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Possibly that, but mostly it's because they got tired of getting cockblocked by ROH on all the lucha guys they tried to bring in. The Crash is kind of like a PWG of Mexico of sorts. Not on the workrate level, but it's more a collection of names and top indy guys in one place.

Memes are fun and all, but unless something changed I thought Eric didn't have any actual creative involvement?

Yeah there's a couple of the episodes that didn't make it. They said all the footage they have is uploaded so those must have been lost or didn't meet VQ quality standards. Angle wise, yes it's the beginning of the Jimmy Valiant/Paul Jones feud that went on for years. The Assassins (well #1 since he's the one who did the promos) would talk about their unfortunately-named-for-2019 "registry" of people they are out to get. Dusty was #1 on that list because of course he was, and when Jimmy came out to save him from a beatdown he became their main target. It built up to the mask vs hair match on this show, and then after another guy was brought in as Assassin #3 (which was weird since #2 was gone), then led to a side angle where Johnny Weaver stole #1's mask and started wearing it as the "Ultimate Assassin".

Conversely the basketball schedule wasn't a big deal since Wednesday wasn't considered a wrestling day until about a month ago. You can see the pattern: *AEW announces day* Vince: We gotta counterprogram! NXT's already on Wednesdays, put that on FS1! Fox: OK, but there's going to be a a 5 month gap while we show basketball. Vince: Goddammit! Get USA on the line!

NXT on FS1 was supposed to be bonus content to help their new TV partner since FS1 was basically the UFC Channel when Fox had them. Then it became the means to start Wrestling World War Two once AEW confirmed Wednesdays as their TV day. Now Vince is considering cuckolding them with USA because he doesn't even want his son-in-law's vanity fed to be seen as getting beat by the new guys. It's really interesting to see how this is playing out. Vince is still using his Territory/WCW playbook and is coming off as increasingly "gotten to" (as the kids say) that he can't just stomp them out like he did back in the day. Dave even mentioned that Vince was certain Kenny and the Bucks would take the big money deals WWE offered them and was flummoxed that they all turned them down.

Dave's reporting WWE is trying to put NXT on USA now, which to me seems to all but admit that WWE thinks AEW would beat them head to head if it was on FS1.

Watching the Boogie Jam show, and it's funny how Hercules managed to run the exact same angle twice in a row going from Assassin #2 here then directly going to Mid South to be Mr. Wrestling II's protege.

It was double ACL surgery, certainly a long recovery process but not normally something career ending unless some complications come up. She's been posting videos of her post surgery workouts and things seemed to be going well.

So apparently Nia Jax deleted her Twitter and took all WWE references off her Instagram while changing her display name to her real name on there. Then Alexa was sad-facing on her Twitter so I suppose either Nia took another leave of absence or they are trying to work another angle.

People accept that as fact, but was he really buried that bad? He lost the King of the Ring victory but he spent most of that year winning midcard feuds.

It was pretty clear KUSHIDA felt he did everything he could as a Junior and there were no plans to move him up, so he left. I wouldn't be surprised if he just used this time as like another overseas excursion like the Young Lions do. Most of the time they do jobs because the point is just to experience a new culture and style, so I could see him looking at this the same way. I'm sure he knows he won't be main eventing Mania.

Impact works with AAA, which is a partner with AEW. Maybe they can work something out that way.

I would assume Marty, Tessa, Pillman, and DBS will all get serious looks. Brody King should seriously consider it too (WWE already has a tattoo'd guy in Alistar Black and you know they wouldn't do anything with "another one"). Of course WWE is playing with Fox/Saudi money, but I think the tide's turned enough where just tossing cash at folks to sit in NXT collecting dust are nearing an end. Guys who want to actually show what they can do know they have an alternative.

Yeah that's what I was going for. Both terms are dumb but "Performance Fighter" somehow seems....less dumb? At least it describes what they do better than "Sports Entertainer" if you don't want to call them wrestlers. It's still funny that the biggest wrestling company in the world doesn't like to call its wrestlers "wrestlers" though.

That's one of those things that was a capsule of its time that seems odd now. At the time there was an anti Japanese trend since their economy was booming and they were buying/getting interest in traditionally American companies or landmarks. Matsuda "took over" control of the Horsemen in a wrestling version of that.

Speaking of USA, I wonder if they are going to be even more indebted to WWE since Todd Christley got indicted for tax fraud. Seemed like his show was the only one USA was pushing besides Raw.

The WWE Network Bot on Twitter is going in to overdrive, looks like they are adding all the Hidden Gems that were missing back on.

Honestly had they tried "performance fighter" over "sports entertainer" there may have been less pushback. One sounds like a person who does physical things in a tough environment and the other sounds like a Fakey Fakerson doing fake things on a fake show.

My time watching Mid Atlantic in 1984 produced an odd pairing: The Zambuie Express, which was Leroy Brown and Ray Candy doing a black Muslim militant gimmick, managed by #1 Paul Jones. They could have been great heels since they were two big scary mofos , but it just killed their character to be managed by the walking embodiment of what they were supposed to be against.

Yeah coming in to bump a years old thread to offer a gentle "it's just a joke, bro" smacks of sock-puppetry. Dude's the Fox News of wrestling: build up viewers by trolling/misremembering/straight up lying then send your drones to attack anyone who points it out and call them fake news. Not to mention he's damaged several companies in the process. His "creative" was the last push to send WCW circling down the drain, and his and Dixie's fuckery made TNA untouchable to any real TV network. His only claim to fame is that even he couldn't fuck it up when the WWF had Steve Austin, DX, and the Rock all in their primes. Even then it's no surprise to look back on that era and realize everything that didn't involve any of those three was likely total shit.

I didn't say he put the kibosh on his run as champion, I said he did it on the planet champion gimmick. Vince wanted him to tone down his promos and not get to political.

Isn't Michael Cole producing the announcers in NXT? If so it's like having Vince producing them but being filtered through a sock first.

Also was Daniel really being "lambasted" for his promo and character skills? I seem to recall people upset they were wasting him by having him do the typical WWE crap.

Bryan mentioned as almost an afterthought during the Retro Review show last night that Vince put the kibosh on Bryan's planet champion gimmick because he felt it was "too political".

She's adopted the Ingobernales life on her Instagram, I've been hoping they do a bit with her where she starts her own chapter like how AJ has his Bullet Club. Hell they could finally turn Asuka heel and have her be the Naito of the group.