El-P

There have been countless shows at the 2300 over the years. Of course it doesn't look like it did in 1995. It never could. But it is the "closest" I've seen, all things considered, while maintaining the production values expected from AEW and the fact that, well, it's basically not the same place anymore. And of course the audience would kinda cosplay the attitude like it's Rocky Horror Picture show (and honestly I don't think there would be that much difference from a good Philly crowd anyway in term of chants, it's not like all of a sudden they busted out a "She's a crack whore !" at Marina Shafir or something). I mean, it kinda is the point too, really. (the funny thing is that even during ECW days and peaks, you could see crowds outside of the Arena on house shows footage, you know the ones, absolutely imitating what was happening in at ECW Arena, sometime in very obnoxious fashion, so it's actually kinda on point in a bizarre meta way) And really now, there already has been a reference to Kimona dancing atop the ECW Arena. Of all the niche references you could make, this one cracked me up pretty good because OF COURSE. (as far as HS not being gone yet, hopefully they are just putting GOA over once and that's it) Anywoo. Really good episode. Didn't waste any time to build toward All Out, which was needed as it's coming really soon.

That's all it ever was, to get their dirty fingers all over indy wrestling (and it has worked, "rebel" GCW have been hosting these shitty ID tournaments events no one care about) and cut off access to other promotions (*cough* AEW *cough*) to some good indy talent they might be interested in. That's all there is to it. The fact someone like Kylie Rae is signed to this shit is such a joke. If they want her, just sign her to NXT. And yeah, getting released from the "not even in our feeders to our feeder system yet" contract is certainly a humiliation. This is indeed ridiculous. Then again, I'm more interested in whom in active WWE talent was there, that gives you a good list of real pieces of trash (word is out that several talents are actually waiting to see how the Janel Grant thing ends before they can go back crawling to supporting Vince, which in a way is even worse). Hey, the Miz ! I am so not surprised.

I don't care about the Copeland & Christian nostalgia, but the match over-delivered and Christian still being an asshole is perfect. I halfway expected Jack Perry to show up. Which should happen sooner than later. Fletcher vs Hiromu was everything I hoped it was and more. This is also why Hiromu should be in the G1 and win the big one eventually. The four way was fun as hell. They sure made Bozilla look special. And Mercedes did that one coming off two terrific RevPro match on the week-end, one of which was better than any women match on this show. ZSJ vs Nigel was just pure joy. The second I saw the Hurt Syndicate walking without fanfare and without MVP, I knew something was up. Then MVP was not mentioned *once* on commentary. And then this complete bullshit cop-out for not doing the job. I hope hey never ever appear on AEW TV again and Coach TK bench them until their contracts end and they are 52 and shit. Or just fire their useless ass. They are everything I said they were,since day one (except MVP was absolutely the worst signing and Benjamin the less worse, all things considered), fuck them. Brodido as champs hopefully will repair the damage done to the titles since the Private Party "reign". Okada vs Swerve was quite on the very good side of on Okada match, but the fact it was obvious Swerve was not winning (because of the injury talk) hurt it. Warldow coming back got a major *yawn* out of me. I guess as a heater for Callis he'll be fine, but nothing more, please. Takeshita is turning babyface on Fletcher. There. Hayter coming back on the other hand, was pretty cool ! Toni Storm vs Athena was quite on the very good side of a Toni Storm match. I dunno, I kinda hoped for more but again, the fact they promoted Athena vs Mina for the ROH title next week-end kinda gave it away she wasn't winning. She looked great though. Hangman vs MJF was great. Damn I missed MJF in big title matches. The bullshit at the end was quite effective, although contrived at points (the leg on the rope spot, ok, oh well), the finish was awesome. And yeah, TK confirmed that as of now, the contracts from Casino Gauntlet have to have a week in advance announcement (which is what they did in Lucha Underground basically), so THERE ! GOOD ! And that cage match. Come on people. Just incredible stuff. Young Bucks kinda stole the show, really, but all were use in the most effective way, including Tanahashi. Him winning at the end was a super nice touch. Ospreay was legit emotional. With that angle ending the show, I'm guessing they are confident to a point he's coming back and he's winning at Wembley next year. Gotta say though, the second night RevPro anniversary show, purely on an in-ring standpoint, was a better show, and nothing was on the level of Leon Slater vs Micheal Oku. They gotta secure Oku and Amira on a dual contract deal or something (Leon is ridiculously great at 20, but he's under contract with TNA). It was super fun to see him on the pre-show getting the Oku chant from the O2 See ya in the 2300.

