Big Pete

At 1:00am with Nakazawa and Cutler. How could you possibly think you were going to resolve the situation at that time without consulting the owner? Bottom line, that's horrible management and so far everything Punk has said in that press conference has been proven right. The journalists still can't get their facts straight and are playing to their sides, the Bucks managed the situation terribly and Cabana ultimately got a gig because of Punk. There always seemed to be more to the story than 'Omega took pity on Punk's dog and Punk in a moment of clarity allowed Omega to graciously carry the dog out of harm's way before they continued to fight'. Now I think Punk 100% exagerated the story, but I could see the dog barking it's head off at the door and when they barged in they accidentally hit the dog. I've done it to my own dogs and I haven't been buried by an egomaniac for millions around the world to see.

I have no idea how anyone could watch that press conference and think Punk was in a good mood. The guy was ranting and raving cussing out his co-workers and people in the room for spreading lies. Alvarez tries to make out that since Punk decided to end things on a good note by saying 'I'm actually a good guy' that he was approachable but that was like two minutes after he went after Alvarez' rant and minute after Punk reminded these journalists to get their facts straight.

IIRC the dress code was the source of a lot of frustration in the locker room including Jericho. That may have been something him and Taker disagreed on, that doesn't mean he thought he had it all figured out in 2008.

It's not like he stopped listening to veterans when he became the World Champion in 2008 either. From interviews around that time, their advice and example was always important to him and he clearly grew as a performer from 2008 to 2011.

Punk is an enigma in the sense you'd think he's anti-authority and doesn't follow direction but he's always harboured respect for the older wrestlers. Harley Race, Eddie Guerrero, Raven etc. were all guys he idolised even when Raven wouldn't want to do any of his ideas and would have some of the most basic matches possible. Punk still respected Raven and took a lot of what he said on board because he respected the chain of command. In fact he had a falling out with his original Lunatic Wrestling Federation crew because they didn't take Pro Wrestling seriously enough. They were all untrained Pro Wrestling fans who actually out-drew a lot of the other promotions doing their style but that wasn't good enough for Punk because he wanted something more sustainable. The only person I've heard criticise Punk for his advice is Meltzer, all the other wrestler's were complimentary. The only exception would be Hangman who couldn't recall a single piece of good advice Punk or Sting had given him at the GalaxyCon. However he didn't criticise either guy, he just believed in trying to create his own path and being the champion of the biggest promotion emerge since WCW was proof that it worked out for him. So I could see that offending Punk that one of the top guys is openly saying he won't take advice. By that point, Punk most likely was looking for another reason to hate this guy who went on national television and threw him under the bus. However I don't think Page had enough cache to get away with those comments either. True, he's one of the biggest stars in the company but as his lackluster title reign shows he's still got a lot to learn about working on a national television show in the States as opposed to his other appointments. It wasn't like Page was some huge star before AEW. He was the fall guy of the Elite, a top prospect but still growing into himself all the same. Regardless, based on everything we've seen, Punk is still an unprofessional douche who handled this the worst way imagineable. However the poisoning of the well is a bit rich, capped off by Jericho putting himself over when it was all over.

That's on brand for Jericho - jumping on a hot angle right as it's beginning to cool down. Seriously though, no surprises there. You'd expect Jericho to confront Punk in that situation and their relationship had been dicey for years. It's just surprising it took this long to come through the pipeline considering how much of an open book Jericho is.

Except he did paint that picture when he opened with this supposed exclusive scoop that he'd been rubbing the locker room the wrong way the entire time giving them unsolicited out-dated 7 year advice. Meltzer double-speaking doesn't just completely erase that point or the connection he made to Watts. It was a very timely exclusive that nobody else to my knowledge has even reported and everything leading up was how helpful Punk had been and how he hadn't big leagued a lot of young talent. I never said he flat out said it, I said he painted that picture. If he wanted to simply make the point that Hangman didn't need to take that advice because he was a megastar who didn't need to listen to other talent because others (let's be real, Cornette) gave him bad advice he could have just made that point. Instead he went into a spiel about how Punk had been rubbing the locker room the wrong way and that it wasn't just Elite guys saying that.

September 8th WOR about 20-25 minutes in, Dave goes on a massive tangent and totally does paint Punk that way and even makes comparisons to Bill Watts.

