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WrestleMania 42 presented the best and worst of modern-day WWE. The question now facing the pro wrestling giant is which direction it takes from here.

The feedback for WWE in the build to WrestleMania 42 saw the company take incoming fire from all sides. The ticket prices were too high. Attendance was down compared to last year’s event in Las Vegas. Storylines were stuck in a rut compared to the highs of the Bloodline Era. And the most intrigue centered on whether a behind-the-scenes Civil War was about to break out on-screen between TKO corporate overlords and WWE creative, thanks to the bizarre last-minute involvement of Pat McAfee in the Night 1 main event between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton, which was widely denounced as poorly executed.

But what wrestling fans saw on WrestleMania Saturday and Sunday was a company simultaneously being pulled in two different directions.

WrestleMania Saturday was heavily criticized for the lack of ringtime action and heavy commercial overload. McAfee did get involved in the main event, as did Jelly Roll. Rhodes got the victory, and McAfee was written off, but it was yet another main event for him that seemed to be overshadowed by a celebrity that was inserted into the picture not because it was the best story, but because it would please Ari Emanuel and TKO bosses. (See Travis Scott at WrestleMania 41.)

JELLY ROLL JUST PUT PAT MCAFEE THROUGH THE TABLE #WrestleMania pic.twitter.com/Zv48Y1QSRM

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 19, 2026

In addition to the flat main event, other matches on the Saturday card looked more like what you might see on an episode of Raw or SmackDown instead of the showcase event of the year. Four matches received less than 10 minutes of bell-to-bell action, which has to be a huge disappointment for fans and performers alike.

Just one night later, WrestleMania Sunday presented WWE at its finest. And the difference between the two nights was like a Minor League game trying to sell fans on meeting Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell to come out to the ballpark to a World Series Game 7. It’s actually shocking that it was the same company putting on the same show.

WWE crowned a new megastar in Oba Femi with his stunning squash of Brock Lesnar, who seemed to then surprisingly announce his retirement. The multi-man Intercontinental Championship match delivered an incredible spotfest won by the reigning champion Penta. Finally, the main event between CM Punk and Roman Reigns was one of the greatest WWE matches of all time. Notably, there was no sight of Jelly Roll or Pat McAfee. If fans felt WWE was losing the magic after the first night, then it was instantly recaptured with a pro wrestling masterpiece on the second.

OBA FEMI JUST BEAT BROCK LESNAR!!!! WOW!!

The FIRST HOUR of #WrestleMania is LIVE RIGHT NOW on ESPN! pic.twitter.com/5tqbLIULet

— WWE (@WWE) April 19, 2026

The question for WWE now is which company they want to be moving forward.

There is now a very real perception of an internal tug-of-war within WWE between the corporate TKO enterprise and the creative team that lives the business day in and day out. That was evident to the world in the McAfee saga, as he was reportedly hand-picked by CEO Ari Emanuel (who also serves as his personal representative) for a major role leading into WrestleMania 42. Current WWE stars like Damian Priest were vocally against the idea.

McAfee’s heel turn made no logical sense, his promos undercut the industry, and it was maybe the sweetest irony of all for fans that the second night of WrestleMania was far superior to the first,t when McAfee said it would be “ass.” Now he appears to be holding to his word (this time) that he has moved on from the industry.

Celebrity involvement is nothing new in professional wrestling. Mr. T was in the first WrestleMania main event after all, with Muhammad Ali and Billy Martin there as well. Mike Tyson was instrumental in Stone Cold Steve Austin’s crowning moment at WrestleMania XIV. And in recent years, everyone from McAfee and Jelly Roll to Bad Bunny and iShowSpeed has actually impressed when they have gotten in the ring. But it has to flow within the pro wrestling ecosystem, not something dropped from above by corporate edict because it’s a favor to friends or what will look good in spreadsheets.

Further alarm bells went off when recent audio of TKO President Mark Shapiro speaking to a class at the University of Alabama went viral on Monday, in which he said the company has “complete” creative control over WWE. That sent wrestling fans into a furor, suggesting that Chief Content Officer Paul “HHH” Levesque has both hands tied behind his back by his TKO bosses. He also defended the increased celebrity involvement and TKO’s deals with ESPN, Netflix, and The CW, which have seen more WWE content behind paywalls than ever before.

.@TKOGrp President Mark Shapiro told a University of Alabama class that TKO has full control over @WWE creative.

