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Just gonna keep it short and sweet, fuck CM Punk.

Personally, I think everyone sucks in this situation and we just need Kris Statlander to be an alien again. Come on. All Extraterrestrial Wrestling is right there.

Hey, some people pay for that kind of thi- Nope nope nope nope

So, the two year anniversary of my father's passing came and went and I didn't use as a coping mechanism. It helps that I was with my family today for Easter, so it really wasn't on my mind.

Another thing about this board I'm grateful for, no fucking April Fools are tolerated here. Just wanted to give thanks for that.

Really is fun to see an athlete just mark the hell out when they're handed the WWE championship belt: Just a reminder, this Thursday.... DEAN~!

Hope you had a good Easter weekend! It's April, so it's time for the premiere of Dynasty! This Thursday though, it's DEAN~! Order now!

As we enter the week I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been so generous. I hope we can do a good job with the show on Thursday and honor such a great person in Dean Rasmussen who was one of the earliest "tastemakers" in wrestling If you donated and would like to be thanked, please feel free to send a message to me on here (many who sent said they didnt want/need to be mentioned and that is fine of course) as well Appreciate everyone!

He thought he heard Vince yelling "A RED CANISTER POSSIBLY FULL OF FLAMMABLE LIQUID" through his headset.

Preston Vance changing his SIM card like Stringer Bell…

Looks at watch. April 1.

Maybe it's backstage now in a box shaped object.

Every single time. There's a link a few posts above to him discussing how calm, rational, and professional he was in dealing with the Hangman issue, as if the scrum never happened. In all seriousness, as someone who has dealt with some psychological issues in life, once you've started figuring out your own shit, it becomes glaringly obvious when someone else is dealing with some undiagnosed shit. In my humble opinion as a dude just trying to get through life, just based on how Punk presents himself, this dude is a massive narcissist who has never devoted a nanosecond to wondering if he might possibly be the problem, has never once thought about how his own shortcomings might contribute to these issues. Everything he does is right because he is the hero of his own story and can never be wrong. Every single interview about these situations, he's the most professional, rational, and correct person involved. It's fucking wild, dude. Have some fucking humility.

It's also funny that he said he wouldn't talk to Cabana without a lawyer before the scrum, at the scrum said his door is always open to talk to anyone, the Bucks and Kenny come to talk to him - with a lawyer! - and a fight somehow starts. Not like funny ha ha, but funny "uhhhhh".

A lot of people have issues where they worked. We don't need to hear about them. To this day, Mercedes and Trinity never said a word about what really transpired with WWE management. People have tried to paint the picture of a lot of different things including veiled racism from a producer but we don't know the actual story and we might not ever hear about it. Punk on the other hand calls up a guy who has a personal beef with Tony Khan and they sit around and giggle about all the dirty laundry. That's all there is to it.

Also where was Danny Garcia when Menard was getting beat down?

I maintain no illusion that AEW, and the EVP's in particular, are blameless. I do wish TK would be more assertive at times with talent. I just can't imagine living life with the lack of self awareness Punk seems to have. That dude legitimately believes he's never done wrong in his life.

I used to be a Punk guy, but there's only so much one can take before you realize Punk may be the problem. I always defended him during his first run in WWE because he was the anti-establishment fighting against the very system that employed him.

I don't want to formulate my own narrative as much as I want to control it.

BAH GAWD SOMEBODY STOP THE DAMN POST THIS MAN HAS A FAMILY Well there are a lot of hot younger female workers for him to rub elbows and take pics with (in all seriousness a middle aged famous wrestler, with a rumored history of womanizing, ostensibly hanging out with nothing but the 20something women in the training center is creepy as fuck, gives me "grown ass man hanging out by the high school" vibes)

A reminder if you can't be there live, the show will stream on IWTV.live. You can sign up on the site and if you do please use promo code "ACTION" when you do, it helps us out

Yeah, but that's not what he's saying/implying. He's saying that Tony's niceness has been exploited and that guys are out of control. And when he asked him to correct a situation with an employee that's out of control, he didn't know what to do. TK may be fun to work for, but that doesn't mean you're gonna like who you're working with.

