SovietShooter

If I had the book, the trios titles would be unisex (like in Lucha Underground) and instead of trying to book long term storylines around the titles in a regular basis, they would be the fun opening-match-get-the-crowd-on-their-feet championships that get passed around like candy. I would almost have a secret rule that the titles are never successfully defended. But on the other hand, if I was booking and had the talent roster that AEW has, the show would be mostly trios matches to get all the stars on TV every week. But I digress...

To be fair, Highland Heights, KY is a suburb of Cincinnati. Truist Arena is on the campus of Northern Kentucky University, and is maybe a 15min drive down I-471 from the central business dirstrict. Probably actually closer to the airport than downtown. So, it isn't like this show is in the middle of a corn field. It is is the newest and fourth largest arena in the Tri-state area!

Cagematch doesn't do a good job gathering info on shows in Mexico. From Luchablog:

Well, hopefully the state athletic commission sancions that match official for his failure to enforce the rules. The competitors should be checked for foreign objects before the bout transpires... how do you miss a solid metal ring on one of the participant's hand?

When I got into the business in 1998ish, I knew who Meltzer was, and although the major companies were not booking based on his opinion, the WO and the Torch were widely read by the boys, and to some degree those opinions influenced things. Look at it this way, if over the years it became clear Meltzer liked a certain style, and Dave heaps a ton of praise on a guy like Will Ospreay, then it is easy to convince yourself, as a worker, to work more like Ospreay. Even if that is done subconsciously. So if everyone eventually is working like Ospreay, and those wrestlers are getting booked by the major promotions, then to some extent Meltzer influenced that booking.

Back in the olde days journeymen-type workers would go from territory to territory and work under different names/masks and lose them, so it has kind of always been a gray area. The commissions are legitimate public officials, but they are also in on the act. So they traditionally turned a blind eye to guys remasking when they moved to a different area. A good example of this would be Adolfo Tapia who was working different gimmicks in different areas in the late 80s/early 90s, losing his mask multiple times, including to Hijo del Santo. I've never heard any stories of anyone claiming fraud when he was regimmicked in AAA as La Parka. Conversely, Silver King lost his mask to Hijo del Santo, and wrestled for almost 20 years unmasked. Then suddenly in the late 00s he decided to put the same mask back on again, and work masked in AAA as Silver King - and the commissions put a stop to it. To a large extent, that is what the commissions are. Usually commissions only get involved in a newsworthy way when there is some kind of incident that gets enough publicity that they have to step in. Aside from that, the only real functions are licensing wrestlers, and some don't even really mess with that.

My pure speculation is that they are going to show footage of Perry legit punking out Punk (no pun intended), and then the Bucks will claim, as heel authority figures, that they were responsible for firing both men. And they are doing this in the face of Punk's buddies FTR. TLDR; The Bucks fired FTR's friend.

Since when have luchadors who dropped famous mask matches been allowed to re-mask? I guess another little grain of integrity in wrestling has been swept into the dustpan of history. This was just a special occasion type of deal, Panther does not typically work with the mask on. This was just a throwback, kinda like how Jericho puts on the old Liontamer tights on occasion. A few months back for one of the Halloween shows, CMLL had everyone that worked all wear their old masks, and at the end of the night they all came to the ring and removed them one by one in a ceremony.

Trent vs Nick Wayne would actually probably be really good if Wayne was a Babyface. Trent could just be an absolute dick to him and Wayne could bump his ass off.

Double post...

I think a healthy portion of the criticism of these releases (not necessarily here, but in the wider IWC social media landscape) is being done in bad faith, like many AEW criticisms. TK having said in the past that he wouldn't cut anyone early, was just enough for the stans to dog pile on him for hypocrisy, despite the fact that was never a statement he was going to be able to honor. Even releasing Punk was going back on that, despite that being for cause. The fact of the matter is that AEW doesn't run house shows, and doesnt have TV time to showcase everyone they have under contract. In general, these releases were of folks that never really should've been signed in the first place. Especially since ROH isn't really working out as a separate brand. In reality, there are probably 10-20 more folks that could be let go and no one would ever notice if it wasn't for a dirtsheet reporting it. Remember, we are the sickos that knows who guys like Gravity, the Boys, and Slim J are to begin with... your average AEW viewer has no fucking clue.

