El-P

There's no reason why that would bother AEW. Punk was at the Indie Hall of Fame too to induct Dave Prazak. AEW acknowledges other pro-wrestling companies and their history. No reason to oppose this, plus it probably means something to Danielson.

The Forbidden Door reference seems to indicate he's currently working elsewhere as a free agent, so not Keith Lee, which honestly could make a bigger impact just showing up and directly challenging a player instead of participating in a qualifier match. So like I said before, Bandido. You can quote me.

Yeah, I'd love to have Joe in AEW, but it's not like I would expect anything in term of actual matches. And honestly, he's a guy who peaked around 2005/2006. He's not like Danielson or Christopher Daniels (who still had MOTYC in the 10's and just had a terrific match with Jay White last week)) or Aries (who still looked awesome a few years back) or Styles. I understand his motivation got squashed by years a piss-poor TNA booking (no one got wasted more than Joe in this company when he should have been made the Ace from winning the feud with Angle), but if I'm honest about his output (while I'm still watching TNA chronologically), his last legit great performance was in 2009 (of course he still delivered some very good stuff after that point, even at his worst Joe was still always a super reliable talent, which says a lot). Now, I haven't seen his ROH stuff before he got to NXT, but the consensus about his NXT stint is that he wasn't the Joe of old either. He's been a great worker with an awesome peak, but it's been a while, and now he's physically shot apparently. And yet I would still love to see Joe do stuff in AEW.

Thankfully, the goal of Coach Tony K. is to build a financially sustainable, quality pro-wrestling company, not stick it to Vince because "lolz". That's one (big) difference between him and Bischoff, which, in the long run, should pay off. And really, it already has paid off. No idea why anyone in their right mind would want Shane in AEW. Adam Cole showing up just after main-eventing pretty much the last NXT Takeover was a much better "stick it to Vince" moment already while also actually building the future of the company.

Lance Storm just signed with IMPACT as a producer/coach. That's pretty interesting. Totally forgot he actually had signed with WWE only to get fired 6 months later.

Agreed. The reality is that they have way too much really talented people that do, plus they are doing a concerted effort to build for the future and they also listens to their crowds, meaning that something that is gonna get over is gonna get some time. Since they don't do ridiculous 50/50 booking, you also need to short-time build some feuds like the Gunn vs Jurassik Xpress to give the tag champs some wins and momentum outside of bigger matches. And then you got the women division, which surely needs some work (both in term of booking and talents that are being pushed) but is also growing in interesting ways. But you also don't want to put out too many hours of content to not burn out your audience (I mean, there's surely some cool stuff on both Dark, but like I said I just don't have the time/will to watch it if I want to watch other pro-wrestling too, which of course is an outside issue). So in the end, it's tricky, even more so when they keep bringing people in. All of this to say that yeah, Starks feels like someone that could get to the four pillars level (Jungle Boy's at least, MJF seems far advanced by now) pretty quickly if given the same attention.

Yeah, that spot was crazy good. Watched it three times in a row. Unbelievable execution by both. Loving how the plots thickens in the women's division between Martinez, Thunder Rosa (best use of a DQ to further the feud, glad it's just the beginning), Hayter and Britt. The usual spot backstage with Hirsch attacking Statlander from behind during an interview segment cracked me up though. It's almost a running joke by now. Hirsch fits as a heel though, in a Taz way.

Since the announcement talks about a guy who not only is a free agent but also is walking through the Joe Forbidden Door, I was thinking more about someone who's actually already working somewhere else, but as a free agent. So maybe a guy like Bandido, which would be awesome.

Jeff Jarrett had figured it out. At some point he would not even bother to work the leg before applying the hold. And really now, if a hold hurts that much in itself, why bother ?

Serena Deeb's the other week was ok. But yeah, usually looks like shit except for Bret's. Flair's figure four hold on the wrong leg always triggered me once I figured the pressure was actually on the straight knee. Which made the selling ever more bizarre when you think about it. Yet, it was acknowledged as both great psychology and great selling (usually, when the opponent was a Steamboat or Savage). In the end, the point was "twisting someone's leg" + "hobbling" = pain somewhere = ok whatever people are buying it, therefore it must work, where is Gorilla to give a pseudo-anatomical explanation ? Another sign that pro-wrestling is about, well, signs, and that's it.

