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The thing is I think the only two players with the leverage to force the issue are USA and Fox. USA needs WWE as with them they can claim at times to be among the most watched cable networks and without them... well how many other USA shows can you name nowadays. That leaves Fox and it is not like they themselves had not had problems of this sort before themselves. They need them less (winning the Friday night time slot isn't that important) but they are possibly the network it'd take longest to care about this. Normally yes this would be a nearly impossible to survive situation, but the specifics in play likely lean in Vince's favor and the world right now is on a real tear in terms of major stuff going down (over the past few days a former GM got shot in the streets, one PM got forced to step down by his own party and another by a hundred thousand people gathering outside his residence and leaving him no option) so the chances of it getting lost in the noise of chaos from all corners is fairly high as well.

I saw one tweet doing that on the board yesterday, but in the very next post someone quoted it and it displayed correctly. I assume witchcraft was involved.

I don't know if you want a heads up on things that are currently busted, but at least on my current theme (Strong climb skin?) when I try to quote selection or mark a forum as read none of the actual text appears.

Man 2018 Liv was not very good at all (heck 2022 Liv is still pretty spotty), that would have likely been a disaster.

...Fuck. Shame on you AEW, that's legit piss poor of you.

I think he should be allowed to have a job, but not one that puts him around minors and young women. If he wants to go say work in a warehouse or load trucks cool, but this feels like it feeds into his numerous bad behaviors and it is good people spoke up before hopefully more were victimized.

That main was fun but I feel in both the Blood & guts matches they really struggle with the final acts? Basically Mox and half the participants just disappeared for the final 10 minutes, being on top of the cage that long is a cool visual but basically they always drag it out way too long given all the people who aren't up there who have to just lie around. I feel like i always dog these matches when the people are coming out (sans the picture in picture breaks which are just awful in this context, broken glass only used during it is dumb) and part of the initial everyone is in the match now phase but they get so crammed with dead time and most of the participants having to more or less twiddle their thumbs. Basically they've so far managed to have fun matches but i think they need to switch things up if they want to have a great one. Also the cage being so far beyond the ropes really hurts here. Also also injuries are unfortunate but having a hyper violent "everyone is gonna kill each other and you can only win by beating someone into submission" match where everyone is very careful to not touch or wander near the guy who blew his leg out kinda breaks the illusion. Leaving the guy out there with a fucked up leg for 15-20 minutes because you don't want to spoil the door opening spot is fucking moronic, AEW is terrible at basically everything involving wrestler health. In better news thank fucking god they finally decided to book Nyla for Rampage before pride month is done, running those adverts with her all month while not booking her was gonna look bad.

When I read this I immediately went "oh no you're gonna bounce off this hard" but said nothing as I didn't want to jinx it. For most of the issues in the first collection the comic is still finding itself and it very much does not go in that direction once it does.

I wouldn't consider the midlevel exception a big money contract if you are referring to Wall specifically. Anyways I hope Wall gets to play this year and at least be okay (I am rather sure his days of being great are over), he really got a raw deal these past few years and doesn't seem like that bad a guy.

I had to go with Fatu/Mads match from MLW as it was nutty in a way I was not expecting and dramatically surpassed my expectations. I'm sure most of the other matches had better actual ring work but this match had a giant masked south african terrorist gain control by tossing anthrax powder into a guy's face (fortunately the ref was wearing a respirator, sucks for the likely now dead fans in attendance) before basically ganso bombing him off the apron through a table outside the ring. A guy put gloves on in order to gently place a roll of barbwire onto his opponent before intentionally jumping directly onto said barbwire with his bare chest. The most unexpected panama sunrise occurred. The table they needed for the ending accidentally broke so the fairly husky Samoan said to hell with it and just did a splash off the top of the ladder onto the guy lying on the mat, which both looked better and likely hurt a hell of a lot more. I don't know what the ending was but I'm pretty sure it involved radiation and a guy came from the back in full protective garb to offer the exposed victim a single white towel to I guess wipe it off. Sometimes I don't need workrate, sometimes I need this specific brand of zaniness that only pro wrestling can provide.

This seems fair but I kinda think the whole NJPW Forbidden Door thing is also likely a drag on things. NJPW at least in the eyes of a portion of the US fanbase is in a dull stretch, another portion of the audience likely has little idea who these people even are, and the build if we are honest hasn't been great as they seem to be struggling between balancing the normal AEW stuff build ("hey, Blood and Guts is soon") and the build for this show. The good news is that if that is a case it is a short term problem, but if it turns out to be true it raises the question of if they should bother continue trying to do shows like this.

