strobogo

Swerve is def TMF right now. I assume there is a ppv between World's End and Revolution, and not putting the title on Swerve in that time would be bonkers. Especially as MJF is injured and already broke all the records for a title reign. Extra especially with the MJF/Swerve interaction on Dynamite. Imo, it doesn't matter what long term plans are. Long term plans in AEW haven't meant shit considering the injury rate of top talent in the past 2 years. Just go with what's hot, and the streets want Swerve as champ.

Would love for there to be an accurate counter of lights out surprises on AEW TV since 2019. It's gotta be around 50 at least at this point rightr.

I'm not saying she wouldn't be a big signing for TNA, especially now, but also it wouldn't be that much of a surprise or "you'd never though they'd be here" after Trinity went there and won the title. It's certainly a big get if they could get Mercedes over her picking AEW or going back to WWE, but also TNA is a company that has signed basically every top tier talent over the past 15 years from Angle to Steiner to Hogan to Flair to Foley to Mickie James to Christian to Booker to etc etc. Heading into 2024 I'm definitely interested in the rebrand back to TNA and the push for bigger venues and media presence, but I also don't think Sasha Banks is a "you'd never think they'd be here, worlds collide" type talent when not only is Trinity there, but also 75% of the roster is former recent ex-WWE talent. I'm sure Mercedes would have good output in TNA, which seems to have been doing the best with female talent the past couple of years even if actual in ring skill was higher elsewhere. I just don't think now 2 years after her WWE exit where she only had a couple of matches in Japan and NJPW Strong (which no one watches) shows, is a "one of our biggest ever signings" type of deal. At this point is feels like she's much more likely to return to a very hot WWE with HHH instead of Vince in charge than anything else.

The only one on the market right now that could match up to the kind of hype is Sasha, but that also doesn't really seem like a "you'd never have thought they'd be here" "world's colliding", "one of the biggest signings we've ever had" signing, either. Getting Okada to actually sign away from NJ would be something like that. But not Sasha or anyone released in the past year. Can't think of any big time free agents or shocking retired star returns.

CC is why AEW fucking rules even with all the negativity online recently. You can have weeks where Andrade is absolutely vicious and violent trying to re-injure Bryan to win, and a week later the crowd is fully into him against Claudio. You get matches like Garcia vs Eddie where the crowd is begging for Garcia to pull it out against perhaps the most beloved dude in the company. There's such a fluidity to match types and stories that don't box the wrestlers or crowds into heel, face, or tweener roles, and that's something WWE just doesn't provide.

That man ain't retiring, full time or part time

Mandy's pre and post WWE career would lead me to believe her ring gear main roster and NXT was her own choices considering she got fired for the kind of pictures she was posting online.

I remember Athena Ember Moon making a comment about not wearing booty shorts likes Mandy Rose and yet every time I see her in AEW/ROH, she's wearing trunks that are much skimpier than what any dude or Mandy Rose ever wore and it makes me lol.

You can always tell the guys who are on the top shelf shit (Hogan, Savage, Warrior, Rock, Cena, Orton) vs the level or two below (Hercules, Juicy Jinder, MJF, Rush) based on back and shoulder acne

I know they run bigger venues for Dynamite/Collision than stand alone ROH shows, but I think they should consider using the ROH set up with the hard cam elevated behind that announcers direct from the entrance instead of from the side. Gives a neat lucha like production flavor that really stands out against the traditional hard cam position.

Man how bad was her ankle injury, she's been out like 8 months now

Jericho gonna get Enzo booked for the PPV as his partner now

Been dreading someone calling Ricky, "Enzo", not surprised it was Jericho especially after the return of clout vampire and the crack about Billy Starks falling flat.

no you must now go to hell

It's nearly 2024 and we get Tony Schiavone calling a match on a Saturday night on a Turner network, a match that ends with a rope walk shooting star press stuff package piledriver. What a timeline we've been given.

If only Claudio could work against everyone like works against Eddie.

It was pretty funny that DC got nailed with the knee and into the LeBell Lock IMMEDIATELY after doing not even the full dance lol. Sucks for Garcia to be put in the loser role in a G1, but hopefully it can be a springboard for him to get back to something good. But the dancing rules and he shouldn't drop it.

I'm not arguing any of those things. NJ was obviously doing much better than WCW in the early to mid 90s, probably bigger business than WWF in the late 70s/early 80s, too. My argument is that American stars are bigger stars in Japan than Japanese stars in America, and so the NJ relationships with national promotions in the US have been uneven no matter how great NJPW was doing at the given time. I think there are a few pretty obvious reasons: US global cultural hegemony in general, puro being quite literally built on the basis of American stars coming in being a big deal from the start, and American audiences generally not giving a shit about entertainment from other regions outside of certain games/anime breaking through during that period. What I'm really saying, I guess, is that Backlund/Hogan/Sting on NJ shows in the 70s/80s/90s did a lot more for those shows than Inoki/Fujinami/Muta/Chono on US shows.

Edge vs Christian 2023 was definitely the worst Christian related match I've seen in quite a while. Considering it's something they've wanted to do for 10+ years now, Christian has been top tier since his TNA run all the way to today, and Edge's return run had some of his best in ring work of his entire career, I would have expected something better than whatever that was. Not that I was interested in it to begin with, but still. I know you really kind of have to do something with the two of them together at least once, but hopefully they can quietly move on and get Edge involved in completely fresh matches and feuds.

All the gloom and doom about ticket stuff and pics of the half empty arena doesn't translate to TV like in the early 10's when WWE was doing half empty arenas and the crowds were every show was like a funeral that the SD sound machine just drew more attention to how completely dead the audience was. On top of dogshit shows. At least with AEW, the energy is always there in ring and out (except for Rampage I guess) and you'd never know they're only running half the arena unless you're on Wreddit.

NJ has been the junior partner in relationships with the WWF in the 70s/80s, WCW in the 90s, and AEW now. It's just simply based on American stars being much more popular and an impact to shows than Japanese stars in America. There have been times when NJ was not the junior partner, like with ROH where ROH basically died immediately after NJ stopped working with them, or TNA/MLW today.

NJ losing Okada would be brutal. Especially losing Ospreay at the same time at least as a full timer. Much worse than losing Nakamura and AJ in 2016.

Bryan/Eddie fucking ruled.

I'm not saying it's always been in character, you said there's no context for Ric Flair as a performer saying that when the context is he's Ric Flair and that's the kind of things Ric Flair says.

The context is he's Ric Flair and has been saying shit like that since the late 70s.