MikeCampbell

I think one of the biggest issues with AEW's booking is that they have so many guys on the roster, and only two hours of TV. And before anyone starts talking about Dark, it does a fraction of what Dynamite does as far as views go. Dark Elevation's numbers are a bit better, but still a long way off. If Dynamite is Raw, Dark and Dark Elevation are Heat and Velocity, not Smackdown. My cousin and I came up with a list of people that AEW could probably cut tomorrow, and most fans probably wouldn't bat an eyelash about it. Joey Janela Sonny Kiss Dr. Luther Serpentico Pineapple Pete Billy Gunn (as a wrestler, keep him in the school or have him manage his kids) Peter Avalon Leva Bates Bear Country Jack Evans Angelico Christopher Daniels (again, only as an active wrestler, keep him backstage doing that stuff) Michael Nakazawa Mel Big Swole Evil Uno Stu Grayson Colt Cabana Ivelise JD Drake

I said the same thing on Twitter, apparently their TV deals actually bring them in more money than their PPVs do. So, I can understand. But, it still feels like something that could attract interest in the PPV and drive up buys. I'm an admitted huge fan of Death Triangle, so I'm pulling for them to take the tag titles next week. I honestly wouldn't be shocked to see Moxley show up and do something to cost them the tag titles. The Elite/Mox feud continues, and the tag titles can slide over to be part of the renewed Death Triangle/Best Friends storyline.

I completely agree, but I’m wondering if Tony would even listen to them? Before AEW ran a single show, Tony already made the statement that nobody will write his TV except him.

I think the answer is rather obvious, Loss. It was "The competition!"

I loved the angle at the end with MJF and his new buddies laying out the Inner Circle, and I liked the start of Kenny Omega vs. Christian Cage, which I assume will be the main event for Double or Nothing. But, holy christ on a cracker, they need to slow down with the angles and turns. There's no reason why they couldn't have held off for a week or two in having Bunkhouse Butch and Blade decide to sign with Matt Hardy. Make a storyline out of it where they look at what Kingston did as showing weakness and have them turn on him. The Pentagon/Cody thing makes no sense to me. There's no real plausible reason for Pentagon to suddenly be calling out Cody. It's not like Cody won the ladder match. It just comes off like a lazy attempt to give each of them something to do, since Pac and Fenix are headed for the tag titles match and the Shaq thing is done. I actually do like a program with Sting and Archer, especially with Jake and Sting having their own sordid history. But, first off, Archer was being a babyface all of two weeks ago, and the execution was pretty mediocre. Sting cuts promo, Archer and Jake interrupt and Sting just leaves. No confrontation or anything. The Scorpio Sky heel turn could have been slow burnt for at least another week. Have him win a singles match, and keep showing off his heelish tendencies, and have Darby Allin doing color commentary and put over how great an athlete Sky is, and how much he's looking forward to wrestling him. To paraphrase a friend of mine, say what you will about Dixie Carter, but she never fancied herself as a booker or TV writer.

This is quite the hidden gem, tucked away as the opening match of an episode of Raw in what has to be one of the worst creative and artistic periods for the WWF. The body of the match is Owen working over Sid's leg (after a chop block on the floor thanks to a distraction by Davey Boy), and Owen and Sid wind up putting on a pretty compelling match as a result. Sid has never been a great seller, since his character has never really allowed for that, but he does a damn fine job of making it seem like Owen has him hobbled. Sid even makes his comeback by standing and trading strikes with Owen, rather than bumping him around with power spots, so that you're never quite sure if he leg can hold up. Owen runs himself into Sid's choke slam, and before we can find out if Sid has it in him to do the powerbomb, Bulldog runs in for the DQ, and Shawn makes the save. This isn't anything blowaway amazing, but, it's an extremely fun and well put together match, and it shows just how far a couple of capable guys can go just doing simple and effective work. The only thing that I would have liked to see is a bigger payoff to Owen working the leg, in the form of him giving Sid the sharpshooter. Sid is such a tall guy, that it wouldn't have taken much for him to get a rope break anyway.

