El-P

When your champ is not available, have someone get an old belt somewhere and proclaim himself a champion of something. That's pro-wrestling 101. I can live with Moose as the "TNA World champ" during those tapings, leading to I guess a match against Tessa whenever they can. If Tessa is still signed (doesn't her contract run off sometime this summer ?). That main event was though though. Hernandez is a guy who never ever put things together and he looks just as clumsy as he did when he was a greenhorn. Homicide carried his ass for so long... A single Elgin vs Moose match would have been so much better. Really, the women had the only really good match again. A gimmick garbage match with actual characters with a story works so much better in those circumstances. Love Rosemary's new look too (she also looks to be in great shape).

I thought the same thing. It looks like an intern did that shit with Paint.

Trolling collective health disaster. Classy as fuck.

Long term selling.

I'm not really following what Disney does, as I'm not an avid huge blockbuster watcher anyway (I skipped the last Star Wars after all the terrible feedback), but I trust you on that. Hollywood is another level of fucked up I guess.

Well, there is that. Disney is not exactly better than WWE anyway.

If the company is sold, what happens to the Saudi deal ? It's one thing if your pro-wrestling company flying under the radar, but if you're ESPN, Fox or Disney, not the same focus from other media.

WWE really has turned into WCW.

How could I forget about the Miz ? well, pretty easy infact, but yes, him, of course. Total WWE product that would probably not translate elsewhere at all. This. With the monopoly of the last 20 years, it seems like time has stood still. Some of the guys on TV today has been there FOREVER at this point, without ever going away and doing other things. It would be very hard for those kind of guys to feel fresh ever again. It's no wonder why NXT was seen as hot and cool with all these guys from different background and hype to them showing up regularly. Dolph Ziggler can take a one year hiatus if he wants to. He's still gonna be Dolph Ziggler. He was on WWE TV in 2006 already. BTW, John Morrison being settled back with the Miz is truly a sign of the creative bankruptcy of this company. With all this guy did in-between, coming back as a much better promo and worker and it's straight back to 2007. Selfishly I really hope Taya never gets to WWE, what a gigantic waste that would be (considering they would look at her as "too old" anyway). She appears regularly on BTE lately, maybe she's tight with some of the boys there (from LU I guess), she would be a terrific addition to their roster once she's done with IMPACT (she really became a star there BTW, for those who are not watching, she's the total package at this point).

Yeah, this episode was surprisingly good considering this subject has been talked about to death and there really isn't that much to tell, really. I feel like Mansfield is full of shit when he talks about doing that "for the boys", but his point stands about taking care of a business that doesn't take care of you. I kinda chuckled when the "to increase benefits" line was dropped by Jericho. Yeah. Vince fired Dr. D. and took no responsibility whatsoever, but when he saw fit himself would "expose" the business for his own financial gain. What else is new. The fact Corny refers to the old days of pro-wrestling as like being in the mafia echoes the Bravo episode in an odd way. I thought Schultz came off really good and was the star of the show, while Stossel kinda came off like an asshole at points actually (the final "fuck you", although you wonder how much his this is actually him cutting a promo, the way he talked about his pain going away once he got paid). I'd be interested in knowing the historian's perspective on Mansfield though... Thus far S2 has been a whole lot better than S1.

He's living fast, dying young ?

Does that goes back to not being able to beat Cena at Mania 30 ? Then it seems it was all a downward spiral, with him being just a victim to post-streak Taker in a heatless match, the infamous "worm on the floor" match with Orton and awful cinematic match very poorly mimicking what Broken Matt Hardy was doing in IMPACT at the same time. Speaking of which Nah. IMPACT was doing fucked up cinematic shit better than WWE before they even tried. Bray Wyatt could show up in IMPACT's Undead Realm tomorrow and no one would blink. WWE's production is way overrated, people have been doing much more fun stuff with less budget. I won't even go into LU territory. But Bray seems like a WWE lifer, so it's a moot point.

