Embrodak

Supposedly, Jericho was abducted by aliens on a country road, too. I’ll believe it when I see it.

What rocks about him? The few matches I’ve seen of his were nothing special, and the backstage segments with him are the same sterile, unfunny WWE writer’s room nonsense that completely undercuts whatever sense of reality and investment you might affix to the work in the ring. And his gimmick is terrible, early 90s WWF stuff.

We have zero evidence thus far that Andretti is going to come out ahead on that. If he’s wrestling on Dark in three or six months, it will have been Jericho tactically “doing the job” for someone at absolutely no risk of overshadowing him or taking away one iota of his TV time. If he excels, good on him, but color me skeptical, dude did not scream “star” to me.

There are a few good performers, but nothing about that shitshow I watched last night is remotely poised to be even as good as late black and gold NXT, let alone classic NXT. Some of the most blatantly stagey segments I’ve ever seen, abysmal dialogue, terrible and unflattering gear for many of the female performers (is it still basically mandatory that the women have to dress like pinup models? they need to change that injunction if so), and gimmicks that are simultaneously over the top and bland. Andre Chase, the grumpy teacher? Tony D’Angelo, the Mad TV Sopranos spoof? Grayson Waller the Australian guy who reads WWE writer dialogue?

NXT is truly abysmal.

I don’t think there is any way of working with Jericho and coming out ahead at this point.

Rhea Ripley could be a goddamn action movie star, just an insane look she has.

Circle ring, bay bay!

Most things in wrestling are kinda one note. MJF is at least partially responsible for basically all of my favorite AEW content of the last year, that’s all I can really judge on.

To me, he is one of the only people in wrestling that feels like an old school wrestler. He has his flaws, but I’m willing to give him a wider latitude than the Adam Pages of the world.

I think the dog collar match is pretty violent for something that wasn’t a blood feud, but they did it very well.

I don’t want to see Gunther vs Lesnar unless Gunther kills Lesnar.

I’m not concern trolling. I really like Darby, his match with MJF is one of my AEW favorites. He’s like the promotion’s Rey Mysterio, a tiny guy who can still hang with the big guys. But putting yourself in the kind of danger he regularly puts himself in, especially without getting consistently paid for it like an Evel Knievel, is just stupid, and if his fucking around eventually does culminate in him finding out but not dying, he’s going to regret it and resent everybody that enabled him. I’m a nurse, I’m one of the people that has to take care of his ass if he shatters one of his legs or breaks his neck or gets a brain bleed. Moreover, if Darby or Sami paralyze themselves doing something stupid they got the okay to do, or even went into business for themselves but have a history of doing high risk stuff with the company’s tacit or overt approval, Tony is certainly going to regret the impact it will have on his business.

Can AEW do All In now that they own RoH? Weird to me that they wouldn’t be interested in using the title of the most successful independent show in modern history.

There is very little in or out of wrestling I am less interested in than Joey Janela killing himself in hardcore matches with Japanese wrestling stars.

Jericho already has alcohol dizziness at all times, he can’t handle Big Swing dizziness on top of that.

Didn’t see it, but even though I’m super tired of New Day, I would still much rather see them work than any of the individuals or teams in the Best of 7 series.

Darby and Sami are both idiots. Tony needs to impose stricter limits, they obviously will not protect themselves or AEW’s investment in them.

He’s a rich Long Island douchebag, I’m not sure what is contrived about it. He’s a little tryhard with the edgy stuff sometimes, could stand to be a little more creative with how he crafts his insults (Corny said he really needs to get a thesaurus on the most recent pod, which I agree with), but at the same time, given how young he is, I’d say he feels like exactly how he presents himself.

Having said what I said earlier, MJF is quite a bit more comfortable and natural on the mic than Starks. That’s not Starks’ fault, he’s been booked atrociously and not gotten as many self-development opportunities as he should have, but MJF is still his better.

Why would Sasha debut in a tag match against Britt/Hayter when she could debut in a weird feud with Jade as the representative of obscure rapper Bow Wow

I’m absolutely open to Starks as the Stone Cold to MJF’s Rock, or the Dusty to his Flair, or whatever. It’s a shame Tony sucks at booking, Starks has so much potential!

Oh, you guys are always getting on Tony’s case about delegating, and now you’re mad when he does it, and all because he delegated to the guy who got abducted by aliens.

Phones are a genuine problem, and I say this as somebody hopelessly addicted to his phone. The Boomers are always correct to complain about video games and phones.

Does anybody listen to Regal’s podcast? Reddit says he made a comment on there recently about young guys in AEW not listening to advice or taking constructive criticism. Would be curious to hear what he said. People assumed CM Punk’s bitching about that was just ego, but if Regal is saying that in public, I think one has to take that pretty seriously, he doesn’t strike me as the type to bring it up publicly unless it’s a pretty damn prominent problem.