A potential development:

https://twitter.com/JonAlba/status/1252596813376389120

Who's gonna play the Hogan to "John"'s Ventura?

These are some truly terrible RAWs since moving to the Performance Center

Though I can't help but think there may be a good percentage of wrestlers refusing to work in this current pandemic - so that's why we're getting 60-90 minutes of the new J.O.B. Squad of Andrade/Garza/Theory and all these squash matches

We know Roman's out. I'm surprised DB continues to show up. KO probably told them to go **** themselves. Doubt Brock is showing up anytime soon. They just released a large chunk of mid-carders, even though they made a 1st quarter profit. But yeah, some stuff works without a crowd, some stuff you can't really do.

Not content just to ruin the men's division, huh Seth?

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/20...egnant-670182/

Keep Nia Jax's fist away from her at all costs

There's a chance that'll be it for her if so. There's been a lot of rumors about hollywood being interested in her after her recent cameos. Apparently she's in an upcoming marvel thing too and it turned out really well. After a year away + offers coming in elsewhere with a much less hectic schedule she might make the shift over.

Yeah, seems plausible. Would hate to lose her from wrestling, but you have to be happy for anyone who can make good on opportunities to work for people not named Vince McMahon.

I'm not so sure her acting career really takes off. Nobody's expectation should be the Rock, but do we really see movie mega star in her on or off script persona?

Also trying to think of any female who went off and had a kid and then came back full time. I mean, there was Lita, but then Snitsky punted the kid into the second deck, so that's a bad precedent.

Then again, is she were really "The Man", Seth would be the one sitting home pregnant.

I don't see Becky being a huge movie star, but I could definitely see her having supporting roles in action movies for awhile. Her whole gimmick/persona is very contemporary and she's proven to connect with audiences on a pretty deep level.

Who knows what will happen. The whole thing is very bittersweet for me, since Becky is really the wrestler who got me back into this stuff and idk how interested I'll be in it without her around. The moment with Asuka was very wholesome. I also popped for Shayna's promos tonight which were hilarious.

I do feel vindicated for my take when they all came up. I swore up and down that Becky was the best out of her, charlotte, sasha, and bayley but they wouldn't let her show it and instead had her feuding with Natalya instead. I wavered for a little bit in the middle there, but I can comfortably call Becky the best female wrestler WWE has had in my lifetime.

Yep, I did too, and remember being not necessarily mocked for it, but people thought I was weird. There are receipts in this thread I'm sure. Part of it is I really value wrestlers who can create emotion and investment and I don't think anyone other than maybe Daniel Bryan was better at that than Becky. And her ability to do that was pretty clear when she was booked as a dumbass face but still was constantly getting cheered. That period where they tried to turn her heel and the fans literally wouldn't let them was also amazing and I don't know if I'd ever seen anything quite like it.

Definitely the GOAT woman and a super rare talent. I hope this isn't the end because she is so good at wrestling. A lot of the skeptics (if they still exist) will probably realize how much of the lifting she was doing when she's gone for awhile.

A.J. Lee is now the biggest 'what if' having left before the Women's Revolution hit the main roster.

They've got wrestlers in the crowd like AEW now.

I'm salty about it as the only person who thinks wrestlers in the crowd sucks and was enjoying WWE's approach to things.

And the reactions are so forced and inorganic as well. It's canned laughter.

Yeah, that has been my issue with AEW's also. At the point where they're being paid to be there and "make noise" you have none of the organic reactions that make a crowd cool anyways, so why bother? It also makes the wrestlers in the crowd look like dorks. I guess popular opinion has sort of been settled on this but I don't really understand it personally.

In general I just view it as noise > silence and I'm not thinking too hard about whats actually being said or chanted---I did laugh (at, not with) Billy Gunn during that PPV when he started multiple HOLY **** chants that were really lame.

But I would trade 10 bad (ass) Billy Gunns in the crowd to be able to see the MJF/Sammy Guevara/Britt Bakers who ooze charisma and entertainment be in the crowd reacting to things and being awesome.

MJF and Sammy could read a dictionary to me and I'd sit and watch.

I guess MJF and Shawn Spears sitting in the crowd betting on every match of a Dynamite episode isn't 'organic', they pre conceived that idea. Who cares? It was funny!

Lance Archer seeing a random idiot baby face in the crowd as a fan and grabbing him and destroying him because hes Lance Archer and he murders people---awesome.

Jericho coming out to his music and then grabbing the camera while the camera guy started rocking out to Judas. Not organic---Also awesome!

It just allows for entertaining scenarios when the current wrestling model forces them to be creative and come up with unusual content.

Yeah I don't foresee Vince letting any of the NXT crowd members have any personality whatsoever - and see them getting punished if they try

I love the fact that they once clearly had the idea that they were going to have Roman come out and say "I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a good guy, I'm the guy" in every single promo and that it was going to be a good thing. It went well the first time and they immediately went SPAMSPAMSPAM.

Great post. Preferring what WWE has been doing to AEW is so unbelievable to me. It's been some of the worst television of all time. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and say they're treating the no-crowd arcs like they don't matter, but WWE hasn't really tried putting good storylines together in a long time. OTOH, AEW has almost kept the same standard post-covid, which is saying something.

Heyman fired (from creative, not on screen role), Prichard now in charge of both shows. Why not? He's done such a good job turning Smackdown into a trainwreck.

I've long been on the "don't watch weekly TV, but watch all the PPVs" line. It works well enough; the overall PPV quality has warranted continuing to look in, despite some stinkers along the way.

I went to look at tonight's card, and...holy ****. On paper that looks like the single least interesting PPV card I can remember, especially when adjusting for the lack of crowd.

I wonder if the Greatest Wrestling Match Ever is the straw that broke Heyman.

Yeah, it's pretty bland though.

Spoiler on the Edge/Orton match since it was taped a week ago. Not a result, but something that happened during the match that's currently making the rounds online: