NintendoLogic

Happy New Year to everyone except whoever was setting off firecrackers on my street at 1 AM.

I've come to realize that matches in the 20-30 minute range that combine elements of technical wrestling, brawling, and highspots (the old Roy Shire philosophy) are the ones I find the most consistently rewarding. For my money, Bret was probably the best ever at constructing that kind of match. Like most wrestlers of this generation, Danielson is a victim of the disease of more. I'm hard-pressed to think of a high-profile Danielson match that wouldn't benefit from being at least five minutes shorter.

I have a feeling that the next step is going to be Mitchell resurfacing on Parler and complaining about cancel culture. The main takeaway from all this is that if the entire world except for Jonathan Snowden is telling you that your take is bad, it's not very likely that everyone else is wrong.

Mesias/Muertes has amply demonstrated that he doesn't need LU bells and whistles to deliver in the ring. He was even able to have great matches in AAA, which is a miraculous feat. Granted, that was a good while ago.

This is a cage match where the only ways to win are by pinfall or climbing over the top of the cage to escape. I've never cared for escape rule cage matches due to the inherent silliness of winning a grudge match by running away from your opponent. They only really work for me when they're done Bruno-style where the babyface beats the living shit out of the heel and then calmly walks out the cage door. Here, they made it work by keeping the escape attempts to a minimum. Notably, Claudio never tries to climb out himself and only goes up to cut off Brodie's attempts to escape. Overall, this is a pretty fantastic hoss fight where everything feels rough and uncooperative. Both men unleash stiff strikes and take hard bumps into the cage, with Claudio gorilla pressing Brodie into the cage in particular standing out. Brodie's domination in the opening minutes dragged a bit, although I liked the psychology of Claudio fighting from underneath and gradually turning the tide. The diving uppercut off the top of the cage at the end was pretty insane. Strong contender for best match in company history.

In case you missed it, Miz got his Money in the Bank briefcase back. Yet another reminder that nothing ever matters in this company. It's just a bunch of stuff that happens.

Meltzer said on today's WOR that COVID can be categorically ruled out because he was tested before every AEW event as well as many times in the hospital and tested negative every time.

Here's one of the more notorious moments in the promotion's history. I'll copy what I wrote in the Dark Side of the Ring thread: On a lighter note, Abrams also had Doc squash a jobber named Davey Meltzer.

I noticed the piece had a surprising number of typos, a telltale sign of a rush job. It felt to me like his priority was being the first one out the gate with his hot take so he could pat himself on the back for being a prophet if he turned out to be right.

Snowden's Ken Shamrock biography seems to be well-regarded, but I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

It's certainly natural to have questions whenever an athlete dies suddenly, particularly in an industry with a track record like pro wrestling. And widows of recently deceased wrestlers telling white lies to protect the business is hardly unprecedented. After Eddie Guerrero died, Vickie said his heart was enlarged because he was working out so much. But there's a big difference between asking reasonable questions in the wake of a tragedy and trying to shoehorn a tragedy into a preexisting agenda. Mitchell has been beating the "pro wrestling needs to be shut down during the pandemic" drum for months now, so he has an obvious incentive to want to tie Brodie's death to COVID. Engaging in speculation in the absence of either compelling evidence or specialized knowledge that would allow him to make inferences from lesser evidence ("I'm not a doctor") only serves to poison the well.

The dude deleted his tweet giving his side of the story, but according to him, he worked the first episode of Dynamite in DC and got paid $200. He then worked their shows in Champaign and Indianapolis and got paid $80 for each. If AEW stiffed him on a mutually agreed upon rate, they deserve to be called out. But he makes it sound like he simply assumed he'd be paid $200. Which, who the hell takes a gig without knowing what the pay will be? He also more or less said that he was booked as a favor to a friend of his in the company, which is why he didn't make an issue of it. I'm getting "production guy who said AEW was bullying him but was actually a huge creep" vibes.

What the fuck.

More like Drew Brees is the guy since Smackdown had the benefit of the NFL lead-in. At least WWE had the good sense to not try to win over normies and lapsed fans with middle-aged dad bod Jericho. Then again, Kevin Owens isn't much better.

And he still put out the Observer on time this week. The guy's a machine.

Our good friend Parv appears to have been sucked into the intellectual dark web. In his last big run in the PWO territory, he was arguing that WWE wrestlers shouldn't be classified as employees because it might lead to guys like Ted DiBiase Jr. sticking around longer than they would otherwise. Happy holidays, everyone. Here's a Christmas safety tip: if you have a title match that day, keep your head as far away from the steel cage door as possible.

Shouldn't The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever have won this award?

The Experience is currently on hiatus for the holidays. But the Firefly Inferno Match required Cornette's immediate attention, so he offered his thoughts in a YouTube exclusive. For 41 minutes. Buckle up, because it's a doozy.

Remember when people here were claiming that the female audience was down because Roman was out with leukemia? Fun times.

How's our friend Ricochet doing? He's crying on Raw Talk. You know, WWE should probably fire Charly for encouraging him to join an organization dedicated to bringing the company down from within.

Tenryu has to be the ultimate example of a late bloomer. He was pretty actively bad for like the first decade of his career. Then he started working with Choshu and the light bulb seemingly just came on.

I have a feeling they're going to start periodically killing off the Fiend and resurrecting him in a new form as a merchandising ploy. Like destroying Megatron and turning him into Galvatron so there'd be new toys to sell.

In fairness, the champion working tag matches to set up their partner turning on them is a longstanding McMahon family booking tradition.

When The Death of WWE is written, there will be a shot of the Firefly Inferno Match on the cover. Also, everyone should have seen this coming, but:

HHH in a 2009 inteview: All the stars are at a certain level. You can't make someone a star by simply bringing other stars down. That's not how the business works; it's not how it's ever worked. The new stars have to rise on their own. What big star ever laid down for me? It's like being squashed by the Ultimate Warrior and made the curtain call scapegoat gave him PTSD and he spent the rest of his career trying to compensate.