NintendoLogic

OK. So if you were the head of talent relations for AEW, who would you try to sign?

Is there enough freely available talent to build a division around? I suppose they could establish a working relationship with Stardom or the like.

Rush has signed with ROH. I don't see any way MLW doesn't end up as the big loser in the current wrestling arms race. As WWE, AEW, and ROH all scramble to lock up talent, MLW is going to get strip-mined.

Oh, the irony.

Also, TBS was WCW's main home pre-Nitro, so there's the tradition returning aspect.

Roids aren't just for cosmetic purposes. They also help speed up recovery from injuries, which might be relevant in a promotion where most of the wrestlers work a high-risk style.

Equal pay is a meaningless concept in an industry with zero transparency in the pay structure. And again, what facts we do have actually point in the other direction. AEW playing up this issue is a way for them to appear progressive without incurring any real costs. In other words, standard corporate feminism.

Calling 10-15 minute matches long seems absurdly generous. Hell, Shane McMahon works longer than that. Has Braun ever worked a 20-plus minute straight singles match with no gimmicks? WWE produces so much content that a main eventer who can't do that on a regular basis is of limited value unless they can help the bottom line in some other way like Ronda helping with their TV deals. If the workaround for that is to stick him in gimmick matches every time out, his body's going to fall apart even faster.

Let's be honest, Braun has cooled off because he's been exposed. He can't cut long promos or work long singles matches, so there was always a limit to what could be done with him. Getting as hot as he did led to him being put in a position he wasn't ready for and made his limitations all the more apparent. And he can't do the strongman spots that got him over because he's been constantly injured. Pretty much every freakishly large guy's body turns on him eventually, and Braun being in so many gimmick matches has probably accelerated that process.

The old Ninja Gaiden arcade game has bosses that are palette swaps of the Road Warriors. Just so there can be absolutely no confusion, their boss battle music is a barely disguised ripoff of Iron Man.

Yeah, I'm going to take my leave from this conversation.

I don't really know of women being underpaid relative to their position on the card. The issue is more that the women have been booked like shit.

Because Brandi Rhodes specifically said that equal pay meant that an entry level woman wouldn't make less than an entry level man. They are if they have a competent accountant. Work-related expenses are deductible on your tax returns in the US.

As far as equal pay goes, it should be pointed out that entry-level pay for women in WWE is higher than for men because their appearance maintenance expenses are greater.

I'm pretty sure he was referring to social/political advocacy on the show itself and not how the company treats its workers. At least, that's what I hope he meant.

Nobody becomes a billionaire without being deeply implicated in some sort of reprehensible activity. But classifying wrestlers as employees with benefits would be a genuine game-changer for the industry if this promotion manages to get off the ground. Also, Meltzer reported that Omega hired Barry Bloom to handle his negotiations, which isn't something he'd do if he wasn't seriously entertaining every offer on the table. That's another L for rovert.

Did they explicitly say that the wrestlers would be classified as employees and not independent contractors?

Alabama was down 13-0 at halftime last year and came back to win. The game didn't get completely out of hand until the third quarter.

No, I haven't seen that. For you, here's something pretty far removed from a typical lucha title match. Rocky being billed in CMLL as Ricky Romero is a story in itself. From Luchawiki:

Viva La Savings!

You can't really compare KUSHIDA's situation to KENSO and Yoshitatsu's. They were both young lions when they came over. KUSHIDA has been around forever and is pretty well established at his current level to fans and the promotion. It's obviously a different story if he becomes a star in WWE, but spending his entire run in the 205 Live dungeon isn't really going to do anything for his career prospects if/when he returns to Japan.

Not that this will mean anything to the Meltzer Derangement Syndrome brigade, but there you go.

@aaeo_

It wasn't just the concussion to Liv. Brie was botching things left and right when she came back.