NoFistsJustFlips

There's too many first run products right now. With not enough differentiation on them. So what should we do? Add another show on the pile! Things need restructured in a bad way. I still contend that's the main contributing factor to Dynamite ratings being down. Product fatigue. Collision & Rampage & Battle of the Belts & ROH. And potentially another Fox show. It's too much and watering everything down.

Your hate boner for him is as annoying as his hate boner for The Young Bucks FYI. I'd dial back the smugness about 42 notches.

It's kind of nice to already not have to mentally and emotionally invest in this season. The Giants stink and are going to have a really high draft pick. I can just sit back and spectate the whole season without the ups and downs of following a team, hoping for / expecting success. Hopefully Saquon can get a ring this year. I hate Philly but I always pull for former Giants. Although not a 1 to 1 comparison it's a little like a 'what if' for Barry Sanders leaving The Lions and getting a ring somewhere else.

Except that not only will Daniel Jones not start for The Giants next year, he won't even be in the NFL. Not a soul will waste even a backup spot on him.

And just like that, I'm out. Fucking Patriots.

Sorry to be the guy over explaining and ruining the magic, and I'll stop if you guys want me to. But I think giving away some of the secrets to the super dangerous stuff is putting some people more at ease with the violence. The seat on the chair was grinded down to the thickness / pliability of a cookie sheet or the aluminum trash cans. If you look the bottom of the chair leg had a pink sticker on it. So they guys would know it's the gimmicked one. They also took out the hinges that keep the seat connected to the frame. It was a nasty loud sound. But the seat gave immediately. And the thickness was no different than standard cookie sheet shots. It was just so well done it looked like death. Kudos to the truck for doing the pull back wide shot at the exact right time too. Really added to the effect.

This is the dumbest fucking take. It's a fucking show. None of these guys are claiming to be bar fighters. They're actors / athletes / entertainers. Gal Gadot isn't winning any bar fights but she still wins in Wonder Woman movies. Bob Odenkirk is old as shit and couldn't win any bar fights. Didn't make Nobody any less of a fun action movie. Tom Brady couldn't win a bar fight, doesn't make him any less of an amazing athlete. If you care so much about bar fights go watch bootleg bum fights videos down the rabbit hole and quite using this insane talking point as some sort of gotchya evidence to support your weird grudge.

Does it make it any less unsavory for you that it was a total gimmick? He stuck a rubber stopper in his cheek before Hangman pulled out his grill. The needle went into the rubber stopper in his cheek. It didn't penetrate his skin or even go into his body at all, was a work. Magic trick. I'd understand if that doesn't make you feel any better about it. But it's not the same as a death match spot where they really do the needle penetrating the cheek.

Mox & MJF didn't slum it with TNT title runs. International is def #2.

In for the first time. Will I be a contender longer than The Giants are? Oh snap, I'm already there. lol

Caught this at the theater yesterday and absolutely loved it. Shocked to see such middling reactions in here. Lots of fun cameos. A fun story riffing on all the multiversity junk. Brutal action scenes with great fight choreography. Reynolds & Jackman played off each other perfectly. Thought this one was just as good as the other Deapool movies and not a step down at all. Lots of heart with Wolverine's story too. Jackman's performance really elevated it above a normal comic book movie for me. I have it in the top tier of comic book movies. Not the very top. But not far off either.

There's a new Arkham VR game coming out (not made by Rocksteady). As someone who liked Origins just fine I wish I had a VR machine. Not gonna get one, even tho this looks pretty good. They gave it a proper story / FreeFlow / all the other Arkham bells & whistles too. Falls in the time line at year two of this Batman's run. So like a year after Origins. Wonder if they'll ever be able to convert it to a console game somehow down the line.

