offical wwe thread

famicommander

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-MLW is still in discussions with Discovery about yet another TV deal. Their Vice deal will not change anything about their deals with BeIN Sports, Fubo Sports Network, or DAZN. They're just adding more distribution. The show will initially air archive content until they can tape something fresh as they don't want to show the current empty arena fog machine garbage episodes to their brand new audience. The main question right now is whether or not the show will be removed from Youtube. So far none of MLW's TV partners have cared about Youtube, but Vice being such a relatively bigger network might have the clout to make them take them odwn.

-Ring of Honor has announced that beginning next Wednesday, they will resume airing fresh women's matches every week on Youtube. The Youtube matches will essentially serve as try-outs. The women who get the best response will be in the women's title tournament this summer, which will air on TV.

-Both AEW and MLW will resume touring events with fans this coming July. No announcement for when Impact and ROH will do so yet.

-This Friday on NJPW Strong, Brody King vs Tom Lawlor for the vacant Strong title:
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-Impact producer Scott D'Amore has promised that the title vs title match this Sunday between Omega and Swann will not end in a draw, DQ, count out, or non-finish. There will be a definitive winner that walks away with all the belts. And Tony Khan has promised that Omega will not drop any of the outside titles he wins until after he drops the AEW title. So, basically, Impact is about to loan their world title out indefinitely and then let AEW completely bury it by having Omega eat pins elsewhere before he drops it back.

-AAA announced a PPV 11 days from now with no card. Rey de Reyes 2021. Unlikely Omega defends the Mega Championship. Maybe they can get Lio Rush and Laredo Kid in to resolve the idiotic mess they booked themselves into with the Cruiserweight title.

-Rush supposedly has a money backer and is starting a new promotion in Mexico soon. These sorts of things usually start off with big hype and then fizzle out, but we'll see. Alberto Del Rio and Chavo Guerrero's promotion didn't make it two years.

-Konnan claims that Tessa Blanchard has signed a contract with a "three letter" promotion. So that's WWE, AEW, ROH, MLW, DDT, or AAA. Konnan works for both MLW and AAA so if it's one of them it would make sense that he would have the scoop. Not sure AEW or ROH would be willing to face the backlash for signing her. WWE doesn't give a fuck about backlash, MLW signs problem talent all the time, and people in Mexico and Japan probably don't know or care about her issues.
 

norton9478

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MLW's new TV deal has been announced.

They will begin airing on Vice TV this Spring. No word on whether it will be Fusion or a second show, but Vice is an awesome get for them. The channel already airs the wrestling documentary series Dark Side of the Ring, which is the most successful show in the network's history.

A channel that I actually have without searching high and low.
 

norton9478

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Is AEW Dark supposed to be better than Dynamite?

I don't know what the fuck AEW dark is (A house show??? Series of Dark Matches????) but It ran on youtube one day (I think after I watched Baker vs Rosa on my TV).

From what I watched (mostly in the background), it was better than Dynamite.

But then again, I like:
Fixed hard camera angles with minimal cuts.
Storytelling in the ring.
Occasional Squash Matches (when appropriate)
 

Syn

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AEW has two YouTube shows Elevation on Monday and Dark on Tuesday. There really all the same hit or miss quality. Dynamite is supposed to be the best.
 

famicommander

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Dynamite is the A show, Dark and Dark Elevation are mostly shows for unsigned talent to wrestle each other or for the main roster people to squash unsigned talent.

All three shows are bad but Dynamite is usually the worst because it has all the major stories and those are usually really bad.

AEW is booked like TNA on their worst day. ROH putting the world title on PCO pales in comparison to how badly AEW is booked. It's WWE-tier.

As far as the US big 6 from what I have seen in 2021
ROH: A-
NJPW: C+
MLW: C-
Impact: D-
AEW: F
WWE: F-

Hopefully MLW can right the ship before new content starts airing on Vice. I'm about to watch tonight's episode, so we'll see how good it is. Rocky Romero and TJP are both on the card in separate matches, so in theory there should be two good matches to watch. Usually MLW manages to fuck something up with a squash or a stupid angle lately, though.
 

famicommander

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Not a bad episode of Fusion tonight.

Rocky Romero vs Gino Medina was good, not great. Medina did not give him nearly as good of a match as Delirious did. Medina is still pretty young though, and he'll need opponents like Rocky to keep improving.

TJP vs Bu Ku Dao was also good, not great. I don't think Dao is all that good. I do wish the commentary team could pronounce his fucking name, though. They continuously call him "Bo Ku Dao" despite Dao himself, TJP, and Alicia Atout all pronouncing it as it's written.

King Mo had a squash match. He's not very good.

