DE.

I can understand reluctance to remove TM, as it was only in 2016 the clowns at the helm appointed Coyle and bombed us out of the division. What I can't understand is the suggestion we are progressing or improving under Mowbray. Parts of the squad are better, but performances and league position remain as they always have been. We're playing as badly now as we were last season during the 9 losses out of 11 run. The manager is still playing players out of position with no good reason. He still hasn't sorted out defence after nearly 4 years. We still choke pathetically every time the playoffs is in sight. We're stagnating and regression will inevitably happen, as it did under GB. Problem is by the time we make the change it'll be too late, as it always is under the current regime, and there's every chance they'll just make the situation worse with whatever they do next. Venky's are still the root cause of our problems, as they have been since the day they darkened Ewood's doors. TM is just a symptom.

If they are still having the wool pulled over their eyes by employees after owning the club for 10 years then they are clearly the problem, not Mowbray or Waggott. They either don't care enough or don't have the necessary skills to be in charge of a football club. Either way it spells continued mediocrity at best for Rovers.

Luke Harper/Brodie Lee has died. WTF. The guy was only 41.

Draw is still an awful result. Need to win.

I bet you could count on one hand the amount of times TM has made a sub unrelated to injury before the 60th minute during his entire tenure here.

Very very rare we come from behind to win. Christmas miracle needed - us coming from behind to win or Mowbray getting the boot, I'd welcome either.

Anyone picked up FM21? Am still on FM18 at the moment and wondering whether it's worth the upgrade. Have read some conflicting reviews and general consensus seems to be that the UI is awful.

Have a good Christmas everyone. Take care of yourselves and stay safe.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2020/december/dacks-back--and-hes-here-to-stay/ Signed up to summer 2023.

Great news.

TNA from 2005-2007 was fantastic. Christian Cage, LAX, Sting, Abyss, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Sonjay Dutt, Amazing Red, Monty Brown, Gail Kim, Awesome Kong... loved that era. Storylines were simple but mostly solid, the matches were great and it was the perfect balance of older stars and younger talent. 2008 was okay too, but starting to wane a little, then it gradually went more and more downhill. Overall I enjoyed Mox as champ tbh. His matches against Brodie Lee & Darby Allin were good, and I really liked the build to his match with MJF (although the match itself was so-so). The Eddie Kingston feud came a bit out of nowhere and there was no way Kingston was winning, but they still had some very entertaining segments and the matches they had were fine. The build with Omega was a little underwhelming, felt kinda rushed to get it on the Winter is Coming edition of Dynamite. I would have liked it to have had a longer build. I think my biggest gripe with Moxley's reign is that it never felt like he had a really strong opponent who could genuinely beat him until Omega, and then that got rushed a bit. No offence to Brodie Lee, Darby Allin, Eddie Kingston or MJF... but none of them were ever going to beat Mox for the title. AEW is still kinda lacking that star power at the top of the card at the moment. You've got Jericho, Mox, Cody and Omega and... that's kinda it. Cody obviously can't challenge for the title either, so he's out as far as a program for the main title goes. They're trying to build new stars but it takes time and nobody else is really there yet.

I should note that even though the ending to TLC was too much for me, the PPV itself was actually pretty good.

I always found it a little surprising Bowyer's career took such a nosedive when he left here. He generally underachieved here but relative to his experience arguably did fairly well, and must know plenty of people in the game - yet ended up down in League 2 with Blackpool and Bradford before ending up back as an Under-23s coach. His time here seemed to do very little for him as far as his reputation as a manager is concerned. Would it have been different if he'd relegated us in 2013 and then got us back up from League 1?

