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I thought the narrative was always that Lawler got away with creepy/pedo behavior because no one wanted to go after the local hero? There's really not much there that challenges that, rather it only makes the last 25 years of "Uncle Jerry" jokes from JR even more uncomfortable. I mean, I know Lawler's version was that it was just some sluts that wanted attention by claiming they slept with a famous wrestler, but it seemed like the consensus from people in and around the biz was he was a creep who got away with creep shit.

So another WCCW ep appeared today to fill in more gaps. I'm wondering if the much-expected tiered system will include a "classic content" tier to go with the PPV tier everyone is assuming is coming.

I've said it before the last time they did a split, and I'll say it now: There's little chance guys like Elias or the Revival get much of a shot on TV in a non brand split world since you'll have the top guys filling most of both shows. Hell, there's probably no chance you'd have two different 3 woman groups debut if everyone's on the same roster. Plus what are they going to do about their touring groups? The Smackdown guys do their swings through Mondays so they're going to have to reshuffle their lineups there as well as changing TVs/PPVs. No reason for double the belts either if it's going to be the same guys on every show, this seems like a pretty significant business change.

Flip Gordon went on a mini rant on Twitter about how the government is not to be trusted (all in reply to someone asking if he thought the Earth was flat), which was kind of an odd take from someone who's active in the National Guard.

It's almost like WWE is cashing in on the popularity of the GLOW series by remembering they used to have someone that worked for the original group. (yes, that was sarcasm) Also BRAUN with the bass is clearly the most important takeaway of this week's show.

I've seen lots of complaints at how predictable his booking is. Not that anyone was pining for Russo swerves in New Japan, but for some reason it annoys some people that things are planned 6 months to a year in advance.

All that was true, but Sabu wasn't the best wrestler in the world in 1994. He had an aura no one else had, but he was a sloppy mess as well. He was just a sloppy mess doing things that were innovative at the time.

Another reason out of a billon Russo was terrible for wrestling is that fans that grew up in his era expect booking to have tons of swerves and twists no matter if they make sense or not. Gedo's booking is predictable, but it makes sense and leads to great matches. That used to be how all wrestling was booked (or at least everyone tried to do it that way) and now it's something he gets knocked for.

Thanks for the recommandations, but I'm at this point where I'm just not interested in checking out a guy I can't stand just because he had better performances. Life's too short. Well, if that Okada match happens (yikes), I'll watch it because of Okada, but that's pretty much it. Card was too long and the Ospreay match was a legit chore to get through, especially after the multi-match involving Henare, who looks like a WCW circa 93 Barbarian rip-off and Jay White, who really is a big nothing. Gedo vs BUSHI was "fun" I guess, if you like bullshit with mask and beards. Well, not that fun, really. Too much titles (in every damn match, please, is this Crockett in 88 ?). Too much gaijins. Too much sameness in the tropes. But that's modern NJ wrestling for you. Enjoyed the opener with the roided rookie Kitamura being schooled by veteran Nagata (who's sporting the cool old All Asia tag belt). The Junior tag-team match was very good with a super solid performance from Desperado & Kanemaru. Enjoyed the Fuyuki-Gun multi-match because they kept it moving and Suzuki vs Makabe is at least intriguing on a "can Suzuki carry Makabe to a fun match" level. Naito vs YOSHI-HASHI was very good/excellent, Goto vs EVIL was good (but by then I was annoyed and tired because of the series of mediocre matches). Okada vs SANADA was great and all about selling and psychology as opposed to do a bunch of big moves and no-selling them. Simple, slow paced but took the time to build, reminded me of a 90's match. Probably even MOTYC caliber for me. So I can't complain, really, but you could scratch a good hour from the show. And I'm guessing the English broadcast made things worst, I'm only getting the Japanese version now, don't want to hear Kelly babble about star ratings. Funny you should mention JCP, as Gedo is a big fan of that era.

He was the black guy who was the ring announcer mostly in Philadelphia and was found to be one of the key figures of the sex scandal WWF was involved in the early 90s. Namely he was found to have been molesting and abusing ring boys for years.

Seems like they just dumped the On Demand versions to the Network, because there was an edict that came down that Mel Phillips would not be shown. Funny thing about it is that whole segment appeared uncut on another video before that change was made and it is still intact.

As long as it's woman on woman I doubt it. It's men beating up women that isn't a good look these days, and frankly never was.

I would say 1 through 4 are provably true and point 5 can be assumed to be true based on how things are presented.

From what I've seen written Road Dogg was always in charge, he just got a change in title to make it official.

Every promoter stole music, Heyman was just the last one to do it.

Previously anything on the main roster (and obvious jokes aside 205 Live is the main roster) was Vince's domain. HHH getting control of anything beyond NXT seems like one of those things that you look back on and realize was the start of a major change. For Vince to allow someone else creative control like that is kind of unheard of.

When you think about it, it's kind of amazing major companies would use actual music on TV/video releases and seemingly never think there would be a problem with that. Sure, you can say 80s WWF would not have been able to predict DVDs, streaming, OTT and all that but did they think having Ricky Steamboat come out to Sirius would never become an issue? JCP never stopped to think that having guys come out to popular music on a show airing on a nationally available superstation would not come back to bite them? ECW could almost be excused since their whole persona was being the rebel underground promotion that didn't give a shit about things like music rights, but almost all the other edits that happen are solely due to promotional arrogance.

Funny thing about Lashley, is that there's a good chance he only existed in the WWE in the first place because they got turned down by Bob Sapp and seemingly decided to "create their own".

Sometimes with rare stuff you take what you can get, but something like ECW is so widely available unedited it's hard to watch the Network versions. Most of them honestly aren't too bad, but someone like New Jack or Sandman loses everything that made them unique with their original music dubbed out. Like Boogie Woogie's music being dubbed out isn't too bad because it's just happy music for him to come out to, but New Jack's whole match being done without Natural Born Killers defeats the whole point.

Mookie did a breakdown on what "exceptionally cleared" means on the Wrestlenomics podcast and the only two options are that the State Attorney found conflicting testimony or that they flat out didn't want to proceed on the case. Considering the police report made it clear the cops felt the case was solid enough seems to imply the latter.

Spud giving the 205 crew the "Ric Flair yelling at Carlito" treatment was very telling in light of the change in creative. Edit: to expand for those who don't watch the show: Spud (who is basically playing the role of HHH's avatar) is telling guys they're too talented to be wasting time doing comedy stuff and he wants them to knock it off and be the stars they are capable of being.

Booker wasn't great, but he was the unpolished non-corporate voice WWE TV badly needs when everything is scripted to death in WWE lingo. Coach is better in terms of announcing ability but he's just WWE announcebot #708908 out there.

Coach became extremely smarmy and holier-than-thou once he started working for ESPN. He just sounded like he thought he was above everyone else on any show he did, which is funny because for most of the time he was there he was a fill in host on the radio side. His tweet after Ronda's losses that WWE would never touch her because she's now damaged goods hasn't aged well, and I hope he gets shit about it on a regular basis.

Rajah? That's a blast from the past.

The Alexa Bliss collection is up now, and it's amazing how her "sparkle princess" era in NXT already seems like Hunter's blue blood phase in terms of something that seemingly was a million years ago in a different timeline.