Laz

Weird. The stuff that fans have been outwardly saying needs to be cut is losing viewers.

Using your defense about the Beaver Boys, @War is Raw, it would have been fine for the Ewoks to kill the Emperor and for Legolas to do the job so that Tom Bombadil could get over. In other words, shit writing. It's one thing to throw a curveball or a swerve. It's another to take acts that are clearly killing the shows and push them even harder. This has halved the audience in the past 3 months and led to the deaths of companies with greater histories and prestige than AEW has. I don't want the show to suck, so I call out bad booking.

The most pathetic thing about the Dark Order is that Uno and Grayson are both talented guys. I really, really like Uno's voice and cadence, but it's an Eric Young thing where I enjoy the performer but HAAAAAAAAAATE the performance. Ditto Brandi. They're both better than this and I know it.

It's shit. Pure, utter shit. As in "I'm not going to bother watching live anymore" levels of shit. I'm talking "I would rather watch XPW" levels of shit.

If it weren't for Johnny Webb and Messiah...

Okada for all the reasons listed above...but, if we can make meta-argument, Roman was the summation of every lousy fucking decision that WWE made in the past decade. One third of a hugely popular faction? Let's break them up at their peak. Great at looking dominant in short bursts? Make him go 20-30 minutes. Comes off like a legit BAMF by being the strong silent type? "Sufferin' succotash." A handful of killer moves? Spam the hell out of them, taking the impact away more and more each time. Okada may be the greater success story of the past decade, but Roman is the poster boy for the western fans' collective disenchantment.

I'm not a fan of Naito either, or really any NJPW at that. To each their own because I at least see the appeal of it all, but Omega, in particular, annoys the hell out of me in ways that even John Cena didn't.

I think Omega is one of the worst major names the wrestling business has had in the last 20 years. I would watch a compilation of Randy Orton's Greatest Chinlocks over any of Omega's masturbatory "40 minutes of mediocrity followed by 5 minutes of above average" matches. He is the only person on the roster I change the channel on.

Totally makes sense. Fonz had issues saying "sorry" and "rude," btw.

I'd agree with you if those guys haven't been more entertaining in 6 weeks than the "big name stars" have for 10 years.

...and? The meta-narrative inherent to that brand of wrestling is "look how much pain we can stand," not "look how effective our moves are." While I'm with you in disliking it because it does stretch the suspension of disbelief (as no, a barbed wire broom is not going to win a legitimate street fight), the match was entirely built on Moxley's known deathmatch history and how he was going to use it to break Omega on live Pay-Per-View. The barbarity was the point. Does this mean people who enjoyed it are of lower morality than those who enjoy more basic pro wrestling, when deathmatches have lower rates of both serious injury and even mortality than normal wrestling?

...he says with a black metal meme avatar. My issues with the match lie in two parts: a) I really hate Kenny Omega and his stupid weeb schtick, and b) it fell into the same problem most deathmatches do where it goes from violent setpiece to violent setpiece without much connective tissue to keep things interesting. To put it in musical terms, I love death metal and especially brutal/tech death metal, but I want more Suffocation or Dying Fetus and less Disgorge or Rings of Saturn. The formers use their ability and skills to craft bone-breaking soundscapes of violence with good flow and rhythm while the latters are just trying to show off.

I think Kenny held it back, personally, for the same reason I don't like other would-be subversions of "fish out of water" stories: Kenny shouldn't have taken to the ultraviolence with such ease, let alone control nearly as much of the flow as he did. IMO, if Mox had introduced the plunder and deathmatch elements and Kenny managed to survive them before going off later down the stretch then it would have been much better. And if it was cut in half because jesus...not every fucking match needs to tease Broadway.

Very good show, but I didn't care for Mox/Omega. It felt like a highlight reel of CZW matches past peppered with Omega being his usual insufferable self. When Mox was on offense it was perfectly fine, when Omega was in control I was checking the clock. Not every match needs to go over 15-20 minutes, and I think it would have been better if Omega quit his stupid fucking "I'm a living anime character" routine and just did the fucking deal.

All of this. Others have said elsewhere that to have Moxley on the roster and not be given a live microphone was a travesty and they did it this week, but my biggest issues with the shows (outside of MOVEZ KICKOUTZ MOVEZ) has been the lack of actual promotion for the talent. Take Shida/Shanna this past week. I've seen Shida before and she's known to enough of the targeted fanbase, sure, but Shanna was a complete unknown to many. A little 30-60 second package about who she is, what she's done, and maybe a few highlight reel spots from her career so far would have done wonders.

Bauer has the production value, man. He's always made MLW look great for its budget.

Now I really, really want to see what Bauer, Corgan, and Callis could do as a team.

You're not making too compelling an argument when you're referencing an era that was one of the last truly exciting times in American indies.

Yeeeeeeep. I confused the Agganis for the Tsongas. #massholeSHAME

That doesn't change the stupidity of saving things worth watching, that might capture a casual fan's attention, for the $50 show and tossing the stupid jokey stuff on the free TV pre-show.

Nope. Outsiders still call it Boston, which pisses the residents (and those nearby) off, especially in the metal scene. Worcester is Boston's uglier, grittier, meaner little brother. Not too far off. I mean, the opioid epidemic started in the Milford/Franklin/Bellingham area (my hometown, yay!!), and the state is full of trashy AF people outside of the heavily gentrified towns.

Fixed. It's about an hour outside of Boston, about half an hour from my house. Going.

Calling bullshit right here. If you're going to argue that Corny helped devise a better business strategy in terms of cost cutting? Sure, I'll bite. If you're trying to say the quality during/after Corny is anything worthwhile? Uhhhh...no. Not even close.

That's why the last invasion storyline to actually work was ROH/CZW. If Bauer wants Contra to be taken seriously then they need to have somebody in the company be the ones funding them, maybe intentionally sabotaging security so Contra can run wild. I hope it's not Salina, she has her own stable to take care of, but even doing a long con and revealing Lawlor as the one behind it all so he could look that much better would be interesting and get some attention. This has been a problem with MLW since the original iteration, though, because the ideas and presentation have always been top notch (the old MLW green logo canvas was gorgeous for television) but the details either don't add up or aren't particularly interesting. The production and presentation, though...that's the good stuff.

Not really, but Pillman Jr. could be it for them sooner than later. They're getting by with Promociones el Dorado (I likely butchered that spelling) right now and are trying to make Contra a thing, but the irregular taping schedule and AEW becoming a thing sapped a lot of the names they could use. I'm wondering what the July tapings will look like and who shows up.