NoFistsJustFlips

There's no perfect answer. Just gotta pick one and stick with it. Doctor at ringside? Cool. Ref has the final say? Cool. Just get a protocol, make sure everyone knows it, and the rules apply to everyone no matter what. If the ref can't handle it, they shouldn't be a ref. I know it was said they're not doctors. But a bare minimum of paramedic or first responder training given to your refs would be the smartest investment a company could make. Send them all through some classes so they have some skills to spot, first respond, etc. If an emergency arises they are in the perfect position to help quickly. I mean the Sid leg break spot was brutal in WCW. But what made it even worse is no one did a fucking thing for him. Everyone stands around not knowing what to do. Waiting for the mystery man reveal. Letting a dude pin him. What, like 4-5 minutes passes before a single hand is lifted to help him? That was 25 years ago. And it a lot of respects nothing has changed. And it should have by now.

Sting had the perfect send off. And this is why I will never understand the tribalism of shiting on AEW existing (vice versa for any AEW tribalism that shit on WWE existing). Sting did so much for the wrestling business. He's a legitimate icon. And without AEW existing this amazing moment never materializes. WWE discarded him with a quickness after his injury. This moment never exists in this timeline without AEW. And that's not a shot at WWE. WWE does great moments for a ton of legends that deserve them as well. The more national wrestling that can give these guys their flowers like this the better. I'm so happy for Sting. His entire run was pretty much perfect. There were only maybe 2-3 times the whole run where he didn't look at the top of his game. And this match especially, he never looked bad. He was never put into a position where we were sad for him or it was hard to watch. Everyone got to have the same feel good emotions he had. His cinematic debut match was in my opinion the best one of them all. He had a fun match against FTR. The coffin match at Webley was fucking dope. The six man tag with Punk was great. The six man tag at the first Forbidden Door was great. This was great. What a feel good way to cap off a career. The presentation of the pre match video and his kids being previous versions of him. Just *chef's kiss*. I love when wrestling is done well.

I haven't played a Smackdown / 2K game in forever. So this may be a dumb take. But I do play Madden Ultimate Team every year. It's basically the only mode I play in Madden. And I get everyone poo - pooing micro transactions. But if its anything like MUT, you don't have to spend money right? Like I didn't even buy Madden this year. Got it free with Gamepass a few weeks back. Built up a 91 rated team already without spending a single cent. Is that possible in this? Or is this full on the only way to actually play the mode and have fun with it is spending money? Can't you just get good at the game and grind it out and use in game currency to buy the stuff? I'm not at all interested in buying this, tho I am curious about the answer after seeing everyone post about it.

Barkley is officially hitting the free agent market. Congrats Lawful, the Texans are getting a hell of a player.

I'll still watch it and I hope for the best. I understand a remake can't be a shot for shot recreation. There has to be something new to say about the story or material. Just very much looks like taking an iconic look and giving it a zoomer gangster vibe. Exactly like Leto Joker.

What have they done to my boy? I love the original Crow movie. I even liked the tv series and some of the sequels. But they Leto Joker'd this new crow. He has all these dumb tattoos including one on his chest where his nipple is the eye of some face. Why?

You have a leader going from drawing you 250 at your PPV & TV tapings to 1400. From 1,000 PPV buys to 29,000. I don't care if the tv format is stale (and it may be you might be 100% right, I haven't watched recently to have an opinion for or against), regardless you don't send away the guy who was getting you real results like that. Especially when the guy you're replacing him with has ZERO wrestling knowledge. It's Jim Herd all over again. Will TNA have better ideas than The Ding Dongs going forward? Doubt it.

It's being reported that the reason is Damore was constantly butting heads with the CEO because he wanted an increase in the budget to go after bigger stars and continue the growth. If that's true straight up Fuck TNA. That man literally dragged your corpse out of the grave with his vision. He grew TNA back into being a talked about relevant brand for the first time since Anthem bought it. The Man just drew the biggest gate and biggest buy rate in a decade. His vision was working you cheap fucks. Now they put in a stooge 2020s Jim Herd. And they will fall all the way back into that grave. At least lolTNA will be a thing again.

This is inning 5 of 9. Did you guys mistake that reference for something else? This is the 5th year of the 9 years overall he'll be champion to break Bruno's record. Even if that's not the actual plan, that's what the wink wink reference to which inning they were in was about. Because that was a Heyman line during a presser a few years back. I'm of two minds with that whole thing. I get where they are going here. But again that's under the assumption that the destination is still so far away. But it really is kicking sand in the face of the fans. You have a clear number one face. With a clear goal the fans want to see happen. And you just never give it to them. In the days when attendance mattered and ratings and buys mattered that would kill a company. But we're in the days where rights fees & Saudi money are all that matters. That would actually make more story sense than what we got. I'm gonna take everything from you. But I'm going to start at literal zero and work my way up to you. So not a single soul can say I didn't earn it. Then work his way up through all the titles and boom. But no the current story is I want this so bad, and I won the chance to do it now, but nah dawg. Here's Rocky.

