For Great Justice

Smilin’ Finn just doesn’t do anything for me

Not meaning to cross post too much from the sports board, but my goodness is the SEC using the 1980’s Vince McMahon playbook in college football right now or what? The parallels between the SEC killing the NCAA and Vince killing the NWA are crazy. Expand beyond your region by signing the best talent/teams in other territories to exclusive contracts, crown your own champion, sign exclusive TV deals … I wouldn’t be surprised if the next move will be to disallow those talent/teams to work for other promotions (play other major teams out of conference). Like, it’s all right there. In 10 years we are going to have Kansas State walking around with the NCAA football title like Nick Aldis.

My half baked fantasy booked suggestion for selling out a stadium in the Nov/Dec timeframe: Baker/Rosa II Miro / Jingle Boy TNT Title Danielson/Omega Wight / Shaq (the let me up match between the dream match and main event and your mainstream pub deal, with heavy promo time on NBA on TNT during the heart of the NBA season) Hangman / Allin world title (your two biggest home grown stars headline. Babyface vs babyface but who cares) Whatever else with the Elite, Pinnacle, Cody is gravy.

Britt is undeniably a draw at this point I think. Right there with Darby and Hangman as their hottest acts.

Gonna sound extremely pessimistic here I know but with AEW poised to go on the promotional run of a lifetime here coming up, I can’t be the only one hoping that they or a talent don’t do something stupid in one of these death matches that would potentially fuck anything up with the network or audience. It isn’t worth it (e.g. if a fan gets injured by debri or some such). I’m good without light tubes or barbed wire spider nets or whatever.

Seeing AEW doing almost a 20k advance for what is still a blind card in NYC, I’m really curious what a potential card with Bryan/Omega on top, in a destination location and with enough advance notice for the international traveling audience, would pull. Could they sell out a football stadium in Chicago, NY or Vegas? Maybe not that many. Or baseball - Citi Field holds 45k and that feels achievable. The biggest non WWE crowd in the past 30 years is what, the Goldberg Georgia Dome show? That drew 40k? I think they can top that.

The tough thing about Baker being a de jour baby face is that the heel side is thin, whereas there are multiple programs for her on the other side. Where does she go next? The Bunny? Penelope? Those are JTTS’s. As opposed to Deeb, Rosa, Conti, Rico, Statlander, ....

Well next week looks incredible Thought the same thing. This is exactly how that all started. Coach TK going to the DVDVR well for an all time board favorite angle? Let’s do it.

With Team AEW member Cody going out early on a stretcher and Darby Allin struggling outside, Kenny Omega is trying his best going 2 on 1, before Kota Ibushi comes out and drops the leg on him brother

Well if Punk comes down from the crowd wearing all denim in a few weeks and then Bryan shows up two weeks later....you know it's on. Line 'em up 3 vs. 3 at All Out and we've got what we need to light the fuse on AEW taking over the top spot "Dwayne Johnson you can go to hell......"

You have to debut Bryan as a face I think, but one issue is that your biggest top heel is weeks from getting his comeuppance and losing his title. I'm bad about turning things into fantasy booking threads, but maybe you can do a deal where Omega loses at All Out and plays the "I've only lost one title and still have all these others, I'm still the best in the world" card, which then draws Bryan out. I'd be very interested to see what a card that looked something like the Omega/Bryan dream match, a Hangman title defense (Andrade?) and some other stuff like Miro/Mox, a big Darby match (Darby/Black writes itself) and Baker/Deeb or Rosa would draw. AEW's not yet in a position to sell out 70k stadiums, but I think you could make a run at selling out some sort of 40k venue in a destination location with that.

Assuming this is 10-count rules, it might be an uphill battle for Mox and Archer as Texas Death Matches tend to suck and are one of my least favorite gimmick matches. Anyone got some Texas Death Match recommendations to help me change my mind?

Good Lord Omos is HUGE. That's a hilarious picture because as is always discussed, Scott Hall is a big ass dude!

Your last paragraph is amazing and needs to be booked. Like Karrion Kross found a Time Egg and hopped in the Epoch before his Day of Lavos on Raw happened

Speaking of Creepers, I fully expect a Creeper run in to take out attempted Elite interference in either the 10 man tag or world title match. Gonna be one of those nice multi year callback deals.

On one hand, big facts. On the other, from this list Snitsky was actually over for a time and Kross will never do anything better than "Tomko, give me a beat".

Going on four pages when Raw has struggled to get five posts in recent months. “Stuff is happening” at least. Interesting to see some react to the show as a show, and some people react to the show for the booking. This Kross thing might be the best example of this we’ve had recently. For show watchers, longtime favorite Jeff Hardy got this theme back and chumped out punk mark buster Karrion Kross and it’s great because that dude sucks. For booking watchers, it’s maddening because ‘what is Vince thinking’ or whatever.

As a guy that is thoroughly in the Kross being terrible and get off my TV camp, Jeff Hardy coming out to No More Words and beating him warmed my soul. From what I saw, a pretty good Raw! First one of those in a long ass time.

We all loved Earnest Miller, right? Dude was awesome. I got some “not sure if serious” vibes over the past page on this topic.

Corbin just needs his bingo winnings back

Sullivan’s a top 5 all time squash match guy easy.

Not the best but nothing tugs at nostalgia with me like the early 90's WCW ramp. Maybe with "Smokin'" playing and GMC on the PA

The sleeper great part of the Austin/Rock build to me is the cutaway to Austin’s locker room earlier in the WMXVII show where he is literally looking himself in the mirror (Austin knowing - but the fans not yet knowing - what he had agreed to do to win). No one ever talks about that, and it’s the sort of nuanced (for wrestling) thing that WWE hasn’t done in forever.

I know comparing tv ratings from now to the 90’s is apples to oranges in so many ways, but beyond beating them in the demo AEW is far closer to WWE in total viewership right now than WCW was when Scott Hall’s denim showed up. Then it only took one angle and a matter of weeks to overtake Vince by the summer, and I dunno…I think AEW could realistically be a white hot and/or mainstream angle away from getting more viewers Raw. One of these companies of a multi billion dollar global conglomerate with a day and time slot that’s been associated with wrestling for 30 years and the other is a two year old (billionaire angel invested) startup. That’s crazy to me.