Timbo Slice

Guess SmackDown! was just shite last night?

It picked up for me after a slow start and finished strong. Totally sucks that Claudio is his opponent because it’s now apparent Bryan was gonna face ZSJ and Gresham back to back. It should be a great match, but given how strong Claudio is being presented, he can’t possibly lose.

I think there’s a lot of people mistaking being in their best match for LEADING their best match. Which takes away a ton of wrestlers.

First time in AEW where Keith Lee looked like KEITH LEE to me. Heck of a match.

NFL has way more protections, is considered “too big to fail” like most corporations, and if they do it to Snyder, all the other owners can be gone after due to their other indiscretions. Vince is on an island in a business with very little respect from the public at large no matter what he’s done, and doesn’t have the leverage he had when he was first trying to go public given his enterprise is being run well enough by a consortium, not just himself.

Seems bad.

And tonight we find out “Scissor me, Daddy Ass!” was the Acclaimed being asked to be cut off.

Rush is on el jugo, good lord. The acne pops off in 4K.

Brother El-P gonna be amused at Big War.

Dustin/Vader is my answer there. As good as Vader is in that match, he was never better in a singles match. It might be one of the top 3-5 underdog babyface matches EVER. Let alone his best match.

He has a charisma, but comparing to him to literally the most charismatic presences to ever grace a wrestling ring does him a disservice. He’s special because he’s a lot more different that the usual fare around him. I think people pigeonhole him as “jacked guy there to do powerbombs” instead of that being his BASELINE. He’s not a finished product. He can absolutely get better. Goldberg was an anomaly. We need to stop comparing dudes who just need more seasoning to literally one of the most unique wrestlers in the history of the business.

Lee is not even close to what he was pre-COVID. He possibly will never get there, either. Otherwise he’d be in the world title mix himself. Pro wrestling is about amplifying strengths, and Wardlow’s strengths were on full display against someone with charisma. He’s complementary, not a feature player, and can figure it out along the way to become more complete. But you have to give him something to work with regardless, and Tony has failed him there.

Hearing posts on this thread with the most interactions earns a title shot at Mox. Choose your words wisely. Also: https://mobile.twitter.com/stokelyhathaway/status/1544403352477368320

Ted had the cage match with Duggan which is incredible. Mike Rotunda holds the distinction of not just himself, but his kids, too. Amazing accomplishment.

Nah, he had the Steve Corino Hardcore Heaven match that’s was about as spiritually perfect a Tajiri match there was. And is the best ECW match ever, too.

Meltz’s diction almost turned that into Steiner Math territory.

Please open the show with Tony having a giant “RESET” button on his desk in Gorilla or something. Seriously, nobody says “innards” anymore.

If I remember right, wear and tear may have been one of the reasons Grayson and Uno weren’t featured as much, too, so between that and how other tag teams ended up being featured, they just got shuffled out.

Kenny being out for basically a year at this point is proof positive. This is where I’m really careful about people talking about “depth” and such. A truly good use of depth given the roster they have, they style they work, and the amount of time they have would lead to bigger names working less so that minor injuries don’t compound. They don’t need to go Full Big Dawg, but at the same time, nobody ever thinks about how to keep folks fresh. I understand that if a guy is over you want to keep him on TV as often as you can, but given transparency on folks being hurt being about as prescient as ever, you can absolutely do a different way of working here to avoid issues like this.

American’s co-opt things in bad faith politically all the time. “Communism” and “Socialism” got pounded into our heads that it was bad since that was fascism, except the liberal sides of those ideas got put into good use. Same thing with “Libertarianism.” The American Brand of it sucks, and with us being international in nature, I agree that no good conversation would come it. So we should park it for now.

Bayern Munich got their guy, though, so MU might be a bit reeling. Forbidden Door tonight? You guessed it, Vince’s office.

Okada loved it. Dude ate it all up.

Because they need him to get to All Out where he can face Kenny in the 6-man of all 6-mans. Then they can get him off to heal to replace Kenny coming back.

I watched it on my phone so couldn’t comment here, but it says a lot that the NJPW stars came to play tonight, even if Okada “skating” in a 4-way still saw him hit his spots and have the fucking charisma that I’ve never seen him have before. Dude knew he was the guy in that match and wrestled as such. I came off extremely impressed. Also, you’re never going to hear this sentence again: “I really liked this four-man commentary booth.” They all complimented each other perfectly. Insanity. A truly over performing show across the board. And now am sad we didn’t see what could have been on the original card. But they now have the outline for a truly spectacular show next go around.

I think the big takeaway from this show is how much NJPW controlled talent here. They really protected specific interactions to the point of really hampering how this show could go down, and it’s selfish due to what they want to do on 1/4/23. For example, I don’t see them rushing to have AEW representation on upcoming shows or tours even after the G-1 based on how they set the G-1 up this year, and feel like there are certain matches they’d rather have on their turf. That’s all well and good, but while injuries tell a good chunk of the story, throwing in the booking mishaps and NJPW letting guys get big paydays for minimal involvement in multi-man matches and 3-way/4-way matches dampens the impact of the show even more.