EVA

Jimmy and Jey are all-time tag guys but, man, they stink as singles. Which is a shame for Jey, because he has all the outside the ring stuff you would want, but once the bell rings, he loses all the juice.

How was it on the company first? The Tate’s were not entitled to fly out of their home airport just because that’s what they’ve always done before and that’s more convenient for them. That’s where the problem started—the entitlement. The second problem was that they spent most of their time whining to someone who’s job ISN’T booking travel. The third problem was that they apparently spent *two to three days* not communicating with anybody about the travel, seemingly expecting the travel person to seek them out about making changes to flights that were already booked. Again, it’s the entitlement. If anybody would like to lose their job in the future, I would encourage you to follow the Tate’s blueprint here—just whine about your problem, don’t offer potential solutions (beyond “give us what we want”), and then break off communication and blame it on someone else when you miss a shift. That doesn’t work at any job in the world.

Not directed at you, just using this as an opportunity to ask people to go back and read that text exchange and really take note of the entitlement oozing out of what the Tate’s are saying/doing. Also keep in mind that the person they’re whining to ISN’T EVEN IN TRAVEL and it’s not their problem to even be able to fix. You can even kinda hear that person’s frustration creeping in through the second batch of texts. “When you didn’t hear back from someone in THREE DAYS, did you follow up?” No. No, they did not. It may have been the first time they missed a booking, but I would bet money it wasn’t the first time they were a headache to deal with. Final straw, etc.

Tony Khan doesn’t give a fuck about $1600. But the person running AEW’s travel, who wants to be seen as running a financially efficient department, probably does!

He mained the Tokyo Dome and MSG before he was 30!

I wasn’t a great fan of Edge’s promo, but hearing some people acting like this is some sort of unheard of thing was weird to me. Sending someone out to the ring to directly or indirectly address some offscreen beef or audience perception issue has been a thing in wrestling for a long time. Just off the top of my head, I recall WWE trotting out the Rock to cut the infamous “Get the F out” promo after Stone Cold walked out, the equally notorious Authority mea culpa, Joe shooting on Scott Hall no-showing TNA, Heyman doing it like all the time in ECW…It’s a thing!

I have mixed feelings on the Best Friends situation. Like most people, I have, like, -1000% desire to see them break up. But I also don’t have any desire to see them run a break-up-to-make-up angle in a promotion where the Elite do that story, like, once a year. So I guess I just hope they fully commit to it and that it works out for everybody. I thought Trent and Chuck were a lot of fun doing their “Dicks in Real Life” bit on BTE pre-AEW, so maybe they can recapture that magic.

Based on the way that match was laid out, I’d think Jay was the one with heat. And based on some cursory research, it seems like that might be the case, due to him expressing unhappiness with the MJF feud?

JAY WHITE getting dominated by Billy Gunn—and not even getting to win off the low blow—is legitimately insane booking. A potential Mania main event-tier prospect getting his ass handed to him by a mascot. What are we even doing here?

Yeah this BCG/Acclaimed feud just gets worse and worse. Everybody involved is less over than they were before. Need to move on. Quickly.

Swerve organically growing into being a main event guy and maybe the top babyface has been a lot of fun to watch, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he does as champ. The Bucks new gimmick has been surprisingly great. The kind of refresh that Jericho used to be able to pull off. It’s been a perfect integration point for Okada, and I can’t wait to see where he’s at 6 months from now. Ospreay unexpectedly becoming a money promo guy really raises the ceiling on what I thought they could get out of his signing.

This Mania build has been quite the roller coaster. YAY CODY/ROMAN 2! BOO ITS ROCK/ROMAN INSTEAD YAY THEY FIXED IT! CODY/ROMAN IS BACK ON AND ROCK IN A TAG MATCH! Now, we’ve crossed over into the bittersweet realization…yeah, but Cody/Rock would be better than either of the matches we’re actually gonna get.

It’s been like 10 hours since Raw, so I’m sure someone has beaten me to this connection by now, but Cody with his blonde hair bleeding in the rain made me think of the end of Blade Runner. I’ve no doubt that a true cornball geek like him was lobbying production to let him cut a social media promo after the show where he could work in a “tears in rain” quote.

Finally saw THE IRON CLAW. Enjoyed it, but DEWEY COX so thoroughly deconstructed the biopic genre, I couldn’t help but think of the Tim Meadows/drug bit every time Kevin had a heart to heart with his brothers prior to them meeting their fate. DON’T GO TO JAPAN, DAVID! BE CAREFUL ON YOUR BIKE, KERRY!

I only caught Sami/Gable but that was awesome pro wres. It’s pretty rare for Sami to feel like the wrong guy to put over, but yeah. Should’ve been Gable! It definitely seems like they’re setting up a path for him to get there anyway, but I really hope it isn’t a lame 3-way. I’d rather see Gunther/Sami night one, then the winner (Gunther) versus Gable night two. That seems like a much more interesting way to protect Gunther in defeat (two grueling matches on back-to-back nights) than some 3-way chicanery.

Chase Owens defeating Ishii is the new worst thing Gedo has ever done.

I know you’ve always had a problem with Nick, so I’m not totally surprised, but you’re grossly misrepresenting what he actually said. His full comments are really insightful and introspective. And he *explicitly* said that he doesn’t think it’s bad or wrong that the players are focused on money. It’s right there in the text, almost verbatim what I typed. What he’s actually getting at there is his growing realization that his approach to the college game is incompatible with the modern culture of the college game, with the Rose Bowl post-game (which I honestly don’t even remember happening to any significant degree) being one of the last strong indications that his way just wasn’t resonating as well anymore. He’s very clear that it’s just an issue that the modern game stopped being as fulfilling to him anymore, and that’s a him thing and not a negative judgment on anyone else. Honestly, it’s just another reasons he’s the GOAT. He knew when to get out and *not* be one of these Dabo or Gary Patterson types who just complain all the time while the game passes them by.

Pairing Okada with the Bucks is interesting. On one had, it’s working against what the fans want (to cheer for him), but at the same time, much like the Bucks, Okada is at his best when he’s being kinda bitchy, so this is probably the best context to introduce him as a character (not just a wrestler) to America.

The clear mandate coming out of Revolution was “make Kyle Fletcher look less like Will Ospreay.”

Man, great call on that RUSH match. Perfect matchup of their strengths. They had people online genuinely believing that RUSH was taking liberties with Jack.

I don’t think NXT has done Pillman any favors, so I don’t know if that’s the direction Jack wants to go in, if actually improving is the goal. Rock’s daughter has been in the system for 4 years and still can’t talk convincingly.

Yes! The Hook matches were good! People forget.

Goddamn, pal.

I definitely think there’s a strong recency bias here due to the Pillars feud flop and the All In debacle being the last strong memories people have of Perry. But he was one of the top in-ring guys in AEW as a pure babyface for years, and I really think he was finding himself as a heel just before everything went sideways.

Jack has been pretty upfront about loving wrestling for the in-ring and not really caring about promos, thus never really putting any effort into getting better until the past year or two. If I’m remembering correctly, the original concept of the Jungle Boy character was that he would be mostly mute for precisely that reason.