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The Trash Feud of the Century

June 24, 2019, 6:00 am
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Rollins defending the company line online is almost as embarrassing as when his former fiancee leaked pics of him
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Everyone knows that while in the short term, All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling pose no risk to WWE's financial hegemony, that the Worldwide Leader in Sports Entertainment™ is quaking in its boots because those promotions have what at least Paul "Triple H" Levesque and Stephanie McMahon want — approval from the cool kids. Of course, WWE's response to that loss of critical cache isn't to put on the best show it possibly can while renouncing ties to Donald Trump (or at least not fucking donating to him) and also cancelling its morally repugnant deal with Saudi Arabia, but to shout loudly from all corners of social media how good its product is. While NXT can at least have a claim to being a quality product without reasonable doubt, the main roster slogs through its existence with no such consistency, bright spots coming either at pay-per-views in individual matches or during the Firefly Funhouse. I don't count the 24/7 Championship as main roster so much as it is the wrestlers and Jeremy Borash allowed to use WWE money and a part of RAW or Smackdown each week to have a little fun outside of Vince McMahon's Eye of Sauron-like gaze. I swear, if you tell me that title has any input from the eldest McMahon whatsoever, I will laugh in your fucking face. Anyway.

When the branded-company social media accounts start this artificial hype campaign or when Michael Cole, Tom Phillips, or even Mauro Ranallo repeat McMahon/Levesque talking points on commentary, it's one thing. When the wrestlers, who presumably haven't surrendered their social media passwords to Kevin Dunn or whomever, start in the big hype campaign and then reply defensively to people talking shit on them online, it's a whole other. When the wrestlers, who can't even get employee status with the company, defend the company against all comers, the company looks less like a wrestling promotion and more like a cult. If you're on top, you shouldn't have to kick the other guys when they're down, right? It's how WWE operated when it was kicking World Championship Wrestling's ass in the early '90s and again in 1999 and thereafter. So why not now, when the next promotion in line domestically has yet to run its second show? Could it be that McMahon has always been a thin-skinned prick who has let the years erode his will to lash out at competitors not on his level? Maybe it's his daughter and son-in-law, who don't have the age-old mentality of keeping it to themselves when they're on top. Who knows.

Anyway, you'd think that after last night's Stomping Grounds event that anyone going after a wrestler posting self-hagiography would be in the right. However, what if that person was in fact Will Ospreay, who intimidated a rape victim because it was his mates who raped her, had her blacklisted, tried to get another woman blackballed because she bailed on STARDOM cuz her dad died (telling her that Japan was not a vacation), sits in on smaller wrestling events commenting if anyone in the match does a move he has ever done, and also is willing to go claws out against anyone who dares accuse him or his girlfriend Bea Priestley of nicking moves? Well, then the situation becomes a whole lot worse, because Ospreay is, beyond any shadow of any doubt, the worst and most annoying person in wrestling who is not already associated with WWE. It started with this tweet from Seth Rollins, who admittedly was innocently enough putting over cruiserweight wrestlers whom no one else in the company who hasn't already been associated with 205 Live seems to care about:
It would have been nice to have seen him put the cruisers over without couching it in WWE's self-aggrandizement, but honestly, I'm sure Tony Nese, Drew Gulak (new Champion!), and Akira Tozawa appreciated it. Anyway, if WWE is the King of Undeserved Self-Inflation in pro wrestling, Ospreay is in second place, and the margin isn't as wide as one might think. He saw Rollins' tweet as an invitation to do the equivalent of doing Blue Steel after hitting a flippy move that barely nicked someone:
First off, this tweet is so on-brand for Ospreay that it hurts. It's almost like he took hints on how to promote his brand from Levesque himself. It's almost surprising that he chose New Japan Pro Wrestling over the overtures that WWE made to him way way back when Paul Heyman showed up at EVOLVE and openly courted him. Anyway, I'm sure Ospreay thought that because he worked for little ol' New Japan and Rollins should have been above punching down, that he'd just stuck his knife in to no damage and made a ceremonial good show. He underestimated, however, how much Rollins can get gotten to, almost on the same levels as he himself:
On one hand, I applaud anyone dunking on Ospreay directly, because he's a turd who needs flushing. I can't reiterate how much I loathe that someone with his personality and ledger has gained influence in pro wrestling. It's almost like if the deathmatch circuit continually booked someone who was photographed with Nazis more than once and wrote a song in praise of rape, or if the former second-biggest company in America continued to book an accused domestic abuser, an accused domestic abuser and known rape enabler, and an accused domestic abuser who was witnessed doing domestic abuse but got off because his partner didn't decide to press charges, or if Bully Ray continued to have a job. Oh wait, wrestling is a scuzzball business. But I digress.

Still, imagine trying to dunk on Ospreay and coming off looking like an even bigger dweeb? For one, he snitch-tagged Ricochet, who as far as I know has a decent relationship with Ospreay (I won't hold it against him). The fact that he even replied though feels like an admission of defeat. Ospreay is a fucking dork who is the embodiment of the "I studied the blade" meme, who doesn't respect women, and who thinks every dickhead online like myself who criticizes him is a personal affront. You're the WWE Universal Champion who got to go over Brock Lesnar cleanish. He shouldn't be a speck on your windshield, but here you are dunking on him. It's unfathomable.

It all just goes to show that wrestling is full of scoundrels at worst and dorks at best. The good people in wrestling, like Dick Togo or Sami Zayn, are few and far between (and if I'm being honest, Zayn probably needs to answer for the racist El Generico gimmick, and yes, I'm fully aware I'm complicit for having liked that gimmick when it was active). Twitter beefs like this only mollify that point of view. You have someone who shouldn't be punching down going at it with a piece of shit self-promoter, and when the latter comes out looking good, well, it's bad for everyone involved. Still, for as much pain as Ospreay has caused in his career so far, it's nothing compared to the machine that Rollins is defending, which has made independent contractor abuse standard and claimed the lives of so many wrestlers while they were young. I guess that means...
Oh no, no. No. NO. Rollins wins. In no way is posting a Ricky Gervais gif okay.
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The Failson and the Championships Won

June 24, 2019, 9:30 am
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Look, he's red just talking on the mic, and I'm to believe HE'S Championship material?
Photo Credit: WWE.com
If you haven't been paying attention to WWE in the last year or so, and I can't blame you for whatever reason, Shane McMahon has been a major part of the programming, even more than when he was at his peak as an in-ring competitor nearly 20 years ago. He won a "best in the world" tournament at the Fed's second Saudi Blood/Fuck Money show, Crown Jewel, one he wasn't a part of until getting a bye to the finals. He and the Miz won the Smackdown Tag Team Championships, and when they lost the belts, he turned on Miz setting up a match of theirs at WrestleMania... which he won. He segued from that feud without ever really giving Miz resolution into a feud with Roman Reigns, against whom he got a victory at the latest Saudi Blood/Fuck Money show, Super Showdown.

Of course, judging by booking alone, this pattern has all the telltale signs of protecting a top star. It's both abhorrent but also majorly on-brand for WWE that the failson of the chairman is the guy with the biggest push. I mean, he couldn't even do the job for Reigns himself; he had to send Drew McIntyre to take the heat! History has a way of repeating itself for those who don't learn from it, and in addition to allowing corporate bloat to strangle the main roster the way it suffocated World Championship Wrestling 20 years ago, it also is learning the wrong lessons from the dying days of the American Wrestling Association. Verne Gagne pushed his son Greg so hard despite having none of his father's talent or charisma. The fans revolted as part of a decade-long slide that led the AWA into ruin and then death. Granted, Gagne never put the World Championship on his son's waist, and WWE hasn't done that with Shane McMahon...

...yet.

Popular Twitter account that seems to have a connection to someone high-up in WWE, @WrestleVotes, launched some speculation that WWE *might* put the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on McMahon sooner rather than later.
A lone source's speculation set fire to Wrestling Twitter, because while it was a completely offhand statement that could not be verified as concrete, it makes way too much goddamn sense. I've heard on Twitter that that one tweet has turned into "major rumors" that McMahon would be the one to dethrone Kingston at SummerSlam. I'll believe it when I see the match announced, not because I can't believe it, but because I don't want to believe it. WWE has done a strangely commendable job protecting Kingston's title reign that it almost raises so much suspicion that it's about to end in a mushroom cloud so intense that it might rival the outcry in chatrooms and message boards from the turn of this century. The company that has only entrusted four Black people with one or both of its top titles in its 50+ year history does not get the benefit of the doubt for how that title reign will end.

The fact that WWE would even think about putting the title on Shane McMahon rings with an insane amount of tone-deafness, even more than when Vince McMahon strapped himself in 1999. Granted, while I am not defending the decision in retrospect, the decision was defensible at the time. Vince hadn't spent the last year building himself up as an ubermensch wrestler despite turning bright shades of red by the sheer act of exiting Gorilla. It was a fuck finish in a sea of fuck finishes that defined a short but intensely compressed era of wrestling. Putting the title on himself so that he'd be mentioned in the same breadth as guys like Bruno Sammartino and Andre the Giant is an unforgivable move of pure ego. That being said, it wasn't a narrative lie that a bloated baloney man who's only back in wrestling because his venture into telecommunications in China failed harder than WWE's attempt at anything outside of wrestling could hang with guys like Crossfit-addict Seth Rollins or a man chiseled out of marble who also does the best tope con hilo in his weight class, Roman Reigns.

And yet WWE currently has set camp at that untenable position on the map, like planning a major metropolis at the northern tip of Baffin Island in 1920. Of course, with the way climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet, Baffin Island might be subtropical before long, but that's a post for a political blog. McMahon is already the most protected wrestler on the roster; even Brock Lesnar lost clean as a whistle at WrestleMania to Rollins. It has such an impact on WWE's Kirby-suction approach on recruitment. WWE is still out here wanting to set up NXT seeds in every country that has wrestling in addition to signing everyone they can get their hands on. Apparently, the company even approached the Beer City Bruiser. Nothing against him as a wrestler, but he's a guy who does not have the look WWE wants, and he's a low-card guy in Ring of Honor. If he's on WWE's radar, who is not? Just the guys the company already jettisoned like Enzo Amore, Colin Cassady, and TJP?

But now, imagine you're a pro wrestler and WWE comes to you with an offer. You look at the main roster right now and see McMahon on the fast track to winning one of the two top titles. Do you take the NXT starvation wage contract in hopes that one day, you'll make it to RAW or Smackdown and stand in the background as the real stars of the show, the McMahons, are the focus? Do you go there realizing that not content with hogging up the spotlight that they now have a taste for winning the belts again? Is the gambit worth the risk? Sadly, for a huge chunk of wrestlers, they will not be deterred. All Elite Wrestling can't hire everyone, but WWE seems like they're willing and able to do so. The allure of headlining WrestleMania and the money and fame that come with it can be strong enough, but at the end of the day, when will they get a chance to eclipse the McMahon family?

And for anyone who thinks this is still too farfetched, a McMahon family member in management recently put a title on himself. Paul "Triple H" Levesque had been far retired from active full-time in-ring competition when he won the 2016 Royal Rumble and had already been named the company Chief Operating Officer. It doesn't matter if he had already been a Champion prior to that singular occurrence. He was management at that point, management by almost exclusive virtue that he had married into the McMahon family. WWE has done this before, and I wouldn't put it past them to do it again. Vince McMahon thinks he's above the law, or at least above criticism. Any other person sees a crowd that doesn't react to what gets put out, or reacts adversely to it out of revolt and not "heel heat," and they make decisions to tweak things, especially in the face of lower and lower fan engagement. Revenue is one thing, but getting bank for diminishing returns on attendance and television viewing seems like those revenue streams are unsustainable.

But maybe it's a good thing that WWE is considering putting the title on its orange failson. The company probably needs to die for wrestling to live. As long as Titan Sports remains at the vanguard of American wrestling, American wrestling will have a poor public image, and wrestlers will be treated as cattle instead of people. Perhaps the company needs to die like the AWA and WCW did in order for wrestling to continue to survive. Look, I'm not thrilled that AEW only exists because it has corporate billionaire backing, because wrestling, like all industries, should exist as worker-run collectives where the revenue taken after expenses is spread around to all workers, in-ring or out, equally. However, I will take Tony Khan as the big swinging dick in the industry over Vince McMahon anyday.
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The Wrestling Blog's OFFICIAL Best in the World Rankings for June 24, 2019

June 24, 2019, 12:00 pm
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MDK MEXICO BABY
Photo Credit: Burning Hammer Photography
Welcome to a feature I like to call "Best in the World" rankings. They're not traditional power rankings per se, but they're rankings to see who is really the best in the world, a term bandied about like it's bottled water or something else really common. They're rankings decided by me, and don't you dare call them arbitrary lest I smack the taste out of your mouth. Without further ado, here's this week's list:

1. Nick Gage (Last Week: Not Ranked) - AAA announced that they will be booking The King in a hardcore match against Pagano, Psicosis, and Joe Lider. If you're going to do a deathmatch, you best bring in the best to do it, or at least one of the best. Maybe AAA will book Gage vs. Masashi Takeda. Or maybe Gage will just find his way to just stab everyone on the roster and claim his rightful place as the Extreme King of Mexico. I guess it's just wait and see on that one.

