El-P

When I was a young pro-wresting fan, the Bret vs Owen match at Mania X was the match I loved the most and probably have watched and re-watched the most on my precious VHS. I loved Bret, and I loved the newly heel-turned Owen. So needless to say, that match between Dax & Cash was pure joy to me. That was a great pro-wrestling match. And don't think I did not notice the Mania X ending spot worked in the middle of this. I am also an old ECW fan. So that final ladder clusterfuck of a match was also awesome to me, complete with Sammy trying to kill himself (legit, no idea what he thought but that shit was eerie, Tay's face could become a meme), Tighs Conti kicking some old douchebag in the balls like she was Beulah (it looked AWESOME too, great execution by both), foxy girls fighting around, bump on barb-wire ladder that you barely sell because no time for that shit and a finish no one saw coming. In the middle of this, two big dudes bumping into each others, Serena & Shida bashing themselves with inanimate objects, some cool competitive squashes, the return of Fénix, "AEW Galaxy". Yeah, AEW is absolutely a buffet with something for everyone to love. The Scorpio win was interesting. I guess they figure Tay & Sammy are such heat magnets that they don't need the belt (which is not wrong) and that the whole angle could actually benefit Scorpio if given the belt back, with the added heat of PVZ. He sure got the biggest reaction in a long time too, although that has to be attributed to Sammy & Tay (who btw still at times comes off as really likable when she looks worried for instance, she has that naturally likable thing about her) because ridiculously over as heels already. I don't mind the switching around for the TNT belt from time to time. It was part of the appeal of the TV or cruiserweight titles in the (good) Nitro era. Plus, you don't wan't it to be always the same kind of dynamics with "one guy gets the belts, keeps it for a while, then passes it to the next guy who deserves it, rince, repeat". Mixing it up a big and changing the formula isn't a bad thing (you don't want it to become a belt that changes every two weeks either obviously). Next week is gonna be crazy for me because DEONNA MOTHERFUCKING PURRAZZO in AEW already. Long time overdue. She has to keep the ROH belt too. I'm pretty sure she would have on Mania week-end anyway but Tony did not want to force her into back to back matches (the IMPACT and ROH shows were pretty close), so Mercedes was probably thrown in like Suzuki. Deonna already beat her a few weeks back in IMPACT and it's not like Mercedes has been pushed thus far in AEW. Plus, W. Morrissey is showing up to put Wardlow over, so there's no way IMPACT just send two people on the same show to do two jobs back to back. The Morrissey ref was kinda funny since it came on a segment involving Lexy Nair (Morrissey is Lexy's boyfriend). He's basically doing Sid in ECW lately, fist-bumping people and powebombing geeks (and Chelsea Green) through tables. And he's also a babyface there. Deonna has been one of my favorite wrestler anywhere since day one she showed up in IMPACT, hopefully what they do is have her keep the title and be like Omega in reverse (or Thunder Rosa when she was the NWA champ), establish a trust and relationship and sign her immediately when her deal in IMPACT ends (she has done pretty much everything over there). She's awesome and again, it's long overdue that she gets a spot on AEW TV, and hopefully ends up in the company.

Jessie McKay debuted in 2007. That's kinda scary to have 15 years of in-ring work and be *this* crappy still. She works like a rookie in her first six months, and not a good one either. They have a few cool double-team move and Cassie actually can be decent in spots (that's at best and working against really super solid girls like Madison or Tenille), but fuuuuuck, they indeed were so much better suited for the Diva era. Also, it was striking how tall they were standing next to most IMPACT women (of course Madison is tiny, but still). As far as "McKay was really good in SHIMMER", I would take this stuff with a grain of salt, honestly. The SHIMMER hype has seemed to be kinda deceptive to me over the years.

So Jeff Hardy is trending on the French Twitter because, well... this Should have been Darby though, as the guy absolutely tried to Coffin Drop the newly elected president Macron. Speaking of which, I DIED : (kinda fitting to, as Brigitte Macron is hated about as much as Brandi)

Damn @sek69, couldn't you go to RAW or Smackdown instead ?

As I expected, the IInspiration losing to the Influence on the pre-show basically was the end of them in IMPACT. And now they are taking an indefinite leave of in-ring action. And honestly, there is probably other ways for them to monetize their names, because as far as in-ring work, they still were not close to good (I mean, McKay is still embarrassingly bad at point). Fun personalities but a gimmick that is pretty much limited too (they are tall, hot and goofy... and that's pretty much it).

