El-P

Wow. Recycling really old TNA gimmicks now ? This company is so fried.

It was the real name of the pin combination Orange used, but it was semi-botched by Jericho. Since it wasn't a pin you'd see everyday on AEW TV, it served as a cover indeed, yet the finish did look botched. That's pretty much it. Waiting for Cancel Culture dweebs to pass onto the next fake outrage I'm guessing.

And so I tried some personality profile episodes and I can in good faith recommend Iron Sheik, Hacksaw Duggan, Kevin Nash. And a mild recommandation for Val Venis from the perspective of a case study of everything that was wrong about the Attitude Era, because it hits you in the head how much this guy did *nothing* of note ever and that his most famous bits were awful angles (and also the fact that he's only remembered because he was there at the right time, because three years prior, the guy would end up being Salvatore Sincere, he also never got over on himself after that point and he was perceived as a complete hasbeen when he showed up in TNA in 2010). Tito Santana & Earthquake are OK. Stay away from Nailz at all cost.

Well, that was one thing that would have been interesting indeed so... no such luck apparently. Yeah, that really comes through on many occasions. I mean, when the subject of FMW comes up in some Bruce Prichard episode, Brucie is like "FMW was some garbage drizzling shit, a smaller crappier version of ECW" and Conrad doesn't say jackshit. And, really now ? Onita was drawing 50.000 people at the Kawasaki Stadium *without TV* when Brucie's band could not sell out a medium sized arena for Mania the same year. Conrad's ignorance of anything not-WWE (or basically mainstream US mid-90's) is really stricking, which is why he's doing 2010's WWE show with Arn instead of Crockett/early WCW stuff.

So, apparently the younger audience flew the fuck away from Raw after the huge bump of last week. So yeah, it was a one-week "let's watch that car-crash", followed by "won't watch that shit anymore".

I expected no less and had not much intention of listening to it. I mean, Crush ? Yeah, I guess one interesting point is how a guy with so little talent got hired and got chances again, again and again. I heard he was really funny before. But the Sable one ? Winner.

Terrific show again. Dark Order vs Young Bucks was just an awesome match. Evil Uno has so much cool little idiosyncrasies between the big spots, way underrated worker. Cody vs Scorpio Sky was terrific too and they really made it a big time feel match with the entourage of Cody. The Brodie Lee match should be epic. Good things in the future for Sky too. The MJF segment was perfectly done and really made me think of some of the peak Austin segment with Mox at the end. Tully is an asshole in 2020. You know, despite the IMPACT debacle and whatever person she is IRL, I'd still enjoy Tessa in AEW, not gonna lie (probably won't happen). I was waiting for someone pointing out how Ricky was working when he put over the Young Bucks. Omega & Page vs Jurassik Express was excellent, Luchasaurus has looked better in later weeks, maybe because he has faced such terrific workers too. Gotta love Omega & Page's answers to the "greatest tag-team ever" question. Yeah, that's how you put over the NOW. Shida is great and again, Heather Monroe is a good catch for AEW if they eventually do something with her (as opposed to, well you know). That submission was quite cool. BTW Vickie Guerrero in kayfabe is a shitty manager, Shida is right there and she does not even do a thing, while Nyla is basically a spectator at this point. They are clearly coasting with the women right now. I agree they should have kept on with the Penelope feud to build to a rematch at All-Out. Archer & Jake's segment was funny, again, gotta love Jake totally impervious to Archer murdering guys like a lunatic in the background. I agree the main event was not as good as their previous match, and I do think Jericho did not go along Orange's pin combination well, just like he bumped funny on the dragonscrew. Still quite a good match, but not great, and it's way too bad Orange's first huge win has to go down without a crowd, it loses so much that way. Also, is it me of the timing was a bit off, they went off the air so quickly after the win. Yeah, JR kinda sucks, honestly. I guess Excalibur is back for the 22, well hopefully because he's badly missed.

I hope Pac won't be a "victim" of Covid too, that would suck. Maybe when (if ?) this stuff is over they can Bea & Saddie them "back" (under quotation because they really did not appear that much anyway yet, I believe Gibbs showed up once or twice at most). Yeah, Havoc was a goner, no surprise here.

I tried my hand at Sable, it's a pretty good listen all things considered. She's actually a pretty fascinating case-study of what "over" means, in relation to context/talent and her trajectory is quite amazing and unique, in two years she basically, without any former experience of anything, became the N°2 draw in the company (really, she was just behind Austin in 1998). Also, it's quite a story that the Playboy spread (the first one) would be her eventual downfall since she believed her own hype after that point. It strikes me that we really don't know anything about who Rena is/was, really, because she wasn't a talent before, had no history of working and after that second stint (which also speaks loudly of the way Vince likes to embarrass people who attacked him before) basically went back to being a mom and housewife. Probably a loner kind of character (her couple with Lesnar makes all the sense in the world from that perspective) who got pushed into the limelight and became a huge star doing basically nothing (now, let's be real), which really can fuck with your head, not to mention the jealousy in the locker room. Anyway, good listen.

He's the Lance Archer of Infamy...

