El-P

I'm all for that stupid shithead grifter totally embarrassing himself (in a match I mean, he's already embarrassing on a daily basis otherwise). And if you thought the results were stupid, it's even *stupider* watching the actual stuff. I swear, in my wildest hater shitposting twisted mind's imagination I could not have created such a dumb fucking fuck booking. Leon Slater winning the X-div title after a great match and performance (he's an exceptional worker, as anyone who has watched him in RevPro before knows) and being put over by a "returning" AJ Styles was the sole highlight of this idiotic showing. Well Ali vs Cedric was very good but really now, I couldn't care less about a two weeks built feud based on a Mania pre-show from 8 years ago (and really, Cedric Alexander seems to have zero charisma nor promo ability). Ali is just too good for TNA at this stage of his career. Leon I wish would work *elsewhere* (wink wink nudge nudge). The ladder match was a kinda fun clusterfuck, at least it was not as ridiculously slow and cluttered and awkward as the Full metal Mayhem from BGF. Still, when AJ Francis is the one taking the dumbest bump, you know you're not watching a classic or anything (although AJ Francis and dumbest kinda is classic). Wentz was like "fuck this shit, when am I back on NXT" and Ryan Nemeth highspot was arguing with some celebrity (I guess) at ringside. The finish was creative (unsafe, but creative, so probably a Jeff Hardy idea). If Myron Reed isn't signed (and I don't think he is), AEW needs to throw him money. He's been killing it on indies for way too long. Rest of the show ? Well, you got TNA hard workers (Maclin, Young) and fun performers (Ash and her crew) sent to the pre-show. Poor Jake Something having to do a job to that piece of trash Enzo, who is still doing the same mic work he was doing ten years ago. First thing Something did after that was post a picture of him and Beast Mortos on X (from when he was in IMPACT). Ya know that guy is a goner. He's really, well, something ! Sign him yesterday Coach TK ! You got Tessa Blanchard trying to get a good match out of Indi Hartwell. And failing. Holy shit Hartwell is *not good* (I never want to hear again about how the Performance Center is producing great talent, especially female ones, the best stuff NXT had lately was Jordynne Grace, Stephanie Vaquer and Giulia). But she's gonna get pushed because she's an NXT reject. Tessa, oh well. This ain't working. You can put Victoria Crawford with her, she still gets mostly a mix of apathy and "she's a racist" chant. Her beating the fuck out of Gia Miller was glorious though. Poor Gia. Get out of here too. You got the System, you apparently turned babyface from absolutely nowhere after two years of being the biggest (and dullest) heel faction in the company. But since they were facing Dark State aka a bunch of NXT no names, I guess they *needed* to act like ones. Only win you gonna get TNA fans. That'll teach ya. Oh yeah, Cardona was there too (where isn't he, apart from where he begs to be ?), teaming with his old pal Bryan "resthold" Myers. Kinda the speedrun Temu version of the Cope/Christian angle I guess (since last week the System was still a heel faction). And then yes, Jacy Jane vs Masha. Gaaawd. They made a point of saying Masha was trained and lived in NYC. They even dragged her teacher Johnny Rodz to sit at ringside. And they jobbed her out. I guess at *this* point people thought at least it was the garantee Santana was winning. Oh, sweet summer childs. Match was pretty good though. Jacy Jane and her faction's gimmick seems to be reduced to "We're slutty", but hey, I guess you gotta feed content for Booker T on NXT television, but she had a good showing against Masha. Still, she took most of the match and won. There you go. Carlos Silvia, the new president, was even there to hand the WWE talent their belts. The guy was on the pre-show talking about TNA could become the #2 company. Bwahahahaha. Sit in your cuck chair and shut the fuck up. He seems to be the dumbest TNA president this side of Dixie yet. And then the main event. Joe Hendry has lost quite a bit of luster. Who could have predicted, uh ? Match was ok all things considered, although really Williams is a green-ass overpushed rookie who tries to be Booker T. Yuck. And then, the genius spot of the match had Williams act like he was legit injured, and everybody around selling it like it was actually *legit*. So of course that mostly killed the crowd because they thought something unplanned had happened. That's not called "heat", that's called "killing a match on purpose". And then when the finish happened with Williams stealing the pin, you could hear the crowd dying. You can see the people leaving immediately. The build of Santana following the great Ali feud had been the best thing easily in the last 18 months of TNA. Great promos, great vignettes. They got the biggest crowd (ever ? or not. You could see tons of empty seats too, so maybe the number is fake, which would not be surprising) in forever in fucking NYC ready to see Mike fucking Santana become TNA champ. And they, well, fumbled it, as the NXT-pilled crowd like to chant. They jobbed the child of NYC Mike Santana at the peak of his overness on the same show they jobbed NYC adopted Masha Slamovich earlier. I bet even Vince Russo thinks it's dumb as fuck. TNA be like TNA.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH LOLTNA indeed. Like I said, the CUCK ERA.

