NintendoLogic

Mark Henry and Lio Rush in the same company again? That ought to be interesting. Henry will be a great asset for the company as long as he doesn't have a stick up his ass about Respecting the Business.

For those who don't follow basketball, there's been an alarming number of incidents of fan misbehavior (throwing things at players, spitting on them, yelling racial abuse) during the first round of the NBA playoffs. There has also been a number of fights in the stands at MLB games. If that's how fans of non-worked sports are behaving with things opening up again, just imagine what it's going to be like at wrestling shows.

He was considered a can't-miss future star before he left. The fact that they sent him on an excursion when he was only 20 shows that they expected pretty big things from him in a hurry. But he ended up not really doing anything in CMLL.

I don't know where this idea that Okada was initially shaky post-TNA comes from. The Dome match against YOSHI-HASHI sucked, but the title change against Tanahashi and his first defense against Naito both delivered big-time. Also, Master Wato hasn't exactly set the world on fire since returning from CMLL.

Willie Urbina (the guy who mocked Shida's accent) has been fired by AEW. Glad to see a zero-tolerance policy for that kind of bullshit.

Actually, Inoki was the one who ended the arrangement because Fritz Von Erich offered him a better deal. Japanese money is what kept the WWF afloat during the first year of national expansion. And if they do get ring time, it'll be on the Largo loop in front of a bunch of drunken rednecks chanting racial slurs. Not the most conducive environment for in-ring improvement.

I thought the Warrior episode was a letdown, to be honest. They barely touched on the horrific views he espoused and mainly talked about how he let success go to his head and wasn't faithful to his wife, which is small potatoes as far as wrestling's dark side goes. I wonder if it's because you can't really knock a guy for being a right-wing nutjob when you have Jericho as a narrator.

This is the first of four consecutive weeks of Dynamite airing on Friday at 10 PM due to the NBA playoffs. After that, it airs at 8 PM on a Saturday (June 26th). It won't be back in its regular time slot until June 30th. That alone justifies the move to TBS. Hopefully this month of preemption won't lead to a significant erosion of the viewing audience.

Dave is emphasizing that there's a real good chance nothing comes of this, so let's not jump to conclusions.

Suzuki wrestled the Mecha Mummy. He'd adapt to WWE just fine.

In this case, it's the athletic commissions and not CMLL that are preventing Andrade from going back to the La Sombra mask. I believe the official rule is that a wrestler who loses his mask in an apuestas match (which he did in 2015) can never wrestle under that mask again and has to wait five years before assuming another masked identity. Rey Mysterio was able to get around that because they ruled he didn't lose the mask in a traditional apuestas match. Andrade is probably better known maskless at this point and is a good-looking guy to boot, so there's no real reason for him to go back to wearing a mask.

I'm afraid it's no longer up, which is just as well. I couldn't even bring myself to listen to it afterward because I sounded nervous as hell the whole time. The one time I tried, I lasted about ten seconds before the cringe overwhelmed me. Also, it was recorded back in 2013 when I was a relative greenhorn, so I'm sure I offered some takes I either wouldn't stand by today or didn't flesh out as well as I could have.

1991 G1 vs. Mutoh, Starrcade 1992 vs. Sting, 1998 RWTL final with Hansen vs. Burning.

First of all, Cena didn't misstate Taiwan's status. Taiwan is a country to everyone except the PRC government, which is probably the most horrific regime on Earth. Second, being defended by a Fox News sex pest probably isn't helping matters.

When I did the Bret Hart podcast with Loss and goodhelmet, I remember being laughed at for predicting that Bret's work would resonate with future generations more than Flair's. I have no problem with taking L's when it's warranted, but I'm also not above taking a victory lap when I feel vindicated, and I think I nailed that one.

If you look at the video of the incident, Maeda does put his hand on Choshu's back before throwing the kick, but it looks like he's doing it to steady himself rather than to give Choshu a heads-up. The kick is certainly way too quick for Choshu to have a realistic chance to protect himself. As for why he did it, I've read that it was largely fueled by resentment over Choshu leapfrogging him in the company hierarchy after returning from All Japan. Meltzer has said that going to a double countout against Kerry Von Erich at Korakuen also played a part. Supposely, he had to do something to redeem himself in the eyes of the hardcore fans since a DCOR with a fake American wrestler at the UWF's home base made him look like a sellout. But according to Cagematch, that match took place in May of 1986, a year and a half before the Choshu incident, so the timeline doesn't add up.

Cena wouldn't have apologized in Mandarin on a Chinese social media platform if it was simply a case of misstating the movie's release schedule. China is well-known for losing its shit over the slightest suggestion that Taiwan is anything but a renegade province. There was a similar incident a few years ago involving Tzuyu, a Taiwanese member of the Korean girl group Twice. She had to issue a public apology after Chinese netizens accused her of being an independence activist when she held a Taiwanese flag on a Korean variety show. The incident led to a backlash in Taiwan that resulted in the pro-independence candidate winning the presidential election by a larger-than-expected margin. As a fan of both pro wrestling and kpop, I get a kick out of when the two worlds intersect.

Zero fucks Punk is pretty great.

On the other hand, Adamle was likely in the beginning stages of CTE during his time in WWE, so if anything, he's even less responsible for his performance.

Speaking of Khan, heads continue to roll behind the scenes. More evidence that he was brought in to improve the bottom line in preparation for a sale.

He was legitimately terrible, though. Whenever I watched clips of Raw on YouTube, Corey Graves had to handle the bulk of play-by-play duties because Virk had nothing to say.

Look who's become a CCP bootlicker. Looks like the Cena Sucks crowd was right all along.

I mean, he did legally change his name to Warrior.

I was pretty disappointed to see no pushback on Bischoff's assertion that Rikidozan was killed because he was Korean. That may be what North Korean propaganda says, but it's bullshit. Hardly anybody in Japan knew about his ethnicity until well after his death.

Rooting for the flag-waving American vs. rooting for the flag-waving Brit has to be Sophie's choice for an Indian fan.