Zakk_Sabbath

NXT watchers: is Cole Carter legit? His finish was wild but he seemed kind of hesitant a couple times, for lack of a better term. Before tonight the only other time I've seen him is the Starks match and I thought he did pretty well there

Watching bonus Elevation now, was just coming in here to say how sick Julia Hart's finish is

Wonder how deep Paramount's pockets are. I've heard great things about their streaming service, but the only thing I ever see airing on their linear cable channel are 24-hour Bar Rescue marathons with a smattering of Bond films. I've gotta imagine AEW would be the highest rated thing on their network since TNA. Ultimate fantasy-world best case scenario: NBC buys WWE, breaches the Fox deal, and Fox gets Dynamite at 3/4 the cost of Smackdown because TK convinces them there's more NFL synergy or something. A boy can dream..

Confession time: I'm American, and I only found out about him from a throwaway Ricky line on Trailer Park Boys: "You guys crank up the Mitchell, I'm gonna rock a piss." Got curious and Googled it, and from there, I ended up going down the rabbit hole starting with Go For A Soda Edit: Great shout @Curt McGirt with Voivod - Annihilator is another one from up there that's killer

I mean, I get that argument, but perspective is everything. Yes, it just drew it's lowest # since June, but it's usually a top 10 or 11 show out of 50 for the night on cable, no one does a great number on Friday except Smackdown which is on free TV with a start time two hours earlier, and a 23 year head start. Agree something needs to change with the formatting, but I don't think all is doom or gloom for Rampage just yet.

Point well taken. I guess I wasn't following as closely as I thought! I thought it was just Batgirl and like six other movies that were already on there. Thanks

Ive been watching that story closely with an eye toward what AEW's situation might be. It seems as though the majority of what was cut from Max was deemed too expensive to pay licensing for in relation to how many actually watched. AEW (or any other live sports they grab, like the rumored MLS deal) might be a different animal if the core audience is there. Though AEW won't come cheaply either, a guaranteed quarterly audience of 50,000-100,000 for an AEW PPV might be more advantageous to throw money at than some Seth Rogan movie that you'll watch once or twice at most.

I touched on this around the time of TK's announcement and Supercard of Honor show and felt like a bit of a naysayer, but the longer ROH goes without TV, the more it becomes my feeling: it wouldn't surprise me to see a move to an ROH model where it's essentially just a quarterly version of ECW One Night Stand, that has its own set of titles.

Too soon for that, too, IMO. I'm a little biased sitting here typing this in my BCC shirt, but I think theyve stumbled onto something really special with this group. Even if it wasn't initially intended to be long term, it would be a big mistake to kill it off now, I think. I know I say this in practically every friggin' post now, but, again: really depends on what happens with ROH. I really like the idea of Garcia and Yuta being the young cornerstones there, but still having that BCC/JAS association behind them to add a little credibility to what is essentially a "new" company.

Not expecting a classic or anything by any means, but I'm the right age to really dig the fact we're getting Christian vs Matt on TV in 2022. Christian's gonna have to do a bit of heavy lifting tonight but if it's kept short and simple it could be some fun.

Godzilla is correct, it's from PR - I saw this Tweet when originally posted, and based on a couple of different things, I'm reasonably confident this was taken in June '78.

Yeahhhhh you're right, I distinctly remember him calling the opener this week now that you mention it. My mistake

Agreed. It's a rarity, but those three always have a great booth. Feels like we're in a state of flux a lot of the time with Tony also balancing doing the interviewer role (which he's great at, and always has been) and J.R. now showing up on Rampage and only doing half of Dynamite. When J.R. hangs it up in the next 5 years or so, I 100% think these three should be the A-booth for Dynamite and PPV. By that time, Jericho, Henry and Paul Wight will have either improved (or not, and moved on) and you can build the Elevation, Dark and Rampage booths from there depending who you got And also, the landscape could be totally different by then. If ROH can't get TV, the Riccaboni/Coleman team is pretty good. Coleman I thought was particularly good on the episode of Dark he called the other week. I enjoyed the gentleman from MLW last night on the Flair show whose name escapes me, and Tom Hannifan was great too (and always is any time I've caught him on Impact, or years ago on Smackdown). I liked when they would have Veda Scott on, they could give her another look at some point. So depending on the future of those companies and those guys' availability, AEW could probably put together a pretty deep bench if they wanted to in the future.

