Loss

I realize sometimes that I'm really unfair to Lance Archer, and I realized that it's because he has fucking stupid hair and I can't get past it.

This scenario demonstrates why having rankings is a bad idea, because they find themselves with self-imposed limitations in moments like these.

I thought it was ... boring? Not bad (or good), just incredibly boring. I don't care about your personal problems with Tony Khan. This was amusing at first and after the weekend, I'm just annoyed by the topic. Either leave the company or don't. I thought Dynamite was good this week otherwise.

I don't get not doing more unique matches on Dynamite. They all feel lackluster to me. Why not do more out of the box matches that we all know they're never doing on PPV, like Punk vs Brody King, or Mox/Danielson vs Hobbs/Starks. There are so many people on the roster that never interact and likely never will.

I don't think it's optimal use of Bryan Danielson either, to be clear. My ideal would be the period from September-December 2021 on an infinite loop until he retires. But I can separate that from my thoughts on the match itself. I didn't care for ladder/table/barbed wire stuff either and don't think the match needed it, but I also don't think it negatively impacted the match at all.

Anarchy in the Arena is the damndest match I've seen in years and one of the best brawls of all time. I've watched it three times now.

The lack of transparency from AEW during this is deserving of major criticism if this is indeed not a work. If it's all been a work, they are also deserving of major criticism, but a different kind.

It's a really counterproductive one in my mind. "Let's convince everyone that the most hyped match on the show may not happen" seems more likely to scare people on the fence about buying the show away from doing so.

The Buy-In starts in like 3 1/2 hours, I think AEW is really pushing it not clarifying yet. Tony being quiet all day is also really strange. He's never like this on PPV day.

https://twitter.com/BrianMaxMann/status/1530879122368495617

He is being underpaid. He's also being offered more money. (And no, it's not true that he wanted more money without an extension. That was an online rumor that got started that Fightful has debunked many times.) He's also definitely hurting Wardlow's future potential to make money and be a star if he doesn't show up tonight, given all the build.

I'm fine siding with capital over labor, especially in professional wrestling, but there's also an element of producer vs consumer to this, and that's typically a more complicated divide.

Because of MJF's self-imposed restrictions on what he says publicly, the whole story of him wanting a raise without an extension took on a life of its own and a lot of people still think it's true, even thought Fightful reported that rumor to be false from the beginning. And yes, he is outsmarting himself. It's great to have a wrestler who maintains their persona in public at all times, but: - There is a reason wrestlers today are (generally) mentally healthier than wrestlers in a previous generation - He's backed himself into a corner where all kinds of awful things can be said about his professionalism and he can't even correct the record without breaking his own kayfabe rule This was a dumb stunt that may create some buzz around him in the short term, but long term, I think he's given himself less bargaining power when his deal is up, and I can see Tony backing off on his push if he doesn't trust him. And AEW has done a great job establishing that they don't fuck over fans, and the Meet and Greet yesterday actively worked against that. They need to go out of their way to do a make-good for the people who purchased tickets to see him. They have been successful, but they don't have nearly the stability or good will at this point to fuck over paying customers and move on.

100%. I just said this on Twitter, but Tony Khan has probably never really been tested like he will be in the next 24 hours. It will be our first time to see what he does when his back is against the wall.

MJF is outsmarting himself. If it's a work, it's one that's too inside and happening away from TV, and it's not doing anything to promote his current feud. If it's a shoot, playing games like this while also having the policy of never publicly breaking character means that he's going to get a rep as difficult to work with that might reduce his market power and could even make him less appealing to WWE, meaning he has no leverage to start a bidding war when his contract is up.

Chapters 1-9 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Chapters 10-17 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Chapters 18-21 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Chapters 22-24 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Chapters 25-31 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

I couldn't figure out how to match these to an original post or if we needed them. If we need to move any of them, please let me know. I'll lock this thread a week from today.

That interview was outstanding. Everyone should listen to the whole thing.

Ok, it's going to take me about 30 minutes, so I can't do it right now. Basically, I have to go through each page of the thread, make the posts about Cody on each page its own thread, creating multiple threads about Cody and then combining them all into the already created all things Cody thread on the back end. I think for now, everything just needs to be here. In the future, start threads.

Part of me wants to make you all suffer from the consequences of not starting threads when topics deserve them. But yes, I can split it off. Let this be a lesson!

I was focusing more on Cody's possible perception of the landscape than any realities of the landscape. I'd be shocked if in his mind, he doesn't think he has a track record now.

The way Cody thinks, part of me thinks he might see a path to get the keys to the NXT castle and assume a spot within the succession plan to one day run WWE Creative. Think about it -- Vince has lost confidence in his son-in-law and never had confidence in his son at all, and now someone is available who has a track record. I'm not saying WWE would think that way or offer that, I'm saying that Cody might think he can effectively play the game to land in that spot within a few years. It's not about it being realistic or not, it's about him believing it's realistic or not.

My point is that I don't think quality was as important in the late 90s as it is now. Fans watched wrestling on Monday nights because if you were college-age, it was the thing to do. I was in college at the time and there were viewing parties all over campus. It wasn't even that people were paying close attention. (Drove me crazy how much people talked when I was trying to watch!) Now, wrestling draws from a pool of people who are already wrestling fans, which is a smaller audience, but that also means that making the wrestling good is a lot more important than it used to be.