El-P

I was about to drop "Who is gonna get hurt after Blood & Guts". Hopefully NO ONE. Count me in as part of the minority crowd who considers Wargames to be an overrated gimmick. For the small numbers of great matches (hello 1992), there has been countless "ok" to "boring" matches using more or less that formula. Hopefully they don't do a super gimmicked WWE-like fall like last time, which wasn't a very memorable match to begin with until the ending that really left me unimpressed (and no, I did not want Jericho to take a stupid unsafe bump, I just thought this whole finish was overscripted, the super safe-looking bump only made it look even lamer). All of this to say I will settle for a cool little bloody cage match, not expecting any great classic brawl (and if it ends up being one, well, I'll enjoy it even more I guess).

You realize I will never not picture you as Shark Boy now ? RAVEEEEEEENNNNNNNNN is doing a cameo on the next special show. Dunno if I'm watching it as it happens or binge watch a bunch later during the summer though, depending on whatever I do or don't do in the next few weeks. But yeah, Raven on IMPACT in 2022 (yeah, I realize he did appearances on NWA a few months back too, but I actually did not watch).

Sure. Like I said, I'm a bit sad about how the faction got put in the background. There could have been more to it with Hangman, and although they have done a little bit, me think it could have progressed into some bigger things for them for a while. I don't think it changes anything, honestly. TK is the one making the decisions. I dunno why you wouldn't renew someone like Stu Grayson especially. Untapped potential there (Anna Jay bullying him on BTE was always really funny).

CJ Perry not on that ridiculous WES show. I guess they won't get the grudge matches of all grudges matches after all. Someone else will have to get concussed by TAFKA Nia Jaxx. Also, what the hell in not going on with CYN ? Is that deal such a dated joke already ?

Sorry but not this again, bubba ! He's a guy no one even heard about before and he only got a job for like 2 years in AEW, and now he's got a little bit of name to himself and some credentials. Did not hurt anyone in the slightest, only helped him make a better living and get a better profile in the business. So yes indeed, it was a great decision, and he's probably grateful for life toward Omega. Apparently they will still book him on a date to date schedule. He's like only 24 years old too. He sure can land on the indies which a much better profile now. But yeah, like I said, kinda sad about how the whole Dark Order deal kinda went south without riding the wave of being Hangman's friends longer. Totally forgot about Preston Vance but honestly, I don't see anything special or even intriguing about this guy. He's really kinda there, especially now in this incredibly bloated roster of great talent. I would give JD Drake a push before I would #10. Probably. The sad thing is that they really did not even do anything with Jay when it happened despite them being presented as BFF. Gotta be honest though, since she came back from her long layoff, Anna Jay has not looked good. She came back worse than she was before the injury, maybe she lost the confidence she was building, but she really needs some in-ring time it seems to even get back at where she was before she left. Sure, there was the terrific garbage match with Penelope & Bunny, but that really was the exception to the rule, and the gimmick sure helped.

In other news, Alan Angels has apparently not been re-signed. The guy sure has a little name to himself now, thanks to you know who. I do find kinda sad what has happened with Dark Order since Hangman won the title, as they slowly faded away in the background into nothingness, and really only John Silver seemed to get any attention after that point. Stu Grayson really was underused considering his insane talent. I'm guessing Colt Cabana is ROH bound. Anna Jay already dressed up like her own self last time she was on TV. What an odd story this gimmick has been, from being clearly the biggest miss of the first months of AEW (including being part of the first infamous terrible angle on TV), to getting over thanks to Brody, including (and maybe most of all) during BTE skits which gave them than comedic edge, leading to guys like John Silver getting a cult following. Then Brody's passing and the unforgettable tribute show, really focusing on the group for obvious reasons. Then the Hangman storyline with them really playing a part in helping giving Hangman another layer. I dunno, it seems, especially considering the quality of workers involved, they could have done much more with the core of the group, especially Uno & Grayson. Hopefully Silver, Uno & Anna don't get completely lost in the current roster (although I don't have much faith for Uno sadly, and the guy is actually really good and unique too).

