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If you want someone to actually move up someone else generally has to move down. If you try to protect everyone you really don't push anyone. EDIT: This also causes the "if we let them look competitive all the time then we don't ever have to actually let them win and they'll still be fine!" flawed thinking that AEW mightily struggles with at times. Also someone going "5 minute match = automatically bad" hurt my heart a good bit.

Eh, kid is 21 years old, the industry is full of wrestlers who said and did much worse/dumber shit at that age. Probably shouldn't make a habit of it though. FWIW I recall Orton saying that he had new theme music made for his return from injury but they decided day of they needed the old music for it, and the crowd ended up still loving it so much that said new theme got tabled. It's probably in their back pocket in case they ever need it, but I don't know that it means anything beyond that.

Completely random memory: I was in an e-fed ages ago and one person who joined and created someone quit after a few weeks, so their wrestler ended up just being beaten up a lot and tossed out of the building a la Jazz in Fresh Prince of Bel Air, followed by a single $20 bill as his pay. I ended up asking and taking control of said wrestler and re-dubbing him the $20 Man and just doing all the old Million Dollar Man bits with him only being able to offer $20 and it never working out. Was good for a few months of fun back then so... yeah, probably about the same now.

I mean, she's the one who chose to leave it ain't like they ever asked her to go away. It's like reporting that New Japan would like to work with Okada or Ospreay again, kinda goes without saying.

I think they can get around with the number of matches/wrestling they have now... but not with the roster size they have. They are actually short an hour compared to when Rampage was a thing and they simply cannot feature the roster/talent they have with the format/number of hours of tv they have. Unfortunately WWE and AEW assume if they don't sign someone good the other will grab them so people get snapped up so quickly, we should have both main companies with more sensibly sized rosters and a vibrant indie scene instead of this. I know there is a type of fan who is like "I don't need to see wrestlers I like appear more than once a month or do anything of consequence", I ain't. I remember people telling me that Beast Mortos losing out in the Continental Classic wasn't a bad thing and he'd come out of it better off, we're in May now and if he spent all of 2025 injured instead not a lot would have been different. Stuff like this is what drives me and I assume some others up the wall, and we may struggle going "I wish it was more like X" when X had its own issues but it is coming from a point of legit frustration that not even all the bestest best matches in the world can fix.

Bit of a digression but I do think Pillman Jr. is clearly working his butt off to get better and has improved and deserves a tip of the cap for that. I also remain unconvinced that his ceiling is all that high, but that's a separate discussion.

In an odd silver lining note... in all likelihood Kross probably legit worked his way off of this "future endeavored" list with his recent work and should probably be proud of that.

Anyone who thinks Mone is actually handling those deserves to lose their money.

Austin Theory should probably hope for the release TBH. Vince McMahon becoming obsessed with him for a bit probably poisoned the well for him and probably no one else in WWE fits the Drew McIntyre "you're young, get released and rebuild yourself and still have time to make it back" mold more than him. I'm not saying he's a can't miss prospect or anything, but as-is he's stuck at the bottom of the card and he's got enough pieces that a reload is probably his best shot.

It was probably Sid or Vader, just because the powerbomb was awesome.

I hate to pick an AEW example as a WWE one feels like it'd be more relevant... but look at Swerve and Hangman. They were both widely loved and cheered within what, a month of the most horrible stuff they did to the other? If burning someone's childhood house down or creeping around their newborn child can't get you heel heat anymore because it was done well you start to bump up against some very existential type questions.

Taven and Bennett really should find a third and come back after Cole/Strong/KOR even if I wouldn't be rushing to see it. They backed Strong when his neck was jacked and went along with the whole Devil nonsense, then got dropped by them both when their old bud comes along. That's a classic wrestling set-up.

There was just a gif of some lucha guy looking like he blew out his knee mid-entrance a couple months ago.

TBF I'm not sure this is a "WWE crowds are broken" deal, it may simply be that Bron is ascendant and the crowd just isn't gonna boo him right now. If you want a historic example Eddie Guerrero once turned on Tajiri, viciously beating him and slamming him onto his lowrider to massive applause; a few weeks later it was forgotten and he was face again. I'm not saying this is the case right now but sometimes a crowd simply goes "nah, this is our guy".

That was an interesting Raw simply because they clearly sent Sami out there to deal with Seth's new group as he is the most sympathetic guy on the roster and would be good in establishing said new group as heels... but the crowd came closer to turning on him instead. Heck they were even cheering for his death at the end (TBF Bron killing folks is generally too fun to boo). Could be a one-off, or it could mean long-term plans aren't going to work the way people intended.

I would say wrestling fans have consistently been trending this way across the board in the US at least for well over a decade now, like I probably said something along these lines around 2010 if not earlier. I don't care for it, the AEW, WWE and the indie audiences each have their own bits I am particularly less fond of, but this is a battle that was lost a generation ago. This isn't to say that every audience is always bad 100% of the time, but I ain't gonna go pine for the time every promo was destroyed by WHATs, every match had everyone waiting for a chance to go TWO~, and I sincerely hope the meat stuff fades away.

Thought it was fine unsaid/implied with "gave him a couple months off" but I literally said the next paragraph to have Bayne kill May off if you want. Heck run it exactly the same, minus the terrifying accidental backbump onto concrete Ricochet went out on.

What is weird is that I recall it being pretty clear Ricochet was leaving for AEW, he had killer matches with Bron Breaker and Ilja Dragunov to make the new faces look good in front of an audience that didn't know them, got a couple months off and ended up in AEW and you know what? Everyone won! I'm sure WWE would have rather he wanted to stick around but the way they handled it benefited them, him, Bron and Ilja, the fans, even AEW. Megan Bayne can still end up as nothing more than the monster of the month (or so), let her beat a former world champ in a good match then stretcher Mariah out! Handling it as-is isn't the end of the world but it ain't the best way to go about things, it doesn't really benefit anyone and going "yeah, this feels like a dumb way to go about things" is pretty fair IMO.

I would bet good money that coming back with his old music is much better than if the current WWE music team tried to make a new tune for him.

This is really the core thing right here. Roasts are what they are and one can feel how they want to about them, but no one goes into them blind and if you wanna sign up for that then go nuts. Going after people who aren't there is really crossing a line, I guess you had a lot of people whom this was their very first roast experience (WWE included) but it feels very "how do you need to be told this?"

If she was still working at the same level her being 35 wouldn't matter much, but when you have over 1100 matches and your work ain't what it was I think it is fair to wonder if there's just not a ton of tread left on the tire. I hope she sorts things out, turns things around and goes on to wrestle for many years more, Bayley at her best was rather good & fun! I just don't know if I want to bet on it.

This was noted in the weekly thread a week or two back but it also looks like Bayley is clearly slowing down as a worker, don't know if it is injury/wear/disinterest/dumb luck but she has not been in-ring what she was for a good bit now. I don't know that Bayley at what is feeling like the tail end of her career 18 months from now will really want to "start over" elsewhere, TBH I'm not convinced she won't just walk away as a full time worker once this contract is done. Regardless, she's earned the right to be respected for whatever choice she decides to make.

Have you seen how hard Gunther smacks folks? Would be kinder to just let them sleep forever >_>

TBF this is one of those technically correct (the best kind~) statements, but there's multiple people ran in/match thrown out occurrences in there. ...So they really speedran that Becky/Lyra/tag titles story, didn't they?

My ignorant poor-lucha-knowledge take on things is that it is probably healthier for the Mexican wrestling scene if both CMLL and AAA are viable, so while WWE purchasing AAA removes many of the best case scenarios if people are lucky it also removes a few of the worst case ones as well. No guarantee that'll be the case at all but if AAA was as in a bad a shape as I've seen some people say then... well fingers crossed I guess.