The Thread Killer

Apparently tonight's episode (which is the last show before the PPV on Friday) is going to be 90 minutes rather than the standard 50-60. Not sure how I feel about that, one of the things I like about Power is that it tends to fly by, not drag on. I guess they want to give the sure to be epic Morton/Aldis match lots of time.

I can't remember exactly where I saw it, but I distinctly remember seeing Cody saying in an interview at one point that if AEW did add a secondary title, he wanted it to be a TV title.

I'd never even thought about that. That would be excellent, having the NWA return to Center Stage. NXT and ROH have both run there fairly recently, and it's well known that you can "pipe and drape" that venue to suit smaller crowds. The NWA needs to make that happen, great idea. Having the Power tapings at GPB but run big shows at Center Stage. Now I really want to see that.

The tribute that The Rock posted on Instagram today to his Dad was very moving.

I totally agree with you. I love this product, but I wish they'd move out of the studio for the PPV's and turn it up a notch on the in-ring product for the big shows. I liked how they did their best to make the studio feel a bit different for Into The Fire, but it really isn't enough. Like I said when I reviewed that PPV, they should be able to find some venue in the Atlanta area that seats 250-500 people that looks good. That's really my only major complaint. Well, that and The Question Mark going over guys he clearly shouldn't be beating...but whatever.

Was that ROH show from Jericho's cruise ever made available on Fite or some other VOD, or was it exclusive to the cruise?

Yeah I was just going to say that too. No wonder he signed with ROH. They supposedly offered him less dates, more money, creative control, permission to work outside ROH and most importantly, he wouldn't have to be associated with The Dark Order. He'd have to be nuts not to take that deal, how can you beat that?

Okay, if it does end up being Matt Hardy - especially in his "broken" persona - I will officially walk back everything negative I have said about this angle. The whole Broken Universe is so happily goofy and over-the-top that The Dark Order would fit right in. We wouldn't be expected to take them or the angle "seriously" if it was Broken Matt Hardy, so I could fully buy into that idea as a fan.

Here's the problem with The Dark Order, though. The two main members are Evil Uno and Stu Grayson, neither of whom are exactly Main Event level guys, nor will they ever be, nor should they be. They've already added Reynolds and Silver, who (with all due respect) were pretty much enhancement guys. The rest of the "members" of The Dark Order are nameless guys in masks who may or may not be capable of throwing a punch and hitting their intended target. During last night's vignette they implied they were trying to recruit Adam Page or Moxley. They've already tried and failed to recruit Christopher Daniels. Let's be real here. Unless the AEW booking committee has totally lost their shit, there is no way in hell they would (or should) let any of their top guys get anywhere near this crap. They implied that they wanted to recruit Brendan Cutler and I'm sure they will...he'll fit right in and I have no doubt QT Marshall will be right behind him. You're going to end up with a faction that will make the old NWO B-Team look like The Dangerous Alliance in comparison. I don't know who they're planning on revealing as "The Exalted One" but it really shouldn't be anyone of any importance, because they're going to end up getting stuck in the dumbest Pro Wrestling angle in recent memory. If it is Kevin Sullivan, I have no doubt that in no time he will be reminiscing fondly about his robe wearing days as "The Taskmaster" as the leader of The Dungeon of Doom. I read that The Young Bucks are the ones booking this garbage, and if it's true then I can only believe they're sticking with it out of pure stubbornness. I am not one of the people who think the sky is falling or that this angle will be the death of AEW or anything hysterical like that. Like I said last night, AEW is producing more good stuff than bad stuff, and nobody is perfect all the time. They're allowed to produce crap. I just don't get their unwillingness to see that it's crap. We keep hearing the mantra that AEW "listens to the fans" and in some cases that might be true...however in this case and the case of The Nightmare Collective, it is most definitely NOT true.

No, it's more that I agreed with pretty much everything else you wrote so I had nothing to add to that.

