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I will say it's pretty bad for them to book him in a ladder match for this week (that is obviously not happening now) after the ridiculous punishment he took in the Darby match and getting KO'd in the Bucks match.

I suppose all the people handwringing about AEW "ignoring" the situation can move on to the next manufactured outrage since it seems clear they wanted to be able to talk to him first before issuing a statement.

Time for Vince to put his fetishes in the main event.

Glad to see Dom embracing his real dad and sporting the Eddie mullet.

Being able to get over dumb WWE comedy is great if it's somebody like R-Truth who's managed to seemingly land a lifetime gig when otherwise he's have been out of the business decades ago. It kinda sucks when it's somebody like Chad Gable doing it when you know not only will it peg him as a comedy geek in Vince's eyes forever, he could be a million billion times better in literally any other promotion in the world than this one.

Wendy basically did a "Dusty with the Polka Dots" and got over a gimmick that in no way was supposed to get over, plus it's arguably a passive-aggressive punishment gimmick since they put her in a onesie for not living up to the current NXT body standards. Which if you ever see the out of character pics she posts on Twitter, you'll know how mind boggling their decision is. Also it seems despite JR's best efforts at educating him on the topic years ago, Vince still doesn't see Asian women as attractive.

I like how Riddle has that Foley-like quality of being able to flip mid promo from the funny happy guy to the serious badass without missing a beat. It's one of those skills that is harder to pull off than it looks, since how many times have we heard folks try to switch gears and sound either over scripted or someone who is ACT-ING too much.

Yes it was common in the 60s/70s when football didn't pay that much, but there hasnen't been too many of late. I think Moose might have been the last one who had a pro career before Corbin.

Yes it's turned that corner where he's so dumb it went all the way around to being awesome. TBH it shouldn't be slept on how great KO has been in getting this over.

I think this is why a lot of people who get into wrestling with (American) football backgrounds are usually ones who didn't have much of a career. Not that high school/college ball doesn't take a toll, but most of them are either folks who didn't get drafted by the NFL or only made it through training camp. I think Baron Corbin is the only one who had an semblance of a football career. Also it should be telling that someone who has a gymnastic background, which is a sport as physically grueling as it gets, is like "nah I'm good" after spending time in WWE.

So Andrade just came out and said he can't appear in NJPW due to the endless grudge CMLL has with AAA. Basically despite everyone that New Japan works with also works with AAA (and CMLL doesn't allow their people on the same shows where AAA guys appear), they can't have guys like Andrade, the Lucha Bros, or Sammy on their shows because they make money when CMLL sends guys over for Fantastica Mania shows. They don't want to end their partnership, but I'm sure Bushiroad doesn't want to hear the Alonso family bitching at them all the time either.

Sometimes I wonder if Bo Dallas will ever come back to wrestling. He always seemed to be the better Windham bro when it came to both being a wrestler and being a good WWE wrestler. Dude was always killing it no matter what dumb shit they wanted him to do, and he never got a fair chance at anything past NXT level because he didn't have the right physique. I mean, dude did the best he could considering the genetics he had to work with. Unfortunately, he seems to be yet another person WWE beat the love of pro wrestling out of.

More shocking than Bruno mending fences with WWE.

That would be a great way to explain the absence, have Tony say Two-Dimes had to beat it to escape the heat.

Man, my mind is boggled trying to figure out what kind of policy violation gets you fired immediately in WWE. Two-Dimes must have been living the gimmick and did a hit on someone.

They're absolutely going to do title matches (beyond the Interim AEW title match), and I would probably suspect an IWGP title changing hands as well.

Jay White went hard at Adam Page in the post show presser, so they are absolutely setting up that match.

Well at least they explained what happened to Juice (appendicitis), I thought it was odd he was stripped of the title and was still announced in the G1.

It's wild to see the Imapct X Division champ and a match to get into the AEW Interim World title on a major New Japan show. Plus they are walking the tightrope still partnering with CMLL when AEW and Impact work with AAA (it's also why FTR haven't been carrying the AAA belts while New Japan folks are appearing to promote Forbidden Door)

Jeff Cobb and the Great O-Kahn won back the IWGP tag titles at Dominion, commentary makes it seem a match with FTR for the ROH titles are next. Guess that's the Forbidden Door match?

Asian wrestlers in WWE have to either be cultural stereotypes (like Xia Li and Asuka) or act like children (Tozawa and Wendy Choo) and not much in between.

Yeah by all accounts and as much as we joke about most of them being another way to work the marks, Shawn seems to have made a legit 180 degree change in his life. No doubt a large part of that is being such a made guy in WWE (he's on the short list of guys Vince would pay whatever it takes to keep them from going on another promotion's TV) that not only did he survive the purge of anyone who ever said "Hi" to Hunter in the office, he ended up basically running NXT 2 POINT OH. Also yes, Excalibur and Taz are a great team but only having a two person commentary team is apparently illegal in US wrestling.

Maybe, considering how some people are about not understanding nuance and differences in situations. Sasha from all accounts gets upset at her creative (or lack thereof) to the point she walks out. Hasn't really hurt anyone except maybe Bianca since Vince's plan to fix SummerSlam was to job her in seconds, but that didn't really do too much long term. Shawn on the other hand was one long string of "that doesn't work for me brother" pretty much the entire time he was pushed as champion and top level guy. On to of, if shoot interviews done in the last 20 years were anything close to correct (I know), he went out of his way to fuck with other people's careers by getting pushes snuffed out/not wanting to work with them. I could see the first couple times he weasled out of jobbing a title people would still be all "yeah, but the matches....", but after a while I believe most folks would end up with a negative opinion of HBK.

Usually the people who are fans of him in the business come down to those who idolized him as a kid and his peers who were either in the Clique with him or were not affected by his politicking. IMO it's fair to say Shawn was both a once in a generation level talent and also a drug addled asshole at the same time. Imagine how HBK would get treated if he was around in the 2020s and did shit like always weaseling out of doing jobs and losing titles. I don't think he would be viewed nearly as favorable as he is now. He'd probably be in that Low-Ki "talented but rubs everyone the wrong way" category.

Was this Ospreay's first match back since his recent health issue?