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Look up Hot Topic's website. Spencer's Gifts is basically that plus sex toys (yes really).

Surely, me being in Chicago is good for at least a dozen tickets sold, but whatever dude. Same! We should pitch the Bucks the idea of a PWO Club shirt to add to the Hot Topic rotation, get some of that merch gravy train to go along with Loss being a proven ticket mover.

Wonder what will happen when Vince wakes up one day and realizes all his guys were replaced by HHH guys . I've long theorized Hunter's long game was to basically do a bloodless coup. Vince is wrestling's Queen Elizabeth and will probably live forever at this rate, I don't see HHH settling for being the Prince Charles of sports entertainment. Come on Vince isn't being outmaneuvered in his own company until he's like 95. I used to think that too, but I see the chess pieces being put in place. He's got an entire ecosystem built in Orlando to replace all but the highest levels, so bit by bit everyone will end up an HHH Guy.

I think Suzuki is just another example of the voter's fetish for guys with "real fighter" cred even if most of his famous fights may have been worked to some degree or another. Also I was shocked at Lewin if for no other reason I didn't think we'd ever see anyone get in mainly based on Australia credentials. I figured it would be next to impossible for anyone to get in from the "Miscellaneous" category.

Wonder what will happen when Vince wakes up one day and realizes all his guys were replaced by HHH guys . I've long theorized Hunter's long game was to basically do a bloodless coup. Vince is wrestling's Queen Elizabeth and will probably live forever at this rate, I don't see HHH settling for being the Prince Charles of sports entertainment.

The new class is AJ Styles, Minoru Suzuki, Pedro Morales, Mark Lewin, and the Sharpe Brothers.

I figured it was for copyright reasons, but shes been using the name in NXT for a while so its funny they just realized this now.

As someone who grew up on episodic territory shows from JCP, World Class, and the UWF that always holds a special place in my heart. I've never been a fan of watching one match separately, you lose a lot of context not knowing why everything built up to what you're watching. So much of the old stuff was bulding to a crescendo that even if the week to week stuff sometimes fell flat the payoff at the end was almost always worth it. I think that's why current NJPW appeals to me, as they clearly have a path planned out to each major show.

SoCal could work since it's the Bucks' home base, New Japan drew well there, and PWG fans can see what it's like to watch a show in a building that seats more than 400.

Ruby's Lady Shield team is now called the Riott Squad because WWE gonna WWE and has to change her name to Ruby Riott.

Also there seems to be a silly amount of venom here for the Bucks/Bullet Club fans who drive up numbers at Hot Topic. When did we become the "correct" type of wrestling fan who can look down our noses at others? We all enjoy watching dudes play fighting in spandex here, let's not act like we're superior because we aged out of Hot Topic's target demo.

That reminds me, the real fun is going to be watching the WWE reaction when a firm place and date are finally announced (which is probably a good chunk of the reason everyone's being so coy about the details). Whatever random houseshow that happens to be nearby this event is about to be turned into a mega network exclusive PPV.

Dave made a good point talking about this saying that even if they don't hit 10k, Bullet Club fans have ridiculous attachment rates when it comes to buying merch per head. They're still likely to make a shit load of money even if they don't hit their goal.

I don't see it as them "sticking it to Dave" as much as them seeing it as a goal to try to achive. I'm not really into Cody as an act post WWE, but you can't deny his hustle as of late. Him and the Bucks are probably the best shot anyone has at putting together something that could hit 10k, as it seems like everything the Bucks do turns golden.

Like the entire reason for pro wrestling as a buisness is to entice people to go to the show and feel like they were part of history.

So as backstory, someone asked Dave on Twitter if he felt ROH could draw 10,000 for a show. Dave replied probably not, and Cody Rhodes saw that and took as a challenge. He and the Young Bucks announced they plan to promote a show aimed to be the first non WWE show to have a crowd over 10,000 in the US since WCW died. Clearly as over as the Bullet Club is, they can probably pop the largest non WWE crowd in a while...but 10,000 sounds like a pretty ambitious goal unless they were able to get New Japan to send some big names. My other thought is I wonder if Cody and Daniel Bryan have something worked out. They've been working a program on Twitter for a while, Bryan clearly wants to return to wrestling, and if anything has a shot to draw a 10k crowd you'd think that would be one of the matches that would get in the ballpark.

So the first season of NXT is complete, and the remaining few left for a complete series run should be up in the next day or two. Hopefully that clears the table for the rumored Mid Atlantic as the next classic content dump.

Roman, just like Cena, will be cheered as long as he's not being pushed as the main focal point of the company and out of title contention. The minute they start ramping back up for the Lesnar Mania match it will be right back to square one. The most hilarious timeline will be if the recent cheers convince the company they can get away with having Roman win the Rumble in Philly and be surprised at the outcome that will invaribly result from it.

With Taker the gimmick always had legs, corny as they might have been. From the original Grim Reaper to the evil cult leader of the Attitude Era, the we'll-pretend-this-never-happened Biker era, into the WWE Legend Taker era there's always been some substance there. Kane as a character has never really gone too far past "Taker's presumed dead brother who was burned for a while then wasn't". It was like the took one of Hogan's villians of the month from the 80s and made a 20+ year run with it.

Nice to see they finally realized that what helped get Cena past the stage where the cool thing was to boo him might just work for Roman as well (and so far it has). Namely keeping him away from the main title picture and putting him in the position to have good matches with folks.

I think part of this stems from not wanting to encourage people to jump the rails, which happened fairly regularly to both companies in the Monday Night Wars era. Ever since then, WWE has gone out of their way whenever possible to make it clear that anyone coming from the crowd is part of the show and not some rando. Also Vince's quirk of people always being in their gear no matter how ridiculous, which among other things gave us the Randy Orton Never Wears Pants meme.

The narrative they were going for was how the guy who personified everything the 80s wanted to be did so at the expense of his family, and perhaps all in the pursuit of getting validation from his parents who didn't seem to want anything to do with his chosen profession.

Not discounting Hogan's working ability, because....c'mon, but he's always been pretty open about how he knows he was never the most talented wrestler ever. His famous quote of him only knowing how to do 3 things but doing them better than anyone says it all. I can see Hulk being comfortable saying Flair was a better technical wrestler than him because he knows he was far more successful doing what he did than Ric was.

As someone who ends up having to watch everything kid related that comes out (my son is 5), Ferdinand looks better than most movies targeting that audience. I'd expect it to do very well, and I hope Dave doesn't try to downplay it since it won't beat Star Wars.

That's what I was hoping. I really wish this can be the year we finally break the lucha logjam.