Boss Rock

I also have to wonder how many folks who left WWE for AEW have had horror stories to share on why they left with the rest of the locker room. Like Bryan and Cole were very civil and even grateful for their experiences, but then you have Mox, Punk, and Cody saying firsthand how suffocating that environment was.

Cobb should win the New Japan Cup and take the title next year.

Basically my thoughts. It was a mess, but a fun mess. Ishii-Yano was a blast. They have such great chemistry and I would like to see more "serious Yano" in these longer matches. His comedy works better when it's in shorter matches. Loa-Sabre was also really good, the best Loa has ever looked. Their match not being the main event obviously spoiled that Sabre was losing, but I was still kinda shocked. The overall direction of the company definitely does feel like an attempt to "return to normalcy" by putting the title back on Okada and at this point it's probably what they need.

I know it will probably happen at some point, but I also struggle to think who would jump over. Even if there could be more money, all the "cost cutting" WWE is doing should be enough to give anyone pause. And while AEW absolutely needs to do more with the women's division, WWE's is in rough shape.

Red Shoes counts to 19.5 before 20.

Today's card was interesting to say the least.

Rampage tied Smackdown in the ratings.

Yep. There's no way you can hold out on this any longer.

I do agree it's a bit tougher to spin kayfabe-wise especially when Miro is in the top 5 rankings.

Yep.

Even if some of the names aren't the biggest stars/most pushed, it makes more sense to avoid having guys like Miro, Cole, and Punk all take losses when they really don't need to.

I will say I am very happy NJPW World finally works on Chrome.

Solid Rampage, and the Buy In was really good.

Which is kinda funny, because I can't imagine that having been on anyone's bingo card. Really good match though, easily the best Tonga singles match.

Any time!

Ibushi and Kenny have always struck me as being very similar yet Kenny has always been more polarizing.

Ishii-Hiromu was very good though I think their NJ Cup match last year was better. Loa had an impressive showing against Shingo even if the match was too long. KENTA-ZSJ was good, but it also seemed to go on forever. And O-Khan looked really good against Ibushi. Granted, Ibushi is one of the best in the world, but O-Khan continues to impress me with his ground game. He seems to be putting the pieces together.

The only GOK matches I've watched have been ZSJ and Ishii, both of which were good and the former shows the guy knows what he's doing on the mat. But I haven't heard much praise for anything else he's done. And Okada continuing to bounce back from last year to show how good he still is has been a very welcome development. He and Taichi had a great one today. Kevin Kelly apparently said folks might cancel their World subscriptions if EVIL wins, which is both hilarious and likely.

I've seen it mentioned that Miro was likely to be in this tournament had it not been for the pandemic. Brodie would have as well...RIP. The best stuff has pretty much delivered as expected but I agree that the best is likely behind us. I've still been cherry-picking but the tournament hasn't been as dire as I expected (it also helps when Big Match YOSHI-HASHI steps up). ZSJ seems like a lock to win the A Block and my new prediction is that Okada and Cobb go into the final day of the B Block undefeated.

I may revisit those. I pretty much just watched the ME (which was very good) and Ibushi-Yano which is the type of Yano match I like to see. Standouts from yesterday were definitely Goto-Cobb and Okada-YOSHI-HASHI. Tonga-Tanahashi was also pretty good but not must-see.

I do agree to an extent a match doesn't need a ton of callbacks to be a great match, but long-term storytelling can absolutely make a match better or add to a narrative. Like when I first saw 6/9/95 I was already convinced it was one of the greatest matches ever. But with the added context that Misawa had a broken orbital bone (which I was not privy to before), it made even more sense and was even more effective.

Well, that finish sure did suck didn't it?

Pretty much.

As damning an indictment as the empty building was for EVIL, night four was still pretty solid. I only watched the last three matches, but they were all pretty good with Taichi-SANADA being the best (which was a bit surprising to me).