C.S.

While I don't think MENSA will be calling Alexa anytime soon, I wouldn't be opposed to working with The Fiend. He does have great ideas and a great mind. Unfortunately, they rarely translate when it comes to his own character and ring work. Try as he might, Bray never manages to stay fresh and compelling for long. But he would probably be a great idea man for others. I actually think his mind might be better geared toward Hollywood. The Fiend would work as a slasher movie villain more than it does as a wrestler.

Florida has the worst fucking politicians in the country - on both sides of the aisle.

Why is Bob Saget (of "Full House" fame) lowering himself by interacting with an irrelevant vanilla midget dork? The best part is that Saget clearly has no idea who the fuck Aries is. And why would he? Austin Aries has never made it as a major league professional wrestler, has always been a big fish in a small pond, and never lasts even on the independent level. If Aries was as good as he thinks he is, he'd be bigger than Hogan, Rikidozan, Baba, Inoki, Austin, Rock, etc. and get taught in grade schools. Instead, Aries won a few indie "World" Titles and let it go to his head despite being a mostly underwhelming, marginal, and ultimately forgettable presence wherever he's gone. But even if Aries was amazing at his job (he's not and never has been), he's still a worthless, useless, arrogant little shithead. He's also a sex pest (Christy Hemme situation, in-ring, in front of cameras, shown on fucking TV). So, yeah, fuck this repugnant toad.

Linda just sent a thank you note to Austin Aries for getting all the heat off her. Shitty wrestler. Shitty character. Shitty human being. Has there ever been anyone in wrestling more useless than Austin Aries?

It's fine as a starter feud for new champion though. Mella has past credibility as a former champ and MitB winner. Sasha will beat her cleanly and probably quickly, and that will be that.

Mella is Money.

Dave does himself no favors with the way he worded it though. It's not as if Rikidozan & Kimura vs. Sharpe Brothers was taught in grade school either.

Bronson Reed has become a surprisingly good follow, and an active voice against not only bullshit like Jericho's drunken rambling but also bullshit within his own company. Sami Zayn had a pretty good counter-argument for what you're saying, and I think he raises some good points. https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2020/10/1/21497928/sami-zayn-banned-saudi-arabia-whataboutism-purity-tests

All great points, Bubba. I can't argue against any of them. Mamma Mia! (Would it be an obnoxious board gimmick if I started ending every post with "Mamma Mia!"? Don't worry, I won't really do that - beyond this post, anyway.)

The same Rock who appeared at the Republican National Convention for George W. Bush? He has shied away from politics between then and now, but this ain't his first rodeo. Maybe you're right. Rasslin' fans are the most simpleminded and sycophantic audience ever, so they'll forgive a lot. Even Cornette had apologists on this board for a lot longer than anyone else would have outside the rasslin' bubble. But Jericho has done a fine job eroding his rep this past year. Eventually, enough will be enough. I like J.R. as a commentator and I am actively rooting for him, but his obvious disdain and/or apathy for parts of the product will eventually do more harm than good. At least he has been smart about not discussing politics (that I know of). I can make assumptions, but that's all they'd be. In a few years though, I can see Tony Khan replacing J.R. with a young, energized, revitalized Mauro Ranallo. Mamma Mia!

You shouldn't. Rasslers, by and large, are the most ignorant, backward, gullible, useless hillbillies on the planet. Even the supposed "smart" ones - like Kane - are dumb as fuck. Dutch Mantell's FB page, where he plays the curious old coot uncle act and asks questions based on obviously false information, is particularly unbearable because of its pretend "aw shucks" naivety. At least alcoholic Jericho and "mah freedoms > your life" Kane no longer try to hide who they really are. I said this to a couple of friends today: Jericho and Jim Ross started off as AEW's biggest asssets. Now they're AEW's biggest liabilities.

