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HEY! My youngest daughter got us tickets to the Rampage in Norfolk! I'm so excited! Live QT Marshall!

I got to get her to wear Darby Allin make-up. I'll wear Sting 88 make-up.

You have no imagination. I saw that and imagined them doing all types of different things in that gear.

Somebody let TK know that one of the founders of this board is going to be there, get Dean the royal treatment!

Pictured: three guys who really moved the needle

Love Sopp is about the worst possible shoot name in the history of humanity, so maybe that's why lol.

When was the last time two this well liked and universally recognized "really nice guys" were in a same photo together?

Yes! This exactly what I was hoping for! That gives them the ability to basically do what they were doing during the Daily Place days, not have to worry about burning out a tv crowd, and it's super WCW. Love this and was hoping they would do this for a women's show but fuck it.

Coach Tony K certainly rolled out the red carpet for Fat Spanish Waiter.

Being mad at WWE for not signing CM Punk is like my mom being mad at Rihanna for not dating me. Why the hell would anyone in their right mind expect that to happen?

The dude from Creed?

IInspiration

I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude! The Main Event. Fuck I loved that game. Before he became a wrestler, Axl Rotten worked at the video store I frequented as a kid. They had this cabinet there and he was really good at it. Stephanie should never smile. Whenever she does, she looks like an alien or a robot trying to approximate human emotion. Like when Mantis tries to smile in GotG or Arnold's Terminator tries to smile in the latter films.

It's Friday. You know what that means.

The thing about WWE is, it's monotonous and formulaic. And a lot of the best matches in recent WWE history have been good because they broke the formula. Which is going to be harder to do, with people who have never worked outside of it.

Hulk Hogan had prior experience. Ric Flair had prior experience. The Undertaker had prior experience. Steve Austin had prior experience. John Cena had prior experience. Mick Foley had prior experience. Triple H had prior experience. Big Show had prior experience. Kane had prior experience. Batista had prior experience. Edge had prior experience. Becky Lynch had prior experience. Sasha Banks had prior experience. Bayley had prior experience. Gonna miss out on a lot of potential great additions to their roster with this stupid new plan. I get that they have had some hits on training people from the ground up. I'm sure they count The Rock but that isn't fair because he's 2nd generation and learned a ton before they trained him. Same with Randy Orton. Kurt Angle & Brock Lesnar count but had a solid amateur wrestling base before WWE, so they already had half the physical part down. Even if you count all 4 of these guys, that was about 2 decades ago. OVW isn't a thing anymore. The only two big stars that come to mind from the NXT system that had no prior experience are... Charlotte & Reigns. Both of which... are second generation stars who absorbed a shit ton growing up. Can anyone point to a legitimate instance of someone "moving the needle" having only been trained by NXT? Specifically someone that isn't a second or third generation athlete? Like seriously. Who are they trying to create? If it's Brocks & Angles... uhh okay you'll two or three shots with freak amateur athletes. if it's Charlotte & Reigns... uhh okay you'll have 5-10 chances on pro wrestler's offspring. But who the fuck did they ever make that didn't have any wrestling experience? Who is the biggest ground up name they produced through NXT? Big E? How many random athletes off the street have that personality and charisma? Of all the others like him, how many can be on Big E's level? 1 in 10? 1 in 100? 1 in 1,000? This is stupid fucking policy and I will love watching it fail. -Signed a wrestler with previous experience.

Meltzer said WHAT? !?

No joke, if TK is a fan of this board (and he is), I bet he really would roll out the red carpet for Dean.

I mentioned it when she first showed up in AEW, but one of the reasons her character worked well on the indies was that she did backstage promos as the whole "alien who can't quite grasp the nuances of being human" gimmick. It's kind of like how Emma evolved her dorky dancing character gradually in NXT and got it over, but then just showed up out of nowhere with a cold debut on Raw and it didn't translate. I don't know if she does stuff like that on BTE or the other vlogs some of the wrestlers have but it helped establish her gimmick in AAW.

Vince reached way back into the "fuck with wrestlers" playbook and pulled out a little something he likes to call The Mero Gambit.

That’s a weird thing WWE does now (has done for a while) that bugs me. Used to, a booker looked a wrestler and tried to accentuate their positives and do things to hide their negatives. At least, that was the idea. Of course it didn’t always happen. Can’t talk? Put them with a manager/mouthpiece. Not that strong in the ring? Keep their matches short or put them in there with someone who can guide them. Now, they seem to take a wrestler and strip everything away that might get them over and see how they do. As an exercise, that’s interesting, but as a provider of entertainment, it’s counterproductive.

...Glenn's taller than I thought

I don't know if I've ever told this story here, but the WWF's awful handling of these types of things kind of indirectly led to a real teachable moment in my childhood. I was in the dugout during a city little league game, and my friend Wayne, in the course of an otherwise normal conversation about that morning's Superstars, goes "Goldust a (bundle of sticks)!" My coach, to his credit (I say that because this was only '95 or '96 and it's not a real tolerant area to begin with) completely shut down the entire team and told us all that homophobia wouldn't be tolerated under any circumstances and so I've carried that ever since.

They also moved the rolled up ten dollar bill

I don't really get why people get annoyed at WWE preferring to produce in house. What is wrong with wanting to train people from the ground up instead of breaking what might be deemed bad habits and then teaching to wrestle WWE's style? It just doesn't make sense to me as a complaint seeing that its more or less the system one of the most popular countries for wrestling uses in Japan. Beyond that with the amount of bitching people do sometimes when indy talent did get picked up by WWE you would think people would prefer their favorites from the scene not heading to the "evil empire."

