I’ve seen Nia get called out. But by pretty much the same people who will basically be the ones who like AEW bloodbaths. The ones who love Jeff spamming swantons off ladders onto more ladders. Or 60 year old Sting with spinal cord damage doing crazy spots. Or 40 year old Moxley who says he has the arthritis of a 70 year old and the crazy stuff he does. They love ladders, high spots to the outside and Canadian destroyers but Nia is wrong? Is it because she is bigger and not an acrobatic death match type worker? Or is it white knighting for women and seeing male wrestlers as disposable fodder or what?

This guy always wanted to do this. He has a love for it. Unlike the rest of us he has the money to do it but my god he has surrendered himself to vultures and morons who look only to bleed him dry. At some point someone has to grab him and wake him up to the fact that this isn’t profitable. There is no way this is profitable. Booking big arenas to only fill them 25% and who knows how many are free tickets. A bloated roster full of overpaid guys and gals who don’t belong on tv. He can’t book and doesn’t know what storytelling actually is. Wrestling has always been about telling a story that keeps the people wanting more and more. Throwing “bangers” on tv every week with no build is why the ratings can and will never go above the paltry numbers they’re at right now.

He has chosen to listen to the meltzers, bucks, omega and Jericho. Guys who couldn’t sell female nether regions on a troop train at this point. Hell I used to like omega and the bucks when I’d see them in NJPW on occasion. Once it became a weekly thing I realized how much they suck in and out of the ring. He has hired all their friends to do backstage jobs and it shows. At this point they’re all bleeding him dry and you’ve got to wonder how much longer this can go on.

I’m wondering if these pressures are what’s causing him to become erratic more than usual. I think Tuesday really broke him. He was hyped up by all his yes men that he could beat nxt. He got brought back down to reality and he really can’t handle it. He tried his booking bangers approach and got slaughtered by three guys that didn’t wrestle, a grey haired heyman and auska. It’s so bad he has to pull some silly obscure thing from left field about taker and cena being under a million viewers.

This has become tna/dying days of wcw except with a shit ton more money. Gotta wonder how much longer tbs and tnt will put up with their shit ratings and shit performance weekly. It certainly couldn’t bode well for contract renewals.

Not really a situation to mock.

Has anyone in recent memory fallen off this badly in such a short amount of time ? Since Swerve Glory split up, Keith Lee has been persona non grata, and his 2023 was nothing but missteps and cringe:

- the Swerve feud just.. stopped ?

- Lee formed a very weird tag team with Dustin Rhodes, where he borrowed Viscera's and Mordecai's ring jackets

- take 22

- Chris Jericho beat him, because that's just how it goes

- no PPV matches except one Battle Royal, no storylines

- comes back, squashes a few people as if he isn't 20 years in the business

- absolutely embarrassing loss to Samoa Joe

- now, he wrestled in Ring of F'N Honor lmao. Oh and supposedly, the Swerve feud will get its conclusion.. after a year

At least Swerve's doing great.

Thought the match was phenomenal yesterday. But personally I prefer the character of Daniel Bryan, plucky underdog who fought to win the big one over the machine. Versus Bryan Danielson who’s an unstoppable wrestling god, but is 5’9 170 lbs. Him being the underdog is what made it more special. (Going further I think planet champion was his best character but that’s a different discussion)

No, it's not just the fact that Joe is big, a great worker, and a phenomenal promo. My respect for him has grown exponentially because he is the ONLY top guy in AEW that hasn't done comedy, or stupid fourth wall-breaking shoot promos on WWE.

- all of The Elite: self explanatory

- Jericho: from being dumped into a pool of oranges, to claiming AEW's sports entertainment is actually entertaining

- Swerve: literally has a dancing sidekick

- Jay White: 95 percent of his run in the company so far

- Will Ospreay: comes out there like a goof in a tracksuit and puts emphasis on the fact he isn't eloquent whatsoever, BRUH

- Kazuchika Okada: already comes across as just another guy, doing a parody of Triple H's handshake schtick with The Bucks

- Edge: entire ordeal with Ricky Starks, many childish insults and jokes towards Christian and his crew

- MJF: that's his entire gimmick basically. Also who can forget that awful singing segment ?

- Moxley: does a not-so-vague jab at WWE every couple weeks, and kisses dudes in a certified comedy spot because... I don't know why ??

- Sting: did the forsaken Kicks of Doom with Cassidy, couple other small things here and there

- Adam Cole: The Devil storyline, and even his initial few months in teaming with Bucks

For whatever reason, if you're a top guy, you MUST make an ass out of yourself and do and/or say something stupid on a regular basis. Comedy is absolutely mandatory, and nobody can take themselves seriously. Joe is the exception; he's been professional, worked hard with the limitations he has, dresses like a star, always eloquent in interviews, carries himself like a World Champ, and handled business with the whole Punk/Jack situation. Don't make him drop the belt !!

Such boring stipulation that relies on spots rather than setting up storylines. The first 20-minutes might as well be skipped and they always go the same way - 2nd guy from the team with advantage shows up, dominates the match, then 2nd guy from disadvantage team shows up and dominates, then 3rd guy dominates etc etc etc till the last man.

