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It wasn't just for Kenny/Kidd. He also went very hard for Tsuji/Perry (particularly about Okada), and Shota/Claudio where he buried TK personally and also the booking of Death Riders basically being AEW's version of House of Torture (which also shit on NJ booking at the same time). Each time he started yelling during entrances to rage about AEW talent/booking/office was so out of place and his commentary partners were also clearly trying to rein him in. By the end of the show he did more or less apologize for it and said it was just heat of the moment, but that whole thing definitely seems like something that was a heavy cultural no-no in Japan and TK had zero involvement in the suspension. It was very out of character for the AEW/NJ relationship, but also for Charlton himself. Never heard him rage like that in all the years he's been doing NJ shows outside of the general "oh fuck Bullet Club/HoT" groaning that the Japanese announcers also do. I don't know if a suspension or hiatus was needed or not, but I can definitely see why the NJ side would be pissed at him even if the AEW office didn't bring it up.

Agreed that WD was better than WK, but neither were all that interesting or making me want to keep watching NJ. Takeshita was the MVP both nights imo. That dude should be THE dude. Was very :what at Chris Charlton repeatedly going extremely hard at AEW, anyone who left, and Tony Khan. It's not like the AEW/NJPW relationship is an invasion angle like UWFI vs NJ, or even just hateful interpromotional feud like NJ vs NOAH at different times over the years. It's a very cordial, friendly partnership, not a feud. Rocky and the other guy were both so "uhhh hey man" and it was so weird.

WK thoughts as someone so checked out of NJ I didn't watch a single second of G1 last year: Rumbo: Lmao Goto getting yet another title shot to lose Ladder match: Almost every big spot was botched, but god damn how much must it suck to do bumps off those giant ass ladders on those late 80s/mid 90s WWF stiff mats? Also lol that Kushida been forcing all of his partners into BTFF cosplay shit for nearly 15 years now. IWGP Women's: AZM rules, this match was many many levels better on every possible front than the two matches before it. TV title match: Fine I guess. Really seems like Jeff Cobb should be much higher up on the card like 3+ years ago. Tana vs Evil: Dogshit. Tana is beyond old and busted. Shit has been a bummer to watch him the past 2-3 years where he's been well past the "can still bring a classic once a year" level. I'd argue a couple of the NJ dads from the previous gen work and move better than him (Kojima and Nagata, it is a crime they let Tenzan in the ring a couple times a year). Honestly hobbled ass Mutoh with 20 years on him was about the same level. Evil is trash, House of Torture and bullet club shit been trash for AGES. Shibata making the save was a nice moment, though. Shingo vs Takeshita: Best of the show so far but not sure it hit the level it should have on paper. But boy do I love it when Takeshita absolutely starches a motherfucker. Takeshita absolutely rules, both AEW and NJ should be fighting over who can push him harder. Jr title: Who knows what it could have been due to injury, but my feeling of Doukie for years was thought of as indie trash in all the worst ways for years, so I don't know what the expectations were for this. Finlay vs Tsuji: Tsuji was clearly the top out of the last class and probably should be the guy headlining now. Finlay Jr. is very bleh as both a junior to his dad, but also as the fill in for Omega/White/Ospreay. I will say I was pretty late to all three of them, but Finlay is nowhere near their level even when I didn't see their talent, and if his contract is up and he may go to the States, ZZZZZZZ. Hiromu/Naito: Not really sure the story going into this, match was whatever. Naito isn't Tana busted, but he's definitely well out of his prime, and the spamming of Destino is worse than any finisher spam in WWE or AEW. At least there was some genuine emotion in the post match stuff. ZSJ/Shota: This was okay. With as bad of a job NJ has done building up new stars to take over from Tana/Naito/Okada and Omega/White/Ospreay, I can not understand why the story for the new 3 Muskateers is that they can't reach their potential when the company needs them most. It's easy to see why NJ has been so cold. It almost feels like they're intentionally inducing a new dark age or something.

