Champagne

Agreed. I have been hoping for one last moment with these two ever since Sting signed with AEW, so for it to finally happen was like Christmas for me.

The idea is to get people talking about the promotion and tuning into Dynamite and Rampage to see what will happen next. Controversy creates cash as the saying goes. I'm not saying it's a good idea BTW.

I'm still convinced this is all an elaborate work combining of aspects of the Montreal screwjob and summer of Punk.

Jeff Hardy's involvement with AEW was a bit of a black eye on the promotion, even before his arrest.

I could be completely wrong here, but I feel they've decided to use some real backstage issues to craft a worked shoot angle. I'm half expecting the PPV will feature the debut of a new stable made up of the alleged malcontents: MJF, Punk, and Rosa. Maybe throw in Kingston.

Since moving to TBS, Dynamite's highest viewership is almost always at the start of the program with the carryover from The Big Bang Theory. Going essentially commercial free at the beginning is to try to keep TBBT viewers who've stuck around from turning the channel. Another strategy they've been using is to open the show with the main event, semi-main, or a match featuring talent who might be recognized by more casual fans.

Asking the WWE to change the name of a battle royal and WWE agreeing to do so is not the same as removing the man who has run the company for 40 years and for all intents and purposes is the WWE. Advertisers only care about money. The public hasn't stopped watching WWE since the allegations hit, nor have they threatened to boycott its advertisers.

If there has been no crime committed and WWE programming is still bringing in advertising dollars and eyeballs, it's doubtful they'd care enough to apply any pressure on the company to remove Vince. Heck, Raw, Smackdown and NXT ratings have been trending up in recent weeks. It's important to remember that we're in the bubble. The general public has little to no awareness of who Vince McMahon is, let alone the recent news about him.

The Board's power is limited. They can only oust Vince if he's done something illegal. He also personally owns an overwhelming majority of the voting stock.

His ADHD booking is another major issue. The "sell out" is the result of scalpers buying up large volumes. There are quite a few tickets for the show available for resale, some for as low as $6. With that said, I'm sure there will be a near capacity crowd in attendance and they will be fired up for the show.

What a great listen. Jim is sitting on a veritable goldmine of rare or lost footage.

"Drago Zhivago," which I'm guessing is another name from the mind of Bruce Hart. I grew up on this era of Stampede Wrestling (my display name is a nod to Champagne Gerry Morrow) and, as others have already pointed out, really anything from the 87-89 time period is worth checking out. I particularly enjoy the whole Jason the Terrible-Zodiac saga. Personally, I've started watching what little there is of Billy Jack Haynes' short-lived Oregon Wrestling Federation. It's an interesting crew on paper—Billy Jack, Kevin Kelly (Nailz), Johnny Ace, Cpl. Kirchner, Hercules Haggerty (Fred Ottman), Ricky Santana, Rip Oliver, Mike Miller, JT Southern, Terminator, Brian Adams, Cocoa Samoa, Blackstud Williams (Ray Candy), Tiger Chung Lee, Bill Alfonso, Tom Magee, Steve Gatorwolf.

Tony can't help himself with ex-WWE talent, so I wouldn't be surprised. Personally, I hope Paige stays as far away from AEW as possible considering she's one bump away from being crippled and the AEW women's division is not exactly known for the quality of its workers.

It gets worse. In his arrest video, Jeff said he's scheduled to undergo a brain scan.

Right?! Tony Khan even sent out a tweet using analytics to justify why Moxley is the number one contender and is getting the bye. Rightly or wrongly, there was a perception among some fans that Hangman was flopping as champion, so not having him involved in the interim title situation might inadvertently send a message that TK agrees with that assessment of Page's time on top.

Let's do a head-to-head comparison, using the lists @Flyin' Brian provided: Adam Cole (AEW) vs. AJ Styles (WWE) - Cole was included by Brian, but I believe he's currently injured. Eh, I'll give the nod to Cole. Adam Page (AEW) vs. Bobby Lashley (WWE) - Page Chris Jericho (AEW) vs. Brock Lesnar (WWE) - Brock is a bigger star, but Jericho works more often. I''ll call this a draw. Darby Allin (AEW) vs. Bron Breaker (WWE) - Allin Eddie Kingston (AEW) vs. Drew McIntyre (WWE) - Draw Hook (AEW) vs. Edge (WWE) - Edge Jon Moxley (AEW) vs. Finn Balor (WWE) - Moxley Miro (AEW) vs. Gunther (WWE) - Miro Samoa Joe (AEW) vs. Kevin Owens (WWE) - Owens Sting (AEW) vs. Rey Mysterio (WWE) - Mysterio Wardlow (AEW) vs. Roman Reigns (WWE) - Reigns MJF (AEW) vs. Seth Rollins (WWE) - Rollins Flyin' Brian's lists didn't have equal numbers, so I'll pick two guys from the AEW roster to match against Miz and Theory. Sammy and Scorpio Sky have both main evented AEW shows recently and will do here. Sammy Guevera (AEW) vs. Miz (WWE) - Miz Scorpio Sky (AEW) vs. Austin Theory (WWE) - Can we go with neither? Draw So my completely subjective and unscientific head-to head showdown of the men's rosters ends with WWE narrowly ahead of AEW 6 - 5, with 3 draws. For AEW, I haven't included the injured Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, or Kenny Omega. For WWE, I haven't included Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, and Matt Riddle. I think there is no question that the WWE women's roster is much stronger than AEW's, while the AEW tag roster is far deeper than that of the WWE.

For what it's worth, here is a video from an MD discussing how "safe" it was for Cody to work with the injury, as well as a post with follow-up comments on the Reddit Squared Circle forum from an athletic trainer with his take on the situation.

Which is too bad because I felt Tama was really starting to come into his own as an assholish heel at this time.

33% of NHL viewers make over $100K annually, compared to 27% of PGA viewers. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/which-sports-have-the-whitest-richest-oldest-fans/283626/ Sourcing numbers from: https://www.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/year-in-sports-media-report-2013.pdf

The NHL audience is the most affluent of the North American sports leagues, so TNT is able to charge higher ad rates and make more money with the NHL than they can with AEW, despite hockey drawing fewer viewers than Dynamite.

His right arm originally had tribal art and a Superman logo. His left arm has a Japanese ocean with waves and dolphins.

Matt Jackson mentioned the 50 k expenditure on Being the Elite. I don't think it's entirely out of the realm of possibility. Remember Eric Bischoff was able to get TBS and TNT to pay to air WCW programming even through the promotion and networks were part of the same company.

AEW apparently paid $50,000 to Warner Bros. for the rights to use a Space Jam themed entrance on Dynamite, only 12 days after Space Jam 2 had been released. That was some WCW level dumbfuckery.

The NHL audience is the richest of all professional sports. One-third of its viewers make more than $100k, compared to about 19 percent of the general population.

Loved by their fans and derided by their critics.