MoS

I imagine Braun burned some bridges with his comments about wrestlers starting GoFundMe's during the pandemic

I don't think anyone has an issue with fired wrestlers thanking WWE or being grateful to WWE. Hell, Mox did that too, right before he launched into all his complaints. I find it laughable though that this thought is usually followed by ranting about WWE writers or Johny Ace or Paul Heyman or whoever, about how the dirtsheets are terrible and actually Vince loved them, it was the damn subordinates that caused all the issues. It's not exactly professional to kiss the boss's ass and throw everybody else under the bus. You don't see NBA players getting traded and talking about how the GM and the head coach actually loved them, it was the damn assistants and the terrible tabloids that resulted in them getting traded/cut. Apart from the unprofessional part, I cannot imagine showing that level of gullibility would be beneficial in the long run.

Are the SNMEs uploaded yet? I let my subscription run out last month, and last I had it, they had not uploaded the SNMEs. Really weird to me that they would start uploading Clash of Champions before SNME, particularly given the fact that Peacock is NBC property and SNME was also an NBCU show

I am guessing all the anonymous writers are the fall guys now for Vince and Bruce. It's not as if they kept trying with him. Weirdly, one of the times they did try with him was like a couple of weeks back, right? This particular round of cuts came out of nowhere

Agreed that cutting anyone during the pandemic would have been terrible optics to say the least. And yeah, now that the US at least seems to be well on its way to put the pandemic behind, they should definitely release some talent on their hugely bloated roster. There were many wrestlers who were needed as warm bodies when AEW was just starting, but they are reasonably established now and have outgrown the need for many names on their roster

Bucks v. Mox/King was like the main event of the night for the fans. The issue was them being booked second match on the card. Which leads me to another pet peeve.... Bad card structure of big shows. I don't know when exactly this started, maybe one of last decade's WrestleMania, where basically the second half of entire big shows became a chore to sit through. There will be excellent opening matches, and then the show grinds to a halt. One reason this happens obviously is because shows' running times have increased tremendously, which is partly due to so many matches going long. Another issue is the mentality in the modern era to open hot and then give fans time in the middle to recover so they can get hot for the main event again, but in practice, it has just led to fans losing their enthusiasm midway and the card getting all its heat sucked out. Like what happened with Double or Nothing this Sunday - a tremendously hot first hour, a middling 2nd, and YMMV 3rd and 4th. Does anyone honestly think that fans wouldn't have gone apeshit for Mox and King if they made their entrance a couple of hours later?

I cannot possibly imagine this was a Nick Khan signing, the guy seems too smart to do this. Could this possibly be someone else getting in Vince's ear and having someone else get a prominent position, to prevent Khan from consolidating power backstage?

Per Meltzer, the show beat last year's numbers and is the 2nd most successful show they have ever done, after this year's Revolution. I hope this doesn't mean that they try Stadium Stampede against next year. I never want to see another cinematic match in my life. No amount of creativity can ever take the place of a real crowd going nuts watching two wrestlers beat the shit out of each other

Serena Deeb just gets wrestling. I was there in that pre-show crowd and the match was going fine and would have been fine, but not particularly great, had they stuck to doing what they were doing in the beginning of the match, with both wrestlers being faces. But Deeb gets wrestling, gets psychology, and made it a more traditional dynamic when she slapped Riho instead of shaking her hand. As soon as she did that, she immediately got the crowd ten times more invested in the match. It was a genuine "oh shit" moment. She then flipped another switch near the end when she went crazy on working Riho's legs right before the finish. Tremendous stuff, tremendous worker, she is the closest thing to an old-school world champion that North American wrestling has in 2021.

What has Sasha been doing since she lost her title? I haven't read much about her after WM

For someone with a comedy gimmick, he is one of the best at showing fire as a face that I have seen in modern wrestling. At his best, he makes fans bite every single nearfall, and if he does get the win, the crowd goes crazy. The triple threat from Double or Nothing yesterday was whatever, but Cassidy was the biggest reason for the best parts of the match, and the fact that he got the fans thinking he might win a match where no one believed going in he had a chance is a testament to how good he is.

This was actually the first time Jungle Boy got over in this spot, which is why it felt so satisfying to everyone there and why he was so gigantic. Prior to this, he basically would always lose the number one contender match. This is the first time he got over that hump, and I liked that bit of storytelling. Of course he will lose to Omega, and he should. Hopefully if things go well, one day he gets over that hump too

"This is awesome!!" The only time I have loved that chant is when Shield and the Wyatts faced off at the beginning of their first match at, I want to say Elimination Chamber 2014

In this specific example, I haven't rewatched the entire match yet after getting home, but from what I recall, Kingston tried to come to Mox's rescue the first couple of times, but it would typically backfire cuz the ref would focus just on ejecting him and Mox would get thrashed more. What helped for me was that Kingston's apron work was excellent, and the final hot tag to him reflected that. I remember the crowd just going apeshit. Regardless, I am not disputing that it might have looked bad and silly at times. I honestly wish AEW would declare lucha rules to apply for some tag teams. Would distinguish their tag matches from WWE, and would also lead for some good storytelling between those teams and more traditional teams like FTR.

I 1000% believe this wouldn't be a thing if JR didn't harp on it consistently, cuz of some bullshit attempt to retain credibility with his equally creepy fanbase of losers

So I have been seeing a lot of tweets about how Stadium Stampede was a flop cuz the crowd was dead for it. I thought it was very meandering and boring in the middle, and I am not sure what the audio situation was while watching on PPV, but the crowd was massively loud for Stadium Stampede, and popped huge for every major spot. Ultimately, if the aim was to elevate Sammy, it accomplished that, cuz as I have mentioned, Sammy was so over after the match that we chanted his name for like 15 minutes after the show got over. You can say a lot about the match, but you cannot say the crowd was dead for it, cuz that's the opposite of the truth. The only match which really lost the crowd interest was the Cody match, and even there, the crowd was hot in the beginning - with quite a few cheers for Ogogo, incidentally - but just lost interest as it continued

Yes! My highlight was Mox getting so pumped at the crowd and all the noise, he came all the way over to my section just to scream obscenities and get even more pumped. It made Kingston laugh.

The match meandered in the middle, but the last 5 minutes or so was tremendous and made Sammy look like a massive star. The show is over and we are still chanting Sammy's name. He is right now more over than Jericho.

This started great but has become kind of boring and meandering

He didn't do anything. Came out, posed before us for a few seconds, went back

Why is Omega hitting PAC with the belts when Bryce is down lol. It is no disqualification, he can hit him with the belts whenever he wants to

Yup, pretty sure it is. I can thankfully not hear him, but from looking at Twitter, apparently Jim Ross has been really horrid tonight?

Darby felt like the guy here to me. The entire crowd went apeshit for him.

That spot where Darby got thrown directly into the crowd really elevated this match with the crowd

Britt is over like an absolute Goddess right now. Every single one of us are her subjects right now. What a Queen