just drew

You stated what they did right right there in your conclusion; no Bucks match. ;).

Man, it's cool they broke a million viewers again. Good for them. Seriously. It's insane how loaded next week's show is. A couple of my buddies are road-tripping from Atlanta. Having an infant son makes it a tough go for me. Andrade just looks like a star. It boggles my mind that Vince and Nicky K couldn't figure out how to make money with that dude. I mean, it doesn't, because they can't figure out how to make money with Keith fucking Lee, but it kinda does. When was the last time you figure a crowd was that happy to see Chavito? You can tell he loves the business, so I'm happy for him. He's also a much better foil for Andrade than Vickie. I can't decide if this Death Triangle thing means Penta and Rey are turning on PAC or if RUSH and Dragon Lee are coming in. Either way it outta be dope. Hangman Page is over as fuck. They have to go the distance with him and Omega. If it were me, I'd have Page go over, have Danielson congratulate the winner and offer a friendly challenge, then have Bryan go full American Dragon on Page. Page is probably the only guy an AEW crowd would boo Bryan Danielson for. Maybe Jungle Boy. Nyla Rose is not good at wrestling. Now that Thunder Rosa is "All Elite," I hope they pivot to her and maybe some debuting ex-WWE ladies. That main event was absolute lunacy. AEW seems to have all the momentum in the world right now. Their competitor has burnt up a ton of goodwill with their audience, and every Dynamite lately has delivered surprises and great matches. It makes me happy. They don't do everything perfect, but it's easy to tell when a wrestling company doesn't actively despise its audience. Very cool.

I'm immediately thinking of two EVP's that CM Punk would beat like a rented mule. But I do think they'll have to be careful who they program him with, at least initially. Or shit, make that the story. Punk earning respect from the Miros and Lance Archers of the world by how he's hanging in with them.

I was at both Dome shows. The first one made it cool to be wrestling fan. 40k diehards watching Goldberg go over the Immortal clean as a sheet. I was 15 years old high-fiving strangers and screaming like a child. Even my dad, who only took me because he liked spending time with me, managed a smile and an appreciative nod. The second one made me miss the Foley title win on tv. The finger-poke of doom felt like a middle finger to the fans so intense that it wouldn't be repeated until, imo, the "my friend Mark" speech Triple H gave in 2014. I remember feeling cheated. I worked extra shifts at my shitheel job to get good seats to that show, and that's what I got? Fuck that. I didn't watch WCW for almost a year after that, and I only watched then because some of the guys I liked were finally getting some run. Like I said earlier, AEW has a chance to write their own legacy in Atlanta. WWE just had to cancel a Smackdown live because of slow ticket sales. I think a string of lackluster shows has ruined a lot of goodwill with wrestling fans here. I mean, we got the worst Wrestlemania ever. The Dynamite we got was amazing, and fans showed up. It was like a concert. Insanely loud crowd. We deserve this. I am biased. I am making too big a deal of this. But dammit, we delivered the US Senate from the hands of lunatics and we deserve to break the non-WWE wrestling show crowd record in our shiny ass new baseball park.

I love the Fenway idea. As a native Atlantan, I can think of a gorgeous new baseball park that holds a little over 40k right in the heart of WCW Country. That ballpark is also a short(ish) Uber ride from the busiest and most accessible airport in the world. Ideally you'd go for the non-WWE record in the stadium that the previous record took place in, but the Dome doesn't exist anymore. It's successor, MBS, is a cavernous monument to excessive government spending with zero character. AEW should go for it at Truist Park. The area surrounding it is gorgeous and set up to easily accommodate a crowd that size.

Eddie said in an interview recently that Cesaro was supposed to put him over before he went to WWE. I think it was Chikara, maybe? Wherever they were together before. Then Cesaro refused on the day of. Eddie appears to be a bit of a grudge carrier.

It was a really fun little show for a long time. Those first couple of years with Bayley, Sasha, Charlotte, Bo Dallas, the Wyatts, Enzo & Cass (don't kid yourselves, they were absolute diesel fuel there), AA, The Revival, all the way through until right around when KOR and Bobby Fish came out of the crowd to ambush Drew McIntyre with Adam Cole. Always felt like HHH was trying to make what he thought PWG was after tht. But damn early nXt was fun...

Listen, I understand. Go over to the AEW side and you'll see that no one loves a good rant more than I do. I personally don't get why anyone would invest anything emotionally in nXt at this point, but people like what they like. Unless they like the Young Bucks. Then they're fucking idiots. ;).