"Nobody does puppets anymore !" Harley Cameron Yeah, Ishii just having a major G1 match in Glasgow with the G1 winner was something. And overall Collision was just sooo much better than Dynamite this week, just a great fun show from start to finish. This humiliated Young Bucks stuff is just brillant. Totally hyped for Forbidden Door and the England shows are perfect for me to watch live... except I still want to watch those two RevPro shows beforehand, so I guess that's delay anyway for me again.

This, in general. This whole trio thingy was ridiculous anyway since the Von Erich were not even there for months and months. It would make no sense to keep the trios & tag titles on Dustin's team while he's gone considering others had to vacate for way less (I won't even mention the dumb "interim" stuff which I thought was a thing of the past). Get those things on Blake Christian & Lee Johnson anyway. Glad Adam Priest is getting some sort of ROH push, yeah. Also, just sign Janai Kai and give her a sweet ROH push as a starter. She was one of the rare talent that was interesting in MLW these last few years.

Yeah Jericho absolutely should show up once, get killed by Bill and Keith, and ride into the sunset if he's leaving. If not, well these two at the very least deserve a rightful push as a tag team.

The sole purpose for these shows in Europe before Paris was to hurt the Glasgow & London AEW shows. Which has been a miserable failure (the plan was stupid to begin with). No shit they would make zero effort with it now. Chanting "You can't wrestle" at Jeff Cobb is certainly one level of stupidity (unless it was done in jest, in which case is pretty funny indeed). About Cobb, wow, talk about a guy whose career has been basically wiped off by signing to WWE. Hope for his sake the money was worth it.

As far as Jericho basically not coming back. Well. He was super instrumental to start the promotion and was super fun for a while. And as someone who was much less harsh on him around here than most, his last year or so was flop after flop. He's 54 and not getting better now. WWE fanboys are gonna act like he's the greatest thing ever when he shows back up (It would be hilarious if it ends up with CM Punk having to eat even more shit though). Honestly, it's kinda whatever. The fact AEW had such a great year thus far and really peaked again while he was gone shows how they have outgrown him. Of course nothing is confirmed yet, but the fact he was nowhere around at All In and stuff like Big Bill and Bryan Keith not coming out as the Learning Tree anymore are kinda telling.

Not a fan of making the tag title match a three-way. If it's that's a way for Hurt Syndicate to drop the belts without having to eat a pin, that's all you need to know about them. (EDIT : wait so apparently I missed the fact it's a three-way elimination match, therefore whoever loses has to eat a pin. Ok then) Not a fan of every stipulations in the world added to MJF vs Hangman, but I guess this is a way to make the audience doubt about what should be a foregone conclusion (Hangman is not losing the belt just after that win at All In, that would be really dumb and would kill the momentum of the company). Still, all this feels over-convoluted to me, which has been an issue with the MJF character before. I don't really care about the Christian & Cope angle, but I like the fact Christian remains the same old asshole and doesn't just switch to babyface, a role that never fit him well and less than ever now. Luchasaurus coming back is "oh, ok" to me. It makes the dynamics between him and Christian kinda screwed up in a way since the slow burn was him turning babyface on Christian, so I dunno how you do that now. And the match has even less business on a PPV now. I honestly can't wait until this whole thing is done after Toronto. I don't care about an angle based on WWF nostalgia from 24 years ago. The Ospreay promo was great, the three matches were quite good (FTR the Brodido was actually better than that, but the ending made no sense to me, how in the hell you have a tournament final end with a time-limited match ?), and Danielson showing up was cool, but honestly one of the weakest Dynamite they have done in a long time, with a crowd that was kinda flat (or poorly mic-ed). Hopefully Forbidden Door will wipe the so-so feels I got from this episode (and let's be real, it most probably will, look at those matches on paper). Can't wait for the 2300 Arena residency after that too.

