The match had a simple, yet effective, build. It made All Elite Wrestling’s fan base excited because of the easy-to-spot ramifications. AEW World Champion Jon Moxley put his belt on the line against former champion Hangman Page in a first-time matchup, a dream clash for fans — on television for free. The winner would be the top guy heading into the company’s next quarterly pay-per-view, Full Gear, and the other would be pushed aside. Except ending the epic encounter with a clean result didn’t happen. And it was absolutely the right decision.

Professional wrestling has predetermined results. The best wrestlers can communicate on the fly and pull off their enticing-looking arsenal without risking their own safety or the health of whoever they’re in the ring with. Page and Moxley are great examples of grapplers who can make their moves look devastatingly painful but have the respect of the locker room to get out of the squared circle unscathed most of the time, no matter if CM Punk doesn’t like Cowboy Shit. In the real-life crash test dummy world of pro wrestling, accidents happen, as evidenced by Moxley’s mid-match lariat that connected with Page’s head and sent him spiraling to the canvas without a clean landing. It’s unclear if Page was dazed before impact or if the odd bump caused the head or neck injury. Either way, it’s obvious Page wasn’t alright moments after hitting the mat.

AEW referee Paul Turner recognized Page’s distressed state immediately. After checking on Hangman, he called in Michael Sampson, the company’s ringside doctor, to check on him. At that point, longtime wrestling fans know the protocol: The show comes to a halt. Everything is secondary to caring for Page. A similar situation happened with former WWE star Enzo Amore, ending a tag team championship bout at Payback in 2016 because of a head injury. Turner called for the bell to end the match shortly after Sampson entered the ring. It led to a spine board being brought onto the mat to support Page getting onto a stretcher with minimal movement. AEW officials also loosened the bottom rope to make sure Page’s escort out of the arena was as smooth as possible.

Page was taken to a local hospital, diagnosed with a concussion, and subsequently released. Things could have been so much worse if not for the awareness of Turner, Sampson, and Moxley, who all made sure to tend to Hangman in their own ways before the show could move on. And it did with Moxley and MJF cutting a great impromptu promo setting up their main-event match for Full Gear. By the time Moxley had a microphone to start the dialogue, Page was nowhere in sight. Hangman tweeted Wednesday night that he was in good spirits. There has been no timetable set for Page’s return to the ring, but he was placed in AEW’s concussion protocols.

AEW has now given us a pristine example of how to handle signs of head injuries and concussions amid the NFL’s investigation into how badly it failed Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. If Page took that lariat, was checked on by Turner and Sampson, continued to wrestle the match, and then strapped up his boots again to fight in a few more days willing to be dropped on his head with a vicious piledriver, that would be the equivalent of how the NFL’s medical practices harmed Tua. Under the circumstances, the NFL has as much time to react to concussions as AEW had. One company’s safeguards clearly saved one of its employees from further damage. It also shows how AEW learned from putting Matt Hardy back in harm’s way two years ago after hitting his head onto concrete.

There’s a direct route for how AEW can help the NFL. Tony Khan, AEW’s CEO and president, is the son of Shad Khan, who owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. Not all concussion cases are the same, obviously, but several measures to prevent maximizing the damage of head injuries, are. The NFL could learn a thing or two from how AEW handled this situation, like letting Colts’ running back Nyheim Hines walk to the locker room under his own power after showing gross motor instability. What a disgusting showing that was. And you can bet based on how delicately it handled Hangman’s injury, letting an athlete trot off the field wouldn’t have happened on an AEW show. 

When something is too good to be true, it usually is. Like earlier this season when Washington Commanders’ mugs with the state of Washington outline were being sold outside the stadium — except they were bootlegs, not official team merch. What a royal fuck up that would’ve been if they were real, right?

Well, I don’t know, six or seven weeks later someone kept giving the organization rope, and they hung themselves — again. From the franchise that brought you such films as “The Owner from Hell,” “The Owner from Hell: Resurrection,” and “The Owner from Hell: Afterlife,” comes the new comedy, “Bounced Check.” It’s basically a reboot of “Blank Check,” but instead of a child gifting himself $1 million, a raffle-winning Commanders fan has gifted us his story of trying to cash a $14,000 check that he won from a team raffle.

