Migs

Has anyone heard anything about this Lance Von Erich book? https://lancebychance.com

IW.TV dropped a ton of 2001 Jersey All pro and now I'm up too late watching shows and reading old DVDVR road reports.

Devitt, Styles and White have never main evented a Dome show. Devitt wasn't close, Styles was 2nd from the top in 2016, and White will do so this year (although obviously his number in draw will be capped). Also, Styles is in, at least partly based on his run in Japan.

Maybe they figure if they can't make it in now it's time to crown new champs? If they can't get them in for this, I'd imagine contracts are going to be expiring, since a high percentage of these guys were probably on one year deals. ROH seems like a pretty reasonable landing spot for Bennett - him teaming with Taven has at least a little bit of juice.

One of the upsides of tag team wrestling - guys who have some good qualities but can't really put a match together can more easily get slotted into a formula and structure. As a single, he was generic flippy guy #382, but as a tag team with his brother they have nice chemistry and played their part in the match really well.

I was in on MLW before, and I thought this was a giant disappointment. Both the title matches were underwhelming. I already miss the 2003 episodes, honestly. They've also landed in a weird spot with Reed and Oliver, where they're clearly better as heels but their characters are kinda babyfaces after the summer, which is awkward.

Yeah, while his claims are concerning (and certainly, bad employees don't deserve abhorrent treatment), the "delete all your social media" response is a little more reasonable in the context that he said he's working for AEW and THAT is this guy's Twitter account.

So, what we learned last night was that DDP's video company has a very weak HR department in terms of doing background checks on their hires and definitely struggles in handling low performing employees?

https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/sag-aftra-president-says-group-will-directly-engage-wrestlers-325266 It's an interesting distinction here of what paths get taken: WWE is probably the only company where the wrestlers are definitively employees and not independent contractors (you can make an IC argument for some of the other companies, but it's at least debatable, unlike with WWE), but wrestlers for every TV company could be "screen actors" and thus union members.

Ha! I am in no way a Star Wars person. That does sound bad.

This would honestly be a much better direction for WWE than trying to appeal to the whims of an 80 year old who thinks he understands kids. I'm not saying it would be good art but it would probably be coherent at least.

One point on the march thing - the only report we have is that *total sales* are the same. But that doesn't mean the mix of sales is the same. Generally, the merch at the shows was for people on the shows. You go to a show, see, say, Alexa Bliss, and decide to buy her t-shirt. But the shop obviously carries a far wider range. Maybe now that sale is a vintage Macho Man t-shirt, or one more Fiend collectible.

They've also got a lot of time to fill on a weekly basis, and two hours in an empty arena is brutal. Might be a reason they're pushing harder on the funny at the moment. Although given their track record, you'd think surrounding the ring with the wrestlers themselves could be something they'd have fun with.

It says so much about Vince Russo that making Mike Awesome the fat chick thriller isn't even the bottom of his barrel.

It's been really interesting to dive into Awesome's WCW stuff and see the older guys working hard with him and having fun matches. All sorts of crazy stuff here (that belly to belly superplex, holy shit) with neither guy giving a care and just going for it. Impossibly terrible finish.

Honestly shocked at how good this was. A minor hidden gem. I didn't have any recollection of this motivated version of Hogan, as he really adapts well to this style and works like it's an especially heated title defense in 1986. It's also funny because I've been watching a lot of Mike Awesome lately, and his promos are sometimes very Hulkster inspired (especially early in his career and in FMW).

Meltzer confirms Final Battle is a PPV, from the same arena in Baltimore with no fans. Rush and Dragon Lee expected to be there. Given my COVID-era social calendar, I guess there's a non-zero chance I watch that live...

I'm positive the Bouncers were at the tapings, since they were posting from quarantine in their hotel rooms. I believe Flip Gordon and PCO, too. I'm with you that Taven vs Vincent and EC3 vs Taylor are of zero interest to me. The word was they were trying to get Rush and Dragon Lee in for December, but it's unclear with the travel restrictions. Just feels like they have a solid midcard without any semblance of an upper card at the moment. And guys that they have pushed as upper card guys, like Castle, are getting used to build up others... which is fine, but while I like Brody King, I don't see him as an upper card guy yet.

Yeah, I'm certainly in agreement that Omega is a hall of famer, but it feels really strange to be inducting someone when they're clearly still mid-prime.

I still think ROH is doing a good job of shooting these shows and the vignettes are effective, but it feels like they're going to run out of steam pretty fast if they're not building to anything. I don't know how they'd try and do a PPV in this context, the Impact ones have been terrible for energy.

It's also a little odd to me that they added Ospreay-Okada (clearly the next biggest match they have) to Night 1, which I think is the stronger drawing match (Ibushi-Naito). Not sure what they can use on Night 2 to support a lesser main event with White. It also feels like they have a lot of work to do to set up the undercard. After the three announced matches, given the way they've booked the big shows, they need 9 more matches, and other than the LIJ grudge match, not seeing a lot of direction towards this. Junior Title: Ishimori vs. BOSJ winner (seems pretty likely this is Hiromu) Tag Titles: ZSJ/Taichi vs. WTL winner (FinJuice? GOD? maybe a 3 or 4 way?) EVIL vs. SANADA? US Title (or the briefcase): KENTA vs. ? (Juice?) NEVER: Shingo vs. ? (Ishii? Suzuki again? Cobb?) Junior Tag Titles: Desperado and Kanemaru vs. ? (they literally don't have an actual team for this slot unless YOH makes it back. Wato and Taguchi maybe?) Tanahashi vs. ? (maybe this is the slot for Suzuki?) NEVER Six man gauntlet? An old timers match to give Tenzan one last match in the Dome (I presume he's the next retirement...)

I thought he'd already been released and just showed up to job the title? Either way, it looks like the NWA is a dead issue again. Only guy I feel bad for is Aldis, who worked really hard to get that belt to matter again and seems like he's back in the same position he was before the All In match.

Looks like they are doing Naito-Ibushi on Night 1, and White vs the winner on Night 2. Both matches feel like they need a decent undercard to me (although of course Okada and Ospreay should be crazy good). I think this year has really driven home how much NJPW benefited from bringing in guys for big shows to create fresh match ups. They felt absolutely out of steams until they were able to bring some guys in for the G1, and they immediately feel back in that same place again. I'm the kind of weirdo who generally enjoys World Tag League just to see what interesting gaijin they bring in for that, and I doubt we're seeing that this year. BOSJ looks brutal.

I certainly get going with a core guy, but it feels like they could have made Tracy Williams a much bigger deal with a win here, with the overconfident Gresham being bested. Really left the end of the tournament feeling a little flat, too. I can't imagine Williams is a big target for WWE, and he's a perfect guy for ROH.

Good analogy, although it's a little too meta for me that he calls it the ace title (instead of calling himself an ace or something like that).