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“Aside from my actions, what have I done to deserve this?” - Stokely Hathaway, 2024.

It's been a year today. Not a day goes by where I don't miss the big guy and his presence. I don't watch a new match without wondering what his one line thought on it in a massive stream of consciousness paragraph would have been (though, I can imagine it at least because you learned to anticipate the patterns, which is its own sort of blessing). I should have my review of the Action show going up tonight on SC. I talked to my parents this morning. Took the 6 year old to swim lesson. Am reaching out to you guys now. Nothing is assured in this life. Go say hi to your loved ones today.

Man, whole lot of fun cops in this thread. Don't have fun in an unapproved way around here or else you're going to get busted by people who get distracted by rope colors.

Been thinking about DEAN on his one year anniversary today. Scary it's a year. I don't have the way with words. Just wanted to say I love and miss you, fella from Paul xxx.

God damn it.

I know we have a merchandise thread but this is too important: https://www.shopaew.com/catalog/product/view/id/74008/s/nyla-rose-her-all-royalties-will-go-to-freedom-oklahomas-501c3/category/5343/ New Nyla Rose shirt with all royalties going towards Freedom Oklahoma, a LGBTQ+ rights group. Well done AEW.

So the story of how Darby Allin came to be hit by a bus came out. He saw Raymond Pettibon about to be hit by a bus, and ran in and and took the hit for him. https://vxtwitter.com/DrainBamager/status/1785338829404016873 Yes, the Raymond Pettibon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Pettibon He who designed the Black Flag logo, amongst lots of other things.

For the love of God someone please throw all of Tony Khan's phones in the river

Not for nothing nor to deny seriousness of these or the allegations against Gulak, the idea of Shawn Michaels chewing someone out for not being professional tickles me greatly. "Back in my day you didn't take advantage of your opponent in the ring, you might stomp on him and curse him out or maybe make an overt reference on live TV to them cheating on their wife, or you just showed up to work high and/or drunk..."

For a second I was like, Damn, Drake pissed Rikishi off, too?!

Here's my write up of the show: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/05/dean.html

I think the best joke I heard about the Kentucky Derby look was Jim Valley saying that he used to watch Georgia Championship Wrestling from Becky Lynch's hat

With wrestling, you can hire 100 people from anywhere and 99 of them probably aren't going to work out for whatever reason. With WWE's system, they hire 100 college athletes, cut 99 of them, and the one they have left over is Bianca Belair. That's going to be their case for their system working, and it's hard to argue that it doesn't.

The Jabroni Beating, Pie Eating, Trailblazing, Eyebrow Raising, Stronger Than A Bear, Coming Full Throttle, Cuz I Piss In A Bottle...

"In conclusion, WCW killed WCW"

Not every single match needs a story. Any time I hear someone edging toward the argument that they do, all I can think of is:

Okay, 51 pages is enough when nothing new has come out in weeks. If the old man is indicted (hopefully!), we'll open a new thread.

I, personally, wish for an all expenses paid trip to Tahiti and a brand new Porsche 911.

“Baseball but for women because our country is stupid and sexist, average dudes who drink a lot of beer, and also Sid” doesn’t really strike my fancy either.

She should steal Julia's hat, now that would be a power struggle.

Vince demanding Johnny “go hire that one asshole who got canceled!” is going to be the 2025 version of “go hire that one legged wrestler!”

So Johnny Ace was describing himself as a victim of Vince but now he thinks that the wind's changing so he's denying McMahon did anything wrong? How is this supposed to have any credibility at all?

I saw Shibata wrestle live. Fuck yeah what a night. And he got hit in the face with a hockey puck, puts all his New Japan matches in the trash

Don't buy that, buy this:

To the previous AEW thread conversation surrounding the need for more story. I personally don't need or want any kind of elaborate Story, but setting the table of any contest with a modicum of build thru production packages and promos goes a long way in providing a crucial shine. The last number of weeks of AEW TV has provided lots of worthwhile and necessary reminder/builder videos, and it's a quiet improvement. It's not perfect, but it's a good sign. There's also been a lot of really good promos - it is a bit unfortunate that so many of the best ones go unseen on twitter.

They added a Joe vs Kassidy mauling, Claudio vs Brian Cage, and a Cassidy interview for Dynamite and White vs Dante for Rampage.

Shit. I thought you were talking about Jasmin St. Claire, the famed neurosurgeon.

The way you’re describing this makes me think about how bands who’ve been on the record-tour-record-tour grind for long enough inevitably make a record about being on tour that is almost completely impenetrable and unrelatable to your average person. Always a reliable sign that the band probably needs to take a break. It actually makes total sense that by the 00’s Vince would be so far up his own ass that he’s making a show about making his show.

Or buying a monorail.

Outside of the obviously vile humans in the business, Seth Rollins is my least favorite wrestler to ever exist. Pictures like this just solidify that opinion.

And of course HHH snidely quipping to the person asking about Gulak, who mentioned Sapp and another site as sources, “you need to find better sources” or something like that. Like the post Vince comments, it seems like every damn time this goof speaks on something official, he just steps on his dick, either by being tone deaf or by being a petty bitch. At what point does TKO realize he’s just a meathead in a suit?

When someone comes forward about a matter of sexual assault - and let's not get it twisted, what Gulak tried to do was sexual assault - I'm not especially interested in whether the victim was a good person or not. I'm more interested in making sure that the next person doesn't have it happen to them.

