Mr. Tito’s PHAT Thanksgiving 2024 Rants on Professional Wrestling (WWE, AEW, and More)

In the past, I’ve written Thanksgiving themed columns such as what I wrote during 2022 with ”What I’m Thankful in Pro Wrestling”. Other times, I’ll write about something Survivor Series oriented, provided that used to air on Thanksgiving. Usually, I like to write and post columns on the largest holidays for my fans and for anyone scrolling for internet content as they sit on a couch and digest large amounts of food. As time goes by, it’s proven that many family members need an escape from heated political discussions that now occur at family events and I’m happy to oblige.

For 2024, I was struggling to come up with a Thanksgiving related theme. Why? Because 2024 has been a crappy year due to the LACK of accountability that now exists. Someone like Vince McMahon can live out his sexual dreams while using WWE publicly funded money to quietly make payoffs, yet there’s zero accountability for his actions. Just the other day, the prosecutor over seeing his potential federal trial conveniently resigned. They know that once 2025 clicks, it’s a useless case because the Department of Justice will suddenly stop caring or a presidential pardon will occur.

Then you have All Elite Wrestling. As I pointed out in my LAST COLUMN, AEW went from consistently averaging over 800,000 viewers (which is actually lower from them once averaging nearly 900,000 in previous years) to now averaging UNDER 650,000 viewers per week with AEW Dynamite. Rampage and Collision have suffered equally bad declines, too. YET, because Warner Brothers Discovery would rather pay between a reported $150 to $185 million per year to AEW rather than potentially losing money from expensive reruns of film or television shows. TNA wrestling, during early 2010s, has better viewership than them yet Spike TV wanted to show TNA the door because they lost a little viewership from the 2000s. AEW’s content is continually declining and they are paid more money to stay. Warner Brothers Discovery’s desperation to fill content with live sporting events is to AEW’s gain.

There’s just ZERO accountability for bad behavior these days and I expect that to continue into 2025. There’s a real lack of leading by example and it’s going to push those ideals all the way down to everyone.

So yeah, this is a NEGATIVE column… Don’t like it, go eat your damn turkey and actually talk to your family members this year.

What I DISLIKE About Pro Wrestling Right Now

Before you lose your panties, read my OTHER COLUMNS to see that I’ve been pretty positive on wrestling lately, particularly with WWE’s recent creative direction. Again, this is your second warning…

5

4
3

2

1

Still scared? Now is your chance to run away without your feelings getting hurt.

Let’s start with Women’s Wrestling, and honestly, I’m a big fan. Love me some Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley, Becky Lynch, etc. Honestly for 2024, I really like Liv Morgan’s character work and I used to admittedly criticize her stuff. The beauty about writing many columns is that I have lots of evidence proving that I support the ladies who wrestle. When many of y’all were calling the Bella Twins “whores” and “sluts” for simply dating John Cena and Daniel Bryan while they were literally carrying the women’s division, I was there defending them. Defended the Lita/Trish/Molly/Jacqueline/Victoria group back in the day as well.

But today’s internet fan treats each female performer as if they were their sister. Yes, anytime you are critical of any of the ladies, these neckbeards come right after you and try to cancel you. Lots of butthurt happened after I wrote THIS COLUMN, as many were asking “where’s the cancel culture at?”, and yet you don’t see the private attempts made to have my column dropped both previously at Lords of Pain and now here at NoDQ. You don’t think that I see or hear that? Joke is on you because nothing I have written have offended any of our advertisers here on the sites, nor the webmasters who employ me.

You treat them like your sisters… Like anytime female wrestlers do bikini shoots on their own Instagrams, which they themselves post, you get offended when NoDQ posts them in the “Special Features” portion of the website.

Do you remember those days, longtime wrestling fans? When a female personality made the pages of Playboy magazine. We were all not only happy for them because it was a huge deal back then, but we all bought the magazine… Now, these internet DORKS get upset when someone re-posts the wrestler’s actual Instagram posts. It’s one thing if Aaron Rift is quietly taking photos of the ladies at the same time they are wearing bathing suits or underwear, but it’s a completely different thing when he’s just reposting THEIR social media posts made by THEM.

You f***ing losers! OH MY GOD, a female wrestler is in her bikini and a wrestling website is reposting their social media posts of them in a bikini!

