NintendoLogic

Richer until they decide to cut him too. It should be clear by now that WWE contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on, bubba. I suppose he could negotiate for a no-cut contract, but even then Vince could come up with a trumped-up reason to terminate the deal like he did with Oliver Luck.

Adam Cole is the stupidest man alive if he re-ups with this company.

This was already dealt with last year when Darby turned over some DMs to AEW that evidently cleared him to their satisfaction. I don't really know what can come of this when there's no new information provided. Also, publicizing a DM where someone reveals they were sexually assaulted is kind of shitty regardless of the truth of her allegations.

From the latest Observer running down the Summerslam card: That's never a good sign.

It also led to the only retake in the history of TBS studio wrestling when Cornette said Garvin's face "went up like the Challenger." Dusty summoned him to the control room and told him to do it again without talking about the Challenger. Anyway, the more things change...

His wife (who I didn't know was Bill Dundee's daughter until today) died a little over a month ago. He had been in poor health for some time, and that kind of heartbreak can be the last straw for someone in his condition. Terrible news all around.

Tons of "fake" pro wrestling moves have been done in real fights. Genki Sudo even did a giant swing in Pancrase.

In addition to the matches mentioned, I'm rather partial to the match against the Heavenly Bodies at Summerslam. The Fujinami/Iizuka match from Wrestlewar is worth checking out too, but that's more of a great spectacle due to the Steiners being even more reckless than usual. The Havoc Nasties match would be my #1 pick, though.

He directly referenced Hart's genitalia, which is even worse. He needs to face disciplinary action if he didn't clear that with her beforehand.

Someone should tell her that Bray is still with the company and the guy who got released was a crisis actor.

I normally roll my eyes when someone says "no really, he's SUPPOSED to suck," but isn't the fact that his raps are kind of cringey the whole point of his gimmick? He's trying to get heel heat, not win a rap battle or get a record deal. This is like being mad that Jeff Jarrett didn't really sing With My Baby Tonight.

It would probably be a good idea to keep Flair on a tight leash. If given a live mic and no script, he's liable to go off about making virgins bleed like he did on Raw in 2004.

It's kind of comical how much contempt WWE has for its audience. EDIT: It seems that this was a production snafu rather than a deliberate attempt at crowd sweetening. Still, "they don't really hate their fans, they're just stunningly incompetent" isn't much of a defense.

HHH has definitely been exposed by no longer having Dusty around (although his addiction to ladder matches is reminiscent of Dusty's addiction to cage matches). Part of it, of course, is ego. Look at the build to Cole/McAfee. It would have been more effective if McAfee had laid HHH out with a cheap shot and Cole wanted to avenge his mentor, but of course it was Cole who got laid out while HHH got to go on ESPN and issue a challenge on his son's behalf. Also remember that wrestlers who become promoters tend to be best at promoting guys similar to themselves, and there really aren't any HHH types in NXT. The closest they have is probably Karrion Kross, which likely explains why he's getting the rocket push. HHH won't deterred if Kross isn't over to the level of his push because he was in the same boat. I suspect his punishment for the MSG curtain call has taken an outsized role in his official narrative because it draws attention away from the fact that he failed to get over with push after push until Chyna and DX came along.

She's the Raw women's champion.

Brother @DMJ highlighted one of the major problems with the Fiend: there was no consistency to his power level. Sometimes he no-sold a million curb stomps, other times he worked evenly with Daniel Bryan or got squashed by Goldberg. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it beyond what the particular match called for. He was a walking deus ex machina whose very existence made a mockery of the idea of matches and programs having real consequences.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's irredeemably awful. But it's a merch mover, so it'll be kept around in some form. And I'm sure Alexa's downside is significantly lower than Bray's, which surely factored into it. Or he's clearing the books for a sale.

She's not wrong, though. Like I said a while back, Bray's days were numbered once it became apparent the Fiend gimmick works just as well with a pretty blonde woman. The same thing happened to Brodus Clay when he came up with the Hall of Pain gimmick for himself only to see it given to Mark Henry. Obviously it's WWE's fault and not the gimmick recipients in both cases, but knowing that ideas you come up with can be taken from you and used to get other people over has to be a morale killer.

Enough people noticed the absurdity of a Domino's commercial airing right after Gage using a pizza cutter as a weapon that they surely would have found out even if WWE hadn't said a word. In any event, AEW higher-ups know how the game is played and handing that kind of ammunition to their enemies is a boneheaded move. They should have learned their lesson from the Moxley/Omega lights out match when they got fined by the Maryland State Athletic Commission after someone stooged on them. I agree that they'll be fine in the long run as long as they dial it down, but the trend is in the opposite direction. In just the past six months, we've had an exploding barbed wire deathmatch, a lights out match, a WarGames match, and a Texas death match in addition to Jericho/Gage. At this rate, they'll end up like mid-80s JCP where every big show has blood and gimmicks up and down the card. And presenting yourself as the rebel alternative doesn't work when you're dealing with corporate sponsors who are acutely sensitive to adverse publicity. WWE knows all about that after Snickers forced them to drop Moolah's name from the women's battle royal at WM34.

So Domino's is considering pulling advertising from Dynamite thanks to the Gage match. Pissing off sponsors with deathmatch garbage is an inexcusable own goal when the company is otherwise firing on all cylinders. But hey, there's always that coveted PBR sponsorship.

Those matches don't need the title, but the title needs them. Omega against Punk or Bryan will completely overshadow any Page title defense unless it's against a big-name outsider like Tanahashi. It's never a good idea for the world champion to look like a secondary player. There's a reason All Japan and NOAH almost always had guys lose their first match back after an injury layoff. It makes sense that they would need to work off the ring rust before they can hang with the top guys, and it sets the table for them to get their revenge once they're back in ring shape. If Omega defends against Punk and Bryan, it'll be an even bigger rub when Page knocks him off. And they can get their wins back after Omega drops the belt.

Meltzer said on the Board that Lesnar and AEW have never had serious talks, so make of that what you will. I'd pop if he went back to New Japan and laid Okada out with the Verdict.

Fantastic stuff as usual. It sure seems like a lot of Japanese wrestlers came from broken homes. A minor correction: the baseball team was called the Lotte Orions, not Rotterdam.

A woman's right to date who she wants being determined by a wrestling match? What kind of retrograde bullshit is this? Someone needs to alert feminist trailblazer Stephanie McMahon. There's no way she'd stand for it.

Buckle up, brothers. The bullshit meter on this one is going to be off the charts.