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Everything about that pic is bizarre. Vince going to a comedy show at all. Vince going to a Dave Chapelle show. Vince taking pics with the opener. Vince in jeans.

Chris Jericho has not been involved in a good singles match since 2010 or 2012. All the NJ matches sucked. The first match with Kenny was passable on an unusually weak WK. Every match he's had in AEW has sucked. If there was a tag or multi man match that was any good, he has undoubtable been the worst part of it. Jericho has so many years of his career that are an absolute blur of cringey promos and completely unmemorable matches. He's basically an older, shorter, pudgier Dolph Ziggler for most of the past 20 or so years.

I don't know if these cuts are really for a sale because if I'm taking a look at the books and just in general looking for ways to save some money, I'm seeing about 50 people who are under contract who are getting paid to wrestle exclusively on an internet show no one watches and isn't even promoted, I'm seeing guys like Fandango and Tyler Breeze who are have been around for ages doing nothing, who have been moved back to NXT because there was nothing for them on the main roster and then nothing for them in NXT, either. If I'm starting up a game of TEW, I'm probably immediately cutting 30-40 talents without hesitation. Seems like Shao Khan is playing life this way.

Brock vs Balor is what Brock vs AJ/Bryan would have been if Brock didn't respect those two

I think the narrative makes sense when most people think he could have been the top guy, foundation of JCP/WCW for years to come. Even when he became NWA Champion, it was a few years late and the NWA/WCW relationship was in a weird spot. Plus, he was rarely even headlining house shows as NWA Champ, let alone any big events.

Ultimately Jericho has 1 year I really really enjoy (1998 WCW), and 20 years where I'm either indifferent to him or actively dislike him and want to avoid him entirely, with a sprinkling of matches over those 20 years that I enjoy. Whereas with Barry, I'd be pretty happy to watch some of his work from really any period of his career except The Stalker/New Blackjacks/NWA run in the WWF.

The AJ and Bryan matches are almost literally the same spot for spot, beat for beat after the first however many minutes of Bryan stalling at the start.

Disagree. Bobby was paranoid that Tony or Dusty could be part of it, too. He didn't trust ANYONE. Dusty is the one that had a bad reaction, but an understandable wtf Bobby kind of one if he didn't know Brain was going to say something like that.

As we're getting into BATB 96 in our Nitro Party, I'm just imaging how fucking terrible this angle would have been in the WWF at the time. At BATB, you don't know who the third man is. Gene says the voice rang somewhere in his head, but it was muffled and he couldn't quite place it. So it's someone Gene's been associated with, which is basically everyone in WWF or WCW. Lex goes out in the first few minutes, and you're kind of on edge that he's the third man, because he's been a heel or tweener despite the partnership and friendship with Sting since he returned to WCW before the last month or two. But then you wonder, well shit, did Sting do it on purpose? Is HE the third man? BUT THEN, Randy Savage was from the WWF, too...is he the third man? The subtle paranoia just in the match itself is excellent and there's not a single bit of it played up on commentary. I can only imagine Vince and Jerry Lawler calling the WWF version of this match, where the WCW guys would be cartoony stooges who aren't a physical threat at all but just use every cheap heat tactic imaginable and within a month HBK would be lining them up and superkicking them one by one. Basically the Invasion but even worse. And Team WCW would have been like....Marc Mero, Sid, and the third man would have to be, idk, Undertaker? Boy would it have been terrible.

I think Sandow's career says otherwise. No one cared about him in a tag team with KC James. No one cared about him post Rhodes Scholars. No one cared about him post-Miz stunt double road in WWE, no one cared about him in TNA (and it was a disaster), NWA lol. Sandow has done nothing to make fans care about Damian Sandow his entire career. Literally the only two times he was over it was because of the other guy he was paired with and once separate, he tanked immediately.

Hogan belongs somewhere on the list, but god god bad Hogan is about the worst thing imaginable

All I ended up seeing was Charlotte vs Rhea and lol'd that Charlotte did multiple Andrade spots in a row and thinking about how many women in recent years have done tribute spots of their significant others or even guys they've hooked up with, and yet you never ever see any of the men doing that.

