strobogo

There's probably an argument that UWF is the single most influential wrestling promotion to ever exist.

I had a flight from Italy to the Mid West US and was totally fine a day or two after I got back, but then when the jet lag caught up a day or so later, I legit slept for 20 hours :lawd

Haven't seen Bryan/Akiyama yet, but I'm inclined to agree not even 3 months into the year. Hook kinda sucks. Dude desperately needs to work the indies or even go into the NXT system. Yeah sure he can hit his couple of spots and moves fine, but the most basic everything else looks so bad. Not sure how he got memed into popularity, although I guess a solid number of AEW talents got over that way. All of his strikes look bad, his selling is bad, usually his bumps are bad and first year looking unless his opponent can force him into a real bump. I'm not going to say he's David Flair level, but outside of being able to hit his couple of spots and having a look, I'm not sure at this stage I'd put him much higher than David Flair. Obviously he's much more of an athlete than David Flair was, but dude needs a lot of seasoning still before being in multiple tv main events.

Christian's dead dad hater gimmick might be the finest heel gimmick of the past 25 years.

Just a thought I've had floating around for years now: Charlotte Flair has both the worst Flair/Fargo strut and WHOOOOOO of anyone who had adopted them even in a mocking fashion. You'd think that Ric would have pulled her aside and showed her how to do them over the past decade or so.

Just wish they'd replace Yuter with anyone else. No surprise that BCC has been way better with Yuta out of action and just having the main 3 wrestle and fight the world.

HBK adapted as he got older to the point where he could come back and do everything he used to do a decade later albeit a bit slower. Tana is just a physical wreck and has been for the past 5ish years. Dude can't even do the slingblade anymore. If he's going to stay working in the ring, I feel like he should embrace being old and his body going to shit and stay in mid to lower card stuff where he doesn't do much off the mat. Maybe he could even gain some extra weight and become a fat guy wrestler in his twilight.

I didn't realize he was 47. Thought he was a bit younger than that. It's wild that the NJ dads from the previous generation can go harder in the ring than Tana at this stage.

Bryan/ZSJ 2 ruled. Okada vs Tana 37 did not. God damn does Tana look like shit. But imagine if somehow he had a 2001 Mutoh resurgence after looking completely washed and broken down for years. Wanted to give the cage match a chance, but I just have zero interest in any of the BC/War Dogs guys or the UE outside of Ospreay and Aussie Open dudes who I don't think are even in the group now.

Everything about the Rock/WM stuff has been embarrassing for Dave. Dude has reported 5 different "this is the real story" updates, and it is so clear he's not clued in at all.

The nerfing of that outfit after the first time is a crime. Outside of respectfully shit, Skye Blue has improved dramatically over the past 6 months or so. Women's division has legit been very strong the past 2 months or so, after 3 years of mostly being an afterthought. Deonna coming in, the return of Deeb, Red Velvet and Queen Aminata looking great every appearance, Thunder Rosa being back, Julia Hart also improving a ton in the last year (I assume her injury is from that moonsault she did a show or two before she won the TBS title?, Toni Storm completely in her bag, whenever Riho and Shida (and Emi Sakura) pop up, always a fan of Willow and Stat. It's been a real highlight these past couple of months. Surely it is time for Brit to return. Hopefully Hayter can be back soon. Sasha has a lot to work with at this point. All the online negativity about AEW the past however many months baffles me. A rad AEW show fucking rules, and like 7/10, Dynamite and Collision rule. There is so much rad shit you can only get from AEW. It's like how DVDVR and probably here would overly hype up Saturday Night or whatever territory weeklies, but if those awesome on paper matches got more than 5 minutes. And a whole show of that. Even if AEW is half filling arenas, the crowds are almost always super hot and into whatever is going on, and the vibe on screen is everyone is having fun in ring and in crowd. I saw that tweet about new sets coming, hopefully it is smaller sets so they can run smaller venues that can sell out and be super hot like the first few months of Dynamite before Covid hit. Even those half arena Dynamite/Collision shows are so much more energetic than those years in the mid '10s where Raw and SD were empty on hard cam side.

