NoFistsJustFlips

Survivor Series already has a hook, the 5 on 5 matches. It doesn't need brand vs brand shit. Do a full show of the elimination matches like it used to be. Let teams be intermingled between brands. You know, tell stories with them. They're always looking for hooks to separate and make the PPVs stand out from each other. Use the Champion vs Champions hook for Night of Champions or something. Make that PPV stand out. Especially with the draft 4 weeks before this PPV every year it makes zero sense for anyone to have brand loyalty. For fuck's sake the same people run both shows on screen. Just so fucking lame.

That would be a wild twist. There's definitely some backstory to unravel with whoever Iris is that they keep referencing. But for the sake of simplicity I'm fairly sure Kurt Caldwell is going to be the big bad. Unless when you zoom in on Angela's eye it looks like an older man in his 60s lol. Going further out on a limb, I think the sketchbook they found in his backpack filled with drawings of people are all people he has killed.

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I'm not sure the lake thing actually happened. They definitely show it, but if I'm remembering it right when he stuffs the body in the water, Deb comes out of the water, then a creature / personification of his dark passenger pulls her under. So I think that was more a manifestation of his inner monologue more so than a real action that happened. There was another instance of that in this episode. Him sitting in the truck where Deb is just going off on him and he screams his head off. The he notices the girl looking at him. So did he actually scream with the girl seeing him do it, or did him seeing the girl just pull him out of his inner monologue (and he didn't actually scream)? Seems like they are using these visions as a purposeful misdirect in a few instances. I too love Deb being so aggressive. It really reflects the change in Dexter's view of himself. Harry was helpful, his conscious trying to protect him because he was following a code. Deb is haunting, because his conscious is more worried with hurting the people he loves than protecting himself anymore.

I'm digging the vibe of this season a lot. It's slow moving, but they are putting the pieces in place to make shit mean something. We find out Hannah died from pancreatic cancer a few years back. Harrison also seems super well adjusted and able to interact with the kids his own age with no hesitancy or awkwardness like Dexter had at that age. I do find it interesting when they offered him weed he says no because he just got clean. Probably jumping to conclusions here, but I have a feeling he got clean from killing and not drugs. Also think he actually killed Hannah. But we shall see. The end of the episode pan down below his fire pit actually made me say what the fuck out loud lol. Episode 2 gives a better insight into this and it doesn't appear to be related to Harrison. But we'll see how it unfolds, could certainly be a swerve here. This is already better than Season 8 to me. So I'm all in for the ride. Probably won't reach the highs of Season 4. But with Clyde Philips back as the show runner, this train is definitely back on the tracks.

Logical if they offered ANY kind of health insurance to their "independent contractors". But they don't. So this isn't a possible explanation. If Keith Lee has any kind of medical insurance, he pays for it out of his own pocket. So it honestly could just be a semantics thing here. I consider health insurance bills as "medical bills". Maybe WWE doesn't. But even if WWE paid whatever treatment cost that his individual health insurance didn't cover, he still had to pay his own medical bills (his insurance premiums).

I had sensed he did the phantom elbow so the ref would think he hit a move on OC too. But it's a lumberjack match. He cant get DQed. Also it looked fucking stupid dropping an elbow two inches away from the dude's face. If you're going to do that, actually hit the guy. Don't think it was a fake twist of fate because he would have went through the motions to do the whole twist part and spoon fed the audience. He was big time over thinking here tho. Should have just covered him because it actively took away from the finish, not added to it. Looked ridiculous.

Those are some of he rosiest rose colored glasses I've ever seen my man lol. Can you cite an example in recent memory of them bringing someone back that was utterly incompetent in the ring as a means to put someone over a monster? They bring in older stars that once had value. Eva was a failed experiment. You would then assume that her coming back in was to give her a second shot to get over and become a star... not use that failed run as a rub for someone else. Someone else named Doudrop by the way. Ain't no killer ever gonna get over with the name Doudrop. Also also, if this were a case of them bringing in an old wrestler as a way to introduce Doudrop, why was she on a contract? Like generally any old stars that come back to give someone the rub (think Dibiase in NXT for Cameron Grimes) they are on a per night deal. Because once the story ends they don't need them anymore. So why would they need to release Eva if that's all they brought her in for? Sorry, doesn't pass the sniff test.

