sek69

Janela's really good at the business side of things, but in ring not so much IMO. I would 100% hire him to be on the creative team of any promotion I was running, but that's about it.

Also released NXT talent Ezra Judge (who is black) did an interview stating Drake Wuertz called him "boy" at one point. Luckily for WWE they timed a bunch of office releases that kind of drowned out the reaction to this.

I wonder what WWE is going to do with their announcing. Cole and Pat Macafee have been doing pretty good on SD (Pat's obviously still new at this, but he's such a natural performer), and they got rid of Joe. Barrett and Vic are good on NXT, I hope they don't put Beth on Raw.

I think the AEW roster is jumping to Kenny's defense because there's been some annoyance that JR doesn't event try to put AEW folks over at times and this is a way they can kind of stick it to him without being blatant about it.

The A&E piece was basically a way for Dana to acknowledge he said some fucked up things, but to frame it as a guy who fell down a media rabbit hole and away from the person who pointed him in that direction. I suppose the fairest (to her) takeaway could be she didn't think he'd take things as far as he did, but what else would you expect if you take a guy like him and continuously feed him right wing nonsense?

I saw people comparing Virk to Mike Adamle, and that was just unfair for many reasons. They took a guy who has never called professional wrestling and threw them on the flagship show for the #1 company in the world with (apparently) zero training. If he had been in any other promotion in the world they would have at least not put him in such a position to fail. I know WWE has an unexplained hard-on for three person teams, but I really think Corey and Byron would be a great duo if given the chance. They have chemistry, and their banter reminds me of the Bobby/Gorilla and Vince/Jesse teams. Obviously they aren't on those teams' level, but I think it would be an improvement.

I mean, it could be he really does think Randy Orton is the best in the world. He's clearly in the "no fucks given" phase of his life, and knows Tony K will keep him well paid since he was one of the reasons they got the Turner deal. I would doubt he has any desire to go back to being Vince's punching bag unless they gave him a completely stupid money offer, which if they did it probably wouldn't go over well with the talent after multiple rounds of cuts for "budget reasons".

I'm OK with this both for real (sometimes shit goes wrong) and kayfabe (part of the ref's job is to make sure both people can continue, they always mention that), plus in boxing/MMA the ref is there to make sure there's no serious injuries to ether combatant. What killed me is when WWE was on that thing where they would completely stop a match at even a "Lex Luger in Baltimore" level of blood. Plus it was while Joe was in NXT, and for whatever reason his nose is especially prone to bleeding so he kept having his matches interrupted.

I get the feeling that they are going to tell how Warrior was radicalized by Dana and she's trying to get ahead of it by preemptively smearing the show.

It's more to bolster the stock price than anything else, which may lead to a sale but it seems that's the goal here.

Is it me or was that an odd choice for the show closing match/angle? Wasn't expecting Shayna vs Reggie to be the hook to get you to tune in next week.

I hope MVP worked me because it look like he reinjured his knee in the post match shenanigans.

Tell that to anyone who has to work with the NXT Q squad. I mean, I get what you're saying and you're right on a basic level, but people are so comfortable openly expressing hateful beliefs nowadays it's easy to turn any workplace toxic in a heartbeat. This isn't like "Fred believes trickle down economics actually work", more like "Fred doesn't believe I have value as a human being and I should have all my rights taken away".

One thing that should be kept in mind too is Warrior had stated on more than one occasion that Dana was the one who helped shape his conservative views.

I get the impression he doesn't know what a lot of things mean based on his history.

Dave did a talk about it in his review, but yeah that was a pretty big miss on the show's part to let that go uncorrected. It wasn't even a hit either. Stories vary, but what seems to be the same is Riki got into a scuffle with a Yakuza member at the club and the dude went into business for himself and stabbed him. The Yakuza even apologized for it because he was such a national hero.

One thing I noticed when I went to a Dynamite taping in the Before Times, is how well paced AEW shows are live. I could never tell when commercial breaks were happening, as opposed to WWE shows I've been to live where they basically shut everything down for the live audience while the TV crowd is away. AEW was so much better as a live experience just because it was clear the company still remembered to pay attention to the folks in the building.

Well, the individual pieces all seem to be believable. I can see Hawk picking a fight with someone smaller, I can see Scorp beating his ass and making a shiv for protection. I can see Benoit talking him out of it if for no other reason to not cause an international incident that would get them all sent so some NK prison camp forever.

Also if we're gonna do the king gimmick with Shin, I'm demanding he go full "Statue of Liberty/King Zarkon from Votron" with it like in New Japan:

Watching this now, Rik Boogz is great. He's one of those guys that if he's even a little bit okay in the ring he's gonna be a huge star.

I wonder how they can square a non puff piece doc with their previsioned image they use for the Warrior Award.

Saw this in the WO daily update:

Chris Benoit being the voice of reason preventing 2 Cold Scorpio from stabbing Hawk with a shiv is horrifically ironic in hindsight.

Still, sending pro wrestlers to North Korea just seems like a bad idea no matter what company they work for. The one time I don't blame the Hulkster for pulling a "that doesn't work for me brother". Was surprised to see they got Inoki for the show, and loved how he basically said he knew Hogan would be to smart for this shit.

I mean, this is the company that has cameras everywhere (except the bathrooms obviously) so Vince and Hunter can monitor the PC at all times, so I wouldn't automatically assume that this would be disqualifying behavior.