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I hope she comes back because she was truly in that Kurt/Brock tier of just immediately getting it and performing at the highest level. Actually, more than them because they both got some time in developmental and both took a few months on TV before really meteorically improving, whereas she started off at WM with all eyes on her, over performed and delivered, and only got better from there.

I already had Peacock through having Xfinity so I haven't experienced any issues of buffering or pausing on any content as it is coming through. The Peacock app sucks, though. Super slow to browse, sucks to search for anything, and misses general functionality that has been part of all streaming services for years (like live pausing, rewind, starting a live show from the beginning, skipping by 15-30 seconds instead of fast forwarding and hoping you stop at the right moment) and a couple of WWE Network specific ones (like segment/match chapters to jump to). Playback has been perfectly solid on VOD stuff, WWE or other TV/Movies. The only live stuff I've watched through Peacock is a bit of Fastlane and the Takeover shows and there was very occasional momentary pixelization once or twice during each event and that's it. Shitty lay out and browsing can be mitigated by being able to search via the Xfinity remote and go through the X1 interface and find what you want much much faster which will then open in the Peacock app. That goes for all non WWE stuff on Peacock as well. I think the plan is to have all that was up prior to the move to be uploaded to Peacock by Summerslam or something. Not really sure why they didn't do this ahead of time, they made the deal in January and the app went live with like 10% of Network content if that. And then the content they went with like a couple of 2000 WCW PPVs and NEW Saturday Night episodes that weren't even on the Network proper before, and UK indies, before they started filling in WCW/ECW PPVs. Commercials haven't bothered me in the few actual wrestling events I've watched as they come at pretty natural times, but they really suck in something like Broken Skull Sessions. My fear is they're going to give up completely on uploading territory era stuff going forward.

That is a feature of most of his matches against anyone, but only the main basis of a match with a couple of guys. He usually finds other ways to get the same idea across even if it isn't just a strike battle, though.

I happened to put on Superbrawl 1 last night and lol'd at how you could immediately tell Dusty had returned and was running booking. One of these being the PPV debut for a PROMO for Johnny B. Badd (also TWO DDP segments, who wasn't even wrestling yet, also the horrific debut of Oz and most of the card being filled up with dudes on TBS in 1986). And I got to thinking about him and saw this thread and....he was fine. He could be led to solid to pretty good matches with the right opponents. He was a good athlete, always in tip top shape. Not a great promo but also had a gimmick that kind of locked him into something that wasn't going to produce money promos in WCW regardless. I think he was about at the right level of TV/US/IC tier guy who maybe could get a main event once in a blue moon on TV. I think the Marvelous Marc Mero gimmick and look could have lasted a while longer with success in the mid card probably up through the early brand split era. This dude had literally zero experience when he debuted in WCW, which is crazy they put so much time into a guy who barely had any training or ring time who wasn't some 7 footer or something.

I had the same criticism of him at one point but it's like....shit that's his thing, it's gonna happen, and it's not as egregious as guys who rerun intricate spots.

The near falls when Brock starts actually selling in the run up to the finish always gets the live crowd 100% engaged, no matter how almost exactly the same a sequence it might be to a previous match (Like the AJ/Bryan matches are almost literally the same match outside the first 10 minutes of Bryan being a stalling dickhead). There's a live aura present with Brock that just doesn't exist with other talents outside of perhaps Ronda's run.

I can definitely see the production team/crew/up through Vince wanting to stay at the Thunderdome forever as everything can be completely controlled and not having to haul shit around and set up all across the country I'm sure has been a blessing for them. I'm also sure the talent loves not having to travel and not having the wear and tear from house shows, but I can't imagine too many aren't dying to get back in front of real crowds again. Probably a couple prefer the Thunderdome, though.

I can't think of any year in the past 7-8 years where Ishii had the most boring match on any given G1 night unless it was in a filler tag. Everyone has some rest days and light matches during the G1, but even Ishii's breather matches tend to be pretty enjoyable even against dudes I don't particularly enjoy watching like a Yano or Tama Tonga. I understand your critique of Ishii here, but I think it's really as much of a NJ/Gedo's booking issue as it is with him specifically because everyone on the roster goes through that due to the amount of rematches Gedo runs. Especially in the last 2-3 years. I feel like White/Tana has had to have happened 8 times in the last 2 years. I think last year was the first time in probably 5-6 years where Ishii wasn't my G1 MVP (which went to Jay White, who I don't think was in the best matches but was the best performer through the duration. Anyway, Ishii is a delight and I can always rely on him to give me 5-10 hype as hell matches during the year.

Sure I could see little kids being into some of it I guess, but the audience is 50 year old dudes. It doesn't bother me if some people love it, I love a lot of objectively bad entertainment myself. I don't understand anyone enjoying this particular set of angles/promos/matches, which is not the same thing as being bothered or upset by it. In the same way I don't understand why my 4 year old nephew loves to watch toy unboxing videos more than playing with the toys himself, but it doesn't bother me.

