El-P

And the women Grand Prix was indeed, tons of fun. This really has been the year of CMLL. Enjoy it while you can.

The Mania 42 poster reveal is fucking hilarious. MAGA. Democrats for Trump. MAGA actually working with the government. MAGA. Sex predator. CM "sorry if I offended your regime your Excellency" Punk. The fact Triple H is at the center makes it even more hilarious. Like, how fucking insecure is this guy, really ? Not like it wasn't obvious to anyone who had followed his entire career, but still. (women ? what is that ?)

Mercedes Moné vs Persephone was probably the best women match ever happening in Arena Mexico. And one hell of a main event for what was overall a pretty good card. India Sioux vs Skadi was also really good, and Skadi is someone who could certainly be something special with more reps. I could see her in Japan making waves, especially with the new Stardom/CMLL partnership just announced. The 6-women involving all mexican women was also pretty good actually. No Tessa on the show, despite her just making a comeback to the promotion. The Grand Prix should be tons of fun.

I agree it's absolutely an overdone trope, in general (much like the contract signing). But that one was excellent, from Moné Puttet crashing the party to Moné getting the cake and then Athena showing up, setting up their tag team. BTW, Moné & Athena vs Toni & Mina as a final would fuck. Any result works, of course Moné being the first AEW tag-team champ would be kinda poetic justice (and break more deficient brains). That main event also. Okada is still the master. He's just incredible to watch when he's in "ok, this match is gonna be great" mode. The timing, the facial expressions, the set-ups, everything. And Bandido looks more and more like someone who can be that latino crossover babyface world champ. No idea if TK would go in that direction, but Bandido has it more than anyone else than came before

I mean, they HAVE TO at this point. No idea how they'll handle it, but she's having the stint of her career right now. And she doesn't need to do that, going to Poland or Denmark in obscure indies to work with some women who would most probably never would have worked with her ever. When you hear about all those promoters saying how she has been nothing but good to them and their roster (look at that ridiculous crowd for an indie show in Winnipeg), and then contrast with the absolute hate she's receiving online from the worst people (hi Dutch Mantel, ya old sack o' shit, to quote Brody King). She absolutely broke people's "brain" doing this. She just main-evented the biggest (apparently) all women show in forever anywhere in Arena Mexico last week. And damn, that angle this week. 😄

I'm just so behind on whatever joshi I wanna watch. That Unagi Sayaka vs Minoru Suzuki match was a ride though. (see what I did ?). Heel surely is a one kind of a character. She certainly found a way to make her post-Stardom career interesting, to say the least.

For whatever reasons I was thinking about the Canal + version of the WWF shows, which obviously would not have been on the English speaking channel anyway, so yeah. Yeah, it wasn't a preview at all. The first show on TF1 in November 1991 was sold as "the big comeback of catch on TF1". Which was of course a laughable idea. It was part of the Canal + strategy to import some american entertainment that had not been seen in France before. I dunno when they started airing the NBA, but it was a "big" deal (under quotation because Canal's paid audience was not that big, which is also one reason pro-wrestling never became big in France until the 2000's when it moved onto the TNT). They also imported the american talk-shows formats which really did not exist on French TV before, at all. So as far as Canal went, it was clearly part of a global strategy, where the modern TV entertainment was seen through an anglo-saxon, and very much americanized, lens. I think this is something that all private medias all over Europe went through to some degrees during the ending of the 80's and the 90's.

No idea how in the hell some WWF episodes ended up on Eurosport. I don't remember, did Canal + owned a part too ? They must have, since they had the WWF rights until the end of 1997 (then switched to WCW). Fascinating to finally have dates for the NJPW run, which was my very first taste of Japanese wrestling (and really, major non WWF wrestling). I thought it lasted longer than this, but then again. I'm pretty sure parts of the Super J Cup were showed. I absolutely remember watching Benoit and Malenko there before they got to ECW/WCW. As far as New Catch goes, yeah, after two or three ill-fated weeks on TF1, they just dumped that stuff on Eurosport until they didn't. Needless to say, nobody watched that stuff.

