The Thread Killer

I looked around (not too hard admittedly, but I did look) and I don't see a 2019 MOTY thread anywhere here at PWO? If there isn't one, perhaps we could discuss it here? I need to review all the shows I've watched thus far this year, but I am leaning toward WALTER vs. Tyler Bate from NXT UK Takeover: Cardiff on 08/31/19. That is in close contention with Cody vs. Dustin Rhodes from AEW Double or Nothing. Also let's not forget The Undertaker vs. Goldberg from WWE Super Showdown. Anybody else have any picks, a Top 10 list, recommendations...anything?

That will never happen. They're nowhere near old enough.

The Ascension are the exact kind of act that AEW should stay away from, at least for now. Unfortunately for them, they have the stink of WWE failure all over them. If they intend to stay working in Pro Wrestling then they'd probably be best either breaking up and going their separate ways, or totally rebooting themselves and working the Indies for a while trying to get a new buzz going before somebody else signs them. Whenever somebody leaves WWE, they usually seem to go one of three ways. Either they just give up and vanish from the scene altogether, they buckle down and try and generate positive word of mouth (like Cody or Drew Galloway) or they try and come up with a gimmick that is as close as possible to their WWE gimmick without infringing on the copyright (eg: Enzo becoming nZo, Big Cass becoming CazzXL). If I was The Ascension, I'd wipe off the paint, get a whole new look and start going by a different name. If they show up at your local Indy in 90 Days in the exact same gear and going as "The Azcenzion" then we'll know what route they're planning to take.

Either that, or it's just that Joey Janela sucks.

Way back when, I remember reading a story by Meltzer (or maybe I heard it on his audio show) about how during the "Attitude Era" some of the veterans in the WWF locker room like The Undertaker and JBL were getting annoyed by the newer generations of guys coming up - specifically guys like Edge & Christian and The Hardys because they were "marks" before they became Pro Wrestlers. The gist was that guys who grew up as hardcore fans took too many risks and made the job harder for everybody - and also that they were too nice to the fans.

During his "Supercard" shoot interview with Kayfabe Commentaries, King Kong Bundy talked about how he had never been a fan of Pro Wrestling at all before getting into it as a career, and how he wished he had known more about the business in general before he got involved, and maybe his career would have gone differently. It sounded like he'd barely even seen any wrestling before he got involved. It seems like a really weird career to get into without knowing much about it beforehand, but I guess if you're a 400 pound guy it makes sense as a potential career move.

Firstly, who cares if Joey Janela is a "successful" promoter? That's totally irrelevant and has literally nothing to do with his ability as a Professional Wrestler. Sam Muchnick might have been the greatest Pro Wrestling promoter of all time...I wouldn't have wanted to see him wrestle either. Talking about the fact that Janela is a promoter is just a straw man argument which has nothing to do with his skill (or glaring lack thereof) inside the ring. My point regarding Foley's athletic background (which you're either ignoring or can't seem to comprehend) is that he had an athletic background. Most successful Pro Wrestlers do, before they go on to get trained as Pro Wrestlers. You can't compare Foley to Janela because Foley was a person who had an athletic background and became a Pro Wrestler. Janela was a fan and started Pro Wrestling when he was a teenager by lying about his age. He was never properly trained, and it shows. Lots of people have criticized him for that and he claims he has been trained since, but I don't see any evidence of that. If you come from an athletic background and then get proper training, you're a lot more likely to be a success than you are if you can't even be bothered to learn the basics. The guys who went on to become a success in Pro Wrestling that didn't have any sort of athletic background at all are probably outnumbered 4 to 1, at least. I never denied that Foley got famous by bumping, but if that is all he could do we wouldn't be talking about him right now. He knew how to wrestle and he also knew how to talk, two other things Joey Janela can't do. You talk about Hulk Hogan and The Rock...agreed their punches didn't look great (although they were both better than Janela.) The day Joey Janela visibly demonstrates 1/100 of the personal charisma, athletic and/or promo ability of either of those guys, I'll never say a bad word about him again. As far as Joey Janela's punching ability...I'd say it is pretty damn important. It wouldn't matter if he was Dean Malenko, but Joey Janela is a guy who by his own admission got into Pro Wrestling because he loved death matches and hardcore wrestling. You don't wrestle in death matches, you brawl. Call me picky, but if you're going to try and make a career out of brawling then you should maybe...just maybe...learn how to throw a convincing looking punch. He can bump, and take a beating. That's literally all he brings to the table.