@Zakk_Sabbath out here humblebragging his death by snu snu tendencies

Skye Blue is so much better as a heel. She wrestles with more confidence and doesn’t look like she’s always trying to figure what her next move is. And the character work is better. She had such little charisma as a face, but she’s turned that blank slate into a strength by just being a cold, heartless heel.

My parents, in their wisdom, sent their Dyslexic ADD riddled son to a bilingual school in NYC in the 70s. I'm convinced every teacher there were ex-Vichy regime members. My moment of triumph came in grade 2. Still in remedial French, the assignment was to construct and recite a sentence in French, in class for the end of the week. I, being the smart Aleck 7 year old recited "Je déteste Mon professeur de Français" I was sent to the principals office and sat awaiting my father, who had been called in from his job in the financial district because my mom was visiting relatives in Florida. Dad arrives. Shoots me an unamused look and asks what I did. The Principal and teacher explain and say my behavior is unacceptable. My Dad sits there for a moment and then looked Madame Whatahername (oh all teachers were referred to as Madame or Monsieur) in the eye and asks "Did he complete the assignment?" The teacher and principal were confused and insisted that wasn't the point. So again my father asked "but did he complete the assignment?". The teacher grumpily said yes so, my father followed up with the question of "So why am I here?" The Pass/Fail exercise was changed to Pass, despite my teacher's angry protest. To cap it off, my Dad turned to the principal and stated "For the record? I hate his French teacher too. Next time, consider if it's worth your time and mine to make me leave work before calling me". I miss my Dad. Now back to movie discussion! James

Vince recruiting for a new wrestling company will be like Mr Burns telling Smithers who to recruit for his softball team

“The thickness” sounds like Mike Tyson covering Disturbed.

Settle down, Zakketico.

Bumping this old-ass thread because I just had a thought while posting in another thread about Ethan Page's release: As of January 2022, ROH TV was getting ~400K viewers across all of the various Sinclair stations it aired on. I also pulled a report just now where WOW was just doing 240K-330K in November/December '23. Am I insane, or do you guys think there might still be some value in old-school, straight-up broadcast syndication?? Even if it isn't first-run matches necessarily, these numbers kind of make me think that even running classic footage to drive eyes to the Turner shows (or, alternatively, classic ROH stuff to drive Honor Club subscriptions) might be a viable form of "advertising," in a sense. I guess really it all comes down to exclusivity in the new deal with WBD or wherever they land next, but food for thought, anyway. Maybe I'm outta the loop, but I was a little shocked by the size of these audiences for what are essentially infomercials.

Now, the Karate Man, that guy had it.

Remember the promo Danielson cut when he was kayfabe released from the NXT competition? We need Chuck Taylor to come back like, "I don't know what the future holds for Chuck Taylor, but "No Gimmicks Needed" Steve the Samurai is going to be just fine! (or Frank "Grabass" Hernandez, or Cuba Gooding III, or "Hard Wood" Rich Mahogany , or...).

Softballs used to be balls of yarn with the leather covering, so they were literally soft. They became more like baseballs years later.

Regarding @AxB comment about hockey pucks, they are not soft. It’s galvanized rubber. They’re hard as fuck. Like, slightly harder and more dense than an LJN wrestling figure. I thought the most painful thing on the show was Jericho winging one right at Shibata’s face. They’re the type of hard, like a baseball or softball, where even if it’s lightly thrown at you, it’s going to fucking sting, in the face anyway. So that had to suck. But all in all this was a really fun episode. I like that they’re just staying consistent and not hot shotting anything because of some weak ratings. Just stay the course and keep adding more and more storyline stuff each week.

I think ECW was dramatically overestimating their chance of signing Kurt Angle in 1996 even if they didn't run that angle

That's probably a better way to say in writing what I say to myself in my head before I mangle it in the process of typing it. I do think there should be an overarching general direction for your company and the titles, but I don't need weeks of setup for everything. I like legit sports. Sometimes the Red Sox & Yankees play and it's a huge deal because of the decades of beef. Sometimes the Red Sox play the Padres and there's zero history, other than the Red Sox' best player signing with the Padres last offseason. Not every encounter is going to be steeped in narrative. That's ok. Sometimes it's just about winning and getting paid. I do wish they'd say that on tv more.

Literally in 2001 at a party had a guy trying to convince me to buy apple stock the day the Ipod dropped by showing me a goddamned Ipod and I was so impressed with my new "MP3-CD player" that I had bought the week before that I told him he was an idiot and that this was the future. This is it. Man the more I remember these things the more miserable I get. But my SLimX is still working and hooked up and about 7 ipods of various sizes and types are stacked away somewhere...but that's what they call a "Pyrrhic" victory I think.

Every damn time I read her name, I hear Eddie doing his Cosby impression.

I didn't need more than "I went in for a handshake and accidentally grabbed someone's waistband". That's enough to set off creep alarms in my head. Think of it this way. Think of a handshake. Think about how often handshakes are usually right around your elbow's height, if not higher. Then think about how Drew Gulak is a half foot taller than Ronda Rousey, but his hand - which he claims was for a handshake - was somehow low enough to hit her waistband. Nope. Not buying it. That's not a wacky misunderstanding, that's an attempt at a grope and he got caught.

Adam Copeland: so let me get this straight, Tony. After spending 25 years in WWE, I come to AEW and after six months you want me to work an angle where some evil black mist from a satanic cult leader makes me almost turn evil? Tony: You said you wanted to work House of Black, it’s the only way Malakai will put you over...