Can't wait for the ceremony when WWE pins him down and Jelly Roll tattoos "I promise I will never wrestle again" on AJ's face as a retirement present.

Sometimes I see a tweet, think "The replies are this are going to be a horror show" and then click on it anyway just so I can give myself a rare instance of being right about something.

If you ever miss Larry King's "News and Views" columns, or SNL and Howard Stern mocking them, former WCW announcer/blood narc Chris Cruise has basically carried them on.

From a 1991 PW Torch: A cartoon imagining a hilarious and unbelievable future when the Rock and Roll Express would still be wrestling in 2000, when Morton and Gibson would've been 44 and 42, respectively. Today we call those ages "Just starting your WWE career".

A cool thing about Danielson as a commentator is that, from now until the end of time, when he's in segments like tonight, screaming "YOU PROVED YOUR POINT", begging Swerve to stop killing Kenny, fans will believe there's a 20% chance he attacks. And one day he might.

I've gotten some nice feedback and had fun, so I might go back for more.

ICYMI Last night: I delved into the world of horny 1990 Observer Readers

With all the people talking about the 2025 Observer Awards, I went back and looked at the 1990 ones and what we can learn from them. Some lessons, some laughs, and the most fun I've had writing in a while. www.patreon.com/posts/fire-b...

We are on the 5th day of people complaining about the Observer Awards and saying they're not relevant, which, ironically, is the thing in 2026 that's most keeping them relevant.

Have a broken tooth dental emergency on a holiday, stuck up until tomorrow morning when I can book an emergency root canal, and I'm spending it checking social media, because when I hurt my knee I like to distract myself from the pain by hitting my hand with a hammer.

Tickled to check a book about R.E.M. out from the library only to find a prior reader wrote a post-it note cheat sheet for who was who in the band. "-eyebrows"

Booker T's most famous commentary moment was getting caught ordering chicken parm during an episode of NXT. That is his "As God is my witness, he is broken in half!". But his important work must be defended. The vibes. The vibes.

So glad we've moved on from "Was Billy Gunn one of the greats" to "Is Booker T a better announcer than Vic Joseph", if only because I take this as a sign that we have run out of things to argue about. These are the last two. We're scraping under the barrel.

It's neat that AEW's Grand Slam events have evolved into what we all hoped the Battle of the Belts shows would be. Happy that a new generation gets their own "Bigger than TV, smaller than PPV" Clash of the Champions experiences. They've found a groove with the size of these.

AEW left in the "Fuck ICE" chants for a taped Grand Slam. So there's that.

Last time Mistico won Wrestler of the Year, WWE took notice and signed him. IT'S TIME FOR SIN CARA TO COME HOME #icareforsincara

"NFL players couldn't just walk into a wrestling ring and succeed!" says YouTuber who walked into a wrestling ring and immediately became a star in the biggest promotion in the world.

Another example from the same issue, which includes the great Dave quote about Teddy Hart, "Lack of visibility due to insanity".

Everyone who says "All the voters in the WON Awards just do whatever Dave says" is ignorant of one of my fave little things: Dave telling the voters they got it wrong. Here is WWE HATER Dave saying 2004 voters shouldn't have ranked Samoa Joe higher for the Thesz award than...HHH.

An article on the Observer site (To be fair, not written by Dave) is calling Dave's quote "speculation," but that quote...doesn't read as speculation. There's no "I think" or "I assume"; it comes off as a statement of known fact.

The great and wise @mayormgf.bsky.social just blew my mind by reminding me that apart from Grand Slam, AEW's upcoming shows are a string of high latin markets like Denver and El Paso...until they get to ST.PAUL FUCKING MINNESOTA. Good luck with the chants!

WBD has just guaranteed those chants will happen in the future. What are they going to do now, have every time Brody wrestles be an empty arena match? If they block him from shows completely, those chants are going to happen on cards he's not even on. They've made him a martyr.

ICYMI: A new ThROH The Years happened last night! It just happened!

On the new ThROH The Years we talk about the night Roderick Strong tried to kill Erick Stevens. Plus other stuff! redcircle.com/shows/throh-...

Did Nielsen correct a flaw in their ratings methodology that was underreporting wrestling fans, or did Andrade being sexy double AEW's 18-49 audience in a matter of weeks? The odds are 50/50.

My favorite part of this is how quickly Russo goes from "I just want to give back to wrestling in any way I can" to "DID I JUST WATCH TWO EPISODES OF RAW FOR NOTHING?!"

Can't stop laughing that I caused an international incident yesterday.