I have absolutely no idea how and why WWE managed to so completely miss the boat and not understand what they had in Luke Harper. I really hope he is allowed to sign with AEW, and if he is AEW are nuts if they don't grab him up, right away. I know they have said repeatedly they don't want to just sign up every WWE reject but you have to believe Brodie Lee would be an exception. I still think that guy has a huge amount of upside. Rowan has improved by leaps and bounds, but it amazes me that WWE has stuck with Rowan and did squat with Harper. That's just crazy.

No...wrestlers are qualified to be wrestlers. I think he's wildly overrated, but I still think Kenny Omega is an exceptional athlete, in addition to being properly trained. Triple H was a bodybuilder (which absolutely helped qualify him to be a Pro Wrestler) but then he trained with Kowalski. Mick Foley was also a collegiate athlete, who had proper training from Dominic Denucci. Dynamite Kid underwent some of the most intensive training a guy could go through in order to become a Professional Wrestler. Hulk Hogan was also an athlete who was scouted for a potential Pro Baseball career before being trained by Hiro Matsuda. All of those guys you named have nothing in common with Joey Janela for three reasons: 1) They had athletic backgrounds prior to becoming Professional Wrestlers 2) They had in depth training to become Professional Wrestlers and 3) They don't suck. Joey Janela is not a good Professional Wrestler, period...end of story. He doesn't even have a noticeable grasp of some of the most basic skills Pro Wrestlers are taught during training, like how to throw a convincing looking punch, or how to cut an even remotely convincing promo. If you don't believe me, look no further than the promo he cut prior to his match with Moxley on Dynamite this past week. He spent the entire promo mugging to the camera and making bizarre faces. I literally don't know what emotion he was even trying to convey, unless he was in the process of having a seizure or he had been stricken with a sudden bout of Bell's Palsy. The only guy you mentioned who has anything even remotely in common with Joey Janela would be CM Punk, in that he got directly into Pro Wrestling as a backyarder with no other previous athletic background. But even Punk then went on to spend years training with Ace Steel before reaching any level of fame. By the time he got to Ring of Honor he had already more than mastered the basics. That's the big difference between Punk and Janela, right there. You call Janela a "poor man's Mick Foley?" Yeah, real poor. Poor as in, all Janela can do is bump...and that's it. Foley himself has said that he wished he didn't get famous for jumping off his roof, because he accidentally inspired a generation of idiots who thought that all it takes to become a Pro Wrestler is falling off of something. Foley has complained on several occasions that the backyarders and "hardcore" wrestlers who emulated him totally ignore that Foley went on to train extensively with DeNucci and then paid his dues in the territories. Not to mention that Foley (arguably) went on to become one of the great promo guys of all time. Foley didn't have to bump in order to get over, he chose to do it to bring attention to himself, because he knew that he didn't have the look of a Pro Wrestler, but he did have the skill. Look at his famous match with Shawn Michaels. Do you think Joey Janela will ever be capable of being part of an actual Pro Wrestling match like that? It's hilarious that you bring up the Road Warriors, because that's exactly the problem with Joey Janela. Ole Anderson knew that if you didn't know how to wrestle (which they didn't) then you sure as hell better bring something to the table like looking impressive and intimidating. Joey Janela doesn't look impressive like The Road Warriors. He can't wrestle like Mick Foley. He can't talk like CM Punk. But hey...he does have nice hair.

Oh...your friend likes his hair and thinks he's cute? Well, that changes everything. I'm officially changing my position on Joey Janela. He MUST be good, because your friend likes his hair and thinks he's cute. Plus, I had no idea there was a documentary on YouTube. That clearly means he doesn't suck.

One thing that bugs me a bit and I find it a little strange, is that either Eddie Kingston and Homicide aren't working the PPV, or the NWA is not hyping their match in advance. Either way, it's odd. If they can find room for the fucking Question Mark on the card, there should be something they could have done with Kingston and Homicide. Maybe those guys were only working the first set of tapings and now they're done with the NWA, I don't know. You'd also have thought they'd have found a match for Caleb Konley as well. Oh well, at least I'm not paying to see the Dawsons, so that's something.

