El-P

It says a whole lot about my interest in WWE that I had no idea who Matt Cardona was, to the point I did not even get why people were talking about Zach Ryder. I did not recognize the girl who showed up with Nyla either. Oh yeah, that girl. That and the infamous Tough Enough "who's your favourite wrestler ?" answer... Yeah, she's a catch. Well, she can't be worse than she was on this clip. It's really bad because they have a bunch of really decent/solid workers working Dark, including some with actual fun characters (Raché Chanel, I'm looking at you), so getting a WWE reject to tag along someone managed by Vickie Guerrero really isn't a good look to me. A bit too TNAish to me. Wait, two WWE rejects on the same show. Of course that's not their fault, they are from an era where a lot of people with TV experience will be WWE rejects, but still... FTR were great catch. Zach Ryder, no idea. Cameron... yikes. Apart from that Warhorse was quite decent I thought, although a guy dressing up like someone straight out of 1984... not too sure. And a week after Eddie Kingston, that's rough. They gotta sign Kingston. And Pillman, who's back in the crowd. Speaking of rough, I did not think that women match was very good at all. Guess who made Diamanté look better than she is last week ? Yeah, I sure hope they bring Ivelisse back, because it was not a strong showing at all I thought. Apart from that, Dark Order vs Omega & Page was easily the best match of the night. Dark Order have been stealing BTE lately, I'm glad they did the paper spot at the end, that was a neat little nod to the BTE skits. Uno & Grayson are sooo much better than their gimmick, hopefully at some point Brody Lee kicks them out and and they get do another gimmick altogether. The whole Omega vs Page saga is such a low build that it will be awesome when they finally will have that break up and feud eventually. Loving that subtle stuff. Opening was very good, Jericho vs Orange is gold thus far and Sammy is back at being the greatest. Strong promo from MJF, strong promo from Starks too and Taz cracked me up with "Stand in front of me so we don't piss off someone". Main event was quite fun, the ending was great and brutal looking (I'm sure some people will bitch about two weeks of pins gimmick in a row). Really good show, but beware of too many WWE-lite (especially people with zero cred) showing up.

I actually just learned today there was such a thing as the Qanon conspiracy bullshit. Remember when Internet was supposed to make people more intelligent because it was an equal access to knowledge ? That one did not turn out quite well...

Why is Twitter even allowing this ? Why are social media allowing conspirationist shit to see the light of day ? They are responsible too.

They do it themselves now that they also play the crowd. The circle of life is complete !

WWE found a new way of countering the opposition : fucking up their talent so bad that they don't even want to work in the field anymore after they get fired. Brillant. Too bad for Rusev. Well, too bad for us pro-wrestling fan actually, because if he can make money playing video games while his better half is milking whatever dollar she can off the machine, good for him.

"Sorry I love you" ruined pro-wrestling. Well, not really, but the old idea of self-conscious epic in WWE was annoying in itself before, but this spot is the beginning of the super-über-melodramatic-poorly-acted-self-conscious-epic.

I don't think it was that obvious before, but I guess she worked her ass off (pun intended) during quarantine or something, because she is *ripped* now.

I really enjoy this open challenge gimmick because it actually comes off like an open challenge, with challengers coming from the indies and whatnot and not just guys from the roster. It absolutely contributes to make the belt important and legit.

So, Wrestler House is another cool little idea to deal with the no-crowd era. Some good lines (especially by Dreamer). You can feel the influence of BTE too on this. Looking forward to more of this. IMPACT always delivers with their silly ideas. They are teasing Rich Swann retiring... I'm guessing the long term storyline to Bound for Glory is Eric Young taking the title away from Eddie Edwards and Rich Swann winning it at the big show... RVD vs Sami Callihan should be *interesting*, if anything. Katie Forbes is quite the character... she's got the best abs in the company too. Wonder if Sami can get the last really good RVD match.

Speaking of Shanna, I know she is from Lisbon and he is a celebrity there (and one of my favourite writer/poet), but still, this is the coolest :

Well, I just saw that it was broadcasted in the US for the first time in 1996. By this time in France, it was done, the show began to air in 1990, so I guess that's why. Yeah, Shanna's outfit was cool. Miss the girl on AEW TV...

There... As good as he is as a young lion, Shota ain't nearly ready yet to get to that level. And let's hope he doesn't come back dressed as poorly as Master Wato...

Ok, if he articulated that way, yes, it is embarrassing. Funny the number of 30 something/millennials who are fan of DBZ. I mean, that shit is old by their standards.

