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Trust me, I've been dealing with this sort of stuff for a long time. I know what I'm working with here. They're doing two things. 1) Rallying up support to stop trans people from competing in legitimate sports, because frankly there isn't enough of us who actually compete in legitimate sports to beat the drum with nearly as much intensity as they do. (See my earlier post about how the state of Ohio only having one trans athlete in all of high school sports as they attempted to stop the supposed swarm of trans athletes). 2) Getting people to delegitimize the complaint, because when people go "it's just pro wrestling, it's all fake", they can respond "well, you don't care about real women, that's why you don't think this is a big deal! We're trying to protect real women! Blah blah bloo!" like we'll get our trans cooties on them or turn them into newts or whatever. It's not that they're too stupid to get that there was no legitimate competition in play. It's that they're trying to delegitimize the argument entirely. The argument people should be having isn't "it's a fake sport, so what", it's "trans people are actual human beings who should be able to participate in sports anyway if they want to, and most of them don't unless it's to hang out with their friends, leave these people alone you utter creeps".

Didn’t know Buddy was taping his stuff in Amarillo too (ha, probably not that?) Also gonna mention that Rose/Funk match could be the only time they ever faced each other in a singles match (there was a Terry/Dory vs Buddy Rose/Rip Oliver match from the Omni in 1982) I’m ready for more of JJ Dillon when he looked like Tom Smykowski (from Office Space). There’s just something amusingly sleazy about a wrestling manager who looks like he got fired from Office Depot for embezzlement

They've announced Nyla as host for Zero Hour.

My dude, they don't care. I'm not saying this to aim at you or anything, but there are people going "don't they know it's not a real sport?!", and it ignores the simple fact that they don't want LGBTQ folks (and ESPECIALLY trans folks) to be involved in any aspect of life whatsoever. Real sports, fake sports, teaching in schools, working in a job - literally any job - they don't care. I can go into dozens upon dozens of explanations as to why the physiological arguments don't line up and they'll just go "hurr durr durr chromosomes" or "hurr durr durr protect women" because they don't care about any of it. It's buzz word salad because they want us gone. And it doesn't stop at Nyla Rose. Booking another trans person against Nyla and going "ha! Take that!" doesn't solve the problem because that's one of their weasel arguments; that trans people should just compete against each other, knowing full well there aren't enough of us in most situations to do that. The fact that there actually are enough trans wrestlers do to that means the goalposts will then move, and it'll just become WELL THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!! I have a friend who's a librarian, who spoke out about the protests against drag queen story hours. Someone said "why not get a cop or fire fighter to read to the kids" and she said "I tried, they don't show up, drag queens do", and guess what... they would rather have literally nobody read to a kid than a drag queen read to a kid because heaven forbid people have to have a conversation with their child that might make the parent mildly uncomfortable, like being a parent doesn't involve being mildly uncomfortable 95% of the time. Anyway, to make this about wrestling because I'm breaking all kinds of board rules, the Oklahoma State Athletic Commission can go suck a fuck and people should go about their business. If they want to fine AEW for putting a trans wrestler on the show, TK should pay it. And I got news for him, they'll start fining you for having gay wrestlers next because that's the slope we're heading down unless you put a stop to it like right the fuck now.

The classic play is for the face to say "We don't have to wait, we can do this right here, right now in Cheap Pop City!", and then the heel (or heel manager) says "We're not doing this match in Cheap Pop City, we're doing it down the line. Cheap Pop City doesn't deserve it, because Cheap Pop City sucks!".

Agreed, baby faces should *only* ever make challenges for RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, LET’S DO THIS.

I'm glad that they put RVD in a spotty 4-way elimination match instead of tying him to the HOOK stuff by "giving" us Jericho vs RVD in 2024 as a rematch from their match that Jericho got pissy about on the internet all those years ago for people not liking it as much as he thought they should. Also, Emi vs Yuka on Rampage should be delightful.

But got a middling reaction because of one of my most hated of wrestling tropes: the babyface announcing a big match...next week...somewhere else. It makes perfect sense when a heel does it ("I'm not giving this away in front of you rubes!" "Like I'd wrestle in [insert town name here]!" etc. etc.), but when a babyface, like Mox, says "I'm going to wrestle Will Hobbs [Yay!]...next week in Jacksonville!" why would the crowd cheer for it?! WWE does this too, but AEW does it all the time: Hot Crowd: We love you! AEW Face: I'm going to defend my title... Hotter Crowd: Yes! AEW Face: ...next week... Lukewarm Crowd: Wait what?! AEW Face: ...somewhere other than here! Deflated Crowd: But...why not here?! AEW Face: See ya later, I'm done for the night AEW: Coming up next...Chris Jericho hosts a symposium with Hook Dead Crowd: Oh...goody

Did they ask him if he liked gladiator movies?

