Coffey

That was a legitimately great wrestling show, despite the dire circumstances surrounding everything. Lancer Archer is there & paired with Jake the Snake. They debut Brodie Lee. They debut Matt Hardy. Most of the wrestling was good. The wrestlers in the crowd were having fun. The commentators were having fun. It was just a fun night overall & played a great distraction for a couple of hours. I really love that AEW is embracing the role of the manager, too. You got Tully, you got Arn, you got Jake... even Wardlow as like a bodyguard. It feels different because WWE has stepped away from it for so long. Which is crazy because when WWF first blew up with cable TV, they had managers everywhere! Heenan, Slick, Fuji, Jimmy Hart, Albano, etc. Brandi did a good job filling in on announcing for Justin Roberts. Dare I say I liked her more. Feels like Roberts is trying to get himself over too much. It is a shame we didn't get live audience reactions from the new debuts but the fact we got them at all is pretty nutty.

Along the same lines of something TTK mentioned: Terry Funk in the old ECW worked because he was like the only older Legend on the roster, so he stood out. That works with Tim Storm in NWA as well... but when you're bringing in George South & The Rock 'N Roll Express & what not, yeah. It's the whole redhead in a room full of blondes analogy. If there's multiple redheads... Now, George South as a mouthpiece manager? I'd be all aboard that train.

I was thinking this too. It was Wrestle Kingdom for me. But in the U.S.? Pretty great feeling. Excited! The card looks good & the build has been strong.

Not as old as you trying to defend his jobber-ass. He's like Mike Adamle levels of bad. I'm talking all-time bad. I have no earthly idea what you see in that jabrone.

This feels better in every way, honestly. Orton/Edge, Goldberg/Roman, Cena/Fiend is a pretty enticing card. At least from what they can do nowadays.

When they used to have fan interaction during the intro before Power started, I was all for that. People being positive in Tweets & whatnot. This feels too far in the other direction for my tastes.

Well damn, I guess The Circle Squared is only half an hour long. Also, the inclusion of people's "live" reactions - nobodies from Twitch/YouTube - is a big miss for me. I don't give a fuck about their thoughts. Just show the talent & let us "vote" via Twitter or whatever, don't make people a part of the show like that. I don't like that at all.

Everyone's got a price!

I'm more confused by WWE's selective choices for non-WWE talent. Like, Liger is going in based on what he's done in pro-wrestling but in WWE he did what, one NXT match against Tyler Breeze? And Abdullah the Butcher is in & I don't think he ever made an appearance for WWF/WWE. Maybe when it was Vince, Sr. in WWWF, but I don't remember. So if Liger can go in - he did work a lot in the States, especially WCW - what does that mean for other Japanese talents? Do they have to have had a good run in the States, so Muta can go in? Or is it just greats, like Misawa & Kawada can go in now, too? They put in Antonio Inoki. They just put in Tatsumi Fujinami in 2015. Now they have this "Legacy Division" bullshit & put Rikidozan in there. Which is also apparently where Lou Thesz, Strangler Lewis, Pat O'Connor, Frank Gotch, El Santo & George Hackenschmidt are. So, do they not count as WWE Hall of Fame main division guys? It's all so confusing. It's like they want it to be both credible & kayfabe at the same time. So I assume they can put in Jumbo but he'll go in the Legacy division? Or does he not go into the Legacy part because he wrestled Flair? Are all the divisions supposed to be treated equally, so being in the Legacy division doesn't matter? Or maybe we should only ignore the celebrity division, because otherwise Drew Caray & Rikidozan are on equal footing...

I agree with this post. I do still really like Keith Lee, but sometimes you want a big guy to fight like a big guy & not be a big guy that's "deceptively agile for his size!" More One Man Gang, less Mike Awesome doing suicide dives & frog splashes. Like, yeah, Vader could do a Moonsault but he didn't NEED to do it, ya know? Totally get where you're coming from. One thing that I love about Keith Lee though is that he's incorporated The Pounce into his moveset. He's not the only one. I love how despite having a short run in wrestling, Monty Brown left his mark. I've seen several black wrestlers use it & I love the homage.

Do they have a kid that can choose Ciampa over Gargano too? "Ciampa is my dad now." They already chant here comes daddy at him!

