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Thanks for the clarification. I guess I only caught up when he was already a heel and thought he had been doing it since day 1, especially since this was the very first time I saw something in Cody (and really it was only on the NJPW shows). The IMPACT stuff sounds kinda fun actually, gotta check it out some day.

Probably sums up MLW as well as anything, although honestly I was never a fan of the whole Contra stuff. They have interesting aesthetics ideas, but I always thought the show had a terrible sense of pacing and at the end a 45 minute show would drag like crazy with seemingly a thousand short bits saying nothing, teasing shit that would not happen for months (while often the guy teased already gone when the stuff would air) or going nowhere. And underwhelming matches in between. They have had some interesting guys, but also tons of dead weights once NXT & AEW kinda raided the indies for good. And yep, for some reason MLW is a promotion where, apart from that PPV in late 2019, the roster always underdelivers. For instance I would need to see Jacob Fatu outside of that context, because although I can kinda see why people praise him, I always found his matches pretty underwhelming for a guy with such a rep. The LUesque stuff kinda looks cheap honestly, it reeks of trying to re-do LU without the production budget and know-how. I will watch the Mexico episodes (I guess the Azteca Underground series is basically only the stuff taped over there with The Crash ? Not sure, I find everything to be super confusing with MLW) and keep on eye on whatever FTA Cueto & Catrina are doing, but MLW has not done it for me basically since that 2019 PPV. And it's not for the lack of trying, although at this point there's too much good stuff I actually wanna follow.

Well, the Cody & Brandi Rhodes act that got to AEW was first a heel act on the indies, IMPACT (if I'm not mistaken) and ROH/NJPW. The American Nightmare was absolutely not a babyface gimmick at the start. Sure, it was in AEW but that's because of the broader context, as all of these guys where IRL babyfaces to this audience, so they could not work heel at the very start (which has hurt Brandi, as she was at her best doing the Sensational Sherri valet gimmick, but she really could not do it alongside her babyface husband, which probably caused the confusion for her character during the first years).

WWE needs the Cavinder Twins to reach a younger audience. Cavinder Twins don't need WWE to make shitloads of money already. The new generation of influencers use brands to their advantage. They are not gonna be brainwashed by the "WWE Dream" unless they are super WWE fans to begin with. And we know that there aren't a lot of *young* super WWE fans.

Bianca BeLair has already been damaged. And they got lucky with her. New girls in NXT2.0 are awful thus far. Tay Conti stayed in their system for years and did not amount to zilch until she left and met with QT and Dustin. Their track record of training people from scratch is *awful* (how many years has the PC been a thing already ?) and their ability of creating new stars has been non-existant for 15 years. Why that would change because they signed a bunch of big guys and pretty girls from colleges, many of whom probably never reaching the main roster anyway ? Also, Meltz is praising Bron like there's no tomorrow. Cursed. Also, he's not just some guy out of college. He's born in a wrestling family (so is Von Wagner, but so was Erik Watts).

Playing Dark Souls III myself. My life will never be the same.

Good for her. Totally underutilized, WWE never got her (I know, they don't get jackshit), Toni Storm is ALL ELITE sooner than later, please. Not to mention she can fucking work too. And yes, 26 is too old apparently since the requisite to be signed to NXT is 25 at most. For women only though, of course. And really, they also have released Scarlett Bordeaux who is as stunning as it gets (and can work, and can be a great character), but hey, the old granny is 30 years old. What a joke. So yeah, please Toni Storm to AEW to kickstart 2022 with a bang.

Surely a name that has been there forever, and never worked WWE oddly enough. Last year's last show was the Brodie Lee tribute. That is also certainly a bittersweet anniversary. So many fun multi-men matches on the card. Looking forward to Thunder Rosa vs Jade Cargill too, as it's a really a test for Jade going against an excellent worker in a meaningful match. This has been an awesome year for AEW. Favorite year of TV wrestling for me in 31 years.

The worst part, by far, was the whole "Hey, there used to be segregation but hey I'm having a half-black baby so everything is fine now fuck yeah 'murica !" bit. Sure, white boy. Yes, that was the first bump in the road from that perspective. Well, that and announcing a HOF newcomer and having Christian show up (no disrespect). But the booking is clearly meta now. In a half-conscious way only though, as I'm sure they expected Cody to get more cheers against Lambert. That "He's a bigger dick than I am" line the following week was killer though and made it right. The booking of Cody as TNT champ should be interesting at the very least (and yes, I realize it could also be a disaster if they aren't very careful).