BTW, Moné got another belt (defeating TNA worker Jody Threat, mind you). @Coach TK, we NEED Ultimo Dragon making an appearance. Hell, she should just drop him too. Pretty please.

The thing is, some of us who were around the old green-ass DVDVR board probably did chat with him. I mean, I do remember the Sleaze Thread as it was happening. (fun fact, I did have direct interactions with a billionaire's son, although I did not know it at the time. Ans if I knew, I probably should have given him the Mox-to-Darby aquarium treatment, really, consider what was to come) But yeah, I could absolutely have a chat with Coach TK about some nerdy pro-wrestling shit and have a blast.

Damn, not even a single thread for PPV's anymore. Oh well. For what could have been considered a "B" PPV on paper, akin to some infamous B-PPV of WCW fame during the Nitro era, this ended up low-key one of the most consistent of all year. The fact they can put out such a card without Omega, MJF, Ospreay and Strickland tells a lot about how ridiculously stacked their roster is in term of top talent. Gotta love how the booking was super effective in immediately foreshadowing or even just plainly leading to the next one, with Moné interrupting Statlander (they can go both ways with this one, Stat finally beating Moné and Moné having the storyline of never being able to win the world title thus far, or Moné winning all the belt setting up a comeback), Joe turning on Hangman (which I saw coming at the very last second, which made it even better) which means this stuff has at least one more round with a new dynamic, Toni & Mina obviously going for the tag-team belts, the inevitable Okada vs Takeshita match coming up, FTR and JetSpeed (damn, SO HAPPY they did it this way, with the pyros exploding mid-match like it was Nitro in 1997) being a work in progress, the incoming Young Bucks babyface turn (which will lead to an entire Elite reunion, gotta believe it). And yeah, just excellent up and down the card, despite the fact a bunch of big matches had pretty much guaranteed results (Briscoe, Toni, Joe and even Mox weren't winning). The two tag matches were just *awesome* The Bucks are just on another stratosphere (I do hope they revive PWG after they retire from AEW as it has been rumored this week, and give it the full fledge BTE/early AEW atmosphere), Okada is just a fucking master still (his timing is insane), Takeshita and Brody are beasts and damnit Bandido may be the WOTY. It was interesting how Moné showed up after Statlander vs Toni, and she and Mina had the better match. She's simply just that good. Thekla vs Hayter totally overdelivered also. (oh yeah, the HS had the worse match on the show as it's now the tradition, a sloppy brawl again which had a few highly spot courtesy of Ricochet and Shelton, whom I actually have kinda warmed up to, and didn't put anyone over again after already winning on TV. Get Ricochet out of this vortex of HS/GOA suck, than you very much) And that main event was also crazy in the sense they manage to give it a horrific/chaotic feel while working a totally different match than Mox vs Hangman, with basically no blood and relatively "safe" (I use that term very loosely). That Claudio spot was bonkers though (great landing). Old Man Sting showing up was just the perfect stop too, and the equivalent to Darby showing up for Hangman. Say what you want about Mox, but he's been having a career year. I fucking love the Deathriders. Yeah, not taking this shit for granted. Still living in the best pro-wrestling timeline, all things considered.

That Mox & Darby "cinematic" segment on Dynamite was exactly the kinda stuff I wanna see more from time to time on AEW. They really did an awesome job building this up to the point of me getting legit worry about what they might do to each others. Please don't die and such, don't do anything *too* stupid. Mercedes getting another belt at WDream ? Could it be Syuri ? She was supposed to get involved this summer. Now they could have her lose the belt she just re-won and have a rematch at WK. They have to drag Ultimo Dragon's ass for the photo opp at some point. PPV looks really damn good again (although the fact FTR vs JetSpeed is on the pre-show while Hurt Business vs Demand is on the PPV is an aberration, but what can you do, HS is gonna be annoying until the end it seems). Seems like a broken record but it does. Great to have Samoa Joe in what might be his last PPV main event ever, really. Enjoy the good stuff while you can.

BTW this is fucking hilarious : WWE being the AI slop of pro-wrestling while Paul Levesque becomes a full fledge fascist governement member seems like the way to go. How long are people gonna keep supporting this dogshit of a company ?