I'm in a similar boat here in Canada. We get Dynamite live on TSN, but NXT doesn't air until the commercial free replay on the WWE Network feed at 10:00 pm EST on the following night, which is how I usually see it. In Canada we don't have the option of changing the channel and switching to NXT. If we did, I sure as hell would have changed the channel during that Women's match and I might not have ended up switching back. Actually truth be told, NXT has been so good since moving to the USA Network that I'd probably end up watching that live and recording Dynamite on my PVR so I could watch the good stuff and FF through the Brandi Rhodes/Dark Order/Joey Janella bits. Unless Mauro Ranallo was driving me insane. Which he probably would be.

That's exactly what I thought when he peeled off his shirt last night and I saw his ribs were taped up. I thought "Damn, Savage attacked him with that crutch 23 years ago! His ribs are taking even longer to heal than Iron Mike Sharpe's forearm or Bob Orton's arm!"

So the Hard Times PPV is coming live from the GPB studios (aka the "NWA Arena") next Friday, and then they are taping two days of TV the following days, the 25th and 26th of January. They usually shoot 3-4 days of TV per taping, depending on how far away the next PPV is going to be. Today I got an email alert that Marty Scurll is going to be working the second day of tapings on January 26, which means he will likely be pretty heavily featured on 3-4 episodes of Power towards the end of February/Early March (assuming they air the taped TV in sequence like they have so far.) That makes it a pretty safe bet that they are going to be working toward the Aldis/Scurll rematch from the Crockett Cup for the next NWA PPV. Unless they end up co-promoting something with ROH.

You're 100% right. I had actually meant to mention that in my post, but I forgot. Cody is great and he's an outstanding promo. I think he is probably the best all around worker in AEW right now, he is clearly the ace of this promotion on several different levels. His promo last night was excellent, but that one line was really stupid, and unnecessary. I would assume he was referring to the fact that Jim Cornette and other old school guys have been gushing about MJF and how old school he is, but I really hate stupid "shoot" comments and inside references in promos. It's not edgy, it's just stupid and pointless. He's not wrong, @C.S.. I usually agree with you more often than not, and even if I don't, I can generally at least see your side of an argument. But you're way off base on this. Firstly, Pac is not a "205 Live castoff." That implies he couldn't cut it on 205 Live and got released or something. (TJ Perkins would be somebody I considered a 205 castoff.) Pac had what is probably still the most impressive Cruiserweight Championship reign since WWE brought the title back. His matches with Austin Aries probably represented the high point for that entire division in terms of profile and match quality. He had actual quality matches on Main Roster PPV's and held that title for six or seven months, (aside from the 5 day loss to Tozawa.) They didn't "cast him off" he walked out on them after losing to Enzo and sat out for a year to get out from underneath his WWE contract. Once he ended up in AEW he's been nothing short of outstanding and has delivered every single time. His matches with Page and Omega have been excellent and that Main Event last night was great. I can't see why anybody who looks at Pac objectively would think that Tony Khan would regret signing him. All you have to do is watch last night's match. If he can continue to deliver matches like that, I can't imagine why AEW would be anything but happy about having him on the roster.