Jacob Fatu made a case for himself tonight, I think. Sucks about the finish to that one because I thought that was a really cool match.

Honest question, in 2022, does Lawler still have the cachet to headline a show of similar size in Memphis? This was pretty scary to watch at times, and I too was insanely relieved they aborted the superplex. This *might* have been fine five or ten years ago, or if he was in Mike Jackson shape, but holy shit, man. Like NoFlips said, when it was over, it was over. Truthfully, I watched hopeful we might at least get a promo that rivaled Terry Funk's "Forever!" or the Ultimate Warrior's death promo; an all time-talker doing on the mic what Johnny Cash did with "Hurt." We... did not. But hey, the guy bled, hit a few chops, ate a suplex, the undercard was great (turns out the wrestlers ain't the problem with Impact - big shout out to everyone in the ladies match, especially Rachel Ellering for toughing it out, and of course the legendary MCMGs) and it was nice to see the original Big Gold belt again. Moral quandaries aside, I've watched worse

@The NaturalThough I routinely bitch at the names (and mere existence) of some of these titles, I have to say, it's a pretty damn good looking array of belts. I like that the world title was done by a different beltmaker to give it that elevated feel, kind of like looking at the OG Big Gold versus the other NWA and WCW titles. If I had one gripe, it's just that the All-Atlantic title is shaped much too similarly to the v3 Women's title. That said, I do appreciate the heavy influence of the Mid South title on both.

Heav'nly Donuts is a chain?!?!? I can near-literally see one from my house, and I thought it was a mom 'n pop. The lady who runs ours is super nice, she just sent pastries yesterday when she heard I have COVID. My mind's a little blown by this news.

Im not 100% sure where I saw this, but I read a while ago that AEW rules are simply that the illegal man gets more time in the ring before a DQ than they would elsewhere, like 20 seconds vs the traditional 5-10 or something like that.

I kind of understand the mindset of not wanting to touch it unless they're going to come close to the attendance of WM or that one big '99 Raw. If for some reason the show were poorly attended, I think the optics would be potentially kind of damaging. Based on some preliminary googling, I confidently believe that if they did somehow gain access to run Scotiabank Arena, they could at least match WWE's highest recent attendance there (13,500) if not the one Nitro's (16,195)

My better half had a major crush on Cole during the NXT days until I took her to Takeover XXV and she realized she was a good 4 inches taller than him in person (not at all height/body shaming Cole for the record, she's just tall for a lady).

Ah, ok. I thought that was over with, had no idea he was involved

Ascension was one of the earliest examples to me of bring-em-up-then-fuck-em. They were NXT champs for a year, how do you blow that? Even the Wasteland stuff with Stardust got over to a small degree on the undercard. They deserved better IMO.

Yeah, I was thinking about that too when I brought up that they may not care about inducting people with Impact associations anymore, but then I looked it up and the year DX were inducted was when AEW had only just been announced that January with the rally, they hadn't run a show yet. So you're totally right about that, but it might be looked at as a way different situation at this point In AEW's lifespan Also, I'm realizing now, I'm not even 100% sure Dreamer is with Impact anymore, the whole thing might be moot. I just assumed they wouldn't care since they brought Mickie James in for that rumble Excellent call. I'm surprised he's not in yet given he spent time with all three companies. I wish the WWF had done more with him post-Flash Funk, I remember really liking his short lived tag team with Terry Funk as a kid

I thought of Dreamer too but wasn't sure of his status because of the DSOTR stuff and Impact association (though I guess they don't really care about that anymore). Other than that? I don't know. RVD? Can't see a Sabu or Shane Douglas getting a live mic at this point. Taz is with AEW, can't see him going unless they agree to offer Hook the Brinks truck when he's available.

Yea, they went in pre-pandemic I believe