El-P

Awesome news for both Kingston and AEW. And me.

We should establish a list of actual NXT produced workers who became something on the main roster. Not late FCW people, not indie people, not TNA/Japan/Mexico people, straight NXT bread and trained workers who became something on the main rosters... I feel the result would be pretty thin and not impressive in term of status. Probably the women of early NXT would end up being the most notable.

This poor guy... Yeah, a 10 seconds *gag* (which was legit funny too) is totally the same thing as promoting the main event of a PPV on the serious premise that one of the wrestler is gonna lose an eye and you're gonna see it pop out on TV (which they did not deliver in the end BTW). Like, it's totally the same thing. Yeah, this poor guy... At the top of the company at its lowest popularity point ever... Acting like a corporate zombi... He's honestly a pretty pathetic figure.

Indeed. So, Rusev is gonna stay home playing video games while Lana is hanging in the house in bikinis ? Hum.... he'll be ok I think.

With the median age of their audience and the way the pandemic is handled in the US, by 2026 they won't have an audience at all...

That has to be the most 2020 post ever.

That's the über-capitalism for you. Profits have nothing to do anymore with the real people working underneath nor what is produced. It's almost magic bullshit. And yeah, it's depressing.

Yeah, because Taz *is* awesome in that role. So, we can't rave about managers being awesome promos now ? When Cornette cut a promo people would buzz about Bobby Eaton and not Cornette ? And yes, he's absolutely helping Brian Cage by being awesome, because Cage is not gonna cut a good promo. This is so old-school, it's ridiculous to even try to argue otherwise. The issue about only putting over himself was an issue with Jake and Archer at the beginning (not so much now). But Taz ? Nope. Also, Taz has been a better announcer than JR for about a good 15 years now, so he is also helping get over the product in the announcing booth.

Of course ! Taz is awesome. I gotta say though, Grumpy JR can be annoying as fuck but "Talk to Ralph the bus driver !" at the end had me rolling.

It says a whole lot about my interest in WWE that I had no idea who Matt Cardona was, to the point I did not even get why people were talking about Zach Ryder. I did not recognize the girl who showed up with Nyla either. Oh yeah, that girl. That and the infamous Tough Enough "who's your favourite wrestler ?" answer... Yeah, she's a catch. Well, she can't be worse than she was on this clip. It's really bad because they have a bunch of really decent/solid workers working Dark, including some with actual fun characters (Raché Chanel, I'm looking at you), so getting a WWE reject to tag along someone managed by Vickie Guerrero really isn't a good look to me. A bit too TNAish to me. Wait, two WWE rejects on the same show. Of course that's not their fault, they are from an era where a lot of people with TV experience will be WWE rejects, but still... FTR were great catch. Zach Ryder, no idea. Cameron... yikes. Apart from that Warhorse was quite decent I thought, although a guy dressing up like someone straight out of 1984... not too sure. And a week after Eddie Kingston, that's rough. They gotta sign Kingston. And Pillman, who's back in the crowd. Speaking of rough, I did not think that women match was very good at all. Guess who made Diamanté look better than she is last week ? Yeah, I sure hope they bring Ivelisse back, because it was not a strong showing at all I thought. Apart from that, Dark Order vs Omega & Page was easily the best match of the night. Dark Order have been stealing BTE lately, I'm glad they did the paper spot at the end, that was a neat little nod to the BTE skits. Uno & Grayson are sooo much better than their gimmick, hopefully at some point Brody Lee kicks them out and and they get do another gimmick altogether. The whole Omega vs Page saga is such a low build that it will be awesome when they finally will have that break up and feud eventually. Loving that subtle stuff. Opening was very good, Jericho vs Orange is gold thus far and Sammy is back at being the greatest. Strong promo from MJF, strong promo from Starks too and Taz cracked me up with "Stand in front of me so we don't piss off someone". Main event was quite fun, the ending was great and brutal looking (I'm sure some people will bitch about two weeks of pins gimmick in a row). Really good show, but beware of too many WWE-lite (especially people with zero cred) showing up.