This whole thing is incredibly awful and I feel horrible for Nyla. But despite that I'm glad to know she's feeling the love.

Wow, MLW only needs to win 99 more lawsuits to catch AEWs evaluation

Insert the “don’t you put that on me, Ricky Bobby!” gif here…

To be fair, he's been doing that since he was Evan Bourne back in the E. Need a smiling babyface to fill a gap? He's your guy!

the 420 4 way set for Rampage

CELEBRATION AT THE RESERVATION. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I WILL FORGIVE YOU FOR NOT DOING QUAKE BY THE LAKE 2, TONY. NYLA VS TONI. A FLAIR FOR THE GOLD OF THE MODERN AGES AND A FUCK YOU TO BIGOTS EVERYWHERE. THEN SEND THE BCC BACK OVER TO THE STATE TO DO ELBOWS TO THE ATHLETIC COMMISSION’S NECK/SHOULDER AREA.

We've got to keep level heads and look at all sides here. Who's to say this isn't a huge misunderstanding, and that the Oklahoma republicans weren't simply opressing Nyla for being Native American?

Yeah I was mid-tangent and my wording went all to heck so thank you for saying this, I meant that if Oklahoma was going to fine Nyla, TK should pay it, but I'm very much in favor of not paying it whatsoever because it's a bullshit sanction for a bullshit rule from a bullshit commission full of bullshit grifters. State commissions don't do a damn thing for wrestlers aside from take their fees each month and a cut of each show's gate. If all they're there for is to collect a cut and do nothing else, get rid of them, especially when they're doing nonsense like this.

"Let the boy be your damn dog!"

Would you buy home owners insurance from these men? Tony in particular looks like he loves breakfast food and hates the government

That's a lot of words for "I'm old."

Or telling said foe 'I'm coming', and let the reply or match graphic later tell us 'it is happening'. In general, AEW could use to improve the timing of their match announcements. The turnaround of match graphics featuring two or more ppl that have immediately before said graphic been in a scrum is a bit ridiculous. Go to Renee for the update.

For @Curt McGirt and others who might be interested Iron Claw starts streaming on Max on May 10

https://twitter.com/NylaRoseBeast/status/1780724575308804104

Nyla Rose: https://twitter.com/NylaRoseBeast/status/1780728251201245605 Fuck Oklahoma.

I like the red shoes but am a lower voter than most. That said, I plan to revisit it soon. I’ve seen a few latter Godard and did not find much enjoyment. I don’t think it’s so sad tho, he did what he wanted to do free of constraints. I find it interesting, speaking more of his prime era, how I’ll watch a film and like it then watch it a second time and kinda hate it and then a third time and love it, or any mix of those three. Truly unique and wholly original presenting countless inspirational ideas. Of the new wave I much prefer Rohmer and Truffaut, but I’ll never stop indulging the Jean-Luc catalog. Maybe more for unique creative stimulation than entertainment.

I'm glad you touched on this - not to sound like one of those nutcases with the fake license plates, but taking the prejudice out of the equation for a moment, it just seems like massive government overreach to tell ANYONE when and where they can work if it's against the employer's wishes. (Or I guess "Contractor" in this case, since it's wrestling). Like, I don't think it would be right for the state to tell someone "Hey, you can't pump gas at the Tiger Mart in Tulsa" either. It's not like she's a felon or has some kind of 'crime of dishonesty' that precludes her from having the privilege to earn a living publicly - it's the state doing this shit, not the business itself (like, AEW isn't sitting there going "We refuse to bake a cake for two women" you know what I mean? She's a former world champion FFS). Imagine hiring her to paint your house, and some dudes with badges show up and pull her off the ladder - people would lose their fucking minds.

Chris Jericho vs. Rob Van Dam, King of the Ring 2002. Still remember that outburst.

I am so unbelievably tired of the sports gambling ads. And incorporating lines and similar into the broadcasts.

If you get a chance to play the PS360 Splatterhouse, do it. It's janky and sleazy and dumb, but it's fun as hell despite being a C+ in every way that SHOULD make for a great game. As far as smashy smashy button mashy combo brawlers go, I get more joy out of that than I do a lot of objectively better games. It also has the uncut version of the arcade game (both the Namco Museum and Arcade Archive releases for Switch have green blood) and both Genesis sequels included as unlockables.