Meltzer was also trying to paint Punk as an out of touch boomer offering prehistoric advice even though members of the locker room were extremely complimentary of his advice. One story that may have been lost in this is an incident that went down around Comic Con. GiantBomb shared a story where they were set to host a panel/interview some AEW guys only at the last minute for it to be canned as one of the talents was in a foul mood. This all happened around the time Hangman conducted his panel where he basically dismissed needing advice from Sting and Punk. The Elite for mine are certainly the lesser evil, but they were stirring the pot. From Kenny's bizarre off-air return promo to the even more bizarre pre-show address that leaked to all the other scuttlebutt the situation reflected poorly on them.

If you guys are after some fun Foley in ECW stories, I'd highly recommend tracking down the Jerry Lynn and Mikey Whipwreck podcast Front Row Material episode on Cactus Jack. It came out over 3 years ago but Mikey shared some great Foley stories I'd never before and it really shares the lengths Foley would go to make a buck. https://podbay.fm/p/front-row-material-with-jerry-lynn-and-mikey-whipwreck/e/1541376000

I thought it was a solid show outside of the Saraya promo. As you said El-P, bad premise and bad execution. It really seems like she was brought in for the sake of bringing a big name in despite having nothing for her. I think we're seeing the down-side of doing long term storylines, especially in the women's division as they've been so slow with this Britt Baker/Jamie Hayter storyline. If you look at what's been successful at AEW, it's been character development. Adam Page had an opportunity to go down in history as the first ever AEW Champion and had all that pressure...and failed. Instead of just shrugging it off we saw the toll that took on him and it made him a far more interesting character and made us care about his journey. Making Britt Baker into the Seth Rollins/Jinder Mahal style champion for a year where her lackeys do all her heavy lifting is beyond boring. They should have been quicker on the ball there and we should at least be well and truly into a Jamie Hayter/Britt Baker feud. Instead we've got another ex-WWE wrestler coming after Britt in AEW. I thought it was pretty lame that of all the acts that won last week, the Acclaimed could only get a backstage promo to set up a match for Rampage. Feels like we're going through the exact same motions as The Lucha Bros and The Jurassic Express. They win and then they disappear to the B-show barely half the audience watches. Hopefully they avoid that with Bandido. Sign him, have him go over Andrade and put him on a colision course towards the TNT title.

The issue stems from the Hangman promo where he painted Punk as a hypocrite before their big PPV title program. It hardly gained any attention despite it being really awkward and out of place in the build up. Then everybody forgot about it except for CM Punk who fired up about it in Page's home state. Then the wrestling journalists started taking sides, with Alvarez and Meltzer in particular making it clear where their loyalties lied. It led into all this speculation and reporting around Cabana, so much so, TK had to address it in the Forbes interview so Punk decided to have it out at the press conference.

No Mercy was the last ever licensed Pro Wrestling game developer AKI released. It was during the infancy of 3D game design and while their competition would focus heavily on the models, commentary, create-a-wrestler etc. the AKI games focused on the gameplay. Not only did the moves look amazing but the games required some strategy beyond quick reflexes and button inputs. The games captured the ebb and flow of a Pro Wrestling match with players being able to hit more spectacular moves if they had the momentum. There's been a lot of imitators since. In fact, the Fight Forever developers, Yukes, already tried their hand 20 odd years ago with the Wrestlemania/Day of Reckoning series for the GameCube. They got better with each release but since Yukes were also developing the SmackDown series around the same time there was a lot of cross-pollunation that prevented it from being the successor fans had hoped. As DMJ brought up, while No Mercy maybe the last, Revenge was the most popular on the console. It captured WCW at it's peak and side-bar was what got me into Pro Wrestling. So far Fight Forever has the basic template of the AKI games, but it's missing the nuances that made those games great. The recent video was a step in the right direction, but as a long time fan there's still plenty to be concerned about.

I'm actually OK with the Barbwire Death Match. The anti-climatic finish of Blood and Guts left it open for one more big blow-off match and since Fyter Fest is treated as a PPV show it seems like the right occasion. The only problem is that they may have taken it a step too far with the Shark Week cross-over. I think having guys suspended in cages is going to be a distraction and take away from what should be this incredibly personal and heated moment that should springboard either guy into a title program. With that said, I do think AEW could do a better job at building up gimmick matches. Sometimes it just feels like they book a gimmick just to have it when ideally there's a good justification for it.

SummerSlam 2011 crossed my mind @DMJ and it maybe the consensus pick but from memory wasn't it just a play on the whole SummerSlam 2008 Edge/Taker match where Orton exacted every bit of revenge on Christian and used a bunch of spots on him? The performance seemed more tied into that rivalry than it being emblematic of Orton as a character. Granted I haven't watched the match in over a decade so I could really be short-changing Orton's performance.

I could see that if your best asset is your timing, positioning, foot-work and really subtle things we as fans may not appreciate but if you're in the business you get so much respect. A good example of that would be Psichosis who is held in extremely high regard by Lucha Libre legends from the 90s. It also begs the question of context. I look at Rey-Psichosis and what made their series of matches so fantastic is how they'd change things to suit their environment. In Mexico it was more mat-based, in ECW they employed more dare daring high risk action and in WCW they worked the crowd more and largely kept it in the ring. The question is, what was the best version? Similarly WMX just edges out Owen-Bulldog and the Canadian Stampede matches as the best WWF Owen match, but what about his matches with Hase in Stampede? It was a different side of Owen but one could argue that was the better version of Owen. But yeah, I get what you're saying. The criteria can change based on the performer - just look at Mick Foley at King of the Ring 1998. Hardly anyone talks about The Undertaker in that match other than to mention how much his broken foot was an obstacle, it was all about Mick. Is that his best match? I could certainly see an argument. As to sek's point, maybe Randy was just born to be the straight man to Riddle's goofiness? It's kind of like after all those years where Hunter took him away from Jindrak, he finally got his goofy sidekick back.

If I'm thinking of the right interview, the context was that Raven can't watch modern wrestling because it just reminds him that he never got to be a top guy in a top promotion and it breaks his heart that he was never in a position to have his best match. However he was struggling to articulate his feelings on the matter so he didn't provide what his criteria would be. For mine an interesting case study is Wrestlemania III. Feel free to argue the toss, but I'd have no problem with calling Savage/Steamboat Savage's best match. High profile show, best performance of the night and if you ask the most casual wrestling fan what Macho Man's best match was, they'll typically say that. However, I wouldn't call that Steamboat's best match because there were other instances where he showed better fire and command in the ring. Orton maybe the best example. I'd say the match that most fans put over is the Backlash 2004 match, but if you go back and watch it, it's essentially Mick's match and Randy's big contribution is the RKO. I'd dare say that Randy's best match was against Seth Rollins at Wrestlemania XXXI if only because it had the best rendition of the RKO and all his performances essentially boil down to that one move.

I'm pretty sure something happened at the top of the cage which caused the match to slow to the crawl. Around the time where Regal said Kingston was laughing, it seemed like the complete opposite like he forgot to bring his blade or something and you can audibily hear him cuss himself out on top of the cage. Between that and Santana, the whole match seemed like a clustermuck.

I'd argue it was his promo work that was letting him down. Again fans who had been following had long accepted it wasn't his strong suit and were prepared to make that trade off but outside of a promo he cut on Moxley on BTE I don't recall any of his promos resonating. In fact fans were confused because it seemed like Omega was working hard to put others over before he really got himself over with a national television audience. He lost his first three major PPV matches, his character was going through a crisis of confidence and it really wasn't until that incredible week he had in February where things started to click. Then as things happened, COVID hit so he didn't have the momentum he should have had moving forward. It's just a shame for IMPACT and to an extent AEW that things didn't work out timing wise with Hangman. Hangman-Omega at All Out would have made more sense and then you could have had Josh Alexander go over Kenny and avoided that Moose shmozzle which to me came across as D'Amore trying to create buzz after the anti-climax of Christian.

I'd say the majority of the fans who knew Kenny prior to AEW knew this, it was the fans who had only heard of Kenny that weren't aware. I still don't think it was wise to purposefully make a bad first impression even if it was to help tell a larger story. I'd have to see the figures again but if memory serves after an impressive debut Kenny actually struggled to retain fans for his subsequent appearances. I think there was definitely a novelty aspect of seeing an AEW guy on TV, but the show just didn't hook fans for one reason or another. It was something of a shame as well because personally I actually found Omega's run there more interesting than the work he was doing in AEW. When they did the title switch to Christian it just came off as really anti-climatic because Omega's run in TNA was so compelling. Whereas in AEW he played up to being a heel more and relied on a lot of old-school tropes that didn't really do him justice. I don't know if the smoke has really cleared yet. The only match that I saw receive universal praise was against Danielson but it came at such a bad time because it kind of over-shadowed Hangman's win which was the big destination Omega's entire run had been building towards. If you weren't a fan of the goofiness I don't think the run really changed any minds because if anything they just doubled down on it for 'heat'. With all that said, when Kenny does return it's going to be a huge moment and I do expect there to be a honeymoon period unless he tries to 'subvert expectations' like last time.