Hey man Netflix loves putting 30 seasons of something no one watches because CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT is the only thing that matters

Caught up on CC stuff. Mark Briscoe is a delight, guy works so well with everyone of any stature of size or on the card, guy is just always super fun. Really enjoyed his Okada match in particular. The Beast Mortos ruling so much that TK had to give him non tournament matches to pick up wins during the tournament rules. Ricochet's heel turn is really needed, because man that guy trying to be cool falls so flat every time. Maybe this can give him a shot in the arm personality wise, but based on his Twitter version of being a heel, I doubt it. I kind of think he should have stayed in WWE, because there are so many more guys in AEW that work his same style and do it as good or better, and he's in pretty much exactly the same position as he was in WWE with the same ceiling. Similar thoughts on Claudio. He's in the exact same spot with the exact same ceiling; it was a lateral move for him unless he's getting paid more. He's also better as a tag guy and all of his singles matches never quite hit the peak they should. Fletcher rules. Ospreay rules. Okada rules but I do think he loses a little something not being a shithead with the Bucks. Move Brodie to top of the cards. Gotta shit or get off the pot with Darby. It's been 5 years of him losing the big matches and then going missing for months. Surely the end game for the nWo 2024 angle is Darby beating Mox for the title, presumably with the power of the punch playing in at some point since he pocketed the brass knux after the match with Claudio. It feels like he hasn't been consistently booked week to week since the first year of AEW. Granted a lot of that was due to being with Sting, but for such a bedrock guy that is so popular, it feels like he's been pretty sporadically and randomly in programs for years now.

Fell out of the habit of watching AEW for a while, just caught up with Full Gear Stat/Mercedes ruled. Best match Mercedes has had in AEW. White vs Page ruled. Fletcher vs Ospreay ruled. Other stuff was okay or kind of flat. The way Mox is booked as Brock Lesnar doing a Terry Funk/Austin pastiche is hilarious. Gotta get caught up on the CC. Seems like it's had a ton of great stuff and was such a delight last year.

WWE sending Omos to NOAH for a genuine excursion at the behest of Mutoh is probably the weirdest but coolest thing WWE has done with their interpromotional relationships these past few years. I know all their stuff with NOAH is to try to hurt NJPW (which is hurt enough pal, no need to take them down a peg now) and co-opt Japanese crowds for tours (which also is unnecessary for 35 years or so), but kind of neat all the same.

What a nightmare timeline we're in where Logan Paul vs The Rock could be a thing

Apropos of nothing other than the Sting Timelines vid getting into my algorithm: Sting is the GOAT super face Sting's AEW run is the GOAT legend run Many adults will be crying when Darby wins the big one and Sting comes out unannounced to celebrate with him Maybe it's a good thing Darby has so many kind of sporadic runs in AEW over the past 5 years because him doing Darby things consistently for 5 years even without house shows would be such a short career. It's more than time for Darby to be the guy for AEW Those good WCW vibes in the first 2ish years are delightful.

Iron Survivor seems like a mix of King of the Moutain without a ladder and the Championship Scramble match. Is that accurate?

Hustle rules for its weirdness and randomness, but I don't know I'd say it was more cartoonish than Hulkamania era WWF. Chikara was extremely comic booky horseshit, but also not as cartoony as late 80s WWF. I'm not sure any genre or promotion is as cartoony than WWF from about 1987 to 1990 in terms of pure cartoon characters and storylines. Damn near everything in that period is about as close to live action cartoon as you could possibly get. Maybe even a bit before and after the dates.

President Trump to send in a video for Zhan Chena's retirement show

I still believe the Screwjob was half a work at least to the point that all the office, commentators, crew knew more or less what was going to go down. The shit JR says at the start of the show and before the match itself is smacking the audience in the face with a board telling them what's about to go down. Camera crew and production crew were in place to capture everything from every angle. I don't believe Bret was in on it (but he did suspect it as shown in WWS, but no way could he have not revealed that over the past 25+ years with the way he talks about everything), but I do believe all the McMahon inner circle, including Dunn and his crew, knew what was about to go down.