2. Sasha Banks (Last Week: 7) - The newest Corgi Mom of Wrestling showed she can do the memes too. Whatever WWE pays her to come back won't be enough.

3. Fried Chicken and Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - Everything at the Jersey Shore is about 20 percent more expensive than it should be. Still, you want to look for the best stuff regardless. You don't want to pay $10 for a shitty fast food cheeseburger, you wanna spend it on a perfectly browned grilled cheese sandwich with solid melted American cheese AND cheddar cheese sauce, perfectly fried fresh chicken, and crispy bacon. Bonus points if you can get it delivered to the actual beach.

4. Orange Cassidy (Last Week: 2) - Lost in the debate on who the best wrestler in the world is, did anyone stop to consider it's really Orange Cassidy? No? Well, then.

5. Megan Rapinoe (Last Week: Not Ranked) - The United States Women's National soccer team faced a hard challenge in Spain today in the playoff round of the World Cup, but Rapinoe put the game away with a goal late. She's perhaps the most important soccer player, regardless of gender in history, or at least since Brandi Chastain. Honestly, she should be the President. She'd do a shit-ton better than what we got now.

6. Jack White (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Look, he may look like a Kawaii drawing of Brian Johnson right now who is unnecessarily a Luddite who wishes that it was the '90s... the 1890s, but the man can still helm a tremendous rock record. The new Raconteurs LP, Help Me, Stranger, fuckin' rips, and you should all listen to it now.

7. Rep. Ilhan Omar (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Along with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Omar will author a bill that will eliminate all student loan debt in the United States. The combined number is now at $1.6 TRILLION, which is staggering, but not nearly as staggering as the amount of money spent on the country's constant wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the operation of military bases in countries it hasn't been at war with in 75 years. If you want to know which expenditure would benefit this country, the PEOPLE of this country more, it would be the one spearheaded by Omar.

8. Drew Gulak (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Gulak brought home another Championship to Philadelphia by winning the Cruiserweight Championship on the Stomping Grounds pre-show. Sure, it might be a minor title, but the last two times a Philadelphia area team won a title outside of the Big Four pro sports, Big Four teams won their titles. The Phillies' 2008 World Series was foretold by the Philadelphia Soul winning the Arena Football League title. The Eagles 2017/'18 Super Bowl had the first Villanova National Championship in men's basketball as a precursor. Does this mean the 76ers will in the NBA Championship within the next two-or-three seasons? I think it's a certainty.

9. Dana Brooke (Last Week: Not Ranked) - She got busted open last week during Main Event against Sarah Logan. A lesser wrestler would've run, hid, and possibly whined on Twitter. Instead, Brooke took a picture of her Muta Scale'd face. METAL AS HELL.

10. Otis Dozovic (Last Week: 10) -


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Meet the Field for the 2019 Scenic City Invitational

June 25, 2019, 6:00 am
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Is it finally Henry's year?
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein
The Scenic City Invitational has carved out quite the niche, filling in a marquee tournament for the South that has been left vacant since the end of the Jeff Petersen Memorial Tournament in Florida. Several wrestlers have cycled through including the likes of Matt Riddle, Moose, Joey Janela, Darby Allin, Fred Yehi, PCO, Jaxson Ryker (Gunner/Phil Shatter then), and Jimmy Rave. This year continues the Chattanooga tradition, the fifth annual tournament. Only one past winner returns, so the field might be wide open for a new Champion. All the names have been announced, so I will run them down for you.

AC Mack - He won the Scenic City Rumble to get an automatic bid, but Mack might've been here even without the punched ticket. He's the reigning and defending ACTION Wrestling Champion with a penchant for getting under people's skins. Look for him to make a deep run while irritating some of the fan favorites.

Anthony Henry - A Scenic City veteran from the first one, Henry returns to see if the fifth time is a charm. A high flyer who has made some waves in EVOLVE, Henry looks to keep the trophy down South.

B-Boy - The New Age Punisher is still around, perhaps the most veteran competitor. Longtime indie fans have seen him kick ass and take names with the best of them in promotions around the country. Few people are as intense as him when brawling.

Billy Buck - I'm not as familiar with Buck as most, but he seems like a safe pick to advance far in the tournament. Excited to see him do his thing. ETA: Buck has been one of the most decorated Georgia indie wrestlers of the last decade, most recently placing as a finalist in the Scenic City Trios tournament.

Brett Ison - A big lad, Ison is the reigning and defending Southern Underground Pro Bonestorm Champion. He comes with the highest HOSS FIGHT recommendations.

Daniel Makabe - Wrestling Twitter sniffs out a guy every once in awhile who ends up taking the indies by storm. Timothy Thatcher and Fred Yehi give way to Makabe, a technical genius from the Pacific Northwest.

Jaden Newman - Newman made some waves at Young Lions Cup this year, impressing fans at the Wrestle Factory for two shows. The Southern gyms are more of his home base, as he will look to take his athleticism far into the tournament.

JD Drake - Another Southern boy done well in EVOLVE, Drake contributes to the BIG BOY SZN going on in 'Nooga.

Joey Lynch - Lynch won the whole damn thing last year and wants to do it again. An old school Southern rassler with some modern high-flying tricks up his sleeve, Lynch has to be a threat to repeat.

Kevin Ku - You want to talk about intense, hard-hitting dudes with chips on their shoulders? Ku is your man. He will kick you in the face and chop your chest and then yell at you that you don't respect him enough. He's the most emo wrestler in this thing in the best way possible.

Marko Stunt - He broke out at Scenic City Futures, and the rest, as they say, is history. Stunt sat out too long for his liking with a broken leg, but he's raring to go, showing the world that big force comes in small packages. I don't care how small you are, when you jump from heights and land on people, it's effective.

Matt Tremont - Man, few people can get downright as violent as the Bulldozer. Tremont is a veritable LEGEND in the Philly deathmatch scene, and his hulking frame provides the heft necessary for maximum carnage. Whether he's there for one match or all three, he will make his mark.

Nick Iggy - Although Iggy is the only Carny in the tournament, he surely will bring the traveling show to 'Nooga with all the pomp and spectacle. ETA: I was mistaken that Kerry Awful was originally scheduled for the tourney; he was not.

O'Shay Edwards - He's another Southern mainstay whom I don't know much about. Unlike Buck, he's newer to the scene, but like Buck, he comes highly regarded. ETA: He has made some waves in the last few months, joining the Ring of Honor Dojo, wrestling and defeating Vordell Walker, and placing as a finalist in the Scenic City Rumble.

Slim J - If anyone can match B-Boy in experience in this year's tournament, it's Slim J, one of the great junior heavyweights in Southern indie history. He's got a ton of experience, but he can still move with the best of them.

Tony Deppen - Rounding out the field is Deppen, who is one-half of Chikara's Campeonatos de Parejas and a member of Team FIST. He may look like Yung Chuck Taylor, but if you can believe it, he's even crazier. Blame the Combat Zone Wrestling upbringing.

And to top it all off, the folks in charge announced all the first round matches, which are as follows:
  • AC Mack vs. Jaden Newman
  • Marko Stunt vs. Billy Buck
  • Kevin Ku vs. Nick Iggy
  • Matt Tremont vs. Brett Ison
  • Daniel Makabe vs. Tony Deppen
  • JD Drake vs O'Shay Edwards
  • Slim J vs. B-Boy
  • Joey Lynch vs. Anthony Henry
I see a few notable matches here. Tremont/Ison should be a slugfest. Slim J and B-Boy is a meeting of the two most storied wrestlers in this tournament. Lynch/Henry features a former winner against someone who struggled to get up the hill. But Makabe/Deppen is by far the most intriguing match to me. While Travis Huckabee is the noted technical wizard in Team FIST, Deppen is there because he has chops on the mat. If he can keep pace with Makabe, this match will be among the best not only of the weekend, but of the year.

The Scenic City Invitational for the fifth straight year boasts a strong lineup on paper. I would be shocked if it did not for a fifth consecutive year deliver as promised. The more regions in the country that have big tournaments like this, the healthier the indie wrestling scene is. The South has a ton to offer, and once again, the SCI will show that for the entire nation.
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Read Linda McMahon's "Red Flags" for the Trump Cabinet

June 25, 2019, 8:00 am
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All those red flags
Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The friendship between the Trump and McMahon families goes back at least 30+ years. Donald Trump hosted two consecutive WrestleManias, and he was a fixture in WWE crowds over the years. The relationship culminated in him cornering Bobby Lashley against Umaga (cornered by Vince McMahon) at WrestleMania XXIII. So it would make sense that if Vince didn't get a nod for Trump's cabinet that his wife Linda, who ran two unsuccessful Senate campaigns, would. If you can't win an election, the next best thing is to have your family friend shuttle you into government in a position only he can choose. The grift continues.

While the McMahon matriarch has been reported to have stepped down from her role as head of the Small Business Administration, according to a simple Internet search, she's still on Trump's cabinet. Of course, McMahon was never not going to get the position, but as with any cabinet position, she needed to be vetted so as not to encounter any surprises from the Senate that had to confirm her. Axios got a hold of her vetting sheet, and it includes both stuff most folks know and stuff that might open some eyes.

The bog standard stuff is bog standard: Chris Benoit murder-suicide, George Zahorian and steroids, the concussion study, abuse of the independent contractor label. A few things are a bit surprising though. It covers some lesser known scandals in the mainstream that insiders and nerds know about like the "Ring Boy" scandal, where Tom Cole, who was hired as a gofer for the company at the age of 13 was subjected to WWE officials masturbating in his presence, grabbing his genitals, and making unwanted advances to him. While he never specified who did what, he ended up filing suit against Mel Phillips, Pat Patterson, and Terry Garvin. It also features Superstar Graham and Billy Jack Haynes detailing sexual harassment of male wrestlers by WWE officials in the open in the locker room. It turns out that for as homophobic as WWE's product was and has been over the years, it was a front for several gay people in the office, including Pat Patterson, allegations against whom caused him to resign from the company for a bit.

It also details some surprising donations from McMahon and the WWE in general, as several donations were made to Democratic candidates and PACs. However, judging from the most prominent and famous recipient of donations, current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, the McMahon/WWE donation machine wasn't giving money to the left wing of the party. Even though he was Barack Obama's chief of staff, Emanuel is known as one of the most conservative Democrats, as his record as mayor of Chicago shows. It should also be noted that even though donations to the Democrats were made, Donald Trump himself was registered as a Democrat well into the 21st Century.

Another surprise that really isn't surprising is that McMahon and WWE received $3 million in government subsidies. McMahon herself criticized government bailouts, but she and her company took all that money. It's not surprising, as Republicans are noted hypocrites and also the biggest recipients of corporate welfare. They rail against socialism, but what is happening now is certainly socialism benefiting the rich and the elites. Remember that the next time the McMahons claim they built up from nothing, especially since the McMahons filed for bankruptcy after backing several bad investments (including an Evel Knievel jump). McMahon didn't work his way up as much as he reached out to his estranged father and got himself a wrestling company.

Maybe that rap sheet is more for politics nerds than wrestling people, but it's important to know how shitty the people in capital are, not just to know that they are. The Ring Boy scandal alone should have tanked WWE at the start, but it goes to show how much the elites protect each other. Vince and Linda McMahon both survived scandal after scandal and have been rewarded with money and influence. It sucks, but until the whole system changes, it's what's going to happen.
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Social Justice Is a Good Thing, or Shut Up, Boomers

June 25, 2019, 10:00 am
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Young, shown here staring down Punishment Martinez, has some ugly opinions
Photo Credit: ROHWrestling.com
Pro wrestling has at least in theory been for everyone for most if not all of its existence, at least dating back to the rise of Gorgeous George. Where else but a wrestling ring could you find men dressing up gaudily and flamboyantly, playing up every detail that was socially taboo for them while wriggling and writhing against each others' bodies. Even if the people telling the stories heeled gay or effeminate men, they still resonated with gay fans. And even though, thanks to the Fabulous Moolah, female representation was stunted in pro wrestling for at least two decades in total and even longer in America, women could get their fill of hunks parading around without shirts or long pants on. It might be a crude view of a neanderthal-minded business, but it's not like wrestling had to be woke to appeal to all demographics.