And so, Danielson is gonna be at the announcing desk on Dynamite, and Bozilla is the fourth woman in the TBS title match ! Have Grado appear on Collision or something, and Micheal Oku and Amira show up on the pre-show and ROH tapings and that's a perfect.

Of course Hey! EW with Thekla is awesome. "See, all I know about Austria is... " "Hitler !" (gotta love she dropped some Falco too)

Well, maybe Tana has some actual power, but Bushiroad got the checks, and Gedo does the booking, so from there, Tana can only do so much. Totally agree House of Torture are like Voodoo Murders/Makai Club in the 2000 : complete unfiltered shit. (EDIT : damn and now I have memories of those VHS tapes of NJPW shows I used to BUY with GOOD MONEY and that had some Makai Club matches on it. Why ? Just WHY ? Talk about some names from the past you never ever want to be reminded of 😁)

The two RevPro show this week-end have some quite interesting matches, both in term of quality and talents involved considering the dynamics of US wrestling. Most notably on Friday you get Micheal Oku (who's been on AEW/ROH shows before), Shibata, Tanahashi (yeah, these two teaming !), Speedball & Zozaya (who has been under WWE's radar and may possibly end up there, which would be a pity because he's way too good) vs Robbie X, Cowboy Way, Hechicero & Kyle Fletcher. On the Saturday show you got Micheal Oku (who has been on AEW/ROH) vs Leon Slater (from TNA, therefore connected with WWE, although I hope he eventually goes where he belongs after his TNA stint) which should be an awesome match BTW, and Mercedes Moné tagging with Kanji & Dani Luna (also from TNA, therefore, pity, etc..., I'd love Mercedes to sell her AEW backstage because I really like Luna). ZSJ vs Zozaya should be quite terrific too.

Takeshita is actually signed to NJPW. He's got a dual contract. Since he's talking about challenging "as soon as possible", possibly he can get a title reign until WK, then maybe drop the title to Tsuji there. Or something. Also, Tanahashi is the president of NJPW like Jack Tunney was the president of the WWF. As far as people leaving, sure, that's one issue. But it was always gonna be an issue. Gedo's shitty booking of the young talents and his over-reliance on the fucking House of Torture is a much bigger issue, really, since it is legit tanking the product.

Riho was 9 when she started, trained by Emi Sakura. So yeah, she's 28 and almost a 20 years vet. And AEW needs to bring her back (she was injured last year).

"What are you talking about, EVIL is over with the domestic crowds !"

I did not watch it because it's just too damn depressing (before they began using Alberto, Triplemania was one of my favorite time of the year because of the sheer mind-fuckness car-crash quality of the thing) but here's Luchablog review : https://thecubsfan.com/cmll/ "These are WWE matches with AAA luchadors (...) WWE fans seemed to like the show. They got an extra WWE show." In one year (or two at max), Triplemania will mostly be WWE guys with no relation whatsoever to what AAA used to be, working basic WWE matches, mark my words. Konnan telling a fan at ringsde to fuck his mother was the only thing Triplemania-like sounding. Rey Rey acknowledging the Alberto chant by saying "I'll bring him, be patient" was certainly "interesting". Triple H called MAGATaker "a driving force" behind AAA. Ponder that for a second or two. (gotta love the fact they saw Mr. Iguana get over with his puppet at the previous show... so they immediately used his hype to make a puppet... for someone else that on the main roster, because of course) Bye bye AAA Lucha Libre Worldwide. This has been a fun (as opposed to, you know, good) ride.

Nigel vs ZSJ in London. What's not to love ? This is truly the best AEW timeline.

If you told me even two months ago that Takeshita would win the G1 and I would not bother to watch, I would not have believed you. But here we are. The irony is that he's actually the right guy, if his dual contract allows him to commit. But the EVIL stuff. Nah, pass.

