MoS

I should perhaps shut the fuck up, but I would just like to state that I have been suffering from depression and genuinely serious mental and personality disorder issues. If you think shit is bad where you live, imagine how horrible it is in India, where even mentioning you have mental health issues can lead to mockery. I really REALLY sympathise with Mauro's personal health issues. So many things which he has expressed on Twitter: I really understand what he is saying, and it breaks my heart that there are those who do not understand his emotions. However, he is just not a good announcer. It is what it is. He genuinely makes me want to tune off and watch something else. He could have made 10,000 puns about Baker and Cole, but I would still have groaned. Sometimes, we are just not good enough to succeed in what aspect of pro wrestling we think we are good at. I hope Miz AND Mauro find their niche, but as of now, I don't think anybody really cares what happens to them or what happens to any of them, because WWE has spent a generation teaching fans that nothing matters.

#BurnItDown

No expressing pride or resting on laurels until Seth deletes his Twitter as well

Keith Lee is so charismatic. It's like the Incredible Hulk has come to life. I really hope he is never ever booked like just another guy grateful to be a part of the WWE brand, because he is extremely special.

He was not. It was supposed to be a joke. I didn't get it. Omega has never felt like a superstar to me. And Meltzer keeps saying he is an excellent promo, but I haven't seen it yet.

I was reading an old Observer, and Meltzer mentioned this in passing - Anyone know what the story behind this is? This feels like it would have been an amazing visual.

The one they would be unhappy with is Santa a and Ortiz v. Private Party losing the most viewers. I don't know what was happening on NXT at the same time, but you would generally expect Proud and Powerful to do well in the ratings.

Vaughan's average definitely fell when he became captain but yeah he remained good. 2-3 years ago, I would have put Kohli behind Smith Root and Williamson in test batting. Now Root has fallen off that level and I would put Stokes ahead of him in the last 2 years.

Root should bowl himself given he is creating more of an impact with the ball rather than the bat these days. Being captain of the England cricket team really ruins your batting unless you are Gooch.

Curran got Williamson with a ball that just spat at him out of nowhere off a good length, but otherwise yeah, there's been nothing. I'm hoping enough cracks develop for days 4 and 5 to be interesting, although the weather doesn't appear swing-friendly.

I am guessing Archer comes to life suddenly in the 4th innings and takes 6 wickets for 20 runs.

I mean, he also made the standard "people who think this is racist are the one stereotyping so who is the racist here?" bullshit argument, so it's not as if he did not say anything stupid. "People who escalated it to being racist must only have this in mind when they think of black people or chicken." That said, NWA and Dave Lasagna are absolutely not the victims here. Between this and ROH, it's not been a great week for wrestling management.

Meltzer also reported that some people have said that there was also heat on Cornette because they felt that his constant criticism of AEW was having a negative effect on their product, given that AEW Dark and NWA Powerr have a lot of overlapping viewers. It really seems as if cutting ties was a matter of when, not if.

It's like they are finding out right now that key demographics are a thing, and that tv rating websites always rank shows by demo ratings. Poor Meltz was losing his mind on Twitter at being called an AEW stan for pointing it out.

In a mask, while continuing to rant about AEW on Twitter or podcast and staunchly denying any connection to "that masked goofy outlaw so-called manager moron."

Alvarez and Meltzer made a point on radio yesterday: people are saying next week's line-up is PPV calibre. 2 months ago, none of the matches announced except for Omega-PAC would have been considered as even belonging on a PPV. It shows what a tremendous job AEW has done in putting over its wrestlers and making them feel like stars.

Cornette should treat this as a loser leaves town match and plan his triumphant baby-face return for when Vince Russo is dominating the air-waves with his controversial opinions on modern wrestling.

One of the reasons I stopped really following WWE because no match or angle, no matter how good in vacuum, has any stakes or leads to consequences. WWE clearly does not care about these characters' journey, so why should I?

Yeah, I was wondering the same. NXT put Becky Lynch first and ended a gigantic overrun with Seth Rollins. I actually thought they would beat AEW by a bigger margin. I didn't think they would beat AEW in the 18-49 demo, because they have been losing that comprehensively, but I expected that to be nearly even, given WWE has two shows this weekend and the NXT invasion angle was plugged on main roster television as well. I dunno if WWE are happy with the ratings - if nothing else, the fact that they finally got more viewers will be a relief - but I do think AEW will not be disappointed with the ratings.

It was an excellent segment. Jericho has been on fire in AEW.

Listening to Meltzer, the bit where Jericho did not want to say sorry was apparently a tribute to Fonzie from Happy Days. Jericho apparently loved an episode which had something similar as a kid and has been wanting to use it in a promo ever since.

It would be so Russo if he fucked up the climax of Corny getting his comeuppance angle by making it about himself and getting people to focus on his stupidity.

That's true, but it will be really sad if Cornette's defence and ultimately his appeal comes down to "He is better than Russo." That is a really REALLY low bar to clear.

For being a money mark, Dixie sure got the scummy promoter part just right.

There's certainly no love lost between Dixie and Cornette, and to be fair, I can see why he would hate someone who liked Russo so much she would literally lie to keep him involved. I don't know the details, but I believe Russo and TNA management did try to screw Cornette.