Zakk_Sabbath

Huge congrats @Gorman; Looking forward to it!

I've never done it but I always heard the move was to go for the Kosher/Halal option if you can

Hard agree on that too though - I guess when thinking of Shida as the Ace, I'm looking at it more from an "all-time," totality-of-her-last-5-years perspective. But yea for sure zero point zero question Timeless was the MVP of the division if we're keeping it to this year

I gotta unfortunately respectfully disagree - I think they've gotta be live on there for reasons similar to the price reduction convo above: having a live PPV available on the service, screaming at you from the homepage immediately upon login conveys a perception to the non-AEW fan MAX subscriber that this is a big-time, major league product on par with the other guys. Don't get me wrong, throw the PPV archive up, TV, Dark, ROH, All In 1, whatever you can - get that money - but purely my opinion, I just think that the library alone without a live component isn't quiiiiite as strong. I'll use myself as an example: as excited as I would be for AEW for "save it for the finance thread" reasons, a lot of this shit was simply too recent for me to go back to. It's one thing to binge like, '97 WCW or '94 RAW or whatever having grown up with em, but personally speaking, I'm legitimately not sure that I see myself going back to the AEW archive terribly often for a few years outside of maybe rewatching shows I was at, getting wistful about Brodie's last run, or catching up on nü-ROH. I know that's not necessarily everyone else's preference or the way they consume old stuff, and I'm not meaning to shit on that idea at all so I hope you don't take it that way, I just think it's more advantageous to serve both masters if at all humanly possible ETA: talking about old footy actually gave me a thought, I bet it's gonna be a lot less of a pain in the ass for AEW than it was for WWE to get this kinda thing going given that most of this stuff is already digitized and catalogued one would assume, except maybe like the oldest of old ROH stuff. Also: while we're on the topic of MAX, my ultimate hope for any AEW streaming deal for sure would be the return of cool shit like that Joshi tournament in the empty warehouse during the pandemic, or airing PAC's International title defenses overseas on Dark when it was on YouTube

@SovietShooter as much as my wallet wants to fervently disagree, I think you're probably on the money here re: reduced cost - especially in light of the "In Your House" price point stuff discussed earlier

You must have a similar music algorithm to me, because I randomly heard the trill remix today lol

I was thinking similarly - essentially the "bad man is gone" approach we were sorta chatting about way early on in the WSJ thread.

I'm down for it! Especially while Dustin's still active - might be a fun little thing for a PPV Zero Hour or you could have it take up 75% of a Rampage or something

Hard agree, for obvious reasons - but to go a step further, if that really was a sticking point as Nikita said above, then maybe a happy medium would be something like: all PPVs included except Revolution, All In, WrestleDream, and Full Gear (or idk, pick your 'big 4'). Or maybe something like, you can still buy em full price via traditional methods, but they're 50% off thru Max. I'm sure the numbers have been crunched

The monkeys paw curled when I joked about his always right-status yesterday, now I gotta break my WWE moratorium for a night or the whole thing implodes

Quick thought I had catching up on the last couple pages during a meeting that could've been an IM, nevermind a fucking email: I am 100% willing to die on the SHIDA = ACE hill - that woman WAS the division during COVID, and to this day you can put her in there with damn near anyone and get something watchable. I've probably missed an Elevation or Rampage here or there, but I'm guessing I've seen 99% of her AEW output, and gun to my head I'm struggling to think of one that'll make you go "Oh yeah, that was a stinker..." @username i think you make a great point on Britt, it's gonna be a real uphill climb for a bit as far as this conversation goes - and that's based purely on the overall perception since the Mercedes bout, without even getting into her health or anything else personal that might be affecting her performance Also think @Hail Sabinmakes a great point about Riho possibly being in that conversation were she stateside more often. Which got me thinking: another person in the same situation (coincidentally a Joshi herself) is Yuka Sakazaki - like Riho, I think if she were around more often, she could easily be an anchor of the division. I've often wondered if they originally had bigger plans for her - like she's one of the few women on the video game roster, and was among the first to get a shirt, for example.

