NoFistsJustFlips

I think it's a safe bet that Nick Gage is in the Casino Royale. But I hope the twitter-verse doesn't take Tony's hype and run with it like they did at the last PPV. Punk, Lesnar, Cena, & D-Bry are not showing up. Never say never. But just keep those expectations in check lol.

WCW didn't get a rights fee. Their main source of income was ticket sales and PPV sales, making that a stupid move for WCW. AEW gets the majority of their income on rights fees (WWE too). It's a whole new world compared to 1990s WCW. But what AEW is doing is what the new model of wrestling looks like. They make their most money off of TV companies paying them for TV, so why "save it for the PPV" when they make more off of the TV? Just have to adapt your mind to the changing landscape of the business.

I don't think that's a great idea. The production and look of indys varies wildly. There are a few purposes of the enhancement shows, and one is to build their content library. They aren't going to want a lot of weird indy feds that might have shitty rings or poor medical practices (you'd be surprised how wild west some states out there are) in their content library. Plus you run the risk of your guys picking up bad habits from poorly trained indy guys that you don't want them picking up. I mean unless you are sending the AEW coaches with them. But that's basically hijacking a show built on someone else's money, I don't think you'll find a lot of promoters okay with that. They also use the win-loss records from the enhancement shows. So they certainty aren't going to want their guys putting over the indy guys and showing up on Dynamite 2-15 on the year.

If you're into making money, then yeah lol. Very different. Center stage gave away free tickets and still only had like 300 right? I also don't think, when you're having a bit of trouble selling all the Dynamite tickets in Jacksonville, you're gonna be able to sell any tickets for a 6 hour taping session of enhancement matches. Saturday Night was WCW's main show when they were doing Center Stage. Not asking people to show up for Austin Gunn vs independent talents of varying skill level... for six hours. I mean unless you are wanting them to keep taping these matches in empty buildings? But that's not how you improve. No matter how serious you take an empty building match, you're never going to learn as much from that as you will in front of a live audience. You can't really learn you listen to a crowd and feeling their energy.... if there is no crowd. Right?

You're crazy if you think they're gonna use Daily's Place to tape anything once they're on the road again. The logistics of running a touring schedule plus adding in regular stops to Jacksonville to do marathon taping they can just tape on the road is pure insanity. Not to mention you have a real crowd to film in front of, why wouldn't you use it? I assume the taping will look like: Weds 8-10 Dynamite live. 10-11 tape a few matches for Dark. Nothing like it's been during the pandemic with 15 matches, Dark will return to 4 or 5 matches. Fris 8-10 tape 7 or 8 Elevation matches. 10-11 Rampage live. Elevation with have more matches, just based on Rampage being only an hour show. So it will be the bigger and more high profile of the two You Tube shows. But still no where near 15 matches. That way both nights of taping get you 3 hours. From a live event standpoint both tickets are the "same". You get 3 hours of AEW action and a live TV show experience. And from a travel stand point you book two buildings in similar location. Fly the boys into Chicago for Wednesday night, they have Thursday off as a travel day, then Friday is in like Milwaukee.

Count me in on the band wagon, Killer Kross does nothing for me. Great entrance & presentation. Then the bell rings and it's the dullest work I can ever remember seeing. He's like a cooler Nathan Jones or Luther Reigns. Just big and boring and generic work in the ring. While Baron Corbin is the gold standard for a boring character, Corbin could at least bring it in the ring (in NXT). Kross is like 3 or 4 levels below Corbin, work wise. NXT has an interesting problem once they return to the road. They have over acts and fun characters in the Women's division and the lower card. But none of their main event guys have much steam. Watching last night I was wondering what about this roster would draw? Like the women, The Way, Hit Row, & Cameron Grimes are the acts clicking with me the most. Finn has been kind of boring. Kross is paint drying boring. Even Cole & O'Riley have been over exposed and don't have much steam. I just don't see much life at the top of the card. Am I missing something or do other people feel this way too?

I know absolutely nothing about The Eternals. I will see it for sure, because it's Marvel and I have a bit of completion-ist OCD. But I have to tell you that trailer looked boring to me. Very boring. Like paint drying boring. Zero excitement for this one. I have a feeling Shang Chi & Eternals are going to be a couple of big stumbles for Marvel. But we'll see, Marvel has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt.

