sek69

They could have Roman take out Lashley in a "no one gets to beat Brock but me" move.

Funny thing about the Shibata deal, is despite him saying that it was still very much an exhibition style match and it seemed like it was just done to get the audience used to seeing him in a regular match again. Any time an announcer says "is X going in to business for himself" as many times as Kevin and Chris did, then that person is very much not doing that.

Seems pretty harsh to paint this as Swole lying about her departure when "we agreed to mutually part" is the common reasoning for pretty much every departure in real sports other than Antonio Brown even when that's not the case probably (at least) 90% of the time. There really has been a lot of folks telling on themselves, including TK, to get so BIG MAD over what amounted to a black woman saying "yeah things improved but there's still a way to go".

Welp I'm convinced Shibata is not human. Dude looks like he hasn't missed a beat.

After all these years, Naito's theme still gets me hyped as fuck

Man watching Tanahashi go ape is like watching Steamboat lose it, just seems so shocking.

Who has aged less, Tanahashi or R Truth?

The only time I was ever invested in anything Sho and Yoh ever did was when they were on excursion in CMLL as Rajin and Fujin.

Inoki video to open the main show, he looks fairly good for his age and health issues.

Also the crowd looks pretty good all things considered. Seems to be as full as you are allowed to get in Japan at the moment.

Pretty much creating this thread to say Fujinami entered the Ranbo and did a Dragon screw on Bad Luck Fale.

Also Brock and Lashley having the meatiest of BIG MEATY MEN SLAPPING MEAT matches sells me on the Rumble right there, they don't even have to fill up the Rumble for all I care. Let those two hoss all over the place.

Heyman made Big E a stronger champ in one promo than WWE did in his whole time with the belt.

Yes, and more importantly Big E was protected too. Everyone bumping like crazy in a row for Lashley's spears reminded me of when everyone used to do that for Goldberg in his heyday.

Beyond all the problematic things about Theory himself, this deal with Vince is just weird. You know they think this is getting him over by giving him the Vince Rub but he just looks like a doofus cowering to a senile old man

Per Dave, the idea is it makes TV viewers stick around to see the match if they do it that way. No idea if there's any data that shows it works, but that's the idea.

I was just about to hop in to point out I saw him use it there, but I remembered it was as clip from Dark that they showed on Dynamite. Wow....I mean I didn't think that deal was going to change the world or anything but they sure snuffed it out before it got out of the gates.

Welp, looks like Odyssey Jones decided to start 2022 off with a bang by being transphobic online.

Does she have anything to do with the day to day operations though? I was under the impression she is in charge of the legal stuff for the Khan family empire.

Shawn Dean has a role as an extras coordinator, and Sonjay Dutt is an agent, that's about all I can think of that would even remotely count.

Lots of talk about quotas and "what do you want, make a black person a champ just because" and not much talk about how people who they are building the future around and investing time into are largely white while any POC wrestlers at the same experience level are stuck toiling on Dark/After Dark or being wasted in factions like Private Party being put in HFO after they were one of the high points of a lot of the early Dynamites. Like, I don't think anyone believes TK is making a conscious effort to only push white folks, but it seems more of a case of not really paying attention. Like Lee Moriarty has been signed do a deal so there's no reason he should still be doing jobs, he should be in the TNT title mix already.

To be fair, Swole isn't the first person to point out diversity as an issue in AEW yet everyone seems to be acting like she said some kind of unspeakable horror. Perhaps she isn't the best one to be saying these things given her own abilities and apparent behind the scenes issues but it's not like she was alone in her views here.

Looks like that angle with Corbin and Moss pillmanizing Drew's neck was done to give Drew time to heal up a nagging neck injury.

WWE only brings sadness, never joy.

There may not be anyone alive who can take an RKO like Montez.