I noticed ITV uploaded their "before the bell" documentary/promo for AEW, it's a great watch: Obviously ideally better watched before Double or Nothing, but still a great introduction to AEW for anybody who doesn't really know much about it, or much about the guys behind it.

The cartoony gimmick era of the WWE nearly ended up killing it. It was only when they got away from that around the 96/97 period that the company caught fire and became huge again. I didn't think the Battle Royal was that bad, but I agree that overall the pre-show did nothing to entice people unfamiliar with AEW to purchase Double or Nothing. Plus the commentary was really bad. It picked up when JR joined for the main show, but mainly only because Marvez had less to say. Excalibur is great but he needs a decent partner to bounce off, and Marvez isn't that person. Meltzer suggested that the attitude within AEW was that WWE die-hards wouldn't be interested in DoN anyway, so the pre-show wasn't really designed to pull fans who knew nothing about AEW in. With that said I'm not sure what the point of the pre-show was at all, other than to give a ton of wrestlers a payday from being on the event.

Pretty disappointing if we sign Downing, but I suppose if he does end up here at least we're signing a wide player to play in a wide position, rather than the usual bringing in a striker to shoehorn onto the flank for reasons only known to the manager. If Downing was on £35k p/w at Boro then I wonder how much we're offering him? Would he really drop all the way down to £10-15k p/w? You'd think he'd weigh up his options over the course of the summer before coming here, unless we're offering him a very good deal for a player of his age.

Then why the talk of changing tactics and "making the club sustainable" if we're already sitting pretty?

A bit late to talk about making us sustainable when we're already in such incredible debt. Sustainability plans should have been enacted years ago. The only way we get out of this black hole now is by getting promoted, and doing it on the cheap won't be easy without a very good and a very brave manager. I'm not even sure the club can maintain Championship status by being sustainable. It would all come down to the manager and very shrewd transfer dealings, neither of which we've been too hot on since our esteemed owners darkened the doors of Ewood. Obviously theoretically running the club at a sustainable level is the ideal goal, and it's what Jack himself wanted for us, but we're already working on one hell of a handicap thanks to nearly a decade of disastrous mismanagement. So much so that it almost makes wanting to make the club self-sustainable now laughable and pointless.

CM Punk said in his pipebomb promo that "Vince is a millionaire who should be a billionaire", and he was spot on. He is undoubtedly the greatest promoter in the history of the business, but he peaked nearly twenty years ago, and there was a period between 1991-1995 where things were tanking just as bad as they are today. 1995 WWE was absolutely terrible. WCW pushed Vince outside of his comfort zone and he thrived on that. I don't think he has the same mindset nowadays. He's been stuck in his comfort zone for close to two decades now, and WWE has been slowly going down the entire time. I don't think they're close to the bottom yet, and Vince isn't at his desperation point. Why he's authorising mentions AEW on live TV, however, I can't fathom.

Apparently Double or Nothing did 98,000 buys, which is damn impressive for a company that doesn't even have TV. From recollection All In did around 40-50k buys, so momentum is building fast.

Moxley and AEW have been saying it for the last two weeks, I guess it's become embedded into my brain good advertising I suppose!

With the ridiculous deal WWE has with FOX (and the Saudis) ratings could practically drop to 0 and nobody attend the live shows and WWE would still make money. Obviously their product at that point would be unsustainable for other reasons, but cash flow is not something they will have to worry about for the foreseeable future, regardless of competition elsewhere. I'd be surprised if AEW can beat Raw or Smackdown in the ratings, but that shouldn't really be their aim. All they need to do is create a good wrestling company that makes money and pulls a respectable viewership. The rest will take care of itself. They need to ignore WWE for the most part and blaze their own trail. There's already huge interest in them, far more than the likes of TNA/Impact have or ever had, so momentum is on AEW's side. If they start off strong there's no reason they can't build something very big which may one day in the distant future be a genuine challenger to WWE. In the meantime if they can just hang in the same space as WWE whilst maintaining a healthy product financially then that's a serious achievement. As for what interests me in WWE right now - the Firefly Fun House and old content from the WWE Network. That's pretty much it. Raw and Smackdown are just awful, boring shows and I can't even put them on as background TV anymore. I have no desire to see WWE disappear, but they need to realise they are on a dangerous path right now. WWE are good for the next 5 years, but if they're in bad shape by the time their FOX deal expires then it could all collapse very quickly irrespective of what happens with AEW. If ratings and live audience continue to decline as they have been we could be looking at sub 1.0 ratings for Raw in a few years time, and WWE being forced to move to smaller arenas due to dwindling crowd size. Basically a repeat of WCW when it was dying. FOX would then inevitably drop them and the offers from other networks would be way below what the company is traditionally used to. If AEW is still around by then and doing well then we could definitely see a genuine paradigm shift. Sky Sports have already dropped WWE due to lacklustre ratings, and they won't get as many viewers on BT. I imagine AEW will instantly be bigger than WWE in terms of pure viewership % in the UK as soon as they launch.

WWE's ratings are tanking and their TV partners are all over them for it, so there's definitely a lot of reasons for them to change. Their attendance figures are also bombing and they've considered giving up on House Shows entirely. It's exactly why they panicked and introduced the "wildcard" rule to allow the big stars on both shows, whilst also introducing the 24/7 title (apparently an idea from USA Network). That said they're golden for the next five years thanks to their huge FOX and Saudi Arabia deals, but there's little question the product itself and fan engagement with it is at historically low levels. They're haemorrhaging viewers and live attendees year on year, but thanks to their TV deals will continue to make money in spite of it. If you measure success solely on whether they are making money then sure, they're successful, but by practically any other metric they are failing miserably.

I'm sure Mowbray has also said the majority was paid up front.

One of the big things about AEW is that they've said wins and losses will matter, and they are committed to clean finishes, especially on their PPV events. That's why they waited for Moxley to attack after the match, rather than during it. They could have had Moxley cost Omega the match as an out to keep Omega looking strong, but they had a clean finish and left the attack for afterwards. If they stick to that philosophy then they're already going a long way to righting the wrongs both WWE and WCW perpetrated with so many bullshit finishes that fans have come to expect it. Keeping egos in check might be difficult, but on the other hand when PAC (Neville from WWE) said he couldn't put over Omega (he was originally scheduled to beat Hangman Page at Double or Nothing then lose to Omega at the next PPV) due to being the Dragon Gate champion, AEW removed PAC from the PPV and scrapped the match. They could have again done the match and had some kind of BS finish like a DQ or countout, but they prioritised giving the fans proper finishes over nonsense, and I like that a lot. I think it's highly likely Jericho will win the belt and be the first champion. It makes sense really - give the belt to the most recognisable star, who is still a fantastic heel and can work a great match (unlike Hogan in WCW, who was also a great heel but couldn't work a good match to save his life by 1996). Whoever beats Jericho for the belt, whether it be Page, Omega or somebody else, will be given a massive credibility boost when the time comes, particularly if it's clean. It's the perfect way to get the ball rolling and start out strong. The Shield is the only decent stable WWE has produced in the last decade. Their concept of a stable in recent times is just throwing a bunch of losers together (The Social Outcasts, The League of Nations, etc) and have them fed to the top babyface - generally Roman Reigns. NJPW meanwhile has a multitude of awesome stables who all have balance and a purpose. I'm thinking AEW will probably learn from that and do it a similar way. Both WCW and WWE went overboard with factions back in the day (both the nWo and the Corporation/Corporate Ministry became bloated beyond all logic) but there is a way to strike a decent balance and AEW needs to find that whilst still keeping their singles and tag team divisions strong and immune from BS finishes. Double or Nothing was TV-14 I believe, so it's possible the TV deal will follow suit and skewer a little older. With that said, WCW was technically PG throughout its entire run and it didn't stop them setting the world on fire between 1996-1998, so if AEW is PG and their PPVs are TV-14 then guys like Havoc could probably strike some kind of balance there. He doesn't do much for me either but I do appreciate having some variety. Beats the cookie cutter create-a-wrestler look of 99% of the WWE roster. MJF is like a much better version of EC3. He has a ridiculous amount of heel charisma and I imagine is going to be booked pretty high on the card. If Double or Nothing is anything to go by they are planning to make him a major player once TV starts in a few months.

Yeah for sure, I bet he's getting paid as much if not more at AEW than he was getting at WWE, combined with much more creative freedom and the ability to wrestle in places like NJPW and it's a no brainer. I found it hilarious when he revealed that he got just $500 for doing the "Shield" special before he left - basically a final middle finger from WWE - then Vince called him very soon afterwards and wanted him to do the European tour! The more I hear about Vince the more I'm genuinely worried he has some kind of neurological issue that nobody is willing to investigate. His decision making is just so weird, random and illogical that it does make you wonder how mentally with it he really is.

Would be pretty disappointed if we signed Downing. It would be an indicator to me that we have no significant funds and will be going into the new season with largely the same team we had last season. Selling Dack may raise £3-4m out of the £10m+ we'd theoretically sell him for (no way Tony would get anywhere close to the full amount to reinvest) but I doubt that would adequately replace the goals and assists we'd lose from the sale.

