Laz

And following the TV-PG route that WWE has been focused on for the last decade will be a death knell. Times change. Corporate sponsors change. If they see that there's a major audience for the kind of product that AEW is presenting, blood and all, then they'll buy ad revenue.

Funny you mention Hobo With a Shotgun, because that movie strikes the tone that AEW wishes it had (violent and crazy and wacky but with heart), though maybe that's what you were going for. I watched Jericho/Gage, and...it was a thing. I hate the trend of deathmatches or plunder-filled brawls being nothing but obvious set-ups of spots and then the expected payoff. Loved the finish and felt it was the right way to go, even though I really like Gage (and particularly his work in Beyond), but the match itself is why I've always disliked the BJW-flavored stuff and still pop for classic ECW (or CZW when Sami and Havoc were involved).

It also stemmed from the old-school mentality of "legitimizing" pro wrestlers compared to other professional athletes. "So and so played college football" was an easy way to get audiences that thought all wrestlers were beer gutted pretenders to stop and think "well, this guy is a real athlete," or at least the philosophy was. You'll still see it to one degree or another, but now the oft-touted real sport background is MMA or some other combat sport. Rousey/Brock with the UFC (and Rousey's history as a world class judoka), Bryan and his training in judo, Tommy End/Malakai Black with his kickboxing, the various puro talents and their assorted MMA/sumo backgrounds, etc.

The center of the ring has the most give, that's why. One of the things Excalibur was great at during that peak 2008-2013 PWG run was explaining why bumps on the apron or suplexes into the corner were more devastating. And count me in on the "overtly setting up for the hard cam" stuff. It's second only to the increasingly convoluted gymnastics spots as seemingly minor peeves of mine that matter way more than they should.

I think the IWC, in general, has been too harsh on RVD's "lack of psychology" because it was never the basic "work the leg to set up the finish" kind of stuff.

Yes. This explains why SMW was known as THE promotion of the 90s, and why Corny is considered a surefire ticket to print money as a booker.

My favorite thing about the 3-Way Dance was when it was used to crown a new champion. Stipulations aside, it felt more "earned" as a fan when a new champion had to actively defeat two other people, including the defending champion, to win. Also, great booking tool to get people hyped if the champ falls first.

3/4-Way Dance, Stairway to Hell, and Dream Partner matches are the ones I remember the most vividly. They didn't really need big gimmick blowout matches because the whole company was a gimmick, but it's pretty odd that they didn't have one or two definitive "THESE are for the big deal matches" match stips. With that criteria, I guess Stairway to Hell, since we only got a handful of those?

1. JR was a great get...but was exposed early on. He was right to goad Excalibur into not just cracking jokes and calling moves, but his constant forgetting of names and overt lack of care for most of the talent makes him hard to listen to. Excalibur has improved in every way, and I already thought of him as the best overall commentator in the business since around 2012 or so. 2. Ring style is meh. I stopped watching all but a few clips here and there ever since DoN last year because the matches were just so, so, so...phoney, I guess would be the word? I don't expect matches to look like [insert worked shoot company here], but when your average match in 2020/2021 looks more like a Power Rangers fight sequence than something out of Rocky or a JCVD flick then I think there's an inherent problem in your approach. This is more an industry-wide issue I have than just AEW, mind you, and it's clearly more of a preference issue than just "here's why wrestling sucks now." As for look, I think AEW has one of the most perfect sets around, and the company logo hits me in that Weyland-Yutani spot. 3. When I was still watching, Spears became a favorite thanks to him being one of the few talents to put some oomph into his moves, and I loved that he was gambling at ringside. If the question is more along the lines of "how do you feel about AEW hiring a smorgasbord of former WWE talents who are all at or near retirement age," then I can tell you that it's a bad sign and reminds me of when TNA de-pushed hot acts like AJ Styles and Samoa Joe in favor of "faked a heart attack to avoid a job" Kevin Nash and Booker T. The mentality might be to attract lapsed fans by signing veteran talent not being used by the competition, but the effect comes off as more "we don't know how to build talent" to me. 4. Yes. Wayyyyyyyyyy too much comedy. A little routine here and there is fine, a promo where I can laugh is great, but when one of the top acts is basically "we're an even lower rent Dungeon of Doom" then I'm not watching your stupid fucking show. 5. An abundance of factions always made sense to me, really. Why wouldn't guys want other people watching their backs in the cutthroat world of professional fighting? MMA and boxing have training camps and teams, so why shouldn't wrestling? 6. Maybe? Unless they've added a ton in the last year, I don't remember the amount of managers/valets being too much of an issue. The amount of memorable ones might be (none), but that's a different story. 7. Tony Khan needs to put his personal ego aside and 1) get off TV, and 2) hire someone as a head booker/showrunner. Somebody who will tell him that he already has three programs going on involving a managerial heel turn, somebody to point out that pulling the same finish three times a show isn't a good idea, maybe somebody that can convince the board that their 7 snowflakes from out of touch newsletter writers aren't worth shit if they keep booking the company as their own personal ego boost. 8. AEW is trying so, so hard to get their women's division up to snuff, and they've come a long way from day one, but they falter due to the best talents being contracted elsewhere. Trying to build the division around Brandi as a heel authority figure did them no favors, either. The Tag division is a bit better because they've been able to swing things around a little more, but breaking up teams and having the belts not be defended on a regular basis didn't help. 9. Yes and no. Having a couple of specialty matches every big show isn't bad, really, but most are just thrown out there without real rhyme or reason beyond "we had an idea the other night." 10. The greatest positive is that they're willing to improve and let talent shine. The biggest hindrance is that the booking is inconsistent in quality and there aren't any perceived programs that make me want to watch beyond "oh there might be a few cool spots in this one." Everybody does cool spots now. Try something different.

