NintendoLogic

You mean Kickboxer, right?

Omega/Takeshita was indeed excellent (I noped out of Storm/May when it turned into a Taipei death match). The internal narrative probably wasn't deep enough to justify the length, but there were plenty of cool moments and nothing that grossly offended my sensibilities. I dug Omega having to get the win with a cradle because the damage to his midsection made him unable to execute the OWA. I also popped for Don Callis hurting his hand when he punched Omega. We need to make wimpy managers a thing again.

It is true that the execution of pro wrestling angles is frequently embarrassingly incompetent (the unforced errors in the Cena heel turn pale in comparison to "Yeah, but whose side is he on?"). But cinematic wrestling is even worse. It fails to deliver both the artistic rewards of good cinema and the visceral rewards of good wrestling.

I didn't think there was anything in the current scene that could grab my attention other than Punk/Gunther, but I'm all-in on heel Cena even if he's a dead ringer for the Ronald Reagan Spitting Image puppet at this point. The only way that segment could have been better is if Rock had given the signal by raising his eyebrow like when he kicked Faarooq out of the Nation of Domination. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but Cena choking Cody with his tie reminded me of the Nexus beatdown.

Yeah, Ellering managed the Road Warriors both inside and outside the ring, handling their bookings and finances and the like. If I'm not mistaken, he's the one who set up the Zubaz deal. By the way. I'm still around. I check the board every day and still follow wrestling (been working on my 2025 GME ballot), I just don't have much to say about the current scene. The only things to catch my interest the past six months or so have been the Punk/Drew feud and the Goto title chase. These things go in cycles and I'm sure something will suck me back in at some point, but my interest as of now is all but nonexistent. As far as politics goes, I'm basically Jokerfied at this point. I honestly don't give a shit if Trump drives the country into a ditch because that's what the American people voted for. Nothing to do now but sit back and let the leopards eat their faces. I do think it's highly unlikely WWE will fully embrace MAGA like UFC has. Even if the people in charge personally support the administration, they know most of the fanbase doesn't (pro wrestling has become increasingly lib-coded over the past several years). If anything, I expect them to go in the opposite direction and become super-woke when the inevitable anti-Trump backlash hits. I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing land acknowledgments before PLEs by the end of his term.

Speaking of which, I've always been puzzled by Meltzer's insistence that the buyrate for Summerslam that year was largely due to people thinking Bret was going to show up. I was pretty heavily into WWE at the time and I never even considered it as a possibility. When they played his music in Montreal and he didn't come out, I figured that was the end of it.

We've now reached the point where Fandango gets a nostalgia pop. I'm honestly impressed by how douchey Lexis King's facial hair is. Just looking at him caused me to instinctively clench my fist.

The lead story in the current Observer is about AEW inconsistency issues. When I saw the header image was a photo of the Hurt Syndicate celebrating in the ring, I immediately thought of @El-P.

I'm a fan of the Usos as a tag team, but I never saw anything that made me think either of them could be breakout singles stars. With that said, I was pretty shocked to see people rate Jey/Jimmy as one of the worst matches in Mania history. I thought it was perfectly acceptable wrestling that just never hit escape velocity. In other news... https://x.com/davemeltzerWON/status/1881805825674719685 Between this and PCO, 2025 so far is shaping up to be a banner year for blurred work/shoot storylines I couldn't possibly care less about.

Goto is my favorite guy from the New Japan meathead division. If anyone deserves a title run as a lifetime achievement award, it's him. And if it actually does business, so much the better.

https://x.com/WWEGraves/status/1879161902372401621 This would normally be an angle alert, but PWInsider is reporting he won't be on the show and was spotted at the airport leaving Orlando. Meltzer is speculating he's trying to do a Pillman blurring of the lines deal. For fuck's sake.

A Britt/Charlotte feud must happen. It has the potential to make Bret/Shawn in 1997 look like the Get Along Gang.

https://x.com/WWEShop/status/1878839229566054623 I'll admit, that's a pretty cool shirt. Remember, the key to a good wrestling shirt is that it not look like a wrestling shirt. That looks like it could be merch for a death metal band (which, granted, is probably a lateral move in terms of social acceptability).

Chris Charlton as AEW's Sonny Onoo would be dimes.

https://x.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1876273485556994258 Fitting that they would announce this partnership on January 6th. Oh, and it looks like the 2026 Rumble will be in Saudi Arabia. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

This is the first time I've seen a picture of Jumbo Miyamoto, let alone in action. Now that I've seen her, I figure she has to be the most inaptly named wrestler of all time.

Samoa Joe would surely count as a positive difference-maker from WWE, wouldn't he? Just about everyone (myself included) thought he was cooked after his last NXT run, but he's overdelivered in a major way.

Memphis whenever Jerry Lawler had the book. I take it from your avatar that you're familiar with Titanes en el Ring. If you haven't already, you should check out AAA because Antonio Pena was heavily influenced by that promotion.

More likely she's there to be the Paula Abdul to Undertaker and/or Bubba Ray's Simon Cowell. It's not like any of them will be displaying their real personalities. Reality TV is faker than pro wrestling.

I'd say Adam Copeland has been a net positive for AEW. I suppose it helps that he got injured before he could run the risk of wearing out his welcome. Minor pedantic note: shouldn't the plural form of battle royal be battles royal? Battle is the noun and royal is the modifier.

He obviously wasn't the cause, but this is still very funny.

Punk and Bryan should be paired together in terms of influence because neither would be anywhere near as big a deal without the other. Punk opened the door for indy guys to be legit WWE main eventers and was a bigger draw overall, but Bryan was the one who proved the concept had staying power. Given the circumstances of Punk's first departure from WWE, the company likely would have written off the indy experiment as a failure had Bryan not gotten over organically to the degree he did.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/19/politics/linda-mcmahon-education-secretary-trump LOL. LMAO, even.

HOF issue is out. This year's class is Roman Reigns, Shingo Takagi, Paul Orndorff, Johnny Rougeau, the Young Bucks, Los Hermanos Dinamita, Johnny Saint, Bobby Davis, and...Cima? What the fuck?

I had to skim through the section of the Observer discussing the lawsuit because the details were so nauseating.