Kevin Wilson

For me, the key to good heel commentary is I have to feel like they mean it. The reason why I always think of Ventura and WWF-era Heenan is though they were heels, they also had a explanation or reason to be. It didn't feel forced, they were convincing in their roles. Other heel commentators since just feel like they are filling a job requirement. They just automatically root for the heel to check off a box, they may not have a reason to do so, they just do. Graves is pretty good at not always rooting for the heel and he does sometimes give faces respect, which I think is important with any commentator. Nigel annoys me sometimes, other times he hits a groove and it feels natural. Its a tough role, I'd prefer just not having a heel commentator at all (just a color and play by play person like other sports is fine with me).

At least he is open about it. He was on the Pacific Rim Podcast yesterday and talked in-depth about the Stardom/Rossy split. He is an interesting source as on one hand he has knowledge to things we don't but on the other hand naturally he is (openly) biased to Rossy's point of view of the situation. I did find it interesting that he said six "main eventer" Stardom wrestlers will be leaving with Rossy. Then two "Jr. Heavyweight" wrestlers would join later. Mostly because of the specific number, which implies to me that New Japan/Rossy already know who is staying and who isn't and will be planning accordingly. "Main eventer" is a very loose term as it could mean legitimate main eventer, "has main evented before," or "Rossy sees the wrestler as a main event-quality wrestler". If I had to guess I'd have Giulia, Syuri, and Mirai most likely in the "leaving" group but curious to see how it all plays out.

That's true, but we don't know how much longer, and we don't know if behind the scenes she is being disgruntled enough that they decide its just the best business decision to take the title off of her. Not saying they are, just that there are some elements we may not know about.

I do think the accounts that repeat his audio sometimes mix up what he is reporting and what he is guessing at based on what he knows. For example, the bit about Giulia being mad about wrestling Maya Yukihi (which she still did anyway) and that being why they took the title off of her last year wasn't reported then by anyone that I recall and people just assumed it was to finally give Tam the belt. But now its due to Giulia being disgruntled. I'm not saying it isn't true, I have no idea, but it just made me a little suspicious of the rumor dump when it all came at once from various situations in the last year.

Wrestling Observer has been on a tear the last 24 hours with various reports related to Stardom, ranging from current information to things that happened a year ago. I won't copy and paste it here but to me it begs the question - why now? Dave hasn't really had any 'scoops' on Stardom in awhile, and now suddenly he has information from past, present, and future? Who is his new source, and is the source trustworthy/unbiased? It just makes me pause when suddenly someone is talking to Dave, and not knowing if that someone has another agenda.

The important thing is now we can finally start debating if Eli deserves to get in next year.

So I feel like I have a vague understanding of Lucha politics, how is AEW able to work with CMLL and AAA at the same time? I thought the deal with Pentagon etc not being able to be on Forbidden Door is because New Japan worked with CMLL, no AAA wrestlers could appear. While I am sure we won't see AAA and CMLL wrestlers interact on AEW, it just surprises me to even see them both in the same outside promotion at the same time.

Props to that crowd too, any wrestling show is elevated if the crowd is hot. They stayed loud for the big stuff and never got quiet for too long.

Dynamite started and ended super strong. I thought Jericho/Takeshita didn't click (Jericho seemed to be having a slower day) but I loved Swerve/Page and the main event. Post-main event was quality wrasslin too. So we know Sasha will be in Boston, but will two money-themed wrestlers make their debut?

People tend to either love or hate Borderlands but I'm definitely in the 'former' group. If nothing else, so few FPS games have split screen co-op these days so its one of the last series I can do couch co-op with my brother. And its fun.

I do think a lot of people are looking at pre-Bushiroad Stardom with nostalgic glasses, forgetting how much people complained about the booking back then. All the complaints about the low level gaijin that Rossy insisted on using to toss at Io every tour, how he booked Toni Storm, not to mention the handling of the Act/Yoshiko incident. Stardom was very top heavy for a number of years with Io/Kairi/Mayu holding things up, I think the best years of Stardom as far as in-ring action goes top to bottom was 2020 to 2022. That's not to say the wrestler's complaints last year weren't legitimate, particularly with the travel schedule. And I certainly understand why wrestlers may feel more loyal to Rossy since he was there day to day and brought a lot of them in. But Bushiroad Stardom for the first couple years after the pandemic was generally pretty fantastic (Stardom was voted #2 promotion in the world in both 2021 and 2022 in the Observer), and I think with new management they can easily get back there, depending on which wrestlers leave. Maika sounds like she isn't leaving, I do wonder when it comes right down to the point how many leave. Any wrestlers that value money or visibility will likely stay as I just can't imagine Day 1 that Rossy has the financial backing to match Stardom's pay (whatever it may be). It may be a really interesting month.

Ok this is starting to get more crazy. Tweet embedding is having a bad day so I'll just quote the tweet: “The reason she (Giulia) is delaying her WWE start is so she could at least be there to kick off the (Rossy Ogawa) promotion for a while and get the promotion going, and then she is gonna end up with WWE at some point, But when WWE was interested in her, she basically gave (Ogawa) her word that she would help when he started out and that’s what she’s gonna do. She’s actually postponing her WWE debut because she gave him her word.” - Dave Meltzer (WOR) I guess this new promotion situation is legit, based on what Dave and Rossy himself are saying. I wonder how many wrestlers will leave with him? Who is the financial backer and can they match/exceed the pay that the wrestlers are getting in Stardom? Will they have a TV or streaming deal? So many questions.

Yay more promotion splintering, just what the Japanese scene always needs. But that is just the ebb and flow of puroresu, can't do much about fate.