My thoughts, for what they're worth... - Classy move to pay respect to Rocky Johnson, as well as for JR to mention the passing of Pampero Firpo and La Parka. - I didn't much care for the opener, but then again I hate multi-team tag matches, I can't stand Chuck Taylor and I usually get annoyed by The Young Bucks and Kenny, so I wasn't expecting to like this match. Looks like they've stopped calling Santana and Ortiz "Proud and Powerful" which is good because that name is almost as stupid as those guys look sticking their damn tongues out all the time for no reason. The fact that the fans were chanting "this is awesome" during this match depresses me. - The Cody promo was really good. I don't know why he was dressed up the way my older brother dressed during the 80's, but whatever. - The Joey Janella promo was stupid and proves yet again (as if we needed more proof) that this guy has no clue. His ex-girlfriend turns on him, hits him in the balls and hooks up with another guy, so his natural response is to cut a full on heel promo. This guy is such a dork. If he actually goes over Fenix next week then that will just prove that whoever is booking this stuff has lost their mind. - This crowd was really vocal and really hot. Then Brandi came out. I swear, when she was announced I heard audible groans from the crowd. She doesn't have heel heat, people just think she's bad...as is this whole angle. You could hear a pin drop during parts of this match, when the fans had been going nuts just minutes earlier. I'd never seen Melanie Cruise wrestle before, she was excellent. Kris Stantlander looked great too. It's a shame both of those excellent talents are bogged down in this ridiculously stupid Nightmare Collective nonsense. The way the announcers were carrying on, you'd think Dr. Luthor was a household name in Japan on par with Inoki, or something. This match went on WAY too long. - Speaking of stupid crap nobody cares about...The Dark Order vignette was really lame. Apparently "Evil Uno" has nude pictures of Tony Khan, or something. I guess they're going to ride this horse until it dies, despite the fact pretty much everybody hates this stuff. - Moxley vs. Guevara was pretty good. I'm souring a bit on Moxley, it feels like he's trying really hard to be Stone Cold 2.0. Guevara has tons of potential but I think he spends way too much time preening and posing and playing to the crowd. He has excellent moves but I don't find him very fluid. The angle after this match was excellently done, very old school and the crowd bought into it 100%. Good stuff. - The 6 Man Tag was okay. Q.T. Marshall might as well have had a sign around his neck reading "I'm here to take the loss" but whatever. DDP is still crazy over, which I wasn't expecting. Being 63 years old and busting out moves that he didn't even do 20 years ago is pretty nuts. MJF is great, and the Butcher and The Gimp have grown on me a bit as a team. This was a good TV match and accomplished what it was supposed to. It would have been nice if they'd have actually caught the finish on the full screen instead of having it happen while they were showing a replay of DDP's dive. - The Main Event was outstanding. I don't think PAC has had a bad match since Dynamite debuted and Darby Allin continues to come across as a major star in the making. The powerbomb on the steel steps and the Coffin Drop to the outside were highlight reel worthy. Great match, great wrestling, great finish. Overall, the Cody promo, the Mox/Guevara match and following angle, the 6 Man Tag and the excellent Main Event combined to make this a very good episode of Dynamite. I'm still not sure why they're so hell bent on pushing Brandi's stupid stable down our throats when you can clearly tell by the crowd reaction that it's not popular with the fans. Well, I know why they're doing it, but somebody needs to reign Brandi in. People loved to hate on Triple H being married to Steph and pushing himself all over TV 20 years ago, and they were right to do it. It was bad for him to do then, and it's bad for Brandi to do it now. Cody loves his wife, and that's great. But the fans don't, or at least not this damn angle. The Dark Order vignette and the Janella promo were cringe worthy, but there was still a lot more good than bad on this episode. Especially if you're the type of fan who would enjoy matches like the opener. Biggest compliment I can give this show is that the two hours flew by.

That's a good point. One thing I have found from all of Conrad's podcasts is that eventually, the same stories will end up being told by the same person three or four times. If you're a regular listener, you end up rolling your eyes and asking why they are telling that story AGAIN.