Yeah, this is absurd. One year. Sure. Where's Zelina Vega when you need her with the "support unionization" talk ? 😎

Sure, there was some good stuff at BFG (and they pretended they got a record attendance, although that can seem a bit fishy but oh well, who isn't lying about attendance in wrestling ?), but if you look carefully, it's painfully obvious that the booking is shit and that they are only drawing better because they are cucking to WWE, for an audience who is interested only in WWE nostalgia and NXT stuff. Mike Santana finally won. And the match was excellent, despite the fact Trick Williams is exactly the idea of a WWE wrestler (good look, can yap some nonsense, mid as fuck in-ring). Gotta give him credit though, he works very hard, and Santana was just great. It's too bad his coronation came too late. The atmosphere was *nothing* like in NYC at Slammiversary. Not to mention you could see *quite a bit* of empty seats after the Hardies/Dudleys match, which is very telling of what a part of the audience was there for. Him with his daughter at the end was a very nice touch, and obviously very real to him. Too bad it wasn't in front of his people. Also, his win had to take a small backseat for a moment to a bunch of nonsense with the obligatory cash-in tease which was interrupted by... OMG a huge surprise ? Nah, just Elijah coming back. Ok whatever. And that cash-in thing, well, it was completely idiotic, as two guys won it earlier on the show, so Nick Nemeth was stopped by a guitar on the head, and Kazarian... well, apparently he could not cash in because he had to hold the trophy or whatever, so Santana just lariat him and nothing happens. Dumb fuck booking. Apart from that, the really 100% satisfactory match which felt like actual TNA was the System vs Order 4, which actually had blood and bumps on thumbtacks and intergender violence. Doesn't matter that the System's face turn is the most ill-fated ever, Eddie Edward was near Boston, so he's a hero. Good work, cool spots, great finish with Alesha and Ali. And that Agent Zero Guy looks quite impressive (damn he's actually 44 year old indie worker Bill Collier, he sure doesn't look that old). Of course Leon Slater vs Je'von Evans SHOULD have stolen the show. Which they did. Until the DUMB AS FUCK ALL finish. So the time runs out at 20 minutes, which already was badly received. So Santino comes out and oh well yeah, they're gonna do the deal of teasing a shit finish but actually not doing it. Ok, fine. So the match restarts and it's awesome again for like two minutes and then.... Darkstate shows up and attacks both men. ACTUAL SHIT FINISH. Ya know, teasing you're gonna do but not actually do a shit finish to actually do a shit finish takes a special talent as a dumbfuck booker. Vince Russo would have been proud. Speaking about dumb as fuck, the BFG Gauntlet (which was worked basically strictly as a Battle Royal) demonstrated that if you're not an ex WWE guy, they have no interest in ya, as the match ended up with Nick Nemeth and Matt Cardona. But wait, no, Cardona gets eliminated so Kazarian, who WASN'T in the match but only interjected himself by attacking someone else before they entered (which is already stupid), is still there and so the match ends with two heels facing up. Yup. Genius. And not only that : they fucking double pinned each other. So they both win. Which led to the clusterfuck in the main event postmatch. If four 50 years old guy moving at a snail pace positioning tables and running themselves into them is your idea of great pro-wrestling, then I guess Hardies vs Dudleys (yeah, they actually called them this) was not an embarrassing display of washed up guys playing the hits of 25 years ago. Match was awful ("highlight" being Jeff completely missing D-Von, which honestly was for the best because D-Von looked like he had no business being out there, on his Swanton from a ladder and almost driving his head through the bottom stair of the ladder), although people will try to defend it because the crowd loved the bumps and *moments* (fuck you WWE for making this a thing). Post match with Dudleys giving their boots to the Hardies could be kinda cool if you're in those four, which I'm not. Too bad Bubba didn't also gave his podcast mic to the Hardies or something. Nostalgia is a poison. And yeah, Kelani Jordan retain the KO title. Cucks. Not that it's problematic in the sense of Indi Hartwell is SO BAD. I almost feel bad saying it because these people, and women in particular, get so much shit these days because of social medias, but Indi is just *not good*. Like, some moments of this match were legit cringeworthy. They had her family at ringside too, nice for them to come all the way from Australia to see her lose. Also, after building a whole rivalry between bully Tessa Blanchard and Gia Miller (who is trained and has worked a few matches), basically Tessa beat her ass and then pins her after using a roll of coins. Ok, what was the point ? Anywoo. The booking is mostly shit, the product is entirely dependent of WWE's involvement. The day the Hardies are gone, good luck, because they are the biggest stars there by a wide margin. The focus is going almost entirely to ex-WWE/NXT people, doesn't matter how mediocre/untalented they can be. Likewise with Hendry last year, they totally missed the peak (and hometown pop) for Santana, having him perform in front of an audience who was halfway supporting Trick Williams, not to mention the ones who left after getting their nostalgia shit. The HOF ceremony was cool although there was not a lot of people in the building at this point. The Beautiful People look almost exactly like they did 15 years ago. Fun thing, Velvet Sky still sounds exactly like Velvet Sky, whereas it was almost odd listening to Angelina Love who sounded like a different person (she mostly had been a bitch heel all her career) and gave quite a nice and genuine speech. Both mentioned Billy Gunn, neither mentioned Madison Rayne (to the surprise of no one, really). Mickie James was also good, and came off as charismatic as she always does. She's really someone I would have loved to have a stint in AEW, but oh well, her last rodeo in IMPACT (when it was still fun to watch) was really cool. (Carlos Silva literally sitting in the cuck chair at ringside will never not be funny. This guy is taking *every chance he gets* to appear on TV)

