The Thread Killer

Corny likes the box gimmick, it was Russo who hated it. Cornette’s infamous line was that anybody who comes out of a box is instantly over.

It didn’t help that Pillman Jr. punted that whole angle/match so badly. I am sure there are other examples of young talent failing to take advantage of a golden opportunity in recent years…but I can’t think of one off the top of my head. That whole deal just showed BPJ just doesn’t get it, and probably never will, sadly. When MJF said all that heinous shit about his family only to have Jr. come out, smile and cut some lame ass generic promo with pretty much zero fire? Sheesh.

Not me, brother. I’ve always been a fan since I saw him in MLW. My only issue is I don’t like it when he leans too heavily into the 90’s shock jock routine. I thought he was being unnecessarily vulgar when he cut that promo on Brian Pillman Jr., for example. He’s so good he doesn’t need to resort to lame cheap heat tactics. But I think he’s a natural and a once in a lifetime talent. It’s scary how good he is already and he’s still a few years away from his prime. I just always thought he was strong on the mic and mediocre in the ring. Now…I am seriously reconsidering that opinion.

Between his match with Darby last year, and now this…I think either I underestimated how good MJF is in the ring, or he’s still improving at an impressive rate.

I had a friend who had that disease. It’s pretty brutal, you basically slowly lose the ability to breathe over time. Sadly, I imagine it is a result of a lifetime of smoking cigarettes (and other things that come in a pipe, in Jake’s case.) My friend who eventually died of COPD had been a lifelong smoker.

The problem is that Roberts has COPD. That is a pretty brutal and debilitating respiratory disease. He can barely get enough air, so he will never be able to do anything at ringside or even cut a very convincing promo without getting short of breath. On his new podcast he has to be on oxygen. Having COPD he is very fortunate he survived COVID.

Why the hell is this on TV

I have very old school tastes and I hate about 90% of the so-called “comedy” in modern Pro Wrestling…but even I find Danhausen amusing. His Twitter and YouTube can be very funny. Having said that, I think he probably has a expiration date and he will likely go from amusing to “Oh Lord not this shit again” fairly quickly. His only hope is that when you get past the gimmick, he can actually go. Not unlike Orange Cassidy. Under the goofiness the guy can wrestle. It remains to be seen if he’ll be allowed to, and how he is booked.

If he was self-aware, he wouldn’t have gone into that segment with his hairline drawn onto his head in magic marker, and shoe polish rubbed into the front of his hair. He’s starting to look like Steven Seagal.

I couldn’t agree more. I understand they cannot be in the title picture all the time, but I really don’t like the way they are booked for the most part.

Yeah, I don’t listen to pro wrestling podcasts anymore but even if I did, the last person I would want to hear from would be Jake Roberts. I saw him when he was on Joe Rogan‘s podcast and he is just notoriously full of shit. I don’t mind DDP, but I don’t think I need to hear his relentlessly positive crap for an hour.

Conrad is going to be hosting a new podcast in the New Year with Jake Roberts and DDP.

I’m all over that FTR/Lucha Bros 2 out of 3 falls match next week

I am willing to cut JR some slack right now, considering his health situation

I think it’s hilarious that for years and years and years WWE opened every episode of RAW with some kind of extended talky segment or promo and in all that time I can honestly never recall them doing it as well as those guys just did…even once.

I loved that fed. I miss it. I used to spend far too much time writing for that place. At one point I was even hosting the website. Most of the guys from that place are still friends and are active in their Discord group. Good times.

Hell yeah. SHOOT Project, bitches!

tl;dr

I thought that as well but then more rumours started to swirl that Kyle O’Reilly‘s contract is up as of December 1. If he jumps and ReDragon end up in AEW that would make me a very happy fan. Harwood already alluded to it on Twitter so I really hope that is what’s in the cards. I am not saying that Fish and O’Reilly have no value as singles, but I definitely think they are a good example of a sum being greater than the whole of their parts. Hell, if they both show up as a team in AEW imagine them reuniting with Adam Cole and feuding with The Elite? I know PWO was down on The Undisputed Era, but I for one would quite enjoy that angle.

I remember that too. He was threatening to feed a puppy to a boa constrictor live online. A guy named Jay Bower who wrote for Scott Keith’s website kicked up a huge uproar and ended up getting the police and the SPCA involved. In true Rob Black fashion, Black turned around and somehow managed to blame Bower for the whole thing, and threatened him, IIRC.

