El-P

OK, we get it. YOU BELIEVE.

The previous era was using no old-WWE guy as it's top stars. That was not D'Amore's approach. That's called "shitty booking", that's how it's called, actually. I'm guessing they're going for the exciting Nemeth heel turn with... *yuck* JBL at his side. Awful stuff.

What has plagued TNA during their "glory" days was that they always put ex-WWE guys above their own talent. They had moved past that point in the last few years as IMPACT became that place where people like Sami Callihan, Moose, Tessa Blanchard, Josh Alexander, Eddie Edwards could have nice runs as big fish in small pond. It was a welcome change of booking, it gave the promotion its own identity. It was a lot more interesting. He's been a totally dreadful character. People have argued for years he was one of those "underutilized" WWE talent, but what I've seen in TNA is the same old Shawn Michaels X Billy Gunn dude with no personality apart from having a Sunset Strip fetish or something. The fact he's been doing the rounds in AAA with Alberto el Rapist doesn't exactly endears him to me either, but that's another thing. The Hardys are actually at the exact right spot in TNA. They are a nostalgia act looking every bit of their age, as demonstrated by the absolute clusterfuck that was the BFG main event. I'm not sure they would even fit right in current WWE at this point, they already got their nostalgia run there in 2017. I mean, I take anything over Bryan Myers. Them being tag team champ for a while is not an issue in itself. The Hardys/Nemeth on top combo paints a different landscape though. Sorry what ? I don't *get* Joe Hendry ? There's nothing to *get*. He's a meme. He got over on social media as a meme. He's an empty shell. There's nothing to it and his work is nothing to write home about. Overrated promo, overrated worker (well, he's not really rated anyway). Probably a nice guy though, and good for him. They don't tell any "longer story". The JBL angle is complete shit and has had zero development since last June. The Kaz "cashing in" stuff is already overplayed and the execution at BFG was contrived and pretty dumb. Genesis doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Bound for Glory is their biggest show of the year and it apparently still did not do as well as Hard to Kill. Now they are stalling with Joe Hendry being put in the Turkey-suit match at Turning Point. The main event scene has been dreadful ever since Nemeth got the title, and really the Moose reign earlier this year was a chore. Booking was simple : Hendry is over, Hendry beats every name on the way, Hendry wins the title at their biggest show of the year while he's hot. As far as "building a replacement", guess what, there's none. Joe Hendry is a fluke algorithmic happening. Before his theme got pushed by Spotify, he was on the pre-shows working lame 5 minutes matches for the Digital Championship and no one was clamoring for a bigger push. They did not "make him a star". They just rode the wave of the meme hype, as they should have done. Hey, if they do their biggest number at Genesis and the guy shows up at the Rumble as TNA champ and they get bigger while they get to Slammiversary next year, good for them.