Moxley's description of WWE creative is both horrifying and hilarious in equal measure. No wonder so many people at that company are miserable and wanting out. Fair to say we won't be seeing Dean Ambrose back in WWE any time soon, that was some expert bridge burning!

AEW have a lot of smart people on board, much more plugged into the mainstream audience, and a billionaire behind their product. This is undoubtedly the biggest challenge to WWE since WCW folded in 2001. I find WWE's behaviour towards them a little bizarre though. TNA took countless shots at WWE for years and they never got a single mention on WWE TV until they were no longer a threat and WWE played ball with them to get footage for AJ Styles, the Hardyz, etc. AEW meanwhile has literally just had their first PPV and WWE have already mentioned them at the Hall of Fame (Triple H shout out) and now on Raw with Sami Zayn outright name calling AEW. Either these guys have really got under Vince's skin, or he's pushing for a new war because he knows competition could lead to the next boom period in the industry. All I can say is it's about time, this has been needed for a very long time.

AEW will apparently be airing weekly on ITV4 over here, which should instantly give them a much bigger viewership than WWE, who are moving to BT Sport.

Unfortunately for Derby they waited until they were two down before they started playing. Villa get their reward for sticking two fingers up at FFP regulations.

That's the thing I like about VR - it tends to skewer older, I assume due to costs, so everybody is between the 25-45 age range. It makes for a much nicer online gaming experience. That said I'm not much of an online gamer. Like you I don't really have that much time, so it's a few hours at weekend and maybe a few during the week depending on what I've got going on. It means I now have a backlog so large that I'd need a year off work to get through it all.

Pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Can't defend to save our lives, but able to score enough goals for it not to be a major issue yet.

Suhail is ex-SEM & ex-Kentaro, though, isn't he? And has pretty much been orchestrating events in some form or another since the beginning or close to? Hard to feel much relief when such shady elements still exist at such a high level within the club's structure. I think the only time I'll feel the club is safe again is when it is no longer in Venky's hands. Unfortunately there's no obvious sign of this happening any time in the near future though.

Didn't Glen Mullan cover all of this in those blogs he wrote?

I've never been a huge fan of Raya, but he's good enough for a strong League 1 team and a mid to lower-mid table Championship team. I don't think he'll improve much beyond that level though, so if we have serious ambitions of going up in the next couple of seasons then we need to find a better goalkeeper. I'd like to keep Raya as backup/competition, but if he's not willing to accept that role then it might be best for all parties for him to move on. That's only if we can find better though. I'm still sceptical on that. Our record with goalkeepers has been pretty horrendous since Robinson left - Jake Kean, Eastwood, Steele, Leutwiler... Raya has been the best of the bunch but that isn't saying much. That said I do think the potential is there, and, ultimately I would prefer to keep Raya either as competition for the no1 spot or loan him out and see how he develops elsewhere. I'm not particularly comfortable with selling him completely, but I wouldn't see it as a total disaster either.

Mowbray is just a naturally overcautious manager, he'd rather play it safe than potentially leave the team in a vulnerable position by exposing gaps for the opposition to exploit. It's a commendable attitude in some respects, but there are two major issues I have with his approach. Firstly, he seems to wait far too long to change things. We went on an embarrassingly long run of terrible form from the beginning of February before he finally made some serious changes which brought instant results. At that point he had little choice but to continue on with it, and since we were safe at that point and had no realistic chance of reaching the playoffs there was no real pressure if we got a couple of really bad results along the way. Secondly, he is far too cautious against teams which are inferior to us - particularly at home. Because of his overthinking we rarely start off on the front foot against teams we should be beating. I have no issue with taking caution away from home (although our away form this season was pretty poor anyway) or at home against the better teams in the division, but I don't understand it when we're playing teams like Rotherham, Ipswich, Millwall, etc. Those are situations where he needs to be more courageous if he has serious ambitions of getting promoted. I'm still hopeful that the tail end of the season will have opened the manager's eyes a bit, and with a decent summer we may have a good 19/20 season. A poor summer window and no lessons learned from last season could see us in some serious trouble though. At this point I really feel like it could go either way.

Being brutally honest I don't think Hanley really fits into that bracket. In both Newcastle and Norwich's promotion seasons he played less than a quarter of the full league schedule. The only times he's been a regular at Championship level is mid table with us and mid table with Norwich last season. That's probably his level, so if we want to be in the promotion mix we'd at best be bringing Hanley on as a back up option rather than a starting CB.