I would be more than happy to engage in a detailed debate with anybody regarding Israel, except I know that would not be allowed here. I understand that politics are supposed to be kept out of this forum, so I strongly believe people should keep their stupid fucking snide comments to themselves.

Speaking as somebody who has Israeli family and friends who have served in the IDF, I am delighted to quite loudly and firmly invite you both to shut the fuck up.

I could not agree with this statement more. Every time I see Malakai Black in AEW it leaves me totally flabbergasted that WWE had this guy locked up, right there…and these geniuses didn’t know what they had, or what to do with him. It’s not even like AEW had to reboot him or give him a different gimmick, Black is doing the exact same routine in AEW that he was doing in NXT, the only difference is that Tony Khan is not stupid and he’s letting the guy do what he is best at. Vince and his flunkies not only didn’t use Black properly out of NXT, the best idea they could come up with for him was to put him in a stupid Tag Team with Ricochet. Then they release him for no real reason, and are so stupid that they don’t even know how long his non-compete clause is. WWE really are a bunch of morons. I cannot see any justifiable excuse for that type of incompetence. They have a perfectly viable, original and fresh young talent under contract, and they basically hand him to the competition on a silver platter. And he is just one of several talents just like that. What we are seeing from Miro right now it’s just another example of WWE’s utter lack of creativity and foresight. He’s awesome. He was always awesome, but for whatever reason Grandpa Vinnie didn’t get him, so they squandered yet another can’t miss talent. Can’t miss…but somehow Vince keeps missing. I am hardly an AEW fanboy but every time they rescue somebody from WWE it makes me happy, both because we get to see a talent used properly and thrive…but also because it demonstrates how terrible the WWE creative team has botched their can’t miss talent and it exposes how much Vince has totally lost it and no longer has whatever skill he once had when it comes to spotting and promoting original new talent.

I read the entirety of the interview, and honestly when you read everything Reigns said in context it really does not come across all that bad or inflammatory. The only thing he says which I could see upsetting some people, is he takes shots at Punk’s failure in the UFC. Based on the headline I was expecting the actual transcription of what he said to be much worse than it was. And the way a lot of people are reacting to what he said almost kind of confirms what he is saying to a degree. “I don’t see the real competition [with AEW] because I think their fan base legitimately is a hardcore fan base. So there’s like a ceiling and a built-in ground to that viewership…I think because they are the new kids on the block, they’re the cool kids in town I guess because of how premature and how novel it kind of still is, I think there still being babied by these hardcore wrestling fans. Which is fine. That’s great. I don’t think anybody’s going to ever, especially from a performance standpoint say, ‘Oh no, there’s more opportunities out there? That sucks.’ So it’s not a bad thing. It’s a great thing for professional wrestling. It’s just a weird argument because there’s so much bias and there’s so much, ‘I’m on this side and I’m not gonna open my mind to the other side.’ And it goes both ways. As far as competition, not to me. There might be some other people on our roster who maybe think they need to dig deep and get better as a performer and what they do out there at the art form, but there’s nobody in the whole world, any other promotion, in WWE…I’m better at this art form than everybody else. And I stand on that. That’s the totality of it. I’m not just talking about, ‘Oh, his spots are so good and he counters real well.’ That stuff don’t mean anything to me. When you tally it all up, nobody touches me in this business.” On CM Punk and if he’d ever want a match with him: “So I answered a question similar to this a while ago, and it falls back to what our audience wants to see. If our audience wanted to see it and they were clamoring for it, couldn’t shut up about it, and all the stars aligned, as a businessman and as a performer who was trying to seek out the very best for the audience and try to captivate, I wouldn’t say no. But I mean, on a personal level, it doesn’t do anything for me. That’s not going to elevate me at all. He’s older now. I haven’t really seen a full match. I’ve seen a clip or two. And to me, a step or two has been lost. Then also he got his whooped in the UFC. I don’t think anybody really believes someone 200 pounds soaking wet with no explosive bone in their body could ever really do anything to me. I’m 6’3”, 265 pounds, a legitimate athlete who can throw some weight around and has been on the gridiron at the highest level. D1. All ACC. I probably would’ve maintained in the NFL if my health issues didn’t happen when I was 22 years old. So, I mean, when it comes down to it, I’ll throw him and pretty much the rest of that roster out the club no problem. They’re just little brothers, you know?”

I have been watching AEW for the past few months. I even paid for the last pay-per-view. They are doing a lot of stuff right at this point. Full credit to them, I would say at this point they are doing a lot more right than they are wrong. But I still don’t like listening to Kenny try and talk, and I especially don’t like watching The Hardly Boys and their tumbling routine.