Various: Dalton Castle Out of Action for Rest of 2024 Over Head Injury, MJF to Defend AEW International Title at 8/2 CMLL Event, Cagematch.net Introduces New Rule for WWE & AEW Events

Dalton Castle Head Injury Status Update – Castle to be Out of Action for Remainder of 2024

As noted before, Dalton Castle suffered a head-related injury during his match against Roderick Strong on the July 13th AEW Collision show in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This match resulted in Castle being legitimately knocked out and an audible being called for the match’s finish.

Ring of Honor owner Tony Khan announced earlier today that due to his injury, Castle will not be able to compete at next week’s Death Before Dishonor 2024 event in Arlington, Texas.

Khan also stated that due to his injury situation, Castle will be out of action for the remainder of 2024.

Some injury news that's forced changes to the plans for this Friday's #ROHDBD Death Before Dishonor@theDALTONcastle was injured in his Saturday Night #AEWCollision bout last week vs @roderickstrong.
Sadly Dalton will be out of action for the remainder of 2024. Get well soon DC

— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) July 20, 2024

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MJF to Defend AEW International Title at CMLL’s August 2nd Event

Friday’s Super Viernes event for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico featured MJF making a surprise video appearance.

During the video, MJF was seen sitting in a tub and gave a promo announcing that he will be defending his AEW International Championship at CMLL’s Super Viernes event on August 2nd in Mexico City. An opponent for his title was not given as part of MJF’s promo announcement.

⌛🌎🇺🇸
¡MJF apostará el Campeonato Internacional de AEW en La Catedral de la Lucha Libre!

📍Arena México
🗓️ Viernes 2 de agosto '24
🕣 8:30 p.m.
🎟️ Boletos en taquillas y en Ticketmaster:https://t.co/vRaG5dgedB#ViernesEspectacularCMLL pic.twitter.com/cHAu3iEYKC

— Lucha Libre CMLL (@CMLL_OFICIAL) July 20, 2024

CMLL announced that they will be holding a one-night tournament to determine MJF’s official challenger for the AEW International title. It was announced that this tournament will be taking place at their Martes De Arena Mexico event on July 23rd in Mexico City. It was also announced that Templario, Flip Gordon, Valiente, Esfinge, Rugido, Stuka Jr, Averno, and Zandokan Jr. will be competing in this upcoming tournament.

🔜
📍Arena México
🗓️ Martes 23 de julio '24
🕣 7:30 p.m.
🎟️ Boletos en taquillas y en Ticketmaster:https://t.co/XAlMdWuk4n

📺 Transmisión EN VIVO en exclusiva para miembros del canal https://t.co/5P6Lo6pqBo ¡Únete ahora!#MartesDeArenaMéxico pic.twitter.com/3ll83qdacN

— Lucha Libre CMLL (@CMLL_OFICIAL) July 20, 2024

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Cagematch Announces New Rule to Combat Match Review Bombing for WWE & AEW Events

Wrestling database website Cagematch.net recently announced a new rule for users to combat review bombing of matches going forward.

It was announced that this rule was place into effect following issues of review bombing of the MJF vs. Will Ospreay match for the AEW International Championship on the July 17th AEW Dynamite 250 show.

It was also announced that this new rule will be in effect for WWE and AEW events going forward to combat tribalism from fans of both companies.

Official announcement:

It’s Groundhog’s Day, everybody!

Back in January, when I introduced a new rule for the ratings system, which as stupid as still sounds to an observer, has actually made a (minor) positive difference. Unfortunately, the fight against tribalism and review bombing is a fight of attrition. On one side are thousands of expressive “enthusiasts” of the WWE and AEW fanbases with highly different backgrounds, motives and motivation for engaging in tribalistic behaviour, some even without realizing that they do so. On the other side, there is… well… me. I guess if I wanted to enjoy wrestling without the ugly side of the IWC, I shouldn’t have made a wrestling database, right? Ha ha. So instead of being able to watch a show unspoiled and pretend to be a normal wrestling fan, yesterday on top of my normal real-life workday I had to react to review bombing, reactionists, dozens of emails from users complaining about the tribalism, and basically a complete disregard for the rules of the ratings system because apparently the pairing of MJF and Will Ospreay in a match has encouraged almost more polarized opinions than John Cena and Roman Reigns did in their heydays. The biggest issue for me? I got the match spoiled for me, I got yelled at (again) by both sides for being pro/anti-“their view” and I got yelled at by “neutral observers” for letting the tribalism get out of hand. When I went to bed last night, I did so with the intention of shutting down the ratings system today and tell all of you to fuck off.

Anyways, in that post back in January I wrote the following:

“Stop dragging us into a painfully unnecessary and embarassing “flame war” between two fucking world-sized companies. The next step is to lock down WWE and AEW ratings to long-term registered users and I don’t fucking care if half of you leave at that point.”

Let’s find out together if I meant it.

From this day onwards, for WWE and AEW events and matches, the following “user moratorium” rules are in effect:

[1] If a user’s first valid rating* is less than 12 months before a show’s date, then they have to wait until 24 hours after the show before they can leave a rating. Comments are allowed.

[2] If a user’s first valid rating* is less than 6 months before a show’s date, then they have to wait until 48 hours after the show before they can leave a rating. Comments are allowed.

[3] If a user’s first valid rating* is less than 1 month before a show’s date, then they have to wait until 72 hours after the show before they can leave a rating. Comments are allowed.

*The “first valid rating” is reset with warnings that include ratings removal.

This user moratorium is in addition to the existing ratings moratorium that requires a longer comment for the first couple of hours after a show.

Example:

– WWE or AEW show is on 23 July 2024 (the reference hour is always 23:00 CEST)

– Show is in North or South America

– User is in category [2]

==> User can start rating on 25 July 2024 23:00 CEST with the ratings moratorium in effect, i.e. using at least 500 characters for their comment

==> User can start rating without comment on 26 July 2025 10:00 CEST with no restrictions

My rationale for introducing this rule is that most of the review bombing happens in the first 1-2 days after a show and is executed mostly by newer accounts. If you are affected by these rules without ever having engaged in tribalism, I am sorry, but I will not make exceptions.

I know this is all very complicated. Now we know why bureacracy exists in civilized countries, because assholes exist and ruin fun for everyone.

This rule is my salvation. I don’t care if you are offended by it in any way. I don’t care if you are leaving the site because of it. You are not paying for this thing, you get no voice in the decision-making. This rule is very selfish, as I hope it reduces the review bombing (as mentioned, the first few days and often newer users are the worst) or delays it at least enough so that I, yes I, can watch shows unspoiled and get to actually enjoy wrestling myself again, just a little bit. And ideally the rest of the community experiences a positive side effect to this as well, as I am sure the civilized ones of you are as sick of the tribalism as me and probably as sick as I am of continually having to address it and change the rules. Again, it’s a war of attritition and the trolls will find another way to circumvent the rules to make my life hell and I know I am inciting them just by writing this. But for me, coding these rules and writing this message have been cathartic.

If you understand, thank you.