Finn Balor turns heel on Johnny Gargano. Johnny Gargano turns heel on *checks notes* Tomasso Ciampa. Wut.

There was a period in ECW there in like '99-'00 or so, where the best matches on the show frequently involved Super Crazy, Little Guido or Tajiri.

Balor has always been overrated to me. Even when he was in New Japan as Devitt, I never really got the appeal. It was a cool visual when he would come out on the shoulders of Fale, I guess, but I saw that shit with Big Sal & Little Guido in ECW first. I will admit some of the Demon entrances are pretty sweet though.

When Tegan put the chair over Dakota's neck on the table at the end there, I legit got bug-eyed for a second. That would have been something I've never seen before, for sure.

I thought it was Sonya Deville at first and I was SUPER confused.

That was a really good Shining Wizard.

OK, that Spirit Bomb kickout was nuts. This match has been a ton of fun.

I'll be honest, I completely forgot about Mauro's involvement with NXT & his entrance just took all the wind out of my sails.

I never watch the weekly NXT show but TakeOvers are almost always good. This show on paper looks pretty solid as well, so I'm watching. The crowd already seems pretty hype.

I'm more in the camp that I don't like Cornette nor the people he blasts in wrestling at this point. I never really was on the side of Cornette but I agreed that I didn't like the style of wrestling that Omega & The Young Bucks do. But he can't just be like "I don't like their style or what they're bringing to wrestling." He starts making "jokes" of sleeping with children & shit. It's ridiculous. Cornette's "rants" just come off as hate speech at this point. He's turned into the very thing he tries to vilify when going off about politics. As much as he hates Donald Trump, he sure sounds a lot like him when he starts going off on homophobic rants. And talk about a dude in a glass house throwing rocks when talking about how people look. Cornette nor his wife are exactly lookers. He should keep that shit to himself.

Great write-up. I agree that NWA has done a great job of addressing the weak areas & trying to improve on them. My biggest complaint at this point in time is that they're going a bit too heavy on comedy right now. The Question Mark & Aron Stevens stuff is already well beyond the sell by date to me. And I love some nostalgia but I'm not seeing it with the Rock 'n Roll Express as still active workers. But they have done a great job in addressing the short matches, thin roster & convoluted stories, like you mentioned. Hopefully next they'll cut back on the comedy & focus more on serious characters & angles. I love Tim Storm but his best days are most likely behind him in-ring. So him giving some rub to younger guys is fine by me. I just hope Storm never leaves wrestling. Put him in the WCW Larry Zybysko role or something, just so he is still around. I'm excited for The Circle Squared. That will be interesting to me. I like when I see new people for the first time & can get some first impressions. Like Dice was new to me & I dig him. I know he came from elsewhere but I had not seen him before. So I hope I get a bunch of people I'm not familiar with at all, that would make it more fun for me. I even watched the old World of Hurt or whatever it was called, the Lance Storm version of Tough Enough. I dig stuff like that. It's fun & interesting to me. I mean, it has to go better than when TNA was doing their version with judges in the ring & shit, right?

I would love to see a tag team of Cesaro & Thatcher.

If anything, I think the Okada/Omega matches say more about how great Okada is than how great Omega is. Outside of his matches with Okada, Omega has pretty much come off as a comedy wrestler. He ain't done shit in AEW so far. Meanwhile Okada is still having amazing matches on damn near every PPV. Both his matches this year at Wrestle Kingdom, against Naito & Ibushi, were better than anything Omega has done since his matches with Okada. EDIT: I remembered he did the AEW PPV match with Moxley - the hardcore thing where he did a 450 on the uncovered mat wood.

Pretty good show this week. Drago/Reed, Davey/Gotch & Von Erich/MJF are all decent-to-good. Shame the ref blew the finish in the Drago match though as that 450 was a beaut! I'm also really digging Alex Hammerstone, or as I call him, Hammerstein. That dude is comedy. That big time yen contract though! "You know that's like ninety dollars in American money?" Fatu/Pillman next week. There were some issues this week for sure, especially in the audio. Lawlor on commentary was basically muted for like the first half he was out there. And the previously mentioned blown finish in the Middleweight match. But still a decent watch. MLF with the prematch promo saying "I'm going to put another Von Erich six-feet-under" legit got me to