Niners Fan in CT

What the fuck was that Rock promo? Dude rambled on repeating his lines for 20 minutes. It got somewhat compelling by the end but I'm not sure I need a Corporation story line anytime soon. Unless this is leading to John Cena being so desperate for #17 that he is the one who sells his soul to get it

They were in the midst of like 4-5 straight eps over a million before Punk's debut

Counter: AEW when it was in it's regular Wednesday timeslot was regularly doing 1.0-1.1 million viewers BEFORE CM Punk arrived on August 20, 2021. Ratings didn't increase from there, they stayed about the same. Sure, he was a big name for the brand and a lot of people tuned in initially to see him but there was no evidence of a huge new batch on AEW fans who are now "gone" because Punk was fired.

This isn't the ratings thread but I'll just say that roughly 600k + whatever they do on Max is not terrible. They have a couple things working in their favor. They have a great roster right now where a lot of acts are over and interesting and they have a TV contract that's good for another 3-4 years. Plenty of time to put together some sustained success. People forget that after the first episode of Collision the ratings started to fall off dramatically and the attendance for some of those early Collisions were terrible and that was with Punk as the lead on the show. Again, not a post shitting on Punk, I'm just stating the facts of the matter. Punk vs. Joe was super hyped up by AEW and it ended up doing like 2400 fans.

What killed it for me was that they had O.C. vs. Strong in the main event. I don't mind either of them and I thought the show was strong (no pun) overall but as a main event on your A-show it's just kinda there for me. I've always said that these shows are 100x better when Khan is able to find use of all of his top tier talent. They don't need to wrestle every week but they should all be there every week.

Punk DID once break his foot (ankle?) jumping into the crowd so I'd rank Thunder Rosa's blunder a 2/5 on that blooper scale.

Yeah, I saw a lot of them back in the 90s when video stores were still a thing, the reason I'm doing a deep dive is because I feel like I still missed a lot of great matches from that era. Every now and then you'd come across a video store that had a ton of Coliseum videos and even JCP VHS tapes and I'd ask my parents to rent the hell out of them. The JCP tapes always had great trailers that would show you what else is out. Seen below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cThKnOQiPws&ab_channel=enzyme2000

I promise this isn't a post shitting on CM Punk but wasn't Hangman the guy that Punk said "didn't want to listen, didn't respect the veterans advice" and all that stuff? I can make an argument that Hangman has been 10x more interesting over the past year than Punk has in WWE. Just funny to think about. Maybe Hangman didn't need your advice.

Ah yes! that's the one... I'm deep into my early-mid 80s WWF watch so I wanted to see this again. Side note: I was watching 'WrestleMania I' again earlier. Couple things. I think history has maybe underrated the main event tag team match, it's so fun from the entrances all the way through to the end. Crowd is super hot for everything. Also, Mr. T is definitely on my list of best celebrity wrestlers ever. He was so great and believable as hell.

Does anyone remember the old WWF video package that would appear on VHS tapes in the mid 80s? It showed various highlights from around that time and also what I believe was the Roman Coliseum spliced in and out. It was definitely on the WrestleMania 2 VHS. Where can I find this? I've searched on YouTube but maybe I'm not using the right phrase.

Fun show tonight, I liked the face off with Hangman/MJF. This was the most inspired MJF has sounded in a while. Loved Powerhouse getting a big win in the street fight with Big Bill but I definitely need to see Hobbs with a sustained push now. The 'Revolution' card looks like it's filling out nicely besides the main event. MJF/Hangman and Omega/Takeshita will both be awesome. Mercedes/Momo had a great match at an NJPW Strong event not long ago but I can't see an AEW crowd caring about Momo and it's pretty much heel vs. heel. Not sure about that choice. Megan Bayne vs. Statlander was an awesome hoss fight while it lasted.

I only go to Sonic for the shakes and while I'm there I might dabble in a popcorn chicken meal or something. I'll eat some tater tots like I'm 5-years old. It's all about the shakes foe me.

Didn't even have to click the spoiler to know what this said Lol

I think the internet as a collective has underrated 80s WWF in terms of in-ring action. I don't know why exactly but there was a lot of good shit coming out of New York. I've seen some of these matches before like for example I had seen The Iron Sheik vs. Sgt. Slaughter 'Boot Camp Match' from MSG but I hadn't seen the rest of their series. I hadn't seen the entire Valentine/Tito feud. As I continue to dig deeper, I think WWF was massively underrated by fans and experts. I'm into 1985 now.

I would have thought people would PREFER chicken wings because that's the best meat on the whole chicken. No joke. The wings are by far the best meat.

If you are being tribal about wrestling promotions you need to get a life. It also makes no sense because sometimes AEW is the better product or sometimes WWE is the better product or sometimes they are both good or there's a cool indy worth watching or NJPW, etc. and if you limit yourself to one thing you are going to miss out on a lot of good shit.

I haven't been to MSG since the NJPW/ROH show. Anyway, I don't think it was great for the NBA to have 8 minutes of talking following the dunk contest followed by another 5-6 minutes of commercials before AEW even began. That sucked. I'm sure a lot of people tapped out.

WrestleMania 14 was in Boston but that was the Fleet Center. There's no way I can see them running Gillette unless they push WM into May and even then it's risky. I was at the last WM at MetLife and it got cold/windy as hell in there once the sun went down. I don't see them doing the northeast again.

So what's the real story with Slaughter leaving WWF in '84? I've seen that Vince wouldn't allow him to be in G.I. Joe and I've also seen that Slaughter asked for time off, was denied and then no showed an event. Seems like he left shortly after the feud with Sheik. It's too bad because he was massively popular on these shows. Did he go to AWA right away?

We have KFC, Popeye's and Chick-Fil-A. I have to say Chick-Fil-A despite whatever you think of them is the better option of the three.

Netflix still hasn't uploaded jack shit. Most RAW episodes still missing.

The booking on this show was baffling. Both Trick and Evans have been getting fucked up their entire feuds against heels that aren't really over at all though Page is a little more over than Eddie. You'd think now would be time for the heels to receive their comeuppance but nope. Both won clean. Eddie took most of the offense in the strap match too. Crowd was dead after those two matches.

This is mostly what I said. People are going to dismiss my post because I'm a fan of Mercedes but I really would have liked Harley to win in a surprise, I just don't think it's feasible for her to have a title reign of any length because this is very much a workrate company and there's not many on Mercedes level that would be able to lead her through a good match.

I didn't hate them until they decided to keep the design (that did not spin) for years and years. I don't know if this is a "hot take" or not but I remember some discourse about the Bret/Flair title change in Canada not being a great match. I have to disagree as I just watched it again recently. WWE Vault put up the "Smack 'Em Whack 'Em" Coliseum Video so it's on there. I think the match is pretty darn good and the crowd is hot the whole way through.

Maybe before you lash out at me you can do some research. SRS has confirmed it. If you don't like it then provide some evidence to the contrary. https://www.si.com/fannation/wrestling/aew/rumor-killer-on-the-ring-size-controversy-for-aew-grand-slam-australia "This isn't the first time that AEW has used a smaller ring for one of their shows abroad, or even in the United States. When Thunder Rosa defeated Dr. Britt Baker for the AEW Women's Championship at St. Paddy's Day Slam 2022 in San Antonio, their steel cage match was inside an 18x18 ring."