Embrodak

Last’s Mid-South watch along podcast is fun. Hearing him rave about things he likes is better than him disinterestedly agreeing with Corny about modern wrestling. Although I do like Last as a foil for Corny in general, I don’t know that anybody could have done a better job of lubricating that Bobby Eaton tribute episode. And hearing him get annoyed and call Kenny Omega “Ty” on the latest ep was pretty funny, so I can’t hate too much. As for why it’s a marathon show - because Corny can’t truncate himself even if he wanted to, and because they can sell a bunch of ads without the show feeling like it’s nothing but ads. Corny has the best ads in the game, though.

-If Jericho is on blood thinners, continuing to wrestle is stupider than anything Sammy or Darby have ever done, or even Mick Foley. I cannot believe that that’s true, no doctor on the planet would clear you for a barbed wire match if you’re on fucking Eliquis or Coumadin. -Wardlow shouldn’t be wrestling Orange Cassidy, but if he has to, he definitely should not join the Best Friends.

Fatalism is not useful, there is more urgency here. This isn’t a consensual relationship with a subordinate that you’d want to keep quiet because infidelity is embarrassing, or one credible but unsubstantiated allegation from decades ago like Chatterton’s (although that should have been taken seriously, to be clear). This is an *ongoing* pattern of sexual harassment and abuse of employees, now substantiated by hard transfer of currency to keep it quiet. He is still going to be in regular contact with female employees and is still basically in charge of them, and they are not safe as long as he is around. Everybody in any position to do something - NBC, advertisers, the talent - need to take a stand, here. McMahon has gotta go. Ideally, Stephanie and Triple H should go, too, because who could ever trust that they didn’t know about this stuff, but I’d take VKM finally retiring.

That locker room needs to do a wildcat strike, refuse to perform until McMahon steps down from both the board and creative. He’s a wizard when it comes to navigating corporate cut-throat politics, let’s not put much hope in that sphere.

Maybe Sasha has some dirt on Johnny Ace

He’s very heavy-looking, even by the standards of his physique. I’m not sure if he gained weight or lost muscle mass, but he has a noticeably less athletic look, at least to me.

Keith Lee really looks terrible. Covid is scary as fuck, breh. Like a roulette wheel’s chance that your health will be (possibly permanently) upended in a major way.

I kind of agree with this, but Wardlow’s booking has also been atrocious. And he needs a mouthpiece, badly, imo, he just doesn’t have that Goldberg intensity where he can sell a match and/or feud with body language alone.

Reading the comments on him in the GWE thread, this certainly seems a plausible answer. Prior to the Cody match, could a case have been made for Dustin Rhodes? He had some great matches, but was there a match in his canon that was *the* Dustin match?

Setting aside that I hate the House of Black stuff as much as anything on AEW, my problem is the feeling that they’re just going to be vamping with Mox and the belt until Punk comes back. Maybe it’s just a case of there being too many people injured to establish a credible challenger, though, I will grant that.

Britt Baker should be working with Braun, she’s at least as big as her beau.

Brody King has not impressed me at all so far. Giving him the #1 contender spot feels as much like a filler “John Cena fights the monster of the month” angle as Hangman/Archer did, and we’re pretty much guaranteed as pointless and gratuitous of a blowoff match as that got with Moxley involved.

My feeling is MJF is probably legit suspended for no-showing the meet and greet and maybe going farther in the “shoot” promo than he was supposed to, and he’s either still in the punishment period or Tony Khan has no idea where to go with it because it was so ad hoc.

No, they’re not. Yes had actually complex musicianship and lyrics that, while cryptic, had poesy and craftsmanship. Radiohead at this point feels like an artifact of a dead era. Edit: can’t let “a much more real demonstration of actual physical skills” pass by unanswered. One can like the modern indie-inflected, hyperkinetic style, but watching even 80s Mid-South or Japan, let alone older stuff with Thesz, I think it’s pretty clear which style required more skill overall.

Let’s be real, The Sheik worked because he was basically the only guy doing that shit on a regular basis and came up in an era where guys had more charisma and Star power on average.

I don’t even think that’s the issue so much as it is that Theory’s gimmick and booking sucks. Selfies are a terrible heat generator, he hung around with Vince and his egg, he’s lost as or more often than he’s won despite being a shiny new object, and now he’s in the Damien Sandow position of having the briefcase with no plausibility of a successful cash-in. The only sense in which Theory is interesting so far is that they have made him feel like a midcard heel who’s been around forever - a Dolph Ziggler, say - in like four months. He’s super talented for his young age, but he’s being failed egregiously.

Theory is pretty gifted, but they’re setting him up for failure with the booking. Not a new story by any means, but it’s sad to see.

I’m not saying he’s bad, I just think it’s funny they have to outsource their talent farming to social media because they have so much trouble finding people with personality who want to wrestle.

They signed Logan Paul lol

Gotta say, I love “salty, chip on his shoulder” Eddie, but I think he gets really phony when he’s “cartoonishly sadistic” Eddie. Didn’t care for the gasoline, didn’t care for the Sammy bump leading into the maniacal laugh.

Evil Christian is great, him versus Jungle Boy seems like it will absolutely slap, but I could do without evil Luchasaurus - though if they keep it to short squashes like that, it’s tolerable I guess.

Whether it “hurt” anyone or not, lower-card guys going long and competitive with upper-card guys only has oomph if it is done sparingly. I guess in Angels’ case it was a little different because he was un-signed, but if it doesn’t result in a decent run for the unexpectedly competitive guy afterward, it’s kind of a waste of a booking tactic.

The government for libertarians exists to enforce contracts and to prevent and punish violation of the non-aggression principle. They’re mixed, some are against abortion prohibitions, but I’ve met plenty who think preventing abortion is part and parcel with other protective policing functions the state performs.

Orton is a great wrestler, but between the repetitious WWE style and his own lack of motivation, he’s a mediocre great wrestler, if that makes any sense to say. He’s as good as anybody could possibly be at so many aspects of the craft, but the pieces so rarely come together into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Gotta say, Orndorff in Mid South owns, just a phenomenal worker.