Positing Harley not being armed is also funny

Hi, folks. Some of you may know I setup a Discord a few years ago that's board adjacent in a sense. With the show coming up it only made sense to create a chat for the show which is located here. https://discord.gg/jYk9PRsS4v I asked @Jaceyfor permission to mention it here which he kindly gave. Basically it's a chat room and I'm sure a lot of you know what Discord's about (if not it's a fancy IRC) What I'm hoping to do is archive this for posterity so while those watching at home can certainly join if you're at the show it could be something worth posting to as well. I'm sure I'll be putting a few pics up myself. If interested in some way please check it out.

The Anthony Henry - Adam Priest matches are definite favorites of people 4 diff matches on ACTION shows Adam Priest v Makabe from April 2023 as talked about here - https://bigegg.substack.com/p/adam-priest-and-daniel-makabe-prove

That's awesome. I'll sometimes look at old arena reports and be reminded of people I saw wrestle live. Usually it'll be some weird outlier like Bobo Brazil (he worked a legends battle royal on a WWF show). I think the coolest "bucket list" wrestler was that I was there for Bruno Sammartino's final match.

I'm feeling better on the 50mg Trazodone. I met with some friends on Thursday for the first time in ages, Alyson Friday and went to my Mum on Sunday to bring her Easter Egg on. When you have severe depression, the history of self-harm and suicidal thoughts very few know about, just getting out of bed is challenging. In addition to the Cerebral Palsy making my body work four times harder doing the same as those without. I ache and tire so quickly. Been in constant pain ever since I was born to 39.

Some DEAN~! related links https://iwtv.live/promotion/TWE-Chattanooga#dJLZD0zvZm Jaden Newman vs. Mad Dog Connelly dog collar match https://iwtv.live/promotion/zona-23#5D45AgW4Pj Demus vs. Luantik Extreme https://iwtv.live/promotion/IWRG#Og3vazN45V Dr. Cerebro/Black Terry vs. Gringo Loco/El Hijo Del Diablo https://iwtv.live/promotion/action-wrestling#Gb40A6WLgm Action show with Billie Starkz vs. Daniel Makabe and Krule vs. Alex Kane vs. Adam Priest

I worked for a few short weeks in a music store attached to a Montgomery Wards. The entire time, the playlist was The Eagles' "Hell Freezes Over", Des'ree's "I Ain't Movin' and Sheryl Crow's first album. "All I Wanna Do" makes me want to tear my ears off.

