NintendoLogic

No wrestling match is worth 60 minutes of someone's time, but I'm confident the world title match will make it clear that MJF is a legitimately great worker and a worthy champion.

You've pretty much made my point for me. Most of these matchups either have already been done to death or involve TNT title-level opponents. Giving Takeshita and HOOK world title shots wouldn't elevate them, it would cheapen the belt. Then there's the elephant in the room: concussions. The one Danielson sustained last year was severe enough that he thought he might have to retire, and each one suffered increases the risk of subsequent ones. You simply can't build around a guy who's one bad bump or errant blow away from retirement or worse. The last thing AEW needs is to have the booking again thrown into chaos due to the world champion getting injured. This goes beyond business, though. A lot of folks on this board clearly buy into Danielson as the GOAT (look at how often he's referred to as such as if it were simply a given) and want him to have a title reign befitting his legacy. I've never viewed him at that level, so him not having a lengthy run with the AEW championship is no big loss in my book.

Hot-shotting the belt to Danielson would be a terrible idea. Other than Ricky Starks, what fresh compelling matchups would be available to him as champion? If the idea is to let him have showcase matches with whoever he wants, that likely means a lot of matches involving guys who have no business receiving a world title shot. For all of AEW's booking missteps, one thing they've consistently gotten right is preserving the aura of the world title. That goes out the window if it becomes a glorified workrate exhibition belt. With that said, they should probably start thinking about exit strategies for MJF's title reign if Revolution bombs on PPV. And yes, a Joe/Kingston feud is such an obviously good idea that it practically books itself. Having them treat it like a battle rap and take turns roasting each other on the mic would actually work in that instance.

First off, $9 billion is an insane asking price considering the Dallas Cowboys, the most valuable sports franchise on Earth, are valued at $8 billion. Second, the only real reason a media company would want to buy WWE would be for exclusive content for their platforms, and they're not worth anywhere near that much if they're not receiving rights fees. So that pretty much narrows it down to Endeavor and the Saudis. And if Endeavor isn't interested...

Crowds turned on Cena because of how much he stood out in a negative way from an in-ring standpoint once he reached main event status (a lot of people seem to have forgotten just how bad he really was in the ring in 2005). With Roman, it was the perception that he was the hand-picked corporate champion being pushed to the front of the line. Neither is an issue for Cody. He may be more of an office favorite than Sami, but he also took a major risk and bet on himself rather than accept a secure lifetime spot in the WWE midcard. And he's at least capable enough in the ring that crowds aren't going to turn on him for that reason.

It's not enough to simply book a compelling title chase. You also have to build up compelling challengers for the champ to face after the chase is over. The later has been a major recurring issue for AEW.

Also, in case you missed it (and you probably did), XFL 3.0 began play the weekend before last. Terrible timing for Dwayne as he probably can't afford another high-profile fiasco on the heels of Black Adam and his failed DCEU takeover. It seems like he's been taking nothing but L's this past year.

Okada/Kiyomiya is my current MOTY. Everyone should check it out even if you're not a fan of either guy (or you haven't even heard of the second guy). Anyway, speaking of long heel title reigns, Bischoff finally came clean about the finish to Starrcade 1997. He admitted Hogan exercised creative control and it had nothing to do with Sting not being tan enough or whatever. Also, Kevin Nash saying "You can't give a wrestler creative control" may be the height of comedy.

First selection for 2023.

I suspect he's tired of being dragged on Twitter over the awards and felt the need to make it clear that they're voted on by his readers and not selected by him personally.

Heat is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The goal is to draw money. If heat leads to business, it's good heat. If it doesn't, it's cheap heat. It has nothing to do with highbrow vs. lowbrow. Insulting the local sports team is a foolproof method to draw boos from a crowd, but no one's going to buy a ticket to see a babyface defend the honor of the Red Sox. By the way, Orange Cassidy rules and only a joyless stick in the mud would disagree.

I was not expecting SF6 Zangief to have a dragon screw as part of his moveset.

The only time competition is a legitimate excuse is when there's a direct conflict. Otherwise, the only limitation on the amount of time people can devote to watching (as opposed to spending money on) wrestling is the number of hours in a week. People will tune in to Dynamite if they're into the product. What happens on a wrestling show from a different company on a different day of the week has nothing to do with it.

