NintendoLogic

It would actually be pretty hilarious if all of Punk's opponents took shots at him that made the Hangman comments that set him off seem like a love letter.

Holy cow, that Hercules Cortez fella was an absolute unit.

Like many of the sillier rules in American wrestling, the "no title change on countout or DQ" rule was originally intended to protect the champion from double-crosses. It dates back to when Henri Deglane stole the world championship from Strangler Lewis by feigning being bitten, which led to Lewis being disqualified by a referee who was in on the plot. Over the years, it came to be justified in kayfabe by having a wrestler who got counted out or DQed forfeit his share of the purse. That way, a champion who continually took the coward's way out would never make any money even if he retained his belt.

I looked it up, and the exact quote was "I'm not about to wear fishnet booty buttcheek shorts because we had a two-hour meeting about how to dress like Mandy Rose." For context, the company at that time was holding "fashion consulting" meetings where it was never overtly stated but strongly implied that they wanted the women to dress sexier. So yeah, the issue wasn't with wearing skimpy clothing but being compelled to do so by management. She also said she didn't want to dress that way because she catered to children. That presumably isn't an issue now since nobody watches ROH, let alone children.

Jinder was positively grotesque during his time as champion. Between the bacne, the gyno, the traps, and the extreme vascularity, I'm pretty sure he displayed literally every single telltale sign of steroid abuse.

I've never been involved in an e-fed, but I'm sure I could find a way for it to keep my interest if I was receiving hundreds of millions of dollars to run it. On the boredom/distraction front, though, I've actually been thinking recently about whether any of AEW's issues can be tied to the recent success of the Jaguars. The team was terrible in 2019, 2020, and 2021, but they won their division last year and will probably win it again this year. If you're involved with an NFL team but have outside business interests, a title contender will surely demand more of your attention than a cellar-dweller.

Calling someone a cheap imitation of a guy in another company can work if you're the cool company with momentum and the competition seems out of touch, like when Punk called MJF a less famous Miz. But that's obviously far from the case for AEW at the moment.

I literally physically cringed when Jericho said "I think they need a name, right?" because I knew where it was going. By the way, I have to give Starks credit for doing his best to salvage that trainwreck. It reminded me of how Sid was able to keep it together and tried to get things back on track during the Shockmaster debut segment.

Isn't it the other way around? Cornette slapped Santino for not selling fear of the Boogeyman. By the way, it should be noted that Danhausen is very much a Cornette kind of gimmick. The key to his curses is that they never involve anything outside the realm of physical possibility. Like, a guy will get cursed and then get blindsided by an opponent or slip and fall off the apron. Anyway, it looks like we have a candidate for the first NXT greenhorn to inadvertently end up on Punk's shit list:

I think Dave is simply referring to a major rights fee increase. He reported a couple of weeks ago that WWE was hoping to receive $400 a million a year for Raw but would likely have to settle for $387 million. He also reported that it was widely believed in WWE that WBD owned a percentage of AEW and was a longshot for that reason. Given that, they probably just a made a pitch for the sake of due diligence. By the way, it pleases me tremendously that links to Twitter embed on this board but links to X do not.

Speaking of taking talents to South Beach, we can all agree now that LeBron is the GOAT, right? After all, how many In-Season Tournaments did Jordan win?

Isn't Tribute to the Troops just a regular Smackdown for the most part now? It's not like it used to be where they were held in military towns and most of the audience was troops and their families and the show was explicitly non-canon. The closest military base to Providence is Naval Station Newport, which is mainly a training station. As for Punk, he can't take direct shots at AEW due to NDAs. I'm guessing he was trying to test the waters last night to see if he could get a reaction with wink-wink insider stuff. I suspect he'll drop it since it went over like a lead balloon.

I have no idea how legitimate this is, but Danielson as TK's Johnny Ace is too hilarious to not be true and I will refuse to consider any evidence to the contrary.

New Japan was hardly the junior partner to pre-expansion WWF or early 90s WCW. I don't know if their revenue exceeded the WWF's, but it absolutely blew WCW's out of the water. They were also far bigger in their culture than any American company. Japanese promotions generally had the pick of the litter when it came to dates on top stars because the pay scale in America didn't surpass Japan's until the Monday Night Wars era. Needless to say, none of that is true for current New Japan vis-a-vis AEW. It's not so much the relationship has been a major boon for them as the relative crumbs they're getting now are better than the nothing they'd be getting if there was no relationship. That's just the way it is whether you like it or not.

Literally me:

New Japan and Stardom's combined revenue for fiscal 2023 was a shade under $47 million. By comparison, AEW is projected to take in $170-175 million this year and WWE took in $449.1 million in just the last quarter. The reality is that Japanese promotions simply can't compete financially with the major American ones, especially with the decline in the value of the yen. The fact that Ospreay was in serious talks with TNA says it all.

American copyright law is so stupid.

It was reported a while back that WWE had renewed interest in Okada with the pitch being he had done everything he could do in New Japan and WWE would be the one thing he hasn't done. Part of the reason for the recent Nakamura push was to show Okada he wouldn't be given a stereotypical childlike foreigner gimmick if he signed with them. I do hope we see more of Weird Okada if he goes to WWE. I like how being champion is so central to his identity that he feels lost when he's not in the title picture and compensates by doing things like bringing balloons to the ring and trying to win all his matches with a shitty cobra clutch.

Brody/Claudio was good stuff. I didn't even mind the tough guy no-selling at the outset because there was a sense of hierarchy with Claudio clearly getting the worst of it. I also appreciated how they both had their big moves (Brody's cannonball and Claudio's giant swing) countered before landing them as opposed to hitting them and having it countered when they go for it a second time. The latter is all too common in modern wrestling, and it's a major pet peeve of mine. I find the former far more compelling from a storytelling standpoint because it builds anticipation for the move and doesn't make the wrestler look like an idiot for going to the well too often. Fuck a Swerve or a Starks, put all the belts on Brody and let him be AEW's Gunther. Danielson/Kingston didn't really do much for me, but I did find it amusing that Misawa is apparently the only All Japan wrestler that Kevin Kelly knows.

"Jade Cargill presents Nelly with a WWE championship belt at the Big 12 championship game" sounds like something a Mad Lib would come up with.

Highest number in the demo since the Raw after Mania and the highest during football season since 2019. No two ways about it, that's a monster number. Also, that Variety piece pretty well buried Jack Perry by not even referring to him by name. You figure they would have at least identified him as Luke's son.

I'm fine with a blanket rule of not allowing anyone who has taken a stunner from Steve Austin to become president.

It was my understanding that insurance issues were the main obstacle to Rock working another match. If that's the case, a multi-match series would surely be completely out of the question.

Andrade and Malakai have both repeatedly asked to be released or tried to get fired so they could go back to WWE. To be honest, I don't know what the right course of action is for guys like them. One the one hand, it probably isn't a good idea to create the impression that your company is a sinking ship people are desperate to leave by releasing anyone who asks. On the other, a handful of malcontents who clearly don't want to be there can poison the whole locker room, especially when you're an increasingly distant #2.

It would be quite the turn of events if the guy who made a name for himself as a self-conscious throwback to the kayfabe era ended up crippled because he felt the need to go the extra mile in the ring to keep up with everyone else.