Starting off with my positive comment, that main event was fucking great. Everything about it (except for how much it reminded me of exploiting Foley's kids in Beyond the Mat). That crowd was SO so hot for it too. The no selling kicks while looking at his family. Swerve getting to no sell the first knee. Having the level up the Lebell Lock to get the win. The post match celebration. Just fucking perfect. Following it off with my most negative comment, and one that might get me almost as much heat as not liking Elton John songs for wrestling lol. Whoever is the production coordinator needs suspended without pay. How do you repeat the streamers getting stuck on the tron thing from last year? Baffling. The Buck's streamers last year and MJF's this year. WHY would you do streamers with such a low lighting rig? WHY WHY WHY would you repeat the same mistake two years in a row? My ADD concussion brain couldn't focus on MJF vs Ospreay at all. Just a really dumb self inflicted snafu that made them look low rent. They dangling down into the ring and the ref was trying to rip them down and they were interfering with spots. Hated it. Random other thoughts. Shocked no Mox. Feel like they missed a story telling chance to add Pac to BCC by Bryan offering his spot, since he may have to retire. Since you were teaming him up with them anyways, and he needs new running mates without Lucha Bros, that story telling beat was a miss opportunity. Ricochet looked so fucking pumped. Blown away by the Nigel surprise. That never once crossed my mind. Christian winning was the weirdest result ever. Thought that match was super strong. Britt didn't look great and I guess them burning off Hayter's return on the pre show (dumb) and not here confirmed their heat. Tony & Marriah killed it. Darby kinda got squashed. Odd choice when he's got a World Title Match in like 3 weeks. Wonder how All Out shakes out. Think we'll get a Claudio vs Okada rematch. Ricochet will surely have a featured match. The women's divisions don't seem to have clear ideas for next contenders. Who does Bryan get? Don't think it'll be Christian, think they're saving that story for down the road for whatever reason. There aren't a lot of heated up heels right now. Could end up with no match at All Out maybe.

Yeah AEW does a commentary rotation. I'd be surprised if the main wasn't X, Tony, & JR. I personally don't mind the Nigel stuff but I think yall are out of your minds if you think Nigel plays even one iota of a part in the match. I'm more interested in changing the conversation to who you guys think will be surprises in the Gauntlet. I think Ricochet is a lock. Mox too. Thinking Okada as well. Think Shane or Bobby Lashley would be fun ass moments, but not very likely. Wish Omega was healthy enough because that pop would be massive.

As if we needed a new wrinkle in this conversation, WBD just installed a new executive to oversee all of the cable networks. If she comes in Jamie Kellner style all the months of negotiating could be tossed out the window.

Will that be the only All In next year? Thinking the normal All In weekend might be that Austrailia stadium show that's rumored. Over / under on total All Ins happening next year is 2.5 place your bets lol

The Gauntlet ends after the first pinfall. If you're #1 you can theoretically win before 20 other dudes enter by just pinning #2.

To me it'll be interesting if it's All In just moving to a new city, or if they plan on expanding to multiple stadium shows in the same year.

All of thr future looking outlooks are pretty much spot on. But it's gonna take a while for us to get there. Bleeding 33% of paying customers is an alarming stat. But again 70M cable & satellite subscribers is still the second highest user base. Saying let's abandon that for an unproven thing that will, in the future like 10 years down the road, replace it... is just not a financially acceptable strategy. Another factor no one is really considering is the point I brought up about media appearances. I'm not advocating for booking for anyone's passed away grandmother. But these news stations and radio stations that supply the time aren't ran by Gen Z zoomers. They're still rna by the old school boomers that still look down at the newer technologies. You don't get a 5 minute spot with Oramge Cassidy on Good Day Albuquerque or whatever if you're a You Tube only promotion. These old suits that run the stations aren't going to give up air time for that. And those appearances are important in the local markets for promotion and ticket sales. Without those the sales would probably be a good 10-15% lower than they already are. The cell phone / landline analogy is a good one. But we're in 1999 here and you're advocating for everyone to throw out their landlines and only market to cellphone users. Sure that ends up being the right outcome, but you're 5-8 years ahead if that curve before it becomes commonplace. It's not a wrong outlook, it's just a wrong for this point in time outlook.

Even tho we have slightly different opinions on this I do want to point out you always put a lot of thought into your posts and I appreciate that. I sometimes come off combatative and I'm aware of that and trying to work on it. I do enjoy your posts and I don't think you're that far off the mark here even tho I disagree with You Tube only as a strategy. Now if we move in the Sunday Ticket direction my thoughts change a bit. Because You Tube is *paying* The NFL for the content. If AEW got a Wrestle Ticket deal where You Tube pays the same rights fees they're looking for elsewhere that does change the math a bit. You still lose a lot of visability, but it's a less risky perception position to be viewed as a commodity that You Tube is paying a ton for. Again I don't think what your saying is crazy. I just think you're a few years too far ahead of the curve. Cable is still the number 2 viewing platform in the country. And why I said free, its because people are already paying for cable that have it. I feel it's safe to say very few people pay for cable JUST for AEW. So it's something they already have and it's no added cost (better way to put it). Truth is TK has been shown to be overly positive and a bit stubborn. So he may have a number and he may want everything together in one package and that's the holdup. Doing the WWE / NBA / NFL strategy if breaking up the properties seems like the best way to maximize your potential payout.

