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Ah, good to hear. I hope he brings some of that stuff out in later matches.

Disclaimer: this is my first time seeing Sabre, so I don't know how representative this match was. That said, I don't think his build needs to a liability. We know six-foot skinny dudes can be dangerous grapplers--just look at the Diaz brothers. The problem is that his work is so cute. He needs to compensate for his build, and his general gawkiness, by bringing a sense of real danger to what he does. Less "look at these neat tricks I can do", and more legitimate, painful-looking stuff. I did like the finish of the match, with him bending the fingers back to stop the rope break. More of that kind of thing would be great.

Agree, this was great. At the end of match I thought "this doesn't sit well with me, it felt like Mendoza was the better wrestler." Then a split second elapsed and I realized, duh, that's the whole point! It helped a lot that the finishing choke looked so brutal. I also appreciated that a bit of the Gulak match revolved around how you shouldn't cross your feet when you have someone's back because it makes you vulnerable to an ankle lock. That's a habit that gets drilled out of you very early in BJJ, but pro wrestlers, in those big boots, do it all the time. I realize that grappling in pro wrestling will never be realistic, but this something they could quit doing without losing anything except the ability to work a rear body scissors as a rest hold (switch to a body triangle, it's more realistic AND it looks cooler, problem solved).

Rewatching the first episode: why did they have a bunch of the wrestlers stand so awkwardly in the pre-match graphics? I'm imagining the photographer saying "OK, that looks good, but can you stand with your feet a little closer together?... a little closer than that... closer... closer... closer... closer... perfect."

I loved Alejandro Saez. He had a wild-eyed intensity that I really enjoyed, even though it was a little over the top. I doubt he'll come back to the WWE-osphere in any capacity, but I hope I'm wrong about that. This was my first time seeing Kota Ibushi. First impression is that he's great-looking, super talented, superbly executes all kinds of cool moves... and it just doesn't add up to as much as it seems like it should. In other words, he's the Japanese Finn Balor. Right now I'd rather watch another Alejandro Saez match.

Nia Jax should have been doing a powerbomb as her finisher all along.

Did WWE always do a house show on Monday nights in the old brand split days? Why would they run a live event against their own flagship TV show?

While I agree that some fans are interested in business minutiae to a bewildering extent, I think it makes perfect sense to be at least a little concerned with the business side of things. In fact, it would be way weirder if you were a remotely serious fan of wrestling and you didn't care about that at all. The creative and business sides are totally intertwined. Interest in things like quarter-hour ratings might sometimes reflect a weird fixation held over from the late '90s. But I suspect it's often based on the belief that WWE itself pays attention to these things and makes booking adjustments accordingly. So if you enjoy Cesaro's matches and would to see him featured more prominently, you might naturally be curious about how his segments are rated. (NB: I'm a Cesaro fan but I don't pay much attention to ratings.) The same reasoning applies to things like merch sales and house show numbers. Similarly, complaints that WWE gave a certain match away for free might sometimes be based on weird obsessions with financial details irrelevant to the quality of the shows. But I suspect it's often just a way of lamenting that WWE often puts on matches too early, without building to them in a way that makes them more exciting. You might see that as a (bad) creative decision, but it affects the business end of things, which in turn affects the creative side, and so on. It would be silly to decide whether something was fun to watch based only on whether it did good business, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually do that.