The classics 5-on-5 elimination match is much more fun. Hell, if you want to change the match because you don't like it for some reason - do Iron Survivor from NXT, much more dynamic match.

Guy had the HOF career, did great work reinventing himself, had great debuts/returns, had buzz and surprise and excitement, and even got AEW off the ground a bit. Anything since then has been a complete afterthought and shell of this dude.

The Painmaker gimmick is embarrassingly trash. Reminds me of Cody being Stardust. He attaches himself to young talent and sucks the air out of the room. His outside of wrestling persona is questionable. He’s a drama king online and takes credit for anything and everything. Not to mention physically how he’s let himself go and just isn’t the same guy he used to be, but he continues doing the Ric Flair and wrestling even when he’s not as good anymore.

Just really sad. I used to be the biggest fan. I had his Save Us 222 shirt and his books. Loved him in the WWF and his heel WWE runs. He’s been pretty bad since leaving though.

Roman Reigns - WWE's Thanos, an integral part of the best wrestling storyline in years, THE star of the business, will likely main event WM 40 against Cody

Seth Rollins - the Macho Man/Shawn Michaels of his generation, a complete package, 7 month reign as World Champ and face of Raw, will likely main event Night 1 of WM 40 against Punk

Jon Moxley - lost clean to a 150 pound, much less talented version of Tozawa

The Shield was meant to rule this industry. 😭😭😭

I have never watched a njpw show but i always heard of this guy and everytime people would say "Okada is a wrestling machine, the goat who dominated the iwgp world championship scene" and that they would compare his run to roman reigns's run, so basically they always hyped him up as the GOAT of NJPW and then he goes on to not only have a disastrous match but worse, Tapped out to lose the match, looked hella weak in advance. So yeah, how does NJPW benefits from these crossovers again?

these are fucking UFC fights, even enduring 2 minutes against guys like that is an accomplishment, like yeah Punk looked hella bad but that doesnt mean he will lose fights against anyone in that AEW locker room, hell it's the opposite he was at least trained to fight for a year or two.

I really dont get why people make it seem like Punk lost against street hobos or something

i have often over my 25 years online seen the constant criticism "WWE can't build new stars" and "WWE are relying on old stars!!" or "WWE are relying on indie stars like owens, zayn and balor" (back in the day)

why can't we ever treat AEW with the same?

my question is....why haven't AEW built any stars? They've existed for 7 years now and i can't think of a single person they've built from scratch.

MJF is the same gimmick as he was from MLW. Hangman the same from ROH. Bucks and Omega obviously the same from ROH/NJPW

i can accept:

1 Darby Allin seems to be quite an AEW guy built to a mainevent

2 Toni storm even though known throughout many promotions was given the timeless gimmick

i genuinely dont know anyone else that has been built by AEW? Yet I've seen for decades complaints about wwe not building new stars but nothing about aew?

why?

So today we see the end of Braun in WWE. Not surprising. He’s older and his knees are shot. He also has lost all his momentum.

AEW roster is already too old. I think maybe if they grabbed him when he was released in 2021 it could have worked better all though we know Tony’s booking will have been bad as always.

The only reason to get Braun is for MJF to have a new Wardlow and he’d be too expensive for that.

Braun should retire and run a wrestling podcast. He would have fun stories. As a pro wrestler ? Need to hang them up.

I love it Maggle because it shows the hypocrisy of the IWC and they care more about stanning for their favorite billionaire more than actually enjoying the show. It’s really entertaining watching how fans turn on wrestlers or become fans of wrestlers just because they switch companies.

I bet the wrestlers in the back just laugh at all the stupid tribalism online as they’re getting paid good money while hanging with their friends calling us marks. Daniel Bryan prophesied the future, we’re all fickle.

This is the real Monday Night Wars 2.0 Maggle.

Lol, idk man. If everyone was talking about my company declining, and I get a hail Mary sign, why would I have him show up one week and immediately go into a plot less, no-build match the next.

You're going to have 5 moments with Edge. Debut, first match, first encounter with Christian, first fight against Christian, First fight with Christian.

Then he's a nostalgia act of your rival company. They emptied 3 rounds of ammo in 1 week lol. One round was on an irregularly scheduled night. A Tuesday at that. Instead of using edges first match to sell a PPV, you're doing this..

Notice how Jade Cargil hasn't even been seen on camera yet and Edge is several leagues bigger than her.

This is an excerpt from a recent podcast of his. The worst of look.

As a Crockett fan, I was happy to see Tony return to wrestling: however, his commentary quickly turned into bland positivity about what was happening in the ring. Everything is great.

As of late his role as TK's mouthpiece by proxy/authority figure has become really distracting. The moment a heel tries to avoid consequences, Schiavone immediately "hold on, I just heard from Tony Khan and this match is happening right here, right now!" as if the owner booker really is sitting in his announcer's ear.

(Note: not advocating for more TK screen time. Thanks, guys)

Schiavone wouldn't be so annoying if they gave the moment some time to breathe, but they pitch to the newly scheduled match right away. Plus, he has no gravitas or personality to pull the role off.

I know this is a lesser problem in the grand scheme of problems in AEW but it has become more and more noticeable.