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Rod Strong is I think a harder guy to defend than KOR, say what you will about Kyle but he was never in the No Remorse Corps >_>

I mean not that he's ugly or anything but I think literally everyone said this about Rey Jr.

Wasn't Maria Kanellis doing this as well? I think it was with AEW at least.

I am so glad that Jake Somthing finally got the big break he should have gotten years ago... I mean getting signed to a bigger fed is good too but finally being free of that name, dreams do come true.

This is interesting because if you talk to people who wrestled in WWE during the past twenty or so years now and ask them who the best is Orton's name always comes up. As a viewer I don't personally see it but enough wrestlers I have respect for talk him up as a best in the world type that I assume there has to be something to it.

It is a shame the timing of the Hologram injury/El Clon debut were what they were, if things were shifted a few months you could have had Clon just debut as "Hologram" with the Don Callis Family while actual Hologram was out injured which would probably lead to a hotter return angle than whatever this will end up being.

FWIW in terms of modern economics WWF's numbers during Hulk Hogan's run are a fraction of what they were from basically the Attitude era on. One can reasonable argue it is hence an apples to oranges comparison but in terms of pure numbers WWE with Cena on top outearned WWF with Hogan on top by a ridiculous margin. Unfortunately I can't find a chart with annual profits, so hopefully one with WWF/E's yearly revenue will do. https://wrestlenomics.com/wwe-annual-revenue-1984-2023/

I was surprised to read that Ciampa is only 40, he comes off much older. I assume he's either done or feels close to it and would rather spend his last run doing a bit more than WWE was asking of him. I assume AEW would pick him up, think his ceiling there is probably about what Josh Alexander is doing now, kinda worried about him working a more physical style at this stage in his career but ultimately it's his choice.

I'd say there may be an entire generation of WWE fans who would probably consider him in the discussion as he was the constant top of the card presence throughout their entire childhood. He's not even by whatever skewered criteria one might try to go with, but in terms of wrestling lies told to sell tickets & ppvs it's not particularly egregious.

Wait, is the Rumble two nights now? It'd actually fix the whole "two rumbles on one show is a bit much" problem if so, I'd rather a two night Rumble than Summerslam actually.

I just wanna drop in to say that this is probably my favorite regular write-up deal that you do, the segunda caida blog included. This whole era is a big blindspot for me and I at least feel now that I have a feel for the major players in it.

I'm sorry I've been around wrestling way too long, you can't wear a Green Lantern shirt and expect me not to roll my eyes at you >_>

I do think there is something to the thought that every generation needs its own "blood sacrifice", that things will escalate (be it moves or performance enhancing drugs or whatever) until it eventually goes very wrong (Misawa with head drops, Eddie with a Benoit chaser and steroids) and people will back off those specific things for a while due to both seeing for themselves the consequences and the people running things wanting to cover their behinds and protect their investments. Eventually memories fade, those things start creeping back and we are back to tiger driver 91s and people in either major company that make it impossible to believe there is any kind of drug testing of worth going on. Heck, we've steadily seen people in the major feds creeping closer and closer to weapon shots to the head being more allowed and common. I don't blame those who've been around long enough to see the pattern repeat for wanting to warn people and try to break it, heck I said Ospreay bringing back the TD 91 was moronic and I stand by it. Unfortunately I don't think anything will change until it is too late for someone who has the worst luck.

I haven't gone back and checked, but my gut feeling is that TK almost always has one of his guys do an in-house job before they lose a match elsewhere, so while I assume he gave NJPW a heads-up at least as far as Takeshita goes I'd wager they know the score by now. Mox being a face again so soon is a bit silly but all audiences are unique in their own ways and AEW's generally responds to horrific line-crossing actions with love shortly thereafter (see: Swerve and Page) so it tracks well enough.

Regarding Nyla I just think it sucks that she was working every single month in AEW last year, usually multiple times a month even if often in dark matches, and then suddenly come January 2025 her AEW in-ring career suddenly ceased to exist, almost like something big in the world changed starting January of this year and they no longer wanted her wrestling for them. It's odd as a lot of other corporations made similar decision about people like her right around the exact same time, must just be a coincidence.

If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure they got sued over it.

Crowd was into Kennedy once upon a time, so...

I thought Taven & Bennett did good work during the whole "NECKSTRONG" bit, I don't think they have what it takes to be a credible team but have solid lackey energy.

This got me to put my full conspiracy hat on, so excuse me for a moment. WWE waived the argued full year no-compete clause on December 12th. WWE released Andrade on September 13th which I believe makes that almost exactly 90 days, i.e. the exact amount of time someone is held out after not being fired for cause. ...So basically all this happened because they didn't notice that firing someone for cause didn't automatically have a 90 days no-compete associated with it so they found some contract language that let them jerry-rig one, and once that purpose was served they no longer felt like defending or enforcing it.

I don't know who you've been listening to but I've basically been seeing Larian savaged from all corners for the past week, to the point they are trying the AMA to try and salvage things.

So I know they had his promo address this... but MJF really should have demanded his title shot take place immediately after the triple threat title match >_>

So wait, I'm supposed to listen to a key figure in Ric Flair's retirement match tell me how someone should handle one of those?

I mean it is a somewhat standard bump, it just went wrong (although it going wrong in that particular way twice in recent history is rough luck).

My backlog is probably too big as is but stikir's screenshots always stuck in my head for some reason (and is seemingly very short), so I'd take a shot at that if unclaimed.

I do like how some people mentioned Sting's final run in comparison as I think they sorta had opposite problems: I have no problem with Sting winning his last match, but I also think booking someone in their 60s to not lose a single thing over three years and like 30ish matches is nuts. Perhaps in a better world Cena just passes out and Sting coulda dropped a fall to Hobbs or Takeshita, but such is life.