NintendoLogic

Someone hacked Dave's Twitter account to promote NFTs. Doesn't get much more 2023 than that.

Nikki and Brie giving Daniel lessons on how to be a sports entertainer would be dimes. I'm tempted to say nothing the Bellas would do in AEW could possibly as bad as the horseshit with the spray paint, but I never thought Saraya would have come up with something that terrible either. Maybe WWE creative really was filtering the Divas' worst ideas and there's no telling what depths they could sink to when left to their own devices.

Australia managed to poach Rose of Blackpink from New Zealand, so that's a pretty big get.

Real talk, this Bray run was some GOAT-tier carny shit. Getting paid millions to do fuck-all except expand his web of lore and wrestle a single five-minute match before taking his ball and going home.

Ryan Frederick said on the F4W board that Bray is out indefinitely and off the Mania card due to creative issues. Looks like Lashley dodged a major bullet.

Ric Flair vs. David Flair, although only Ric's hair and career were on the line. If Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin showed anything, it's that having a beloved legend lose a retirement match to a heel the fans don't see as anywhere near his level doesn't increase the heel's heat. It just makes people depressed.

You been drinking again, fam?

I suppose turning Moxley heel is a satisfactory way to address the problem of a feud between babyfaces where both sides come off as unreasonable, although I don't know how smart turning the guy who's been the heart and soul of the company for so long is. Maybe the bigger issue is the inherent contradiction in Moxley's character. He's a violent short-tempered asshole who likes to hurt people. Those are quintessential heel traits. The only reliable way to keep someone like that babyface is to pit him against strong heel antagonists. Say what you want about the interminable BCC/JAS feud, but Jericho knows how to be a smarmy heel the fans won't get behind. When Moxley goes up against other babyfaces, the tension becomes impossible to resolve.

Here's George wrestling a young Masahiro Chono during the dying days of Central States. He looks like a solid technician at least. Also, check out the handspring elbow from Chono.

It's the classic MVP debate. Does it go to the best player on the best team or the one with the biggest measurable impact on their team's success? You could make a strong argument for either guy, but AEW without Moxley would be in much worse shape than WWE without Roman.

Wasn't she doing a Sailor Moon magical girl gimmick the last time we saw her? And wasn't she a schoolgirl before that? I'm surprised they didn't give her a geisha gimmick to complete the Japanese stereotype trifecta.

It was right after Jericho became the inaugural AEW world champion. The belt was stolen from the rented limo he had left it in while he was eating at Longhorn Steakhouse.

2005 was in PR. 2006 was in Albany, NY.

Puerto Rico's part of the US, bubba.

So we've gone from people saying the drink incident crossed the line in a way tearing up a fan's sign doesn't (which it did) to someone earnestly pointing to scribbling on a fan's drawing as an example of MJF going too far. If you willingly initiate interaction with him at a wrestling-related event, there's clearly a degree of implied consent. It's like buying front row tickets to see Gallagher and getting upset if chunks of watermelon land on you. In both cases, I think the act is dumb, but you knew (or should have known) what you were getting into.

That begs the question, though: if TNA isn't the worst wrestling promotion in history, what is?

I guess Dwayne turned them down and they don't have a headliner big enough to warrant a solo announcement.

I think Dwayne might be a tad overexposed at this point.

Looking at how MJF's performance in the Iron Man match has been largely overshadowed by the drink incident, I now suspect that his disappearing act last year wasn't a deliberate attempt to steal Wardlow's thunder. He just has flawed ideas about how to draw heat. More than anything, it needs to be beaten into his head that Brian Pillman's Loose Cannon gimmick sucked and should be emulated by no one.

You want a comeback you can bank on? When Vince first came back to WWE, the story was that he was only there to work on a sale and would have no involvement with creative. Then it was reported that he was providing input but HHH still had the final say. Now he's showing up to Raw. He must have figured that gradually encroaching on boundaries and expanding his sphere of influence would raise fewer eyebrows than coming back and taking power in one fell swoop.

Announce a zero-tolerance policy for unprovoked physical altercations with fans, have MJF apologize privately to the family, and bring them to Dynamite to embarrass him for a cheap pop if they're up for it. Anything beyond that is overkill.

If a kid can handle seeing Moxley and Hangman roll around in barbed wire, he can handle a heel throwing a drink on him. If it was a tequila drink (at least, I hope it was a mixed drink and the Chase Center doesn't serve up pints of straight tequila), that's a bigger issue. Maybe MJF figured sales of alcoholic beverages would have been cut off well in advance of the main event. If they weren't, they should have been. If they were, the drink was probably mostly ice water by that point.

Sting has always said this, but it just doesn't add up. Not only did pro wrestling air in southern California, the territory was in the middle of a boom period when Sting was an adolescent. It'd be like if Mick Foley said wrestling wasn't on TV in New York when he was growing up.

Rock and HHH were great workers in 2000, which is why they were able to have an Iron Man match of the caliber they did. If MJF does likewise, he'll show that he is as well.

4.5 stars for any of the Bray/Bryan matches strikes me as extremely generous. Regardless, it's a lot easier to hide someone's limitations in a standard wrestling match or a gimmick brawl. There's nowhere to hide in an Iron Man match.