Looking at it from the perspective of a player, this emphasis on taunting sucks. Players are full of emotion and energy and playing their hearts out. It's only natural to celebrate when they do something good. For 20 years firing up and woo'ing in a guy's face has been legal. Now it's not. So they have to erase 20 years of learned behavior while working their ass off and draining their emotion tanks? No sir, I don't like it. Looking at a sideline 15 yards away after you get a sack is taunting? He didn't speak. He didn't pose. He stared onto their side of the field. Someone explain to me how every time a receiver or RB gets a first down and gets to do the taunting point thing isn't taunting, but looking a certain way is. I get their thought process with it. But they are over thinking it. This isn't a scholarly endeavor where you want to project an air of class. It's fucking football. It's jacked up dudes running around hitting each other. Quit trying to be something you're not. Football isn't about projecting class. It's a game. It's supposed to be fun, for both the viewers and the participants. Get off your high horses and let football be football.

Can you direct me to any other posters who post this way? I haven't noticed any, but I don't visit every thread. But also is murder wrong, or is murder only wrong when you tell that other guy to stop murdering first? You don't have to whataboutism this. You can just agree that shit posting should probably stop. I personally don't want to put him on ignore because he does post good news and insights a lot. I don't want him banned or removed or anything like that. I just want him to stop posting like a four year old to pop himself.

Love this idea. Can do it with the men and the women. Would really add some structure to Nov / Dec / Jan all flowing into each other with a purpose.

It has nothing about views aligning. It has to do with posting like a petulant fucking child. That goes for everyone, no matter if your preferred promotion is WWE, AEW, Impact, or Ra-ka-king. If the whole point of your post is equivalent to sticking your hands in your ears and going nah-nah nah-nah no thanks, go do that shit on reddit or twitter.

It's shocking how often this inaccurate talking point is repeated as fact lol. (Love yours posts JT so this isn't a shot at you). Two things broke WCW. And neither were related to money / contracts at all. 1. WCW went PG. Wording it like that may be confusing. But once AOL & Time Warner started the merger process, it was handed down to WCW creative to be more family friendly. They had to deal with standards and practices toning down the show. There's no way you can creatively compete with Attitude Era WWE with those kind of handcuffs on. Especially since WCW thrived on the more reality based stuff. Like the nWo. But they had to pivot to dumb Ric Flair somehow becomes WCW president after visiting an insane asylum junk. 2. AOL / Time Warner didn't want wrestling on their books. It was not successful when they pulled the plug on it. But they still would have pulled the plug on it even if it was successful. The landscape changed. Wrestling at the time went from inoffensive lowbrow tv, to full on toxic for advertisers. WWE going full on Attitude era brought on so much negative press for wrestling as a whole. So while yes WCW did lose an insane amount of money in 2000, that's not really a factor in why they pulled the plug. You also have to understand the way the books worked at Turner to see how WCW took on more losses than they should have. Like all their home video releases ended up in the ledger for Turner Home Entertainment, not WCW. And how WCW had to pay all production costs for Thunder & Nitro from their books, even tho it should have been coming from the networks they aired on's books. Shit like that.

Season 9 starts tonight. They already through it up on the app this morning. I will spoiler my thoughts since it hasn't aired on linear TV yet. (Didn't know if this warranted a whole new thread. I sense the demand for this isn't as big as it was during the show's initial run).

I get the sentiment. One of these is far far worse than the other, but the Rodgers stuff is getting way more coverage. But there isn't much to talk about in regards to the DUI murder. It's no longer an NFL issue. The player who did it is going to jail for a very long time. Exponentially more important and more sad than the Rodgers thing. But Ruggs' situation doesn't allow a lot of room for opinions and talking heads. He fucked up as badly as a human can. No one is gonna "yeah but" his decision. It's sad as hell. And we're all in universal agreement that a man just ruined his own life, and worse took the life of another innocent person because he was too stupid to make the right decision not to drive. I can't hate on ESPN & other networks not wanting to dwell on something so sad and horrible.

On the Fox pregame show Glazer said suspension is not even on the table as a possible punishment for Rodgers. Only fines for him and The Packers. But doesn't that set a bad precedent? It gives all the players incentive to lie about their status and try to get around the protocols. Because even if they get caught (and Rodgers only did because he caught covid after 8 weeks of getting away with it), the worst that will happen is they will take what amounts to like .5% of your paycheck away. So where is the downside to lying? I'm well aware stars get different treatment. But for as strict and serious as the NFL has taken the pandemic, this is a bad look.

