TheChrisSamsa

It’s Tony’s job to know what he doesn’t know and surround himself with people who know what he doesn’t know.

Another home opener where the White Sox get the fans into the stadium just to wait. I guess there might be a window to play, but it’s probably not until 5:30. Yikes.

I’ll be in attendance for my 13th straight home opener today. Here’s hoping they actually play today.

I have tickets tonight with some friends from Boston.. Here’s hoping the weather clears out a little bit.

All good! Thanks!

Interested.. but I usually sit 100 level, where is section 305? I can’t seem to find it on the seating chart.

It'll be the first big Friday-Monday 4 day stretch they do in one city, so that should be pretty cool. I'm going to the Royal Rumble as part of my honeymoon and I'll go to Survivor Series now that it's in Chicago.. I'm a little tempted to add day trips to Wrestlemania and SummerSlam to my plans and go to all of the big four in one calendar year.

Love that scene, love that movie. I have "The saddest thing in life is wasted talent" tattooed on my forearm.

I've waved in and out of actually watching WWE, but I've kept up on most of the storylines. I'll be watching Summerslam tonight, but I would never promise that I'll make it through a 12 match show. Looking forward to AJ/Joe, Hardy/Shinsuke (if Jeff looks healthy), and Rollins/Ziggler. The MITB contract will make the main event interesting and the women's matches look pretty solid. I've come to really enjoy the 5 match NXT shows, but I respect the "something for everyone" approach of the big Main Roster shows.

I actually think this makes it less likely they'd end the brand split. Smackdown may become the "A" show, but to maintain viewership for both shows, they need to maintain two distinctly different products.

They're in TV rights negotiations. They need to pop ratings and putting the belt on Rousey, or putting Rousey in a storyline with a higher profile than "Natty's gonna turn on her," is good short term business.

Odd that they booked her to be in the Money In The Bank ladder match if she's out for a while. They must have confidence that she'll be back by then.

Got my tickets for NXT Takeover Chicago.. Still on the fence about going to MITB.

Smackdown isn't perfect by any means, but there's some really good wrestling happening on that show right now. We didn't even have AJ or Shinsuke wrestle on TV tonight and we got two really strong 20+ min matches in Miz v. Jeff Hardy and Rusev v. Daniel Bryan. Two hours is so much easier to digest than three.

Maybe WWE has recognized that the success of the NXT format could be transitioned up to the main roster and they're testing it with Smackdown. They've made a couple of changes that support this: fewer PPV shows and co-branding all of them, this leaves maybe 4 matches per brand on each regular PPV. NXT takeovers are typically 5 matches. This gives some breathing room to feuds and they don't all have to build towards a match at the nearest PPV. They can do multi-month builds or focus on doing big blowoffs at the big 4. Stacking the 2 hour format with main event capable talent will keep the roster healthy, and it will be less noticeable if talent closer to the top takes some time away. WWE had a lot of plans botched due to the health of superstars in the last year, and they'll need to rectify that to keep the product strong. The age of the athletes they're depending on to carry Smackdown has to be at least a little bit concerning. AJ Styles is 40, Nakamura is 38, Samoa Joe is 39, Jeff Hardy is 40, Daniel Bryan is 36, The Miz is 37, and Randy Orton is 38. Clearly they can all still go and put on some amazing matches, but not TV level one-on-ones every week. Less is more for some of these guys and their placement during the shakeup will support their longevity while giving some of the younger guys a chance to get themselves over before they enter the top of the card scene.