Kevin Wilson

Not to beat a dead horse that we already beat on a weekly basis in the catch-all thread but its criminal that TK has such a great women's division and for their big events don't feature more of them. They have at least six to eight women I'd consider "pretty damn great" that currently aren't on the card, so I hope they book a second match for sure.

I had to laugh at the touchback change as they keep doing things to get teams to kick less touchbacks and it just isn't working. So I'm curious if this change is enough to finally get teams to stop kicking touchbacks or if they'd still rather have the opponent start on the 35 than risk a long return.

Rules stuff is rolling in now. So far two changes of note have passed: - The football now moves to the 35 after a touchback since the NFL is still annoyed at the number of touchbacks - In the regular season both teams will get possession of the ball in OT, but OT is still ten minutes so they didn't change that part.

I think the way the rule is phrased right now a player can't be pulled or carried, only pushed. Course we've seen running backs get pulled and no flag was thrown, its not the most enforced rule but technically no you can't carry people like that as funny as it would look.

The problem with that is, they aren't discussing getting rid of helping assist the dude with the ball, the way the committee has phrased the banning of the tush push is strictly for that. They aren't talking about banning offensive linemen pushing the RBs downfield like we saw quite a bit of last year. There are no rules you can't push the ball carrier which is all the tush push does. So that's why Eagles fans are mad, because of the fake reason of the risk of injury (since there hasn't really been any or any proof it causes more injuries than a typical QB Sneak), and the rule is being crafted in such a way to literally only ban the tush push, not assisting ball carriers in general by pushing them. Personally I don't care either way, teams will adjust and find something else productive to do. But they should just be upfront about the reason - one team got really really good at something that isn't against the rules that any team could also do if they wanted to, and the other teams don't like it.

It would be a pretty hard sell to me that a random leaker with "sources" knows the streaming numbers but AEW doesn't. I'm not saying any of this is impossible but its far enough outside the realm of believability to me that it would take something more official or concrete for me to take it seriously. I know as wrestling fans we take a lot of information from leaked sources, that's where we get most of our information, but we've seen leaked information be wrong before too and this one doesn't pass my smell test. I'd of course be very excited for AEW if this was true, but their live attendance/PPV buyrates/any other metric don't support that their fanbase has grown 100% in three months nor has that ever happened in the history of wrestling fandom. I'd be happy with just a slow steady increase and I do believe being on Max has helped their reach.

Not to defend the Death Riders but ratings on TV have slowly been going up for the last month and the last PPV Buyrate was up so while the reaction to the DR seems to not be great from the live crowd and online, there is enough else going on that general interest in AEW has been going slowly up, not down. That being said I too would think if the number was that good that someone would be releasing it though like Netflix is with WWE. Even if it wasn't a big deal to Max as a whole it would be to AEW and TK and they could do their own announcement if 500,000 people were watching it on Max. I do think a fair number are watching on Max, I don't think the number is like 50K or something but I'd need some type of official announcement to believe AEW increased their Dynamite viewers from 575K in December to 1.1 million in three months.

The fumbling aspect isn't really something I'm concerned about (he only had one fumble last year and didn't lose it), I'm more concerned that the Bills don't use him on 3rd down and in the two minute drill due to his pass blocking/receiving issues or to be a change of pace. He's a very dynamic runner and I like him a lot, but if he is only on the field 50% of snaps and is more of a 1A then an "every down" back its hard for me to justify paying him every down back money. Cook was in for 48% of snaps last year, maybe for a variety of reasons but a 48% of snaps RB isn't worth Top 5 RB money no matter how good he is in those 48%. The fact is, any young talented RB is going to get some team to get pay him, David Montgomery is a 40% to 45% snap count RB and just signed for a little over 9 mil a year, and I think Cook is better than he is. So he's going to get 10 to 12 mil minimum, I wouldn't care if the Bills extended him in that range but anything higher then that would be harder to justify unless he gets better at pass blocking/receiving and can handle at least 70% of snaps.

Bills extended Christian Benford for 4-year, $76M (probably agent numbers so a 'max' of $76M). Seems like a fair number for a mid-range CB1, glad they were able to get it done. Now James Cook is the only one left and I don't think he'll get an extension unless he is willing to take at/under 13M a year which I don't think is what he wants.

Its not a game but I guess since it was in the Direct its still worth mentioning here - Nintendo turning digital purchases into digital cartridges is a cool concept. When it was just for sharing to another Switch it didn't seem too special and obviously was just a prep for the Switch 2, but when they said you can loan games to other people for up to two weeks that's a neat feature. My brother and I sometimes share games and we beat most games pretty quickly, being able to loan each other games like that may come in handy. Its designed for families since I believe it requires a Family Account but its still a step in the right direction.

Only game shown that interested me was Hot Shots Golf, I was hoping it would be like "releasing today!" but no it was just a vague "2025" so I'm sad.

Kinda curious to see what Nintendo's direct is about that starts in ~20 minutes. Is it the last "hurrah" of Switch games? Obviously whatever announced will play on Switch 2 as well, its just interesting for them to do a games update just a week before the Switch 2 announcement which of course will also have games announced. I'm not expecting any "big" games, maybe some ports, a remaster or two, and lots of indie games.

I swear I've started new games of No Man's Sky at least six times in the last nine (!!!) years, play it 10 to 20 hours, then move on to something else. If they keep doing updates I'm sure it'll happen again this year sometime. Maybe one day I'll actually get a playthrough to the end (unlikely). I still love the concept of the game and all they've added, there is just something about it that as I near 20 hours my brain is satisfied and I move on to something else.