He defended the increase in celebrity involvement (@LoganPaul, @PatMcAfeeShow, @markwahlberg) as a growth strategy, while admitting it may alienate parts of the… pic.twitter.com/Mndy17GEEK

— Blake “Axe” Avignon (@bobby_s_axelrod) April 20, 2026

“When you do that, you’re going to win some folks over, but you’re also going to chase some folks away,” Shapiro admitted.

This is an existential dilemma for anyone who produces sports content. It was the same for Netflix on MLB Opening Night. But as we’ve seen many times before, it is a delicate tightrope to walk between attracting new fans and driving away your actual fanbase.

And if the sports business executives are going to tell the actual wrestling people what’s best for them, it’s going to continue to create issues moving forward.

Nowhere is that seen more than in the commercial overload that has overtaken the television product. Ads ran rampant across both nights of WrestleMania 42, prompting Ariel Helwani to call the entire event “soulless” as commercial time nearly exceeded ring time.

While NFL or NBA fans might be used to regular commercial interruptions, that’s not the case with the pro wrestling audience. Compared to the stacked card of yesteryear, current WWE premium live events offer only around five matches per show, except at WrestleMania. Not only does this leave plenty of time for commercials, but it locks out some of the company’s best performers from appearing on its biggest shows.

But it’s not just the commercials that play between matches; it’s that the mat is covered in ads, the individual matches are sponsored, and the Prime drink carts are parked outside the ring. The WrestleMania III main event between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant probably wouldn’t have hit the same if Bobby Heenan had sprayed Hogan with a can of New Coke.

It’s those ads and the increased celebrity involvement that represent the TKOization of WWE that has begun to run wild. Even just a few years ago, the famed WrestleMania 40 main event featuring past and present stars, which has gone viral as the greatest five minutes in wrestling history, didn’t need any celebrity interruptions.

Fans can forgive some of those things if they are watching something that they truly enjoy. Pro wrestling has always been about the suspension of disbelief and making fans truly invested in the stories and the athleticism they watch. The “cinema” of the Bloodline Era, the Punk-Reigns main event, and the Oba Femi arrival are all evidence of that. The Raw after WrestleMania continued the optimism with a great show featuring new debuts from NXT, Jacob Fatu challenging Reigns, and the tease of a future program between Punk and Rhodes.

WWE is coming off a period when they reached their highest cultural zenith since the famed Attitude Era and are more mainstream than ever before, thanks to deals with ESPN and Netflix, before pessimism began to build over the last several months.

Now WWE has to ask itself, moving forward, whether it is still going to make pro wrestling television for pro wrestling fans, or if it is just going to serve as a promotional vehicle for stars and sponsors to sell their own things. And the answer to that question could be vital to the industry’s future.

The post WWE is facing an identity crisis after WrestleMania 42 appeared first on Awful Announcing.

On Wednesday in Minneapolis, masked government agents apparently representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded a stationary vehicle stopped in the middle of a residential street. One of them demanded that the driver "get out of the fucking car," and yanked violently on the driver's-side door handle; another, stationed near the left headlight of the vehicle, drew his pistol. The driver, after briefly reversing, swerved away from the agents, apparently attempting to drive away. As the vehicle moved forward, the agent with the drawn pistol stepped aside while firing three shots directly at the windshield and open driver's-side window, killing the driver.

That's a straightforward and blandly factual description of the incident, based on perfectly clear video recorded by eyewitnesses and posted online shortly afterward: The shooting occurred at the site of an ICE sting where local citizens had gathered to observe and protest against the agency's presence in the city, with plenty of smartphone cameras around. Anyone with broadband internet access in the United States can see it for themselves. The side details of the shooting provided by law enforcement—the driver reportedly was a U.S. citizen and reportedly had stationed her vehicle there intentionally, to block the road—change nothing about its basic facts: A masked government agent shot a woman and killed her, from a couple of feet away, for disobeying an order to get out of her vehicle and instead moving it a few feet.

I just recently realized that this year marks the 30th anniversary of my first professional work as an artist. Back in 1994 I worked on the book Mark Kistler’s Imagination Station while I was still a Junior in High School!

 

When I was a kid I used to come home from school and immediately jump in front of the television. I watched a lot of Duck Tales, Tail Spin, Darkwing Duck and a little show called Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad on PBS. 

I already loved to draw and spent a lot of time copying art from my Garfield books and making my own cartoons. Mark was actually teaching stuff like shading and how to draw in 3D. I was blown away and spent every afternoon working on his lessons. Years later when I was in High School I learned from my Mom that Mark was coming to visit the elementary school she worked at as a part of his tour. He traveled around the country doing assemblies at schools and teaching art. I showed up to his event with my portfolio and made a point to meet him. Mark was incredibly kind and took time to look through my art. 

He told me he was working on a new book that would collect a lot of his lessons and asked me if I would help him with it. Of course I jumped at the opportunity. Mark was doing the pencils for every page of the book and then I was inking them all. It was so much work that I couldn’t do it at home after school. I spoke with my art teach at the time Mr. Strand who let me spend my time in his Commercial Art class working on Mark’s book instead of doing the normal lessons in that class. 

It was my first real art job and it was an incredible learning experience. It’s hard to describe just what a massive influence Mark was for me and other artists of my age. His passion for art and his ability to engage with kids is unparalleled. It would be impossible for me to ever thank him enough for his lessons, his encouragement and his kindness. He has recently released a movie called The Secret Cities of Mark Kistler that covers his incredible career. The man is an absolute legend and I encourage you to check out his new film even if you never watched his shows. There is no question that I would not be where I am today without Mark Kistler. 

Don't forget, "Draw Every Day!"

Thank you Commander Mark. 

-Gabe out

 

One of my favorite words in the Italian language is umarell. Literally, it means “little man,” but in practice, it is used to describe old men who stand around construction sites with their hands clasped behind their backs, watching and offering free advice. Despite being young, a woman, and not Italian, I am an umarell. […]

It’s starting. The playoffs are coming, and the baseball is getting more intense. Bats will flip. Tempers will flare. Players will curse even more than they do already. That’s great. Everybody loves playoff baseball. But that also makes this a good time to appreciate baseball’s tender side. I would like to draw your attention to two plays that happened on Tuesday. Both were plays at the plate, and in both, the catcher and the baserunner crashed into each other. And then, in both, immediately after crashing into each other, the catcher and the runner checked to make sure that the other was ok. Our topic for the day is not sensual baseball, but rather sensitive baseball.

It’s not just that I love these moments, it’s that they fulfill a need. When two players collide, there is something in me that sees it as an opportunity for kindness. I find myself hoping that they’ll check in on each other, that they’ll let their humanity shine through the adrenaline and desire and competitiveness. And when the two players do in fact take the time to check on each other, it makes me feel good. In the middle of the game, I am willing more kindness into the world. I’m not sure why. That’s certainly not the main reason I care about baseball, but it’s there.

The first play happened at Wrigley Field. In the bottom of the second, Nico Hoerner hit a sacrifice fly to catcher-turned-right fielder Henry Davis. Davis made a strong throw, but the 100 mph heave short hopped Endy Rodríguez and brought him up the line, putting him in position to be blown up by Patrick Wisdom.

Wisdom saw Rodríguez coming at him and raised his arms in order to avoid taking a shoulder directly to the face, but the result was that instead of taking a blow, he delivered one. He absolutely wrecked Rodríguez. The play could’ve resulted in a serious injury. Had Rodríguez’s left foot been planted a bit more firmly, he wouldn’t have been able to absorb the impact by sliding backward. Wisdom seemed all too aware of this, and immediately asked Rodríguez if he was alright. He had just scored a big run in an exciting fashion, and there was a big smile waiting to take over his face, but it didn’t do so until he knew the answer to his question.

It would certainly have been understandable for Rodríguez to betray anger. Instead, he responded with grace. My favorite moment comes after Rodríguez exhales deeply in order to collect himself. He glances down and realizes that he’s supporting himself by leaning on his right hand, which is located on Wisdom’s right upper thigh. He still needs the support, but now that the excitement is over, it seems like too much of an incursion into Wisdom’s personal space, so he relocates his hand to the left thigh. There are degrees of intimacy, and supporting yourself on someone’s nearer thigh is a couple ticks below reaching across their body to support yourself on their far thigh.

The second play was a walk-off at Dodger Stadium. With two on and the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, Max Muncy hit a rocket to Kerry Carpenter in right field. Even with two outs and the game on the line, most runners don’t score from second on 109.7 mph liners that are hit more or less right at the right fielder, but then most runners aren’t Mookie Betts. The throw took Jake Rogers a few steps up the first base line, so he and Betts were diving toward the plate at the exact same moment. In fact, as soon as his mitten touched the plate, you could see Betts try to roll away from Rogers, who entered the collision with the advantage of three inches, 23 pounds, and a bunch of body armor.

Betts wasn’t quite successful. With Rogers wearing a helmet and facemask, the two players knocked heads hard, then immediately embraced each other. Betts, fully supine, pounded Rogers on the back, and Rogers patted Betts on the sternum. This play was the entire game, and the first instinct of both players was to make sure that the other hadn’t been hurt.

But that’s not even my favorite moment. Betts was only in scoring position because Will Smith pushed him to second by taking a 97.5 mph fastball to the triceps. As the Dodgers swarmed Muncy to celebrate, Alex Vesia found Smith in the middle of the scrum, shouted, “Hey, are you ok?” and rubbed his arm.

I suspect that part of the reason I care so much about plays like this one is that I have injured myself playing sports kind of a lot. I have torn just about everything there is to tear in a knee, and when it looks like a player might be hurt, I really do worry about them. Obviously, you don’t need to tear an ACL to hope that other people don’t get injured, but it does make the danger feel more present, more pressing.

I also think that checking on someone is an underappreciated form of kindness. So much of life’s dissatisfaction is caused by feeling like you don’t really matter to the people around you. That is easy to prevent. People feel seen when you know that it’s their birthday, when you notice their new haircut, when you remember to actually pay them the compliment that you’d been meaning to pay them. It’s the easiest thing in the world to ask someone how they’re doing, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to care about the answer. I can be pretty awkward around others (or alone, for that matter), and I suspect that I learned some of these lessons later than most people. Emerson wrote, “We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken.” As someone who has had to work on speaking more of my kindness, I tend to cheer for others to speak theirs.

Lastly, I think that it’s every bit as reasonable to root for your favorite players to be kind and considerate as it is to root for them to play well.

It’s September 21, and I am excited for the playoffs. I am excited to see who wins a Wild Card spot and who comes out on top in the AL West. I also feel just a little bit better about baseball than I did a few days ago.

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February 22nd, 2023: This comic is a sequel to this comic, from 10 years ago this very night! And I actually DID make a Facebook event called "SELF, IF YOU ARE STILL ON FACEBOOK WHEN THIS EVENT HAPPENS, THEN WE HAVE MADE SOME BAD FRIGGIN' DECISIONS" and it actually DID come due today, so, let us all celebrate our decisions (and let me book that tetanus booster shot while I'm at it.) – Ryan

To make it clear right off the bat, this has nothing to do with Shohei Ohtani or Giancarlo Stanton. This has nothing to do with the current offseason market, and, frankly, this has nothing to do with baseball from any of the past few decades. This is just built around a historical fun fact, but, you know, we all need breaks. And we all need improbable fun facts.

You can probably think of a few baseball coincidences on your own. One I personally can’t forget is that both Ken Griffey Jr. and Stan Musial were born on November 21 in Donora, Pennsylvania. There’s Roberto Clemente‘s career ending at exactly 3,000 hits. I don’t know what you do and don’t remember, but I have a coincidence to add to the list. It takes a little explaining, but I think the destination is worth it. Maybe you won’t agree in the end, but I’ve been thinking about this since I found it by accident during a podcast last week. I feel compelled to speak my truth. I have to share this little statistical story.

It wasn’t long ago that Dave was disagreeing with Bill James‘ critique of WAR. Somewhere, probably on Twitter, Dave made the remark that, if you follow James’ line of thinking to its logical conclusion, you’d end up only caring about numbers posted in wins. Now, you’d never want to do that seriously, because you’d be senselessly eliminating way too much information, but that still stuck in my head. And, conveniently, Baseball Reference provides player splits by game outcome.

This past season, in team wins, batters posted an .871 OPS. Meanwhile, in team losses, batters posted a .624 OPS. These are, overall, very similar player pools, but of course nothing about the splits is surprising. Wins are selective for better performance. Losses are selective for worse performance. Stanton had a 1.338 OPS in wins and a .676 OPS in losses. This is self-explanatory. And to make it easy, Baseball Reference provides a stat called tOPS+, which compares a split against the overall number. A mark of 100 would be average. Hitters in wins just had a tOPS+ of 132. Hitters in losses just had a tOPS+ of 67.