Kenny Omega 2017 - 2018

Because no babyface ran in to save Dominik. And yeah, this stuff is so bad and has been done so much since the latter nWo days that it almost seems *normal*, but it is stupid to have a guy getting murdered forever without anyone running to make a save. He also put in the stupit Retribution shit happening without anyone, including from the crowd of pro-wrestlers. Pretty funny stuff indeed.

This time in TNA was quite amazing is that it had some of its best stuff with the Angle vs Jarrett feud and angles, the rise of Bully Ray (the AJ Styles injury angle, the D-Von feud) and also some of the worst, Russoesque pure crap. Including : _the Pope (poor guy, he looked like a surefire babyface star the previous year) torturing Okada, who's dressed like Robin and named Okato (in hindsight it's probably better he wasn't called Okada during that stuff), complete with a few racist overtones . _Mexican-America, which was an interesting faction of workers (hey, Zelina) BUT, the gist of it was cutting promos about Mexicans being the *superior race* (that was said in promos) and taking over the jobs, lands and women of America. Just WOW. This is easily one of the most blatant racist angle I've seen in a long time, and to think it happened in 2011 ! Well, Trump became POTA in 2016, so maybe it was not that surprising. Still, I'm amazed that this stuff actually happened. _and of course the whole Beautiful People & Winter stuff, which has been god-awful and was really the apex of the Knockouts being all about "bitch this", "skank that"....

So, Meltz may be partial on his reporting on Ospreay, who has not been accused of rape nor any sexual abuse BTW. Well ok. Maybe that's the case, maybe not (I'm not gonna pretend to *know* because I don't, just like I don't *know* if Ospreay did anything bad or not). But that has nothing to do with the fact he's gonna suffer repercussions from his employers or not (if he should). Meanwhile, Meltz reporting on Matt Riddle, who's been accused of rape, has been considered fine, while Riddle is on WWE TV and suffers no repercussion at all (which means WWE doesn't believe the case). It's not whataboutism, it's just a comparison of the two situations...

Alleged / Alleged. Also, Matt Riddle is on TV and apparently everyone is ok with it at this point, for whatever reason (wasn't the latest development not looking very good for the cred of his story ?) When you consider Ospreay hasn't been on any NJPW card lately anyway, really, not *that* much of a story there thus far.

So.... Nicole Savoy is Lil' Swole. Come on AEW, you're doing the female division no favors two weeks in a row, that sort of naming is straight out of WWE. Let Nicole be herself, Big Swole is only gonna drag her down. Match was terrible too, but Savoy works circles around Big Swole (sorry to pile on, but... she really isn't any good), hope she gets signed. Leva & Chanel were funny, at least. Hey, Dasha is working now ! Well, she's green as hell and does some funky athletic spots, but she mostly sold. Ivelisse is better than 95% of the female roster, glad she got the pin here, they really need to sign her. Ellering is interesting, they should get her too. Ok match. Let's be honest, this show is not exactly setting the world on fire...

To me it was bullshit from the get go, terrible writing, complacent shocking violence for the sake of it, it was only saved by a few really good actors (Dinklage, Clarke) and a few cool characters (well, the same, plus Sansa in the latter seasons, Arya until her booking became dumb as fuck). Gotta love all the parents naming their little baby girl Dany from the first few seasons because she was such an empowering female character and whatnot and then... wooops BTW and to go back to pro-wrestling, am I the only one who coud not unsee Chris Jericho when Jaime Lannister was on screen ?

Come on now. From the very first season it was all mindless violence, tits, ass, constant misogyny (rape as a gimmick) and "swerve bro". Game of Thrones was booked by Vince Russo from day 1. Yeah, I was never a Game of Thrones fan at all, but watched the whole thing, WCW style.

Well, can't argue that.

Come on, he's the smartest, he's practicing social distancing.

Yeah, it makes accessing to the forum a total pain.

Just the use of "cosplay" makes his reply completely dumb.

Yeah, he probably was a good guy and he had talked in lenght about how he always got stiffed on paychecks (including as late as 1995 in WCW while other Dungeon of Doom goons were getting more money... I wonder why...), but damn that gimmick was a complete embarrassment (it wasn't any less racist than Saba Simba). It's sad his health had deteriorated so much in later years.

Watching Victory Road 2011 is notable for two things mainly : _the Young Bucks & Kazarian (and Robbie E, who as usual did not bring much to the table) stole the show in an Ultimate X match. It's really crazy to think TNA had these people back then when you look back from the 2020 perspective with AEW going on. The idea that the Bucks were killing it on PPV in early 2011 (and already the previous year) and people *now* are acting all bitchy about them are not just behind the times *now* they were behind the times in 2011... _and of course, the main event is an embarrassment of epic proportion. It's insane to think they got the point of ring introduction and they had to send Bischoff to talk to the guys inside the ring and basically had Sting shoot pin Hardy. A fan shouting "This is bullshit !" and Sting replying "I agree ! I agree !" is a crazy scene, Sting looked pissed as fuck-all. Both Hardies were a mess at the time, as Matt, who had the second best match of the show with AJ Styles was month away from getting fired for substance abuse or something (and to think Jeff had problems as soon as last year and they actually make light of it in WWE these days). Crazy times... Brucie worked in the company at the time too...

Daniel Bryan, heel eco-warrior, of course. Can't wait for the anti-vax female babyface tag-team called Debbie Homeo & Patty Belle.