MJF is about a million times the worker Miz is. I think that's a big part of why he makes a point of never wrestling. If he were in the ring more often, he'd start to pick up crowd support because it'd be obvious how good he really is.

More importantly, Dynamite is on a different day than Raw and Smackdown. The notion that people can't pay attention to a show that airs on Wednesday because of shows that air on Monday and Friday is ludicrous. Taking a backseat simply isn't an option when you're in the middle of a wrestling war and the enemy has infinitely more resources.

The announced lineup for this week's Dynamite isn't exactly setting the world on fire, which is probably why a thread hasn't been created yet. But something has to be done after the events of last week. Cody didn't end racism in America just so our hated enemies the British could waltz in here and use their date formatting in thread titles like they own the place.

How does a hot WWE storyline prevent people from paying attention to what's happening in AEW?

The main focus of NFL teams right now is evaluating talent for the upcoming draft and free agency period, so I would imagine this is actually when analytics guys are among the most active.

Other than Backlund, how many babyfaces have had successful title reigns after dethroning a long-term heel champion? It seems that long heel title reigns hinder the ability of other heels to get over at that level, leaving a dearth of strong heel challengers for the newly crowned babyface champion. That wasn't an issue for Backlund because the WWWF had an established business model of heel managers bringing in a revolving door of challengers for the champ to face. I suppose Cena also qualifies, but he was another special case as he switched brands after the JBL feud concluded, giving him a fresh set of opponents.

That will almost certainly be the worst match Brock has ever been involved in.

There was nothing questionable about Misawa going over on 6/3/94. Kawada supplanting Misawa as the company ace was never in the cards, nor should it have been. As for Owens, it shouldn't come as a surprise that he wouldn't immediately come running to the aid of the man who punched him in the balls to prove his loyalty to the Bloodline at Survivor Series and then stood by and did nothing while the Bloodline were beating the shit out of him at the Rumble. Sami only had a change of heart after Roman crossed the line by ordering him to join in. By the same token, Owens only intervened when he thought Roman and Jimmy were taking things too far. It wasn't a full-fledged reconciliation, just KO saving Sami from an excessive beatdown and then walking out. There's still a ways to go before fences are fully mended between the two. I know the phrase is a running joke among wrestling fans, but this is an instance where we really ought to let things play out and see where it goes.

As far as strategy goes, I kind of had the sense that Sami had the Superman punch scouted and came up with the exploder into the turnbuckle as a counter. That could just be headcanon on my part, though.

I had to work early Sunday morning, so I ended up calling a night before the main event. I was genuinely excited to see how things would play out, though, so I made a point of staying away from all wrestling-related websites and message boards to avoid having things spoiled before I had a chance to watch the match. I was thinking we might get some blood when I got on Peacock and saw the show was rated TV-14, but I guess that was because of the "fuck you Roman" chants. As far as the match goes, Sami's selling was brilliant, but that's about the only kind thing I have to say about it from an in-ring perspective. Tribal Chief Roman might be my least favorite offensive wrestler of all time. Everything he did looked good, but the endless staring contests and Bond villain monologues were just unbearable. Throw in the extended power naps after every near fall and I don't even know if the match contained five minutes of actual wrestling. From a booking standpoint, however, I don't know how you could ask for anything more unless you're absolutely convinced that Sami beating Roman for the belts was the only acceptable outcome. We even got some added intrigue about which side Jey will end up on. I could see them doing something like Demolition/Colossal Connection where the Usos lose the tag belts and Jey turns face after the match.

Repo Man was such a bizarre idea for a character. I mean, he had a feud where he repossessed Randy Savage's hat. Is the idea supposed to be that Macho Man had to take out a line of credit to be able to afford a cowboy hat and then couldn't keep up with payments?

I think TK was trying to say that Ariel is for WWE what Schiavone is for AEW: a paid shill. There are probably dozens of instances of Vince behaving far more embarrassingly in dealings with the media. To take just one example: And HHH used his HOF induction speech to take shots at the "pissant company." In a wrestling war, taking the high road is the equivalent of unilateral disarmament. Regardless, this is yet another example of how TK would benefit from a hatchet man who would handle the dirty work and allow himself to remain above the fray.