One thing I have absolutely loved about the latest development in the Swerve/Hangman angle is that since the TDM, I've been a real worry-wart about how they would be able to top Swerve-at-cribside - and throughout months and months of speculation, I never fathomed this route. In a promotion where things are often predictable (not AT ALL meant as a dig, the logical path is usually the right one) this shit blew me away. When you can knock the socks off even one of your most ardent-fantasy-booking sickos, you're doing something right. Huge kudos all around.

Haha, had to! I haven't seen any of the new Wyatts-Without-Wyatt, but I gotta say, I find both your picks really interesting because I can't imagine anything much more tonally dissimilar to Timeless Toni

Does not compute

Agreeeeeed. I said this a while ago but Danielson/Mox would make a ton of logical sense as a last match. I think the question at this time is really: is the Mox/Shafir contingent going to become its own BCC with blackjack and hookers, or are we going to see Mox/Shafir align with Yuta/CC/PAC and we get the whole gang turning on Danielson

Toooo beeeee fairrrrrrr, I don't think anyone calls a winning NFL team formulaic for running a playbook, y'know? Jokes aside, I'd CERTAINLY entertain an argument/comparison for the sternum/buckle bump - when J.R. was still doing commentary regularly, nothing would drive me more insane than when he would call that bump and mention Bret. At least with the Flair bump, there's sort of a built in story for the old-schoolers, like "He won his first title in '81 with the cross body, and is going back to the well... Again..."

I love both matches but cannot disagree with this valid (yet hilarious) criticism. For me, I don't mind them much because if you think back to some of the earliest shows, there was shit like that all over the place - a glass coffee table set-up several feet to the right of the ramp for no reason, Mox's crazy-ass barbed wire trampoline Vietnam man-trap looking thing, etc. Fully agree that stuff is a bit "logic breaking" but I always just took it as part and parcel of the Elite running their own promotion since they used to mess with the fourth wall so much anyway

And that's ok! I was just talking about this match a while back (I don't remember what thread, maybe in the context of getting Grand Slam tickets) and I fully acknowledge that my opinion of it being "Supreme Lord of All Dream Matches Ever Conceived" might be *slightly* influenced by our presence in the building. It's just something I'll never, ever be able to be objective about (but obviously in the opposite direction as you) but at least we acknowledge the blind spot, if you wanna call it that

Cornette's producer owns the site that "broke" the story, too. It's another one of those "independent contractor misclassification" suits, like the one against WWE years ago. I'm certainly no expert in employment law, but given that I can recall KK doing at least one NJPW PPV during his tenure on Collision, I don't know how far they're necessarily going to get with that argument. Theres also some nonsense in there about being defamed (on a *private* discord server... Not sure how that would work, either). It seems to me like just some PPV-week shit stirring for the sake of it

Have a great time man! Hopefully you can use the jetlag to your advantage to catch the PPV (if you're not partying too hard, that is).

Give me one of these Lance Archer segments every week, man!! The little touch with the locker door cracked us up. Hell, they could shoot like 50 of em in one day, and save on flying him in for most of the year lol. Nice change of pace from a run of the mill squash, and probably equally effective. Also: OC & KOR touching Hologram to see if he was real had us dying too ETA: So Layla is a pilot, but ALSO a stewardess, but ALSO air traffic control?? I am not complaining about her presence at all, but this whole revision of the Top Flight gimmick feels very New Generation WWF meets old porno.

I hate to pile on, but I understand the idea of Mercedes wanting a "redemption" outing on PPV since the DMD match was a bit of a stinker, so I can forgive that

We're catching up on DVR right now, and just finished Rampage - that was an awesome main event. Some real Nitro hour 1 shit. I can't wait to see Mortos** in with Hologram on Collision

Agreed - stuff like that, or Le Dinner Debonaire, whether you liked it or you didn't, you can't deny the guy shows an aptitude for it. Maybe even moreso than traditional promos - he obviously shines there too, but it's well-worn territory at this point to talk about how he goes to certain wells too often, the double edged sword of creative freedom, yada yada.

I'm guessing my "Indy"taker head canon doesn't count here