sek69

I mean, ring gear might be the most fiscally responsible thing Ric Flair has ever spent his money on. But yes, the cost women in general have to bear (women's stuff tends to cost more), plus how much more they have to spend on (the male wrestlers don't have to spend money on hair and makeup products) is going to cause their overall take home pay to be even lower.

Sting in a couple of multiple man tags while being a walking member-berry for lapsed fans who used to watch rasslin in TNT back in the day isn't the worst use of the guy. Plus he'll be in a company full of people who grew up idolizing him as kids rather than a company who only wanted to use him as an avatar to keep winning a war they already won, that alone will make a world of difference on how he's used.

So I'm watching yesterday's episode of Impact, and Karl Anderson accepted Ethan Page's challenge for a match on their next "Network event" equivalent on January 12. Karl accepts his challenge and adds "I know you got friends, I have friends too. After all, I'm a Good Brother" which certainly hits different after AEW. (should be noted this is part of an angle where Luke Gallows was attacked by Page and was out of action so Karl was pointedly not talking about his usual partner)

I wonder how the average Japanese fan views the Elite guys, especially Kenny. Normally they don't begrudge foreigners who leave since they aren't expected to abide by the "stay with your home company" tradition that the Japanese wrestlers tend to follow. Kenny might be an exception since he made such an effort to assimilate with the culture, cutting extensive promos in fairly fluent Japanese, he was the most un-gaijin foreigner possible. Also it's one thing to leave for WWE like AJ and the Good Brothers did, can't be too mad at someone making a change to secure the bag. Kenny leaving New Japan on top to join an (at the time) unproven commodity with this friends might have been viewed differently. Also it seems like the Impact website crashed after the angle took place so I suppose they're already getting a return on their investment in terms of interest. Tuesday's gonna be the most watched episode of their show since like the Spike days.

I believe the shows go up the next day on Impactplus, yes.

Impact airs their shows live on Twitch for free, but I think you need to sub to their channel to get access to the archives. I'm pretty sure you can watch the archives on impactplus.tv, you have to make an account but you don't have to pay unless you want to go way back.

Gotta give 'em props, that was a very nice tribute to Pat Patterson to open NXT tonight.

I mean the story was Kenny could have won the first match but got cocky, now Mox did the same in the second one. Textbook storytelling to set up the rubber match IMO. I'm sure in a perfect world they would have wanted to work this kind of angle with New Japan, but between covid and it not being clear if NJPW wants to play ball yet, it's just not feasible at this point.

Conversely, this is Impact's chance to show a bigger audience that they aren't the same old LOLTNA (and they really aren't anymore).

AEW vs IMPACT, interesting development.

They got Callis back to call this, nice.

Tony belting out an "It's STIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING" hit me hard in the feels.

STIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING

Darby is such a star it's crazy.

Is it me or does Layla Hirsch look like an even tinier Jordynn Grace?

Britt getting over with me with the Steeler logo gear.

It's Britt O clock!

That was great, I love they teased the "oh we forgot that guy was still in" only to point out Wardlow was too smart for that.

I would wager most people don't even know what DDT is, and a good chunk of those who do know what it is have never watched any of it and only know of it secondhand.

There seems to be a lot of stories where people who were previously not supportive of gay people changed their minds because of Pat. That might be his greatest legacy.

It's been pretty cool to see people from all across wrestling like Cody, Jericho, and even Dixie Carter paying their respects as well as the official Twitter account for the Cow Palace.

About the only thing I could blame Pat for would be keeping Mel Philips around when his behavior was openly known in the company to the point Gorilla would make joking references to it on TV (along with the infamous "Terry Garvin School of Self Defense" jokes). Even then, it's not like he was the guy who had direct hiring and firing powers, but he certainly could have convinced Vince to do something considering he's one of the few people Vince would listen to.

IMO it was smart to do the Pure stuff as their no-crowd COVID era kickoff. There's a good chance it would have died in front of a live crowd, so you eliminate that possibility and get your audience used to the new setup.

Well he was roped in to the ring boy scandals, and most folks outside of the hardcore wrestling fan bubble don't know it was because of the "well he's gay so he must have been involved" mindset. It's still gross but I get where it comes from.

Considering he was one of the all time greats in ring and this statement is still true says all that needs to be said about the guy. I think it also says volumes about him that he was open about who he was in a time period that was very much not welcome of that, (in a business that was even more so) and people were like "cool". It shouldn't be understated how amazing that was for him to be able to pull off. It's also hard to judge how much of the scum factor seems to apply to him, law of averages seems to dictate there has to be something there just for how long he was in the wrestling business, but it does seem like a lot of it is based on bigotry and is highly suspect. It seems like the only complaint about Pat that seems to be easily confirmed is all the tales of him only singing the same few songs at karaoke.