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In what appears to be a part of the Cody/Nick Aldis NWA title swap deal, ROH announced they are going to be taking part in the 2019 Crockett Cup. The NWA is mentioning adding other partners, so it seems like they might be trying to make some kind of super indy tag tournament out of this like how the original Crockett Cup had teams from different NWA territories.

I was never a Hulkamaniac but I always popped for a good "WELL LEMME TELL YA SOMETHING, MENE GENE". Agreed with the above how it's odd to say someone so iconic could be underrated, but the fact that WWF/E never found anyone since who could do the job 1/4th as good as he did. Not only was the the perfect straight man for all the crazy cartoon characters in the WWF, the way he would sell when a heel would say something dastardly is one of those little things that helped get someone over that no one does anymore.

Back when they were building up the annoucement, they (meaning Cody, the Bucks, and Kenny) said they'd be sticking together wherever they went in 2019. I'm assuming they make some kind of working agreement with New Japan to let Kenny work shows for them. The issue I could see causing a problem is if ROH declares them the enemy, New Japan might not want to work with someone feuding with one of their business partners, since they've tried to discourage their talent from working shows with AAA guys because of thier partnership with CMLL (ironically New Japan seems to be the only one left keeping the CMLL vs AAA beef alive). Perhaps if AEW takes off they could replace ROH as their US ally. There's a twist no one really talks about.

Re Bix's post: I'll just say I respect Loss too much to clutter up his board with an argument with you, but let me just clarify some things: I'm not trying to "gotcha" you, I'm just pointing out you frequently end up being passively aggressive towards people for real or imagined slights, to the point of obessiveness. There's a reason one of the message boards we used to frequent years ago turned your name into a verb. When you would go on one of your tangents it was known as "bixing up the thread". Also per your PM, I never was two faced toward you, I never had an issue telling anyone how I feel to their face. I just don't go around actively starting fights with people/stalking other message boards. If someone else pointed out your behavior there's no reason for me to lie and say it wasn't true. Besides, I always assume you're a member of any wrestling related board I've ever gone to. You always have to check to see if people are talking about you. The comments about jealousy were more geared toward people like Les Moore, who is outright demanding Dave make apologies for things Les is making up out of whole cloth. That's some Vince Russo fanboy level bullshit, and he should probably be careful he doesn't cross the line legally because his comments could be seen as potentially libelous (not that Dave would ever take the time to sue someone, but you can't just accuse someone of something with no evidence and demand they confess/apologize for it). I never suspected you were jealous of Dave, more a combination of your belief that his friendship of Cody and the Bucks is somehow a ethical lapse and maybe some transfer of heat from your issues with Bryan. From the time Being the Elite got big to them becoming big stars in ROH/NJPW to the AEW stuff starting to bubble up, you've beome more and more weirdly hostile on Twitter. As far as Dave himself goes, what's he supposed to do in this situation? He's known the guys involved for a long time, now that they're potentially the biggest story in decades he's supposed to stop talking to them so that people on the internet don't accuse him of bias? That's not how it works.

Watching this Naomi/Usos/Mandy Rose storyline I keep thinking of Lance Storm saying after he got married Randy Savage gave him some advice: "I did an angle with my wife one time and now I aint got no wife no more"

AEW just tweeted a pic of Cody, Brandi, the Bucks, and Page officially signing their contracts so there's that. I believe it was Ryan Satin who pointed out Marty Scurll is the luckiest man in wrestling right now. He has until April to keep doing his Villian Club deal while being paired up with two newcomers to ROH, and by then it should be clear if AEW will be a legit option or not. At that point he can either re sign with ROH if AEW doesn't take off, join up with his friends if it does, or use either previous option to see if he can get a fat offer from WWE.

Because when he was on the WWE payroll way back then he realized how it created a conflict of interest and was adamant in not allowing that to happen again. He's stated numerous times over the years that tons of companies have offered him jobs, and he's turned them down every time. People are making the accusation now with no evidence other than Dave scooping them on a big story. The narrative was that Dave doesn't get the scoops anymore so when he does get one it must be because he's being paid by the guys involved.

Muta's another favorite who updated his look with the times. When he really couldn't be the high flying ninja Muta anymore, he switched it up for his more monster-ish look that I always assume Drago was inspired by when he came up with his gimmick.

I always was a fan of guys in the 80s who had their initials in script on their trunks. After a while it started to get watered down when even jobbers would do it, but it was a cool visual marker of my favorite era.

Everyone claims Dave is being paid by someone. New Japan is paying him to rate their matches higher, the Bucks are paying him to shill for AEW, I even saw someone state they felt the intital Twitter bet with Cody that prompted All In was a work and Dave was secretly on the payroll. Are the Bucks and Cody talking to him/bouncing ideas off him? Probably. If they are serious about starting their own company, why wouldn't you want to discuss it with the guy who's been covering the business longer than anyone? Are they paying him? I would be stunned if that was the case. I don't know how anyone could read anything Dave ever wrote about anything and not come away with a sense of how serious he takes being ethical in what he does.

They announced it on BTE at midnight PST, same time as Dave's show dropped. The "worst" thing I can imagine is that they asked him to not steal their thunder by announcing it before they did, which isn't something I think is journalistically terrible. It was just them confirming what was already public knowledge due to the trademark stuff so it's not as if they were asking him to squash a new detail. So yes, he's trying to have it both ways by saying it wasn't a big deal because there wasn't any new info but also Dave is ethically compromised because he agreed to hold off on his report until they made their offical announcement. ....and yes, you are better off not paying attention to Twitter. Especially wrestling news Twitter.