The big news is that MLW is airing two more episodes of Fusion and then going dark until July, when they return to the ECW Arena with fans to tape for their Vice show. They will air archive content on Vice from May until then.
 

famicommander

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ROH has re-signed play by play commentator Ian Riccaboni through 2023.

This is excellent news. He's the best in the world at what he does right now. A good commentary team makes all the difference.
 

famicommander

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Two more episodes of Fusion, then the show will go dark until this event. That's when they will start filming new stuff for the debut on Vice.

They have badly needed a new set of tapings. I believe they only had one set of tapings from November until now and it really hurt them. Going back to a touring format will mean they have to tape a lot more often and they will hopefully be able to course correct faster when it becomes clear something isn't working.
 

famicommander

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NJPW turned down the same TV deal that MLW got from Vice, as well as a return to AXS TV.

The reason seems to be that NJPW's minority owner and main domestic TV home Asahi owns the international broadcast rights as well, and they are significantly over-valuing it. They think they can get a deal the quality of WWE or AEW for some reason. That also seems to be the reason that the Roku Channel show is over a year out of date. They think the new stuff is too valuable.
 

famicommander

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The card for Impact Rebellion actually doesn't look terrible tomorrow

Title vs Title:
AEW World Champion Kenny Omega vs Impact World Champion Rich Swann

Impact World Tag Team Championship:
David Finlay and Juice Robinson (c) vs Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson

X-Division Championship:
Ace Austin (c) vs TJP vs Josh Alexander

Knockouts Championship:
Deonna Purrazzo (c) vs Tenille Dashwood

Knockouts Tag Team Championship:
Tasha Steelz and Kiera Hogan (c) vs Jordynne Grace and Rachel Ellering

Last Man Standing:
Sami Callihan vs Trey Miguel

Matt Cardona (Zack Ryder) vs Brian Myers (Curt Hawkins)

Chris Sabin, Eddie Edwards, Willie Mack, and James Storm vs Violent By Design (Eric Young, Rhino, Joe Doering, and Cody Deaner)

Rich Swann and Cody Deaner suck, but that's a pretty low ratio of terrible talent for an Impact show. Nobody over 50, no XXXL, no token Indian talent that can't wrestle, no train wreck gimmick matches on the card.
 

famicommander

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Ez3ihdKXsAAWCj1


Omega pins Swann clean to take both Impact belts. Omega is now
AEW World Champion
AAA Mega Champion
Unified Impact and TNA World Heavyweight Champion

Juice Robinson and David Finlay also retained the tag titles, meaning the X-Division title is the only Impact title actually held by an Impact wrestler. They jobbed out their world champ and their tag champs clean on their own PPV to AEW and NJPW talent.
 

Syn

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At least Omega is going to be pinned 4 times in the future.
 

famicommander

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At least Omega is going to be pinned 4 times in the future.
Not necessarily. He might just vacate the other belts after he loses the AEW title, or he could cop out and have someone else eat the pin in a 3 way.

In any case, Impact isn't getting that title back for several months and it'll be buried no matter the form of its return. Because Tony Khan already said publicly that Kenny isn't losing anybody else's titles until after he loses the AEW title.

Impact buried their two-belt champion clean in a sloppy botchfest in the center of their own ring on their own PPV. Staggering.

How could they air those botches? The show was pre-taped in an empty venue. They had infinite takes to get it right.
 

norton9478

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Mark Carrano (Recently fired head of WWE Talent Relations) has been accused by his former GF of stealing WWE title belts and hiding them under the guest bed in his home.

Upon learning of this, WWE immediately filed a injunction to stop her from using the term "Belts".
 
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famicommander

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Among other things, Quinn McKay teasing four ROH debuts for the return of the women's division Youtube series tomorrow.
 

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Potentially game-changing news out of Mexico.

For several months, Rush has been talking up a new promotion we now know is called Federacion Wrestling. This sort of thing happens all the time in Mexican wrestling and usually it amounts to an indie promotion that runs for a year or two and just fizzles out.

But they announced their debut on PPV on June 21, and the names they have coming in are pretty incredible:
Andrade/La Sombra
Rush
Dragon Lee
La Bestia Del Ring
Kenny King
Pentagon Jr
Rey Fenix
La Mascara
Bandido

But yesterday was huge. They announed Matt Taven, who is a huge star in CMLL. He main evented their Anniversary Show and held a world title there for a long while. Technically his ROH contract doesn't restrict where he can work in Mexico, so he took the booking. In response today, CMLL severed all ties with Ring of Honor.

The promotion is holding a press conference on Friday to drop more details.