Nitro is a really fun show, though. Outside of the Hogan heavy bullshit weeks. Even at first with Hogan, it's real fun stuff. There's a real lull between January-March 1996 but then it kicks back into high gear as soon as Hogan stops being the focus and the Eddie/Benoit/Malenko group gets back from Japan. Flair/Macho is wonderful stuff, the Sting/Lex angle and partnership is great, the Steiners are back and throwing dudes around, Giant is awesome when he's not around Hogan, Regal is getting a lot of TV time, crowds are hot, production is great. Love 1992/1993 Saturday Nights. There's some occasional wonky booking stuff but not really any weirder or dumber than any other promotion.

Yeah it means they're performing really hard Anyway back to some Hogan stuff for a bit, also 100% forgot that they kept playing promo packages for him every week on Nitro the whole time he's gone. Often multiple times per episode. There's never a reason given why he just vanished off TV after saying Hulkamania was stronger than ever, but they keep playing these packages of him with celebrities or beating up Vader (and OMG and Meng), and Bischoff frequently mentions no doubt Hogan is watching, stronger than ever, etc. Then one week, Sullivan is cutting a promo about BENOIT and says Hogan is going to be coming back looking for revenge against him/Arn/Flair/Giant/Jimmy and this is why he's had to keep the alliance with Arn/Flair, and says: "I'm going to get rid of Benoit so we can get rid of Hogan!" Which is pretty baffling. Giant then cuts a promo being pissed about being the champ yet WCW keeps airing all these Hogan videos when Hogan isn't even around anymore. And both times it's played up like Hogan lost at Uncensored or something. My memory (which god how fucking bad is my memory when I went through all of this shit TWICE for a blog in the past 5-7 years and still don't remember most of it) was Hogan just kind of vanished until the NWO turn for no reason given and no mention of him. Instead, they're airing double promos for him the whole time and it's clearly being built around him returning and taking the belt off of Giant. Which does happen in a roundabout way, just not the way it seemed planned at this point.

Sure but what Dave Meltzer thinks doesn't mean shit to anyone that isn't a subscriber to the Observer. Dave Meltzer's star rating for a match doesn't mean anything for TV ratings.

"69 me, Don" was actually probably the funniest little thing they've ever done, imo.

It's fascinating how many people and entire genres of wrestling took directly from Lou. Be it the standard NWA Champion touring match, the basics of puro, backdrops, powerbombs, STFs, the dropdown/leapfrog/dropkick spot, Thesz Press. His influence is still very, very directly active even in 2021. And it turns out he was fucking awesome. I've only seen probably 15 matches of Lou Thesz and this dude was fucking great. As great as his reputation would suggest.

I was actually thinking New Japan more than WWE, but that's definitely been a staple of big WWE main events going back at least to Austin/Rock. I really hate it.

All the PWG comparisons are dead on to me. It's like PWG with a WCW budget, but I also would rarely ever want to watch a PWG show more than once a month even if I usually enjoy it.

Not that it's new by any means as I've seen it in matches in the 60s and 70s, but dual finisher attempts and counters into a stand off in the first few minutes is a staple of every match trying to be a classic in Japan and America in the past 1 years or so and I hate it.

Nah Bryan was crazy over in 2013 and doing special work.

How do you feel about the commentary in AEW? Jim Ross & Excalibur specifically. JR is terrible, has been terrible the entire AEW run, but was also very bad for probably the last decade+ of his WWE run as well. He not only clearly doesn't give a shit or like most of the stuff he's seeing, but actively distracts and detracts by his complete lack of enthusiasm, low key burying guys and spots, or just finding the negatives and pointing out flaws in everything. Excalibur is fun, from time to time gets a little too obvious "get this point/phrase/story point over" but that's hardly a complaint. Tony Schiavone is really the glue holding the team together and tbh, Tony being able to enjoy calling wrestling shows again is my favorite part of AEW. How do you feel about the ring style or the look of the show/arena? Pre-COVID, I liked the ring and look. I was hoping for more of an early Nitro look, but really it was dead on for 2002-2004 WWE PPVs, which is a pretty good look to have. Daily's Place was real cool the first time they ran it, but after a year I never want to see that venue or have them run outdoor shows again. What are your thoughts about the talent that AEW has been bringing in like Jake Hager, Shawn Spears or more recently, Mark Henry & Paul Wight? Hager/Spears, dogshit. Just wastes of space. Big Show and Mark Henry? Well, I'm sure they have a lot of wisdom to give to a locker room, but I'm not sure if AEW is the right locker room to accept that wisdom. The biggest guy on their roster does suicide dives and rope walking moonsaults every match, so I don't know that anyone cares or wants to work like a traditional big man/monsters outside of Miro. I don't know think they should make big deals out of signing guys mostly for backstage roles. Do you think that AEW relies too heavily on comedy? I think certain talents do. I don't think the promotion as a whole does, however the certain talents that do are pretty prominently featured so I guess that's a toss up for me. What about their abundance of factions/stables? Too many stables filled with nobodies and used as a crutch for booking and clearly trying to take inspiration from New Japan's factions that really only exist just to have excuses to fill up the cards with tags and nothing matches without having to do any storylines for them beyond that. No one gives a fuck about the The Nightmare Family or The Factory. No one knows half the guys in the Dark Order and they do nothing but run ins for brawls. The Elite barely feels like a stable. Inner Circle ran out of steam AGES ago. Matt Hardy's group is just random teams that weren't doing shit and still aren't. They're using them as a booking crutch and not even doing that right. Managers/Valets? Taz and Tully have been great in their roles. Everyone else feels like they add absolutely nothing (Arn, Vicki Guerrero, Jake, etc). Actually, Tully might be the best overall performer any given week he's on the show, and the week he wrestled this mf made Jericho look so bad by looking so good and in shape despite being 20 years older and having not worked in about 20 years. How do you feel about the decisions Tony Khan has taken, or how Dave Meltzer seems to give AEW the constant benefit of the doubt where as Jim Cornette will barely acknowledge when something is good? I think TK needs someone to help with writing a show. Every feud is essentially one angle and one promo repeated for 8-12 weeks. And god forbid a feud goes on multiple PPVs. You can tune in at any point during the progression of a feud and 9 times out of 10, you're going to get the same angle or promo from either or both sides. This is both convenient and annoying. Because of how repetitive the storyline booking is, I only tune in for a really interesting match but then get caught up on everything I need to know in one viewing. I don't give a shit what Meltzer or Cornette have to think about AEW (or anything, really) but I do get a chuckle about how much Dave strains himself to criticize as lightly as possible and give AEW the benefit of the doubt in every situation. It feels to me that TK's biggest issue is not telling some guys no. Specifically Jericho, the Bucks, and Cody. Are AEW presenting the women well? How about the tag team division? While the women's division and presentation has improved a lot in the past 6 months or so, it still has a long way to go. Even pre-COVID, the booking of the joshi girls being THEY'RE FROM JAPAN THEY'RE GREAT BECAUSE THEY'RE FROM JAPAN, JOSHI IS GREAT SO THEY'RE GREAT and then the domestic women feeling like completely separate divisions felt so outdated and incongruent. And then the multiple very long title reigns in a row without any storylines to go with them. The two best in ring women they have aren't even on their real roster. Britt Baker's turn to one of the best parts of the show after being one of if not the worst part of the shows when they were pushing her so hard as a face is a triumph, but I don't have high hopes for them to keep interest in the division without an influx of a lot of outside talent. The tag division is also very haphazard and random, essentially just booked like PWG of fuck it what's a cool match this week/month. You'd think the Bucks would make sure their division is better, but despite the great teams, the best team in the company has been a thrown together team, and so far all these great teams just get a short feud with the Bucks and then do nothing. Even when the Bucks weren't champs, they were the main event of the tag division despite not doing anything but being the Young Bucks. Is AEW relying too much on gimmick/stipulation matches? I don't know if they're over relying, but it does seem like they jump into the gimmick or stipulations way too fast. Overall, AEW is a fun show to watch every 3-5 weeks for me, and I always enjoy it more than a WWE show due to the excitement in the roster and crowd when there was/is one. I think ultimately it really has most of the same issues WWE does as a weekly wrestling show, but there's some joy and excitement in the product so it's easier to deal with once a month or so.

The stuff Bryan was doing in 2013 was legendary shit. His fire ups and hot tags, you knew you were seeing a historic run in real time and it was fucking awesome. The only thing I can compare it to is when Austin really started popping off in 1997.

Kross isn't even that big. The dudes he's been in the ring with are tiny. Dude is going to get exposed hard next to a Cesaro, Orton, Drew, or Lashley. He's probably not even taller than Seth Rollins.

I'm sure there's plenty of real atrocious Hogan stuff in the NWO run where he was allowed to ramble for 15-18 minutes every week