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I don't know what you are all talking about, this seems in line with every other ROH ppv they have run... whispering in ear ...Oh, I see. Carry on then.

The thing that just sticks out to me about this, and it isn't anywhere near the most important point in any of this, is that Perry's line was just 100% pitch perfect what Punk would have said in that situation and has more or less said in others. Both men seem like individuals I'd cross the road to avoid having to interact with, but I have a specific aversion to people who talk a lot but cannot deal with any back.

Yeah I work in a... let's say medical adjacent field and please folks, listen to your doctors. They are human and some of them aren't the greatest but generally they know a lot more about what they are talking about than you ever will.

I am uncomfortable with the notion of like... rating tribute episodes and such. I think with the advent of social media there isn't really the same need to get his friends and coworkers to sit in the back and pour their heart out to a camera if they want to, which is basically what WWE generally did.

One thing I believe in strongly is that while wrestling is the matches that take place in the ring it is not only that, and I think without hyperbole Bray realized that more than anyone else of his generation. He was never a top worker (also not a bad one and as noted I am a harsh grader of matches and the Wyatts/Shield 6 man may be a legit 5 star affair) but I can close my eyes and picture several entrances, promos or even moments (the finger gun pinfall!) that remain vibrant and important. We have a star rating system for matches but no way to try and divine the importance of say the Undertaker's entrance, yet the latter is worth no less because of it. If wrestling is more than just what happens in the ring then Bray was a maestro of those aspects, ambitious and not without failings but singular in a way few ever are. And hell I feel truly awful for those that were close to both him and Brodie, to go through that pain a couple years ago only to have it come back around so soon and similarly is just cruel.

I think this is a very overlooked point. In his WEC/UFC title runs he had defenses against Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez, both who while talented had no business in that weight class but were forced to doing to flyweight not yet existing in the Zuffa companies. I would still probably give him the edge as best bantamweight so far, but there's a lot more soft spots in his record than people really acknowledge.

So did it look like Owens reinjured himself at the end of the main event, or was he just doing a really admirable sell job? I didn't recall his body being worked over much but he got up immediately afterwards clutching his side and not being able to raise his arm in victory or even put the belt over his shoulder on that side.

I want to point out that in retrospect all of this was a bit of an overreaction as I think after the initial "hey, Tay is better than we thought she'd be" effect wore off she was revealed to still be a rather flawed wrestler who had more... let's say execution issues than her initial hot start revealed. I think NXT was hurt by covid causing the house show loop equivalent they had going on getting dropped for years (is it even back now?), that was how a lot of the trainee-level people there were getting their reps.

So this was touched on briefly in a tweet posted earlier but sort of... let's say parallel to this whole most recent Punk deal: having someone fly into a show only to not use them is annoying to them, but I get it due to how televised wrestling works. If a single time someone was flown out and then not even let into the building I'd consider that startlingly unprofessional at best and kinda fucked up at worst; this has apparently happened several times on a show only a few months old (even putting the debated Hangman situation to the side). Collision may be a fun show but this is an outright shitty way to treat people who work someplace, if this was done at any place any of us worked we'd likely universally consider our bosses to be huge assholes over this. Punk's a dick but that's sorta expected, I'm more concerned with wat the second most powerful man in the industry is doing here.

Yeah I think this is a bit premature, I don't think the spot on the board really has much to do with who actually handles creative in the company. They have less seats in the new company than they have on the old board so some people had to step down and if we are honest... his was basically a "for show" seat in all likelihood this whole time regardless. If when the sale is finalized Vince decides he wants 100% of creative control back I can't say I'd be shocked (disappointed for sure), but I don't think that has anything to really do with whoever Vince decides he wants to be on his half of the board.

I think the trios match would be going over better if this was Ibushi's first AEW appearance and he didn't look awful in Blood & Guts. No one (hyperbole) is excited about him in this match now because they just got burnt.

Man, I thought Shayna/Zoey was turning out to be surprisingly good before they went about twice as long as they should have.

