Nah. Willing to bet Punk will be back. Not necessarily at Survivor series, but within a year.

There's virtually nobody on that level WWE hasn't brought back at some point. Savage and Chyna are the only names that come to mind. Raw is struggling with MNF, and Smackdown is up for rights renewals soon. They need some ratings. Punk's return would definitely provide a pop especially with how he left AEW. If Punk is willing, which I think he is, it will get done. 

WWE released a bunch of people. It's a part of life, but a some of these are really bullshit.

Particularly, Mace and Mansoor, the Maximum male models. The WWE put these guys in a dead end gimmick, they gave it 100%, and did what they could. As a reward, they were taken off TV, Maxine was split from them, and then they're fired.

Fucking corporate America.

Damn, its so much heartbreaking when seeing people let go like that.

Rumor has it AEW will be streaming on HBO Max. Which I've said for a while is the biggest thing that AEW needs. In a world where streaming services run between 10 and 20 dollars for massive amounts of content 50 bucks a PPV is not a viable model. I'm not sure HBO Max is the best provider, but it's pretty much the one they had to use due to their relationship with WB. Hopefully, it will be on the normal version and not some sports package.

For me, if the WWE Network/Peacock didn't exist, I'd have stopped watching wrestling long ago. I'm not paying 50 bucks a show, and I'm not spending hours trying to find a non-sketchy stream. And if I'm not watching the PPVs, I don't see the point of watching the weekly shows. It's even more vital to AEW since they have to grow. Their PPVs should theoretically be their best products, and they should want them to be in front of as many eyeballs as possible, and at 50 bucks they're not attracting anyone who isn't already invested. But, if there was something like say... Edge and Christian vs FTR, and I happened to have HBO Max anyway, that's something I'd definitely check out, and maybe then I'll actually start watching the weekly shows. AEW really should treat this like a semi-relaunch of the brand.

Smackdown is moving to USA which ends the pro-wrestling on network TV experiment. The rights fees are up about 40% from what they were the last time, but only about 12% when accounting for inflation. Which isn't bad, but also not great growth. As of now, they don't expect Raw to return to USA, which is kind of weird. Trading one wrestling show for another seems like a bit of a lateral move.

I'm honestly not sure that Raw will be on TV anymore. WWE definitely wants some TV presence, and that may be Smackdown. Wrestling is always a weird product. It's fairly popular, but it's still a niche product and somewhat insulated. People who watch wrestling regularly tend to be passionate then someone who watches some random sitcom or reality show. If Raw was exclusive to a particular streaming service, like Peacock, it would likely drive people to subscribe to that service. Driving WWE's more loyal fans to that service may be more valuable than putting it on cable.

The way I see it is that USA network and WWE wants some wrestling on cable. This is important to keep WWE growing to an extent and to provide some ratings. Smackdown is more desirable because it airs on Friday, and doesn't have to go against Monday night Football for 1/4 of the year. It's also possible that with only one wrestling show on cable, it will kind of consolidate the viewership. Smackdown will be kind of the "A" show as it has been with more of the top guys, cameos from people like Cena, etc. Raw on the other hand will lean more towards the devoted wrestling fans. Kind of like what Smackdown was back in the original brand split days. They'll put this as a Peacock exclusive, or maybe another streamer will want it, to get those fans on their service.

Welp, I was bored so there's my comments on some of the business aspects of wrestling nowadays.

I mean, I've just been pirating basically every week since 2011. utorrent as the client has always worked for me, and //1337x.to has always been a great source of torrents. It's where I Get all my TV, movies, and wrestling from. 

But if it's on a streaming service I might pick that instead. 

Yeah, obviously there are ways to find pretty much anything if you want it. But, you're someone who is already invested in the product. To someone who is a casual fan or just heard of AEW and is curious, you're probably not going to go through that effort. There are tons of entertainment options, and if one of them is way more accessible, you'll probably go with that one.

Let's say Edge debuts tonight on AEW, which seems likely. Will a WWE fan who doesn't otherwise watch AEW go through the trouble to find a stream tonight or a torrent tomorrow to see if Edge shows up? I think most likely not. If they turn on a streaming service they already use, and AEW just happens to be on the front page, will they turn it on? I think that's way more likely. 

Edit: Welp, Edge or Adam Copeland is all Elite. Probably a better move for him. He still has a little bit left, and deserves another big run, but at the WWE the timing for that wasn't going to work out. And he'll get to do his last run with Christian, which is nice for both of them. 

Surprised he got to use his WWE theme. Pretty sure they would have the rights to that. Maybe they did him a favor? Adam Copeland isn't a great sounding wrestler name, but he was too big of a star to give an entirely new name to, so pretty much their only option. 

Of all the WWE Events I've seen, Fastlane was definitely the most recent. Spoilers ahead obviously.

Shinsuke and Seth was great, and really the only match worth going out of your way to watch. Had a great build and considering how the faces won every other match (if you count Iyo Sky as a face) it seemed like Shinsuke might actually pull it off. But, he didn't. The match worked because of the bending back of the fourth wall in a good way. One wonders how bad Seth's back actually is. Hopefully it's not as bad as they make it out to be in the story because if it is, some of those bumps are really ill advised. Even if his back is fine, they maybe overdid it a little.

Everything else was varying degrees of good. Fun to see Cena back, and his match served its purpose of making LA Knight look good. It's one of those situations where you know what's going to happen, and it is what should happen, but still kind of hard to invest when the outcome is so obvious. Wasn't bad, but could have probably main evented Smackdown instead. Seeing Carlito back is fun, hopefully this run is a bit longer than the last where he popped up for a couple of weeks and then poofed away. Had to look up his age. Dude is 44. Absolutely insane shape.

It was a perfectly decent way to kill a few hours, but it was very sports entertainy. Aside from the main event, the matches were more about pushing forward certain stories than being great matches in and of themselves. They weren't bad matches, just not the kind of climactic fued ending matches that are generally the point of PPVs. Very much feels like they're trying to stretch things out till Mania season.

For fans of Simon Miller, he has recently debuted in Impact Wrestling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8mhJnt8Vy0

Seems like a genuinely nice guy. Super happy for him.

Who is ready for CM Punk's return to the place that made him sick? Looking forward to the return and the subsequent IWC meltdown.

LLLLLLLLLLiiiiiiiiiiiiikkkkkkeeeee Mussssollllllliiiiinnnnnnnnnni!