NintendoLogic

Brian Last on Twitter posted the part of the AEW Talent Playbook that asks talent not to comment on their health condition without clearing it with the company beforehand. It could be that Dave was told about Punk not being medically cleared off the record and he didn't want to share a story that would make Punk look much worse without mitigating information he wasn't at liberty to share. He did seem to allude to it in his message board post when he wrote "There are a lot of nice things I can say about him, and you can absolutely argue his position on Moxley was correct."

New #1 for 1979.

If Omega, the Bucks, Jericho, and Moxley are all on the anti-Punk side, that kind of makes bringing him back a hard sell.

Do I have this right? Did AEW really book someone not under contract against someone not medically cleared to wrestle in the main event of a PPV? If so, that is beyond insane.

Between this and the Revolution buyrate, MJF's drawing power can't be denied.

On a somewhat related note, I've been able to catch up on recent Impact goings-on through clips that have shown up in my YouTube feed. I see that Taylor Wilde is back, and she's a witch now because of course she is. From what I can tell, just about every woman in the company who isn't a generic mean girl has some kind of connection with the occult. Enough already. Congress needs to step in and set limits on how many spooky lore wrestlers every company is allowed to have.

Simon & Schuster distributed a New Day graphic novel just last year. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/WWE-The-New-Day-Power-of-Positivity/Evan-Narcisse/WWE/9781684156368 They also published the most important literary work of this century. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Journey-Into-Darkness/Michael-Chiappetta/WWE/9781476738895

I'm surprised they didn't announce Alexander had to vacate because he was trapped in the Undead Realm. Isn't that how they usually write people out on Impact?

More importantly, who would be Apollo Creed? Whoever it is, the mental image of Punk running on the beach in slow motion is cracking me up.

Mad Maxine wrote a semi-autobiographical novel.

For what it's worth, the current Observer completely no‐sells the above IG story. However, it does mention a different Punk story. In it, Punk talked about reading Steve Keirn's book and being fascinated by the story of Keirn and Koko having a fight in the locker room. The next day, Lawler dragged them both into the office and they squashed it. Dave has made it abundantly clear that he would like to see Punk back in AEW, so the idea that he's part of a conspiracy to force Punk out is pretty daft.

For further context, that's apparently a response to the following post: That's a pretty big bombshell to deliver in a random message board post.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, and not wanting to broadcast one's medical history to the world is certainly understandable. The fact that she went out of her way to deny being on hiatus at all is what made it bizarre.

He should've known better than to get on the Birdman's bad side.

When you consider what absolute slogs the last few one-night Manias were, two nights is easily the lesser of two evils.

Okada ain't doing any jobs as long as he's doing a full-blown Inoki tribute gimmick.

He was VP of operations (the #2 guy on the corporate side) during the expansion era and one of VKM's closest friends. His tenure with the company ended after he picked a fight with Koko B. Ware during a European tour and got his ass kicked. The company fired Ware over the incident, but Troy either was fired himself or resigned after an investigation determined he was the instigator.

Which is funny because Vince the Elder turned Kaufman down when he suggested his intergender champion gimmick to the WWF.

Apparently, documents from his divorce proceedings contain allegations of cocaine abuse and domestic violence. His MMA fetish is well-known, but emulating Jon Jones is taking it too far.

The preliminary estimate in the latest Observer is around 133k buys. Pretty impressive number all things considered, especially with the handicap of being the day after the Jon Jones fight. It also reflects well on MJF as champion as it was basically a one-match card and I don't think too many people expected a title change going in.

It should've been Taya getting squashed to set up Nicole's debut. Re: MJF, who last night was saying he couldn't wrestle? They said he continually took shortcuts and got rewarded for it while the rest of them had to bust their asses to get where they are. They were questioning his character, not his ability. Ideally, the payoff would be him being dethroned by someone who does things the right way, but I have no idea if that's in the cards.

I'll admit that Knight largely won me over with his commitment to getting the Mountain Dew match gimmick over. My broader point is that his character has elements of absurdity and theatricality that lend themselves to a feud with Bray and that guys like Lesnar and Lashley lack.

Bray would be fine if he inhabited a self-contained universe and feuded exclusively with cornballs like LA Knight and Karrion Kross. Like Jimmy Valiant vs. Paul Jones' Army, but with Lore. Under no circumstances should he ever he pitted against guys billed as no-nonsense serious fighters. Either they look like goofs selling for the puppets and Uncle Howdy or they no-sell it and kill his supernatural aura.

Matthews would be a good pickup for AEW if her legal issues have been resolved. She got busted September 2018 for booking indie dates with a travel visa rather than a work visa, which normally carries an automatic five-year ban from entering the US. But she appeared at a Defy show a few days ago, so someone must have pulled some strings to get the ban lifted early. As for Taya, she said in an interview that she'll be at home in California on Wednesday. She never explicitly denied showing up in Winnipeg, though. Not that it would mean anything if she had, of course.

Meltzer said on WOR that Bray's absence wasn't due to creative issues and the Mania match is still on. Sorry about your damn luck, Bobbo. Then again, maybe he made a deal with the Devil that has allowed him to look exactly the same for the past two decades and now the bill is coming due.