The Thread Killer

That was awesome. I really enjoyed that show. It’s insane how popular Kaiser…I mean El Grande Americano is. I assume since he won Rey de Reyes this year, he gets the shot at the Mega Championship at Triplemania? If so, bring it on. Strap that dude up. Poor Gable was busted up after that match too. It was also amazing to me how much respect the fans gave him after the match, considering how much they hated him during the lead up.

That’s the million dollar question right there. I don’t know if it’s Jeremy Borash, or The Undertaker or who it is, but somebody is making some very smart booking decisions with that promotion right now. They are using native AAA talent still, but they are also mixing in Mexican WWE talent who are basically treading water on the main roster, and sending some top prospects from NXT. The combination seems to be working. Look what her time in AAA has done for Lola Vice. For example, the Rey Fenix vs Laredo Kid rivalry or The War Raiders vs Psycho Circus angle? Give me that stuff all day long. It is resulting in great matches, and that’s all I really care about. There is definitely an argument you can make that they are essentially using AAA as a developmental territory, but as long as they continue to feature the best AAA talent they do have, like La Parka, Octagon Jr., Vikingo, and El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr., it still has the appearance of Lucha, even if it’s not the traditional pure style presented by CMLL. And I love to see guys like Fenix, Cruz Del Toro, Dragon Lee, and Joaquin Wilde actually get a chance to work. Let’s be honest, guys like Jack Cartwheel, TJP and Los Garza are never going to get a shot working on the Main Roster in a significant way anyhow. Throw in Main Roster names like Mysterio (father and son both), Penta, Bayley and Nattie making regular appearances, so far it has been a winning combination. Especially when it is presented on a show that only lasts an hour and is not a total chore to sit through.

I will be the first to freely admit that it is truly bizarre that in 2026, I am actually stoked to watch a match which is essentially Chad Gable vs Ludwig Kaiser, and where the supporting characters are the Creed Brothers, Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne. But I will be damned if they haven’t managed to make this compelling and exciting. The buildup to the AAA part of this feud has been pretty much flawlessly executed. You cannot say the same of course about the parts of the angle that were shot on RAW, but that also has a lot to do with the American fans not really giving a shit, and the WWE Main Roster “creative team” basically ruining everything they touch by doing it via corporate committee. lt’s insane how popular Kaiser is with the AAA fans, in large part because he speaks Spanish and has been cutting a bunch of “man of the people” type promos. For the few fans that have been complaining about this, I simply remind them that prior to WWE taking over, AAA was pretty much shit anyway, and their number one star was Alberto Del Rio, so how much has really been lost, really?

I have mixed feelings about that. It’s probably best for his overall health, and especially his joints to lose all that weight, but on the other hand, the old school wrestling fan in me always loves an athletic fat guy. I feel so conflicted and torn.

Man, The Vision is the most snake bit stable I have ever seen. Rollins, Breakker, Reed and now Logan Paul have all been shelved with major injuries in the past year. It’s crazy.

One of the main reasons FTR left WWE to begin with is because the fed treated their Tag Division and Tag Team Wrestling like a joke and an afterthought. That hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse. There is literally no competition for FTR in WWE. I’m not even an AEW fan but I think it would be ridiculous for them to leave AEW. Plus @sek69 is right, no way TKO pays the kind of money FTR would want to make the jump.

Having said all that, I still thought “The Curse of the Von Erichs” was outstanding. The 4 Horseman episode was okay. Family drama aside, The Road Warriors episode really wasn’t all that good. There were glaring historical omissions, (like @WrestlingPower said, Japan was totally ignored.) And I’m sorry but when you put Peter Rosenberg and Sam Roberts forward as your main Pro Wrestling Historian talking heads…I just can’t take you seriously.

So Rey Mysterio is now the storyline “General Manager” of AAA, an unfortunate byproduct of which means that he’s off the announce team, which is a shame because he, Corey Graves and JBL were great together. Mysterio was just getting comfortable in the role and was great at providing backstory to certain things from a Lucha perspective. The other main issue with this, is that Mysterio acted as the translator for the English announce team, and he was very good at it. He would basically tell the fans what was being said during in ring and backstage promos, pretty much word for word. He was definitely better at it than Konnan was. Rey’s replacement this week was…Savio Vega. I won’t comment on a Puerto Rican star being selected to replace a Luchadore to explain Lucha Libre. I will say that his overall commentary skills are a major step down, and his translation abilities are, shall we say…lacking. As in… *Somebody delivers a long promo in Spanish* * long pause* Savio Vega: “He say…they going to have a big match!”

