funkdoc

i'd say that's, at minimum, extremely likely given that it almost killed him. Think he's acquitted himself very well given the circumstances - in a way it might have accidentally made him work smarter for the AEW environment, making him lean more on power spots which stand out in such a flippy promotion.

Starting to see this talking point more and more around the internet so i wanted to bring it up here: the greener AEW women (for the most part) don't work indies and that's almost certainly hurting their development given how Dark is just squashes these days and how none of them except Jade get much TV time. The difference is striking when you look at how many of the best young talents on their men's roster still show up outside AEW pretty often: Daniel Garcia, Wheeler Yuta, Top Flight, etc. Hell, even the Acclaimed have more indie dates than an Anna Jay or Red Velvet. We never want to go back to the days of people working 250-300 matches a year, of course, but 30-50 proooooobably ain't enough to ever approach even mid-level joshi workers. Mentioned this before but it's related to this so - it's just so bizarre to me that Emi Sakura apparently hasn't done like any training in AEW??? She's one of the best ever at it but you never hear anyone talk about her helping their development. Note how Jade, for instance, mentions Dustin/Deeb/Billy Gunn but not Emi. Makes me wonder if the less experienced women just don't know about her history and don't think to approach her, or if people get hung up over the language barrier or what. Really the main exception to all this i can think of is Skye Blue, who still does a bunch of stuff around the Chicago area. Would be interested to see how she compares to the others i mentioned 6 months or a year from now. But i do wonder whether the talent genuinely don't want to work extra shows or if it's a directive from the higher-ups...

What a wet fart of an ending. That match was exactly what it needed to be too - basically a compressed-for-TV Joe-Kobashi that let Suzuki shine. Wish people would let title change celebrations breathe more... So what's your bets on the HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT this time? i feel like it's either a new TV deal for ROH, or Claudio.

Here's a fun challenge for yall: name everyone in this fan art (courtesy of @spookyruthy on Twitter)! Will leave the answers in spoilers below if you want to see...

Apparently Sammy has already been dropping hints at a turn online sooooooo

If you see him put his foot in his mouth on Twitter, you'll get it. That's the cherry on top when combined with how much worse he is than his push.

The first half would've made for a great 1-hour Dynamite. Rare case where i have to say "shame it's a 2-hour show" Really i wish all Lambert promos were just him flexing his wrestling-history nerd chops, that's when he's at his best by far

Janela was mostly very positive toward AEW but hinted at possible heat with Christopher Daniels (their talent-relations guy) over injuring other wrestlers. He said he thinks him breaking Kingston’s face on Dark was the last straw. He also wishes they would be more transparent with wrestlers re: their contract status; he mentioned Marko Stunt being totally in limbo. One friend of mine had an interesting take here: he thinks we’re seeing the beginning of the end of AEW as a variety show. Their “something for everyone” mantra may have been more a product of their limited roster, and now things might be more consolidated into TK’s specific vision…

EC3 threw in a subtle Nazi dogwhistle too, nice Even fellow antivaxxer Nia Jax wants nothing to do with them, probably since they’re playing to the kind of crowd that doesn’t want women wrestling at all I do hear that you get paid $600 minimum per appearance there though, so I wouldn’t really begrudge a jobber going there as a one-off. Signing with them full-time, on the other hand… EDIT: And the cherry on top - after their matches (sorry, “fights”), the ring announcer doesn’t say who won. He says “[MAGAchud] has CONTROLLED HIS NARRATIVE”

It’s been assumed she was mainly hired as a trainer since she has an arguably WON HOF-worthy resume there - she’s one of the key figures in the modern joshi revival. No hard confirmation of her role in AEW though

The announced revival of Gatoh Move makes me wonder if Emi Sakura is done with AEW. They practically treat her like the female QT Marshall except even worse since she’s stuck on Dark all the time. Plus there was that Shida article talking about the lack of support for Japanese wrestlers - she specifically mentioned how Emi didn’t really know English and had nobody in the company helping her find a place to live etc. Supposedly WWE hasn’t been much better on this in recent times, but still…makes me wonder if we’re heading for a joshi-less division down the line, if my thought turns out to be true

ROH & Bullet Club stuff that AFAIK doesn't really compare to this, but i feel like that sort of development arc is more common nowadays. Your 30s are the new 20s.

Aside from this topic: My biggest general problem with AEW’s booking at this moment is that they don’t do interesting things with a lot of their title reigns. Reeks of “the money is in the chase” mentality. I wouldn’t even include Hangman in that conversation, but look at the Lucha Bros. for example. After winning in what got voted MOTY in a bunch of places, they spent a good chunk of their time doing random defenses on Rampage with no build and maybe cutting promos on Dynamite. The FTR feud was the clear highlight, and it never felt like they were losing the AEW belts there. Then they drop the belts out of nowhere in another match without much build to it. Sammy’s first TNT reign was a total nothingburger where he was still just Jericho’s little buddy. We all know the problems with Britt’s current run. I will say they’ve done pretty great with Jade though, the TBS feels like the main women’s belt right now…but there’s an overall kinda alarming pattern there. They’ve had plenty of great reigns in the past, but i do worry that TK has too much on his plate especially with ROH now. Hell, for all i know he still edits the Youtube shows???

i thought the crowd would be dead for the main event but they proved me wrong! What's really interesting to me is i think putting the Sting trios right before it actually helped liven up the crowd, which is kind of the opposite of the traditional "cooldown before the main event" theory

That was only the 2nd real piss-break match i can think of an an AEW PPV since i started watching, after QT vs. WEEEEEELLLLLLL at All Out last year

Once i saw the Piper-Valentine callback that early on, i knew this was gonna be a good 'un

i loved the idea of Jade Cargill from the very beginning, and she looks like she's going to live up to that in reality as well! That may have been her most impressive match yet considering Tay is still rather green herself

OC might've gotten legit injured, it seemed like Danhausen was supposed to help him

That's been my prediction for a while because AEW doesn't like to make their title reigns THAT short. Also this match being as early as it is suggested to me it's going to be mainly focused on that storyline

That was Jericho doing his best to keep up in a 90s AJPW main event and i'm OK with that

Some folks like Nyla have strongly denied the “Brandi is a massive bitch backstage” narrative. Her wanting to be a full-time wrestler is much more likely, considering she talked about that a bunch on the reality show…

I could see Danhausen being a bridge too far for Cody, put it to you that way

The point is he’s lost some of that input on the rest of the company over time. To get a bit deeper into things, AEW has overall been leaning more and more into modern Internet meme culture and that’s not something Cody really “gets” the way Omega & the Bucks do. That seems to be the approach that’s growing then the most, so perhaps he sees the writing on the wall

Dustin seems like the natural (ha!) successor there, and he already said he’s staying with AEW

OK, maybe this wasn’t a work after all…people have pointed out they likely wouldn’t use a charity Twitter account for kayfabe He’s a big enough name now that i could even see him picking up a token win over Roman or Brock before they get bored or pissed at him