Wait until TNA gets a little *too much* hype and WWE puts the kibosh on that collaboration. 😅 At the point they are now, they will probably reach if not beat their biggest attendance ever. Like I said, the booking and product overall is not exactly setting the world on fire to me overall (despite some legit highlights), but this is fascinating to watch (and for the talent in the company, especially those who have been there for a while, it must be awesome). AJ Styles showing up in TNA again will be something though, for sure.

I've been watching pro-wrestling for 35 years (damn). And a whole lot of it, from all eras and territories, although of course watching something after the fact and from another culture absolutely alters your perception of it. Still. This was absolutely the greatest blowoff I've ever seen, on every level. As far as the so-called recency bias, my experience tells me that although it does exists, it doesn't weigh a whole lot compared to the "sacred cow bias", the "old-school bias" and globally the "things used to be better bias". There's something about people (that's including myself) having trouble being in the *now* and recognizing what's so great about it when it actually is.

After watching the last few months, I can confirm Delirious is a shitty booker. With a few exceptions, everything is dull, boring, generic and/or cringe. The Joe Hendry title reign was *nothing*. They turned Masha Slamovich into "generic babyface N°234" as opposed to russian-speaking psycho-bitch, making her lose all her edge. And her title run has been pretty much terrible too, with matches against Léi Ying Lee (she dragged her useless ass to a watchable match) and *gasp* Victoria Crawford (I have no word). The Moose X-div title run has been, wait for it, *nothing*. Sure, Leon Slater winning the belt will be great, but they did jackshit with the idea of Moose being a heavyweight holding the belt. Whatever I see coming from NXT usually doesn't impress me very much, or at all. Lately, that Dark State shit is so fucking lame. I have no idea if any of these guys are any good, but it comes off like third-rate Contra. Yeah, from MLW fame. Ponder that for a second. They are on the card now too against the System & Matt Cardona, feel the fucking excitement. The relationship has helped with the numbers, to the detriment of the actual product. The new president gives me huge carny vibes too. This will *not* end well. (that being said, considering how the MLP stuff is going, not sure it would have been *that* much better with D'Amore, except for the fact lot of people that left probably would not have, including backstage people that were instrumental)