Beating Cody would get him just as close. I didn't phrase that well. It's just not a lot of people have bought in to my theory about that being the idea of this reign, beating Bruno. Just saying beating Rock will get less backlash than beating Cody again. So keeps him on the track without a huge fan uproar that might get them to pull the trigger on derailing it.

I don't think it will tho. The crowd tonight didn't like it when Cody was talking about the other title. But they were still chanting this is awesome for the stare down. I get that a *Philly* crowd let alone a super smart mark Mania Philly crowd could hijack real quick. But then I remember all the people wanting to hijack have pretty much left. Plus this is what people wanted since Roman started this Bloodline thing. I know it's a repeat of Rock taking Punk's spot, and people love Cody legit universally over with all the different fan segments. But still. This is a cool match. And I don't think it's gonna get shit on all like that. I know I could be wrong. But it's just kind of a hunch.

If memory serves me right he had a torn triceps and tried to lie and trick everyone and get through the medicals so once he was signed he could "get hurt" and get the surgery paid for because he couldn't afford it. They rejected him due to the needing surgery. The hep was discovered later while working for TNA as Desmond Wolfe.

I think it's pretty clearly, now in hindsight, a switch because of the Punk injury. They had Roman v Cody and Set v Punk penciled in while kind of kicking the can down the road with The Rock. That's why Cody was emphatically pointing at Roman after winning. And they were just going to try and get The Rock to boost a different show. But now no Punk all of a sudden a big marquee double feature turned into a one match show. (I mean that in promotion only, there's gonna be a bunch of good stuff booked). Feel like I'm the only one on board with this switch. I think it makes Mania more interesting. Plus it avoids how big of a tantrum people were gonna throw when Cody lost again. Now Cody gets a Mania main event crowning World Title win. Roman gets closer to Bruno and The Rocky gets to put over his family in his last match ever. It's a win-win-win thing all around. I think the kayfabe explanation got botched. Probably because Cody is legit hurt by all this and had trouble getting the story out. But he wants to take everything from Roman. So he's pressing the killswitch that will nuke The Bloodline. The infighting is gonna split up the group. Roman's gonna lose his crew, his family, and then World Champion will swoop in and take the last thing left, The WWE Title. In theory at least. I still think the penciled in idea is Roman breaking the Bruno reign. May of 2028 someone can finally beat him.

Two things I like about the rankings: 1. It finally gives us a kayfabe in Canon hierarchy for the men's singles titles. TNT is #2. International #3. Continental #4. Case closed. 2. The Young Bucks aren't ranked in the tag division. So should be a fun little segment once Sting & Darby win the tag belts where they run a Gauntlet Match with jobber teams to get 7 or 8 quick wins and ranks themselves #1.

Starting to see it be reported multiple places that Punk stuffered a significant injury (thought to be a torn triceps) but not confirmed yet. And that he will address his injury tonight in Raw. Not happy to be right but was pretty apprent while watching.

I' don't think you were referring to me here here just in case you were I want to add I don't want Punk to be hurt. I hope I'm wrong. Despite all the shit he stirred up I still generally want the guy to walk away feeling fulfilled and like he has closure on the wrestling career when he finishes up. I just noticed right away him messing with the right triceps after the Futureshock. Same as I noticed him messing with his arm after the dive to Mox when he got hurt in that one.

I got a crisp fiver saying yes he did. Immediately had a panic huddle with the refs. Favored it the whole match. Clutching it on the floor. I'd chalk up him looking poor in the match to being hurt, but more so than tearing the triceps again he was probably mentally drained knowing instantly it was hurt and all the work and fallout that is in front of him. I thought Jordynn Grace looked better than all the rest of the women in that match. Her shit looked solid, she didn't botch anything or look lost. She looked like a star. Might be a double edge sword for TNA, because WWE is gonna want her now. The women's Rumble had an uncommon amount of whiffs and deer in the headlight stuff. And she really stood out. Cody winning makes zero sense because they've muddied the waters with that Rock challenge. Especially if they don't plan on giving him the win. Kinda confused but we'll see how it plays out.

