NoFistsJustFlips

Bad officiating tonight. Both The Giants & The Cowboys were screwed a couple times by just terrible PI / not PI interpretations. I know Daniel Jones isn't top tier or probably even mid tier, but it's hard not to like the guy when he's working his ass off like he was tonight. He got the shit kicked out of him all night and didn't back down. 2-0 was a fun start but it's all downhill from here lol. Especially if Shep tore his meniscus or patella tendon like it appeared on that last play. It's gonna take a few more years of roster turnover to really clear out the stink left by Gettleman. But so far I really like what I've seen of Daboll's coaching style and general approach.

But again this is a false position. If you release Matt Sydal, it won't get Andrade on TV more. If you release Serpentico it doesn't get Miro on TV more. We're 3 years into AEW. I think it's safe to say (whether you like it personally or dislike it personally), the infrequent appearances is the structure TK is using. It's not because of the number on contracted talents. It's because he wants to leave people wanting more vs burning people out and making them all just another guy. We can debate if we like it or if he's doing a good job at it. But constantly wishing for releases as a catalyst to change that is a misplaced thought. He's not going to change how many appearances talent get in his rotation strategy no matter how many releases there are. I personally wish he would get less rigid in the Dynamite format and throw in more matches sometimes. Rampage had 8 matches this week. Dynamite never ever goes above 6 per episode. Throw in an 8 match show once in awhile. Throw in a 10 match show once and awhile. That would get more people on TV and more women's matches. But he's steadfast in booking Dynamite at 6 matches a week. I don't know why. But he is.

This is a fair response to how I worded it. I'll re-calibrate and change it too I'm fine with people wanting to see more of their favorites. Everyone has opinions and all opinions are as valid as the next. I just get annoyed seeing this same opinions over and over construed and positioned as facts. It's not a fact that AEW's roster is bloated or needs trimmed. It's not a fact that so and so needs to be on TV more. Those are opinions. I'd be much more understanding of those thoughts if they were presented as 'I really like Miro and wish he was on TV more' vs 'AEW is wasting Miro. He isn't on TV enough. They are fucking him up. He's not happy.' The former being a valid opinion. The latter being opinions positioned as fact. I hope that clarifies what I meant a little better.

Bad take. The tippy top and the very bottom is not what needs to go. I'm not a giant fan of Serpentico or Luther. But they serve a purpose, take up ZERO main roster TV time, and have extremely cost effective contracts (we can assume). There's no need to clear out the contracted enhancement guys. They aren't taking TV time or pay or opportunities away from any of your favorites. Because it's not like Miro & Andrade would be working enhancement matches putting over 2.0 on Dark if Sepentico & Luther were released. But again, this talking point comes up far too much. Especially from you. TK isn't like some idiot that accidentally signed too many guys in this awww schucks I wanna collect them all sense. He is making a conscious decision to have a lot of cards in the deck to shuffle around. The big WWE talking point used to be why do they run so many house shows? How come guys have to work so much? Can they work in an off season? All because we'd like to see performers healthier and getting less injuries. AEW has instituted a structure that is paying their athletes as much or more as WWE for significantly less work. This is exactly what we had all been clamoring for. They aren't bloated. They are structured different than you're used to. There is a difference. I'm glad the internet wasn't a thing when I was a young kid first starting out watching. Hearing people constantly whine that Hogan doesn't wrestle enough on TV, or how you like Koko B Ware and he needs to be on TV more, or how Roddy Piper is getting wasted on by not being on TV enough and they're fucking him up would have drained allllllllll my joy.

That is not as big of an issue as fans make it out to be. Having the belts is at least 3rd or 4th in line behind how much they get paid, how creatively fulfilled they are, and how they are treated / how important they are presented. They already have 3 sets of belts. I think being presented as legitimately the best tag team of this generation, getting to be part of a main stable that got a War Games match, getting to main event a PPV with a 45 min tag match treated as the most important match on the show by far (ROH) are all more valuable to them than if they have AEW tag titles on their waist or not. They got to team with Punk. They get treated as legitimate stars. Dax's daughter got to knock a guy out on PPV and pin him. Even with Triple H in charge there's no way they get presented as lovingly / respected as AEW has presented them. There's no way they get as much importance and creative freedom. Triple H may love those guys and give them a 10 year tag title reign. But it's not going to compare to the feeling of Dax getting to have that moment with his daughter. That's not me saying they won't go back to WWE. They may. But it's not going to be based around them being mad about the number of days they had AEW tag titles in their carry ons.