As far as the Omega-Angels discourse goes it really was a storm in a teacup. It probably highlights just how much certain sections of the community despises Satin that they've made a mental note of that and carried it with them a good year. Possibly for good reasons as well as Satin is a WWE stooge and he seemed to be deliberately missing the point that the match wasn't about making Omega but rather about giving Angels an opportunity during a dire time in the industry where not a lot of guys were getting opportunities to make names for themselves on the internet. I do think those concerns in general are valid. I've seen many variations of a theme but it essentially comes down to the idea that not every match should be a MOTY contender. In Kenny's defence, I think he does agree with this because when he began his singles run it began with that emphatic victory over Kiss where he gave one of the best facial expressions in years. It's certainly not a complaint that AEW gets singled out for. NXT had a similar variation back when fans were beginning to feel burnt out by the formula. Going back further I can remember an infamous example with Kurt Angle & BG James where certain fans were irate that Kurt allowed BG James of all people to kick out of the Angle Slam. I do believe there was a valid point to be made about how Omega had been portrayed up to that point and him not living up to the hype. However since it came from Satin and the spot was defendable it's taken a life of it's own. It may be this generation's X-Pac heat.

Just caught up on the opening couple of episodes and one thing that I enjoyed is Foley's take on Pro Wrestling. They're long episodes but every now and then Foley will drop a nugget about what makes a successful wrestler and it's really good stuff. For instance, his take that it's important for a heel to draw the interest rather than the heat I thought was an interesting take and nothing I've heard articulated on a podcast before. Hopefully he can keep the steam up. A lot of these Conrad podcasts fall in the trap where they start strong early only to lose steam.

You're not alone. For me if you're going to have a wild brawl then you ought to commit to it and put all the typical wrestling stunts to the side. Instead you've got guys going through tables, guys taking piledrivers on steel steps and just the usual chicagnary all the while the commentators are yucking it up on commentary. It really wasn't until 20 minutes in when it was down to Moxley/Danielson - Jericho/Hager that I could finally bite into it. I thought the finish was laid out and actually enjoyed that it was Danielson that took the fall. I couldn't have cared less if it was Ortiz, with Danielson it doesn't sit well. Granted like you I had issues with the casting too. I just can't take 2.0 seriously in this environment and didn't care to watch them stand toe to toe with Eddie who is supposed to be a killer. The only time I cared about Eddie in that match was when he arrived with a can of gasoline. However, I can accept that fans LOVED the match and like Stadium Stampede it'll go down as one of the most memorable matches of 2022. That's fine but like a critically acclaimed movie, you can walk away from it and not consider it the greatest thing you've seen.

Cole is such a strange case. From my perspective, he's somebody who makes a good first impression. He's a good all-round performer who has/had movie star looks, could work a match and in a rarity could actually rock a microphone. However he suffered a serious knee injury right around the time he was trying to establish himself and right as he was beginning to find his feet, the WWE came knocking. I don't think there is that one moment his fans can really point to in that run as Cole establishing himself as THE man. He had one match with O'Reilly in 2012 that earned him a push but beyond that it just seemed like he surrounded himself with talented people. Same can be said of his NXT run. Cole fared better but he surrounded himself with reDragon and Roderick Strong. The bulk of his run took place right as NXT was beginning to lose steam and was running in competition of AEW, so fans started to pick him apart a lot more. When he was in ROH, it was out of sight, out of mind and fans were happy to accept he was the highlight of an otherwise stale show. In NXT he had nowhere to hide. Now he's facing a similar wave of criticism, but it's largely coming from bitter WWE fans. Once again he's surrounded himself with talented people, but these same people aren't everybody's cup of tea and if you don't enjoy the Elite melodrama chances are you don't care about Cole. If you don't care about The Best Friends or Dark Order either, chances are that's also impacted your enjoyment of him. He's been a workhorse for the company, but I don't think he's had that Hangman/Danielson or Darby/MJF stick that up your pipes and smoke it type of match yet. If anything, that Cassidy match may have confirmed a lot of things to his critics. I think with Cole right now, the issue is that he's about to have the biggest match of his AEW career and it's being over-shadowed with the Elite vs. reDragon stuff. If I had to make an argument in terms of where he stands out in modern wrestling, how many guys can play to the crowd like him and get that reaction? It may sound like hyperbole, but I don't think there's anyone better in that department.

You're not wrong, Kassidy bumped like a mad man for him. It's just a shame that Kassidy's presentation has been so poor for so long. Hopefully the recent surge of matches leads to bigger roles for him and Quen.