MoS

On the Voices of Wrestling flagship, Lanza said that he had heard second hand that Punk might actually be an employee of AEW and not just an independent contractor, which would mean that firing him is more complicated than what would usually be the case, especially after he got injured on company time.

He needs focused booking. Left to his own devices he would probably just fuck around with Nakazawa doing random nonsense. For all the talk of how Punk's position is untenable and how there is nuclear heat on him, it's ben nearly two weeks and the Elite have not had their suspensions revoked, unlike Nakazawa, Christopher Daniels, Pat Buck, etc. It makes me think that Punk and Steel's version has at least a modicum of truth to it. These things take time, but not THAT much time. Whether he realises or not, I think Meltz has also been played a bit. He first denied the reports of the Bucks talking to someone in WWE, then later said that this happened, but a few months back, and it was just a conversation and not them asking to speak to management. He also did not report the "8 out of 10" dig that Omega took at the meeting, but when it got reported by others, he says Omega said that as a joke while taking a shot at Ospereay, and most of the locker room took it in that spirit, except a few who did not find it funny. The only thing funny about this so-called "joke" is that the two he would actually hire are, like, Nakazawa and Cutler. Of course it was not appreciated by his peers, and I think Dave's version is someone attempting to spin it as a minor thing. Meltzer also reported that Punk would get frustrated when the rookies would not take his advice, but there is clearly more to that as well, since a recent interview had multiple young AEW talent like Hobbs praise Punk for his attitude and for how generous he is with his time and advice. Meanwhile, I have never heard of the Elite being praised for their locker room behaviour. I get a feeling small details like this will keep percolating for months.

Great main event. Is this, incredibly, the best in-ring career Jericho has ever had, almost 30 years after he debuted? I would put the title on Danielson and build to Full Gear for a match with MJF. No MitB cash in anytime, anywhere bullshit. More than the rating itself, the fact that viewership grew consistently throughout the show is really good news.

Also, for what it is worth, Starks told Joe Lanza and the VOW group that he has re-signed for a number of years. So I do not even know why they decided to bury Starks like that. He is one of their greatest, most talented rookies. He should be getting spoilt, not looking after his own shoulder for safety reasons.

They look exactly as chiseled as Dante Martin, and less chiseled than WWE-era Mysterio and someone like PAC. If you think your grandma can punt Martin, then she definitely can punt those two as well. The small wrestlers would also look very chiseled on the weighing scale if they cut 15 pounds of water weight in 24 hours. Most MMA fighters do not look very chiseled. Chucky Oliveira is right now a bigger draw than Francis Ngannou, who looks like a Greek God and who also speaks better English than Oliveira, another traditionally important factor in American pro wrestling. Oscar de La Hoya became a massive draw when Tyson was still fighting and could still be called in his athletic prime, although not his technical prime. That said, while Vince took size to a new level - and more than size, he loved height and bodybuilder physiques - size was not something that he invented as an important prerequisite for pro wrestling. Sam Mushnick initially thought Ric Flair was too small to headline St. Louis (even though Jack Brisco had headlined St. Louis, but he was a legit excellent amateur wrestler).

It's been a long time since I read it, but I thought the Death of WCW book confirmed that Steiner beat the shit out of DDP? I don't care for DDP so that is perfectly fine with me tbh

I mean, Vince McMahon was a laughing stock whenever he tried to do anything that was non-wrestling related, down to his last attempt at XFL ending in bankruptcy and him having to settle with the guy he chose to ran it because he knew his argument wouldn't pass muster in a trial. He is still the greatest wrestling promoter ever. There is often a lack of correlation between wrestling success and non-wrestling success. I caught the Punk promo on YouTube and I think it is clearly a work. My issue is that it is a work which does not have any endpoint and seems to be a worked shoot just for the heck of it, which is my least favourite thing in wrestling, something I have said often here. Okay, so you have made people wonder if it is a work or a shoot. Good for you. To quote Dusty, where is dah money, daddy? How does this result in increased business? It is not 1997, worked shoots for the heck of them are not going to draw money by themselves. Is there a focus here? There seems to be no Punk-Hangman match on the horizon. What's the point of this beyond getting wrestling Twitter buzzing? And honestly, wrestling Twitter is so pathetic and consists of such dorks, just posting some T&A of some mediocre American female wrestler would have achieved the exact same thing.

We were discussing Road Dogg and Billy Gunn the other day, and I was going through the August 16, 1999 Observer, and I found this extract highly amusing and pertinent. The Rock quote in particular is really making me laugh. All the Kliq members just despised Rock, didn't they.

Real important question is: is he a better tag wrestler than Christian? @C.S.

I was going to say Bruno should have had the same problems in his return matches, but did not, but Bruno said in an interview that he sometimes was bothered that only his payoff matches made tape, not the first matches of his feuds where he would go a long time, sometimes 60 minutes, with his opponents. If you are going 60 mins with opponents in your first match with them, you probably got plenty of heat on yourself and your opponent must have looked legit as fuck

It didn't help Billy Gunn that his singles push started right as Rock was beginning his mega-babyface ascendancy. "'Bob" 'My name is Billy!' 'It doesn't matter what your name is'" killed him. And it was not even on Raw, and Billy Gunn actually came out and laid him out at the end of that promo, getting his heat back. It did not matter (no pun intended). Rock was just so much more charismatic and so much more of a star presence, Billy had no chance.

