NintendoLogic

The kayfabe explanation is that Sammy and Tay made too many demands. It could just be that AAA decided it wasn't worth the expense to keep flying in foreigners for belts no one cares about.

The general public doesn't buy into wackadoodle conspiracy theories about voter fraud and groomers and the like, though. If the midterms demonstrated anything, it's that normies are far more terrified of the terminally online right. If the House of Black wants to tap into the zeitgeist, they should become a stable of QAnon shamans.

I've made this point before, but KENTA deserves to be recognized as one of the most influential wrestlers of the past 20 years. Virtually every modern junior heavyweight cribs from him to a degree. Hell, Punk and Bryan were practically KENTA cosplayers in WWE.

This tweet has been making the rounds. Be sure to make a note of the context provided by readers at the bottom of the tweet. Also note that the list doesn't come from a piece in the actual magazine but rather an article by a "guest contributor" (read: a glorified blog post by some rando). Still, this confirms my suspicion that the Brothers of Destruction are two of the ten most controversial individuals to have ever lived. Speaking of spooky wrestlers, Bray Wyatt made his long-awaited (?) return to the ring at last night's MSG show. The bad news is that it was against Jinder Mahal. The good news is that he paid tribute to Brodie Lee on the second anniversary of his passing. Last night's Raw was a best-of show, but JOHN CENA will be in action on Smackdown. About time that show had some star power.

It might be a better idea to make sure they have the basics down before sending them out there to reenact Jackie Chan fight scenes. The dojo model of having trainees drill endlessly in the fundamentals and not letting them do anything fancy until they've had a bit of seasoning has a good track record of producing top-tier workers. At the very least, it's more likely to produce workers who don't turn into deer in the headlights when a spot doesn't go according to plan. Am I saying that Level Up should consist entirely of matches were rookies in black trunks and boots do nothing but basic chain wrestling and maybe a dropkick before one of them submits to a Boston crab? Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Looks like Ruca is a graduate of the Dean Malenko school of kicking out of your own pin attempt. Dope finisher, though. Dope name too. I approve.

I'd argue that if anything, TK's too influenced by comic book storytelling-specifically, Marvel. It seems like Marvel's superheroes fight each other more often than they do the supervillains, especially in recent decades. That's part of Marvel's tradition of presenting its heroes as characters with realistic flaws. DC's superheroes are more idealized representations of what heroic figures are supposed to be, so inter-hero conflict is a lot less common in the DC Universe outside of scenarios where some heroes are being mind-controlled by Brainiac or whatever. That arguably makes Marvel's characters more compelling, but I don't know how if it works better in a pro wrestling context because wrestling lacks the tools available in the comic book world to restore the status quo and preserve the illusion of change.

Speaking of potentially amazing feuds that never came to fruition, the most recent retro Observer has an interesting tidbit about Jake Roberts in AAA. Konnan wanted to do the program with Terry Funk, but Antonio Pena had never heard of Funk and then marked out when he found out Jake the Snake was available. One can only imagine how the Funker trying to rile up Mexican fans would have gone. He genuinely might not have made it back alive.

It's not just Jericho's opponents who get flattened out and lose momentum, though. The same thing happened to Hangman, Wardlow, and Thunder Rosa. There just seems to be something inherently broken about how the company tries to create stars. I think at least part of the problem can be traced back to the Punk/Kingston feud. As successful as it was, it seems to have convinced the company that feuds should be like battle raps where the wrestlers just roast each other and leave it up to the audience to decide who they like more, which is a terrible idea on a number of levels. Look at Hangman/Moxley. This past week on Dynamite, Mox was entirely correct when he pointed out that knocking out your opponent is the whole point of a pro wrestling match and it's not his fault Page has a glass jaw. On the other hand, mocking an opponent's serious injury isn't exactly noble. So who are we supposed to get behind? On a much happier note, Athena murdering jobbers on Dark and Elevation is my favorite thing in wrestling at the moment. Great way to use the bad faith outrage over the Jody Threat match and make lemons out of lemonade.

Is Jericho the booker? If not, why is he to blame for how wrestlers are booked after he's done feuding with them?

The Lore of the House of Black is pretty cringe, but at least the matches it leads to are solid. It's also mitigated by the fact that they don't actually possess supernatural powers. The mist is the closest they've come to that, but that's just classic pro wrestling goofiness.

"Hit the lights, do the creepy crap, let's go!" Wunderbar.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the directive from WBD to cut back on the swearing was so the company could gain a foothold in the lucrative Indian market.

Ken Patera did the cinder block gimmick in GCW, which led to the hilarious moment of Gordon Solie having to shut Terry Gordy down when he tried to tell the people watching they should try it themselves.

I mean, we're talking about a show no one watches or pays to attend (I mean that literally in the latter sense as my understanding is they bus people in for free). I've mostly held my tongue on criticizing Bray Wyatt since his return because I recognize he's a legitimate business mover even if the act doesn't appeal to me on any level. But nobody on NXT 2.0 warrants exemption from criticism on grounds of being over because none of them are. If anything, the old cranks are the ones watching NXT since 50+ males are the only demographic the show has any success with.

One thing's for certain, no one has a passion for Andre Chase. Because this shit fucking sucks.

Hayter/Shida was a pretty good piece of business that I thought went a few minutes too long and had a few too many nearfalls for the style of match they were working. That's what most modern fans want to see, though. However, the Britt/Rebel horseshit at the end was appalling. It's well past time to split Hayter off from those goofs. Also, the "OCHO!" chant when the ten-count reaches eight can fuck off forever.

Supposedly, Jericho remembered how his win over Scott Hall on Nitro looked and made a point of doing the opposite. So he does appear to be serious about getting Andretti over. How well it works remains to be seen.

I had suspected it was fake because the video he posted didn't actually show him getting inked and the tattoo artist wasn't wearing gloves. Then again, the alternative (only pretending to be that much of an E-drone) makes even less sense. And F4W is reporting on it as if it's legit. If it is, that's worse than Cody's neck tattoo. At least Cody was simping for his own brand and not a corporation. On that note, this guy said he plans on getting an NXT neck tattoo. He deserves to be named geek of the millennium just for saying that out loud.

Talk about crying all the way to the bank.

Who the hell is casting this show

For those wondering who the next WWE worker to show their whole ass on social media would be, Lacey Evans has come out as an autism denier. UPDATE: And she's doubling down. Send her to CYN already.

The lack of price and month/year in the upper right corner is a dead giveaway that it isn't a legitimate vintage PWI back issue. That guy probably isn't even a real wrestler. A Google image search turned up several different covers with that exact same template, so there appears to be some kind of service that lets people dress up as wrestlers and puts them on a fake PWI cover. Here are a few more examples.

Cena was better at power spots and was probably a better bleeder, but I can't think of anything else he did in the ring better than Bret.