Coffey

Is RAW still going to be live? I didn't know Netflix had live shows. Are there still going to be commercials? I pay for Netflix for commercial free viewing. Is RAW going to go back to 2-hours? Since it will be on Netflix, I assume the advertising is different & they don't have to appease USA anymore, what does this mean for the maturity level of the content? So many questions & we just get a Twitter post from Netflix. Guess I'm waiting for an article with the details. Huge news though. Nick Khan has to be one of the biggest WWE hires ever, right?

As a Green Bay Packers fan, this season felt like a fever dream. I didn't expect to even be in the playoff picture, let alone making the playoffs & winning a game in the playoffs. Our future looks bright. That being said, I'm tired of losing to the 49ers all the damn time in the postseason, so I'm pulling for anyone but them, even the Detroit Lions from the same NFC North division as the Packers. Ravens Vs. Lions is what I'm hoping for. End this dumb Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce Chiefs side story nonsense.

I wouldn't be surprised to see A.J. Lee return, maybe at the Royal Rumble. The Instagram video of her training with Punk, Bayley talking about her in interviews & bringing up the wife in the Seth/Punk promo. All little clues. They could do Lee/Lynch & Punk/Seth then Lee/Punk Vs. Seth/Lynch.

True!

I wonder how many burner accounts Tony Khan has. The shit that he's willing to post on his main, you know he's got a burner account that's even worse. And he should be busy, probably too busy to ever care about Twitter, but he obviously does very much care. Regardless of wrestling, football, soccer & everything on his plate.

I been watching New Japan longer than AEW has even existed. Hell, I've been watching Puro since ordering VHS tapes back in what, the late 90's? What a wild statement. I just want the biggest show of the year for New Japan to feel like a good new fresh show. Instead, it was just long with a lot of the same old stuff we're accustomed to for years now. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that the title is off Sanada, his reign was mega boring but... *points to whole roster of scrubs* I can't get exited for Evil Vs Naito. I don't care about a Tanahashi TV title reign in 2024. Moxley bleeding in Japan is just as shit as him bleeding in the States. Danielson spent the entire match working Okada's arm & then still just got hit with the Rainmaker & lost, so it all felt pointless. I don't know, I don't see how I'm the guy on the outside looking in here.

Well, you weren't wrong. That was a very lackluster, dare I say boring show. Not just because it was five hours long either. New Japan just feels completely ice cold right now. Title reigns of guys like Evil & Sanada didn't help but going back to Naito isn't going to do anything either. Plus having Danielson & Moxley on the show actually made it feel less fresh to me as well. Tanahashi winning was hilarious for all the wrong reasons. A lot of the roster just looks old, slow & fat. Not that guys like Yano were ever in great shape or anything but man... I don't get how they keep trotting out guys like Chase Owens, even for preshow battles royals. Most of the factions in New Japan have felt like nWo b-team for YEARS. A whole roster of Vincent, Brian Addams, Wallstreet & Horace Hogan isn't getting anyone over. Zack Sabre, Jr. felt like a star & then lost which got a chuckle out of me. The ending of Dragon/Okada felt like it came out of nowhere & like the match wasn't over yet. Yota Tsuki Vs. Yuya Uemura was fun for me because I wasn't familiar with either guy & it felt fresh. I liked their finish too & they looked in pretty good shape. I will say, the change in appearance for David Finlay did him a lot of favors too. New Japan needs help. Kind of feel like the rose came off the bloom right around when they started cracking down on Twitter posts of their shows.

Match will probably be better though...

I'll be watching tonight. I haven't watched an AEW show is quite some time. Curious about the Jericho/Kylie Rae rumors I've heard about today too.

PWO in a nutshell.

KawadaSmile the PWO Grand Master!

The 1980's WWF were fucking WILD. Like, yes, EVERYONE was big but they were all SO big that even the huge guys looked... normal when on screen. Warlord was like 6'5", 330lbs. But fucking Hogan was also like 6'5", 300 so he wasn't THAT much bigger. So Warlord instead of being one of the biggest dudes around was just another muscle guy. I was watching an old WWF Saturday Night's Main Event. It was Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorf (as a babyface, also super jacked) against King Kong Bundy. Bundy made Wonderful look tiny. Then Andre the Giant came out to help Bundy & my god, it really put into perspective how big Andre was.

Also, like Swerve has caught on, so they should strike while the iron is hot. The entrance & Nana dance is over. If anything, they should be giving Moxley some time off. Have to start giving Swerve big wins.

AEW should be making Swerve their top guy. He has more charisma & ability than someone like Hangman Page ever did.

Regardless of what the state of the WWE Network becomes, as it pertains to footage from yesteryear, I will forever be grateful for getting a chance to see The Last Battle of Atlanta. I must have watched that five times.