The juiciest rumor out there right now is that the money behind the new promotion is Sofia Alonso. Alonso is the daughter of former CMLL chief Paco Alonso and great-granddaughter of CMLL founder Salvador Lutteroth. Sofia had been running the business operations for years while her father was the head of the company, and he had been grooming her to become the new chief. He died suddenly in 2019, and Sofia was briefly made head of CMLL. She wanted to focus on expanding the brand more into the US, modernizing the promotion's online presence, allowing their wrestlers to work more indie and international dates, etc. Just a few weeks after she took over the rest of the family essentially staged a coup and forced her out. One of her cousins took control and immediately returned the company to all of its traditional stances. She has not been heard from in public since. Rush and Dragon Lee both stated that if she had stayed in control of CMLL they never would have left, and the promotion severed ties with LA Park over Park refusing to drop an indie booking he had already been advertised for.

If this promotion really has Sofia Alonso behind it, it could really be a major player in Mexico. CMLL is a lumbering dinosaur and AAA is such a gong show it's literally suing itself.
 

famicommander

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Danny Cage of the Monster Factory has been GOING OFF on Twitter and Reddit about his time at the ROH Dojo. Cliff notes:
-Joey Mercury was a drugged up psychopath who physically abused students, handed out pills to students openly in a hotel lobby, berated Hana Kimura for not having good enough English, constantly threw gay slurs around, threatened to publicly out LBGT members of the ROH roster, slept with students and with other wrestlers' wives, had an affair with Kelly Klein while she was married to BJ Whitmer, constantly lied and collected blackmail material to get other people fired, forged texts to try to get Ian Riccaboni fired, later accused Ian Riccaboni of leaking the Final Battle results to him to get Ian fired. A Dojo student later came clean and admitted they had leaked the results to Joey, not Ian.

-Cage implied that Kelly Klein's concussion and subsequent lawsuit and accusation of Jay Lethal sexually harassing her ("leering at her" is what she said) were all made up and he has proof that Joey directed people to fake concussions in order to extend contracts on a medical basis. This was Kelly lying and continuing to help gather dirt for Joey's crazy blackmail schemes. Lethal was an easy target because he had a previous accusation from Taeler Hendrix years ago that didn't go anywhere (she said he offered her a better spot on the card for sex, he denied it; he later said she got him blacklisted, but she was still being booked well after the alleged incident and she canceled her last two bookings with ROH herself).

-Will Ferrara is a mini-Joey and he witnessed Joey physically abusing students and did nothing about it. Also slept with several students.

Ian Riccaboni confirmed most/all of what Cage has been saying. Cage says he is cool with ROH in general but their dojo was a joke. He had high praise for Delirious and Jon Gresham but says that everybody else involved with the Dojo while he was there was a trash human being (mostly Will Ferrara and Joey Mercury) and a trash trainer.

Of course Joey Mercury and Kelly Klein were both fired from Ring of Honor and are both suing the company. Ferrara still works there, though. Ferrara needs to go.
 

famicommander

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The return of the ROH Women's division:

All indie prospects. Between the four of them they have worked a combined 5 squash matches for WWE and Impact but other than that they have just worked the indies. Three of them spent several years working at Booker T's Reality of Wrestling promotion+wrestling school in Texas while the fourth is from Ohio Valley Wrestling.

Depending on the reception to their work in this match, some of them will probably be invited back for the Women's Championship tournament on TV this summer.

I thought Hyan and Rok-C looked pretty good. Glad to see them getting introductions and time to work rather than just throwing up a random 7 minute match every week like they used to.
 

famicommander

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Naomichi Marufuji challenged Keiji Muto for the GHC Heavyweight Championship after Muta's successful defense the other day.

Hopefully they change the title because Muta's knees retired several years ago. Every impact move he takes or gives looks excruciating to him. Even Marufuji is getting up there at 41 but he's almost 2 decades younger than Muta.
 

Syn

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Back in the WCW days, I was all excited to see Muta vs Steamboat at a house show. Muta didn't make it so they fed Ricky a jobber. Very disappointed.
 

famicommander

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“They (WWE) are in talks with MLW and it’s along the lines of the old Evolve deal or to a degree the 90s ECW deal. The idea is to get some of the developmental guys who aren’t working on NXT television some work.”

RIP MLW if this happens.

ECW, Evolve, wXw, ICW, OVW, and Progress should all be cautionary tales. Hopefully Court Bauer isn't stupid enough to jump into bed with WWE.
 

famicommander

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ROH posted a scarcely-seen Eddie Guerrero match from their archives today:

He only wrestled two matches for the promotion and his other one against Super Crazy was much more famous since it took place on the first ever ROH card.
 
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