Here's the problem; To Vince, and probably to a lot of people around him, nxt just does not fucking matter. We've seen too many times in the last 5 years or so that outside of one Survivor Series, the higher-ups don't see nxt as anything but a closet to keep performers they think they might need one day. Vince is too busy eating steak wraps with horseradish sauce and ketchup to give fuck number one about big dumb dipshit Karrion Kross and his unbeaten streak in nxt, or how it makes Cole, Ciampa et al. look like jerks for not being able to beat him. None of those guys ever have a chance of being anything on the main roster anyway. Cole, O'Reilly, Gargano, Thatcher, Dunne, whoever. Not a single one of them has anything approaching main event size. I can hear some of you saying "size doesn't matter anymore," but let's look at the two top guys on the main shows and the performers orbiting them. WWE is the only institution on earth where Kofi Kingston would be considered "small" and he just got his ass handed to him to build Lashley up even more. So the welfare of the remaining nxt performers is inconsequential. They don't matter and if there were any doubt remaining, VInce sees that show as something to keep Hunter busy. Karrion Kross also has what I like to call "Mike Awesome Syndrome." He's big for the small pond he was in, but he's gonna wind up in the ring with guys like Drew McIntyre, Jinder Mahal, Sheamus, Randy Orton and Damien Priest and he isn't gonna stand out. He isn't charismatic enough to get over without Scarlett, and she ain't walkin' through that door. If Vince sees Keith Lee as "just another guy," Karrion Kross has no chance. No sense in getting yourself worked up over how him losing makes the third brand look.

Adam Cole’s got (at least) two things working against him; his complete lack of size, and a significant other succeeding elsewhere. At this point, if Vince, Nicky K or Podcast Prichard thought he could help a main roster show, he’d be on that show. These dudes who are just stagnated on the top of nxt’s roster should pray they either stay there forever or get released before they get brought up to job to Jaxson fucking Ryker…

He’ll make this same face when the Feds show up at his front door to ask him where he was January 6th…

The utter dogshit promos would be my guess.

It’s crazy how it took the Old Man and Podcast Prichard less than 24 hours to shit all over the goodwill they built up last night. The Nikki cash-in was good. I was convinced she’d get screwed over, but now she’s forever a world champion, and they can’t take that away. Well, they can, but we shouldn’t bring that up…

The way she disappeared Monday night, I figured she wouldn’t show up until the finish of women’s MITB where the lights would cut out and when they came back she’d be sitting atop the ladder with that smirk and everyone else would be either gone or unconscious. That’s what I would’ve pitched based on this past weeks RAW. I figure there’s only about a 50/50 chance Nikki gets to cash in that briefcase herself. I anticipate shenanigans. So, the rumored Summerslam match for Lashley is Goldberg. We all know what Big E’s dream match is. There’s two reasons why Big E should cash in that night. lazy ass writing to have the women’s tag champs in the MITB match. Tamina kicking yaks in the face will never not be funny to me. Mens MITB match was really good, though I can’t say I’m excited about “Seth Rollins push #6,784.” Jinder Mahal remains Raw’s biggest babyface after his guys put Drew Mac out. Big E winning was the right call, which is why I remain so shocked that wwe went through with it. Hopefully they finally pull the trigger on the guy. In an era where they actually wanted transcendent, mainstream stars, his charisma makes him a natural fit. Now, it’s almost worked against him. No more, hopefully. Main was good, though it got messy & overbooked. Cena showing up after was dope. Looking forward to that.

Not to be confused with Blood Alcohol Level…

What Survivor Series was it when Ziggler went the distance against Team Authority after Big Show turned on Cena? That was officially the last cool thing Ziggles ever did...

This is a fantastic joke. I want you to know I appreciate it. Truly. If Matthew Fox had bleached his hair in an attempt to look like his more talented dad the analogy would be perfect...

I was involved in that convo, too. It boggles the mind. I especially enjoyed the rationale of "well, that's how LOST did it."

Mox was dope, because Mox is always dope. Karl Anderson is replacement level, but he wasn't bad here. Ricky Starks is The. Shit. Good to see him get the reaction he got on the big stage. That was fantastic. The Cody/Malachai Black thing dipped a bit in the middle, but that crowd was rabid for Black. That was awesome. Andrade will find his footing. Getting him involved with the Triangle will be cool. That was the correct usage of the Bucks. One gets punched in the face for talking shit while the other cowers in fear of getting punched in the face for talking shit. And that might've been the first time I've ever seen Kenny Omega in AEW where the gimmick he thinks he's doing was actually his gimmick. Crowd was molten for Hangman Page & Dark Order. Christian/Matt Hardy was good, though the best part was Jurassic Express hitting the ring postmatch. Britt is turning into a gifted promo. Get well soon Rebel! Vickie is bad. Like, real bad. Vance/Mox will be good, because it's always good. Jericho/MJF segment as... a segment. I agree with whoever said it'd be funny as shit if Jericho lost the first challenge. Penelope Ford has "it." Sakazaki was fun, too. Why is Miro the coolest motherfucker that ever lived? Main was good. It bugs me a bit that 60+ year old Sting gets so much offense on these young guys, but that seems minor. Darby Allin has a death wish.

When it’s just Page & Silver against like, 4 guys on the other team and Silver flash eliminates Gallows? Yeah. That’s gonna rule ass.

I think that's the one I was thinking of...

I'm gonna do some googling. I may be getting that story mixed up with another one.

No, I was kinda being sarcastic. I could've said it better, though. It's just funny to me that they still do dumb shit like this. Hiring the wrong one legged wrestler, signing the wrong Yoshi Tatsu, and this.

Yeah, it really was pretty pathetic how she carried Smackdown for three quarters of the pandemic and then they didn't have shit for her to do at Mania. I hope she gets well, and I hope better things come for her upon her return. If I were her I'd be asking myself if I really thought WWE was ever gonna treat me the way they treat the other Horsewomen, and what companies might be willing to treat me that way....