But wrestling companies did the smart thing and started to become "woke," or at least pretended to be such, and outreach to all different demographics started in earnest. I can't say it really was in good faith at least until extremely recently, but one could say it's better late than never. Others, who correctly say that cops and corporations should not be welcome at Pride, say it's not enough, but it's also still better than what WWE was doing as late as, say, 2004. Of course, the most infinitesimally small change to the better will be seen as a massive overreach by idiots stuck in 1840. Take for example Silas Young, a midcarder in a floundering company known as Ring of Honor. Young's gimmick is that he's the "Last Real Man," which is an incredibly on-point heel gimmick for the modern day, when masculinity's definition is constantly being redefined and where gender has been discovered to be a spectrum. Many people say that the best gimmicks are extensions of one's self, and unfortunately with Young, that is the case.


The sad thing is that this is perhaps the most cowardly way of putting his feelings because he never says that offending gay, Black, Jewish, or other demographic minorities is part of what makes society flaccid and "PC." They're all code words though. People love ripping on fat, vegan, gluten-free, or nerdy folks, although that last one might be either a) outdated thanks to nerd culture dominating movies and television or b) accurate because nerds are among the worst bigots out there. But I digress. The fact that he wants to go back ten years so he could offend more people than what feels socially acceptable, when ten years ago people were making the same complaints about not being able to offend people like they could ten years prior, when 20 years ago, people were complaining about not being able to offend like ten years prior and so on just shows that he just wants to let some inner ugliness out. Even now, the pushback against fatphobia or making fun of people for dietary reasons is starting to grow. I can't imagine what people like Young will be like in ten more years.

It's not just confined to the world of wrestling. The National Basketball Association recently decided it wasn't going to use the term "owners" anymore because the idea of one dude or a corporation "owning" a team of mostly Black men just doesn't have the best optics. They're opting to use the term "governors," and folks, the crusty old White dudes aren't having it, especially Jim Ross:


Ross hasn't shied away from critiquing the "snowflakes" online, calling anyone who calls him on his shit a "keyboard warrior." It is telling, however, that Ross is the first to complain about PC culture making everyone soft, but here he is whining about a simple name change for the most privileged group of idiots in sport. Team governors are among the most hubristic and ignorant people in the world, and they get deified by the press and a working class that seems to think a billionaire owner is less of an anathema than a millionaire player. I mean, take for example in the NBA Finals when one of the co-governors of the Warriors shoved Kyle Lowry. He got a year ban from going to games, but had it been the inverse, and Lowry went into this guy's office and shoved him, the police would've shot Lowry dead when they got to the scene.

What people like Ross and Young don't understand — or they do understand and either don't know it makes them villains or they embrace it — is that social justice is a good thing. Putting people on an equal plane with each other and treating everyone justly and fairly should be a goal that everyone strives for, but the people who have power and money don't want to give it up. They're nothing more than the whining children who don't want to share their myriad toys with siblings or friends who don't have anything. If you were a parent, you'd scold the former, right? Then why do people continue to give the powerful the benefit of the doubt? It's maddening.

The worst thing is that people involved in wrestling who want to make it a conservative haven have no idea what the sport/art they participate in is about. Pro wrestling, by its very nature, is where anything can happen. They don't know the history of their industry, and they don't know how even at its most closed in how much power it has given the people they want to shut up by enforcing their anti-PC bullshit. The thing is one might expect it from Ross, who is a baby boomer. The boomers are perhaps the most entitled generation, the last generation to have it better than the one before it, and the ones who fucked society almost irreparably for everyone who followed. Of course they're going to be irritable.

What's Young's excuse? Dude was born in 1979, which puts him squarely at the borderline of Generation X and the millennials. You'd think that he'd get it a little bit, especially since he works for a floundering wrestling company. Maybe he blames those damn millennials like The Elite for leaving and leaving him with less of a payday. I don't know. Either way, it's incredibly wrong that Young or Ross or anyone who pines for the good old days when they could slur minorities with no repercussions to think that today's society is soft. Despite the fact that people want PC culture to dominate, the marginalized are still hella marginalized. Black people are poor at a disproportionate rate from White people. Trans people have far higher suicide rates than cis people. Only two percent of rapes that get reported, itself a small subset of total rapes, end up in convictions for the perpetrator. If you think those people have it easy today, then you're more ignorant than I thought. It's why being a social justice warrior is beyond any shadow of a doubt a good thing.
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The Black Should-Have-Been WWE Champions

June 25, 2019, 12:00 pm
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Kofi Kingston is a worthy Champion, but WWE's history with Black wrestlers is not ideal
Photo Credit: WWE.com
When writing about the looming Sword of Damocles that was Shane McMahon as WWE Champion yesterday, I noted that giving a company that has only allowed four Black men to hold a version of its top title in its 50+ year history the benefit of the doubt would be a mistake. It made me wonder what the demographic breakdown of everyone who held the WWWF/WWF/WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship, and Universal Championship would be. As it turned out, 61 men held some version of the top title. Of that number, 47 were White, three Black (Booker T, Mark Henry, Kofi Kingston), four Latinx (Pedro Morales, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Alberto del Rio), two Pacific Islander (Yokozuna, Roman Reigns), two Indian (Great Khali, Jinder Mahal), one Persian (Iron Sheik), one Asian (Batista who is Filipino), and then you had The Rock, who claims a multiracial background that includes Pacific Islander and Black heritage. Seeing as WWE is a worldwide company, and White people are vastly outnumbered, the 77 percent White World Champions is out of whack with what the representation should have been. Focusing squarely on America, the disproportionality of White vs. Black Champions specifically feels off, especially given how many Black fans WWE has at a given time.

It's not like WWE didn't have opportunities to put its top title on a Black man. While I cannot speak for pre-Vincent Kennedy McMahon (W)WWF, I have a fairly good idea of how many Black WWE wrestlers could and/or SHOULD have held the title since the beginning of the WrestleMania era. I will list them below:

Junkyard Dog - The interesting thing about JYD is that if Vince McMahon couldn't poach Hulk Hogan from the American Wrestling Association, he would have gone into national expansion on Sylvester Ritter's broad shoulders. If JYD was a backup plan, why did he never win the top title at least once as a test run or at least as a "gold watch?" He was one of the most beloved wrestlers in Mid-South history. Perhaps the reason was that he was pretty busted up by the time he got to WWE. Still, that didn't stop them from running Andre the Giant in the main event of WrestleMania III or giving him the title in the run-up to WrestleMania IV.

JYD could have been Champion sometime during Hogan's epic first reign with the title. I would have put the title on him somewhere around the fall of 1986, after having a token heel like King Kong Bundy or Harley Race winning it at Madison Square Garden. He could have held the title into WrestleMania III defending against a heel challenger on the undercard while Hogan/Andre headlined without the title. Or perhaps his reign could have ended somewhere in January allowing Andre to go into Mania III as Champion. I'm not sure history would have looked at Hogan any less fondly with the interruption in his reign.

Bad News Brown - One of the first true badasses in WWE, Brown cast a fearsome presence. He projected anger and hatred like few others could, and his brawling skills backed it up bigtime. Of course, WWE had reasons not to push him, but they were mostly reasons that scared White dudes with power use not to push a POC that isn't some kind of shucking-and-jiving gimmick, friendly to viewers who didn't want to confront their racism. Rather than doing free propaganda for the US government in their push to go to war with Iraq, Brown would have been a far better candidate to upend the Ultimate Warrior at the 1991 Royal Rumble than Iraqi traitor Sgt. Slaughter. Granted, going back in time with the optics of the present make Hogan going over a Black guy at Mania not so great, but Brown would've still been an incredible WWE Champion nonetheless.

Faarooq/Ron Simmons - Simmons became the first ever Black World Champion in any major promotion when he defeated Big Van Vader for the World Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship in 1992. Why didn't he repeat the feat in WWE? The answer may lie in how he was presented at first, coming in as a fetishized gladiator in foam-rubber gear as a vehicle for Sunny to get over. However, when he adopted the Black liberation character in the Nation of Domination, it was the perfect time to put the title on him. While I view Black liberation as a babyface gimmick, sometimes, you have to play with the cards you're dealt. Faarooq going into WrestleMania 13 as Champion would've been a far better option than a second Sycho Sid reign, especially with his challenger...

Ahmed Johnson - Yeah, Johnson wasn't very good at wrestling, but by this time, WWE still didn't care about workrate. I mean, at this point, Sid was still Championship material, and you know if McMahon could, he would have put the title on Warrior again. Johnson was charismatic and had a dope finisher. Had they cultivated his character better, him challenging Faarooq in the main event of WrestleMania 13 would've packed an enormous emotional punch.

Shelton Benjamin - Even more than Edge or CM Punk, Benjamin embodied Money in the Bank. The fact that he never won one feels criminal to me. Would he have been a good Champion? It remains to be seen, but WWE put one of the belts on Great Khali at some point. Benjamin would've at least been a decent Champion who could work good-to-great matches, and unlike the other guy they tried in that role, he didn't end up murdering his wife and kid. The thing is, the match he should've won was the one he wasn't involved in. WrestleMania 23 saw him standing on the sidelines as a lumberjack. I would've put him in this match and had him win the briefcase. In hindsight, he'd have been a far better winner than Mr. Kennedy, who never even got the chance to use his briefcase as he got hurt, necessitating him losing it to Edge.

Montel Vontavious Porter - I have no idea why MVP never won the title. He was involved in some prominent feuds and helped carry the midcard titles in an era where the cupboards were pretty bare. Was he a victim of WWE signing a bunch of indie guys around the time he was ready to be done with the company? Did WWE not want to put the title on someone with a criminal past? It didn't stop them when they put the belt on Randy Orton the first, second, third, and every time after when he had a history of desertion in the military. MVP could have won either title somewhere in 2009 or 2010. The titles were pretty free-flowing at that point.

Postscript - Of the four men with Black heritage who held some version of the big title, only one won his at about the right time. Some might say that The Rock won his first title prematurely, that he wasn't ready. In retrospect, I think his first win at Survivor Series '98 was probably perfect timing. The other three, however, probably could and should have won the title sooner:

Mark Henry - Henry probably should have won the title within five years of joining the company. Sure, he was pretty green, but he was a victim of coming in at the absolute wrong time and also of racism. Here you had a big Black guy who couldn't work, but you could bounce any number of really bad and really hurtfully stereotypical gimmicks on him, hence Sexual Chocolate. His Hall of Pain run in 2011 isn't something so nuanced that you had to teach him. A rampaging Henry could've been a perfect foil for Mankind, Steve Austin, or even former stablemate The Rock.

Booker T - Although I was a huge Chris Jericho fan back then (and still am for the most part, at least in the ring), Booker T should have unified the WWE and WCW Championships, and he should have done it far sooner than Vengeance 2001. In fact, Booker probably should have been positioned as the top heel for The Alliance, not Austin. While his heel turn was brilliantly executed at WrestleMania X-7, it lost a ton of steam, and the reinforcement of it for him to join the Alliance was a mistake. Booker as the lead villain from the point of the Alliance's beginning to its end would've created a supernova star in WWE. Instead, he never really got above the level of the upper midcard/occasional main event guy.

Kofi Kingston - While Kingston's reign right now has been as great as anything in 2019 WWE could be, I firmly believe he should have won the 2010 Royal Rumble. He was riding a huge wave after getting over on Randy Orton and being the sole survivor in his match at Survivor Series '09. Kingston for some reason stalled out after that, a combination of Vince McMahon knowing he was getting Edge back and some form of latent racism. The final nail was put in the coffin when he was out of place on a RKO attempt, and Orton pitched a temper tantrum the likes of which were outrageous, even for his pissbaby standards. For whatever reason, Kingston's rise to the top was truncated and only restored when Mustafa Ali got hurt and the company cooled on reintroducing Bray Wyatt before Mania. All the best things happen in WWE by accident, even when those things are delayed indefinitely from the initial time of when they should've happened.

WWE's history with race relations is abysmal, but it can get better. It has a crop of Black wrestlers who can carry the company in the future all around its roster. Whether it be Velveteen Dream, Big E, Xavier Woods, Isaiah Scott, Jordan Myles, Dio Maddin, Cedric Alexander, Montez Ford, or even Bobby Lashley, the crop of Black excellence in WWE right now can help the company right the ship. However, WWE has to be willing to do such a thing. The question is, will they allow it to happen?
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Seth Rollins, Company Man

June 26, 2019, 6:00 am
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Pictured: a sycophant
Photo Credit: WWE.com
So WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins spent Monday and now Tuesday beefing with known misogynist and rape apologist Will Ospreay for no other reason than he's hyper-protective of the WWE brand in a time when the WWE brand is at its lowest value since 1995. Was his spat with Ospreay over boring shit like who would be better, how many shows they worked, or who made more money borne out of ego, or did he do it out of duty to his employer, err, I'm sorry, the company that has him on exclusive retainer? Well, he went on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina and made it clear that it was the latter by attempting to bury former stablemate and supposed friend Jon Moxley:
Ambrose can do what he wants, he's a big boy. He's got his big boy pants on. He can go out there and say whatever he wants. But the bottom line is not everyone is equipped to handle the rigors of the WWE and the schedule and how it affects you mentally and emotionally. Ambrose gave everything he had for the company, he put his heart and soul into the travel and the schedule and the injuries, into y'know, the work in the ring. All that stuff. But at the end of the day he took his ball and went home or went elsewhere at least. And I think it's a little presumptuous of him to get on a podcast and talk down about the company that gave him such opportunities. I just don't think, again, there's any reason to hop on a soapbox and complain after the fact. You need to take the first step and that's looking in a mirror and asking yourself, "Did you do every single thing you possibly could to make yourself and your situation what you want it to be?"
Talk about a backstabbing.

First, it's rich that Rollins used the terminology "took his ball and went home" when Moxley did everything the right way. He played out his contract, did every date he was contracted to do, did jobs, took bumps for Nia Jax, and virtually buried his friend EC3. He could not have been more deferential to WWE and the rest of the roster on his way out, and a dude whom he said he considered a brother shoveled dirt on him after it all went down. It would be one thing if Paul Levesque did the burying himself, but he's too savvy to go on something as below him as a podcast. I would bet half of what's in my checking account on Friday on Rollins being fed those lines from good ol' Uncle Paul. Still, if that indeed was the case, what a craven sack of shit Rollins is for agreeing to disparage Moxley like that.

Second, go back to what Moxley said on the Talk Is Jericho podcast. One, he thanked WWE for the opportunity and offered up his critiques of the creative process. Now, I'm not saying he was right to thank WWE; people can get attached to their places of work even if their bosses donate to Donald Trump and go into business with a genocidal regime. That being said, Moxley didn't completely bury WWE. He also said NOT A SINGLE CROSS WORD about Rollins. For Rollins to take criticisms of WWE to his own heart and basically slander Moxley is real betrayal.

Third, before his injury, Moxley worked the most matches in WWE during his tenure on the roster. It's insane that someone who worked that hard and that long couldn't handle the "rigors of the WWE schedule," especially since Rollins has shown he's more injury-prone. It could be that Rollins is less lucky. It could also be that being as into CrossFit as Rollins is can increase the probability of injuries. Either one works, but before he got sick of what management was throwing at him, I think Moxley showed the ability to handle that impossibly difficult schedule as well as anyone could.

Wrestling is a cutthroat business, and one shouldn't be surprised when someone in WWE takes a potshot at someone who leaves and goes to the competition. It's so disappointing though in this case because Rollins showed himself to be just another brown-nose corporate suck-up whose ambitions aren't so much being the best he can be at wrestling but getting as much dap from Levesque as possible, kind of the career path Levesque himself took. Obviously, Rollins can't marry into the McMahon family, but that won't stop him from being the dude at your office who brings donuts in for management and management alone or who tattles on other workers for browsing Twitter instead of doing TPS reports. No one really wants to see that kind of person succeed, whether or not they're good at what they do.

But is Rollins really good at what he does? I don't think he's all that special in the ring, but I'm just some random dickhead on the Internet. It would take thousands of people voicing similar opinions, and well guess what, several of Rollins' marquee matches in the last year have gotten the rowdy fan rebellion treatment. Maybe he should step back and reflect why so many of his big matches have flopped and realize that maybe sucking up to Levesque and the McMahons isn't as good a path as perhaps using the influence he has to get them to think about how they present the product differently. Shitting on Moxley certainly isn't the answer, though.
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How Wrestling Can Explore the Studio Space, or an English Degree IS Worth a Good Bit

June 26, 2019, 11:50 am
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Having good narrative structure prevents feuds like these from lasting two shows past when they should've ended
Photo Credit: WWE.com
"Storytelling" is an important word in pro wrestling. Match quality dorks (myself included) like to use it to describe what good wrestlers do, whether or not they understand how said wrestlers tell the story. Wrestling promotions' jobs between the matches is to tell stories as a way to get from match to match. Some companies, like Chikara, are good at it. Some companies, like WWE, suck at it. Still other companies, like Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, don't even try that hard. The key to telling a good story is to know how to tell one, which sounds reductive. However, even people who get paid gobs of money to tell stories in other media ignore the things that make good stories good. For example, when asked about themes in their hit show, Game of Thrones, showrunner David Benioff said "Themes are for eighth grade book reports. Given how far off a cliff the show fell in its final season, well, I can believe that answer was genuine.

Storytelling in wrestling, when it's good, rarely reaches levels of intricacy that the best authors and playwrights and filmmakers attain. It's simple and based on primal conflict, man vs. man rather than man vs. God or technology or whatever other themes are prevalent in literature/art. However, more often than not, promoters and bookers muddle even the simplest storytelling with delaying the resolution, nonsensical swerves, or putting wrestlers in a series of matches with no real plot advancement other than someone winning and calling it a feud. It's easy to say that WWE is the biggest culprit, because they are, but they are far from the only one, whether current or historically. It's almost like a wrestling company, in addition to having a support staff direct and train the wrestlers on how to do the wrestling portion should have some kind of staff that advises and trains the writers and bookers on how to tell stories.

It's not just companies like WWE and All Elite Wrestling that should have people who have studied narrative construction and criticism. Every company should have someone in house who knows this kind of stuff. For the bigger companies, they should definitely dip into their billions of dollars to have someone on staff that knows how to construct a story, telling the bookers to knock it off when they decide they want to nix a logical resolution point so they can get another Takeover main evented by Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano. Not only should these writing consultants be able to add basic things like story structure to an angle/feud (introduction-rising action-climax-falling action-resolution), but do things like foreshadowing or adding a greater thematic element than just "dude wants a title." Not that that conceit is bad per se, and you can do simple feuds like that with narrative structure that would enhance them. A title feud that involves the title itself needs that five-part structure anyway.

People like to say that wrestling is "just" wrestling and it can't be something more, something artistic. I see people pushing back against the theater kids, which okay, their introduction into wrestling has added some unwanted elements like main events that at mandatory have to go 20 minutes to mean something even if they only should have at best 12 minutes of content to work through. But it's not like the carny-ass world of wrestling was perfect before they flocked to it. I mean, look at the entirety of Vince Russo's career in creative. Or the days of the territories when people would promise big title unification matches between the WWWF/NWA/AWA Champions only to see them go to a bait-and-switch with a double-countout finish. Every industry can stand a bit of continuous improvement. Wrestling itself is a storytelling medium, so going more and more elaborate with the story conceits that get you from point A to point B can't hurt it if they're done right. The matches don't have to change drastically. It'll still be wrestling even if the characters are attempting to recreate Hamlet or Seven Samurai in graps form.

So who could come aboard to help spruce up wrestling's narrative fidelity? English majors, of course! The much maligned denizens of any given college campus by the titans of industry who GOT JOBS thanks to their degrees are certainly not pursuing useless degrees. English degrees at least get a foot in the door at schools, where young people learn the language and the critical analyzing skills that can help them navigate through things like fake news. They certainly keep the entertainment business afloat. They go onto law school. They write grants. It's not the barren wasteland that leads to baristadom that idiot conservative jagoffs malign it as. And thus, with wrestling companies needing people who know how to navigate literature and narrative structure, well, that's another prospective job for them that should be available.

For bigger promotions with money, this kind of hire should be a no-brainer. For smaller companies that live on the margins, well, I'd think that someone like that would be worth the $50-$100 that one might give to a wrestler for a payoff for a single show. You want the best possible presentation, right? So you get someone in there who knows how to make stories work, and how to keep fans hooked for more than just the wrestling, for when you don't have someone like Orange Cassidy or Marko Stunt or Allie Kat coming in as a guest star. If wrestling is storytelling, then wrestling companies should have someone who knows a thing or two about it on hand. Expecting carnies and grifters to tell a good story rather than attempting cheap tricks for extended payoffs on stories past their due date is a foolish endeavor.
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R. Budd Dreamer Almost Happened

June 27, 2019, 5:45 am
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Thankfully Dreamer didn't go through with his plan at Mania X-7, but man, MAN
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Professional wrestling is a brutal sport/art for the performers involved. Even without the extreme cases like Chris Benoit or Mitsuharu Misawa, a career in wrestling can leave its participants in constant pain during and after their careers. Taking bumps can wreak havoc on ones muscular and skeletal systems long after they've taken their last. If that were the only caveat, wrestling might not have the shitty reputation it has nowadays. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is an epidemic among people in contact sports such as American football, ice hockey, and, yes, pro wrestling because of the trauma sustained to the head during the run of play. CTE has become more and more of a problem as the head has become more and more of a focus on various spots, whether self-inflicted like off the diving headbutt from the top rope, or absorbed from another wrestler like, well, nearly every other spot designed to concentrate impact on the skull and neck.

If I had to hazard a guess, the largest concentration of CTE-afflicted wrestlers probably lies in the Extreme Championship Wrestling roster, at least stateside. One of the basic tenets of EXTREME was that no unprotected chairshot to the head was left in the ring. ECW probably had more undiagnosed concussions than Lex Luger and The Big Show have heel/face turns combined. It shouldn't be surprising when a wrestler from that company comes forward and admits they showed symptoms of CTE. However, nothing could prepare me and many other people for that matter for this confession from Tommy Dreamer on his House of Hardcore podcast this week:
When ECW went out of business I was 29 years old. I had a lot of my money, my parents’ money, trying to float the company. Paul Heyman, who I thought me and him were super tight, he screwed me over big time. He was in the WWE, the whole time. I had turned down hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to WCW. And now was unemployed. I went from a $750,000 offer, and Paul Heyman crying to me, that if I leave ECW, it will go out of business. Meanwhile, he was getting a paycheck from WWE. I don’t begrudge him, but then I did. I was depressed as depressed can be. I had women, I had fame, I had everything and yet it was the worst time of my life. It really was. I was doing indies, making decent money on the indies. But, I lived at home.

This is crazy for me to admit it, but I am doing it for a reason, just like I admitted to other things previously. WrestleMania Houston (X-7) Paul Heyman told me I was going to debut. All this stuff, when they had TLC and Spike Dudley came in, and Rhyno came in, and Lita came in. That was supposed to be my spot and then uh, that got ixnayed. Then there was gonna be a hardcore 24/7 thing, that was gonna be “all about you”. That was when I was supposed to debut. I remember I did a show there, and I saw a sign that said “Guns Welcome” and I was in Houston. I did an indie show, and I said: “What is this?” I’m from New York, what do you mean “Guns Welcome?” and they said “Oh you are allowed to bring a firearm into the venue. I was across the street from the Astrodome. When I tell you it resonated in my head so, so much. That I’ll tell you what I wanted to do. It’s sick that I think this. At WrestleMania, I was gonna hop the rail and I was gonna whack Paul E. in the back of the head right at the announce table, then I was gonna whack myself. The ultimate martyr, I was gonna hit my pose crack, boom, pull the trigger. Because I was that insane.

Don’t know if I would have went through with it, but that’s what I was thinking about every day. I was like “I will go down in history.” Pop, boom. First, they’d think it as an angle until I shot him. I was so severely depressed and so mental with rage, I needed help. That help came from a phone call from Jim Ross. Randomly I get a phone call from a number I didn’t know… I didn’t pick up, and I remember having these thoughts, and it was bad. I had a gun, I was psssh man. Could you think about the horribleness that I would have done for my legacy? I would have ruined WrestleMania, which I love Wrestlemania. For everybody. These thoughts were so so crazed in my head. How dare that person, he screwed my parents over and I come from a mobster mentality. In my head, I was like “I would become infamous.” Which is famous for the wrong reason. I’m glad I didn’t do it. But when that phone call came from Jim Ross. Again, just said leave a message. It said “Hey Tommy it’s Jim Ross, just want to let you know, we are still thinking about you, we are gonna get it done, just got to hang tight. Thank you. Think of how stupid I would have been, how dumb and how messed up my thoughts would have been if they would have come to fruition. I am so happy I didn’t do it, I am so happy that I did get that phone call, from someone who was a stranger, I barely knew the guy. There was another day, there has been a lot of other days.
Now, the first thing that comes to mind is that someone admitting they would have committed live murder on pay-per-view is perhaps the most fucked up thing anyone could admit. CTE or not, that should give anyone pause for ever being in Dreamer's presence again. CTE doesn't make you kill someone other than yourself. CTE didn't make Benoit murder his family. He had that in him before CTE caused him to be depressed. This anecdote shouldn't be used as a garden variety "everyone needs help" mental illness warning. Big Cass/CaZXL publicly revealing his bouts with depression? Yes, that's a good tale to follow for mental health awareness. Dreamer's story should probably paint him in a much ghastlier light than he already is in.

Although the urge to kill someone was probably inside of Dreamer all along, you cannot discount the role that depression caused by CTE, or depression in general, can make someone react. In this case, it's plausible to believe that Dreamer would have been in a depressive state whether or not he had ever taken a chairshot to the head. If what he's saying is an accurate remembrance, then Paul Heyman, who was on WWE's payroll the whole fucking time, screwed him out of three-quarters of a million dollars all while cooking the books and using ECW to enrich himself while not paying the boys AT BEST. AT BEST. At worst, ECW was a money laundering scheme that also served as Heyman's personal enrichment. Can I talk about how Heyman is the biggest fucking fraud in wrestling history, getting over because World Championship Wrestling gave him a legendary stable of wrestlers, becoming a cult hero by serving up what he presented as revolutionary while suckling from Vince McMahon's teat, and then getting to manage perhaps the most can't-miss wrestler ever, all while people fellate him for being the best promo ever when he hasn't cut a different promo from his stock since 1999?

If that weasley piece of shit cost me that much money, I'd probably at least want to see bad fortune befall him. I don't have it in me to kill someone, but man, costing me that much money on a sob story all while you get rich off my work while I fucking starve, well, I think I'd see if I had it in me. Heyman should be in federal prison right now, and yet no one goes after him because time heals all wounds and wrestling attracts the biggest bootlickers to management possible. Dreamer even said he "[doesn't] begrudge Heyman" when he should begrudge him everything. His entire career was almost ruined because Heyman is a greedy sack of shit.

Back to the bootlicking, Dreamer himself shows his hand. He wasn't too broken up about traumatizing millions of viewers or taking the life of someone (no matter if you think Heyman would've deserved it, it's not your place or anyone's place to say, the death penalty is immoral when you do it, when it do it, or even when the State does it). Rather, his biggest concern would've been ruining WrestleMania. Honestly, that would have been my last concern in retrospect, but what do I know. Hell, I feel like if someone got murder-suicide'd at Mania, at least back then, Vince McMahon might have tried to market it. His depravity really has softened over the years.

If anything, Dreamer's anecdote should not be treated like a cutesy fun tale of what would have been. It shows that he probably has massive CTE, and that he really shouldn't be wrestling for anyone. While no one can force him not to wrestle for House of Hardcore, if I were, say, Impact Wrestling or All Elite Wrestling, I would not think about booking him ever again. Will he cease receiving bookings? Probably not. Wrestling promotions are famous for not caring about health if they can sell a single extra ticket. But they should. Dreamer should be making plans to have his brain donated to science after he passes, not continuing to have said brain beaten in in the wrestling ring.
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Time Is a Flat Circle: Bischoff, Heyman to Run WWE Flagship Shows

June 27, 2019, 8:00 am
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Heyman is RAW's retread chief
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Justin Barrasso, WWE's co-opted "journalist" at Sports Illustrated, intimated that the company would be doing something major to change the face of its weekly programming. That act ended up being to bring back Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff to head up RAW and Smackdown respectively as "Executive Directors." In case you're wondering, the year is 2019, not 2003. The good news is neither is currently planned to be on-screen as a management character, although I assume Heyman will continue to appear as Brock Lesnar's advocate. The bad news is that Vince McMahon saw the flagging creative direction of his company and decided that the best option was to go back in time, a move that rarely works. Both Heyman and Bischoff will report directly to McMahon, whom I assume still has veto and script-revising power. That being said, I feel like McMahon, who has an entire new sports league in the XFL to run, would trust someone like Heyman or Bischoff more than he would, say, Ryan Ward or Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Trying to fix a problem by going back in time is not only an overused move in wrestling, it is the signature play for corporations in late-stage capitalism. WWE's metamorphosis from cutting edge "small" business that abused labor laws in order to enrich McMahon into a bloated corporation, emblematic of capitalist blight on this country that SEVERELY abuses labor laws in order to enrich the McMahon family has taken place in plain sight over the last 20 years. This move only magnifies the lack of trust that McMahon has in anyone who debuted in the business in the recent past mainly because it has been by his design. No one he signs to any contract is expected to have a free thought, because drones are the best avenues for which he can make money. The problem is, when the situation calls for people with ideas, well, the only ones he trusts are dinosaurs.

Bischoff hasn't had his fastball creatively since 1996. As for Heyman, well, it remains to be seen if he still can play the game. While he hasn't had a creative responsibility of this magnitude since 2004, his track record is generally good, at least when talking about production only. That being said, the post that went up right before this one shows why naming him to this position right now has terrible optics and also shows how much of a scumbag he really is. Then again, birds of a feather flock together, right? McMahon and Heyman appear to be kindred spirits in terms of screwing over the labor.

It's unknown how this move will improve the product. It won't improve the performance numbers early, because who outside of dorks like me online care about who is writing the show? This kind of news is catered for people deep in the bubble. Casual fans who tune into RAW and have interests outside of wrestling won't care who's running the show. By the time any effects would come into play, there's a good chance that Heyman and/or Bischoff might have quit. Remember, they don't have absolute power, and they still have to answer to McMahon. It all depends on how much the senile old fucker trusts them, and how distracted he is by his Respecting The Troops Football League. Either way, this move feels like a whole lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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The Optics of Running Opposite a Charity Event

June 27, 2019, 10:00 am
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Someone's not a fan of WWE airing EVOLVE the same day as the AEW charity show
Photo via SI Extra Mustard
WWE announced yesterday that for the first time ever, it would air an EVOLVE show on its Network for EVOLVE 131 on July 13. The two promotions have had a loose relationship going back to the days when WWE would allow William Regal and Sami Zayn to appear at EVOLVE shows for meet-and-greets. That loose relationship tightened up when NXT and Performance Center wrestlers started competing at EVOLVE shows and winning titles. Fabian Aichner and the Street Profits held "independent" gold while contracted to WWE, which tells you all you need to know about how "independent" EVOLVE has become. Gabe Sapolsky himself is on the WWE payroll now.

If the timing of WWE hosting EVOLVE's "tenth anniversary" show about five months before EVOLVE's actual anniversary seems off, well, your feelings would be validated. That date is when All Elite Wrestling is running its third show, Fight for the Fallen. If this show was just another interstitial show to build to All Out, that would be one thing. It would still be kinda shitty, in that WWE is leaps bigger than AEW at this point and acting anticompetitively, but it would just be kinda "Vince McMahon or Paul Levesque being petty." A dick move, but not one to get freaked out about. However, Fight for the Fallen is a charity show. All proceeds will go to charities that help combat gun violence or that help victims of it. That move feels like it's more than being petty.

Perhaps you might defend WWE by saying they used to do shit like this to World Championship Wrestling, and vice-versa, but honestly, I can't remember an analogue to this during the Monday Night Wars. When Owen Hart died, WCW didn't take the opportunity to trash WWE, although again, I don't think that situation is all that similar to having a charity show. Still, it was one situation where the companies came to a detente. You'd think that one company, that didn't even get to their television run yet, doing a charity show would be small potatoes enough for WWE to say "no, we'll sit this one out." And granted, EVOLVE is a company that few people outside of those deep in the bubble know about anyway. Still, the idea of putting "indie" wrestling on the Network backed by NXT wrestlers, including the Champion himself Adam Cole, head-to-head with a charity show feels reductive to me. It's a target to the exact same audience that AEW is trying to fortify right now before it starts claiming casual fans with its bigger shows. Maybe it's more of a warning shot than anything else, but warning shots can still fuck you up.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. In fact, AEW wrestler and possible executive Kenny Omega lashed out on Twitter in wake of the announcement:



He then deleted the tweet, because like anything else he does outside of actually wrestling a match or gaming, Omega is awful at social media and having a spine. And of course, the critics came out for him because his sheets aren't quite clean if you catch my drift. To be fair, Omega trying to build an angle in New Japan Pro Wrestling by essentially race-baiting the rest of the roster and also booking a New Japan-associated Fyter Fest show last year using a sex offender's ring and booking that sex offender against a domestic abuser are things he should be dragged across the coals for. Mind you though, a vast number of people in wrestling are scumbags, none more than Vince McMahon.

AEW, by virtue of being owned by a billionaire who gave money to Donald Trump, is not clean, and when things get started, they'll jab at WWE the same way that WWE will continue to use its heft and influence to attempt to keep AEW from gaining a foothold in the marketplace. People who remember the Monday Night Wars will tell you that when McMahon has competition, things get nasty. That being said, it doesn't make it right any more than whatever practices other businesses use. It's just the scummy truth of the thing all wrestling fans love. That being said, if McMahon and Levesque can't hold their guns for a charity show, don't sit back and expect people to think that it's just the practice of doing business. WWE supposedly "cares" about the community. It's why they do Make a Wish and partner with Susan G. Komen (even though Komen is the biggest trash). Hell, according to David Bixenspan, it's the reason why they'll never stop doing house shows, so that they can get the roster into the community to do token outreach. But doing something like this shows that it's all just for public relations. I mean, Stephanie McMahon herself tweeted out why WWE does philanthropy anyway.
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Twitter Request Line, Vol. 265

June 27, 2019, 12:00 pm
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Vince is shook
Photo Credit: WWE.com
It's Twitter Request Line time, everyone! I take to Twitter to get questions about issues in wrestling, past and present, and answer them on here because 280 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, and wait for the call on Wednesday to ask your questions. Hash-tag your questions #TweetBag, and look for the bag to drop Thursday afternoon (most of the time). Without further ado, here are your questions and my answers:

Comparing the period now to back when Ted Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions and consolidated it with other territories in the South to create World Championship Wrestling, yes, he is. When Turner called him to say he was in the 'rasslin business, McMahon's reply told me everything I needed to know about his attitude towards WCW then. Now, back when Nitro had surpassed RAW in the ratings and was poaching all of his old guard stars, he was far more threatened than he feels now about AEW. But I think it's part McMahon learning a lesson and part him realizing he's not a wrestling promoter, but a capitalist, and capitalism means squashing anything that threatens you, baby.

Far be it from me to defend Dave Meltzer, because he's a misogynist creep who likes to gladhand with The Boys rather than report on what's important. That being said, I don't think he ever fully embraced Roman Reigns cancer denialism. He floated the idea that it could have been a work, because he wouldn't put it past McMahon to push the limits of storytelling in risque fashion. Now, is even mentioning the possibility out loud tasteless? When dealing with someone like McMahon, probably not. Did Meltzer get too carried away with it to the point where he may have given the impression that he believed it? I have no idea, because I don't listen to WON Radio. People who do listen said he did, which could be the case. Meltzer is a lot of things, but articulate in his ideas is probably not one of them. But in any regard, if Meltzer was attacking anyone, it was McMahon for even thinking about a crazy idea such as that.

Welcome to Air Frying With Ya Boy, TH. The air fryer is such a new tool, but one that is incredibly useful for replicating the great texture you get from frying without all the grease. People need to know what they can and cannot do with one of those bad boys, so why not let it be me, baby.

I'm going with five, just because a lot of those pay-per-views have been just filler that I can't judge outside of the tippy-top.

5. In Your House: Canadian Stampede - The very definition of "all-killer, no-filler," the worst match on this show was an insanely fun brawl between Triple H and Mankind that leaked over after its finish. Plus, what else can be said about the Great Sasuke/TAKA Michinoku and the ten-main main event matches?