Of all the currently unbeaten 2-0 teams (Dolphins, Chiefs, Giants, Bucs) The Giants are by farrrrrr the least likely. And I love it. They looked terrible both weeks but have found ways to scrape by. By no means are they good, but they are putting in the effort for Daboll that they never put in for the last few coaches. Jones has looked especially mediocre. But the defense has been solid. Next up Cowboys at Giants next Monday. Gonna be maybe the ugliest game yet. Both teams are gonna look terrible. But I'm gonna watch every second of it.

Without out doing a deep dive and just going by the post on The Observer, the way it's worded is this was AEW's highest ratings since September 2021. Which at least on the surface level seems the same thing happened in September of last year as well. But that's me doing no heavy lifting at all and just extrapolating a headline so take it with salt and all that lol.

Respectfully, anyone attributing rises over the last few weeks to anything other than school being back in session / summer winding down doesn't have a full picture view. That's neither an argument for or against any of the performers around now or missing now. Just saying kids being back in school, more people being home because of kids in school / weather changing is far more of a likely culprit for the good ratings than any statement that can be made about the internet or casuals or who fans like in general. At least over this short of a time span. I'm far from an expert. But that seems like the most logical point to take away.

I was so happy to see the announcement that this is a gamepass game. Anddddd that excitement was immediately crushed seeing the online multiplayer isn't coming to xbox. I dont even understand how that's a thing. What's the value of this game without people able to play with your friends online? I'll still probably grab it and go back through the campaign. But man bummed I won't be able to slap the shit out of friends with Oddjob slappers only.

I like that idea a lot. When WCW blew up with the nWo angle they would still go out and tape WCW Saturday Night episodes in C markets with just the C level workers of the time. AEW should consider something similar. You don't false advertise any stars. Just market it as AEW Dark tapings on the road. Run the smallest arenas you can. 3,000 seaters. Set them up to max out at 1,000. Try to break even on ticket sales. It's not about making money tho, it's a loss leader to get experience for the younger roster and pet projects. Could be really helpful in the long run. Almost like a more upscale version of the NXT coconut loop.

Randy Bullock continuing the long line of traditional NY Giant victories off of opposing kickers missing by jussstttt thissss mucchhhhh. Undefeated! Saquon looked amazing. I hope his body can hold up all year. Jones did not look amazing. Titans have no one to blame but themselves. You have Derek Henry and you dial up a Tight End End Around on 3rd and 1? Who thought that was a good idea? Whoooooo Brian Daboll is an undefeated NY coaching legend! Bring on Baker & The Panthers! Fully expect good Baker to show up and shred that shotty secondary of NY. But that's a next week guy problem. Today guy is gonna celebrate.

We are 40+ pages deep so forgive me if this talking point has been covered. I think it's probably one of the most important questions not being asked. Why the fuck do they even do media scrums? lol Who is up at midnight watching these things after 8 hours of PPV wrestling? We're the hardest of the hardcore wrestling fans. And what maybe 10% of us even watch them (in real time). What is the actual purpose of them? Like take this one out of the equation. What purpose have any of the previous ones ever served? Kinda just a weird anomaly where TK gets to talk about his love of wrestling and his love of his own company. Maybe I'm missing a higher purpose? There's lot of blame in lots of different categories here. But let's add a tally mark to the column if these media scrums didn't exist none of this would have manifested this way either.

Another logical leap to add to all that, there's a high probability they ran those lines by Punk. Yeah the delivery was biting and harsh, but even still these guys bounce ideas off each other. I feel pretty sure they'd have at least asked if it was okay to touch on this stuff out there. So while MJF & Kingston said harsher things, Hangman went into business for himself by alluding to Cabana without running it by Punk. Trust me I'd have some real heated enemies in my career and no matter how bad I'd like to make them look, I've always run at least the subject by them beforehand to make sure it was something I could talk about. It's professionalism. You'll make yourself look real bad to others in that back that wouldn't want that treatment. The Hangman thing, saying something shitty without approval, has ramifications beyond Punk. Like if he's willing to do that to Punk he's willing to do that to anyone he works with ya know.

Im leaning HEAVILY towards work. All of the elements are too similar to Shawn & Bret to be a coincidence. But for a second let's just go down the rabbit hole of it being a shoot. If it were a shoot, how in the world could AEW ever be taken seriously again. Guys jump back in forth in this business to make more money for themselves. If any of this is true and real, what WWE person would want to dive into all this chaos? The stability afforded by working for WWE vs the absolute wild west shit show AEW would be (if this is true) would be a turn off to anyone trying to make any real money for themselves. I just think TK is all in on this new meta kayfabe. The MJF stuff was clearly all a work. The Punk stuff seems to be a work. Even the Malachai Black waving and saying goodbye stuff smells like a work. He's all in on this kind of whatever we sell the backstage reality as you better play your fucking part and keep the kayfabe of it without breaking. And it's a bold new strategy. It's either going to pay off in a wild nWo-spark like way, or crash and burn horrendously... in a wild nWo-like way. I'm here for whatever side of the fence this all lands on lol. I just wish Dynamite was on tonight. How wild would that be??

