WingedEagle

Was the Gunther/Orton finish designed to build a rematch or just a botch that they're playing off of?

I know they ran Inoki/Saito a few years earlier, but was bringing back this gimmick any kind of response to or prompted by Onita & FMW? Just seems like such an odd call in a vacuum.

Perhaps I benefitted from having zero expectations unlike most of this crew's well heralded classics, but in the moment this even felt head and shoulders above the the 4/20 six man as my MOTY even with the lack of a decisive finish. Just incredible work throughout with Jumbo in particular delivering one of his nastiest performances ever. The early work on Kawada's gut is enough to make most matches great, but the back half with Jumbo/Taue just viciously trying to break Misawa's face was incredible. One of the easiest ***** I've marked down in some time.

I know there's a thread for great matches under 10 minutes but at 4:50 this is one of the best sub 5 minutes matches I've seen. Phenomenal work, selling, fire and heat. Everyone crushed it. If there's such a thing as **** 5 minute match this is it.

Is the sound off for anyone? It sounds like the commentary and crowd are significantly turned down.

That's for the 6 wrestlers who haven't broken a sweat to figure out. I'm good here. I don't think I've ever gone into a match with expectations that high and the match actually destroyed all said expectations. Goddamn.

So that had to be an angle with the way they let Ospreay get close and check on him and have the "doctors" sit him up, right?

This fucking match. They are not disappointing.

Do you really want a babyface getting booed out of a stadium though?

I know its apparently preordained that Swerve takes the title tonight, but Ospreay should really win it from a big time heel like Joe at Wembley.

Right? How do you not absolutely love and get drawn in by just how much much *he* loves every outing?

Here we fucking go!

Had Jericho lost I wouldn't have had any major objections to that match. Jericho took some sick, stupid bumps for a man his age and for no reason at all. But now this saga must continue to the delight of no one outside of those pulling the strings. Meanwhile, what exactly is it that Hook does other than look cool outside the ring? Dude seems like the stoner version of his dad who thinks he's the human suplex machine and indy Ken Shamrock, but nothing he does remsebles that.

Loved it as well but Wardlow's appearance and involvement brought it down for me. Between this and the Okada/Pac finish with the ref there's been some funkier finishes tonight than is typical for AEW.

Ha apparently I'm on an island here! Perhaps I'll check it out again tomorrow. Just didn't seem to grab me the way both of them typically do.

Am I the only one watching this and thinking something is off between Okada & Pac? The work is fine and both are seemingly doing their thing, but perhaps that's the problem. Okada has been his standard, slow build self while Pac's been looking to GO and as a result neither are really shining. Its been pretty good but pretty good feels like a massive disappointment relative to expectations.

Amen. Minus the fun part! Athena needs to make her way to AEW ASAP. Like before the pandemic ASAP. Every single thing she's done in ROH, from the killer matches, to the promos and squashes would fit into AEW's programming and be the best thing that happened to the division since Hayter was healthy and putting on big matches.

Have any wrestlers addressed any challenges in working with a mask as opposed to unmasked? I imagine those with larger eyelets aren't too difficult, but others seem like they'd severely hinder peripheral vision.

I saw it. Better than her usual fare but the character is simply a miss for me every time out. I don't need to watch her audition tapes for SNL. Hopefully this entire act is shelved if/when the Storm/May story wraps up.

These last few weeks are getting rough. TV matches generally (fortunately not always) seem shorter, workers like the Bucks are now cutting promos on the mic *during* their match and things like the 6 man titles / White/Gunn feud are getting multiple segments per show. What the hell is going on? The women have been an absolute mess. Toni Storm went from being one of the most charismatic and dynamic young women around to a channel changing/fast forward material "character" suffocating an entire division. Purrazzo came in and looked clunky from the jump rather. Couple that with being originally miscast as a babyface and now slow rolling towards a heel without any compelling motivation and you've got someone who's initial shine is quickly wearing off. Meanwhie Mone comes in and her runaway strength -- work -- is being leveraged by having her cut robotic promos while her first match is essentially 2 months after her debut? Some really puzzling decisions and priorities. I've got no doubt Dynasty will deliver in the ring because the PPVs always do. But outside of Joe's promos and a literal dream match in Ospreay/Danielson (which outside of the first, silent face to face they've done little to establish just what a bonkers match this is) they haven't given people much to sink their teeth into.

I'm actually kind of shocked they had Rhea vacate the title if there's actually a chance she's only out for ~3 months. You could easily smoke & mirrors your way through that without a proper defense.

Probably demanded some Affliction gear and Prime energy for a year.

With Tonga very clearly joining Bloodline Wolfpac, does that mean Jacob Fatu dons the black & white to balance things a bit?

Strapping up Mox certainly makes for a fun spring. Umino & Narita seem locked in for Dontaku & the May US show, and I imagine Mox will make a couple more appearances in Japan before presumably dropping it back to Naito at Dominion. Then we're right back where we are today while hoping some outsiders spruce up a rather bleak looking G1. Hope!

If Ospreay winning the title at Wembley is in fact the goal I think it would make a lot more sense to keep the title on Joe and let Ospreay conquer that massively over heel rather than put Swerve, the other babyface you're grooming, in that position where there's nothing he can do but play heel. But I'm just the schmuck here rather than the one running Wembley.