El-P

Considering she herself basically said on TV that WWE booking made no sense, I could see some pettiness on their part, because they are this stupid. Fuck, here's someone I would love to see leave the company, give them the middle finger and show up on the other side with her cousin. Probably will never happen because I don't see any of the 4 Horsewomen leaving ever, but still. That girl should talk to Batista (she probably already is).

Classic dead-pan Dave. The last few shows have been kinda heartbreaking for him, talking bout his mom, so a little bit of smile can't hurt.

The fact they can lose someone like Kylie Ray and not even blink is telling. One thing about their women roster is that it's also so various is shapes, bodies, wrestling styles, characters. There isn't one worker in the bunch you can say is "there" (well, Nevaeh really is kinda there as mini-Havok, and I don't understand why her name is pronounced NevEAh, it's as annoying as some French shit). They are so far above and beyond AEW in that aspect it's not even funny. Plus like it's been said, there's always something to do for everyone so you get legit multiples women angles/feud at the same time, usually including one or two that are major ones on the totem pole.

It was always smokes and mirrors. It was not hard to grab hot people from the indies/other companies and push them in hot matches when there was no alternative, that way he looked like the "cool guy", the "wrestling guy". Except it was in a protected vaacum during a monopoly. His show gets mandated to kill the brand new opposition and the result ends up he gets his ass handed to him by a pissant company. Triple H is a con man, always was always will be. The ONE thing he managed to do right in the business is make friends with the right people, work with the hottest stars the business had seen in 15 years and marry the boss daughter. That's Trip's legacy.

That's really the strenght of their booking, everything has a purpose, from the comedic stuff to the serious main-event stuff to the vignettes, you know everything is going somewhere, the episodic nature of the show is really very well defined and built. Which is why it's so easy to watch.

That and Tony Schiavone : "Coming up after IMPACT, the City Council". The IMPACT diss are glorious. I'm loving this shit so much. And on the IMPACT front, the Machinegun working solo has quite impressed me in the last two weeks. Betting on Hogan & Steelz winning those tag team titles, they are the perfect fit for it. I guess Taya vs Deonna is upcoming, that should be really good too.

"Are you The Acclaim or Men on a Mission ?". I died. Yeah, the Acclaimed are absolutely not ready for this spot (and the "rap like John Cena with a fake gold chain around the neck kinda screams bad idea, at least try to do a fucking triplet on a trap beat so you don't look like, well, Men on a Mission), but it's basically feeding some bodies to the Bucks. Top Flight on the other end... If I were Private Party I'd be kinda worry about those two flying above their heads. I also died at "Kiss my ass" by Tony Schiavone. I loved most of the show, apart from the Big Swole vs Diamanté parts of the women match, which really looked bad. I mean, it's useless to say it every week, but Swole sucks and she will injure someone with this Tiger Driver where it looks like she has zero control over her opponent's body. Ivelisse vs Serena would have been really cool. That women's division really needs a lot of work still. Thunder Rosa vs Baker on the other end, that is gonna be fun. Loving Pac back, he's just the total package, the feud with Kingston, the upcoming match with Omega, all of this will be so great. The whole main event was just gold, between Calis announcing from ringside to Omega up-garbaging Janella and looking like a total dick. Their act is absolutely fantastic. A match with Fénix ? If the poor guy can be held together, that should rule pretty hard. Also, remember the Dark Order from a year ago ? Amazing what this has become (like, one of the best act in the company and the best on BTE). Talk about guys who will face the Bucks at some points, both Uno & Grayson (BTW, they had a super fun match with Bear Country on Dark in which Grayson looks godlike) and Silver & Reynolds should have tremendous matches with them. The three last show if the year are gonna be fun, and I would not be surprised to see the Good Brothers show up.

MLW ? Talk about a promotion with zero hype at all. Ditto ROH. As IMPACT is getting some attention from the AEW angle, why would anyone sign with those two nothing happening promotions at this moment ? I'd love Ethan Page in AEW because he's the perfect fit, but I'd love The North better.

Gotta love Bret Clarke !

This, and of course, The Summerslam.