These same MORONS will swear up and down that Women’s wrestling is drawing equally or even more than Men’s wrestling. Are you seriously high? Show me the metrics… You may have a burst of Becky Lynch here, and recently, Liv Morgan there… But WWE has tried and tried to get them more Main Event level exposure, but the end result equals LOWER viewed segments. It’s about athletic ability, as men are taller, carry more muscle mass, faster, and can jump higher in the same dimensions of a wrestling ring than women. Just a fact… Outside of 2024 when Caitlyn Clark arrived (WNBA still lost $50 million), there’s a reason why NBA has made money and WNBA has never made a dime. When given the choice, fans of sports or wrestling just by itself will choose the BETTER PRODUCT.

And then these same doofuses will insist that the Women’s division needs yet another midcard title. Now, we have the United States Title on one brand and the Intercontinental Title on the other brand for Women’s wrestling. Unbelievable…

First and foremost, Women’s wrestling is a MIDCARD act. Let’s make that TRUTH right now. They’ve tried to push it strongly into the main event scene, but wrestling fans have repeatedly rejected that. Remember the all-women’s PLE called “Evolution”? Yeah, they hosted that in New York City, the most populous city in the United States of America and couldn’t sell that out at a smaller arena in town. THINK about that…

WWE, alone, does not have the quality depth of talent to support a World Title Division, Midcard Title, and Tag Titles for its entire Women’s Division. Then, when you split their entire roster in HALF for RAW and Smackdown, each watered down roster clearly does NOT deserve multiple titles to deflate the worth of having a top title there. It is EASY to predict that both the Women’s US and IC Titles will be WORTHLESS in just a few months after each title crowns its champions.

And let’s stop acting as if WWE knows how to book a midcard champion anymore. Gunther was totally the exception to the rule and somehow drawing equally with the World Heavyweight Championship than he did with the IC Title. Point being, Gunther made the IC Title relevant again, not the title belt or the creative team pushing it. WWE hasn’t cared about a midcard title since 1999, as that title used to be a true stepping stone towards the main event scene. Work your way up through the midcard, start wrestling contenders for the IC Title, and then go for the IC Title. Then, draw with the IC Title. That’s what Macho Man, Warrior, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, the Rock, and Stone Cold Steve Austin did. Yeah, that didn’t help them out…

If you’re NOT serious about creating separate divisions for IC/US Title and World Title, then the lower title will NEVER get over. The reasons why the midcard titles worked, back then, is because WWE placed boundaries around each title. You couldn’t go after both titles! Either you were too weak at the time to go after the world, hence going after IC Title, or you were in the main event chasing the world. For the past 25 years, WWE has pushed that “everybody goes after the world title” and that mentality has shredded any idea of a credible midcard champion.

So if WWE cannot get the IC and US titles over for male wrestlers, what new innovative booking will be done to get the IC and US titles for female wrestlers? Go ahead and attack me for stating facts…

*****

I’ll tell you what I’m REALLY sick of with online wrestling fans, even more so than their phony praise of women’s wrestling… It’s their attack on wrestler physiques, particularly Chris Jericho.

In my opinion, if you attack the way a professional wrestler looks, YOU ARE REQUIRED to post a photo of yourself at the same time.

NEW RULE!

Let’s take Chris Jericho, for example… He looks fine to me, as he’s in better physical shape than the majority of North America. Most internet NERDS attacking him should run the ropes in a wrestling ring for 20 seconds and see how much longer it takes them to reclaim their breath.

Furthermore, trying being an athlete at a high level in your 50s with bad back, which Jericho has quoted as saying DDP Yoga helped him through it. For most of us at or near his age, playing a friendly game of basketball or mowing the lawn will make you feel soreness for a few days but he’s sacrificing his body inside the ring.

Just stop… And we know why you hate Jericho, because his political opinions don’t align with yours or he shredded you on social media. Big deal. He got upset at one of my columns one time and called me out… Instead of going nuclear, I wrote a column that articulated my points professionally.

And again, as I always say… If you’re going to hate online, then it should be an exact comment you’d say to their face. I’d love to see some of you keyboard warriors say stuff to a trained wrestler’s face.

*****

I hate the Wargames gimmick… Just going to openly say it. It was fun for WCW, at the time, because it was WCW’s idea and it was their unique event. However, Survivor Series had a match gimmick that was perfect and yet Triple H insists that a variation of the War Games match be used instead.

