Matt D

Ultimately, you're 100% right on a scale of degrees, but it's also an expectation gap. I don't hold WWE to any meaningful standards because it's forever disappointing. Now, someone who's otherwise earned some respect? That's different.

Pompeo's going to be there next week. It's a shame he couldn't sync it up and hang out with the guys in the front row all night.

I don't want to armchair this too much, but I think there are things he could have done other than demand to wear the new jacket out there, some of which I'd bet would have worked. EDIT: At the very least, he knew this show was coming. He could have debuted the new gear at Backlash and dodged a lot of this. It'd have slightly less of an effect but everything gets drowned out at Mania anyway.

Not every wrestler made himself a symbol. The Moolah stuff was comparable. What really rankled wasnt necessarily the company lionizing her as much as them having all of the current talent, who tend to stand for something very much the opposite, do it. But again, do you blame the girls for that, or do you blame the company for making them do it? Like, honestly I think regardless of what those individual women know or think about Moolah, those interviews are happening either way. They don't get to have opinions when they go against WWE. Same deal here. Any of those guys from Sami on down can have their own thoughts about Saudi Arabia and the political issues, and I'm sure they do. None of those opinions are ever going to make it to air or in public on the record. We get propaganda videos. We get company line. I certainly blame Bayley or Sasha more than I do a Liv Morgan, because the former represent something and have sort of made their career as doing as such and influence a relatively young fanbase as such. They also probably have a little more stroke. At some point you have to decide what you stand for and what you want to want to promote and to have your voice used to validate. I do too. You do too. We just have a lot less of a reach. No one HAS to be a hero, but you can't be one on day A and not on day B (especially when day B is undeniably harder) without it affecting your reputation and legacy. You can't have it both ways. That's not how life works.

Not every wrestler made himself a symbol. The Moolah stuff was comparable. What really rankled wasnt necessarily the company lionizing her as much as them having all of the current talent, who tend to stand for something very much the opposite, do it.

re: Finn: I don't know. If you're going to take a stand, stand up for what you believe in, even when it's hard. He got a ton of deserved credit for what he did at Mania. I don't know if the guy gets to keep it if he just rolls over the second it's no longer convenient and when it might actually cost him something. It's easy to be inclusive when there's no cost involved.

I really wanted Hunter of Arabia

The greatest Survivor Series?

Ok Im good. I found the gif of Titus slipping. https://twitter.com/peliquesadillas/status/989965256393969667?s=21

I have no idea whats happening but I do want to remind everyone of the random sumo guy 40 minutes ago.

Ok, Karl Anderson coming out is a great moment for me to go home. enjoy guys.

Oh man, the cut to the crowd looking bewildered as Big E went "OHHHHHH JEDDDAAAAHHH"

They need to clear the ring a bit. Wait, how long has Mojo been wearing the goofy ass Maryland gear?

Bryan seems sort of blown up to me, which isn't surprising, but...

Well, if anyone ever wanted Drew Gulak to interact with Daniel Bryan, here's your chance.

You have to figure Bryan's been looking forward to work with Dash. The people on the hard cam knew who Kurt was for sure.

That was a pretty good use of Viktor.

They can't be so confident in Bryan yet that they'd let him go the whole time. He probably lobbied to go first to get to interact with as many guys as possible.

I love that Cole had no idea what to even call the green belt. "This.. award." They should just call it the "25 Million Dollars a Year" belt.

I'm curious if Reigns goes back to normal wrestling for the Joe match or if he stays in this super video game power up mode.

Actually, Brock was still laying on the cage when Reigns rolled off. Reigns hit the floor first. That's not even close. If hanging on the cage means you haven't hit the floor, why would laying on it be any different? They can't even get their fuck finishes right. EDIT: Oh wait, I guess they can.

Maybe if you're sleeping on an empty row of chairs and dreaming about Trish vs Mickie.

1000% is a pretty high number.

I think they've pretaped this and they have it on rewind by accident.

Ok then. So that's how they're doing this. 4 Germans and a F5 to start. The match has nowhere to go. We're at the point in the feud where we've reached "World's stupidest 1998 AJPW escalation" level.