Hagan

Anyone that follows Renee knows that she likes to have a good time, too. Mox's books is full of stories like that. Nothing wrong with any of that and I hope this doesn't turn into concern trolling that any wrestler that drinks or parties is headed for tragedy or something. While we don't know the specifics of the Moxley thing, anytime anyone looks at a behavior and decides they need help is a good thing. I just hope it doesn't let a lot of bad faith actors start making bad takes about people's personal choices.

The Khan post says it was with Mox's blessing so we can go with that. FWIW - on AJ, Meltzer made a comment of something like "I'm sure he'll be yelling about it soon" on AJ missing time. Edit: specific quote: “AJ’s got a non-injury medical issue, is what I was told. I’m sure he’s gonna yell and scream about it at some point, but that is what they said. A non-injury medical issue.”

The Mox news really puts into context how kinda stressed/overwhelmed he sounded on Observer Radio and just his general look the last few months. New kid and a pretty self-inflicted loaded schedule can exacerbate issues you think you have under control. He seems like a solid dude so obviously this is a tough time and I hope this is a pro-active decision he made and not caused by something dramatic that happened.

That's fine in theory but for week-to-week episodic TV all year that's just not gonna work.

Yeah this is super weird. I get that Sinclair didn't want to worry about getting sued or whatever so putting ROH on ice for the duration of the early pandemic was fine and it's good they paid them but now a shutdown to reevaluate or to reorient just seems like a final blow, especially when non-WWE wrestling FEELS hot and there's clearly a market out there and a flood of new talent. Honesty, this feels like the next thing we'll hear is they're getting sold.

So they have every challenger win except the person that has real main event potential? Never change WWE.

What is actually sad is WWE in a different time would have RUN with this controversy and built to a big angle around it. This is more likely to be either brushed over or ruined on screen. I also find it funny that people think that any of these WWE wrestlers have any creative say or control over anything. I mean, pretty clear that outside of Reigns, Lesnar and like Goldberg no one either has the wherewithal or capital to push back on any of the terrible creative or booking ideas. The company would be way better if more of them fought back. This conflation of Charlotte the character, somewhat over-pushed because Vince likes tall blondes and the somewhat neurotic person behind the character concerned about being passed over or buried constantly is probably a little unfair. I imagine Charlotte has as much say in how she's booked as Akira Tozawa does.

Unlucky night in an unlucky year for New Japan. NJPW has the unique misfortune of both having awful booking and egregious match times at the same time a pandemic destroys their crowd atmosphere and destroys their roster. I try to think if the booking would be elevated if the crowds could make noise and I really don't think so. Maybe the 30000 minute matches would be better but even that I feel would still be an issue. The depleted roster and not being able to bring over guys is definitely an issue but it makes me wonder if a lot of that has hidden these warts in bookings over the years. Like, would the EVIL stuff be more palatable if it was followed by hot Moxley matches or Ospreay doing stuff and the crowd going bananas?

Signed up for that Wrestle Universe deal. Anything from Tokyo Joshi Pro that is essential watching. Plan on subscribing to Stardom after G1 and catching up on the major matches.

Charlie Dempsey looked awesome and I was thinking how quickly his style would fit in in New Japan. NXT UK is a really sneaky good show. I assume it's not long for this world so better enjoy it while we can. That said, something very sad seeing Bate and Seven basically live in purgatory on this show considering how hot their act was during the Brit Wres comeback.

I get the logic but ANYTHING with Brock Lesnar is immediately at least the 2nd biggest thing on any show. WWE makes it very clear who are stars and who are not. And Brock Lesnar is a bigger draw historically than Kofi and Bryan. WWE being the only company on Earth that is weird with their match order I think throws people off.

Apologies for the double-post, but what was the last AEW ladder match before this? Was it the one Scorpio Sky won? WWE did like 50 in the last two years but despite the eight other thousand gimmick matches AEW does I can only think of three ladder matches (Bucks vs Lucha, the Scorpion Sky win and last night).

I think it's a huge part of it. Or how he never challenged for the TNT title again. Cody was a victim of the early AEW trend of never really blowing off anything when his feuds needed it.

Cody discourse is what it is but my main issue with him is that nothing he does in AEW has felt important in a while. If anything, he's under-pushed as he's spent the last year working mid card matches, doing the Shaq thing that we all see was more about launching Jade and being a gate-keeper for new talent. His last truly important 'main event' singles match was putting over Darby last November. This Black feud seems to be going...somewhere but it's clearly more designed to make Black a bigger star, which is fine but Cody needs something interesting and well-developed to kind of rehab his own star-power.

Yeah - Kofi was a nice moment at Mania but it was a midcard match. Shit, let's be honest - Miz vs Shane and Hunter vs Batista were promoted and pushed much more heavily so Kofi and Bryan was 5th from the top.

Possibly the best Dynamite ever.

Jesus Christ, yeah…I think I’m done with this show. This is 1999 WCW with 1995 WWF gimmicks. Did Indi say that Dexter had a 9 1/2 dong or some shit? Toxic Attraction is a good act tho and you may as well move them up. GG is vastly improved in-ring and Mandy has a shit ton more charisma in this role. Charlotte needs new people to beat, too. One thing about this show, tho. This is about getting people main roster ready but there’s a ton of mid-card comedy gimmicks on here. Aside from Steiner the rest of the guys just look like total idiots.

Also, does Indi not believe in the pill? I mean, God bless the Dex man for wrapping it up but he's a married man now. Some kinda concerning implications there. Sus.

One thing with Max is it’s inevitable that he’ll fall into the same issue that Max Castor did and say the wrong thing that’s gonna piss off the people on Twitter who make the most noise about stuff.

A buddy pointed out that Double A pulled a great boomer promo by calling the millennial a loser and invoking the Second Amendment.

Does live viewership even matter for Peacock? The only issue with Saturdays is you run up against UFC shows and sometimes a huge boxing fight but I don’t think the night matters much anymore for WWE shows generally.

This show was way too horny. I mean, is the idea that Vince can live out his old man lech fantasies on a show no one is watching because if they did a show like that on Raw and SD the Twitter ‘give [insert underpushed woman] a chance’ crowd would be losing their fucking mind?

*insert Krusty gif

No, but the point is guys like Christian or, to use better examples of a main event act, Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart were chastised as being ‘too small to be believable’ or ‘too small to be stars’ or whatever bad faith argument people embraced because they had a pre-determined idea of what a star looked like. And, of course, those arguments historically have been shown to not only be wrong but pretty damaging to companies. Wrestlers across the board are smaller and, thankfully, less roided up so using size as a criticism for any wrestler just seems retrograde. So, yes, while Christian is larger than other AEW main eventers it doesn't change the fact that it was absurd he was considered to be too small for years. Silly then, silly now.

No kidding! I was gonna point that out, too. It’s why so many of these arguments just fall apart. Like when Corny talks about how the Young Bucks look like they can’t win a real fight as if Beautiful Bobby and Loverboy Dennis looked like the fucking Bruiser and Crusher rolling into a bar.