Spideycloned

They saw Lord of War and figured fuck it, it worked for that one guy who stole the declaration of independence it can work for us too

Both in body and in spirit.

Gavin Newsom approx 10 years ago

Gavin Newsom recently

RFK JR. The joke being that as Newsom slowly turns on all his original ideals, he is slowly transforming into this man. Both in body and spirit.

Every single day this fucker is slowly transforming into RFK JR.

Look.

I'm all for branding, right. Brock(whom I fucking hate) has been wearing Jimmy Johns for years. NFL, NHL, MLB etc have some form of branding. That's fine. Roman has a partnership with Nike which is why all his shit is Nike.

Having ass wipes branding on your gear? Fuck.

You just watch the shows. Honestly, not knowing anything about it will make it feel like it has more whimsy.

Ciampa in DIY won the tag titles more than once. As a singles guy, he wasn't utilized the best but he wasn't just taking the worst Ls.

Neither were booked super great, but they definitely weren't jobbers.

Lots of people these days use the word job in the senses of jobbed and jobber so wrong it's absolutely wild.

Andrade was a tag title contender on his way out. Got one of the few wins period over Wyatt Sicks. His booking against Melo was weird, but that was 50/50.

Neat, maybe I'd care if the servers lasted more than two years

That said, Hangman walks the walk and talks the talk. We don't know the circumstances that has Scrull still in his life and honestly we probably never will.

Is it a dark mark? Sure. That said the rest of his body of work speaks glowing.

If we stop running cities because someone lives there, then just shut the fucking promotion down.

Shut them all down.

Like, wrestling sadly has history in very, very shitty people. Some people are going to be friends with shitty people. Very good people often have a shitty friend sometimes.

I will die on the hill that they aren't faces.

They're just people who beat the shit out of people who disagree with them. Right now that just happens to be the Don Callis family.

You can keep saying it, doesn't make it true

If you had said that in the beginning, this would have been a much easier thread.

Right, he got a world title match in his home country, lost two battle royales and went to RoH.

Ricky was definitely booked better than Ethan. For sure. Hands down.

Both have been used better for themselves in WWE.

While the jury is still out in WWE because his time there isn't up, he is clearly still on the rise. Will he ever get a world championship? Probably not but we still have to wait and see.

That said, being a NXT champ is a good start because holding that belt means the eyes are on you.

No, I'm not meaning to say that because the top of the AEW ceiling is the world championship.

Ricky was never really close to meaningfully contending for that beyond his time with Punk. It's why I said he hit the top of where he was going to hit in AEW, because he was never going to be world champ

NXT is on par with AEW when it comes to a lot of things. AEW vastly surpasses NXT and even main roster WWE in others. There really is no clear cut comparison and it's fool hardy to just make blanket claims.

Your original premise was is he being used better in WWE.

I think that's because we have different definitions.

To me, the ceiling in AEW is the top of the promotion. Being billed in or close to the main event, and then of course the world title picture.

WWE is similar to that, but has that NXT layer.

I get your point and I recognize what you're driving at, that the pure freedom someone has in AEW means they have multiple avenues to potentially do other things to find success.

That's valid.

That said, AEW still has that ceiling to it's actual show. Just like NJPW does.

It doesn't have to work for you to still be true.

AEW has a ceiling. Can talent do other things? Sure, but that doesn't mean that AEW still doesn't have a natural top of the promotion.

Obviously, AEW does promos/segments. But the focus is the match. Which is why I love AEW. I love the fucking matches.

It's also hard in AEW to break through the ceiling when right now the ceiling is what it is. Hangman, Swerve, Omega, Ospreay, MJF.

I wouldn't say he hit HIS ceiling hard. I would say he hit the AEW ceiling hard.

Ricky clearly has talent and in the right spot that talent will blossom. He can work. He's fantastic in the ring, but clearly his character is more focused on promo work/segment work.

Which isn't what AEW is about.

Fenix is on TV sometimes but he isn't anything of note. FKA Mariah/now Blake is lol.

Penta is getting serious TV time but we'll see if he can break out of the black hole on how luchas are treated on RAW.

But I'll still argue he is doing better as an individual right now in WWE and doing more in WWE than he would in AEW.

To your original point, this is few and far between. Lexus King is basically in the same role. Rusev is lol. Black is on the main roster but floundering with Priest.

He does this in a time where Punk is kind of segmented and doing his own shit.

Ricky definitely got pushes in AEW, and prominent wins.

Being the face of a national TV show is a different thing.

Now, do I think NXT is great? No. Do I like WWE? No. Are his NXT matches better than his AEW? No

Was still typing the Ricky reply, lol.

Ricky is weird but I'll still argue it. He gets the tag belts with Bill and they lose to Sting/Darby.... and then he sits for like 9 months. We in reality "still" don't know what the final issue is.

Hell, he even beats Punk in the Owen!

While he was racking up wins in ROH, he never was sniffing titles. Or even prominent feuds.

Now, he is. He's being utilized on TV proper. We can debate the merits of NXT being the WWE C-Show but it's still a nationally broadcast show and he's being used on a weekly basis.

You might not consider it, but lets look at both of them.

Ethan in his final year with AEW was on ROH, basically an internet stream. Yeah, he gets the promo against MJF and has the match which honestly fucked, but if you go to AEW proper his final win on an AEW show was against a local team.

Right now I do think you can make arguments for both Ricky Starks/Saints and Ethan Page.

Ricky came from the outside and has beat Oba, Je'Von, Trick etc. Ethan consistently gets prominent TV time and is used internationally in AAA.

There is zero way Elon buys WWE. It's just a wild weird fucking rumor that doesn't have any founding in actual reality.