Jmare007

Fucking hell Sanada sucks. Him holding the strap till WK is not justifiable.

But he didn't do anything to Kenny besides putting him in a submission for like 30 seconds. It didn't feel like PAC would've been satisfied or got enough revenge on Omega for him to just bail on the match after a couple of very forced and silly clashes with Claudio.

Ibushi looked and worked well during this year's Bloodsport. Last night he couldn't even make his kicks look like they were worth a damn. I hope it was more of setting thing and that he can be a special performer in a normal tag with Kenny or single matches. I'd like to believe it was an off night (plus ring rust) than him boring washed.

First of all, I hate that War Games matches have become this long epic cage match when that shit is supposed to be 20-25 minutes of pure hatred and intensity. 50 fucking minutes is indefensible. I think the ending "worked" in the mind of those 10 guys as it was basically the "true friendship" of the Golden Elite coming on top while the two hired guns of the BCC bailed and basically ended the match. But in execution that whole thing sucked ass. And this is basically me using head cannon because during the match it wasn't very palpable (the only thing was PAC and Claudio clashing and barking at each other a couple of times for no real reason) and commentary never even attempted to make it a thing. Hugely disappointed by that match. And Ibushi being an afterthought hurt, I was expecting so much more and dude did literally nothing of note. Yuta was more of an X factor than him. I think Danielson could've made portions of the match better because he can convey hatred and intensity better than anyone on that ring tonight, and only Takeshita leaving could've worked better than 2 guys leaving the BCC and telegraphing the ending. But I honestly don't think it would've made THAT much of a difference.

Yeah, like I said last week it's not the ideal angle for your world champ, but at the same time, it's much better than what we've gotten from MJF this whole year so I'll take this storyline with Cole without any complaints. It does, but when you have a batshit insane dude like Ibushi in a match like this, I can't say I wouldn't be on edge of my seat if Kota is climbing up to the top of the cage.

Yup. I kinda hated Kaito going for a regular tournament match approach (included almost the exact same leg work Narita did earlier in the show) instead of a heated interpromotional sprint because Yota was game for the latter and it could've a truly awesome match. Tsuji vs Umino is my most anticipated match of the tourney for me. I really wanna see if Shota feels the urgency of stepping up now that Yota showed up and is the most ready of the younger guys to take the main event scene (it helps he's also almost 4 years older, but still).

I think the camera shot missed the spot. Commentary said they were both to exhausted to keep the hold but on TV it was impossible to see what exactly happened. Dax taking out his knee pad for better leverage (loved the call by Nigel on that one) makes more sense if he couldn't maintain the sharpshooter prior though, so in my head it still worked perfectly.

Another good main event for Collision. By the way, how in the name of fuck is Ian Riccaboni not the main announcer for at least Collision?? Kevin Kelly has been bleh at best and Ian showed up tonight and did an outstanding job as the play by play guy. The built in chemistry with Nigel was palpable too.

That tag match was unfucking real, loved almost every single second of it.

I saw the Sammy stuff as MJF treating him like inferior competition and little bro'ing him so he could eventually take advantage of the situation. With Cole, I feel Max will feel slighted in some way in the coming weeks and act like Cole betrayed him. To be honest though, I feel the most interesting scenario would be Cole turning on Max and fucking him up mentally, lol.

Because he's an insecure, immature asshole that wants to have friend. I totally buy this angle tbh, I've always seen MJF's character as someone who wants to show/prove the audience and his peers he's someone because he's never had anyone in his life that has supported him or been there for him as an ally/friend. So having Cole makes him go a little crazy.

According to Zarian, All In will be on PPV because HBO Max/MAX is not prepared to stream live a show like that right now as they don't have built-in infrastructure. It seems AEW will try to work a PPV bundle to get All In and All Out cheaper, considering they are 1 week apart. I have a very hard time figuring out how MAX doesn't have the capability to stream a live wrestling show but they do have it to stream futbol games?

All of these make a ton a sense, hopefully the roster complies.

