sek69

New Japan has a pretty good track record of gimmicks that don't look good at first but end up being pretty awesome (looking at you, Switchblade) so I'm okay with giving it a chance to see where it goes.

Yeah, at least Nia isn't actively trying to hurt people, she's just sloppy. Charlotte powerbombing a barely conscious Kairi into a table was just unbelievably unsafe and unprofessional. As much as I want to look forward to Sasha matches since they are generally good, but I end up getting scared she's going to scorpion herself on every bump she takes.

I first thought it was a reversal, but it looked like she just did a full 360 on the bump. I noticed that happens in Sasha matches a lot, she's so slight of build she ends up flying more on bumps than most people do.

So looking at the ratings this week, it seems that Sasha and Bayley are the one thing that can get more people to watch NXT.

I never saw any of Thatcher before he started in NXT, I love that he's basically a 70s shooter that was teleported to 2020.

Yeah, Joe is one of the few people in wrestling that has an aura of being able to fuck you up if he felt the need to.

Taz unloading with both barrels here.

I appreciate the full-circle of Matt Hardy being the Michael Hayes to Private Party's Hardy Boys.

Holy shit that kendo stick shot on Sabian

That was a great little tag match.

I popped for Jericho channeling his inner Hugo Savinovich with the lucha commentary.

Someone OK-Boomer'ed Aries by calling him "Lower Ki" and I haven't stopped laughing.

He spent the transition from announcer to head of Impact trying to convince the brass in New Japan that it's entirely different group in charge than the ones that make Okada into a joke.

NJ had guys on one year deals going from January-December, and all four were set to be free agents. Shinsuke wanted to work an easier US style, and AJ/Gallows/Anderson got the typical "throw big bucks around to take another company's top guys because you can" offer. I doubt there would be any heat, normally they wouldn't expect the gaijin to follow the usual Japanese ethos of staying loyal to one company. Plus Gallows and Anderson have always spoken well of their time in New Japan and clearly were looking to to back, so there clearly wasn't any heat on their end at least. There is also the possibility that under ideal circumstances NJ wouldn't want to work with Impact, (due to everything from the AXS situation all the way to still having hard feelings over Okada being used as a stereotyped jobber on his excursion there), but not being in a postion to not do business with anyone who wants to work with them in the new COVID influenced world. Plus there is that weird dynamic where Don Callis and his crew were trying to smooth things over and build a relationship, only to have the Anthem people steamroll everything by cancelling the TV programming.

Also Billie Kay has like an inverse Trump thing going, her face is several shades lighter than the rest of her.

Nice to see the IIconics' disregard of public safety didn't result in them getting rona'd.

I suppose R-Truth's anti aging formula keeps him from getting Covid as well.

I gotta admit, I popped for Joe basically playing Lance Russell trying to introduce the show while chaos goes on all around him

He had to vacate his part of the NXT tag team titles with Matt Riddle because he was stuck in the UK. He was pretty much 100% part of the US NXT roster before everything went down.

The Taz story is true, I remember it making the news here when it happened.

Honestly, I'm Team No One on this. I don't believe for a second there wasn't some arrangement made when they started hyping the match, but the show was scheduled on a date past the last date of her contract. Plus I'm not 100% I believe her about not wanting to leave Mexico as I'm pretty sure she was doing photo shoots in San Diego at some point. At this point her best bet is to just sign with AAA if she wants to stay as close to Daga as possible. I can't imagine her going to WWE/NXT will end any different than the last time she was there since it's not like either side acts any differently now. Plus as Dave pointed out, AEW would get a ton of shit if they signed her since they are (rightly) held to a higher standard than WWE when it comes to signing folks. At this point, Tessa's pretty much the female Low Ki in terms of someone with undeniable talent who can't ever keep from emptying the clip into their own foot.

Yeah it's not like this was some sort of tragic thing that happened to him, dude just finally had to pay the bill for his past behavior. I get there is going to be some shock since by and large people who act like that tend to get away with it so long it's natural to start to believe it will never catch up with you. Most of the time if there's any sorrow it's more "I'm sorry I got caught" rather than "I'm sorry I did shitty things".

Jesus Christ, this company.

He was actually pretty good in MLW, Court has some weird magic powers where he can have every problem child in wrestling (Ki, Teddy, Corny, LA Park) on his roster at the same time and everyone behaved.

I really feel like I live in bizarro world, PA has done a pretty good job keeping things under control (except for the Philly area due to being close to NJ/NYC), yet I see people on my Facebook posting memes about how our Governor is a dictator because he didn't do a full 100% reopening the second that the tiny weenie militia types started crying about not able to get haircuts. Props to Renee and Mox for getting their stories out too, she clearly has run out of fucks to give and has no reason to fear WWE since she could line up a job either in or out of wrestling within 30 seconds if Vince said boo to her. Also IMO the most disturbing part of the Observer story is the level of detail in how WWE has put more effort into rearranging flights to skirt around state mandated travel restrictions than they have taking care of their employees/contractors.