NoFistsJustFlips

I agree with a lot of what's said. But there is a little bit of short sighted-ness here too. I agree with Niners, if you wanna buy an AEW ppv you're gonna buy it. You can always watch WWE later if you want. But a buy rate isnt the only thing affected by this strategy. In this day and age engagement and impressions on social media are very important to your bottom line. Its the kind of thing that can command you more money on licensing deals and action figure deals and video games and things beyond just buy rates, tv ratings, and ticket sales. So even if WWE doesnt affect the buy rate at all, they will suffocate social media. All the trending is gonna be based on the WWE ppv because they have a so much bigger foot print. Same as them suffocating all the streaming apps to give AEW (and others) no where to negotiate with. Its not a bomb thats gonna crater AEW. But what it is, is death by a thousand paper cuts. All of these incidents combined do affect AEW's bottom line. And their brand identity & reach.

So Cena vs Brock head to head against All Out, dick move. I guess there's not much AEW can do to retaliate. But at some point they have to do something. Book a story time with Janel Grant bay bay segment? Make a big show of donating to sex trafficking victims? Probably neither of those are good ideas. But I just hate to see them getting walked all over so consistently.

I saw that they changed the rules for the K balls this year. The one video I watched said now that they have 48 hours to soften the balls up vs just 2 hours before, he was predicting more kicks from around that distance. Should have a new record or two this year.

In the US: PPVs on ESPN Raw on Netflix SNME, NXT, & TNA on Peacock AAA & Archive Content on You Tube Smackdown on USA Network LFG on A&E Network Evolve on Tubi Hell of a footprint they have spread across the US media landscape.

I could see a bundle that included NXT PPVs & AAA PPVs going to Paramount at a very reduced price, just to corner the streaming market. They'll get TNA on Peacock. They're on Netflix. They're on ESPN. It makes good business sense if you're totally okay with being a monopoly. And they always have been. AEW is forever tied to HBO Max since Warner owns a piece. But slim pickings for any place to negotiate with. Even less options to get paid for ROH content. Or for MLW to break through. Its basically Amazon or You Tube TV left.

Cena cant make the call. Cena doesnt have autonomous power. Cena is a performer. He can make requests. They can ask him what he'd like and consider it. But that's not how a multi billion dollar cooperation works. Cena wasn't going to walk if they said no. He made a simple request and the powers that be made the call. Period. Wrestlers dont have the kind of power that gets projected onto them by the average fan.

Its pretty evident 2025 WWE is just not for me. And its for more reasons beyond just Brock. My nuanced rational take on the Brock development is this: If Triple H took accountability and said listen Brock is named as a third party in someone else's legal proceedings. He's not been accused of following through with said wrong doing and I felt it was a bad call to ruin his professional life and take his lively hood away forever for being named as a non acting party to someone else's alleged wrong doing. I would have disagreed with that decision. But I could have respected it. But thats not what he did. He canceled the media press conferences and passed the buck to Cena like a coward. Cena isnt the czar of WWE. You are Paul. You made the call. Own it. Cowardly behavior in my opinion. Beyond just this instance there are other alleges of sexual misconduct on Brock over the years. Bringing him back before this played out is the wrong business call. But at this point when someone shows you who they are, believe them. TKO is basically Joe Rogan The Company. Triple H walking through the white house with his theme music playing and basically taking off the mask and proclaiming himself MAGA loud and proud is gross to me. And I dont want to monetarily support this company anymore. So I wont. And I havent in awhile. I always pay full price for AEW PPVs. WWE stuff I share passwords with my brother who has Peacock and Netflix. Im still going to cherry pick stuff to check out. Im still going to watch the PPVs. But at this point I think it counts as hate watching. The truth is he spent so much time with a sexual predator last week he probably just missed having one around. And thats why Brock is back. It is what it is.

Episode 5 thoughts...

False. In my opinion. A ton of his has aged poorly. The matches were short and didn't come close to what we see now. But you know why the Attitude Era was great? Because shit happened. Every week. Stories were told. Lots of stories. This era is like the slowest content churn era ever. Nothing happens. The stories take months to develop and even the best stories are just variations of I'm better than you. Give me more than that man. No, Bossman inviting Al Snow to his room and secretly feeding him his own dog isn't a good story. But at least it was a story. I'd love to see people taking attempts at doing that kind of story telling, just doing it well. The payoff to Jade coming back & kicking the shit out Naomi was great. That's what I want more of. A payoff to a who done it. Expand on these characters beyond I'm a tough guy that likes to fight. Like okay so are 100 other people here. Show me stories about an incident that happened traveling together to the shows that lead to conflict. Show me The Ousiders running The Steiners off the road. Show me more than these benign backstage interviews and people knocking on doors with a name taped on them. There's a lot of drama and conflict that could be mined out of these characters in a different setting and it just doesn't happen anymore. I miss when things happened. Nothing ever happens. Just one man's opinion, and maybe I'm not even expressing my thought well. But ya know there's only so many times I can watch someone walk into Adam Peace's office and complain about something as your setup. Do better.

