strobogo

The gloom and doom seems a little premature. There were like 3 years straight of WWE running literally half empty arenas more often than not for TV and they still got billions in TV rights and more money than ever. Provided their ratings stay stable, it's clear WBD are very happy with EW. I don't think there is a chance of a WCW getting booted off Turner networks situation here. If I'm not mistaken, I believe start of Autumn has traditionally been a down period for ticket sales in all territories throughout the past 50 some years. I do think AEW absolutely has been overrunning the same markets. I have no idea how they still sell any tickets in Chicago. Feels like probably 25% of all AEW shows have been from Chicagoland area. In terms of running the same markets, WCW also did this quite frequently in 1995-1998 as well. Despite being a national promotion and as hot as can be, they still ran the same 5-10 Southeast cities multiple times a year. It works until it doesn't, I suppose. I think an issue is AEW had been running smaller venues that WWE never hit for TV in the first year or so, and it seems like they've been running larger venues that WWE also runs and are suffering a bit as a result.

1992-most of 1993 WCW fucking rules

True legend. Of Wrestling. Of MMA. Of Fuckery. Of Jawlines.

Sure seemed like there was a whole lot of talking on the show, much more than usual. I wasn't as down on it as the rest of the thread seems to be, but it wasn't super engaging for sure. I really hope the Garcia thing doesn't end up with him just turning on Bryan and being a SWERVE all along like the Jungle Boy/Lucha/Christian thing. I actually think it would be interesting for Garcia to fully join BCC and have Regal encouraging the villainy I just want Garcia/BCC to get away from Jericho. Get anyone away from Jericho. Anyone saying he's having a career run while he's legit the worst talent on the roster at blatantly calling spots and getting into position for things despite being a 30 year vet. Part of that is on production, but I'm not sure there's any camera angles that you can't see Jericho calling spots. The presentation of Paige is weird. Feels like one of those TK hard overcorrects, except this time, it makes him and AEW as a company look bad for treating the women like shit. Just a strange tact to take to respond to online complaints about the women's division. I don't think her stumbling or getting lost was really much of an issue, just the content of the segment made everyone including TK/AEW look bad. ROCK HARD Juice Robinson fucking sucks. I cannot believe how much Gedo derailed Juice for no reason when he was so hot with the crowd and great performances as a face rising up the card. And it happened like 4 years in a row. And now he's in the Bullet Club 2000 and sucks.

God that sounds like the worst thing I've ever heard

Brother, Vince McMahon got away with running the billion dollar company for decades

Buddy definitely did not at all fit in the HOB, but I guess it kind of made some sense of Black continuing his storyline and character from WWE. Black really didn't work on main roster WWE either, but he wasn't presented like he was in NXT. The bar for spooky shit characters is pretty high. I don't think Black hit that mark in WWE or AEW. In fact, the spookier he got, the less it worked. There are only so many cryptic, spooky promos that can be done.

That whole story has always seemed like complete bullshit. There's no way it was a night of the show thing for Hogan deciding to or not to turn heel. Along the lines of "we didn't know if Andre was going to do the job" at WM 3 nonsense

Lmao. Dude will never have a legacy like Bret. The closest he can get is being a bitter fuck, but Bret was bitter about Vince reneging on a TWENTY YEAR contract and publicly fucking him over in Bret's country, his brother dying live on PPV and the show going on, and getting his brain scrambled and forced into retirement. Then not long after, both parents die and he has a stroke. Punk's bitterness is he didn't go on last at WM as champion, a main eventer in a company he just joined didn't care about his advice, and he was upset about the wrong people for being gossips. Anyway, I think TK himself is the leak. Not intentionally to stir shit up, but he's just very excitable and blabs.

I think the Bryan/Garcia matches proved what potential they see in Garcia, but the Wheeler Yuta screen time is a bit baffling. He's fine, but there are 2 dozen guys exclusively working on Dark that are more entertaining.

Already completely tired of MJF. Dude is immediately back as MID as can be, just like he was before he left. And no one gave a shit about him while he was gone.

The Lee/Swerve dynamic seems to be Lee as a face and Swerve as his partner who is turning/is a heel, but they're still partners. It would make sense to me for Swerve to cheat to win, with Keith being disappointed in him but still happy to retain the titles.

Only one title defended on the TNT show. It's the TBS Championship. Lel.

Kenny and Punk should be forced to have a duel but they can only use knee strikes

Seems plausible

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Ace Steel is a fucking lunatic.

Looking through pics, it was bent when Garvin had it, so it had to have happened between Feb 1986 and November 1987. I can't tell if it was bent when Dusty had it. It doesn't look like it was bent at the time Dusty won it, but it does appear to be bent in the promo pics with it. It seems it would have had to have happened in the two weeks Dusty was champ in 1986.

Who bent Big Gold and when?

I don't think anyone is saying Kenny/Bucks don't deserve any of the blame. They probably should have waited a day or two to confront Punk. However, Punk did talk wild shit out of pocket, literally told them to come see him, and then started the fight. I haven't even seen in any reports from either camp that Kenny/Bucks actually even threw any strikes.

Yes, a fight did break out, and all sides say Punk was the one to throw the first punch. Whether you believe it was a "sucker punch" or "Punk knew a fight was going to happen so he figured he'd get the first shot in", Punk escalated to physicality. Perhaps there wouldn't have been a fight if Punk didn't literally start a fight.

"Mob" and "swarm" also seem overblown. It was three guys Punk literally told to come talk to him to his face, and a couple of other people to supervise and/or attempt to prevent them from going at all. I find it a bit difficult to believe The Elite went in there looking to triple team Punk.

I agree that there is room for non SS tags, I just wish they really went back to the original 3 or so shows where there were the tags with really no stakes and to some degree seemingly random partners that got a bunch of time and weren't overbooked for MOMENTS. I don't really give a shit about the Raw vs Smackdown aspect, since more often than not, 80% of either team were on the other show 3 months prior. I do like the champions vs champions stuff, though. Walter vs Lashley.

There were no stakes for the 87-90 matches either, but they're fun as hell.

A Survivor Series card of nothing but traditional SS matches and War games would be fucking rad

Punk trying to keep up with Kenny's pace would be pretty lol