NintendoLogic

Terrible news. I can't even imagine how Wagner must feel right now. It does seem like luchadores die in the ring at disproportionate rates.

At least they still have Kenta Kobashi. Although I wouldn't put it past WWE to try to sign him to a Legends deal within the next two weeks.

Sigh. Looks like I'll have to re-up my Network subscription.

I didn't think it was possible to find a bigger tomato can than Jack Swagger's first opponent, but Bellator managed to top themselves.

You can't really call Jeff Hardy a WWE reject when he left of his own volition. Jeff in TNA is example 1,086,820 of the company's staggering incompetence. The hottest wrestler on the planet fell into their laps and they couldn't do a thing with him.

I don't see how this makes WWE look bad. First of all, trying to pass off a Daytime Emmy as a real Emmy is lame as hell. That's the awards ceremony for crap like game shows and soap operas. But even if you won the Nobel Peace Prize, I'm sure bringing the award with you to a production meeting and putting it on the table would be considered bizarre in pretty much any workplace.

https://www.thewrap.com/aew-turner-tv-deal-all-elite-wrestling-warnermedia-upfront/ Looks like business is picking up.

Replacing all the CrossFit geeks with roided-up cokeheads in tassels won't fix things. A roster full of Ultimate Warriors isn't any better than a roster full of Dean Malenkos. The key is variety. Bret Hart got over in large part by being the straight man in a sea of cartoon characters. Dave made a really good point in the latest Observer. Roman Reigns said on Raw that he doesn't take orders from Vince, he takes them from the WWE Universe. But the fact that he uses corporate buzzwords like WWE Universe shows that he clearly does take orders from Vince. That speaks to the micromanagement that really is the root of WWE's current problems. Since the move to scripted promos, the only star of significance they've produced is John Cena. People talk about how entertaining Daniel Bryan and Becky Lynch are on the mic, but there's no indication that they've meant a thing for business. And the guaranteed TV money means that they don't have to. I truly believe that the only way to learn how to be a star who connects with the larger public is by being forced to sink or swim based on your ability to put asses in seats.

Apparently, the opposite is the case. WWE offered him a new contract that was double his current deal and he turned it down because he wanted to be on the road helping younger talent and didn't just want to sit at home and collect a paycheck.

This is pretty far down the list of things wrong with last night's Raw, but watch this segment. After Seth insisted that there was no chance he would team with AJ, Vince said "Yes you are" and he just stood there and pouted. He looked like a child being forced to do his homework. You couldn't have made him look like a bigger geek if you tried.

Hardly anybody watches WWE, and virtually everybody who does hates it. But networks threw money at them because their other shows are declining even more rapidly. Networks that are somehow sitting on billions of dollars despite having no viewers. Late stage capitalism in a nutshell.

Park and the Lucha Brothers were brought in at the insistence of the wrestlers because the main event scene had gotten stale. Pentagon and Fenix expected a raise for helping to revitalize business, but they got the runaround instead, so now they're gone. When you get right down to it, CMLL and AAA are both Mickey Mouse operations, just in different ways.

I'm sold on Jeff Cobb after seeing the Ospreay and Taichi matches. An explosively athletic hoss who ragdolls his opponents and performs superhuman feats of strength is the perfect choice to give New Japan the shot in the arm it so desperately needs.

Per the latest Observer, Vince soured on Luke Harper in large part because he couldn't do a Southern accent. The absolute state of this company.

Wrestling no longer produces great minds because it's no longer an economic necessity. There weren't nearly as many revenue streams in the past, so everyone's livelihood depended on how many asses they could put in seats. In that kind of environment, you learn to sink or swim in a hurry. You can point to the indies, but how many 10,000 seat arenas are they selling out? Everybody's trying to extract as much revenue as possible from within the ever-shrinking wrestling bubble rather than trying to expand it.

All the data in the world won't help if those in charge don't know what to do with it. They've been doing so many things wrong for so long that I don't think they know what right looks like. Most of the things people complain about with WWE are things people have been complaining about for the past decade. The difference is that they no longer have John Cena to prop things up. He was WWE's Goldberg in that his drawing power allowed the the leadership to turn a blind eye to the signs of structural rot. Now that he's gone and the well of stars from the past to drag out for big shows has run dry, the chickens are coming home to roost.

This presumes that they're capable of getting their act together if they really want to. I don't know if we can make that presumption if the build to Mania this year is any indication. They got Goldberg to do the Saudi show? I guess everybody really does have a price. To be honest, I'm more surprised that they would allow him into the country.

NXT ruined him. He most likely would have been a solid midcarder and possibly advanced beyond that after finding his voice, but the genesis of McGillicutty promo destroyed whatever chance he had of being taken seriously.

I've heard some people speculate that the "You are the authority now" promo played a part in ratings dropping even more than usual the past few months. The McMahons openly acknowledged that the show sucked, but they haven't done anything to make it not suck since then. Specifically, they directly blamed Baron Corbin for the show sucking but continued to feature him in a prominent role. I'm sure most fans realize that Corbin doesn't actually have any control over the creative process, but recognizing that he has go-away heat with so many fans but continuing to push him feels like a huge FU to the fanbase.

The biggest letdown to me was no Vader matches in the top 100.

The main sticking point for a lawsuit would be in proving actual harm. I don't know how many courts would buy that Harper was being harmed by being paid to sit at home and do nothing.

I suspect that the rancor the GWE project inspired soured a lot of people on ranking projects in general. Hopefully, seeing how civil this round has been will inspire more people to join in the future.

Lawsuits cost money, and WWE likes to drag things out as long as possible so that even if the other party prevails in court, it's a Pyrrhic victory because they were bled dry financially in the process. There's never going to be any real change unless someone is willing to take one for the team and risk career and financial suicide for the sake of setting a legal precedent.

What accent? There may be a bit of a twang, but it's not pronounced at all. I doubt most people would connect him to Kentucky if he wasn't billed from there. You're making it seem like he's indistinguishable from Hillbilly Jim.

It looks like Starrcast found a suitable replacement.