Kaminski - 8 - solid signing, great price. Can't complain. Pears - 1 - might seem harsh, but a 4 year contract for a below average keeper we didn't need makes this a terrible signing in my book. Greek lad - N/A, why sign him if we were also going to sign Pears? Ayala - 6 - looked okay when fit, but hasn't been fit all that often and was hoping for better than just 'okay'. Douglas - 2 - what a disappointment. So slow. Trybull - 6 - don't think he's been that bad. Marginal improvement on Evans. Downing - 5 - having to bring back Downing, as professional and versatile as he is, smacks of a failure to address the squad properly during the summer. Elliott - 8 - clearly has all the tools to be a top player in the future, but for me not yet at a Dack level where he can regularly win games for us by himself even when the rest of the team is labouring. With that said I wouldn't expect that from a 17 year old anyway. We're fortunate to have him and it's a shame his time with us will be remembered largely as part of another redundant Tony Mowbray campaign. Dolan - 8 - showed he has some huge potential early on, but still some way to go to be a regularly effective player. An absolute steal on a free though.

I believe AEW is making money with their current TNT deal, but also got to remember they've only been around just over a year. They're still a very young company trying to grow their audience. They're almost at TNA's peak levels of viewership despite the wrestling audience being massively diminished compared to how it was in the mid-to-late 2000s. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Cody, Omega and the Bucks they are a draw for a significant audience of nearly 1m people. Jericho and Mox obviously help with that as well, but it shouldn't be underestimated how many fans these guys gained during their time in ROH/NJPW and the independents. All In sold out a 10,000 seater stadium in something like half an hour, after all, and that was way before AEW was even announced. At the moment it does feel a bit chaotic in terms of wrestlers being thrown together, storylines mixing, and so on... but I don't really mind that. The company is still settling into its rhythm and finding out what works and what doesn't. For me they've done far more good than bad in their first year and a bit - and it can't be overstated how important it is for the entire wrestling industry to have a viable contender outside of WWE - somewhere wrestlers can go and still get paid well with good exposure if they don't want to work for WWE. TNA had its moment in the sun back in the day but it was never a serious alternative. It was never on a network like TNT and always looked small time. AEW has projected a big time feel right from the off, no matter what you think about Dynamite itself.

A character like the Fiend only works if he either never loses (impractical) or never wrestles. As soon as either happens the mystique begins to vanish. Very, very few supernatural characters have ever worked in wrestling. Undertaker and Kane are two, but their power lay more in their sheer size and physical presence. The supernatural stuff was mostly alluded to rather than actually shown. The Fiend might as well have been retired after Goldberg squashed him to be honest. That was ridiculous and proof that Vince really has lost the plot. If it was me I wouldn't have had the Fiend wrestle for a long time. Much like how Sting got insanely over during the end of 1996 and throughout 1997 by being a non-wrestling enigma, the Fiend should have followed a similar path. They hot-shotted the title onto him just because he was getting over, and you could argue that decision ruined the character before it had even really got started. Regardless of all of that, the ending of TLC was just way too hokey for me. It was so stupid and ridiculous that it made it impossible to suspend any form of disbelief. Then on Raw the next night it's like nothing happened and nobody cares that a guy they all knew, a son of a WWE Hall of Famer, was set on fire and either horrifically burned or dead. Stuff like this just makes me feel like my intelligence is being insulted. Say what you will about AEW but their creative never produces bottom-of-the-barrel garbage like this.

That would indeed be the smart thing to do, but I always expect the opposite of smart booking from WWE.

AEW beats Raw in the key demo for one week and next thing you know the Fiend is burned to death. Until tonight when he'll magically reappear unharmed, obviously.

I can't be the only one who thinks the ending to TLC was fucking absurd? It's not the first time I've felt this way with the Fiend storylines, but this went way over the top for me.

I think that's the bottom line. If his mental state is that fragile he simply won't make it at any decent level. Not that I believe it is. People were saying the same about Brereton, but the lad is flying now. Sometimes it's just a case of the player being in the wrong position, or just not being good enough.

At least Wigan were around to give us something to be thankful for during that period.

I'd guess he's referring to this run of form: Whilst there is one win in there, that is still a horrific set of results no matter which way you slice it. Most managers would not survive such a pathetic two months. It completely ruined our season.

