sek69

Next show is going to be about Herb Abrams, which is the one I've been waiting for all season.

It was as if since he couldn't convince Harley to no show and jump to the WWF, he decided to convince damn near every other main eventer of the time to do so instead.

Tiger Mask/Dynamite might be the most influential match of all time. Not only was it responsible for creating junior style in Japan, pretty much the entire current generation of wrestlers across the world grew up basing themselves either on that match directly or on wrestlers who were influenced by it.

It always seemed that Shane was more like his mother and Steph is more like her dad. Shane doesn't seem to have enough "ruthless aggression" for lack of a better term, and Vince probably sees that as weakness. He ended up getting frustrated like a lot of the wrestlers do at his ideas constantly getting shot down, plus getting politically outmaneuvered by his own sister probably stung a little too, so he saw the writing on the wall and left. In the end I think a lot of it came down to Steph just being way more savvy and Vince-like, and Shane just not being alpha enough for daddy to care.

It would make sense in Vince's super alpha male brain that since he took over from his dad, that Shane would be the one to take it over from him. In fact, I'd have to look at the timelines to make sure but it certainly seems like Vince's obsession with brass rings and those who grab them really ramped up after Shane left the company in 2009. I don't pretend to have any special access to Vince's brain (and I'd probably be scared to look inside if I did), but I wouldn't be surprised if all the last second plan changes and randomly throwing folks overboard all while claiming to enjoy being challenged by someone bold is all just overcompensation for not being manly enough in his own eyes to be able to sire a proper heir to the kingdom. I couldn't think of anything being a bigger failure in Vinceworld than not having your son take over the company.

Why does Bayley look like she's been using Trump's tanning googles?

I think it was kind of understated that all these old timey rasslin' guys thought exposing the business would bring everything crashing down and they'd all starve.....and then Vince just goes ahead and does it to get tax breaks and wrestling goes on to be way bigger than it ever was before years later. It's almost as like all of that worrying was just based on workers self conscious about being workers and/or promoters preying on that to keep the boys under their thumb. John Stossel kind of had both sides going, he absolutely did deserve to get paid because slapping the shit out of a reporter because he dared question the integrity of your fake fighting is bullshit. However it probably was lost on him that he ended up handling it exactly like a worker would. Even if it was more of a "fuck you" at some point, they kind of deserved it, y'know? Dr. D came off best, for better or worse he is what he is and makes no excuses. He came off way more honest than most guys of his era.

Johnny Gargano is quickly showing (not unlike our boy Seth) that he's a lot more palatable as a douchey heel. Evil Candice was just as amazing as I was hoping it would be, even if her Disney fetish has to peek through with the name of her new finish. Damian Priest should have a job for life doing voice over work for all the hype videos WWE produces going forward. Dude can sound like the coolest motherfucker in the room just reading a shopping list. Next week looks to be pretty stacked as well, but at some point we're going to have to come to terms with Charlotte being put over all the NXT women even if it means we get great matches leading up to it.

I love these Taz segments where he breaks it down like a football play.

I need a segment of Tony checking out a death metal show at some point when we're allowed to do such things.

OK that parade of cameos in the Bubbly Bunch was great.

MJF having more and more ridiculous injuries to keep him away from wrestling is amazing.

As much as I don't care for the guy, Dolph seems like someone no longer giving any F's (and not in a "Batista on his way out" good way) and a change of scenery might do wonders for him.

Has it come out at all that anyone in WWE has willingly opted to stay home during all this as opposed to those with valid medical issues (Roman, Kyle O'Reilly) or stuck in another country not able to travel? I'm sure it will end up being top names like Orton and no one on the mid or low card, despite WWE's claims otherwise.

So the Dr. D episode is interesting to just see the mindset of the old school rasslin guys both then and now. It's amazing how upset they were at Mr. T (who was one of the biggest stars at the the time) got put in the main event of Wrestlemania I. Like why would any promoter looking to make money pass on that just to make sure someone like Dr. D was on the card?

In kayfabe, being made to look like a sniveling coward babyface did him no favors. In reality, alternating between a corporate bootlicker and a whiny bitch on Twitter turned a lot of people against him for being an unlikable douche and it guess it carried over.

Also a Mexican company making better use of a Mexican star (yes I know Cain is from the US) than WWE is hardly something shocking here. WWE's the same company that signed the original Mistico when he was one of the top draws in the world, and spent the whole time berating him for acting like he was a star.

Raw was actually not to bad, all things considered. Another night of HHH Appreciation was a bit much, but whatever. WWE just can't help but constantly tell their current fans that Things Were Better 20 Years Ago, so what can you do? Ingobernales (spelled it right this week!) were great again this week, I popped for Garza creeping on Charly. Nice to see MVP being put in the manager role he seems to be born to play. Cedric and Ricochet as a tag team not on job duty could be something good. The closing segment was pretty good, despite contract signings being beyond played out in WWE these days. Seth is obviously not stretching his acting chops playing a smarmy douche heel, but Drew being the rare intelligent babyface is always nice to see. Bu...err MURPHY returning to die for Seth's sins was great as well.

So WWE announced they're making a arcade style video game instead of another WWE 2K game. Considering Legends of Wrestlemania was a fun (if largely overlooked) game of the same style, I'm all in for this as long as it's not a complete flaming trash pile like WWE 2K20 game.

There seemed to be a camera cut between the needle being put in the bottle and when it was injected in his arm.

Clearly it's a work, one in bad taste and might blow up in their faces considering who owns ROH, but a work nonetheless.

I've long felt that AEW is an alternate universe JCP/WCW that somehow avoided the whole "get run into the ground by bad management/corporate meddling" thing.

It's something not many of us stopped to think about, what happens to a noted control freak when the world turns upside down and everything is out of his control? At this rate we're probably less than two weeks away from Vince coming out in the middle of someone's promo with no pants on and wearing a beer helmet.

Seriously, what was up with that last segment? It really seemed like Vince got drunk and decided to crash the party at the last minute. Hunter was out there looking like a teenager getting embarrassed by his dad trying to act cool.

I loved the "See, Hunter loses at Mania all the time, he isn't insecure at all" portion of that segment. Also it was like some kind of meta reference to Shawn by having Vince coming out looking like he was in no condition to perform.