You want me to leave ? And no, the whole "Bouh ! Moves" lazy-ass criticism is not just here. And a real criticism approach on pro-wrestling more based on the study of forms really hasn't been seriously done anywhere. Ditto one that would take in account some sociology concepts in relations to what "over" means in term of how it's been confused with "psychology" or "talent". I won't go into this at this point as it's a pretty huge Pandora's box, really.

I'm on the same boat, well except I don't do star ratings and no one gives a fuck what I think, as in for instance when I was doing my Taker @ Mania reviews last year (or the year before ?), I rated both Shawn vs Taker matches higher than Taker vs Edge and Taker vs Batista. But I enjoyed those two better than both Shawn's matches. I'l also trying to look at things from the perspective of what the guys are trying to do, and not what I think they should do because reason X or Y (which is why I'm often rambling about "any prescriptive vision of pro-wrestling doesn't interest me anymore"). And really, looking at this from this perspective, I learned a whole lot more than thinking "Oh, I know how it is supposed to be done" (which honestly, is quite a ridiculous statement, despite me having watched pro-wrestling for 30 years). That doesn't mean I won't also project my own tastes about form in them, as form (execution, creativity, pacing and dynamics shift taken in a non-narrative way) is way more important than it's given its due (well, around some places). Narratives and psychological (not "psychology", which should mean more than "character work") approaches are totally overstated, which deprives a large chunk of pro-wrestling of what it is and why it's so unique and great (and the talent it takes to, for instance, execute a complex sequence of moves, which not only is not valued but has been often derided de facto if not clearly ingrained in a clear narrative, although in many cases too, people just don't get it, hence "Young Bucks lack psychology and just do moves for the sake of moves" and the likes).

In the short run, it drew gigantic numbers and was very fun for a *short* while (basically, the Dude Love period, by KORT it had jumped the shark already to me with the stupid Kane victory which was erased the next day, not to mention the streak of AWFUL matches in the fall involving Kane & Taker over and over and over again. 99 was just godawful with the Ministry of Darkness and "It was me all along!" and shit like this). In the long run, for the absolute worse. It gave the McMahons the idea that they had to be at the center of everything (since they were gonna be around forever anyway... I mean, until the 20's of course ) and gave them the idea that everything had to book around an evil authority figure. So, the most important, probably. The best ? Not even close. As far as the AEW new signee, to get back on topic, could be anyone, really. So many people have been released.

This. SummerSlam 98 was officially the end of the actual good era of WWE then. Did not pick up after I guess Russo was gone. 1999 is a record year for WWF, but the product was horrible. It was horrible then and in retrospect it's probably way worse.

Do QAnon people believe Luchasaurus is a shoot ?

This is straight mafia/cult shit. Someone tells me this when handling me a contract, not only do I not sign but I inform the governmental mission on sectarian drifts immediately. Also, her take about how she was already winning a lot of money trough contracts with sponsors and they wanted her to abandon everything and just hand herself over to them asks the question about all those people they "signed" through the college program. There's no way those twin sisters for instance ever sign with the company under these conditions. They don't need WWE, like Jade said she did not either. People who already do shitloads of money through their own means won't just give it up to get a Mania Moment. Between this and the actual brainwashing going on ("Vince loves me but random talent relation, he's the one who hated me", "You won't be able to make a living outside of WWE", "What you did outside of WWE don't matter"), this company really reeks of absolutely toxic work environment. Not that it's new, but it certainly sheds a new light on it.

It's called working, people. Omega vs Ospreay is the dream match of all dream matches. It would probably destroy the universe too. Especially in the Tokyo Dome. 6 Billions stars already. Can the pandemic be over already ?

Isn't he part of the English-speaking community of Montreal too, unlike Kevin Owens who's a French speaking quebecois ? Also, Nia Jaxx was a shit worker and seems to be a shitty human being to boot. Sometimes, it's *not* the halo effect.

