Timbo Slice

Ospreay isn’t nearly as big a deal now as he was even two years ago, and given where he now resides on the pecking order, how he gets booked isn’t nearly as important as keeping FTR strong given how much they mean to the company right now.

And putting on all that bloat.

One of the things that hasn’t been brought up here is that the “depth” question is entirety based on environment. WWE’s “depth” issues on the mens side are clearly self imposed, but also, they’ve run multiple folks who are their “depth” on top in the past, only to be shuffled down the card never to be heard from again. AEW has more interchangeable parts, but that’s because it was born more out of necessity. They needed to keep trying folks to see who popped off the page, but they had a clear hierarchy in regards to the world title, for example. I think both companies project too talent pretty well, but I also feel like the idea of depth being talked about here is more about “talent we like.”

So how real is the scuttlebutt surrounding Claudio going back to WWE?

If Mox is the guy they’re facing, it won’t be Danielson. They just did that match, plus Kingston and him still have to face off. The GUY would be Omega.

That sucks that the Tanahashi match doesn’t work, but they’ll do it at the Dome, I imagine.

Well shit.

SRS reporting it could be Punk’s foot indeed, but how do you not lead off the show with it if it’s that important? I smell a work.

Gotta toe the company line.

The only, and I mean ONLY possible payoff that would make sense to me, is if the “Four Pillars” turn this into a generational thing. Which absolutely could happen. I think it’s the only thing that makes any plausible sense given how the company is constructed. Page having been the champ already, his redemption could come through this. Plus MJF and Sammy are kind of in limbo, and Darby can easily be plugged in after his time with Sting is done. The booking, either inadvertently or in reality, has leaned towards all four of them being deprioritized, so I think this could only work if it somehow grew.

The issue here isn’t the promo or delivery: It’s how information was disseminated beforehand. The fact this all began with MJF and Tony trying to “work the sheets” puts this into a territory that leaves little to be desired, and so now they’re working from behind on this in a way that will leave whatever the result of this is extremely cold. The reason why the Punk pipe bomb worked was that everything going on was authentic: His contract was coming up, he was underutilized in a way that played that way on TV, and he was going up against someone who was so completely manufactured by the company he eventually ran down that everything fit into place. The MJF stuff is instead extremely forced from the get go from something that is as inauthentic as it gets. Page was already doing the “protect AEW from former WWE guys” shtick with Punk, albeit a bit more subtle. Here it screams out in a way that says, “Creative doesn’t have anything for me now.” There isn’t a single avenue this can go down where something beneficial comes out of it; it’s in a vacuum that completely takes away from everything else he could do at this point. And if it leads to more Tony on camera? It’s even worse, because he’s not good on camera at all, and this company has proven stories like this don’t need to exist.

Except Tony is letting the vets call their own shots, or at the very least, letting them heavily influence how they want to participate in the shows. That’s how it’s been basically since the start. Considering what Bryan has done, I’d rather he do what HE wants rather than what we want. Because it’s pretty clear that he’s been doing great at whatever he wants to do. Just because he’s not constantly having 60-minute TV epics doesn’t mean he’s not enjoyable.

God, YouTube fans calling the MJF promo a “pipe bomb,” I think I’m done with him proper.

The fans ate it up because that’s the shit they grew up on. But that shit was Russo-level.

MIIIIIRRROOOOOOO

Not a single thing about that worked.

Jumped the shark.

Go Ace.

I take it back. Sloppiest hot tag of all time.

That might have been the sloppiest hot tag I’ve ever seen.

That’s how that style was, especially with whoever the senior member on the totem pole is. The 6/3/94 finish famously had a cutoff spot from Misawa that then led to Kawada basically getting no offense in the rest of the match. It also happened in the 1/20/97 match when Misawa took over and it was basically for good. That’s a way better way of dealing with stretch runs IMO, as the back and forth of modern matches leads to not selling bigger moves as well as the lead up to that stretch run in favor of quick momentum swings. Just doesn’t make much sense.

Sigh. Can happily ignore her then.

He absolutely will, and then call out Tanahashi. And all will be forgiven.

Again, what makes people think Bryan didn’t ask for the role he’s in currently? He seems to have autonomy over basically everything he wants to do, so there’s a good chance he wanted to go this route for now. Plenty of time for him to have the title run everyone thinks he should have.

Same reasons why there are people who are better coaches than players.