She’s very upset that she was not asked to participate in the episode, but Animal’s first two wives and his daughter were. Thing is, she met Animal much later in life, long after his Pro Wrestling career was over, so realistically I don’t know how much she really could have contributed to a documentary about his Pro Wrestling career or The Road Warriors. It’s my understanding she didn’t even know Hawk. She was physically with Animal when he died, and she’s claiming Animal’s daughter is lying about the details of his death. The relationship between his last wife and the rest of his family is clearly very strained. Animal’s body was barely in the ground when she was online trying to raise money off the guy’s name, claiming he didn’t leave her any money and that he didn’t have Life Insurance, so she was essentially broke. She ran more than one unsuccessful Crowdfunding attempt after he died, trying to get financial support she claimed she needed. Apparently the rest of Animal’s family tried to ice her out of his Memorial Service as well. I guess Animal did leave her the Road Warriors/LOD trademarks (apparently he owned them, not Hawk or Ellering) so she has had disputes with the rest of his family around that, as well.

Yeah, he was great as Roman’s goon, and there’s plenty of room for him as a midcard guy, but they have pushed him beyond his capabilities. His promo skills are especially weak.

Agreed. There is no logic whatsoever behind what WWE has done to their tag division. They have essentially gutted it. MFT is death. Solo is not a top guy and does not have the personality to be in charge of a stable. They need to pull the plug on this crap ASAP.

The only problem with guys like that is that their shelf life is so short, because of the wear and tear on their knees. Or they have to adjust their style so they aren’t quite as flashy, ala Bam Bam Bigelow.

So SmackDown was pretty much hot garbage last night, I don’t know if there was something in the water but it was a total botchfest. I expected the Carmelo Hayes vs. Ricky Saints match to be good (and there were brief flashes of it) but those guys could not get on the same page, and there were some sequences where they were so out of sync they practically ended up standing there, staring at each other. At one point, Saints dropped Melo on his head, which isn’t going to win him any fans backstage. Although he may not have any already, considering he’s been on the Main Roster for 3 weeks and lost twice already. Priest vs. Tama Tonga was also a bit of a mess, highlighted(?) by the sequence where Priest climbed to the top rope and appeared to basically stumble and fall and land crotch first on the top turnbuckle. Both those guys looked rough in that match. I’m not even going to mention the Brie Bella and Paige team, because considering the ridiculous amount of female talent WWE has right now, the idea of those two having the Women’s Tag Team Titles is just baffling. I was really impressed with Royce Keys vs. Gunther, although it bears mentioning that the parts of the match where Keys was in control seemed smoother than when Gunther had the upper hand, which was unexpected to me. But I really liked the story they were trying to tell with Gunther being unable to bully Keys like he does most people. And then Solo showed up. Ugh. Anything involving Solo is not likely to help Keys in the way they think it is, that’s all I’ll say.

As I mentioned earlier, I highly recommend Gangs of London. Done by the creative forces behind The Raid: Redemption and The Raid II. Great stuff, brilliant cinematography and choreography if you enjoy Hong Kong style action, but not as corny. The main villain character has the acting range of a block of wood, but it’s still very compelling.

$30 for an entire year of AMC+ isn’t a terrible deal, considering that they have a ton of really good shows on that service (Gangs of London springs to mind.) AMC+ is available as an add-on channel to Prime Video, and they offered a free trial which I signed up for, and quite enjoyed. They have a good library, including some British TV programming. Having said that…we already get TNA here in Canada as part of the Sportsnet package on cable. Sportsnet started showing TNA when they lost RAW and SmackDown to Netflix. I tried watching TNA for a while and let me tell you, it’s pretty much unwatchable. I can usually find something to enjoy in just about any kind of Pro Wrestling, but that crap is just boring as hell. I wouldn’t pay 30 cents for that garbage, never mind 30 bucks.

Fightful is reporting that he’ll be serving his sentence under the same terms, as per the Mexico Attorney General’s office. “…the convicted individual will serve his sentence while remaining free and may continue to practice his profession, under judicial supervision, and must therefore report every three weeks regarding his appearances, venues, and match cards. As part of the protective measures for the victim, the court ruled that he may not participate in events where she is present.” https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/mexico-city-attorney-generals-office-releases-statement-on-ruling-against-cuatrero/

So apparently he will be serving his sentence “under supervision” which means he’ll be walking around free, and is at liberty to wrestle so long as Stephanie Vaquer is not in the building. But hey…he has to check in with the police every 3 weeks. And I’m sure they’ll be super strict about enforcing that condition and won’t let him fall through the cracks at all. That’s much more like the Mexican justice system we’ve all heard so much about.

