sek69

In something that seems to have gone largely under the radar on wrestling news sites that I've noticed, Al Derusha passed away recently at the age of 88. He was more or less the Kevin Dunn of the AWA behind the scenes (minus the dizzying editing), and would occasionally appear on screen as well. His son Gary was also a ref in the AWA, which always stood out to me watching as a kid as I couldn't ever figure out why that was the only ref they seemed to go out of their way to mention the name of.

Yeah the show wasn't bad by any stretch, but it felt very B-show in the sense of everything was clearly just forwarding storylines. That also is fine, but they usually try to make the Saudi shows a little more special so in that sense it was underwhelming I'm guessing the Bloodline saga will have Roman/Usos/Sami all squabbling until Heyman comes back to guide the ship again.

The Crown Jewel title reminds me of the old Mid South big ass North American title

Love that KO is sporting the Cowboy Bob shirt tonight

To be fair Nia has been much better in this run. Granted that is damning with faint praise, but still.

So since I took the day off for Halloween, I was able to watch the show tonight (which to be fair, was pretty good). During the show they mentioned Chris Bey's injury and plugged his GoFundme for his medical bill which may have been the most embarrassingly bush league thing I've ever seen. As much as we make fun of TNA, they are owned by a multi million dollar company and for them to act like a podunk indy fed was a terrible look. Not wanting to invest more in your rasslin' promotion is one thing, shilling the crowd funding campaign for a guy who broke his fuckin neck on your show should be something that should give even the most corporate brained exec pause.

I assume Stat beat Kamille to set her up for losing to Mercedes, which is fine since neither really has much going on. Especially since the pairing with Stokely just got retconned out of existence It seems the Bucks' loss and the following segment where they told Daniels they were "working from home" was a storyline way to write off Nick taking some time off for a separated shoulder

finally we get the return of BIG BOB, business is indeed back

Show's been pretty good so far, but does it seem odd to anyone else that they are having a show in the ECW Arena next week when Paul Heyman is currently off TV?

It seems like we've had this discussion a thousand times when AEW is starting a new build for something. People think AEW is cooked for a couple weeks after a blow-off PPV, and then after they build the new angles for several weeks everyone is raving about it.

Carlito got heat for ad libbing the "I gotta learn Chinese" line on Raw in the segment he was in with Damage Control. Beyond the obvious stupidity involved, apparently Io Sky was subjected to "go back to China" taunts from some audiences at some point.

I love that CMLL did the black and white gimmick

All I heard is Bautista supported Kamala, which should have come to no surprise to anyone who knows anything about him.

Bryan's neck is apparently so bad it wasn't 100% he would even make it through his title run, so his career might legit be over.

Its obviously super early, but it sure feels like this BCC vs the world stuff sure feels like Tony is trying to re-book the nWo angle only not making WCW look like total chumps and actually winning in the end.

Well they still have the trios titles now that Yuta made his choice, so they don't have to add any more belts if they don't want to. I understand folks not feeling another Mox run, but we're also getting a Claudio heel run along with Pac back in his natural element. Who knows, maybe a heel turn will be the spark needed to send Yuta to the next level as well. Plus I expect in the short term its going to be some combo of OC/Garcia/Darby battling through the minions to get to Mox so that should help get some juice to the Mox matches when they eventually happen. Also the babyfaces are going to need a woman on their side to combat Shafir, which I would presume is Willow, so that'll be a good way to get her to the next level as well.

I thought the ending was perfect, Bryan didn't quit and went out on his shield like we all knew he would. Since him losing would already be a bummer, it's the perfect time to do a big heat angle to get the new Big Bads over huge. The babyfaces sitting around the ring looking despondent really sold what a big deal it was. I was sort of expecting Nigel to get involved since it seemed like they were setting it up when Mox took a swipe at him, but I suppose it will probably be the next part of the story. Sometimes the bad guys need to get a big win to make it even sweeter when the heroes prevail.

Oh god, how is Darby going to die in this one

TK really edging us for the debut of Big Bob

Well that three way kicked all sorts of ass, even if the ending ended up being angle advancement it still didn't bring it down for me imo

It's Adam Cole (BAYBAY)

Love the announcers pointing out Willow learned lucha submissions during her time as CMLL champ

Great finish to that

Turbo Floyd Turbo'ing up got a pop from me

Zippy little pre show so far, AEW has it down pat where an hour or so just flies by on their shows.