I would say that Rousey's first run/year in WWE actually went surprisingly well. She was much better in-ring than I think anyone anticipated (mostly on the back of remarkably solid selling of all things), it paired up well with the ascension of Becky Lynch leading to the ladies legitimately main eventing Wrestlemania (and no, Charlotte shouldn't have been in the match). This second run has been an abject disaster though, it feels like literally nothing in it has gone right. FWIW I think it is possible for the Roman/Jey main event to have been a disappointing mess and the Bloodline angle to still survive and be fine. It might not, but I recall a lot of people freaking out after Mania and it turns out it stayed red hot and over as hell. I'm of the opinion they all likely have to end up on the same page somehow before Mania (I think Roman drops it at 40, and after all this time it should be someone overcoming all the numbers and not just winning because Roman is now alone) and yet... well let's just say I need to be sold on the deal with Jimmy making any sense.

You were not suggesting that there but there are a lot of people who are all "this is a great match let's rewatch it" and a guy literally nearly died in the middle of it and definitely suffered a life threatening medical emergency during the course of it. It's basically like watching later years Misawa taking one of the last few head drops he could get away with, I think a lot of people really don't seem to care about these performers as actual human beings and every so often it boils up in me enough to go "that's rather callous and a bit creepy, maybe don't". Like let's keep it 100, you wrote "Finish is fantastic, really puts over Shibata's fighting spirit after refusing to stay down despite getting absolutely smashed with the Rainmaker" while watching a guy who is already starting to be symptomatic from his brain bleed and in fact might be acting that way because of it, sorry you were the wrong place/wrong time guy when I got irked by this again but at best that's cold and uncaring. Maybe let's both be better in the future.

I would never describe a subdural hematoma as a minor detail, but you do you.

So someone mentioned the Steam user counts for the AEW game starting to look grim so I went to check it out and... it's not great. As of this second it is at 76 people playing right now (includes both those playing online and single player) with the 24 hour peak being 96. It's been slowly bleeding players down to this point and it raises questions as to if the Stadium Stampede mode will even be functional as it requires 30 people playing the mode at the same time. It is possible, perhaps likely that the console user bases are a bit higher but as a comparison WWE 2k23 has 1,566 current players at this second. I hope they earned their money back from the month one sales but it is looking likely that the game just doesn't have legs.

God I love Bomani Jones but he hasn't done a lot at ESPN for a bit now and if this is the price that must be paid to be rid of Mark Jackson then so be it.

Yeah I don't know why he kept doing it but Graves really has a pitch perfect Ludwig Kaiser.

Hepatitis is absurdly transmissible, you can catch it from dried infected blood several days after it was spilled.

https://twitter.com/PerchedTopRope/status/1682962789445378049 Well, I guess one more bit of evidence for the whole "you know, maybe just tape ROH before Collision" brigade.

Man, Venture Brothers was on my list of things to finally watch through (I caught portions of it in the past) now that the movie is out, oh well.

So I think Blood & Guts will make a good highlight vid but a mediocre at best actual match. Absurdly too long, the match had a theme (friendship wins) but no real in-match storytelling or build, camerawork was awful, having to explain the finish a few minutes after the fact is never a good sign, Kota reminded me of the times I saw wrestlers try to perform soma'd out of their minds (I don't think he was on drugs, but there is deliberate and there is what Kota was tonight), the post show stuff had the two sides hug it out, very few bled, bed of nails was cool. Like don't get me wrong, there were cool spots or moments but as a 50 minute thing I think it just didn't work. I hate to say this, but given how people in both WWE and AEW work the match I think the "two men start for 5 minutes, one team member comes out every two minutes thereafter" part probably needs to be retired. I love the classic War Games matches but they were built to end shortly after both teams hit full strength, having 20ish minutes of prelude that quite often aren't really building up much of anything (I'd say the opening 20 minutes tonight basically built up nothing) only to follow it up with a 20+ minute "now the match is on for real" run just isn't working. Just start it 5 on 5 and have a 20-25 minute "submit or surrender" match and it probably works better in the modern context. ...And if I never see that damn "each team lines up in a different ring for a staredown" spot again it'll be too soon.

I'd have given the nod to Jack but I think round 2 to Hafez is at least defensible.

I played Paradise Killer a few weeks back and it is very good.