sek69

It just occurred to me that Gus Johnson would be the perfect fit for WWE if they wanted someone with legit cred. He's basically an WWE announcer calling real sports as it is. I suppose maybe they would think it'd be too on the nose to hire him, but that would assume they had any level of self awareness that hasn't been proven to exist.

Hogan's character was always an unlikable dick to his friends. I started watching the WWF in late 86 during the build to WM3 and felt Andre was completely justified in what he did since Hulk upstaged him the week before when he was finally getting some recognition. All Andre wanted was a title shot and Hulk acted like he killed his parents.

As one does. Clearly it's every legit broadcaster's dream to be able to call Drew Gulak getting a rose shoved up his ass.

Walter is one of my current favorites because he works exactly like a guy his size looks like he should work. Dude can build a whole match around the threat of caving a guy's chest in with a simple chop and can have the crowd completely buying in.

It's apparently a Nick Khan mandate, since he was the one behind hiring Adnan and now this. If I had to guess I'd wager he's trying to make WWE seem more mainstream/legit by bringing in these guys.

Adnan was fired from ESPN for leaking info, so I was surprised he would be signed to WWE since Vince is so paranoid. Pretty sure announcers are actual employees, I can't imagine they would be able to get any legit broadcaster on a WWE style "we'll fuck you every way we can" independent contractor deal.

WWE tends to only offer big money when they want to sign someone out of spite or to keep them away from another company.

Yeah, Nick Khan's new strategy of trying to make legit sportscasters fit in Vince's wacky world of being yelled at in your headset until your brain and self confidence are mush is going to be hilarious to watch.

Its still pretty funny (as in completely frustrating) that the rest of the world still has more content than what NBCUniversal paid a billion dollars for.

So I wonder if the recent cuts/consolidation of the WWE digital team means we're not getting the rest of the content that was on the Network get moved to Peacock after all.

So as a Steeler fan, I remember back to when Jerome Bettis was the featured back for the team. Toward the end of his career it started to become apparent he wasn't an every down back anymore, but they made him the short yardage guy when they needed a first down or were close to the goal line. It prolonged his career and let him play to his strengths (being a squat bowling ball who was hard to tackle) and still play a beneficial role to the team. It was a large part of why they won the Super Bowl that year, it allowed him to retire on top to close out a HOF career, and he's still a beloved figure in Pittsburgh to this day. JR's a big Steeler fan too from his beloved late wife being from here. I bet he remembers that as well.

It's not like AEW is hurting for announcers like WWE is. Kinda odd how they keep sticking with him despite a large segment of the roster getting annoyed by his antics to the point they don't even care if they make it public.

Didn't someone in AEW do a promo about how calling someone a "hell of a hand" is a backhanded compliment basically calling someone technically good but not a draw?

Clearly, we're the sensitive ones and not the guy who has to reply "lighten up, Francis" to anyone who tweets about his frequent gaffes on commentary. Dude clearly vanity searches himself in between retweeting various "WWEPorn" and "DivaBoobs" type accounts.

Jokes about Christian aside, that would have at least gone with his Out Work Everyone gimmick. Also it really is stark how someone like Tony Schiavone, who is from the same era as JR, can learn to apricate the modern style to the point his mini feud with MJF is low key one of the best parts of AEW while JR can't even be bothered to say anyone from his company is the best in the world. Especially when every boss JR ever worked for in his life would have lost their shit had he called someone from another company the best in the world.

IMO they took the belt off him because he probably didn't say how long he'd be away and they didn't want to have the new title they just created on ice for an extended period.

So it seems the gist of the Will stuff is that he does have a neck injury that he probably could work thru if needed but between that, frustration with NJPW management, and whatever's going on with Bea (at the least, she left Japan to go home to tend to a family member so there's some stress there no matter) he just decided to go back home for a while. There's some people in NJPW who think he's not really that injured and he's straight up pulling an HBK, which is why he posted a photo of his neck X-ray that shows some jacked up discs and some narrowing of the spinal column.

Kevin Von Erich used to do a sweet headscissors too. Sting used to look like he was crushing guys back in the surfer days, at some point in the Crow era he started gently laying it in and the move lost all cred.

Yeah Drake at least knew when to pick his battles. Also, racism aside it's always a shitty look when someone screams at a trainee for some bullshit just to be a swinging dick. Dude's not even a trainer, just a ref that helps set the rings up. He had no business pulling that shit and Robbie Brookside approving of him getting told off speaks volumes.

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.