Season-ticket holder Drew Shipley phoned into The Team 980, a D.C. sports talk radio station, and shared his tale of woe. He told host Chris Russell of Russell & Medhurst about the ordeal, saying he won a prize worth $14,822 at a charity raffle during the season opener against Jacksonville.

Shipley then shared the receipts, or in this case, a picture of the check.

“It took 35 days to get the [first] check,” Shipley told Deadspin. “And a three-day bank hold, and for good reason.”

Working in the Commanders’ media relations department is like being a firefighter in California during an especially hot and dry July, and they blamed the bank and wired the fan the money directly.

Shipley, whose phone has been ringing off the hook, said the money was delivered within two hours of calling into that radio station. He also wanted to clarify one thing. Contrary to what he’s seen out there on social media, he says he had not spent a dollar of the money from that first check that bounced. Smart.

If Dan Snyder was running any other business the way he runs the Commanders, it would’ve filed for bankruptcy years ago, and he probably would’ve been indicted (this is where we are legally obligated to tell you that Dan Snyder has denied all allegations of wrongdoing). This is professional sports though, and no matter how much of a colossal fuck up you are, the leagues make so much money there are minimal consequences for being a disaster of epic proportions.

This sort of malpractice could only occur under two, maybe three other owners in sports, but Snyder definitely would’ve been my first pick had you told me the story and not named the team. What’s next? Are repo men going to show up and take back the gobs of Commanders’ gear that their supporters aren’t buying?

Like the loyal, mistreated fans of the DMV, one can only hope they take that and more.

As for Shipley, and his feelings about the Commanders, this team he roots for, he summed it up like this: “You can change the name, but you can’t change your spots.”

Nothing goes right for the Vancouver Canucks. This is an immutable law of hockey and the NHL. It’s mostly comedy fodder for everyone outside of British Columbia, and probably for more sadistic jokes within. It becomes less funny when you’ve spent a decade or two listening to Canucks fans bemoan their very existence at volume levels that rival the voice of God, Dogma-version. But that sort of background noise is part and parcel of following the league.

Anyway, whatever they’re trying, the Canucks are almost always a sure bet to fuck it up somehow. This is a team that had an absolute powerhouse of a roster in 2011, lost Game 7 at home when Roberto Luongo shit a chicken every time he stepped foot in Boston and then in the deciding game. They haven’t won a real playoff round since, and no, 2020 doesn’t count.

There was some hope for this year’s squad, mostly built through the excitement of d-man Quinn Hughes, a goalie in Thatcher Demko that looked poised to be the next big thing wearing a mask, and forwards like Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser and the like. It was also partially fueled by the Pacific Division being the remedial class of the NHL, where you can only really count on the Flames to be good (you depend on the Oilers to be anything and watch your sanity go right into the toilet).

Well, this season could not have started worse for the Canucks, who are 0-3-1. That’s a bad start, but not one that couldn’t become a footnote in the long run. However, the Canucks don’t just do badly when they do badly. And they don’t just crash when they crash. They make it epic. Last night, the Canucks became the first team in NHL history to lose their first four games of a season when they held a multiple goal lead IN EVERY GAME.

That’s right, the ‘Nucks have blown at least a two-goal lead to everyone they’ve faced. You can somewhat understand that when it’s against the Oilers or Capitals, who have a fair amount of firepower. When you also spit up regurgitated foodstuffs against the Flyers and Jackets, you have a real problem.

It’s already rattling brains within the team, as it caused a players-only meeting just three games into the season, which is hardly ever a good sign. Usually players-only meetings mean everyone hates the coach and they’re trying to figure out how they’re still going to play for him or how they’re going to go about getting him fired. Naturally, the rumors are already flying that Bruce Boudreau should start preparing his resume. It’s certainly not helping that Boudreau is calling his team mentally weak, because mentality is sort of near the top of a coach’s to-do list.

Overall, there really isn’t that much to worry about in Vancouver’s game. Their shots, shots against, attempts-share, and expected goals-share ranks anywhere from 10th to 16th in the league, which is about where you’d have this team pegged. But that whole mentality thing shows up when you see how badly they’ve gotten clocked in the 3rd period, giving up over 65 percent of the expected goals in the final frame in three of their four games. Even with a lead where you’d expect an opponent to attack more feverishly and get more chances, getting flattened like that is not how you hold leads or win games.