I'd be remiss if I did not make that post about TNA, which never stops being fascinating. So after all this time, they bring the TNA brand, D'Amore gets fired, hype dies down, workers want out. And then Joe Hendry gets viral because algorithm, then WWE wants to play nice because "let's not get a UFC-like monopoly lawsuit" and TNA is doing the best they've been in more than a decade. Which doesn't mean it's the best it's been in a decade either. Quite the contrary. Although the first part of the year had some serious issues with a boring-ass heel faction dominating the program, there was enough great workers and stuff like the MCMG and Mustafa Ali killing it every week. But since this summer, TNA looks more *TNA* than it has in more than a decade, with heavy focus on ex-WWE guys on top (Nemeth, Hardys), booking both dull and crappy, especially that godforsaken "JBL shows up and lariats someone in the main event then disappears and there's zero development about it ever" angle, which should be renaimed "JBL shows up" anyway. Who the fuck wants to see his old bully ass anywhere in 2024 ? Nick Nemeth is "really good by 2010 WWE standard" but also a completely dreadful character. The main heel faction is still the same, and it includes Brian Myers and TAFKA Fandango. And Aleisha Edwards, who's ideas of a heel promo is lifting up the most annoying trait of Vicky Guerrero. The women's division has been in dire straits all year long. Sure, Jordynne Grace is great, but her entire character has been "Hey, look, she's been on NXT last week, she'll be on NXT PLE next week !". I mean, sign with WWE already (which she is doing first thing next year). She had zero notable matches before finally the Masha feud to drop the title (apart from the Roxanne Perez match... on NXT). And really now, that NXT stuff is hilarious. Sure, it may have helped the rise of attendance and PPV numbers (getting back to this though), but the upswing was already on when Joe Hendry got viral. But it surely has helped, including perception (somewhat). Still. The deal is NXT getting Grace, Hendry, the Rascalz and getting them over to their audience, while pretty much insuring they'll get them when they leave TNA, while TNA mostly gets a bunch of jobbers. Oh yeah, for TNA's biggest show of the year, NXT sent... Wendy Choo. To tag-team with Rosemary. Meanwhile, they had Grace vs Perez and Hendry vs Ethan Page on their own PLEs. Honestly a brillant move by WWE, it totally helps NXT's perception and atmosphere, it surely is awesome for the talent that get to go there and short term, it probably has helped TNA a little bit. Still, it's far from what TNA fanboys thinks it is (let's not even mention the "AEW relationship was so bad" idiocy, yeah, AEW sent Kenny Omega during the pandemic and had Christian Cage drop the title to Josh Alexander in the main event of Bound for Glory, that's pathetic compared to getting Wendy Choo and Sol Ruca) And of course, the Joe Hendry craze. Which is pretty unexplicable if you look behind the hype. The guy is objectively a very, VERY mid worker and really has not stepped up at all in big matches. His promos are redondant and gimmicky. His entire character is actually a heel (bullshit motivational speaker with intentionally cringe music theme). His songs are not nearly as funny as he thinks they are (the "Edge's bitch" about Cardonna is the only one I can remember as legit funny). But the guy got viral because of Spotify algorithm or something and became a meme. And so he's a legit draw for TNA it seems like. So what TNA do at Slammiversary after months of building him up and him beating pretty much every "big" name they have ? Well, they have him lose in a clusterfuck including fucking JBL. TNA be more like TNA, like I said. So what do they do now ? They have two "big" events : BFG and Slammiversary. They have to wait 6 months now to crown him as they should (doesn't matter what I think of his work, he's over, he's drawing) ? If they make him the champ at any other PPV before Slammiversary it won't be as important. And will he sustain his meme hype for that long ? Maybe if he show up at the Rumble (like he probably will, I mean I'm guessing) he will. Then again, if he does, that means that by the end of the year, WWE snatches him, so TNA would have fucked it up anyway by wasting 6 good months of him not being their drawing champ. And then again, there's something to be said about TNA doing much better (and they are). No PPV, despite the NXT relationship and Joe Hendry being over, has apparently done close to as good as Hard to Kill did at the start of the year. So there's this. Also, at the start of next year, TNA will have lost Mike Bailey, Josh Alexander (can't see him staying further) and Jordynne Grace, basically their three ace workers and 2 of their biggest names. Dunno how long the Rascalz are under contract, but they are NXT bound either way. So is Joe Hendry at the end of next year. So there. What's next (see what I did ?) for TNA ? No idea. TNA is back looking like old TNA, with old WWE guys on top. World champ : Nemeth. Tag champs : Hardys. So yeah, the IMPACT years under D'Amore will end up being the best and most interesting ones, as TNA seems to be back. As in, TNA, ya know.

Bischoff showing up at NXT next week. It pays off to be an anti-AEW podcast leech. He's also book on the next "Eric Bischoff promoted" MLW show. That's carny.

I wonder if someone is trying to get a sweet WWEID contract, uh Effy ? I mean, AEW just had Mox, Marina and MVP at Bloodsport. Hell, MVP main-evented Bloodsport. GCW has booked tons of AEW over the years. But the new thing is "WWE is helping the indies now" so we're gonna see more and more of this. How could this turn poorly ? The hilarious part is Starks in the middle. The guy is now the martyr of all things "TK is as bad as Vince". The cesspool known as r/squaredcircle is gonna explode over this. The most absurd part of it is that the guy, for all we know, is *not even asking for his release*. Meanwhile, Cardona is being hilarious about it.

