Embrodak

WWE handing people canned scripts written by writers certainly doesn’t help.

Dom still needs to figure out how to infuse his promos with emotion. He’s got the body language down, but he still sounds like an Ed Wood protagonist delivering the scripted lines.

Punk being a shitposter with a short fuse is basically his gimmick at this point, I say go all in!

Because he’s eligible to come back soon, so (probably) Jericho is trying to poison the well for him coming back by telling the Sheetz that he lawyered up to avoid doing a job.

Edit: nvm, misread.

I’m super intrigued by the book, if only because of that fucking subtitle and the Rick Perlstein blurb.

LA Knight ain’t no goofball, it’s a crying shame that he’s been set up so thoroughly for failure with as much talent as he has. Don’t really understand how anybody is a Ricky Starks fan but thinks LA Knight sucks; extremely similar performers imo!

Yeah but that’s Baron Corbin. Rey vs Dom has some inherent pathos, and Dom went from “nepo baby welfare case” to “hmm, there’s something here, definitely better than Baron Corbin” pretty damn quickly!

Has there been any talk about Dom vis Rey being a retirement match for Rey? He’s not getting any younger, and it would set Dom up for a long time if he took Rey away from the fans. Would make sense if Rey was going in the HoF because he’s about to hang it up.

MJF doing an in-ring bar mitzvah feels like an audition for WWE.

I am absolutely happy that Hobbs is a champion, but an unmotivated falls count anywhere match and a bizarre interference by QT was not the way to do it.

He’s a gentlemen trying to bring black issues and perspectives to the very white world of Left-ish YouTube commentary, and he did a video about how many “cancellations” (sorry, lack of a better term) in that space are less about objective harm and creating accountability than about parasocial grudges and drama for drama’s sake.

This out a visual in my head of Dave doing a cross body off of a balcony, and it made me smile.

Yeah the drink thing, okay, I get why it upset people, but literally everything else in that post is just MJF being his edgelord, always-working self and pretty much exactly what most people *want* from an interaction with him. That post reminds me of the recent FD Signifier video about Breadtube drama, where he points out that any sufficiently popular online person has a litany of haters just waiting to use some kind of controversy as an opportunity to post long lists of every “problematic” thing they ever did to prove they were a shitty person all along. AEW has been prominently featuring MJF for four years; going to any event they host, and definitely going to any event *featuring* him, absolutely implies a Gallagher-type implied consent that he might fuck with you in a mildly offensive way. Whether that stuff is at all a *good* way to get heat is a separate question from the fraught, ever-metastasizing debate about consent.

“Fedora” reference in 2023, and to *that* post, just unbelievable. To use a more contemporary way-too-online reference, touch some grass, dude.

I have to imagine Bron is closer to being called up, but honestly, the main roster needs both of them, so idk. Should have put the title on Waller, let Bron and Melo debut after WM.

Very sad that Jimmy turned on Sami, unless it’s a double agent type of deal.

Dude, I phrased that shit as nicely and diplomatically as I possibly could. If you want less nice, I could say you’re acting like the crunchy parent version of Helen Lovejoy, and I’m very glad I was raised by parents who taught me to take things proportionately. *Nobody* here is saying that what MJF did was a good or smart thing to do, but I do not want to live in your version of society where “how dare he assault that child” is the general reaction. My dad would have been pissed if a wrestler did that to me, but if the wrestler and the company apologized and made it right, he would have encouraged me not to overreact or nurse a grudge *and would have been correct to do so*. I’m done indulging this, peace.

“Assault” is a term with both legal and social dimensions. Regardless of the letter of California’s statutes, I really don’t think a performer playing a bad guy in an interactive show intentionally throwing a drink on a kid to show how bad he is would rise to the average person’s intuitive sense of what “assaulting a child” entails. And if it meets *your* threshold, it is what it is, but I cannot agree that that is a morally or socially proportionate internal calibration. The fact that we live in an incredibly litigious and impersonal society wherein that act *would* have had steeper consequences under other, non-performative circumstances is not proof in and of itself that those steeper consequences are in fact more reflective of the gravity of the act; it’s proof that living in mass society entails stripping context and common sense out of how we adjudicate interpersonal interactions. (Putting on my pretend internet lawyer hat, I’m not convinced a judge wouldn’t take the performative context into account in determining whether the complainants have grounds to sue or whether MJF could actually be charged with anything, but that’s a question for someone with a real internet lawyer hat.) An apology, free tickets, probably a backstage meet-and-greet, and setting firmer boundaries for how your performers interact with fans in the future is perfectly sufficient redress for this, and it’s a much better, healthier lesson in conflict management and resolution for this kid to learn than immediately jumping to the top shelf of outrage, frictionlessly imbuing the absolute worst reaction the kid could have had into the situation, and demanding the guy’s scalp. (Also kinda weird to have that reaction when the company the act occurred in regularly has performers brawling and doing dives into the crowd, which is objectively much more dangerous and could do a lot more damage if it went wrong, as AEW spots have a nasty habit of doing it we’re being honest.)

Yeah I can’t really fathom wanting more than this. It’s not like he slapped the kid.

Look I’m fine with MJF being disciplined for creating unnecessary liability, but pulling out your fainting couch over a heel pouring a drink on a kid is just silly.

Idk, I pretty much always at a minimum enjoy MJF’s singles matches, and I usually think they’re quite worthwhile. While we’ve seen a higher-level shortcoming in his creative faculties the last few weeks, I don’t really see any reason to think he can’t find a bunch of entertaining heel stuff to do so it’s not an hour of “THIS IS WRESTLING/FIGHT FOREVER” stuff.

“Mogul Affiliates” is a terrible group name, and larding someone as talented as Swerve with a green doofus like Parker *before* he’s even gotten himself over as a singles act is ludicrous.

Bray Wyatt had a 4-4.5 star match with Danielson, matches featuring him are rarely proof of anything about the other guy.

Dom going from “embarrassing LARPer nepo baby” to “actually alright and promising” is the feel-good story of the year. Get a fucking physique, get less stiff on the mic, and you might actually have something with him. That whole “son of Eddie” thing having a weird meta resonance 15 years later is hilarious.