El-P

Misawa and the crew leaving AJPW with almost nothing to work with, Inoki gaining power again in NJPW and pushing his atrocious MMA fetish, which killed Hashimoto and got him to leave, putting the titles on godawful guys like Fujita & Yasuda, fucking Nagata up by having him do MMA fights, all leading up to a revived Mutoh also leaving for good and taking over AJPW eventually. The early 00's were a complete mess and apart from NOAH becoming the new reference for all things Japanese pro-wrestling, including junior division (with Marufuji and KENTA changing the entire game from within, their influence is still evident to this day), things looked really bleak (not to mention the FMW road to hell, joshi puroresu having dissolved in a myriad of smaller promotions).

For sure, Bart Gunn wasn't going anywhere in WWF, at this time or another, whereas Mike Barton got a nice few years in both AJPW and NJPW in a time where Japan's wrestling was going into a crisis.

Doesn't surprise me in the least because of the whole "call to nature" fallacy that is always dangerously looming every time I hear "Go vegan" arguments. (I don't think there's anything wrong about being vegan either BTW, more power to them)

Loved the match, another MOTYC in Ospreay & Ibushi's wallet, loved the result, that's a holy shit moment if there ever was one. Marked out for that finish.The post-match was indeed crazy stuff. Takagi again ? Then Okada. That's about a hundred step up from last's year bullshit. The junior tag team match was very good too, but watching this, the one thing that struck me was that Kanemaru was easily the best worker of the four. Talk about a guy who's been consistently very good for more than 20 years now, with a peak early in NOAH. Totally overlooked because of his lack of charisma, but that guy has been good forever (yeah, that damn GWE poll mentality creeps everywhere already). Also, Mox vs Nagata ? Cool. Nagata is one of my favorite veteran workers.

He probably had John Morrisson/Mundo/Impact best single match ever in 2018 and was terrific during that IMPACT stint. Well of course he did got up and no-sold the finish because he's an unprofessional asshole, although Johnny's facial reaction was so hilarious it was almost worth it ! But his work at that time, as good as anything you'll see anywhere. Again, this is neither here nor there, but Aries was not far behind Styles, Danielson or Joe during his peak. Great, great pro-wrestler. He's apparently going "insane", since for so long his Twitter stuff was about veganism and animal rights. But I mean, he always had the rep of being an asshole, and anti-vax and such don't need concussions to say really stupid shit.

Tamina complaining about anything is kinda ironic considering the "talent" she has displayed over the years. The fact she's still employed is an anomaly in itself. Feels like some odd guilt trip/morbid fidelity from Vince toward her father, who has killed a woman and got a big-ass tribute when he finally died, never having been punished for his crime. I mean, I know I'm stretching things, but why would she be employed if not because "she's family" ? She's not as bad as Nia though (but who is ? Not many), so there's that.

No. Austin Aries was a great, great wrestler. Like, legit awesome worker. Not just technically, but at pretty much every aspect of it. Great bumper, could sell super well as a babyface fighting from underneath, great heel, terrific looking offense, great explosiveness, a terrific sens of timing and pacing, could make anyone look better than they were, plus he was a really good promo too. The fact is an idiot asshole and was unprofessional at times doesn't change that fact, I'm not even sure there have been a dozen guys better than him in the last 20 years in the US. He's been going on a total downward spiral for a while, it's pretty embarrassing yes, and I doubt anyone will touch him anymore. Waste of a terrific talent.

Oh, you think ? ... Funny story about "You wouldn't tell that to Brock Lesnar" is how Marc Mero tells the story of him finding out who Rena was dating. He goes like "I"m gonna kick that guy's ass ! Then I find out it's Brock and I'm like, Hey, you guys got my blessing !"

Sure, but I honestly don't see them going back on that point. Plus, back then Stephy had not invented feminism and female sports yet. Ace really feels like a comfortable hire so that naive workers go "But Vince loved me" when they get fired.

Meltz actually made the same critic, in that with all those factions you end up with too many people on the show and you really dilute the focus on getting a few key people over. I hear way worse (and misplaced) criticism on this board every week.

You wouldn't call Kip Sabian a geek IRL. Because Penelope would kick your ass.

The other way around. Non-politician, not giving a fuck answer reflects better on him (and anyone else, really, but maybe it's because I'm " Fuck off" guy IRL). He doesn't owe anything to anyone. And why would he want to work for the benefit of WWE if the relationship ended up poorly (which is obviously the case) ? I know passing judgment on people we don't actually know is the thing on Internet, but really if Arn isn't interested, why the hell would he answer anything other than "Not interested" ? What's so great about appearing in a revisionist WWE documentary anyway ? Not everyone is thinking politics (Jericho obviously does and it has worked wonders for his career).

Well, the issue is that actually, pretty much everything made sense in term of why matches/angles happened (Mox vs Bononi was an overlong JTTS match but that's it) to anyone who actually follows the promotion. No comment on "I post while drunk", which apparently is the new thing around here (hey, I've done it before ok).

No. You obviously don't know your Russo well. First, with Russo crash TV, you get 3 minutes matches. Then, you never pay off your angles by something that actually makes sense or is satisfactory to the audience. Third : swerve, bro. Fourth : you humiliate women on weekly basis. Fifth : you book tournaments all the time with crappy short matches, more swerves and shit finishes and a result that will go nowhere. This really has nothing to do with Russo booking, and no one knows Russo booking more than ME, because I went through the whole fucking thing in both WCW and TNA. AEW is about as opposite as Russo's booking as you can get really.

