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Watching SD now, this didn't seem as bad as everyone made it out to be. Clearly Vince felt that fans would be confused at a white guy wrestling barefoot and wanted to have an explanation, and Matt did it in his usual doofy way.

Dave reporting on the Observer site that Rey's deal has expired and at the moment he's working without a contract. I'm sure it won't happen because he's trying to get his son started in the biz, but I would love him to pull a Rick Rude and just show up on Dynamite.

It seems pretty clear that even if Teddy wasn't directly involved with whatever shenanigans went on, he knows more than he lets people believe.

So another issue that is starting to bubble up seem to be folks in MLW uncomfortable with Mister Saint Laurent (the COO) and his ties with Chaysn Rance. Saieve Al Sabah went public after finding out about it (after he signed) and requested his release, then shared a convo with Brian Pillman Jr where he mentioned he also requested his release but didn't get it.

It's probably still awful, yet at the same time also probably light years better than what it was in the Attitude Era and the early 2000s when the only place for women was lingerie pillow fights and bikini contests. Reading Gail Kim's comments on working there was heartbreaking, how she trained just like the men but her only worth there was cheesecake stuff. Then she goes to TNA, which famously had problems finding their ass as a company with both hands, and she ends up revitalizing women's wrestling in the US there.

I mean, when you see how WWE has on numerous occasions tried to break up couples they didn't "agree" with it kind of makes it obvious who they want the women to be available for. Also for the "financing" part, I assume they didn't want to have the money they would be paying her go towards her relationship. It came off as a weird way to coerce her into doing what they wanted. Clearly things have improved in the years since, they've shuffled people across brands to keep IRL couples together among other things. Things are obviously far from perfect but it does make me wonder how much having someone like Steph in power and generally a more corporate structure in place since 2002 that have helped foster some must needed changes. Or is it more that the guy who demanded all this "availability" is in his 70s now and maybe it isn't as important at this stage of his life as it was 20 odd years ago. The answer is probably "a little of both".

So April Hunter did an interview with Observer Radio about being a woman in the wrestling business, and she dropped a bomb that when she did a training camp for WWE back in 2002, she was offered a deal but it was contingent on her breaking up with her boyfriend because A) they wanted the women to be available and B ) they didn't want to finance an interracial relationship (her significant other/tag team partner at the time was Slyck Wagner Brown who is from Jamaica). She said people would ask her all the time why she never went to WWE because she had the size and look Vince usually went for, and mentioned she sat on the reason all this time because she figured if she said why it would just be looked at as sour grapes. She also laid out why it really wasn't an option for women to speak out, as she and other women were trained to always defer to the veterans. She mentioned she had an issue with someone when she was on a tour, and she knew if she spoke out and said there was a problem that she would be the one being removed from the tour, not the guy. Basically if women wanted to work in the business, they had to just expect to put up with it.

YOH tweeted out his knee injury is a torn ACL, so I guess that means we'll be seeing some kind of tournament for the Jr tag titles.

Yeah looking at all that makes it clear they tried to apply the "Well Bryan lost all the time and people rallied around him" logic to Roman. I can imagine historians looking at that period 30-40 years from now trying to wrap their heads around the only lesson WWE learned from Bryan's WM run was "that means we can job out all our babyfaces and people will rally around them". with zero grasp on WHY people rallied around him and just being baffled.

Rollins is a guy that would probably have a great career as a tag guy in the 80s but never get a singles run. His push is like if JCP decided to make Robert Gibson a main eventer. It's not that Seth is terrible, he's just someone playing out of position. Roman on the other hand is a guy who got his time at the top handcuffed by the company trying to push him like he was Cena instead of on his own merits. He unfairly (to him, fairly for the company) inherited the backlash Cena had and also wasn't helped by having like 3 straight Wrestlemanias built around his grand coronation to the point even his stans were like " Jesus, that's getting a bit much".

The sheriff there basically admitted he was telling his deputies to not enforce the mandate anyway because something something MUH FREEDOMZ, so that vote probably got Mayor Kane another term.

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.