sek69

Pretty sure that was as close as they've got to the whole Colt Cabana deal. I suppose Colt must be cool with it now. Did him and Punk ever iron out their differences, or at least as best you could after the lawsuit mess?

They gotta pull the trigger on Wardlow tonight, the crowd's been begging for it and doing it in his hometown would make it even bigger.

Speaking of, we still thinking Johnny Wrestling is showing up in his hometown tonight?

Cleveland is on the shores of Lake Erie, so they do have beaches. They're all covered in snow and ice right now, but they exist.

I suppose one issue might be both teams are so much better suited to being heels, TK might be thinking there needs to be something major to justify one side being the babyface.

I wonder about that, just because both teams seemed to be pushing for it so hard when FTR was in WWE only for it to be barely touched upon. TK seems to like the slow burn builds, but somehow one of the more anticipated feuds got put in the freezer.

Well there's also the matter of everyone thinking he asked for time off when his kid was born, only to find out he only asked for that one week off and had been sitting around doing nothing. Clearly at some point he figured "well fuck it, if they don't have any use for me guess I'll ask for a release" which led to the infamous meeting. No one (that I have seen at least) has disputed that the meeting was heated and also that Ali is not someone known to fly off the handle, which leads to the speculation it must have been something real bad to elicit that level of reaction. I just don't see him getting that upset if he was being pitched the usual dumb but harmless WWE gimmick. Now you are correct that we don't know exactly what was discussed, but considering what kind of characters he was very adamant he did not want to portray and the mindset of the people who were doing the pitching, I feel pretty comfortable in my working theory on what was probably discussed. But hey, I hope I'm wrong. If it turns out Vince just wanted him to be Aldo Montoya 2.0 and Ali told him to GFY then I'll take that L. The last 40 odd years have taught me if you expect the worst from WWE management you'll seldom be wrong.

Interesting that Tiffany Stratton and Tony D both taking L's after weeks of all the new folks getting put over all the OG NXT people.

I popped for Sikoa sporting the Umaga face paint

Io cussing people out in Japanese every week is becoming my favorite part of NXT.

Sami is known to be kind of a pain in the ass, but at the same time his heart is in the right place so it seems like everyone just kind of got used to it. As far as Ali goes, we don't know exactly what was pitched, but you look at how Ali was described as getting into a heated discussion with Vince and consider Vince's history and Ali's outspokenness on what kinds of characters he's willing to play as a Muslim. It's not exactly a stretch to put two and two together and figure out what must have been discussed. Also funny you mention Sami, he's a Muslim too and I'd love to know if he's ever been pitched any stereotypical gimmicks. I'd wager the answer is no, and no one probably stops to think why that is.

If what we can assume from reading between the lines that he was most likely being asked to to some stereotypical and/or racist shit (his strong reaction seems to indicate that was the case as he was very vocal for a while that is something he would never do), he should have the right to GTFO of a company who wants him to do that regardless of the power of the almighty contract. Give him a 90 day non compete if you must, but keeping someone who made it clear they don't want to be there just makes the company look bad and potentially damages morale when they see a co worker who by all accounts is a top level person get treated like that. That's not even including the discussion that WWE contracts wouldn't hold up for a second in court (Brock proved that) and WWE gets by on knowing the high end of the payroll has no reason to rock the boat and the mid/low end of the payroll can't afford a drawn out court battle to challenge it.

She was posting pics on Twitter of her Dad just completely bro'ing out with Sammy and it was just adorable. Like I wanted them to adopt me because every shot of her family looked like they were all the nicest people on Earth.

It's a "me problem" for sure, but I can't stop thinking Griff is the love child of Lenny Lane and WCW era Jericho.

Astonishing (yet at the same time not) amount of WWE apologists on Twitter like "oh now you *want* WWE to release someone, I thought that was bad. Also I am very smart".

I'm sure that's probably the reason, but no one is going to skip any of the other shows running that afternoon to watch green NXT 2.0 folks. Funny thing is even if this does work the way WWE hopes, all it's going to do is burn out the crowd by the end of Mania.

Having NXT Stand and Deliver as a afternoon matinee on day one of Wrestlemania is some real "tell me you've given up on NXT without telling me you've given up on NXT" energy. No one is going to want to see a 2+hour show the day they are going to what will probably be a 4 hour show that night.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Bayley be a surprise return for the women's Rumble. I'm not sure if the math works but it feels like it's been long enough that it should be about time for her to return.

https://shop.njpw1972.com/products/tonga-charity-t-shirt New Japan selling a Tongan flag themed Lion shirt with all the proceeds going to aid Tonga after the volcano that cut them off from the rest of the world.

He's doing a gimmick anyone from WWE can do, yet no one out of the literal hundreds that have been released in the last two years has done. Dude has hustle, got himself over on the internet when WWE had him guard catering to the point he got punished over it. Janela gets over because he's charismatic and that's still like 90% of getting over in wrestling, It always has been, yet it's surprising so many folks for decades have been scratching their heads why their favorite technical wizard who has the personality of wet socks somehow never become massively popular. If I was running a wrestling school I'd focus on teaching the basics in ring and focus on getting folks out of their shell and becoming familiar with crowds. Have them work on promos, have them take acting classes. That helped Cody tremendously, not just wit his lisp, but just look at the way he carries himself now as compared to his WWE days. Some of that is getting away from WWE speak for sure, but his whole approach is different after he took those classes I'm shocked no one else has done it.

It appears so. Also No Fucks Given Cowboy Brock is by far the best Brock, he's been amazing in this run.

Its so funny to see Aunt Beth from NXT beating up jobbers on Raw

Maryse, Respectfully

WWE: Why can't we attract the youths? Also WWE: lets devote an entire segment to a god damn spelling bee Although to be fair I would have popped if Randy's word would have been "stupid"

I love Jeff Jarrett having a resurgence in 2022, but as someone who remembers watching him as a plucky young rookie god damn did that make me feel old.