Nah @D.ZI'm serious. You've had a bunch of posts in the last few weeks where I've bit my lip because you're posting like a full on fucking troll. I mean I could have replied saying another episode of Smackdown where they sold 300 less tickets than Rampage. Yumola. But I didn't. Because that's fucking dumb. Dial it back a bit. Just trying to force some drama into these threads for no reason man.

What purpose does this post serve?

That's a nice imagination you have there. It's literally not a possibility tho. ZERO wrestlers in WWE history (probably ZERO wrestlers in the history of the entire industry) have ever had a buyout clause. It's a literal non-starter. If you want a buyout clause you cannot be a professional wrestler. That's fact. That's reality. Those are the rules you have to play by if you want to be a part of this business. So I find it a little suspect to blame the contracted performers for not being smart enough to demand something that literally isn't allowed.

So you are saying, without a union, you expect anyone to be able to pull that off? Roman Reigns himself could demand that clause and they'd show him the door. That isn't a possibility for anyone. Well, any on air talent. I bet people in the corporate offices like the new CFO have those kind of clauses.

WWE just signed a 10 million dollar trading card deal last week with some company named Panini. So maybe they can upgrade old pieces of gum to old panini sandwiches?

This doesn't make Nick Kahn a genius. It just makes everyone else in WWE stupid for taking the losses for however many years they kept sinking money into the studio idea. It's a bummer but this is the most rational take. No matter how things shake out Vince is never going to see hardship or karma for all the shitty business practices he's done. WWE isn't too big to fail. But Vince himself is too good of a businessman to personally fail. Billion dollar deals are great. And you're right seems like they sign new ones ever year. But that just cannot sustain if they don't have anyone watching. But maybe that is more wishful thinking for someone who grew up before WWE was a monopoly. It's a bummer to see so many younger fans just shit on anything non WWE on social media. Because had they been born a few years earlier they would understand WWE is just one flavor, not the only meal. Explain that one to me. Why were cuts needed? Why does a mega profitable company HAVE TO end agreements they entered into early? It's not the performer's fault they ran a stupid strategy to sign 200 more athletes than they needed. Bloated roster is not a reason for people to lose a job. A respectable business would honor their agreements until they end. Even if they didn't want to showcase the performer anymore. If someone wants to leave, sure cut them loose. But there are tons of wrestlers there that would be happy to stay on the payroll and collect all the money you promised them. This is one I will fight anyone on. No one needs to be cut. Let the deals you sign run their course. Don't fire people because you're too stupid to maximize their upside. Unless you get into a 1995 jam where the company isn't making money, there is NO EXCUSE to arbitrarily fire people.

As time has marched on, the above has actually gotten significantly harder to achieve. Because current day grouchy old Vince loses respect for you if you say yes to bad creative. But as shown with Bray, he also sours on you if you do say no to bad creative (that he thinks is good). So while the above used to be true, I'm not so sure how true it is anymore. It's more like say yes when I want you to say yes and say no when I want you to say no. But you have to be able to derive that through telepathy. Because if I tell you what I want, then that's not what I want. Basically Vince is exactly like every woman I've ever dated lol.

I think St Louis was initially supposed to get Full Gear on November 6th. They changed course and decided on November 13th for Full Gear. The St Louis building either wasn't available (or they wanted a larger venue). So as a make good to the building they scheduled a live Rampage for today to make up for not running a PPV there tomorrow.

For the sake of clarity... WWE Raw on December 17th, 2018 (week of the picture above) drew an audience of 2,547,000 viewers. WWE Raw on November 1st, 2021 (this week) drew an audience of 1,689,000 viewers. Enablers can scream as loud as they want that WWE is currently making record profits. But I promise you if they don't fix the hole in the boat, everyone's gonna drown. They are losing viewers year over year consistently. The changes they are making are not leading to better quality shows or stories. They are leading to vastly worse quality shows and stories. The bubble is gonna burst eventually. Even if 1.6 million is good compared to what other TV shows get right now, I can guarantee USA & Fox are eventually going to decide getting half the viewers at 1/10th the price is the better business decision. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.