The Thread Killer

I’m not really all that plugged in to the latest news and rumors. Is the obvious surprise Kota Ibushi joining The Elite team for Blood & Guts? (I personally could not possibly care any less about a “Golden Lovers” reunion, but I can see how for a subsect of fans that would be a big deal.)

Fuck yeah…rematch for the Tag Team Titles next week in Calgary, 2/3 falls. Dax said something about a surprise, which I can only assume involves Bret. How about that, a Battle of the Belts I actually want to see.

Holy shit, that match between FTR and Bullet Club Gold was just…damn. A classic. I was expecting it to be good but they kicked that sumbitch up a notch. Bring on the rematch for the titles please.

It is a real shame that for a couple of big reasons (the ongoing MLW lawsuit, personal issues/WWE corporate culture, etc.) that other members of the actual Anoa’i family who are active in the business right now can’t be introduced to this storyline to add some interesting new dimensions. Specifically, it would be great to see Lance Anoa’i and especially Jacob Fatu get involved in this whole thing. But that looks like it can’t happen, and that really sucks. Even if there was not a major lawsuit going on between MLW and WWE right now, that news that came out recently about Jacob Fatu basically ripping off a couple charities. WWE were already leery enough of Jacob Fatu because of his criminal record and his age…this is kind of the icing on the cake. But imagine if he got introduced to this whole deal? It could be a shot in the arm which could extend the entire thing for months.

None of those words mean anything to me. It’s like you’re speaking gibberish.

Does…does Rousey have the letter “M” drawn on the middle of her forehead?! Who the hell is doing the makeup for these people?

That Escobar dude looked like an idiot. He looked like a cross between The Blue Meanie and a raccoon. Also, unless they are planning on going all the way with Damien Priest, that was a dumb call. I don’t see why you would not pull the trigger on LA Knight. That dude is crazy over.

But he wears sunglasses now so that’s how you know he’s a bad guy

I think it’s time for everybody to accept that Jungle Boy is just not all that good at the Pro Wrestling thing. I am sure he has a long promising career ahead of him as an underwear model. Although the way he “delivers his lines” in a stilted, unconvincing fashion, he would fit in perfectly backstage, cutting a promo in NXT.

Jack Perry sounds like he studied acting in a community theatre workshop. And flunked out.

Apparently in AEW, if the referee ejects you from ringside, it’s more of a “time out.” You have to go backstage and think about what you did wrong, and then you can come back and the ref lets you stay, as long as you’re sorry.

Booing Punk and cheering The Young Bucks. I hereby renounce the City of Toronto. How fitting, since I just moved away this past week.

Damn, those two opening matches were both way better than I was expecting.

I really hope this doesn’t mean Filthy Tom is off the show altogether. This might be the one and only acceptable time to watch Jake Hager wrestle, if he could step in as a substitute, and they agreed to work “snug.” Dude has been in AEW since day one, he may as well make himself useful for once.

Hey hey hey. NOBODY is worse than Mauro Ranallo.

Yeah, having listened to it myself…it wasn’t necessarily new information, but it was still kind of strange to hear JR being so upfront about it. Bob Sweetan was Canadian and after he died, it hit the news what kind of person he was, so like I said…the information was out there already. But Conrad’s shows don’t usually have any substance to them. It’s all imitations, dick jokes and ad reads. So that made this episode a little different, to say the least.

YEAH! It makes me happy to see other people jumping on the Eli Drake/LA Knight bandwagon.

Strongly agree. I really enjoyed this show, much more than I have enjoyed Dynamite in quite a while. The Andrade/Mathews match was great…I honestly didn’t know if Andrade had that kind of match in him still, for him to pull that off in his first match back after a long layoff was very impressive.

