The problem with AEW is the lack of adult leadership, coherent booking, proper use of both TV-caliber talent AND not-ready-for-primetime "talent", and that's just the top of the list.

Get those items in order, and THEN worry about "being cool".

That ass backwards approach is a big part of how they ended up with the current clusterfuckery.

I honestly believe if their PPV’s were more accessible that more eyes would watch the TV shows on a weekly basis. Hopefully they get with the times on this next rights deal.

Adam Copeland confirms that he broke his leg during the PPV

Their PPVs are genuinely good because they usually pit good wrestlers against each other and give them time. I didn't have interest in the recent one because I'm just not that into the hardcore match stuff. But their other PPVs have been great.

Their issue to me is the TV shows suck. They have a bloated roster so no one really gets over or consistent time. They'll showcase a wrestler for a few weeks and then you won't hear from them again for months. Everyone has a stable or belt. And for a show that was supposed to have a more sport like presentation, it's just too goofy with inside indy jokes I don't get. I still don't understand who the fuck Danhausen is or what the point of his character.

He's the quirky indy character that's at least more entertaining than watching Pockets Cassidy. That stupidity got old after about two viewings.

I said nothing of the quality of the pay per views. But when one company is selling them for $1.99 and another $50 it’s going to influence what consumers decide to follow. I suspect there are more than a few people who WOULD watch but aren’t paying that price for a wrestling show in 2024. And if you don’t get to see the payoff why watch the build?

Peacock is 1.99 on Black Friday every year for 12 months. First responders(including volunteers), military, and teachers can score it for that price outside of Black Friday.

The cost to follow AEW is considerably higher than WWE right now. It’s something that makes the Netflix move interesting to me a bit. I wonder how many people unwilling to pay the price for Netflix swap to AEW(assuming something is done with the PPV rights.)

I think OC is entertaining but in the same way that Santino was entertaining. A decent comedy gimmick for the bottom of the card. Making him a champion for like a year and having him beat a bunch of top guys seems really bizarre.

Yeah, Will is a LOT more lenient about that stuff than I am but even he looked over the card before the show and was like "nope, there's just not enough to justify $50 there". And it really wasn't all that close, despite him being bored.

It's a "how do you wanna approach it" thing at this point. Does the TV exist to sell the PPVs? If so, TV would have to be a LOT better. Do the PPVs exist to drive people to the TV? If so, PPV would have to be a LOT more reasonably priced.

The most notable thing he accomplished was ending my interest in ever seeing Shibata in the ring again.

Having that character do anything other than destroy Cassidy in about two minutes exceeds my ability to suspend disbelief for anything involving Shibata.

Even if (as publicly stated) that matchup was Shibata's idea, it ended his career for me. If it's what he wanted to do, fine by me ... I simply don't have any interest in ever seeing him again after it was done.

Now that Wrestlemania season is over, I think AEW is putting out a better product than WWE again. Solo Sikoa is not a highlight character, and he is getting exposed with all the airtime he is getting. You can really see how much of a boost they got from The Rock being a part of that storyline, and they definitely miss him. Cody needs some heels to go against, and there aren't any great heels that are built up to face him right now.

I agree about AEW having too many titles. Get rid of ROH immediately. The continental trophy should be a tournament and not a title. And the FTW title is not real, they should not be defending it. The more titles they have, the less they mean. And I think that about WWE with their two world titles. You can't be the champion of the world when you're not even the champion of your own company.

I wouldn’t say that them missing The Rock is why the WWE product is awful right now so much as missing a piece of every story the company had going(CM Punk missing from the Drew story, Seth is gone from any RAW title storyline they have going, The Rock and Roman from the Bloodline, Rhea was the only watchable female and she’s gone, Judgement day countering Dom and Rhea being out with adding Carlito is another whiff) is really taking a toll. Watching all the TV they have going with basically zero hot storylines is painful.

They have tried to counter lack of story with just tossing good wrestlers together and giving them time but I’m not feeling it at all right now.

Welllll, hold on now. It IS (sorta) "real", it's just ... unofficial.

I mean, Taz actually owns the rights to it and it dates back to 1998 (a title literally older than a few on the AEW roster).

It really feels that this is how HHH is going to book though. Look at post SummerSlam last year. It was the same crap. Shinske Nakamura headlined a couple of PLEs during that time frame and Cody was tossed into a throwaway tag team with Jey Uso. He really seems to be a 4 PLE kind of guy with everything else being kinda throwaway.