I've said this before but the women tag titles were a good idea in the pre-brand split WWE and much less of one now, it's probably best to let them lay dormant for now until the roster is reunited at some point in the future.

I remember some years back a friend of mine asked who'd be the most difficult person for the WWE roster to speak kindly of if they happened to tragically die while working in the company. I went with Coachman not because he was the worst human being I could come up with (as far as I know he isn't) but just because I think even trained workers would struggle with talking up his commentary or coming up with anything memorably good he did.

I don't think it is fair to paint this as a "favorite/underdog" series. Naturally almost every series will have one of each due to the nature of how gambling works but this Finals is one in which people were legit torn over who would win, with each team having definite strengths and weaknesses. I see plenty of reasons to dislike either team (my personal biases: I don't mind GS but always find myself rooting against Boston teams) but this series seemed to be a fairly competitive one heading in and nothing in the first five games has convinced me otherwise.

I want to point out that he effectively quit/got fired from his last job for refusing to get help. I know for some reason people wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt or believe it was all an elaborate plan to get out of his WWE contract, but I think at this point we can all admit that the most likely reality is that he wrestled so fucked up (likely drunk) in WWE he wandered into the crowd mid-match and then refused to get help after. I see no reason to believe he'd act differently if a similar demand was made. ...Of course it won't be, remember AEW was running with "erratic" Matt Hardy wandering out through the crowd afterwards to make light of Jeff's actions so as long as he doesn't go to jail or kill someone I think he's golden there. Also seriously, mostly in general but specifically here as well... if you're gonna go get shitfaced call a fucking cab/uber.

I was gonna mention that bump, it's downright psychotic and was used in a match with no actual ending.

BTW this is a random as hell takeaway but watching the Nyla Rose pride month commercial thing... I would blast WWE if they ran a pride month deal featuring someone then didn't bother to put them in a single televised match at all during said month. Don't fuck this up AEW.

On one hand the whole Judgement Day turning on Edge bit was abrupt by wrestling standards, but I can easily see edge talking like that all the time and the others just deciding that anything else would be preferable to that. Seriously though while their entrance and aesthetic has always been fine the promos have been bad, arguably career worst stuff from Edge with in recent weeks him having to go to frequent basic out of gimmick cheap heat comments to try and keep the crowd engaged. I'd rather support WWE going "this isn't working, let's change it" than force it for several more months. Granted it's probably more along the lines of "well if Cody's gone we need some sort of face presence, let's go with Edge" but still, likely an improvement.

As noted elsewhere, he has a notable story from years back turning down any and all pain meds to deal with a fractured skull. If with age he's decided that's dumb and is all for normal medications now then that'd be legit great news, but if he has I missed hearing it.

Of all the interim title talk one thought keeps popping up in the back of my head: it seems foolish to expect Punk to be back fast, whatever fast relative to the injury actually is. He is a not particularly athletic 43 year old who will not take any sort of medication, including useful coming off surgery anti-inflammatories as mild as motrin. If it is for example a typical 2-4 month recovery period I'd assume it'd be much closer to the 4 month end, and the fact they went with the interim deal makes me worried that they are assuming the opposite.

Honestly WWE should probably take this opportunity to mothball the women's tag belts as while they in theory made a lot of sense in a world without a brand split and only one top belt, with the roster split and two singles titles neither show seems to have the depth for much of a tag division. I wish they worked better but aside from allowing some ladies to be on both shows they just have never really clicked.

The note that has come out about all this that sticks out to me is the talent in WWE immediately knowing that the "not wanting to work with two of the participants" thing was utter BS but also that there wasn't much sympathy towards them or thinking that they took a stand for something worthwhile. I generally take the position that those in the locker room probably have the best idea about things like this and hence waiting to see how the winds blow with them is the best way to get a feel for things like this. The prevailing winds being that WWE is publicly lying through their teeth yet their co-workers liking both ladies but not necessarily thinking they are in the right is... unusual. My best guess is that something relatively normal happened, someone responded emotionally and then someone else responded so in kind and it kinda spiralled out into lost tempers and things going all the way out of control.

Jeez, rough night for legs.

I mean, I liked the bit of trash talk between the fighters before the actual fights in the recent MK games, that's like entrance adjacent? I would say that I both find entrances neat initially and skip them eventually.

Harden scoring zero points in the second half of an elimination game, nature must be healing.