The bolded part. It's so unfair. If it was in any other entertainment or business, it would be all over the media. Good for Mario Mancini (I actually remember this guy doing jobs !). Also, he says "There's worse stuff than that." I really hope that one day, some day, everybody gets the full picture of what this dipshit really is about (not that there isn't enough out there already to get the picture). Enough of the cognitive dissonance with this family.

Kane was considered smart because he probably was reading Ayn Rand pseudo-philosophical bullshit in the locker room. At a time "the boys" were just carrying guns and doing drugs and booze and "banging rats", the stuff that gives Taker tears of nostalgia under his Blue Lives Matter cap, that sure passed for "being smart" I guess. One hell of an article about that skeleton in the closet : https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/vince-mcmahon-accused-of-rape-by-first-female-wwe-referee.html

This is the story of AEW this year. Have an awesome PPV. Then people bitch about the build to the next one and how it's not looking special anymore/ Have an awesome PPV. Rince, repeat. Even with this one, with the worst timing and injury piling up and guys getting on the shelves, they delivered an off the chart PPV. The crowd was one of the hottest in forever from the beginning to the end to, and that's with lots of NJPW being involved, not just the key stars (I mean, chanting for YOSHI-HASHI, really now ?). The only reservations I have is FTR not beating the champs in the three-way, which is always a cheap way to protect the champs from doing the job, and the last segment, which felt not needed and took away from the main event celebration. But apart from that, what a fucking great show. Ospreay and Orange just slayed the naysayers (I had no doubt it would be terrific, but it was even better, Ospreay really is on another planet now). I did not believe Claudio would show up so it was a terrific surprise, as was Shibata making a cameo. Jay White showed what a fucking pro he was in the main event protecting Cole too (poor guy, he really need some rest, the good thing is that if he can travel, he can still show up and keep himself over by just talking). I was so glad for PAC, if someone deserved that stupid belt it's him, he's been low-key one of the greatest worker since the start of the company. Storm vs Rosa was excellent, I never get tired of Storm killing someone with her hip attack (although it's maybe the scariest spot today honestly). Just a ridiculously great show which also demonstrate again that no, you don't need bathroom breaks matches and you can absolutely pile up great matches after great matches like NJPW used to do a few years back. The one thing also is that AEW has so much depth in term of in-ring talent (not talking about drawing cards here), even with so many key guys being out, it's like they do not bat an eye in term of putting out an awesome show. That's really impressive. Claudio is a great catch, pun intended. ROH PPV now ? Fuck TK, get some sleep already ! But, hey, I'll probably watch it. Still, things are probably gonna cool down after Blood & Guts with a slower build toward All Out to kickstart the really important fall period, hopefully with a bunch of big names coming back.

Crowd chants for fucking YOSHI-HASHI and Hirooki Goto. Yeah, atmosphere-wise, it should be quite ok. Double ring announcing is neat (although Dasha > Roberts), so is Kevin Kelly in the booth. Gonna watch the buy-in live then the PPV tomorrow night. Gotta avoid spoilers until then !

Well, working more matches a week probably isn't a bad thing. Getting beat up by Stan Hansen, Kawada & Misawa everyday for two weeks probably wasn't such a great thing.

*FACEPALM*

I guess you're right about that. It could only really speak to those who had followed him for a while now and knew more about his character and promo style. I'm not so sure TK would have let Omega do a job in IMPACT. Maybe he would. It sure would have been much better for Josh Alexander, but in the end I enjoyed the Moose stuff a lot. Tremendous heel stuff and really delivered in big matches. Ending Christian Cage was fine, but certainly anti-climatic (which was kinda fitting in an ironic way with his own debut in AEW).

