El-P

Pretty big week-end for NJPW. Cobb vs Okada, Tanahashi vs Ibushi and Eagles vs Takahashi should be great matches (you really don't have to go 40 minutes though.... really you don't... like, really). Could be some cool stuff on the undercards too like the two matches for the tag championships. And then there's that Yano match and Evil in a main event...

This Daniel Garcia I had never ever seen before (much like 2.0), but he sure won me over immediately, he's like an updated version of Little Guido !

As the official IMPACT fan of the board, I take exception to your disdain for this company you don't even follow, but that's really nothing to the heartbreak you cause to the reigning IMPACT champion who seems to have quite a lot of fun on these tapings working with terrific young talent like Ace Austin and old friend Tommy Dreamer. And fuck yeah give me Pac in IMPACT yesterday ! Pac vs Sami, Pac vs Moose, Pac vs Eddie, Pac vs Sabin, Pac vs Trey, Pac vs Austin, Pac vs Taurus, Pac vs Alexander, Pac vs Doering. I want all of this and I'm not gonna get it ! *sigh* (BTW, W. Morrisey aka Big Cass is been given a chance, and yes, he still sucks, and that's in a company where even Bryan Myers found a way to be kinda fun to watch with his current character of a carny veteran)

To me The Elite reign of terror is the best thing in pro-wrestling since the Hart Foundation stuff in 1997, easily. Except the matches are about a hundred times as good. Funny how AEW really began to grew bigger as they finally positioned themselves as the top stars. The addition of Callis was what pushed it from simply great stuff to classic. Of course they'll never ever get credit from some people, neither for being some of the best pro-wrestlers ever neither for being actual stars that made it possible, but there you go. Like I said, after 30 years of being a pro-wrestling fan, I've been living my best life thanks to these guys, and yeah, especially these three guys (+ Callis, whom I was a fan of in 97, how sweet). The addition of ex-WWE guys is an inevitability after 20 years of near monopoly + a politic of trying to kill the indies. If AJ Styles showed up tomorrow (he won't but that would be a sweet end to his career), some people would consider him a WWE guy when really the majority and peak of his career was in TNA and NJPW. When Adam Cole shows up, sure he was the star of NXT, as was Andrade (but he was a much bigger star as La Sombra), but again it comes after a time where *everyone* on the indies was signed by WWE to prevent, well, what just happened. So sure, I don't want Paul Wight to be a regular *at all* and Billy Gunn should stay on Dark shows (at best), but considering they have been doing a masterful job building up younger stars thus far (and with the numbers of pet project they have like Dante Martin, Powerhouse Hobbs, Jade Cargill, Anna Jay, Tay Conti etc...), I'm not worried at all.

This will be the greatest night in the history of our sport. Young Bucks vs Lucha Brothers is gonna steal the show with its insanity. Omega is gonna have yet another MOTYC single match with yet another different kind of opponent, further establishing him as the GOAT (at this point, it's either him or Tanahashi). Mox vs Kojima are gonna beat the hell out of each other. Ditto Kingston & Miro, whose hot wife is gonna show up. QT is gonna take an awesome bump, because he's a terrific performer (and a great trainer to boot). Jericho's career is legit in doubt to me, so there will be one great false finish. Britt Baker is gonna have the second biggest entrance pop of the night. CM Punk is gonna have the biggest entrance pop of the night. You know who that is is gonna show up in the women's battle royal. Orange Cassidy & Jungle Boy are gonna kill it to open the show. Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! More or less. I'm so gonna avoid any spoilers with this one.

Thanks for this.

That's awfully sad. I always was a fan of Daffney, both in WCW and TNA. She was such an underrated performer for sure. Just tragic...

It will be a failure of epic proportion and they will turn out jack shit. You can quote me on that in 5 years. (what a glorious 14500th post, even if I end up being wrong )

The funniest thing about that Jungle Boy thing is that the fact he's already so fucking good and knows how to get over (and get over big) despite "only caring about moves and creativity" and not not giving thoughts about promos demonstrates that in pro-wrestling, there's nothing you should or you shouldn't do on paper, only the output matters (of course he will only get better with working with veterans giving him tips about details and promos, and by growing up himself, but still, he's already really good and really over). Also, are people really amazed that a young guy is more interested in doing cool moves and creativity than anything else ? I heard pretty much the exact story in a Rick Martel shoot interview where he talked about him being disappointed by veterans in the 70's because all he wanted to do was... well, cool moves and creative shit and they weren't up to it because it wasn't "good work". Of course I doubt guys like Cage have the same boomer mentality and he's much more about being generous with advices like a guy like Tracy Smother was without judging the work of the current young guys (and really, Christian was *all about* cool moves and creative shit when he showed up in WWF in the late 90's, although he looked better at it than most of his counterparts then). Still, there's nothing new or shocking about that.

