El-P

"Mick Foley, who worked here as Cactus Jack, is gonna win their version of the world title. Now that's gonna put butts in seats."

Picture if Chainz was pushed as a main event guy in 1997. And Chainz had more charisma (ok, not in WWF, but Bulldozer Brian Lee in ECW was a cool brawling type character).

Yep. How many time do we need to hear about the JBL vs Eddie angle at Mother's Day ? I thought this episode was dreadful. Long, boring rants about ratings. Usual bitching about "people who have never worked in pro-wrestling". His way of defending Johnny Ace was not only redondant with the usual "It's a thankless job" bit, but exposed by Conrad as completely ludicrous when he asked his Vince just wanted athletes when JR was in position then changed his mind once Johnny Ace got there. Bruce sounds totally disinterested and acts more like a WWE drone than ever. We've been saying that for a long time, but this has jumped the shark pretty bad (and the really good, thus far, JR Podcast actually hurts it pretty bad too).

They spent how many years shoving Roman Reigns down the throat of an audience who didn't want him to be the top guy ? They just don't get it. They think they are above their audience, and it can't get better with the insane TV deals they got. Corbin has been proven death in ratings, on TV, in the ring. They have signed half the talent of the planet. But no. Let's push this useless oaf no one wants to see and who's actively killing ratings and whomever he's working with. I have to reiterate this though : Roman Reigns coming back from cancer ended up being *nothing* apart from a few really distasteful promos to get "heat" on heels. They had one shot to make him the top guy, finally, with a great true life story. They fucked that one up too. It's amazing.

Without any TV to build it no less.

At one point they kinda bumped into him and he almost fell down, kinda scary. Yeah, Baby Earl should not be put into the ring too much at this point.

Yeah, that should be terrific. I just want Cobb, PCO & Brody King signing with AEW as soon as they're done with that waste of time of a promotion.

No one mentioned it I believe, but I loved the female ref actually showing authority and taking charge when the timekeeper fucked up and rang the bell. She pointed at him and showed him "TWO ! Only TWO !!" like a real referee would, not looking lost or confused for one second. Apparently, Aja cut an intimidating promo on the poor guy after the match. Wish that would have been on TV. Gotta love Aja.

Come on, the Battle Royal was a whole lot of fun. I hope Luchasaurus get signed. This guy came back from the dead twice already, he was litteraly murdered both in LU and iMPCAT ! Joey Janela dying for our pleasure was vintage garbage match heaven. Fat Ass Dreamer doing a cameo is always fun. MJF was a heat magnet and looked terrific. Pillman and the dye-job from hell ! Ace Romero pouncing Stunt out of the ring was awesome. The right guy won. It's not like Micheal Nakazawa oiling himself or Orange Cassidy doing his one comedy spot is gonna hurt anything for those who don't like that. Wonder where Joey Ryan was though.

At least Jericho and Omega (and Mox, apparently) have deals that allows them to work NJ. I wonder if the booking which really inherit from the NJ stuff (first Jericho vs Omega match) will keep on taking this element in account. I mean, I doubt Jericho wins the IWGP title at Dominion, so what's to follow for Omega and him down the road in AEW is pretty fascinating. I'd have Jericho win the first title, he's the biggest name, he's the heel, money's in the chase. Really, I know loyalty is a thing, but I don't see what's NJ has to win from a partnership with ROH at this point. Yeah, they have Bandido for the Super J Cup. But apart from this ?

Wow. Did not expect that. Pretty crazy how this guy looks like the hottest topic in the business now.

That is (and would be) crazy indeed. Gotta love Cody with "We're not gonna make a PR element out of it." BTW.

Best PPV ever. And I'm not even kidding. Ive been watching pro-wrestling for almost 30 years, and it's like they wrapped up everything I love now and have loved in the past (Aja, joshi puroresu in general, Bret, bloodletting) in a nice little package and swept it under my pillow. Yeah, there was a few mis-shots, but it's the very first show of a brand new company starting from scratch. Also, three MOTYC (Jericho vs Omega being the lesser one of the three, but still awesome) in a row. Marked the fuck out for Awesome Kong. Mox is their Lex Luger, and showing up at the end worked so much better than being in the Battle Royal, especially since by that point, no one was thinking about that eventuality. The Triple H trolling was glorious, Cody is fucking hostile. Brandi in high heels doing a better spear than most of the guys. Anyone checked Tony Schiavone on first row ? Aja still doesn't slap her tighs, she kicks you hard in the back. I missed you Aja. Yeah, this is everything I have missed from a major promotion, launched straight into the 2020's.

I was on the outs with WWF already, but still watching (I quit during the Summer, and Owen's death probably was the last straw). I remember usually I was taping the PPV's and watching them the next week-end. It's not like I was spending all my time on the Internet back then. For whatever reason, I choosed to watch it Monday morning, something I was never ever doing. It hit me like a ton of bricks. What's coming off of this show, is that Owen really did not want to do it and he wasn't well prepared at all. So yeah, it was an accident. But WWF was responsible (not the least of which, that idiot Russo who insisted on putting Owen in that position with basically no prep, while I remember Bischoff telling the story of Sting rehearsing for months before he would ever do it live). No wonder Martha got 18 millions on settlement.