If I had power at WB my pivot off of the DCEU would be to setup an extensive Batverse. Put all the other DC properties on ice. Joker made a billion dollars man. Instead of diving into a Batman film... I would have made singular films about each of the big villains. And in my Bat-villain-verse I always thought turning Riddler into a full on horror movie with elements of Saw was the way to go with the character. It fits. You make a gritty crime drama with Penguin. You make a heist movie with Catwoman (and maybe her team consists of other female villains). You keep Joker in canon. A court drama with Harvey Dent. You build up similar to how The MCU did. But instead of building your hero team, you're building your rouge's gallery. Then BAM you drop a Batman movie with a fleshed out team of heels for him to fight and make all the monies. All this is to say I really really dig The Riddler character tweak, in theory. The look is not exactly my favorite. *BUT* Ledger's Joker didn't strike me as a good look during promotional images either and I ended up loving it. It's *the* definitive Joker for me. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they pull off the new Riddler tone.

Let me tell you... one of the worst possible things to happen when you're doing high intensity high emotion false finishes, is for a dude with long dry hair to cover you in a way where you swallow his hair by accident. You lose all immersion is story telling when you legitimately start choking down a foot of some dude's hair. It's only happened to me a couple times. But I have never panicked so bad in my whole career. For whatever reason that has never happened to me with a dude with wet down hair. Pro tip, if they keep the wet down look throughout the whole match it's not water. It's conditioner. Water dries fairly quick. Condition stays slick for the entirety of the time it's in your hair.

I didn't ignore it. I disregarded it. That's not meant to disregard you. But my experience doesn't reflect that. I have seen a lot of AEW moments pop up in my You Tube feed very quickly. I'm talking Dynamite segments and recaps less than an hour after the show ends. The Mike Tyson stuff was up quick as hell. But maybe you're right and it's only like the 10% of stuff I am seeing in my feed vs the 90% that doesn't make it up in a timely manor? I AM ALSO ONLY REPLYING TO SOMEONE AND NOT COMMENTING ON A SHOW WHICH IS AIRING CURRENTLY

Unless you are an e commerce site, who the fuck uses actual webpages anymore? All online social engagement is through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, & You Tube. What could possibly be on an AEW website that isn't covered by one of the socials? Does anyone actually visit the WWE webpage for... anything? AEW's merch is run through a subsidiary of PWTs. Their video content goes onto You Tube. They have a separate ticket website for events. What is even the purpose of an AEW website? Either I am the old man yelling at clouds, or you are. I can't tell yet, lol.

They branded TBS as the comedy network for a long time. They tried a bunch of scripted comedy shows that all failed. They were mainly showing Big Bang Theory reruns until prime time. TNT has always had basketball and was marketed as the drama network. So more prestige than just being a comedy channel. But to me, even with the branding, they're essentially the same. It's really just the difference between drama movies, NBA, & Snowpiercer vs comedy movies, Big Bang Theory, & The Misery Index.

TK did a You Tube podcast with Bischoff and Conrad awhile back to hype up an AEW PPV. He said it was all his idea. He could be spinning it, but he seemed genuine. Said it was an homage to tv titles but with a spin to really push the TNT partnership. Then he kinda seemed like he was begging for validation from Bischoff by asking his opinion of it. So I'm thinking 100% a TK idea. Good in theory, but not practical in execution.

Lots of weirdness here. Their first renewal was already 8 figures. $43 million. So is that saying they got 8 figures MORE for this, or just using clever wording to rehash what we already know? I made the TBS title joke but I think this move demonstrates, while an okay idea in theory, no wrestling promotions should be naming titles after tv networks. Not a single wrestling show around has stayed on a the same channel. Best to change the TNT title to a proper TV title, or some similarly minded name. So if I'm reading correctly... Dynamite & Rampage are both on TNT this year. Once 2022 hits BOTH move to TBS, correct? And the only wrestling on TNT as of 2022 will be the 4 quarterly specials. Which to me isn't a big deal. Like it's literally moving one channel away on my remote. I don't think (with 6 months of lead time to promote) that this switch really hurts them in any real way.

Well there's the second mid card title everyone is clamoring for... The TBS Title... ?

This seems like a specific move designed to fire up Evan Engram in training camp. He's had the ole butterfingers too many times when it's mattered. So let's bring in a guy whose only upside is how good his hands are. He got too big to effectively run WR routes, but Kelvin Benjamin's hands were always money. So you line him up next to Engram in drills and Engram starts getting mad that Benjamin is catching everything. Gets him to focus and push himself and maybe his buttery soft fingers start working properly. Then you can cut Benjamin before the season starts. Orrrrrrr I'm just trying to a positive spin on a really fucking stupid roster move ?