Channel surfing during hockey playoff intermission led to us seeing not one but two surprise appearances on NXT tonight.

I'll avoid spoiling in case anybody here actually watches but the male debut in particular seems like a not half bad idea.

Just realized after actually finishing RAW that USA didn't show Liv and Dom kissing. Quite the fuckup considering WWE's twitter account has changed the profile picture (I'm old no clue if I'm using the correct social media terms here) to the two of them kissing and Dom has commented on it on twitter as well.

To further illustrate my point on pricing, Peacock Premium is $1.67 a month for a full year right now if you sign up. That will get you a full years worth of WWE PLEs including SummerSlam and next years WrestleMania for approximately $20.

In Canada unfortunately we don't have Peacock. You have the janky version of the WWE Network which is just a TV station on our cable packages.
I am looking forward to it moving to Netflix next year.

Another thing that AEW doesn’t seem to get. I recorded Dynamite last night and the damn recording ended before the show did. Why would you book your show to go past where standard DVRs record? Mind boggling.

Just finished Double or Nothing. Mercedes Mone looked okay, definitely seemed a bit hesitant about her foot. Similar to Seth Rollins when he came back after his bad ACL injury a few years ago. I think she'll get more comfortable over time.
Sad that Adam Copeland broke his foot. That jump off the cage was very risky, he ended up undershooting a bit and landed more on his feet than through the table.
Anarchy match was pretty crazy. Not really my thing, but it was definitely carnage. The flamethrower spot was insane, obviously Jack Perry was covered in some sort of fire retardant liquid, but he was actually on fire. Can't say I've ever seen that before, and probably don't need to see it again.
I loved the spot where the Young Bucks go to superkick Darby, and they pumped up their new Reeboks first. Such a heel move.
Definitely the women's division is doing really well right now, Toni Storm is on fire. Mariah May is a superstar in the making. Willow is over with the fans. Statlander is going to be a good heel, she definitely needs a mouthpiece, so it could work for her.

Like basically every televised sporting event ever? Hmm, good question.

Wrestling is a sporting event now? No. It’s a predetermined product. Live sports will also auto extend on most DVRs (mine included.) It’s a booked show that ends whenever Tony says it ends. If TNT and Tony want it to go long they need to correct the listing to include the overrun like WWE did when they had one. I don’t even have a way to extend recordings besides I guess manually recording what is on after Dynamite each week.

Minor random from BoSJ but ... glad to see Kushida look better than in recent months, AND I appreciate that he's not unwilling to put over some young talent. Definitely no ego issues there, so good on him.

Idle musing prompted by Will's current trip (he saw NOAH last night, going to GLEAT show tonight, has NJPW Dominion coming up this weekend)

In Japan, Korakuen Hall is sort of "the mother Church" for pro wrestling.

Built in 1962, seats around 2,000, it's basically a sports venue, mostly used for various combat sports. Wrestling, kickboxing, boxing, etc. It's like playing The Apollo, or for rock/metal like playing The Whiskey or the other big Sunset Strip nightclubs of the era. It's not Madison Square Garden or Carnegie Hall, it's more the right of passage before you get there.

Anyhow, until this trip I don't think I realized just how busy the venue stays. On average, it looks like there's 3-5 puroresu shows a week there, with other combat sports other nights. And I started thinking about how very different that is versus the U.S.

I know, different geographies, different status & structure for pro wrestling, all that. But still ... there's not a city in the U.S. that I can think of where you could easily see 150 wrestling shows a year, and there never has been. At most, some places had weekly and additional irregular events, but I'd think that even Atlanta, Memphis, etc in the prime years topped out around 75-100 shows a year.

Tokyo, the epicenter of puroresu, with soooooo many companies using it as their primary base, it's just a really different situation that I almost struggle to get my head around when I try to actually think about it.

That's pretty cool, Jon. I'd love to go to Korakuen Hall, it is basically just a big gym, but it's pretty iconic. The entrance is pretty funny, the wrestlers have to walk unprotected right past the seating area, and it is pretty tight. Some of the NJPW setups where they'd have the English commentators right there and would talk to the wrestlers on the way in.

So I've made a slight change to my wrestling watching, I've dropped WWE after the post-WM blahs. And added Marigold. So I'm now watching NJPW, AEW, Stardom and Marigold. Watching the Stardom All Star Grand Queendom from April right now and it is just incredible, the 4 way tag team title match was insane. So many good matches, one after another.

During the intermission of tnoight's DDT/Gleat joint show, he went out for a beeru.