The 90's really don't bring much to Fujinami's track records. He had a few really strong performances where he reminds me that he once used to be great, mostly against Hashimoto (who was at his peak) and Tenryu (who was pretty much at his peak too in some ways), some fun tag or multi matches stuff too and some *good* single stuff here and there (but fun and good stuff is pretty irrelevant in this context, which makes it a bit frustrating actually, since I tend to enjoy it less than I would if I wasn't in GWE mode). He also has a bunch of really, really poor matches/performances where he does exactly *nothing* in context that called for the opposite (the Choshu dome show match comes to mind, between this and the extremely rare mediocre Tenryu match in 93, Choshu was out of luck it seems), which was really a staple of bad past prime Fujinami in a very "less is less" fashion. Unlike Choshu, whose 90's are absolutely a continuation of his great 80's, I really feel revisiting the 90's that past-prime Fujinami is about dealing with a huge case of confirmation bias because everytime I see a Fuji match I come in with so much goodwill and the idea that somehow it's gonna be really good, but if I'm perfectly honest, I tend to over-emphasize whenever he does stuff I enjoy (with the exceptions of the few legit great performances). So there. In the end the 90's are a minor for his case, but when compared to his amazing 80's it's actually very , very minor if looked at it without the lens of "He's Fujinami, he used to be the greatest worker in the world at one point therefore he's still great in some ways". Considering what I used to think about his 90's, it's still a positive I guess, but Choshu's 90's murder Fujinami's in pretty ghoulish fashion (to the point I'm actually wondering career vs career if I don't actually take Choshu over Fuji, although Fuji's peak is pretty undeniable). Now that I think of it, Osamu Kido's 90's are probably much better too... I guess the one thing I get from this (comparing Choshu & Fuji's 90's) is that you really make your case with your prime for me. I think. I'm guessing. Or maybe only when it suits me the best. Not sure, infact. It's quite interesting though to see how much Mutoh lifted from him, for better *and* for worse (and then Tanahashi of course, which is following this straight line, only much better in every way).

You know who had a terrific match last week on Strong ? Jay White and Christopher Daniels. And although it did not had the same grand scale as Punk vs MJF of course, in term of pure pro-wrestling and pacing and structuring, it was a whole lot better. Crazy to think that Daniels at 51 had still this one in him. He was having great matches 22 years ago already. Of course, Jay White is one of the most pleasing pro-wrestler to watch, he's just that smart, smooth and displays his great heel personality. So glad he's working IMPACT these days too. After the match he made a reference to his next "challenger", as his running a open challenge series, and it may be Adam Cole. Me salivating now.

Wait until I begin to pimp BOTH Young Bucks for my top tier.

I honesty don't care one bit about ratings (I mean, I'm an IMPACT fan), but I'm always curious to see what worked and what didn't (not taking in account the competition of course, which I have zero notion of for obvious reasons), not that it impacts what I enjoy or not in any way shape or form of course. Of course people are already blaming it on the Brandi segment .

Same thing for Christian in TNA, which basically sparked the fact he was pushed in WWECW when he came back. He had a lot of very good stuff, but even against AJ Styles he never had those great defining matches (and TONS of people have had great matches with AJ in TNA, including Abyss).

I'd say that's been a good 15 years, yes, although it only got real worse in the last decade or so, and completely ridiculous since the Reigns era began. Basically got worse with the Network era and is now at his apex because they get idiot proof money from TV deals and Saudis, and as the structure of the company changed toward more and more of the Brand over all.

The use of "workrate" has been so bastardized in the last few years it's not even funny. Bret Hart was 100% a workrate guy in his era. The fact Punk is pretty much the only one who works this kind of "old-school workrate" (yes, absolutely) match is what makes him stand out. If everybody would do it in 2022, it wouldn't be so compelling anymore. Gotta say this though, as a huge Bret Hart fan, I'm glad his influence is palpable in today's wrestling, as at one point he seemed to be forgotten/underrated quite a bit.