The Wrestling Discussion Thread

For anyone curious the Main event was the ratings high for Dynamite this week.

John Silver confirmed a draw.

WWE cut loose Brisco, Sarah Stock and IRS.

Someone did the leg work to compare the numbers. From Super Tuesday 1 to Super Tuesday 2 NXT lost 36% of its 18-34 audience. I guess the shitty draw drove off young people.

Jericho's been doing a really great job of reminding me why I was never a big fan of him as of late.

Glad Eddie Kingston, Thunder Rosa, and Stroke Daddy Ricky Starks getting shine in AEW. They were my absolute favorites in NWA Powerrr along with Marti Belle and Question Mark.

G1 matches and dates announced. Fucking hyped. Top draw matches every single night.

I'm so over Jericho.

@brian_: Kind of the opposite in a way for me. I've considered Jericho one of the greatest ever and one of my top three favorites as well. He was a great worker (still does fine for his age), a consummate storyteller, and is tremendous on commentary. But the more the real Jericho shows himself, the more disappointed I become.

@redwing42: Sure. In my case, I just hit that disappointment point years ago with him, kind of forgot about it over time, and am now reminded that the dude's been a major douche in the past. I'm inclined to give people the benefit of doubt when it comes to being able change over time, but Jericho still seems like kind of a douche.

@redwing42: yeah, same. I was a big WCW guy but he was never my favorite, I think because he actually annoyed me and was doing his job. Now I appreciate a lot he does (even though tbh sometimes watching him wrestling his old man style is getting boring) all over the place.

But you're right he's a big idiot. It's funny sometimes he can spin that into gold. Judas was a dumb song that has been made this great element of his act... but it's still a really shitty vanity rock band that everyone clowns on every celeb for having.

For my part, I didn't post that tweet for anything else than a laugh, and yeah at Jericho just being a dummy. For me it is among the group of notoriously bad 9/11 tweets, which are being added to today.

Sure, Jericho putting on shows and ending up spreading COVID like wildfire is fucking awful... but digging up a tweet from FUCKING 2010 to make him look bad is ridiculous and sad. Dude's a constant dumpster fire of bad takes, why do this?

As someone that has no idea how twitter works, do they ever surface old tweets, or is that something you have to look for manually?

@retris:Do you use twitter for fun? There are lot of notorious 9/11 tweets that have been going around all day, I posted the classic bad Jericho one. Its just a tweet among a lot of classicly stupid tweets. If you check the numbers on it you'll see its been retweeted a ton since he made it years ago, every single 9/11 anniversary.

Its not an attack and I explained that above your post too.

There's a reason he makes dumb posts and does dumb things. He's a dumb guy who is a great wrestler and great wrestling mind. That happens.

@brian_: People retweet old bad tweets all the time. That's how I saw the Jericho one pop up on my TL today, from someone else's retweet. Also extremely easy to search on twitter.

@brian_: Twitter is mostly 100% chronological, so somebody seriously went through the trouble of either bookmarking a tweet and keeping it for ten years, or they went through Jericho's tweets and looked for things to get upset over.

is this thing on? I said it was a joke that popped up on the TL. Here you're ignoring me and acting like I came here to cancel him though.

Also apparently you don't know about twitter searching? It would take me 5 seconds to find tha tweet by typing in a few words.

Whatever makes you feel like your'e on some righteous crusade against cancel culture though. Just maybe figure out how twitter works before the hot takes.

@toughshed: Not talking about you, I also saw it on my twitter TL. Talking about whoever found it. And let's not start pretending people don't do digging up of people's timelines, or have we forgotten the whole 4chan vs. James Gunn thing for example? Heck, why on Earth would anyone try to search for Jericho's tweets about 9/11 specifically if it wasn't looking for shit takes? Twitter's search function is fucking atrocious too, so you'd have to be really specific (or use google, which is actually a better way of searching twitter). Also, like I said, cancel culture isn't a thing. Nobody actually gets cancelled even if they spout the most reprehensible things in the world.

It's also that I've started getting a bit cynical about shit like this after the way WWE fans banded up against Excalibur and Sammy.

I have not been keeping up with Dark. Apparently they broke up? Will definitely watch this though.

They should put Cutler and Avalon in a Reverse Ironman match. The winner is the one who has the most losses after the time limit.

@retris: Tell that to homeboy from The Flash. That kid likely won't be working again....at least nothing prominent. Certain folks are able to bounce back, others...not so much. Regardless, the best way to avoid those situations is staying the fuck off social media.

It'll be interesting to see how AEW ends up using Miro, he could've been such a big deal in WWE. I can't believe they never once thought to give him a boisterous Cousin Roman (GTA4) "Euro-trash" playa persona with the modern disco fashion, always carrying around a champagne bottle, and him tossing money everywhere like Dibiase. Lana would've fit right into such a gimmick. I've wanted that sort of transition ever since he came off as a big shot on UUDD where he bragged that he "had all the games."

@shiftygism: Yeah, it takes a LOT to actually get "cancelled". Sawyer said some REALLY messed up stuff six years ago and, near as I can tell, never really did much to convince people otherwise.

