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A sidebar of the thigh slap debate: The super headbutt spot with obscene thigh slap should be banned from the entire industry. It looks atrocious even with camera cuts and angles to hide things, can't imagine how dogshit those look in person. It's far more egregious than any superkick. Examples: Toni Storm, Drew McIntyre, Yota Tsuji, Timothy Thatcher. All very different wrestlers in different promotions all doing the most dogshit spot. Ban it.

Lucha Bros vs BCC might be the sloppiest match by four top tier talents I've ever seen. Besides a single superkick from Fenix to Mox, these dudes whiffed on absolutely everything the entire match.

A big deep family rivalry really needs more violence than kendo sticks and clean table bumps. Never seen a family fight not be the most dirty shit. Not 40 minutes of open hand uppercuts.

Does AEW actually set the PPV price points, or does the provider

Feels like perhaps this angle has peaked and is time to think about wrapping it up.

A LOT of spots in this have had so much air in between competitors. Tighten it up, pals.

Shayna/Ronda might be the biggest disappointment of the year. The promo package was great, they knocked the fuck out of each other in the build up, and then put on such a dull sparring contest with terrible looking strikes and no intensity. All they had to do was come out and do 5 minutes of Frye/Takyama + a few heavy shots from Shayna, then the choke out.

Next 2 weeks of TV are probably going to be nuts. Hard to really predict what the All In card could look like, especially as All Out is a week or two later. Just some possibilities for either show based on what I've seen on TV recently: A Cole/MJF break up angle and match, or Cole/MJF tag match. Possibly for the titles against FTR or even if Big Bill/Cage beat them. Maybe even the break up angle after the match, leading to a title match at All Out. Punk vs Starks rematch for the "real" title. Punk vs White-O is also in the cards. A OC/PAC begrudging, enemy of my enemy style tag against Claudio and Mox, or a defense of the International against one of them. Perhaps OC/Ospreay 2? Joker Sting was super over in the UK so I'd imagine bringing him into the Darby/Wayne vs Swerve/Fox thing would make sense Andrade/Black singles match, or trios match with HOB vs Andrade/Rush/Dralistico or Preston Vance Kenny vs Takeshita, Don Callis on a pole match If Jericho pushing to work with Ospreay isn't accurate, Jericho vs Sammy vs Garcia The AEW roster is so wild that I have no idea what the Bucks, Hangman, any of the women's division, Miro, Lucha Bros, Joe, The Acclaimed, Keith Lee, not to mention any UK talent that presumably will be on the card could be doing. Plus I think Grand Slam is a few weeks after, too.

Cole/MJF has moved from bromance to just romance. Cole doesn't even look at Britt that way

Will Ospreay is probably the best wrestler in the world right now. This mf turned me. He's so immensely better as a heavyweight. Dude is really in that peak Big Match Kenny air at the moment, but for every match.

Sure, but his burying of NOAH goes into how they suck at booking and have no idea how to run a promotion and can't get their stars over, that the competition of the N1 isn't in the same league as the G1, and so on. And then you pair that with how he talks about NJ booking and you get a Sanada/Kiyomiya match where commentary talks about both how shitty NOAH is and how Sanada hasn't had any serious challengers but that's probably good because it gave Sanada some confidence as a champ, but also it would be a DISASTER if Sanada lost and it then took Sanada until the last 2 seconds to put away the guy. But Kevin Kelly frequently just talks shit about NJ booking and promotion, in a very casual way, that I can't believe someone isn't listening to him call shows and be like "hey what the fuck man".

Yeah I like that dude a lot. What I don't like is Kevin Kelly. Do the NJ brass actually listen to his commentary? Dude is constantly and casually shitting on wrestlers, their moves, the refs, the booking, the promoting, the quality of opponents for various people, and man does he bury the ever loving shit out of NOAH constantly. Just very unhelpful and unproductive

Ospreay should decline a program with Jericho. Jericho in no way can keep up with Ospreay, who will have to work overtime to make Jericho look good, which will do nothing for Ospreay, and only serve Jericho's ego of having to be relevant at the expense of talented people who could be working with other talented people to help each other.

Is Sting/his son/his grandson vs Swerve/AR Fox/? (Cage) its way

It's hilarious that Roddy has been coming to TV every week in a neckbrace for a MONTH just to try to talk to Adam Cole during his promos.