4. WrestleMania X-7 - This was the first time I really thought of WrestleMania being THE marquee show of the year, which is funny because it was the first time it ran when WWE was the unquestioned big dog in American wrestling. I'm in the minority of thinking that the main event finish was outstanding from an artistic standpoint, but regardless, it capped a stellar match. Plus you had the best Streak match ever, and the prime comic relief gimmick battle royale.

3. Extreme Rules 2012 - The weirdest great show ever featured four Match of the Year candidates (Kane/Randy Orton [for real], Daniel Bryan/Sheamus, CM Punk/Chris Jericho, John Cena/Brock Lesnar) peppered with just odd shit interstitially. Like, it had a Ryback squash, the Funkasaurus, and the most unintentionally hilarious tables match finish ever with The Big Show losing after being knocked off the apron and stepping through a table. But those four matches, especially the Bryan/Sheamus and Cena/Lesnar ones, just are ruthless in how good they are.

2. Chikara High Noon - IT was on pay-per-view (well, iPPV), so it counts. I was there live, and the energy was off the charts insane. From the Jigsaw/El Generico match on the preshow all the way through the emotional main event, it was the best way for Chikara to debut with a its shot at live national broadcast. You have to seek out that main event, Eddie Kingston vs. Mike Quackenbush. Even if you know nothing about Chikara going in, you will feel something.

1. WrestleMania XXX - Was it carried by the Daniel Bryan stuff and the shock of the Streak ending? Maybe. But it also featured the biggest thing Cesaro ever got to achieve. The Shield womping on corporate phonies was majorly satisfying. And you can't discount the fact that Bryan vs. Triple H was one of the best Mania matches ever, and that the finish of the show and the scene with the confetti raining down in the Superdome wasn't the best ending ever.

Joke's on you, the only band I've listened to on that list so far is King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Actually, no, not a joke, thank you for the recommendations, I will be looking out for those other three albums when they drop.

As for King Gizzard, they're such a weird band in that they have this titanic output, but it's a sea of uneven albums, but the best ones are among the best albums ever. Paper Mache Dream Balloon, Nonagon Infinity, and Murder of the Universe all stand against any other band's best three albums, but then you get stuff like Sketches of Brunswick East or the latest Fishing for Fishies, which are good, but maybe are too ambitious or just flat out uneven. I guess that's what makes them such an exciting band; you never know what you're going to get. Kudos to them for doing another year with multiple albums though.

Protected user @earthdog asks:
Summer Time Question: What are your top 5 Roller Coasters?
I haven't been on a rollercoaster in a long time, partially because I'm a fatty, and partially because the kids haven't been old enough to really enjoy theme parks. That being said, I like both style of rollercoaster:
  • Rickety, wooden coaster with cart-style cars
  • Sleek, steel coaster that has you seated suspension-style
Of the former, I liked the one at Dorney Park. I'm not sure what it was called or if it's still there, but it was good. Of the latter, King Da Ka at Six Flags: New Jersey was pretty cool. Sorry I couldn't give you five; maybe ask me in a few years?

No debate can be enjoyable, even if everyone engages in good faith. The human condition dictates that disagreement comes with being heated. You will get mad. And you will not enjoy it. The only time a debate happens in anything, wrestling or otherwise, is when two dorks get together, know what they're going to say beforehand, and then pantomime a real debate, all the while claiming that it's great to talk to someone you disagree with, which is bullshit.

I think Impact is worse off than most marquee indie promotions. I mean, it's still good that they're using their somewhat national television program to further the idea that gender is a work and that wrestlers wrestle wrestlers. But I'm not sure of anyone that really covers Impact outside of like one site that I follow. It's so weird; once they got some semblance of quality underneath them, they disappeared.

I thought you were old enough to remember the Nacho Man and the Huckster, or when ECW "invaded" RAW and Vince McMahon talked about how the Blue World Order wasn't to be confused with the clothing line of the "New World Order." When WWE was behind WCW in ratings, they took so many potshots at them. It's the MO of the lagging company, trying to get ahead by lobbing bombs. Anyway, I don't think anything cheapens the WWE product as much as they do themselves. It's been that way for years now, that they just throw whatever against the wall and do whatever an insane septuagenarian who is distracted with his Respect the Troops Football League thinks is good in his fleeting moments between sundowning. If anything, you'd think you'd want to acknowledge your competition, even if you don't speak of them highly. In the era of social media, you'd look like a goddamn fool if you ignored the greater world around you.

No, but he was an important piece. Imagine if you will Bryce Harper tearing his ACL and going out for the year. The Phillies offense loses a huge piece of the puzzle. Rhys Hoskins no longer has protection in the lineup unless JT Realmuto started hitting on pace of a career year. You lose outfield defense. He may have started not as hot out of the gate, but I guarantee you the Phillies didn't promise all that money to Harper because they were feeling magnanimous. Now, McCutchen WAS important. He was a spark at the top of the lineup. However, you can count on Jean Segura or Scott Kingery to replace Cutch more reliably than you could count on them to replace Harper.

If Ospreay were just a third-rate high flyer with a far too high opinion of himself and an even worse proclivity to let you know that opinion, he wouldn't be worth the attention. However, among the nasty shit he's done...
So yeah, in other words, he's a piece of shit. That's what his deal is.

While on a Disney cruise, the family and I would go up to the ninth deck where the pool was and relax. Because it's a cruise, well, you eat when you get hungry, or even when you just feel like it, because that's how vacations like that go. Every day at 4 PM, I would go to the snack stand where they actually had a gyro cone on a spit, and I would get my 4 O'Clock Gyro. This happened every day I was up on that deck for both cruises I took on the Disney Magic. It was delightful, and it was worth telling you about it even though now about half my readers are probably building a guillotine with my measurements.

It's a simple explanation; the business was founded by greedy carnies. By and large, those carnies still run the business today. Even a guy like Mike Quackenbush, who runs a tight ship in terms of his artistry in Chikara, would rather send someone away than pay them market value, even if that person was integral to a story. I don't expect the people whose goal in life is to make money to really get the nuances of delicate material. Of course, that may change now that the "theater kids" are infiltrating, and society itself is becoming more and more accepting to the proposition of marginalized people being people and not punchlines. However, I still feel like that change will be glacial, because taking the carny out of wrestling feels like something that will be difficult to undertake.
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NXT In 60 Seconds for June 26th, 2019

June 28, 2019, 6:15 am
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The main event results mean Io's DNA test results just came back
Photo Credit: WWE.com
DJZ Joaquin Wilde: Hello, NXT! Here's a bit about me: I was horribly injured a couple years ago, I've been fighting to get back in the ring, and I like wearing Shield style masks hidden by Lite Brites.
Mustafa Ali: MM hmm.
Angel Garza Jr: You're all unbelievably welcome. I am a third generation luchador, and yet my secret talent might be this: on a show with Velveteen Dream, Matt Riddle, Tyler Breeze and Cathy Kelley, I am the most attractive person in NXT despite having just arrived. I blow off nerds in the front row then turn around and kiss old ladies' hands. I'm a scamp, y'all.
Both: trade rollups
Full Sailors: applaud
Garza: gains the advantage, reveals he's borrowed Cesaro's old pants
Everybody, Even Beth And Nigel: briefly cheer this clear heel because he is ridiculously attractive
Garza: Creative offensive maneuver! cocky pinfall
Everybody At the Announce, Even Beth And Nigel: note you probably can't win matches that way
Garza: Huge dropkick! Straight jacket hold!
Wilde: Overhead kicks! Upkick dropkick! Diagonal tope! sells the ribs as he goes up
Garza: AVALANCHE SPANISH FLY!
Everybody, Period: okay okay okay!
Wilde: Kickout and counter crucifix!
Garza: Kickout! Huge basement dropkick! Butterfly stunner!
Referee: Winner!
Garza: will go on to face the winner of Jordan Myles (ACH) v. BOA (chinese signee) and don't bet on the latter

God's Production Team: shows us a vidpac of KUSHIDA highlights as he looks forward to his next challenge, whatever it may be

Damian Priest: (leaving the building last week) No need to ask me any questions: you haven't seen anything yet, and unlike everything around me the name Damian Priest will live forever.

Street Profits: have finally won the big one and celebrate to the crowd's delight
Forgotten Sons: ...so anyways
Profits: We heard the chatter, that y'all think you can step to us. Woooooowwwwww. It's above us. We are handing out free smoke, and we'll put up the belts.
Full Sailors: Very Much Opposed to this
Profits: Then y'all will be remembered as the first team to take an L from the NEW NXT World Tag Team champions!
Sons: isolate Ford on their side of the ring
Ford: slips free and tags out
Dawkins: Exploders! Spinning avalanches! Tag! Spinebuster!
Ford: Frog splash!
Ryker: pulls him to the floor on the cover and gives him a Polish Hammer
Referee: Disqualification!
Sons: triple team Dawkins
Allied Strikers: make the save and get the advantage
Dawkins: spears Ryker
Ryker: recovers on the floor and pulls his compatriots by the hair to the back
Strikers: have the belts
Ford: reaches for his
Oney: pulls it back
Danny Burch: These...are yours. hands Dawkins one, Oney follows suit
Full Sailors: applaud
Burch: BUT. You owe us. he and Oney make the international gesture designating They Want The Belts
Profits: seem agreeable to giving them a shot

Bourne and Boujee: talk a lot of smack about Mia Yim, with Aliyah being the first of the duo to take on the HBIC

Nykos Rikos: is very Greek
Keith Lee: is very over
Full Sailors: OH, BASK IN HIS GLOOOOORY! OH, BASK IN HIS GLOOOOORY!
Nykos: tries it
Keith: stares at him blankly Grizzly Magnum! POUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNCE! LIMIT BREAKER (tafka Ground Zero)!
Referee: Winner!
Keith: probably checking to see how Dijakovic is doing


God's Production Team: show us Adam Cole hopping a private jet to Download to meet with Slipknot, defend the Big X (against Mastiff -- where's the whole match footage of that), then Roddy placing an order that Cole is off to get...at some eatery named Gargano's...

...then they inform us not only do we get Strong/Breezus next week but Shane Strickland v. Trevor Lee Isaiah "Swerve" Scott v. Cameron Grimes in the Breakout tourney


Io: charges at the bell and misses
Shayna: can't send Io into the cage or procure the Clutch but can keep her grounded on the mat Elevated half crab! goes for the door
Io: trips her PK! waves her on Handspring dropkick! Shotei! goes up
Shayna: cuts her off and throws her into the cage a couple of times
A Handful Of Full Sailors: cheer her
Most Full Sailors: BOO!
Shayna: Neck vice! LARIAT! Into the cage!
Io: dodges her attackHow about YOU go into the cage! Bridging German! Basement corner Meteora! goes up and almost out
Shayna: Kirifuda Clutch! waits for Io to start going limp then lets her fall into the ring Hell, this'll work.
Io: SECOND ROPE RELEASE GERMAN!
Underlings: come out to save their Queen
Shayna: Clutch once again!
Io: kicks at the door they're shutting, sending them and the referee down Victory roll double stomp! tries to escape
Jessamyn Duke: sends her into the cage
Candice LeRae: runs out STEAMBOAT PRESS OFF THE CAGE!
Underlings: fin
Shayna: Knee strike!
Candice: drops
Io: GOD'S MOONSAULT OFF THE CAGE!
Full Sailors: NXT! NXT! NXT!
Both: go to crawl out and are stopped by the opponent
Shayna: Clutch underneath the bottom rope!
Io: throws herself back so Shayna's head goes into the buckles a few times, then tries to crawl out and touches the floor with her finger tips
Shayna: Clutch!
Io: pulls the door into Shayna's head three times
Shayna: goes limp...and falls out to the floor
Referee: Winner!
Underlings: help Shayna recover on the floor
Shayna: slowly gets her wits about her on the floor then smiles when she sees the belt in her hand
Candice: helps Io up
Io: helps Candice down
Everyone: !!!
Io: kicks the crap out of her, looks confused, and leaves

...well...

Io: grabs a chair from under the ring, hits Candice in the back with it a few times, then hits a delayed suplex into it
Full Sailors: BOOOOOO!
Io: yells at them in Japanese, presumably about how these pasty motherfuckers ain't shit especially since they're about to see the real Io Shirai who's started coming to the surface since losing at TO:25 and is very much Here Now
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What Do Star Ratings Actually Mean?

June 28, 2019, 10:00 am
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How can anyone expect randos' star rating systems to be good when the OG's are flawed
Photo via @ObserverQuotes
Dave Meltzer is notable for a lot of things, only a few of them good. Perhaps the thing he's most known for, at least in the bubble of hardcore wrestling fans existing in the dank corners of Twitter where I tend to gravitate, are his star ratings. On the surface, a star rating system seems like good shorthand for letting someone know what they think of a wrestling match. Slap some snowflakes next to a match, and boom, you immediately tell someone whether you liked a match or not.

However, a star rating system only works if it has integrity, not integrity in that "YOU MUST REVIEW ALL PROMOTIONS EQUALLY!!!!1" but it has internal logic that can explain the stars without writing a bunch of words. Basically, it is replacing your own verbal review of a match with a mathematical equivalent. The person behind the ratings has to have a good idea of converting their opinions to numbers. It's fair to ask if Meltzer is good at this. It is mandatory that you ask any random Meltzer-wannabe, like, say, the average Grappl user, is good at it.

The best way to tackle how to do or how not to do, depending on point of view, a star rating system is to look at Meltzer's. Nominally, he uses a five-star scale, where no stars, or DUD, is the worst, and five stars are the best, except for the fact that he broke both the floor and the ceiling. He's given matches negative stars, in upwards of negative five. He's also broken the five-star ceiling, originally with Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada on June 3, 1994 with six stars, topping out at seven stars for the Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega match at Dominion last year. That means that if the positive scale is at seven stars, that theoretically, the worst match in history could achieve negative seven.

That also means a DUD is no longer the worst match, at least using Meltzer's internal logic, whether he realizes it or not. That means a match that receives zero stars is at the arithmetic mean, and thus is dead average. But does he mean that when he gives a match zero stars? Or is a two-star match the "average" match? It's hard to glean intent behind Meltzer's star ratings because he's muddled his internal logic behind them. What he should be doing now is probably going by a strict out-of-ten scale where zero is the worst. Or at least he probably needs to explain better his star rating system and probably go back and redo all his star ratings to reflect his new scale. He won't do that, because by his own admission, he rarely if ever goes back to watch wrestling matches for the purposes of re-rating them.

It sucks that Meltzer is the only guy who rates as a critic with many people in the bubble, but honestly, anyone who thinks this is a stark negative on the business overrates his influence. That being said, the idea of having a star rating system isn't the worst, but you do need to have an internal logic behind it. Learning lessons from the one who most prominently uses it is a great thing, but few people actually want to do something unique, and rather, they ape what Meltzer does. It's how you get people who say "Every match on this card was above four stars, but no match was worth going out of your way for." Like, do you see how asinine that statement is? Four stars in a zero-to-five scale is 80th percentile. in a negative five-to-five scale, it's 90th percentile. Hell, on a negative seven-to-seven scale, it's still 80th percentile. To me, that SCREAMS "go out of your way for this match." That tells me that people have no interest in using smarts to use their tool that apparently shows how smart they are.

Obviously, if you're a longtime reader, you know that I don't use a star rating system, because I prefer to describe how I feel about a match using my words. It's not for everyone, because some people would either rather prefer putting their thoughts in numerical form, or some people aren't as good at articulation. That's fine. I just wish that more people who used star ratings, starting with Meltzer, used them the best way possible. Right now, I'm not sure that's the case across the board.
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Fyter Fest Reader's Digest

July 1, 2019, 6:00 am
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Janela was one of the beneficiaries of AEW's star-making on Saturday
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein
All Elite Wrestling's second show, Fyter Fest, took place Saturday night, and the short of it is that it was mighty entertaining. The long of it, you can see below:

Private Party vs. The Best Friends vs. SoCal Uncensored - I logged on late and only caught the last part of this match, but that closing sequence showed everything right about big multi-team tag matches. Mainly, the Private Party, the team of Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen, might have been an out-of-leftfield signing as they gained notoriety in the Northeast money mark indies and few places else. However they proved why AEW had them on their radar all this time. The big high spots like the big rana at the end looked a little loose in execution, but that can be minor when they're as bang-bang and ambitious as they were. Crowds pick up more on that than tightness if everything else comes off well. While they didn't win, they looked like real players despite having the least exposure going in.

Allie vs. Leva Bates - Bates and Peter Avalon have an incredibly effective pre-show/low-card gimmick. It shouldn't rise higher than the parts of the show where you need to warm the crowd up, but what people, whether fans or analysts, forget from time to time is that sometimes, an act has a ceiling and a shelf-life. You could do worse than having Bates come out and shush the crowd while having Avalon do the Napster-Bad-James-Hetfield gimmick. It will get people heated for awhile, and you can blow it off in a fun match, well you couldif Tony Khan is looking the other way while the booking sheet gets made (more on that later today). But as for Bates wrestling, well, I'll let TJ Hawke handle that.

Michael Nakazawa vs. Alex Jebailey - This match was exactly what it needed to be, and of course, that wasn't good for everyone which is fine. No single match is meant to hit 100 percent approval. It was a comedy match, and as a comedy match, it hit everything I wanted. About the only thing that had me clutching pearls was Jebailey hitting Nakazawa with a sharp-angle German suplex, but other than that, it was what was on the bill of goods going in. They wrestled to Jebailey's inexperience and utilized the whole studio space. Jebailey attempting to drown Nakazawa (with Bryce Remsburg asking the latter if he wanted to give up) in the kiddie pool by the stage was surpassed only by Jebailey slipping on Nakazawa's signature baby oil and then Nakazawa himself slipping on the oil he poured on Jebailey, turning a running double stomp into a slip'n'slide senton. I get it if you didn't like it, but man, if you were predisposed to liking stuff like this, this was the match for you. Now, can I get Nakazawa vs. Orange Cassidy? Please and thank you.

CIMA vs. Christopher Daniels - I've seen CIMA live, thanks to Dragon Gate USA, so I know how ham he can go, even in the years after his prime. Despite Daniels' age, I suspected he could go pretty hard too. Maybe they still could break out the big time bomb-dropping, but they kept it surprisingly restrained here. It worked, as even though the demarcation between the pre-show and main show was somewhat muddled, this was nominally the first match. You want to have a great match to rile up the crowd, but you don't want to take away from the stuff that's following. It was a well-worked match, don't get me wrong, and seeing CIMA hit all his signature spots was immensely satisfying. What I'm saying is that I think they held back on purpose, which is fine given that the younger, less-known wrestlers later on needed the blessing to go longer more.

Riho vs. Yuka Sakazaki vs. Nyla Rose - A lot of people, myself included, are going to tell you about the high spots and Rose going total apeshit in the best way possible, but it's also possible that this match was the most intelligently worked one I've seen this year. It wasn't too complex in its psychology, which shows that even the simplest logic tests can come off looking incredibly sharp. Is it more damning with faint praise against the rest of the business? Maybe, maybe not. But the idea of Riho and Sakazaki spending a good bit of the first and second acts of the match working as an ersatz tag team felt incredibly refreshing. In an era littered with three-way matches, it's a psychology that is used surprisingly little. That being said, the match belonged to Rose in a non-winning effort, which seemed to be the theme for the show. Outside of a few misfires trying to take Sakazawi's lucha-style offense, she shone bigtime in what amounted to a showcase effort for her. She more than hung with two seasoned joshi, exerting her size, but also showing that big girls can move as well. That leaping knee from halfway across the ring? I was hooting and hollering in my basement watching it. I missed the pin because the stream went out, so I can't say with accuracy how the finish played out. Still, it was one hell of match, and Rose looks about as legit as legit could be.

MJF vs. Jimmy Havoc vs. Adam Page vs. Jungle Boy - I missed a huge chunk in the middle of this match thanks to whatever the hell was going on with my connection. I'm fairly confident it wasn't B/R Live, as there were a ton of people on Twitter telling me their stream was fine. It was either my Roku, which makes sense because I got it like seven years ago, or it was FiOS, which is not out of the question. At this point, all that I know is, I missed a big chunk in the middle. That being said, I caught what mattered, which was Jungle Boy doing insane shit. I literally jumped nearly going through the ceiling when he did that imploding 450 dive to the outside. That kid is gonna be huge, and I cannot wait to see him and Luchasaurus fuck people up in the tag division.

My biggest takeaway was witnessing the highs and lows of MJF on the microphone before the match began. On one hand, he went deep in the cheap heat playbook, and I'm not sure if that's something AEW should be cultivating. For a company that preaches inclusion and acceptance, maybe someone as seemingly charismatic and quick-witted as MJF shouldn't be mining the "the moms whose basements you all live in swallow" and "I stopped playing video games when I lost my virginity" veins. On the other hand, in a company that preaches inclusion and acceptance, isn't that where the cheap heat heel dipshit would actually not feel so cheap? It's not WWE where the faces are assholes or Extreme Championship Wrestling where half the fans were mutants and the other half were nerds who were taking notes from Bubba Ray Dudley on how to zing the jocks stuffing them into lockers at school. In a company where you have half the roster graying the scale, you need someone like MJF to serve as a control. You can't have shades of gray without black and white, after all. Plus the crowd ate it up anyway. Of course, crowd acceptance doesn't mean it's right, but at this point, I'm willing to do more soul-searching on this topic.

Cody vs. Darby Allin - I was a little bit skeptical when I heard that Cody transforming into a modern version of his dad had somehow made him an elite worker at Double or Nothing, but I mean, he's done that kind of thing before, and for all his flaws, Dustin Rhodes is still an able hand. But what he showed me in this match makes me believe he could develop into a steady Southern-style rassler. Granted, when you're in there with a guy who treats his body like pre-A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge treats Christmas, it's easy to look like a punisher. And Allin did what he was expected to do. I mean, the Coffin Drop alone onto the apron put shocked gazes on the faces of people reacting on Twitter. That being said, I've seen him work EVOLVE. I know he gets real self-destructive. If this time limit draw is any indication for what's in store for him, he will get even bigger and biggers tages to do his thing, and man, he is going to make Jeff Hardy look like Bob Backlund. Whether or not that's an exciting prospect depends on how lucky he'll be at avoiding injury.

AS for the chairshot to the head from Shawn Spears after the match, knowing now that the chair was gimmicked, albeit poorly, makes the decision to carry out the angle as such a lot more defensible. All told, a full-force chairshot to the head without protection, although unrealistic because the flinch reflex will make you shoot those hands up quick, is still visually stunning even carrying with it the upfront danger of concussions. Will they do better gimmicking the ENTIRE chair with flimsy pie tin aluminum next time? Hell, will there even BE a next time? I'm not sure. That being said, the booth discussing it no matter how the chair was gimmicked or not, was insensitive at best and absolutely tone-deaf at worst. I don't care how real you wanna keep it; bringing up the letters "CTE" in the broadcast booth while wrestlers are dying from those accumulated head bumps is by far the worst thing to happen during the show. I don't want to pin it all on Goldenboy, Jim Ross, or Excalibur, because I'm sure they got marching orders from the office. However, whoever made that call should feel some kind of heat.

The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega vs. the Lucha Bros. and Laredo Kid - The best wrestler in this match was Feníx, but the fact that it was a slick and seamless lucharesu spotfest with him not doing anything remotely approaching what he can do in the ring until the very end was a testament to how much raw talent was in that ring. The biggest revelation, at least to me, was The Laredo Kid. Obviously, fans of lucha libre and Absolute Intense Wrestling will say they told you so, but man, he carried the first act of this match for his team against both Bucks and Omega. For its billing, this match did pop off pretty good. I thought it went a little off the rails by the time it was time to take it home. When the Bucks and Omega are EVPs in the company, their excess gets built in, and I get it to an extent. But it brought the match down a little bit, even if the lucha guys popped off and became even bigger heroes because of it.

Jon Moxley vs. Joey Janela - Look, I get that it wasn't as violent as a real Big Japan/Game Changer/Combat Zone deathmatch. You gotta realize that AEW is corporate, like WWE, so it has boundaries. Is the alternative not having any hardcore wrestling? As someone who enjoys even the watered down hardcore wrestling and who also realizes you don't sign Janela, Moxley, or Jimmy Havoc and tell them to abandon that art altogether, I don't mind. And granted, Moxley broke out thumbtacks, and both guys had barbed wire. For as much as Khan's dainty sensibilities and the potential feelers from the folks at TNT, this match scratched an itch that folks like me, who don't really watch deathmatches that much, had since WWE stopped allowing blood in their matches. Janela's elbow drop from the ladder though, whew, again, it kept with the theme that even though he lost, he got to look super important. I think for a free show such as this where you get these weird matches or multi-person samplers, that is the most important thing.

