NintendoLogic

I watched EVIL/Hiromu. Seeing Dick Togo as EVIL's second upsets me because I can't help but think how much better it would be if the roles were reversed. Also, the vibe I got from the crowd is that all the Bullet Club bullshit was generating the wrong kind of heat. That stuff has been a staple of the product for a while, but you could usually count on the IWGP title match to deliver serious wrestling. The crowd seemed to be upset in a way that leads to them saying "fuck this shit" as opposed to wanting to see the heels get their comeuppance. It was rather WWE-esque.

The New Japan and AJW dojos and Verne Gagne's training camp turned out plenty of stars, and they all followed the same basic model: take the best natural athletes you can find, weed out the ones not willing to push themselves to the limit, and drill them in the basics until they become second nature before letting them do anything character-wise. That model only seems to work if you have enough world-class athletes applying to allow you to pick from the cream of the crop.

Cena is a story in itself. He was on the verge of being future endeavored before Stephanie heard him freestyling, which led to his white rapper gimmick. The gimmick sucked, but it saved his career.

It's a case of WWE thinking that what worked with one wrestler (Daniel Bryan) will work with anyone even remotely similar. Every subsequent wrestler they've tried the Bryan approach with has been killed dead, and it's questionable whether what they did with Bryan was really the most effective approach. It's tempting to chalk it up to the creative team being filled with soap opera writers with no knowledge of or interest in the sport's history, but the buck ultimately stops with Vince. And he thinks he was completely vindicated in his approach with Bryan. Dave noted that he thought he took a great worker with a bland personality and taught him how to be a star.

In other news, it seems that Excalibur is the latest casualty of woke capitalism. His absence from this episode of Dynamite was apparently related to footage of him using the n-word in a promo in the early days of PWG making the rounds on Twitter. In this case, he appears to be simply laying low until the the heat hopefully dies down as opposed to having been suspended. In any event, the key fact of the matter is that Human Tornado, the black wrestler at whom the promo was directed, was the top babyface in PWG at the time and frequently requested that heels cut race-baiting promos on him, including the n-word. That obviously doesn't excuse it, but an in-character heel promo at a wrestling event is a far cry from something like the Hogan tape. Companies need to stop allowing obvious bad-faith actors to weaponize outrage.

Baron Corbin. The joke writes itself. Then again, FCW was no great shakes in the talent development department either. They haven't had a developmental system that actually developed talent since OVW.

It's more an issue of them not wanting bikini streamers attracting subscribers and donations by showing skin on a platform used by minors. Companies like Blizzard aren't going to want anything to do with them if they become a glorified LiveJasmin.

What if I told you that both were shit?

William Regal once said that the 1978 Rocco/Jones match was his favorite of all time. That should be all the endorsement you need.

The important thing to remember is that revenue this quarter was actually below expectations. The profit was all due to reduced TV expenses. It's also worth noting that most of the wrestlers enjoy doing house shows (and to be quite frank, a lot of them need every opportunity they can get to rehearse their matches). Still, the past few months have hopefully opened their eyes to the raw deal they're getting in having to cover their own road expenses. *cue video of Bayley trying to explain to an incredulous interviewer why it isn't covered by their CBA*

Zack has been on gear for years. Remember: traps don't lie.

Here's Tyler Reks giving Ki and Aries a run for their money in COVID dumbassery. I checked his Twitter account a while back, and he's a major QAnon chud. If the stories about Cena burying him are true, he most likely deserved it.

You can't be serious. Other than a reprehensible race-baiting cheap heat gimmick, there was absolutely nothing distinguishing him from the legions of juiced-up muscleheads who had a cup of coffee in the business in the early-mid 2000s.

It was indeed. Zack Ryder may be yet another Cody nepotism hire, but she has no preexisting relationships with anyone in AEW that I know of. They must be desperate for bodies to fill out the women's tag tournament, because bringing in the woman who did this is about as close to the bottom of the barrel as you can get. Was Eva Marie not available?

I hold the Segunda Caida crew responsible. The wheels came off around the time they named Gargano/Almas their 2018 MOTY.

The fundamental issue is that being a developmental territory and being a super indy are inherently antithetical goals and that contradiction was bound to catch up with them eventually. They tried to split the difference for a while by having NXT serve as a finishing school for indy talent to prepare them for the main roster, but Vince's insanity made that untenable in the long run.

I always get Warhorse and Danhausen mixed up. There seems to be something of a boomlet of wacky face-painted wrestlers on the indies these days.

Update: 146. Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue (AJPW, 6/5/98) This was GET's last shot at the tag titles, and they went out with a bang. A 30-minute match with Johnny Ace sounds like a dodgy proposition, but they make it work by limiting his involvement as the legal man. He mainly works the match as an assist character, performing double-teams with Kobashi and running in to make saves and cut off the other team. Anyone who thinks that Taue wasn't legitimately great and was just along for the ride in his classic matches needs to watch this match and compare his performance with Ace's. Make particular note of his attentiveness to the little things like his attempt to prevent Ace from tagging out and his subsequent attempt to shut down Kobashi's hot tag. The work on Taue's leg is a non-factor down the stretch, but he had plenty of time to recover on the apron and Kobashi and Ace never went back to it. I would say that leg work that doesn't factor into the finish is mostly fine in tag matches because tagging out and recovering on the outside provides a plausible out. It's far more problematic in singles matches when a wrestler has to either try to mount a believable comeback while being unable to stand or essentially blow it off. Kawada and Taue show why they're the kings of front-running as they demolish Kobashi in the end while preventing Ace from saving his partner. No team ever slammed the door on their opponents quite like the HDA. Another feather in the cap of the GOAT tag team. And Kobashi virtually single-handedly dragging his team to a match of this caliber is another bullet point in the argument for him as the overall GOAT. ****1/2

In 1992, the WWF had a jobber named Bruce Mitchell because they didn't like what he was writing about them in the Torch. After one of his matches, Gorilla Monsoon said that Bruce Mitchell had no place in the wrestling business.

I usually give Gedo the benefit of the doubt, but this KOPW title sounds like a miss. New Japan already has too many titles as it is, and the "challenger picks the stipulation" gimmick gives it the stench of a comedy jobber belt like the Hardcore title or the 24/7 title.

There's no Big Bang Catastrophe in DBZ that I know of. There is a Big Bang Attack, though. I suspect the name of Keith Lee's finisher is part anime reference and part...you know.

Well, "gaijin" hasn't been acceptable for use in Japanese media for decades. If you listen to Japanese broadcasts, they always say "gaikokujin" (the more formal/polite term). And keep in mind that Japan is a country where the national broadcasting service produced this video to explain Black Lives Matter to children. If a term is too racially insensitive for Japanese TV, it probably shouldn't be used.

In other news: So either he was severely gotten to by Pat McAfee or it was an attempt at a worked shoot that failed miserably. Also, we live in an era where heels have to apologize for being assholes.

Henry O. Godwinn and Phineas I. Godwinn

Speaking of nicknames, how long has Seth Rollins been The Black Hand of Raw? https://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2020-07-27