There is a website (which I will not name here of course) where you can get a live stream of pretty much any Pro Wrestling show as it happens. I have used that site on the rare occasions I have actually wanted to watch Rampage. The problem is, I freely admit, I am an old man and am somewhat traditional in my ways. I’d like to just watch a damn show on television not have to use my phone or tablet or laptop or try and cast a stream to my TV. I have done those things before, but it’s a bit of a pain and I find the VQ tends to vary, and my experience with streams has always been that they tend to cut out a lot. I just want to sit in my armchair with a refreshing beverage, and a bag of pork rinds and watch my shows, dammit. *shakes fist* I do have a Firestick and I had been informed by a friend that you can easily install a VPN on your Firestick and then watch the International feed of AEW Plus on the FITE app with minimal problems. That was going to be my plan if I wanted to watch Collision. However, the news came out yesterday that it turns out Collision is going to be available on TSN 5 on a delay tonight. It is coming on at midnight, and then surprisingly it is scheduled for its normal 8 PM airing next week on TSN 2. There was quite a stink on Twitter and elsewhere online when it was announced that the show was not going to be available on traditional cable TV in Canada, so it appears that TSN and AEW must have worked out some sort of deal. So tonight, I will just avoid spoilers for a couple of hours and catch the 12:00 AM broadcast on TSN. I don’t know if my fellow PWO Canadian Good Bubbas like @SirEdger have heard about this, but it seems like there has been a change of plans when it comes to the Canadian broadcasting plans for AEW. At least for now.

Jungle Boy is getting the IWGP Title Match at Forbidden Door? Seriously? Jungle Boy? The guy who was by far the LEAST impressive of the 4 guys in the World Title match at the last PPV? I mean, the PPV card is stacking up great, but…Jungle Boy?

I have seen a lot of Canadian fans online today talking about using a VPN and paying for some AEW package on FITE TV. Apparently the international deal with FITE allows you to watch all of their shows on that app, commercial free. I may look into that, I don’t know. I am a little irritated that I am going to have to go to all that trouble, and I might just give up on them as well. I don’t like the idea of having to jump through a bunch of stupid hoops just to watch a TV show that is going to end up getting preempted half the time for sports anyways.

It’s apparently official…AEW Collision will not be televised in Canada. If Canadian viewers want to see the show, they have to use the TSN+ app, which you have to pay for. (It is in a free trial now, but that will not last apparently.) The best part about that app is that you have to actually watch the show live as it happens because they do not archive the show after it airs. So, if you do not stream the show live as it happens, you don’t get to see it. But at least you get to pay for the privilege! So basically Canada will be hosting a bunch of TV tapings for a show that we won’t be able to actually watch on TV. The First Canada Centre in Hamilton is supposed to have a Collision taping coming up. It has a seating capacity of 18,000 and they’ve sold less than 1,000 so far. The Collision taping at Scotiabank Arena the night before Forbidden Door has moved very few tickets as well. Truly some genius level planning by AEW.

That A&E Biography they did on him just a couple of months ago was excellent. As was that documentary that was made on him a few years back (which is available on Amazon Prime here in Canada, not sure about international availability - but it’s well worth a look.) He really did live quite an extraordinary life, considering he got into the business rather late in life, and was pretty much past his prime already at the time he became most famous. I have always had a soft spot for him because he was a regional star here in Toronto as “Hossein The Arab” when he feuded with Angelo Mosca over the NWA Canadian Heavyweight Championship, a few years before he went on to his biggest fame in the WWF. I still remember that feud being the talk of the playground when I was a kid… that is literally my first memory of Professional Wrestling. He was quite a character, both in and out of the ring. I know he suffered a lot, from personal tragedies, addictions, and most recently a lot of physical pain. RIP

I am not even a New Japan guy and even I am pretty stoked to see those two matches. Admittedly, I am a lot more excited about Danielson vs Okada than Omega vs. Ospreay II. I generally find Kenny’s New Japan “epics” to be incredibly athletic but ridiculously long and overblown and I highly suspect that is going to be the case here. But I am still there for it.