A_K

He's a rough & ready, roguish space cowboy. Dude likes to gamble, smuggle and shoot guns. Who doesn't. Doesn't make him morally bankrupt though ? Eventually he gets a little more mature, realises the greater stakes at play and that sometimes you've got to face the music & be counted.

As someone already eloquently posted .. get rid of them both. This Andrade character is an absolute clown. He starts off with Vicki Guerrero which sucks. He moves to Chavo which sucks. He has a program with Matt Hardy (both suck). Has a program with Darby that sucks (lest we forget Darby was a bonafide main event ratings draw for them before he got stuck in this 15 month long nothingness with Sting). There's more and more clouds around his comments away from the screen with all this vulgar, unimaginative Twitter shenanigans around his release with zero character work or creative upside to it. It feels like he's been there for absolute ever .. then I checked and he's only done 2 months more than Danielson who feels as fresh as the day he arrived! By my count Andrade has only had 5 single bouts in about 15 months on Dynamite, and yet there's hardly a more tired act on the entire show. Guevara had that great early program with Darby .. and that was his peak. Sting is to Darby as Jericho was to Guevara. Ok, give them a few months together but fuck me .. switch it up eventually or at least have the program steer to some sort of meaningful, defined end. Guevara has been trashed by booking, but given he comes off as even trashier than Andrade off-screen perhaps thats not a bad thing (that Pam stuff was possibly the most batshit crazy thing in AEW history)? He'd be maxing out at NXT level over on the other show, absolutely no questions about that ..

How "morally bankrupt" can the director determine to present you as being when you walk around with a feisty but affable huge furry bear?

This conflates two issues. There should be little doubt, I think, that Khan works like a trojan. Sure, he's not a self-made man or anything even remotely approaching it, but he's clearly immensely driven and is involved in a lot of projects apart from AEW (even if not full-time-devoted). They grinded like trojans to make the best of the pandemic era, and it was impressive how quick they were to escalate live performances to stadia like Arthur Ashe and The United Center coming immediately out of it. That deserves respect. Creatively they've been in an utter malaise. There are clearly a few very easy objective answers to the "what would you do" question that don't require any imparting of taste at all. What you don't do is bloat the roster up to multiples-of-a-size of historically-great promotions with equivalently far more TV time. That has presented the biggest issue of them all for them, and you can bet fairly accurately that it has also been at the root of various conflicts off-screen (of varying degrees) where entertainers feel they are not being promoted enough and/or given what they were promised. What you don't do is have 8 separate AEW titles with a combination of 11 holders (+ interim) in addition to a host of ROH titles and other promotions brought onto the TV. It gets to the point where you're more remarkable without a title than with one, and no titles have worth. Then you start to go into the minutiae .. and MJF/Acclaimed aside (who were already world-class talents in 20/21 .. it just took some a little longer to catch on than others), I'd challenge a viewer to highlight any talent of theirs who have really elevated themselves over the past 12 months. Far more have fallen flat (Darby; Perry; Page) than excelled .. and given the prior 12 months those guys had, they had to work really, really hard creatively to fuck the shine up to the extent that they have on so many. Its been easily retrievable at so many points, but the more they drift into this Exhibition Style promotion (Jericho/ROH Open Bouts, Wardlow Open Bouts .. ?) the more they're going to cut the live audiences adrift, and the more it'll start to reflect in the at-home numbers.

No .. live entertainment market was saturated but still thriving due to how much $ everyone had in their pockets .. now it is in the painful process of falling off the cliff alongside the economy. RE: the comment of WWE ticket out-performance indicating no economic woes .. AEW crowd looks socially quite different to the WWE core of families/children .. would be interesting to see demographics/comparable disposable income. Pretty astounded at how bad AEW are fucking this up. Really thought they were over the worst of it .. but with the talent and baked-in storylines at their finger tips you'd have been hard pressed to fuck the past 9 months up more than they have. A motley crew of crap, ineffectual stables, complete absence of character-progression and no big enveloping arc. Remarkable, really. More "TNT Open Challenges"? Its becoming an exhibition-bout promotion ??

Interesting episode .. much more graphic/doomful than previous ones. Only misery awaits those southlanders then .. Halbrand comment about "binding" the elves to him sounds a bit familiar.

Cole should definitely be face, an absolute non-factor as a heel. Bucks/Omega heels. You can even pair Cole/Page to decent effect.

Remarkably underwhelming response to this given how sizeable LOTR is in popular culture. Enjoyed the second-half of the past episode because as above there was at least some progress but some of these scenes .. the Harfoot song while the bad-CGI map unfolds .. just wow. Alongside the Galadriel from Wish, this has been parody-like at times. $90 million per episode and this is the bang they get for their buck.

You're an addled little weasel, aren't you? A handful of hours before your comment .. you couldn't wait to come out of your hovel when I posted for the first time in weeks. If you want to compare our standing in real life then let's take this to DMs before you start bringing in reference to QAnons and whatever other weird, unsolicited social and political pre-occupations and chips on your shoulder that you project here, you absolute nobody. As for AEW -- no, to be clear I still believe this was a work in the manner that MJF's "fire me" leaving speech was a work. If Punk has a tricep injury suffered in the match that required surgery then he needed to drop the title again, period. A storyline would have been needed one way or another. This gave context for dropping the title and keeps heat on Punk for an eventual return / program / heel turn. I'd be more inclined to believe this was all genuine spur-of-the-moment stuff if it emerged he has not really had surgery and is legitimately suspended without pay. Given there has been no development in the supposed "external investigation" with "lawyers and stuff", I remain most dubious. If one of the two parties involved quietly leaves the company under a lawsuit and they do not build a future grand narrative arc around it, then I will very happily recognise the 'legitimacy' of these entertainers fighting each other. I will be bemused and underwhelmed as it will be contrary to what Khan & co have said they want to evoke on screen and signal severe lack of planning/cohesiveness to end up in this situation, but happy to recognise nonetheless. We will see where it goes.

