Coffey

Today is my birthday. So I wanted to watch some pro wrestling before heading to work. So I put on AEW Dynamite. I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed the Cody stuff leading to Brodie Lee coming out & multiple pull aparts. Brandi & Anna Jay getting into it. Nyla Rose outta nowhere. That was fun.

Just a casual Backdrop Driver to end it as well.

Yeah, you can't say we definitely don't have a group of differing opinions here on PWO, that's for sure. In my mind, I'm thinking "if you didn't like that, what the fuck do you like then?" We also have people that love what AEW is doing (not me) & people that loved what NWA Powerrr was (me, at least until they went too far into comedy). So we have an eclectic group.

Just goes to show that regardless of what the calendar year is, or if kayfabe is dead or whatever... if you have a good story, a good angle & you can make people buy into what you're selling, it leads to good things. That Uso story with Tribal Chief Roman Reigns beating the piss out of Jey... that was some good ass business. WWE needs more of stuff like that & a lot less stuff like Retribution. Just like when AEW did Cody Vs. Dustin. Pro wrestling is all about the emotion & it always will be.

The thing is, when someone comes around that's extremely talented, that doesn't necessarily mean they should be at the top of the card - especially in WWE. That's never been what it's about in WWE. There's a reason Hulk was on top during his era & although they were ridiculously talented, they didn't put Mr. Perfect & Rick Rude up there. Could they have? Yes, absolutely. Ted DiBiase too & probably also Jake the Snake. Honestly, looking back, it's kind of remarkable to me that Macho Man Randy Savage got a run at the top in WWF. I mean, there's a difference between being in the main event & being WWE champion, too, but there's a lot of talent that doesn't get put up there, for whatever reason. In all eras, really.

There were some crazy-ass bumps in that ladder match. Finish was a bit contrived but I dug the match. The handcuff through the ear lobe was pretty damn original.

Throughout the many years of my professional wrestling fandom, there have been a lot of wrestlers that I have changed my stance on over the years. Either because they got a new gimmick, or went to a new promotion, got a new look, new finish, I just saw more of their stuff... whatever. I'm not sure if I have ever had a bigger about face on a wrestler than I have with Jay White though. I used to think his matches were fast-forward material. Now he's one of my favorite wrestlers in the entire world & I look forward to every New Japan card that he's on.

I've not followed WWE for months. I never watch the TV. I'm hardly ever home for it nowadays anyway. But just reading Twitter, I can see the clips & whatnot. So it never feels like I'm completely out of the loop... but it feels so much better, as a fan, when you don't follow the weekly TV than try to stay current with the modern WWE product. The last Wrestlemania can be blamed on the pandemic, which was out of WWE's hands. But even Wrestlemania last year felt like just another show. It was too long. It was full of a bunch of matches that didn't mean shit. With wrestlers that didn't mean shit. Fighting over titles that didn't mean shit. With fans just happy to be there, not that were emotionally invested in any of the characters or angles. I watch the WWE Network quite often. I still love late 80's & early 90's WWF & WCW. I can't watch ECW because it doesn't feel the same without the music (this also irks me about Nitro era WCW but not as badly). I just downloaded the first two nights of the G1 Climax. I still have plenty of wrestling to watch when I get that itch that I want to scratch. But yeah, modern WWE isn't it. I don't know who the target demo is anymore, but it's not me... and it's not whomever they think it is either. It's painfully obvious that they're just booking to appease Vince McMahon, Jr. at this point. And when you're surrounded by guys like Michael Hayes & Bruce Prichard & when you think "trying something new" meant Eric Bischoff & Paul Heyman, and when you're being compared to shows from over twenty years ago, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. WWE isn't cool. And even they know they're not cool, that's why they constantly beat you over the head with the "hey, remember when we used to be cool?" shit. Talk about Austin. Talk about Rock. Talk about D-X. Talk about the Monday Night Wars. A lot of the modern wrestling fans that they should be trying to target & appeal to weren't even ALIVE for that shit. That's how fucking long ago it was. It would be like talking about the start of Hulkamania during WWF in 2004. I am waiting on some MLW to comeback but even they only have a handful of people that I care about (L.A. Park, Alex Hammerstone, Jacob Fatu & Mance Warner). AEW doesn't appeal to me as it's like all the modern tropes of recent wrestling that I don't like turned into a wrestling company. The weekly NWA Power studio YouTube show was OK but even that turned too much into guys that were well passed their prime, never had a prime or goofy comedy stuff. I just want emotional, dramatic, hard-hitting pro-wrestling again. I want blood & storylines that you can buy into. I want dastardly heels & babyfaces that have strong morals. I want to see a bad guy get his comeuppance. I want to see the fans rally behind the good guy & his comeback & see him get his revenge. I want matches that tell a story, that draw you in & make you care about what's happening, not just what moves they can do. I don't want to see lame bad actors portraying sports entertainers on TV trying to recite lines written for them by out-of-touch dudes while they promote their social media channels.