That's the best part. I have no idea why anyone bought into his shit when he was playing the benevolent purveyor of the true pro-wrestling spirit. It was not different at all from Stephy inventing women's wrestling, really. The talk that he would be the savior of the company when he would took over was always baffling to me considering his own history of burying talent and working overlong matches to feed his ego. Triple H has been great at one thing in his career : politicking. The road was straight to the top from endless years of push, marrying the boss daughter, having his protected pet promotion.... and then the guy who started the sleaze thread got hooked with a bunch of indie geeks working in Japan and made a "pissant company" and it was all spiraling down from there. And now Brother Love, who was doing impersonations on a podcast 5 years ago, is gonna "write" (aka say "Hell yeah Vince, that's good shit") NXT.

Sure, but the big difference is he's married to the family. Big fucking difference. Unless the family sells the company entirely, I can't see him doing anything.

HHH isn't a bigger pro-wrestling star than CM Punk relating to the core audience of AEW. CM Punk's return has a very distinct symbolic significance to the pro-wrestling fans. HHH is never and has never been close to anything like Hulk, including at his peak, where he was nowhere close to the Rock or Austin. Him jumping as an almost retired/past 50 would be a mindfuck for sure, but there's no way it would have the same *actual* impact as CM Punk (not to mention the 1-2 punch with Danielson). Cena, even now (I mean, part time and past his prime), for sure, because he is legit mainstream, which HHH has never been (and of course a much bigger pro-wrestling star to begin with). It's a moot point anyway, he isn't going anywhere.

Already happened. Name was CM Punk. Hunter would be both totally surrealistic and a terrible idea for obvious reasons. That said, Cody & Brandi vs Hunter & Stephy at All Out 2022 would be eazy money. And yeah, that throne trashing thingy that Cody did at the beginning of AEW... well... in retrospect...

Time for Jean-Paul Lesveque is All Elite jokes already ? He could do backstage interviews on Dark.

Awesome. Thanks.

Holy fuck ! The guy who thought Booby Roode was the go-to guy to carry TNA while turning him into a droning, boring as fuck Randy Orton-like worker. The guy who thought the infamous "AJ is having an affair with Dixie Carter" was a great way to showcase AJ Styles personality. As I'm halfway through his TNA stint, I can say without a doubt that Bruce Prichard is one hell of a crappy booker with crappy ideas about talent and angles. "We're telling a story..." NXT ? More like YSD (in like, yesterday) It is. I wonder what Stephy thinks of all of this...

I'm not as active or present on the board these days so I just noticed you got into this new project. Thank you so much for this, awesome stuff to read.

It depends from the worker. Bull did not look like the safest worker for sure. Aja always looked stiff but really safe. Hotta was another matter, but I did nor use her as an example of good work either. I highly doubt AEW would pick up someone with such a bad rep. She sucks, she never was a star in WWE despite her push, the only reason she's there is because of her family. And that's also the reason why I doubt she'll ever get sacked. She's 37, she has been working for 7 years now and she's godawful and dangerous. She's not gonna improve at this stage. And yeah, it really wasn't "stiff and intense looking" like the Twitter douchebag says, it looked like idiotic uncooperative bullshit. Koji Kitao level of incompetence and unprofessionalism. Where's Takada when you need him ?

These people are just douchebags. I'm surprised this idiot did not play the racist card to boot. Someone should point to this dumbfuck that Aja Kong worked stiff, watch her destroy Hotta's hand, that Awesome Kong worked stiff, watch her pulverize Gail Kim. Both were great workers. Nia Jaxx is a shitty and dangerous worker, always has been and really only became worse. She peaked at Eagle Sawaii's level (faint praise) and is sub-Crusher Maedomari's level now.

Total WCW in spring of 96 vibes, indeed.

Basic AW trying to get Internet Cookie Points by being Da Wokest (see also : "bouh AEW racist, no colored people in main events bouhouh"). Why even post usual Twitter garbage like this to begin with (the point would be why even look at Twitter to begin with, it's the sewer of humanity really) ? Nia is complete trash, has been pretty much since the beginning, her track record speaks for itself. The clip is hilarious. Well, except the spot where she almost drops Charlotte on her head. Where is Yumiko Hotta when we need her ?