That's not at all what I mean. I do think there's a generational gap in that a lot of people will have a bias toward what they grew up on, which is only human. And I think there's a perspective gap in that some of us are like obsessed with the canon and any discourse that will shake up the canon won't be accepted very well. Hell, we had that talk about lucha, very few lucha matches are part of the canon, and it's pretty much ignorance of that culture which is why we had the angry lucha fans during the GWE. It's all a matter on taste in the end. But people getting angry at other people because they love what is happening *now* kinda always goes back to these two elements, you can see it everywhere by the way, movies, music, TV show etc... In a way, it's always a matter of looking at a Golden Age, which is something of the past, and something that never really existed, because the Golden Age is *always* in the past, no matter from where you look (those salty old workers of the 80's shitting on Flair because he was not a shooter like World champion should and was doing too many nonsensical spots). I honestly don't think you can link popularity with "things done well". The hottest period for pro-wrestling as presented by the WWF was the late 90's. And it was mostly god-awful. But of course, some stuff were done better in a different context. Some things are done better now, but again, not the same context. You can only pretend it's 1985 for so long until you're into full cosplay mode. Hey, I have no idea how AEW will present their stuff. Maybe they'll bring back some of the stuff that was better 20/30 years ago and mix it with what is better now. Maybe they won't. As far as I go, I'm just saying I made a switch toward enjoying the most of what's better now (IMO) and stopped thinking about the past in a way that it becomes the absolute point of reference.

Listening to the episode about Owen's death. Needless to say, it's not an easy listen, especially if you've lived the thing back then (I can remember JR's eerie announcements and Lawler looking like a ghost like it was yesterday), but it's pretty fascinating. Apparently, it's possible that Owen, as he was falling down, shouted to the people on the floor to move out of the way... Wow.

Well, I must say Pagano vs Chessman from 05.19 is fun for various reasons. Pagano is not good at much apart from taking punishement, but Chessman holds this together for a while. He looks like a creep and acts like a douche, he also bleeds all over the place, so there's that. And you get classic AAA shitty camera work, with an amazing close up on Pagano holding his blade, and a wonderful miss of the biggest spot of the match, which Chessman basically shakes off anyway.

The latest AAA big shows have been pretty damn BAD. I feel this is the promotion that gets the least of of its talented workers, having them work constantly clusterfucky garbage matches or directionless spotfests. Enjoying the whole Lady Maravilla / Nino Hamburgesa saga in the undercard though, with usually fun tag matches. Killer Kross working gringo heel monster is quite cool too. But man, too many clows and too many people in anti-riot jackets (hates those).

Okada vs Omega trilogy blows away Steamboat vs Flair seven ways to Sunday in my book. There's both a generational and perspective gap. The first is people living in the past, because it's comforting. The second is people giving way too much credit to the all-mighty "canon", because, well, it's comforting too. I for one have made the switch sometime somewhere when I was watching Lucha Underground. Funny to re-read some of the early stuff I wrote about it (just like the stuff I wrote first time I saw Omega or the Young Bucks, and even Will Ospreay). I totally changed my perspective and embraced what is happening now (and that I like, of course, tons of stuff happening now I don't care about, put WWE or ROH in this bag for instance). Anway, Omega helping packed some of the biggest house in Japan in the last few years certainly sounds better than Steamboat working great matches in half empty buildings in dying Crockett and money bleeding WCW. Not that I care about it one way or another, honestly. I have loved Steamboat's work, love Omega's now...

I have absolutely zero issue with the idea of Omega > Steamboat, at the very least as far as peak goes. It also totally makes sense from Meltz perspective if you consider his ratings (agree or disagree with him). Also, now I can picture real life Bayley as Krusty the Clown, and it's pretty funny.

Hey, maybe Bayley is a total bitch IRL, who the fuck knows or cares, really. This Twitter drama (like every Twiter drama) is ridiculous.

Yeah, sure, some stuff from 2016... Twitter people are the worst.

Have you even seen the clip ? He didn't *take a shot* at anyone. Kyla Rae has been compared as a character to Bailey a lot, so he's just making a joke in passing because that's how it is. Shits and giggles. Yeah, people are oversensitive as shit when you have to always put smileys everywhere and explain that a joke is a joke because there's always the possibility that someone might get #offended.

That's why I can't stand this social media society. It's nothing, it's a joke in passing about wacky inflatable tubemen, and people are acting all offended and shit like it meant anything. For fuck's sake. The oversensitivity of people has become totally insane. Makes you want to troll like a pig, really.

Have Corbin work that last part of the cage match and then the Mania main event, I don't think Kofi gets the reaction he did. Sure, Kofi deserves tons of credit for getting over. But it's hard to ask people to see him as a legit main eventer past the context of the great Mania match after a decade of being a goof.