Long lines, he got back just as the introductions began. He literally went to his seat between the ref heading to the ring and Chris Brookes being introduced. And he even commented to me via message that "people just acted like that was the most normal thing in the world" lol

Awesome. That's exactly some of the weirdness of that venue. I'm sure he is having a great time!

He had so much fun at the DG show Tue night that he went back for the Gleat/DDT on Wed. And still has Dominion in Osaka coming up this weekend.

Sidebar: both nights, the Giants game at the Dome next door let out at virtually the same exact moment. He said last night was the most utter & complete madness he'd ever been caught in (and he's been to multiple SEC games with 80k +). He literally just stepped back off the sidewalk and let about 20k go past to avoid being swept by it.

Oh, and a fun unplanned memory for posterity. He actually saw this pop up in his Twitter feed.

The pale green shirt & the backwards hat is someone you all "know" :)

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I am incredibly jealous. That sounds like an incredible experience. If you're willing to share any photos from his trip there, it would be amazing.

Like you said, there is like nothing like that in the United States. Maybe back in the regional days (didn't WCCW do their shows at a famous building?) or I guess the old ECW arena (name is alluding me) in Philly which used to also host local boxing matches.

World Class = The "World Famous" Sportatorium

And yeah, I thought about including Viking Hall / ECW Arena / now 2300 Arena

Does anyone think any US city is even capable of supporting something like this? Would, say a 2000 seat venue in Chicago, Philly, New York, Vegas or LA be able to stay booked and draw crowds if they committed to combat sports and wrestling or would it be a big loser? I know my local area has atleast 10-15 wrestling companies(that I know of) running anywhere from weekly to monthly shows as well as a few MMA and boxing promotions and the occasional tough man I see advertised on Facebook. There are also the random traveling midget wrestling shows. Why do they all run in different venues instead of consolidating to a more specialized venue that caters to them specifically?

Also can throw in that your boy is taking one of my dream vacations. Hope he’s having the time of his life.

I really don't think it'd work here. The money doesn't feel like it'd add up.

A lot of that is, I think, cultural. You know the stigma that's associated with pro wrestling here, that's far less in Japan. It seems a lot more okay for a young salaryman to get off work, catch a train and be at the venue by 6p on a Wednesday night than it would be here. And they're doing it weekly, sometimes more than once a week.

It's been interesting to hear his observations about the crowds at Korakeun. For example, the NOAH show was at least 60% female, in a crowd of what he figured was north of 300. DDT/Gleat last night was smaller, a little more male, but also younger, a fair number even younger than him (he's 26 now for context). Usually in groups of 2-8, most of the groups were male & female. He also noted that last night was a "very DDT crowd" he was one of the distinct minority reacting to the Gleat performers strongly, most there didn't seem to know who most of them even were. To the extent that he actually noticed CIMA and some of the other Gleat older hand watching him / his reactions from the balcony with some interest as the night went on.

Compare that to an U.S. indy crowd, where basically the people you'd see at an (old days) ROH show are the same faces at a PWG show or a puro/lucha show or a GCW show, etc etc. The company cultures are strong enough in Japan, with enough differentiation at even the lower levels that you can stay in your lane & still do okay. The interest is broader overall, so there's leeway to sort of specialize (for the fans).

There's a lot of cultural stuff wrapped up in all that I think. Here, we tend to scream about our individualism (or whatever) from 9-5, then fall into mostly safe niches after hours. There, it seems like the reverse is true, rigidity from 9-5 and then virtually anything goes after hours.


Thanks. He's enjoying himself a lot I believe, though so far he's still feeling the effects of the long travel day a bit. He's been wanting to do this for a very long time now, I can't even tell you how many years of YouTube videos -- travelogue stuff like Abroad In Japan, countless food videos starting with Strictly Dumpling and expanding into many many others, on & on -- have been watched.

Then NJPW of course, which had followed naturally from his interests in the visiting workers that made such an impact in ROH, and over the past several years he's done a good job of working his way back through puroresu history (there are several really good YTers in that niche). He was 7 to 10 years old when Marafuji & Morishima and the rest were coming over and having classics with guys like Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson and others who were already his favorites (being a TNA/ROH fan far more than a WWF fan).

Little detail from Will's arrival at Osaka-Jo Hall for Dominion

"They could stand to direct us americans better. All NJPW signs in Japanese"

Me: what part of fuck you don't you understand?