I feel like Vince is de facto admitting that AEW is the better option for established indie stars and what's left won't help him compete with what AEW is putting out there. Personally, I don't mind if he tries a different direction. I'm not enjoying NXT much of late and a lot of those guys don't have futures on the main roster, so.... why not try something Problem is, the talent pool is what the talent pool is. Vince may not want a 5'9" guy in kickpads for the main roster, but you're going to find a lot more Johnny KIckpads than you are guys with the look and size Vince wants who can talk and work as well. It's not 1989 when you could walk into the local gym and find a bored bodybuilder with the skill set to make a Road Warrior gimmick work. I'm hoping it works out for Vince. I'm not extremely optimistic, but NXT is a lot less entertaining than it was 4-6 years ago and the main roster is stale, in part because of the scarcity of call-ups. Sure, it's largely a creative issue, but Vince probably thinks pivoting recruiting is probably easier than trying to fix creative (and has the benefit of being someone else's fault. Vince still controls the creative side, so admitting a large-scale issue with that is perilously close to admitting he's lost touch with the modern audience).

So they can pretend to have diversity for a few years in some press releases before firing them?

Well you know I’ve always said they were basically the Demolition of women’s teams. Billie... Bill Eadie... the nod has always been there

This is like 4 more replys about Creed than this (or any) thread needs, but that was new information to me, nonetheless!

I knew that show was screwed as soon as they decided to show the “sketches”. The whole premise was that these two guys were brilliant comedy writers, and then you see their output and it’s not the least bit funny. 30 Rock got that right by just going with the premise that the show was terrible.

Studio 60 is a great parallel for the WWE because it had a talented cast that was undercut by absolutely dogshit writing.

Road Report time!

Like Studio 60?

if he's still in "Suplex City" mode then I'd rather see if they can have those 8 matches on the Saudi show. It can be a gauntlet match or something for all I care but I just don't care to see him wrestle anymore. And at his age with the money he's getting there's no reason for him to stray from that formula either.

I watched one hour and three minutes, which is pretty good for a show without Kenny Omega or Jay White. The Chris Bey/ David Finlay match was the best thing on the show. The Cravate Suplex was fucking balls out. I was fast forwarding and I was like, "WAIT! Is that Britt Baker?!?!?" But is was Chelsea Green. I was very excited for a minute there. Anyway, I'm guessing next week will top out at 18 minutes because everything they set up tonight for next week sounds awful.

I'll be the lone Red Velvet supporter then because while she is green, I feel she's shown a lot of potential so far, she's making everyone's offense look like gold and she's an ok talker, decent amount of charisma, she will get there.

Another Suzuki match announcement: GCW in Los Angeles, 17th September. vs Johnathon Gresham.

Big Bubba Drake moves the needle

The actor playing Prince Charles looks way to much like a normal human being to be playing Prince Charles.

Tony Khan interview recap: During an interview with Dan Le Batard on a podcast Wednesday primarily focused on CM Punk, AEW's Tony Khan talked extensively about the company's rise, surviving and adjusting through the pandemic, being inspired by Vince McMahon, and trying to get talent TV time. Part of that discussion went in the direction of how WWE views them. Le Batard pressed for a yes/no answer on whether WWE underestimated AEW and are ignoring them. Khan said he didn't want to answer either. He said he patterns a lot of how he handles AEW by McMahon building up the WWF in the 1980s and was inspired by how he met with wrestlers in person to get them to sign, taking tons of meetings and doing tons of deals. Khan also said he thought WWE's shows were better when McMahon "wrote them in the backyard with friends vs. having a staff of 25 writers." On NXT and WWE releasing talent: Khan said the head-to-head battle with NXT was "a hard fight" and one they came out on top of, according to black and white statistics. He said there was one week in a 76-week stretch where NXT won the key demo at which point he felt he had to call a timeout, get reorganized, and figure out how to not let it happen again. In general, he said he didn't like how the company ended their 2019 and wanted to get things back on track in 2020. He said there's still a fight with WWE in a sense, but that "it doesn't have to be in a hostile way" with fans. He doesn't want fans to feel like they have to support only WWE or only AEW. He feels like some WWE fans view AEW as the opposing team, but that it doesn't have to be like that and fans can watch everything or pick and choose. Asked why WWE is releasing good talent, Khan opined that WWE has a big roster and are trying to hit a financial number, maximizing profits by reducing costs. He acknowledged they are making choices about how people have value to them and are likely cutting some people they would rather not. On learning from WCW and Eric Bischoff: He talked about his friendship with Eric Bischoff and what he learned through his time in WCW. Khan said that while he respects Ted Turner as one of the single most important people to the wrestling business, he told TNT and TBS management that if Turner had been 1% as hands on or capable to run a wrestling business as Khan is, WCW would have never gone out of business. He thought that business disconnect from Bischoff to Turner hurt the company and that by being the owner, CEO and day-to-day operations, he has a better handle on his own company. He also said that there's no upside for him to run down WWE publicly like Bischoff did as he thought he turned a lot of fans off. He said there is friendly competition in the locker room to get on top, but that it's a pleasant environment and like any sports team, people want to be featured more. He thinks he has good communication with the room and good perspective on how to utilize TV time to try and maximize the growth of the company. He said that balancing act is his biggest challenge and why he wanted to create Dark and Dark: Elevation on YouTube, both to develop young talent and get talent more reps.

I'm guessing Dunn doesn't even call shots. The camera guys all just shake the cameras randomly while an actual monkey (who has been fed more coke than Vince and Hulk on their 3rd rewrite of No Holds Barred) pounds frantically on the switcher and Dunn sits in the back reading Maxim.

Enjoy:

and there is a slightly different standard for how people view lesbian women compared to gay men, especially in a sporting context