NintendoLogic

https://shop.wwe.com/seth-rollins-the-mans-man-authentic-t-shirt/1551846F7B.html?dwvar_1551846F7B_color=Black#start=1 WWE merchandise has been pretty uninspired in recent years, but this is especially awful. Rollins is one of the few guys willing to embarrass himself sticking up for the company on social media and this is how they repay him.

Damien Sandow is making his return to the squared circle this coming weekend. His new gimmick: THE MILLENNIAL SLAYER. Are you excited yet?

He probably doesn't get enough credit for all the fans drawn to CMLL events under his leadership. I know plenty have argued that the way CMLL is structured makes it impossible for them to lose money, but it's not like there haven't been plenty of promoters who had a good thing going and killed the golden goose by fucking with the formula. If nothing else, he deserves to be recognized for being able to stay out of his own way. Also, being the only business partner New Japan is actually loyal to has to count for something.

The biggest problem was the lack of crowd heat. I suspect that they didn't want to boo either guy, so KENTA working heel deflated them. They also probably expected more high flying from KENTA, even though he doesn't really work that style anymore.

Ospreay/Archer was dope. EVIL/Fale was not. If Fale isn't the worst wrestler with a significant push in a major promotion, he's not too far off.

It was one of the matches in the 5-on-5 gauntlet on 4/19/84. It's available for download on Ditch's website.

I checked out the June 17 CHAOS vs. Suzuki-gun elimination tag on a whim, and it turned out to be a bona fide MOTYC. It was the show where they announced the G1 participants, so everybody had their working boots on. There was the obligatory crappy crowd brawling and other Suzuki-gun smoke and mirrors, but other than that, this had everything you want from this kind of match. They went at it for 30-plus minutes with hardly any letdown, everybody got a chance to shine while maintaining a clear sense of hierarchy (Lance Archer in particular looked like a beast), the eliminations were clever without being too cute, and there was plenty of drama in the closing minutes. It's not on par with 80s classics, but it's still well worth going out of your way to see.

Dillinger was a guy who got over in NXT with a silly catchphrase and whose in-ring career peaked with pretty good match against Bobby Roode at that one Takeover. None of that exactly screams "diamond in the rough." The star-making system in WWE may be broken, but looking at "misused" talent given the chance to spread their wings and show what they're capable of, there have been far more Aron Rexes than Jon Moxleys. Also, there wouldn't be nearly as much hate if Spears had simply jumped Cody after the Allin match and laid him out. I'd very much prefer no chairs to the head under any circumstances, but at the very least they need to be limited to super-hot main event angles for major shows. So either AEW is rocketing a WWE prelim guy to a main event position or they used an unprotected chairshot to heat up a midcard angle.

From the latest Observer: This got me thinking about John Cena's impact. He drew in a ton of mostly younger fans, but he drove away a lot of older fans in the process. It seems that the fans he drew in didn't end up sticking around while the ones he drove away never came back. He could very well end up with a legacy like the NWO: turning business around in the short term but hurting the company over the long run.

Match of the Year: Cody vs. Dustin Best Major Wrestling Show: Double or Nothing Best Promotion: AEW needs to run more shows to quality, so I'll default to New Japan Best on Interviews: Daniel Bryan Feud of the Year: Vince McMahon vs. dementia Most Improved: I want to say Cody, but he needs more matches, so I'll go with Taichi Wrestler of the Year: Daniel Bryan

You guys are being ridiculous. "How DARE you refer to Shawn Spears by his slave name!" Tye Dillinger is by far the name he's best known as, and the onus is on him to accomplish something of note to escape that shadow. If Jon Moxley had done fuck-all since leaving WWE except appear in a geek battle royal, he'd still be known mainly as Dean Ambrose.

She and Andrade have been on hiatus since his mother died a few weeks ago. EDIT: Andrade was apparently on the show tonight, so never mind.

