Timbo Slice

Hope Danielson tortures a dude in true LeBell style tonight.

I’m not excusing the behavior. Just that the tweet above is absolutely correct.

If only pro wrestling wasn’t a morally reprehensible business in basically every way.

Could buy a lot of jackhammers.

Rhea choking out Rey’s son with her thighs: a truly Dom gimmick.

Who’s gonna do the bad Olivia Newton-John impression tonight? My money is on Rollins.

Yeah, forgot to put that part.

Inoki put Vader over by getting basically no offense in and letting him squash him in 4 minutes. This was a competitive match that went 22. It’s a good piece of booking for the tournament and will lead to a title shot or another big singles match but there hasn’t been a match like that in Japan in literally decades.

The sequencing in this match has been weird. A lot of slow-motion portions in lieu of communication, it seems.

JamIe Hayter. Cowboy Hat emoji.

Billy Gunn was fine.

Kross being back to be Paul’s avatar now that he’s for sure done in ring, maybe not all his new ideas are great.

Some sloppiness, but I’d see that match again.

Mance is laying in those punches, man. This has been a fun opener.

There was a Battlebots commercial tonight, congrats to TK on getting the TNN deal.

Omega’s return is as simple as the Bucks wanting in to the tourney and then saying they have a third in mind. Next week? Boom. Omega.

Jungle Boy interferes to get Matt his win back. Not a lot doing it for me this week.

One other question: if you sign out, what’s the easiest way to sign back in on mobile?

Careful, this might mean Flair.

Have everyone come out on a tractor tonight, fuck it.

A motherfucking tractor actually got used in a wrestling match, gimme all the damn mouse traps.

If the talent WWE had was good enough to fill Paul’s spot? They’d use that talent. Instead they pay Paul a ton of money because they know they at least get some of the investment back using him. Don’t get how that’s me getting silly about it given that’s what business is like right now. The “paying dues” part I talked about was more about someone being forced into a spot where it wasn’t merited. The guys El-P mentioned weren’t forced. There was an organic growth for both Hook and Cargill with a much better starting point, especially in Hook’s case, as he had been over for months without even wrestling a match.

Cole isn’t a great example here because his error bars are too wide in regards to charisma. It’ll work in some places and not in all. Paul is a good fit with his particular character in the WWE environment currently. He would not do as well in AEW for the reasons laid out about folks “paying dues” and what not. There’s a reason why they didn’t take to Satnam Singh, and it’s the same reason why Paul works where he does. It’s not the worker; it’s the work environment.

And if that real band was good enough that they’d do well enough on that same stage as the celebrity band, the celebrity band wouldn’t be there because more than likely the real band would be cheaper to bring on. It’s late stage capitalism and celebrity being more targeted as opposed to wide-spread today.

I think people are missing the forest for the trees here: There are many paths to pro wrestling. Much more than other industries, which have specific machinations that can churn up and spit out talent on the other end. That is how pro wrestling is. WWE’s goal has always been to break into the mainstream come hell or high water. They will team up with any entity they feel gives them an opportunity to get more eyes on the product. Hardcore wrestling fans who are into the product expect a certain output for the work folks put in on the indies. They get over in certain atmospheres and feel they should be able to translate. That’s just not the case for a good chunk of them unless the atmosphere they end up in is accepting of that wrestler. The reason AEW works is because it’s based on that concept; WWE has never really gone down that path and won’t go down that path. The fact we’re still having this discussion in 2022 when it’s been the case for literal decades is mind-boggling. It’s not that WWE hasn’t evolved; they serve a different master than AEW does. AEW literally got to start off with a clean slate of what they want to be and are doing fine with it. I don’t get why it’s such a big deal to folks when an actual alternative is thriving. We need to stop putting the round peg in the square WWE hole.