Colt was the like 10th most important member of Dark Order. He was the absolute epitome of dead weight that could be let go. It's show business not show friendship. You don't need to keep someone around who isn't adding to your product. He's solid, and he gets good reactions for a lot of his fun comedy spots. But he is certainly not someone I'd consider "talented and popular". He was a background extra at best, stuck in a role forever due to being in a slow burn angle with Brodie Lee during his passing. The angle never got to a conclusion so he was stuck as a lackey for Dark Order forever. Stu was far more talented and popular and he's been gone for a year and it hasn't really affected anything. Colt not being around now hasn't affected anything. It is what it is. The optics of the Punk thing got him an ROH contract he frankly doesn't deserve. He's not in the position to complain. And why in the world does it matter he "pioneered" indy merch? That's commendable and goes a long way to explain why he has so many friends. But why should TK and AEW be beholden to him for that? Colt Cabana didn't invent the idea of selling t-shirts. Weird perspective.

Big time disagree. What wrestling fans want is realism. Even the smartest wrestling fan wants there to be times where they question if what they're seeing is actual real and not part of the show. I don't man that in a Russo way. I mean that in a dad that hates wrestling and takes his kid there, but says 'I know all this here wrestling stuff is fake but not Bruiser Brody. That guy is fighting people for real' way. This kind of intrigue has led to 20+ pages of discussion. WWE had a very good show Saturday and their discussion page topped out at 4. Intrigue and realism is a draw. This DOES make people want to watch Wednesday. It may be annoying to you specifically who enjoys the straight forward on air nature of the story telling much like a great TV show or movie. But the broader wrestling audience loves this kind of stuff. It's 20 years later and people still talk about the ins and outs of Bret / Shawn & Montreal.

I think the thought process is Hangman brought up Cabana stuff in that promo. Hangman is buds with Kenny & The Bucks. Kenny & The Bucks have Hangman's back, so essentially he's still kinda an EVP by association even without the title. But god damn. That was some really cutting delivery there. I'm gonna hope this is all part of a grand HBK / Bret worked shoot behind the scenes thing. But that's getting hard and harder to believe. Bringing up the Cabana sharing a bank account with his mom thing is going too far. In context it makes him sound like a man baby mooching off his mom, but it's entirely possible she has health issues and it's done that way so he can help her out? Just speculating there. But regardless even if Punk's in the right (and I'm not taking sides because I don't know the details obviously), it's hard to side with a guy that's being that much of a dick about it.

I hope TK doesn't plan on running Chicago again for a long while. He kept dangling the carrot for them then pulling it away. I almost feel like tonight was some 4D chess meta booking to help MJF get over as a face. But I know that's wishful thinking. -The execution of the Joker deal was really poor. Like I get having seen the whole thing unfold where they were coming for. But just clunky. Someone else can get the object down and hand it to someone else for the win? MJF looked like the magician secret guy. The lyrics to that song make sense in context but the actual music was about the dumbest choice for what was unfolding. -I thought Jade and Athena was Jade's best match. (Not counting Cody / Shaq). -Trios title match was amazing. Loved it all. Loved Kenny being jacked. Hated the whole hurt tshirt fake out stuff leading to this tho. -So here's where shit goes wonky. Acclaimed should have went over. It really pissed off the audience that they didnt. Then Hayter should have went over. It really pissed off the crowd when she didn't. Then the Christian / Jungleboy thing was executed fucking amazingly well. And I loved it as a part of a longer story. But after the crowd was already mad you jobbed out another very popular homegrown guy for a WWE act. Again. Then Jericho beats Danielson. Sting beats House of Black. Just seems so... tone deaf. Like I don't imagine this was all done on purpose. But if it had been I'd give credit for being ballsy enough to sacrifice your A market for the sake of an anti management story. -Punk winning played out exactly like I laid out in that post Dynamite thread after the loss. Letting Mox win and legitimizing his reign with a squash was a thank you, but Punk was always walking out of this show champion. The MJF reveal was real good. But I'll be very curious how they walk the tight rope on the story going forward. You don't want to make AEW the in story heel. Because those lines will blur and just like the Mr McMahon character / Authority story, the fans will buy in enough and make it super easy to actually turn on you. Some great matches with some very questionable booking stuff tonight.

