Migs

I skipped last week's episode but checked this one out for Hart Foundations - Dragon Lee / Xtreme Tiger. Lived up to my expectations. Pillman is really rounding into form as a worker and a character - he didn't seem totally out of place in there against Lee, which he almost certainly would have a year ago. I'm still not sure if I'm going to get the PPV. It looks solid but there's no single match that's moving me to pull the trigger.

They just need to drop the goofy minions and work. They can easily be a fun mid card tag team just based on that (and how great is it that there's enough teams to have mid card tag teams?).

What a fun segment that was, slowly building and getting more and more out of control.

That main event was a match the Bucks and Cody did a million times in ROH and always works - they have a good sense of how to mix the comedy and enough drama and athleticism while keeping something in the tank for bigger matches. Didn't realize how much I'd missed those until I saw it last night, hadn't gotten one in almost a year.

I believe they did 8 episodes, two nights of 4.

The question isn't about whether ROH will exist; it's about whether anyone above a small base will want to watch it. They could very easily be Impact in six months.

I actually think that's one thing the Elite has excelled at - the Bullet Club war where it wasn't about turning but about the difficulties that exist within friendships (while always backing each other up against others) was so well done and unique. I trust them on where they are going with this MJF thing.

I mean, if the big TV contracts went away and they weren't so stable (and to be clear, we are many years from that being plausible), there's the chance that they buckle down, focus on what matters and take some risks that pay off. But otherwise, their business structure has become somewhat divorced from convincing a larger chunk of fans to pay money for wrestling. Which means everything about basic wrestling book has gone off the table, and it's not coming back soon.

I was a little bit distracted with a small child during that match, but it seemed pretty fun. He's having quite a year.

It seems like they used it to build up to the main show in small ways. They wanted to get Allin into the title picture = win over CIMA (that also did a nice job of getting Allin's character across), justification for the number one contenders match. They have all these tag teams that are about to be in the tournament = here's a match to show off their stuff if you haven't seen them before. So it seems like it'll be stuff that's not totally essential to the major stories, but will help tell it.

Yeah, they burnt through so much in the 2 year reign that there just doesn't seem to be a lot of new stuff for him to do on top. (Although going back to the well with Suzuki was fun, at least.)

The Elite have always been excellent at getting other guys over and building them up (Flip Gordon!). Had high hopes of them doing it for a whole promotion and they are pulling it off. There's a part of me that misses them focusing on themselves a bit (2018, artistically, was pretty amazing, particularly the build to Cody-Kenny and All In), but it's probably the right call as they build the promotion.

The highest number MLW has for an episode, this minute, is 235K for the first Battle Riot (this year's Battle Riot is actually number 2, 176k). I'm not sure what a decent assumption in terms of viewers on BeIn would be (and for a while, the episodes were getting posted on both MLW and BeIn's Youtube channels), but it's fair to say the NWA has put itself at or above the level of MLW (and Impact) from an interest perspective. If they keep this pace at all, I think they definitely can get a TV deal in the not too distant future.

He was really good! He and Homicide definitely brought a different energy to the show. Weirdly, I think in all this debate we can basically agree - they succeeded really well at what they were going for. Where that will rank for any person in the seemingly endless list of weekly wrestling shows available is a question of taste, but it's cool that someone's doing a good job of appealing to another niche.

About 10 minutes in on the show. Definitely looks nice, like the pacing. I like Cornette, but talking about cosplayers as they are literally just doing World Championship Wrestling is a little silly. I might stick with it, but other than Colt Cabana and sometimes Aldis, there's just not a lot of guys that here that are really compelling to me (same problem as MLW and Impact right now - they're doing a nice job but the depth isn't great).

Ahem, no *stoppages*.

Ultimately, it's what everyone said at the time the match was booked - this was way too early to thrust the Fiend into a title match, before they'd really figured out how they want the character to work. They could have done this match with another babyface, in the mid-card, and while it probably would have been bad, it wouldn't have turned off an entire fanbase. But they wanted to milk the Fiend, which was the hot character. And they wanted to do it... in service of trying yet again to get Seth Rollins over. Except, not really, because the answer in that case would be that Seth just fucking wins, full stop. So we're back to the modern WWE problem of always, always threading a needle, making the booking 50/50 even within the match. And so everyone is less over now than yesterday.

There's also a snapback option. https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/promotion-tshirts/aew/aew-logo-9fifty-flatbill-snapback.html And a fitted one. https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/catalog/product/view/id/38794/s/aew-flexfit-l-xl/category/5343/

If you can wait, there's always a Black Friday sale that will knock enough off to cover the shipping.

There's probably something to this, but also a cultural thing about who the fans are for a given product. I noticed during the New Japan show at the Hammerstein that the line for the bar was non-existent - compared to an ROH show when they used to sell out, where the bar lines were pretty long. Different crowds treating a night at a wrestling show very differently.

And a year without a major angle involving the McMahons. It's amazing not just that they squandered Becky's momentum, but how they did it - by inserting Vince to set up a series of twists and turns in the Mania build that were completely unnecessary and directed the energy away from the original issue. They made the company the heel when Ronda and Charlotte were doing just fine as heels on their own.

Wow, from the Observer. "The key point is that AEW beat both Raw and Smackdown significantly in viewers under 34."

It might be! We're all just riffing here.

Oh, if I'm picking the guy that unseats Jericho now, it's Kenny, not Cody. I think the goal here is to tell a fall and rise story with Omega that would culminate in him getting the belt (maybe at Double or Nothing). Doesn't mean they can't audible, of course.

Really good show, flew by and never really dragged (and I started watching at 10:45 PM because I had other things to attend to). Hager for the "big moment" was a little weak but in the henchman role he should work (I'd be pretty into him and Dustin going 10 minutes, ya know?) and Mox just destroying Kenny with that DDT through the table was cool - note that they didn't slow down and just focus on an unconscious Kenny for 10 minutes, they went back to the match and kept the show moving. I'm hoping there's a little more promo time next week (although in part tonight's show did a good job of setting up the heat that gives the guys promo material). I also don't see Cody getting the belt, but I'd be into it. Just feels like they want to squeeze some more juice out of Jericho's arrogant champ character for a bit, and I don't blame them.