AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com
To paraphrase Gordon Gecko: Greed, for want of a better
word, is not good.
In an incomprehensible move, with only a week to go before
the event, Fightful Select reported Saturday that WWE is
imposing a blackout on Elimination Chamber watch parties in
the Chicago area, due to WWE's new blackout rules in an
effort to increase ticket sales. There's little doubt that
Watch Parties had already been scheduled, added bar and
waitstaff; and now WWE has pulled the plug at the last
minute. Explain to me how restricting the ability of
friends to get together at the local watering hole, having a
few drinks and food will be helped by this. A few friends
together might spend $200-300. But as of last Saturday at
12 noon ET as I write this, WWE is selling available
Elimination Chamber tickets for amounts ranging from $261.05
all the way to $1,123.36 PER TICKET...for a five match PLE.
That doesn't count parking, merchandise, food, etc.
How will restricting businesses from legally holding these
watch parties help sell one single ticket? If fans can't
afford these astronomical ticket prices, keeping them from
hitting the local watering hole won't force them to spend
even MORE money.
Fans can still watch from home on ESPN Unlimited, and have
friends come over...if they're lucky to subscribe to a
cable/satellite carrier that has an agreement to air ESPN
Unlimited (read: not Xfinity or YouTube TV subscribers); or
are willing to pay $30/month for ESPN Unlimited...or are
willing to game the system through a VPN and Netflix. I
wonder how many Chicagoland bars and restaurants will be
checking into VPNs and use a staff member's Netflix
subscriptions over the next week?
The mainstream media coverage of the anti-ICE chants that
broke out on the February 4 episode of Dynamite is
continuing, as the February 15 season premiere episode of
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight saw a story on ICE and
Department of Homeland Security practices over the last
several months.
During the segment, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver
featured a story on the actions that have been taken by ICE,
then brought up examples of anti-ICE sentiment being found
in unexpected places. One of those examples was the Las
Vegas fans loudly chanting “F*** ICE” prior to the MJF vs.
Brody King match on Dynamite.
After airing the segment, Oliver said: “Excellent. Well
done to everyone involved there...from the crowd getting
their point across in the perfect way, to MJF going full Jim
from ‘The Office’ [while looking] into the camera.” Oliver also noted the growing pushback against ICE across
the media spectrum, which includes been the sneaky social
media dig by Becky Lynch about In a vlog posted to her
social media, where she said "I don’t like ice. I hate
ice, actually. It’s very dangerous. Hurts people...".
Mind you, she gave herself enough cover because the comment
because she made the comment prior to the LAST Northeast
United States/Canada snowstorm.
But anyone with ears heard what Lynch said. If you had any
doubt that she needed to tiptoe around anything involved
with the Trump regime, witness the comments by Kayla Becker
last Friday on social media: “When I worked for WWE, I
was never allowed to speak on my views...Because we’re an
entertainment company and we don’t want people to, like, we
don’t want them to be saddened by what’s happening in the
world. Cop out, cop out. We had a giant platform. That’s
exactly what you should be using to speak up about what’s
right and what’s wrong. And I’m over it.”
Becker further said she believes the state of the world is
in a bad place with “some of the worst people” in charge,
and called for WWE to publicly remove Donald Trump from its
Hall of Fame. Mick Foley has done the same and
disassociated himself from WWE as a result of their
association with Trump.
Meanwhile, Brody King did an online promo after Grand Slam
Australia which aired on the February 18 Dynamite, stating
he's still in the title hunt, and that he's calling for an
open challenge at the February 25 Dynamite with the
"biggest, baddest" talent in AEW, which turns out to be Mark
Davis this Wednesday. Yet the chants continued even without
King appearing live.
The chants have gone beyond AEW at this point. On Friday
night at House of Glory Wrestling, MJF took on Zilla Fatu in
another of the matches where MJF, Ricochet, Mercedes and
others have defended their titles in AEW-Allied independent
promotions. The “F*** ICE” chants were again loud and MJF
gave his same "Jim from The Office" look from the original
chant out of his AEW Championship match with Brody King.
Then, Thunder Rosa returned Saturday night on Collision
coming out with a cape saying "Mujer Migrante Mexicana"
(Immigrant Mexican Woman). While she typically pays tribute
to her heritage any time she's in the ring, recent events
give it an added significance.
That apparently offended some racist troll who sent her a
hateful message from a fan that sparked a forceful response
in kind:
“I want to address something real. I received a hateful
message that doesn’t critique my work but it really attacks
who I am and where I came from. I’m not going to repeat it,
I’m not going to give this guy more oxygen... I will say
this, in the United States right now, a lot of people are
being treated like suspects. Not because of what they’ve
done, but because of their names, their accents, or the
place that they came from. That is not strength, that is
fear dressed up as power. I am Thunder Rosa and yes I’m
proud to be Mexican, and yes I’m proud to be from
Tijuana.”
Rosa continued “I have earned every step I’ve taken in
this business with discipline, sacrifice, and love for
wrestling. If you don’t like my matches, my promos, my
style, that’s your right. Wrestling is a passionate sport.
Debate is part of it but dehumanizing people, threatening
them, turning into immigration into a punchline, that’s not
fandom, that’s hate. So here’s my message to the locker
room, to the audience, and to everyone listening. We can
keep wrestling tough without being cruel. We can be loud
without being dangerous and we can protect this community by
refusing to normalize intimidation...”
“And to my Thunder Army, don’t spread hate to clap back.
Don’t share it, don’t repost it. Report it. Stand up for
each other. Because the ring is where we fight. Not the
comments, not someone’s identity. I’m not going
anywhere...I’ll keep showing up for the people who see
themselves in me and for the fans who believe wrestling is
for everyone...”
Finally, February 18 saw the announcement of an expansion of
the AEW+ service on FITE/TrillerTV to a large number of new
countries on France, Andorra, Belgium, Channel Islands and
Monaco in Europe; Algeria, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya,
Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, South Sudan, Tunisia in
Africa; Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen in the
Middle East; Malaysia in Southeast Asia; French Polynesia
and New Caledonia in Oceania; and Belize in the Caribbean.
As of February 2026, the AEW+ subscription on TrillerTV
(formerly FITE) costs the equivalent of $7.99 to $9.49 per
month, depending on your region and the device you use for
sign-up. Readers should check locally for what their monthly
rate will be.
Until next time...
If you'd like to contact me, you can do so at my
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message me at https://twitter.com/BobMage70323520, or
contact me at BlueSky at
https://bsky.app/profile/bobmagee940.bsky.social