Not only that, but you had Lauderdale whining about AEW booking the Hammerstein "too close" from his own show and how they could have booked it at any time. That's ignoring it's not just for a show but for ROH "flagship" (whatever that means, although there is some hope it might be a jumpstart for some kind of TV deal this time around) show. And really, now Lauderdale ? GCW booked the Hammerstein Ballroom a few years back at the peak of GCW's hype, there was talk about how it could be like the 3rd company in the country at the time, and guess what, they delivered a shit show. And it was never the same after that point. As far as the Ricky Starks promo, it's funny on two aspects. First, the GCW date had to be approved by AEW (he also was at Full Gear backstage, not that it means anything). Second and quite funny to me, it's the *same fucking promo* he was cutting every two months on AEW TV for the last year he was appearing there. "I'm a generational talent, booo I'm not being given the respect booo". But yeah, the thing is now, WWE is the friend of the indies you see. *wink wink nudge nudge*. And the comparison with the original ECW is indeed fitting. Speaking of which also, that NXT at "ECW" Arena was quite something. Way to pay hommage to the freak-show outlaw promotion when you're a billion dollar conglomerate working with the Saudi government for a few millions a show and shit. Totally the spirit of the original. I'm guessing most of the people currently watching NXT would be horrified by the actual ECW product of the time. I mean, this is where you chanted "She's a crack whore !" at Francine, not a place where you carried "I hope both wrestlers have fun" cringe sign...

It's 100% this and drying up the access to indie talent to other promotions (as in : AEW). I mean, Kylie Ray ? She's not an upcoming young prospect. She's a 32 years old veteran who is already better than 90% of the NXT roster and probably quite a bit of the main roster division as well. If they don't trust her because of her past issue, why even bother ? But since she's been on MLP shows alongside some AEW people, she's back under everyone's radar (would she even go back to AEW though if she had a bad experience there ?), so there you go. If they want her, they could sign her tomorrow. Even as a coach, while letting her work indies, since they are so "indies-friendly" now. It's a brillant move though, just like the TNA partnership, which has totally mindfucked the TNA fanbase.

Coming off weeks of very much hit and miss weekly TV (hit : Deathriders angle / Ospreay/Kyle /Moné/Statlander ; miss : Cole/MJF, stable of 50 years old ex-WWE guys) and a mostly great PPV, I was really looking forward to the CC2. On paper, Gold League looks awesome from top to bottom. Blue League looks obvious but really good, that is unless Mortos is there to eat pins (like he's probably there to) and Shelton is not there to hit pins (like he should considering his age, his career status and the fact he's been a gigantic LOLTNA moment thus far on AEW TV), and really he should not be in this thing at all with all the *young* and *fresh* talent that would benefit from this instead. Obviously the final should be Ospreay vs Okada at Wrestle Dynasty, ya know, but I guess it also could (and probably will) be Ospreay vs Fletcher II at World's End Kinda surprised to see Darby there though, since I expected him (still do) to win the title from Mox. I wonder when Eddie is gonna be back. He fit right there with the current direction and Mox as main heel character. At this point, with the lottery TV rights, Rampage going away (thankfully, it had really turned into a completely useless show), hopefully a ROH TV show that would look actually *different*, Coach TK should just not give two fuck and do whatever he wants and tell everyone in Da Business to go fuck themselves. When you see the amount of ridiculous hatred toward AEW (every Youtube channel and podcast is seemingly a "dump on AEW" gimmick it seems), it's just not even worth listening to any of the noise. There's plenty to criticize, but really now, just be not-WWE (and not-TNA, uh ?), have great PPVs and I'll be fine with it.