Very funny that Toni Storm doing her stuff in Mexico and Japan and online promos is a million times hotter than anything Mariah May is doing. I really think no one wanting to ask her a question at the press conference is not because no one there cared about women's wrestling, but because she has absolutely no heat or juice once separated from Toni.

No, because Terrifier 1 was trash, 2 was worse. Those movies are just the same trash as the peak of torture porn era of horror movies but with a more direct slasher bent. Just meanspirited SO OFFENSIVE shit that also feels like the director/writer guy has a genuine fetish for torturing women.

I made a comment about how hard it would be to make fans choose between Darby and Orange moving to the main title scene, but these dudes have never had a match against each other that wasn't a battle royal or multi man ladder match. Even outside of AEW there is a single match with them opposing each other and it was when Orange was still an Ant and also a big multi man match. Now that I'm thinking about it, Orange vs Darby in a main event match sounds great, something literally never been done before, a match that hasn't and can't be done anywhere else but AEW, a very intriguing mix of styles and characters. If all this stuff is ending up in a Darby/OC title match PPV main event :whoo:

Takeshita just blasting mfs has to be one of my favorite things in wrestling today. Interesting that they're signifying both Darby and Orange finally going to the top belt, because it seems like it would be difficult to satisfyingly elevate both to that level at the same time without making fans have to choose. Perhaps OC winning the CC makes more sense for now. CC could be even better than last year with the possible available talent: Okada Ospreay Fletcher Orange Hangman Swerve Cesaro Pac Brody Garcia MJF Adam Cole Rush Switchblade Maybe Black and/or Buddy? Juice Shibata KOR Jay Briscoe a returning Hobbs Richochet Roddy Stong Joey Samoey? Perhaps a Bobby Lashley? Get Double J in there, TK. Big Bill as a darkhorse in the Archer role perhaps.

Some WWE stuff got rec'd to me on Spotify looking for non wrestling related songs. One of the albums has the Mexicools theme and it got me to thinking...is there a more absurdly racist and offensive gimmick than the Mexicools? This was mid 00s, all three dudes were WELL established stars in the US. Their theme starts with lawn mower sounds, they rode to the ring on riding mowers while wearing jump suits. This shit feels more over the top absurdly racist horseshit than damn near any 70s/80s characters and gimmicks even with people playing the part of whatever ethnic group or nationality they didn't even belong to. I know it was said it was a satirical gimmick....but that shit was not a satirical gimmick.

I would genuinely love to see Bret/Goldberg team up to help Sami beat Gunther and bury the hatchet, but the saddest part of Bret's heat with Goldberg is that he very clearly concussed himself on the ring post figure four well before the kick, but he seems to not remember it. You know, on account of scrambling his brain before the kick.

Rock still carrying around his vanity title is hilarious

I guess maybe lol at this timeline where we might get The Rock in a War Games match in 2024

If War Games isn't Roman/Usos/Sami vs Bloodline Hollywood, waterwedune here

I didn't think the HIAC match was particularly good, either. Lot of real phony looking shit, especially with the wrenches. Drew was doing all the heavy lifting and the only thing to really get a reaction from me was the terrible looking bump on the steps Drew took for the Claymore miss on the steps. So stupid it's been a nearly year long angle over a fucking friendship bracelet complete with the blow off ending with a bag of beads instead of tacks or glass in a HIAC and it was treated completely seriously.

Can HHH do the impossible and have Bret and Goldberg unite to help Sami win the title?

That was the sloppiest match I've seen in ages. fucking lol that Cole and Graves multiple times couldn't even tell who was the one executing the move because it was so ugly and actually called it wrong multiple times because of it.