OC feuding with BCC could produce some real great stuff

Codyverse x Brayverse, the crossover event of a lifetime

These dudes gotta stop with the dueling headbutt spots. Either they full on headbutt each other, which is unbelievably stupid, or they have the weakest looking pulled strikes that just look terrible.

He was definitely a heel in the match

That actually did happen, eventually.

2020 Ibushi coming into a war games in full demon mode and absolutely killing Yuta would have been delightful

Most War Games are kind of not good. The only way to do it in the current era is make it a big spot fest. Sometimes it works (like it has in WWE), sometimes it does not (like it hasn't in AEW or MLW). There's a reverence for War Games because it is a cool theory and two rings and two cages is but you can really count the good ones one like...3 fingers.

I don't understand how there were 700 STABBINGS and yet no one bled from them. Meanwhile, Moxley is blading every 45 seconds in front of every camera. Bed of nails shit was wild, though. Ibushi turning into a NJ Dad seemingly over night is some real :titus: shit. Sammy Guevarra having absolutely no rhythm despite his athleticism is weird to me.

I mentioned a bit earlier that I was going through some of the classics in the earlier AEW cannon for funsies. Basically, 8.0 and up on cagematch, although I'm skipping Jericho bullshit and some early Dynamite stuff that I actually do remember and have no desire to rewatch. No need to give big write ups or anything. Dustin Rhodes vs Cody 5/25/19 Cagematch Rating: 9.40 WON rating: ***** I agree with the ratings. When Dustin starts breaking out Code Reds while just leaking blood out of his head, after Cody had pretty much dominated him the whole match...whew. Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros 5/25/19 Cagematch Rating: 8.79 WON rating: ****3/4 I agree with the ratings. Some really wild shit in this. Completely different from Dustin/Cody. The Elite vs Laredo Kid/Lucha Bros 6/29/19 Cagematch Rating: 8.17 WON rating ****1/2 Dave's is probably a tad high. Real cool shit of course. Bucks as Ken and Ryu, Kenny as Akuma, and JR confused about it the entire match. Joey Janela vs Jon Moxley 6/29/19 Lights Out Cagematch Rating: 8.03 WON rating ****1/4 Both are too high. Janela just fucking sucks and brings down what otherwise would be a pretty visceral match. CIMA vs Kenny Omega 7/13/19 Cagematch Rating: 8.31 WON rating ****1/2 Slightly overrated, but not by much. The biggest issue I had was CIMA hits the meteora like 15 times in the last few minutes, after both guys had basically hit every insane move they had up to the OWA. Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros 8/31/19 Ladder Match Cagematch Rating: 9.17 WON rating: *****1/4 Definitely too high from Dave. It's a wild and inventive ladder match, but I can't see any ladder match being "break the scale" good. Again, tons of just bonkers shit. The Canadian Destroyer off the ladder through a table should be an all timer spot but Matt was doing spots a few minutes later anyway. Kenny Omega vs PAC 8/31/19 Cagematch Rating: 8.20 WON rating: ****1/4 Ratings seem about right. Awesome finish with PAC getting the Rings of Saturn on a standing Kenny, Kenny going down in a weird angle and getting choked out by it. Joey Janela vs Kenny Omega 10/9/19 Lights Out Cagematch Rating 8.28 WON rating: ****1/4 Both are too high. Janela just fucking sucks and this match is actually worse than the Moxley one. Jon Moxley vs Kenny Omega 11/9/19 Lights Out Cagematch Rating 8.91 WON rating ****1/2 This is lightyears ahead of either match with Janela, so for Dave to only give it half a star more than both is weird. Some truly wild shit in this, but the real FUCK part to me is Kenny takes a lot of very awful bumps in this. Like yeah, there's the barbed wire and glass and shit, but the multiple bumps on anchor chains, the bumps on the exposed wood, just regular Kenny bumping like a maniac bumps are what had me cringing more than the actual hardcore stuff. Also interesting to see how much bigger he looks now, but also he's certainly slowed down a bit and lost some of that spring in his step. Also, it's time for Moxley to bring back his original music. The Onita "tribute" bullshit ended like a year and a half ago and does not fit with BCC or his current persona/style.

Quite enjoyed Kaito vs Tsuji, Shingo vs Eddie, and Ospreay vs Taichi. The fuck is wrong with Nichols doing shoot headbutts to the point of busting himself open and then absolutely spiking