The Unknown Poster

Its funny because Ford has said he was fine with not being killed off this time. I figured it would happen and someone probably had to die in the first installment to raise the stakes. But everyone wanted Luke to live. Trevorrow apparently was really upset at Luke dying in TLJ and wanted to bring him back. If I was Kennedy I'd have likely called an audible and had Leia die in 8, if you really need to kill someone, and keep Luke.

You cant compare the 80's to today. And even then, they still did goofy things with non wrestlers (Fink, Gene etc). Vince was very against putting himself in the ring until Lawler convinced him to do an angle in USWA in early 90's. But you cant be critical of Tony and ignore Vince putting himself in angles just because Vince did it 10 years into his run rather then year 1. Its a common thing in modern wrestling to do goofy things for the live crowd. That wasnt the case in the 80's. When WWE did angles with Gene and Fink, it was on the live show, not "dark". Nothing I've heard about Tony indicates he's a money mark. Hes a smart guy and has a lot of other smart guys around him. Dark Order is a mid card gimmick. Wrestling, including WWE, have a long history of out of shape guys. Hardly an AEW thing. The whiffed punches was horrible. It happens when using locals as extras sometimes. I guarantee they'll be better vetted next time. Since you obviously didnt see it, that whole show ending angle was terrible (there ya go). Who was the biggest money mark locally (that didnt get in the ring). In terms of promoters getting in the ring, you're conflating money mark with wrestler/promoter. And you're subtly buyring all of them with remarks like "living their fantasies". When an active wrestler is also a booker, they either book themselves too strongly or not strongly enough. I generally disagree with the practice but most indies are started by active wrestlers so what are you going to do. Outside of Ernie Todd, I cant think of any local promoters who egregiously put themselves in the ring (refresh my memory if Im missing out on anyone). Wrestling is rife with examples of non-wrestlers doing angles/matches and there is nothing wrong with the concept inherently. The execution is a different matter... ECW had a lot of bad workers. Lets not romanticize it. RVD was arguably their biggest star and he was as green as a wrestler as he was great athletically for a long time. What Paul did that WWE and WCW didnt, was give small great workers a shot (especially from Mexico & Japan when the big promotions thought they wouldnt draw in the US). But those guys were quickly scooped up by WCW. But WWE and WCW didnt horde talent back then. WWE has a massive, massive roster, some of whom they keep for the purpose of keeping them from AEW. Talent also wasnt paid like they are now. AEW has a really good roster but they've been on TV for literally 3 months. Their roster will get deeper as time goes on and contracts come due.

I know you like to take shots at wrestling and speak in black & white terms. But you're barking up the wrong tree. What does Vince in the 80's have to do with anything? What local money marks are you referring to? What is bush league? Tony doing a dark segment for the live crowd (which WWE has done a million times by the way) or the Dark Order whiffed punches? I can better respond if you clarify what you're talking about. In terms of being as big as TNA, their ratings arent as big as TNA was at its best on SPIKE, though factoring in DVR gets it close. But they're well ahead in terms of attendance and PPV buys. They're already competition to WWE.

If the 2nd best national TV deal in wrestling, on a huge station like TNT, first hour PPV sell outs isnt "serious", I guess we disagree on what's serious. Or does Tony K need to have his pants removed, his ass kissed and make out with women talent to be a "serious" promoter? lol If they run out of money, that would be a concern. Hopefully they dont go bankrupt...hard to lose that many billions though I imagine its possible. Until TNT decides they dont want to pay for wrestling anymore, AEW is not only fine, they're great.

Well I think Disney did have a basic plan. Their mistake, which became pretty evident pretty quickly, was the idea that LucasFilm would become a place for artsy directors to come in and be super creative and imaginative. They had multiple issues with directors. I have to blame Kennedy because its one thing to do that for one off films but for the trilogy? Either hire one guy (JJ) or be more insistant that each director had to work with the over all story. I think TLJ was pretty obvious from the story stage, that it was all wrong for the middle film of a trilogy and in how it used the original stars. They probably couldnt get JJ if they wanted him to do all three. I hated TLJ though I can appreciate some aspects but I think it was generally a bad middle film. It didnt leave much for the third. I saw Terrio saying they had early discussions about splitting Skywalker into two parts, which likely would have made it much better. Too bad LucasFilm wasnt willing to break with tradition and do that. It begs for a directors cut with more of the back story included and more time to breath.

