Coffey

Terry Funk Blessing: Legit one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all-time. Good worker, great promo, good NWA run. Curse: his death match shit - although prolonging his career - inspired an entire generation of idiots. The nWo Blessing: Super over stable that helped create the biggest boom the world of wrestling has ever seen. Led to fun matches & storylines & moments. Helped WCW beat WWF in the ratings. Revolutionized the industry forever. Sold a metric fuckton of merch. Made WCW Nitro must-watch television. Curse: Did a ton of long term damage that we're still not recovered from. Heels are cool & get cheered. Babyfaces get booed. Shawn Michaels Blessing: Some great WWF main events & memorable matches. Fun tag worker. Curse: Pretty much responsible for the WWE self-masturbatory, over-indulged style of wrestling. Inspired a plethora of wrestlers to come up thinking they're the next HBK & wrestling a style that had no substance because they just saw Shawn do moves & kip-up.

Growing up watching legit tough-as-nails men like Terry Funk & Harley Race, it's pretty crazy to see the types of personalities that are within the industry & even fawned over nowadays.

Does it make me a mark if I pull the trigger on buying an AEW hat off of ProWrestlingTees? $30 is a lot of money for a hat with a velcro clasp...

The best thing WWE could have done was get the title off of Kofi & they did that. So kudos there. I know there's some fans that don't like the way that it happened but Kofi just wasn't working on top. He wasn't believable. He was too cornball. If they're going for a larger, bigger audience AND want that sports feel, putting it on Brock was the right way to go. Even if people on Squared Circle or Twitter or wherever say they're tired of Brock. Brock makes people pay attention. People don't sit on their hands quiet when Brock is around. THAT'S the difference. So that was the right call. The new set looks great. The Rock & that opening segment was really good too. Also, Corbin held his own! I don't know if the testicles parts were ad-libbed or not but Becky saying hers would be bigger & then Baron saying he's perfectly adequate were great. I don't think the STD chant will catch-on but it's funny that Rock always tries to do that. The first match on NXT when they moved to USA was a women's 4-way. The first match when Smackdown moved to FOX was a women's tag team match. I have to disagree with some of the posters here, I thought they did a good job of building to the PPV on Sunday with this show. They showed & introduced the new audience to Becky, Sasha, Bayley, Charlotte, The Fiend, & Seth. They also blew off KO/Shane. So I thought they did decent there. The commentary was better too. The only thing I didn't really enjoy was the new AC/DC intro song. It always feels exceptionally dated because anything that is related to AC/DC is going to seem dated in 2019. But I guess that sort of fits right in with FOX as their NFL show on Sunday always feels super dated too. Admittedly, they don't have a lot of matches set-up for HiaC but the matches they do have, they used TV time to tell people they were coming & were happening. I thought it was a pretty good show - better than normal - and they got a good number.

This has been a good show. Hot crowd. Production feels better. New set looks great. Commentary isn't as hectic w/ the 2-person booth. They're doing a good job of both building the PPV on Sunday & introducing everyone to a potential new audience. That first hour was really strong.

This opening segment is cash.

AEW also had a crowd full of wrestling fans that wanted to see wrestling. A lot of WWE crowds are families that show up because wrestling came to town & fuck it, there's nothing else to do. Like going to the circus or the fair. That's a big distinction. Especially when it comes to crowd noise & participation. It's why Toronto is always such a great wrestling crowd & Chicago.

Riho looks like she weighs about 85lbs. Nothing she does looks believable. Less impact than an Alexa Bliss or Candice LeRae. Hell, a Kelly Kelly.

Definitely way too many ad breaks during the show. If the pacing feels like this because you opened for 20 minutes without a commercial, don't do that again.

Io's ass is out of this world. She came out looking like a star too. Then Mia Yim came out and it felt really deflated. Cole/Riddle I wasn't paying a lot of attention to because Cody/Sammy pulled me in. Finn going back to NXT I guess is good if they're going to try to make NXT a big deal. Cause he's not done anything on the main roster really.

Can they get Filthy Tom Lawlor instead?

So apparently NXT tonight is commercial free for the first 30 minutes & they're opening with Riddle/Cole. WWE really trying to go all out.

Yeah, that's a good name drop.

I think you just accurately put into words how I feel about Kenny Omega as well. This is him to a T. Much like Seth, he comes off cornball instead of serious.

We also know that there's a really big Latin community that watch wrestling which WWE doesn't exactly tap into. It's an area that AEW could prosper from. Much like I think they're going to try to do with tag team wrestling, another thing that WWE does poorly.

There's actually a lot of Lucha Underground talent that I would like to see. And AEW seems to have a pretty good working relationship with AAA. I would love to see Drago come in & be their version of The Great Muta. I think Texano has a ton of talent. I even still think Mil Muertes/Ricky Banderas at 44 with a broken body can still bring something to the table. He was GREAT in Lucha Underground, especially in gimmick matches.

My top 3 gets that I would like to see show up in AEW (since I think Punk/AJ Lee are off the table): 1. Salina de la Renta 2. Dario Cuerto 3. Jacob Fatu

I didn't. I figured if they were going to be the "mystery" partners they wouldn't have spoiled the reveal at All Out & showed that LAX were in AEW already. As is stands, the reveal at All Out now feels like it happened for no reason & the reveal of the "mystery" partners feels like a let down - because the surprise was already blown. Granted I think the match will be good & I think it was a good idea to announce it on the Countdown show the day before instead of on the Dynamite debut which would have really let the air out of the room. I can't remember what podcast I was listening to but some of the other rumored names I've heard recently that aren't currently signed with WWE that might still get a reaction: Jack Swagger, Wade Barrett & Carlito. I fear those names might make AEW look like WWE-lite ala TNA though which is not a stigma AEW wants to get labeled with. Not that they would come in to tag with Jericho - just a different talking point.

This is valid.

Yeah, I have two monitors so I'll just have both shows on (until I leave for work). I haven't really figured out what I'm going to do audio wise yet.

C.M. Punk returning to the world of professional wrestling & choosing WWE over AEW is the most depressing timeline.

My illusions of grandeur want AEW to beat RAW in the ratings. Not NXT on Wednesday, but the numbers WWE get on Mondays. It felt disrespectful to me that WWE thought so lowly of AEW that they wanted to position them against basically their C-show. I really hope that AEW catches on.

Aren't her knees completely shot now too? She was wearing those big Steve Austin knee braces even like all the way back in 2005 or something.

Same with Jazz & even to a lesser degree, Victoria. They just weren't big-titted blondes, which Vince has always pushed the shit out of.