Ok, I know I'm gonna drop this one from 20 years ago, but eventually I'm gonna re-watch that stuff (hopefully), so I gotta give a shout out to Mariko Yoshida.

Actually, you're right, for whatever reason I seemed to remember Okada's legendary title reign being from 2016, when in fact most of it was in 2017 and only began in mid 2016. There you go. Still probably Okada though. Or Naito.

Actually, AJ Styles might be the one.

Yep. And despite that, AEW this year was probably my favorite year of pro-wrestling TV.... before 2021. Still, that's an odd year to gauge indeed.

What an odd year. Omega I guess.

Okada. One of the best year ever anywhere.

Tetsuya Naito. Of course not, that was the year of Okada's legendary title reign. Okada, doh !

Kenny Omega.

Probably Will Ospreay.

This company is a joke. If I'm Johnny Gargano, there's no way I re-sign with these irresponsible clowns.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Was the baby gender reveal before of after that though ? I mean, to me it was about as offensive/annoying. (EDIT : oh yeah, of course the gender reveal was before, so there, his daughter was actually patient 0 of the Codyverse)

He may be a dick at times, but he's "not a heel". Which is why the celebration after the match was 100% straight forward babyface stuff, which you would never do for a heel-in-denial. He's only a heel on a meta level, and only for a portion of the crowd. He could be what you say he is, and he could have been what I thought he would be at one point (the obnoxious Hollywood type star couple character, which I would have enjoyed quite a bit as Brandi would probably have shined in this role), but obviously that's not where they are now. The booking of Cody is so meta at this point it's what makes it so fun to watch to me. Oh, well. The guy is stuck in 1985 forever. Let him rot over there. I was glad that that awful transphobic shit got pulled and the guy apparently got kicked out. The big feud was really Inner Circle against ATT and Sammy got the match against Ethan Page out of it, but after that point, yeah, he would kinda put in the back. Can't win them all I guess. It's not like he's ruined or anything either.

Malakai has totally came off the Cody feud looking like a star. And he won most of the matches too. It doesn't matter what *kind* of reaction he was getting, what matters is he was getting huge reactions. And he does look like a star and could be pushed tomorrow against Hangman Page and be a credible threat. Mission accomplished. But the issue is that he's "not a heel". You can't call him out for being something he isn't. He's not *actually* a heel. He's a meta-heel for a part of the audience, and that's what they are now playing off on. It's tricky as hell but at least it's fun to watch.

Cody is "not a heel". Just booking him against babyfaces would hurt that perception. Plus, as per Meltz Cody actually gets a lot of cheers too, but the people booing him make more noise. It's the odd dynamic that makes him interesting. No one wants a straight heel turn anymore at this point (unless you're a Corny idiot troll like the ones popping up on shows with idiotic signs now, including transphobic shit about Nyla last week, and yes I realize we don't know if he was a Corny idiot guy but I'm just gonna assume he is considering Corny's idiotic stance on the same kind of subject before, unfair I know). Cody is "not a heel" and is "not turning". Except of course having beat Sammy was gonna get him more boos from the people who hate him, despite the completely babyface-like celebration after the match (because he's "not a heel"). Sammy's reign could have been more, but the matches have been great and he has been over. Interestingly enough, now Cody is gonna get a guy from ATT, much like Sammy. Sammy's gonna be fine. He just need a focused single feud again, which really he did not get with his title reign.

HOOK Really enjoyed Statlander vs Hirsch. Either of these two should get more attention than Ruby Soho does. That goes for many other women BTW (yeah, I have been quite underwhelmed by Soho lately). Cody is the most meta character in pro-wrestling today. Yeah, "He's not turning heel", you see... Excellent match too, Cody has really found back his groove in the last few months. Gonna give another different cool dynamic to the title, and possibly Sammy is gonna chase (and get) it back sooner than later. And fuck yeah to reDragons vs Young Bucks, reDragons vs FTR, reDragons vs Lucha Brothers, reDragons vs Santana & Ortiz, reDragons vs Jurassik Express... So much potential for greatness here.

With all the anti-vaxx demonstrations and propaganda, France is still not that bad after all, with 72% (getting my third next week). Typical French people : complain and bitch about all but still do stuff. I'm sure WWE loved the Thunderdome. Totally controlled audience is their wet dream.