Massive thread bump here, but it’s for a reason. The latest season of WWE Biography on A&E started a couple of weeks ago. The Season Premiere was a 2 Part episode called “The Curse of the Von Erichs.” I know what you are probably thinking. WWE already did the “Triumph and Tragedy of World Class Championship Wrestling” years ago. Then there was the independently produced “Heroes of World Class” documentary. Most recently there was the Dark Side of the Ring episode “The Last of the Von Erichs.” Because of all of that, I went into this not really expecting much that I had not heard already. I was actually really surprised by this episode, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the production on this episode was top-notch. The A&E produced biographies are done in cooperation with WWE, but A&E handles the production, and it really shows. Over the last few years some of the Biography specials they have done have actually been better than the WWE produced documentaries that were on the network. For example, I think the Bret Hart and Mick Foley episodes of Biography were superior to the WWE DVD’s and documentaries produced about those guys. More importantly, in the case of “The Curse of the Von Erichs” this episode of Biography was produced with the full cooperation of the family, so they have access to all sorts of family home movies which have never been seen before. Even more interesting than that, there are interviews with family members that have never given interviews before, most notably the widow of Kerry Von Erich. I can honestly say that there is family information that is disclosed in this episode of Biography that has never been disclosed before. I know this may sound almost impossible to believe, but the history of this family is even more tragic than we already knew, if you can even believe that. This episode also challenges some of the popular narratives that exist about the tragedies that have occurred within the Von Erich family. Anyhow, my point is that I highly recommend watching this episode if you have an interest in the Von Erich family. It’s a fascinating Biography.

Agreed. I saw it theorized elsewhere (and this theory may have some merit) that Rollins is feeling pressure due to the obvious youth movement that WWE is clearly embracing, so he is trying to stand out by performing maneuvers which are probably beyond him at this point.

Both guys looked really rusty to me. Seth blew a couple of spots so badly, I could barely figure out what he was trying to do. And that spot where he came off the top rope and landed on his feet, but both his knees buckled made me cringe. At least the right person went over.

If Lil Yachty is going to be active on a regular basis in WWE, then somebody really needs to explain to him the concept of selling. Zayn beat the living crap out of him with that Kendo Stick, and he was back up seconds later as if nothing had happened. Then Zayn flattened him with the running kick, only for Yachty to pop into the ring, and start dancing and throwing money around moments later. When it takes your wrestlers longer to recover from things than some skinny rapper, it doesn’t look good for anybody.

The Renegade might turn out to be pretty sad. Hogan pretty much used that guy to be his fake Ultimate Warrior, then he got tossed aside when he wasn’t any good (like the real deal was?) and he eventually gets released and ends up committing suicide. It’s definitely a sad story. I remember the Joe vs Necro match vividly, since they basically stiffed the living hell out of each other, but I thought it was a good match and didn’t know there was really any story behind it. I can see them doing an episode on Necro, because you know, he’s nuts.

So, I don’t know if anybody has actually been watching, but much to my surprise, the weekly AAA show has become a must watch. Partially I think it’s because it’s only an hour so even if it’s not great it’s not a chore to sit through. But in the larger picture, I’ll be damned if they somehow haven’t managed to turn the Americano vs Americano feud into one of the hottest angles I’ve seen in quite some time. Even Jim Cornette of all people had to give them credit after they shot that super hot segment on the April 11 episode, where OG Americano attacked that blind comedian, and then went after the female interviewer (who apparently everybody knows is Ludwig Kaiser’s girlfriend IRL.) At first, I was a little annoyed that they were focusing this feud south of the border and weren’t going to do the Mask vs Mask match at Wrestlemania, but considering what a shit show Wrestlemania turned out to be, and taking the insanely hot crowds and massive popularity of Americano II into consideration, it turned out to be the smart decision to keep this angle confined to AAA. It’s also nice to see acts like Los Garza, Fenix, the LWO and War Raiders get a chance to get some decent ring time there as well. I’ve actually been enjoying the angle between War Raiders and Psycho Circus. @sek69, I don’t suppose you have been watching?

Not quite sure how Ray Traylor qualifies as a “Dark Side” episode aside from the fact that he died tragically young. Aside from that, from everything I’ve heard he was a beloved guy backstage, and actually had a decent career. Kind of reminds me of the John Tenta episode. I’m also not sure we need THREE episodes about TNA. I thought the show was supposed to focus on the dark, seedy underbelly of the business, not so much the gross incompetence aspect of it. Because if they are just focusing on stupid people now, where is the Vince Russo episode?

So the episode list is out for Season 7 of DSOTR: * TNA Wrestling & Jeff Jarrett (Three Episodes) * Paul Orndorff * Big Boss Man * Missy Hyatt * Samoa Joe vs. Necro Butcher from IWA-MS in 2005 * Zach Gowen * The Renegade, aka Rick Wilson