If it's a truthful doc, you'll probably get that too - considering that Marlon Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci essentially raped 19-year-old Maria Schneider on the set in the guise of shooting a scene. https://www.vox.com/2018/11/26/18112531/bernardo-bertolucci-maria-schneider-last-tango-in-paris

What a shitty, unprofessional, shortsighted company. Hire a guy, pay him, and give him an awful gimmick solely to rib someone else you can actually make money with.

Cornette actually managed Mantaur, which made me think he was in line for a push. Either Vince didn't like Cornette or was ribbing him, because...oof.

If you're expecting The Last Dance, you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting The Last Ride, you'll enjoy it for what it is.

Could be a case of him being there and reliable in a time when they were losing everyone else and unlikely to lose him, and it's also possible he was buddies with the right people. I haven't seen much of his work, but I don't remember anything particularly special about him. The magazines hyped Jeff Jarrett and Brian Christopher as a huge deal in the early '90s, so I was excited to see them both make the jump to the big time. Needless to say, while they may have been "magazine main eventers," they weren't WWF main eventers. As a kid, I found that kind of disappointing - especially Brian Christopher, who I really liked and thought would quickly become a top heel. I guess he was considered "too small"? Jarrett kind of underwhelmed me at first, TBH - his style was a little too basic for me at the time - but he eventually got that main event spot in WCW and later TNA. Those pushes never once felt legitimate or organic to me though. They were as forced as his goofy Slapnutz catchphrase. Speaking of disappointing WWE runs, I will never fucking understand the point of Tracy Smothers being repackaged as goofy Southern jobber Freddie Joe Floyd, Tony Anthony as T.L. Hopper, "Wild" Bill Irwin as The Goon, Alex Porteau as The Pug, whoever the fuck it was that played Mantaur, etc. Why purposely derail these guys with terrible gimmicks and no push? May as well flush money down a toilet instead of pay these guys, because the result ended up being the same anyway. Vince couldn't have felt that threatened and insecure about Smoky Mountain Wrestling, could he?

So, there's secret admirer storyline with Angel Garza having a crush on someone, but didn't he propose to his girlfriend in NXT after winning the Cruiserweight Championship? C'mon, WWE...

Mustafa Ali is the MVP of WWE, and it's not even close. He somehow justified the terrible names and masks in Retribution. Incredible!

Great, great stuff. I'm glad you guys recommended it. I also love how the new WWE Network redesign makes it easy to jump right into what you want to see. WALTER and Dragunov could've slowed down and sold a bit more - *old man yelling at clouds here* - but this was the type of stiff, hard-hitting, awesome action you generally only see in Japan and almost never see in the WWE, so it's worth going out of your way to see for that reason. And yeah, like Bubba said, getting people to tune into NXT UK - an irrelevant, sex pest infested, vanity project - is really saying something about what a good match this is. This usually kills it for me too, but since the match was presented as Dragunov being a clear underdog and not really having a chance, the story became WALTER beating the shit out of him, with the photogenic little Russian who resembles a teenage Sean Penn getting his licks in and somehow surviving onslaught after onslaught from the massive Austrian oak.

The Dogg has just been put to sleep!

Agreed. I was going to say they should change his name to DIDDLE, but I thought that would be in poor taste.

Speaking of depleted, Matt Riddle's name has been depleted. It's now just Riddle. Big E Langston, Alexander Rusev, Buddy Murphy, Andrade "Cien" Almas, Apollo (for the two weeks he lost Crews), and Ali (for the few months he lost Mustafa) all say hi and welcome to the club.

You're not wrong, but what would happen then? Would both companies use Halloween Havoc, Starrcade, etc.? And we're not even getting into the NWA, indies, etc.

Interesting. I had no idea about any of that. You certainly can't tell, based on how she's been presented so far. I guess that explains why her big hype piece for the WrestleMania match was a carefully constructed and edited video package.

Sad, sad news. I really enjoyed watching him in the WCW tag team The Young Pistols with Steve Armstrong. Tons of great tweets and stories from other wrestlers about Tracy Smothers here: https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2020/10/28/21538712/tracy-smother-tributes-edge-cm-punk-great-stories