El-P

I guess it runs in the family, uh ? AAA is really gonna go on about booking Alberto when his father and brother are involved in *this*, putting Alberto's own bagage in perspective ("charges have been dropped" and all) ? Jeez Konnan, grow a fucking sense of dignity already.

WWE. Now. Then. Forever.

Agreed. But if anyone deserves a nice run in a major company, it's Shelley & Sabin. Maybe the most influential tag-team of the last 20 years, awesome workers both, still. And yeah, what a great get for training talent, Shelley especially.

MCMG are AEW bound. Unsurprisingly. Hopefully they get used right. And by right I mean, having big matches with the Young Bucks and FTR and such, not jobbing on Rampage to Top Flight.

Although I really love the quality of the talents and the work, there is a lot that could, and should be said, about the japanese women pro-wrestling business. The fact it may end up being basically a feeder system for WWE, which Rossy directly alluded to, is another issue entirely.

Late 90's flashback anyone ? Giulia helping jumpstart the promotion is cool and all, but when she's gone in six months (wild guess, no idea), it's not like you can have her be that huge star people will invest into. So after that fact basically, it's Utami and a supporting cast(Mirai was really pushed in Stardom lately, but I don't see her at that level, not yet anyway). Oh, yeah, so I guess that means Nanae Takahashi inject herself on top. Wonderful... Yeah, doesn't exactly comes off very exciting, this one.

I guess Aja Kong appearing at All Star Queendom is yet another effect of Rossy being gone. She's facing Tam Nakano too. Which is kinda Danielson vs Blue Panther honestly. Super cool, but they are not on the same timeline.

Death is a strange thing. So people are gonna pretend that the Bray Wyatt "creative genius" wasn't actually dogshit now that Windham Rotunda sadly passed away ? Because it was actually dogshit. His "genius" ideas would not pass the test for B-level straight to video (back then, before streaming, ya know) horror exploitation movies. The Fiend was a legit worker killer. And even before that, although the production of the Wyatt family was always awesome, once the bell rang, Bray Wyatt was mid as it comes. And then you had the infamous Mania match with Orton and worms on the rampway or something, the terrible Broken Matt erzatz videos, and of course Alexa Bliss doing creepy lolicon inspired gimmick, which peaked with her vomiting some black (thankfully) gooey substance. All of this is WrestleCrap material, as they said back in the 00's. And yeah : Think about that one, Bray Wyatt vs LA Knight won WON (see what I did ?) Worst Match of the Year Award, THE SAME YEAR THE GUY DIED. And it wasn't even close to the worst shit he did (although everything about the Uncle angle was amazingly cringe and stupid). I know the new cliché to praise wrestling stuff is THIS IS CINEMA, except that makes me wonder what movies pro-wrestling fans are actually watching. (not to mention I always find that very ironic that the highest praise you'd give to a pro-wrestling angle or match would be to qualify it as something other than pro-wrestling, oh, the level of insecurity). And yeah, although I understand the feeling of the brother, this very much comes off as kinda exploitative, when you think that Bray Wyatt was, indeed, a huge merch seller. Which, call me cynical, may play into why WWE would even consider booking something like this.

Pretty much what I was thinking when I red the results. This is Walking Dead level of overstaying its welcome. As long as the audience gobbles it up, it's fine I guess, but really now.

I sure did pre-shot that one. That's the most interesting dynamic on top for NJPW in a while. Also, apparently Jack Perry got over big time in Chi-town. His merchandise is flying off the shelves, so there is something there. Riddle losing his TV title, back to ZSJ. Good ! Stephanie Vaquer keeping the thing surely is interesting. Forbidden Door is sure looking more and more intriguing now.

Gotta say though, Chris Hero's reaction after the incident is kinda hilarious. Oh yeah, and Mina Shirakawa is a treasure. She sure took that US trip and made a star out of herself, from the Stardom show to the ROH show to Dynamite, she got herself OVER.

Well, there is that. We live in the TikTok era. Things get washed away by the seconds in term of public interests and perception, and that includes drama. Hell, the Punk interview, no one really cared apart from people on X ex Twitter (gotta love that) and obviously Coach TK, sadly. Haterz gonna be haterz anyway. The one thing that actually kinda worked in the entire thing, was babyfaces FTR going like "Jeeez, can we move the fuck on already ?", because that's the overall felling of both people in the company and the audience. MOVE ON. FOCUS.

