sek69

I was thinking more in a kayfabe sense that the guy who got famous telling everyone to suck it and do blackface skits is now the voice of reason trying to get folks to not make poor decisions.

Its apples and oranges because media rights for sports (including WWE in this context) ballooned tremendously in the last decade or so since networks are desperate to overpay for the one thing that doesn't have declining viewership. If the exact same situation with WCW happens today, there would at least be some network willing to toss money at it. If Anthem/Fight Network bought Impact, someone would have taken the plunge with WCW.

It really seals the deal that we're in an alternate timeline when HHH and HBK (in NXT) are now the voices of reason cautioning against risky behavior.

Sure wasn't expecting Trish barking like a dog to be brought up in all this

What in the Kanye are those shades Becky is wearing?

Its weird to me that the guy who was defending the honor of WWE against Logan Paul is now being booked as one of the greats worthy of the new world championship. Like we're supposed to forget about months of cackling Joker Seth?

Cody should have said "MAKE IT GOOD" before Brock broke his arm.

Rhea and Dom look like different people out of character

It's such a pro wrestling thing to happen that Dakota blew out her knee trying to protect Liv's injury.

NJPW Strong just announced a women's title, and the champion will be decided in a mini tournament with WIllow Nightingale, Momo Kohgo, Stephanie Vaquer from CMLL, and Mercedes Mone. I wonder who's going to win......

Even Bruno thought it was crazy to take the belt off him when he was drawing huge houses all over the territory. My only guess is babyface Superstar would have been full bore sports entertainer and I don't think Sr knew what to do with that.

That's not really fair considering WCW had all their TV canceled and made them as coveted as a turd in a punch bowl. If that hadn't happened it would have been sold for way more. Not $9 billion of course, but significantly more than $4.2 mil.

This all smacks of Punk trying to get everything he wants because he knows AEW wants him back to help kick off the new show, and I don't blame him for that.....but why would anyone go to the mat for fucking Ace Steel? I know their history and all but potentially blowing some big paydays over him is some real "cutting off your nose to spite your face" energy. If this ends up keeping him from returning, he's either an idiot or he never really wanted to come back and is just making ridiculous requests until they tell him to fuck off Then he can make more whiny Instagram stories about how everyone is mean to him. This man is just so exhausting.

Doing a nice package honoring Superstar was a really nice gesture when you consider he's the one guy Vince would be justified being a grudge holding asshole towards.

I loved the interaction when he bumped into Solo. I've thought for a while the end game is Roman pushing his luck too far and getting murked by Solo, and it looks like that might be where we're heading. Solo has that "Taz in ECW" vibe (probably no accident considering who's got a hand in booking this), and him going on a murder spree is going to be awesome.

While the steroids certainly did their damage, the drinking might have been Graham's worst enemy. He drank himself into needing a liver transplant, and then promptly ended up with cirrhosis in that one too. It's most likely the cause of all his mood swings toward Vince/WWE and the reason he'd go back with his hand out when he needed money. I've always wondered if Vince had a soft spot for him even after all the bullshit since he's the type of guy who would have got a megapush under VKM but his dad insisted on sticking with Bob Backlund. I've often theorized that's why he became such a "body guy", there was clearly still some mileage in Graham as champ but Sr had to keep his word to Howdy Doody instead.

I mean no matter what TK was going to outlast Vince, even if he's doing his damndest to make up the 40 year cocaine head start Vince had.

So in the WBD upfront, they mentioned how the new Max service (the combined HBO Max and Discovery+) is going to have live sports in addition to all the other content. All In isn't being called a PPV on any of the advertising, and while it could be a loss leader to get eyes on the product it would make more sense to have it as a special event for the corporate partner's new streaming service. Putting all the pieces together it sure looks like AEW and WBD signed a new deal that not only pays them more for Collision but seems to include streaming as well. It wouldn't make sense for them to throw Dark/After Dark overboard unless they had some kind of exclusive streaming deal in place. They used those shows to give looks to unsigned talent and give reps to folks not getting regular TV time, and while adding Collison helps with the TV time issue, getting rid of a place to give talent a look doesn't really seem like a smart business move unless you just got paid a boatload of cash by your TV partner.

Hangman reuniting with the Elite was some good shit, pal.

That was quite the surreal moment hearing the announcers react in real time to Superstar's passing as Jericho was suplexing Roddy Strong through a table.

So there seems to be rumblings that point to the AEW video game (finally) getting released in June. Apparently you can pre-load it on Xbox systems which is something that only happens near launch, and it would fit in with TK wanting June to be a massive month with Collision debuting. It also looks like some if all of the delay came from needing to retool some things to keep a T rating, perhaps there was a Jon Moxley mode where the goal was to bleed on as many things as possible

The product is hot, but honestly it's just a bonus when it is. They were doing just fine before they got hot, not making as much money of course, but you have shows like Mania and the Rumble that sell out before any matches are announced (well the Rumble always has at least 2 matches announced, but you know what I mean). Of course Vince is a shitbag of world class proportions, but he is also undoubtedly the greatest wrestling promoter in history. He got WWE to the point where it was basically idiot proofed by getting massive TV deals, and then getting Endeavor to pay way more than anyone thought to buy it.

it feels weird to call someone like him underrated, but he kind of is how he obviously influenced so many.

The best thing Vince did was get WWE to the point where it basically runs itself. As long as they keep getting TV money, they will always be profitable. The pandemic was probably the worst case scenario in terms of potential disasters, and they really didn't miss a beat. With the Thunderdome deal they managed to return to a level of normalcy no other sport was able to, and other than the initial few weeks where the whole world was trying to figure out wtf to do next they just kept on trucking.

With an added pinch of the WWE trope of having people playing cops who are way too believably young to be one.