Of course they want to hit a million viewers. Even more if possible. A significant amount of their revenue is based around advertising money from the TV shows - AEW gets a cut of that alongside TNT. Why wouldn't they be aiming to get that rating as high as possible? They'll make far more money off TV than they ever will off PPV. They're trying to grow their audience beyond the standard 1.5m that watch AEW & NXT on Wednesdays - the likes of Sting and Shaq are clearly attempts to get eyes on their product that may not usually watch. Combining that with the strong Winter is Coming card made perfect sense. I don't see the problem there at all. The Bucks put over Private Party pretty early on in their run, and also helped establish the likes of Ortiz/Santana and the Lucha Bros. They helped establish Omega/Hangman as a legitimate tag team too, and made the Inner Circle look strong during their feuds with them. Omega elevated Mox straight away by losing to him, and did the same for Jericho. You could argue neither of those necessarily needed to be put over but having one of the biggest names in the company lay down for them certainly didn't hurt. Putting over PAC at All Out was a solid move too, and his storyline with Hangman Page was one of the most intriguing AEW storylines of 2020. The Bucks/FTR storyline was odd, I'll agree with that. No idea why the Bucks suddenly turned heel, making it a heel vs heel match, then still seemed to expect to be treated as faces. The match was great, but the build up didn't make much sense. Whilst Brandi isn't much of a wrestler, I don't have any issue with her in the role she's currently in. It's not like she's eating up much TV time since the Nightmare Collective, which was a mistake, disappeared. Can't say I have much of a problem with how Jericho has been used. The biggest name in the company, can still work fine (much better than Hogan could in WCW back in the 90s) and isn't above working with wrestlers much lower on the card than him. Has built and led a solid and entertaining stable. His name value is invaluable to a start up like AEW, and I don't blame them for putting him front and centre early on. Can't imagine the likes of Luther or Nakazawa are on much, and is Reby Hardy signed with AEW? I know she's appeared in a few Matt Hardy segments but I don't remember seeing that she's signed on any kind of deal. AEW's roster probably is a bit bloated at the moment, but I'm not going to knock them for employing wrestlers during a pandemic. If they're still making money then good for them. Also I'm watching Attitude Era shows at the moment and trust me, JR had to call far more stupid, embarrassing stuff then than he ever has to in AEW.

It's worth remembering that AEW makes more money from TV than PPV. The idea of hot-shotting on TV, as per the Monday Night Wars era, is a bit outdated. They only have PPVs every 3 months (another huge improvement on WWE's once a month formula), so there's plenty of time between PPVs to have big matches. I do agree that some of the booking is wonky, but no promotion gets it right all of the time. The EVPs being on a power trip comment I don't understand as Omega and the Bucks especially spent most of the first year putting over multiple talents, and only started putting themselves over when a significant amount of fans complained that they weren't presenting themselves seriously enough as 'The Elite'. Cody has been booked strong, sure, but that makes sense considering his position. He's one of the best wrestlers and promos in the company. Also I believe AEW is on course to make profit, so they definitely aren't overspending. TNT is extremely happy with their performance (massively over expectations of a 500k average audience) and are paying them enough to cover expenses. I think any suggestion that Khan is being wasteful with money is quite wide of the mark. As for JR's comments - a person in his position shouldn't be burying AEW wrestlers in public. His comments are something that should be discussed in private. I can completely understand people in AEW being upset with him making those remarks in public, even if they were valid.

100% yes. The long-term storytelling of AEW is such a welcome relief after years of abysmal WWE storylines which are lucky to last more than a few weeks. Everything that happens in AEW has a purpose, and ties in to feuds happening between various people months down the line. Things aren't just forgotten about or abruptly dropped as often happens with WWE's chaotic style of booking. When AEW commits to something they make sure there is a pay off. What's also great is that they actually listen to their fans. If there is widespread dissatisfaction with a storyline or a group then they absorb that feedback and tweak things to improve the product. Good examples are the Dark Order, who started off as weak but became a solid part of the show, and Brandi's Nightmare Collective bullshit which was hugely criticised and subsequently pulled when it clearly wasn't getting over or appreciated. If AEW can salvage something they will, but unlike WWE they won't beat a dead horse if it is simply not ever going to work (-cough- retribution -cough-).