NintendoLogic

https://www.ringsidenews.com/vince-mcmahons-80th-birthday-party-featured-kid-rock-acdc-tight-lipped-guests-gotham-hall/ There's a whole lot that could be said about this, but I'll just say that being so filthy rich that you can hire AC/DC to play at your birthday party is unfathomable to me.

Does Booker T really have good mic skills? Other than his catchphrases, I mainly remember him for the worst attempt at a British accent in history as King Booker.

Vince Russo never booked an angle where someone got legitimately beaten nearly to death in the middle of the ring, so no.

https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-releases/2025/08/wwe-premium-live-events-to-debut-on-espn-platforms-in-the-u-s-beginning-september-20-with-first-ever-wrestlepalooza/ The ESPN era is beginning four months early. Apparently, the reason WWE ran so many PLEs this year was so they could get out of their Peacock deal by meeting their contractual obligation for shows. And all mentions of AEW have naturally been removed from the ESPN website. By the way, Peacock just announced a price increase. Enshittification all over.

That reminds me of how the RCMP took legal action to prevent Jacques Rougeau from using the Mountie gimmick in Canada.

I'd agree that House of Torture are equivalent to Makai Club and Voodoo Murders (I made that comparison myself earlier in the thread), but using that as an argument in House of Torture's favor is baffling to me. Saying they must be good for business because they wouldn't be pushed if they weren't is circular reasoning. And they can't be written off as a goofy midcard act when their leader was just in the G1 final. House of Torture may not be the only or even the primary problem with the product, but they're clearly not helping. And at this stage of the game, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Rey Mysterio was 14 when he debuted. I'm sure there are some joshi who were even younger.

$100 for a puppet is absolutely bonkers. But it does make you wonder how much money AEW left on the table by not marketing a Mercedes Mone puppet.

Yeah, Hogan's matwork was really just a handful of canned sequences that never went anywhere or led to anything. Even so, as a worker, he was Kenta Kobashi compared to Big Daddy. By the way, it was in the AWA that he came into his own as a promo guy. It didn't happen overnight, but he pretty much had it figured out by 1983.

I can think of no good reason why anyone should care about the political views of a backstage agent if it doesn't affect their work.

Whatever one may think of Cornette's views on other matters, he hit the nail on the head with Hogan when he said "His real stories were good enough." His actual career was so incredible as to practically sound like fiction, so it boggles the mind that he felt the need to embellish his life story to such an absurd degree.

Also, the traditional JCP fans who had rejected Hogan during his first red and yellow run had largely abandoned the product by that point.

Enshittification continues its inexorable march to take over every aspect of the human experience.

Punk/Gunther ruled, obviously. I thought it took a bit to get going, but I'd probably enjoy it more on a re-viewing because I'd go in with a better understanding of what they were going for storywise. I'm also thankful they held off on the Rollins cash-in until the actual match was over.

That was easily the best Jade Cargill match I've ever seen. Whoever agented that match deserves a bonus.

WWE may be a corporate vampire squid run by contemptible ghouls, but they're finally giving me Punk/Gunther.

The rollout actually finished a couple of weeks ago. https://gweproject.freeforums.net/thread/3420/100-greatest-matches-2025-results I was worried there'd be a drop-off in participation, but there were over twice as many ballots as the last time. Great to see so much enthusiasm for the project. Cena/Umaga in the top 20 and Joe/Necro in the top 5 is wild.

As an interesting historical note, Stu Hart brokered a deal in the late 70s to put the NWA junior heavyweight championship on Dynamite Kid, but Nelson Royal refused to drop the belt to him. Dynamite made a huge impact pretty much everywhere he went, so you have to wonder how things might have developed if he had gone around the country as a touring champion.

In what universe are spectacular acrobats in colorful costumes "normal?" Anyway, lighter wrestlers have had plenty of success in America in the past. Argentina Rocca was the one who brought New York back from the dead as a wrestling town. Verne Gagne's first major push was as NWA Junior Heavyweight Champion. Danny Hodge was already mentioned. If I were to identify a single cause for their decline in the US, I would point to the spread of steroids and the rise of Superstar Billy Graham in particular. The impact of his size and physique combined with the gift of gab can hardly be overstated.

When Hulk Hogan died, it made the front page of the New York Times. When Gorgeous George died, it received so little attention that people were able to successfully impersonate him for years afterward. There's no comparison.

Just wait until Jesse Ventura and Bret Hart weigh in.

A man with a complicated legacy to say the least, but still the biggest star on a global basis the industry has ever seen. The idea that pro wrestling was a tiny thing happening in bars before he and Vince took it mainstream is obviously a crock, but his drawing power at his peak really was unfathomable. I'd wager his name is still the one that would come up the most often if you asked the average American to name a pro wrestler.

Randy Orton and Jelly Roll vs. Logan Paul and Drew McIntyre sounds so absurd on paper that I feel compelled to watch Summerslam just to check it out.

At least the apology was as loud and as public as the disrespect.

The amount of unforced PR errors this company has committed in recent months is rather jarring. What else can be said about Vince, he was much better at reading the room. Maybe Wall Street was right that a dumb rassler wouldn't be up to the task of running a major corporation.