Decent episode of Power this week. Two weeks until the PPV and we finally have a good idea what the brackets are going to be for the TV Title tournament, with the exception of the two "open slots" which are apparently for individuals not currently on the NWA roster, their identities to be revealed next week. I'm very curious about that. - Thought the Ricky Morton promo was decent. One thought that occurred to me is that poor old Ricky needs to see a doctor and get checked for skin cancer, because those discolorations on his head are kind of scary looking. - Zicky Dice might be not much to look at in the ring, but he cuts one hell of an old school promo. I still think Ricky Starks has a lot of potential, but when he is cast in the babyface role (which he clearly was here) he doesn't seem able to adapt and seems a bit out of his depth. He needs to get some advice from Tim Storm. - Dawson vs. Dawson to qualify for the TV Title Tournament was pretty much what you'd expect from these two. Two big fat jobbers executing barely competent basic Pro Wrestling moves. Thankfully this was mercifully short. I have a real issue with the fact that one of the Dawson Brothers is going to be in the tournament on the PPV, and CW Anderson isn't. - They showed footage of Nick Aldis invading Ring of Honor. I guess now that Marty Scurll has some pull in ROH, we're going to see a lot more cooperation between these two organizations, which is probably a win-win. If you look back at The Crockett Cup tournament, the NWA would never have been able to promote that show without ROH, it was all their production equipment, cameras, etc. Hopefully this will help the NWA hold some shows outside the GPB studios at some point. Plus the talent exchanges could be interesting. And now we're getting Nick Aldis vs. Flip Gordon at the PPV, which I am quite looking forward to. - I really liked the video package they did about the problems between Ken Anderson and Colt Cabana. Both guys did an excellent job and this was just really well put together, in my opinion. - I skipped the Melina vs. Ashley Vox match. Life is far too short to spend your time watching Melina matches. - The Pope working with Kingston and Homicide (or as Stu Bennett calls him: "Homocide") seems to work, although they're teasing dissension already, which is odd. Not a big fan of these guys losing to the comedy team, either. I think somebody needs to explain to Dave Lagana that just because the fans in the GPB studios have adopted The Question Mark as a joke, it doesn't mean you have to push him and have him beat all your top guys. - The Scott Steiner promo was pretty much his same old tired act that he's been doing since he turned on Rick in 1998. I've never been a big fan of his, and he sure hasn't gotten any better with age. I clearly remember thinking this guy was well past his prime when he showed up in WWE to feud with Triple H and that was 18 years ago. He's almost 60 now. I guess he deserves a lot of credit for still being alive considering the insane amount of steroids he's done during his life, but his being in the NWA right now really does nothing for me. - I didn't hate the Gibson, Drake and Storm vs. Steiner & Wild Cards match. Steiner barely got in there at all, and it was a fairly well executed. I especially liked the fact that they gave it a fair bit of time (especially by NWA standards) they went almost 10 minutes. I guess the result means that next week, Ricky Morton gets a shot at Nick Aldis. I can live with that, it's a TV match. Everybody knows they are building to Aldis vs. Scurll, but you have to put something on TV in the meantime. I really hope that whoever the two surprise entrants in the TV title tournament are, they're not card carrying members of the AARP though. Having guys like The Rock and Rolls and Steiner around is fine for name recognition, but for the future of this brand they need to be focusing on guys like Caleb Konley and Ricky Starks, not Ricky Morton and Scott Steiner.

I have to say, it's also REALLY creepy when a male Pro Wrestling fan posts some impassioned tweet defending Tessa, along with a hashtag like #IStandWithTessa or #ISupportTessa, and then you visit their Twitter page and see that it's nothing but pictures of female wrestlers and endless tweets about nothing else but women's wrestling. And there are a frightening number of dudes like that. Makes my skin crawl.

In numerous shoot interviews and podcasts I've heard, Tully Blanchard's name always seems to come up when discussing the most disliked and unpopular pro wrestlers from locker rooms of the past. It's nice to see his daughter carrying on the family tradition.

I was reevaluating my monthly cable bill recently. I am paying a not insignificant amount of money for cable, and I realized that I am getting to the point where I rarely watch it anymore. I had originally opted for a bunch of "specialty" channel add-ons specifically for Pro Wrestling, but it has gotten to the point where I never use them anymore. I have the option of eliminating "specialty channels" like The Fight Network (owned by Anthem and home of Impact and ROH) beIN Sports (home of MLW) Sportsnet 360 (home of Raw and the chopped up, 2 days later version of NXT) and TSN2 (home of AEW Dynamite). Each of those channels is between 5 - 7 bucks a month. I dropped Fight Network and beIN sports, so I am already saving myself 12 bucks a month right there. If it wasn't for the legit sports I watch on Sportsnet 360 (mainly baseball) I would drop them in a minute, because fuck paying for that, you'd have to pay me to watch Raw right now. I still watch AEW, but I've not enjoyed Dynamite for the past three episodes - not enough to pay extra to see it. However I am still on the fence about dropping TSN2, because they also have the occasional UFC PPV prelim fights or UFC Fight Night show. But bottom line is, in theory I could dump all of them and save myself around 25 bucks a month, which would get my cable bill to below 100 dollars a month. I have been asking myself how much I would really miss it if I couldn't see Impact, ROH, MLW, Raw and AEW. I watch NXT and NXT UK on the Network and NWA on YouTube, so I'm not sure I even really need those other channels anymore. If I end up keeping them, it will be because of the legit sports coverage, not the Pro Wrestling. That's not something I ever would have considered as a Pro Wrestling fan up until now. I don't know if that says something about the state of the Pro Wrestling business in 2020, or how I have changed as a fan after 37 years of watching.