Empowerrred was really cool and totally overdelivered. Then again, it was much more of an interpromotional card. 73 was meh. Speaks volume about the level of traction NWA has when the "big" surprise of the battle royal was.... Murphy. From Gunner & Murphy of TNA fame. Yep. Tyrus, harrasment rumors aside, is absolutely worthless. Chris Adonis, for all the hype about him becoming that really good worker over the years, strikes me as the best and less roided Warlord circa 91 ever. Nick Aldis is doing way to much straight Ric Flair cosplay spots (Nick Aldis runs to the top rope to get thrown off, Nick Aldis gets put into the figure four, Nick Aldis pushes the ref and gets pushed back) and apart from that really isn't a very compelling worker. The main event was quite ok in the end, although it went from said Flair match cosplay to a Sabu-esque spot in quite a confusing moment, but I wasn't very impressed with Trevor Murdoch either (and really, paying hommage to a guy who was rumored to have at least sympathies for the KKK strikes me as pretty tone deaf in 2021, then again his whole family got me "White Lives Matter" vibes, but it's just me being an asshole here ). Best match to me was Mickie James vs Kylie Ray (damn, if she can get her mental balance, I'd love to see her back in IMPACT, she's got so much talent), and the post-match of Deonna attacking James was exactly what I hoped for. This is your Bound for Glory title match, hopefully. Ric Flair cut a rambling promo putting over Vince, HHH, Shawn & Taker for picking him up when he was down but also talking about pro-wrestling needed a place like this and like AEW for guys to work everywhere (he also mentioned having dinner with Tony Khan soon, so don't be surprised when he shows up in AEW soon) and really it was kinda fun to see Ric "free at last". He also thanked his family for putting up with him being the NWA champ and his current wife (several times), so there's that. In the end, it was a cool moment. Empowerred like I said was cool as fuck. Some matches looked a bit rough around the edges, but Deonna Purrazzo vs Melina had no right to be as good as it was (really now, Deonna is that good), Kamille vs Leila Hirsch was quite the big vs small match and I thought Leila looked terrific there (the Kamille vs Chelsea Green match the next day was nowhere near as good), Red Velvet & Kylinn King were on fire in the tag tournament and Allysin Kay is also someone I always really enjoy to watch (Marti Belle being just that, although she does work hard). Cool appearance by Madusa. But the killer to me was Awesome Kong saving Gail Kim from Taryn Terell (btw, she looks terrific in her role, she's someone WWE would jump on today, but I guess she's a "been there done that" case, I wouldn't mind seeing more of her in IMPACT, damn) and her croonies, in what seems to be Awesome Kong final farewell to pro-wrestling. Tears were flowing and really these two should get a ton of credit because they were US women pro-wrestling "revolution" back in 2007, Gail especially is a worker that should get way more credit than she does (Kong too, but she really did not had the best career after her first TNA stint, too bad GLOW wasn't renewed because she killed it in that too). That was pretty damn awesome, no pun intended. Debbie Malenko looked rusty as hell, but who will blame her, I hope she gets more booking and we see more of her, her comeback is so cool anyways. All in all, a terrific feel good show that way overdelivered (I really wasn't expecting much from the card on paper) and was another instance of pro-wrestling being so fun in 2021.

The production footage at the end is insane. Also, it's so neat from AEW to dig some old IWA Winnipeg footage to build the Christian Cage vs Kenny Omega match. Of course the story is pro-wrestling bullshit, but it's neat nonetheless that they are tying up the whole story with actual stuff from 25 years ago that actually happened in an indy promotion in Canada. The Callis footage from back then is quite the visual too ! Funny how I was a fan of Callis when he was the Jackyl in WWF and thought he would be like this main event evil manager back then, and here we are in 2021 and he is this all-time great promo heel manager alongside the greatest workers of this generation (and all, yes sir) in the hottest promotion in, well, 25 years more or less.

Just like I don't remember specifics of shitty WWE feuds, I don't remember specifics of Cena's intimate life ! Same thing. Girlfriend, wife, whatever. Same thing to me. (Hey, at least that constitues some common ground between John Cena and myself : no marriage, no kids, thank you very much )

I wonder how much of "How the hell is he dating Brie Bella ? He shouldn't be dating the twin sister of Big John Cena's wife !" played into Vince's sick psyche... Don't tell me it never played a part. You know it did.