sek69

The drop off from New Japan to the 2nd or 3rd biggest promotion in Japan has been a pretty big chasm for a long time. I suppose the argument can be made the gap has been closing, but it's still more along the lines of "tallest little person" than anything else.

It's doubly stupid if it is a cover since A: how does he not have that sorted out yet (yes I know current US politics make it hard now, but it's something a company backed by a billionaire could probably figure out) and B: why come up with a cover story that makes Pac out to look like a self important douche?

Not to mention he's not exactly the NWA champion in the 70s coming in knowing he's here to make the local guy look good while not losing clean. No knock against Dragon Gate, but AEW's looking to be a major national (if not worldwide) promotion. The champion of a place like Dragon Gate doesn't have much leeway to pull any "that doesn't work for me, brother" shenanigans.

Comes off as either a weird flex by Pac or he still has some kind of PTSD from his WWE run. I get wanting to keep a title strong, but this isn't exactly jobbing the ECW champ to the WWE champ when ECW was still kinda sorta a major company. I couldn't name any title holders in Dragon Gate if you held a gun to my head.

Elgin left to go to the greener pastures of Impact (which is also a telling sign of how NJPW values the gaijins).

NJPW stuggling to sell tickets for non MSG shows since they left seems to indicate they were at least sort of correct though? We kept hearing how important the US expansion was, but they didn't seem to think they didn't need to keep the Elite guys around. Six man tags with LA Dojo guys don't seem to be cutting it.

In terms of scale, yeah, but Hollywood is way bigger than wrestling so that would be expected. Pound for pound it's pretty darn close.

Gotta love the lengths WWE goes when someone dies to make it clear they no longer worked for the company/weren't at fault for the death/the person loved the company still. It's a real telling indicator of the status of wrestling too, by all rights Vince should have been the first in front of the firing squad when #metoo first became a thing.

Of course he does, Vince always escapes repercussions since the non wrestling world just considers him the wacky rasslin' guy (to his eternal disdain). He shouldn't, of course, but it's been shown time and time again that's what happens.

Looking back, it seems like that whole "Sasha and Bayley were having a tantrum about losing" deal was someone from the company purposely feeding info to the sheets to embarrass them. It's the exact kind of petty bullshit they would do in response to someone who takes what they do seriously and dared question the company's plans. It's the #1 Vince Paradox that people should devote their lives to wrestling 100%, but the moment you speak up and say their plan for you is stupid you're a crybaby who's a mark for themselves.

At least Killer Khan was Asian, most of the other "Mongolians" were random white dudes. Like no matter how hard you kept kayfabe, that would have most folks going "uhhhh"

I mean, just on it's face ....70 year old man who lived a rough life and had a previous near fatal heath scare needing a procedure done on his heart...tends to make it sound more serious than Conrad wants to let on. And I get it, he doesn't want a circus in the hospital and is trying to downplay things to keep a lid on it. Not sure why everyone is so viscerally angry at Satin though, unless it's a general "he worked for TMZ and they are shit so he must be shit too". I don't recall him personally lying about something.

I would wager when AEW starts and WWE moves to Fox (and in theory has to step their game up in response to both of those), things will pick up significantly here and other places wrestling is discussed.

A lot of wrestlers' reaction tweets seem to imply it was a suicide, which is just awful.

Well he was never at the top for anyone to claim he fucked his way there. His character always came off as "guy who outkicked his coverage and is fully aware of it".

Wondering if at this point that if WWE did a storyline basically claiming Andrade fucked his way to the top, it would almost be progressive of them to have a man in that role for once.

Shaking my head at the mention in the Observer that WWE is just now starting to really think highly of Andrade but Vince is still hesitant to put the rocket on him because he's still learning English. I mean, I can see why you'd have reservations pushing a guy who was already a top star. Can't have anyone proven to draw money just go out there without being coached to death first.

The Moolah episode was interesting. They never really denied that the stories were true, the only defenders were her daughter (and where was any mention of the story about her bringing neglect charges against her mother?), Bambi who came off like a uber mark just happy to be in the business, and the Fight For Moolah guy who was like the personification of every creepy women's wrestling fan on the internet. It was also telling seeing Victoria tell a story about Moolah trying to pimp her out, then ending the show by saying "you better not call her a pimp because that makes me a prostitute". It showed to me that there's basically two camps: people who Moolah didn't prey on and therefore assume all the allegations are lies, and those it did happen to who either are honest about who Moolah was or are in denial because otherwise it would mean having to admit they got pimped out. Her legacy is an interesting thing too. She clearly kept women's wrestling running when it probably wouldn't have otherwise, and should deserve credit for that. She honestly probably wasn't any better or worse than any other wrestling promoter of the time, it's just more scandalous because it was a woman doing sleazy pro wrestling promoter shit. On the other hand, she definitely outstayed her welcome, and her 80s run as a serious threat rather than the old legend passing the torch is pretty embarrassing to watch. Even if Vince wanted to show uppity broad Wendi who's boss for wanting to get paid, putting the title back on Moolah more or less killed women's wrestling on a major league level as anything serious until the recent "revolution", save a couple years in the 90s when Madusa was there.

It's a legit concern. My only worry for Earl is if he takes a bump he might turn into dust like he got Thanos snapped.

Is it weird that I'm kind of happy he didn't make it? Seems like too nice a guy for the wrestling business.

Understandable, but I don't expect them to run the usual "hey this is the guy that screwed Bret" angles.

I just love that between the Nitro-reminiscent flames and the "we're back in the wrestling business", TNT's announcement tweet seemed to be designed for maximum Vince trolling.

I'd be willing to bet that Moolah was worried if Wendi got hot (as in mainstream MTV in the 80s hot, not just rasslin' hot) she'd lose her place as the supreme dictator of all women's wrestling. At the same time, Wendi seems like the type where getting the push she already was getting probably made her think she didn't have to listen to that old bat call the shots anymore now that she was rubbing elbows with real entertainment stars. It really is one of those situations where looking back at the people involved it makes you think "well of course ended up that way, how else could it have?"

The telling point for me is after Bret took his patented chest-first turnbuckle bump and it was time for Tom to go on offense, he had a deer in the headlights look and time stood still while you could see him trying to figure out what to do.

So Lars got sent to sensitivity training for the stuff he's said, but he also got fined $100,000 which is bullshit considering he didn't work for them at the time he said what he said. So either it's a gimmick fine designed to squash the growing uproar about him being a racist shitlord, or they just legit fined a guy a major chunk of his yearly salary for some shit that happened when he wasn't even in the business yet.