NintendoLogic

Dave's broader point is that most of the people who bash him for saying PWG is far above WWE ring-wise don't watch it. I think it is true that most people who watch PWG regularly consider it to be clearly superior to WWE. But it's not axiomatic, and a good amount of that is due to self-selection bias.

It wasn't that long ago that nobody said no to anything. Charlotte couldn't bring herself to say no to using her dead brother in an angle. Even Randy Orton couldn't bring himself to say no to taking full-force elbows to the head from Brock Lesnar. Now we've got midcarders who think they're Bruiser Brody.

I have no idea why WWE likes to run a battle for brand supremacy storyline seemingly every year. The motivations of the participants never make much sense and there's never anything truly at stake. Although I suppose this time is a change of pace since it's usually Raw that's positioned as the heel brand.

Just out of curiosity, what was the contemporaneous view of Fujiwara as a worker in outlets like the Observer?

He's a work/influence candidate, at least to his advocates.

How do you lose your hair in a ladder match? Would there be clippers suspended above the ring?

If it wasn't clear already, AJ Styles is a miracle worker. In the past year, he's caused me to greatly enjoy matches with Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, and Finn Balor, which I thought was impossible. Asuka having a competitive match with Emma in her debut on the main roster is kind of annoying, but that's just how WWE does things. My bigger concern going forward is that she'll end up being Flanderized. Like, once Vince discovers she does hip attacks, they'll center everything around her ass like with Jack Gallagher and his umbrella. I do find it amusing that they redid the WM29 Undertaker storyline to determine her opponent when at the time it was considered such an awful idea that the writer who came up with it was basically fired on the spot.

Did they just literally murder Braun?

I haven't watched Raw all year. Is Graves the babyface color commentator and Booker the heel now?

Has there ever been a kayfabe explanation for why there would be ladders in a match where there isn't an object suspended above the ring?

Why were the fans chanting for tables during that match? Still, it's a better chant than "we want puppies." Good match. Probably the best performance I've seen from Bliss.

Interesting that there's a guy in a Cease and Desist shirt in full view of the hard camera.

Jesus, people are still doing that ten shit? I hope every single match ends by countout until they cut that out. Did Booker T just say he wants to bang Asuka?

And shouldn't they be wearing white instead of red?

Antonio Inoki had a living funeral today because of course he did. https://twitter.com/STRIGGA/status/921641939027587072

Since everyone else is doing it, here's my hypothetical ballot. WRESTLERS: AJ Styles, Jun Akiyama, Sharpe Brothers, Akira Taue, Cien Caras, Blue Panther, Los Misioneros de la Muerte, Villano III, Dr. Wagner Jr., Johnny Saint NON-WRESTLERS: Gary Hart, Jimmy Hart, Howard Finkel, Jerry Jarrett, Don Owen I think the Crocketts are stronger candidates than Owen, but they're not about to drop off the ballot.

I recall there being plenty of people, myself included, who were accepting of a Jinder title run because they figured there's no way it could worse than what Orton was doing. Just goes to show, be careful what you wish for.

There's a lengthy discussions of this year's candidates in the latest Observer that ends with Dave providing his own ballot.

Just to be clear, the double turn was at Uncensored, right?

Roman Reigns? I'm only half-joking.

As opposed to North Americans who I'm not sure saw him in context lobbying for him not to go in? To my knowledge, there are no North Americans with ballots who vote in the Europe category solely to vote against Daddy, while there are several who do that for him. Other European wrestlers end up getting screwed because the ones who vote for him and only him drive down everyone else's percentages.

That hasn't stopped WWE before.

Clean was very much a relative term in Eddy's case.

It's disappointing how much the smaller territories get written off, by Dave especially, for not drawing huge crowds when they didn't have the population bases to do so anyway. Having a successful money making promotion for decades is impressive even if your biggest arena could only hold 3,000-4,000 instead of 10,000. Memorial Coliseum held way more than 4,000. So did Key Arena. Sure but those weren't their regular venues for Portland and Seattle like MSG was for WWF or Mid-South Coliseum was for Memphis. They would have been if Owen could have turned a profit running them. At least, that's what I imagine Dave would say. This is pretty much just speculation on my part, but I get the impression that Dave doesn't consider being consistently profitable in an era when the NWA cartel protected promoters from any real competition to be much of an accomplishment. I think he expects HOF-caliber promoters to run big shows at big arenas, or at the very least greatly expand business from where it had been.

The clip I saw said that Roode was "an NXT champion, he's made the jump." It was phrased ambiguously enough to provide plausible deniability.