Wrestling promotions surprise me but I'd be particularly surprised if Stardom "dies" due to this. Stardom has a really stacked roster, they can afford to lose 10 to 15 wrestlers and the promotion would just keep trucking along, especially if they filled those holes with Freelancers. Also, even with the issues, where are these wrestlers theoretically going if Stardom stops existing? WWE/AEW wouldn't want ~40 Joshi wrestlers (long rumored NXT Japan or not) and outside of TJPW I don't know if there is another women's promotion that pays a full time wage to their wrestlers. So in that hypothetical, the "leftover" wrestlers either would quit wrestling altogether or try the Freelance schedule, which few wrestlers can pull off. I can see some of the OGs leaving (hell, Hazuki has quit twice before) but I just don't expect a grand exodus like All Japan back in the day. Ice Ribbon and WAVE have both survived their stars leaving (even though it shrunk their popularity), Joshi promotions do rarely close, they just shrink. The only way I can see Stardom closing is if Bushiroad just says "fuck it", takes the top ten or so they like and merge them into New Japan/New Japan Strong and not sign the rest. But I feel like that's not a likely outcome. Either way I'm interested to see what happens come March.

Jesus. Just tragic, she was only 21.

Well that was always the thing with GamePass. How would Microsoft be able to (fairly) determine how successful a game was when the majority of people are playing it as part of GamePass? Do they only look at new sign-ups that month, or how long people stay signed up, etc. I've always felt that GamePass was "too good" of a deal, but I am glad Microsoft is handling that not by making GamePass worse but potentially releasing their games on other systems too.

TK immediately made two tweets related to it. Which just adds another wrinkle, and if the "AEW wasn't interested in Giulia" rumor was related to Rossy potentially joining WWE and getting wrestlers like Giulia to join him. Just a hypothetical but somehow AEW is either involved or impacted by whatever was going on. Gonna be a messy next few days, I think.

Everyone involved with wrestling is crazy. Rossy Ogawa is 66 years old, I can't imagine (me personally) starting a new venture/duties with a different company at that age. I'd just retire. There have been some rumblings of issues within Stardom last year, if he wasn't happy there for whatever personal or professional reason, I get it. But him at his age leaving for WWE (or the hypothetic NXT Japan) is something else for sure. Its a shame there aren't any better "sources" for Joshi wrestling as while I thought the Stardom product was still strong in 2023 just due to the quality of their wrestlers, there clearly were a lot of issues behind the scenes we either don't know about or only got hints about.

You guys have no idea how lucky we are that HHH isn't able to wrestle anymore for health reasons, as he'd 100% have inserted himself into... something.... if they felt that WrestleMania needed to be saved. Not saying he'd have taken the Rock spot but maybe the GUNTER or Seth match. I am intrigued to see if the fans turn on it like they did Goldberg/Lesnar and Batista/Yes Movement. Or even Roman/Rock at the Rumble so long ago. I don't know how much the fanbase has changed since those events happened, if fans will just go with the flow or be vocally against it at live shows. If nothing else, I do think The Rock has to be at the top of his game. He can't stumble through a bad promo or look out of place, I think one way or the other fans won't be amused if it looks like he took Cody's spot but wasn't prepared for it.

I think, in general, fans/teams turn on head coaches too easily and blame them for too much of what happens. Not every coach can win a SB, most don't, it doesn't make them "bad". Not every coach can have a Top 5 Defense, it doesn't make the other 27 coaches bad. He was just Coach of the Year two years ago. While there are exceptions of course (like Josh McDaniels, notably), I think most of the time a team is bad equally by some other factor (players, injuries, bad luck) and not directly the head coach. The Titans were 54-45 with him as coach, the players seemed to fight for him (we saw that in the last week of last season), and he reached the playoffs three times which is more than a lot of coaches can say. I don't even LIKE him, as a Bills fan I don't like anyone from New England or the Titans. But fans just look for any reason to jettison the coach, you can't convince me he is worse than Canales or Quinn. So, that's why I figure its more his personality holding him back but I assume he'll get another chance next year, they always do if they have some results.

So we all know owners talk to each other, is Vrabel THAT hard to get along with/manage and that spread around? There didn't seem to be much interest in him at all even though by all accounts (including my own eyes) he was a damn good coach. Unless he just wanted to take a year off so teams could get re-excited about him. I have no inside sources but my thought now is maybe he becomes an 'assistant head coach' somewhere and just bides his time.

As much as it pains me to say something nice about Purdy, I do think that has been something oft repeated about him but not actually true. In 2023 he was #2 in the NFL in Air Yards Per Completion (at 7.2 yards) and #8 in attempted air yards per attempt (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2023/passing_advanced.htm). I found conflicting rankings on different sites but all had him in the Top 10, some #1 depending on how the math was done. Some of that I do think is A LOT of teams were doing those WR screens this year, not just the 49ers, it was the "it" play of 2023 which probably impacted everyone's numbers. And a lot of his highlights are the screens to Deebo or CMC but he did throw deeper than most other QBs on average. EDIT: aww Tabe beat me to it

Every QB healthy and interested in going will be at the Pro Bowl. The Legendary Gardner Minshew has been added.

Ben Johnson is definitely taking a risk. We've seen before when a OC or DC was "hot" and many teams wanted them, and after a cold year suddenly there was no interest. If he wants to stay with the Lions, more power to him but I hope if HC is his eventually goal that he doesn't get passed over for the next hot coordinator. Course, every year it seems there are 6 to 8 coaching jobs open so as long as the Lions offense stays hot, he'll get another go at it.