Coffey

I don't know how true to reality this is, but from what I've seen on social media such as Twitter & Instagram, the only people defending the current Alexa direction are people that are sexually attracted to her. In which, I'm pretty sure they're going to defend her no matter what. Alexa is endearing. So is Nikki Cross, honestly. But I can't get into Wrestlecrap & both of them currently have Wrestlecrap gimmicks to me.

The WWE 24/7 title... more attempts at comedy.

Watching some of RAW tonight & I think that I have pinpoint one of my biggest issues with modern WWE: everyone is trying to be a comedian, but no one is funny. The only thing the show is missing is a laugh track. Baron Corbin is poor, isn't that hilarious? The Miz & Morrison, so funny! Alexa Bliss & her doll, so funny! RKOBro, so funny! It's a lame attempt at being a variety show & they do nothing but fail at comedy.

I felt the same way about Triple H's sledgehammer. Like, if you hit a motherfucker with a damn sledgehammer... it's over. It killed suspension of disbelief. Drew McIntyre's sword nowadays too.

Yeah, Ember Moon is beautiful, anyone that saw her in her Athena days can attest to that... but Vince McMahon is the guy that Jim Ross had to explain to that some people would find Gail Kim attractive, so it's probably a lost cause at this point. Her being over thirty is probably not going to do her favors now either, let alone the fact she's gotten injured & not exactly been used well while around the last several years either. Also it's not a good sign that they brought back Johnny Ace either. I expect a lot more Eva Marie molds.

I feel like women's wrestling is probably the biggest area that I disagree with Cornette about. He rarely can even convey his point about women without it coming across as sexist. Often he'll even completely write them off & not watch their stuff. Which is odd as he very obviously loves Charlotte Flair & Rhea Ripley & will go out of his way to both watch & praise them. I do agree that a lot of people seemingly rate the women on a curve also, which probably doesn't help matters. That was somewhat mentioned in the AEW section about how people tend to overrate the women & I think that does more harm than good. Same kind of thing that I think hurts the Bucks & Omega when Meltzer puts them on a pedestal. Jim is also not super fond of Japanese wrestling, which most of my favorite all-time matches involving a lot of my favorite all-time wrestlers like Stan Hansen, happened in Japan. Also, he often makes jokes, jokes that you can tell he's been making for years, and a lot of younger, more modern fans don't realize he's joking & take his stuff out of context. When there's a mob mentality & tribalism in pro-wrestling now, everyone is always looking for the next thing to get mad about & Cornette frequently stokes that fire. I would even argue he does that purposely. The stoking, not the outdated jokes. I think the outdatedness just comes from the fact that he's almost 60-years-old & isn't great with technology. So he's not exactly up to date with how the world, especially the internet, has changed around him. Hell if you've just listened to him try to talk about his recent internet problems or his e-mail problems you can tell he doesn't have the first single clue about anything computer related. It's actually somewhat fascinating to me that he leans Democratic politically when you consider a lot of his other views & how he's from Kentucky. That's why Meltzer making the Trump comment set him off so much. Ultimately, I like Jim Cornette & I like AEW. I don't have to like everything that either of them same or do but I can still like them both without having to choose one or the other. Too many people, especially on websites like Twitter, seem to think everything is either a this or that decision & it's just not.

I mean, honestly, Cornette is over-the-top with the way he phrases shit - certainly when he's in the middle of a rant - but ultimately, his takes on modern wrestling more align with mine than pretty much anyone else in the podcast world. And them referring to Meltzer as the 60-year-old at a K-pop concert is about as spot on the nose as you can get.

I actually think this is the biggest knock against Adam Cole.

There's a group of guys, of which I would include Sid, where the coming out, hitting their finish & going to the back was enough to make me mark out. They didn't need to work a whole match & certainly nothing beyond like a squash. But like Kevin Nash or Sid coming out & hitting the Powerbomb on someone was always entertaining. Or when Austin would come out & Stun everyone. Or when Sting would show up just to hit the Scorpion Death Drop. Those were always the moments that would make me mark out. I'll take a run-in with hitting a finish over a beatdown any day of the week.