In other news, Micheal Elgin is working NOAH's big show this week-end. In yet other news, Alberto El Patron is supposed to work AAA's Triplemania this week-end. (ok, so apparently not after all. That would have been a very bad look for AAA and AEW by ricochet, since Young Bucks are working the main event)

Isn't that the usual state when anyone watches RAW ? All joking aside, get better soon !

IMPACT is really delivering big time these days, Rebellion was a mostly excellent show capped off by a GREAT, an AWESOME main event between Moose and Josh Alexander. Long-term storyline, masterfully built to a apex of a match that saw the babyface triumph over the dastardly heel who basically stole his title in front of his wife and kids. The match was even better than I expected it to be, Moose is working like someone who wants to do the G1 (he sure has loved his Ishii match, that's obvious) and they worked an amazing ending stretch with one terrific nearfall (doesn't take more than one to push a match toward greatness). Alexander did turn himself heel to me by pulling off a Ricky Steamboat (you know the one spot I refer to), but hey, whatever, great match, great ending, once again IMPACT shows that booking pro-wrestling logically week-to-week for months up to a peak is not rocket science. Undercard had plenty of excellent stuff too, Sabin vs White vs Maclin was a terrifc opener (I've been loving Maclin's work), Trey vs Speedball vs Austin was an insane X-div orgy of unbelievable sequences and moves (Mike Bailey is just next level, the guy is legit incredible and one of my new favorite workers in the world, and that's despite barefeet and mulet which trigger the hell out of me usually), Deonna vs Taya was very good and I was glad to se Taya again (Deonna is just always a pleasure), Jonah vs Ishii started off kinda slow and I was expecting a rather minor match until, of course, it finally got going and turned into yet another great Ishii match and another brutal (in a great way) Jonah match. And yes, Ishii did do the fucking brainbuster on Jonah in the most WTF spot of the night. Rosemary vs Steelz was okay but our favorite Demon Assassin really was a body for Steelz to slay. The tag-team gauntlet peaked early with Cardona, Myers & Green's involvement (Chelsea Green is a trooper) and ended up cold (really now, Rhyno & Heath isn't doing it at all). 20 years of IMPACT/TNA at Slammiversary. Sucks that AJ Styles won't be there. Maybe they could get Samoe Joe or Chris Daniels to show up. Jarrett has to be there, he has to.

Wow, it never crossed my mind. I wish I was as optimist as you are on this one, I definitely thought this was the return of bitter boomer JR trashing AEW's "usual" product. It was a Code Red, not a Canadian Destroyer. But he does the Canadian Destroyer too on occasion (I mean, Ricky Morton does it, so). I was about to say that you should probably check out most of Punk's matches in AEW, especially since the beginning of the year, since these should probably be right up your alley, but there you go. And again, I did enjoy the match, and I feel lucky to get those Dustin Rhodes matches that would have never happened otherwise (the post-match to me was actually the nicest moment of it all).

The reactions to this match in term of confirmation bias (about the idea of "old-school" basically, although the very specific status of Dustin also plays into it) are more interesting than the match itself, which was a really good, super solid pro-wrestling match as opposed to that "OMG this is such a great fucking match OMG Dustin is the GOAT OMG" stuff that it's been pimped to be (and I say that as a Dustin fan since 1990). Worst thing about the match was JR's passive agressive "I guess people still enjoy pro-wrestling" when the audience chanted the dreaded "This Is Awesome", like sure, most of the other stuff on AEW usually isn't "pro-wrestling", ya know. Maybe I was just in a bad mood (like I had any reasons to be this week ? Oh, yeah, sure...), but I did not think it was anything special at all. To me it was like, really good fan-service to the "old-school", and enjoyed it for what it was. I enjoyed Kingston vs Garcia, Ishii vs Cole, the six men wth BCC, Andrade vs Darby and hell, even Shafir vs Jade more than this one though (for different and various reasons each), and that's only on AEW TV.

Jade Cargill has indeed improved by leaps and bounds and that match against Shafir was her best match until that point. Which also speaks volume of Shafir, who sadly has been thrown into this without being built at all, which has been a big mistake. She looked quite good and I like her game a lot. Hopefully she gets a new fresh start after that match, because she's got a unique thing going for her. Jade working with Danielson is paying off (her driving her fist into the ribs was a total Regal/Danielson move) and if she keeps on improving at that rate, the sky is the limit. The Baddies is a pretty great heel entourage for her, because it's annoying as hell and I'm glad Red Velvet and Kiera Hogan (who was a terrific annoying heel in IMPACT) are part of it, as hopefully this group will benefit from Jade's aura.

