sek69

Women's matches in WWE did make a pretty dramatic leap in quality going from the Attitude era and the "models with no ability" era to now where there's an actual attempt to have good matches (for the most part). Charlotte/Sasha comes off like Misawa/Kawada compared to the lingerie pillow fight type of stuff.

Recency bias is a hell of a drug, I've lost count of how many times after a good match/show people rave how it's the BEST EVAR.

Ultimo Guerrero won so it wasn't anyone who needed a rub anyway.

That's some old school skullduggery right there. I'm not going to point any fingers but taking advantage of local regulations to get a rival show canceled is certainly a time honored carny move.

This seems to indicate that Fox should be available in some parts.

Seems like you guys up north kind of get boned on both sides. According to Dave the tie up in AEW getting international TV deals is that they have to run through TNT for approval and they seem to be taking their time. They are talking with TSN to be their partner in Canada but they sure are cutting it close. For Smackdown, I'm not sure. Fox is an over the air network in the US, are there any options for that in Canada?

I can't help that those of us who were around for the Monday Night Wars era are looking at this coming week like this:

CMLL will be fine because their training school can churn out enough bodies to fill a card. You'd have a tough time convincing anyone CMLL is interested in producing stars regardless of where they come from at this point.

CMLL is successful because they own the arenas they run in, so they make profit no matter what. Most of the Lutteroth family doesn't care about wrestling (the family apparently has big real estate intrests). Paco actually had an interest in wrestling, so for as secretive and weird he was he was the reason there were any good matches in CMLL during the time he was there. Could it have been better? Absolutely. His conservative mindset (and pettiness) cost them more than a few big money matches, but it's clear he was the best person in the family to be running things.

Steve Austin. Blessing: Duh. Was the biggest money draw of all time, was the Ace of their biggest boom period. Curse: What chants that haunt wrestling to this day, and considering how painfully scripted WWE is, it's been a hurdle for new talent to get over when the crowd makes them look like geeks.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. There's been issues for a while, cubsfan described it as the volcano bubbling under CMLL for a while. Basically Chavo Lutteroth took over the checkbook and cut everyone's money except the guys who were stars the last time he paid attention to wrestling (Atlantis, Negro Casas, Blue Panther types). Combine that with CMLL trying to dictate what US bookings they can take, and they told CMLL to go kick rocks. In Mexico they do, but they will likely use those names still in other promotions.

AAA probably would (they paid Dr. Wagner Jr for his), but they can't go more than a few months without forgetting about storylines and/or remembering why LA Park rarely stays around very long. Also it sounds like Chavo Lutteroth is in charge of the money in CMLL now and has long been not interested in wrestling. They've slashed the budget and it's caused a lot of low to mid card guys to leave since it made no financial sense to stick around. Sofia's disappeared as well since it was clear they don't feel comfortable having someone with her level of experience in charge, and she doesn't want to be thrown under the bus when the wheels come off because her uncle's a cheap bastard.

Well at least we don't have to do another year of Rush and LA Park teasing a mask vs hair match that ends up not happening. Poor Mistico (II), it's got to be awkward to continue to work for a company that just fired your brothers after cutting everyone's pay. The interesting thing is how this affects the ROH/CMLL/NJPW partnership. Dragon Lee wants to keep working in Japan, and obviously ROH just put their belt on Rush. CMLL is notoriously petty when it comes to people who leave on less than good terms. Will that cause some friction with the other companies? Another point to consider is this kills the Ingobernales in Mexico stable since CMLL owns the copyright on that as well.

Yeah I mentioned that in the "Rush wins ROH title" thread. Such a stupid move on CMLL's part. Rush was probably going to end up signing full time with a US company soon enough, but firing Dragon Lee was cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Rush just announced he and his dad have left CMLL and are independent wrestlers in Mexico (Rush still is under contract with ROH). CMLL has been tightening their budgets lately and that just cost them their biggest star. *edit* CMLL just did an announcement saying they fired Rush and Dragon Lee. Holy shit.

Rush beat Matt Taven at Death Before Dishonor tonight, which is interesting for several reasons: Matt Taven's deal is up in less than a week and he was making cryptic comments about his next big move. Dragon Lee was there to celebrate (along with their dad Bestia del Ring) which is notable because CMLL's Anniversary Show is tonight and he's basically on punishment with them for doing BOLA without their approval.

Dave dropped a post in the thread about it on the WON board comparing it to the Jarrett/Gulas split back in the day, stating "when you're over 40 you think the new guys will always fail and the king will be around forever" so it implied Punk either didn't have faith in AEW being a success or thinking Vince will just steamroll them.

Absolutely. It seemed clear from the infamous show with Colt that his biggest problem (besides the doctor) was not bending the knee to Hunter. Dave made a good point in the latest WON though. Even though Punk would be better suited as an analyst, the moment he does that show the fans will expect him to wrestle again and the show becomes all about Punk and not whatever they are planning it to be. What's strange is despite Punk appearing to be mellowing out in his old age and no longer holding any ill will toward WWE, that he would go back to the company that so blatantly tried to fuck him with the Dr. Amman lawsuit. That would seem to be the kind of thing Punk would absolutely not want to do based on everything we've ever heard about him.

So Sasha posted on Twitter mocking Seth for his (admittedly corprate sounding) Tweet where he was looking forward to his match with Rey. He responded by jabbing back saying her matches are underwhelming. Very odd exchange to say the least.

So in case you were worried CMLL would stop doing dumb things after Paco died, Dragon Lee has apparently been benched for going to PWG to do BOLA. They didn't want him to go since AAA guys were going to be there, but he did anyway.

Well ROH doesn't have a set time frame, that's why I didn't list it.

There's going to be wrestling on nearly every day of the week going forward, it's crazy. Monday: Raw Tuesday: Impact on AXS Wednesday: AEW and NXT Thursday: NXT UK Friday: Smackdown Saturday: MLW and AEW PPVs Sunday: WWE PPVs

Byron and Tom got done real dirty. They were the lowkey MVPs and got kicked to the curb.

Having said that I would be down for a Scott Steiner vs WALTER match the more I think about it.

No idea since neither person is on this show.