Ironhold

Right now, AEW has four shows each week - AEW Dark Elevation, Monday 6 PM US Central Time, YouTube - developmental-tier talent plus main show talent temporarily on the back burner AEW Dark, Tuesday 6 PM US Central Time, YouTube - ditto AEW Dynamite, Wednesday 7 PM US Central Time, TBS - main weekly show. This is their primary showcase of talent and where most plot lines happen. AEW Rampage, Friday 9 PM US Central Time, TNT - secondary weekly show. Created to help provide more screen time for their ever-increasing roster, as they picked up a lot of folks WWE laid off in 2020 - 2022. There are a number of "behind the scenes" shows on YouTube and a new such show on TBS after Dynamite, and rumors have it that a fifth weekly show might come on Saturday nights.

See my above post. When WWE NXT and AEW Dynamite were put head to head in the "Wednesday Night Wars", AEW pulled higher ratings on all but one week. WWE has the name recognition, money, and marketing machine, but AEW started with a lot of hot stars (like Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega) and has maintained a superior talent pipeline.

The Wednesday Night Wars. When AEW announced that they'd worked out a deal with cable network TNT to have a two-hour show each week, WWE responded by taking NXT off of WWE Network / Peacock and putting it on cable network USA opposite AEW. What Vince McMahon didn't understand was that AEW was loaded with industry veterans like Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, and several others who were coming off of smoking hot runs in New Japan, Ring of Honor, and in some instances both. In fact, one early faction, "The Elite", was essentially a bunch of guys who had been in the Bullet Club over in New Japan. In contrast, NXT was WWE's developmental-tier program. Yeah it had guys like Finn Balor and Walter, but 90% of the talent were of the "not quite ready for prime-time" variety. The "war" lasted for about a year, during which AEW won a decisive victory in the ratings; there was only one single week where NXT scored higher than AEW, and even then AEW scored higher when it came to certain critical demographics. WWE was forced to move NXT off to Tuesday evening, which in turn forced Impact! to Thursdays as they couldn't compete. McMahon blamed HHH for the failure instead of accepting the blame, leading to the series of events that sent HHH to the hospital with a severe cardiac incident because of all the stress. This would cause McMahon to seize full control of creative for all three WWE shows, leading to absolute creative stagnation. The WWE wouldn't recover until McMahon was forced to resign and HHH & Stephanie were put in charge. So while WWE has the name recognition and marketing machine, AEW has the indie talents and the active developmental - to - main program pipeline. In fact, *AEW now owns Ring of Honor* after Tony Kahn bought them out last year. This is on top of long-standing talent-sharing agreements with New Japan, Stardom, and AAA, among others.

Better promotions focus on more than just having people throw down in the ring. For example, All Elite Wrestling gave "Hangman" Adam Page a full-fledged hero's journey in which he had to realize that he was drinking too much and that the only way for him to get better was to find better friends. The video's a year old at this point. Hangman no longer has the title (he had to drop it to a returning C.M. Punk, a fan favorite), but his current story arc involves him potentially having to face one of those bad friends who was ignoring his deteriorating condition.

The A-list promotions are groups like WWE, AEW, New Japan, AAA, and CMLL. Say their name, and even a lot of folks who aren't into wrestling will likely recognize them. The B-list promotions are groups like Ring of Honor, Impact! (formerly TNA), and so forth that routinely produce stars but have never really managed to gather the same presence as the A-listers. The C-list promotions offer steady work for wrestlers who either aren't ready for prime-time or have fallen from grace, promotions like MLW and Combat Zone Wrestling. The local indies are below that now.

OK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Wrestling Major League Wrestling is a C-list professional wrestling organization that operates primarily out of smaller venues in the United States. It's a place where folks on the way up and folks coming back down put in time, but it has its fans. Like many wrestling promotions, they have an annual "battle royale" type event in which a large number of wrestlers flood the wrestling ring, with the last person standing getting a shot at the championship. Their "battle royale" event, Battle Riot, is coming up at the end of the month, and so they've been hyping it on their weekly MLW Underground Wrestling TV show. Well, this week's episode (in the US, it airs on cable channel Reelz at 9 PM Central Standard time, with a repeat of an older episode at 10 PM) was doing the hype reel for the event, and as part of it showed some stock images of the city where the event was going to take place. ...Complete with an image of an Angel Moroni statue. I didn't catch the city the event is taking place in, but not only is it a city with a temple whoever was putting together the images of the cityscape chose the temple as one of the images. edit - A bit of digging found that this year's Battle Riot will take place in Philadelphia - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/details/philadelphia-pennsylvania-temple?lang=eng .

The newspaper I work for doesn't have a particular dress code. Instead, during the summer months you'll see a lot of us, including the publishing editor, in shorts to help beat the heat. We only doll up if we've got a VIP to interview or are otherwise going to a place where casual dress is required.

Far too many people who proclaim themselves part of the current "anti-fascist" movement: 1. Are from comfortable, if not wealthy backgrounds 2. Have criminal records 3. Are anarcho-communists 4. Gladly partake of modern luxuries 5. Some combination thereof.

I think the joke is supposed to be "I'm so evil I won't share with the world the thing that could save it!".

I've heard allegations that the bank's primary risk assessment manager was actually so distracted by personal side projects, including one meant to increase diversity in hiring, that they essentially weren't actually monitoring for risk like they were supposed to be doing.

Actually already have my Easter column this year. It involves my mom's big fluffy boy kitty, a plate of cat food, and mom unthinkingly leaving her scriptures sitting open on the dining room table...

Sadly, that can actually be a bit dicey. Where I live, it sometimes happens that critics of the church will take our scriptures, write very hateful things in them, and then donate them to local thrift stores as ambushes for whoever finds them.

Remember that some people face their tents towards where they expect to spot those in need of help.

I've seen bits and pieces, but haven't had time to actually sit down and investigate. One thing I've heard is that the FBI deleted large quantities of messages and documentation that should have been forwarded to the defense team for at least one of the accused, and that this has led to at least one case being declared a mistrial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Midnight_broadcast_signal_intrusion In 1986, a disgruntled satellite dish retailer found himself working a second job at a satellite transmission station after various television networks began scrambling their signals, rendering most privately-owned dishes useless. In an act of revenge, he used his position as a technician to hijack HBO's signal for 90 seconds. Suffice to say that HBO and the feds weren't very pleased with him, but because they didn't actually have a lot of laws in place concerning what he did there wasn't a whole lot they could charge him with and he eventually took a plea bargain. This has me wondering. If not for him, would the government have ever implemented the kind of laws and reforms that would be put in place to prevent another such incident? Did his act of petty revenge actually make telecommunications *safer* as a consequence?