The biggest problem is that Demko has been a court jester in net so far this season, with an .847 save-percentage and already conceding -4.5 goals than expected, third-worst in the league. Most of the Canucks’ problems will be fixed when Demko starts facing the right way, though there has to be a little worry if something isn’t truly off here.

Beyond Demko though, this team has defensive issues. The entire top four of Hughes, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Riley Stillman, and Luke Schenn (by minutes played) break even when it comes to attempts, but they are giving up far better chances than are being created when they’re on the ice, at least according to xGF percentage. Only Stillman is above water in the latter category. Tyler Myers has only played one game through injury, but as anyone who has seen Tyler Myers play will tell you, he’s not going to solve any of your defensive issues.

Not helping matters much is that the top line with Horvat and Boeser has been getting kicked around heavily, with a 41 percent xG percentage. Topping off this pungent cake is that usual two-way dynamo J.T. Miller, fresh off inking some flashy new paper, has been seeing his skull turned into putty, with a 29 percent expected goal share. The combination of Demko’s reverse-Matrix act in net and their defensive helplessness has meant that their penalty kill is running at a cool 50 percent right now. Which is another way to blow leads.

But this is kind of the deal with a Boudreau-led team. He’ll take all the handbreaks off for a team offensively, which generally leads to his players having a ton of fun. But his defensive structure has always been a helping of “whatever” and that’s generally why his teams eat it in the playoffs. At this rate, the Canucks won’t have to worry about that, and Boudreau won’t have to worry about being around to watch it.

Luckily for Vancouver, the Pacific still sucks ass. There’s plenty of time for them to right themselves, and Demko won’t be this bad forever. But when the coach is already calling the team soft between the ears and the players are discussing amongst themselves, it doesn’t feel like a change is too far off in the future.

If you spend too much time arguing about the macro, you miss out on the micro. And it is in the micro that the real enjoyment can be found in any sport. Whether it’s a silky drive to the hoop and layup, a cross-seam pass to set up a one-timer, a perfectly-timed tackle, the sort of things top-tier athletes do in an instant that we can’t really fathom.

It has not been a great year for Juan Soto. While he was the main cog in one of baseball’s biggest trades in years, he didn’t really immediately convert the Padres into a powerhouse upon arrival. Much like the start of his season in Washington, he walked a ton, but his power seemingly went away, and his value was really tied up in his ability to get on base while not doing the heavy damage we were used to. He was also, quite simply, woeful with a glove on his hand, to the point where he probably shouldn’t have bothered having that glove on his hand. But his defense isn’t why the Padres harvested a good portion of their system to bring him to town.

We saw some of that defense early in Game 2 on Wednesday, when he lost a ball in the sun in the top of the second to allow a run on what should have been a sac fly and gotten Blake Snell closer to an escape of the inning. That’s OK because when you’re Juan Soto, you’re always likely to make amends when you come to the plate.

He did that in the Padres’ raucous and chaotic fifth inning, where they put up five runs to take the lead they would never give back and allowed them to tie the NLCS with the Phillies, 1-1. Soto came up with runners on first and third and one out, and the Padres down one. Aaron Nola got Soto down to 0-2, and threw a really good pitch to end the at-bat, or so he thought:

That’s a really good pitch! Look at it!

That’s a 95 MPH fastball barely scraping the inside corner and supposed to be right on Soto’s hands. While Soto does crack pitches in that part of the zone (.315 average and .648 slugging according to baseball savant, very few of those pitches in that zone that are measured are slicing a facial hair off the inside corner. That’s where Nola wants that pitch.

To be able to pull one’s hands in and through to get the barrel to that ball, and keep it fair, is the exact kind of skill that landed Soto numbers that compare to Ted Williams through the same age. It’s what made every team try and set the axis of the planet askew in an effort to get him (or at least teams that are actually run well and by an adult). You are not supposed to get to this pitch, and even if you get to it, it’s supposed to break your bat and leave your hands feeling like they were being attacked by bees from the inside. The bat speed on this swing is simply mean.

