sek69

If he wants to have a beef with Punk that's fine, and I get how what Punk said could ruffle his feathers, but "AEW babied by their fans" is rich considering he's the face of a company that treats their fans like they all have developmental disabilities. Of course fans are going to be more receptive/nicer to a company that hasn't burned their trust or treated them like idiots.

It really is criminally forgotten how Luna (and Jacqueline) put in all the work to make Sable look like a star. All she ever wanted was someone to notice her efforts and no one in charge could be bothered.

Man it's just so sad to see how Luna cared so much about the business and women's roles in it in an era where the business gave zero shits about women in wrestling.

I don't know if you can use the Heart Punch since it's kayfabe supposed to do what happened for real to Jerry Lawler. People might think it's in bad taste.

The one where Arn was burning shit in Cody's yard? Yeah that struck me as a conscious attempt to paint Cody as the type of douche that would do that.

Fritz, as shitty as a human being as he was, was a great old school tough nasty bastard. He had one of those gimmicks that only works better for him the older and more ornery he would get. I think that's why the heart attack angle was such a disaster beyond the obvious bad taste aspect. It killed his aura as tough guy even if he was older.

Funny part is it seemed obvious to me he was talking about the Bucks but everyone seemed to interpret it as a dig at Adam Cole? I don't follow enough sneakerheads to fully understand it I suppose. I get the heat is coming from someone like Top Dolla who, while cool and having all the potential in the world, has done approximately dick in the business so for him to be talking shit at top level guys is kind of eye rolling. Reminds me of a few years back in the NFL playoffs one of the Steelers' young defensive backs talked shit on Tom Brady, who of course made it his personal mission to target the kid and schooled the shit out of him. Around here the reaction was "you got balls kid, but that was kinda dumb".

Not surprised about Salina, WWE only sees women who are not white and blonde as quotas to fill and I'm sure Vince probably feels they have enough "ethnics" for now. Also after teasing a scoop for a while, the Voices of Wrestling guys just dropped that WWE has been leaking the fast national numbers for Rampage once they hit their usual number for a non CM Punk debut episode. That ties in with them adding the extra half hour on Smackdown this week, as their plan seem to be "our B show can beat your B show" but let's hear again how they don't consider AEW competition.

To me it falls into the category of "if it's over, it works" category like the People's Elbow. Is it silly and unrealistic? Yep, but the crowds went nuts for it and that's all that matters. The Texas crowds would react to a Von Erich getting someone in the claw like it was peak Stone Cold dealing out Stunners.

It's supposed to squeeze the victim's temples causing pain to the point they pass out if they don't submit. I suppose it worked for me because World Class would do promos where Fritz would put over all the work he put into making it a devastating hold (and even as an old man Fritz had that aura of a dude who could def. crush your head with his hands if he wanted to) so it was enough to convince me he could teach his kids to do it too.

So when did the claw hold become the most hated move in wrestling? I keep seeing people talk about it as the fakest looking move in wrestling, but I never thought it was any more or less silly than any other pro wrestling maneuver that would have no real basis in an actual fight. I think the issue is people who use it nowadays tend to put it on as loosely as possible and that makes it look like shit. I never thought the Von Erichs or the Baron looked bad doing the claw, they had 8 year old me believing they were squeezing people's heads in.

All that (except the DUIs) were before the "PR is how the brands will win" era of WWE though. They are going to be way more risk adverse to hiring someone with a criminal past than they would have been prior.

Tony has been very "Paul Heyman as the guru of ECW" on Twitter with this, and it's been great. One of the best parts of AEW is how the fans feel ownership like the ECW crowds did, and Tony deliberately (and he's an admitted ECW mark so no I have no doubts its 100% deliberate) invoking Head of the ECW Cult Paul E is brilliant.

So Solo Sikoa is the Usos' brother, so if he has any of their skills he should be good.

Io coming out cussin' motherfuckers out in Japanese cracked me the fuck up.

If they are gonna use the Halloween Havoc name, they should go full WCW and don't gimmick the wheel in the women's title match.

Good lord, every week Von Wagner looks like he took another step backwards on the evolutionary chart.

She's like Luna-cito and it's awesome.

Last time I saw an encounter like Mini-Brock and Gacy it was a shower scene in the show Oz.

Also how does this Joe Gacy deal manage to get worse every week? His promo was straight up "what a boomer thinks millennials sound like" word salad.

It made Top Dolla and B Fab look like chumps to me, like Swerve didn't even care what those geeks were talking about until he heard fisticuffs going on.

I'm surprised Fatu isn't already in WWE, they usually try to give everyone in the family a shot.

Speaking of GCW, I was wondering who books there? Joey? Brett? Even if it was a "let everyone do their own shit" deal someone has to have final say, I just realized that it never occurred to me who that might be.

Bryan must feel like a kid in a candy store right now, he can go to Tony and be like "Can I get a match with *literally anyone in the world not in WWE* and Tony's like "sure, how's next week sound?"

I've seen people making the argument on Twitter that GCW is the #3 promotion right now behind WWE/AEW. My first instinct was to call BS on that, but honestly I can't think of any other group right now having consistently enjoyable shows and giving the fans what they want to see.