No, friend, the central pillar of bad takes is thinking that re-embracing the indy jobbers and freak-shows that rooted them at the sub-1 million mark, slippy-sliding giving up viewership week after week for the 9 months straight from autumn onward is a good idea. It has demonstratively been shown that the active AEW roster is far larger per-minute of TV time than peak WWF/E/CW ever was with much of the talent narratively stagnant. That is inarguable. Unless they plan to bake suspensions of talent into the product week-to-week (if the suspensions are genuine), then the point will only be exacerbated further. As for AEW generally, given Punk's media comments on bringing 'realism' into the product (and his track record for that), alongside Khan's own comments on bad blood being good for business (words to that effect) and some on-screen items (MJF departing speech) I for one assumed they had a grand narrative direction planned out. Punk's latest injury may have put paid to that for the time being anyway (while Young Bucks are due time off too after working non stop since inception). If they do not have a direction planned out whatsoever, and they really are spitballing this shit week to week with a barrage of hastily made tournaments, battle royal and creative about-turns with 0 cohesive executive management other than Khan's singular word and lunatics literally fighting each other in the asylum then .. wow. What a carnival. I cannot imagine they are that inept given the level of investments, so assume there are ulterior motives at work still. We shall see where they go with the new title programs. At least the tags are now on Acclaimed (so long as they don't neuter them as pure-faces).

Casting is weak. Thought HOD would flop and this would triumph .. seem to have got them the wrong way around. HOD has excellent casting. Elendil & Gil-galad here? ?

Sounds like some serious whales have dropped money on Nate though to take the betting to such a degree: this isn't just some causal UFC fans if its been taken to such an extent that they could break the bookmakers on it. Given Diaz was playing up in his press conf. how he was not prepared for the fight etc., it all sounds more outlandish still. Has Chimaev missed weight before? Comes across as total gym rat .. ludicrous that he'd be missing weight by almost 8 pounds. Absolutely crazy miss.

Mini Khabib has some Twitter posts claiming Khamzat was hanging around in a restaurant night before. Insane gap on the weight cut miss. Betting lines were reporting some wild accumulation of late bets on Nate too -- this article came out prior to the weigh in https://www.mmamania.com/2022/9/8/23343847/sportsbooks-panic-face-seven-figure-loss-ufc-fans-go-crazy-bet-the-house-nate-diaz There were some more comments elsewhere that more money was piled into Diaz over the past few days than all other fighters on the card put together. A lot of UFC fighters polled for predictions were choosing Nate to despite the enormous odds discrepancy. All very strange this one.

Don’t worry bud - the earnest crew names are being taken and will be razed even more than they were when they fell for MJFs schtick last time. Once a mark, always a mark - as the saying goes.

Scrum 17 minutes onwards (after Punk's self-initiated Cabana diatribe): I mean come on. These guys were having a fucking ball playing these parts up there. The MJF part is a work. The Punk part is a work. Khan and Punk were having an absolute ball doing it. The Mindys bakery product placement while Khan is laughing ? Oh you guys. The only out of character part of that scrum was where Punk spoke about his rehab and how he was torn up because he wanted to help the business over the summer with ratings and couldn't.

Can't speak for others, but I never for one second thought Cody/AEW was a work. I called out a long, long time before that Cody/AEW would end acrimoniously. I called out a long, long time before that AEW was a disposable platform for Rhodes. This is not remotely similar. EDIT: A little quote on Cody from late 2020. Cody was never, ever a work - he was simply narcissistic and horribly detrimental to AEW for his final 12 months (to his credit he did well in WWE before the injury). This however is a work. Time will tell.

If this is referring to me, then yes, this is still a work. If Punk is injured again (questionable but is now being reported), then the purpose may be slightly different (for now). However I expect we will see Punk/MJF melded in some way as the pay off to the angle that would have started when MJF gave his departing speech (and Punk walked out to the ring). There is absolutely no way on god's green earth that Kenny Omega and Phil Brooks were involved in an actual brawl. AEW are very, very clearly trying to create 'realism' and blur the fiction/reality lines .. they have adopted the 'never-go-out-of-character' schtick that worked v well for MJF and rolled it out wholescale. Punk is the guy who convinced a lot of people the "pipe bomb" was real, and who literally 2 weeks earlier gave an interview talking about how important the internet-hype-machine is for AEW and how he focuses on ratings above all else. I expect we will see some pay off in New York (or at least the seeds for it start to be sewn) and yes, you can be absolutely fucking certain that I will be back here to crow about it afterwards. This is the beginning of their expansive "big arc" storyline to try and gain steam in growth again.

It is a work. Time will tell.

ratings $$$$

It was always a work. Just as MJF "he is on a flight out of Las Vegas" was always a work. Punk will partner with MJF. When this all plays out remember to call me mystic A_K because I predict these things ?

I'm going to carry this quote over from the Dynamite thread then .. From literally the same article: And Punk from an interview with SI in past weeks: This is the guy who had people thinking the 'Pipebomb' was real. The work and turn is glorious. Seminal moment seeing how many people he hooks.

Mission accomplished ?

? I'm not jesting on you here at all so don't take the direct quote as a personal reflection, but if the MJF work hooking so many fish was sweet boy this one is going to be utterly hilarious. They've actually got everyone eating out of the palm of their hands. Incredible.

Take it all back - this is superb

Thank him for his service. Police department will be issuing warnings then any day now if law enforcement was in attendance as a witness ?