I knew it was coming, because of the video last week. But, I still marked a bit when Pac came out. It's a ready made program between King, Blade, and Bunkhouse Butch and the reformed Death Triangle, now that the feud between Moxley and King is done, and they look to have wrapped up the storyline with Allie and QT. But, I'm a little bit worried that they'll screw it up by trying to be too cute and have Fenix side with Pac and Pentagon torn between his brother and his supposed best friend.

For real! The only time I'm recalling any sort of spoiler leakage was the tag titles change in January on the boat.

This is definitely one of my favorite UWF matches from this year, and it really says a lot about how great the year 1989 was from an in-ring standpoint. This is pretty much the Fujiwara show. He busts out a ton of cool shit, and some great moments like taking the kick and going down and then jumping back up at nine, to show that he really wasn't hurt that bad. Him going for the ropes and then changing his mind and rolling away from them and countering the heel hook with one his own was another. Yamazaki is great as always. He usually comes across as the stoic and caclculating bad ass, but Fujiwara manages to bring out a little bit of emotion in him. And, as great as Yamazaki is, Fujiwara is just a tiny bit better. And Fujiwara's fisherman's suplex into a float over is all kinds of awesome, and something that I wish of the AEW boys would steal.

That's the first thing that popped into my head, actually. Okada wins the G1 and wins the titles from EVIL. It's just like last year when White upset Tanahashi a month after WK, and was just keeping the strap warm for Okada.

After a second viewing, I can't say that much has changed as far as my feelings on it. It's got tons of simple and smart work from both teams, some cute throwbacks in the form of the slingshot suplex and the vege-matic, and the intensity as the match wears on is perfectly believable. The match genuinely feels like it could have gone either way. And, FTR winning the match in a totally clean manner puts them over even more, because Daniels and Kazarian put them through the ringer, and they still managed to pull off the win. Honestly, the only thing that I didn't care for was the spot where Kazarian stoped Cash from coming off the top, while Daniels countered the super plex into a near fall. It looked too coreographed and rehearsed. It'd have been better if Daniels had done it first, and then Kaz ran over to cut off Cash before he could try to break things up.

I'm literally headed out the door right now, so I'll write more later. But, the short of it is that this is easily the best match I've seen all year!

This is easily the best UWF Miyato match that I've seen so far. There's not much of that to attribute to Miyato, which is even more remarkable, since it was still Suzuki's rookie year and only his second UWF match! Suzuki quite literally wrestle circles around Miyato, and his mannerisims honestly aren't far off from what we'd see from him nowadays. Miyato basically stays in the match by sheer force of will to not let the rookie show him up by beating him. Miyato winds up winning when he figures out that Suzuki is susceptible to suplexes, and getting a few lucky shots when they were both throwing wild swings at each other. After a year of snoozefests with Nakano and Anjo, this is certainly a breath of fresh air. With the new blood coming into the company in the form of Suzuki, Funaki, and Tamura, I'm wondering if/hoping that this match is the catalyst for bringing something fresh out of him that he can keep up.

Let's not forget Austin being booked to win the Final Four match, and his knee injury happening mid-match and causing on-the-fly booking for Bret to go over.

I'll jump on the bandwagon and put in another vote for Daniel Bryan. The only other name I can think of would be Okada.

Me and my friends always loved this segment. Pillman says "Seek and you shall find" - Well Austin was seeking, and he found Pillman!

This was entertaining for a bit, and there were some parts where it looked believable that both teams wanted to rip the other's head off. But, that's about it. And, whomever came up the idea of Ortis and Santana trying to drown Matt, right after Shad's passing, deserves a kick in the balls.

Twelve years ago, I wrote something about the Lockdown match between Joe and Angle to the effect of "TNA wanted to do something completely different than what WWE was doing. But, WWE is smart enough to know that they don't have anyone who can do this. But, TNA didn't either." Well, I've finally been proven wrong! Aside from a few of the over-the-top pro-style aspects, like Riddle's senton off the platfrom and Thatcher ramming Riddle's head into the cage, this would look right at home on a UWF show. The struggle in the matwork, and the nastiness and intensity that they both show is completely believeable. This was just about the perfect sendoff for Riddle, and an awesome way to establish Thatcher as a bad motherfucker. Now, let's get that North American Title on him, and put him with Imperium already!