I feel like there was a honeymoon period where lots of people bought tickets to AEW shows because they want something other than one major national company. But that honeymoon period has come and gone. There are a few problems with why AEW is drawing low houses. And it's not a one stop answer to fixing it. But the things they need to address are: Routing. The routing and the decisions of how many shows a city gets in a year are all out of whack. Chicago gets like 12 TVs / PPVs a year. It's too much. You also have this run of running really close to each other. Pittsburgh / Cleveland / Buffalo / Erie is basically all one market. If the area is starved enough, you can get fans from all of those cities into a TV. But AEW ran Collision in Cleveland in September. Two months later Collision in Pittsburgh. Two WEEKS after that Collision in Erie. Most fans who went to Collision in Pittsburgh isn't going to drive into Erie for Collision. But had there not been anything in Pittsburgh all year, they may have. Rinse & repeat for multiple different markets. Marketing & Promotion. Waiting until the week of a show to buy up billboards is already too late. The average fan has a job. And most jobs require at least two weeks notice to take a day off. If you're not going hard on promotion & marketing to get the word out AT LEAST two month in advance you're shooting yourself in the foot. A billboard can grab the attention of lapsed fans or people that don't follow week by week but still would attend a show if they know about it. But if you only see the billboard or local media two days out, it's probably too late for you to find a way to go. Booking. I don't mean this in the sense of oh AEW has terrible booking. I mean this in the sense that the way AEW TV is structured you get 6 matches. Maybe 7 on Collision. Regardless, you can't be certain of who you're getting until a week out. If you're a huge Bryan Danielson fan, you have no idea if your guy is going to be on the episode in your area when the tickets go on sale. Whereas if you're a big Cody Rhodes fan, you know he's going to be on Raw (barring an angle that keeps him off). I feel like that generates a lot of apathy. And explains why PPVs (which generally get almost all of the major stars on) are selling better than TVs. There are certainly other factors. Like not really having anyone super hot right now that moves tickets. But the above 3 are the ones hurting them the most. Along with over saturation of shows. Attendances went over a cliff once Collision was added. As much as I love AEW I just don't think they have grown a big enough fan base to sustain 112 live TV & PPV events in a year. When it was 56 they were a lot healthier. I just hope there are people on the inside providing constructive criticism like this. You have to be self aware enough to accept the boat has holes in it, or else your boat goes down.

To tie it all back around I legitimately think they won The Trios Titles because Bowens had an idea for custom belts. TK is always in more belt mode and went with it. This is the third set of AEW Trios Titles already.

Yeah shit this is also a good call. Comes in with The Undertaker gimmick and maybe gets the quickie title run at Survivor Series 91. What a world that could have been. The Undertaker does not go down as this super long term iconic character. Just a quick reskin of a territory big deal. Maybe Mark Calaway gets packaged as Nailz. And now we have this weird timeline where the prisoner gimmick becomes an icon of the business. Hard to see him getting the longevity out of that gimmick tho. What a wild rabbit hole that timeline would be.

A little late to the Brody discussion. Surprised to see the push back to it. By no means am I 100% certain it would have happened. But it's more than plausible to me. Are two super violent big vikings coming in as team like Bruiser Brody & Berserker Nord (in a more serious presentation) not a logical improvement over a fake cop & a white man pretending to be an African man? I definitely could see them slotted in the Mega Powers feud slot. The Bad News Brown slot could have been him as mentioned before, but also wouldn't he have been a good fit for Tthe Earthquake feud? Instead of large fat man sitting on him (which was basically a singles redux of The Twin Towers stuff) it could've been mean violent viking man stabbing him or something. Just squashing dudes leading to that big Summerslm payday when Hogan comes back. Doing the same table non-finish to get more house show business in. Seems like there's a lot of opportunities for him to be an upgrade over what we had in that era. It's just that it's so ingrained in our nostalgia brains that it's hard to fully wrap our heads around it.

Lol well that's the safest bet ever. The company he showed up at is on such good terms with AEW they let one of their main event guys go on AEW PPV to announce he's signing with AEW 4 months early. It's definitely all approved. New Japan wouldn't use an AEW contract and all that and risk heat and politics messing with a good relationship. I'm sure JB is still on his AEW deal and getting paid by AEW. Who knows maybe they didn't want him back and this was a compromise. Or maybe lawyers got involved and said you can't ice him out the remainder of his contract or some such. I'd be legitimately shocked if this was not agreed to by all parties and part of at least a vague plan to rehab JB / reinvent him.

This is my favorite game in years. Jerry Jones is gonna fire McCarthy before the game even ends. If you want it done right gotta do it yourself. New Cowboys head coach Jerry Jones lol. Wonder if it violates the Rooney rule if an owner just appoints himself. I think we're gonna find out pretty soon.

That's a bummer. Pierce 1,000% deserves The Raider's job. Was just hoping The Raiders would Raider, and he's slip into that Giants DC slot. But man good for him. Total leader and did a lot with mostly nothing.

He did it regularly in WCW once Russo too over in that initial Oct 99 - Jan 00 run. He also did a version if it in TNA once or twice at The Orlando studio.