El-P

Omega vs Danielson was GOAT vs GOAT going broadway on TV and it was all kind of awesome. Both are just exceptional pro-wrestlers and it's beautiful and so satisfying watching them work together. Cody & Brandi are turning heel and it's gonna be tons of fun because that's their best act. Malakai Black looked like a total star. Sting is 62, or so says the rumor. The booking was perfect all night long, exactly the right results (30 minute draw doh!, no way Pillman beats MJF, Cody put Black over again, Baker has no business losing the belt yet). Just an awesome pro-wrestling TV show. (the hilarity of people going insane about RAW beating Dynamite in the demo. We've reached that point where AEW *not winning* seems like an upset just 2 years in, and of course AEW is dead in the water now.)

They really aren't struggling, they are financially idiot-proof at this point. The hilarity though if they bring blood back after the "blood & guts" comment. But that's nothing new, Vince was blasting Turner for having blood and his rasslin' show and then... Austin passing out in a pool of red goo.

And when the guys who got over and looked like star in NXT 2.0 will graduate to the main roster, they won't be able to do and say half of what of what they did and got them over and you know the rest of the story.

Doing the helicopter with you dick doesn't make the world work, as they say. Whatever. WWE. Then, now, forever.

Actually, Triple H is a complete WTF considering it's the acronym of a total cartoony gimmick that lasted only a bunch of formative years, by the time he got rid of it and really got his main event push he was called only by the acronym and even on a familiar level as "Trip". I mean, to a casual viewer or even a fan from the Cena era, how the fuck do you explain what Triple H means and make sense out of it ? That Steiner kid sure sounds a lot like Scott. Considering WWE's booking, I'd say he's got 50% chance of becoming a big star, with 33% less in the main roster, which means he has still 27% chance on RAW but since Roman's on Smackdown that 10% less, so he's got about 77% out of 47% chance of becoming a big star in WWE overall.

Wow, that's crazy. She popped up in my mind yesterday (for what reason, I have no idea, I was watching early 90's NJPW though) ! She was not the greatest worker or anything, but she was part of the Golden Age interpromotional era of joshi and had her share of good, heated matches during that time. One match against Akira Hokuto was on the first joshi tape I ever bought. Some bios mention that after her retirement she became a "performer", which is euphemism for porn, among other things (owned a restaurant too, like a lot of japanese pro-wrestlers it seems). 55, that's way young.

Intellectual property. For a *gesture*. Capitalism is such complete bullshit.

GOAT contender vs GOAT contender is not something you got often in a mainstream US company. Last time was probably Flair vs Funk in 1989, when it happened. So lucky indeed.

This is basically Fort Boyard !

2015 : "Women's Revolution !" 2021 : "Puppies !"

I usually don't watch Dark because I just can't watch everything, but I did watch some this week. That Dark Order clash was really good with some nice angle advancement, as Evil Uno seems to get more and more isolated. Sonny Kiss vs Joey Janela was a good little banger and I have missed watching those two. Not familiar with Kayla Rossi, who's with Janela, but she got one hell of a look and that post-match spot she did was *wicked* (standing backflip footstomp into a chair on Kiss' back, and she did not even lose her balance !). And then QT vs Dustin showed how it's done. QT gets a lot of flak because of the TV time he got lately, but he's a *really good* pro-wrestler, smart too. Watching those too together, it kinda make sense they would be such good trainers, because they had really a strong match with tons of cool details (loved QT escaping the infamous Dustin punch, which is something you almost never see, or getting trapped into the Curtain Call because he put himself in a dangerous position). Less important but still cool, when did the Gunn Club got that nice synthwavy new theme ? Eddie Kingston announcing with Schiavone & Wight is as fun as expected. Should check out Dark Elevation more often.

Of course. But the real thing is, Kenny Omega is a GOAT contender and has had some of the greatest pro-wrestling matches ever in the last 5 years both in Japan and in the US. And Bryan Danielson knows, as a GOAT contender himself. He's not stupid. He wouldn't say quite the same thing if he faced Cody, for instance (nothing against Cody). As I said before, Danielson vs Omega truly is Misawa vs Kadawa or Okada vs Tanahashi. And it was never supposed to happen. And it will. It must be just the greatest feeling for both of them, really, they must be totally stocked and elated.

Bryan Danielson just called Kenny Omega one of the best wrestler in the world and his match against him the biggest of his career. The level of triggering for some people is gonna be too much.

You don't say. That whole show was damn good ! Alexander vs Sabin and Cage vs Austin were great, the multi-men X-div match was just was you needed, Dashwood vs Wilde was very good (I'm SO glad about that Taylor Wilde comeback), Cardona vs Rohit was way too much fun and totally over-delivered to me, FinJuice vs Bullet Club was quite a terrific little match too (first time I'm really getting impressive stuff out of Hikuleo, and Bey was his usual great self, the guy keeps on improving). And the final scene was exactly was I expected and hoped for. That's what's so good about IMPACT, their booking is the most straight and logical you can find out there, predictable in the best possible way possible. Bound for Glory is probably gonna be terrific building from there. (too bad Sami hurt his ankle during the next tapings though, he was on fire with Eddie, hopefully he gets some role like Eric Young)

That Owen thing is awesome. Funny how Dark Side of the Ring has had some actual repercussions IRL, because you know this doesn't happen without the documentary. That's when Martha reconciled with the fact pro-wrestling fans did sincerely love Owen and that was a big part of his life. Considering the shit she was thrown at for years thanks to the wonderful propaganda by WWE to make her appear as the villain, while she has actually done everything right that you can think of, it's pretty damn awesome to see something like this happen (another one that just would not even be imaginable a few years back). Owen was always one of my very favorites back then, so this will be pretty special. That Kingston "promo" is something else too. Amazing that this is your letter @gordi, so cool ! The Kingston story is pretty insane. And it sums up pretty much everything right about AEW and why it was needed for the pro-wrestling landscape. A guy like Kingston would never have been given a look by WWE, ever. And if he had, just picture him being jobbed out in humiliating fashion in NYC, because that's how things go. Instead, the guy is living his best life way past the point of his career where he thought even a fraction of this could ever happen (hell, he was basically done). Apparently the Mox/Kingston vs Archer &Suzuki match is closing Arthur Ashes. So you know what that mean, pun intended. This is going to be one for the ages, people.

Cursed. Which is why you gotta enjoy whatever good happens when it does (and no, I'm not referring to crappy carpe diem bullshit positive thinking). They have to stuck someone else, after only one match it's still doable. Is Bad Luck Fale available ?

Yeah, Okada vs Tanahashi is the greatest rivalry in the history of our sport. Tanahashi is the GOAT. That said, Okada is only 33, the next years will be fascinating to watch. Taichi vs Goto was kinda rough at first (but you know they gotta kill those first minutes) but when it got good, it got really good. Also, Taichi hopefully has Miho with him everyday too. YOSHI-HASHI vs EVIL was a lot more fun that I thought it would. I want more of that YOSHI-HASHI. Chase Owens & Tama Tonga were involved in pro-wrestling matches too, they absolutely were. You know, like everybody else I bitched when I saw the line-up, but after these first too days and two awesome matches already (granted, it was pretty much two of the greatest on paper) and Kevin Kelly in G1 mode, I can't lie, it's still the fucking G1 ! And we get Danielson vs Omega next week ? So lucky, overall.

Actually, I brought up Dustin Rhodes before in this very thread and was the first (and only one thus far I believe) to do so. I don't bring him up in the context of the Dreamer discussion because it pertains to the Dark Side of the Ring documentary and the reactions on social medias (and this board). And Dustin was not portrayed as an abuser on the documentary, so I can't blame people who watched it and aren't aware of the details of the lawsuits (hell, I only learned about it myself after having watched the show) of not knowing that Dustin was part of the abuse too. The three sexual abusers in the doc are Flair, Hall & Lesnar. Hall is so far off the radar that I'm not shocked he's not mentioned on social media. Lesnar ? Kinda different case.... (would be pretty interesting to have statistics on the number of tweets about Flair/Dreamer/Hall/Lesnar... not to mention honestly the most horrifying, to me, extract which is the RVD bit about what pro-wrestling culture was. But it would be too depressing.)

Well, Tommy Dreamer is not a sexual abuser. Yet he received more attention and real-life repercussions because of how the documentary was formatted than one of the actual sexual abuser that was mentioned (and who would not respond BTW). So the neverending outrage about Dreamer, including, as I predicted, his apology, gets kinda ridiculous and yes, annoying, after a while. So yeah, I'm bringing up Lesnar over and over again because I'm a dick like that (but I don't do the helicopter). Well, that illustrates the point Meltz was making this week-end about the mentality of "made men" compared to low-carder, men or women, in the locker room. Taker, that great locker room leader. As we probably will learn more about next week in the Kanyon episode.

Of course not. Plus, they are performing for a guy who had a journalist murdered, so really now, an old story about showing your dick... Speaking of which (and airplaines, and lawsuits settlements), considering the ridiculous settlements lately, the infamous delayed airplane debacle would make a fucking insane Dark Side of the Ring episode. But no one will talk about it as most are still employed there anyway.

"From the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry" Really now... Also, "I apologize to anyone I offended" doesn't mean "I"m sorry you got offended". Not at all. Obviously if you're not offended, you're not in need of an apology, therefore the apology doesn't concern those who are not offended. At some point, people need to fucking understand how language work. And yeah, that's my professional realm, so at points I get really annoyed (can you feel the slight annoyance in my latest posts ) about stuff like this, because people just twist stuff around with their own attribution bias and imply stuff that just aren't there. Anyway. Lesnar trending yet ? Yes ? No ? No. Maybe at Blood Money Mania. Yeah probably not.

Well, if that's the case, they don't even understand the English language, because that's not what he wrote. It's irrelevant anyway, people who are complaining now are the exact same who would complain if he had not apologized. The great thing about a double bind is that you're always right. Oh anyway, it's not like it was not predictable.

I don't have to be satisfied or not. I'm not involved. I'm just an observer. I won't imply stuff just because it's "convenient" to confirm my own opinion. I'm also not a judge and I'm no one to put Tommy Dreamer on trial. What I saw is Tommy Dreamer say real stupid shit on a doc, Tommy Dreamer got suspended from his job, Tommy Dreamer apologizes. It's not up to me to judge or weigh the validity or sincerity of his public apologies, because I just know *nothing* about how the guy feels. He apologizes, which is the right thing to do, I say good for him. That's about it as far as I can say. I don't know how the women in IMPACT took the whole thing, I don't know the private exchanges he may have had with them, I basically don't know anything apart from what was shown in the documentary and now his public apology (which sounds allright to me). Again, I'm not involved and I'm not owed anything.

What I just said... Also, implying he's apologizing *only* because he's been suspended is simply gratuitous. It's not above anyone to say stupid shit. Maybe also Dreamer saw himself in the doc, was embarrassed by what he said especially confronted to the interview of the flight attendant (which, like everybody else, he probably had no seen before) and felt like shit about it. No one knows. So there.

"Your apology is not sincere enough" in 5... 4.... 3... 2.... (I guess it's there already in the comments, but I'm not stupid enough to read them) Good for Dreamer.