I'd be surprised if WWE was interested in Saraya but her run in AEW had run its course. She said it was mutual and I assume her and TK had a nice chat about it but she's right in that there wasn't really a spot for her in AEW anymore. Her mic work isn't great, her in-ring isn't great, and even if she was on the show I don't know what she'd really do with how many women's wrestlers there are in AEW that need the spot more. Losing Rampage didn't help as now there are a number of Rampage "regulars" that are still fighting for time. She's one of those that probably never would have signed if the Vince/HHH power change happened sooner but unlike some others I don't recall any reports that she was difficult or didn't want to do certain things, she seemed to always do things the right way so if she goes back to WWE more power to her and I hope she does well. Its hard to believe she is only 32 as she started so young, so she still has many years in front of her if she finds a good spot.

That feels like an over-pay for a turning-32 WR coming off a major injury (although we won't know more until the contract details as I think its "up to" 69 million) but the Patriots have lots of cap space so maybe that's just what they had to pay to get a 1B WR. I think his side is claiming he'll be ready Week 1 but torn ACLs are no joke so for his sake I hope they don't rush him back.

I sure as hell didn't, it was definitely an odd decision that once I found out really confused me. And the fact he wrestled that gimmick for nine months and then just disappeared. I wasn't an "online fan" until a few years after that, I'm sure it was reported in the Observer and what not but I wasn't in the loop and he looked too different. But even though he was in his mid-30s neither WCW or WWF were interested in him, not sure if both just felt he was too stained by having so many weird gimmicks over the years. I read.... somewhere.... that the WWF felt Tenta had lost too much weight and wouldn't work as "Earthquake" anymore but no idea the source of that or if that was just fan speculation.

Since this is about as B-Level as AEW gets for PPVs, I hope the Toni/Bayne match has a non-ending. It feels too soon for Toni to lose but also feels too soon for Bayne to eat a clean loss. I'm not a fan of non-endings on PPVs but if done right (and towards the beginning/middle of the card) its not a huge deal if they wrestle for 10/15 minutes and then shit breaks down and whatever the ending is leads to Toni keeping the belt but not pinning Bayne either. I feel bad for Swerve getting sacrificed but he's shown he can eat a loss now and then and stay strong/over so he'll be fine.

What's odd is originally they were better about that. They had Tyson, Shaq, and Snoop Dogg all on TV in various roles, mostly through connects but like you said between the Khan's NFL connections and WBD's massive list of stars under contract or doing movies under them you'd think they could put more effort into it. It doesn't even have to be real, just pay someone to look excited (which Tyson failed at but what can ya do). While I personally find it a bit cringe most of the time the fact remains any publicity would help and from what people in Philly have been reporting there has been very little promotion locally for Dynasty. Marketing is definitely an area AEW can improve in and I'm surprised 5+ years in its not something they've put more effort into.

I'm about as casual a Lucha fan as there is so I wouldn't expect any promotion to cater to my preferences, but the new La Parka is too skinny and too young and dances too well. I want some big boned somewhat immobile person in the gimmick, not some kid. I'm sure he's probably a good wrestler, it just didn't match the presentation I'm used to.

Perhaps a hot take: In 2025 I'd rather have Winston than Rodgers. I'm not saying Winston is necessarily a better QB, but a combination of the money saved to get other FAs and the fact Winston isn't a pain to deal with on a personal/media level, he'd be my pick any day of the week.

Just not enough time to build this one up. That's not to say it won't have great matches, AEW delivers in-ring on PPVs 95% of the time, but while Revolution felt like the matches generally had good slow builds this one is going to feel a bit more rushed. I have no doubt Mox is winning but there are only two Dynamites to build his Swerve match and two weeks away we only have three matches. I can see in the long run this being one of the more forgettable PPVs looking back at it later, but I hope it still has bangers because I already paid for it.

Next week, Nintendo is adding the following SNES games to Switch Online: Nobunaga's Ambition Nobunaga's Ambition: Lord of Darkness Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4: Wall of Fire Uncharted Water: New Horizons I'll be honest, I was a SNES guy and both owned games and rented many in my youth. I've never heard of any of these games. Some people online are excited about it but I can't tell if its legit excitement for the games themselves or just happy the library is expanding. Nintendo continuing to not release universally requested games even five years into this service is annoying but also very, very Nintendo. Granted, I know third party gaming rights can be complicated, I just don't know if an effort is being made or if it just isn't worth the hassle.

I stand by my opinion that fans/people as a general group like Mox, and like Cope, but the storyline itself isn't hot or well liked. Neither are doing any damage to themselves in regards to individual popularity and soon as they move on to the next storyline both will still be popular. This isn't a popularity-killing storyline for either, I'm more curious how long it takes Jericho to recover as I think that's a tougher situation. Mox and Cope are/will be fine.

They should have called it on that asshole Tomlin on the kickoff return when he was on the field of play. Cowards. Obviously refs will do absolutely anything in their power not to award points due to the optics of it, don't really blame them.

From looking at Mox's back afterwards, the nail board was clearly gimmicked in some way but I just don't know the science behind it. The wounds weren't even bleeding anymore so they weren't deep cuts like what happened to Darby with the glass. I can understand how they could be made safer but the combination of don't go in deep but still being able to stick in him without coming out is as science I'm not fully able to explain.