NJPW and IMPACT definitely are already in speaking terms. Chris Bey was booked for the SJCup, announced as an IMPACT guy and actually went to the semi-finals beating Clark Connors, whose a NJPW Young Lion (interestingly enough, Rey Horus from ROH did the job in the first round). So IMPACT has promoted the JCup in the weeks leading up to it.

But TNA sux and KennY omEGA is not a draw at allllll !!!! Yeah, it's really, really ironic, in more ways than one. And I mean, I was basically one of the two or three people posting in this thread, I kinda miss the IMPACT social distancing now ! I mean, it has reached the point I need people to use spoiler tags ! As opposed to what ? I mean, unless they give you real stupid money, what's the incentive to sign with WWE now ? They waste and ruin everyone they get. But yeah, I really would love to see The North vs Young Bucks and FTR.

Wait until the pathological deniers go all crazy with "Yeah but...". You know that is gonna happen.

In more IMPACTful news, apparently Ethan Page is basically done with the company (and pro-wrestling ?) once the contract is finished (hence him basically screwing up the team and working solo at Final Resolution). That's too bad, The North are an awesome team and Page looked like a really creative guy and really won me over in the last year and a half, he was easily one of my favourites.

Wow, that joke from two decades ago... You should book for WWE.

Tanahashi vs Khan is garbage. I don't care if Tana can get a good match out of him, it's a complete waste of Tanahashi. Great-O-Khan should be an opening match guys jobber. Terrible, terrible use of Tanahashi on a Dome show. Same thing for the tag-team titles, complete waste of Zach & Taichi. Naito vs Ibushi could be great is neither kill themselves. Still the way to get to this match has been embarrassing so the match looks like a messer deal because of it. The main event the second night also looks weaker, despite Jay being a great worker. Okada vs Ospreay could be all kind of awesome, but I hope they don't get into the multiple run-in bullshit, and the Money Clip hampers Okada's matches to me. Shingo vs Cobb should be excellent because Shingo is just that great. Phantasmo vs Hiromu should be awesome. The overall direction of the company just isn't promising to me anymore. The Bullet Club shit is a turn-off now, with Togo (what a great signee this guy was....), Jado, Gedo doing the same shit in every match down the card now. I have zero interest left in EVIL and he should have big matches on both cards I guess. Running two Dome show was an interesting gimmick last year, becoming a yearly things is gonna hurt the product, it already has with the dumb-fuck booking of Ibushi losing his ticket yet getting the title match anyway because you need two of it now.

Holy fuck. Like, holy fuck.

Look at the Lucha Underground people in AEW : Lucha Brothers, Brian Cage, Thunder Rosa, Luchasaurus, (hell, Jake Hager). And now look at two guys who were main eventers in LU from the very first show : Johnny Mundo & Ricochet... Some guys signed the wrong contracts (I know, there was no AEW when Ricochet signed). The boss is 75 years old. The average viewer in 50. From that point of view, they push "young talent". Meanwhile, 50 years old Jericho is hot with the younger demo. Hell, Orange Cassidy is 37 or something. So, age is relative in a sense. But yes, of course, WWE is the retirement home of pro-wrestling.

Common ground can happen !

Yeah, am I supposed to gives a fuck about the Slam Wrestling awards ? I mean yeah, we know you love Mauro Ranallo. You're not alone, plenty of people do. Some people also can't fucking stand him to the point he's a total legit turnoff. Thats' my case. That, and Kevin Kelly telling the stories of the G1 alone should make him N°1, although my favourite is absolutely Tony, and this has nothing to do with childhood or anything, first time I heard Schiavone I was 21.

On the other hand, the Super J Cup was super easy to watch. EL Phantasmo, ACH and Chris Bey were the standouts to me. So, Phantasmo vs Hiromu at the Dome at least makes a sure killer match, as Phantasmo is just an all around awesome worker (yeah I know, there will be some bullshit but hopefully Phantasmo & Hirumo being so great will make it work).

And Asuka. But we're drifting away from the awesomeness that is IMPACT Wrestling, the company that would not die.

Backflips landing on his feet yes. Moonsault off the top rope onto his opponent/mat, I don't think so.

Yeah I was thinking about Poffo but I did not remember if he was doing it as a job guy. Which makes it even worse, really, because that made it a total nothing spot.

Thatcher sucks, Mella is Money, Callihan doesn't have the right tatooes, and the likes.