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Well, specific to Evolve, it's deeper than that: From WON coverage, Dave's social media and audio, etc, you'd barely know the promotion existed, which is weird if just because of the WWE deal (and Gabe now being a consultant in NXT). Once, someone on Twitter asked Dave why he doesn't review Evolve shows and he gave a "reading is your friend, I did in the new issue" reply when he didn't review the latest shows, he just gave the results. Online and in the WON, he gave the attendance for the last NYC show as 150-200ish, when literally everyone else said it was about 450-600, which is a big difference. "Dave Meltzer doesn't watch Evolve" is now enough of a thing that Ethan Page joked about it with ACH on their show on FloSlam. There are a bunch of Wrestling Twitter conspiracy theories about it and I don't really buy any of them, but I get why people find it weird and want an explanation. Doesn't help that Dave doesn't reply when asked if he watches Evolve, or about other Evolve-related stuff, on top of the perception that he's not covering various issues within ROH. The ROH stuff was weird, there was a time there was clearly some shit going on with people unhappy and/or leaving and he seemed to go out of his way to not mention it past the most basic "this is a thing that happened and I won't say more about it".

It's really a chicken and egg argument here, Braun shouldn't get the belt because it has no value, but nothing would give the belt value faster than putting it on Braun. Right now is the best example of "wrestler makes the belt" since the Universal Title has gone from the first champ vacating after a day, to a guy who had it literally handed to him and pushed as undeserving, to a retired guy doing a comeback tour, to a part timer. From a business standpoint it seems like the best way to go: elevate the top title on the A show, they don't have to feel the need to keep paying Brock $5 million a year while being eternally locked in cost cutting mode, and instead of making Braun look vulnerable they can just position him like the final boss of a fighting game. If WWE is feeling especially frisky, you can book it so beating Braun can be the last nudge to create a new star, and....fuck....I just gave them another way to try to get Roman over, didn't I?

Also there's the issue of the head of Anthem apparently being the source of a lot of frustration. Jarrett wanted to bring in Alberto as a surprise, only to have pics of his arrival at the airport get posted on the Anthem head's Twitter. He also was the one who was said to have fucked up whatever deal was nearly finalized to allow the Hardys to have the Broken gimmick back, leading to one of Reby's infamous meltdowns. Jeff having to deal with someone who doesn't understand the wrestling business and by all accounts has the people skills of a wet paper bag was probably not helping with his personal issues. It would be amazing if this all ended with WWE owning the TNA library and Jeff going back to running spot shows with the GFW banner.

Promoting wrestling or any fighting sport on the promise of great matches and no storylines has never really drawn big mainstream interest. We know what does draw, and we saw that with Floyd/Conor, which did more than any wrestling show will in the next 10 years. Everyone knew that was going to suck too. Well... Now how much did Wagner/Clown make compared to Floyd and Connor? We know Wagner/Parka were selling their mask match for $100,000 a few years ago and we know Floyd is making around $300 million off Floyd/Connor. Wagner made about $255k for losing his mask, which is apparently the largest payout anyone's ever received for a mask loss. Also there's scale involved as TripleMania wasn't being offered on PPV for $99 either.

Well for one you'd have a champ who'd be around for more than a couple shows a year. It wouldn't "magically make him more over" but it would help the title to be around more, and possibly help get other people over by having programs with him. Plus it would be unlikely that Braun would be placed in bad scenarios since he's literally the walking embodiment of everything Vince has ever wanted in a wrestler.

Why does he need to wait though? If Brock was ushering in a new boom period I would get wanting to be patient, but he's not and you have someone who's hot so why not strike now and see what happens?

You'd think putting the title on Braun would be a no brainer. He's everything Brock brings to the table in terms of being a big scary monster who can toss people around, a better promo, is available full time, and comes at a fraction of the cost. I actually still like Brock, but Braun is so clearly the better choice on top I don't see any way you can argue otherwise.

He was out of shape and.... shall we say... Scott Hall like, at Triplemania. I admit I was kind of zoning out during that match since it was horrible for many reasons, but I was hoping he was just playing up the Ugly American gimmick he does in Mexico. It seems that wasn't the case though. The suddenness of this makes me think that maybe someone did an intervention on him, and I hope if that's the case he gets cleaned up.