Ok, I watched most of the interview earlier. I don’t think I’ll finish it, so I’ll ramble on what I saw. I’ll start by admitting I have a bias against Ariel Helwani. Maybe I’m wrong on this, but because of this I won’t really focus on his contributions too negatively. What did it for me was the confrontational interview with Tony Khan (which as a journalist is totally fine if that’s your style of interview) but then following it with a HHH interview that was take and didn’t have any questions of the very newsworthy Vince McMahon who was in the midst of being kicked out or returning to the WWE. The term WWE shill was used by someone earlier and him getting WWE celebrity in the crowd treatment during a WWE PLE during all that where Michael Cole coyly referenced the TK interview was enough to show he shouldn’t be taken seriously. Oh hey, CM Punk. Neat. He’s a very interesting and complex individual. Taking into account that this is clearly his perspective and what he believes, I found this to be a very compelling watch. His AEW run has made me appreciate him a little more as a performer and also as the type of person that would be great in a tv drama. His contradictions and self righteousness really round out his character. It’s like loving Bruiser Brody because of the mystique of anything could happen and he could savagely wreck anyone. CM Punk can be defending a friend or being a prick and in both scenarios it is believable. It’s not that it’s tough being a Punk fan now, but that it likely always was. As he gets older he’s now the crabby or tell it like it is Gen Xer that doesn’t care but is also the center of attention that is surrounded by Millennials and Zers. Fighting the system but kind of likes and needs the machine at the same time. He’s fascinating for sure. Waxing poetically, so if I go too far or hurt feeling I’ll take it back do to lack of spine. Going off of memory on this. I was watching while pretending to work. And by pretending, I was just on my phone: The comments on Collision were neat. He did not think it was a good idea. Even wishing he’d be let go before that. There was a feeling that he was trying to establish that he wasn’t really in charge of the show both not wanting to do it and being dragged to resolve issues (more on that later) but he regularly would say “my show” and even catching him selves a few times with saying it. Selfishly, even though he didn’t think the separation would have worked, I wish it did because Punk, Danielson, Starks, and FTR as the main regulars would have really been my favorite show. Jungle Boy was painted in a bad light. Because we all know it was single-handedly his fault, I won’t give too much of my thoughts. Bringing up the first Glass argument involved Jack swearing at Tony Schiavone beforehand. I don’t know if we’d ever get it, but a perspective from Schiavone on everything would be great podcasting. Punk downplays the ALL IN altercation but then mentions that he choked him. It’s hard to imply that you were the calm and rational one when you mockingly end with that. This is one of the times he says he quit. He continued to do the match out of respect for Jerry Lynn, Samoa Joe, and the ref I forget. After the match Jungle Boy was put in timeout and CM Punk wasn’t asked to leave. Then the head security guard awkwardly hinted at it and Punk retells it like “What would make you job easier, pal.” Saying that, I never had Nado’s but it would have been funny to eat with the Punk gang afterwards. Punk states he didn’t do anything g to threaten Tony Khan after Ariel brought up the “feared for my life” line from TK. Whether it is an over-exaggeration or legitimate concern, it is safe to assume that if he is willing to choke someone and then in front of people quit before the match with the largest audience of the company and you’d preform in front of, I doubt it wasn’t more intense than implied. I find the CaNt TaLk AbOuT aLl OuT bUt I hAvE nOtHiNg To HiDe to be disingenuous. It’s played off too fake like neither of them see what the big deal was and that the NDA is silly and he doesn’t have to hide his actions. I will say this is the first time I heard a good point from him on the Hangman promo. Punk says they went over everything beforehand and were having a lovely time, then BAM you got shot on. I still feel it is ironic that you made your career on moments like that, and even hinted at his “WHO CHOSE YOU! SAY HIS NAME, I SARE YOU” line at Drew was adlibbed, yet it happens at you and it nearly tanks an entire company. BUT, yeah, if you go over your promo together and then that happens I’d be pissed too. It likely wasn’t as Leave It To Beaver beforehand, but still. It is silly to hear Punk say that because everyone was so loud he couldn’t hear it at first, it reminded me of when comics roast each other and one is too prideful to admit they got bested. Afterwards he says Page said he did it for the Colt. For the Colt stuff and the drama stuff and the stuff stuff, I think everyone looks bad. It comes off too cliquey. That was the moment everything became terrible for Punk. He talks about how Tony didn’t do anything. Even with the Jungle Boy stuff, at one point he says TK said “What do you want me to do?” I’m not going to go too hard on the specifics of that quote because it’s likely a which person are you going to believe if we got both sides of the story. SAYING THAT, based off of this and interviews from Marko, Joey Janela, Punk not being picked up form the airport, a female wrestler I forget the name of, other stuff, Matt Hardy (listing all this stuff I’m rolling my eyes at myself) it is safe to assume AEW is maybe poorly structured (whatever I mean and can tangibly point to?) and has/had bad communication/ HR/ Talent Relations. That’s fair of a young company that grew very quickly (I’ve seen someone say that once so I’m going to pretend I know what I’m talking about). I don’t know if Punk would have worked out long term in AEW. Even without the Hangman situation derailing perfect job. It could have been something else that would have set him off. A non-confrontational authority couldn’t fix it. In the past, an over-structured environment caused him unhappiness (and he quit, but that is also due to company dysfunction and a lawsuit, etc, so I won’t go too far into that). I’m sadly expecting his current run in WWE to end eventually in drama after the honeymoon period. What will he do when Seth or Roman zing him hard enough in an unplanned promo moment? Will he feel comfortable to demand HHH and the company lawyer to make him apologize? I do feel (let me rest my tentacles in my psychiatric armchair) that a part of the drama that unfolded in AEW is a bit of How dare they do that to me of all people? Punk hold himself up throughout by implying that because TK didn’t side with him or do what he felt was best they must not “care about making money” which is a tad self righteous. I do find it interesting that he says there were more positives than negatives. Which I agree with. The Punk run in AEW was very special. The MJF feud was one of the best in wrestling and I loved his Kingston match. I have a bit of a conspiracy: WWE tries to create narratives and repetitive talking points about their competition. Early WCW jabs involved the wrestlers being old or McMahon going on about how they don’t know how to treat or book talent like The Giant or Ric Flair. With AEW it was originally about Blood and Guts, which AEW brilliantly turned into an alternative positive. HHH on a few occasions even tried to push people calling themselves EVP’s as a joke. I feel the current talking point is that AEW is only dream matches and no stories. Then dunk in the attendance. I feel the lack of story complaint is very overstated, but was extremely successful at getting the desired narrative across to be regularly repeated. No Stories is the “Sleepy Joe” of wrestling. I suspect it when I heard it from Becky Lynch and then Punk here. Getting the message across. The line about guaranteed contracts maybe being bad was fucking stupid for how worker’s rights he’s implied. I’m chalking it up to him trying to bash the young AEW guys while also dunking on their poor attendance and not thinking through his point rationally against his general personal ideologies: The backstage at WWE story was funny. Punk getting help from Liv Morgan to find his EarPod was great. The Betrayal line was good. It looks bad doing that, but at the same time I believe you had Adam Cole and maybe others derpin around before working for the company. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bayley, Naomi, and Tamina were also backstage to be buds with Mercedes. I get it but eh to everyone involved. I was a tad confused on Punk talking about almost coming to WWE earlier. He said it almost happened and then said when he took the Fix deal that he didn’t want to do WWE? But then called it a maybe back door to get in? Or that because the handshake deal fell apart he didn’t want to ease back into a WWE Deal? Either way, it would have been wild to see what would’ve happened in that multiverse. I didn’t get to the stuff about Colt Cabana trying to talk with him. So I won’t comment unless a clip gets posted. But, eh. All in all, good stuff. I find Phil Brooks to be an interesting person. I don’t blindly trust the things he says and likely might even assume the other side is closer to right in a few cases. And in some, maybe he’s right. I could see myself and my mental health maybe getting just as paranoid in a similar situation. I’m more of a passive aggressive Minnesotan than a in your face Chicagoan, so it’s probably be different, but pre-meds and self actualization I’ve been known to explode on a piece of shit coworker. Call me Davey Tough Stuff.