Hook is the same issue than Jade Cargill. Overprotected rookie. Cargill because of her looks, Hook because of his father. And really, I'm way past the point where I care about this kind of stuff. I'm interested in the actual work, in what they actually DO, not who they are. And as much as, for most of her stint, I was a big fan of Cargill because she was doing the Goldberg gimmick right (aka doing some cool shit in all her squashes), not to mention putting lots of effort in her presentation, Hook is totally there to me. Yeah, it was cool when he was over as fuck even before debuting, but that was almost a meme. He's basically still a rookie. He's ok. He's nothing special yet (maybe he will, maybe he won't) and if he wasn't his father's son, he would not have been pushed and protected like he has been. Whether he goes or he stays, it makes zero difference in term of my enjoyment of the product, really.

Naito vs Mox for the IWGP title is promising. I could honestly see Mox winning and have a stint in Japan for a while. Ishii vs Nemeth. Ishii is Ishii, so there's no way he doesn't have a great match with Nemeth, who just did have a great match with Alex Shelley in TNA. Hiromu vs Mustafa Ali. Ali is just another kind of awesome. Terrific match on paper (although I'm never quite as high on Hiromu as most people it seems) Stephanie Vaquer vs AZM. Vaquer shined last year against Mercedes. AZM is awesome. Maybe the title goes back to Stardom ? Anyway it goes, this is cool. Kingston & friends vs Gabe Kidd & friends depends on who the friends are. But the premise rules. So yeah, that NJPW US show looks like tons of fun, actually.

The idea that it makes Punk looks cool is completely ludicrous. The guy clearly initiated the physicality. He's obviously an unprofessional douche and that's a pattern (the other day on Jarrett's podcast they were talking about an altercation between Punk and Teddy Hart back in early TNA, and Punk basically was the same unprofessional guy initiating physicality, and really, think about that, being *more* unprofesional than Teddy Hart). Apart from that : TERRIBLE idea all around, and it does reeks of WCW 99 booking, when all has been said and done. They just should have ignored the interview, which really no one really cared about anyway (obvious with the lack of reaction last week to Copeland rah rah speech). Ospreay should not have replied to Levesque either. WWE had their biggest Mania ever and AEW can't pack any serious houses right now. Read the room in term of perception. Of course the public discourse should be about all the awful thing WWE has been and may be stil about (Saudi show in two months, hi) instead of shitty-ass angles like this, but since success erases everything, it won't be. Trying to punch up while you're weaker and failing at it is just a terrible, TERRIBLE idea. Just focus on being a healthy alternative #2 and deliver what AEW fans (overall) actually want. Great pro-wrestling, cross-promotion dream matches, funky randomizers and innovative stuff. Leave the rest of it behind.

Considering what has been said about the rumored footage (basically, Jack Perry taking care of himself and CM Punk looking like a goof), it could be a deal of a total troll-like "vignette" about Jack Perry and how he can handle himself against some guy who attacked him backstage, and how he's the new Elite member, while never even acknowledging the other guy is CM Punk (when of course, it's *all* aboute exposing CM Punk both as an unprofessional shit and a shitty-ass fake tough guy, the kind of guy who talks about "chocking someone a bit" and being a pro for not "murdering Hangman"). But it's almost TOO funny for their heel characters. Then again, they are expert at meta-trolling anyway. The thing is, it is supposed to build for their match against FTR, so on paper it's tricky as hell no matter how you slice it. As long as it exposes a douche, I'm fine with anything, really. When this is the "big issue" in the company, well it's really completely irrelevant comparing to... well, you know what...

That Chris Colt episode was fascinating on so many levels. Gotta say those promos in those gay porn videos looked pretty awesome. "I'm gonna run you off and then I'm gonna fuck you !". You don't say.