According to the NWA, the pre-sales for Into The Fire have already quadrupled those of NWA70. They seem pretty pleased by the amount of sales so far, based on their reaction on Twitter. They keep tweeting thanks to all the fans who have already ordered. By the way, when I pre-ordered on Fite, it gave me the option to share the news, so I shared it on Twitter and Nick Aldis liked my tweet. I think this means he and I personal friends now. That's him AND Sabu! And the difference is, when Nick Aldis tweets, I can actually understand what he's saying!

YES! Another Lorcan & Burch fan, I thought I was the only one! Okay @SirEdger, it's you and me...the Quebec/Ontario connection. All we have to do now is convince all other Pro Wrestling fans in the world and then WWE management to get behind Lorcan & Burch and give them a huge push, culminating in their winning the Raw, Smackdown and NXT Tag Team titles simultaneously in the Main Event of Wrestlemania. I believe we can do this.

I decided to give this show a chance, and the price was right so I preordered today. Thankfully I didn't have the issues you did, @C.S. and my order went through okay. This is the NWA's chance to prove to me that watching Power for 8 weeks is going to have a satisfying payoff, I hope they can do it.

I don't know what to think about that situation. Either he never really asked for his release and he was just fucking with everybody (possible), or he asked for his release and they gave him a better contract (less possible) or he asked for his release and he is just saying he re-upped just to screw with people (also possible.) I am really hoping he got a new contract and that means we will be seeing more of him on NXT, both as a solo wrestler and his tag team with Danny Burch.

That is one of the things that has frustrated me a bit about AEW. I feel like just when I start to get invested in a Pro Wrestler, they vanish from TV for a couple of weeks. I hear that Darby Allin is banged up after his match with Moxley, but I wish they aired some promos or vignettes about him to keep him hot and in the public eye. I don't think he should be wrestling on television every single week, for two reasons. Firstly, I don't want to see him get overexposed, not to mention that the way he wrestles he will get injured if he works too often. But I would like to at least see him more often.

I kind of got the feeling that there were larger issues at play when ACH had his whole public meltdown over the infamous t-shirt. His reaction didn't seem to be proportionate to the situation in my opinion, but I figured maybe there was either more stuff going on behind the scenes between him and WWE that we weren't privy to, and the shirt was just the straw that broke the camel's back, or he had other shit going on. As time went by and he continued to vent about...pretty much everything on Twitter I gave up on the "more stuff going on" theory, because he certainly didn't seem to have an issue airing all his dirty laundry in public. I don't know the man, and none of us can really know what is going on...but his conduct certainly seems to have all the signs of a full blown breakdown. Or he's trying to work Twitter and make this part of some gimmick he plans on using in the Indies, which would be quite lame. Either way, it is certainly sad. I've been the first one to bust @rovert's balls here at PWO but full credit where it is due on this one...he is one of the few people who said from the beginning that there was more to this situation than meets the eye, only to be shouted down (on Twitter, not here at PWO that I know of) by "OMG WWE IS RACIST AND YOU'RE MAKING EXCUSES FOR THEM!" I have no doubt that WWE does have some serious issues when it comes to racial sensitivity and even institutional racism, but I don't think that is necessarily the underlying issue in this particular case.

WTF is it with Vince and dog food? Hasn't he done other angles in the past that featured dog food, I remember at least one or two. Between that and his obsession with pee and poop jokes, it seems like this guy has the sense of humor of a 5th grader.

One of the main reasons Corgan wanted to buy TNA is because they already had everything you need to run a Professional Wrestling company in place (except for competent ownership and management) so he wouldn't have needed to start from the ground up (like he ended up having to do with the NWA). They had a full roster, and even more importantly trained TV production staff and equipment, and even a TV deal (TNA were on Destination America when Corgan came on board, before Dixie Carter managed to Dixie Carter that deal and they ended up on Pop TV.) Corgan has said that if he had taken over TNA as the sole owner he would have pretty much rebooted the entire organization - including renaming it, but he what really made him want to buy TNA was all the infrastructure that was already in place, which would have saved him a ton of work having to start from scratch, basically. That's smart business on his part. And when he found out Dixie Carter was...Dixie Carter, he walked away from the deal, and even sued and got his money back from Panda Energy. That's also impressive from a business standpoint, because Lord knows Dixie left a lot of unpaid people in her wake...including Eric Bischoff.

