Migs

Yes, the lawsuit that a lot of the Saudi stuff came out of alleged that they withheld material information to keep the stock price high and then sold off shares before announcing the bad news that lowered the price.

I really loved ZSJ-Naito, particularly Zack's counters. Him coming in and just rolling Naito out of the Tranquilo pose was awesome, and there were a bunch of moments like that which were just really clever.

There are people who are VERY worried that the capital gains tax rate is going to shoot up if Biden is elected, which would be a reason to sell stock now. Maybe she's not a true believer in Papa Donald's chances of victory.

Ready for a feud with DOA in 1997.

Yes, I think. A lot of his arc in 2019 was going kinda batty after losing to Rush, and while they took it in a comedy context with the Joe Hendry stuff at the end of the year, this feels like a more fruitful direction for him in terms of being able to be a top guy.

They mostly have that in this tournament. Except Delirious.

Given Gresham is coming in so confident that he feels like the most likely finals loser. No one else on his side of the bracket seems to be a likely finalist (I guess I could see King or Sydal), but I could see him losing in the final to Lethal or Tracy Williams.

The answer seems like it's somewhere in the middle. Puppet is a pretty strong word, and I kinda doubt Dave is actively attempting to carry water for WWE. On the other hand, if he's just sort of reporting what his sources give him and that's the office line, then yeah, he ends up unintentionally advancing their agenda.

Agreed, a great show, with a very nice presentation. Castle's promo in particular was excellent and felt like a side of the character he needs to evolve. I also thought the style of match worked really well for the closed set - focused, grounded, and the Pure rules give them little stories to tell. I didn't miss the fans here. Maybe I will when there's bigger moments as they progress, we'll see. Low key nice thing - they changed the opening, which had gotten really, really stale.

Yeah, the episode with the tag title tournament was hilarious, as they constantly referred to another team (EZ Money and Dinero, I think) who'd be in the final and then just totally ignored that. It also seems like they've trimmed matches out of the last few episodes without saying there was technical difficulties. Not sure what's going on there.

This isn't surprising to me, actually, especially since it seems like he and the host share in the profits (as opposed to one or the other being paid a fee for their participation in the show). I'm sure a lot of the work goes into ironing out the details of the LLC agreement, in terms of how they're going to share profits, not just from the show itself but from merchandising and the like. The other advantage, I'm sure, is that it keeps each podcast in its own bucket for accounting and tax, as opposed to, say, Conrad having one big podcast LLC with all the hosts as members, needing to try and divvy up income based on how the show does.

He's only really a good worker in that modern "does nice moves" style - I think he's really uncompelling in the ring. I think they've figured that out, and using him first in a tag team with Havoc and then making him Penelope and Miro's sidekick has been a good use of him.

Thought the stuff in the actual title match was real fun, too. I'm sure that's a match we'll get down the road.

The PWI 500 is for active wrestlers. Michael Elgin is currently not one, whatever the reasoning.

Yeah, nothing has been truly terrible but there's really nothing to recommend. To be fair, the best aspects of the Jr Tag division (Phantasmo teaming with Ishimori, Ospreay and Eagles) aren't there. They have a ton of guys in NJ USA that could at least spice up a tournament like this, but there's just no sizzle to any of these matchups.

The A Block is insane. Ospreay vs Suzuki!!! Plus rematches of a ton of stuff that's delivered in the past. The B Block is about equal from a star power perspective but way weaker in terms of matches I'm excited for.

We're getting a real G1 with all the top guys, y'all. Stoked.

Well, scratch Austin then (or maybe that contract is over and that makes him more likely since he's talked to Conrad about this)? After walking through this, I think the names I'd potentially be interested in are Foley (smart guy, good storyteller, covers a fun swath of promotions, wouldn't indulge too many of Conrad's annoying tendencies), Nash (interesting career, could be a fun hang), and Bubba (not a huge fan but I'd probably give a shot to any show focused on ECW).

Scrolling through the list of WWE Hall of Famers, I think we've named most of the even potentially plausible ones in the thread. A few more that haven't come up but are at least vaguely reasonable in terms of being big enough for Conrad to work with and do numbers (not saying any of these are likely, a lot have their own things but other people in that position have teamed up with Conrad in the past): Nash (this is one I think could actually work) DDP Goldberg Austin Waltman Ricky Morton Tully

Yes, exactly. He can be a strong mid carder for a long time but unless he really fully ditches some aspects of the gimmick, he probably can't be a main eventer.

Yeah, I've been loving it too. It's scratching an itch of nostalgia both for ECW and that early 2000s indy stuff, and it's something I've never seen much of before. It's not super consistent but the talent level is really high and it's engaging. An easy binge if you want to catch up to where they're at (9 episodes in, I believe, and there's only 34 total). Hoping they still keep going in posting this when they bring the current show back.

That finish felt a bit too cute. Maybe they're trying to get another match out of it, but while I enjoyed the program, I'm not clamoring for more. Or maybe it's just an out to give MJF some talking points. Probably towards the bottom of the AEW PPVs on the whole, but still a very good show. I think it lacked a really memorable match (maybe missing Cody hurt them, he's really delivered on the big shows).

Wait, what? This has been a really good show. May end up lacking slightly in terms of an all-time classic match, but this has been fun all the way through.

Great tag match, going almost 30 in 95 degree heat is kinda incredible.

Admittedly, watchalongs are a terrible format for talking about these 80s territory shows, where there's a ton of promos (no, I don't need Conrad's impersonations) and you can't really enjoy them without knowing where you are in the continuity of things. But even on the early 90s TV, which is a little easier to enjoy out of context, Conrad seems like he has no interest.