Migs

I would be stunned if this was always the plan for Tana. I have to believe he was supposed to get a foreigner that wasn't able to travel (Mox?). I'm excited for the shows - how many big shows with 20,000 people have we seen in the last 9 months? - but they do also feel like they're lacking something. Poor Naito has basically only defended against EVIL and feels completely cold. They sort of only heated Ibushi and White up part of the way for the big match, so they both seem like they're lacking a little bit as challengers. It feels like there's a real chance for these shows to be fun but forgettable if Okada-Ospreay isn't a classic. I am VERY excited for Hiromu-Phantasmo, but I really wish they hadn't gone with this two night gimmick, because it feels like a foregone conclusion that Hiromu wins to work Ishimori on Night 2. I know Gedo's not keen on calling audibles, but O-Khan is terrible and I'd have found a way to do Tana vs Suzuki (or Ishii or Goto or SHO) to at least get a decent match out of it.

Phantasmo leans in and is cheeky with the bullshit. He also has the best low blow in the biz (the straight punch to the dick). I thought the Super J was only ok, lots of guys working matches meant to pop a crowd in front of no one, but Phantasmo was great all the way through.

Feel bad for ROH on this one, this is crazy dumb. From Meltz: Apparently Bandido tested positive for COVID antibodies because he previously had it and that's why he was pulled from ROH, not that he has it now. Evidently Maryland's commission wouldn't allow anyone with the antibodies to work. Bandido took a blood test for COVID and it came back negative and also was tested this week by CMLL and it came back negative.

After all these years, his phrasing is still so WWE that it's really hard to enjoy. He's serviceable, but it's an area where they could use an upgrade.

One thing missing in this "how many men in the booth" discussion is that AEW frequently has a guest sit in on commentary, making it a 4 man booth! They do this multiple times per episode! They can use Excalibur and Tony as the base and make it a 3 man booth with the guests (including Ross for the right matches).

It clearly eliminates the EC3-Brisco match and the six-man title match. Honestly, in the COVID era, there's really no reason to time fill - I wouldn't bother replacing those matches. Maybe I'd do Jay vs Shane Taylor since they're the major guys who would be left out and they at least have an issue.

Not a bad show in terms of an efficient use of the roster they have. But Dalton Castle has to be on the way out to not even have a spot on the show, right?

I would be fascinated to see what the MLW revenue streams look like; why wouldn't they put this on DAZN and try to sell this? Is DAZN not paying them enough to forego the extra eyeballs they'll get on Youtube?

I was reminded watching this both why I enjoy Impact (roster of good workers that they do their best to use in interesting ways) and why I stopped watching months ago (their empty arena setup is just death, no energy at all). Kenny and Don crushed it. Just incredible, they're going to be money. Even Tony did well! It's not something I want to see every week, but I thought it worked really well, with some very funny moments.

And the promo last night was great.

That Liger t-shirt is sold out, but if anyone needs a tank top... https://grudgematchbrand.com/collections/frontpage/products/love-me-like-a-liger-tank-top-pre-sale

Doing two in a night is a real downer in that regard. '91 and '92 were the fourth and fifth War Games on tape (since there were two on '87) - they still felt special, and of course in '92 it was a blowoff to an angle well suited to the match. "We do War Games because of the calendar" became an issue for WCW too, and doing two in a night makes it worse.

The MLW one a couple of years ago had the babyface team win the flip, and then some chicanery to flip it back.

It goes back to the best thing about AEW - they learn. The shows after Full Gear last year were a bore because they were desperately trying to stretch stuff out to Revolution. So this year they flipped the script, set up a hot angle that will push the company forward for a while and avoid a December doldrum, without burning the angles they need for the next PPV.

They are doing some nice work in this first hour but I am too charged up about Mox-Omega to get excited for it.

You're wrong. Kazarian was one of the first tag champs and remains pretty over. Jericho would be the obvious favorite in the match, but he'd be the favorite against almost all of the roster.

Apparently no more of those Primetime Live shows this year. https://www.f4wonline.com/other-wrestling/uwn-prime-time-live-suspending-events-until-2021-326466

It's not really Wrestlemania per se, it's a weekend in which there's a ton of people gathered in one place. AEW shows were great for indies as well. Those weekends get indies extra shows to make money on, and they probably could have survived this if they'd been able to actually run locally in the six months that followed.

The difficulty comes in that the altercation happened in private. So they can certainly prove that she was injured, but it gets harder to prove the injuries are the result of an assault, and even harder to pin it on Alberto, without her testimony. The US standard in criminal cases is so high ("beyond a reasonable doubt") that domestic / sexual assault is almost impossible to prosecute without testimony from the victim (and testimony that the jury trusts, which is why there's so much assaulting of the victim's character).

I think even more, though, WWE-centric people use the raw ratings numbers of today to argue AEW isn't successful. When, of course, the TV world looks very different than it did 20 years ago. Part of Dave's point is, if people are opening up pizza places and they're staying in business, things must be pretty solid in the pizza business!

I don't have a good sense of whether Mox-Omega ends clean or not, but I have trust that if it doesn't, they know where they're going with it.

Cool, will grab a copy. Never really did a deep dive on World Class, figure this would be an interesting era to check out.

A couple of stores with very cool Japanese wrestling stuff: https://stash-pages.myshopify.com https://violentmiracle.com (I think their current sale ended) https://www.supernovacancymerch.com (don't think they have a sale today but very reasonable prices)

I am knee deep in merch posts on Instagram - what kind of stuff are you looking for? I've seen everything from individual wrestlers doing merch store sales to Japanese tribute stuff to crazy vintage ECW bootlegs.

Did it sound promising?