For shame DVDR, yall are just gonna give Sheamus a pass for sandbagging every German and Powerbomb in sight? Felt bad for Walter. He was giving his body up 100% to take the beating. But Sheamus was sandbagging, and flexing on chops (makes them hurt less, but takes away the sound). Have you ever seen a Walter match where his chops were all thuds? Guess my opinion doesn't line up with the majority on this one. That's okay. Happy to see Vincci there with them and Imperium whole. A six man tag here would have been so fucking good. Dom helps Rey & Edge win. Dom turns on them. I guess I'll have to wait on the explanation for a final determination but seems like there's a logic gap there on the reasoning. Seth's gear is getting so weird. Elton John mixed with a giant chicken man. love it lol. I loved the idea Casey pitched with Theory getting cut off at every attempt and losing the case due to the time limit running out. It's never happened and it's the perfect story beat to get him closer to his vastly more entertaining NXT character. That punch Tyson threw looked legit great. Wonder if he just nailed Theory without pulling it. The main was very good. Man Drew needs to go back to that first theme. That shit was dope, forgot how good it was. It was a deflating finish but it was the right one. Drew is very good, but he's not the guy. It's a shame he's a victim of timing. He could have possibly been the guy if he got crowned at WrestleMania by beating Brock. But Covid said uhh uhhhhhah. But what in the actual fuck was that weird drunken karaoke sendoff?

To me, Braun's most valuable use would be part of the returning trio of Braun, Rowan, & Bray (cult swamp variant). The Bloodline's dominance is one of the better parts of the product in the recent past. Why not try to capture some of that lightning in a bottle that was The Shield vs The Wyatt Family in a similar, but different form? Compelling little bit of business that could occupy The Bloodline until the run up to Mania.

I find it way more likely it's Samoa Joe and we get Joe vs Punk at Grand Slam. But who knows.

I actually agree with you on that. I think to a certain extent a lot of what has leaked is deliberate. The Punk stuff for sure. Less sure on the Rosa stuff. But I really do think the Punk / Page heat is mostly planted worked stuff in the vein of trying to create a Bret / Shawn real life plausible rift. Punk loves him some Bret Hart stuff. Some post modern throwback worked shoot that turns into a full blow shoot is right up his alley lol.

I wonder how royalties shake out in a case like this. Say 100 wrestlers are in the base game that costs $60. But you're part of a DLC pack that has 6 wrestlers and costs $10. Which split would net you more income? Maybe they're cool with it because legal did the math and showed them they'd make more per purchase on the DLC pack than they'd make as part of the base game? The base game is going to sell more than the DLC. But you could make more (potentially) per purchase being in a DLC pack. If it's say $.05 per copy of the game sold or $.40 per DLC pack sold, which is the better take?

My numbers / years are a bit off. But my point is still valid using the contract documents released during Time Warner lawsuits: Full site reference : https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/wcw_contracts

Just another instance of maybe me being happier with the booking philosophy of a different era here? But A.K. picked 98/99 WWE. That's a good choice to cherry pick what point he'd like to demonstrate. I'll do the same and cherry pick 1996 WCW. They had about 200 wrestlers under contract. They were super commercially successful during this run. Business was booming. You'd get the important people mostly every week or two. You'd get get your regulars that get in the rotation once a month or so. And you'd get these wacky dudes showing up you had no idea WCW even had under contract. It was the best. At least to me. AEW could keep the exact same roster and utilize it more effectively if TK just quit using his rigid formula. Nitro would hit 8-12 matches a week in the 2 hour era. AEW has 6 matches every single Dynamite. There is no deviating from that number. It is 6 and it will always be 6. Only one of those 6 a week is a women's match. Literally go back and check results. It always has been 6 and it's always going to be 6. And that is farrrrrrr more at blame than the roster size. TK is beholden to every match needing to be an epic. Throwing in a 5 minute sprint, or a 2 minute squash, or a story related indecisive finish once and awhile would make things far more unpredictable. You'd see more of the roster each week. Women could have 2 or 3 matches a week depending on that week's format. Everyone complaining about the roster size is missing the actual culprit. That stupid rigid format that has been run into the ground. Mix. It. Up. ETA: Leaving my post unedited but did want to add in my year and number were off a bit. 1997 had 125 wrestlers under contract and is basically a 1:1 comparison for AEW. 200 was wrong and exaggerated. But still a valid point.