I don't get the "bad impression" though. He only had killer matches all the times, including that infamous PAC match, had this incredible tag-team run with Hangman peaking with the Young Bucks match which was out of this world. To me people who had a bad impression of him during that time had a pre-conceived idea that they had to hate him anyway. It seems a long time ago now, but a lot of people hated that guy so much then (more or less because of Corny, really). It's still IMPACT, and nothing can really help the promotion for too long anyway. It was on/off in term of weekly ratings for sure, but if you take his entire run, he sure made a difference comparing to the usual, and it dropped immediately when he was gone. I dunno, to me this was a blast from A to Z, the stuff with Callis was gold. My favorite time of AEW thus far. The dropping the title to Christian was smart in a way to not having to drop the title to anyone in IMPACT (which he could not as the AEW champ) and was good for Christian for him to be a credible PPV challenger (which really he never was, honestly) on a PPV that basically was carried by the promise of CM Punk coming back more than a huge title defense. But yeah, Omega in IMPACT was tons of fun, he was different there, definitely a feel of old territory/interpromotional stuff that you very seldom gets. He put a lot of thought into his IMPACT stuff. Well, we had those matches with Moose and Sami, which were terrific. But it felt we could have had even more out of this. Let's be honest : Kenny Omega will *never ever* be a consensus pick like Danielson is. Which makes him actually more interesting in the grand scheme of things.

The one thing that people never seem to get back then is that it was *on purpose*. He wasn't going to present himself as a top single star, letting Jericho & Mox carry the ball first while trying to make other people look good in the meantime, especially the entire Hangman stuff. Case in point, when he finally got the title, AEW grew in significant ways, and that's during the pandemic at first. When he was thrown on IMPACT TV he made the biggest, wait for it, impact for them in term of demo ratings and the day he dropped the title to Christian Cage, ratings dropped back down to normal (that says a lot about Christian Cage supposed "HOF star power" too). The issue is that Omega was such a divisive figure that he was not gonna get any credit whatsoever, to the point some people argued he had no effect on NJPW business (which, retrospectively, is even funnier than it was then), so of course as he wasn't positioned as this top single star, he got the haters going on about how he wasn't living up to the hype. Until of course, when he choose to finally pull the trigger, well, he more than lived up to the hype in pretty much every ways.

Considering WWE had one of the highest injury rates of any company in the world at one point, and that's including Japan during the latest 10's peak with the ridiculously hard G1's, that's not a very valid comparison, WWE's "safe style" has never been a real argument (the number of ladder matches earlier this year I believe, or late last year, in a very short while was ridiculous). It's not like WWE guys aren't dropping like flies on a regular basis either. Are AEW guys killing themselves on weekly basis ? Sure. Are they hurt by the fact they work "cold" because they don't have a more regular schedule ? That's probably a reason too. The Young Bucks and Omega talked about this before, how they hurt more in AEW than when they used to work more time a week because the body actually gets warmer to bumping and getting into a rhythm. House show would help, for many reasons. Not taking completely ridiculous bumps on weekly basis would help too, of course. This is probably a good time to rethink the pacing of the shows and how the booking structures the whole thing, for sure, maybe an opportunity to mix things up a bit and refresh the formula.

Totally is. To me it's also a matter of booking trick so as to protect some people, but it makes the matches lesser than they would have been (although honestly, that All-Atlantic stuff has nothing to do on this PPV, and is even less of a thing now with the non AEW guy being Clark Connors, who's very good but also is a NJPW Strong american worker, not a true, Japanese NJPW fixture). The four way for the IWGP title is much less as it is than Okada vs Hangman or White vs Hangman. The three-way tag team is less than FTR vs Cobb/O-Khan (and I sure hope Roppongi Vice aren't the one to lose here so as to none of the champs do, that would be really lame and cheap). Despite timing issues and injuries, they did not have to book it that way. In the end, will the show be really fun with some excellent matches ? I bet so. Is the show a lot less than it should have been, despite the injuries, it looks that way to me.

This is the funniest and yet most accurate way I've ever heard anyone explain it. Libertarians is a very foreign concept in Europe (well, in France at least it is, but I guess in most European country it's the same), so you know I'm gonna use that one over and over again as a way to explain it. Of course, Linda McMahon is elated (I wonder how many of Vince's affairs' she had to pay for, that must have stung I guess). Maybe a comment from Mother Hen Inventor of Feminism Stephanie MacMahon-Levesque ? Yes, no ? Probably not.

But they can never cross path with LIJ because Mexican promotions be like. Fénix vs Andrade was just an awesome, PPV level match. Fénix reminds me of Sabu in his prime, in every match it seems you see something incredible you've never seen before, and whenever he's selling you just don't know if he's selling or if he's legit injured (which, likewise Sabu, makes him the most realistic seller today despite all notions of "pro-wrestling selling"). Very first time Deeb & Martinez are on TV as a team and they don't get along. This is quite the speedrun booking ! Wants more of both of them anytime though. Hey, Brian Cage ! Ready to explode too.

