Timbo Slice

It's incredible to see this match only a year after the absolutely insane tag match he had with Iizuka against the invading UFO guys in Ogawa and Murakami. Always liked how these guys matched up.

Really can't get over how good this was considering the circumstances. Thatcher is an absolute badass.

Fucking banger of a match here. Casas looks like he can go until he's 85, let alone the fact that he's 58 right now and flew through this like it was 1989 or something. No let up at all. Just incredible.

I definitely do not want it to fail. I am also definitely wary of the byproduct of this.

The longer we get away from this year's Dome show, the more I feel Naito should have been put over. NJPW direction outside Golden Lovers has been subpar.

I do feel that the criticism of the fanbase who eats that stuff up is valid, though. It's insulated to the point where it can be downright cultish when criticism comes around. I don't care who you're a fan of, but if you can't handle the heat, that's on you. There's a big time hive mind vibe to these guys.

Interesting that Ricochet effectively worked a dark match at Center Stage. Guess they wanted his debut for Full Sail. It's gonna be a hell of a few weeks there, it seems.

Ospreay's biggest issue is that his athleticism overshadows any semblance of structure in his matches to a point where it becomes a distraction. The Ricochet stuff still doesn't do anything at all for me. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I get why Dave would say it, but him being talented doesn't necessarily make him a great wrestler.

If that was a work, Matt needs to teach every wrestler in history how to sell.

My favorite thing was that after the tornado reverse DDT spot, the match still had another FIFTEEN minutes to go, whereas so many matches would be looking to finish up in 5 or less. Very rarely nowadays do you see me thinking a 30 minute match is worthwhile, but this was that and then some. They knew how to do the sequences right. They showed how much they knew each other to the point where when they hit a big move, it was earned. When Johnny kicked out of the DDT, I thought for sure he was gonna take it, and Candice neutralizing Zelina made me think more, but after the toe on the ropes during the second Gargano Escape, you kinda figured out what was coming. I don't know how you don't have these guys match up again this year, but it's now the match I want to see again more than anything else. Unreal piece of pro wrestling here.

Great main event this week with Velveteen Dream and Gargano. Strap the rocket to the Dream, baby.

So All Pro Wrestling runs the Cow Palace and they draw pretty well without The Elite. They've run Cody on top before and drew in the 1-2K range. That's just local in a big market, and not even a huge wrestling-frenzied market at that. I'm sure they lose money a bit, but still, it's somewhat of a template. The money making thing is spot on, though. I also think when NJPW comes stateside that their ticket pricing is going to be used as a model for what they try to do. There's a vague template here, but it's not going to be wildly profitable. Don't know how much they'll paper, but it might come into play, although I hope I'm wrong.

I assumed the Bryan thing since it was September. I also feel like it's a situation where Bryan could straight up leave with one month to go. In fact, that would be a much bigger deal. And Meltz doubled down on protecting Elgin after his allegations last night on Twitter and pretty much burned up his credibility. The backlash to it will be ongoing and they're gonna have to distance themselves from it.

They need to run Center Stage more regularly. It absolutely kills Full Sail from a setting standpoint. Hotter crowd, too. Doesn't hurt to change it up every once in a while.

It will be at some point this year.