NintendoLogic

If you watch Savage/Steamboat, it may have been meticulously planned out and rehearsed beforehand, but there were no sequences that were too complicated to have been called on the fly. That's the key for me. Plan it out if you must, but don't choreograph it to such a degree that you lose the feeling of spontaneity.

Yeah, I don't get the vitriol toward this @SmoothS fella at all. He may be out of step with the board consensus in some ways, but he hasn't tried to derail any threads or engaged in personal attacks. Let's not go back to the days of people being reluctant to express opinions out of fear of being piled on and shouted down.

Are they trying to set up a feud with Rob Liefeld? Awful.

I won't say this gimmick is completely dead on arrival because New Japan has more than earned the benefit of the doubt, but it doesn't look promising.

Samoa Joe is apparently retired. On a somewhat related note, word on the street is that Kairi Sane's status with the company is "complicated" and she could be transitioning to a non-wrestling role. Thanks a lot, Nia and Charlotte.

I recall him being somewhat heelish in his tag match with Iizuka against the Steiners in WCW, but that's all that comes to mind off the top of my head.

Update: 121. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue/Yoshinari Ogawa (AJPW, 6/3/93) On the whole, I find the Misawa/Kawada six-mans to be rather underwhelming. Kawada wasn't quite as strong as Jumbo in kayfabe, so Taue had to carry more of the load for his side and move beyond being the designated punching bag. However, that meant a Kawada/Taue/Fuchi team would have no real kayfabe weaknesses. As a result, the third slot was usually filled by Ogawa, which was a significant step down. Ogawa's best work is as a weasel who catches opponents off-guard with roll-ups and eye pokes, which doesn't really lend itself to high-end trios action as well as Fuchi the master torturer. With all that said, this is easily the best post-Jumbo All Japan six-man in my book thanks to a world-class FIP performance from Kikuchi and Ogawa mostly staying out of the way. I really liked how they demonstrated that Ogawa and especially Kikuchi were in way over their heads. Kikuchi treats Taue like he's Andre the Giant, being unable to knock him off his feet or execute even basic suplexes and hiptosses. Again, the obvious highlight of the match is the horrific beatdown on Kikuchi. If someone were to claim that it was on par with the one in the Can-Ams match, I wouldn't argue the point. In addition to his selling, what makes him such a great FIP is the way he combines absorbing Japanese-style offense with American-style hope spots. Misawa has an awesome hot tag, and there are some fantastic exchanges between Kawada and Kobashi down the stretch. Kikuchi and Ogawa exchanging nearfalls isn't the ideal finishing run, but it doesn't go long enough to be truly offensive. It helps that much the attention goes toward Kobashi and Taue brawling on the outside. ****1/2

Shutting it down seems like the most likely scenario. The brand is a money pit and they've accomplished their goal of killing the UK scene, so it had long outlived its usefulness even without all the recent allegations. Also, it matches Vince's modus operandi, as the XFL's employees were notified that the league was suspending operations via conference call. That does leave the question of what to do with WALTER since he's made it clear that he has no desire to relocate to the US.

Who's excited for more CONTRACT SIGNINGS~!?! I know I am!

I have the Hansen book, and he discusses his refusal to drop the AWA title in it. The funny thing is, his telling of the story is actually less flattering to him than the prevailing version. The way it's usually told is that he walked out with the belt because he thought Verne was trying to double-cross Baba, who had paid for the rights to promote Hansen as AWA champion and had booked title defenses in Japan. The way Hansen tells it, he simply told Verne that he wasn't ready to drop the belt because he hadn't had a chance to make money with it. He also took umbrage at the fact that Verne only notified him of the planned title change in the locker room the night of the show, but he didn't make that out to be a deciding factor.

"Karen" has become a catch-all term for any instance of entitled behavior or hostility to rules that inconvenience them. A Corona Karen, then, is someone who resents having to wear a mask in public and practice social distancing. These days, "Chad" is used mainly by incels to refer to the kind of guy (tall, handsome, muscular) they imagine is monopolizing the sexual marketplace. In their warped minds, the vast majority of women only have sex with Chads.

https://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2020-06-29/article/double-contract-signing-preview Christ, how many contract signings is WWE going to do this year? It sucks that their moral bankruptcy makes it harder to laugh at their creative bankruptcy.

So it turns out that Low Ki is quite the dumbass.

The section on the COVID outbreak in the latest Observer reads like the opening chapter of an apocalyptic novel. Not only has WWE not said a thing privately or publicly, none of the higher-ups ever contacted Renee to see how she was doing. This company's indifference to both public health and the well-being of its workers is truly sociopathic.

The issue is that she lives in Mexico with Daga and was worried she wouldn't be able to return if she worked Slammiversary.

After reading more about the situation, I don't think Tessa should bear the blame. By having her tape promos for an event taking place after her contract was set to expire, it seems like Impact was trying to put her in a situation where she'd appear unprofessional if she didn't show up so they could lowball her on an extension. And if they couldn't work something out, the heat would be on her for no-showing rather than on them for false advertising. With that said, when you've burned as many bridges as she has, you pretty much have no choice but to eat shit from whoever will agree to book you.

Survivor Series will be an actual contest to survive until the end of the year.

She has to be a head case to end all head cases if WWE took a pass on her and Impact fired her when she has a famous last name and actual talent to go along with it.

Remember that report of a WWE employee who wasn't an in-ring performer testing positive back in March? I think we know who it was.

Tenta looked like he was on the verge of blowing up, so there's actually a pretty good chance Kitao would have come out on top in a real fight. But saying that there was no way Tenta could beat him if it was real when he was just as hesitant to make a move made him look like a chump.

Holy shit.

If I'm not mistaken, Quack's wife was CHIKARA's main financial backer. When she found out about his extracurricular activities, she pulled the plug and filed for divorce, which is what led to the shutdown angle.

Sasha took her ball and went home shortly after Mania, which leads me to believe that the broad contours of the story (Bayley and Sasha were pissed about dropping the tag belts) were basically accurate.

I hope destroying his credibility as a journalist by turning himself into a glorified WWE PR flack was worth it for him.

For those who aren't aware, Wolf Hawkfield is a character from the Virtua Fighter series of fighting games. They gave Jim Steele the gimmick to cross-promote the All Japan video game, which featured Hawkfield as a playable character.