The guy currently using the Mistico name is the second one, who is Rush and Dragon Lee's brother. The original is working as Caristico now.

so Jeff Jarrett announced he was taking a leave of absence from the company today. Hopefully everything's okay, but the reason given was "personal issues".

...or what if I told you those people were also enjoying wrestling and wanting the best for it, but their idea of what's best is different? The whole concept of "anything I don't like is dumb and people who like what I don't are also dumb" is one of the more toxic things in wrestling fandom right now.

I mean, don't most forms of entertainment pander to some degree? Is what PWG doing any different than when movie studios make "Oscar bait" films?

Well that escalated quickly. Always great to see enlightened debate here on the ol' Pee Dub Oh.

Yeah but we know Cena's one of the best promos in the company and Roman getting the better of him tonight was like when I sell for my five year old when we play wrestle. Like we know he can own Roman at will, we literally just saw it last week, so his promo this week was screaming "either I'm letting him win or I've suffered a head injury that limited my ability to speak". I get the feeling that they're going to go back and forth each week to build the idea that each guy can make the other seem "gotten to", but it's just going to make it clear Cena wins by destroying him on the mic and Roman only wins if John doesn't respond and/or backs down. Because Cena is much better at this than Roman and he has to noticeably dial it back to make it seem like a fair fight.

Cena still comes across as more natural, even when he's clearly holding back. Roman still seems forced, even though he remembered his lines this week. Cena was the big brother letting the little brother win.

Clean shaven Big Show looks like a thinner King Kong Bundy and it kind of freaks me out.

I just realized a Gran Metallik and Enzo tag team would be the perfect WWE tag team since Enzo talks as well as Gran wrestles.

Bo Dallas turning into a sleazy porn producer more and more each week has been an interesting side note of Raw.

Cena Destroys Roman, Round 2 going on as we speak.

Also every logical rule of pro wrestling would mean either GFW or AAA would run a match between the two to make money off this, but remember both companies are famous for stepping on their own dicks (AAA is very much the GFW of Lucha only with better TV clearances).

I feel like that reporter guy who was working on the big expose on Don Jr's involvement with the Russians and then he just blurted it all out himself on Twitter. I've heard stories about Sexy Star being an egotistical diva even by wrestling standards, and then she just puts it all out there herself. So much to unpack here, not the least of how it comes off racist (not sure if that's the right word here but bear with me) to go with the "blame the Gringo" defense. As if Rosemary had some kind of master plan to ruin the good name of someone she's never worked with before or would probably ever work with again in a nothing match. She also seems to be under the impression that as long as her arm was still attached and there was no bone sticking out there was no injury. That seems especially laughable considering both her and her husband have trained in boxing in addition to her wrestling training, so the odds are pretty slim she's never seen someone get hurt without there being carnage involved. Not to mention Rosemary specifically mentioned that she was trying to keep calm since she didn't want to risk getting sent to a Mexican prison for beating Sexy's face in. Finally it's absolutely hi-fucking-larious she says she has the highest respect for wrestling considering she tried to claim she didn't know she was expected to defend (and probably lose) the AAA Mixed Tag Titles, retired from wrestling to go into boxing rather than drop the AAA women's title, and then demand the belt back for her to return causing Taya to get fucked out of the title. Not to mention the lingering rumors that she's only around in the first place because Vampiro either was fucking her or wants to (allegedly of course).

There was some buzz around SummerSlam weekend that he was in NYC for some reason, that seems to have sparked a lot of the "OMG HE'S RETURNING" talk.

As someone who doesn't watch Shimmer or any other women's fed, I was digging Piper's matches. Having said that, I couldn't shake the thought that Vince would immediately make her Bertha Faye 2017 if she ever made to to the main roster.

She seems to have more options on the table than most US based indy women, so the typical lowball NXT offer might not have the same appeal to her.

Just seeing people like Taz going off about not believing what the mean internet people are saying about the reason JBL is leaving and I haven't heard anything other than what WWE put out,