I immediately think less of people that take anything Punk says at face value. We have like 2 decades of obvious examples that it's a dumb idea.

Bucket List Type Items: My second live event was at the Scranton Catholic Youth Center in 1982 when I was 9 years old. I got to tap Andre The Giant on the arm. He was truly larger than life and I feel it's something I can tell younger people about today and not sound like Grandpa Jones telling falsehoods about things being bigger or better back in my day.

This. Right here

This is a very good point. I think my take on all of this will be a little different than most on here about the interview in totality. But I wanted to highlight this as a very good point that detracts from what I'm about to say. And just goes to show the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Neither side is totally in the right. And everyone is an asshole in some aspect here. The point above sounds ridiculous. But it's in reading between the lines that I kind of get it. Yes guaranteed money is great. It provides a better living and health and happiness for the performers. And it didn't ruin the business. But what I perceive him to mean by that is it killed the drive in a lot of people. There's no danger. There's no urgency. There's no real motivation (beyond your own self drive... if you have it) to make the choices best to drive the business. The Bucks & Kenny can refuse to work with him because their contracts are guaranteed. When I think everyone agrees the best thing they could have put on screen was playing out the drama from Brawl Out. Overall Punk sounded pretty rational in a lot of what he said to me. The truth is Cabana did not get fired. Colt Cabana got shuffled to ROH. Something that happened to a lot of performers in AEW. Brian Cage got shuffled there around the same time. That doesn't mean Punk caused it. The crux of all of this is the inter personal conflict of Punk & Cabana set against the friendship of Cabana with The Bucks & Hangman. The easiest and most professional thing to do was not to just take Cabana's word for it that he was "fired". Because he never was. The professional thing at the start of this would have been for The Bucks & Hangman to just ask Punk hey did you have anything to do with this? And if he said no they could have chose to believe him, or ask Tony. The underlying point here is The Bucks are bulletproof as EVPs, and while i don't feel like they overstepped. I feel like a lot of their friends did, knowing they had the cover to do so because of The Bucks. Literally all of this can be pinpointed back to Colt Cabana complaining someone got him fired that didn't. All of this drama and fallout over Colt Cabana? Who at the time was as low card as it gets and who continues at this point in time to be as low card as it can get. But ultimately I feel like Punk came off very rational in that interview. That doesn't mean I hate AEW or TK. I still prefer AEW. I still like TK. I still enjoy The Bucks & Hangman. I just think the lack of an adult in the room feeling like he could force everyone's hand hurt this whole deal. Being nice is great. But being too nice leads to you being walked over.

