Flyin' Brian

Scrolling through YouTube and came across this video. Hopefully they can work something out. https://youtu.be/6FBPRC8eb80?si=4v1s42X-ICaefrqN

It was a fun show. Dropped out before the Battle Riot match to watch Duke collapse against Houston, so I’m glad I had it to come back to and help me forget about that disappointment. Barbaro Cavanario quickly became a wrestler I want to check out more of their stuff. I was entertained. Some surprise entrants, a few guys I hadn’t seen for a while, a lot of lower tier luchadores, but not a bad show for free.

Opener was ok. Not great, not terrible. Old guys got their stuff in. Janai Kai vs. HIMAWARI up next.

Anyone watching? Show just started. Six Man Tag Team Match Atlantis, Atlantis Jr. & Star Jr. vs. Barbaro Cavernario, Magnus & Ultimo Guerrero

I keep seeing people say WWE is at an all time hot period and honestly just wondering what that is based on. I know it’s not tv ratings. It’s not Star power. It’s not mainstream recognition. Live attendance? Money? (Adjusted for inflation?) just as a fan there’s not much I’m interested in. It’s not bad but at least to me it doesn’t feel like an all time period. what am I missing?

Checking out MLW One Shot out of curiosity, tried a few MLW shows before but never found anything that kept my interest for very long. We’ll see if there’s anything good tonight.

You’d think so but we live in an age where the rich and powerful have 9 lives.

Vince just sold 5.3 million shares of TKO stock for $411,950,000 dollars. That’s only 1/4 of the stock he owns. I’m sure there is some type of noncompete agreement in place, and I’m definitely not saying he should with all the legal and moral issues. But the question still crossed my mind.

TNA/Impact is partnering with Endeavor for a TNA+ streaming service. Interesting news.

I haven’t been this happy about anything in wrestling for a while. Give Punk a live mike Monday Night and Raw is must see tv for me.

So Edge is going to turn on Sting and Darby and setup Edge and Christian vs Sting and Darby as Sting’s retirement match, aren’t they?

Nexstar. Not quite as evil as Sinclair, but still not great.

Before my time, but pretty neat that Crockett had a live studio show in Roanoke, VA about an hour away from me at one point. Masked Men, Good Guys, and Heels: Wrestling at WDBJ (retroroanoke.com)

Guess that makes Mostert and Achane the Usos, Tyreek Hill is Solo Sikoa, McDaniel is Heyman. Who's Sami?

Pro Wrestling Only getting a shout out during Payback lol

One of the best of all time. The first exposure I had to Funk was the Flair feud in ‘89, and even being a 10 year old fan that knew nothing about him up to that point I instantly thought he was awesome. Incredibly entertaining and talented. I hope WWE will do a career retrospective of some type.

Awesome Kong/Kharma in WWE

Much like Smackdown was the Rock's show when it debuted, AEW Collision is CM Punk's show. I almost wonder if they should have called it AEW Clobberin' Time.

If I was starting a wrestling show on Saturday Night's I always wanted Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting to be the theme song. I definitely approve.

During the WWE Most Wanted Treasures episode this week they revealed WWE has 20 boxes of master tapes from Poffo’s ICW. They showed a few clips from 1983. Would love to see this released on the network someday.

The Headbangers just signed ‘general nostalgia contracts’. That verbiage depresses me. Guess that takes the place of the Legends contracts or ‘general nostalgia’ covers lower tier people that don’t qualify as ‘Legends’. The older I get the more garbage the world becomes.

Rumors say there will be another return/debut happening on the first episode of Collision. Return of Thunder Rosa? Mercedes Mone? Trinity Fatu? For some reason I'm leaning towards the women's roster for it.

Danhausen was on the Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder last night. It’s cool to see a lot of crossover between wrestling/horror fans online. A lot of them watched WCW and Monstervision on TNT back in the day, me included. While Danhausen is injured he’s still valuable outside of the ring making appearances like this. Hopefully he stays a regular on tv.

Jericho is too carny not to let the opportunity pass by. It’ll be ok if they do it, not great but if he’s the only one willing I guess that’s all I they can do. If a feud with Punk isn’t artsy enough or if the Elite say “that doesn’t work for me, brother” then it’ll be a one and done and everyone can move on. Give Punk the win to set him up for the program with MJF.

Unfortunately in the past wrestling benefited from a mostly black and white world where there was good and evil that at the time seemed to be clearly defined. You cheered for the good guys and booed the bad guys. Then it became cool to cheer the bad guy, or have shades of grey, ‘tweeners’ in some cases that weren’t so easily defined. More complex characters maybe in some cases, lazy booking in others, but society had changed too. The good guys weren’t always so bright and shiny, and maybe the bad guys weren’t so evil after all. Especially when it came to USA vs the world that stuff was something that didn’t really work anymore. Someone like Cena who was probably the last big time babyface ace would have been cheered by everyone in the 80’s but that time had passed. The other side of the coin is that with social media and the 24 hour news cycle we know everything about everyone for better and for worse. It makes the suspension of disbelief harder and it also brings everything that someone says or does to light outside of the ring. It makes it harder to cheer for someone when you know they aren’t that great of a person in reality. The magic is gone in a lot of ways. Every now and again things are good both in ring and story wise but it’s harder these days I think to make those connections and build those payoffs.