El-P

Nope. Because I was pretty much ready with the perspective of the Elite being gone and ending up at the Royal Rumble or something at one point (early on after the debacle I mean, I really thought this would be the end for all of them basically), and as an old CM Punk fan I would have popped at his promo too, just like I laughed at the in-ring trolling. Again, I'm a fan of ALL involved. I just don't take this stuff either too seriously nor, god forbid, personally.

Masters at work. Of course it is. I'm not gonna lie, I say I think there's 0%, but deep down inside my pro-wrestling fan heart, there's still a little voice that says "never say never" and a minuscule hope that maybe, one of these days, when his injury has healed up, we hear Cult of Personality again and we get those Punk & FTR vs Elite matches leading to Punk vs Omega. Just a tiny, little, small voice... Anything bigger would lead me to disappointment. In the meantime, I had a good laugh, and it's much needed. I take whatever I can.

He fucking did it to Hangman Page and that was the first occurence of him being unprofessional on live TV ! The amount of triggering Omega & The Bucks proceed to produce is absolutely fascinating.

The joke is just awesome, that's all. My God, all of this is almost worth it by the incredible amount of salt by Serious Sams everywhere. Also, let's be real for two fucking seconds. If the situation was reversed and the Elite were gone, is there ANY doubt whatsoever, considering his track record (including what he did in AEW in his last months), that CM Punk would have dropped some bombs on them during a promo, totally unrelated to anything, and all the Punk fanboys would be like "OMG THIS IS THE GREATEST PROMO EVER, THE ELITE ARE OWNED !" despite the fact it would lead to, well, nothing either ? Come on now.

You forget something more important. They were gonna get booed. They knew it. They did what pro-wrestlers do. They worked the crowd. And boy did they. And there are two levels of people booing them : the ones who chanted "Fuck the Elite !" yet probably had fun being triggered by all the trolling and then chanted some more, and had a blast doing it; and the ones who were legit annoyed and guess what, they got worked to boo even more, that's old-school pro-wrestling. And then there's the entire other part of the crowd, who died laughing and had a blast just because it was funny as fuck. Worked on three different levels already in term of the actual night and audience that was there. As far as turning people away, my guess is that most of the hardcore Punk fans are gone already. And you always hear the most vocal people who complain anyway. In the grand scheme of things, I doubt it matters much. And really, if that kind of stuff offend some people *so much* that they quit watching AEW.... well, again, don't think it'll represent much of the audience, really. If Punk comes back, it would be incredible, but to me the odds are about 0% (but of course, as it happened I was thinking "Wait.... what if ?" which is also part of the beauty of pro-wrestling, but in the end I took it as old-school MNW era troll job updated). And really now, sorry but this guy is a fucking genius. The GOAT, as they say.

Well, the demo was more about Sable and Debra in skimpy outfits, really. MEAT was a miserable failure, and even in his case, the real draw were Jackie & Terri. The fact I even remember it kinda makes me sad, I'm just old and remember useless stuff from 30 years ago but hardly anything precise from three years back.

*search Wiki* Oh. Wow. Seems like she's dating yet another wonderful dude. But yeah, antisemitic shit Kayne West's song is not a good idea. Especially just as he's gonna face MJF, ya know.

Martel got offered big money by WCW, so he opted for that instead. Hence Callis ending up as whatever he ended up being in WWF. Kinda screwed Callis, because he was too small to be seen as anything other than a manager. Wait...

There's a super toxic attitude going on with "fans" acting like they own whoever they support, like they were owed something. Maybe it comes from this social media era, but it breads a culture of entitlement leading toward massive harassement campaigns and such. People do act like they own part of their favorite artists now, maybe because the social media kinda creates a deeper parasocial context. They also act like they are *part* of what they consume, which is why we get absurd and unhealthy tribalism with people declaring "victory" whenever their favorite show/company gets a rating, and hoping for the "opposition" to fail (in the case of pro-wrestling it's absolutely appalling to see the large amount of WWE fanboys actually wishing death on AEW, showing that they absolutely do not care about the actual pro-wrestling business as a whole and people wanting to make a living off what they love doing). Newsflash, you're just consumers. You won't get a raise for sucking up to whoever is not even your boss. And you're not part of the company, you're not fucking soldiers either. You're just consumers buying products. This.

In other news, pro-wrestlers being, well, kinda dumb. Awesome timing. Even just saying it on a podcast right now makes him look dumb, really. Like, read the fucking room already.

Ok. Gotta give credit where credit is due. This had me rollin.

I died at the CM Punk trolling. These guys are just on another level. Especially a few days after Omega had that "I wish people would let it behind" interview. They are just the master shitposters meta pro-wrestlers that elevates the entire thing into an artwork. Oh, the match was awesome too. As was Jericho vs Ishii. For a second I thought they would go into Taichi vs Ibushi territory, but hey, awesome nonetheless. Glad we're done with the interim stuff. And now we're setting up the split with Baker again. Okay. Good. The Danielson promo was too much WWE-lite to me, and it did not get over one bit. Moxley was terrific. For a second there I thought Regal was actually done with the company too. House of Black comeback. Yes ! Here's hoping they get that big-ass push. Jake Hagger's calling is comedic matches and vignettes. The two highlights of his AEW career as single talent have been this match and the vignettes before the big Mox title match, with his wife and kids.

NJPW X Stardom show was just tons of fun. We need more crossover shows like this. Totally makes you want to follow both promotions, as it freshens the perception, although really Stardom doesn't need it right now, they look hot enough on their own. And NJPW looks better too already with Umino coming back, the new women's title, Omega vs Ospreay at the Dome. Hopefully things pick up in 2023 after the very dire and depressing pandemic years.

If Trump, Bolsonaro and Sarkozy all end up in jail in 2023, then it would be a decent enough year. Justice would be the booker of the year. Instead, Elon Musk is probably gonna buy the Moon or something.

He was in awesome shape and had his best stint in term of in-ring work since probably Strike Force. Then he had to work with Booker and Stevie. Ended up with two concussions and a fucked up knee. Then retired because he was already making enough money with his other business. So yeah, fuck that idiot Booker and his inept brother.

Because they were not supposed to get the title back to begin with. The Hardys were. Alas, Jeff Hardy being Jeff Hardy changed the plans. Anyway, I'm so done with all of this 'pick a side" bullshit. As a huge fan of both teams, I win every time, unless they all end up in WWE. I'm a happy pro-wrestling fan whenever I get the Bucks or FTR. People may be miserable if that suits them and keep on bitching forever. Their loss.

Where were you when he did his TNA stint ? (which honestly I thought ended up being pretty ok, but I guess my standards were pretty low) He's also a corporate drone dumbfuck, but that's beside the point. My opinion on his work really dropped when I went through my global WCW rewatch a few years ago. Oh, and he obviously sucks at his job now : WCW 2000 level right there.

In a more positive newsbit, Darby Allin will tag with Sting & Muta for The Great Muta's character retirement match. That is certainly something for young Darby.

Indeed. Also, fun fact : most of the people defending vigilantism are the same exact crowd that complain about "Twitter & social media tribunal" whenever women publicly speak of sexual abuse and drop names. Funny how it works : men with guns shooting in public = "I would have done the same thing !"; women speaking out with keyboards = "Hey, presumption of innocence is so important, go to the justice or shut up". So yeah, I get why he would get some sympathy. But what he did was horribly wrong. Allowing him to take part in a spectacle where he'll get applauded and cheered (probably also *because* of what he did, in this case) is really not a good signal to send, at all.

So, Cain Velasquez, who's facing charges for attempted murder, is allowed by the judge to work the AAA's December event, as he requested. That's pretty unique.

I do think they are challenging themselves on purpose by having such a series of matches on TV in term of how they'll work it. I just hope no one gets injured. It pretty much makes my end-year worth it in term of AEW weekly TV.

The fact he was over has no correlation with his actual work. Harlem Heat was over big in 1996/97. In early 1998 he was so great he injured Rick Martel *twice* (then the job was finished by his godawful brother, leading to Martel's retirement). Booker T is one of the most overrated guy ever.

It made Booker T, who was never a very good worker. It made him look about ten times as good as he actually was and better than he would ever be (he did improve in WWE, but its not like he ever was that great, as his peak was King Booker which had nothing to do with his in-ring work). People still think of Booker as better than he ever was, and that's because of this series of matches. Sort of a magic trick, really.

Yeah. That is *actually* what happens. I'm pretty sure a lot of workers actually shake their head when they read stuff that is basically fanfics from angry fanboys. Hell, even when Dax is just sharing something that is super important for him and dear to his heart, you got comments being all pissy about the Bucks and whatnot, not realizing the guy who they *think* they support (but infact do not but pretend to because it validates their own little tribalist biased opinion about "what pro-wrestling should be") is just giving them the biggest praise ever. As far as the "tribute act" line, you people realize that the Bucks wanted to work with FTR for ever (and vice-versa) when they were in WWE and basically built a potential dream match for themselves (and everybody else) ? It's like Omega and Ospreay talking shit about each other for a year straight about wrestling style and such, which is very much ingrained in the Japanese mentality. You really think the Bucks don't know what they owe to who came before ? Seriously ? They are a META tag-team at heart, it's basically exactly where they came from, their entire career is a love letter to those teams who came before them. Fuck, they were doing MX shit in TNA in 2010. Yup. Hey, I'm a HUGE FTR fan and certainly wish they would be more on TV and PPV too. The Acclaimed getting over at that level probably wasn't predictable. Meanwhile, FTR got pretty much 3 MOTYC this year, which has been the best of their career by their own admission, they are working Wrestling Kingdom next year. Not that bad, all things considered.

Looking at the list of available former ROH champ, there's not that many left as outsiders surprises. I could see Davey Richards, Homicide or, much more doubtful, Low-Ki showing up for the weekly show. Ironically enough, Eddie Edwards and PCO are feuding in IMPACT now, and although I guess PCO could show up, there's no way Eddie Edwards just shows up in AEW to do a job without anything in return. Micheal Elgin is a NO FUCKING WAY. For the PPV, my best guess is Danielson winning the title. He said recently he did not want to be AEW champ at all, but ROH champ would actually be a case of him being able to work with a lot of younger guys, which is what he wants to do for whatever time left he wants to put in. Either this or Sammy, but I don't see Sammy turning babyface again. Sammy & Tay reigning over ROH as an anchor douchebag couple heel act could be pretty fun.