So there it is, AJ Styles is (most likely) showing up at Slammiversary. Which is super cool. They also are gonna do 5K probably (they already are lying about how it's their biggest attendance ever though). It's fascinating to witness TNA coming back to that "level" (under quotation because it's tricky, as the TV taping attendance show, you can see a shitload of empty seats), especially with such a mediocre product. The WWE parrnership coupled with banking on viral meme phenomenon Joe Hendry + Hardys finding the best place for them surely paid off in term of numbers. The product itself ? Yuck. Dull, boring, un-compelling booking with a roster thiner and thiner in term of notable talent. It also exposes to me how much the NXT workers are overrated. Trick Wiliams is an entrance. I understand he's basically an overpushed rookie, but his work is not very good at all and I don't see that much great potential either. Jacy Jane ? She's basic (which is also probably a giveaway that Masha is winning, so that they only job an intermediary champ to the TNA person). The former NXT people getting signed like Léi Ying Lee (truly fucking bad) or Indi Hartwell (thus far, hasn't shown me much of anything on any level) are clogging up the cards alongside the return of the IInspiration, who seem to be as godawful as ever and don't bother doing anything above their old WWE gimmick, and, Victoria Crawford, who make the IInspiration look like Nastupoi & Saori Anou and whose only goal is apparently to be Tessa Blanchard's "black friend" so to kill off the "she's a racist" chants. Not to mention the next brand new signing in Enzo Amore, cutting shooty-shooty promo on AEW (talking about Forbidden Door and shit)... Oh, and they are actually running a Matt Cardona/Brian Myers reunion angle, which is as thrilling as it sounds... Again, TNA has morphed back into old TNA ironically. Slammiversary on paper is not half bad with matches like Mustafa Ali vs Cedric Alexander (despite the abysmal angle which made it about a Mania pre-show match from 7 years ago) and Moose vs Leon Slater (the former RevPro 20 years old prodigy, who is really awesome), the 4 way ladder match team tag championship which could go from cool car crash to spectacular disaster if the last Hardy ladder match is an indication. The Santana's rise since the Mustafa Ali feud has been the best thing about the product, and he really comes off like a star now. He'll have to carry both loads on his back though and since it's NYC he should win the TNA championship. He surely made the right move at the right time. The thing is, he's already coopted by WWE (much like Masha), so whenever his contract ends (and it's sooner than later I believe), he's a goner like Hendry and Grace before he. Masha really would fit much better in AEW on pretty much every front, but TNA has been turned into a doorway to NXT, so there. The "interesting" part is when these people are gone, because they pretty much all comes from the IMPACT days (so is Leon Slater BTW, or the Rascalz who have been running in circles for a while now), and since the WWE partnership has been in effect, they have developed no one at all, relying strictly on what they have, older names/rejects from WWE and the NXT partnership.

This is obviously a set-up for Mox vs Darby, which needs to be done as an immediate follow-up. And it will probably be crazy. Swerve vs Okada ? I'm so there. Ditto Toni vs Athena. Awesome. The Young Bucks shit was perfect and funny as hell. HOWEVER DO NOT DO, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, A FUCKING CASH-IN GIMMICK WITH MJF. Don't do it at all, ever again. That Hangman promo at the start was something else. Love that venue. Complete bullshit pseudo-mauresque movie set look. Awesome. More of these funky small venues. Gotta do the swimming pool gimmick once. Club La Vela needs a shout-out.

Ok, I saw that Intervilles clip some time ago. A bit of context here : France has bullfighting, although there's a real pushback lately as cruelty against animals is more and more frowned upon (thankfully !). However, what you saw in Intervilles, which was a TV show (and fuck me, they are relaunching this stuff this summer, without the cows) is based on a form of bullfighting called Course landaise (because it comes from the region of the Landes, in the south-west), and it only practiced with small cows called vachettes landaises, and there is no blood nor death. It's just based around a bunch of acrobatics. So, that was implemented in the TV show, and it really was the main attraction of it. Since catch was so popular back then, it's no surprise there would have been some of that stuff too, although how many times, I have no idea. Fun fact, youtuber ArkeoToys made a video on Intervilles a few weeks ago, and at 0:48 you can see quick footage on some catch on a lake, so there at least has been one more occurence of it (much later, since it was in color) (and fuck me, one of these guys in the old Intervilles clip is actually pulling the poor cow's tail and kicking her ? What a piece of trash. He would have deserved a good horn shot in the kidney)