Its probably true that Vince never even thought to revive the XFL until the Ebersol's came calling to make the XFL documentary and their own research into the viability of a spring league. Everyone denies it, but it came out that they valued the XFL's trademarks at $50 million. Vince basically figured of someone else (especially guys he respects) thought it was viable, then it must be and he should do it. One key point of the lawsuit is that if an outside entity valued the XFL marks at $50 million, why did WWE essentially gift them to Alpha (Vince's company). As a shareholder, that would be a good question. Its also a key point that in most SEC filings, WWE lists as a major negative factor, the loss of Vince's services so shareholders being concerned about Vince working on the XFL has merit (even if it would likely be a positive creatively). I would suspect a sudden failure of the XFL would drag WWE stock down a bit...these shareholders think the relationship is too tight.

Sure, you 'watch' some AEW...in other words you saw the clip of the lousy punches going around (which we were discussing in this very thread by the way). But certainly if you think bad punches in one segment is the death knell for AEW, make sure you dont watch RAW at all...WWE went out of business about 5 years ago lol Id be happy to take your over/under of a year through if you want to put real money down. Keeping in mind their one year anniversary is this May 😉 (and definitely keep watching clips of the worst things and ignore the ratings, sell outs, merch sales, TV deal etc). Anyway, I have to go back and watch the wedding from last night's RAW. 🙂 EDIT: btw, the tweet is a joke, it wasn't Arik (who is a good worker and wouldnt whiff punches like that).

Why do I find this dubious lol 😉😉

Good question. Based on reality or based on the people who want everything to fail? Lol. Tna is going on 18 years so....

A legit over under? I guess 4 years as I believe the VP’s are all signed to 4 year deals. But the real answer is as long as tnt is supportive they will last forever. They’re already ahead of expectations in terms of revenue and ratings. Continue to sell out their major events. It’s been pretty much a wild success so far.

Will be managing Cody. I can’t help but suspect it’s the beginning of an eventual heel turn leading to a new four horsemen. Timing might work for Tessa too....

And granddaughter of Joe Blanchard and step daughter of Magnum TA. Hell of a pedigree. She’s going to get paid big time when her impact deal is up

Palms successfully greased!

An investor savvy enough to realize Vince is a screwing shareholders but not so savvy that he wants Vince to spend MORE time with wwe.

I wonder if they had to grease any palms to make it happen or just hoping for the best. I’m a bit surprised they didn’t give him some back up spots for Helle

Rough. But saves them about $11 million in cap space with just those two. But it certainly makes Seabrook untradable. And you can’t buy out and injured player can you?

They’ve got Tessa which makes them automatically good no matter what lol

Expected to be down due to Christmas week but that’s way down.

According to the Poe actor, he wanted Poe & Finn to fall in love and Disney wasn’t going to do it. The lesbian kiss is so quick in the midst of celebration it’s pretty sucky they have to cut it. Backwards nations I guess.

Nothing now. Don & Scott have done a fantastic job. I talked to Kenny about this once and he was positive about tna saying it doesn’t have to be a top promotion, just a good place for talent to learn to work TV from people that know what they’re doing. But Dixie did so much damage i don’t think they’ll recover much beyond where they are now. Which is still fine. It’s content for Anthem. And WWE has been interested before so if they ever want to cash in they’d have a buyer (wwe is notoriously cheap with tape libraries now though).

Yeah and the amount of people in the US who watch nxt on the network would be pretty negligible compared to USA. But wwe were lucky to get the rights to air it the next day as USA wasn’t letting them air raw & SD until a month later for that reason (to maximize eyeballs on the live broadcast). But the network is a diminishing return now anyway. It may even end up being a failed gambit as it killed PPV business. Wwe will be introducing a tiered pricing plan with a higher premium price to squeeze out more revenue from the diehards. Supposedly this would include airing of various indie promotions. the real take away from the fact AEW draws more viewers when DVR numbers are counted is it makes their fan base more valuable (younger demo) and shows real options for growth (convert next day viewers into live viewers). I also think it correlates to how well AEW does with merch and PPV attendance. They seem to have a fan base that is sort of a Wm style fan base - they might not watch every week but they’re there when it matters. they simply have to try to make more live viewers. And try to grab some of wwe’s core fan (the over 50 crowd). It’s amazing how valuable rights fees are now. ECW was cancelled with a million viewers (partially due to wwe but still, a million viewers today would have got them several big money offers). TNA was averaging 1.5 million or so on spike and look at them now.

Also our monthly reminder that the trouba trade has turned out pretty good so far Pionk is also averaging more ice time. Might take a couple years for the D to shore up with reinforcements but the future looks bright. I’d expect jets to look for an upgrade at the deadline if it costs very little and to be active in free agency next season especially if buff isn’t coming back.

Yeah Maurice kinda said that too. That they have to “grind”. Outside of Josh and Pionk the d lacks skill to compete at a high level every night. Although they’ve performed admirably under the circumstances. And Sbisa has been a pleasant surprise.