Per Meltz: "Of those who purchased Double or Nothing on regular PPV, 3.46 percent bought this show, while 4.43 percent of those who purchased Forbidden Door purchased this show. Of those who purchased the Flair show, 26.14 percent bought Forbidden Door and 73.86 percent did not. Of those who purchased this show, 29.49 percent purchased Double or Nothing and 70.51 percent did not. The WWE number would be misleading as far as the percentage of those who bought the Flair show because most WWE viewers didn’t pay for SummerSlam specifically, but of those who did, the 2.07 percent number is an accurate figure to show those who did pay for WWE had a smaller crossover than those who pay for AEW but most of the viewers of this show aren’t buyers of WWE or AEW."

double post

I get what you are saying, so please believe me when I say this is not an attempt at disrespecting you: it is an attempt at disrespecting only Jay Lethal: he is mid and unlike OC, he has never shown any charisma or proven he can get over on a major league national level promotion, unless he is doing tired Ric Flair imitations in front of the original, who is reacting appropriately and making the entire segment as worthy on his own strength, not the pretender's strength. Like him or hate him, OC has organically proven that he has got over in a major league on a national level with his charisma and presence, and is a legit TV quarters draw, someone who pops up interest in PPVs like the NJPW supercard, and all of this is apart from being a merchandise pusher; he just pops ratings in a way Lethal just is simply not capable of despite months of him being promoted - his match was the only one on the Death of Dishonour card that was promoted, even the FTR-Briscoes II was not that promoted.

I know and understand that tonight was just a transitional episode of AEW TV, just setting things up for next week, but in the larger context of wrestling, with everything happening in respect of Hunter coming back and treating this as basically a Wrestlemania week, it really, in my opinion, seemed ill-advised to present such a weak show given in mind this particular context. Especially, symbolically, given everything that's happening and will happen in WWE with Hunter in charge, having one of your OG stars in Orange Cassidy get beaten clean by a mid ROH guy like Lethal just doesn't sit well for me. I don't think this was the week to do it, transitional and setting up episode (and for Wardlow's challenge admittedly, but there were other ways his challenge could have been booked) or not, given the larger context of what is happening in wrestling.

Urgh, Christian v. MATT HARDY. Hope the latter gets squashed and killed. He has had way too many favourable booking results for me to be sure though. He is a channel-changer for me.

Also, there are some inconsistencies in cumulation and record-keeping of the different opponents, particularly their number of headlining main events against Hogan. The overall picture doesn't change, so it is not a material difference, but nevertheless, for some nerds, if we look closely, there are some differences and inconsistencies in the overall record.

Had Verne started promoting in San Fran and the NorCal territories when Hogan was still there in AWA? I always thought that Vince was the first promoter post the glory days to promote there, using Andre the Giant to break the open market, several years after Shire's territory had passed away. Salt Lake City was a bad town for Verne, so he would not have spent too much time in that region, even in 1983 when he had Hogan. Don't know if Verne used Hogan at all in his forays to the West Coast, but Hogan did draw immediately for WWF in that region - pretty much the day he headlined on the West Coast for the first time - so maybe WWF just took advantage of Hogan's burgeoning drawing power on the West Coast due to Verne to achieve that?

You mean, in 12 hours? Do you think this gives credence to Bruno's theory - and even Ole's - that Hogan could not have worked as a weekly/monthly draw, playing to the same audiences repeatedly? If so, what explains his monstrous AWA success, given that was very much a territorial system. The early to mid-80s are such a fascinating period, before 1988 when WWF and Hogan truly became the only national players in town in the USA.

Last week was one of the worst booked Dynamites in history, and this week was one of the best booked Dynamites. The Starks-HOOK-Hobbs thing was masterful from start to finish, there was further progress on Hangman and the Bucks (and I don't even like Elite melodrama, but it sells and I far prefer it to generic ROH/NXT emulation like TK was doing recently) and Jungle Boy showed us all that he can cut great promos. Moox also cut an all-time promo, but Mox cuts all-time promos every week, so that should not be much of a surprise.

I stand corrected then, but I will say this: Limp Bizkit's music doesn't age too well...unless you slap it on an Austin-Rock video, in which case it suddenly slaps and just becomes perfect

This is interesting, because in his retirement speech, Shawn Michaels gave credit to some "kid named Adam", hence my reference to Adam the video guy. Not sure what the breakdown of roles was in that department.

Not very in touch with American pop culture scene of the early 00s, but I sometimes think Limp Bizkit got famous - or at least, maintained their fame - because of WWE. No way they become as famous as they did without WWE just deciding that LB was their band

Dragon is back! him v. Garcia should bang hard

This has to be the best "history/legacy of WWF" video package in history, right. 2000s WWE video packages used to be seriously next level. Dunno when Adam the video guy retired or lost his touch, but it's just not the same now