Hello SquaredCircle! Welcome to our Weekly Discussion Thread!
What have you watched lately? Seen any great matches? Have suggestions for things to watch? Anything not getting covered in other threads that ya wanna fill people in about? Questions about promotions, wrestlers, ‘the business’ or more?
Feel free to post below!
(Reminder, this thread can and will contain spoilers for possibly any show. Spoiler tags are not required in here, but if the show just happened try and keep spoiler talk it to its respective discussion thread for the first day).
This is TKO related…
UFC and WWE just traded places price wise for the most part… WWE went behind the ESPN pay wall, and UFC went behind the much cheaper (and PPV free) Paramount+ paywall (with some CBS network shows) which a lot of Americans get as part of their Walmart+ sub. Anyway, this deal for UFC of 7.7 Billion over 7 years is good for TKO’s greed, but just drives home my belief that TKO is out to block other companies from getting on TV, by spreading out this way and with rumored exclusivity clauses, it just knocks out most remaining TV channels for other people.
PLE’s on ESPN - (ABC, FX, FXX, Vice, Disney, History, NatGeo, and many of others in part or fully.)
SmackDown on USA - (USA, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen, E!, Telemundo, Golf Channel, CNBC, Universo, has a stake in VOX)
RAW on Netflix - Netflix the #1 Streamer worldwide
NXT - The CW and it’s affiliates
EVOLVE - (FOX, Tubi, FS1, Fox Sports Networks, Faux News)
UFC - CBS/Paramount (Viacom) Networks (CMT, Comedy Central, Flix, Logo TV, MTV, Nick at Nite, Nick Jr., Nickelodeon, Nicktoons, Paramount Network, Pop TV, Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, TeenNick, The Movie Channel, TV Land, VH1, CBS Sports, etc)
Looking through the DTV Streaming package, there is very little not owned by these networks. I’m not saying it’s a monopoly, but holy shit it’s clear, in my opinion, that’s what they are after.
That leaves Turner(AEW), Amazon Prime, most of the B tier channels TNA has been on over the years, and local independent stations (where wrestling has traditionally been).
Who owns Vice?
Funny enough, the TNA channels are all owned by the other companies these days, Spike and Pop TV are Paramount channels, Destination America is owned by WB Discovery (Turner), Pursuit Channel is partially owned by Anthem, TNA’s parent company.
Vice is a joint venture between Disney and Hearst Media Corp.
There’s really very little left out there.
if you really want to scare the worst types of people, let them know that vice media was founded by gavin mcinnes, driven into bankruptcy, and is now part owned by george soros.
What about Pursuit channel. ;-)
So glad I don’t give companies money for media anymore, christ.
streaming services flipping and basically making everyone subsidizing sports while not offering non sports channels and then wondering why everyone is going back to piracy
So many injuries right now :(
Starting to think Forbidden Door might be a cursed show.
i know people are sad there’s not more njpw/aew crossover like before but honestly i’m glad let everyone take a year off and then come back with a big supershow.
Honestly it’s just not the best time to be doing a big crossover event when 2 of the companies involved are in the middle of/just finishing up big tournaments, and thus 75% of their roster is off limits.
for real - i think forbidden door as an entity should be moved to a once in a while crossover mega card. aew should still do overseas tours but no need to dilute the forbidden door appeal by having it every year, especially when there’s still cooperation between njpw and aew throughout the year.
maybe even every so often just combine all in/out and forbidden door for a three day supercard
It’s right there in the name, but Tony’s hubris won’t let him stop!
Yup. Least Eddie’s nearing a return, his was one of the most brutal.
That was up the with Sid ugh
That was against Kidd too iirc, and he’s out injured with a foot/leg injury right now as well.
Reportedly at Forbidden Door it’s gonna be Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kyle Fletcher. The Ace trusts and recognizes the new Ace for his last UK match.
don callis is gonna be insufferable if that happens (affectionate)
I guess it’s my turn to join in on the fun of having tech problems. A thunderstorm came through and fryed my router today. Everything else seems fine, but I’m not sure how I’m going to watch Cope murder Stokely.
Oof
If anyone is wondering who Stardom’ll be sending as their participant in the 4-way match, nothing confirmed but it looks like it’ll probably be AZM. Every other wrestler is otherwise working Stardom, Senjo, Wave, Oz, has a television appearance, isn’t relevant to an AEW audience, or is injured that day lol
AAA rumoured to be getting an updated, WWEified modern logo.
Modern always means ugly. :-(
It’s a sad day. Watching KENTA vs Naomichi Marafuji and Marafuji is goddamned cooked. Said the same thing when he was fighting Ibushi but both of them botched every goddamn move so his own shit didn’t look as bad but Mara’s showing his age badly.
