PeteF3

I didn't think it was a great show, but it mostly flew by. Wardlow's promo was a highlight. Britt's was a lowlight--just an absolutely awful reaction to the cage match stip, and a rehash of her promo from a few weeks ago.

As someone who's barely ever watched ROH I figured it out after Excalibur explained it. And I knew Punk was "going back to his roots" going by his promo a few weeks ago where he went back into the "I'm straight edge, which means I'm better than you" bit. If a Luddite like me who abhors hearing, "Well, it makes sense if you watch BTE" can get it, anyone can.

Callis showing up on the Buy-In had me thinking otherwise, though. Even his repeated denials that Omega was in the building seemed like a tease of the opposite happening.

There hasn't been an "...is #AllElite" graphic for Redbeard yet so, yeah, it seems like he's only in because they were expecting Fenix to be back and he isn't ready yet.

Now Dave has dropped the "plans changed" bomb. Apparently creative was told last night of a "definite change in Cody/WWE status." That's suitably vague as Dave does so well, but apparently on The Board he clarified that as of now, there's uncertainty that he's coming in.

RedLetterMedia sums up Edge's range (starting at 8:36 if it doesn't link properly).

I'm sad this thread didn't get bumped for his Oscar-worthy performance in Money Plane.

Tony Anthony was also a legit plumber.

Tony Khan is clearly deathly afraid of this promotion, hence his re-upping of Brian Cage for another year.

What was the giveaway that that was Matthews?

One of those things that they just didn't know about until they were out of theory and into practice. I believe they made a talking point early on that every decision made would be a unanimous one by all the EVPs--that lasted for about as long as you'd expect. If every decision had to be unanimous, nothing ever would have gotten done.

I know this may as well have been 500 years ago and not 34, but Dave wrote in the 1988 WONs that you shouldn't expect Arn & Tully to be buried or given wacky gimmick makeovers when they jumped to the WWF in 1988, because that would have killed the WWF's chances of grabbing Ric Flair. And as it turned out, other than maybe a wacky gimmick tag name, Arn and Tully were mostly left alone. So I don't really see Cody jobbing to Grayson Waller on NXT--they have to do right by him if they want to get any other major AEW talent to jump.

Yeah, I'm just not sure why they shouldn't be classified as such. They set their own hours, provide their own car, and aren't under a written contract.

Uber Drivers aren't independent contractors? Could you expand on that?

Sean Ross Sapp apparently said that yes, she is MJF's shoot girlfriend.

Is Punk really lifting entire sequences? It seems like he's more lifting the basic beats--plus he does it so organically that I tend not to notice until after the fact or if someone points it out to me. The Punk-Darby match aping specific parts of Bret vs. 1-2-3 Kid was a little more blatant, but that match is also a deeper cut that fewer people outside of our circle are all that familiar with.

MJF is definitely more loathsome than Dr. Baker, just for his conduct with Pillman's family.

That was way, way, way better than the Cody-Guevara match that got "5 stars."

Ringside News, against all odds, has actually been breaking some legitimate stuff lately. They were the first outlet I know of to say that Shane and Bad Bunny would be in the Rumble.

I'm very much an old-school stick-in-the-mud on a lot of memey postmodern wrestling stuff but AEW would be absolute fools not to lock Danhausen up. Edit: One issue I have with AEW is they almost rely *too* much on wrestling as a shared universe and assume everybody knows everything. A very sizable chunk of the people watching on TV very likely don't know who Minoru Suzuki was or who Okada or Tanahashi are, and I think AEW needs to take steps to rectify that going forward. So that was my biggest skepticism regarding Danhausen--that they'd act like everybody watching already knows him, when that isn't really the case. But the way they debuted him and hopefully the way they use him for the next few weeks should actually work: he shows up, people go "WTF?", he disappears, and people are intrigued because the crowd pops as he got tonight should let the uninformed know that This Guy Is Somebody.

And for the same reason. Those were two years with no bye week before the Super Bowl (1990 was the first 17-week season, 1993 was an 18-week season with two byes, which only lasted that year.) It seems like Saturday "premium live events" are going to be more the norm than the exception going forward.

Nothing says "Beach Break" like Cleveland in January.

PAC vs. Black should be a strong addition to the Best Matches Involving Wrestlers With Rhyming Names thread in Pro Wrestling Mostly.

Moxley's coming back on Wednesday, as well.

Caster said he was a judge on Twitter. Caster is a notorious liar.