That's hard to say when the guy never worked anywhere else. And he's been a proven failure on top, hurting everyone he ever worked against, having awful matches after awful matches, so yeah, he "found himself", but whatever he found hasn't been very good. He's still young enough that it would be interesting to watch him try his hands elsewhere. Until then, he's pretty much this generation's Randy Orton, a black hole (except he had a cool character on the surface).

Revival to AEW. As teased in BTE 201. Workers being better out of the WWE system, exhibit #426, soon to a TV near you.

Baron Corb... aww fuck. Nia Jaxx. Oh, you mean no people who are shit workers... Damn... Charlotte. I honestly don't see how she could be pushed more than she has been in WWE. Not to mention Cain wanted to do lucha libre more than he wanted to do "pro-wrestling". The funniest latest tidbit to me is Hijo de Fantasma speaking Spanish on NXT. So they got a mexican guy who's fluent in English. So they have him speak Spanish.

Company X made a better use of Wrestler Y than WWE is pretty much a constant. Has been forever now. Nothing surprising here.

They couldn't let AAA have him. And you gotta please the Saudis. Wait...

It's a really interesting point and I have been thinking about that a lot when I watch AEW, the fact the figure of Dusty Rhodes, who was that guy in the polka dots for a generation of WWF fans and then the legendary figure in WCW, the losing brand, is now looming over the brand new, forward thinking exciting promotion, with the young son at the helm, the veteran older son as himself kind of a "legendary" figure of his generation and guys like Arn, Tully showing up, the heritage of WCW being talked about in a positive light again after 20 years of being derided. And in the middle of all of this, Tony Schiavone, as the guy who was calling Dusty's matches in the glory days of Crockett (much more than Ross), being back in the fold, respected and loved by everyone. It's fascinating to me how things work on a very long scale. (one could also talk about the buzz NWA Powerr got by reviving the studio aesthetic which is a direct reference to Dusty's days as the glory days, as opposed to the narrative of WWF being the only pro-wrestling that mattered in the 80's)

Thanks. Yeah, Madison Rayne legit cracked me up during that segment. She's terrific. I should add I have no idea how IMPACT managed to make Swinger, a guy I never ever cared for in any way shape or form, someone I look forward to watch every week. They just have some of the best ideas.

You and your odd takes. Don't. It turned into a total mess. I think the "goofy video-game lover gaijin" definitely had a specific appeal to the Japanese audience. But he's not been pushed as the Man in AEW yet either, so there's time. A few months back, Hangman Page was struggling finding his way. And Britt Baker was not working as a babyface. I just have faith in this company. Maybe because they managed to get so many guys who came from nowhere over and Cody turned himself into a legit main event guy, something that seemed impossible in WWE and even a bit forced when he was working ROH a few years ago. It's not that I agree with every choice they make. Before the shutdown, I was not feeling the Big Swole push one bit for instance. Don't see much at all in her (yet ?). I hope my girl Shanna gets a push when things go back to normal.

They ran an über safe empty taping show last week with everybody wearing masks (at a lucha show) and the announcers being far apart from each others. Only singles match too I believe.

As we say in French, it smells like "fin de règne"...

Holy shit, really ? @C.S., I blame you for this debacle !

I already talked about your strawman before and you responded with a very twitter-like "lol sTrAwMaN" kinda statement. As far as factual inaccuracy, you talked about a jobber "controlling most of the match". Which is not true. He had some burst of offense, but he did not "control most of the match". That's simply not what happened. So there. But honestly, the mere fact you called it Omega's best match in AEW is so totally ridiculous, I have no idea why I even waste my time at his point. And yeah, that jobber was pinned by a secondary (at best, as it's never used as a finisher in a real competitive match) spot. So how does that makes Omega look bad when he did not even bother to use a finisher ? Basic psychology that flies over the head of people I guess. Oh, so you are "the critique". My bad, I did not realize. Well, as far as praise, Charles loved it, for one.