On this week's episode of The Jim Cornette Experience, Cornette talked some more about the fallout of his resignation from the NWA. He addressed the fact that last week's episode was a clip show, and the rumors that the original episode had been pulled because of his joke. Cornette confirmed that Episode 8 had always been planned as a "package show" even when they were taping the episodes, so that had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding his joke. Cornette also said that Episode 9 was always intended to end with the Rock n Rolls winning the Tag Team titles and if they had refused to air that or if they had wiped his commentary he would have been very upset. Cornette claimed that the Triple Threat match to determine the #1 Contender for the World Championship had also been intended for the final episode, but that they weren't happy with how the match came off. Cornette confirmed that there was all sorts of outside interference in the match. He didn't say this specifically, but it sounds like either Corgan and Lagana decided to scrap the match because they don't want the big matches to involve screwjob finishes, or it's equally as possible that due to the stuff going on outside the ring the camera guys missed something so it couldn't air. Cornette also talked about how his fans have been protesting his resignation in the YouTube comments section and badmouthing Dave Lagana in the YouTube comments and on Twitter. He mentioned that he heard that the reaction to Episode 8 was pretty much universally negative and he wasn't sure if that was because his fans were protesting or just because the show sucked. Cornette joked that he is fine with his fans saying fuck Dave Lagana, but not fuck the NWA. Cornette once again implored his fans to support the NWA and not to punish the guys on the roster who had nothing to do with the entire situation. Cornette pointed out that he knows that there were some people watching only because of him (either because they love him or hate him) so it's natural that those people are going to quit watching now that he's gone, but that if his fans like the NWA they should continue to support them. Cornette also talked about how he has heard from a lot of the talent in the NWA who are unhappy that he quit and how the situation went down. A lot of people reportedly feel that Dave Lagana pretty much threw Jim Cornette under the bus. He reiterated that Dave Lagana heard his joke the night of the show and he heard it when he edited the show for broadcast on YouTube, but he never had a problem with it or said a thing about it until there was a backlash - and then he apologized and tried to make Cornette apologize, which is why Cornette got pissed off and quit. Cornette said that he was fine with it if the last time he ever appears on a Pro Wrestling television program is when he was seen celebrating in the ring with the Rock and Roll Express. Cornette reminded his fans that the NWA is hoping to get a weekly TV deal, and if that happens he never would have continued as the Color Commentator anyhow, because he isn't willing to commit to something like that, especially if he'd have to drive to Atlanta.

Total aside here, but I was really impressed with both Fenix and Trent Beretta this past week. I'd only ever seen the Lucha Brothers in tag matches in Impact, MLW and now AEW, and it struck me this week how much better Fenix is than Pentagon Jr. (in my opinion, of course.) Fenix in really showed me something. I always find that Pentagon seems more interested in mugging to the camera and doing that goofy hand symbol of his with the three fingers up and down than he is on focusing on the match. As a team, I don't mind them at all (when they are actually forced to follow the rules and tag in and out) but after this week I'd like to see more solo Fenix. And over the past couple of weeks, I've really dug Trent Beretta as well. It would make me very happy if they got him as far away as possible from Chuck Taylor. Just my opinion, but the Lucha Brothers and Best Friends both seem to be teams in which one member is significantly better than the other.

Hey imagine if Keith Lee wins the #1 Contender's Match, and then goes on to beat Adam Cole for the NXT Championship? And then, imagine if WALTER retains the NXT UK Championship against Joe Coffey at NXT UK: Takeover Blackpool II? And then, since World's Collide in January is supposed to be an NXT vs. NXT UK show, imagine if the main event was Keith Lee vs. WALTER, Title vs. Title? That would be cool.