I think that's been the line on the Bucks since the PWG days. Are they doing meta sports entertainment stuff, or just bad sports entertainmenting? I think they're actually better as faces if only because Matt in particular drives me nuts with his I AM ACTING AND EMOTING LIKE HBK and also some verbal ticks that make all of his promos not good. When they were heels the last time, I frequently said Matt especially seemed like a wrestler on a 90s sitcom, but Nick has an aloofness to him that it didn't seem to fit that way on him.

TK raided pretty much the entire non WWE industry but it is hard to say that has been a negative for the talent or industry as a whole. NJ seems to be a mess right now, Rocky has been with them for probably 20 years as a talent and liaison, so if they can't keep him (while also losing Okada and Ospreay and the president change), things do not bode well for the next 5-10 years of NJ.

Putting someone over Okada with such short notice and no story would be weird anyway. I don't think it would feel like some big torch passing thing at that point.

For sure. Billy Jack has sounded completely unhinged and deranged for 20+ years. I don't think it is flippant to think something like this was a long time coming. Sadly.

Big Business to me sounds like both Mercedes Mone and The Rainmaker. Anyway, show ruled. Main event tag was one of the better Darby/Sting matches as of late that have seemed like Sting was really taking it easy to make it to Revolution, but he really turned out this time. It's wild that fucking Big Cass is awesome and in a main event match with Sting in 2024. Need the Cass/Darby singles match immediately.

All part of the plan or hard pivot, the whole thing needlessly complicated a very straightforward clean story that would have satisfied everyone. This is just a stupid extra thing people probably will forget over the years, like Debra managing The Rock in the build up to WM 17.

They don't need Rock at WM. Or at all. WWE has been hotter than ever the past 2 years, constantly breaking every gate, attendance, and merch sales, doing legit sell outs for house shows. Probably haven't had as many over characters with fans invested in whatever they're doing since the Attitude Era. WM pretty much sells 60-70k tickets the first weekend of on sale, 6 months in advance, with nothing announced. Rock probably isn't going to hurt, although this story seems to have a whole lot more negative than positive reaction. But Seth isn't wrong in or out of kayfabe. WWE absolutely does not need The Rock in 2024.

I would imagine he's in a good position to get a very good offer from AEW and WWE.

I'm also pretty :what at the idea that Rock would need a WM main event and ownership of The Rock to join the TKO board like he hasn't been a dude doing everything possible to climb the corporate ladder for a decade and also spent much of the past 15 years trying to avoid The Rock moniker.

The new reports that they're trying to do a shitty booking in 2014 for Bryan thing to get Cody more over is lmao. Dude has far and away been the most over face since his return, and in about a decade. Shitty booking to get him more over when Cody and WWE is so hot right now is pure foot shooting nonsense.

Hook's hair looks completely silly now, too. There was a point during the Team Taz era where his hair was interesting and unique, but now he just looks like he has a bad bowl cut. Sure he can do suplexes and shit, but much of the most basic stuff in the ring he still looks extremely green. I know there was talk about Taz really wanting him to go to NXT and I think he's a guy that very much would benefit from training at the PC and doing his reps in NXT and random small Florida towns for a while. Also Tony Khan is a COWARD if he doesn't book a Kingston vs Scott Norton chopfest sprint at some point. I know that mf most likely is a member here and at least reads if not posts. Do a Norton vs Kingston triple crown man in Colorado you coward.

Rock joining the TKO board and immediately heavily pushing for and getting the WM main event with Roman screams of the same attempted takeover of the DCEU he thought he could do and ended up burning most of his good will in Hollywood. And now he's doing the same thing in the wrestling world. Really fascinating so see Rock just flop with everything all at once after the last 7 or 8 years.

Has there ever been a crowd so loud and hot in a half empty arena on television before? My goodness was that a great crowd.

Rough shape for the past decade is pretty generous. He's been a wreck since 1999 at least. Perhaps he could do a smoke and mirrors hardcore match at this point, but that's the kind of thing that would need to be on a Joey Janella Spring Break show at best.