Hurts tremendously as he spent the last few years of his career leaving the impression of a pathetic old sad man who doesn't know when to hang it up and being a risk to himself and co-workers. I think The Last Ride also hurts him as it revealed this guy WWE has been building as the greatest and most mythical guy since at least 1996/1997, the most respected guy in the locker room, etc as a wildly insecure sad old man who didn't know when to give it up/knew when to give it up and couldn't because he had nothing else outside of wrestling. He instead spent the last few years of his career being a fat hobbled mess of an old man embarrassing himself and the company as well as being a risk to himself and his co-workers. Not unlike god tier MMA fighters and boxers who spend the last 5-6 years of their career getting knocked out in the first round. That PPV tag match with Roman seemed positive in the sense that you didn't come away from it thinking man Taker looks like he might have a heart attack later tonight. In general I think his 90s output is often the worst stuff on a WWE card from 1991-1999, he was trash in 2000 and 2001 particularly when it came to being a complete shithead to all the Alliance guys and going out of his way to make all of them look bad even when others like Rock were selling like death for guys like Rhyno and Austin was putting over RVD. His best run by far is 2002-2003, and then to me the rest of his career is real hit and miss. The more it leaned into dead man gimmickry, the worse it was, but the more it leaned into more wrestling based stuff, the better. He's involved in some of the lowest lows of the past 30 years in WWE. I don't think his highs balance it out, and I do love the 2002-2003 run a lot. For every post 2004 feud with Angle or Batista or HBK, you get feuds with Khali/Kozlov/Mark Henry/possessing Josh Matthews to torment Orton/Mr. Anderson/JBL/Hassan/the Edge feud that seemed to go on 5 years/the second Kane feud/the HHH feud desperately trying to be on the same level as the HBK one, and so on.

I don't know how anyone could like that stuff. It's TL Hopper tier or the worst Russo stuff you could imagine someone walking in on you watching. It also simply can not be done in front of a live crowd so they're going to have to have an actual match unless they do another pre-taped cinematic match. I have watched and enjoyed a lot of completely dogshit horror movies in my life (also a lot of completely dogshit pro wrestling tbh), and nothing has been as bad and embarrassing as even the recaps of the Fiend/Orton/Bliss stuff.

I think the real issue with Brock isn't his skill or talent, which are of course very high, but the corner WWE has booked themselves into with him since 2014 where he's a special attraction with classic special attraction booking, but it also makes no sense for his character to be involved in anything except the title scene, and also he's nigh unbeatable. It'd be like booking Andre to be the champion for most of the 80s so not only is your champion rarely around so the title scene is held hostage, but also anyone who gets over enough to face him is going to get smashed and still have to be on TV every week while Andre doesn't come back for 3 months. Because of this, everything he's involved with is the same and his feuds have benefitted no one, not even Seth/Roman actually beating him (twice in the same year in Seth's case). In fact in almost all cases it has derailed his opponent's momentum (Reigns, Rollins, Strowman, Joe, Ambrose, Balor, Orton, Kofi, Rey, Ricochet (lol how did that even happen)) to the point it took them years to recover or not at all. It doesn't even seem like he's done anything for ratings or ticket sales, either.

I think the most interesting things to come out of this weekend is to see if the live crowd reacts to how the TV booking as been. Are they going to cheer Roman because he's a good heel now? Are they going to rage at Edge like Batista? Will Lashley get cheered over Drew because THB was cool and Drew is giving some serious 1996 corny HBK vibes anytime I've seen him in the past 6 months? I'm just imagining how live audiences would have reacted to the atrocious, unbelievably embarrassing Fiend/Orton/Bliss segments and I'm hoping they feel like they can do it with a live crowd and they completely shit on it. Should be a lot of energy from the crowd and talent, at least, which is a lot more exciting that what I've seen of read about the lead up to...well, everything. Real quick Takeover thoughts: Ciampa/Walter was great, for sure going to be the match of the week for WWE. Night 2 in general was real bleh, Karrion Kross needs to tighten up his game if they're going to play up his MMA and heavy strikes because they have no impact at all, Cole/KOR was not at all what it needed to be and was a huge disappointment. Somehow KOR vs Balor seemed like a more violent and hateful match than what is supposed to be this super intense bloodfeud match that featured just a ton of overwrought and overthought "epic" spots. If any match needed some blood.

Seriously like 70% of the roster is exclusive to the Youtube shows. And both versions of Dark get so few viewers, it seems like such wasted money and effort. It's good that a lot of these young talents are getting a place to work and get paid during all this, but also....why are you signing Big Show to do commentary for a show that gets maybe 30,000 viewers on Youtube? This is definitely a WCW style lol what did they spend money on type of decision. Big Show is probably getting paid more than the entire roster on the show any given week. Show's signing in general is weird to me. It's always helpful to have a vet and all, but I'm not sure what he has to offer to a roster where the biggest monster is about the size of Jake Roberts and they all do moonsaults and dives every week. Even among the people that are on TV regularly, most are either doing the same angle for 10 weeks or floundering around in mini angles that go no where and are dropped with no explanation or blow offs. AEW's booking is as dull, repetitive, and dumb as WWE's they just have talent that are happy to be there and haven't had the passion pounded out of them so it has an energy that still makes it mostly enjoyable if you just tune in every 3-4 weeks.