Honestly, if Fyter Fest, a throwaway, tagalong show on a video game conference, could be this good, I cannot wait to see what AEW has to show week in and week out. I would immediately recommend watching this show on replay if you didn't catch it before. Hopefully, the replay streams better for you than it did for me, but I fully admit that my problems were more than likely caused by an old Roku box or the fidelity of my Internet connection.
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Gender and Wrestling

July 1, 2019, 9:00 am
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Still Life with Apricots and Pears cannot be defined by the gender binary
Photo Credit: @zackmonday
For millennia, people have distilled gender down to the genitals they're born with. Despite this, people have known that they're trans for most of the run of human history. Some cultures have even embraced that fact, and some have accepted that maybe two genders is a wild underestimation for how many really exist. Western culture hasn't seemed to pay much attention to trans folks despite their existence until June 28, 1969, when Black trans women started a riot after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a noted haven for LGBTQ+ folks. Since then, the cultural right has done its best discriminate, mock, alienate, and marginalize anyone who says they're a different gender than what their sexual reproduction organs say they are. Despite the fact that research has shown that gender is more of a spectrum and less of a binary.

Wrestling more or less has fallen in line with the cultural right regarding trans people. It wasn't until Yosuke♥Santa Maria started wrestling that the industry had an out trans person wrestling. ASUKA and Nyla Rose represent trans community well, but they compete in intergender-friendly promotions for the former and the latter in All Elite Wrestling's women's division in accordance with the gender they identify as. What of wrestlers who are out as non-binary though? Chikara has Still Life with Apricots and Pears. The current Young Lions Cup Champion, they are the first wrestler I know of to eschew the gender binary, whether trans or cis. Obviously, Chikara is a gender-inclusive promotion. Kimber Lee has held the Grand Championship, and the company has a rich history of women competing alongside men with Solo Darling, Sara del Rey, Daizee Haze, Blanche Babish, and Meiko Satomura among others. Still Life is at home in Chikara with no problems. However, what is going to happen when they blow up and start getting bookings in other companies?

What if Still Life makes it to, say, AEW? They're not a man, and they're certainly not a woman. What division would they compete in? Given that Tony Khan has said this:
...it is unknown. To force someone like Still Life into the men's division because of the equipment they were born with is discrimination, plain and simple. The same is if they're put into the women's division because the people with billions of dollars and the ability to insulate themselves from the world and the people making pleas to them don't know the situations and issues they are dabbling in.

When people say they're disgusted by intergender wrestler, not only are they reinforcing the sexist ideals that society has foisted upon its people with unnecessarily rigid gender roles, they are ignoring the fact that intergender wrestling has always happened. The matchmakers were just ignorant of the fact that the people they were booking were not the gender that society dictated they'd be by their genitals. I will bet every dollar I have that promotions across the width and breadth of history of pro wrestling have had trans and non-binary people on their roster. It's just those people were either not out of the closet, or they had feelings of gender dysphoria and didn't really think to associate them with the fact that they might not be men (or women if you're talking about the women's divisions Mildred Burke and Mae Young wrestled in).

For AEW to discount that possibility is insanely tone-deaf given its message of inclusion. Khan and The Elite do deserve credit for hiring across the LGBTQ+ community with Rose and Sonny Kiss on the roster. But you can't just give token nods. You have to go all the way. Brushing off man vs. woman confrontations as domestic violence is incredibly ignorant, but also wrong in that domestic violence happens regardless of gender. Woman-on-man violence, man-on-man, woman-on-woman, non-binary, all combinations, it's all possible, and all of it is gross. As long as the matches are scripted in a way that tells a story without resorting to DV tropes, people will be able to sniff-test it, at least people operating in good faith.

So obfuscating the fact that wrestlers are of all genders, as infinite as the spectrum is, are being damaged by this arbitrary enforcement of a gender binary by arguing in bad faith about DV feels like business as usual for billionaires money-fighting. It's entirely possible Khan is using his own preferences as a smokescreen because Turner doesn't want intergender wrestling on its airwaves, but again, Khan has billions. Money assuages a lot of concerns. It's just people with money are concerned with it instead of people. It just shows that being better than WWE is not enough, especially since that goal is such a low, low bar to clear.

Gender is more than a binary, whether you like it or not. Wrestlers like Still Life cannot be put in a box just because they have the physiological makeup of someone you think is a man. The sooner wrestling companies and fans realize this and put away their transphobic qualms about what a person can be, the better everyone will be.
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The Wrestling Blog's OFFICIAL Best in the World Rankings for July 1, 2019

July 1, 2019, 12:00 pm
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BETTER THAN ORTON
Photo Credit: Elsa/Getty Images
Welcome to a feature I like to call "Best in the World" rankings. They're not traditional power rankings per se, but they're rankings to see who is really the best in the world, a term bandied about like it's bottled water or something else really common. They're rankings decided by me, and don't you dare call them arbitrary lest I smack the taste out of your mouth. Without further ado, here's this week's list:

1. Megan Rapinoe (Last Week: 5) - Not only did she score both goals in the United States' quarterfinal win over France in the Women's World Cup, but she reclaimed the Randy Orton pose from Orton for the side of good. Personally, I think now instead of teams going to the White House after winning a title, they should go to Rapinoe's house. Even if the United States Women's National Team doesn't win, they're still way, way, WAY better than anything else that represents this nation.

2. Nyla Rose (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Sure, she made hay by throwing around two tiny joshi and then also flying through the air like a graceful dove, but did you also know she has the Triforce Crest from the Legend of Zelda series tattooed on her left inner forearm? She rockets up several spaces in "Likable to TH" rankings here.

3. EFFY (Last Week: Not Ranked) - EFFY already is making waves as the hottest gay male wrestler on the indies. Pride Month was his brightest time to shine, but he made the offhand comment that now that Pride Month is over that he won't get anymore bookings. It's not necessarily true for him, because he's a hot property. That being said, how many LGBTQ+ wrestlers who got token bookings in June will be forgotten for shows the other 11 months out of the year? What he says is important; it's vital to ensure that gay and trans and non-binary wrestlers are integrated into the community and welcomed so they can add their spin on wrestling and so fans like them can feel more welcome.

4. Bobby Bonilla (Last Week: Not Ranked) - July 1 is truly a blessed day in the history of securing the bag, because it's when the Mets bought out Bonilla's contract in 2000. Instead of paying it in a lump sum, they pay him $1.91 million a year every year until 2035. He hasn't played since 2001, but he's still getting paid. He is a legend.

5. Michael Nakazawa (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Look, I'm not gonna say I went nuts when he pulled out a SECOND tube of baby oil before the match, but man, Nakazawa doing his baby oil thing could heal rifts between warring nations.

6. Cheese Quesadilla (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - The Mexican equivalent to a grilled cheese is an immense improvement over the the actual sandwich, which itself is an incredibly easy-to-make and highly satisfying comfort food. Plus, odds are you'll get sour cream and guacamole with it, which makes it even better.

7. Tobias Harris (Last Week: Not Ranked) - NBA free agency season is a bonanza of cash, and players can change teams like Lex Luger changes alignments. Thankfully though, Tobias Harris decided to stay put in Philly, joining Mike Scott and new free agent Al Horford. Harris will be depended upon for sharpshooting from three, but along with Horford, Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and newly acquired through trade Josh Richardson, the Sixers should have one of the best defensive lineups in all the NBA.

8. Orange Cassidy (Last Week: 4) - When will AEW give the world Cassidy vs. Nakazawa though?

9. The Bamboo Plant (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Look, I'm rational and logical, but baseball is also a sport for the superstitious. Was it coincidence that as soon as Brad Miller brought a bamboo plant into the locker room that the Phillies swept the Mets in four games? Yes. Do I care? No. Sure, the Phils dropped two of three to the last-place Marlins, but who knows, maybe bamboo doesn't work on fish, which going by Pokémon convention doesn't make sense. But nothing about this does.

10. Otis Dozovic (Last Week: 10) -



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Kevin Owens: Standup Dude

July 2, 2019, 7:15 am
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Owens, shown here barrelling into an opponent in the corner, fought against the idea that political correctness is bad
Photo Credit: WWE.com
While the corporate overlords in WWE kinda suck, not everyone on the roster is literal human garbage. Sure, wrestling is littered with rapists, abusers, and those who harbor them, a good amount of workers try to be decent even if they vote Republican. Few others more take to heart beliefs that humans should be kind to others, even if they have brown skin and live in another country. Kevin Owens appears to be one of those guys. It makes sense since he's friends with Sami Zayn, who wears his progressive politics on his sleeve and actively raises money for victims of the Syrian Civil War. Owens further proved his character recently on the Lilian Garcia-hosted podcast, Chasing Glory:
In a business where way too many people whine about SJWs or complain that everyone's too sensitive, Owens speaking about how sensitivity isn't a weakness is refreshing. Is it a low bar to clear? Perhaps, but Owens feels sincere here, especially owning up to the fact that maybe in the past, he missed the mark a few times too many.

The truth of the matter is that being aware that the things you say may hurt other people is a virtue, and signaling it isn't a weakness. Those who often complain about these kinds of things have mostly had it pretty easy in their lives, at least the ones with demographic advantage. I'm not sure what compelled the marginalized folks who preach that kind of shit, but I'm sure they have their reasons. Funnily enough, a lot of those same people who decry folks trying not to make someone feel unwelcome due to their race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, or ethnicity as being too whiny end up crying the loudest when, for example, Colin Kaepernick points out to Nike that the Betsy Ross flag is a burgeoning White supremacist symbol and shouldn't be put on a shoe marketed mostly to the people White supremacists want dead. I mean, it's just how life is, right? You gotta buck up and shut up and take it. I guess it doesn't work the other way.

Anyway, for Owens to publicly go against the common talking point for wrestling is both incredible and brave. I'm sure that viewpoint isn't easy to espouse in a business where even people at the highest levels in the biggest company complain about "The Internet" ruining their angles and not their boss' slipshod writing or their own substandard performances. Either way, it's a welcome thing to hear.
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The Ospreay Vs. Rollins Epilogue: The Universal Champ Got a Talking-To

July 2, 2019, 9:50 am
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When you're so bad at Twitter, your cornball bosses take notice...
Photo Credit: WWE.com
If you remember, last week Seth Rollins and Will Ospreay got into a dust-up on Twitter Dot Com. If you're trying to forget, sorry, close now, don't read anymore, and thanks for the page click anyway. It was a slapfight that was funny to witness in its nascency, but once people started dropping serious takes on it, well, it wore out its welcome. The best people were the ones thinking that the biggest crime perpetrated by either one was Rollins sending a Twitter mob after Ospreay like he was some saint. Need I remind you of how much of a gobshite Mr. I Studied The Blade really is? Either way, it got tiring quick.

And then it got fun again, because today, Rollins posted whatever this was:


I'm screengrabbing it in case he deletes, which is always a possibility. Anyway, what that tweet says to me is that someone tapped him on the shoulder and said "Buddy, you're making us look bad." My guess is that it was Paul Levesque or one of his underlings, given how little I think Vince McMahon knows how to use Twitter. I'm pretty sure he just dictates his inane thoughts to his social media intern, and that intern just filters out the most sterile-sounding ones to post.

Anyway, on one hand, it was a mercy-killing. After the post from last week, where I declared Rollins the winner, he went on an even cornier slant, and yeah, it didn't make anyone look good. When you can get into a Twitter beef with Will "OI OI OI M8, KISS THE RINGS" Ospreay and lose, well, even if you're working in the interest of the WWE corporate machine, I feel a little bad for you. WWE has people equipped to handle Twitter wars, like Rollins' better half Becky Lynch or Big E or Malcolm Bivens (fka Stokely Hathaway). Note how they don't make grandiose claims about WWE's superiority and then give into bait from self-promoting dorks like Ospreay. I think you get the point.

I wonder though, if Rollins were good at Twitter (stay with me here, strictly hypothetical), then would someone in WWE have yelled at him? I mean, when you're bad enough at arguing that WWE, the Kings of the Cornballs, thinks you're posting cringe, then you gotta be awful at it. If they didn't think it made the company look bad, would they have allowed Rollins to pick his own fights instead of just responding to Ospreay? I don't know if I want to find out, which is why I'm so glad that the best at Twitter in the company at least appear like they don't drink its Kool-Aid. In the interim, I'm just sitting here laughing that ostensibly the most prestigious Champion in the company right now had to make a public apology for being bad at Twitter. That, my friends, is entertainment you don't have to pay for.

As a postscript here though, at least Rollins can thank his lucky stars he's not as bad at Twitter as Dolph Ziggler.
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