Migs

I think Cody vs Hangman would have a lot of juice given their history.

Hadn't thought about this, but Meltz points out that Sinclair has a deal with David McLane's WOW group starting in 2022, which might be the answer to how they fill the ROH time slots.

There's plenty of pre-2012 stuff up on Honor Club, although much of it was added in the last year. I assume the issues in getting it up are mostly music editing and laziness. If Sinclair is selling the library but still wants cheap product... is there a chance part of the deal would be filling the ROH slot?

Started catching up on the show today. It's fine. Cody comes off a little goofy but okay. Feels like they're in part trying to respectfully tell a story and in part trying to do standard reality TV, and so it never quite finds the groove. But it also looks like the ratings were pretty solid - guessing we get more of it at some point.

It feels like once the Guevara dust up happened, it's mostly just been Kenny and the Good Brothers going back and forth, and then Christian. So no loss really, and from an Impact perspective at least they're getting the New Japan guys in to spice up the cards.

Agreed, in part because it wasn't stretched for length. Cobb might be the most improved in the world this year, even if I still don't quite care about him.

Right. Okada needed to be up on the pedestal for Omega, who's story needed to be completed by beating Okada, and who had some interesting places to go as champ (even if it all went to shit pretty quickly). Naito's character was all about his nonchalance and ambivalence about wanting to be champion; but frankly, they'd already told that story with the IC title. I don't think they draw to the level they do in 2018 and 2019 if Naito wins against Okada. Page, on the other hand - his growth on the journey to being a champion is basically done. There's no need to stretch it out, with the one potential exception being if they think Omega-Danielson would draw significantly more for the title (reasonable minds can disagree on that one). Page as champion has lots of character growth - what's he like when he first succeeds? How does it change his relationship to the Dark Order and to the Elite? What happens when he finds out maybe winning the title doesn't solve the impostor syndrome? There's a lot on the table if he wins now, and I don't even necessarily think he needs to hold the title forever either (i.e. what if he dropped it to Omega on an April Dynamite and they do Kenny-Dragon at Double or Nothing for the title? Then you get the crowning and the Omega-Dragon PPV title match).

I think I agree, although I do wonder if the level of rivalry eventually gets a certain segment of that group to sample AEW and switch. There's definitely an effect of the rivalry increasing awareness on both sides; I mean, I didn't watch Smackdown but I actually took a look at the live results while I was watching Rampage because I was curious about what WWE was running in that slot. I'm oddly more aware of WWE's current angles than I was a week ago.

Also, Naito was not exactly hot as champ - part of that had to do with COVID, but it was also because they'd missed his peak. (I also think Naito's character didn't really have growth left at that point - that's obviously not the case with Page.)

Interesting how far ahead Smackdown was in total viewers; it's a real statement about how young skewing the AEW audience is. Also, while I'm sure people will dice the numbers a million ways to make arguments that WWE was the real winner, we're definitely in full on war territory here; kinda fun to be back in the 90s.

That was so good and it's so awesome that they were able to put that together. TK is a patron the arts.

This made me think Okada's our winner and that's the briefcase match.

Trying to sketch out the A block finale, with ZSJ/Kenta/Ibushi/Shingo all at 12, and Ishii at 10. Shingo has Yujiro, and it would be pretty wild for him to lose there. Which means he's getting to 14, and I don't expect him to make the finals. That would also knock out Ishii. ZSJ has Tanga Loa. That feels like a potential trap match to set up Tekkers-GOD part 78, although I really hope not as ZSJ would be my preferred finalist from the block. If Shingo wins and ZSJ loses, an Ibushi win puts him in - but it seems real aggressive to put Ibushi into four straight finals. I dunno. Kenta making the finals seems to require a Shingo loss, which seems like a big ask. Maybe that makes ZSJ the likeliest answer. I dunno. I guess what I'm saying is I'm intrigued for next Monday.

I like both guys but thought the match was weird. Like, the big guy athletic stuff was fun, but Contra was trying to murder Hammerstone and they just sort of had a match. (Of course, it sounds like they were going out there at the end of a 5 hour taping, so maybe they were going for big moves to get the crowd back.)

I assume it's Brett with final say, but he does not seem like someone who's dominating things in the back.

I'm also not sure any group sells tickets the way they do at this point (obviously, ROH/MLW/Impact have TV, but they'd all love to be able to run the Hammerstein).