It’s a really good interview, but whatever. Formulate your own narrative. Shill or not, there’s no bias on Ariel’s end.

Not be a huge dick, but why do we need to make The Infantry look great? Their act is corny and they’re average workers. I lol’d at them doing their “hoo-rah” thing in Canada as a face move. Lucky they didn’t get booed. They had the best upset booking of the tournament fall into their laps with Starks audible. Either way, it’s going to be Bucks-FTR yawn.

There's a clip from the upcoming Harley one on the Dark Side Facebook where they discuss Vince vs. Harley and there are gonna be clips of the man himself speaking. Automatically pushes this one into the stratosphere.

i'm going to miss the boys. they add so much to dalton's act and its good to have some npc's

Its interesting these are coming out as 'releases' as TK has historically not released wrestlers but rather let their contracts run out. Not to say these aren't early contract releases but I wonder if they are wrestlers that were on per-appearance deals or if he is changing his thought process.

Stoked to listen to the interview! I'm a Punk guy so I'll enjoy it more than some of you

He wished everyone well, why are people so upset? He was just being polite and not no-commenting Ariel for ninety minutes! He knows Ariel doesn’t like that!

Never made a bucket list for wrestling as I’ve been to so few shows. I’ve only been to 3 AEW shows, one WWF show (the Edge debut match taping), 2 CMLL shows in Mexico, and one local Indy show in Austin. Somewhere I have the flyers/posters for the lucha shows but one of them was seeing Mistico in 2001 in Cuernavaca with a front row seat, when I didn’t know who half the guys on the card were (I was most stoked for Shocker). I’m 90% sure I got to see Dr. Wagner Jr when I went to Arena Coliseo, and maybe Negro Casas, and I think the best Masacarita Sagrada. I got to see the official formation of the Blackpool Combat Club, Punk-Dax singles, and Sting and the Hardyz in Austin. Okada in Philly before he was All Elite (and Flair, thankfully not wrestling), and RVD. Dustin a few times.

Matt and I were just talking about who out there would left on a realistic bucket list of people to see live. Off the top of my head, I think it might only Casas, Virus and Blue Panther, since I got to see Hechicero in Baltimore when he and UG and Okamura came to Baltimore for ROH. I got to see Danielson wrestle Quack at the one ROH Philly so went to in 07 or 08. Got to see Regal wrestle Benoit at the 2000 Pillman show. Lots of guys went through Chikara, especially during KOT. Maybe 70+ year old Mike Jackson? Maybe Gunther, depending on the opponent. Not sure who else there might be.

Oh man, I feel you. I've been through the home buying process twice in my life and it's a pain. The idea of this guy giving up a sale because you want what amounts to a 1-2% reduction is insane. Cutting off his nose to spite his face, penny wise and pound foolish, whatever your preferred idiom is. Yeah, I assume he's banking on it being a seller's market and hoping the next inspector isn't as good as yours obviously was. What an ass. Good luck to you guys!

Thursday I will be in the second row for DEAN~! Friday, depending on how I feel, I may end up at Supercard of Honor. Saturday, depending on the weather, I’ll likely go to the South Street block party hosted by Suplex Vintage wrestling store. Don’t think I’ll make any of the Collective shows.

You know what, forget WATER (I typed that so it stays) and Pete Dunne and The Russian. I want Regal's kid in AEW.

House of Black have a lot to offer in-ring, but you also take their bullshit. Most recent example, making respected Captain Shawn Dean and young Carly Bravo look like complete dogshit on their way to facing FTR in a tournament for the tag team championships. I sense Dragunov doesn't offer the same baggage, while being far superior in-ring. I'm gonna stick to my 1 for 2 fantasy trade.

"the symbol", not a cross...