That's a very real thing honestly, and it's almost kind of curious. Top level puroresu is still less inviting to non-Japanese fans than pretty much any aspect of the country he's seen. Extra hurdles to jump through for tickets for example, less English integration than DDT/Gleat show, far less welcoming than the Giants game. Combine that with a venue layout (outside) that's poorly conceived and poorly organized and , well, it's a damned good thing he got there 3 hours before the show. It'll take more than an hour for him to pick up his actual ticket (only allowed to do in person for foreigners, who must show multiple forms of ID including their required NJPW Fan Club badge)

It's not like he/we weren't aware of that beforehand, but it's kind of interesting to see it in real time versus what has been a trip with not much of that sort of thing evident in any other aspect. for example, he's actually encountered the (in)famous "English menu surcharge" only one time in his first week there

I'm just not sure being intentionally more difficult than other entertainment options is a lane that's the best choice for them to make, one of any number of questionable marketing decisions that NJPW in particular has made in recent years.

Dunno if this will work but since photo(s) was requested earlier, I'll say that he doesn't lack for a good seat. Literally behind the Japanese announce position

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=....1031139067686

I can't get it to imbed so if you want to see then click the link I guess :/


edit to add: and to my delight, I finally managed to get a superwide long shot so I could find him (and I do mean long).
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=....1031139067686

NJPW announces changes to the traditional format for the upcoming G1 Climax

Back to 20 entrants in two blocks ... first 18 participants will be announced next week ... last two slots will be determined by a sort of play-in tournament taking place during the upcoming Soul tour.

THEN, once G1 kicks off, the top THREE finishers in each block will advance ... Top scorers in A & B Block will get byes to the semifinals, 2/3 will meet for the right to advance to that final four.

I don't know what the ideal number of participants is but I'm glad they are cutting the field. It just got to be way too much.

16-20 feels right to me honestly.

And going back to two blocks is probably an even better change. The 4 block shit was simply impossible to follow, and if you have no clue how things stack up -- even if you're watching every single match -- then it really loses any sense of drama, importance, or anything other than an incoherent slog.

Not a fan of 3 people advancing. It's like expanding the field in college football, or adding more wild card teams to baseball. It devalues the regular season. You could go 5-4 , finish in 3rd and go on to win the tournament, depending on how things go.

Even with 2 people advancing, you'd be looking at a minimum of 6-3 barring any shenanigans to advance.

But if you look at it as "quarterfinals", it's only 6 people instead of the 8 people that were produced by the 4-block setup.

I don't love the attempt to create faux excitement/opportunity, but I don't hate it either.

edit to add: this same format was apparently used with a 16 man /2 block field back in 2004

I don't mind more advancing because otherwise a lot of the matches just have no meaning. With 6 advancing, you can hopefully book meaningful matches top to bottom. Mix in some "spoilers" at the bottom of the table.

I'm just glad they are reducing the whole thing. It was way too hard to keep up with and there were too many wrestlers I just didn't care to even see. And I'm not opposed to "play-in" style matches to make the G1. Make it like the World Cup where some have to qualify.

I'm basically a year behind in my NJPW viewing, and I'm really digging the 2023 Best of the Super Jrs. I just finished up everybody's 6th match out of 9.
The matches have to be relatively short since they have to do 10 matches in about 2.5 hours, but even the first matches have the potential to surprise.

I enjoy the NJPW tournament format.

Damn, I really didn't care for parts of last years BoSJ. YMMV of course, and that's fine.

fwiw, 2024 just completed is considerably better. Most of the returning participants were better than last year across the board and the new entrants were definitely more positive than negative.

Does anyone think an American promotion could pull off the NJPW style tournament format? WWE has been putting more emphasis on tournaments, but I think that's about as far as they'll go. TNA used to have their points based tournament back in the day.

AEW would be perfect for it since they have so much TV time each week (could make one of their shows strictly for the tournaments), good wrestlers, and barely any storylines. But TK is gonna TK.

That's been a discussion over the years down here in the batcave and our general conclusion is probably not.

The problem would be the complaints about 50-50 booking, and by nature that's where most entrants end up. Less of an issue for AEW since that's how so many get booked anyway but I don't think

Also, harder to give it the necessary gravitas with the schedule that'd be required here vs the grueling demand of the structure there. The exhaustions, the injuries, the sheer grind of the G1 Climax is part of the story, a character unto itself almost. 6 days off between matches in the U.S. for television, that'd be lost and I believe it would absolutely hurt things.

They did have the Continental Classic in AEW last year, which is like a very lite version of the G1. It was 2 groups of 6, I believe.
You really need to have the fans trained to believe that wins and losses matter. This is actually a good way to reinforce it.