Two additional Zero Hour matches, Orange/Shibata vs Moriarty/Shane Taylor and Trent vs Sydal

She's biracial, so they get a 2 for 1 on their oppression scorecards. If they fill the scorecard, they get a free sandwich from Mission BBQ.

Unrelated to wrestling but it kinda sucks that the Winehouse song that gets played the most in the US is Rehab because she has some other really good songs

Daniels and Sydal were two of the first people out for the CMLL invasion so I think they're just canonically about that life.

We weren't supposed to?

I hate that I read this to the tune of "Caribbean Queen".

100%. And yet, when "Sierra... Hotel.... " played, I was convinced for .1 seconds that Hunter had pulled off the coup of a lifetime and somehow called Dean Ambrose home.

Finished Singularity over the weekend. Really enjoyed it. The time mechanics are a lot of fun and the offbeat, high-concept storyline is very interesting. Game has a “Russian BioShock” vibe to it that I dug. Pity it sold poorly and Raven Software got reduced to a Call of Duty support studio. Been playing second-tier Xbox & PS3 games lately & having a blast. Lollipop Chainsaw, Shadows of the Damned, Ninja Blade, El Shaddai, the Sherlock Holmes games, Afro Samurai, etc. That generation has a lot of slightly janky games that never found an audience but are great fun.

Shit A Matter of Life and Death is leaving the CC? I might need to rewatch it before that.

God help the NHL next season:

Some intern is going to misspell "Sony" into the wrong computer and "Song of the South" is going to finally get its re-release.

That look really did nothing for Tony, he looks like a cousin of John Wayne Gacy lmao

It's been theorized here that the AEW graphics department works like newspapers do for celebs and politicians. They have every conceivable graphic already done and ready to go. Let's just consider that canon. "Hey Bob, it sounds like they're booking Orange Cassidy vs Tetsuya Naito vs Hoodfoot in a Punjabi Prison Match." "Aw man, I made that one last week. Challenge me next time!"

I debated putting this in the horror thread...

Given all the attention to Nyla, maybe they could have bumped the Trent-Sydal match that literally no one but Sue and Sydal’s brother care about and given Nyla a Zero Hour match, I know we’re all rightfully ready for the Acclaimed trios run to end, but can’t help but feel they’ve been cooled down because of Caster’s antics.

I've watched maybe several dozen combat sports events emanating from the state of Oklahoma. This may be the first time I've heard of them having a commission. Maybe it's probably because everyone purposely avoids it and tries running casinos on a reservation (they have the third best Miami behind Florida and Ohio). Now that said, the only thing I would disagree with is paying any type of fine. On that, I would tell them to fuck off because AEW didn't try to sneak it by you. Yes, commission forms are commission forms. However, it ain't drug testing. The promotion knew they had a trans wrestler. You know who also knew? Literally everybody who follows pro wrestling. They didn't sneak it by you. So yeah, you weren't paying attention. Thus, that doesn't justify any punishment. I think this was a few years ago now, but when Patricio Manuel (formerly Patricia Manuel) chose to turn pro after a very lengthy amateur career as a female, Andy Foster didn't put out a press release or any form of communication as the commissioner for California, And you can say, well that's California. Except Andy Foster is from Georgia and as southern as one could get by his accent. Hell, it's probably why out of all the commissions, California has the least shittiest one out of all of them and been the most progressive in terms of fighter safety and necessary rule changes. This is purely driven by, "who can we embarrass and how?" The commissions survive purely off money from other entities. The only way to force change is freezing them out. Continuing to run there is just going to embolden them. I think one of the worst things Tony could do is subject his talent to that anywhere on the globe they run.

there's plenty of basketball leagues all around the world and I suspect that Jontay could get admitted into the country for some of them as long as the government/team didn't mind the whole gambling accusations thing which means he's gonna get deported from Greece or imprisoned in Russia within the next 2 years

It's not about regulating wrestling, it's about fucking with LGBTQ+ people because they're bigots. Fuck 'em.

**Bischoff, in a somewhat pleading voice to Conrad**: Remember, Vince only got on TV as an evil boss after I did, so really, you could, no you SHOULD, say that Vince was trying to - bite, is that what you said, Conrad? Bite? Okay, never heard that word in that context. But Vince was biting Nitro's formula. And if the haters like Dave Meltzer or the ones on Twitter can just take a second to look at the facts, they'd acknowledge that.