NintendoLogic

Let's get real, though. Brock/Lashley is guaranteed to have a cop-out finish. Most likely Roman costing Brock the match to get their program back on track.

So Big E doesn't get an automatic rematch and has to compete in a fatal 4-way to earn a title shot. That doesn't bode well for his future main event status.

Spears had his chance with the Cody feud. It took every bell and whistle in the book to get their match at All Out into "pretty good" territory, so that likely marked the end of any serious consideration of giving him a significant push. Midcard goon is the perfect role for him.

It should be remembered that three of AEW's biggest homegrown stars (Darby Allin, Jungle Boy, Orange Cassidy) are guys who almost never talk. And unlike Adam Page and MJF, none of them were specifically groomed for main event stardom. Their pushes came after they got over organically. Someone like Moriarty has the potential to do likewise.

The fact that Big E was the one who ate the pin when the very nature of a multi-man match allows you to protect the champion by having someone else take it tells you everything you need to know about where he stands in the pecking order. Obviously you want to hold off on Lesnar/Lashley, but Owens and Rollins are right there. On the bright side, at least Raw has some star power now.

That'll put some butts in seats.

How is this a bad thing? Pro wrestling should be a field where the ones with creativity and drive rise to the top.

I'll save everyone the trouble of clicking through a bunch of archived pages. Note that 425-401, 325-301, 275-51, and 75-51 are missing because the Wayback Machine doesn't have those pages archived.

I was really impressed by Cargill's leg selling. That's not the kind of thing that comes naturally for green workers, especially ones pushed as unstoppable monsters. Hell, even most experienced wrestlers are trash at it. So her in-ring instincts are solid even if she is a work in progress.

Charlotte didn't "resort to" an inside cradle. She reversed Toni's cradle into one of her own. In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth. Toni was the one resorting to desperation pin attempts because Charlotte was kicking her ass at will. Of course, that led to Charlotte beating her at her own game. It was quite the impressive demolition of a babyface challenger. And for the record, I don't dislike Roman and would love to see him in a promotion that wasn't a sinking ship. I just don't buy into him as the undisputed top guy. If you told me a year ago that I'd be way more into Kenny Omega as a worker and performer in a year's time, I would've said you were nuts. But here we are.

Charlotte is the female Roman. Getting her over at all costs is the goal and everyone else has to be sacrificed along the way. Toni also had the accent working against her. Kevin Dunn probably sent her to catering as soon as he heard her speak.

The one where he unironically cast himself as an 80s-style flag-waving patriotic babyface in a feud with an Englishman.

There is literally nothing heelish about Cody's act except for the crowd reaction. Look at the past decade and a half of WWE to see how this sort of thing plays out. When someone the audience views as a heel is pushed as a dominant babyface, more often than not it damages if not outright kills the heat of whoever he feuds with.

Get it right, people. His name is HOOK. Like MF DOOM, just remember all caps when you spell the man name.

Toni was in the proper position, so she can't take the blame for this one.

The story has always been that VKM wanted Backlund to dye his hair and turn heel for a program with Hogan. He refused and was fired. In a possibly related story, Bill Eadie has claimed that he was the original choice for the Iron Sheik transitional champion role, but Backlund refused to drop the belt to him because he didn't have an amateur background. I don't know if I buy that, though.

In the US at least, he's better known for his WWF run as Corporal Kirchner. There was a bizarre story where the WWE website reported his passing in 2006. When he notified them that he was still alive, they pulled the story but never issued a retraction.

Have Gargano be the third judge. He can attack Hangman after the match and then stare at his hands and wonder why he's so violent.

So has Veer Mahaan made it to Raw yet?

The babyface tries to launch a sneak attack with a weapon and gets outsmarted by the heel. Just another day in the WWE Universe.

WWE contracts are officially for a fixed term. But WWE maintains the unilateral authority to terminate the agreement at any time for any reason, and they're only on the hook for paying the wrestler during the 90-day non-compete period. That's why the joke is that WWE contracts are 90-day deals that renew at WWE's sole discretion. And no, that's not at all the norm for American employment contracts, let alone for professional athletes. In fact, I'd bet that if the contracts were challenged in court, they'd be thrown out as unenforceable. I don't know Sami's situation, but Owens has a family to take care of. For him, re-upping with WWE is a win-win. If he gets paid, great. If he gets the ax due to budget cuts, AEW will surely snatch him up. I doubt he pulled a Good Brothers and verbally committed to them only to leave Tony hanging when WWE started throwing money at him.

Tonight:

I watched the title match. Maybe it's because I knew going in that they were going 60, but I started losing interest around 20 minutes in. I felt like it was mainly just a bunch of stuff happening without a strong storyline hook. I got back into it when it looked like they were going to go in a more story-based direction (Hangman's arm+blood loss vs. Danielson's leg), but they never fully committed to it and instead just kept Doing Stuff. One spot that stuck out to me was Danielson going for an armbar on Hangman's left arm rather than the injured right one to make it easier for him to make the ropes so they could do the deadeye on the apron. To their credit, a lot of the stuff they did was really cool in a vacuum, and it was obviously an incredible achievement from a cardio standpoint (especially Danielson skinning the cat 59 minutes in). In that respect, it's probably the pinnacle of CrossFit wrestling. From a booking standpoint, I think the goal was to get Hangman over as a worthy champion by showing he's a super worker who can go 60 minutes with the great Bryan Danielson. That sort of thing is a bit too meta for my tastes, but that's just the reality of pro wrestling these days. By the way, it really bothers me that Danielson doesn't fully extend his arms when he does jumping jacks. If he does that for heel heat, mission accomplished. I popped for the "Vince fears W-2s" sign.

Monday Night HEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAATT