El-P

And people wonder why WWE booking is going nowhere and nothing matters. 90% of the year just doesn't, because the only idea they have is "Let's get Rock against Roman at Mania !". Their only goal is seemingly to get that huge Hollywood actor who used to be a huge pro-wrestling star (the last one of that magnitude), who's gonna get 50 years old (but when Goldberg is apparently an exciting prospect, what difference does it makes) and who hasn't worked in 10 years. And every passing year it's like "Yeah, the goal is The Rock at Mania" and it doesn't happen. The question is, although Dwayne still cares about his pro-wrestling fans, why in the hell would he want to do that when he's the highest paid actor in Hollywood ? What can WWE offer him that he doesn't already have, in much bigger scale ? And what does that do for the company's future apart from a gigantic Mania gate, probably followed by more cuts for "financiary reasons" (unless you're 72 years old Jerry Lawler of course, whom they resigned again despite the guy being useless for years and years and a potential PR liability) ?

So, no report of Fenix getting hurt ? He literally vanished from the match after taking that horrendous head bump on the apron and was never to be seen again apart from freeing Penta's mask. Vickie's outfit was glorious. Match was quite fun but I thought it was kinda underwhelming overall, because, well, Fenix vanished and it seems the match ended early. I dunno, I watch so much great and fun wrestling on a weekly basis, the constant sloppiness of pretty much *everything* only gets you so far. And honestly the one thing I thought about was how I miss CMLL's great Friday shows, and the Dynamitas and Diamante Azul kinda looked out of place to me in AAA's clusterfuck environment. The Cain/Park stuff was fun, but if you don't care about MMA and therefore don't give a fuck about Cain, it really did not register to me as anything special. The interference at the end was soooo AAA in its total lack of efficiency (crowd totally shit on the guy, finish came off flat). The undercard match with the clowns had a few fun spots, but it was also pretty awful overall TBH. Dunno who Estrelitta is, but she was fun though. Monster Clown should just lose the mask. Too much fucking clowns in this promotion, it's unbearable. In other news, Psycosis tried to die again in 2021 and Poder del Norte are still the best trio in AAA in term of making the best of AAA's clusterfuck style, against anyone. Favorite match to me was Dralistico & Dragon Lee vs Willie Mack & Laredo Kid, Mack kinda stole the show too. Dralistico & Dragon Lee vs FTR and/or Lucha Brothers could be awesome, but honestly I would rather see that match in a non AAA setting... Ditto Deonna vs Taya Valkyrie, which is kinda poetic justice as Taya is the one who passed the torch of the Impact title to Purrazzo. Main event was quite fun too, Fish & Lethal looked good, Del Sol and Bandido looked like stars and the right guy won.

Another exhibition match at the Tokyo Dome. You can quote me.

At first when I saw Toyn Neese, I thought that Tommy Dreamer's little brother sure likes to hit the gym a lot, he's quite the young stallion. Then I thought he was quite solid too. By the end of the match I was "holy shit, this guy is something else". I love that every TNT champ have had their own thing, and Sammy thus far is crazy good spot oriented matches against random guys showing up. I want MORE ! Also loving the fact every guy has its own version of the title belt, Sammy's is shiny as fuck. PAC is low-key a consistent AEW TOP 5 worker since the beginning of the promotion. He's just so damn great all the time whatever he does.

One of these names is not like the others... But yeah, Charlotte had the right to be pissed. That's total incompetence.

I guess that settles the whole "Will AEW eventually bring Flair to manage Andrade ?" thingy.

The entire "I was so depressed this week" bit from the last WOR was classic deadpan Meltz. I actually thought about the exact same joke watching Danielson vs #5. Dead on point.

I'm glad I did not spoil myself. What the fuck was Cody thinking ? He clearly took most if not all the fire table bump (although some flames did end up on Andrade's chest). Funny, when I saw this odd stuff on his back, first thing I thought about was "Hum.... fire incoming ?" then I totally forgot about it, especially since the feed went out on the version I watched. And then when Brandi showed up going straight Dudleys Boys circa 98, I was "Yep". Say want you want about Brandi, but the grin at the end just a few seconds after Cody bumped into fire makes me think she must be a fun girl to be around. And that's all I'll say... Hey, Cody going Terry Funk is something I can never not love, especially when the wife is basically setting him on fire. Somewhere Beulah McGillicutty had to be all "You go girl !". Darby & Sting vs the Gunn Club had *no right* to be as good as it was. Colton's Shawn Micheals circa 92/93 tights make me feel all nostalgic and such. Sting has had more good matches since he joined AEW than he had in his entire TNA tenure. Guy is 62. Darby is just one of the most compelling guy to watch in the world. Thought Soho vs Statlander was quite good, that's three really good women's matches in a row. I agree about Soho lacking explosivity though. She has a great look and is cool and all, but in-ring I'm not sold. Statlander is improving though and she always does one or two really impressive spots a match. Orange vs Cole is gonna be my next favorite feud that'll piss people off I guess. The most hilarious moment of the show though was the blopper of Arn basically falling on his ass on the side of the ramp and Jose visibly helping him getting up in the background of Andrade & Cody fighting. I don't know why they think Andrade needs a no-name valet, to me he's adding nothing.

Well, if it could ruin the Winter Olympic Games taking place in a dictatorship currently committing a genocide, it would be a start... On the PWO side, not followed either tournaments taking place right now, I may watch the finals as they happen on the same show, which I guess will give us more of the WK matches to come. After Power Struggle, NJPW's year is basically done for me.

Nia Jaxx : I'm not gonna do pro-wrestling outside of WWE Pro-wrestling board : AEW should not sign her. She sucks Also pro-wrestling-board : AEW could sign her, there's some potential Also pro-wrestling board : AEW better not sign her. She sucks and she's dangerous Also pro-wrestling board : Stan Hansen was dangerous too. How is that different ? Nia Jaxx : As I said, I'm not gonna do pro-wrestling outside of WWE. Like, I'm not gonna Pro-wrestling board discussions.

Honestly it's all irrelevant anyway : she doesn't want work to work elsewhere. She wasn't good when she started, only got worse with time, never was a draw, never much over despite being protected forever, never was a good promo and had a rep for having an ego. Apart from "She's big and she was in WWE", she has exactly jackshit going for her. It's interesting how your social status, including in a micro-society like the landscape of pro-wrestling, gives you more when you already are privileged (yes, she *was* privileged in WWE because of her size and her family ascendance) even when it comes down to just discussion on a pro-wrestling board. I mean, Ember Moon has been released and she would bring about a hundred times the value (actually having matches people want to see, help and teach younger workers, maybe even get up to a good spot for herself as she had a lot going for her when she showed up in NXT at first). Ditto Taya Valkyrie.

Meanwhile on the same day, NWA is selling their PPV at $25. Feel the hype about NWA champ Trevor Murdoch vs Mike Knox and Nick Aldis vs Tom Latimer ? Wonder who will be the TBA tagging with Laredo Kid vs Dralistico & Dragon Lee...

Considering how he has looked in the past, it's safe to say Trip took quite an amount of roids in the past. This is never good for your heart condition.

Totally unrelated, Jeff Jarrett was seen at WrestleCade TNA Tribute show doing the Flair strut with Jay Lethal. I thought he was still employed by WWE but apparently he left in January of this year, very quietly. That's interesting, as a lot of old TNA guys were hired in the last past year or so as agents, the latest being Petey Williams just a few weeks ago (well and of course Sonjay Dutt actually left for the hot new company in a very Jarrett way).

She has no shot whatsoever if she trained with Chigusa Nagayo for a hundred years. She's 37, she's been pampered her all career because of who her cousin is, she has no will to improve as showed by her actually declining work over the years and she obviously thinks she's a big star. I think I'm actually pretty representative of the tastes of the core fans of the promotion and I highly doubt the AEW audience in its majority would be excited about Nia Jaxx showing up.

Negative buzz, for sure. She's up there at the top of the list of people I *don't* want to see in AEW (or elsewhere, really).

That's a totally prescriptive view of how she *should* work as opposed to what she actually does and how it is executed and how it is accepted. The Riho vs Rose matches were and still are some of the best AEW women matches in the company's history. Yes, Roses bumps a lot. That's her choice. The idea of working "big" or "small" really doesn't register for me at all. Whatever works work. By that reasoning, Vader was a really shit worker, because it's not like he was bumping a lot for Sting, he was bumping a lot for small Fujinami in the 80's and for Owen in WWF and for everybody really. That was his style and actually what made him stand out and part of what produced so many great matches. And did that hurt his aura at all ? Of course not. I'm not saying Nyla is close to Vader, but really who is anyway. Ok now I'm personally offended ! Nia is clumsy as hell, nothing she does looks any good (that legdrop spot has to be the most pathetic looking ever), her timing is not very good, and her execution is ok at very best. She's got the easiest job in the world because let's be real, playing big monster who doesn't bump much is the easiest thing to do, and she's not even good at it. She's like, decent, when she's in with someone who will make it look decent. I often compared her to Eagle Sawaii and really, she was not even there, and Sawaii is like a fourth rate Nakano. Awesome Kong ? Come on now, it's like comparing the Miz to Misawa.

Why on earth would AEW offer her a contract ? She's a mediocre worker at her very best and she's a proven liability, her track record of injuring other girls is well documented. The only reason she ever got a job in WWE is because of her size and nepotism. She never got good despite years of working with really good workers. She was never a draw in any way shape or form. Would be a big time waste of money and time.

That "Less famous Miz" line was soooo wasted on MJF. Did this made more viewers in the key demos than NXT2.0 ? That would be quite funny, I admit.

K-Pop disagrees. Also, the push of quality women wrestling by WWE and the surge of the 4 Horsewomen did not translate into more female viewers, quite the opposite. On the other hand, sure, the Total Diva era got a female viewership to watch WWE stuff, but what were the women feuds at the time ? Awful, stupid, catty bullshit with terrible 5 minutes matches. Women like Gail Kim and Victoria (and Mickie James, although I don't remember how she left then) who actually wanted more for women ended up leaving for (or going back to) TNA (not that they got that much better served over there in the 10's). There was no correlation between quality and vierwership (there never is honestly, but that's another matter). I'm not sure the whole relatability issue is that important. I mean, did women watching WWE in the Total Divas days actually related to *those* characters ? Then again, I never got why anyone would watch real-TV shows anyway (apart from Wrestle House, obviously). I mean, I do watch Koh-Lanta, French version of Survivor, but it's still way more of a game than a Real-TV show as it's mostly done (and has been for what now, 15 years ?). Hey, good for Cody & Brandi I guess. Bad for Aubrey who will receive more weight belts in the face...

Yeah. It is completely disheartening and maddening though. Access to knowledge was supposed to make humanity better. Apparently human nature completely screwed this one up too. I'm getting my third dose after Christmas, so I should finally be able to get my own Bluetooth apparently. Well, hopefully, because the 5G stuff didn't work out after all, that was disappointing.

If they had pushed Adam Cole straight into the AEW title pictures, the same dumbfucks would have said "Hey, he was only a top guy in NXT and was not gonna success in the main roster and now AEW is making him a top guy, that's classic TNA". The level of denial with AEW since day 1 has been something else. Maybe it's just a sign of the time, with the chamber echo effect of social media and such, people are in denial about everything now, the results of an election, the reality of a pandemic, the efficiency of vaccines...

Well, after finally watching it : Confirmed. It was tremendous from A to Z. And yes, Swinger is legit one of the greatest character in pro-wrestling. Amazing that he finally got an entire TV show basically built around him. 2021 strikes again.

So the last guy is Bandido. Which is great. Jay Lethal and Bobby Fish though (and don't get me wrong, I have loved every minute of Bobby Fish in AEW), not exactly a fitting replacement for Omega. I understand not wanting to send Danielson for a multi-men match that he ain't gonna win, but there's still a hug drop-off in name value here. Triplemania will be in Fite TV for the first time too.