I pre-ordered it. What the hell, it's 15 bucks and I really want to support this company as long as they're putting out a decent product. Even though they've made some major missteps, I still think Billy Corgan's version of the NWA fills a void in the Pro Wrestling business right now and appeals to the nostalgic old school fans. I'm not going to watch the show for free by some less than legal means if I can throw them a couple of bucks to support them. I figure if I can put 10 bucks a month into Vince McMahon's pocket every month, the least I can do is pay the NWA for what I watch. Hell, up until recently I was paying an extra 5 bucks a month on my cable bill for the Anthem owned Fight Network. Then they lost the UFC deal to TSN, and Impact signed Joey Ryan. Since The Fight Network has now basically turned into nothing but a combination of ancient kickboxing shows from the 90's and everything else is old TNA, the syndicated ROH show and current Impact 24/7, I cancelled the channel. I'll go without TV at all before I financially support ROH and stupid Impact and their stupid intergender Pro Wrestling and Dick Boy, dammit. They don't get a damn nickel of my money. (And a nickel is a lot of money. A nickel will buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel...with enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the Polo Grounds.)

I've heard a lot of Pro Wrestlers or people who work behind the scenes say that the guys who give the best and most convincing interviews are the ones who are just "being themselves" and turning their personalities up a bit. It's great to hear that the Pro Wrestler who comes across as the best pure "good guy" in wrestling right now really is a good guy.

It's fine for them to use that name in NXT, but if they ever get called up to Raw then Vince will rename them "The Time Travel Experience."

This week's episode was pretty damn good, I'd say. - That is three weeks of excellent Tim Storm promos in a row. I love this guy, and I love how popular he is with the fans in the GPB studios. - I thought Dice vs. Konley was a good match, but I don't get the Zicky Dice push. We're what...a month since the PPV and we've seen CW Anderson once, while Zicky Dice is all over the show? Odd choice. Like I said before, he reminds me of a circa 1980's JTTS. - The Stevens/Question Mark stuff was funny as usual. - The women's match was actually really good, and I didn't miss Melina one little bit. - I thought the Aldis/Starks match was really fun. Unlike @Coffey, I am actually enjoying them embracing this whole 6:05 time limit stuff. It's unique to the NWA, it sets them apart from the competition and I've enjoyed pretty much all of the 6:05 matches they've had so far. This match put Starks over nicely and didn't hurt Aldis at all. Aldis has done a great job going full heel and really turning the NWA fans in Atlanta against him. - The Drake/Storm vs. Cabana/Anderson match was fun...they're really telegraphing the Anderson turn on Cabana, but it's fine. - The end segment was fine. I can live with Aldis vs. Ricky Morton as a TV match or whatever, it doesn't really bother me. Even if they fight for the title at the PPV, the real focus of the next PPV is the crowning of the new TV champion, so the World Title match doesn't need to be a marquee match. I still don't like the Rock & Rolls being the Tag Champs, but the NWA tag division is crap right now, so whatever I guess. So I guess coming up soon it's going to be Robert Gibson and two unknown partners against The Wild Cards and...Scott Steiner?! I'm not really interested in watching Scott Steiner wrestling in 2020, but they don't script the promos in the NWA so that might be interesting at the very least. There was a lot more actual wrestling this week, I thought this was a really good episode of Power.