Just Dave

She doesn’t deserve heat either way, and it feels misogynistic to suggest she does.

There was some "Tony said sell" Young Bucks shit, but Adam Cole brought his a-game. Pretty fun match. I imagine KOR will debut when Orange and Cole meet next week. Tay Conti is maybe the loveliest human alive. She seems like such a good person. I hate that she's taking heat she doesn't deserve over Sammy and his fiancee breaking up. What a fun little submission match. Main was good. Eddie Kingston is a goddamned star. Put the title on him. P&P deserve a run with the tag titles. Daniel Garcia will be one of the guys that carries AEW 5-10 years from now.

I'm sure I'll catch heat for this, and I'm 100% sure I'm one of those haters you're talking about, but this just isn't true, and I call bullshit. Other than the Lucha brothers, name a single tag team that's come out of a feud with the Young Bucks looking better than they did going in. My definition of "making guys look good" might be a bit old school, but I'll die on this hill. It's impossible to make someone look good while actively undermining their offense with your own asinine midmatch behavior. You can't make someone look good while neglecting to sell the moves you've just taken because it cuts into your "smirk into the camera over how good your choreographed flips were" time, or because you rush to get into place for your next business exposing spot. It's hard to make a team look good when you stop selling the second the bell rings and start mugging for the cameras instead of even attempting to look like you were just in a fight. They made CHAOS look like assholes last night while putting them over. That's hard to do. This myth that the Bucks are some standard bearer for wrestling in the 21st century is one that can't die soon enough.

I've said this multiple times, I think, but what a weird-ass timeline we live in where heel Matt Cardona is the biggest draw in indy wrestling.

If it takes TK longer than 15 seconds to figure out which of those two is the more necessary, then he's not the booker I think he is...

My money's on him getting released before he sees the end of the contract. WWE is more accounting firm than sports entertainment company at the moment, and signing a long term deal is no guarantee of long term stability.

I think TK has seen WWE put all their top stars on TV every week and decided not to do that. I think there's such a thing as "overcorrection." I doubt Hangman has had any more time between title defenses than Kenny, he was just gone for a considerable amount of time before his return, wrestled like 3 times, and now as champion he isn't wrestling every week. Having your title defended less often than WWE is absolutely the right thing to do. They may have just gone too far the other way. It's one booking policy I think TK should reexamine, along with EVERY title reign having to be long and the lack of rematches. You can get away from WWE's "six month program" format without having every feud buildup culminate with exactly one match.

There's been conflicting reports about Andrade and Charlotte, but none of the other Horsewomen are going anywhere. Sasha thinks she can act, Becky is probably one of the 4 most over acts in the company, and for whatever reason, Vince and Kevin think Charlotte is to be built around. Bayley, the best worker of the four of them, has gotten left out in the cold more than once. Might be time for her to go solo.

I've said this for a while, but if I'm Bayley WWE would have to seriously overpay me for me to stay, after losing out on Wrestlemania revenue in 2020 after she carried that company for almost a year. Ruby is close with her, apparently. Time for TK to start back-channeling.

As a father, I completely understand why KO took every cent he could get. I hope he used his past relationship with Cole and The Bucks to drive his price up as far as possible. As a wrestling fan, I have no idea why anyone would stay with WWE when they could go elsewhere.

Imagine having Rhea Ripley and doing THIS with her.

I respect that. I would contend that 90+% of WWE's audience is there to see the stars, not the matches. I really think they could go back to an 80's "bump, pose, sell, comeback, pin, wave to crowd" style that served them so well in the past. Guys doing springboard planchas on house shows just seems dumb when you don't know from one day to the next if you have a job...

@NoFistsJustFlipsthat's well said.

Came off as pretty douchey. "So I don't accidentally waste time watching them." I have no idea why WWE superstars doing the bare minimum would upset anyone in 2021. I hope everyone under contract there gets the most money for least effort possible.

Not particularly, though I admire your sense of entitlement...

That's a better way of saying what I meant. I was also just kind of being flippant. I don't actually think WWE workers are sleepwalking through matches. FWIW, there have been multiple folks released in the last two years who have talked about coasting until their deals came up....

Not only could it happen, I'd bet it's more likely to happen than not...

What have you seen from them in the last year that suggests guys ARE doing more than the minimum?

Fun fact: The author of that article and I used to host a sports talk show on student radio at Kennesaw State University. I was recently on his podcast for the "Athletic Alternative" reunion. I couldn't be prouder of Wonderboy.

As a Georgia Tech alum, this one is tough. What a fun ride the 2008-09 football seasons were on the Flats. Bebe was a true revelation on the field, and a credit to Ma Tech off of it.

AEW has to start getting away from the workrate heavy signees. Get O’Reilly Bc he and fish are something else together. But at what point does it start to homogenize? If you bring them in, it’s imperative that you also get Keith Lee.

That was one of the most insane run on sentences I’ve ever seen. And I hate when people complain that some workers don’t look like they can hurt other workers…

I get it. I'm not sure I did a good job explaining why it felt off to me. The first hour of the show felt very much to me like TK and co were trying to anticipate the reaction MJF was going to get and plan accordingly. It felt very reactionary. I don't disagree with your assertion that a lot of AEW's top folks don't overly concern themselves with the "face/heel" dynamic.

Thunder Rosa might be the best female worker in this hemisphere ATM. Jamie Hayter is closing fast.

I thought there was a lot more good than bad. I even enjoyed the Bucks match tonight. I really, REALLY think a lot of my problem with them was how oversaturated the tv show was with their smirky, inside baseball bullshit. I forgot to shout out Bryan/Silver. Holy shit was that a dope-ass pro wrestling match. Danielson has absolutely made stars of four Dark Order guys (even though they kind of already were).