Kind of amazing to see the "Fuck ICE" chants on Dynamite getting noticed a bit outside of the wrestling bubble. Some people going "There are wrestling fans that don't like Trump?!" with real "A dog that can TALK?!" energy.

Nielsen's Big Data + Panel formula is a complex ratings system that combines a survey of a carefully curated group of people from all demographics, live information from millions of viewing devices, and constant random adjustments to get people to stop yelling at us.

No problem. I can't ever completely turn my back on the guy who recommended Urban Flow to me in a random tweet. (At least I think it was you, my memory might be wrong there.)

It's okay. It's only happens like 3 times a year. Just because Mommy and Daddy have lost that spark, our love for you hasn't lessened one bit. You don't have to choose. You can visit me two weekends a month and on holidays.

I've certainly not crossposted WWE event tweets at times as I've had followers here expressly tell me they like following me except for WWE stuff. Not a secret! Gives them an option! I hope one day to be as morally brave as you and your monitor that goes out when certain people post about WWE.

Aw, that breaks my heart! I'll redouble my efforts to win yours! I absolutely admit to a level of hypocrisy, but giving people you like or have collab-ed with a free ride for that same hypocrisy? Snarking about X usage when you post there? That's delicious. Potato Pave layers of hypocrisy.

You could look at my feeds and see how much live reacts I've done of WWE in recent years! Especially since you also post on Elon's app! Busy this morning so I may or may not put Netflix on in the background, but I'd feel better about it if I got one of your selective hall passes.

People mad about HHH bragging about tonight's building being built with semi-slave labor, but it'll be redeemed when they show a touching "In Memorium" video before the main to all the palace builders who passed, before handing a survivor a giant novelty 15% off ShopWWE gift code

At this point, the Agent Nick story is ending with him naked, holding a Jersey Mike's hostage, screaming about how the reptilians are coming for him. Rosy Cordero writes the story up for Deadline as "Super Agent Nick LoPiccolo draws crowd at in-store event."

Wrestling is this insane form of entertainment where every subjective opinion is met with "BUT HOW MUCH MONEY DID THEY MAKE?" van Gogh, horrible painter when he was alive, didn't draw a dime. Now that he's dead and his art is worth tons, best painter ever.

I badly want the modern "Dave Meltzer is the devil for giving Kurt Angle only ****3/4" fans to interact with the "Dave Meltzer is a fool for praising Angle so much, this is why Mark Henry smokes him as a worker" fans. Two generations that have had no interaction with each other. Big Brother it.

It's at the point where the people in his life need to hold some kind of mental health intervention. If this behavior costing him his job wasn't a wake up call, he ain't going to find one on his own.

One of the worst parts of the streaming era is every PPV product being turned into a bukake of ads as all these services that massively overpay for content desperately try to break even. AEW PPVs are the only ones left that still feel like, dare I say, literal Premium Live Events

TKO and their partners practice the fine art of finding the exact number of ads per hour that their audiences won't tolerate and then subtracting one. With Paramount they've added 20. Put this on a second screen out of curiosity, which was quickly turned into morbid curiosity.

TNA followed the Trevor Dame strategy of making an awful first impression so anything you do next looks great by comparison. It's why on first dates I shit my pants at dinner and yell "I PROMISE YOU THIS WILL GET BETTER."

If only there were some incredibly similar situation that we could compare this to, where another wrestler Tony signed was blocked from appearing on WBD for past remarks about gay people.

A chart of what AMC's recent original programming has averaged. Impact would be on the low end, but I don't know what AMC's spending for TNA. If it's say, an ad split, ratings that might not be enough for an expensive scripted drama might be for a year-round live weekly show.

Everyone talking about TNA on AMC's week one rating, I'm more interested in week two's. I need to see how many people watched that first show and said "I want to see more of this". I want to know how bleak my outlook on humanity needs to be.

ICYMI Last night: A new ThROH The Years! Learn how much money Bryan Danielson could've made Matt Sydal! Learn if any of us have ever used crutches!

MONDAY NIGHT THROH THE YEARS! @joegagne returns! We cover two great shows. LITERAL SHOOTING. redcircle.com/shows/throh-...

Out of context, "Everyone's getting concussed left and right. And they're saying there's more going to be happening" is such a darkly funny thing to imagine being said. "I'm seeing stars and am sensitive to light." "AND THAT'S JUST THE BEGINNING."

Can't get over that Impact. They had weeks to prepare for the most important show the promotion has had in at least a decade, and that's what they came up with.