One interesting thing about this show, was the lack of surprise, or rather, the lack of a certain kind of surprise. In the two gauntlets matches, you had the return from injury of Juice Robinson (with whatever the fuck was that look) and the Gunns (well, ok, good then), the debut of Alex Windsor, who had been announced in the previous weeks, and the appearance of Syuri (which, if you read the tea leaves, was not a big surprise either). No ex-WWE worker making a big debut, despite the fact so many have been cuts recently. Lately it seems like Coach TK has learned a lot from the last 3 years, and this is another sign of a change of attitude. I'm sure some of them will eventually show up, if they are thought to be good signees, but the fact none showed up there is quite telling. The show was focused on AEW's core roster and partners (Stardom, CMLL). Speaking of ex-WWE guys though, the Cope "run-in" was hilarious. The guy had to make his entire choreographed entrance event hough his old pal was getting murdered. Jeff Hardy would have been proud. Thinking back at the show I've watched yesterday, it was truly one for the ages and felt like the creative peak of the promotion thus far. Which is something I would never have guessed 6 months ago. The one audible (Dustin winning and the eve of the terribly sad Adam Cole speech) was super cool, and everything else was booked exactly like it should have (even the Hurt Business match, really, the day they lose the titles needs to be in a straight match to a tag team they actually will put over). There was some *awesome* work in the YB vs Ospreay/Swerve match that really made you think the Bucks would win despite the awful stipulation. The Bucks are the greatest tag team ever, and their wrestling IQ is ridiculous. (and let's not even mention *this* intro, which was hilarious on several meta levels). I kinda figured Okada was winning considering how the booking went until then, but he too displayed why he's maybe the greatest big match worker ever. The idea that "he's washed" is funny as fuck. When he wants to do a G1 final level match, he just does. I felt like they left people wanting more a bit. I doubt this is the last chapter. Also, I can't say how happy I was with Athena winning the gauntlet. I really hoped she would, but wasn't sure she would.

Oh yeah, my brain totally read the entire thing as it was about multi-men tags. Dunno why. The Triple Threat talk is funny though. These things have been a regular feature on US pro-wrestling in THIRTY YEARS now. How aren't they considered old-school and traditional ? Well, they actually are. Something watching wrestling starting in 2015 will learn they've been around since the mid 95, so really old-school shit and all.

So there you go. Three specials shows to try and hurt All In. And in the end, Counter-programming Mania was a miserable failure. Two really good shows out of three apparently, but it wasn't the goal. Goldy's retirement speech getting cut is hilarious. Bye bye big man. We hardly knew ye. The guy milked a 15 months run of relevance into 30 years of cashing huge checks for doing almost nothing. He's also responsible of two of the worst things in pro-wrestling in the last, well, 30 years. The Goldberg push. Which has worked ONCE and never again. Still promoters try it over and over again. Stop doing it. Also, he made the spear into a thing. And most people make it look like shit doing it. I mean, Big Justice has a better spear than Adam Copeland, so it's not lost on everybody (I knew, credit Rocky Romero for it). Anywoo. I was tired of Goldy by November of 1998. The guy never did anything better than the Raven and DDP matches that year. I never got the nostalgia for that guy. Imagine being at Center Stage, not sold out, and chanting "Tony fumbled" while AEW was running *that* PPV. The level of dumbfuckery and clowning is insane. Plus I'm sure people like Ethan Page, Ricky S. and Blake "I lost my passion while being involved in one of the greatest feud of the last year because I feared I would never go to WWE" Monroe love the chants about the former boss during their match. I have no doubt Evolution was a terrific PPV considering the feedback (and really Iyo Skye and such). But it shall not be lost on anyone that the first Evolution only existed to whitewash the first Saudi show (or was it the second, seems like ages ago already ?) and this one was bumped and rushed only to try and hurt their "non-competition". Lovely to weaponize your women roster like this. I heard Stephy (ya know, the one in the picture with the brain-worm anti-vaxx destroyer of population, not the one who got lowballed to live her dream) was on the show. I would have vomited into my own throat. Stephanie "Thank you Vince" McMahon talking about women and shit. (edit : and now I learn that Vickie Guerrero was shown. Vickie Guerrero, who has accused her own daughter of being a liar when she talked about being sexually assaulted by her mother's companion. You can't make this shit up, I swear). Also, Naomi being the one standing at the end is hilarious when you think about the joke tweet she made about nepotism a while back. Bloodline gotta Bloodline or something. I guess next time they need to distract the attention from some shit, Evolution III is gonna be right there.

