NintendoLogic

Thankfully, he no longer has to do embarrassing lowbrow wedding angles in WWE. Now that he's in AEW, he can do serious sports-based wedding angles.

Actually, a promotion that consists entirely of the Elite being murdered by brawlers and hosses sounds like the perfect 2020 pro wrestling promotion to me. Also, I've never seen so much as a millisecond of BTE, so what happens there has no impact on my enjoyment. They can do all the dorky shit they want on a non-canon Internet show. Moving on, I continue to maintain that Vickie Guerrero brings absolutely nothing to the table. Jake Roberts and Tully Blanchard have been cutting awesome promos, but it's questionable whether those promos have been getting their clients over. Vickie doesn't even do that. She just screeches a catchphrase that jumped the shark a decade ago.

Precisely my point. It's a 1998 Sean Waltman promo in 2020. That "I've got some things to get off my chest about that other promotion" shit is beyond played out. It's as lame as doing crotch chops. Moxley and Brodie Lee hinted at that approach, but they also came across as dangerous men with chips on their shoulders. Miro didn't do anything to make you think he's going to be a serious asskicker. AEW has earned the benefit of the doubt, so I'm willing to let things play out. But right before joining the company, he tried to pick a fight with Meltzer over his reporting on Lana and produced a video calling Randy Orton the greatest heel of all time, so I'm fearing the worst.

In fairness, 36 years is an eternity in this company. However, the Briscos were supposed to have jobs for life as a condition of the GCW sale. Just goes to show that a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

I've been a Conti fan ever since the last Mae Young Classic. I even thought she acquitted herself well in that atrocious tag team tournament. She's still rough around the edges, but she's awesome when she's ragdolling people with judo throws and takedowns. Having her debut against Nyla Rose was like having Rey Mysterio debut against Dean Malenko.

So did Rusev really cut a TNA-style worked shoot promo?

Very poor choice of words, my man.

The thing about WWE is that the cream does eventually rise to the top as long as you're capable of branching out and reinventing yourself. Benoit, Guerrero, Danielson, and even Asuka have shown that. The super workers who get lost in the shuffle have historically been guys like Vader and William Regal who could only really work their own style and forced everyone to conform to them.

The bigger issue is that Thatcher (and everyone else in NXT, for that matter) isn't in the same galaxy as Benoit as a performer. Benoit could be plugged into pretty much any style and excel. Thatcher can only work his own esoteric style.

I have to say that the Sydal/Shockmaster comparisons are seriously overblown. The problem with the Shockmaster went well beyond his entrance. It was an attempt to repackage Tugboat as a main eventer by putting a glittery Stormtrooper helmet on him and having Ole Anderson cut promos in a Dr. Claw voice. It would have sucked ass even if the entrance had gone off without a hitch. In fact, he probably did WCW a favor by mercy killing the gimmick right out the gate. I'm sure anybody who would purchase an AEW PPV knows who Matt Sydal is and likely has seen him successfully hit a shooting star press hundreds of times. Brock Lesnar was able to live down nearly breaking his neck attempting a SSP in the main event of Wrestlemania. Sydal will be fine.

That's because he spent part of his childhood in Cleveland.

I'm sure part of the reason for hesitancy in calling off the match was the stipulation that Matt would have had to leave AEW had he lost. The lesson here (well, one of them) is to never book matches with stipulations you have no intention of delivering on because sometimes shit happens and the match has to be stopped.

I get the impression that they're keeping the details as vague as possible to see how far the talent will allow them to go. You would think that trying to assert control over all outside endeavors, even under their real names, would obviously result in serious pushback. But after what went down in Saudi Arabia, all bets are off.

Paige changed her Twitch name to SarayaOfficial, so Lana can change the name of her IG account to realcjperry or whatever if that's the sticking point. Like I said in the other thread, she most likely has SAG membership from her previous movie roles. She should seriously consider getting them involved if it goes beyond what her social media is called.

Meltzer says that Lana promoting Bang Energy drinks on her IG account was the straw that broke the camel's back. She most likely has SAG membership from her movie roles. WWE might actually be in trouble if they got involved.

I expect Vince to respond to this by bringing back Jimmy Wang Yang and inducting him into the Kiss My Ass Club.

I'm no expert in copyright law, but that doesn't sound remotely legal to me. Especially for independent contractors.

For those of you who remember the periodic conversations on this board about how far heels were able to go to get heat in the old days, there's a hilarious story in the latest Observer about how Beauregarde nearly got Portland Wrestling thrown off the air in 1970 by saying he was going to have his tag team partner The Claw kill the Easter Bunny. The station was flooded with angry phone calls and forced him to issue an immediate apology.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet on Riddle winning and getting screwed by Corbin at the PPV. Because every single one of Corbin's feuds has to be interminably dragged out while the guy he's feuding with mysteriously ends up nowhere near as over as he had been previously.

There's no way that's a recent IG story, right? I mean, he can't possibly be that stupid, can he? Nevertheless, the only Chad in WWE was Gable, and now he's Shorty G. Pretty symbolic if you ask me.

You're alive!

Rumor has it that NXT will be moving permanently to Tuesday nights. If so, it'll be none too soon. All the hotshot title changes and gimmick matches out the wazoo in an attempt to kneecap AEW have damaged the product seemingly beyond repair.

Shawn may be a convenient scapegoat, but do we really think Cole and Gargano would be having stripped-down minimalist classics if not for his baleful influence? We're in a more-is-more era across the board.

KENTA/Marufuji was notable because it was two juniors competing for a major Japanese heavyweight title, which was unprecedented at the time. Unfortunately, the show bombed at the gate (although it should be noted that the undercard was atrocious), so NOAH panicked and put the belt on Misawa at the next Budokan show. As far as KENTA singles matches go, my favorite is the one against Kensuke Sasaki on 7/18/08. It didn't get much attention because it happened during NOAH's death spiral (I only discovered it fairly recently myself), but it's an absolute banger. By the way, count me among those who doesn't understand the appeal of Akiyama/Inoue. It's the kind of match that makes me wonder what the point was after it's over. Inoue is never a serious threat to win and he's not enough of a weasel that I can take pleasure in seeming him get put in his place, so it ends up just being a depressing exercise in futility.

Condolences to brother @C.S.. Also, Brock is officially a free agent. I don't know if AEW has any realistic shot at him, but the prospect of a Brock/Darby Allin match has me positively giddy.