After all these years, thinking I'd never see him again:

HEEL EDGE IS BACK!!!!
HELL.
YES!!!

A little weird that they did Edge's heel turn right after Damian Priests. But hard to complain about Edge vs AJ Styles.

While I agree this match will be great...would it have killed them to give them a bit more story/buildup? like am I missing something here? it was literally the same level of story of a title match open challenge. "I want a fight, someone fight me!" Followed by some random guy coming out, saying "I'd be happy to fight you!" then person 1 kicks them in the balls, leans in close, and says 'someone's gotta be the heel, might as well be me.'

WWE has some of the best talent in the world, why does the writing almost always suck? 

The writers always change. They have gone through a plethora of them in the last 10-20 years.

What has not changed is the man at the top. And he gets the final word on everything. And as long as he is in charge, nothing will change.

The brazen disrespect of HHH despite him basically MAKING the most critically renowned brand on their roster is just...how? NXT was great for half a decade, then Vince had to McMahon the place up in the most disrespectful way. 

I mean, I think that's my thing. I don't even care that WWE is juvenile, poorly written trash. Wrestling as a concept is inherently silly. It can be dumb from time to time. But I think what gets me most about WWE's product is the sheer disrespect it has for its wrestlers/talent. Bad writing makes them look bad, poor booking makes them look weak, and Vince has this thing where he likes sucking off the old generation without letting the new generation come in to work. How many people have been fed to Goldberg or Brock Lesnar? How many promising young stars have repeatedly been thrown against a wall only to be stopped because they weren't Randy Orton or John Cena or the aforementioned Brock Lesnar? 

They don't respect tag team wrestling, they don't respect high flyers or technical wrestlers, they have the worst writers in the industry (Seriously, I'm a writer myself who writes dragon x gryphon smut and I think their writing is terrible), and then there's all that shit with the releases and not letting Ali go when he wants to go. They don't utilize their talent, they actively resist showing the fans what they want, they cut the legs of anyone that gets popular in spite of their best efforts, etc. 

It's just a terribly disrespectful place. They have some amazing talent for sure, and they do things well from time to time (Even a broken clock is right twice a day), but they are so consistently bad that I don't know how anyone could look at what they're doing then look at what AEW is doing and genuinely think 'nah, WWE is where it's at' that isn't blinded by nostalgia or bias. 

I used to be a WWE mark (didn't watch WCW or ECW in the 90s/00s, didn't watch impact or RoH or NJPW), but even before AEW came around I was getting bored with their crap because it's been so bad for so long. I used to love it, so I grabbed onto that hope that it would get better. but it never did. I stopped watching WWE with any consistency in 2018 (As in I still watched PPV and the occasional episode if I heard something good or fun happened), but stopped 100% in Money in the Bank 2019 when Brock LEsnar just strolled up at the end of the ladder match to win despite a half dozen other guys all working their asses off to entertain the crowd. 

Fuck Brock Lesnar. I don't care how good people think he is, he's boring and repetitive and he got old fast. All his matches have been the same since 2013, he doesn't NEED the title or the rumble victories or the Money in the Bank shit to be a star, but they keep giving it to him. He keeps winning, he ruins everything he touches, and his continued place atop EVERY FUCKING CARD is keeping everyone else down. He USED to be amazing. 2002-2004 run he was a beast, he was compelling, he put on amazing matches. He was genuinely one of the best wrestlers of that time. but ever since coming back in 2012 he's just been there for a paycheque...which is fine except he's genuinely taking away spots and prestige from young up and comers. He can have his Main events, he can have his marquee bouts...but jesus christ he does NOT need titles, he does NOT need rumble wins and MITB cases, etc. IT's garbage, it's disrespectful, and while it worked in theory (having an 'end boss' for folks to overcome can be good narrative), in practice it's been going on way too long. He's being treated with the reverence he deserved back in his initial run, the push of a young up and comer. But he's not that. He's on his way out. He's old, he's over the hill, he's boring, he regularly has way-too-short matches, and he clearly doesn't give a fuck about the art of the performance. 

To me, this is like that dude from office space getting all the bonuses and the employee of the month plaques. HE's actively trying to not be compelling but he somehow still gets all the praise when others need and deserve it so, so, SO much more. 

I hate him and he's emblematic of everything wrong with the company. Now I watch Simon Miller's ups and downs to get a basic play by play of each show, but I hardly even watch the PPV any more. IT's all garbage. IT's all poorly written. IT's all disrespectful. IT's all terrible for the future. IT's just bad.

AEW ain't perfect but you can't say they don't book for the future or that they don't at least give opportunities to younger dudes or guys just getting into the game. You can't possibly juggle all AEW wants to do successfully, but that's all growing pains. I've gotten more genuine enjoyment out of AEW in the last year or so than I have out of WWE since 2014 when CM Punk left. 

And I genuinely don't know how anyone with two brain cells to rub together could think WWE is better or even good. I can count on one hand the things they've done well: Women's wrestling and Roman Reign's heel turn. that's basically it since the Daniel Bryan win at Wrestlemania XXX (And they only did that because the fans basically hijacked their every show). 

Tony Khan's big announcement tonight:

He just bought Ring of Honor...

I figured that they would at least buy the tape library.
If that rumored HBO Max deal is true, owning the library was REALLY going to be a huge lift since damn near every one on the roster, especially the top level guys like Punk, Bryan, Hangman, and Adam Cole all got their starts and made their names in Ring of Honor.
But the entire company?!? God Damn!!!

... yeah, I'm sorry, but nobody could take you seriously when you say things like people with three or more brain cells can't have a different opinion than you. Or when you write off the women's division, approximately a third of their product, as "one thing". Or that literall everything in WWE is bad. There's a lot of good stuff going on, as well as a bunch of bad stuff, and some stuff marketed at different audiences.

The current storyline with Wardlow is giving me a lot of flashbacks to Batista in 2004-2005.

There's a lot of similarities:
- Both are big, buff, badass dudes who go in there, wreck everyone's shit, and the crowd cheers for them despite being Heels.
- Both are part of old school styled Heel stables with an arrogant, self-righteous prick as the leader (MJF/HHH).
- Both are giving subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, jabs at the leader, causing more tension and teasing that eventual Face turn.

I'm not familiar with Ring of Honor but it sounds like it was AEW before AEW. I am very excited to see what/how this goes down. 

Before there was AEW and Triple H's NXT, there was Ring of Honor. 

Damn near every single one of the big names or best wrestlers in the industry today and in the last 15-20 years got their start and/or made their names and reputations there.

CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, Hangman Adam Page, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Cesaro, Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, The Young Bucks, The Briscoes, Tommaso Ciampa, the list goes on.

You can't talk about today's modern landscape of pro wrestling without talking about Ring of Honor. That's how influential it has been. 

So for Tony Khan to snatch them up, even just for the tape library (especially since they're the ones who own the footage of All In) is a huge deal. What remains to be seen is what his plans are for Ring of Honor itself, because they've been knocking on death's door for a while now.