sek69

So as a Steeler fan, I remember back to when Jerome Bettis was the featured back for the team. Toward the end of his career it started to become apparent he wasn't an every down back anymore, but they made him the short yardage guy when they needed a first down or were close to the goal line. It prolonged his career and let him play to his strengths (being a squat bowling ball who was hard to tackle) and still play a beneficial role to the team. It was a large part of why they won the Super Bowl that year, it allowed him to retire on top to close out a HOF career, and he's still a beloved figure in Pittsburgh to this day. JR's a big Steeler fan too from his beloved late wife being from here. I bet he remembers that as well.

It's not like AEW is hurting for announcers like WWE is. Kinda odd how they keep sticking with him despite a large segment of the roster getting annoyed by his antics to the point they don't even care if they make it public.

Didn't someone in AEW do a promo about how calling someone a "hell of a hand" is a backhanded compliment basically calling someone technically good but not a draw?

Clearly, we're the sensitive ones and not the guy who has to reply "lighten up, Francis" to anyone who tweets about his frequent gaffes on commentary. Dude clearly vanity searches himself in between retweeting various "WWEPorn" and "DivaBoobs" type accounts.

Jokes about Christian aside, that would have at least gone with his Out Work Everyone gimmick. Also it really is stark how someone like Tony Schiavone, who is from the same era as JR, can learn to apricate the modern style to the point his mini feud with MJF is low key one of the best parts of AEW while JR can't even be bothered to say anyone from his company is the best in the world. Especially when every boss JR ever worked for in his life would have lost their shit had he called someone from another company the best in the world.

IMO they took the belt off him because he probably didn't say how long he'd be away and they didn't want to have the new title they just created on ice for an extended period.

So it seems the gist of the Will stuff is that he does have a neck injury that he probably could work thru if needed but between that, frustration with NJPW management, and whatever's going on with Bea (at the least, she left Japan to go home to tend to a family member so there's some stress there no matter) he just decided to go back home for a while. There's some people in NJPW who think he's not really that injured and he's straight up pulling an HBK, which is why he posted a photo of his neck X-ray that shows some jacked up discs and some narrowing of the spinal column.

Kevin Von Erich used to do a sweet headscissors too. Sting used to look like he was crushing guys back in the surfer days, at some point in the Crow era he started gently laying it in and the move lost all cred.

Yeah Drake at least knew when to pick his battles. Also, racism aside it's always a shitty look when someone screams at a trainee for some bullshit just to be a swinging dick. Dude's not even a trainer, just a ref that helps set the rings up. He had no business pulling that shit and Robbie Brookside approving of him getting told off speaks volumes.

Janela's really good at the business side of things, but in ring not so much IMO. I would 100% hire him to be on the creative team of any promotion I was running, but that's about it.

Also released NXT talent Ezra Judge (who is black) did an interview stating Drake Wuertz called him "boy" at one point. Luckily for WWE they timed a bunch of office releases that kind of drowned out the reaction to this.

I wonder what WWE is going to do with their announcing. Cole and Pat Macafee have been doing pretty good on SD (Pat's obviously still new at this, but he's such a natural performer), and they got rid of Joe. Barrett and Vic are good on NXT, I hope they don't put Beth on Raw.

I think the AEW roster is jumping to Kenny's defense because there's been some annoyance that JR doesn't event try to put AEW folks over at times and this is a way they can kind of stick it to him without being blatant about it.

The A&E piece was basically a way for Dana to acknowledge he said some fucked up things, but to frame it as a guy who fell down a media rabbit hole and away from the person who pointed him in that direction. I suppose the fairest (to her) takeaway could be she didn't think he'd take things as far as he did, but what else would you expect if you take a guy like him and continuously feed him right wing nonsense?

I saw people comparing Virk to Mike Adamle, and that was just unfair for many reasons. They took a guy who has never called professional wrestling and threw them on the flagship show for the #1 company in the world with (apparently) zero training. If he had been in any other promotion in the world they would have at least not put him in such a position to fail. I know WWE has an unexplained hard-on for three person teams, but I really think Corey and Byron would be a great duo if given the chance. They have chemistry, and their banter reminds me of the Bobby/Gorilla and Vince/Jesse teams. Obviously they aren't on those teams' level, but I think it would be an improvement.

I mean, it could be he really does think Randy Orton is the best in the world. He's clearly in the "no fucks given" phase of his life, and knows Tony K will keep him well paid since he was one of the reasons they got the Turner deal. I would doubt he has any desire to go back to being Vince's punching bag unless they gave him a completely stupid money offer, which if they did it probably wouldn't go over well with the talent after multiple rounds of cuts for "budget reasons".

I'm OK with this both for real (sometimes shit goes wrong) and kayfabe (part of the ref's job is to make sure both people can continue, they always mention that), plus in boxing/MMA the ref is there to make sure there's no serious injuries to ether combatant. What killed me is when WWE was on that thing where they would completely stop a match at even a "Lex Luger in Baltimore" level of blood. Plus it was while Joe was in NXT, and for whatever reason his nose is especially prone to bleeding so he kept having his matches interrupted.

I get the feeling that they are going to tell how Warrior was radicalized by Dana and she's trying to get ahead of it by preemptively smearing the show.

It's more to bolster the stock price than anything else, which may lead to a sale but it seems that's the goal here.

Is it me or was that an odd choice for the show closing match/angle? Wasn't expecting Shayna vs Reggie to be the hook to get you to tune in next week.

I hope MVP worked me because it look like he reinjured his knee in the post match shenanigans.

Tell that to anyone who has to work with the NXT Q squad. I mean, I get what you're saying and you're right on a basic level, but people are so comfortable openly expressing hateful beliefs nowadays it's easy to turn any workplace toxic in a heartbeat. This isn't like "Fred believes trickle down economics actually work", more like "Fred doesn't believe I have value as a human being and I should have all my rights taken away".

One thing that should be kept in mind too is Warrior had stated on more than one occasion that Dana was the one who helped shape his conservative views.

I get the impression he doesn't know what a lot of things mean based on his history.

Dave did a talk about it in his review, but yeah that was a pretty big miss on the show's part to let that go uncorrected. It wasn't even a hit either. Stories vary, but what seems to be the same is Riki got into a scuffle with a Yakuza member at the club and the dude went into business for himself and stabbed him. The Yakuza even apologized for it because he was such a national hero.