garynysmon

That's a few days old, they've passed 800 now. With walk ups it will comfortably top 1,000 which will look good in that particular venue.

I haven't watched much wrestling at all for a few months now, which includes TNA. In all honesty the product has felt stone cold for a few months now, which is quite shameful really, given that they came out from Hard to Kill with quite a lot of buzz. That said, the Rebellion card is looking pretty good and after a bit of a break I'm quite looking forward to watching it. While they're going back to the Palms at Vegas a little too soon, at least you know it'll be a four figure crowd in a decent, well lit arena in a pretty hot atmosphere. Singles Match: Rich Swann (w/AJ Francis) vs. Joe Hendry Last Man Standing Match: Josh Alexander vs. Hammerstone Full Metal Mayhem Match: Frankie Kazarian vs. Eric Young TNA X-Division Title Match: Mustafa Ali (c) vs. Jake Something TNA World Tag Team Title Match: The System (Brian Myers & Eddie Edwards) (c) vs. Speedball Mountain (Mike Bailey & Trent Seven) TNA Knockouts World Title Match: Jordynne Grace (c) vs. Steph De Lander (w/Matt Cardona) TNA World Title Match: Moose (c) vs. Nic Nemeth

On balance I think that social media has not been a force for good and has forced a wedge in society that seems to be widening. There was definitely a ‘sweet spot’ for the internet. When it broadened horizons, provided us with wikipedia and search engines but your mum and Sandra next door hadn’t discovered Facebook yet. Broadcast media and the printed press was far from perfect and there have always been red and blue newspapers. But when you consider how much of a platform social media has given to utter cranks, it makes you pine for a time that they didn’t have a platform at all. In 1994 Laurence Fox, rather than having half a million Twitter followers, would have been a guest on an obscure late night James Whale cable show or stood on a soapbox in an inner London park with people looking on in bemusement. The 1960’s Heath government decriminalised and legalised a lot of things, including gay sex. The direction of travel was clear and people generally followed. Its hard to see such liberal and seismic (for the time) legislation enjoying a free ride in this climate. There was a time when people at least tried to pretend they were ‘hip’ and forward thinking, despite what they may say behind closed doors. But now you can find someone that will share your opinions on anything, which usually has an emboldening effect. You think the earth is flat? Well here’s the Fb group for you buddy…

I thought this was a great little film and worth 20 mins. More of these please TNA.

Pretty much! He was great fun on the UK Indies and came out with some right bangers based on popular songs. There's no way TNA is paying for any licensed music so that hurts his act a little bit, but he's great. My favourite TNA creation of his was this little ditty.

This is made me laugh anyway.

“Banning” Hulk Hogan and signing Ric Flair is about as clear an example as I can think of.

Swap around AEW and WWE in your comment and it would be just as valid.

If you added up how many people were watching live shows in the USA and wrestling for a living in 1980 compared to 1990, both figures would show a significant drop.

The best theme we never had.

Good old whataboutery… In all seriousness, as @RedRooster alluded to, is Tony Khan really a ‘nice guy’ though? Yes he gets excited about wrestlers he signs, which may be endearing to some. But ask Big Swole and others he’s had a wobbler about if he’s a nice guy or not. Tony Khan’s major advantage over any other booker is his financial clout that he inherited by virtue of his birth. A hill I’d happily die on is if you gave Scott D’amore AEW’s budget it would be a better product all round.

819,000 viewers. So a stunt designed solely to pique the interest of hardcore fans who follow all the backstage stuff didn’t break through. What a shocker. On the WCW stuff, WCW always felt worse than it was at the time because it was up against peak WWF. I find a lot of 1998-99 very watchable personally, certainly never boring. 2000 I will concede was fucking terrible though.

Coming up next week, Sean Waltman shitting in Sunny’s food.

Just seen the footage on Twitter now. Wow… was that it? Whenever you heard of backstage fights I always imagined them to be worse than that. If this was a real sport or the lobby of the House of Commons I could see how it would be newsworthy. But in pro wrestling, where we’ve had ‘backstage attacks’ on weekly tv for over 25 years, it seems rather tame in comparison. I may be desensitized to the whole thing by now but on a TV show where you’re always trying to put over heinous attacks, showing a guy being struck and being put in a front facelock being hammed up as this massive big deal is kind of funny. Given AEW is on a channel like TNT not everyone follows the online stuff anyway and it would all seem rather confusing.