“NOAH and WWE will make a major announcement at the BUNTAI event in Yokohama on June 16th!

“A message from a certain wrestler is also being released!”

403 Forbidden

They are heading in the wrong direction with this forbidden door stuff. It hasn’t worked for AEW and it’s not going to work for WWE. Joe down the street doesn’t care about TNA or NOAH and honestly doesn’t have the time to invest to figure it out on top of all the WWE TV time that already exists. Catering to the 1% is what AEW does. WWE really needs to avoid that.

I think it's just sharing some talent they aren't really using. My guess is they send Nakamura who they really aren't using much for an event or two. I think they are sending Iyo Shirai to a Marigold event as well.

The TNA partnership seemed more about finding some warm bodies since NXT lost a bunch of people to the main roster. Their champs didn't seem to have any real credible threats to face.

Then again, Joe Hendry is more entertaining than at least 95% of their roster.

the 1% of what, exactly?

The 1% of pro wrestling fans that consumes everything wrestling. The 1% that hangs out on internet message boards and talks about wrestling. Us pretty much.

I think it works much better for AEW, to be honest. WWE fans are very insular, and much more casual.

I didn't say I thought this specifically was a great idea, but figured I'd throw it out here anyway.

Honestly, I don't like it much for the NOAH product, which was good enough in person last week that Will had already mentioned that he should probably expand his various subscriptions & try to watch more from Japan besides NJPW.

I’m getting frustrated missing Dynamite’s main event every week because DirectvStream won’t let me extend the damn recording.

The Indie promotion that we go to all their shows ran an angle tonight that culminated in a Dog Collar match being set for July 20. I wonder how that is going to turn out?

Have there been any recentish dog collar matches? My son asked what they are after the show and I sent him a video of Piper-Valentine. Idk, I’m old I guess.

This was one from DEAN~! on wrestlemania weekend
VIDEO - Mad Dog Connelly v DEMUS highlights from DEAN~!!! - YouTube

Also: CM Punk vs MJF

Can't forget FTR vs. The Briscoes.

Somewhat oddly, Jay Briscoe's penultimate match was a dog collar match while Brodie Lee's last match was also a dog collar match (vs. Cody).

I don't know about that last segment.

That might not be THE dumbest thing I've seen in probably 2+ decades, but it's waaaay up the list.

I'd argue that the last James Mitchell into The Underworld (or whatever the hell it supposed to be) was actually even dumber ... but that was also on a non-serious C-grade program too.

That shitshow made Broken Matt look like Shakespeare, and based on the arena reaction honestly I'm wondering if the IQ of the paying fanbase might not be at a low we haven't seen in decades.

When I saw they were playing murder I said out loud

“They fucking blew it.”

And I was the only one in the room. I hope I’m wrong. But how do you reverse people being murdered in the play?

Smh

The reaction was for Bray. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

It reminds me of a time I was running an e-fed over 25 years ago. I was super busy and didn't have time to read every interview before posting them in my recap show. I was going to read them later. Then someone sent me a note, "Hey, you realize that Stygian (who had a kind of demonic gimmick) just blew up a church full of people in his latest segment, right?". Oops. Had to do a comment from the announcers in the next show saying "thankfully the church was empty", hahaha. I always read everything before posting after that.

I'm not a big fan of the spooky supernatural gimmicks. It's fine in smaller feds like Lucha Underground or TNA as it gives them something different from the others.

There's probably a way to pull off a faction like that. But the over-the-top production values and then completely no-selling it after it happened just comes across weird to me.

I’m not saying I liked this angle as I haven’t watched it yet but I just want to point out that WWE is and always has been the wrestling place for the supernatural. One of the most iconic WWE wrestlers of all time is The Undertaker and Bray Wyatt is a multi-time champion that has taken the world title into WrestleMania and both had supernatural gimmicks.

It isn’t even just those two. Off the top of my head I can think of The Boogeyman, Kane, The Ministry of Darkness, and The Brood as other successful supernatural gimmicks and I’m sure there are many other examples of this stuff littered throughout WWE history (Papa Shango interfering in the main event of Wrestlemania for example.)

Agree, although a lot of those gimmicks are old. And later on characters like Kane were almost tongue-in-cheek with how serious you were supposed to take them.

I still wasn't a fan of the Fiend gimmick. Cool concept, Bray was a creative guy, but it's kind of tough to go anywhere with it. It ultimately ended up with him burying Rollins and then having that weird match with Orton that most people made fun of.