No. Just because you’re creating a violent match doesn’t mean that it’s a better match.

4 on 4 or 5 on 5 elimination style matches were perfect because they blend great tag team wrestling with high intense urgency of getting eliminated. Then, you’ll get those moments when it becomes like 2 on 4 and the panic of the 2 wrestlers to take on the 4 wrestlers. You don’t need a cage for that.

Sorry, but Survivor Series and Royal Rumble had PERFECT match ideas created yet the WWE has found a way to water those matches down. Survivor Series, just like the Rumble matches, made things fun like a real sport. It was 5 on 5 with each team acting like a real team and fighting only for the pride of winning as a team. Then, the chaos when said team starts having in-fighting and then that creates feuds for many months to come.

Nope, let’s add more singles matches to Survivor Series… Nope, let’s stop doing the 4 on 4 or 5 on 5 matches all together. Hell, WWE almost cancelled Survivor Series all together because they claimed that it didn’t draw well. No, you destroyed what made the show great and that was excellent tag team wrestling with a high stakes elimination format.

You don’t need a cage, Triple H… For one, you’re risking injury to your wrestlers and that is total STUPIDITY if you ask me. And two, again, the original Survivor Series format already gave you the roadmap to have a successful event. Without the cage, the OG Bloodline versus “New” Bloodline draws by itself. Yet, you’re going to risk injury AND having to pay the WWE road crew more money for absolutely nothing. Match would have drawn by itself.

Wargames SUCKS unless it was booked by Dusty Rhodes under the WCW banner. Period.

*****

AND finally… The concept of LESS IS MORE… With today being Thanksgiving, many consume too much QUANTITY of food. Sorry to say this, but if you’re asking me to choose a meal, eating turkey, mashed potatoes that most make out of a box, canned cranberry sauce, and AWFUL casseroles or vegetable dishes would be my LAST CHOICE. I’d rather have a tasty steak, any type of chicken (WAY better than turkey), anything from the pork meal group, or anything Italian or Mexican. You know, QUALITY food that actually tastes good, even when you eat much LESS of it. Eating excessive amount of turkey and traditional Thanksgiving sides doesn’t make it a great meal.

Sorry, but give me shorter WWE events with just 5 matches in 3 hours versus the AEW events that feature 15 in 5-6 hours.

I’ll take the quality WWE event that creates storylines for months to come, while protecting wrestlers (besides Wargames matches) over the quantity of high-risk matches that AEW features.

Internet idiots were having a nuclear hissy fit because Survivor Series only had 3 matches. Well, you got your wish because 2 additional matches have been added with Nakamura vs. LA Knight and a Triple Threat match between Bron Breakker vs. Sheamus vs. Ludwig Kaiser. Yawn… While those matches could be good, the simple point is that they’ll take away from the impact of the Wargames battles being longer and having more of an impact.

But for AEW, they’ve got to understand that Dave Meltzer does NOT represent what wrestling fans want. Meltzer wants 30 minute matches with no selling and non-stop action. Yet, that’s NOT how wrestling was built… There’s drama, psychology, and selling of actual pain and anguish. Sorry, but getting into a real fight creates tiredness and exhaustion while the ending of the match actually matters. Hitting 10 moves per minute is not going to draw fans in. No, it’s the ability to tug at their emotions that does.

That’s why I said above that OG Bloodline vs. “New” Bloodline doesn’t need a cage. Most fans want to know HOW IT ENDS on whether Paul Heyman will turn, maybe CM Punk turns, or if the Rock appears and reveals himself to be behind Solo kicking Roman out of the Bloodline.

Go re-watch Royal Rumble 2023 and watch that glorious ending of Sami Zayn turning on Roman… That was at the tail-end of a match and it drew high emotions from wrestling fans present in that arena. That moment outdrew 2 freakin’ Royal Rumble matches before it. THINK ABOUT THAT. 2 matches involving 30 people and yet it was the non-wrestling segment that matters.

Sorry, but Thanksgiving food SUCKS… Eating more pounds per hour of lesser quality food does NOT make it a better meal for you. It’s just a cheaper from of eating more than you should.

Happy Thanksgiving, ya filthy animals! Bring on Christmas!

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