There's a reason the OSW crew calls him Cunt Hogan.

It's because he kept getting back up and fighting back, even when he knew he was going to lose and get his ass kicked doing it. His were moral victories, at least for the Philly crowd. For Gage stuff, I recommend a lot of his work in Beyond, particularly with MJF. It's tame by the standards of most of his career, but it shows that he actually does know how to use psychology and structure a match without needing a thousand lighttubes and flaming tables. I also really, really enjoy his Tables match with Nate Hatred from CZW Shockwave back in 2003.

That just means you're older now, which makes sense since that was an entire generation ago.

Nope. He was involved in some of the most insanely violent matches to ever happen on US soil, and the only real injuries (beyond what was expected) were a freak accident and a match involving a guy who was greener than goose shit. To say Gage is unsafe is to ignore the 20 years of deathmatches he's been involved in where the only injuries were the expected cuts and bruises.

Ryder released a shirt for his podcast that used the "MDK" initials and a similar font to the one Gage regularly incorporates in his merch. Odds it's anything but a work are slim, IMO.

Sign Solo Darling to Impact, pair her with Moose, and THERE is the perfect cross-promotion feud.

In a better timeline, Sami Zayn becomes one of the only talents in mainstream US wrestling who takes a massive beating and keeps coming back (because he's always been so amazing at selling it), and "fight forever" becomes his trademark like Bryan's "yes." OT, undercard matches going over 15 minutes just because. I was in a discussion elsewhere about TNA Bound For Glory 2006 the other day and how good of a show it was, and part of why is because only two matches broke the 15 minute mark (one a battle royal, one the World title main event). Even with the average match being around 14 minutes long, there were still four incredibly good matches on display, one of which was an instant classic (LAX vs. Styles/Daniels), and the stupid stuff was kept to a brief minimum while also serving a purpose overall. This idea that every match needs to take up 20-30 minutes at least is counterintuitive.

I realized around 2015/2016 that any show over 3 hours wasn't something I was going to enjoy. It's one thing when it's a company's biggest show of the year, it's another thing when it's just another Saturday at the local rec hall.

Just watching that NOAH clip, I don't see too much wrong with it, honestly. Those kinds of sequences have become far too overused in the past decade, sure, but at least that one was fairly well done. Each guy was selling as they were coming in, each one was clearly sneaking up on who they hit...

That's kind of a good point people are ignoring. They're short PR folk from Brooklyn who came of age in the late 80s/mid 90s. There's no chance in hell that Ki isn't a tough dude, especially with the crowd he used to hang out with (the JAPW boys). He may not be pro MMA tough, but he's definitely "will break your average person" tough.

LowKi. He's been at the forefront of TWO major developments in US wrestling and helped set the tone for the next decade because of it. His work feels more authentic. He doesn't have fucking T-Rex arms. Aries' upset over Samoa Joe is legendary, and his run with Generation Next was a highlight of the early 00s. Aries' run in the TNA main event was epic, yes. One of the better main event runs in that company by anybody not named Jarrett, Angle, Styles, or Joe. Neither of those happen without LowKi, who was so integral to ROH's early years that he was crowned their first champ and had the show built around him (and his matches with Daniels, Bryan, and Joe); who helped develop the X-Division AND cement the TNA Tag division within months of each other. Aries did great work on the trails that LowKi helped blaze.

Stay strong, TTK. There's a whole generation of a (virtual) locker room pulling for you.

LowKi was involved in a few of the hands-down best and most memorable matches of the 00s. Aries was a very good overall worker. Neither man is a legit tough guy, both are fucking idiots, and the pro/con comparisons deserve their own thread. (And Ki was better because of Ki/Dragon and Ki/Necro.)

I think Doc as a good ol' boy jock douchebag type running roughshod over a lot of the midcard could've worked, personally. I don't see him being a fixture for very long, but at least for a year or two with some occasional flirtations around the ME.

The match itself is a very, very solid affair, and certainly nothing to sneeze at but not truly GREAT, but as overplayed as it became? HBK/Flair. "I'm sorry, I love you," Sweet Chin Music. Perfect ending. I also have to show love to Taz/Bigelow from Heat Wave '98. A solid brawl, though not as entertaining overall as their previous effort at Living Dangerously, but the gimmicked ramp and Taz ripping himself free from the wreckage is just such a perfect visual that set his path to the World title on fire. Come to think of it, I'd wager that a good chunk of Taz matches from the debut of the "shooter" gimmick until Anarchy Rulz '99 could be listed here.

Knowing some of our mutual friends, I could almost believe this