El-P

Holy shit indeed. Rush was the king of Arena Mexico. That opens so many doors for these two. I mean, I guess Konnan has their number... Rush & Dragon Lee vs Psycho Clow & Dr Wagner Jr. anyone ?

Not even the fact he actively drives me away from watching stuff I would probably watch more often he wasn't there calling the matches ? It's not a slight dislike on my part, I mean, like I said, he distracts me from being able to enjoy what happens in the ring. You can't zone him out. I'm not saying I would watch NXT religiously if he wasn't there, but him being there assures I can't *really* enjoy anything from that show, which is a pity since there are people there I would enjoy a lot. Damn, if NXT had the usual French announcers (Chereau & Agius), I would definitely watch it. With Mauro, I just can't.

The Rock'n Roll Express are cool as a novelty act having decent matches at 60 if paired up with some great tag teams like the Briscoes or LAX. People pop for Ricky Morton doing Canadian Destroyers, which is as crazy as Terry Funk doing a moonsault. But come on now. The one thing interesting would be to see Ricky interact with Chase Owens, as it's been told a billion time that he's been trained by him (they even kinda made it an angle of sorts during the G1, with Chase requesting Kevin Kelly to stop mentioning it) Watched ZSJ vs Tanahashi, these guys can have a terrific match in their sleep while taking zero risk.

I watched a bit of the "first" NXT episode from last week. Bianca Belair is so bad ass (well, Io and Candice too). But the presentation is still too WWiffy to me to really want to follow this, and Mauro makes it impossible to enjoy anything anyway. He's just so fucking unbearable (Beth is useless, so she's better in the sense where you can zone her off easily). I may watch some pimped women matches from time to time and maybe the Takeovers if stuff Kushida vs WALTER happens.

WWE oversaturation that's for sure. And that's without even mentioning that CMLL is on Youtube and can be watched at least every Saturday (for the big Friday show). No shit. Indeed. Absolutely no need to watch something because it's the "main" product and you "have to" watch it. I guess I'm gonna watch IMPACT, AEW, MLW to a point, plus some weekly CMLL matches, some AAA, the big NJPW shows... plus some indy shows I would enjoy. Ok, I want to get some time to have, you now, a life !

Wow, I was thinking he would end up in AEW after his cameos on BTE. He works much better as a heel than a babyface, so hopefully that's what he gets. He's not a great worker, but he can do a lot of great stuff (kinda like RVD in his prime I guess, although much less annoying), so with the right people working with him, he can be quite fun to watch. His finisher is the shits as it looks like it couldn't hurt a fly though. But he had a bunch of really good stuff in Lucha Underground and IMPACT over the last few years. Just keep him a heel. He's 39, so I guess now is the time to make as big bucks as he can, as his priorities were always to get acting work in the later years.

Stop make me want to check out NXT !!!

Damn. That's what AEW should have done with the Dark Order instead of that goofy gimmick.

And this week, the 2/3 falls match between Dynasty and the Hart Foundation was a huge, huge letdown. Everything feels wrong with this company at this point to me. I know these guys are better than this, but I thought it was an extremely mediocre, run-of-the-mill and very poorly laid out match with an endless directionless shine segment, a heatless short heat segment before the first fall and then you had like seven minutes to end the mach on a complete fuck finish. They gave Aria Blake exactly nothing to do (she showed how good she was in the ladder match, so why ?). And the MLW crowd was as dead as ever, when MJF can't barely get heat, it's pretty bad. I'm gonna keep on until the PPV, but really... Hope Salina's contract runs out and she gets money and exposure elsewhere.

I love this new format, with guys just telling stories of the road while sharing room service. Funny how these "flippy guys" and "freakshow" put a whole lot of thoughts into their stuff. Also, they spent a whole five minutes basically putting Candice LeRae over, which I thought was pretty damn cool.

Damn, I forgot this happened. I definitely should check this one out...

It's odd, the G1 Climax has been by far the most fun I had watching pro-wrestling in the last two years, but I could not really get into the Destruction shows big matches. I will surely catch KOPW. Agree the final two matches aren't that exciting (I loved Okada vs SANADA in the G1 though) and Mox vs Juice and Phantasmo vs Ospreay should steal the show. Liger vs Suzuki should be a lot of fun too.

The Gordon episode was fine but honestly, if you've seen the great Timeline edition he did, it's really nothing new. Russo ? Yeah, really... I dunno, I really enjoy Sean Oliver (the contrast between him and Conrad Thompson as an actual interviewer is so striking when you listen to them back to back), but thus far I'm not getting much from this stuff. I sure won't listen to anything involving Russo, so maybe when an interesting guest with new stuff to talk about shows up.

I did not realize that. That said, Omega saying what he said only seem even more "fair" then. Well, yes. (I have no doubt everything will be scutinized like hell though, to the point of people just refusing to have any fun with a brand new mainstream TV show. JR said, and he's probably right, that the first AEW show will probably end up being the most over analyzed two hours of pro-wrestling ever, thanks to social media).

I mean, it's odd people point at Omega and don't say shit about HHH who said clearly nonsensical stuff in response. I mean, "I wouldn't trade anyone on the NXT roster for these guys"... Really ? Oh, you mean after they turned down the ridiculous contracts Vince offered them for the main roster ? Ok. Anyway. Like I said, I'm already tired of the endless comparisons and bitching about "X doesn't make his company look good" stuff. I just want a fine pro-wrestling show to watch that is not WWE. The rest is anecdotes, social media overreaction and fanboys & haters bickering on both sides.

Actually, the narrative is AEW is a new company and WWE don't want them to exist so they do everything possible to fuck with them, including pushing up NXT against them.

But he's not. He's only building himself as an asshole. And yeah, it's 2019. People make the difference between the character and the VP. AEW is not gonna be a "heel promotion" because of this. And if things kinda get mixed up between fiction and reality, well, that's pro-wrestling, it has always been pro-wrestling.

Life books better than WWE, apparently.

Yeah, that sure got them shitload of money, TV deals, PPV buys and ratings... And that's coming from a huge Shane Douglas fan. Also, back then, only the ECW fans thought this was cool, WWF and WCW mainstream fans thought it was amateur bullshit from a Bingo Hall promotion. I dunno. It's *fun*. I have no idea if that is gonna make a difference in any way, but it's *fun*. Can't have that in our corporate, safe-placy pro-wrestling in 2019...

He's turning into The Cleaner again. Feuds are gonna come once the TV starts, except his character is being slowly established. People have complained that Omega lacked personality so far in AEW. Now he's showing it. So it has to suck and turn people away, for sure, because.... well because AEW is turning people away, apparently, that is their MO.

Omega is in character. Same exact thing as Shane Douglas shitting on Ric Flair & Shawn Micheals in 1996. Except Omega has legit sold out buildings in Japan, where they legit are trying to replace the gap created by leaving. I'm enjoying this stuff more as it goes on. That's the old-school ECW fan in me talking maybe. With all that is gonna turn fans away (the Librarians, Orange Cassidy, Omega doing promos on other companies), AEW is gonna be dead before the year, for sure...

And win it at Slammiversary.

Working those ridiculous adds with Conrad rubs on him, rather. I mean, I understand people are either not getting the joke or are being prude, but come on...

If what I described does not seem awesome, you're not watching the right show.

Well, if that was the case, then not only can I understand but I also sympathise with Swann a whole lot because I've been there and then some. I won't get into details of what I was alluding to a bit earlier, but I've been in situation when I had to get physical with that person to protect herself from injuring herself and eventually others.