Contrast that with James Gunn. Yeah, he said some stupid fucking shit. he has also spent decades (?) addressing and apologizing for that and when he did briefly get "cancelled" his colleagues stood up for him because they can very much acknowledge he changed. We all do stupid shit. The key is to do better and keep doing better.

And in wrestling? Lars is due to come back from his injury pretty soon, right? Mysterio hasn't left so there is someone of the right ethnicity for him to squash. I would say that sexual assault was enough to get fired but... Ric Flair is still respected by just about every promotion and I am sure Scurl and Ryan are planning their comebacks. Oh, rampant racism. Oh yeah, Hogan. Uhm., statutory rape? Nah, Lawler.

Oh!! I know. Lawler et al only get to stay because they are established and part of legacies. I know, if someone tried to fuck a kid in today's day they would totally be can... How is Velveteen Dream doing anyway?

So please, don't pretend "cancellation" is at all a meaningful thing in wrestling. It barely even happens in major "family friendly" industries.

MEGABYTE RONNIE is a fantastic name for a wrestler.

Take this for what its worth, Tessa Blanchard dropped the Warrior Wrestling title tonight.

Oh also, the fact that Jeff Cobb is in the G1, and Honma isn't- upsets me

Y'all doing a G1 pick'em?

If anyone wants to figure out how to do one, I'd throw in a gift card prize of a couple bucks on gog or something to sweeten the pot for the eventual winner.

@sombre: Honma never fully recovered from his neck injury. Which is a tragedy because he was legit one of the best babyfaces in wrestling. His match against Ishii at Korakuen was magical

If people wanna set that up, I would be on that like Jack Sprat

Honma is the most pure example of that "Samurai Spirit" that makes me love NJPW

I know we joke about Eddie Kingston being able to cut a promo on anything... but holy shit. Dude is still on that next level shit.

MEGABYTE RONNIE did a peoples elbow with a hotdog that is all.

Neither Cutler or Avalon have won a match.

Dynamite was fantastic this week, the only knock I have against the show is that they could of cut a few minutes off Private Party vs Rock hard Demo Gods.

That was the best first, and last streetfight AEW can ever do because nothing will top Sue.

To the surprise of no one, Ivelisse was apparently stiffing/shooting in her match.

Am I late on this? because I'M AFRAID I'VE GOT SOME BAD NEWS. I thought I read Wade Barrett got hired on to NXT announcing team

@toxin066: He did, Mauro left and they hired barrett back

Back to AEW looking good and HHH looking bad.

Tessa Blanchard's image was included in a background graphic in WWE Battlegrounds for some reason.

G1 Climax time baby!!! My money is on a Tanahashi/Ibushi final with Ibushi winning but my predictions are almost always wrong. Still rooting for either Ishii or Shingo to win it all but I'm not getting my hopes up for that.

After their bouts... last year?... was it last year? Time has no meaning any more... I'm afraid of the concept of Ibushi winning the G1 and facing Naito for the belts at Tokyo Dome. At least one of them will end up breaking their neck or die trying.

I know I'm a bit behind, but the commentary team of Tazz, Excalibur, and Veda Scott was hilarious on Dark this week.

Currently playing through Judgement, so here's this terrible thing I did.

Ishii/Suzuki MOTN

Night 1 was everything it was cracked up to be. Agree, Ishii/Suzuki was MOTN. Glad to see Jay WHite up to his old fuckery. Okada needs to bring back the Rainmaker or he's going to keep losing.

I'm feeling Yoshi-Hashi, Yano, Goto, Evil, and a draw between Tanahashi and Naito later tonight.

Just a thought about past discussions, particularly since there is more chatter about Tessa Blanchard out there. For a while, people were complaining about AEW not signing Blanchard. Since then, they have worked out a deal to have Thunder Rosa work some matches. How do you generally feel about this trade off? I know the natural response is "Why not both?", but in a one for one deal, was working with Thunder Rosa a better or worse option than Tessa Blanchard?

@norm9: The Money Clip is such a stupid finisher. I like that the only reason Okada beat Hiromu with it during the NJPW Cup was because he hit him with a couple of Rainmakers first.

Night 2 was pretty fun. Loved seeing Juice back, glad that Yano finally outsmarted Sanada, and ZSJ getting a win over EVIL was great. I know it's a storyline but washed up Tanahashi has been bumming me out since NJPW has returned.

@not_a_bumblebee: Absolutely loved ZSJ v EVIL and Shingo v Jay White as contrasting uses of Bullet Club fuckery. Poor Shingo the honorable one didn't know how to handle cheating. ZSJ, on the other hand is also a cheater, was able to handle the Togo run-ins like it was old hat.

I have either the Ace Tanahashi or Goto making it out of B Block. Still got my fingers crossed.

Also, loving Sanada's new glam space alien and Juice's blues brother look. Mostly just glad Juice the crowd favorite is back.

To end this rambling, the poor audience couldn't boo KENTA (hilarious btw) which I think is going to cause some audience members to lose it at some point in the future.

I think Blanchard is too unprofessional to still be working. How are you the champ and refuse to do promos? Especially in lockdown when no wrestling is allowed and all there is IS promos?! Especially when they put the strap and teh company on your back?!

Thunder Rosa is far more professional and treats the belt like it means something.