Casey

The pin was broken because Bryce called it a two count, though.

Hikaru Shida vs. Big Swole Shalandra Royal & Shazza McKenzie vs. Leva Bates & Nyla Rose And an 8 man tag team match that's happening right now. No idea who is involved besides SCU.

Nobody has sold Orange Cassidy's kicks in AEW, so this is a weird statement. Anyway, I'm calling it now: Adam Page costs Cody the title at Full Gear. He was Cody's MJF before MJF was signed, stuck by Cody during the Omega stuff in Japan, etc. The storyline writes itself.

AEW has convinced me to spend $50 on a fucking PPV. Good job, that's how you do it.

THE MATCH BEYOND.

The Observer posted a retraction and apology about the Seth Rollins/talent meeting story. I like Rollins in-ring work, but, man... I can't help but think, for some reason, that he's lying about this and just saying he didn't give a speech and there was no meeting.

Oh no, some fans are tweeting and getting all in their feelings ?

Well at least it makes sense now why he chose to bring in Jake Hager for his group.

Looks like its been pulled from ProWrestlingTees, for whatever reason. This was the shirt, though:

About the only things I know about Marseglia are that he has a really cool look, and he was trained by SPIKE DUDLEY... and fuckin' Mike Kanellis.

That's gonna be a no from me dawg.

I think he's making fun of the dirt sheets that said he gave a rah-rah type speech.

I'm aware of all that, but PWInsider said there's talk within the company of using War Games for Survivor Series and NXT only having War Games this year for that women's match.

Fuck this company.

John Silver, Alex Reynolds, QT Marshall and Shanna have been added to the roster page.

The rumor is that War Games will occur at Survivor Series, and Takeover will just have the one.

I can’t find the exact quote right now, but I remember reading a quote from someone (it was either Cody or Kenny or Tony) that said they’re doing something different with AEW and it’s going to polarize some people.

Luke Harper is far more likely to spill the beans eventually, I’d imagine. And while we’re posting David Starr’s opinion on all of this, I rather enjoy this one:

Sounds like people are wanting AEW to be something it won’t be, and was clearly stated as such from the very beginning.

That’s all well and good and might be true (except most all products have alternatives), but we’re talking about wrestling and WWE. It’s incredibly easy to boycott this company over their business practices. It’s cool if people don’t care about this and just want to watch the wrestling, I’m not going full HAM here and suggesting anyone is a bad person for thinking that way. Amazon is a terrible company - but do I care about the products and convenience, or the workers suffering under said corporation? There’s other places I can buy fucking socks or books or whatever. There’s other places you can watch wrestling, or even the WWE product itself (without supporting them with your money).

Oh yeah, I fully realize that. But I’m just up to a breaking point with WWE. This goes way beyond booking woes now.

Good wrestling or whatever doesn’t excuse this kind of behavior, and supporting them with your money only further encourages said behavior.

The more apt comparison for AEW, if you're dead set on business models and boom periods from over 20 years ago, would obviously be ECW. All of this talk about stagnant growth (lol they've been on TV for a month and have consistently been in the top 10 for their timeslot but oookay) and niche audiences and whatever, there's your comparison. Maybe their ratings stay the same. Maybe it grows. Maybe it doesn't, and it drops to NXT levels. That's still at a level that TNT is happy with it. But some people on the internet aren't going to accept that, because they have this preconceived idea of this being viable competition for WWE. It's not. The talent has said that time and time again, but nobody really hears that (or thinks it's a joke or deflecting or whatever). You can't beat WWE. They won 18 years ago, ran a monopoly, stockpiled massive amounts of talent in the past 5 years, and brokered huge deals with corrupt governments and with television networks that grossly overpay for live content. AEW is the clear #2, and that's perfectly acceptable. It's an alternative, and obviously people are treating it as such. Entertaining the thought of people like Roman, Seth, Orton, etc. jumping is dumb. Could it happen? I mean, I guess, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Let's say it does, though. Does it matter? No. Did Hall & Nash jumping create buzz among wrestling fans? Yeah. What broke into the mainstream, though? It was Hall, Nash and some guy named Hulk Hogan who was the most popular wrestler of the last decade at that point and brought eyes to WCW way before that when HE jumped. Using these analogies and scenarios are so, so, so dumb in 2019. It's probably time to accept that wrestling just won't ever be popular like it was back then, and move the fuck on.

Ya'll out here trying to apply Monday Night War era bullshit metrics to a company in 2019 that's been on TV for like 5 weeks. Wild.

Casey from SquaredCircleSirens: