El-P

Nothing to do with Matt Hardy, who worked super hard here.

I did found quite funny that on Dynamite they did not say a word about Lethal working Flair's last match but did refer to the card to promote Mance Warner. Like, yeah, better not mention the truly embarrassing part of the show.

Noticed it too. And yeah, how fucking dumb can you be. He's paying good money to look like a complete dumbfuck on TV. Corny's army certainly is something. NOt to mention it deprives someone who would have enjoyed the show of a good spot. Whatever. People are dumb shit.

Coach TK doesn't react to Trip or a RAW huge ratings because he doesn't have to. Would made no sense to hit the panic button. It's a long haul game, or like Trip would say, "a marathon, not a sprint". Going on about their business and looking to build toward a hot Fall seasons before TV contract negociations is the goal. And in the shorter term, next week is the big show. Orange vs Lethal was terrific. Lethal has been nothing but *great* in every situation he's been put thus far in AEW (much to my surprise). Orange losing is not gonna hurt him one bit. He's a guy who can lose and stay over, plus it's been made clear his leg had been fucked up. Not worried about Orange, who has picked quite a bit of steam back since his return. Thunderstorm vs Britt & Hayter was also terrific. All four were, really. Love me some more Hayter, and Britt has gotten more snugg lately it seems, fits her character well. Rosa vs Hayter with hopefully some really stiff work incoming, that should be really good. Adam Cole back but not really. So, does Omega comes back to team with the Bucks after all or will Hangman reunite with them before ? The Elite drama has always been the best thing in AEW as far as long term storyline. And matches too. People can say whatever about Jericho, but at 51 (I think that's undersold), the guy can still deliver some really good singles match including workers from a totally different generation. He's actually much better in this simple setting than in WWE-like gimmicked matches. On the other hand, I'm sorry to say that Christian Cage has been wildly underdelivering to me. He's been *solid* at best. I sure hope after the Jungle Boy loss he's not getting that much more featured spot (not that he even works that many matches anyway, fuck, Sting has worked a ton more), because I don't see anything special or interesting in this guy's work anymore (last stuff I enjoyed from him was his IMPACT stuff last year). For a supposed "great mind", there's nothing even in term of "details" that I can gather from his stuff, it's routine older Christian Cage, which is solid and all, but really now, there is about 50 people I'd rather watch. Even Iron-Sheiked Matt Hardy is more interesting because he's in such a rough shape that it's kinda compelling to see him still try as hard as he physically can. There you go. Mance Warner ? Well, that's a choice... Never was a fan in MLW nor GCW, he's Jimmy Havoc level guy to me with kinda annoying white trash promos, but hey, I guess if Mox wants to have a garbage bloodbath again he's the guy. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but really I only enjoyed him when Sami Callihan was beating his ass. Madison !!!!!!!!!!!

*facepalm* Some things will probably improve, maybe even greatly, but please, can we be done with the revisionist bullshit ? He's out, ya know, it's okay to talk about actual history now.

Hey, had no idea what Corny's feelings were about that one, so, makes sense. It's just that with so many people sending videos, it was odd not to see him, as Flair was such a part of his prime. So apparently Flair was knocked loopy and forgot most of the match happening. Holy shit, it was even a worse idea than it seemed.

She's been a terrific performer for close to 15 years, that's the story on her. You want someone who will help in term of character work and details, she's the one. I hope she'll get to do some in-front-of-camera stuff from time to time, because I'll obviously miss watching her on IMPACT, although she already retired once during the pandemic, so it's just bonus at this point. Really cool signee for AEW. She worked at All In too, so in a way she's an AEW "original".

This is supposed to be really Day 1 of Levesque's booked WWE. 08/01/22. Remember the date.

Nothing to do with "paying dues" and whatnot. Everything to do with no one fucking cares about a giant guy just because he's a giant guy in 2022. If the guy ends up being good, who knows. But the discourse about "paying dues" completely misses the point. A guy like Hook really has not "paid dues". He had his first match on TV. Over as fuck. Same for Jade Cargill (hell, her first match on TV involved a celebrity, she was pushed from day 1). Really completely different issues.

Thought of this very basic analogy. If I'm going to a music festival, and on the main stage at one point there's this band comprised of TV personalities and Youtube influencers and whatnot, I'm not gonna care if they play guitar well and if they do a good cover of a David Bowie song or if the TV reality girl is actually a good singer. I just want to watch the bands I enjoy play the music I like. I'm not gonna care because these are some famous people playing music, even if the music itself is well played.

This. Plus, the whole "charisma" deal should be deconstructed anyway. As talked about when Scott Hall passed away, someone who seemingly has zero charisma (Big Scott Hall) can become someone with an incredible amount of charisma (Razor Ramon/nWo Scott Hall). All of this should be thought about through the lenses of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, really. But anyway, to make it short (and very Bourdieuesque), these people come in with an already established symbolic capital. So of course they are gonna get more reaction than whoever has been grinding in the company for years without getting a good push or good booking. This has nothing to do with "getting" pro-wrestling or "getting over". This is just a matter of social status. Now, the fact they take it seriously enough to do their best at it is something different, and good for them and people working with them. Not forgetting that they also get very much privilege treatment (in term of training, rehearsals, production and presentations) though. And really, I'm not criticizing WWE for doing it. I understand how things work. It's just not something I'm interested into for reasons cited above : I don't care about celebrities. Therefore I have no reason to find it cool or special that a celebrity shows up and does pro-wrestling at big shows. I just don't give a flying fuck, and whether they are good or not is irrelevant. The whole argument of "taking" the spots of actual regular workers, well, that's an entire different argument, which has everything to do with economics and working conditions. Lots can be said about it without the arguments being reduced to "gotta pay your dues" and such.

There would be so much to say about the show, first how completely surrealistic the whole thing was in term of how many people from so many promotions got together. Fucking Taker at ringside with Foley ? Bret showing up at the end (looking like "hey, I'm glad I did not came back to look that that... fuck, forgot about that Mania with Vince"). Jim Cornette being so alienated in the pro-wrestling industry that in a show about Flair's last match which had David Crockett (as useless as ever, a joy to hear), Sting, Lex Luger, Shawn Micheals, a cameo by Jerry Lawler (write your own jokes), people from IMPACT, MLW, NWA, AEW, WWE, NJPW, AAA, ROH, and even Dixie fucking Carter sending her wishes, he would be nowhere to be found. The fact all of this was put together by that predatory loan shark turned wrestling podcast empire owner who also happens to be the other son-in-law.... really, DA FUCK ? I mostly was there for the undercard, which was a mish-mash was really good stuff, like the opener and of course the insane lucha match, which totally stole the show (and Taurus being the greatest base in pro-wrestling as he actually saves lives, Bandido owns him one big time), and other stuff not so good. One thing that was so striking to me is how many "sons-of" there was on this show, and which ones are going to be stars and great workers. I thought the worst thing (until the main event) was the rather sad to watch (until the main event) Ricky & his son Morton vs Pillman & Anderson (the sons of). As much as Ricky still looked active a few years back, now he looks like he's done. And the three other guys... they come off are re-enactors. See also, the Von Erichs, who have been around for about 10 years and never gathered any hype whatsoever, and really only ever got booked because of their name. Here they looked like the Smoking Gunns if Billy had forgotten his boots. And really now, to have a nothing match with the Briscoes, that takes some special kind of mediocre. Pillman as a heel looked better than usual. Anderson is ok, but CM was miles better, and that was more than 20 years ago. The son of Morton really showed me zilch. Meanwhile, Nick Wayne, at 17 years old, is better than any 17 years old I've ever seen this side of Terry Gordy (not sure how old Rey was when he had his first great matches in AAA). He's looking up at Will Ospreay, not people from 35/40 years ago. And he actually had a MOTYC match with Ospreay in GCW already. How good will this kid be in 5 years, when he'll be 22 ? 22 ! Yeah, there's something there about people training early, and looking at the present and forward, not behind. Kudos for Rachelle Ellering because it's obvious she screwed up her ankle badly, yet she still worked the match. Kinda screwed up the dynamic though, as everybody seemed to kinda go through the motions to get the match in and out. Reminds me that I need to catch up with IMPACT, I miss watching Deonna Purrazzo. Alexander vs Fatu was fun, but I've seen countless much better matches from Alexander in the last three years. So yeah, for all its hype, Fatu is kinda like a Brian Cage to me, not better. Post match with DDP showing up from nowhere like it's 1997 was pretty cool and made up for the "Can't have a winner in this interpromotional match" booking straight out of the 80's. I must say, Scarlett Bordeaux. I forgot. Damn. Oh there was a match happening too. They should really have made it a *Capitol Hill on a poll match*. At one point when these two guys were slapping meat and Scarlett was heard screaming "Harder !", my mind wandered for a second of two... Can I get Scarlett and that guy with hair on IMPACT or something ? Or ROH ? Yeah, that main event... Does anyone really enjoyed seeing a 73 years old wrinkled-ass with barely any mobility (he could barely do the strut, really), bleeding a bit, looking like he was gonna die at the end and really doing *nothing*. Hell, apart from one or two shots, he could not even throw a good chop. He took that one suplex bump, which was even lesser than what they thought he could do. Seriously, is that the last picture Flair wanted of him inside the ring ? I thought it was pretty pathetic and embarrassing. Meanwhile, you know who looked like he was in great shape, got shitload of heat and actually stole the show and made this main event semi-watchable ? Jeff fucking Jarrett. From the awesome entrance, to the interactions with Karen, who's as great as ever as a heel valet (I want her on my TV every week like it's 2011 TNA), to his simple but efficient and crisp looking work. This guy, who was fired by Vince on TV, who's now back in a post-Vince WWE in a higher up office job, who manages to slide his way into this spot, working with two AEW guys, using his TNA theme, making himself the last man ever pinned by Flair, but really he did all the work including a Double J Special with the guitar spot... If I'm Triple H, I'm looking behind my back when I walk through Titan Towers corridors, because when all it's said and done, who fucking knows. Post match promo was okay I guess, as it was about the fans, the family and.... Kid Rock ? Da fuck ? Yeah. Really good production (thank you IMPACT guys, apparently), cool interpromotional feel (including Nick Gage and GCW invading the Bunkhouse Brawl) but Flair really had no business in the ring at this age, and this is probably not how you want to remember him. Then again, Dark Side of the Ring wasn't the way you wanted to remember him either, I guess...

Celebrity wrestling sucks. I don't care about it, never have, never will. I understand why it's done but then again, I also realize that most of the time, the pro-wrestling I enjoy the most came from promotion/cultures with next to none celebrity wrestling. Also, I gotta roll my eyes everytime a celebrity does well and we get the usual "X gets pro-wrestling better than 90% of actual pro-wrestler", because it totally misses the point about so many things, but whatever. I guess that's me being a hardcore fan at heart, and also, in many more ways than one, always enjoying smaller scale stuff. I also don't give a flying fuck about celebrities. That means nothing to me. I'm not star struck, I'm not impressed by famous people more than I am with the cashier at the supermarket. They're shit and piss and they are gonna die just like me. So they are some famous people (whether I know them or not) and I'm supposed to care because of it ? Sorry, I don't. And really, in a very selfish, self-centered way, part of me wishes AEW actually never gets too big. Their attempt at mainstream attention via Cody's shitty ideas never appealed to me. I for one would be happy to just have them be this big but not too much, hardcore alternative working with every promotion around so we get cool combinations of pro-wrestling stuff, as opposed to another big entertainment juggernaut. Hell, I was super happy with having Lucha Underground. In the end, there's something about WWE that is off putting to me that goes beyond the pro-wrestling industry. Which makes me miss on some really good actual pro-wrestling but then again, choosing is renouncing.

So, Mike Chioda is the referee for Flair's last match. I guess my Tommy Dreamer comment was not that far off.

Also, with Paul obviously getting back some people that got let go by Vince, odds on Naomi and Sasha Banks ending back into the fold ? If I'm Trip, I make everything possible to get Sasha back, show up as a surprise at the Rumble and win the thing. And win at Mania against Charlotte (who embodies the company). I mean, doh.

Please tell me this got no reaction at all. Please. That piece of shit displayed on the show goes a long way in telling how WWE culture is still the shits. I'm sure the women on the roster were glad. (oh, and Kid Rock was showcased too ? This was really Sumagarslam ) Yeah, I thought about watching the first post-Vince WWE show, but really apart from minor stuff, it's obvious everything was planned way ahead, plus Kevin Dunn is still producing. Probably should wait for like Royal Rumble to get the most out of a "fresh" eye, with the first post-Vince road to Mania. Although honestly people like Logan Paul are legit turnoff to me. The last thing I want in pro-wrestling is actual real-life influencers douchebags (the latest worst step in human evolution). Surprised Io Shirai is still there. Great for them, too bad for me (already wanted to see her back in Stardom and show up on NJPW shows and stuff !).

Anna Jay looked about ten times better in this match against Soho as she did for basically forever (since the infamous hardcore brawl). She looked way more confident too and displayed a shitload of personality as a heel. Sometimes it doesn't take much. Obviously born to be a heel. Should have know, that vocal fry... Yuta is gonna get over losing to Jericho, as he did losing to Mox. They need to boost a solid rating, and Jericho vs Mox is a big-ass match for them. Out of nowhere, Battle of the Belt. Claudio vs Takeshita is gonna be ridiculous. Sonjay Dutt cracks me up. He was always an underrated talent (I don't think he ever got the X-divison title in TNA). His interactions with Orange were gold here. That Acclaimed video too. I must give the devil its due. A Dumpster match is pretty interesting in a meta way, as it was the most famous NAO match too (against Foley & Funk)

Oddly enough, I'm re-reading Retromania by Simon Reynolds, and this afternoon I was reading the chapter dealing with Northern Soul. As he's talking about Blackpool and Wigan, I immediately wondered if by any chance Regal was a fan. And there you go ! Not overly surprised he would be a Motörhead fan, working-class english guy from his generation and all.

Oh, the irony.

NJPW in conjonction to STARDOM have announced the creation of the IWGP Women's championship. This doesn't affect the hierarchy in STARDOM, as this will be defended mostly in NJPW shows, including in the US. This is a huge news as this is revolutionary for a main Japanese company. Kidani certainly is shaking things up in a big way with this. Not to mention the fact they work with outside promotion, which means this opens the door also for women foreigners to work NJPW cards. The only thing that could have make this bigger is probably Madusa announcing it, but oh well. All kidding aside, this is pretty huge. 2022 is a crazy year, again.

Everytime I see interviews with Alexa Bliss, it seems it's about how she's frustrated with how she's booked and how she's bored by what she's doing and how she had the best time of her life doing the crazy shit with the doll. I wonder if she's one who could contemplate eventually leaving the company to try her luck elsewhere. She always struck me as a WWE trooper before, but who knows. I for one would be interested in seeing her out of the E.

I've seen Swans. Twice. Without earplugs. So whenever anyone tells me some band was super loud I'm like "It was probably quite ok". I'm not kidding. But yeah, I'm sure the concert was awesome. I was lucky enough to catch Ween during their last tour (before reformation). Glad I did.

One of my big musical regret is not going to see Motörhead when I lived in Paris, they played there very regularly. The other one being Sonic Youth, for the same reasons (played regularly). These are probably the two bands I really feel like an idiot for not going to see live. I did see Thurston Moore "solo", with Debbie motherfucking Googe (from My Bloody Valentine aka the GOAT) as part of his band, so that's something. Never gonna hear Ace of Spades live though.

You're not the right demo. Dragon Lee should keep his short pants, these are drawing. I mean, there's no reason guys should not be sexualized (I mean, Anna Jay in that red thingy she wore, holy shit). And really, if my body looked like Dragon Lee, I would walk around the city wearing this, I don't give a fuck.

Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs Lucha Brothers & Dragon Lee. Hear me Coach Tony K ! HEAR ME !