I remember watching a WCW B-show in the late 90's during the Nitro era. I want to say it was WCW Saturday Night. Beautiful Bobby Eaton Vs. Alex Wright. Bobby Eaton not only did the job for Wright but Wright got to kick out of the Alabama Jam too. Even then I remember thinking "no way someone kicks out of that." I also remember a short stint Eaton had in ECW where they were trying to get over his "Eaton" punch against C.W. Anderson's "Anderson" punch. The next Jim Cornette podcast is going to be must-listen for me. Like Phil mentioned above, love him or hate him, there's no question how much Eaton meant to Cornette, so I foresee a really somber & sad show but with some great stories & reminiscing. I'm sure Dave Meltzer's obituary will be great too. Also wanted to put the GoFundMe in here too: https://gofund.me/9ae0ba09 Jericho & Janela are two of the top donators. Would be such a Bobby Eaton thing if some how in his passing, it brought Cornette back to speaking terms with people like Meltzer again. Would also love to see ProWrestlingTees do a charity shirt sale in his honor.

If someone were to make the case for Bobby Eaton being the greatest tag wrestler of all-time, they wouldn't get any argument from me. He's definitely in top contention.

Devastating. One of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all-time & by all accounts, a pretty damn good man too. Rest in Peace.

Chris Jericho has to make the next town in a car ride with Raven.

The internet & social media have made everyone become increasingly more & more outlandish. You can't just say "this sucks" because no one will care & it will be ignored. However, and you see this in sports television nowadays too with the likes of Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless, if you make a completely over-the-top comment, people might pay attention. You can't just say "LeBron James might not be in the best player in the NBA anymore" because no one will pay attention & it doesn't ruffle feathers. But if Skip Bayless says "LeBron James isn't in the top 20!" suddenly people will pay attention if just to tell him that he's wrong. It's the same with pro wrestling, especially from people on social media that have very small followings & want to get noticed. "I'm not sure if Vince McMahon has got it anymore" will be ignored & forgotten. "Vince McMahon is a cancer & I hope he dies" might get someone with a bigger following to quote tweet them to say they're sick & suddenly they're famous for a day. Politics do the same thing. It's sad but that's the world we live in right now.

Am I crazy or is history repeating itself & WWE constantly making the same mistakes that they used to lambast dying days WCW for? The awful characters, shitty promos, production gaffes, talent in shambles, using stars from yesterday, etc. It's like I'm taking crazy pills.

and won Money in the Bank & is in the women's title match at SummerSlam.

I hope the sold out Chicago crowd drowns Nikki A.S.H.'s wrestlecrap gimmick out of the building. I don't care if Nikki came up with it herself. I don't care if Nikki is a great person off screen. The shit sucks & when shit sucks it should be booed. See also: Alexa Bliss. I don't care how attractive she is. I fully expect Goldberg to be trolled with "WHAT!?" chants as well.

I guess with Ric Flair asking for & being granted his WWE release we should see what Barry Windham is up to? Seeing as how Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard are both already in AEW. It's going to lead to a IV Horsemen beat down on Cody or something, surely.

So Adam Cole's contract is rumored to be expiring post SummerSlam. If he leaves NXT/WWE, that seems huge, especially as he's friends with so many people in AEW & of course, Brit Baker is there. If AEW get Punk, Danielson & Cole, my goodness, can you imagine? Really makes me wish Joe didn't go back to NXT/WWE.