Yeah, also that. The heavy focus on a David Finlay (with all due respect, I find him to be really good in-ring) all foreign heel faction, calling a brand new stable JUST FIVE GUYS (might as well call themselves "We're generic", made even more terrible, or funny, by the fact they were led by charisma vacuum SANADA), or keeping a United Empire alive after Ospreay left (and giving the lead to *gasp* TJP) are exemples of what makes the mid/undercard pretty uninteresting indeed. They're also resting on the multiplication of titles which has plagued the promotion for years and has only got worse with the TV title being added. Yeah, there's absolutely a feeling of staleness. There was no surprise in the G1, no outsider, no cool veteran from another era... Now that I think of it, it actually could have been even worse. Imagine Jake Lee coming back and getting the push to the top... (*looks around*... hoping Gedo isn't listening)

So on a JCW (the Juggalo promotion of ICP) vs GCW show, Masha Slamovich tagged with 2 Cold Scorpio and... the Great Sasuke. Yes, this actually happened. (haven't watched it yet though, but the intros are already a mindfuck. Like, this is actually real)

Picture me not surprised. The whole "EVIL is popular" is pure copium to distract from the obvious : Gedo's booking sucks. And yeah, I did love G1 last year and the whole ZSJ ascension. It was awesome. And the Goto win this year was a terrific feel-good story too. But apart from those and the Naito wins the previous year, the booking overall has been bad for a while now. The SANADA title reign still baffles me to this day. The House of Torture shit has been going on for 5 years now (the rumor was at one point that it was Dick Togo's influence, if true this guy needs to be fired yesterday).

Him tagging with Ibushi is really cool too. Ibushi is gonna have to hold the tears. Meanwhile, Tom LaRuffa showed up on ROH tapings. Talk about WCW C-show circa 1999 level of random. Last time I checked he was a conspiracy nut. I guess we can't get a French wrestler that's not embarrassing (remember Shanna ? Damn I really liked Shanna until... oh well).

Aww come on, don't be like that. You don't wanna watch an exciting fight between a South African White Supremacist fanboy and the BFF of one of the worst dictator on the planet ? Why making everything political ? People need their entertainment... 😎 And I mean, Helio Gracie was himself part of a Brazilian fascist movement called Integralism. And you had Renzo tweeting motivational quote from Himmler in 2012. So yeah, MMA is *very much*, in essence, fascism compatible (to say the least).

Well, I sure am glad I didn't bother spending hours of G1 watch to end up *there*. And I know it probably means Takeshita winning the G1 (right ? RIGHT ?) so at least WK main event should be awesome, but fuck me. Gotta love the discourse in "american NJPW fans" (*sigh*) about EVIL being super over in Japan and shit, but the dismal drawing power of the promotion in the last few years seems to indicate otherwise. Since he got pushed to and around the main event spot, it's been nothing but a disastrous run both creatively and business wise. And yeah, Covid did a number on them, Japanese economy is bad (yet Stardom is doing quite ok, Sumo is drawing), they lost their biggest native and foreign stars. BUT maybe, just maybe, the House of Torture up and down the cards, no matter how much merch they sell, has been actively hurting the product ? Maybe SANADA was a complete flop as a world champion when better candidates were around ? Maybe the push of the "New Three Musketeers" (who BTW are pretty much all around 30 years old already) has been completely mismanaged ? For the first time since I got back following the current product ten years ago, I'm not gonna bother watching the G1 final (yeah, it will probably a terrific match anyway, but guess what, I have no desire watching even a terrific EVIL match, and there's always the actual risk he might win, and that has go-away heat with me). Ya know, there's an irony about Forbidden Door not looking that much Forbidden Doorish this year when infact, there's not much you wanna get from NJPW anyway right now, apart from a few cool matches that aren't really PPV worthy (I love Taichi and would love having him involved, but he doesn't mean that much if at all to the Western audience). The CMLL partnership has been much better and there's probably a reason why (CMLL being hot as fuck and great, ya know).