I'm very glad they were able to strike a deal with Ibushi, this angle demanded his presence so I'm happy they were able to deliver. I hope dude stays happy for another 7 weeks so we can see him at Wembley too. Gotta say this Cole/MJF stuff is the most interesting I've seen from Max since the Punk feud. It's compelling to see them finally attack the fact the he's an insecure man child so giving him the "cool best friend" he never had is a very nice change of pace for his character. It's too bad this will likely end in the next couple of weeks as they will probably start building their title match for All In or All Out, I'd like to see them go further with this. Not sure it's the best angle for your current world champion but it's much better than what we've gotten in the last few months so I can't complain at all. I don't think there's anything wrong with him as a performer, specially at his age. But the company promoting him as a "prodigy" so hard will do him no favors. It's practically impossible to live up to that hype in this day and age, specially when you have a roster as talented and varied as AEW. I was happy they did video packages for him, but they went overboard with how they were hyping him up. PAC just calmingly stepping down from the top turnbuckle and walking his merry way while The Elite showed up for the save was hilarious.

Grand Slam 3 at Arthur Ashe confirmed. Sept 20th

I agree with all of the bolded. But Roman was someone that had "great" matches and I haven't seen one from him in a while. At the same time I recognize he got better and better at character work and leaning into simple things to get big reactions. I think the Zayn match, while being very good, had all the makings for a classic but it didn't get there, and it kinda felt like the didn't want to go there as the story called for something else. That's why I think this Tribal Cheif run is interesting to judge. One thing his matches tend to be way too long for the style he's working them, imo. Most of the guys that mastered the "less is more" approach didn't have a lot 30+ minute matches and current Roman takes like 10-15 minutes to get things going. Also, his matches with Braun were simple as fuck and didn't have anything complicated, they had a less is more approach too, and those were fucking awesome.

One of the things I've loved about White-O in AEW is how he's made it a thing to pick a wrestler and do his best to create a rivalry/beef during a match. That's a troupe from japanese wrestling I'll never get tired of seeing and that US wrestling almost doesn't ever have.

The Bloodline angle being such a huge hit has made Roman transition more to a "soap opera" type of wrestler but I think he does as good a job as anyone has ever done at that particular kind of performance. But I do believe his matches have suffered from it, I think the last legit great match I saw from him was the one against Cesaro (which I think is underrated, that match was fucking great). While the others matches since then have delivered as spectacles and as part of a bigger story, I don't think they stand out as much as his prior work. It's an interesting scenario. The hotter the angle got and his performance as the Tribal Chief got more iconic, the less impressed I've become with his ring work

I think the elbows stopped working as a spot when they no longer meant the match was over once he got in the position to hit em, now that's the role his kicks to head have. I don't believe the elbows expose the business anymore than other wrestling spots that most wrestlers do though, I don't find them particularly egregious. To be fair though, every member of the BCC copying it and doing a waaay worse job than Danielson at them has devalued them more than ever before but at the same times they make Danielson's look like the "real deal" in comparison .

Tag match was something else. Main event was really good, seems we are in a real feud between Joe and Punk and I'm all for it.

Haven't seen anything in the last 2 weeks. Have they made any effort in promoting Joe vs Punk as any sort of big deal?

Sadly, I think the hardcore wrestling fanbase here has died down in the last decade. In the late 00s-early 10s there was a mix of fans that grew up with 97-2002 WWF/E (myself included) and the younger audience that was picking up from 2007 when wrestling was once again on national TV. Once Fox Sports got the rights I feel things died down considerably. On the other hand though, I've seen every musical act you can imagine run big stadiums or multiple arena dates to sold out crowds with embarrassingly high ticket prices so WWE running a big show might get some numbers anyway, lol.

I don't know if England will get Wrestlemania in the next couple of years but I have no doubt in my mind WWE will have a huge 2 day event at Wembley so they can have bragging rights about total attendance for a wrestling show

The crazy bastards really are going for 90k at Wembley, and they might just pull it off. https://twitter.com/WrestleTix/status/1676335490121846784

Tribal Chief still got the belt and Paul Heyman.