The Thread Killer

That would be great if Tony Khan actually gave a shit about ROH. They got off to a great start for the first six weeks but Ring of Honor has really gone downhill now. I know I already bitched about this elsewhere, but the fact they have a quarterly PPV this Friday, and have barely booked any matches (and the matches they have booked are pretty pointless) makes it obvious he just doesn’t care about this anymore. It’s bad enough they are taping the show before and after Collision now, and not in front of an exclusive audience with their own dedicated TV tapings now. But the show is just crap now, the creative is total garbage and ROH has basically taken the place of Dark/Elevation. Riccaboni is wasted there.

You’re not wrong. Riccaboni and Nigel were outstanding as a team last night. Much better than Kevin Kelly and Nigel and definitely miles ahead of Excalibur, Taz and Schiavone. That seems to be the general consensus across the so-called “IWC” today, as well.

I thought that the referee told Dax and Cash that he wasn’t going to count the submission if both teams were in the ring simultaneously, he kept waving his arms indicating that he wanted only the legal men in the ring, and it sounded like he was saying that one pair of them needed to leave. Plus, Juice and Switchblade grabbed each other’s arms to prevent themselves from tapping, so I thought FTR just gave up trying to get the double submission. But I could be wrong.

So…Ricky Starks is turning heel again already?! WTF?! He cheats to win the Owen Cup and then massively disrespects Jushin Thunder Liger during the trophy presentation. I certainly can’t see with the way that came across that it was anything other than a heel turn. Right?

Yeah the Corny podcasts took a week off but they announced on YouTube and Twitter that all is well, and they would be back this week...and they were. In fact, it sounds like they are about to announce a very lucrative exclusive hosting deal. I don’t know if it’s going to be similar to when Joe Rogan went to Spotify but it sounds kind of like that. It’s kind of crazy how popular the Cornette podcasts still are. I check out the Pro Wrestling podcast rankings every month and you can pretty much count on The Experience and The Drive Thru being 1 and 2 in the rankings. People just don’t seem to be getting tired of Cornette’s act. I would have bet that they would’ve run out of steam long before now, but if anything, the opposite is true. He just keeps getting more and more popular. Love him or hate him, he’s hit on a winning formula and it sounds like they’re about to cash in. You can’t argue with their download numbers.

HOLY SHIT THIS MATCH! I LOVE FTR! I LOVE PRO WRESTLING! And it’s not even over yet…

Those two guys actually feuded in Billy Corgan’s NWA right before the Pandemic hit and everything went to shit. They had one of the few good matches at the first NWA PPV “Into The Fire.” It was then that I realized two things…Eli Drake was a lot better than I had previously realized, and his work was definitely a lot better than Ken Anderson’s work was. YEAH!

Testify, my brother. In unrelated news, I caught the opening match on Rampage tonight. Maybe it’s just me, but the last couple of times I have seen him, Keith Lee is starting to look a little bit more like the Keith Lee of NXT, pre-COVID. And not just because he has started dyeing his hair again. I am sure the fact the he is mostly working Tag Team matches helps, because it gives him a chance to catch his breath. But he has looked OK. The last few times I have seen him, maybe there is still hope yet.

Hey did you know Mauro Ranallo was in Creed III? I was watching it at like three in the morning, and as soon as I saw him, I had two thoughts: ”Oh Lord please no” and “Hey I wonder if @C.S. saw this, or if he is more like CM Punk and has never seen a Rocky movie.”

I’m not saying that the kid isn’t going to be good one day. I guess my mistake was that I assumed based on the hype I had read about him online that he was ready for prime time now. I freely admit that of all my Pro Wrestling pet peeves, the greatest by far is when spots are obviously choreographed and require excessive cooperation between the participants. Spots that take you out of the illusion of an actual competitive physical contest, and make it obvious that it is nothing more than a preplanned tumbling routine. I especially hate when one of the competitors has to basically stand around, waiting for the other to complete some sort of ritual or set up in order for the match to continue. For example, when Kommander (or The Undertaker) grabs a guy by the wrist, and then slowly climbs up to the top rope and starts walking across. The obvious question is…why wouldn’t the guy just jerk his arm away or push his opponent so they fell off the rope? Another example which drives me insane (and this happens weekly in AEW) is when a bunch of guys end up outside the ring there, milling around, waiting, and then they hold out their arms to catch the guy who dives between or off the ropes. It’s obvious the guy is coming. Why would you not just walk away? I found that in the match between Nick Wayne and Swerve there were a handful of spots that were almost painful to watch, because they required extensive cooperation and choreography between both guys and Nick Wayne was nowhere near polished enough to pull it off and make it look convincing. I just found more than one or two of the exchanges in that match to be cringeworthy. Which is fine, except this is national TV for a major promotion. I am not trying to be rude or belittle the kid just for the sake of doing it, but I came away from that match thinking Nick Wayne was yet another skinny underweight Indy geek…in an organization that already has much more than their fair share of those types. Hell, in AEW throw a rock, and you are bound to hit somebody who does the exact same thing that he does, and probably looks a lot more professional doing it. In his defense, I know he is just an 18 year old kid making his debut, but there was a fair bit of hype behind him, and I don’t think he is anywhere near good enough to deserve that kind of hype. I was expecting to see some sort of prodigy or something, and I don’t know what we are going to see from here, but I can’t see him being skilled enough to hold up his end of a major program or anything at this point.

Sabu broke into the Pro Wrestling business doing “Bearman” tours for Dave McKigney, wrestling as “Terry SR.” McKigney was good friends with The Sheik as for the longest time, McKigney was the only promoter who would still book The Sheik. When I was a kid, McKigney was running independent shows all over small towns north of Toronto featuring The Sheik vs. Whipper Watson Jr. and then McKigney wrestling the bear. A few years ago, Sabu was doing a shoot interview where he told the story about Adonis dying doing that Bearman tour. He told the part of the story about the other wrestlers robbing Adonis’s dead body at the scene of the crash. They actually used an audio clip of that interview in the DSOR episode. I remember the interviewer being absolutely shocked at the idea that there was the crash, Adonis was lying there in the van dead, and other wrestlers came to the scene, and basically robbed his dead body. Sabu told a story about the exact same thing happening to him. I don’t know if you remember, but a few years ago, Sabu was working for that Extreme Rising promotion in Philadelphia that was run by Shane Douglas. Sabu was in his motel and overdosed on Soma. He missed an autograph signing, so the promoter sent some guys to check on Sabu at the motel. They broke into his room and found him, and they thought he was dead, at the time it was actually reported online that Sabu had died. The wrestlers who went into his room and found him, robbed him of thousands of dollars in cash that he had been paid by the promoter and had in his room, and they also stole his watch, his boots, and the shoes off his feet as well. Then the called the cops to report he was dead…only to have the paramedics come to the scene and discover he was still alive. (I guess when you overdose on Soma it lowers your heart rate and blood pressure so much that you can’t feel a pulse.) Sabu got rushed to the hospital and when he eventually got out, he had no money and not even anything to put on his feet. And as he put it during his interview, these were his “friends” who did this to him. “The Boys.”

Ah crap. Mark Briscoe is injured and is out of the World Title Match at next week’s ROH PPV. Tony Khan says they will not name the replacement challenger until after Dynamite on Wednesday (2 days before the PPV.) For those keeping track, ROH has a weekly TV show, which is now being taped after Collision every Saturday. This pay-per-view next Friday was announced months ago. However, with this injury, we now have exactly 0 matches confirmed for the PPV which takes place in 8 days.

Um…maybe Nick Wayne needs to go back to the indies for another few years because…holy shitty choreography, dude.

I have to admit, as a local fan it was nice to see The Kelly Twins and The Canadian Wildman get some form of exposure and kind of publicity even though it was for tragic reasons. Dave McKigney was such an interesting, influential and tragic figure in Canadian Pro Wrestling. I also have to say…robbing a dead body is pretty much an all time scumbag move, even in the world of Pro Wrestling. Seriously, WTF?

Yeah Kommander would be a lot more impressive if his opponents didn’t have to endlessly stand around waiting for him to set them up…and if he actually squarely landed the move and hit his target. In other news, I admit I do love Don Callis’s theme music.

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.