I wasn't ready for THAT main event. Holy fucking shit. Danielson showing up in a Blue Panther mask (because of course). Darby with a promo from the Everest and dropping from the sky like Sting. Marina screaming for her life as she got dropped. Swerve and his Red Dead Redemption arc. And Mox indeed panicking as he's dying a thousand deaths and no one can save him. Hangman truly is the heart and soul. I got my Chaka Khan moment ! Thank you for listening Coach TK ! Awesome, AWESOME show, with peaks like mofo crazy. (the Adam Cole stuff was tough to watch (you could see it in his eyes the second he was on the ramp), hopefully he recovers and gets well soon)

Yes. Maybe there's hope for more mature and deeper stuff in pro-wrestling in the future, alongside the goofiest part we all love. It's very fitting that it comes from Hangman, as his character arc as always been about his struggle with mental health, dating back to him losing his friends, getting on the bottle, getting his confidence back thanks to Dark Order, to finally defeating Kenny Omega. From Day 1 he's really been the main character of AEW, and he's easily the most compelling character there has been in US pro-wrestling. And a great fucking worker (from the get go too, he was always underrated in the early years, although he became even better especially since the Swerve feud, which is one for the ages and really already an all-time classic). Just masterful stuff.

No reason for them to underdeliver if booked right. The multi-women matches lately have been super fun.

OMG they actually are running a feud between Mustafa Ali and Cedric Alexander around the fact Ali did not have his WrestleMania Moment tm, with promos about how great 205 Live was. The level of cucking going on in TNA right now is *insane*. It's both hilarious and sad as hell. Which I guess is fitting for TNA.

No. It gives more people the opportunity to work in these days where there is no house-show anymore (which is absolutely an issue for the reps people need to improve), it's usually fun, and it allows to feature names without them having to kill themselves doing long single matches every-week. And I mean, it basically comes from Japan. This is what they do all the time on their undercards.

Oh for sure. I really wish they'd do *something* with Top Flight (and Leyla Grey), after all this time. (and no, the lame feud with Cru doesn't count) They picked the right place for him to make his comeback too.

To me Hangman is 100% winning. And Toni is 90% winning with Mercedes working her magic to make you believe she's actually gonna win. (although if she wins, I will not be offended because of how great she has been, but of course Toni should win) And yeah, this is the most excited I've been overall about an AEW show in quite a while too. Last year had Danielson vs Swerve, which was awesome too though, but this year has a different feel overall.

No.

I love the fact they are actually doing Lee Moriarty vs Blue Panther at the ROH show. Ya know Danielson is involved in some ways. Card is kind thrown together at the last moment, but Bandido vs Takeshita should be terrific. And really now, I know it is probably not very cost effective, but I would really love ROH to be taped in like the former Impact Zone as a studio wrestling show instead of during the TV tapings. Not many people is gonna be in the audience anyway, might as well make it look cool.