Maybe he can have Logan Paul, legit crypto-crook, has his big Mania match. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cze386d3enpo

What a fucking clown show. Between RKJ at Health (holy fuck, this has to be a rib, as they say), the guy who paid for sex with a 17 year old girl as AG and Linda "I falsified my degree in education" McMahon at, well, Education of course, this would be downright hilarious it if wasn't tragic and millions of people were not getting negatively affected by this (negatively affected as in death and deportation, among other things). I wonder if actual journalists are gonna mention that she's got a lawsuit on her ass about her covering up sexual abuse of teenagers ? Not that it matters one way or another. WWE is gonna be so fascinating for all the wrong reasons in 2025, with the booker being the son-in-law of the Secretary of Education of basically a fascist government, and the road-to-retirement of John "I can't say anything bad about Vince" Cena, which probably will do monstruous business because, as demonstrated by the result of the election, people are shit. Can't wait to see what MAGA legend shows up at Mania again and if Cody or Cena dare to do some raah-raah 'murica Great shit along the way. I just want a John Oliver bit on Linda. Please. (and I wish we had a John Oliver in France too, would be much needed as we also have our own fascists one foot through the door already and pushing in)

Between all of this and Mark Shapiro publicizing a breakfast with rapist-in-chief Vince McMahon, Dana White, MAGATaker and Da Racist Hogan campaigning for a a guy who calls out for mass deportation of millions of people and using the army against political adversaries, the still going on sportswashing of a regime which just sentenced a 29 years old woman to 11 years of prison because of the way she dresses and her support for women's rights, the stench of TKO is as bad as WWE ever was. Although I still enjoy parts of AEW very much (parts of) and the rise to the top of Zack Sabre Jr. has been the most fun story of the year and legit made me happy, I find it incredibly difficult to even follow the news of pro-wrestling without getting at the very least annoyed in this time where WWE is back in the position of absolute dominance despite all the bagage, with its fanboys being more cultish than ever. NJPW is at least more interesting than it has been for the last few years with the new generation having to be pushed, but it doesn't feel hot yet. TNA has been the worse and most boring in the last 6 months as it's ever been basically since I began to watch it as it happens, and the WWE "relationship" has been hilarious (hey, we'll showcase your most over acts and some of the best talents like Grace and the Rascals on NXT and get them over to our audience and you can have... uh... oh yeah, Wendy Choo) and the TNA Reddit is the dumbest fucking place I've encountered on the IWC in forever. AAA is a complete mess and should be vaporized into thin air just of the fact Alberto el Rapist is their main event act. CMLL is fun to watch once in a while. It's been ten years since I've come back to follow the current product thanks to Lucha Underground. Peaked with early AEW in 2021. Seems like the activity on the board is as low as ever too, which was bound to happen eventually. End of a cycle, I'm guessing.

Well, I guess it's over. Yeah, not taking about WWE of course. They'll most probably be mighty fine (last time I checked, "Papa" Trip was giving away ridiculously gigantic belts to the Saudi government). Hell, Vince might be mighty fine now, I guess the federal investigation is a goner soon. I wonder if Taker and Hogan are gonna be featured at Mania next year... Well, "bon courage", as we say.

Business as usual I'm guessing. People probably bitched about the weekly shows (I have followed from way afar, since I'm way behind and wanted to avoid major spoilers). Then PPV is awesome with great matches galore. Rince/Repeat. 5 years is a lifetime. What a ride this has been. Hopefully more to come.

There's either some strange irony, or maybe it's just a perception bias, that after a few months of the re-branding into TNA, the company actually feels a bit more like... ya know... TNAesque, for the better (the still excellent matches from great talents) and the worse (some questionable booking and some truly WTF stuff like Jonathan Gresham going all Great Muta/Fiend on your ass, coughing poisonous ink and shit like he's Alexa Bliss worst nightmare). Slammiversary in Montreal certainly is intriguing, when you have both PCO and Mike Bailey in your roster. One should try to kill himself, Daddy Darby style, the other one should be crowned with a singles title, really. And yeah, the women division has been hurt lately with Jordynne badly needing some competition, although Ash by Elegance has been super entertaining in totally different ways.

Per Meltzer, the level interest of Backlash in the US was ridiculously low. The Bloodmoney shows always had a lot less interest from the US audience as well. I wonder if this will end up a trend with this new business model of selling shows for super high prices to various cities elsewhere in the world (although I'm not sure Lyon actually paid for it, since basically they wanted to go to Paris and could not because of the Olympics coming up, so they settled for Lyon instead), making the money on the price tag for the event and the gate (with a super high ticket price), while the US audience doesn't really care about it, which doesn't matter now and will matter even less once they get on Netflix. I see the card, no Jamal Khashoggi Memorial Battle Royal this year I guess. Also, don't forget that in a week, WWE Universe is gonna celebrate Pride Month, because it's so important for the company to support the LGBT+ community ! See ya in Glasgow, I guess.

