MoS

Reports are that WBD are heavily involved in Punk's return, which makes me think that he is a bigger difference-maker than we can make out from publicly available metrics.

Also, Kommander walking the ropes looks stupid, but not as stupid as Taker sloowly, awkwardly and precariously walking the top rope, even as his opponent does his absolute best to ensure dude doesn't fall embarrassingly. I don't really know where I am going with this. Wrestling is stupid, I guess.

Loss put it really well once: it didn't matter whether the fans took wrestling seriously. Wrestling took wrestling seriously. I prefer that approach to wrestling too. Do you really think that the death of kayfabe was the reason why wrestling declined after initially booming though? The steroid scandal would have happened regardless of how stringently VKM had adhered to kayfabe. We did have another boom like 8 years after the first ended.

Plus, that Deadpsin article I linked to earlier, which completely perverts the meaning of "gaslighting". To call it misuse would be being generous and euphemistic.

yeah should have put in this disclaimer. Wasn't a fan of the article either - baseless assertions about how Punk doesn't care how he gets it as long as he gets what he wants, and some psychobabble about the mind games and psychological warfare he is engaging against Tony Khan, the Elite, and AEW. And a misunderstanding of the word "gaslighting", which means maybe writers should use terms related to trauma and abuse with a whole lot of discretion and understanding. Seems to me like a lot of people are angry that AEW has grown far beyond what it was when it started. AEW is no longer only about the Elite: there are many other great wrestlers, old and young, who have as much claim over AEW as the Elite members do.

All those deleted tweets were in reference to this Deadspin article - https://deadspin.com/cm-punk-aew-wrestling-young-bucks-kenny-omega-ftr-leaks-1850336362

With Dax, it's also his blatant hypocrisy that's grating - pretending he doesn't care about Meltzer or his opinions, and then throwing a fit cuz he didn't get enough star ratings for a match - shit like that is a turnoff. If Punk was not medically cleared to return, he should have never been doing the Mox main event PPV match in the first place. Surely it didn't help his injury issues.

I do think Punk is too smart and too much of a veteran to let Jericho leach off his heat like Chris's usual modus operandi.

And the heat-stealing begins!

Part of what he said -

Dave on the latest WOR spent 15 seconds reporting actual news - that there are no plans yet for Punk/FTR v. Elite as yet - and about 15 minutes detailing his thoughts on what he thinks Punk/FTR's "intentions" are for talking about a potential return and match. It's kind of BS really; I highly doubt Punk has told him that his comments about his return are in bad faith, his intention is to be unprofessional "under the guise of being professional" and that in reality, he wants the Elite to leave AEW. All of this is pure speculation on his part. I would have thought he'd have learnt his lesson from the last time he spoke about Punk - and then spent an entire WOR episode apologising for it.

I only knew of the Bloody Mary legend where she appears if you say her name in front of the mirror 3 times, so the last few posts have been like modern pop-culture classes for me. Thanks, brothers.

Eh, I've never seen Dory Sr. wrestle, so I don't know how good he was, and Dory Jr. often bores me to death with his "stoicisim". Terry of course is an easy GOAT contender, far better than anyone the Anoa'i family has ever produced, but that's just one person. So in terms of depth, I don't think the Funks are anywhere near the GOAT family.

Whatever, dude

Jesus Christ x2 And yes, Vickie, having sex with someone when they are too drunk to consent is sexual assault. You piece of shit. Evil, repugnant shit.

HEY!!! (I mean, you're not wrong, but still)

Jesus Christ. Turning your back on your children after a traumatic event like this is like one of the absolute worst things that a human being can do

It was also the Raw after a white-hot WM (which is hotter, red-hot or white-hot?) and they spent 2 hours 30 minutes advertising a main event of Roman and Solo v. Cody and Brock, which not only is a massive main event, but also probably made fans feel that the Roman-Cody story was going to continue. Of course, in classic 21st-century Vince style, it was a bait and switch, they did not deliver on it, they never had any intention of delivering on it, and it has now also become clear that Cody will be shunted away from Roman after losing to him, at least for a few months. And given Brock's normal wrestling schedule, their feud will probably be Cody cutting 15-min promos every week for 2 months before Brock shows up again. I think the ratings of the shows in a month's time or two would be far more significant

Ironically, while the Austin heel turn destroyed WWF's business and still remains the worst booking decision in the promotion's history, the live crowd on the night didn't mind it at all. Unlike Roman-Cody, the crowd wasn't deflated and depressed. But that's due to extenuating circumstances- they were in Houston, Austin's home state, and literally all the fans cared about was seeing their hero win the world title. Don't get me wrong, WM 17 was definitely the worse decision by a huge margin. I highly doubt this year's finish will destroy WWE's business like Austin's heel turn did, but Rock was a massive heel that night. He didn't work heel the way he switched mid-way in the WM 18 Hogan match cuz obviously, Austin was going to turn heel at the end of the night, but the live crowd was fine with Austin aligning with Vince as long as he won the title. Austin v. Rock always worked best when Austin was face and Rock was heel. Or when both were faces I guess, but the fans would choose for Austin to cheer more than they would The Rock anyway. There was something off and weird about heel Austin v. face Rock. I remember in late 2001, they had an MSG house show with face Rock v. heel Austin as the main event, and it sold a pathetic 7k tickets. Austin v. Rock. Selling only 7k tickets. At Madison Square Garden. It's unimaginable and yet it happened.

I can't help but be cynical about this sale. As a massive MMA fan and someone who has modded a prominent MMA site for 6 years, I have seen what happened to UFC after it was sold to Endeavor. A soulless entity that cuts some of its best fighters, has meaningless "interim" title fights, and tries to fill out its cards with jobbers from Dana White's contender series who are happy to fight for 20k/20k, instead of actual good mid-level fighters, with the sole purpose being to increase its profit margin. Like WWE was during the first year of the pandemic era, except on steroids.

Truly, genuinely, the greatest of all time

Certainly not the look I would choose less than a year after sexual assault allegations

Yes, assuming everything goes smoothly

Given how creepy a lot of Sasha/Mercedes stans are, one can hardly blame her

Stephanie is no longer with WWE, remember?