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In discussing Legado's debut on Smackdown, Bryan noted he thought Elektra was getting the callup as well....only for Dave to say "so did she" in a tone that suggested she might have got the rug pulled out from under her.

Speaking of commentary, having the same crew do the whole show and not switching constantly between Raw and Smackdown teams was a great improvement.

All of the above is true yet he still got the Road Warrior pop coming out.

I was out doing a family event, just finished watching on delay and holy shit did Sheamus book this show because everyone beat the piss out of each other. Thought it was pretty strong for a B show, even Edge/Finn set up Judgement Day as evil bastards and if we get Beth/Rhea that's gonna be great too. She sold that Conchairto like a champ too. I'm not as down on Bray as most folks, like I said before I'll give him to do this thing in a post Vince world just to see if things turn out better this time. The crowd was super into his return too, so that's at least one positive step

The news of the announce teams being shuffled kind of buried the lede that Hunter wants to stick with 2 man teams with a focus on chemistry. I'm hoping when college football is over, Pat goes back to SD and Wade goes back to NXT to replace NXT. BOOKAH seems like the worst possible person to have calling the developmental brand.

Jericho vs Danielson on Dynamite next week, but I refuse to recognize any Bryan ROH title match as legit without Final Countdown and fans beating the guardrail in time to the music.

Claudio is a goddamn beast

Good Lord, I think we al need a cigarette after that match.

Sheamus and GOONTA having yet another banger, to the surprise of no one. Amazing how two dudes beating the shit out of each other gets over as fuck every time.

L A Knight, YEAH

Michael Cole the pro not missing a beat on commentary despite getting wiped out.

LEGADO!!!!!!!!! (but boo no Elektra, wtf man)

Everyone in the Bloodline is so fucking great right now.

Heyman getting everyone in the ring to break was great.

I love Roman's constant bemused expression of "Do I *really* have to fight this nerd?"

BIG DOG HOURS kicking off Smackdown. Uncle Paul knows how to pop a rating.

It wasn't even the usual "fighting but I don't really want to hit you" teammate fight either, he flat out slid the dude.

AEW out here influencing how real sports handle personnel issues, judging by Draymond Green KTFO'ing a teammate at Warriors' practice.

Jimmy didn't seem too bad at commentary, not sure why he got the boot. Booker on NXT is.....interesting. Him ending up being a Hunter Guy is a development I wasn't expecting.

I suppose you could make the case that Lethal has some cache from being a long time upper card ROH guy, but Nese has never been presented as anything major. His best use would be more of a "competitive enhancement" level guy.

I'm as pro Union and pro labor as you can get, but Andrade is absolutely the asshole here. Yes, Tony should offer full benefits to everyone, but at least AEW wrestlers are way closer to what real independent contractors than WWE wrestlers are. The moment we start seeing WWE contracted folks working AAA and New Japan shows then I will agree with "these two billionaires are the same". They are clearly not, even if the better of the two still has room to do better.

Also this. Regardless of how you feel of Tony's management style, setting the precedent that you can just punch your way out of your contract is a horrible idea. The only time I can think of anything close to something like that happening is when CMLL fired several members of the Brazo/Alvarado family for trashing Ultimo Guerrero's car in the Arena Mexico parking lot, and that was a pretty extreme situation.

My understanding was that AEW folks can work any show they want as long as it doesn't conflict with one of their TV or PPV dates. Now some folks weren't able to do the Forbidden Door show, but that was due to New Japan not wanting to deal with any fuckery from CMLL over having AAA related folks on the show.

It would be easy (and from interviews one would suggest Tony has done this) to connect the dots between WWE reaching out to people and Andrade starting his campaign to get fired. Is it something that could ever be fully proven? Probably not, but it's not out of the question Hunter could have called them up like "hey just so you know, if something were ever to happen and you got let go you can always land here" and let nature take its course.

Ironically the best example of how to handle this as a pro was how Moxley realized he didn't like the situation he was in and played out the string until his WWE deal ended. In fact he was so professional WWE gave him a sendoff in the process. He could have moped and bitched and caused all sorts of a fuss, but he knew what his plan was.