For a minute I was going to ask why you don't have an ignore list...but then I saw that you bolded the life part of the sentence. Don't worry brother, you're among friends here. I don't know anybody else my age who watches 5-6 hours of Pro Wrestling a week and then spends time every day posting about it on a message board.

I pretty much agree with you, although I have now given up on MLW and no longer watch it. But I found the first six episodes of Power really easy to watch, they just flew by. Things started to go off the rails a bit after that, but even though the matches weren't all that great I found the first month and a half of Power to be entertaining and fun viewing. I can't even specify exactly why, maybe it was the nostalgia aspect or maybe it was because it was so different, but Power really grabbed me in a way a show like Fusion never did. I gave up on MLW because I was finding them wildly inconsistent...some weeks were great and others not so great. I find it interesting that MLW's weekly show averages around 48,000 views on YouTube when Power is getting around 120,000 or so...and that is after the Cornette controversy. I guess some people must agree with me. I'd love to know how much money MLW and the NWA actually earn from YouTube since their shows are monetized. Specifically, I wonder if 120,000 views a week are enough to have any noticeable financial impact. I have heard Brian Last mention that YouTube advertising can generate a significant amount of money (hence the whole ruckus over the "Jim Cornette's Talking Sense" channel and other unauthorized Jim Cornette content on YouTube) but I'd really be curious to know how much they can make from that. I really wonder how sustainable having a YouTube show is as a business model. Like I imagine most members of PWO do, I find that I have to budget my time wisely when it comes deciding what Pro Wrestling I was going to watch every week. There just isn't enough time to watch everything out there, so I have to prioritize what I enjoy and eliminate what I haven't. Since the move to the USA Network, NXT has far and away become my favorite weekly Pro Wrestling program and I never miss that. After that, I'd say Power was my favorite show. Next up would be NXT UK, and finally I have caught every episode of AEW Dynamite since they debuted, although I have considered dropping them on a couple of occasions. And of course...at this point, I'd rather never watch Pro Wrestling again than try and sit through an episode of Raw, Smackdown or Ring of Honor. Like I said, I gave up on MLW last summer, and Impact last spring. I was considering watching Impact again at one point, but when they changed creative direction and started doing intergender matches and then signed Joey Ryan, that pretty much ensured I'd never watch them again. Life is much too short for me to spend any of it watching that type of stuff, I just don't enjoy it. That's not my preferred style of Pro Wrestling. So far, for the most part Power has been, so I hope they keep it up and make important improvements. That's why it's hard for me to understand why anybody would watch something they clearly don't like and then spend an inordinate amount of time bitching about it. I don't like Impact, so I don't watch it and I don't talk about it. I'm sure people who do like Impact don't need me incessantly bitching in the Impact thread about how much I hate Joey Ryan or bringing up the same talking points over and over again, ad nauseam.

I agree there have only been two or three matches over the past couple of months that were actually good. They kind of shot themselves in the foot a bit by having their best match so far (Aldis vs. Storm III) as the Main Event of the first show. It's all been downhill from there, in retrospect they probably should have built up to that. I can live with the fact that they basically have been using Power to build toward the PPV if (and this is a huge if) they actually deliver at least one or two very good matches at the PPV. Otherwise the whole thing becomes pointless, in my opinion. They aren't giving us weekly Pro Wrestling classics, and I can live with that provided they eventually do pay off all the promos with decent matches. To me, it's imperative that Aldis vs. Storm delivers at least a *** match, otherwise I will be a lot less likely to get excited about watching another 8 week buildup to a PPV, if I think it's just going to disappoint. I think Aldis and Storm could be good, but it could also be disappointing or average. I hope those guys are going to work hard and give us a solid match. I'm not expecting them to be as good as matches Aldis had with Cody at All In and NWA70, but they need to be at least as good as his matches with Tim Storm. As far as Bram, I actually think he's pretty good but his partner Royce Isaacs doesn't do much for me. He appears to have gone to the Kenny Omega/Joey Janela "school of ridiculously goofy theatrical facial expressions." It wouldn't bother me one bit if they broke the Wild Card up and Bram went on his own. I'm still loving Tim Storm as a pure babyface, but it's obvious he didn't work the second day of the TV tapings, because he basically disappeared for the last four episodes, and that was a bad idea. If they're going to use him, they need to use him wisely.