Boss Rock

Also, Charlotte has been made to look more dominant than Reign of Terror Haitch. Like I get he had longer title reigns, but I don't think he went over cleanly nearly as many times.

I'll put it on my to-do list. Knee jerk reaction is top 10 but his career is the one I've visited the least of the pillars.

Way to completely blow the goodwill of the return of one of your biggest stars.

What a great show.

I know Summerslam 2013 disappointed in terms of ppv sales and Bryan's TV segments weren't doing great numbers, but by 2014 his segments were getting the highest ratings. When he returned in 2015 I'm pretty sure the house shows he ME'd were rivaling Cena's.

I think Ariel brought up the case of Punk, but yeah Reigns' response was really dumb.

I think done correctly (logical escalation of spots, wrestlers who are actually trained and know what they're doing), death matches can be very good. Like almost anything in wrestling, it's all about the execution whether it be a huge move or a spot through glass/light tubes. Masashi Takeda's 2018 in BJW sticks out to me in that regard. But knives is where I draw the line as doing too much.

Christ Almighty how did I forget these two? These are two of my top ten best matches ever.

I think Brodie was injured during the match and it was during training and rehab that he began to get sick. My thinking at the time was that Cody came back too soon and that they should have stretched it to the next ppv. Brodie was likely to feud with Hangman so that may have been why they put the title back on Cody when they did.

AEW has also proven that smaller wrestlers can be stars.

Here for Lee and Rush. Not so much for the others.

Crazy MAX vs. Do Fixxer vs. Italian Connection vs. M2K (Toryumon 8/30/2003) Genki Horiguchi, Ryo Saito, Dragon Kid vs. CIMA, Don Fuji, Naruki Doi (Dragon Gate 7/3/2005) Young Bucks vs. Future Shock vs. Super Smash Bros. (PWG 7/21/2012) Golden Elite vs. Rey Mysterio, Rey Fenix, Bandido (All In 9/1/2018)

Totally forgot but Martinez is still recovering from being concussed. That's especially shitty.

I understand that, but if folks sign with NXT there's the possibility of MR money. And now we've seen top MR acts get cut.

There's only like 6 people I could envision them never cutting. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if Balor was gone after tonight.

I used to at least kinda understand the "make money" mentality of signing with WWE. But now I can't see any reason why anyone would want to sign with WWE.

Finlay isn't doing it either, which is a shame considering the singles run he'd been having.

https://itrwrestling.com/news/hangman-page-reportedly-not-appearing-at-all-out/ Per Meltzer, Page isn't even going to be at All Out. Unless Punk is actually going to be Kenny's opponent, the crowd is likely turning hard on the title match.

Khan may be saying "Hey, we should start cutting some folks" but Vince is still the guy saying who stays and who goes.

It's still Vince's call. As confusing as it is considering how much time they invested in Bray, he'd still be employed if Vince wanted him.

Apologies if this is the incorrect thread, I wasn't sure if there was a catch-all thread for WWE stuff.

Yeah that part I completely agree with and they were able to keep things interesting with OC (still disappointed we didn't get a singles match between him and Kenny, bit of a missed opportunity).

Agreed. Full Gear is the absolute latest they can believably stretch this out to.

Stalling Hangman's win annoys me. I understand worrying about Punk and Bryan overshadowing him, but if Punk debuts at Rampage that will at least temper some of the buzz heading in to All Out. There are only so many times you can wait to pull the trigger. It's a testament to AEW's booking and Page that he was able to get super hot again after spinning his wheels a bit earlier this year, but I don't see how you can hold off on this for much longer before the fans get frustrated. I can just imagine a Christian-Kenny segment getting drowned out by "We want Hangman!" chants.

I like Hideki a lot, but he's a weird candidate because of his relatively low volume. Per Cagematch, he has less than 500 matches in a 13 year career. Not to say volume is the end-all be-all as Tamura and Han get a lot of love despite having short careers. But with Suzuki you're only gonna get a couple singles matches per year. But when he's on, by God he's on. His charisma and presence is just so magnetic. When he was in BJW he personified the "final boss" archetype better than anyone. You have this guy who looks like he could be a business man or lawyer, but you know he's just a flip of the switch away from turning into an absolute killer who's not above telling the crowd to go fuck themselves. Right now I lean no, but 5 years is a long time and his best stuff is fantastic.