Reel

Roman/Goldberg. Decidedly fine.

Hoping the Karate guy from the last Saudi show wins the chamber.

The 'Austin level' thing is Meltzer's, so it doesn't have anything to do with Vince, plus it was a hypothetical.

I thought it was supposed to be a surprise on the same level as Austin, not the same level of star. That was my read on it, so my thought is that it's somebody from another company you wouldn't expect to show up. Not saying this is at all going to happen, but if Tanahashi showed up, that would be an 'Austin level surprise.'

I don't think calling yourself 'the other African virus' was ever appropriate

The last few weeks, I've been jumping around watching random shows from an old hard drive, and Orihara is maybe the wrestler that stood out the most. I think he might be the best loser in Shoot Style history. In Kingdom, he makes everybody look like a killer. He's good in trios matches on the Mobius, his promotion I think, against all sorts of people, and he's good in this duster 6-man I'm watching right now from a RJPW show.

hasn't that been his gimmick for years?

Creed Brothers by KO (Gutwrench through the ring, boards and all)

The issue with these 'gig economy' companies, is that their status as 'hiring agents' is in question. So sure, you provide your own car, but you don't exactly choose your own hours, because if you choose to work at a particular time, those companies can direct business to you or not, and on the basis of certain performance thresholds they track, which is why some states want to classify them as hiring agents and then that creates an issue of employee vs independent contractor. Again, these companies have largely won that fight by dumping a ton of money into ads against ballot initiatives, but it is certainly a debate.

They are classified as such, but people have fought against that distinction, claiming that they need the same benefits as employees, pretty much the same exact case people made for wrestlers. So far, status quo on that front. There was the whole deal with the California ballot initiative where Uber and Lyft spent a ton of cash campaigning and won. https://fortune.com/2021/12/28/gig-economy-uber-lyft-doordash-independent-contractors-nlrb-review/

I agree that by the letter of the law, WWE wrestlers are not independent contractors, but neither are Uber Drivers, or FedEx drivers, are plenty of other independent contractors who work for giant corporations, and when those people have challenged that statute in court, they have lost. So I agree, they don't meet the guidelines, but no one seems interested in enforcing those guidelines other than John Oliver. Any other examples other than Brock, almost 20 years ago, where he had to sit out of wrestling for over a year?

I haven't seen those, I'd be interested in seeing that. Either way, I would say the 'see you in 2 1/2 years' tweets mean they aren't easily voided in court.

I'm very skeptical that this is actually the case. I'm not a lawyer, I've never seen the contract, but this running assumption that these contracts are illegal and won't hold up in court comes from where exactly? Is it that people don't really understand what an independent contractor is and think it means you can do whatever you want or is it a Bix article or something? The idea that a billion dollar, publicly-traded company has every one of its wrestlers, the key drivers of their business, signed to illegal contracts that won't stand up in court for a second, I don't know, it just doesn't seem all that likely to me.

Gable is the MVP for TV Wrestling this year, was always a very good wrestler, but has become a great Angle-type comedy character with this gimmick.

Two straight raws that were pretty good, not as good as last week, but another solid 3 hour show.

I thought it was good, I would have gone at least 3 on it, but considering how much everybody loves josh barnett blading, eating double-arm ddts, and taking chair shots in 'shootstyle' matches, I'm not surprised people didn't like it.

Isn't he kinda bad in his U-Style match with Ilyukhin? Don't really remember much of it, except thinking, 'yeah Kawada doesn't really need to do this stuff. He's Kawada.'

I think it comes down to, for me anyway, the difference between a good TV match and a very good TV match, however you want to quantify that, just isn't that significant. So like, I'm in 2009, and Christian is having the best matches on the show for sure, but are they that much better than any other match on the show? No. So, for sure it comes down to what you value, and I don't think it's so much peak, in the way Rick Rude in WCW is a short peak, but in that these TV matches have a ceiling that isn't all that high. In fairness though, I'm not watching the PPVs, which are certainly part of the equation, but when I've heard people talk about those guys, a lot of it was on the basis of these TV matches.

I'd say a lot of that started in his second Dragon Gate run.

Dragunov's reign has been so-so. Just had an empty arena match with Jordan Devlin, which was very weird because fans only came back like a month ago, but they did a good job of explaining why the match was happening. Meiko Satomura and Blair Davenport had a good match on 1/13 and a rematch today that ended in what seemed like a shoot injury. Walter had his farewell match against Nathan Frazer, who was 'can't-miss no-brainer superstar Ben Carter' until he signed with WWE. Good stuff. Noam Dar is my guy, though. Not the best wrestler on the show, but the best character and still a very good wrestler. He had a British Rounds match with Wolfgang last year that was really good. Like MOTYC stuff.

I've been putting some WWECW on in the background lately. I know a big part of Christian and Matt Hardy's cases for GWE are their title reigns here, and maybe it's just me, but these 'very good' tv matches they're both supposed to have on this show, I just don't see it. Like they both have plenty of good matches, but they're just good, not great, and especially not all-time great stuff. Especially Hardy.

Its actually NXT: UK, but its very much a tree falls in the forest scenario.

It was also not very good, so the 'why would he change his approach, it worked before' defense sort of goes out of the window for me. It was bad and too long. He should have tried something else, and that criticism goes for pretty much everything post-2016 for me. He just isn't that adaptable. I will watch the Tsuji match though. 6/16, Kizuna Road? @Boss Rock

There was at least one Garden Rumble in the mid-90s that I believe Owen won.

wardrobe malfunction