I can't really say I do too much on forums anymore, outside of posting in this section of PWO, so I may be super late to the party with this one. But, if Fujiwara isn't already considered one of the best workers of 1985, then he ought to be! The matwork was methodical, but never boring, and you always got the feeling that they were struggling and trying to win. Fujiwara gives a lot of respect to Maeda's kicks, by dodging and blocking them, as well as by selling them like death when Maeda started to land them. I can see why some people may not care for the finish, with Meada busting out a Capture, German, and Dragon suplex, and still losing. But, it works (for me anyway) on the level of the UWF trying to show that their style of wrestling is superior, by having the pro-style spots shown to be useless, even against a man as beat up as Fujiwara had been.

Why has nobody else started a thread for this match? It seems like a nice exhibition at first, with a couple of skilled wrestlers doing their thing. The matwork is fluid and effortless, but it doesn't seem like either of them is really trying for anything. Then, Soranaka escapes Takada'a Octopus hold and Takada gets pissed and starts kicking the hell out him. Soranaka decides he isn't going to just curl up and die for him, and it turns into a heated fight. Complete with Takada bumping and letting Soranaka keep him locked up in holds for extended stretches, to make it look more likely that he's going to win, and Sornaka looking like superman for kicking out of a running Tombstone and then returning fire. Takada eventually wins out and taps him with a chickenwing, when something more brutal seemed for fitting. But, holy smokes, this was all kinds of awesome, and it's truly a shame that Soranaka's career didn't last much longer, if this is any indication he'd have been fit right in in the Newborn UWF, and maybe the openers with Nakano and Miyato wouldn't have stunk up the joint.

That's hardly something that Cole can be blamed for. NXT Main Events have been like that since Gargano vs. Ciampa in 2018, and since Cole became a main event player every Takeover Main Event he's had has been against Gargano or Ciampa in some form. How have Cole's NXT Title matches outside of Takeover, and away from either of those two looked? He's had televised defenses against KUSHIDA, Riddle, and Balor. He wrestled Dunne at Surivor Series, and Tozawa on the EVOLVE anniversary show.

Same here, brother! My father watches this every week and raves about it. I finally checked out a random episode and the first thing I see is Filthy Tom Lawlor bringing out the real toughest Von Erich, Rip Von Erich the son of Lance! Suffice to say, I am on the Filthy Tom bandwagon.

The Survivor permier, plus Chicago PD on NBC returning off of a major cliffhanger. But, I think that was hands down the best Dynamite episode since the show started in October. Literally, the only thing that I didn't care for was the schmozz at the end with all the tag teams. It just felt like a poor excuse to trot them all out and push the battle royal. Dr. Britt's reference to Whataburger was great. In just a few weeks, she seems to have found her footing on her heel promos. MJF vs. Jungle Boy looked like it would have been right at home in a Jim Crockett ring, for all the right reasons! Santana and Dustin both had killer promos, and being in Austin, the crowd was great during Dustin vs. Sammy. No Cody, which seems like a bad thing, but it gets over the fallout from the lashes, and I can only imagine the intensity we'll see from him in Atlanta this week. And, AEW's marked improvement the last few weeks, seems to coincide with Tony Khan taking on a more hands on role in the creative end.

This is a damn fun match, from two of the best. There's a lot of long matwork, but neither is ever lazy about it, you always get the feeling that they're both struggling to either escape the hold or to keep the pressure on. Fujiwara even has some fun with a monkey flip (in a UWF match!) to escape a crab hold. They even throw down and exchange some nasty shots to each other, with the crowd eating it up. Kido's win looks like a fluke, but it shows that even a single mistake is all he needs to finish you off. I won't go as far as calling it the best match from the original UWF, but, it definitley ought to at least be in the discussion!