MoS

I swear I am not trolling: Roman Reigns.

Completely correct, and extremely interesting and intriguing. For those who are curious and for those who want to discuss this on a deeper level, here is Meltz's exact report, and I see no reason to doubt his reporting on business numbers: he has always been accurate in respect of business figures

He is also so terrible at blatantly calling spots and talking to others on camera. This match, he was loudly asking the ref if they were in a break (and no, they were not). I mean, this is one aspect of pro wrestling you would consider him to be excellent at, given he has been on national TV in prominent slots for like 25 years now. I will never forget, in the first Blood and Guts match, he had MJF in the Walls of Jericho, and in full view of the camera, when it was time for MJF to reverse it, he literally tapped MJF on the thigh, told him to reverse it, and started releasing his own hold. It's like he has forgotten how to work cameras? In a promotion full of indy guys who have never worked on TV before, he seems to stand out in the worst possible way.

No, people in Japan who ordered through NJPW world. In any case, per Meltz, the number was just 7,000, so that made a minimal difference. I suspect the low number in Japan was because of the timing - it was Monday morning in Japan when the PPV aired, like the worst possible time to have a PPV.

Apparently between PPV buys and NJPW subs, Forbidden Door did 127,000, which, given the lack of AEW stars and the awful build, has to be considered a big success for them. Maybe they should start doing more PPVs generally.

Looks like Roman got his next few WM opponents

They've been friends for years, haven't they

Eddie was also telling Claudio at the end that he hurt his back. Hope it's not too serious, the absolute last thing AEW needs is Eddie Kingston on the shelf

I dunno if Mox will make my ballot, I dunno if he is one of the 100 GWE, but as someone who was in the crowd at DoN 2020 when he made his entrance, he absolutely felt like a top 100 GWE on that night. That entrance was the greatest moment I have experienced at live events of any sort, and that match was a banger too. Easily the main event for the live crowd, and it going 2nd hurt a lot of the matches that followed.

I thought the middle of the match dragged a bit, possibly due to Santana blowing out his knee and them needing to adjust to that. I also wish that not every one of this kind of match goes on top; it takes ages for them to climb, and the Sammy bump was not necessary In this case though, for me, it was worth it just for seeing Claudio swing Jericho on top of the cage. That was a crazy "holy shit" spot, and credit to Jericho for trusting Claudio enough to do that. Man, Claudio is strong as fuck, and now that he is on a roster full of generally smaller guys to work with, it means we can see him press slam more fools. The finish was also clever and great storytelling, and it's nice to see more angles and storylines developing in AEW again. Christian being the swarmiest dick possible is another great one.

For now, I will just settle on you saying she is not as bad as Charlotte

Also I know I like to pick on good bubba KawadaSmile's hatred for Britt, but by my understanding, she has now put over Toni Storm twice in a much stronger and more convincing way than anyone has in the past, what, 5 years? To the point everyone was thinking Storm would win the title.

I watched the show not having seen a full AEW show since DoN, and I thought the show definitely overdelivered. My first thought coming off the show was that Eddie Kingston should absolutely get a run with the world title, even if it is brief. Everything he does is so compelling. Compare it to someone like Adam Cole, who looked like a fish out of water and a total generic midcarder in the four-way, although I get that someone had to be there to eat the pin. I also think that this is the best run of Sting's career. I never liked surfer Sting, thought he was goofy as fuck. Crow Sting was great as the opposing force to the nWo - and I think Hogan really carried the bulk of the TV in 96-97, with a lot of help from Savage and Luger - but he immediately crashed pretty much as soon as Starrcade 1997, and the later years were just bad. Never watched his TNA run. But Sting as the cool crazy badass dad in AEW has fit in like a hand in glove, just perfect. Part of it is his opponents making him look like a god and the booking being perfect, but everything has aligned perfectly.

