Tetsujin

I enjoy most of Jericho's career, but since losing the AEW Championship he's been hurting AEW's product more often than not. And it's funny because at first It doesn't seem like it, but then time proves us differently. The Orange feud looked fine enough and grave Cassidy some spotlight to shine more than ever, but it led to nothing and they were afraid of giving him a proper, clean, pinfall win over Jericho. The MJF angle started fine and the build up to MJF shaking the Inner Circle carefully from the inside was cool, but iirc the actual turn came pretty early on, and the rivalry was too long and didn't produce any memorable matches, and to top it all of course Jericho had to win at the end. I don't even remember something cool out of the ATT rivalry, only the infamous onlyfans joke to Paige VanZant. The Kingston rivalry started super great, MOTYC included, but what should have been a big underdog victory for Eddie before pushing him to something more important, became an endless feud with the whole BCC, where Kingston wasn't even Jericho's main rival anymore, and no one got over out of it. The ROH title run was kinda promising, but it was only for Claudio to regain it, so what was the actual point in the first place? Is not like Claudio needed some reinforce or anything, he was still over as the newest AEW commodity. Like, yeah, Jericho has been part of cool matches and moments here and there, but nothing that you could specifically say "wow this is a great Chris Jericho's run/performance", like for example his title reign was, or his first Omega match was. Anarchy in the Arena is amazing, but it's just an oasis in the middle of an otherwise looong and painful rivalry, and you can't say it's greatness is in most part because of him. He should slowly become just a manager and/or do commentary with Tazz and Schiavone, at this point.

But obviously Gedo chose the annoying option as usual.

I can see that. I was trying to say that Darby is better than Jeff at the things they share, but overall Jeff had this more sympatethic underdog aura, while Darby is still treated by both the crowd and AEW as the guy you want to see almost dying in insane ways. Still, I don't think that affects the "Darby>Jeff" statement.

They have a crazy good match at ROH as well, think the year is 2008 but I'm not sure. ROH posted in on YouTube some years ago as a throwback thursday.

Why the fuck did Eddie Kingston lose?

The incredible amount of pro Elite propaganda Meltzer is moving right after the dog stuff was leaked, this whole situation is funnier and funnier each time. And btw, the elite being the ones returning first means nothing. They are the bosses of the company. They literally created it. Of course they were gonna come back, it's their yard. That doesn't mean they're more or less on the victim side of the Punk stuff.

So they did kicked the door then?

Completely agree. It's so fucking sad what New Japan did to one of the best babyfaces in the world. If he truly leaves NJPW, please get the fuck outta the Bullet Club asap, Juice.

The term "legend" is said a lot, but Inoki is one of those figures in wrestling that does not only truly deserve the legend status, but one of the really few who feels even above it. He trascended wrestling, for sure.

No problem with Danielson losing. I wanted him to win too (and I'm a Mox fanboy), but 1) his title win deserve a proper story and build up; 2) he shouldn't be the one who drops the title to MJF soon. Moxley shouldn't either, but he's taking some time off anyway so whatever. Let's cook MJF as the most asshole heel champion ever and Bryan as the nuclear babyface who will take it away from him eventually, and everything's fine. This show was excellent. Weird the crowd kinda died for the main event, but every match was (at least) very solid. The Saraya pop was incredible, what a superstar. So glad for her. Also, wtf with the show's ending? It seemed like we were going to see some beef between Bryan and Regal/Mox, but they abruptly ended the show.

Are they really going to pull the trigger on The Acclaimed?

I don't think Khan believes he's burying Ricky. Yeah he was squashed (which was dumb) but the rivalry seems to continue and now Starks is more pissed off than ever, and Hobbs is his personal mountain to climb. Time will say.

I never liked the Attitude Adjustment as a finisher. The bump is too soft looking. Weird Dynamite. Enjoyed the two tournament matches and the MJF promo, but everything else was decent at best. I think they're gonna put the belt on Danielson because MJF will "injure" Mox or whatever (so he can have his vacation), and then do a Bryan/MJF storyline and a MJF/Mox feud right after MJF wins the title.

I don't think there's an endgame. The Rock match at WM seems pretty clear, but there's no way Rock's winning that. I just don't think they're long-term booking after that, yet. It's hard for me to believe Cody Rhodes is HHH's choice. There's no way he's putting an "AEW star" over the big face of the company, that's exactly the opposite of what Triple H has always done. Trips is a huge mark for those symbolisms.