Man, not just The Bunny but they missed a goldmine, imo, with The Butcher & Blade too. That whole group felt like old school pro wrestling.

Goldberg when he beat Brock at Survivor Series & Brock when he won the title back from Kofi as well. Also, the Wrestlemania where Daniel Bryan was distracted by AJ Lee & immediately ate a finish but I think that's kind of different. I agree though. With anything, really, there's always a point where you're like, this was cool at first but now it's just cliché & boring. Someone should bring back using the drop down as an actual trip again just because it's been so long.

As pro wrestling fans, this timeline feels cursed. WWE is going back to Saudi Arabia. AEW is bringing in Edge & Ric Flair to feud/wrestle with Sting & Christian while a bloated Chris Jericho is a main eventer. Remember all that shit with JAS & BCC trying to get Daniel Garcia over? Now he's a fucking Alex Wright rip off. Amazing.

Yeah, I've really come around on them as well. They got quite entertaining in a pretty short amount of time.

Something about family of thoroughbreds & hosses bah gawd.

I have been rewatching a lot of WCW. Lately, a lot of 1995 & 1996. Admittedly, it's not great. Especially 1995. Almost every main event is a combination of Hogan, Sting, Flair & Arn Anderson & the whole shows are just people talking about Hogan. What I really noticed though, is that there are SO MANY MORE ex-WWF people than I realized. The entire show feels like "hey, remember me?" with just a couple WCW people thrown in. Of course there's Hogan, Savage & later Hall & Nash. There's also I.R.S. & Ted DiBiase, The Big Bossman, Earthquake, Beefcake, Bobby Heenan, Mean Gene, Rick Martel, The One Man Gang, Jim Neidhart, The British Bulldog... there's way too many to name them all. Even if a lot of guys worked elsewhere or bounced around like The Nasty Boys or The Steiners, they still feel like they're fresh off WWF TV. AEW is feeling like that to me. It's not just the active wrestlers but all up & down the card of talent with people like Justin Roberts & Renee Young. Or commentators like Jim Ross & Taz. They have Edge & Christian now. They brought in The Big Show & Mark Henry for... reasons. Jericho & Moxley were really their first main event guys on the first PPV. Billy Gunn, Paige, Cesaro, Jack Swagger, The Hardy Boys, Aleister Black, Rusev, etc. They have a ton of talent & a lot of people that worked at a lot of places but even a guy like Bryan Danielson a lot of people will know from WWE TV not everything else he did. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's an observation. Before the nWo angle got super over, WCW was the pits & even the nWo angle really only gave them like two years of hot TV. AEW doesn't have an nWo angle & like @El-P mentioned, it's starting to give TNA vibes. TNA had a lot of talent too & had a lot of good matches, but it was always pretty much a laughing stock to wrestling fans online. AEW has a ton of talent & are capable of having a lot of good matches too but there's not an angle or story to sink your teeth into & it's a lot of matches that happen just because "wrestler A is good & wrestler B is good, so this should be good" like what Ring of Honor used to do in the early 2000's & all that shit just started to blend together. When AEW started, it was Cody Rhodes & The Elite wanting to start something new. It's no longer something new & now it's morphing into something I don't think it was ever intended to be which is the dreaded "WWE lite." Right now, WWE feels strong & I think it is in large part due to the Bloodline storyline. AEW lost Cody Rhodes & now Jade Cargill. I think it's time they start trying to use & make their own guys more, like they've done with Darby or even having Powerhouse Hobbs cripple Jericho like he just did. That's what they should be doing. MJF, Orange Cassidy, Ricky Starks, The Acclaimed, all great things AEW has done or is doing but like Edge coming out & blasting Starks on TV? Bad look. Also Tony Khan needs to not be on TV, at all, ever - even in post show press conferences. I wouldn't have anyone reference him on the show ever either & he should get off of Twitter/X.

I know it's an AEW thread in the AEW section, so I might be veering into off topic, but I actually remember quite liking Hunico. Not so much when he was wearing the Mistico mask but more so when he was coming out with Camacho. Then, because of this thread, I thought "whatever happened to Camacho?" So I looked him up & had my mind blown that it's the same wrestler that teams with Tama Tonga as the Guerillas in New Japan. Small world.

Swerve is fantastic. He had that great Coffin match with Sting & Darby a few weeks back. Then on Tuesday, had that great match with Bryan Danielson. I know he lost both matches but man, what a future he has. I also love the pairing with Prince Nana.

I would argue that Cash is holding Dax back. I certainly think he's the lesser talented of the two, even before the outside the ring personal shit. His constant injuries held back FTR as well. I could see Dax having a strong midcard run like Arn Anderson did in WCW when he was finishing with the DDT.

Bronson Reed Vs. Gunther for the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship is going to slap like E. Honda. That's a must-see match for me!