Timbo Slice

It’s the inverse of Omega/Ospreay. Each man gets a win, except it’s on home turf instead of on the road. Pretty basic stuff. Okada leaving isn’t set in stone; it’s absolutely something the dirt sheets are talking up but there’s no indication that he’d leave.

I mean really, c’mon.

Holy shit, that rules.

The point is that the downside cost to digitizing is a one-time expense whereas when you put it out there, it needs to make money. And that part is the most difficult when cheaper programming with a better ROI is there with existing footage.

I was talking more about the fight than everything else that happened when Punk came back. That was all a byproduct of not corralling folks from the start when Punk debuted. Not a fan of how Punk acted when he came back given the concessions, but once that snowball was rolling down the hill, it wasn’t stopping. And it begins and ends with Tony wanting to be friends with everyone and placating demands. Including Punk’s. The company hasn’t been centered around the Elite for a while, and even when it was, it was Page going solo until the Punk issues. Omega is doing tags and hasn’t been doing big featured matches nearly as much since the surgeries, and has implied he’s winding down. Hangman has waffled since the Punk shit, some by design, some because of his own (correct) choices to take care of his family. And the Bucks live in a vacuum of which when they step outside of it, aren’t nearly as important to the company as the other two. This phrase would have meant more post-fight than it does now (and probably would have been the best for at least Kenny and the Bucks given Kenny’s injuries and the Bucks needing a jolt badly.) The choice going forward seems to be Ospreay, and even HE cut promos talking about the toll his style has already taken on him. At 30! Coronation at Wembley is the obvious play, but he also doesn’t know how to hit the stop button on a style that is wrecking him in his prime. And when your company is basically going through an injury epidemic, it’s not a great way forward even if you’re a fan out of the output in between the ropes.

Punk was an actual paradigm shift for the company, pulled in big ratings, and gave it an analogue against WWE doing big business. People get so hung up on the personality clashes and philosophical differences because it paints the picture of him coming in and breaking up the party the Elite started, but it’s looking more and more that sticking with the Elite over Punk isn’t the winning proposition it was back then. And when you’re trying to win market share and match dollars for dollars on TV contracts, that shit matters. I know folks don’t want it to, but it does, bottom line. Tony betting on the Sport of Professional Wrestling is a losing proposition given the war between sports entertainment and pro wrestling was lost decades ago in the US. And him not being able to control egos and placate everyone screwed up the locker room and cost him millions of dollars when his company really needed it. WWE just took that and now has the draw for the second show which they desperately needed, is working more internationally to expand their reach, and has their thumb on the scale comparatively when it comes to resources. This is a gap AEW doesn’t really have the know how to close, and a lot of the young talent they’ve tried to hang their hat on are getting lost in the shuffle as the need to ramp up their own homegrown talent grows. And the style they wrestle is just not sustainable given how much injuries have taken out of everyone, even with freak accidents like Cole. Things need to change with AEW, but given who holds sway operationally, there’s little evidence that they’ll get the message.

I also don’t get how you don’t keep both all things considered as they seem thin when it comes to backstage personnel who can actually handle things week to week but hey, what do I know.

In Randy’s case, considering how fucked up his spine is, I’m giving him a pass for wanting to add muscle as a way of support, but he’s definitely bigger than he was before.

That motherfucker is coming back tonight, isn’t he? And I don’t mean Randall Keith.

Man, that crowd was weird tonight. Chicago been wrung out as an AEW market but this was just weird. Still don’t get the Moxley/Briscoe psychology down the stretch, Moxley has this really strange energy in matches like that and I can never find my footing with it. Samoa Joe is the absolute best. That is all.

…so literally after a cocaine-related scandal, NWA uploads an eight-ball of episodes. Irony knows no bounds.

MJF believes strongly in traditional aspects of wrestling because he understands how much it brings to the table more than the pure sport type Ace a lot of people want for AEW but there hasn’t been a reign with that title more impactful than MJF’s, which essentially proves his point.

It’s a sociological question more than anything else. Even more than the US/Japan boom at the dawn on TV, or the localized European examples you provided, El Santo was probably per capita the most popular wrestler in the world given his exposure. But it was insular to Mexico, as there wasn’t really a huge market for Lucha outside Mexico during that time. I think your argument is more based on insularity than anything else; self-contained success just doesn’t have as big a footprint trying to be strictly national. The majority of pro wrestling history is centered in the US/Japan because they’ve done the best job of curating their history, in many ways, propping up the successes and carrying on traditions in a more consistent manner. They’ve also had the most successes (along with Mexico) of crossing over into mainstream culture, which is why it’s seen as the be all end all. That’s not to say European countries haven’t had their successes; but I think this more has to do with at what point insularity waned to allow companies to be more international.

I have to imagine if it is indeed Ospreay they’re gonna strap up White-O and let MJF flail against everyone who has beef with him. Meanwhile, Mercedes would literally be the biggest boon possible to a division in flux. Oh, also, there’s a PPV tonight.

Ishii is an absolute joke given the numbers propping him up are incredibly subjective being masked as objective. Analytics for the sake of analytics pushing him across, and the eye test doesn’t cut it. Based on what attributes get you into the WON HOF, his weights on in-ring work would essentially have to be “literally the best wrestler on Planet Earth conclusively” for the last decade, which he wasn’t even if you loved him. He’s Harold Baines, if that. A completely insular, masturbatory pick produced in an echo chamber. I do love the Roccas, Briscos, and the Beauty Pair getting in for their legacy, work, and appeal, respectively, but you also vote Ishii in (for work) and you don’t vote in the Bucks (appeal and influence, whether you like them or not) or Roman (an honest to god drawing anomaly in a time where there are no true “draws” anymore). I get different voting tenants, but these results really don’t paint a picture of consistency.

Put him over GUNTHER for the strap.

Mercedes then, I’d wager.

Hollywood EVP, not Elite EVP.

It’s footage ease of access: Ishii’s matches were easily watchable on streaming services for a decade while the others had to be sought out. It’s not really laziness so much as it’s the medium in which they can be viewed. Before steaming, a lot more work had to be done.

It’s an A24 movie so you have to assume they aren’t gonna be quick to hide the horrors of the family. Can’t really see them really caring what Kevin thought in pre-production, let alone finished product.

Hase had feature matches on big Dome shows in multiple promotions, Ishii has never been as high up on a Dome show as Hase has. The match quality argument can only hold so much water unless you are objectively, basically universally renown.

A lot of SANADA’s appeal is that folks really, really want to fornicate with him and that can’t be undersold.

Because SURVIVOR Series. See you next week.

Best young actor going today in my eyes, and he understands wrestling as a whole, too, dude’s a unicorn

They’re running arenas but only really selling camera side tix.