Rosemary calling Glen Jacobs a literal piece of shit (you can guess why) is kinda cathartic. Because he is.

It already sold out in the building way before they announced any matches and it will be a big crowd, so from that standpoint it can't bomb. And really the crux of the matter for AEW is TV rights, not PPV buys. I hope it doesn't bomb on PPV for very selfish reasons, I want more interpromotional shows in my pro-wrestling regime.

Well, maybe between two shows in Saudi Arabia they can keep on "Influencing the world" in term of women's rights in Texas or Louisiana now. (I know, I know, PWO and all, but some days, it's like... just dystopian level shit... this is just so awful)

It doesn't mean there won't be bigger peaks in the future of course, it's never linear. If the promotion lasts say ten years at least, then it will be easier to define one definitive peak out of those years. But as of now, I feel a first peak has come and gone and right now it's in a transition period.

To me they started peaking earlier (basically when Omega won the title, although the first months were still happening during the pandemic era) and I would agree the high point was during the Summer/Fall. One thing not many people will want to hear is that really the most compelling long-term booking done in AEW was the Omega/Young Bucks/Hangman "drama", as it had the most depths from years before the company even started, and these guys were used to construct long-term stories based on their real-life relationship. This is why it was so compelling in the long term and probably why after that point, the company looked less focused especially on top. The two big focused angles they ran were CM Punk vs MJF and Wardlow vs MJF, none of which were for the AEW title. All two built around a guy who will or will not leave the company, depending on where the Pillman fetish leads him. It has been three years. I was thinking about that, I waited for about 17 years to get an alternative that I actually liked, and when it finally happened it was the perfect fit at the perfect time for me, it's like everything I had watched until them led me to that point (getting the past of US wrestling out of my system for good, getting accustomed to modern product first via Lucha Underground, which has opened my mind soooo much then going through TNA as a way to fill the 00's void in term of evolution of styles, pun intended, then getting into the contemporary NJPW stuff about at the moment it peaked). And it got me my best and most fun three years ever as a pro-wrestling fan. If everything stopped right now, of course it would suck, especially for the talent, but I absolutely had my fill for life. Also, three years is a long time. The stupid cliché about "love only lasts three years" notwithstanding, the infamous booker fatigue that has been talked about has to kick in at some point. And it's not like he's just the booker (not to mention his other businesses). You can see the signs all over the product. The most significant to me is the All-Atlantic belt. I have no idea how this looked like a good idea to anyone. Another tournament right after the Owen (which was a tournament... and nothing more), for another belt, when the TNT title booking has been all over the place (and fuck me if I don't care about it going into Wardlow's World, already the most annoying thing in AEW this catchphrase, so WWE). And then you have Samoa Joe running around (well, not really) with the ROH Television championship. And remember Weeler Yuta got the ROH Whatever Pure title ? And there's a woman champ and a world champ around too. Oh yeah, running ROH as a separate promotion is a BAD idea. Not that the product can't be cool, but there's already way too much product out there. I'm thinking about letting IMPACT on the side for now, as I'm getting burned out (also, IMPACT works well in binge-watch mode and you don't get another major happening there anymore unlike when Omega was around, so spoilers don't really matter). Last thing I want is another TV show I might get interested in. The one thing I definitely would love to watch now is if another product like LU would get off the ground. Something different, out there, that can open doors for some new things. Or simply a last season for GLOW (so frustrating ). AEW is not new anymore. It exists, and it's great for everybody (just ask Cody Rhodes). But it has to find the right balance now, leading into their next TV rights contracts. Keeping things focused (maybe get some help with the booking by a guy who is actually good at it aka no one from WWE, to get some pressure of the boss shoulders) and fresh (working with so many other company and having such a vast amount of talent will do that part).

*facepalm* This PPV is so snakebit. Not that the absence of Ishii will make any difference in term of PPV buys, and Clark Connors has a chance for a big showcase match which is cool for him. But damn.