DR Ackermann

I think it's pretty obvious that Michaels was playing up his back injury and it wasn't in service of the match. Clearly a man who resents that he has been overtaken by Austin in the backstage and popular hierarchy, and is throwing a temper tantrum/manipulation fit before he unnecessarily sits out of wrestling for half a decade. Seriously go back and watch this. His selling is great but obviously contrived because he would not be taking those bumps if his pain was that bad that he had to react that way in between every move. He was making everything about himself and in the end it didn't matter. Anyway this match is way better than I remember. I always found it a little underwhelming. But it's very fun. Not amazing, but fun and interesting to see Michaels' temper tantrum reaction to the changing of the guards in real time. He was a very talented performer. Imagine if he wasn't on drugs during his prime. I think he could have been a better opponent than Bret for Austin in some ways, as the two of them together were better equipped to have the fast paced, Steamboat/Flair style match that Austin was a proponent of, especially in his WCW time. I guess that's kind of crazy to say considering how good Austin's matches with Bret were, but I think we missed out on some good stuff with Michaels' early retirement.

I understand that, but he was being booked poorly before that.

Loving these big singles face pushes for Starks and Jungle Boy. I'm way more into them than I was a few months ago. TK is really hitting it out of the park. They've come a long way and look stronger than ever. What a great booker!

He sounds like he's jealous of Mox's family too.

This is a pretty terrible Adam Page promo. He sounds really insecure.

AEW immediately uses the same dumb overused interrupted interview trope with Renee.

Jericho wrestles at a level any 10 year vet should be able to without trying. And people are saying it's his career year.

Bandido might be worse than Jericho

Calling CM Punk's run a bust is ludicrous however you feel about him. He helped elevate MJF. He had as good of a match for match run as anyone else in company history. He reestablished a more rewarding and engaging in ring style, and helped other wrestlers take their work up a level. And he, (along with Kingston and to a lesser extent, Mox) gave us the best promo work in the business. And that's just from a critical standpoint. He was great for business.

Ratings are up because it was the end of the summer. Ratings always dip in the summer.

Danielson/Jericho from dynamite is Jericho's best singles this year

Those uppercuts from Claudio look like shit

Rampage main event was great. Best AEW tv match of the week. I like how much Dax mixes up his strikes and they all looked good. He's really flipped a switch. And Claudio toned down the uppercut spamming. His regular ones look good but he can fall into the trap of forcing variations that look weak. Best Claudio match in AEW. Looking forward to a rewatch.

https://twitter.com/LetThemWrestle/status/1566660709341171712?s=20&t=xB1KBylYf9siAbYFLE8CmA Best part of the weekend that's getting overlooked is deranged Tony at the press conference.

Garcia has a lot more upside than Wheeler, who is still pretty bland. Garcia's not very good on the mic, kinda sounds like a baby, but he has good character work. He reminds me of Kurt Angle in the sense that he seems really serious at first but he has the goofy heel stuff going for him. He's much better as a heel at this point but he can go in the ring.

Penelope is better than Kip.

PAC is boring.

If you can't walk you are going to gain weight. And that will include fat and muscle mass if you are working out.

I don't know any of these people in real life but I was around Colt Cabana at a DGUSA show WrestleMania 30 weekend. I saw how he treated fans of his who were excited to meet him. He was a douchebag and treated them with contempt and mocked them.

Something to keep in mind

FTR got way better when they started working with Punk. And they credited him with that too.

And every year the TV audience decreases, so any rise whatsoever in ratings is a bigger deal than it appears on paper. And when you look at it segment by segment Punk draws numbers. We are on the outside looking in, so we don't know how things went down exactly. Punk is a unique talent. And some people would say the same about The Bucks and Omega. I think as wrestling fans the ideal situation is for everyone to stay and we get the best product possible (as long as everyone is able to work together going forward).

You can feel however you want about the situation, but it's inaccurate to say that Punk doesn't bring in higher ratings.

Swerve has a lot of offense that's awkward and unnecessarily intricate and looks dumb but he kept that to a minimum tonight. If he can streamline that a bit and stick with the vicious stuff he was doing tonight that will go along way. He and Keith were great in the heel role tonight.