His name could be Paul Maulive.

Kind of a tangent, but I hate gimmick championships... but I feel the issue with AEW's titles is they are all kind of redundant. Clearly the AEW World Championship is at the top at the food chain, but there is no real difference between all the other singles titles, sans the ROH Pure title. Like, I grew up with the idea that the US/IC titleholder was the defacto number one contender to the World Champion... and I don't see any kind of heiarchy like that with any of the AEW/ROH belts. None of them are realistically more important or different from one another. If AEW has to have all these titles, they need to differentiate them. They should've merged the ROH, NJPW Strong & AEW International titles to form the "North American Triple Crown", and then kept the TNT title as an "open challenge" title, a notch below. They should've either left the ROH TV title vacant, or kept it merged w/ TNT when Joe had both. Merge the AEW/ROH Tag & Trios titles. If you want to have a ROH exclusive title, then that can be the Pure title. Merge all the Singles women's titles, and introduce women's tag titles. Or, maybe make the tag titles gender neutral like Lucha Underground...

Unless there is a plan to vacate both sets of titles. Coach just intentionally booked the regular ol' tag titles to go vacant, so it isn't out of the realm of possibility to do something more unexpected, but my gut tells me you're right and it will just be a basic angle because of these damn titles

From an angle perspective, this White/Billy match this week could be interesting. As for The match itself, 2024 Billy Gunn probably isn't bumping and selling his ass off for Jay White, so there has to be an angle coming out of this. Does Juice come back and all four of the BCG lay out the Acclaimed? Or does perhaps Juice come back and he & White lay out all of them?

I would wager that AEW's fiscal year ended/begins on 4/1. These releases were probably just getting some things off the books before the start of the new fiscal year.

IMHO, it just looked like the ref blew the roll up finish, so they improved what we ended up getting as the finish. If Starks is on his way out, him putting over Top Flight makes sense.

I think a nice MJF vs Adam Cole blood feud would be a perfectly fine upper mid-card special attraction showcase feud, similar to Hangman vs Moxley last year. The main event scene and AEW title doesn't need to revolve around it.

That's the one thing this heel turn from the Bucks is missing - blatant abuse of power to win matches. I'm definitely not saying they should be heel authority figures and making matches and such, but they should be leveraging their position to their benefit a lot more. They should have a crooked referee calling their matches calling thing right down the middle Fonzie style.

If AEW is the "workrate" company, then why is she not working? All I hear about her is that she was the best in-ring female the WWE had in forever, and TK hasn't put her in the ring once. Show me her work, or get her off my tv.

"I Need You To Beat Me" is Ospreay's "Hard Times", to me. It's an intense, fiery promo, in the same vein as these Babyface promos he has been cutting in AEW.

That was kinda why I asked... I know they did crazy spots and probably got some hard way color, but I don't remember any of those guys wearing an honest-to-god crimson mask in WWE.

Every month the "championship committee" could have a closed door meeting, where they determine that month's ratings. If the rankings suck, you can blame it on Jerry Lynn or whomever.

Has Adam "Cope" Copeland™ ever donated his plasma in an old fashioned bloodbath? I know Christian has sprung massive leaks in TNA, but I can't recall Edge doing it. But I also don't really watch WWE...

My memory is telling me that they usually start off Dynamite & Collision with either a Jon Moxley or Orange Cassidy match, and usually end the show with the "main event". They typically do try to start off the show it's a big match with top stars. What I am saying is they need to completely go backwards with how they air the card - start off with the biggest "main event" match, and then work down from there.