Actually I was reading a thread the other day about a bunch of TNA contracts ending after BFG and where these people would go (or stay), and one guy wrote that the Rascalz (who I really though for the longest time were WWE bound, if only because of Wes Lee being over there and them getting the NXT feature regularly at one point, not lately though) were probably gonna go to AEW as a trio since Wes Lee was bound to be cut. 😄 No idea, but they have been running in circles for ever now, not doing anything of note, featured on TV but not really getting pushed (gotta milk that old Hardy juice to the max), not getting any real feud or angle. That bunch of names is also the most NXT coded shit ever. Imagine being part of the Bloodline and still getting cut, after never being used. That says a lot about how much they think of you. (btw, is Hikuleo on TV these days ? He sat on his ass for a year after signing)

It says a whole lot about how far NJPW has fallen in my book when I don't even remember last show I watched. Must be the one where ZSJ won the title maybe ? Anywoo. Also says a lot when in fact, the only match on the undercard I look forward to at King of Wrestling is Sareee vs Syuri, although I have no doubt they won't get the time they should (NJPW's handling of the woman title has been abysmal). Is Takeshita winning the belt ? How is that possibly hurting the Takeshita vs Okada feud in AEW (which is more interesting than anything Takeshita could do in NJPW, really) ? EVIL vs Oleg Boltin will be all kind of awful, even more when EVIL wins another title I guess. Gabe Kidd vs Yuta Tsuji should be really good, but the hype on Tsuji has died down and he hasn't improved to the point I'm that interested in his matches. I'd rather watch Uemura get that push. Will there be some big surprise on the show leading to the Tokyo Dome ?

Man, that sucks for her. I actually enjoyed her short TNA champ stint (as opposed to Trick Williams').

Speaking of Kylie Rae, who recently gave up the "WWEID Women's championship" (yeah, I know) because she got pregnant, she announced her contract is not being renewed. Stay classy WWE. This whole thing for a joke anyway. She's a 33 veteran who would outwork many people in either WWE or AEW's women's roster. Either they wanted her despite her past issues, either they didn't. Signing her to a WWEID was kinda humiliating if you ask me. Hopefully D'Amore just gets her for MLP, he obviously loves her (booked her for the first shows, wanted to make her TNA champ before she crashed out). But yeah, that WWEID shit is dead in the water already.