Is not like they were doing something with Cabana to begin with, though. Why are people surprised he was one of the talents sent to ROH? Why does everyone believes Meltzer and/or the vultures known as wrestling journalists when they say the Elite arent their sources? That's exactly what somebody whose sources are the Elite would say. C'mon guys. This whole thing is extremely hilarious to me, but I can't avoid being just a tiny bit bothered about the hate Punk's getting. Suddenly, the Bucks and Omega don't have any toxic stories anywhere they went. Suddenly, Triple H (Triple fucking H of all people) was right when he did that cool promo against Punk a lot of years ago. Suddenly, Colt Cabana is everyone's favourite wrestler, deserving of prime time tv time, and he only doesn't get it because Punk hates him. The roster being mostly pro-Elite means nothing to me. They're literally their bosses and founded the company, of course they have more people on their side. Punk is an asshole because he has no problems getting dirty with people who is dirty against him, but that doesn't mean he can't be right. He's almost never being wrong in previous stuff back at WWE, iirc. Also, Tony Khan is the main responsible for all of this. He just doesn't have what it takes to control a wrestling lockerroom. But he's surrounded by people who does (Arn, Henry, Lynn, etc) so I hope more discipline is forced, everyone gets suspended, Punk drops the title as soon as possible to MJF, and the Elite loses their EVP charges. None of that it's gonna happen (Tony will just send them to a coach or something like that, and then he will try to make it a storyline), but something needs to change around Khan. Maybe Tony himself.

Man Mox/Punk was fucking awesome. What a delightful little story they have told in just four weeks, finishing It with an absolute banger of a fight. Maybe my AEW MOTY right now.

He's a worse version than Kenny Omega's worst version. I actually really enjoyed his early NJPW run as a Jr from 2016-19, you can see him learning to find an accurate balance to his style over time. I will even say he was NJPW's WOTY for 2019. But as soon as they pushed him to the moon in order to find another Kenny, he went back to being this insufferable attention whore kind of wrestler that I hate, with double the ego. Everything about him cringes me nowadays. Oh and his pre-NJPW stuff is hit or miss.

Jon fucking Moxley, ladies and gentlemen.

Not a fan of Jericho beating Kingston just to put Moxley over (again) in a low-stakes, transitional title defence, but gotta admit man, Mox really sold me on that match with just two minutes of mic work.

Man, the Regal and Fuji matches are soooooo good. Probably top 5 for Hash. Hyped for the Flair match.

I don't think he was bad at WWE at all. Like, at any point. The FCW stuff is awesome. His Shield run we all know is one of those career-making runs for all three of those guys. Then Rollins turned heel and Ambrose was the hottest guy in the company during that rivalry, with very good matches (their whole saga is great, love all their matches but I'd specially recommend the 30 mins Ironman match, the Montreal RAW match and the Ladder match). Then he was relegated to Roman's second and couldn't shine much, but his 2016 is awesome. The Owens LMS match and Rumble performance. The freaking Reigns/Lesnar TT. The Triple H match. Yeah WM with Brock was dissapointing (100% blame Lesnar), but then his SmackDown Live run in the second half of 2016-early 2017 is very, very solid: you have the AJ saga (and I will die on this hill: at least, as good as the Reigns matches), an incredible carryjob to Ziggler (didn't like the match, but sure as hell loved his performance), cool comedy stuff with Ellsworth, the Miz rivalry is really underrated (great matches in a January 2017 SmackDown and the Extreme Rules PPV)... In 2018 he has the Rollins tag run with stelar fights with The Bar and Drew/Ziggler. Yeah his heel run was bad, he obviously was done with the company at that point so is understandable, and he still have some months or whatever where, if not given anything, he won't be as good, but overall I think he has been far better and solid in WWE that most people think, even if he was clearly an output guy instead of input. I still can find some pretty hidden gems in random tv matches with him like a US title match with Rusev, the first Braun Strowman singles match where he managed to look believable against him, a kinda stiff Bray Wyatt brawl (qualifyer for the MITB at may/june 2015 iirc) that is strangely much better than everything they did later together, an Owens/Ziggler triple threat for the IC title... I get he wasn't presented by the company as one of the most interesting guys to follow, but believe me, he's almost always been one of those under-the-radar good workers.

Honestly the weirdest thing for me is Naito not having anything to do with this. Like, both Shingo and Hiromu are there, but not Naito? Seems super weird to me. Why does Ospreay/Orange exist when you could have had Naito/Orange instead?

This G1 feels everything but special. I cannot believe they could bring guys like Lawlor, Archer or this Jonah guy to fill spots, but they still decided to include guys like Fale, Tama Tongaw, Henare, Yujiro or Yoshi Hashi anyway. Like, I got it when the pandemic was at its peak and they just had to work with what they had, but this year? C'mon man.

I strongly disagree. He shines a lot in that setting, his matches with guys like Killer Kross, Barnett or Biff Busick are a delight. He's obviously not a classic shoot style wrestler, as he doesn't have the background, but his "rabid dog in a street fight" attitude brings something fresh to the usual sport-like approach of shoot matches and is so cool.

Any link to the Lawlor?match ? Needless to say I'm interested.