seen online is that the Stokely Hathaway story of him collecting a little roster of frustrated "non-WWE" guys is a cover for MJF building a stable. MJF and Stokely do have a history of working together in, I think, Beyond Wrestling. But I'd be fine if MJF fucked off to WWE.

Let’s not forget how much time Andrade spends with one of the biggest malcontents in the history of the business. His father in law is probably in his ear constantly about how much bigger of a star he should be. And to be fair, Andrade should be a bigger deal than he is…

Loved the bio overall as one of my all time favs, but I did think some of it was constructed to force this "Luger hated being around the people" narrative by trying to base that off him making faces goofing at the camera or making some jokey sarcastic comments, or the scene where he's clearly joking around with the hotel clerks. Like he wasn't supposed to display his personality or something but he still comes off likeable in the clips of meet and greets or media interviews (this was all featured in the Network 3 hr Lex Express footage, my favorite of the hidden gem uploads back when they did those). Like yeah obviously the dude got tired at various points of that long tour and wanted to sleep, but even that got treated as him having a negative attitude about it all or something. I'll forever mark for Made in the USA. I'll always wish he did get that title win at Summerslam 93 and agreed with Nash's comments on that. Seems crazy to me that Lex was only The Narcissist for maybe 6 months but got an action figure and in two video games as that character. Also, Crush is awesome. I recall him getting a nice pop at the Intrepid when he got the closest to slamming Yoko. Definitely wish he went further with that version of his character, but I enjoyed him in all forms.

Lashley vs. Ciampa fucking ruled. That was a great TV match. I bit on at least two well done near falls. They managed to put over Ciampa in defeat and still had Lashley lookin like a boss. New era indeed.

Yeah. Tony Khan should be ashamed, right? Seriously: if anyone is unhappy in AEW and thinks they could do better elsewhere, I genuinely hope Tony Khan just cuts them free. I popped hard for Miro's debut and enjoyed his run and want to see more of him in AEW and hope there is nothing to the rumours... ...but if he really wants out, let's not be petty about it. Wish him well. Let him go. Burn zero bridges. I also really really hope AEW is keeping Bryan Danielson very happy. And Mox. And Yuta and Claudio. And Regal. And Garcia. And JD Drake and Bear Country and Legit Leyla. And Darby. I hope 2.0, the Gunn Club, Brody King, Buddy Matthews, FTR, Dante, Dustin, Fuego, Jungle Boy, Keith Lee, Comoroto, Fenix, Hayter, Emi, Shida, Storm, Kiera, Wardlow, Sonny Kiss, Starks, Sammy and Tay (yep), and Toa Liona are all tickled pink working there and have already told HHH as much. But AEW should be the good guys here. Let the "grass is greener" folks find out for themselves whether it really is. That being said... If Eddie Kingston leaves to go to WWE, I will lose it completely.

“Yup yup yup yup yup.” I died.

Excellent. I want all the "fire me, you fucking mark" angles they can throw at me.

Terrifying children is the highest form of pro wrestling

My two cents, as someone who has never paid for an autograph: It should always be the signer/celebrity's option and comfort level, regardless of pandemic. I got to meet Simon Pegg years back at a book reading and signing (actually was able to meet him beforehand privately as my friends worked at the bookstore). I didn't ask for a photo, but he offered to pose with us and did the arms on lower backs pose. Likewise with Springsteen, the books were pre-signed but there was a 30-second photo op so I stood next to him and when he did the lower back arm I did the same. I've never bothered a celebrity at an airport or a bar, although in retrospect I wish I had yelled some choice words at Ted Cruz at DFW.

Better yet, just print the picture and then fold it like one of those things in the back of Mad magazine.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/palanquin

I don't want him gone forever, I want him gone long enough to want him back.

But I mean they are. Wardlow has basically taken Miro’s spot, and if it came down to it you keep Wardlow. Brody King is actually looking to be the breakout star from HoB and long-term won’t really need that faction if Malakai decides to leave. They’ve never really found anything for Andrade so how could losing him really hurt? I like all those guys (but not Black’s gimmick) but if they went back to WWE I just don’t think much would change storyline or viewership wise. Losing someone like Ricky Starks would hurt. Adam Page would hurt. Jade Cargill would hurt. FTR would hurt.

Hmm. Maybe that problem embedding tweets Mark (and I) had was fixed.

For somebody so positive you sure are petty. Anyway, in more important news: He also posted a selfie of him wearing a Starlight Kid shirt.

More Batman vs Klondyke Bill. Finger manipulation, playing to the crowd, and the sort of kicks I have not seen in the French Footage: And this is just tremendous. The way he fell in the last gif was too: