El-P

It came from the viewers. It trended on Twitter after a 30 seconds match (imagine that, in 2015) between the Bellas and Emma & Paige on February 23. Mind you, at this point Paige & Emma already had their "patient zero" match in NXT a while ago. And of course TNA had ran legit women's wrestling for years now, but that's another story. Two days later AJ Lee basically made a tweet complaining about how women were not paid enough considering how much ratings they would drew (inspired by Patricia Arquette's speech at the Oscars the same year apparently). One months and a half later, she was retiring and was gone, and pretty much erased from history because of the CM Punk issue. So yeah, I'm sure plenty of current women wrestler were inspired by her character at the time which was cool and different from your run-of-the-mill diva, but still, there's a heavy dose of gaslighting going on. Funny how depending of the moment, the "Women Revolution" (and really now...) started with Paige vs Emma in NXT, oh no wait it was the Four Horsewomen, oh no wait Mercedes is not here anymore so it actually was AJ Lee... EDIT : even funnier when you look back at the source https://www.instagram.com/p/DORp4vbjmo1/ One day, some serious study of the toxic sewer that was 2000's/2010's WWE really should be done.

WWE continues to influence the world !

So yeah, the Hardies vs Team 3D match at BGF will indeed, be a table's match. Because things could not get any worse. The Hardies at this point can have *good* matches with great teams like the Rascalz or Leon Slater & Cedric Alexander. They absolutely are effective at being the 50 years old Hardies. But with Bully Ray (I've seen him in MLP last year, it wasn't pretty) and D-von in whatever ring shape he'll be. Holy fuck. And yeah, they are pushing Indi Hartwell as the potential next champ. Because of course, she's basically from NXT, so she should be pushed ahead of much better talent. And really, I did not know anything about Hartwell before, I heard she did not have the greatest rep as a worker. Well, she's just *bad*. Like, when you can't have a good match with Tessa Blanchard (yeah, I know, but still), you're *bad*. And she really hasn't exactly shined as a character either. Seems like they just rest on the fact that "Well, she's Indi Hartwell from NXT", which for that crowd, seems to be enough (guess why ?). Meanwhile, Dani Luna is most probably gonna work against Mercedes Moné in RevPro, which is quite the interesting dynamic, as there's no way Moné drops the belt to a TNA contracted wrestler (my guess is that when she does, Kanji gets it). I would really like to see Luna and Masha go the Speedball/Josh Alexander/Ace Austin way after they finish with TNA. And also, I've read the spoilers of the last tapings. They brought Ken Anderson back. At this rate I halfway except another EC3 run. (both guys whom, BTW, in their days have had underrated TNA stints, actually, but in 2025, yikes)

And that's exactly the angle that isn't talked about and should. They brought her back and will gaslight people about how important she was was "women's wrestling" (she was to some extent in WWE for a short while, but as predicted the general discourse is already overrating how important she was) and "women's rights" in WWE while at the very same time, putting back on TV the guy who took part in sex-trafficking an employee with the boss. And THIS is the important part, actually. The rest is irrelevant sports-entertainment shit. AJ Lee coming back is basically whitewashing Lesnar's return (not that it even needed to be considering how the WWE audience hasn't cared at all about a sex predator being on TV in a major role again, but in term of public discourse, it serves its purpose in drowning whatever could be told about Lesnar, that has already be told anyway). (I would add that she and Punk deserves each other, but that would be a personal shot. Then again, actions speaks louder than words, or tweets. She agreed to come back at the same time sex-trafficker #3 did. Hell of a message in term of speaking out for women, pun absolutely intended)

Danielson part of the Dynamite announcing team full time. Fuck yes ! Fuck yes ! Fuck yes !

Yeah, I'm all about Riho vs Mercedes Moné. I sure didn't see this one coming. The 2300 is great for AEW. Maybe not for ratings (whatever), but I couldn't care less. I hear there's talk about an Hammerstein Ballroom residency again ? Fuck yeah. Make it the last rounds of the CC again !

It's completely insane to me that we've reached this point of nostalgia for the early 2010's WWE. AJ Lee was barely above your standard diva's level (there's a reason why a match like Emma vs Paige, which was *good*, was considered so revolutionary in WWE at the time) and she only stood out because she looked like a teenage Avril Lavigne fan and was marketed as some sort of "anti-diva" character (while still being sold as hot as fuck, because hey). Plus, the fact she came back on the same TV show as the sex-trafficking shithead is quite something when they'll push her as this revolutionary figure for women's wrestling. Talk about a smoke-screen effect. (watching the clip, she also looks 15 years younger than Punk. Damn, that guy has AGED in the last 3 years it's insane) (reading results of WWE show is insane too. 3 hour TV show, 3 matches, two of which under ten minutes. WOW)

It's kinda fascinating how Joe Hendry has basically vanished from TNA programmings in the last few weeks. And really, when you look at his entire "rise", it speaks volume about how the WWE/TNA partnership works and how inept TNA's booking has been. He was getting over big time in 2024 thanks to his song getting viral. Then TNA fumbled (pun intended) and did not put the title on him at Slammiversary when he was seemingly at his hottest. At this point, he was already getting featured on NXT regularly. They finally had him win the title with the involvement of JBL, a nonsensical and lame storyline that went absolutely nowhere and was basically dropped despite playing a role in every big title match for the last few months. And from there, what ? Well, nothing really. He never had a real feud as TNA champ. The closest thing was the short built Kazarian/Ethan Page three-way PPV match in Winter of 2025 (Page actually did the job). But his entire character and hype was that he was appearing in big WWE shows. He appeared in Royal Rumble as TNA champ, got treated like a geek (TNA fans applauded because it was great for TNA). He appeared at Mania as TNA champ, got treated like a geek (TNA fans applauded because it was great for TNA). Then lost the title to Trick Williams on an TXT show. And then... not much. He was plugged artificially into the Santana/Williams match at Slammiversary, which was pimped as the biggest attendance ever in the company's history (easily forgetting that AJ Styles showing up drew almost 3K on its own), a match Santana, in his hometown, should have won but lost, in similar fashion Hendry lost the previous year. He actually did the job there too. And from there, he's basically been in the background, letting the Hardies and Trick Williams be the biggest attraction in the company. He was last seen last week being dropped backstage by Eric Young, who's been given his hundreds variation of evil/deranged/maniac/cult leader persona yet. Oh, and they pimped him beating the Miz on a WWE houseshow in Europe. Contract is basically ending soon, and he's been heard on an NXT show tell the crowd he would be on NXT now a few weeks back. So there. That's the "great" Joe Hendry story in TNA. Both how he was handled by the booking of his own promotion, not capitalizing when his popularity was at its peak (which he did not get from his pro-wrestling talent and/or booking, he was an undercard comedy character for a long while before his song got viral), and how WWE completely hijacked whatever hype he had. I fail to see how that benefited in any way shape or form to TNA. The talk of "record attendance" is well and good when it's artificially bumped by WWE guys, but the truth is, the weekly tapings are not looking that good (tons of empty seats in those way too big buildings), there's zero talk about PPV buys. And Joe Hendry himself has lost whatever creativity he had during his infancy days in TNA (not to mention his indie days) to milk his meme like there's no tomorrow, making his matches which always were pretty mediocre, even more patterned and meme-ish. I have no doubt he'll sell crazy merch for a while in WWE, where chants and sing-alongs theme are more important than having any kind of good match. But for all the hype and cult following, Joe Hendry's very short run at the top of TNA has been a whole load of nothing and basically window-dressing for WWE's predatory "collab".

And I mean, if if doesn't dent AEW's buyrate *badly*, what's the next plan ? They are putting up the sex-trafficking shit vs John Cena on his (crappy) retirement tour and now there's words AJ Lee is gonna be back at this event (now that's gonna be an entire story in term of unbearable discourse and gaslighting). What's the next big "legend" they can use ? Jericho next year ? Because there's one thing the AEW audience will absolutely do, it's switch to WWE instead to watch Chris Jericho in 2026...

