El-P

For the longest time when I saw the name I wasn't sure if it was two I or a capital I and a simple l. Pretty sure me brain read "ilconics" for quite a while too !

The forms of his "reinventions" matters less than the fact he has managed to keep himself relevant into his late 40's (and early 50's) after leaving WWE, including drawing big in NJPW during its hottest period (post 90's) and being a key player in the formation and early success (in term of "mainstream" validation) of AEW.

The name "Dominik Mysterio" triggers me so bad. It's so dumb. Mysterio isn't Rey's last name, because Rey ISN'T A FIRST NAME TO BEGIN WITH !!!! Means KING in Spanish !!! He's not Raymond Mysterio !!! Hijo de Rey Mysterio Jr. would sound so cool and lucha. (which of course, wouldn't fit him one bit, but hey).

Considering the guy hasn't been on AEW TV for an eternity, only extremely petty and miserable people could be happy about Janela not re-signing (yeah, I'm thinking Corny here), he's been a total non-factor after the first year or so. Well, he had that great match with Omega (as everybody does) and a cool tag-team stint with Sonny Kiss on Dark, so that's something. It got obvious pretty early that the guy was like Mickey Whipreck in WCW, his appeal was really being an indy cult figure.

I mean, I kinda followed the same suit in that I actually do enjoy them now, but there's still a huge gap between Bowens, who has improved to the point he's actually really, really good, and Caster who once the intro is done, well, his best work is done too. I enjoy Bowens single matches with Caster as a manager much more than the tags.

Considering Razor was a take on Scarface, authenticity was never a question ! But as much as WWE would led you to believe Razor Ramon was his most important stint (this is under that name that he was inducted in the HoF as a single), he obviously was most famous under his real name as a member of the nWo, and he quickly dropped the entire latino gimmick-speech (he kept the Hey Yo, but that really was a catchphrase).

Yeah, it sucks than Christian Cage basically stole Marko's spot. But yeah, I miss Marko Stunt, he brought something fun and unique. Sonny Kiss definitely deserves a chance to shine on the main roster. I mean, Max Caster gets featured every week and all he has is some (admittedly) funny punchlines. Kiss & Janela was a cool and bizarre tag team, I would have had them featured rather than The Acclaimed or the Varsity Blondes (who looked like stars for one night thanks to the Young Bucks magic, but never looked even half as good since). Veterans like Sydal are useful to teach the younger guys and have very good matches with them. Tony Neese, I don't get the upside, he's a great mechanic, but as far as character goes, he'll never develop any (if he's able to) in a company like AEW where he'll have a match every other week on TV.

Ahhh.... BTW, what the hell happened with Lexy Nair (one of DDP's daughters) ? She was doing those kinda fun interviews on Youtube during the pandemic era, then she basically vanished.

I realize that. I'm not saying there was an *actual* choice being made between the two. More power to her if she doesn't give a fuck. Still, it's an odd look not to have her (a legit huge draw during the Attitude Era, which is the be all end all in WWE canon) while trying to sell Sharmell as some kind of legend, which looks completely ridiculous lined-up next to Taker & Vader. It actually makes the women look quite bad in a way, because if that's the best they can come up with in term of star power/respected worker, that says a whole lot... But they got to have a woman every year just because, so until the current generation is about to retire, you'll get more and more of this, as it's not like the well is super deep on these matters. (I just realized then never called Terri Runnels either, which is odd too, especially since she was there for quite a while during their hottest period, was a very notable figure at one point and doesn't exactly has any problematic stuff on her resume)

There's also the reverse way of looking at it : "Hey look, we put a black woman in our HoF, we so inclusive and shit !" You mean the HoF with the white supremacist homophobic chauvinist pig former president supported by actual neo-nazis and fascists in it ? Well, that's pretty inclusive indeed. Apart from that, in the grand scheme of things of course Sharmell doesn't belong in any kind of wrestling HOF, she was a fun valet for a cup of coffee and surely made her goofy and awkward husband a better act for a while (probably the best he's been), but that's way beside the point. It's only extremely striking the amazing difference of profile between the first nominees, two legit legends of the business, and the token random female nominee of the year ("She lives in Texas ? Booker is still employed ? Ok, she's in !"). Meanwhile, Sable is still not in it. Or you know what, since they had her in the Royal Rumble despite working for Impact, Mickie James sure would have been quite a decent name. It's not like it matters, it's only pretty telling of how things work.

Keep on pimping the good matches, I'll probably do my cherry picking after the fact (if I'm not burned out). CIMA advancing is pretty cool.

At this point, they should just debut him directly at Mania, that's the only way to make it really big. Showing up two weeks before with no build for the amazingly stupid "Big star X doesn't have a match at Mania" (which they had done before with Cena) angle is kinda lame. Him getting the Mania pop using his AEW theme (wait, are people gonna bitch about that one too ) is the best way to debut him. He should beat Seth clean too and show up at the end of the show to challenge Roman. That way you show the guys in AEW that if you are a big star there and they really want you, it's gonna be worth it. If he shows up, loses and get into the mix with the likes of the Miz, then it's a waste of time.

The Olympics do that as well I believe. You work = you get paid. Especially when there's shitload of money made around you. That's it. The hat is the killer here though. Makes it SO fucking stupid.

Ok, is this a fucking joke ? https://411mania.com/wrestling/wwe-seeking-volunteers-for-wrestlemania-superstore-axxess/

They missed the peak already.

Well, they thought they had him against Cody just a few days back still. Of course they are dumb enough to debut Cody not-in-Jacksonville too. Rumors of Cody showing up at Supercard of Honor in 5... 4... 3... (you know that how it works !)

He's not wrong.

NFT ? Of course. https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/wwe-launching-moonsault-nft-platform (I know, they aren't the only ones)

Things go so fast now, so yeah. Maybe TK bought ROH just to erase the Cody hype after all ! Of course he's gonna get a huge pop (I mean, I guess) the first time and the next few times, but I 100% trust WWE to totally fuck this up as they always do. BUTCH !

Sure, the old John Morrison spot. Was worth leaving AEW... I mean, if Cody shows up and Vince doesn't push the fuck out of him, he's even more senile than we thought.

Will the WWE Universe learn that there is more than one royal family in wrestling sport-entertainment ?

The Undertaker. Vader. Sharmell. (glad I'm not on Twitter. This is gonna be so bad on every front)

Well, there's something to be said about "charisma" in general, since if you look at his AWA work, he had exactly none there, and not very much either at the start of his WCW run. It's not before he hooked up with with DDP as the Diamond Studd (really the sketch for what will become Razor Ramon) that he figured something out about performing (same thing goes for Nash BTW, both their career really followed the same path if you think about it, Nash began to figure it out at the end of his WCW stint, there transferred into WWF and got attached with Shawn & Razor). People forget he was already 34 when he showed up in WWF, so he was quite a late bloomer too (like Nash). One thing I LOVED about Hall was his punches, which had great ooomph, looked great and sounded great (and yeah, he did slap his thighs). He was doing pretty dangerous looking spots for 90's WWF (that damn back suplex from the top rope, the sack-of-shit, the Razor's Edge), he worked well with pretty much everyone, he was always a guy I wanted to see against anyone. He was never the same in-ring in WCW, but him making fun of the Giant never gets old. Now that I think about it, I still do the old Scott Hall nWo walk (you know the one) to this day whenever I got to go through a dense crowd...