I'm sure they'll sell a ton of merch and fans will tune in for the next couple months to see what kind of stuff they do. But I feel like it's tough to create real storylines with the supernatural stuff in today's business. Feels like Bray should have been working in Hollywood.

Pretty much this.

As I noted at some point last night, being sorry that Windham Rotunda died and absolutely hating 90% or more of his "creative input" aren't mutually exclusive positions.

Orton vs. Bray was absolutely one of the worst wrestling matches of all time. One thing I never understood about Bray was wrestling with the different colored arena lights. The red lights or even the “Mountain Dew pitch black match.” I don’t even think Gunther vs Tomohiro Ishii would be watchable under that crap.

:+1:

If any wrestler had this kinda heat these days, they'd flee the arena and never return

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(The Rougeau Brothers in Mexico in 1990)

Remember how the fans would be chucking stuff into the ring at the end of Nitro after yet another NWO run in? These fans are so amped, they're doing it during a REST HOLD.

Ahhhh Mexico lol

What was the Jericho comment, about getting doused with a full cup of cold piss?
That you REALLY had to hate someone bad to hold a cup full of piss long enough for the temp to drop just in order to hit 'em with it

Okay, I think the coolest single moment of Will's trip to Japan has now occurred.

He had some time to kill before heading off to drink his way around/through Shinjuku, a perfect opportunity to go a couple train stops away and visit Minoru Suzuki's merch store (basically a small shop in the basement of a mini-mall).

Lo & behold, the KING himself was in. Gracious for a photo and a quick bit of conversation, the legend-turned-proprietor even bagged up the shirts himself.

Not sure I've heard my child as excited after something since he was about 7 or 8 and did photos with Samoa Joe and a fair chunk of the TNA roster.

If I met Minoru, I think I'd have to ask him for a chop. That is a pretty cool experience!

The Joe Hendry gimmick is really goofy and completely over with me. Not sure if it'll work on a big stage but NXT seems perfect for it. Song is catchy too.

This is so incredibly cool. Trying to imagine Minoru bagging up some shirts for a customer has me laughing.

In Japan, is wrestling just considered more mainstream? It seems like it doesn't have that negative association you find in the states.

Yes, absolutely ... but also, kinda sorta, not entirely either.

It gets fairly serious sports page treatment for example. The fans are a pretty good cross section, though he's coming away feeling like it's considerably more promotion-by-promotion than we previously understood. So it's segmented, but in a way different from the promotional loyalties we're accustomed to here.

At the same time, similar to anime I suppose, it's more mainstream but by acknowledging your fandom there is a certain degree of ... marginalization that you subject yourself to. There's just a bit more people willing to accept that marginalization, if that makes sense.

I was in attendance last night with the boy at AEW Dynamite here in Fairfax. Pretty great show, it does seem small-time compared to WWE, go figure. I was surprised how small the ring looked as compared to on TV. The wrestlers looked bigger, however. All the hometown folks (Sanjay Dutt, Nyla Rose, Lio Rush, Serena Deeb) all got huge hometown pops which was very cool. No pyro, thank goodness.

If you're interested, I'm on the hard-cam all night long - left side in a blue polo that stands out amongst all the black tshirts. The boy is on my right with Eddie's "Deez Nuts" shirt.

If this news about Lucas Oil is correct then I need to start saving now. Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, AND SummerSlam within the next handful of years?

I feel like AEW would come across better if they did medium sized arenas. Venues of like 5k where it can get real loud and has an intimate feel. Can still do big arenas for big shows.

When I do watch their weekly show, it just feels off because they're filling out maybe 5000 people in an 18000 seat arena.

Jacob Fatu to WWE. Looks to have slimmed down a bit but looked pretty menacing.

I will never financially recover from this.

I don't know if it's the same but I remember Indy is a great spot for events because you can walk practically everywhere you need to from the hotel.

Downtown Indy is very walkable. The usual venue, banker’s life, is great because it has an attached parking garage. Parking isn’t as good at Lucas Oil but you can generally get within 5-6 blocks for $20 or so.

Was very skeptical about the Wyatt gimmick but I thought the promo on Monday was incredibly well done. If they drop the supernatural stuff and it just becomes a grieving brother who is dealing out punishment for his anger about his brother being "forgotten", I could see it going somewhere. Especially since they did seem to pick other wrestlers who have been abandoned in a way by their stables in the past.

Either way, I thought the promo was well done and some of the best acting (not even sure that's the right word since those emotions felt real) I can remember from a professional wrestling product.