El-P

Did it not kill (or badly hurt) the UK indy scene though ? Because that was its only goal, so from that standpoint, it's a success, if you can call create misery for people a success. NXT Japan sounds like the worst. Remember at some point WWE wanted to buy CMLL or something ? But yeah, NXT Japan has failure written all over it. They have no shot of understanding the japanse business. Hell, they don't even understand the US business anymore. They should rather do NXT Dubai or NXT Emirates, really...

Well, I'm gonna say some positives for a change. And not use *that* word. The studio format allows people to actually behave like actual humans beings and interact a lot more "naturally" with the crowd (which does sounds directed though). I had never ever seen nor heard about Rick Starks, and he came off like a bigger star than anyone I've seen on the few NXT shows I've watched in the last few weeks. James Storm & Eli Drake also shine in this setting. Now that I'm aware of what this show is gonna be, I can enjoy it at least for what it is. I did like Allysin Kay vs Ahsley Vox, which was a decent competitive squash. Now they have to find some actual women challengers. Starks vs Murdoch was a good little short match. Murdoch looks more than ever like his namesake (refrain from using that word). I wonder if CW Anderson is still working somewhere... Apart from these two matches, I still find the actual pro-wrestling content to be on the very light side. Yes, it's easy to watch, but it's not extremely exciting nor even interesting from a work standpoint. At some point, they'll have to actually deliver something stronger to really get my interest. Hearing Corny trying his best to put over Cabana while not throwing up was cute. Homicide wearing a NWA Straight Outta Compton T-shirt was a nice touch in this context. Damien Sandow... well... ok... But Ken Anderson ? I mean, with the biggest names in this promotion being Nick Aldis, James Storm (whom I like), Ken Anderson, Eli Drake & Homicide, it kinda feels like "'member TNA ?"... That's the one other issue I have, no one is really exciting. ROH is dull as fuck, but they do have Rush, Bandido, PCO, Brody King... The commercials are absolutely what the show isn't, that is playing on the 80's cheesiness exactly like Swinger's gimmick, and they are quite funny. If the entire show was based more on that aesthetic with kinda tongue-in-cheek humour, I would probably love it. This is what the first season of GLOW did, of sorts. At this point, I'd expect for the Smashing Pumpkins next album to be straight up synthwave. Hey ! That's what I'm gonna call this promotion. Synthwave pro-wrestling. They needed Carpenter Brut to do the theme, not Dokken !

I should have posted this *before* the show, but I SWEAR. I thought I would not be surprised to see Ken Anderson end up there eventually. I had no idea.

Millennials don't listen to rock music. Like, at all. That ship has sailed. AEW needs Charli XCX or something.

Not weekly. Monthly, for sure.

Agreed. The infamous Smackdown 6 era was basically "we have a bunch of great workers, let's have some great matches", which is not very hard to do, really. The ECW redux booked by Heyman was putrid. Hell, Heyman during ECW was toasted by 1998.

Maybe it's time to listen to the podcasts again... It sounds crazy, but at this point I would not be that surprised if Russo got a job for a week or two, since all they seem to know is the past and they promoted Smackdown on FOX with a clip focusing on Taker, Austin & Rock.

Ok. So the question remains : what the fuck did Bischoff do during that time where he was "in charge" (apart from "being seen at the catering", per Meltz). Wow. Bischoff's legend keeps on growing. And Brucie in charge, which means Vince, really.

That's brutal !

Seth the the Architect of Corporate Droning. This guy is amazing. At least it's pretty much given he's a lifer, which mean we'll never have to endure him anywhere else, which is a good news. Does he realize he's killing himself as far as public image with the fans though ? I mean, he comes off as Brucie's level of office stooging.

I thought this show overstayed its welcome and felt way too long to me. The issue is that the last two matches were basically technicalities. That's why I don't care for the "Winner of G1 goes to the Tokyo Dome" gimmick, it's way to WWEiffy, complete with the stupid breifcase. It makes pretty much every title and briefcase defense useless from August to January. The Ibushi vs EVIL match was particulary boring to me, because there's nothing worst than a fake epic match where the result is actually never in doubt. Plus, EVIL is a good worker, not a great one and not particulary compelling. As much as I enjoyed him in the G1 this year, this match was a complete throaway that would have been fine as a 15 mn sprint, but I guess that's a lost concept sadly. Ditto for the main event, we've seen that match too many times this year already, although it was much better for obvious reasons (EVIL just isn't a top guy, while SANADA still looks like he could be, not that's not a given either). I thought Ospreay vs Fantasmo was awesome for 20 minutes, and then they kinda lost me after the outside interference (again, Gedo and its american wrestling fetish can get annoying). Then they went into overkill to me. Also, that damn back elbow needs to be worked in a way the guy taking it is a bit protected, Fantasmo got decapitated in this one. So, overall I'd have Liger vs Suzuki as the match of the night, easily. And Lance Archer vs Juice was a very good garbage brawling match, although a bit deliberate I thought at time. The other highlight was the KENTA and Ishii interactions during the six-men match, really made me want to watch that one (haven't seen the London show). The rest was ok, but again, as much as I enjoy their pariring, yet another Taichii vs Naito match ? I feel a sense of sameness in NJ right now with not much in term of fresh matches on top. The G1 has been awesome, but the booking id dragging its feet to the Dome, which will probably be awesome all things considered...

I do take it as a compliment.