I actually just learned today there was such a thing as the Qanon conspiracy bullshit. Remember when Internet was supposed to make people more intelligent because it was an equal access to knowledge ? That one did not turn out quite well...

Why is Twitter even allowing this ? Why are social media allowing conspirationist shit to see the light of day ? They are responsible too.

They do it themselves now that they also play the crowd. The circle of life is complete !

WWE found a new way of countering the opposition : fucking up their talent so bad that they don't even want to work in the field anymore after they get fired. Brillant. Too bad for Rusev. Well, too bad for us pro-wrestling fan actually, because if he can make money playing video games while his better half is milking whatever dollar she can off the machine, good for him.

"Sorry I love you" ruined pro-wrestling. Well, not really, but the old idea of self-conscious epic in WWE was annoying in itself before, but this spot is the beginning of the super-über-melodramatic-poorly-acted-self-conscious-epic.

I don't think it was that obvious before, but I guess she worked her ass off (pun intended) during quarantine or something, because she is *ripped* now.

I really enjoy this open challenge gimmick because it actually comes off like an open challenge, with challengers coming from the indies and whatnot and not just guys from the roster. It absolutely contributes to make the belt important and legit.

So, Wrestler House is another cool little idea to deal with the no-crowd era. Some good lines (especially by Dreamer). You can feel the influence of BTE too on this. Looking forward to more of this. IMPACT always delivers with their silly ideas. They are teasing Rich Swann retiring... I'm guessing the long term storyline to Bound for Glory is Eric Young taking the title away from Eddie Edwards and Rich Swann winning it at the big show... RVD vs Sami Callihan should be *interesting*, if anything. Katie Forbes is quite the character... she's got the best abs in the company too. Wonder if Sami can get the last really good RVD match.

Speaking of Shanna, I know she is from Lisbon and he is a celebrity there (and one of my favourite writer/poet), but still, this is the coolest :

Well, I just saw that it was broadcasted in the US for the first time in 1996. By this time in France, it was done, the show began to air in 1990, so I guess that's why. Yeah, Shanna's outfit was cool. Miss the girl on AEW TV...

There... As good as he is as a young lion, Shota ain't nearly ready yet to get to that level. And let's hope he doesn't come back dressed as poorly as Master Wato...

Ok, if he articulated that way, yes, it is embarrassing. Funny the number of 30 something/millennials who are fan of DBZ. I mean, that shit is old by their standards.

I agree with both points. Yet another title is exactly what NJ doesn't need now. There has been way too many title already. When every match on a big card is a title match, no title match seems important. Plus, booking another tournament right after the NJ Cup reeks of lazy booking (it was one of Russo's go-to). I was thinking the same thing, the idea that the EVIL heel turn and title run was programmed since last year makes Naito's big win look pretty dumb in retrospect. So all that for giving EVIL the nod ? Maybe Naito will regain at the big stadium show (hopefully), but that EVIL stuff sticks like a sore thumb. Gedo's formula of "Inserting X into Bullet Club" is way past tired at this point. It worked really well for KENTA (and had to since the guy is physically shot), but EVIL's turn is past the point of redondant. As far as the matches being really good, well I've not watched the Hiromu one, but Okada & Naito weren't very good in term of Okada & Naito big main event matches. The whole run-ins and ref bump stuff is almost Double J Special stuff at this point. There are too many great workers in the company to not have really good match no matter what, but in the big picture, I agree NJPW doesn't look very good right now. I wonder if the G1 Climax last year, which was the greatest ever, will not end up being looked at the peak of this period of NJ.

I got a kick out of Missy Hyatt on the Meltz podcast saying she wasn't impressed with EVIL as the IWGP champ and that SANADA would have been better in the role and that Shingo is a better worker. Missy strikes me as someone would be so much a PWO poster, the kind of which is actually into the new stuff. No matter her opinions on other things (*cough*), I kinda think it's cool Missy Hyatt is a pro-wrestling fan lifer when she's been out of the business for what almost 24 years now (counting her last TV stint as ECW in 1996 with Sandman)

Me too. That corporate culture is vomit inducing. They are all Disruptive Human of Linkedin kind...