MLW is funny. They have this whole show based around the idea of a contest between Cesar Duran and Salina de la Renta, the winner getting "the key to the biggest power in lucha libre" (yeah, MLW is recycling everything they can from everywhere in the cheapest way possible, here, Lucha Underground). Which Cesar already owns. So what's the point for him ? And then. This is a contest with FOUR matches. So basically, it could end up in a draw. Which it does. And then. The first three matches have Salina's team be the technicos. Ok. Not like she's a babyface, but neither is Cesar I guess, so it's fine. But in the last match, Cesar's guy is.... Mistico. Seriously, this is so poorly thought out that only William Corgan could have booked this stuff as bad as this. The CMLL matches were very cool, mind you. Salina seems to be killed off. Again. Yeah, whatever, can't Coach TK just sign her and have her be the Bobby Heenan of luchadors in AEW or something ?

Copeland eventually turning heel is the way to go, as it's obvious he and Christian are gonna have one last run as a tag team before retirement, and they both are heels at heart. Hell, they can ask Gangrel to show up too one of these days (do you think he heard of Paige VanZant lately ?). And yeah, Bang Bang Gang vs Death Triangle should bang, pun very much intended. Double of Nothing should be quite the celebration of the 5 years. 5 years. Almost seems like another life when the whole thing started.

It's the 25 year anniversary of Owen's death. It's crazy.

Actually, I was just referring to the whole III Reich military imagery of Gunther and the fact that Lyon is infamous for being the French capital of neo-nazis and such. (And yes, I realize there was no Kaiser during that period) I just hope they don't veer *too much* into that shit in Berlin, really, with the overall atmosphere in Europe right now, which stinks of brown. And I mean, WWE actually had some fleur de lys on their Backlash graphics, which really tells how much they don't know shit about the countries they go into. Sure, in Quebec the fleur de lys is basically simply what's on the Quebec flag (and I'm guessing it never goes any further in term of signification). In France, it's a HUGE red flag as it basically signals "royalists" aka extreme-right. Of course they probably had no idea and have this knowledge of France that is limited to Emily in Paris or something. So they figured, "Hey, we're gonna put up some fleur de lys because France and Quebec is the same, right ?". Hopefully they don't have some Schwarze Sonne somewhere in the presentation for Bash in Berlin because it looks like some cool germanic symbol and what have you.

They should have done that *before* the Lyon show and have Gunther in there. He would have been really popular there with that imagery...

Hey, I see Zayda from MLW fame is booked on the card ! Court Bauer is soooo upstaging WWE on the Marigold partnership.

They just need to do an entire Dark Side about Vince. Which they won't ever do. The last episode actually kinda awkwardly tried to tie up Black Saturday with the TKO debacle, as if it was "ironic" or something that Vince would get outed of his own company "kinda like the way he outed the Georgia promotion"... yeah, really did not work at all, and just seemed to indicate they would never go more in details about the Vince story. Really enjoyed the Sandman episode, a real cool look into the insanity that was ECW. At the very least, Sandman owns up to the fact he fucked up, that's more than a lot of workers do. It's amazing him and Raven are still alive when you really think of it. Something that wasn't talked about, is that it seems like he's sober now, or at least that's the impression I got from the Mania week-end show where he made his entrance : he did not drink a drop of beer, he only served the audience. Good for him if that's the case. Anywoo, this was overall a good season with some really interesting episodes (the Sherri Martel one was excellent too), although I wish they would tackle some of the big subject. You know which ones.

Not watched it yet because I'm still WAY behind, but Willow vs Tam Nakano is exactly the kind of stuff the AEW/Stardom relationship should be about.

Mox getting the IWGP title was really cool and all. But between the Ren Narita title defense and now EVIl, he's been served a pile a of dogshit as title defenses. Also, they better not book any of that stuff at Forbidden Door.