Excellent. Right call, Mox has had the juice since rehab, crowd sees him as more of an AEW guy than Punk, crowd was into Mox more than Punk, shocking finish. Would lol if Punk actually leaves the company.
I think the FTR booking is due to Dax's shoulder injury. There was a month of no in ring stuff from Forbidden Door to DBD, and he's only worked two matches since then, both the same week as DBD and for NJPW Strong.
Really, that position never seemed like it was something Jeff was going to get tied down to considering all the other hustles and gigs he has going on.
I keep seeing talk about AEW being in a slump, and I disagree completely. I've watched Dynamite just about every week this year and am always sports entertained. Yeah maybe the booking has been scattershot lately, but Dynamite is the only show I would even consider watching weekly in the year of our lord 2022.
Schiavone does seem like the perfect guy for that role, but what happened to Chris Daniels being the head of talent relations? All these stories about different guys just getting ghosted, or all these personal conflicts backstage, why hasn't Daniels' name come up in any of them when he's supposed to be the guy taking care of that kind of stuff?
Could also be that Punk is an asshole who was completely out of the industry for 7 years and came back for way more money with way more hype and killed what had been a 3 year storyline with Adam Page since the very first AEW show. I could see a number of guys that have been around the entire time Punk was gone having a bit of a "fuck this guy" attitude. And I'd say they're right if Punk decided to air his grievances on live TV when Page couldn't respond.
The only time I've been impressed with Eddie Gilbert was with Lawler, and the list of guys with less skill and talent than Gilbert that King made look great is impossible to calculate.
I've never understood the quiet Japanese crowds deal. Going back to even the JWA days are some of the hottest crowds anywhere. Maybe a more respectful crowd in terms of jeering and heckling, but not quiet.
Yeah the Mortis/Wrath vs Glacier/Cat feud is one of those undercard feuds that seem like they should be stupid waste of time (and especially how it fit into the nWo era landscape of WCW) but turns out to be a lot of fun because the matches were surprisingly good.
Both routinely would go on so long being as glass gargling as possible that they'd be losing their voice by the end of the promos. Every week! Shit was brutal on both shows.
Unrelated, WCW should have kept up with the fledgling "martial arts division" they were testing out in 1998. There were some nifty little shootstyle matches for a couple of weeks. Certainly the best Ernest Miller ever looked.