MoS

Thanks a lot! I absolutely didn't recognize him at all. This is a very young pic of him. It makes sense because he has a role in this movie as a granddad of one of the leads. Can't believe I missed this cute reference for 18 years!

Anyone recognize who this pro wrestler is in the mounted photo in the background of a Bollywood movie I have watched a million times but never noticed the wrestler until recently?

Honestly, even if he has a script, does anyone expect Ric Flair to stick to it? I would genuinely just use him for one or two appearances for a big title match, where his aura as the GOAT world champ will add to the build and the importance

Gymnastics can be judged in a vacuum without a crowd. It has a scoring criteria. How do you do that with pro wrestling? Especially when you have different styles competing, with different philosophies and mythologies and internal logic?

Good on Nikki for pinning Charlotte clean

Goldberg and his son v. Taz and HOOK has to happen somehow. The universe demands it

Poor Drew. I actually am not as big a fan of his as others I know, but he definitely deserves better than this

I get that, but even smartness in a booking sense. I always thought HHH knew the basics of booking, character development, how to extend feuds while increasing the stakes, etc. After all, you have to truly know and understand the business in order to sabotage and undercut your co-workers. But I'm not sure he possesses that either. He turned NXT into an ice-cold product where nothing matters, no motion happens, just an endless treadmill of the same content. A part of it has to do with NXT talents hitting a brick wall on the main roster, but even in its own self-contained universe, NXT feels so cold

I would at most use him to heat up a particular PPV match or angle, but yeah that would be it. I think it's become very evident that a lot of NXT's initial appeal also was Dusty's booking and how he would develop characters, get gimmicks and rookie wrestlers over, build to matches and rematches, etc. After Dusty passed and the vestiges of his booking were gone, NXT became a super-indie where they relied on already big names to sell their shows, and the storytelling was basically either "Hey check out these amazing wrestlers have the matches you have seen before, but with a good budget" or the Shawn Michaels soap opera storytelling. For years we used to think that Hunter was an evil genius who was very smart and understood the business (although not his limitations) but used his understanding for evil. The last few years have shown that apart from being selfish and limited, he was perhaps also not very smart

Mijain Lopez going for a throw and the Fiend putting on the mandible claw and laughing like a maniac with red lights in the background "It appears the Fiend has won, now we cut to men's water polo to watch Team USA in a nail biting climax!!"

Bryan Alvarez and Lance Storm had an entire segment of their radio show dedicated to whether, no joke, professional wrestling can be in the Olympics, with judges to rate and score different matches from different styles. Apparently people had asked them this?!?! What kind of fan is going about thinking "Boy would I love it if pro wrestling was in the Olympics!!"

Apparently, Hangman's wife is due around All Out, so this is basically paternity leave I am guessing. They have to give him a storyline reason for not being there though

They definitely should have tried to use his talents in a better way. For whatever reason, he has a very vocal, very passionate fanbase, and they loved everything he did. Thing is, I don't know if he can be utilized effectively in any other promotion. His brand of wrestling is very cinematic, with a lot of focus on production, grand entrances, etc. I know Broken Matt Hardy was a thing, but I cannot imagine his gimmick working in Impact and whatever budget they have

Meltzer talking about Strowman for 10 minutes cuz he went on a tangent when everyone wanted to hear his thoughts on Bray Wyatt is really peak Dave

I personally think Fiend stinks and Wyatt has been useless since his early modern day Waylon Mercy run, but he does have a sizeable contingent of very devoted fans who spend ungodly hours thinking of The Lore and everything. They had to feel blindsided and betrayed by this sudden release

I don't know how true this is, because Meltz has been getting worked by his sources recently (the GCW plant controversy) and I can't remember the last major story he broke. But if this is true, then it's pretty shameful for a billion dollar promotion making record profits to use budgetary reasons to cut one of its most featured stars of the decade, especially since it's just a couple of days after Vince joked about sending more talent to AEW. Maybe this is the "Vince sent Russo to WCW" but for real, where he is releasing as many wrestlers as he can, hoping AEW blows up their budget going after them all and get burned as a result

The promotions should absolutely be paying for the therapy and counseling sessions, especially given how obscenely expensive therapy is in the USA. I was hesitant only because wrestlers have that macho mentality and might think of going to a counselor as a sign of weakness

That does make sense if Nick Khan is going about and cutting expensive contracts, that he wouldn't be allowed to sit at home while with the company, just to focus on his mental health. I hope he is okay. Terrible gimmick aside, he is a real person. I don't know how wrestlers will react to it, but all major promotions should have a therapist on call that all wrestlers suffering from mental health can go to

Did Vince just figure that now he has a pretty girl doing the creepy supernatural stuff, he doesn't need a fat bearded man doing the same shit? I legit don't get how he suddenly fired Wyatt lol

They should definitely reverse the trend and dial it back yeah. Their biggest storyline doesn't even need blood. And they should definitely stay away from signing Bray Wyatt. I am stunned that he was released. He epitomizes what the WWE likes in a character, he has been put over strongly for so long. And he apparently was also getting into comeback shape and was looking good from his social media pics. This came out of nowhere

Kenny Omega would like you all to know he is actually an excellent athlete, he just pretends to be a dork for..reasons. As I said, you can knock the Elite for a lot of things but not for their athleticism. It will be interesting to see the dynamic in the ring between Omega and Punk, two polarizing figures for entirely different reasons

Sasha Banks might be an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory nut, but God she is so tremendous at professional wrestling

Nick Khan sounds really impressive whenever he speaks. I am not sure how old he is, but the chance that he succeeds Vince instead of anyone in his family. It's not just him saying intelligent stuff, he also espouses the kind of philosophy that Vince himself believes in - see him calling sleep competition because they are in the business of competing for eyeballs, and compare it to Vince on Austin's podcast many years ago calling Disney competition

People have been digging and it seems more and more evident that the Dominos response was a result (an exception in fact) of a concerted effort by WWE to target AEW's sponsors. It's pretty funny and I have been getting flashbacks to all of Vince's 1996 concerned letters to Time's shareholders published in newspapers lol. As well as his letters to Turner himself of course. With the ratings being what they are, it's not going to hurt AEW as long as they dial it back a bit and don't overdo it. It would be really funny if it ended up giving AEW an unintentional "forbidden fruits of Eden" appeal