You're vastly overestimating the reach of being You Tube only. Right now they are a US national wrestling promotion on a big cable network. They got lots of local market media appearances. Local news and radios spots to advertise their live events. That stuff goes away if you're just a wrestling company on You Tube. You don't command respect. Your media options dry up. Therefore the ticket sales take a hit (on top of the massive hit they've already taken). The visibility and viability of being in this You Tube bubble have a ripple effect on all those other streams of revenue. PPV numbers would take a hit as well. If you're shelling out $120 a year JUST for the live TV, are you shelling out $500 more to order the 10 PPVs a year? No. People's incomes are limited. I'm not saying your thought process is totally wrong. What I'm saying is it's *too* forward thinking for where we are now. 70 million cable viewers still exist. That's still the second highest user base (behind Netflix) in today's market. You have 70 million possible viewers right now (for free). Even if people don't choose to watch, they're aware of it. It has visibility. If you scale it back to just 1M people watching (who pay for it) you lose that visibility with vast majority of the open market. You get less people aware of AEW, so less people knowing when they're in town. Less ticket sales. less merch sales. Less PPV buys. It's one of those topics you just see it the way you see it and I know what I'm saying isn't going to change your opinion. And that's fine. But you're not being very realistic about the finances required to run at a profit and the lack of viability & prestige you'd get for being a You Tube only promotion. I don;t even think WWE with a 40 year head start in their hottest boom in 25 years with gigantic mainstream viability could pull that off. Thinking the verrrrryyyyyy distant number 2 can is just too optimistic a view point for me.

The main caveat here is TK is a mega millionaire and could feasibly fund this regardless of how much he's offered for any of these suggestions right. But let's assume at face value he won't just sink money into it and is trying to be self sustainable and profitable. While there are many content creators on YouTube that pull in great numbers, there's not really a sustainable / profitable YouTube only sports league / pro wrestling / pro wrestling adjacent product. It's all low overhead concepts like The Try Guys or whatever. Running live pro wrestling costs a tonnnnnn of money. Let's be over the top positive here and say you can get 1 million people to pay $10 a month for AEW programming. $120million a year is not enough to make AEW profitable. Sure throw in another $million for ad revenue. You're still not there. Live event over head. Roster. Satellite feed time. Travel. Ect. You're not getting to profitable without $250million annually. The numbers don't work.

I'm all in on cable dying and needing to have an alternative. But it's not dead yet. If you pivot to a YouTube exclusive subscription model you're basically an indy. You have no footprint. You have no visability. Ticket sales are already cratering. They fall even further off a cliff being a niche streaming only promotion. The answer is to diversify. Get Dynamite on a streaming outlet. Amazon / Paramount / Max / Hulu... whatever one you can get a foot in the door. Keep trying for a cable deal for Collison. WBD / Paramount / Fox... wherever you can get a foot in the door. Do a subscription only model for ROH. Honor Club / YouTube/ whatever. Splitting the rights and diversifying is the move. You may not command as big of a rights fee. But you're setup to have the biggest reach and the biggest footprint. You're hitting all the possible markets. Its pretty much what WWE is doing. I know TK wants a big giant rights package that includes everything. But I think that limits your reach and potential revenue streams. And the demand for a giant rights package just isn't there (seemingly). Even the sports leagues split their rights up to maximize visability. It's the most business savvy longterm move.

I beat Rebirth on June 11th. Basically all of my time since then gaming has been sunk into beating all of the combat challenges. Fuckkkkk that Bonds of Friendship one with Zack. It took me literally 2 months to beat. I had the optimized setup and watched about 100 videos. And still just couldn't beat Odin in the 10th battle. But fucking finallyyyy did it. Then did the last challenge, basically the same 10 fights just with Sephiroth instead of Zack, and boom beat that one on the first try. Finally done with all the combat challenges. I want to say the last couple in Remake were harder. But none of those took 2 months to beat. Now just gotta mop up hard mode, a few more collectables, and the god damn piano bullshits and the platinum is mine. Currently at 190 hours total (does not accurately account for time spent in the game tho due to rage quits). 250 - 275 will probably be my number when all is said and done. Definitely got my money's worth outta this one.

I'm not sure his gimmick is a WWE fit. Seems like a concept they wouldn't really get behind. He's self described it as basically a demon possessing Conan O'Brian lol. I think he's def worthy of an AEW spot. Wacky comedy relief between work rate stuff is always welcomed as a pallet cleanser (to me at least). I wonder if his close friendship with Punk has soured his chances more than anything. They knew who and what he was when they signed him. But his unwavering allegiance to Punk has to be factoring in.