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Dave seemed pretty skeptical about the business sense of this move. Seems like there might be some cargo cult thinking here with the aping of WWE.

It's a shame everything is organised as individual matches rather than entire shows. How much stuff is on there, approximately?

NJPW just announced their WWE network equivalent. It will feature every piece of recorded footage from the past 45 years. Holy shit. edit: or not? Dave says "There are hundreds of matches historically, including everything of significance from the past three years, and some matches every year dating back to 1972."

Interesting. I'd imagine WWE ran significantly more shows than New Japan, though? But given the size of the country I'd assume New Japan would be forced to run the same buildings much more frequently than the WWF...

They probably barely remember it ever being different at this point. Not to mention it's a great band-aid for the shows lacking any long term direction or logic.

I forget how he worded it now, but it sounded like he just barely hinted at going after WWE for their "independent contractor" nonsense. Wonder if anything will come of that?

While it's an area fraught with rampant subjectivity, I think it's important to consider how much money Vince has left on the table through poor decision making at various times in history, even when WWE was still performing well as a whole. That's something that gets lost when looking at raw numbers. The WCW invasion would be the most obvious example here - to ignore the amount of potential money lost there because 2001 was still a very good year for them overall is disingenuous.

Vince's worst years being better than EMLL and NJPW's best sounds like utter nonsense to me. Why was Japan the place to be for workers in the early to mid 90s if that were the case?

It's like a warehouse banning a specific kind of forklift that offers marginal to no advantage over any other forklift because user error that runs contrary to their instincts of how to use a forklift has caused a number of people to floor it by accident and crash into a wall.

If I'm a promoter and I see that several guys have been badly hurt taking a certain move, I don't care whose fault it is, I just don't want my guys to get hurt. Assigning blame doesn't do jack for Yoshi Tatsu.

Punk also had the privilege of having one of the few pieces of non-embarrassing merchandise WWE has ever produced which probably played a pretty significant role in those sales.

If people keep getting hurt by it, whose fault it is is really beside the point.

The accusation that the doctor was 'just lazy' rather than actively conspiring to keep him wrestling rather than healthy seems like the weirdest claim in this.

Cesaro hasn't been doing too hot for a while, but there really does seem to have been a noticeable downturn in his fortunes since he made that statement about not needing to see Orton vs. Cena for the 9000th time a couple months ago.

I think Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly are supposed to be hipsters, they don't really go very far with it though and it seems really confused by them doing all this faux-MMA stuff and I guess the requirements of the indie style in general.

I don't know if the plan is to tour. Lucha Underground isn't a wrestling promotion, it's a TV show. I hope at some point we get to see different styles of lucha than the AAA US indy-influenced spot style.

So did anyone else watch the Delta/Fuego/Guerrero Maya Jr. vs. Hechicero/Hombre Sin Nombre/Virus match cubsfan just uploaded today yet? Because god DAMN what a match.

Did everyone forget the story that Taker got concussed 5 minutes into his match with Brock? I have no clue if he can still go or not, but it seems unfair to use that match alone as basis for making that judgement.

Is there any reason to believe Sting gives, or should give, one shit about his 'legacy'? Isn't that kind of thing typically called being a mark for yourself?

Expecting consistency from wrestling physics seems like a dangerous road to go down.

A friend told me Roman Reigns is rumored, don't know how reliable a source he got that from though.

I enjoyed him in the tag with Alberto vs. Aguayo Jr. and Texano Jr. Granted he didn't do much except throw great punches. Not familiar with his work outside of that.

I could see that. It's early days so I'm certainly not making any decisive judgements just yet.

I think, like many things WWE does, the implication that their last names are "Dust" is supposed to be funny and it's bizarre how uptight Bryan gets over it. I felt the same about the announcers pretending El Torito was a real bull, though I think it was mostly Dave that took issue with that one. Some people just don't get jokes I guess.

Disagree that there are no long term directions. They've planted seeds for a ton of stuff moving forward. The entire roster hating Chavo, Muertes coming after Chavo, Konnan & Puma not being on the same page, Cueto talking to the mystery man in side the cage, etc. Even after four weeks, I trust what these guys are doing long term far more than WWE. It's true that there's long-term stuff going on, I just don't see any of it building up matches (other than Chavo vs. Muertes). The storytelling feels much more like a TV drama than a traditional wrestling-style build, which I guess is the point and that's fine, it's just not what I'd personally prefer. I enjoy the show because I like the matches, the production and the video packages, but as far as creating a compelling week-to-week story it hasn't done anything for me so far. I'd like to see them build up a rivalry between two guys that has me eagerly anticipating their eventual match. Chavo vs. Muertes sure as hell isn't that.