Embrodak

I mean the dude has his choice of where to sign. If he thinks NXT is some kind of joke that’s beneath him, he’s free to sign with AEW, which is probably going to pay him more, anyway.

WWE style of working is very different than NJPW, not just in terms of the types of bumps that are kosher but in terms of timing, playing to the camera and audience, more defined babyface/heel dichotomy, etc. They’d potentially be setting him up for failure if they made a big deal out of him right away without first acclimating him to their way of doing things.

Suzuki is just so slow and lacks oomph, these days. I can’t really get excited for him.

Jacob Fatu as the outcast family member coming to get revenge would be so fucking good, dude. The Bloodline has had far more mileage than I think anyone would expect, but that would be a fantastic third act when they were getting ready to wrap it up.

The one thing I’ll say about Okada going to AEW is AEW is not that good at the pageantry aspect of wrestling, which I think is necessary for a guy like Okada. WWE wouldn’t assume that fans are already familiar with him and coast on his prior reputation, so they would work harder to make him look and feel like a big deal instead of assuming he already is one.

MJF’s reign just got completely derailed by the Adam Cole/fake babyface/Devil bullshit, to the point where they frankly could not have gotten the title off of him fast enough. I don’t care how much distaste one has for MJF’s edgelord stuff, it was infinitely better than bad indie wrestling comedy skits (no matter how over it was with the crowd; sometimes you legit just have to say no, you are wrong if you think you want this) and Black Scorpion Redux. The nice thing about Joe is he’s an actual tweener. He can tangle with either babyfaces or heels and it makes sense for him. I do not at all understand the notion that wrestling has transcended the need for babyfaces and heels or that AEW is doing some sort of fourth dimensional booking that obviates such distinctions, but if it were an industry of Joes, I might get it.

I quite like Aldis as the authority figure, him eventually getting into the ring to tussle with some mouthy whelp will be very satisfying.

Does Okada speak a respectable English? If he doesn’t, then realistically speaking, the Nakamura spot is prob the best he can hope for, unless WWE wanted to go all in on him and actually give the badass foreign heel a mouthpiece. AEW would push Okada to the moon regardless, and also let him fuck around wherever else he wanted to go.

Joe is also consistently moving the ratings upward in a way nobody has in months, which is genuinely heartwarming for some reason.

Hook is quite talented, but idk how AEW can ever make green talent non-green running the schedule they do if they’re not going to require them to work at least some indie shows on their off days.

Bryan Alvarez said he had multiple wrestlers contacting him and saying they find it embarrassing, which doesn’t surprise me.

Just watched Midnight Express vs Rock n Roll Express from May 1984, and what really stuck out to me is how much is lost in an era where the referees don’t strongly enforce the rules and keep on the wrestlers to adhere to them. I don’t think anybody’s clamoring for a return to announcers pontificating about whether a fist was closed or not, but it would be nice to have more procedural details and limits to get invested in like are present here.

Even if you like the Bucks, them as Sting’s final opponents just seems wrong on its face. If they’re not just gonna do Sting vs Darby because Sting can’t hack a singles match, FTR are the obvious choice for a tag team match.

To be clear, I wasn’t saying that shitposting will destroy AEW, so much as pointing out that the guy having a hissy fit about worked win-loss records and taking the time to toss off lame clap backs at cable network Twitter account shitposts is in charge of everything else, too. Also, whether it portends badly or not, Tony is pretty bad at posting, I’ve gotta say.

TK beefing with an unpaid intern running the USA Network Twitter account is not, like, the *best* sign for the long-term health and sustainability of the second biggest promotion in the world. “Tony’s Twitter” is a great segment for a future “Dark Side…” though!

I thought the promo was fine. Nobody in WWE is a talker on Kingston or MJF’s level, but until Punk is firmly established as being back, a soft reboot of his AEW run is pretty much necessary and will necessarily lack the oomph compared to when he did it the first time. The real test will be him against Gunther or Roman or Bron or someone like that, someone he can have standalone issues with.

I mean Keith Lee never had the hype Ibushi did, but it sure seems like the 1-2 combo of Long Covid and Bearcat completely popped his bubble.

Rock/Roman at EC and Roman/Cody at Mania would honestly be perfect synchrony. You’d totally avoid the Bluetista Horizon, get a massive Australia payday, and get a shit-ton of casual eyes on Cody, Jey, Punk, and others right before you start trying to sell Peacock subscriptions for Mania season.

WWE doing the reverse Rome - exit Dominus, enter Princeps.

Why the fuck was Tony Khan wearing a weird Afro wig and Elton John sunglasses glasses at a press scrum on a day where one of his biggest stars had just been accused of sex pestery? It’s like a gag from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

This is not the worst sexual excess in wrestling history by a long shot, but Chris Jericho, a multi-decade veteran and genuine star who clearly has pull with Tony Khan and has at times seemed like effectively an EVP in all but name, should not be tricking young women much lower on the company totem pole into private meetings so he can try to fuck them.

Honestly, I think Lee needs to consider retiring. Since his Covid diagnosis, he has only intermittently had “it” in the ring (and only really in shorter matches where he doesn’t have to bump much), and he seems to be having a ton of trouble staying in shape and keeping healthy.

People are saying rumors about Jericho being a sex pest have been around since the early 2000s, but idk how credible that is.

And all this because he got mad at Corny and Punk’s lawyer at 4 in the morning on Christmas.

Eddie vs Dragon and the post-match promo were a little bit masturbatory but still slapped, Statlander vs Skye Blue was fine, everything else was mediocre to bad. They need to end this Devil shit on Saturday before it does any more damage and get the belt off MJF ASAP. I don’t really see what others see in Swerve, but the dude clearly has the hot hand right now. This tournament being the Eddie Kingston Weeaboo Jamboree instead of Swerve’s Coming Out Party seems like a spectacular misuse of television time, but maybe I’m crazy.