The problem with Ivelisse is that, even if you're willing to deal with her constantly being a headache - which arguably her work isn't good enough for even that, she also appears to be injury prone on top of that. Poor girl went through so much in Lucha Underground, I felt like I was watching Lionheart & was saying "just stay down!"

Well, there's a line too. Like Brian Cage is jacked but he's definitely not a big guy. And Luchasaurus is huge but he's doing karate kicks and front flips. Here's the thing for me that I think often gets overlooked & this has been an issue for a long time, not just in AEW. A good example would be Mike Awesome in ECW. If your giants can do the same things as your non-giants, what makes the non-giants special anymore? Just because guys can do something doesn't mean that they should. That used to be an unwritten rule in pro-wrestling but now more than ever wrestlers seemingly think they have to throw everything at the wall to try to get something to stick. So you have people killing themselves for nothing. There's a reason The Giant doesn't need to do a Moonsault. And why Rey Mysterio, Jr. should not do a Chokeslam. On an related note, Dustin Rhodes is the best worker in AEW. A lot of that roster could learn from him. But even Dustin Rhodes feels the need to do things like the Code Red nowadays for... reasons.

Oh yeah, he's always been good. If you listen to a lot of wrestling podcasts like I do, or shoot interviews, many of The Boys over the years have put him over as great too. So maybe an unsung hero to a lot of wrestling fans but I think most here would recognize his talent. Speaking of Podcasts and an Armstrong, I know that Jim Cornette isn't everyone's cup of tea - including mine lately - but if you get a chance to hear his words on the end of his Drive-Thru Podcast about the passing of Bullet Bob, they're really great.

Whomever AEW brings in, do they have to drink the Cody & Brandi Rhodes Kool-Aid? I'm not sure if I can think of a worse way to debut Rusev/Miro than in a wedding storyline with Kip Sabian, plugging Twitch & doing an anti-WWE glass ceiling/brass ring promo. With a 1999 Eminem haircut to boot. So even if great talent is released from WWE & winds-up going to AEW, I don't have a ton of faith. It's even more dire straits for the women. And I actually think the landscape of AEW is better than WWE! As a whole, the lay of the land in the United States right now, wrestling wise, politically or any other way, just looks like shit. I feel like talent would be better off trying to go to Japan. If for no other reason than to get out of the damn United States where we're going to hell in a handbasket.

I'm watching some WCW 1993. Both the Saturday Nights & now Clash of the Champions from Jan. '93 featuring THE THUNDERCAGE. I... don't think I've ever seen this show before. They just ran Chris Benoit Vs. Brad Armstrong and it was GREAT. Ref was Nick Patrick, Commentary was Jim Ross & Jesse Ventura.

The Janella pre-show match sucked. The Britt Baker thing sucked. The tag match was eh... The battle royal was terrible - complete with a Shockmaster 2020 debut. Then the Matt Hardy thing happened. At that point, Shida/Rosa came out, which I was excited for - and the show was half over - but it was 9:30 PM so I had to leave for work. So from everything that I got to see, it was the drizzling shits. TNA-level bad. But I did read when I got home that some of the stuff in the second half, including Rosa/Shida wasn't bad. But yeah, from what I watched, I rightfully shit all over it on Twitter.