sek69

Konnan dropped a bomb on his podcast that Sofia Alonso is possibly leaving CMLL to start a new promotion. This could end up being another "everyone leaves with Antonio Pena to start AAA" deal since nearly everyone is pissed at Chavo Lutteroth taking over and cutting everyone's pay.

Yeah it's weird that a guy who had to retire immediately or risk catastrophic injury suddenly is cleared. Maybe he got some of those magic Rey Misterio stem cells?

I heard a very prescient thing about the mindset of both companies that I think will go a long way in determining how things pan out. Both companies have plans laid out on how they want to proceed, but while AEW does a good job of getting the fans to buy in that the company is trying to give them what they want, WWE tells their fans they are getting what they are getting and to be happy with it. WWE gets so weirdly antagonistic towards their own fanbase it's created a mindset where the company is the top heel. When a heel does something dastardly, the heat is rarely on the individual but more "how dare the company make X do such a tasteless thing". One thing that was crystal clear on Wednesday is that the AEW fans *love* the company so far. They willed that show into something better than it would have been on paper. I got goosebumps when Cody came out to start the show, these people were so into their guy they view as the heart of the company. It was kind of shocking to see that level of engagement after decades of WWE crowds barely able to show any enthusiasm after having the rug pulled from people they got behind time after time. Now obviously no one can give the fans everything they want 100% of the time, but at one time it was Basic Wrestling 101. Every territory had a Jim Crockett Jr type who would represent the company and occasionally appear to right some wrong or punish a heel for something exceptionally heinous . When they had to punish a babyface it was usually because they crossed the line and did something that deserved it. Creating an atmosphere where the management is actively fighting the wishes of the fans is both weird and harmful to business.

Has anyone ever said Rey doesn't look like he could beat anyone up? It's just a weird argument that only seems to happen with people in non WWE promotions.

It's so weird that the "X doesn't look like he could beat someone up" is still a thing when there's like a million MMA promotions out there where the smaller guys generally put on the best fights, and guys like Floyd and Manny are the two greatest boxers of all time.

I recall pointing out that there is a big audience of wrestling fans who are not WWE fans that no one's really tried to cater to in 20 years. Everyone else tried to be WWE lite, which why would you bother with Dollar Store WWE when you can just watch actual WWE?

This is all true, and most rational people would be happy with those numbers. However we know WWE isn't run by rational people, and they clearly were expecting their mighty WWE peen to crush these upstarts. They wouldn't have made moves like no commercials for the first half hour, loading up on title matches, and adding an overrun just just for giggles. I'm sure they never thought for a second they would lose, even in week one.

WWE putting out a statement congratulating AEW is hilarious for many reasons. Mainly that the whole point of them counter programming with NXT was to damage any potential competition for their talent to work at, and also you know it really burns Vince's (and Hunter's) ass to lose like this.

Having the AEW world champ in a featured match on Wrestle Kingdom in front of a large dome crowd wouldn't be the worst thing. Coming up short against an all time great wouldn't be damaging to the title either. Despite everything I said above I don't think they'd do it since they don't even recognize that Moxley is the IWGP US champ.

Jersey Girl being a decent enough movie that had the bad luck to come out at the exact moment everyone officially was sick of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez is a hill I will die on. His worst movie in retrospect was Chasing Amy and he's even admitted that "lesbians just need the right dick to come along" was a bad take. To get back to AEW related matters, I have to say the show was pretty much what I hoped it would be. It wasn't perfect, but it was what they needed for a first show running up against stacked competition. Great action, hot crowd (kind of sad how weird it seemed seeing a crowd up for every match), even the commentary was solid. I agree with the idea that it seemed that Tony was the missing piece in the announce team, having someone familiar for JR to work off of helped both of them and Excalibur was again excellent as the play by play guy. They set up a lot of storylines, introduced someone new, and dare I say it was New Japan-like how you can see where things are headed and are excited to see it happen. I don't blame anyone who wasn't pumped to see Jake Hager, but I admit I'm intrigued to see what he can do in a company aiming for more of a real sports build.

His movies aren't always winners but he seems like a solid dude.

Finally something CS and I can agree on!

Cody really wants to do a War Games match to honor his dad, I think we might have just got the teams for one set up.

"TV time remaining", I love touches like that coming back. And then JR just echoed me thinking that.

Not in this thread please.

Riho is such a perfect babyface, she'll gain sympathy vs anyone.

Nyla is green, but big person vs tiny person is one of those things that almost always works, especially when the smaller person can work.

Also lucha dudes in suits is always money.

I wasn't expecting Scorpio Sky to do a good Obama impression, but here we are.

Dinner at the Cole/Baker household must be fun. "Good luck on USA, dear" "Hope we run you out of business honey"

....and a 15 minute overrun at the end too!

If anything, working for CMLL makes him a greater candidate to leave for AEW (or anywhere else for that matter).

The countdown show was pretty awesome btw. Introduced the important players, ran down the history of the company, and really brought the point home that they want to offer something for fans who are looking for something different.

I really doubt Enzo and Cass were ever in the plans, and even if they were ever in consideration surely the reaction they got at MSG would have torpedoed that idea.

Yeah I'm thinking AEW will get the first watch at least for the first few weeks. At this point NXT is a known quantity, AEW is something unknown as a TV product that will probably be entertaining for all sorts of reasons.