I agree with both points. Yet another title is exactly what NJ doesn't need now. There has been way too many title already. When every match on a big card is a title match, no title match seems important. Plus, booking another tournament right after the NJ Cup reeks of lazy booking (it was one of Russo's go-to). I was thinking the same thing, the idea that the EVIL heel turn and title run was programmed since last year makes Naito's big win look pretty dumb in retrospect. So all that for giving EVIL the nod ? Maybe Naito will regain at the big stadium show (hopefully), but that EVIL stuff sticks like a sore thumb. Gedo's formula of "Inserting X into Bullet Club" is way past tired at this point. It worked really well for KENTA (and had to since the guy is physically shot), but EVIL's turn is past the point of redondant. As far as the matches being really good, well I've not watched the Hiromu one, but Okada & Naito weren't very good in term of Okada & Naito big main event matches. The whole run-ins and ref bump stuff is almost Double J Special stuff at this point. There are too many great workers in the company to not have really good match no matter what, but in the big picture, I agree NJPW doesn't look very good right now. I wonder if the G1 Climax last year, which was the greatest ever, will not end up being looked at the peak of this period of NJ.

I got a kick out of Missy Hyatt on the Meltz podcast saying she wasn't impressed with EVIL as the IWGP champ and that SANADA would have been better in the role and that Shingo is a better worker. Missy strikes me as someone would be so much a PWO poster, the kind of which is actually into the new stuff. No matter her opinions on other things (*cough*), I kinda think it's cool Missy Hyatt is a pro-wrestling fan lifer when she's been out of the business for what almost 24 years now (counting her last TV stint as ECW in 1996 with Sandman)

Me too. That corporate culture is vomit inducing. They are all Disruptive Human of Linkedin kind...

"I represent a brand that commands respect." In Saudi Arabia, for sure.

Well, we learn everything new everyday. No I mean I didn't in the matter at hand, but you've not spend your day in vain on this board today !

I understand what you're saying, but the issue is that is someone who's black contributes to spread a racist cliché, I don't care who points out to him it's a racist cliché. Sorry, but it's not a matter of "privilege", whatever that even means in the context. Invalidating the person who is pointing out it's a racist cliché because he's not of "the right race" (whatever that means, since race don't exist, really) is stupid. It can come off awkward, for sure, but sorry, BBC is a racist porn trope. Whether I say it or whether Black Thoughts says it doesn't change that fact. I used his name because he (I'm pretty sure that was him) addressed the other issue you used as an exemple and how it was a problem in hip-hop (the constant use by black hip-hop artists I mean). That's where I was getting at. Awesome Kong making the racist name her own and actually erasing its racist overtones by being a great pro-wrestler I totally get and understand. Keith Lee naming his finisher the Big Black Cock (making it obvious for the people not getting Lil Spike Dudley ) since he's a big black dude... hum... ok, I don't get how that is changing the perspective on the acronym...

Or because he's an idiot. If some black dude would lecture him about it, Black Thought style, no one would bitch about it. That's called double standard. For instance, Awesome Kong did not *choose"* that racist name when she went to Japan. She was named that way in reference to Aja (who herself got a racist name because she was half-black), but she embraced it and made it het own. Keith Lee naming his finisher BBC in reference to a racist porn trope "may be" him taking a piss (why not), it may also him be a dumb fuck who thinks it's funny ah ah ah, like Russo would.

So, is Vince Russo booking WWE again ? I mean, a sexually racist acronym, that's everything Russo loves. And really people ? LSD ? Hitman ? Paul Bearer ? Hope you guessed why Henry O. Godwinn was named that way...

Okada as Samoa Joe's cameraman. Holly shit TNA !

It also underlines the fact that the move for NXT has been a colossal failure. Its only purpose was to hurt AEW and prevent them from even existing. It has failed on every level. AEW, a jumpstart company not even a year old, has been mostly kicking NXT's ass, despite the fact it's a program from the biggest pro-wrestling company in the world that has been on top more or less for 30 years. NXT not only has not attracted any viewers apart from the usual old demos of hardcore WWE fans, but it has not prevented AEW from being successful and getting a big TV deal long term. And now this. The NXT brand has been hurt and has totally lost its luster. Trip has been totally exposed (although the WWE fanboys are still believing he'll save the company once Vince crooks). In the long term, what a miserable failure...

Wow. You're way too deep into old French stuff... He's only been basically the N°1 gaijin heel the last two years and has been awesome at it too. Great worker.

Well, sounds like a show I can easily pass. Jay White is ten times the worker EVIL, so the trade doesn't work for me. As far as run-ins, this is something I really dislike about Gedo's philosophy, the way he imported annoying american tropes into NJPW. This is not something I want to see when I watch japanese pro-wrestling, once in a while is ok but when it's in every damn Bullet Club match (and no one never does anything about it) it's really frustrating. Needless to say I have found NJPW comeback underwhelming as all hell thus far.