C'est la fête du slip, ma parole. (translation : Really, WTF ?)

It doesn't matter in the end because it's just a GWE list, there's no actual repercussion on anything. If I end up thinking any of those guys looks like some of the best wrestlers I've ever seen, I'll slip them somewhere in my list. This kind of cases is also why I'm probably more of a peak guy. Quality over quantity. And personal relationship to what I actually experience as opposed to a "study" that doesn't really mean anything unless someone actually watches all the pro-wrestling matches of all the pro-wrestlers ever, which is impossible (and really useless, as at some point I figure like 90% of it would be redondant anyway). You have to make choices at some points, and no choice is objective, so there are confirmation biases all over the place when you already choose something over something else. If the available footage makes the choice for me, so be it. As far as the ranking goes, it honesty doesn't matter to me one bit apart from say, the top 20. A top 100 is just that. Being 82 instead of 83 means exactly jackshit.

Paz Lenchantin. She rules too. Laredo Kid is one of the best AAA guys. I sure hope he shows up regularly. Pac is injured, so I guess that has been put on hold sadly. Guy can't catch a break. What was interesting is that when they dropped Legos on the mat, you could almost hear JR going into his old grumpy mode and here's Tony flying to the rescue putting it over big time in a super smart way.

The only reason this is happening is because Tony Khan is allowing it to happen. So, he must get *something*, anything, out of it. Cody has said before that they were willing to do business with anyone that was open for it.

Maybe they got bored by the Christian match after it was done. I mean, I can picture some people watching that first match, think it was boring (disclaimer : I enjoyed the match quite a bit) and switch off the show, especially since the following announced segment was QT (... against Cody !). One thing is obvious, those people who left were not 18-49...

Wait wait wait ! The QT thing ? ..... You mean the Cody Rhodes segment with QT. Of course, since it lost tons of viewer, it's the QT thing ? (hey, I'm not blaming anyone, like I said I pretty much loved the entire show) Also, funny how the perception of some was "aww, that ending is just bullshit with Best Friends & Sabian who are geeks and more ECW style brawling they do every week".... yet it drew the best quarter after the first one. So there is why no one should ever correlate bad or good ratings with what they like in an attempt to rationalize their opinions.

If people think he's gonna address working for the competition, think again. Still, that's buzz, but I'm not sure in what sense it works best, because it's not like it will make people subscribe to the WWE Network for this one show. On the other hand, by treating this as a huge deal in itself, they basically acknowledge that their competition is a huge deal, which is an odd move.

Looks ugly as fuck, but damn if Andre doesn't do a good job. "Oh oh oh, go for it Boss, I'll make you look good." Great find ! (I wonder if anyone complained back then that Andre was bumping too much and that it wasn't realistic and that it was gonna kill da business)

I mean, if we take what active pro-wrestlers have done managing (in term of physical performance, again, not promos), Gail Kim has a shot at my list, because she was not only a great worker and had this classic feud with Awesome Kong (in term of her most famous stuff that was also very much ten years before its time in the US on all accounts), but as a valet/manager with AMW/Planet Jarrett in TNA, she was just doing awesome work that would certainly add to her resume as a worker.

Agreed. Luchasaurus is going nowhere. He's a cool little gimmick but not a good worker at all, but he can tag team with Marko and they're both better off that way. I think they are waiting for the crowd to come back though to trigger a serious Jungle Boy push (for the audience heat translating through TV). I don't think he's totally there yet in term of status. Also, to me it's much better to establish the TNT title as important on his own instead of it just being a stepping stone for the AEW title. Having two strong titles like NJ used to have with the IC title (or ECW with the TV title which, when Douglas or RVD had it, was basically as important if not more than the ECW Title).

The doom & gloom talk about AEW gets so ridiculous sometimes. Darby Allin already has the n°2 Title in the promotion. And Sting isn't "leeching off", like Sting needed to leech anyone off at 62, they put him together with Darby because they think he's still got a superstar aura and that it helps Darby. MJF is leading the N°1 heel faction in the promotion. He's feuding with the former N°1 heel faction in the promotion, led by former AEW champ & legend Chris Jericho. Guevarra is obviously gonna come off this one as a hot babyface (and Wardlow as a hot heel) Jungle Boy looks ready for bigger things for sure. He's 23. He's gonna be ok if his pig push comes at 24/25. Ricky Starks is also ready for bigger things. They seem to go toward a feud with Cage. Not everyone can work at the top of the cards, they are stacked. Will Hobbs is green. He's nowhere ready for anything but midcard stuff, and honestly I don't see why he should do more than he does now, he's not a great worker nor a great talker nor a great character yet. The AEW title is not gonna go to any of these dude anytime soon you've also got guys like Eddie Kingston & Fénix who could be pushed at that level and quite frankly they are much more ready. Not to mention Hangman Page, who's been the designated "AEW original" for the job eventually. AEW has too many talent for the time they have on their TV show (not considering Youtube). WWE has taught so many bad lessons over the years, but people need to be patient too. Plus, AEW obviously would want the return of the crowds to really gauge who is actually getting over, not to mention it helps the perception on TV. Also, the idea that any young talent would go to WWE because they are unhappy with their push is the most hilarious thing in 2021. Apart from ridiculous money, (which they don't give to everyone either), no young talent working in AEW now would gain anything from going to the opposition.