Timbo Slice

My guess is it’s Joe tonight. My dream would be for it to be Ki, but have it set up Ki/Danielson at the PPV.

My revised guess is it’s ROH-related.

So the easy money is on the Elite coming back but I’m trying to think of something Baltimore-related. Not coming up with much.

I’ve tried to tow the line of not leaning one way or the other but basically call out the preconceived notions are driving so much of the discourse here that it just devolves into “well, you’re not a fan of Punk/Elite/whatever” and it’s recidivist bullshit. The reason why the discourse doesn’t improve is because people want to be confirmed right more than anything else, and using preconceived notions lets you lose an argument yet feel you win because you can say, “I was never a fan in the first place.” So much of what has been reported lately has been because the story had been dead for several weeks and even Dave’s “big announcement” fell flat. Which is why I’ve said from the start that unless it comes from Tony, Punk DIRECTLY, or the Elite DIRECTLY, I don’t really care. The political chickenshit stuff is tired.

The studio putting this out is the biggest independent production company in the world who is well-thought of for attention to detail and given creators free reign to do what they feel is best, so there will be absolutely no hand-holding through this type of story. It’s going to be a grittier version of “The Wrestler” given A24’s track record.

Where is it that folks think Punk is doing the Dirtsheet Shootout with the Elite? Punk was always more a wait and see and then drop a big bomb than go tit for tat with bullshit.

He also has an argument for being one of the most influential people in the modern era for being able to reach fans; he embraced social media and online access to product relatively early and understood virality in a way few promotions ever have.

Skinny ass calves. Someone told Efron it’s an upper body business.

That artistic element also made some absolutely bonkers choices over the years so that’s not exactly a point in its favor.

My point with this is regarding sourcing than anything else: Dave’s word is getting taken as gospel here due to access and familiarity of product but he is biased towards the people who get him info. It’s always been his biggest criticism. Which is why ANYTIME you hear anything from him, you have to take it with a grain of salt, especially when patterns emerge. The specific pattern here is a ton of stuff painting Punk in the wrong regardless. He absolutely has brought up what happened from the Elite’s side but it’s not given nearly as much ink as Punk. And that’s by design. That isn’t a bias against the Elite. It’s scrutiny towards sourcing in an industry that has always had a huge access problem. It’s also why it’s been easy to see so many writers get led astray in the weeks following the incident, getting fed red herrings that get refuted almost immediately. It’s makes Dave look better by comparison, but it doesn’t make him the source of truth. That’s why I don’t really care what has happened until we either get some decently sourced info from Punk’s side or from Punk himself, which will eventually happen. To sit here and just say “Punk’s an asshole, therefore it’s his fault” is just an easy explanation for a complicated situation, not the right one.

It’s not an “anti-Elite” bias so much as it’s people reading between the lines about what has come out from the incident. An “anti-Elite” bias would state something like “They shouldn’t be a part of the company either.” When all the news after the incident has come out trying to paint pictures about Punk wanting out or buyouts or what have you (with the latest coming from Jericho’s camp via the WO in a way that is so blatantly obvious it’s kinda sad, especially after he signed an extension AND was lauded for being a “locked room leader” after it went down), Punk’s point about people talking to the sheets is becoming more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And THAT is where I have an issue with all of this; there was an opportunity for this to turn into something that could have been squashed and business could be done with it, and instead everyone’s egos needed to be assuaged. Again, the fact that there has basically been NOTHING from Punk over the last two months is incredibly telling. Just as much as the actually reported “news.”

That being said, so many folks are going to vote for like, Ishii over Toyota and Yamada, for example, which is gonna be baffling.

Some of these tag teams are so obvious (and varied, as you have the big drawing tag teams along with your work-based teams) that I think 18 with some pretty obvious choices will be even more difficult than usual with the 10. A quick scan means pushing a few teams to next year.

The AEW style has regular spots every week that are closer to head and neck drops than basically anything WWE does on weekly TV. The more dangerous stuff is saved for big matches more often than not, but the proclivity for head drops is much higher in AEW than in WWE. The Dead Eye is used on a regular basis by Page, the aforementioned piledrivers, even spots like German suplexes are played higher on the neck and shoulders on a regular basis. It’s more a commentary on the house style and the talent looking to get over: because of a bloated roster most folks are trying to do their best shit when they do get TV time so they go out of their way to hit their best high spots, which always leads to more injury risk.

Between him and Tua, hell of a month for the best trauma center in the country, damn.

Damn. Top tier Judas Effect.

Except Jericho has long been one of Meltzer’s sources if I remember correctly. At least in his WCW/WWE days.

From what was reported after the Punk/Elite stuff, he was supposedly a big reason the locker room bounced back so I’m not surprised.

There’s also the story that at Heat Wave ‘98, Heyman wanted to bring in Kobashi and Misawa for a match, so I wonder how much he knew about Vince talking to Baba and he tried to work his way in there somehow.

It was in the Forbidden Door match. It was a gnarly landing but can’t remember offhand what it was.

Jericho in a Leafs sweater, book it.

Moore literally made Watchmen as a call to how much depending on heroism leads to fascism. Yet isolated comic book fans saw Rorschach as their avatar for being an outcast. Irony thicker than the Ultimate Director’s Cut.

That segment was just…yeah, not a peep when Lumis was supposed to actually do his thing. Dying a slow ass death.

The idea of perpetual hope. He’s Santa Claus.

I brought up Nemeth more as an example of the type of work that needs to be more a part of the product as opposed to the quality of his work. One thing that bothers me is that folks don’t understand roles are meant to be played as opposed to maximize their attempt at the house style, and I’d rather have guys who understand those roles than not. Nese and Lethal are guys that aren’t over but known entities. And known entities that you use specifically to put over guys you WANT to get over have merit and value. Good hands who know their roles mean more to wrestling than guys who can work a good 50/50 10-minute match but it’s all they can do. And AEW has way more of the latter than the former.