The crowd was going bonkers for Riho vs Nyla Rose at the end on the first show. Hottest finish of the night probably. Allie : excellent character, solid worker Awesome Kong : name value, used to be awesome, literally Bea Priestley : jury's out, looks really good but seems kinda reckless Brandi Rhodes : great promo, great character, great manager, not so good in the ring Britt Baker : jury's out, green but has potential Emi Sakura : terrific veteran from what she showed Hikaru Shida : awesome Leva Bates : funny Nyla Rose : green with tons of potential Penelope Ford : does spectacular spots Riho : really good and has underdog appeal Sadie Gibbs : no idea Yuka Sakazaki : jury's out, she looked really good thus far That's a perfectly fine roster if you can't have anyone WWE big name nor the best IMPACT girls (Tessa, Taya, Dashwood).

No, they got smackdown. (I dunno, I'm trying literal kind of dry humour these days, although it flew over everyone's head with the dentist joke on the AEW thread)

I admit I totally missed that part of IMPACT history. Then again, people talked about how IMPACT got so much better thanks to Bruce Prichard when he was over there. What has Bruce Prichard done since he was hired back by WWE? So I dunno about Corgan. Maybe the show will develop into something cool and sustainable. It would really surprise me if it did, while forward thinking Lucha Underground slowly died a sad death after three awesome seasons (and a not so awesome but still cool fourth one that no one watched).

There. I stand corrected.

I can't believe you gave a serious reply to "give her time to sink in her teeth into her character"... Yeah, me too.

I haven't watched the rest of the card yet, and I guess the junior title match is gonna steal the show as far as action goes, but Suzuki vs Liger was terrific. I did not expect it to be that good. The post-match was also awesome in its minimalistic, very japanese way.

Give Dr. Baker some time, she hasn't really had the opportunity to sink her teeth into her character yet.

Well, Cornette is the one who made the idiotic "children and cosplayers" comment on the air, so if you're tired of hearing it, blame him because that's what triggered the discussion anyway (although I would have called it cosplay anyway because of how obvious it is) And it may not be a Corny project at all, but it totally looks like "Corny's Safe Space", which kinda cracks me up.

Meltz actually has shared a pretty bleak opinion of where this could go, for everyone...

AEW has been piled on *before* the first TV show, based on assumptions, inference and personal taste of people hatin' on anything remotely approaching the vicinity of modern. So yeah. The fact a Youtube show seemingly could do no wrong when the biggest names here are basically old TNA guys who have been otherwise derided forever is a wee bit ironic when you think about the neverending "those guys are geeks" posting for months and months about AEW. But anyway, yeah, indeed we don't need more bitching and moaning. Actually, like I've said before, this show is super well done for what it is. It's not torture to watch at all. This approach just feels sterile to me, like every kind of retromaniac approach in music, movies and any other form or entertainment/art. I don't mind the cosplay/retro stuff when there's at least a twist to it, like Swinger's gimmick on IMPACT. I don't mind this show at all, I might even watch some bits of it in the weeks to come to see what they do with it.

Cosplay. I mean, really people. Get over it. That's what it is. No one preventing anyone from enjoying it, it's excellently done. But pretending it's not is simply false.

Funny how a lot of cool stuff actually happened in TNA (and still does, lots of them now actually), but the Dixie/Russo factor made sure no one ever touched it. We can really blame these two for fucking up what should have been the alternative in the 00's.

Thanks ! I feel less lonely on this one. Man, tell me about it. For months every little bit of AEW business was over scrutinized, the Librarians are turning people away, it's the worst gimmick ever, most guys here are pale indie geeks not looking like stars, Sonny Kiss is gonna turn people away, the Dark Order is gonna turn people away, comedy is gonna turn people away, Kenny Omega is a geek… but then Tim Storm, complete 54 years old unknown has a ** matches with Nick Aldis, a guy even on-the-verge-of-collapse-ROH had no interest in working with long term, and wow, it's the greatest thing ever. I've heard for years how James Storm was nothing but a TNA reject who never amounted to anything, yet now wow James Storm, same thing for Eli Drake, who's entire character is doing half-Rock half-Austin 15 years after the fact. Add in a bunch of guys no one has ever heard of (not speaking of Eddie Kingston or Homicide), were never big on the indies, but they sure aren't geeks at all, it's like the greatest pro-wrestling show today. Give me a break. This. AEW is old-school in that it is doing the basics : build characters and feuds that make sense, focus on matches. But AEW is contemporary and looks toward the present and the futur. The "We can't call it cosplay" argument is so ridiculous. Every bit of the presentation SCREAMS cosplay. The credits with the VCR quality, a song by Dokken. For fuck's sake, DOKKEN ! The font, the color scheme, the furniture. It's not "old-school", it's just retro. And it's not done tongue-in-cheek like Swinger's gimmick in IMPACT (which is funny as hell) and doesn't tweek the presentation. It's done to be as faithful as it can to the original. That's the nature of cosplay. Of course the workers aren't gonna dress up like old workers, although they kinda do in a way, Tim Storm looks like, well, Tim Horner in SMW in 1994, but the context of the show is cosplay and that's what Billy Corgan wants. Hell, you can argue Billy Corgan has been cosplaying his own old band for 15 years now too, but that's another matter. I did not know he went after Riho. Well, that's sad. Totally agree. And the guys needs a reality check : the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega are stars. Nick Aldis is a guy playing a star. That's the difference. BTW, Corgan said that this show is not sustainable financialy in its current form unless they get some TV deal. Meanwhile, Joey Ryan is making a living out of indies. One is cosplay. One is working.