That's my feeling on it at least. He made Linda the interim CEO or chairperson or whatever when the roid trial threatened to take him down, as long-time fans would know, while still retaining creative control, stiffing Bill Watts in the process and keeping a Jarrett in the wings, like he has right now. The only difference I guess is that he did not appear live on Raw in character as Memphis McMahon to address the allegations against him back then

Paige is leaving WWE next month so it actually makes sense. Shame about that. Leaving aside Paige's personal life being what is, in the post-WM 30 world, which I, along with many fans, have thought of as a series ending finale for WWE, she was one of the first wrestlers of that post-finale era -if you weeeel- who kept my attention and drew me to her matches in NXT, even before she became champ. Great in-ring, excellent ability to play to the crowd and project her gimmick, good mic-skills, and a natural connection with the crowds. Sasha is the GOAT North American female worker and the Horsewomen really accelerated the trend of women being taken seriously in WWE - even though the credit in official canon went to Steph, because of course it did - but I would argue it was Paige who lit that fire. She was excellent, and I have legitimately great memories of her matches with Emma; those matches imo were excellent, some of the best things NXT has ever done, and really showed just how brilliant Paige could be. All of this shows in just how over she always was and remained to the end, even when she would randomly return with no fanfare to manage other wrestlers. She really is one of the OGs, one of the pioneers

Yeah, this is like the absolute epitome of pro wrestling, in a nutshell

This is legitimately hilarious. Stand up for WWE v.2?

Don't you love it when you take a leave of absence to focus on your family and then weeks later come back for a job ten times more demanding

I love how he will still run creative though, remember when he hired Bill Watts to run creative 20 years ago and changed his mind about a week later

WHOA

Exactly. It's not the "merit" of the assessment that is at issue here.

Sean Ross Sapp said that WWE couldn't confirm this to them when he asked, and they usually confirm releases. Meltz hasn't said anything either. I would wait for other people to confirm or WWE's official word before I believe this. They have never seen Sasha as the top star she absolutely should be, but I'm not sure they would let her walk away like this.

Answering the former would require difficult choices in maintaining professionalism, giving his side of the story but not disrespecting the talent. Shitting on the latter is easy work, and no one is really going to disagree. Bischoff is well familiar with this; he used to do the exact same during his promoter days.

Work took over - I do watch this shit from 4:30 AM onwards - and I say this not to be difficult or petulant, but this is the first AEW PPV I have come across where so many booking decisions disappointed me. Punk getting the world title is one thing, but Cole won the Owen Hart tournament, Britt won the women's one even though she absolutely does not need it - and really, this should have been Kris Statlander's moment , and I say this as the local Britt defender on the board; somehow the Bucks are putting over the Hardys; Darby Allin, a legit homemade star, draw and merchandise mover, is putting over that pasty-white ugly jabroni KOR; Jericho Appreciation Society has now won every match they have had, making all of those spectacular Kingston promos look kind of foolish and dumb, cuz he keeps threatening violence and always ends up losing; and JB & Luchasaurus retain over two teams more over than they are. It feels like a weird mixture of NXT-and-friends-lite and Tony giving into some clever convincing by some veterans. None of the other young stars looked good, except HOOK during the Buy-In. The Owen women's tournament should really have been Kris Statlander's moment, Darby deserved a major PPV singles win, really, I feel like I should have switched the PPV off after the pitch perfect Wardlow-MJF squash. That was genuinely great. But otherwise, this is the first AEW PPV which has made me come out feeling disappointed that I was excited about it. Nothing to do with Punk winning, just the general trend of booking. Like, sorry, but there is a reason the NXT with the Undisputed on top got massacred in the wrestling war. They're just not interesting after a point in time. Use them to make sure your young stars get reps, yes, but don't actually put them over the young stars imo. I know it sounds bitter, but I am really not. Just honestly laying my feelings for why I think I will step away from AEW a bit for the moment. Not trying to have a public tantrum here, but given my work hours, I can't follow full-time a wrestling promotion that seems to mostly cater against what I want in terms of whom they perceive as the big stars. I say this only cuz I was the one starting most AEW threads on this forum, so you all, please feel free to dismiss my ranting as sour grapes and please start the new AEW weekly threads and PPV threads whenever you can! I will still cherry-pick and watch things I like, of course; AEW at its absolute worst is better than the best 2022 WWE has to offer. Congrats to everyone who enjoyed it, genuinely and unironically. Hope you keep having fun, ultimately that's why we all watch this silly shit.

Yeah fuck this result. Joe should have squashed him like a bug. TK's insistence to push Cole like he is a franchise player is annoying and mind-boggling.