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Darby should win with a crucifix after Punk hits the GTS but takes a half a second to bask in a successful return and makes too deep of a cover

The NXT X stuff was stupid to begin with because when WWE does European, Japanese, Mexico, Central/South America shows, those audiences want to see WWE shows, not shitty WWE versions of their local style, nor shitty local style of WWE shows.

NJPW sounds miserable right now

I'm 100% certain he'd get bookings as Chris Benoit Jr. in Mexico, Japan, and PR. Japan would probably insist on it, actually.

I've come to the first MSG show of 1984, the one where Hogan takes the title. Besides the absolute dogshit opener with Tony Garea, it's really night and day from 1983's MSG shows. The lighting is completely different, the mat color changed to the standard WWE canvas, camera work is about 50/50 between hard cam and handheld (I don't think hand helds were used at ALL in the past couple of MSG shows I had seen from 1981-83 despite there being camera men on the floor filming, they never cut to those shots". Not to mention the talent influx: Guys like Hogan, Orndorff, Tiger Chung Lee (aka "The Chunger"), Piper, Masked Superstar. Not to say there isn't a lot of hold overs: Tony Garea, Jose Luis Rivera, Sal Bellomo, Strongbow, Fuji, and what seems to be a never ending feud of Andre/Rocky Johnson + rotating partner vs The Samoans that had been going on for over a year at this point.

The period in 1996 between Uncensored and BATB had basically every other week where Giant would just chokeslam 3-6 guys in a row, laying out each time with them, and it was awesome every single time.

Dude seems like he's been sleepwalking since last summer to me. He seemed to start having fun when the team with Kingston first started but he's seemed pretty bored to me all year. Body going to shit, too

Counter counterpoint: Moxley has sucked in AEW just like he sucked the majority of his WWE run and the only time he's really seemed to give a shit since leaving WWE is when mixed up with NJPW stuff. Kingston is Kingston and I don't think he's had any particularly good matches in AEW either.

Were they really planning NXT Levant

Really gonna be interested in seeing how Punk fares in AEW as even their big "storytelling" matches are very athletic and full of high spots, and Punk wasn't even a good athlete in his 20s and 30s

I think HHH and Steph have both cashed out multiple millions in stock in the past 2 years. I don't see any circumstance where HHH leaves WWE without Stephanie also leaving, and I don't see any circumstance where Stephanie leaves the company ever.

Charlotte has had many examples of shit not going well and her getting mad and suddenly very stiff and aggressive or reckless with her opponent for the next couple of spots before calming down. Nia's default is reckless. This isn't even the first time these two specifically together have had an incident like this.

You know, I have no idea why AEW doesn't use Marko Stunt to get demolished by big names coming in. I'd like to see La Parka just punching Marko in the mouth and then dancing.

Lol at winning the name and then refusing to use it.

Seriously why the fuck does that guy get on TV at all? He offers absolutely ZERO on screen or in the ring. If he's a good trainer or agent then whatever, let that be his job, not also an on screen performer being a complete black hole of charisma anytime he's on screen. Big Show vs QT should at most be just Show hitting him with the KO punch and that's it. It can be an angle during an interview.

I dunno but there's a ton more Spectrum shows from this period than MSG and I wonder if its because they were basically the same shows but the Philly shows were superior so they just uploaded those.

Remember when Scorpio went solo, won the not MITB and became the "Face Of The Revolution" only to lose the match at the next show, immediately get put into a tag team and turned heel, didn't have a match on TV for 2 months, suddenly got a match with Sting/Darby, then went back to not having a match on TV for another 2 months?

Another couple thoughts on a 1983 Spectrum show 1. Gorilla being really perplexed at the concept of these fancy new compression sleeves young boi Curt Hennig was wearing. 2. The Big Green Belt is the most underrated WWE championship belt. 3. Big Jon Studd's bacne is fucking atrocious. Fuzzy ass early 80s footage and it's still just horrific looking and visible from all angles. 4. Spectrum production vs MSG is real interesting as the Spectrum show is much closer to the Hulkamania era with the gray mat and much more handheld work from the floor. 5. Lol at the early Dunnism of zooming in and out on a hold as Backlund was wrenching a hammerlock back and forth. 6. What a set of teams: Ray Stevens, Don Muraco, Buddy Rose, Billy Graham, Mr. Fuji vs Rocky Johnson, Jimmy Snuka, Andre, Pedro Morales, Sal Bellomo. Now a couple of outliers there but you know. This is a very fun match, especially considering some of the guys involved at this stage in their careers. This might be the first Survivor Series match in WWE history and it very much plays out like how the matches were booked in the first 2-3 years of the event. There's constant action and lots of great spots, crowd and commentary are popping huge constantly the whole match. 7. Honestly this show, which is a month earlier than the MSG show I just watched, feels like it is 4 years away from the MSG show. Even the crowd seems younger and hipper.

Impact had a real good run before AEW ended up taking half their roster. In better times Wyatt would definitely fit in TNA better than AEW. I still think he does right now, but agreed it's a huge step down for him in a way that it isn't for some of the other guys that have been released and popped up in TNA in the past 2 years. I do not see him being a fit in AEW under any version of his various gimmicks and characters. His in ring style and character/story/gimmick style just do not mesh with AEW at all.

I remember when Lemmy died and the pics of him with all his Nazi memorabilia were all over the place, HHH was asked about it and he said actually Paul's favorite band is Metallica, HHH's favorite band is Motorhead.

Walking corpse is really a great way to describe what he looked like. His skin was absolutely disgusting looking in that period.

Sometimes I put on Old School WWE shows before bed just because they're usually fairly boring and also easy to have something on with calming noise that I don't have to concentrate on or devote any energy to. So I put on 3/20/83 WWF at MSG. I had a few thoughts and comments. 1. Ray Stevens attempted an apron piledriver and almost got hit with an apron back body drop. 2. God is there a worse gimmick change and more precipitous fall off than Superstar Billy Graham's transformation into the karate dude? He looks and moves like he aged 25 years in 3-5, just completely lost all of his charisma, ring work absolutely trash. It's really wild and I can't think of another star of that level who fell off so dramatically and completely so fast. 3. Gotta lol at Backlund/Muraco being a Texas Death Match and about 75% of the match is Backlund working a headlock, but it works and when they finally start actually doing some stuff near the end, the fans really come unglued. Real neat finishing stretch where Backlund EASILY muscles Muraco up for the shoulder breaker, Muraco kicks off the buckles to flip back and back drop Backlund, Backlund bridges up and turns that into the chicken wing, Muraco breaks it by running into the opposite turnbuckle, which Backlund then uses to hit a German suplex for the win. Seemed unusually detailed and intricate for the time and promotion. Also interesting that Backlund had 3 viable finishers and all 3 come into play in one 40 second sequence. 4. Man the WWF really looks completely different just a year later. Everything still looks and feels like mid to late 70s WWWF on this show. The ring canvas is still the bluish purple, the cameras are still almost entirely hard cam, the lighting is still fairly bright on the audience. Just from an aesthetic and production level, it really feels like 1983 to 1984 might be the most drastic single year change in company history. At least with the Attitude Era there was a progression over a 2-3 year period and the actual production in the way they filmed things didn't really change at all.

All Out looks both over stuffed and undercooked as it's already looking like a 4 hour show yet like 60% of the big name under card guys don't or won't have a match at all. Feels like the Dynamite and Rampage before All Out are probably going to be more like extensions of the pre-show.

Arn blocking the kick and then getting kicked in the balls was hilarious tbh

Hey Phil looks older than Tony Schiavone what in the