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Also its one of the things we learned in the Attitude Era: Raw frequently had shitty shows topped with excellent main events with Austin/Rock and everyone remembers it fondly as if the show was stellar from top to bottom (it wasn't). Nitro usually had excellent matches topped off with shitty nWo centric main events and everyone remembers it as the whole show being terrible (it wasn't). Having a flat main event sours people's impressions on the whole show.

I don't get the hate for QT. I mean I *get* it in the sense that he's shit, but he's just out there to be player coach for the trainees and eventually get knocked out by Tall Paul. It's not like he's being shoved into main events. He's just there to get the caveman looking dude and Bayley's ex some ring time.

WWE kind of painted themselves in a corner with their TV partners. They were so thirsty to be back on network TV that they were annoying their long time cable partners, and when they try to appease them they upset Fox because they didn't spend a billion dollars to have the B show. A sane person probably could have figured out a way to make both sides relatively happy, but Vince lives in a world where he can only pay attention to one show at a time.

I mean, not every Nitro that beat Raw for 83 weeks in a row was stellar. There were more than a fair share of clunkers, but they built up so much momentum it took months after they were objectively sucking ass for the ratings to reflect that. I think AEW has enough goodwill that the occasional so-so episode won't derail things too much.

So SRS reported Brock's new deal is for "about a year and a half", so considering WWE usually insists on 3 year deals and Brock usually insists on 1 year deals it looks like they just met in the middle.

I saw that and my first thought was "wow, WWE helped AEW yet again" lol.

Yeah AEW's women's division seems to be booked like WWE's main roster ones where there's one dominant presence and everyone else is either geeks or disappeared into the ether, Keeping Britt heel despite of how over she is seems like a "WWE trying to make Becky a heel" move as well. Plus doing that kills the momentum for someone like Statlander, who's supposed to still be cheered but no one is going to cheer her against Britt, and people don't really want to boo her either so it creates a weird heat vortex since the crowd doesn't have a third option to react.

I wonder if Red Velvet got concussed when she necked herself on the ropes, she seemed out of it and that looked like a likely spot it could have happened. Seemed things really went off the rails after that too.

I wouldn't say it was *bad*.....just really meh.

lol RIP Brock's face, Jesus.

Also holy shit, Tay laid those shots into the Bunny like she owed her money in that brawl they had.

I love the look of "I probably am gonna get in trouble for this.....ahh fuck it" look on his face before he said it too.

I mean, even your local podunk indy knows if someone works for them or not. You'd think WWE would at least have *that* part under control, but apparently not.

Also holy shit, SRS just reported that Pete Dunne is in the same boat as Adam Cole, his contract is up and it caught WWE by surprise. They've offered him an extension but he hasn't signed it yet. FFS, does no one in this clown ass company keep track of when contracts expire?

That's not even the worst example, Verne used to false advertise people he knew left the AWA until they appeared on WWF TV. He was probably low key the scummiest non Vince promoter but because the AWA died before the internet it doesn't really get talked about on the same level since it was before the time of like 80% of the people who discourse about wrestling these days.

I would figure most folks are tuning in to see Punk, so it's not like anyone's going to be disappointed. There's only three matches announced (Orange/Hardy, Black/Arn Jr, and Velvet/Hayter) and those matches will probably be on the short side. So I would expect other things to happen.

Honestly, since he's been one of the key guys in ROH's relaunch of their Pure title, it comes off like the interviewers are buying into the gimmick since they push hard that being in the Pure division means you're a top level worker.

WWE would have to give someone a stupid money offer to get them to switch, and based on their current mindset of cost cutting if they did that it would only serve to piss people off in their own company.

Wasn't MSG a Smackdown show? Perhaps I was incorrect but I thought it was a TV event.

Speaking of Cena, it looks like they were false advertising him for their "not at all running against AEW's stadium show, why would you think that?" MSG show. Cena sent out a tweet after Summerslam basically saying bye for now but he's still front and center for the advertising.

Even from the very start, when he was on NXT when it was a competition show, they jobbed him out and had Miz as his "pro" just to piss off the internet fans. They always held a grudge against him for being popular outside of WWE and they spent his entire time in the company trying to prove they were right.

Also they tried SO HARD to make anything about Bryan a "moment" completely divorced from the man himself, like when they tried so hard to make "Yestlemania" a thing.

I remember when pro and college sports teams were doing the YES deal after winning championships and WWE would steadfastly refuse to acknowledge it since god forbid an actual wrestler be seen as a bigger star than the all encompassing BRAND.

I mean, just because AEW hasn't really released people unless they were being shitheads or couldn't come to the US for covid reasons doesn't mean they can't or won't. I still think they will just let a lot of contracts expire when the time comes if it's people not really being uses and/or not playing a role. Hell, I could even see Tony making sure they land with Impact or someone else they are working with too.

WWE is having the chickens come home to roost after relying on names from the past to artificially pump up numbers. Edge is pretty much the last one from their last boom period that can still enter a ring without looking like they need Life Alert (I don't see Rock ever coming back for anything in ring again), and despite hoarding talent for years the cupboard is bare since they spent so much effort educating the fans that anyone who came up through the system is a geek not worth getting behind. As weird as it sounds, they need a Vince Russo type again. Not the actual Vince Russo of course, but the reason why Russo was so successful was that his ideas were so different from what the WWF was doing at the time. Sure it all looks like shit in retrospect now but someone used to late 80s to mid 90s WWF tuning in to see Russo's ideas would have been blown away. He was also the perfect fit for the "edginess" of the 90s, and WWE needs someone who's in tune with modern trends. Vince/Bruce/Dunn ain't that someone. Unless they can find that person, we're going to just keep seeing them trying to combat the newer, hotter, competition by rehashing 20+ year old ideas.