According to PWI, Maria Kanellis informed WWE that she was pregnant after she and Mike signed their new deals. They obviously can't do much to her, but if this segment is any indication, MIke's going to be eating a ton of shit over the next nine months.

The argument that the wrestlers are adults making their own decisions doesn't really work when the wrestler in question is part of management. It's pretty clear that the workers themselves aren't going to check themselves from taking unnecessary risks, so the pressure to rein things in has to come from up top. When one of the bosses is out there killing himself, it has the opposite effect.

Good news for those who hope for AEW to be a serious product and not a cartoon freak show: Tony Khan says no to intergender matches.

I think the rise of AEW has made the Impact/ROH/MLW-style mid-major promotion obsolete. They can't really base their products around workrate because most of the top workers have been locked down by the big companies and the ones they do have are likely to bolt once their contracts are up. So they have to focus more on shtick, but that pretty much limits you to a niche audience.

Nobody here is blindly negative toward AEW or wants them to fail (other than Herodes, I guess), but wanting them to succeed doesn't mean sticking your head in the sand and ignoring problematic tendencies. To wit, this is the second event in a row that the preshow has been a disaster. The tag match was fine as a showcase for Private Party, but the rest was irredeemable dogshit. The Dark Order and the librarian crap need to be either drastically retooled or dropped entirely, because they both went over like a lead balloon and doubling down on something that clearly isn't working is a McMahon tendency. And some random schmuck (which is what Jebailey is to anyone outside the FGC) having a comedy hardcore match and walking away without a scratch makes it all look like fake play fighting that anyone off the street can do with a bit of practice. If that had to be on the show, it should have been a dark match solely for the live audience. The main show was much better (and even then, matches with barbed wire and thumbtacks are going to drive away far more fans than they attract), but that's part of the problem. The preshow is going to be a lot of people's first glimpse of the product, so the focus needs to be on appealing to a wider audience and not goofing off with self-indulgent inside jokes. I guarantee you there were plenty of lapsed fans who checked out the preshow and will probably never give AEW another chance based on what they saw.

AEW is claiming that the chair was gimmicked but something went wrong. If you watch the footage, Cody does appear to instinctively flinch right before impact, causing him to get hit by the edge of the chair rather than the presumably gimmicked seat. Of course, it would have been simpler and safer for Cody to just put his hands up to block the chair like a normal person would if they saw someone swinging a blunt object at their head. But hey, if he wants to scramble his brain to try to get Tye Dillinger over, more power to him.

The main event was repulsive. Taking off an opponent's boots so you can drive his bare feet into thumbtacks can only be described as torture porn. That kind of garbage has no place in a civilized society.

MOTN so far. Great way to get over both Allin and time limit draws.

Yeah, the preshow was pretty wretched. Nothing on it would have looked out of place on a 2011 TNA show.

Was that Justin Wong in the audience?

Cody/Allin is my sleeper pick for MOTN. Allin might be the best in the world at taking a beating, and we've seen that Cody can deliver one.

One of the true standouts from the ridiculously loaded 2014 G1. They begin by colliding with each other like a couple of runaway freight trains and never let up from there. Although the match is worked fairly evenly, there's no doubt that Honma is a massive underdog. Every time Honma achieves a minor victory, he reacts like he just won the lottery, while Shibata never seems concerned that that match might be slipping away. It's as if he figures that Honma's willingness to turn himself into a human missile means it'll only be a matter of time before he crashes and burns (which he does in particularly brutal fashion). The violence and intensity are what drive this, but the underlying intelligence is what makes it a classic. There are no mindless counters or transitions, and the desperation in Honma's face makes this feel like a real life-or-death struggle rather than a macho pissing contest. This is almost certainly the pinnacle of modern strong style.

It's actually for a slightly different reason. Vince's brain worms have decided that there can be no wrestling during commercials, so the 2/3 falls matches are so they can have commercial breaks in between falls.