The answer is very obviously : no, they don't. Apart from Eric Young. He's a shiny, as they say. The rest of them, well, this : And yeah. The Nick Khan hug. Whatever you wanna say positive about Nick Khan. The guy was still praising the hell out of McMahon *after* he came back the first time around, when all the NDA's and the settlement of rape lawsuit with Rita Chatterton had been done. A few weeks before the Janel Grant lawsuit he was still talking about Vince like he was the greatest of all time. And as far as Stephy goes, I remember Meltzer talked about how the Ashley Massaro stuff (ya know, being fake sympathetic leading her into that meeting with officials where she was told to no-sell being raped, because the militaries where too precious for the company) really turned lot of people off. And she was put right at the beginning of Mania Night 2. Also, last time she gave a big speech was the "Thank you Vince chant". New era my ass.

You most of all don't thank Bruce Prichard, who's been Vince's pet dog forever. And you don't thank Paul "I did not read the lawsuit" Levesque while lying your ass off about how *he* made you come back to WWE, when Vince is the one who hired Cody back. This part was legit embarrassing, and the Levesque ego stroking doubled with hammering down the fact that "VInce is gone, forget about everything, this is a new era" on RAW is already unbearable.

"I love professional wrestling !" sure came off like something he has been wanting to say for a quarter of a century.

I only watched the main event, and yeah, she sounded fucking awful to me. But hey, what do we know. Micheal Buffer. From Bret Hitman Clark fame. Also, gotta say this, Bubba Ray Dudley getting a Mania gig after being a complete douchebag about AEW forever is some hilarious WWE pettiness.

For all the talk of Naito being way past his prime, he sure had one hell of a long match against Yota Tsuji. And he's still over as fuck. I actively look forward to the Mox match next week-end. Also, nothing can stop Takagi from having a great match, not even House of Torture fuckery. The EVIL match was another level of clusterfuckception with not one, but two gimmick referees and more House of Torture bullshit. Of course, it only works when at the end of the day, they get fucked, which was the case here. Funny how EVIL is actually a much better pro-wrestler than SANADA, it's just the gimmick that sucks. Jack Perry with a beard doing the CM Punk elbow and Young Bucks trademark spots is total trollbait, and it's pretty fun. Time to bring his ass back home. Junior tag multi-team was a blast too. And then, that Gabe Kidd promo would gave made Brian Pillman proud. That guy is already a great worker, he can be a major player.

Sure. My original point is that money was neither in the chase nor the dominating babyface. Of course the brand had a bunch of key players, but who they were was much more important than their role in a pro-wrestling sense. Hell, Roman was a heel, but before Sami and Cody exploded, he was basically the most popular wrestler on the roster anyway. Oh yeah ? Not popular in Brazil ? I gotta say this, based on the last time they were around, the crowd at Backlash is gonna be MOLTEN. Last time they chanted Rollins theme for TEN STRAIGHT MINUTES. And if they get the idea of introducing the announcers Agius & Chereau during the live show (which they should, honestly), these guy will get a Rock/Taker/Austin level pop, I'm telling you.

Fun fact, out of the next 6 PLE, only SummerSlam is happening in the US. That's unheard of. And the more they'll go, the more they'll probably book toward those "territory" figures, Drew in Scotland, Gunther in Germany, Priest in Puerto Rico since I guess they'll eventually go back. So the heel/face dynamics will also depend of where those shows happen. Gunther is gonna be a babyface in Berlin, no matter what. Drew is gonna be a babyface in Glasgow. Now, maybe the main title will not be defended on every PLE, although one would hope Cody is around a whole lot more than Roman was the last two years.

Except I did not say that at all, plus you gotta know I'm going for an absurd example here on purpose. I said the deals are done, and the deals are done because of the overall brand, no whether you have a heel or babyface champ. The Saudi deal was made years ago, when they were on the decline. They have been financially idiot proof way before they got back hotter than (maybe) ever. Fox got them a huge deal because of Ronda. The Saudis got them a huge deal because of the stars of the past. Things weren't clicking then, and they still made huge-ass money deals. Of course the Roman vs Cody match was a huge draw in itself (if you look at the monetary aspect, their biggest ever, plain and simple). Of course the product right now is hotter than it maybe ever been (again, in financial terms, not in term of mainstream pop culture) because of the Roman/Cody/Sami stuff going back 2/3 years ago now. And of course Karrion Kross is a goof, even moreso with hair and stache.