strobogo

It was pretty funny that DC got nailed with the knee and into the LeBell Lock IMMEDIATELY after doing not even the full dance lol. Sucks for Garcia to be put in the loser role in a G1, but hopefully it can be a springboard for him to get back to something good. But the dancing rules and he shouldn't drop it.

I'm not arguing any of those things. NJ was obviously doing much better than WCW in the early to mid 90s, probably bigger business than WWF in the late 70s/early 80s, too. My argument is that American stars are bigger stars in Japan than Japanese stars in America, and so the NJ relationships with national promotions in the US have been uneven no matter how great NJPW was doing at the given time. I think there are a few pretty obvious reasons: US global cultural hegemony in general, puro being quite literally built on the basis of American stars coming in being a big deal from the start, and American audiences generally not giving a shit about entertainment from other regions outside of certain games/anime breaking through during that period. What I'm really saying, I guess, is that Backlund/Hogan/Sting on NJ shows in the 70s/80s/90s did a lot more for those shows than Inoki/Fujinami/Muta/Chono on US shows.

Edge vs Christian 2023 was definitely the worst Christian related match I've seen in quite a while. Considering it's something they've wanted to do for 10+ years now, Christian has been top tier since his TNA run all the way to today, and Edge's return run had some of his best in ring work of his entire career, I would have expected something better than whatever that was. Not that I was interested in it to begin with, but still. I know you really kind of have to do something with the two of them together at least once, but hopefully they can quietly move on and get Edge involved in completely fresh matches and feuds.

All the gloom and doom about ticket stuff and pics of the half empty arena doesn't translate to TV like in the early 10's when WWE was doing half empty arenas and the crowds were every show was like a funeral that the SD sound machine just drew more attention to how completely dead the audience was. On top of dogshit shows. At least with AEW, the energy is always there in ring and out (except for Rampage I guess) and you'd never know they're only running half the arena unless you're on Wreddit.

NJ has been the junior partner in relationships with the WWF in the 70s/80s, WCW in the 90s, and AEW now. It's just simply based on American stars being much more popular and an impact to shows than Japanese stars in America. There have been times when NJ was not the junior partner, like with ROH where ROH basically died immediately after NJ stopped working with them, or TNA/MLW today.

NJ losing Okada would be brutal. Especially losing Ospreay at the same time at least as a full timer. Much worse than losing Nakamura and AJ in 2016.

Bryan/Eddie fucking ruled.

I'm not saying it's always been in character, you said there's no context for Ric Flair as a performer saying that when the context is he's Ric Flair and that's the kind of things Ric Flair says.

The context is he's Ric Flair and has been saying shit like that since the late 70s.

Look, I know the line between Ric and Richard is pretty much non-existent, but I do not believe 76 year old Ric Flair was actually soliciting 18-28 year olds to come back to his hotel. If we're talking about embarrassing and offensive things being said on AEW TV, that doesn't hold a candle to a dozen different things MJF has said.

1988 is where their library stops for WCCW. The 1989 on stuff belongs to the Savoldi family.

Content, content, content. If you already spent the money it takes to digitize, to just sit on it makes no sense. There is zero way to recoup any costs if you just keep it in house. Maybe the non WWF/WCW/ECW vault stuff doesn't get as many views. Surely the views it does get and the ads you run on it is more money than you'd get from digitizing it and just storing it somewhere.

I don't understand why, after 8 years of WWE Network, they still haven't uploaded the full run of all the territories or even WWE programming. I would find it impossible to believe that it all hasn't been digitized since there is content from missing periods and shows on WWE Network in 2023 that were digitized and available on WWE 24/7 / Classics on Demand in 2006. What's the point of spending the time and money/manpower to digitize everything and the not do anything with it

I don't think there's much focus being diverted to ROH. It's essentially just replaced Dark/Elevation with a PPV of mostly slap dash "what cool matches can we do on no notice" type stuff.

One Bill Phil was found guilty by a jury of his peers in Wrestler Court. You love to see it. Anyway, in regards to the former WWE guys who didn't want to go to AEW and can't wait to go back to WWE: FTR: Tried getting released constantly for a solid year before WWE released them Miro: Tried getting released from his contract for many months prior to the release Andrade: Tried getting released constantly for many months prior to his release Malakai Black: Wasn't released, the office didn't realize his contract didn't roll over and also didn't realize he didn't have a 90 day no-compete. He immediately signed with AEW. Buddy Murphy: Had a featured storyline abruptly dropped from TV and was basically absent from TV for 6 months before his release. Toni Storm: Requested her release and has been heavily featured her entire AEW run. Adam Cole: Was heavily courted to remain with WWE, finished his obligations and signed with AEW ASAP. Bryan Danielson: Was heavily courted to remain with WWE, finished his obligations and signed with AEW ASAP. Claudio: Contract expired, didn't like the re-up offer, opted to leave. 2.0: This seems extremely unlikely Roderick Strong: ADAAAAAAAAAM Samoa Joe: WWE got rid of him twice in a year and had moved him out of the ring for a year+, he shows up to AEW and is having another career resurgence and getting to do a bunch of side work. Swerve: Lol Keith Lee: That one I could see, but he's still not back to where he was pre-COVID and I don't see him getting much more shine in WWE than he's gotten in AEW for the same reason.

The Ace Steel segment but it's with QT Marshall

This was only two years ago lmao. Dude feels more disingenuous than ever.

That promo was very low energy and hollow compared to either of his AEW return promos. Hilarious that after all the shit he said about WWE back when he quit, to still taking heavy shots at them like 6 months ago, to come back and do the "I'm home" shit lmao. I hope that's actually the angle with him.

Punk ending his career with an injury on a Saudi show while not working TV or house shows is going to be the ultimate end to his arc lmao

I'm not being naive I just don't think it was particularly petty because it is a very true comment.

I don't really even think the comment about Jade was that petty. She literally was put on TV with like 2 months of training and then did 2 years of squash matches. AEW doesn't have a training system, doesn't do a real house show schedule, so she was on the job training her entire AEW run. It is no fault of her own that she's still quite rough around the edges. She's got the look an ability to be a huge star for WWE and it only makes sense that they'd want to make sure she can actually go out and do stuff expected out of main event level women in WWE.

Lmao that Nick Hausman was the first dude to get a question after HHH started talking about Punk

Punk is such a sell out lmao. I would be amazed if he makes to to Summerslam either via injury or fired/quitting.

This match has not been good at all, but Io's jump was hilarious.

Doing a G1 Shibata has said he would commit full time to AEW if Tony asks Brings in Shibata on the show where the G1 starts It's to work Trent and Wheeler Yuta :killme