They could start with Matt Hardy, The Gunn Club, Jake the Snake, Luther & Vickie. I don't think they should have brought in Christian either, even if he can work. Definitely shouldn't be running Matt Hardy Vs. Christian in 2021. An issue with AEW right now seems to be that a lot of people that look like they're dead weight are also doing stuff behind the scenes, like training & what not. So they bring in someone like Mark Henry or Paul Wight & they have other non-wrestling duties. So like, Daniels, Nakazawa, Best Friends, QT, Dustin, I don't even know what all everyone is doing but they seem to have several of those. If Punk & Bryan are both coming in those are two huge gets & they can use them to make their own stars brighter. Adam Page, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara, Jungle Boy, Wardlow, Powerhouse Hobbs. I'd use Orange Cassidy as a special attraction but never actually push him as a legitimate wrestler. They need to push the tag team aspect of the show a lot more seriously too. Not just the Young Bucks hamming it up. FTR, Santana & Ortiz, even The Butcher & The Blade. In the women's division, Britt Baker has turned into a legitimate star & now they have Thunder Rosa & Serena as well, which is great, but that division is still way too thin. Tay Conti is developing nicely & Shida is pretty good but it will run stale quickly when you only have a rotation of about five women. Miro, Moxley, MJF & Omega can all be the upper card/main event guys that get cycled around with incoming stars & homegrown people they want to elevate. Andrade needs to do his talking in the ring & when not wrestling have someone else talk for him entirely. I wouldn't mind a Lucha style stable with like Fenix, Pentagon & Andrade then get someone like Dario Cueto/Cesar Duran to be their manager/mouthpiece.

I look forward to Bray being able to work elsewhere & cut a promo without having to worry about the "what!?" chants. What I don't want is another "that other place sucked!" promo.

Like how do these releases not absolutely shatter any morale that exists behind the curtain? Like these firing are completely blindsiding people. And there's a lot of relationships behind the scenes that are just disappearing on a whim.

Some of the recent WWE releases have felt really peculiar to me. They're just all over the place. Cutting someone like Lars Sullivan made sense but in 2021 alone, WWE has released so many people, a lot of which were even on current TV when they cut them. Andrade, Tyler Breeze & Fandango, Ruby Riott, Lana, Buddy Murphy, Aleister Black, Braun Strowman, The IIConics... citing "budget cuts" for the reason for, I think, all of them? Now Bray Wyatt too. It's just really odd. If it were really budgetary reasons, when they're making the most money they ever have, they could have easily released people that wouldn't have had nearly as much name value & probably saved comparable money. Like, yes, a person like Bray or Braun is going to earn more than someone that is like off-TV developmental talent, but just go to WWE.com & look at the Superstars page to see how massive their roster still is.

"AEW is where they are." How very enlightening.

Because he didn't go to my school. That anime nerd would have been tormented relentlessly by the rednecks. Living in Indiana our high school dynamic was a lot different from the movies. The country boys that worked on cars all day were the kids that didn't get fucked with. Them corn detasseling hamhocks. And being an MMA fighter with a pretty OK record doesn't mean anything if we're in the way back machine talking about high school. I don't love AEW Omega but I'm not going to pretend the shit he did in NJPW didn't happen. I'm not writing that dude off. I hate his current character but him in a main event is still going to be money. Can't deny his talent. And Chris Jericho, I'm not a fan of old bloated Jericho hamming it up but, again, credit for that shit he did with Gage because he did a lot more than he had to take, for sure. But I do think it's time to move on from Jericho at the top end of the card. He helped AEW get started but with potentially Bryan & Punk coming in, Miro tearing it up, Hangman needing his day in the sun & the dynamic of Omega, this Pinnacle/Inner Circle stuff has ran its course. I actually think it has hurt MJF more than helped him. He feels like he's really cooled off recently & he felt can't miss a few months ago, like he was going to be one of the very top break out stars of AEW. Andrade has been a miss so far. Vickie & Jake the Snake aren't really needed/doing anything. Christian has been basically invisible. There's way too many people & it feels like they don't have time or room for them. Maybe another show changes that dynamic & maybe not. I guess we'll find out.