The "Tony fumbled" chant were so embarrassing. And when your hype is 90% about "I'm being held hostage by evil AEW boss, why can't I do the thing I love" (while not getting any booking elsewhere, which plenty worker do), that's what you get in the end. Now you're just another guy on the card, because what made you such a hot topic was the fact you weren't working. From what I hear it seems it kinda happened to Jordynne Grace to some extent too. She was way more special to the NXT crowd when she was coming from TNA. Now she's just another NXT wrestler, she's got a shitty-ass Def Rebel theme (crazy how it struck me watching TNA lately that the WWE themes come off so cheap) without her vintage siren (because sirens are reserved for the Steiner nepokid on the main roster apparently), she shrunk a lot too (people have mentioned the Wellness policy which is hilarious when you look at Orton of Styles) so she has lost a lot of her hype it seems. I wonder if the same thing happens to Joe Hendry. I personally can't fucking stand to hear his song and see his stupid meme face in TNA (don't get me wrong, I understand why he hustles the way he does, that's what he has and his ascension is a pretty crazy story). Like jeeez, people, aren't you TIRED already ? For a moment there I was afraid it was Wardlow. Talk about another guy I'm perfectly fine not coming back (with my luck he'll show up at the Casino Gauntlet. Hopefully not). Well, Scorpio Sky certainly is a guy I did not expected to show up again, really. He was the least charismatic of the SCU 3 and that had showed after the split. Not opposed at all to have him back, he was a good worker. No idea what they can do with him though, considering he really never got over as a single guy in AEW. BTW, remember Matt Sydal ?

What is working ? Do they have great matches ? No. They barely have good matches. Hell, they barely have matches. Do they cut great promos ? No. MVP does, but does that go anywhere particulary compelling or building to great feuds and matches ? No. Do they get their opponents over ? HELL NO. Everyone working with them ends up looking like complete geeks (and that's including MVP usually burying their opponents on the mic too). Do they have entertaining segments ? Yeah, the MJF stuff was fun for a few weeks. I gave them the benefits of the doubts for a while. That joke is not funny anymore. The tag team titles are completely dead in the water. No feuds, no great matches (at least Private Party had two of those with the Bucks), nothing. And a bunch of babyface teams getting made look worse. Get the titles OFF them immediately, have them put people over and actually work. If not, I don't see what purpose they fill apart from having a theme song people can chant to. That make them 49 years old Trick Williams, and that's not something I want in AEW.

Okada vs Ibushi certainly was on no one's bingo for Dynamite two weeks before All In. Hell, Ibushi coming back was on no one's bingo. And he looks *good* too. Healthy and with his confidence back it seems. Much better than he was the first few times he showed up. Hopefully he gets into his groove. And now we need the match that should never have happened but needs to : Ibushi vs Shibata in a UWF style match in 2025. The Hangman segment was one for the ages. I popped like a mark for the Texas Death Match challenge as I did not see it coming. Marina is so damn cool in her role. And the Deathriders angle, as much as it petered out at one point, is ending on a very high note. The Toni vs Mercedes build is ace too, and Mina vs Mercedes was one hell of a match (after a shaky start, they sure got it back). Ditto Young Bucks vs Swerve & Ospreay. (the tag titles however, well, enough said about the Hurt Syndicate already, Kevin Knight and Speedball deserves way better than this) With the two Casino Gauntlet which should be really fun, and 20K + in the end, All In looks like the banger filled W it deserves to be to cap off this awesome first half of 2025 for AEW.

All of this. Really, as much as I have loved 2021, 2025 is peak AEW again, with a new sense of maturity (which makes sense, they are still relatively "new" at this, when you think of it).

The funny thing is : why WWE would want her ? She's not very good in the ring, she's kind of a headache to deal with apparently plus.... oh sorry, I was just reminded that she just has to to her D.M.D gimmick over and over and she'll get main event spots. That's how it works over there. YEET ! YEAH ! WE BELIEVE ! Jokes aside, I have no doubt WWE would grab her just because, and she's best friend with Chelsea Green (or was at one time). Like I said, AEW has outgrew her. She peaked at the end of the pandemic/back with the audience thanks to the Schiavone/Rebel not Reba vignettes. She has had awful health issues which probably don't help her in-ring work, but her attitude during her last comeback, from what has been said (and seen on camera, really, with Serena Deeb), is just not worth the trouble. Fully expect Danhausen to be signed too whenever his contract ends. One dimensional joke, poor in-ring worker, reputation of being a constant complainer. He'll fit right over there too (unless Mr. Iguana already stole his spot).