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Guila hasn't been booked great or even good but I think her presence not carrying over is a bigger issue looking ahead. Bad booking can hurt you but even good booking can only bring you so far if you don't have it, and as talented as she is she just hasn't shown "it" here.

FWIW as far as I am aware you don't get a downside paycut being moved down to NXT, it's often been said the past few years when people were released who were sent down to NXT that them making main roster money while working down there was a big reason why they were let go.

So the Ridge situation sucks and firing him just short of his contract running out, even if it "only' costs him his last paycheck and not the non-compete, is a huge douche move. That said... dude almost certainly made six figures this year as well as the prior couple (rumored main roster minimum is between $200-350k yearly), LOL @ starting a gofundme to cover being out of work for 4-6 months during a shutdown and with seemingly a different huge company announcing massive layoffs like every other day for people who largely were making a whole hell of a lot less than him. I guess a workers gonna work but that's pretty darn ridiculous.

Tanahashi just worked a FREEDOMS tag match with Jun Kasai, so I say just let those two go at it at WK. A deathmatch can provide so much in terms of smoke & mirrors (possibly literally) to help cover for someone a bit broken down.

I don't know that Hook needs to go to NXT per se (I do think it'd help him) but he clearly needs to be learning elsewhere/additionally. There are people who will only learn so much at a given place, I would like to see him tossed into different situations where he will have to adapt/grow be it CMLL, NJPW or just a tour of the indies. I also maintain that protecting him so heavily from day one undercut his growth (selling has been mentioned, but people often need the chance to fail to grow). There is also the chance that this is simply what he offers, I'd hate to write off someone as young as him but eventually you are what you are.

I hope Tanahashi has some utterly absurd opponent he's always wanted to wrestle and it ends up being him vs like Tony Nese at the Dome.

The problem is that... the step before Stat and Mercedes getting added into the match is Mercedes getting thrown into the cake. Getting added to a Blood & Guts/Wargames/HIAC because of cake has gotta make the all time "idk this match happens this time of the year and we gotta have people in it" weak justifications list. I'm sure they'll be fun in the match itself but a blood feud this ain't been.

Hear me out though...

If the match is 6 on 6 (I have no idea why it is as it feels like the Storm/Stat/Mercedes group is rather shoehorned in) then they either have to cut the "match beyond" part down to be more in line with the original War Games or things are gonna get absurdly long.

I'm sorry but LOL @ Lesnar potentially working five matches in just over a month, he'd turn the most spectacular shade of red halfway through that

I do think we are eventually heading towards a bit of a reckoning where ESPN is so expensive to carry that one of the broadcasters is gonna just decide they simply can't (this is not a new thought, people have been worried about it for ages). Add in the new app which reasonable conspiracies aside adds in all sorts of other complications and I wouldn't be shocked if google is the first to take a shot at it.

I would contend that the Blood & Guts event likely had a fixed date (I assume AEW has to know which arena they are using two rings for well before the match is announced) while they've been sort of hemming and hawing about the women's tag belts for ages now, could have easily started the tourney a month or two later or earlier and not had to worry about that at all.

I am currently reading The City and The City by China Miéville and hear me out: hold both a women's and men's Blood & Guts match not just the same night but at the same time...

I mean I truly hate to say this but it was probably easier to keep Bray's condition relatively quiet as it wasn't supposed to be fatal. By all rights he should probably still be alive today but sadly mistakes were made

I think Lashley has enough of a resume and success to justify being in that match (Hook is the one that feels like a stretch as he just recently returned), the issue to me is that it feels like a big foregone conclusion match with one of the participants having jumped the champ and two of they others feuding with one another. Now perhaps it is so much so that there will be some misdirection, but my gut feeling is that it is a "we need to move things from point A to point B and don't have a great idea, so we'll just get it done the quickest way possible" situation.