During one episode a week of Effectively Wild, I try to find some interesting little statistical nugget. Last week, I decided to search to see if there were ever any hitters who were better in losses than wins. That wouldn’t make any sense — it wouldn’t be reflective of any innate trait or skill — but, when you have so much data, funny things can emerge. So I searched all-time batting splits using the Baseball Reference Play Index, and I set a career minimum of 500 plate appearances in losses. I sorted the results by tOPS+. Here is the top of the list.

Only two players emerged. Given the plate-appearance minimum, only Andy Allanson and Johnny O’Brien were better hitters in losses than in wins. O’Brien is the leader here, with a tOPS+ in losses of 107, giving him a lead by six points. You can see in that image that I’ve clicked through to O’Brien’s player page. I wanted to know more about him.

O’Brien played in six seasons, in the 50s. For his career, he batted 906 times, and most of that playing time came with the Pirates, for whom he debuted in 1953. Fun fact aside, he had a fairly unremarkable big-league career, but the Baseball Reference page told me that Johnny was the brother of Eddie O’Brien. More, he was the twin brother of Eddie O’Brien, and there haven’t been very many of those. Eddie O’Brien also debuted with the Pirates in 1953. He played for the Pirates through 1958, batting 605 times. Eddie frequently played shortstop, and twin brother Johnny frequently played second.

In 1956, 1957, and 1958, both brothers made pitching appearances. And even before they were major-league teammates, they achieved a certain level of fame as teammates playing college basketball in Seattle. The backstory is a good one, but just to get us moving along, I couldn’t not look. Johnny O’Brien holds a little-known record, having posted a 107 tOPS+ in losses. He was better in losses than he was in wins. What about Eddie?

Eddie O’Brien, for his career, posted a 107 tOPS+ in losses. He was better in losses than he was in wins, by the exact same amount.

Now, it’s all about the minimums. Johnny O’Brien holds the record if you set the minimum to 500 plate appearances. He batted 509 times in losses. Eddie batted 364 times in losses. But here’s what happens if you drop the minimum to 300 trips to the plate. Here’s the whole top of the all-time leaderboard.

There are just 19 hitters who have been as good or better in losses than wins. This is for as long as Baseball Reference has historical records. Two of the hitters are twin-brother teammates, who both finished with an identical tOPS+ for the split. I know that tOPS+ itself is a modern and convoluted statistic, but it doesn’t manipulate any numbers. It just puts one number over another. I don’t know if this is as wild to you as it is to me, but when I found this in the splits, my hands trembled for a couple of minutes. There have been countless studies in the past, attempting to examine whether twins share some kind of telepathic connection. Personally, I think it’s all bunk, but now there’s a Baseball Reference split staring me in the face.

This is my current favorite improbable baseball coincidence. It could end up topped or forgotten tomorrow or the next day, but for now, I’m glad to have the chance to share this with you. Now back to your regularly-scheduled hot-stove rumors.

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Clint Frazier has long hair. Clint Frazier is a Yankee. This is a problem.

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Today's comic featuring a young Ernest Becker.

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Actually, pretty much everything beyond intro calculus is run by goblins.

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Athletes are like modern gladiators. But they are subject to the same stress and strain we all are.

The 'is a hot dog a sandwich' is so incredibly dumb and yet it irritates me so much anyway! No one in their right mind would argue a folded slice of pizza is a sandwich, but they're willing to classify hot dogs? Why do we need to classify hot dogs? Why did we need a judge to cast a ruling on if a taco or a burrito is a sandwich? Are you really going to claim that wraps are not sandwiches? Are you willing to call a hot dog a sandwich but refuse to call an ice cream sandwich a sandwich based on the oh so 'well technically speaking' technical rules that you decide to employ? Can't we just enjoy hot dogs? CAN'T WE JUST ENJOY FOOD WITHOUT TRYING TO MAKE OTHER PEOPLE ENJOY THEIR FOOD LESS?

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PhD UNKNOWN: My other webcomic about science, school and monsters! Drawn by Joan Cooke!

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Hovertext: I'm amazed there's no erotic economics fiction called Perverse Incentives.

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Hey, so remember that anthology I mentioned a while ago? Well, as a sneak preview, you can see the entirety of the story I wrote at io9! 

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 OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENING