Timbo Slice

Rhea doing pull-ups in the cage making me thinking things. Respectfully.

The amount of concern trolling here on all sides about Danielson is insane.

In which, like all sports entities, a cool song has a similar title and is used to promote an event but the song doesn’t mean nearly what you think it does! Anyways, here’s The Big Dog.

Fucking no set piece-having ass US squad.

“Workrate” dwarfs that in the newsletter jargon that’s been harmful to the business. Once the cult of star ratings became a thing, wrestlers flocked to snow like 80’s ski instructors. Fucking Ouroboros eating it’s own tail soon followed. The issue is the divergence of what actually “makes money” in pro wrestling nowadays. Focused storytelling with a payoff was always the way, but now it’s a commodity and can really only be done with maybe one or two stories simultaneously per a specific brand on a level that actually “makes money” or at least attempts to. Hardcores THINK it’s the work that’s the main draw to AEW; the fans that tuned in wanted a true alternative to WWE on more than just a work perspective and that’s been scattershot. There was a genuine feeling to the product and that’s eroded due to several factors the last few months (way more than the Punk/Elite stuff). And now the only mainstream compelling thing about them will probably not bring the company (and the wrestlers involved) prosperity because folks are too stingy to play ball and need it to go 50/50 because the “that don’t work for me, brother” meme gets pushed too far. I chuckled at the notion of the Bo7 series as it’s a “real sports” presentation because Kenny thinks he’s fucking Jordan; he’s Kobe at best.

Fucking bullshit ass dumbass tackle that led to the penalty. PLUS Turner guessing right and still missing the save. How you attack like they did for a half and then forget how to do it in the second half is blasphemous. Anyways, here’s The Big Dog.

Absolute GOAT

EDDIE

The TV ratings the Crush Gals pulled at their peak was insane. They were doing shares in the 10-12 range and were the highest rated programming draw in the country. Not pro wrestling. The COUNTRY OF JAPAN. They ran two 10k houses in the span of a week (8/22/85 at the Budokan and the famous 8/28/85 Osaka show) the first time in company history AJW had done such a thing. That is some high stakes shit. The Becky draw argument is strictly on the merits of a traditional wrestling draw and she truly is the biggest female draw in history based on environment and precedent looking at it in that way. I actually think it’s apples to oranges given the societal aspects at play; trying to compare simply because they’re both women does both sides of the argument a disservice.

My guess is it’s Joe tonight. My dream would be for it to be Ki, but have it set up Ki/Danielson at the PPV.

My revised guess is it’s ROH-related.

So the easy money is on the Elite coming back but I’m trying to think of something Baltimore-related. Not coming up with much.

I’ve tried to tow the line of not leaning one way or the other but basically call out the preconceived notions are driving so much of the discourse here that it just devolves into “well, you’re not a fan of Punk/Elite/whatever” and it’s recidivist bullshit. The reason why the discourse doesn’t improve is because people want to be confirmed right more than anything else, and using preconceived notions lets you lose an argument yet feel you win because you can say, “I was never a fan in the first place.” So much of what has been reported lately has been because the story had been dead for several weeks and even Dave’s “big announcement” fell flat. Which is why I’ve said from the start that unless it comes from Tony, Punk DIRECTLY, or the Elite DIRECTLY, I don’t really care. The political chickenshit stuff is tired.

The studio putting this out is the biggest independent production company in the world who is well-thought of for attention to detail and given creators free reign to do what they feel is best, so there will be absolutely no hand-holding through this type of story. It’s going to be a grittier version of “The Wrestler” given A24’s track record.

Where is it that folks think Punk is doing the Dirtsheet Shootout with the Elite? Punk was always more a wait and see and then drop a big bomb than go tit for tat with bullshit.

He also has an argument for being one of the most influential people in the modern era for being able to reach fans; he embraced social media and online access to product relatively early and understood virality in a way few promotions ever have.

Skinny ass calves. Someone told Efron it’s an upper body business.

That artistic element also made some absolutely bonkers choices over the years so that’s not exactly a point in its favor.

My point with this is regarding sourcing than anything else: Dave’s word is getting taken as gospel here due to access and familiarity of product but he is biased towards the people who get him info. It’s always been his biggest criticism. Which is why ANYTIME you hear anything from him, you have to take it with a grain of salt, especially when patterns emerge. The specific pattern here is a ton of stuff painting Punk in the wrong regardless. He absolutely has brought up what happened from the Elite’s side but it’s not given nearly as much ink as Punk. And that’s by design. That isn’t a bias against the Elite. It’s scrutiny towards sourcing in an industry that has always had a huge access problem. It’s also why it’s been easy to see so many writers get led astray in the weeks following the incident, getting fed red herrings that get refuted almost immediately. It’s makes Dave look better by comparison, but it doesn’t make him the source of truth. That’s why I don’t really care what has happened until we either get some decently sourced info from Punk’s side or from Punk himself, which will eventually happen. To sit here and just say “Punk’s an asshole, therefore it’s his fault” is just an easy explanation for a complicated situation, not the right one.

It’s not an “anti-Elite” bias so much as it’s people reading between the lines about what has come out from the incident. An “anti-Elite” bias would state something like “They shouldn’t be a part of the company either.” When all the news after the incident has come out trying to paint pictures about Punk wanting out or buyouts or what have you (with the latest coming from Jericho’s camp via the WO in a way that is so blatantly obvious it’s kinda sad, especially after he signed an extension AND was lauded for being a “locked room leader” after it went down), Punk’s point about people talking to the sheets is becoming more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And THAT is where I have an issue with all of this; there was an opportunity for this to turn into something that could have been squashed and business could be done with it, and instead everyone’s egos needed to be assuaged. Again, the fact that there has basically been NOTHING from Punk over the last two months is incredibly telling. Just as much as the actually reported “news.”

That being said, so many folks are going to vote for like, Ishii over Toyota and Yamada, for example, which is gonna be baffling.

Some of these tag teams are so obvious (and varied, as you have the big drawing tag teams along with your work-based teams) that I think 18 with some pretty obvious choices will be even more difficult than usual with the 10. A quick scan means pushing a few teams to next year.

The AEW style has regular spots every week that are closer to head and neck drops than basically anything WWE does on weekly TV. The more dangerous stuff is saved for big matches more often than not, but the proclivity for head drops is much higher in AEW than in WWE. The Dead Eye is used on a regular basis by Page, the aforementioned piledrivers, even spots like German suplexes are played higher on the neck and shoulders on a regular basis. It’s more a commentary on the house style and the talent looking to get over: because of a bloated roster most folks are trying to do their best shit when they do get TV time so they go out of their way to hit their best high spots, which always leads to more injury risk.

Between him and Tua, hell of a month for the best trauma center in the country, damn.

Damn. Top tier Judas Effect.