El-P

Which may give some other workers on the market some thinking to do before getting locked up with WWE for years, now that several companies are gonna be willing to spend good money for talent.

Man, you don't say. The few I've seen from Swagger in WWE, he always looked quite good if not better. When he showed up in LU, he immediately became a sore spot to the point of hampering my enjoyment of the show. Same, or even worse, in MLW where his total lack of charisma was on full display. This guy so needs to wear a mask and just throw people around and never do the ankle lock, he'd be a decent JTTS a-la Black Blood or something (I'm so dating myself).

That's a good point. I don't care one way of another about Mike (I seem to remember him being the decent worker in tags with Bobby Fish or something, but I was too occupied to crack up at Liger being all over Maria's ass), and apparently no one does, really, but Maria like you said has a great personality and I've heard nothing but good things about her short TNA stint. So there, wouldn't mind to see her do something fun again somewhere.

Shockmaster. But yeah, they were doomed. At some point you wonder why they sign all those people they have clearly no idea what the fuck to do with. Well, these days you know why (aka prevent any other company from existing and killing the indie scene if possible), but really...

The only thing him and Ziggler have in common is curly hair. That being said, WWE is such a shitty overproduced environment that I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone leaving them to try to do something elsewhere. Yeah, even Shawn/BillyGunn cosplayer Ziggler. Hell, who would have bet a dollar on Cody Rhodes or Juice Robinson ? Look at them now, how far they have grown in every way. (it works both ways though, some guys/girls only look good thanks to the overproduced environment and will get badly exposed trying to work elsewhere while trying to do WWE style)

It was obvious from the very first day they weren't do jackshit with them anyway. So yeah, good for them if they can get out and sign with either ROH, iMPACT or AEW.

I thought the announcement of a big Rush match for April was ridiculous. And there you go, he get picked up by ROH. At this point, there's really no consistent story apart from Konnan vs SDR (generally speaking) and Lawlor vs Low-ki. The promotion looks like "Hey, we got that cool worker for these tapings, let's have him do some matches." I guess I'll have to watch ROH to watch some of the guys I enjoyed in MLW (PCO, Rush, Brody King).

I search MLW on Youtube and I immediately get the channel and all the episodes.

They could have made it Double A... Or ACA... I mean, the boss of the company made his career on a stupid-as-fuck contraction of a terrible name.

Understand all that. Still, it sucks for Ivelisse, who really deserves a break. Would love to see her and Melissa in AEW or iMPACT (well, back on iMPACT for Melissa, the only pro-wrestler ever playing a "babyface" in the US while wearing a hijab, when Amazing Kong turned for a while)

Ivelisse just posted about how she has wanted out for the last year and LU won't give her her release. How isn't she allowed to work elsewhere when Penta, Fenix & Mack do ? Anyway, the LU people seem to be locked, and although I have really loved the promotion, these practices kinda suck when they aren't even sure to film a S5.

Agreed. It has already started.

And get eventually murdered, dismembered and oh wait... wrong thread. Anyway, I dunno why, but this bit about "looking forward to meeting Omar at the prison" doesn't make him look good at all...

Please, no. No authority figure, no JR, no old used up WWE tropes on AEW, please. Let us have something fresh, for a change. Hell, iMPACT doesn't have any authority figure and it's soooo much better.

Well, Booker T. was a famous name way before Booker T. came around in pro-wrestling. Booker T. and the MG's... Jim Ross has always been a tad bit overrated to say the least. His highs are very high, but he had tons of lows including in his prime : UWF, some periods in WCW, post 2000 WWE.

Pillman wearing four or five layers of clothes in a Singapour cane match was classic. Wasn't Dragon Lee cruising a whole lot during his match against Rich Swann ? I'm not overly familiar with the guy, but I felt Swann was the one making the most of this one, with his kinda heeling up. Still very fun match. Am I the only one here really enjoying Fred Yehi ? Super solid match with Low-ki. They are doing a good job building the final match against Tom Lawlor. As far the rest of the promotion, most of the undercard, there's still a feeling of floating roster which makes it hard to get invested.

Nothing screams "new, hip, social media compatible, inclusive or whatever # millenials love" than good ol' JR... Schiavone would be a much better choice at this point, if you really want to have an old-school touch, he's doing a really solid job in MLW. Hey, the Bucks should contact Corny, ah ah ah.

He looks like a nazi officer, he has some really creepy (and beautiful, if you're into this kind of stuff) tattoos, he's a pretty good promo and has a good grasp on his character and he throws some mean suplexes. He was the White Rabbit in Lucha Underground (that's where I saw him for the first time). Scarlett Bordeaux stripping, why the hell not since she's pretty much the only one now doing this kind of gimmick. She's been pretty effective and funny in her role thus far.

The three CT podcasts with Bischoff, Prichard & Tony honoring Gene are quite a en excellent listen and a great way to remember Mean Gene.

The Gene show was the best in a long, long time. I piled up on Conrad lately, but I have to admit it was a really cool idea to have his three podcasts dedicated to Mean Gene, especially since they all approached his career from different perspectives and eras. I recommend listening to the three of them, Prichard & Tony being the two essential. Made you feel good about Mean Gene, for sure.

The lesser of the three Gene show, but it's obvious since him and Bischoff weren't as close as Tony or Prichard. Quite interesting though and another proof Gene was nothing but loved and respected by all.

I got a kick out of Tony and Gene calling each other "gimmick". This was an excellent tribute show, it's too bad the podcast can't come back to that formula. The audio clips were excellent, the Flair stuff derailed the thing a bit at the end but still, another really cool podcast to honor Mean Gene.

They never got over the DX theme, basically.

As an Azealia Banks fan, the idea of her doing pro-wrestling is awesome in itself. Picture the live promos, going off like Big Poppa Pump would. But yeah, Heyman comes off like a total sleazebag here. Which isn't surprising, of course.

Internet is a wonderful place.