Another bonus for the industry: several reports seem to indicate NXT is upping their offers to free agents, so no more lowball offers where the dangling carrot of making it to main roster WWE is used as the primary compensation rather than actual cash money.

Of course no one is surprised, which is why it's annoying to see him going back and forth between "LOL THIS ISN'T NEWS" (because it's basically just confirming what was leaked when the trademark stuff came out a few weeks ago), and saying Dave is morally compromised because he timed his story to release with the BTE episode where they made the announcement. Also being weirdly offended that the Bucks were denying reports of AEW until today being some kind of expose' of them being lying conmen is baffling since IIRC they were still under ROH contract up to 12/31. Going around saying you were signed to a new promotion while technically still under contract to their old one would be a monumentally stupid thing for them to do. Personally, I can't wait to see the domino effect this will have for the buisness. I've longed for there to be a non TNA company out there with a national TV deal ever since WCW died, and this looks like the best chance since then to have a real solid contender. A company owned by someone not just a clueless money mark being run by creative people being allowed to do their own thing is what the industry badly needs.

Bix is an interesting case. He's normally an alright dude and a pretty good writer, but he gets hung up on things and doesn't realize how petty it makes him look. He worked with Bryan and even took over writing the Figure 4 Newsletter for a while (which people pointed out was odd since Bix used to blast Dave and Bryan on their board all the time), until they had some sort of falling out. I don't know the details, and he might have a legit beef with the guys, but ever since he's made sure to let everyone know he doesn't give money to the site and has been on a mission to prove Dave is somehow journalistically compromised because the Young Bucks call him Uncle Dave and named a move after him. In AEW news, it seems pretty clear Zack Ryder will be joining as soon as contractually possible. It will be interesting to see how many "creative has nothing for you" WWE guys make the jump since it seems like they'll let guys do their thing to get over.

Dave broke the news that AEW is a real boy, Tony Khan will be running the company. Cody is the first announced signee, others to be announced in the next few days (my read: guys probably want to finish up with New Japan before announcing so we'll probably hear more after Wrestle Kingdom/New Years Dash). Also stated there's no TV deal yet but they have multiple offers already. Selling out All In was apparently the eye opener to some folks in the TV biz that this thing might have some legs. Also mentioned specifically that Jericho hasn't signed but he wouldn't have been doing the things he's been doing on social media where he's palling around with Tony Khan if there wasn't something happening eventually. Another line was "everyone you'd think that would be talking to them are doing so" and ROH doesn't want to be seen as being bumped down to #3 which is the motivation for them going out and signing guys more aggresively. ROH guys are not going to be working with AEW, which combined with them making a big money offer for Bandido (who the Elite guys showcased at All In) seems to indicate that ROH realizes they just spent the last couple years as an incubator for the company that will leapfrog them the moment they get any halfway decent TV deal. Also Bix is being Extremely Not Mad on Twitter over Dave being the one to break the news since he's eternally jilted lover of all things WON/F4W related.

So apparently Floyd's RIZIN debut was a not very well disguised work. I would assume based on the fight being announced, un-announced, then announced again that the plan was probably for it to be at least somewhat legit at one point. Floyd probably kept insisting on more and more rules and restrictions until it ended up the farce that took place. (also insert joke about Floyd being functionally illiterate and then signing a deal with a Japanese company)

As great as the Rock was/is, one of the legacies he left is that he's largely the reason why WWE thinks 50/50 booking doesn't hurt people and that long promo segments are good. Because Rock was able to spin whatever shit he was given into gold, the company thinks anyone can do it. Just like they think it's fine that they can job half the roster every week and it won't damage anyone's heat because the Rock would put over damn near everyone and it never hurt him because he's THE ROCK.

Liger more or less pioneered the NJPW junior division when it could have just petered out after the Dynamite/Tiger Mask years. Kobashi certainly has the better body of work overall, but there's been very few non lucha guys able to be good to great for so long like Liger.

God dammit, the local ads a few weeks back didn't make it clear that tonight was an actual Smackown taping instead of a throw away house show and now I'm at work while Becky is in my town doing awesome Becky things.

Next Week's Gems:

I would say 100% Vince, USA is still at or near the top of the ratings and despite it being at record lows it's still probably the highest rated show on USA by far.

Yeah there was that period where no one was using it after Benoit and then Shawn started using it sporadically as a way to get everyone accustomed to seeing it again.

Cena's springboard Stunner that seemed like it was a matter of time before it went horribly wrong (yet never did).

I believe the cool kids don't want to say they like Kenny because Dave likes him or some other nonsense. Kobashi-Kawada is like asking what kid is your favorite, it's almost not a fair question. If I was forced to pick I would probably say Kobashi, just because I think his overall body of work is a little better. Styles over Tana for me, AJ spent so much time toiling in TNA that a big chunk of his career gets ignored/forgotten about which is sad. Tanahashi is like the Japanese equivalent of HBK. If you want someone to come through on a big card, he's your man. Kenny-Okada is another close one, but Kenny's had like 3 of the best tag matches in addition to his 47 star singles matches so I give him the edge there. Bryan over Akiyama, since as stated earlier Bryan's been one of the GOATs for seemingly forever. Nagata over Taue. I have a feeling Nagata's going to end up being remembered either as "that guy from WCW long ago" or as being in nearly every opening match on a NJPW card these days. He's kind of like AJ where his peak was during New Japan's dark period where it was at it's low point exposure wise.

He was done with the AWA after that, right? I only remember maybe a handful of rematches then he was gone (to Montreal I assume) until his WWF run.