They had the WWE scratch logo from 2002 - 2014. Twelve years total (Sixteen years if you count the WWF scratch version being the same thing). The current Network era logo has already been around 7 years now. Which sounds just crazy to me. Feels like that's still relatively new, but it's really not. Considering they changed logos like 4 or 5 times between 1984 -1998, a new design every 10 years seems pretty reasonable.

Double post.

That's him. That match was for Battle Arts which was Santino's promotion. Ran out of the same building as Destiny Wrestling in Toronto. That whole facility was the closest thing to the performance center I've ever seen on the indys. A gym, MMA training center, wrestling training center, event hall, & tv studio all in one. Hell of venue.

This is quite the shit opinion. This forum has such a weird dichotomy with AEW. We have people thrilled with the shows singing the praises of Miro and Darby and Hangman. We have people with hate boners for like Omega and Cody and Jericho. It's almost like there's not a rational middle ground. And I'm not going to knock that. I certainly hateddddd Cody's promo last night and agree with every bit of criticism it got. Everyone has opinions and it's not wrong to feel how you feel about characters. But Jericho is 100% a team player. Cody as well. I know you're super critical of like every single aspect of AEW but you're way off base here. More than usual. Jericho is a millionaire top of the card main eventer. He just took a 10 foot backwards bump off a cage as a means to help get a younger guy and his faction over. How is that not a team player? He definitely didn't have to take that bump. He could have pulled a Hogan 'That doesn't work for me brother' but he didn't. And it was probably even his own idea. He's a dude that legitimately cares about the next generation getting over and takes a lot of pride in accomplishing that with them. Cody's dumb promo aside, what about him is not a team player? Dude let Brodie smoke him in 3 minutes to win the TNT title. Didn't even hook the leg. Cody did that to help put over a dude that deserved the shine he was getting. How is that not a team player? Straight up delusional shit opinion.

Did anyone have a clear picture of if / when AEW could start on the road back at the beginning of March? That's when they did the MJF turn / Pinnacle formation angle. March 10th. I'd say the rough outline of what they were doing for the feud had been formulated at least a week or two before that. So if you feel like A) they could wait until the end of May to have the first match (Stadium Stamped at DoN) and B) they knew they'd be back on the road by July and just didn't care... well okay I won't fight you on that. But I disagree. I personally don't think they had any idea when they could get back on the road back at the beginning of March when the backbone for the story was created. So from my point of view I'm not going to hold it against them trying to do the best they could with what they knew at the time. If you don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt, that's okay. But I do wish people would factor in the realities of their limitations.

That is true, and a fair point. Keep in mind that was a big arena that they could hang the cage from, so they wouldn't have the only one match restriction they had at Daily's Place. But I was speaking more to the complaining how Blood & Guts was step one in the story leading to Stadium Stampede. It's one of those things man. When you have to wear the promoter hat sometimes you have to weigh pros and cons. This feud makes sense for Blood & Guts. But the only way it fits in the feud due to the current setup restrictions, was to do it in the beginning. Blood & Guts as step one of the story, in theory, sucks. But it was either that or not at all. And I don't think enough people understand that. It wasn't created this way by choice. It was by necessity.

I think people need to cut AEW a little slack for Blood & Guts being on TV and not PPV. While yes that is pretty dumb, it was done out of necessity. The same reason the first hour of last week was taped is the reason for why Blood & Guts could not happen on PPV. They are stuck in Daily's Place for now. That is an amphitheater with a partial roof. A roof not rated strong enough to hang the cage from. So you have to have it already set up when people come in. It has to open a show, or have no other matches happening before / after. It just is what it is. And the Blood & Guts cage is not something that can just be put together in 20 minutes while they vamp, like WWE used to do with the big bar blue cage. It takes hours & hours to setup / tear down when they can't hang it from the roof. So they had to do it like this while being in Daily's Place. Just some food for thought. (Apologies if this actually came up. I haven't caught up past page 3 yet. Just felt the need to get this point out there.)

I don't have an opinion on the ref doing a leapfrog but shiiiiittttt... Hornet *is* the best worker in the ring there. Had a really solid career doing mostly lucha style on Canadian indies before signing with WWE as a ref.

Pretty standard booking device to set up a title match. Think of it like this. Owen Hart beat Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 10. Who was the first in line to get a title shot when Bret won the title later that night? Owen. Rosa "won" the feud. So now when Britt goes on to win the title, Rosa has a reason for a title shot. She got a huge definitive win in what appeared to be the feud blow off. Because of that heel Britt can dodge her and string her along, but eventually Rosa will get a shot due to the previous win. Then Britt gets the win in the final match and it means 10x more than if she just won the lights out match.