The Gaffer

At least Khan's keeping on top of his Sky bills.

They're in an era where almost every show has a backstage segment that moves in a one-shot out into the live arena. I've not seen and don't plan to watch the segment but it's definitely not outside the realm of possibility that it went out live.

I'm completely okay with Raquel Rodriguez - someone I had no opinion on previously - getting the Diesel gimmick:

Yeah, I know. I think "Fuck Donald Trump" to "I have nothing but love and respect for Donald Trump" warranted enough of an about turn to highlight it, regardless of D-O-double-G's voting proclivities.

Not sure what the quoted post has to do with Liverpool fans not caring if we are considered title contenders.

I don't think any Liverpool fans care, to be honest. Flying under the radar is where it's at. The "Are they title contenders?" thing is for TalkSport and Sky Sport's YouTube channel clicks. I did joke with a friend yesterday that it would be fun in the Arsenal game to watch Arteta do his Jim Carey stuff on the touchline whilst Slot played Wordle on his phone, but a short few weeks into the season and John Brooks seems to have broken him yesterday: Welcome to the show, Arne!

The Snoop Dogg clip is unfortunately from six years ago. Here's one from this year:

I'd say if you haven't shaken off your previous employer in two years it might be a you thing. Shades of Spinal Tap going "They were still booing him when we came on stage!". It's that hands down the face dance that gets me. Everything else about the presentation I think I could handle if she could somehow stop herself from reverting to it every 2-4 seconds during her entrances. She's clearly got the talent and AEW clearly have the booking nous to turn it around. If she sticks around I imagine she'll come through it and be far better off for it.

His views certainly aren't for me either, but there's no point keeping them under wraps. It doesn't benefit him in any way. The vast, vast majority of wrestling fans would have been out the door long before now on a moral issue stronger than "Man has belief set of roughly half the rest of the country." If you scroll through the comment feeds for any of his podcasts they're mostly and expectedly just "Two legends having it out. Love it!" He's dodgy enough for us to notice and dull enough to not get himself in serious jeopardy with it. It might ruin some nostalgia, but by the turn of the century the fella was riding a motorcycle with Old Glory stuck in the back of it down to the ring with actual Kid Rock blasting.

At the risk of turning this into a WWE Vault thread, they've uploaded my favourite match ever today: There's just something so special about almost-but-not-quite-peaked-yet Hardyz & Edge & Christian going in with zero hype or expectation to a B-Show and delivering something where halfway through the match the crowd slowly start realising "Oh fuck, this is important somehow!" The first few TLCs are I guess objectively better in so many other ways, but this is the one for me. High spots without being too over the top, no pre-gimmicked ladders, doesn't have half a dozen guys peering over the apron waiting for their cue to stop being dead. Just a belter of a brawl that made four guys.

Triple H has the book. He probably wakes up stiff at the thought of Gunther and Lesnar going 50 minutes at SummerSlam.

Maybe this is an odd comparison, but he feels like a Lex Luger that's clicked. He's come along at the perfect time where everyone in the buildings has tired of being cynical - highfalutin arguments that we've all had a crap few years, the product's been middling-to-poor for a generation etc - and there's just a bunch of stuff that's worked that maybe would not have worked so well a few years ago. It's very early New Gen, and it's all the stuff I want from him. He's big, dumb WWE's big, dumb hero and everyone's just mutually decided to take it at face value and go with it this time. It's lovely.