I am guilty as anyone else of spending too much time worrying about playoff formats and what the regular season and postseason should mean and how it’s viewed and rules changes. The reason we get so worked up is that we soak in moments like this. This is unique and wonderful, and a reminder of what should actually matter in this sport.

FU FS1

Though speaking of things that really matter, it’s more than awkward and actually sickening that during MLB playoff games, FS1 is only too happy to air anti-immigrant ads that sink into some of the vilest misconceptions and hate that the right can produce. I know it’s hardly a surprise, given that FS1 is a Fox station after all.

But it’s certainly an insulting juxtaposition for an ad to be declaring all immigrants tools of the demon during the broadcast of a sport where a third of the participants are immigrants themselves. And yes, MLB absolutely has the right to veto what ads are shown during its broadcasts. They just haven’t here, no matter how it looks.

But I guess MLB not caring about optics isn’t much of a surprise either. 

It has happened only once in recorded history.

Back in 2001, not long after the 9/11 attacks, MLB America rooted for the New York Yankees to win in the postseason.

For sure, it was weird. But, indeed, it was fitting, given all that had happened to the city that never sleeps.

And while there isn’t a gut-wrenching reason this time around, there’s no doubt that baseball fans everywhere should be rooting for the Yankees, starting tonight as they open the American League Championship Series against the Astros in Houston.

The Yankees are the clear underdogs. The Astros are expected to win and advance to the World Series again.

But we can’t have it.

We won’t, can’t embrace the cheating Astros.

Yes, we said it: The cheating Astros.

For sure, the Astros faithful will push back. They want to believe that their team’s cheating scandal — they used technology to steal signs of opposing teams during the 2017 and 2018 seasons — is a thing of the past and we should forget and move on.

Nope.

It’s not happening anytime soon.

The details and depth of their cheating can’t be overlooked or forgotten.

Mike Fiers, a pitcher for Houston in 2017, told The Athletic back then that the organization used a video camera in the center field seats to film the opposing catcher’s signals to the pitcher regarding the upcoming pitch.

The Astros and staffers watched the live camera feed behind the dugout and used different ways to tell their batter what pitch was coming, including banging a garbage can.

MLB caught them dead to rights and issued punishment to the franchise.

In 2020, MLB also confirmed that the Astros used their cheating system during the 2017 regular season and postseason, during which they won the World Series.

That’s why baseball fans can’t get over this whole thing. That’s why they are still the most hated team in baseball.

No one outside of the state of Texas wants to see them have another shot at winning the title.

That’s why you gotta root for the Yankees again.

They CAN stop these Astros, especially if the game is above board.

This Yankees team isn’t hard to root for, either. They have many likable players, starting with Aaron Judge, who set the A.L. record for homers in a single season with 62, breaking Roger Maris’ record of 61 which stood for 61 years.

He’s a great player, a better person. Hard not to want to see him succeed.

And it’s not like the Yankees have been winning every year. For sure, that can be annoying. Back in the late 90s, they were a dynasty. They won four World Series in five seasons, including three in a row in 1998, 1999, and 2000.

But it’s been a minute since they won it all. The last time the Bronx Bombers were champs was in 2009. In the Yankee universe, that’s a huge drought.

The hardest part about rooting against Houston is manager Dusty Baker, who wasn’t the skipper when the cheating was rampant.

Baker was bought in to clean up the mess.

Baker has done everything a manager could in his career — except win a World Series. This could be his last shot.

Still, the Astros just don’t feel good, even this many years removed from the cheating stench.

Remember, the cheating is what helped this franchise win its only Fall Classic in team history.

The Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers both took the brunt of the Astros’ heist.

The Yankees lost to the Astros in the ALCS in 2017 in seven games. The Astros won all four games at home where they were banging garbage cans like crazy.

The Dodgers lost in the World Series that year. Somehow — wink, wink — the Astros’ bats were alive in Houston during that series. Cheating is hard to forgive and forget. Ask the New England Patriots. Despite winning six Super Bowls, many still never give that franchise all its due.

The same goes for the Astros. The last thing we want to see is an Astros player holding the championship trophy over their head in the ultimate bliss.

This time around, let’s hope it’s the Yankees left standing when the dust clears.

We can all cheer for that. Better yet, live with that, once again.