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I think it is fair to say that there may be nothing worse in wrestling than a comedy wrestler you don't personally find funny. That's why my pick is Yano.

I am going the other direction and am slightly pleasantly surprised that WWE realized Retribution was a dud now as opposed to several weeks from now which is about when I would have expected it to dawn on them. I'd rather this than them trying and failing to convince me to take them seriously for much longer.

Going back to Ben Carter for a second, regardless of one's feelings about WWE or AEW if one offers to pay you and the other offers to let you work for free... that's a pretty easy choice to make if one isn't independently wealthy. I can see a larger point about where one should want to work but in this particular case I don't see an argument for him making the wrong choice.

I always felt like a lot of the current issues NXT has can be half-sarcastically chalked up to the then NXT fan's monkey paw wish that Gargano and Ciampa never get called up to the main roster. The simple fact is that as a developmental fed where you just cycle through building someone up, get the belt on them, let them have their run, put someone over and have them called up is kinda the easy mode of booking. You don't have to deal with the whole "well what do we do with them now?' that follows, you don't have them holding spots near the top that means there are less of them available, etc. I don't think the problem is the lack of taping a bunch of shows at once, going to two hours and stuff like that, the problem is that it's run like an actual regular fed now and it exposed that creatively they might not be as strong in that area. I will say that there was some growing pains when it shifted to two hours, but I also feel comfortable pointing out that Keith Lee was constantly lost in the shuffle before that shift and suddenly when they had more time to fill and he got regular appearances he suddenly got hot and thrived.

...This is the moment I realize that I haven't actually listened to a new album all year. Huh, that's not particularly helpful.

Mickey seemed all over the place in the match tonight, they also botched that hip toss knee spot before the commercial break and had to redo it, whiffed on that second mick kick, seemed a step and a half slower than Asuka on most exchanges and seemed to lose her spot on that back roll pin spot at the end leaving the ref to just call for a tap rather than hope for them to sort it out on their own. That was likely a mistake, but given how off Mickey was all match I can sort of understand.

Is anyone else finding the site to be a bit slower since the upgrade? It's not like awful but it feels like it takes an extra second or so for every page to load.

It's cool that Rusev/Miro is here now but saddling him with one of the worst guy's in the company talking about their twitch channels is about as lame a way to debut him as possible. He's seemingly bulletproof so I assume he'll be fine, but it is the rare situation where doing literally anything different would have probably been better. But hey, he's back so yay!

White is wrestling on the NJ Strong USA shows so he's in the states as well.

Billie Kay feels very much like dead weight in the ring (of the entire Raw women's roster I'd only comfortably put her above Lana at this point) so I don't really have a problem with them seeing if they have anything with Peyton as a solo act. Possibly unpopular opinion but I think that at this point Raw Underground is... okay? Like it clearly has issues, isn't anything like a difference maker and really needs to do a better job somehow tying into the rest of the show, but I'm cool with something that starts with Titus O'Neil holding some dude by the throat with his head eight feet in the air before slamming him down, beating up another nobody before an actual talent steps up where they fling themselves around and into stuff until eventually the guy says to hell with it, boots Titus in the nuts before landing the free KO punch. I have room in my vision of wrestling for stuff like that, if this is how I get squash matches back on Raw then you know what, sure.

It reads like a joke so I assume it is an attempt at one?

The Miz/Big E thing personally screams work that got a bit more real than some people were likely expecting. It was the first Talking Smack of the relaunch and it would be very WWE to try and mimic the most well known moment from the initial version. Miz got switched onto the show instead of Woods a few hours beforehand, Daniel Bryan is right there in the immediate mentions, it all points to how WWE would set things up. That said, I take it that Talking Smack is much less scripted (at least for this week) and... let's say some of those involved likely did not expect Big E to take it in the exact direction that he did. Miz seemed like he was working in the "company man but a heel" way while Big E was trying to make an honest legitimate point and it ended up a bit awkward.

I mean, to play devil's advocate if part of the book/show was about taking down certain fantasy tropes (see how being good and dumb is often rewarded) then the greatest swordsman in the land falling to a somewhat untrained mob because there's just too bloody many of them doesn't leap out as inconsistent.

I think using a meme from the "Wednesday Night War" kinda cheapens the whole thing as well, to be fair. I think it is awful Dream is back and facing no ramifications (and to not let AEW off the hook, same for Justin Roberts) and that goes far beyond a silly rivalry between two different tv shows.

I mean... I could see this being an argument a decade ago. In 2020 we're running stuff like the Stadium Stampede match, the worries about wrestling seeming unrealistic are way out of the barn by now.

Like... you have seen Rocky IV, right?

https://www.somanyofus.com/ Yikes.

My memory might be failing me but wasn't 1-2-3 Kid a heel in WWF by the end of his first run there? I coulda swore he joined the Million Dollar Corporation, ended up in a diaper and other things like that.

I mean... JMM kinda showed up to that fight late in his career with an all new physique and muscles where he never had muscles before. I think if we are honest with ourselves we can figure out a reason why he suddenly had the power to drop Pacquiao beyond "hey, in boxing sometimes things happen".

So perhaps the commentary was just plain wrong on this but they were acting like if MVP got the pin he would be champion, and if so then I am so lost by how Lashley worked much of that match. Being cool with MVP going for pins, tagging him back in right near the end just makes so little sense in a way that even WWE usually doesn't get this wrong. Also I think Christian got what he deserved for blowing Flair off like that >_>

Yeah this would be a problem. Particularly as you get into the later books it becomes less about characters and more just dealing with the technical reality of what these things would mean (I'm not sure I'd describe it as truly "hard" sci-fi, but it leans in that direction) so those elements getting muddled would be a significant obstacle.

I read his Three-Body Problem trilogy of books and enjoyed all of them.

The thought that Jon Jones/Ngannou wouldn't draw a very high buyrate, perhaps not quite a million but dramatically higher than either would normally produce is simply silly. The two of them deciding "well if this fight is going to make a lot more money, we should probably get paid more" isn't silly at all and is just common sense. Like I think Jon Jones is a hugely talented fuck up who I think very little of as a person but he's not doing a single thing wrong here and I think some are blinded by their personal dislike of the man to the realities of this current particular situation.

Chris Hamrick.