The arrow is pointing to the right. Isn't it showing that the ball is two inches plus the length of the ball past the yellow line? Like a very very obvious first down? Or am I looking at it wrong? I wasn't watching the game so not sure if the team was moving the opposite direction from the arrow.

Well seeing as how you'd have to pay 4 sets of taxes to the 4 different state athletic comissions involved, I can see why it hasn't happened lol.

If I were Drew Mac Id be throwing my passport in a river to get out of bumping for Jelly Roll too lol.

He did a sit down deal with Renee where he swore off being a "cymbal clapping monkey" and he's back to be a serious wrestler and win championships. Hard pass. Juice has so much charisma. Not everyone can be that fun cymbal clapping monkey and he is excellent at it. Serious Juice has a bad look and a bad aura. I dont see it working out for him if he stays on this track.

Theory that's going around about Prater... We'll see how it goes but the spoilered theory above, I just don't buy into.

Episode 4 thoughts... Seriously, if you enjoyed Dexter when it was good, give this a watch. It's probably the best season since the peak of seasons 1-4.

Concussion on the go home Collision from a Fletcher lariat.

Hard agree with you here. I have minimal promoting experience. 21 shows over 6 years. From my experience having that bonus that gets announced day of goes over really well. The fans feel like they're getting something extra. But nothing beats having that big draw announced way in advance and advertising it. TV is certainly different than live independent events. But the idea is the same. Tell the audience what they're gonna get and keep reminding them and it sticks. They'll tune in. Its a lot of the reason why I feel like the way they announce their PPV cards are baffling. All In had 3 matches announced 11 days out. Thats ludacris to me. When you have like 5 or 6 matches known a month out people can get excited. People have time to get off work. People have time to make arrangements with babysitters or travel. When you announce 3 or 4 of the big matches a week or less out, people are like well I wish I would have known that sooner I wanna go because those matches are dope but there's just not enough time to figure it out. The whole art of promoting is ya know... actually using promotion. And it feels like AEW gets into a rhythm of just assuming the people will come. And for the most part they will. But more people would if you gave it more time and more promotion. In my opinion of corse.

Aaron Rdogers at least had enough showmanship to let his body explode during an actual game. Poor Jets fans.

After the first 4 seasons of the original the first show runner Clyde Phillipd left. Without him it kind of became a content churn where logic and long term plotting went out the window. For New Blood, Resurrection, & Original Sin he's back. And I think that's the secret sauce as to why the shows are better. He also just straight up ignores the stuff from season 5-8 he hated. Like Dr Vogel.

Episode 3 thoughts...

Over thinking it. In kayfabe a dude making a run in is sprinting out from the back. The music guy just presses play if he sees a dude sprinting out. No need to wonder if he's sitting there waiting on direction or slipping them a 20. He goes when he goes and the music guy just tries to keep up. The Penta taunting was pretty egregious. The Cope one I dont mind. He didnt so much save Christian as he was there to thrwart FTR. What does he care if they bash Christian's brains in? Pose and get that pop since he's been a dick and told you to go fuck yourself, right? Entrance way run ins should always have music. In my opinion. You want that pop? You want the audience to instantly recognize who it is? Full music and tron. Crowd run ins should never have music. But a dude sneaking out of the isle Papa Shango WM8 style doesnt really get the crowd going because its noticed at different intervals. You wont get that maximum pop.

A few small nitpicks that came to mind... Certainly things that can be overlooked. But I prefer when writers really try to not have the logic gaps like this in great TV shows.

Episode 2 thoughts....

Episode 1 thoughts...

There was a fun game there, but Fight Forever lacked a lot of polish. Also a bit of a miscalculation in the sense the creation community has exploded x1000000 since the n64 days and they were really lacking there. Keep the engine. Tweak and polish it. Clear up the bugs. Especially the bad online tag matches. Give it a real story mode and expand greatly on the creation capabilities and I think they'll have a winner. Felt like WCW World Tour. If they keep improving on it we can get to Revenge and No Mercy levels with it. There also has to be some kind of mechanism to update the out-of-date-ness of it. I get there's always going to be paid quarterly DLC seasons. But throw in monthly cosmetic updates that are free and not tied to the season pass. New themes and gear when people change characters would go a longggg way to keep it from getting out of date so quick.