I feel like this G-1 has been pretty damning for GOK. I'm enjoying Tanga Loa's matches in the same block more, and I'm not exactly a big Tanga Loa fan.

I've been thinking about this with Cobb and Okada too. They've basically run through the guys I'd consider putting over Okada (except Taichi) and it seems like him vs Cobb is the clear block decider. May as well go all in on that match, I'd think.

The A block match I'm most looking forward to isn't really an A block match - Ishii-Hiromu next Saturday.

I think I preferred Ishii vs Loa, thought Loa did a surprisingly good job matching Ishii's intensity. But I might need a rewatch of ZSJ-OK, was doing some morning prep stuff while it was on.

That one is so extreme that there was probably only one way to solve it, and it might have been out of their hands - you end the match early, either at the initial time limit or at least after the first OT period. I'm sure they initially figured hard work would win them over, but there's a point where it's just clear nothing about the match could please that crowd.

I do think that the modern fanbase has a really interesting push and pull with cheering and booing vs. seeing a great match. I mean, in the moment with Danielson vs. Omega, I was cheering for Bryan, but I'm also a huge fan of Omega's, even if I might boo if he'd won the match. There's a recognition that it's fun to be seeing something great right in front of you, regardless of who wins, so there might be a cheer on a big Omega move. It's a hard line to walk - I'm not really a fan of the "fight forever" or "both these guys" chants in the moment - it swings a little too meta for me, but I also totally get why somebody behind me just straight up shouted "this is the best match I've ever seen" during Danielson-Omega. There's a contextual awareness. It's why I think Jay White's evolution has been interesting to watch, because at times it's felt like his way toward heat was to intentionally make matches "worse" - slower, less exaggerated finishing sequences. It can work to an extent if you're good, although that stuff is death in the wrong hands (EVIL appeared to have learned all the stalling and none of the match construction lessons). I also think it's a perfectly fair criticism of some modern wrestling being fun but a bit hollow because it's built to those crowd reactions - a scramble match in GCW is literally just meant to be a string of spots to pop a crowd, and just because it works in context doesn't necessarily mean it has to be hailed as a classic. But I really don't think the matches that people would rate most highly are throwing out story for spots. The matches I'd hail as classics from this era are all about story - Omega-Okada, Bucks-Golden Lovers, Bucks-Omega/Page. EDIT: I do think there's also a bit of storytelling that's in the eye of the beholder. I frequently watch Tanahashi matches and then see Meltzer's review and he's gotten way more story out of it than I have; not to say who's right or wrong, but I think Meltz really connects to Tanahashi in a way that I don't and he's getting more from the matches than I am. I think this may be more broadly true for modern wrestling, which tends to be a bit more aimed at long-term fans (the "nerd culture" point above) - a great match should work on many levels, but the level of storytelling ends up being a bit more in the eye of the beholder than in the past (although I'd note that stuff like 90s All Japan is filled with storytelling based on callbacks that would be completely non-obvious to a first-time viewer).

I think a lot of that happened earlier in their careers. There's a famous PWG match with the Bucks vs Bryan/Roddy Strong during a time when the Bucks were starting to lose the crowd as babyfaces, where the plan was to get sympathy from a vicious beating from Bryan/Strong and it went the other way, to the point the Bucks were beaten to pulps. And that match leads to the Bucks finding ways to lean into the idea their act might make them heels, and finding ways to work for the Reseda crowd. But because they learned on the early side, it's hard to think of them working in front of a crowd that was hostile to their match direction, because they're pretty good about at adapting (for example, they work on the heel side against the Lucha Bros at Double or Nothing 2019, or against Page/Omega at Revolution 2020, even when they are ostensibly faces, because they read that the crowd is with the other side).

I also think this might be particularly true because WWE has spent so long fighting the fans. It's meant their style hasn't really evolved over the last decade to incorporate the modern fanbase, at least not as aggressively as it has outside WWE. If someone hasn't been following the stuff outside WWE over the last 10 years, a lot of this stuff may seem like it's coming out of nowhere. NXT had some parts of this, although I think it may have lacked the sense of humor that runs through much of the modern style.

I think it's really impressive self-recognition, actually. He saw that he was this person who had spent forever in WWE and figured out how to distill that, and also found the audience that would respond to that most.