Grand Prix Internacional was awesome. What else is new ? Gotta love that Speedball was positioned as the star of the International Team, being paired with Mistico at the beginning and the end. Must have been the highlight of his career thus far. Mistico in 2025 in Arena Mexico is just an amazing thing to watch in term of atmosphere. And he's not "aura farming" (yeah, gen-z talk here) either, he's working his ass off at his 42 banged up self. MLW being valued as a partner by CMLL will never not be weird, but it allowed Donovan Dijak to be in this, and he made sure he belonged. That mofo even did a torneo. Beast Mortos sure signed the best contract of his life with AEW, now, didn't he ? (on every level) Next is Anniversario, and unlike the disaster last year with Jericho (remember this ?) it should be a classic. (it would be quite ironic if the year WWE did their predatory shit by buying the second biggest lucha promotion to turn it into an americanized feeder system, CMLL won promotion of the year, Mistico won wrestler of the year and Bandido won best worker, which at this point, they really all should)

I totally take Red Death Daniel Garcia as a part of Deathriders 2.0 (pun intended) alongside Statlander. Gotta love these B-shows were FTR gives a whole lot to JD Drake and Adam Priest. And the obligatory Vanilla Baby is great segment. A evil version of Hologram is not the worst idea. It's kinda classic actually. Why did this vignette gave me some Blood Runs Cold, lucha version, feels ? Dunno. I totally am not taking for granted how fun these multi-women matches have been week in and week out. If they end up doing that women Blood & Guts, which they totally should, I got a feeling Sky Blue is gonna try to do some really stupid shit, and I love her for it.

Just put ROH on Youtube and make it a paywall like IMPACT used to do. And Death before Dishonor was an awesome show. Between the mat clinic that was Moriarty vs Xelhua, the fun QT Marshall vs PWH garbage match, Sammy having the best time of his life being a douchebag again (the interactions with the crowd, who loved Rush, were just great), the entire undercard being really solid to very good (loving Deonna being featured after that lengthy talk about her issues by TK, hopefully that will be a fresh new start maybe as Pure division champ, this would be perfect for her; loving STP finally winning some gold) and of course that insane epic Bandido vs Hechicero match. And the most amazing thing to me about this whole thing, is Athena and Mina having to follow this stuff and went "Yep, we can follow it". And did they follow it (a much better match that the Toni Storm match at Forbidden Door too). I pre-shot the Blue Meanie cameo as soon as Billie showed up with that blue MIT shirt. Yeah, Meanie danced with Mina, of course. Intimate settings > big arenas. Always.

Dying laughing. The "Vous connaissez NordVPN ?" joke has never been funnier.

This is cool as shit : "This is not the first time I got worked in this building !" 😂

It's funny, I could not put my fingers on it while I was watching, but after the fact I realized that this show actually made me think of something else, moreso than ECW. And that's WCW. Ya know, the Disney Nitros during the early nWo days. And that's one of my all time favorite wrestling TV ever. I always preferred small, intimate places anyway, but this hit me after the fact. And now, all I can think about is, please Coach TK, have a Club La Vella-like residency during Spring Break. With the ring on a pool. And the sea not that far so we can get fuckery on the beach. Yeah. That's right.

So after losing the KO title to Jacy Jayne, TNA got their title back on NXT Heatwave. Ash by Elegance, who's already the tag team champion too, won the title back. By pinning Masha Slamovich. Because OF COURSE. 😂 (I really hope Masha and eventually Dani Luna are getting out of TNA to a better place, and by that I don't mean NXT)

Yeah, Jericho leaving in 2026 at 54 is not gonna be a perception issue in the current landscape. Three years ago ? Sure. Now, he's just gonna be another old guy going back for a fat paycheck and a shitty retirement in WWE. The funny thing is gonna be the online discourse about him though, all of a sudden he'll be the greatest icon ever and still a great wrestler and looking better than he had in years and shit. You know it's going to happen.

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.