El-P

The Shaq feud was a complete mess, but the match was actually very fun and way better than it had the right to be. But yeah, the build was all over the place and really made no sense (I still have no idea why this match happened kayfabe wise !). What really hurt Cody, before the Ogogo stuff, which was terrible (that first promo is one for the ages in term of being completely tone-deaf to his audience), is the announcement of the real-TV show, which came during the same timeframe with the over-hyped debut of Christian Cage (they made up for it, but it was quite a misstep there), so there was a 1-2 punch of announcements the AEW audience really did not take very well (to the point they downplayed Christian actual debut where he just showed up and did nothing that night). And then the gender reveal stuff (fuck me). So right now, Cody & Brandi the real TV stars douchebag couple sounds promising to me as an upper mid-card stuff.

Speaking of which, I really haven't watched any of the GLEAT stuff but Tamura launching a semi-UWF tribute promotion in 2021 sounds cool as hell.

I'll agree to disagree. I never ever cared about Cody Rhodes ever nor seen anything in him while he was in WWE. I began to enjoy Cody when he was a heel with Brandi actually being terrific as a modern version of Sherri. The matches weren't that great (yes, I agree he got better after that point, at the start of the AEW run, but he was never a *great* worker either), but it was a very fun act and he really found himself during that period. Actually, they did not make the TNT Title just to get something for something for him to win. They made the TNT Title to have another meaningful title and gave it to Cody because at this time he was one of the most over guy in the company (and it had the Dusty "lineage" which at times everybody thought was cool, that was before the warranted hatefest following the Ogogo stuff) and he made the belt important from day one, as did his weekly title defenses on TV. Then winning the title literally made Brodie and Darby for good (and getting Kingston a job too BTW). I know people are down on Cody right now (which is pretty ironic considering he could not do anything wrong during the first year or so, to the point people argued that HE should be the biggest star in the company and the Elite were nothing but indie geeks or something, those statements have aged like milk), but I thought his match with Black was really good. He took mist in the face ? Ok and ? How does that hurt Black's win ? It doesn't, Black right now is like the coolest heel a-la Steve Austin in early 97, the fact he's using the mist like Muta only makes him even cooler. And the Arn stuff is happening for a reason. I actively look forward to a heel turn, which is the first thing I'll actively look forward with Cody since I guess his last TNT Title "run" (which was basically him putting Darby over). Maybe it'll end up being cringe, who knows, but I really like the idea of getting that Cody & Brandi back, plus it fits with the whole TV reality show stuff... Oh yeah, and that Brandi spot was fucking awesome. Black's reaction was perfect (and a total babyface one too, they know). Yeah, that "I don't want to follow that" from Punk really resonated, it was gonna be very hard and Punk as the "cool down factor" wasn't making anyone any favors either, although he sure tried.

Good point. RAW *should* win by a wide margin in every demo every week. They are Coca-Cola. They are Da Brand, have been for 35 years. RAW is the longest running series on TV (where's the Kappa emote when you need it ?). AEW has barely been on TV for two years. Not that I care one way or another, really. Just give me a pro-wrestling product I love. Oh wait, they are just doing that. To a ridiculous degree these days. @Migs you're the luckiest guy on this board !

Gran Metalik has been a gigantic waste of talent. Picture Kota Ibushi signing with WWE when they did that Cruiserweight Classic stuff... Yeah... No idea why WWE would not grant him his release at this point, he doesn't fit their plan whatsoever (and never has). Of course he could end up in AAA or the indies. IMPACT seems like a cool destination too if AEW is out of the question, and really he comes from being so nothing for years that he would need to rebuild himself a bit.

Da fuck ? If AEW signs tall guys now where is this thing going ? That's Vince's thing goddammnit ! If Dustin & QT can work their magic with this guy and get a Great Khali that doesn't suck... Noticed it too, he's been much better lately, that has been noticeable. At least since All Out. And yeah, Tony Schiavone is awesome. I've been singing the praises of Schiavone for years during the dark days as he was one of my all-time favorite at his peak (him & Jesse are maybe my favorite old-school duo ever and he's got the classic line of all classic lines to his resume too), so I'm just having a blast since he came back so full of life and enthousiasm.

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.