Not even one year in and the answer seems to be : totally fucking useless. A bunch of people have been cut already, Zayda Steel just said she wasn't renewing the contract, thank you very much. No one ever talks about the ill-fated GCW hosted (Hi Brett, ya rebel) ID tournament events that have been parts of Mania and SummerSlam week-end. The reality is that trying to choke out AEW's access to talent is ridiculous when they have way too many already. And whomever wants to go will go anyway. In the meantime, WWE has been releasing talents, a bunch of them ending up in cuck/partner promotion TNA (Hi Carlos, ya funny looking cap wearing puppet). No one gives a flying fuck about "Evolve", not even the parent promotion it seems. WWEID is just another failure of a project. Remember when they literally begged promotions to book their WWID contracted people on social medias ? Yeah, maybe the word is actually "cringe".

In other sad news, Raven is suffering from early-onset Parkinson's diseases. Alcohol and chair shots to the head, ya know... He seems to be in a good place mentally though.

OMG that sounds awful. He was doing so well for the first time in years. That poor guy. Hopefully he gets healthy again eventually, no matter whatever happens to his actual wrestling career.

Yeah, really good episode overall but nothing *special*, which for a Daily's Place episode feels a bit too bad. You'd expect some more, I dunno. The promo segment between Hangman and Joe was awesome, so was Pac (who apparently stole Brian Cage's vitanims during his down time) vs Orange, which was a very fitting Daily's place main event. Ditto Mox vs Ishii. It's crazy how old man Ishii has successfully adapted his formula to US TV wrestling. You know Darby vs Mox is ending with fire, right ? Which is never a good idea, but hopefully they can do it in a spectacular yet safe way. Okada & Takeshita vs Brodido getting a PPV match wasn't on my bingo card, but most of this PPV seems to be "matches you didn't think you'd get but are glad you're getting". Ditto Kyle vs Briscoe (loved Kyle vs Kyle again, O'Reilly has been on a serious roll) and Jurassik Express vs Young Bucks. Lacey Layne was also very much a Daily's place tradition of "and the crowd goes mild" surprise (remember Mark Henry, Paul Wight, Christian Cage). Was I supposed to be excited about this ? She looked pretty good though (likewise against Mina the other week on ROH), but it kinda felt like whatever in the grand scheme of things. No follow-up for Mercedes nor news about the tag belts was a miss though. (i have no word about the Hurt Syndicate anymore. The fact they are still booked after refusing to drop the belt is embarrassing, and they keep on having the worst match on every card and still don't put anyone over. Oh yeah, they "lost" at the PPV with washed up MVP getting pinned, but now they fucking beat RIcochet. One year after, they have confirmed everything I ever said about them : worst signing in AEW history. I for one am GLAD Santos Escobar has re-signed with WWE, because he was about the 27th most exciting guy in LU back in the days, and I was dreading another bad signing) The PPV looks terrific. What else is new ?

Mox vs Darby, Toni vs Stat, Hangman vs Joe. The thing is, AEW has such ridiculous depth of talent, even with all the injured people at the top, it's like it doesn't even matter. 6 years is basically the entirety of ECW's run (almost, ya know) or WCW's Nitro era run. And it *buries* both of them in ridiculous fashion. The greatest 6 years of US wrestling TV ever. That mix-tag was all kind of awesome, and damn that Marina Shafir spot would have made Badboy Hido proud. Now that's a niche reference, but wherever else if not PWO ? I have loved her ever since I saw her do indies years ago, and I'm so glad she got to find that perfect spot for her abilities. She's never gonna have that 5* match, but whatever, she's been just perfect as the Deathriders heater and getting more involved in actual matches recently.

Apparently Ash is legit retiring because of undisclosed health issues. Damn. On a much lighter note, gotta love the never-ending cucking of TNA. They ran a vignette for Mara Sadé this week, and it goes like this "I became of fan of pro-wrestling watching Total Divas. (....) and then I lost my dream job". Holy fuck TNA, can't you even *pretend* at least ? 😂 Also, IInspiration getting the tag belts, because everything has to be about former WWE people. Sucks for Heather & M, who did a great job carrying those two slugs (seriously, how *bad* can you still be after all these years in the business ?).