Yes and yes !

Danielson vs Takagi or ZSJ CM Punk vs Tanahashi Mox vs Ishii Omega vs Okada (won't happen, too soon) Hangman vs Jay White Young Bucks vs Ospreay & Cobb Darby vs Hiromu Andrade vs Naito And that's off the top of my head. There's so many great stuff they can do.

Yep. It was the debate yesterday. Both suck, both are destructive, but one is legit gonna turn the country into a Control Your Narrative promotion, ya know. In term of promo ability, it was still Dan Lambert vs Adam Scherr though. He was a dickhead but really kinda ate her alive (no, I have not watched the whole thing, I'd rather watch RAW every week). Sucks to be me on Sunday, but it would suck WAY more for tons of people if she won. Well, the next 5 years will suck anyways. Can't blame her for that, I did the exact same thing for the second turn last time. Hopefully she doesn't say any stupid shit. Well, on much better sides of things, Forgotten Door PPV ? Awesome.

You just triggered me with the e-word. Gotta do something I *really* don't wan't to do on Sunday to prevent France from falling to the same low as, well, you know which countries... You think Tay is supporting the atrocity that is your current president ? Yikes... Good luck in the fall anyway.

Oh wow. Yeah, Nash is a bullshitter, but him & Sean always had great chemistry back in the days, not of the territories, but of KC. Yep, that's a podcast I would definitely give a listen to.

I kinda guessed it was. Oh, I wasn't even aware of this. I've been a bit off these days with wrestling news and such.

He's not stupid enough to tease a big announcement and have it being about the indian market after the disastrous debut of Singh last week. It would be really, really dumb. Hopefully it's something big like a streaming deal or joint show with NJ or anything of that ilk. He's on the verge of overdoing the big announcement gimmick already. A big announcement every three weeks is not a big announcement anymore. Let's not get into "The greatest night in the history of our sport" territory.

Paying four guys instead of two is not good shit.

They need to have him as a surprise entrant in the G1, that's what they need to do. NJPW has been so dire apart from the main events (now that EVIL ain't part of those anymore), opening up to US guys and getting someone like KUSHIDA is exactly the shot in the arm they need to be the great promotion they can be. That and firing Dick Togo.

What a complete waste of a stint, as expected. At least he's leaving before he becomes Akira Tozawa.

It's storyline. There's a beef between this referee and Ospreay already. This was the closest thing to a fuck finish without doing one. The match was all kind of awesome, and Ospreay is pilling up MOTYC's since the beginning of the year, four of them now in completely different ways. I can't believe I just saw Ospreay vs Mox either. Japan opening up is gonna be crazy when all the guys who want to go will be able to. Speaking of which, Suzuki vs Ishii was as great as it was supposed to be (how long can Ishii go at this level, while he's looking older and older ?) and now we get to see Ishii vs Kingston. White vs Umino was excellent. I've see White have so many excellent to great matches lately against a bunch of different opponents and this was no different. This guy works like some 35-40 years old veteran in term of psychology, controlling the pace, heel work, controlling the crowd... He's so good right now, it's flying under the radar but he's a legit very top worker in the world. The undercard was plenty of fun, although the Chicago Street Fight went way too long and the pacing was all over the place (still, some really crazy shit, that Jonah ladder squash was ridiculous).

It's too bad Sean Oliver didn't see the podcast bubble coming, because he would have probably been doing awesome interviews. Conrad does strikes me as a total IRL carny too (yeah, I wrote a big rant before but deleted it, because whatever).

It's getting really, really ridiculous. After not listening to any of his stuff for ever, I've been binging the Jarrett one and it's by far the best stuff he has done since the early Brucie ones (which were chockfull of bullshit but entertaining nonetheless). Regal.... fuuuuuck I dunno how I'm gonna pass at least giving it a try. Although since I have about zero interest in 00's and beyond WWE, I guess I'm not sure how much of it I would really want to listen if they overdue than kind of topics. Surely the Europe and WCW stuff is super interesting to me.

In this case, it actually is, because Sammy lost it as a face and won it back by turning heel. Quickie switches back and forth, I agree, aren't transitional. The Sammy babyface reigns had some really good matches but no arc at all and no memorable feuds. And honestly, despite Cody's effort at the beginning and the strong Miro's reign, the TNT Title is effectively a secondary title at this point. Which is not an issue for me. I like a secondary titles in a super crowded roster as long as it doesn't become a WWE post 00's case. Two top title that are "equivalent" (which they never are) is confusing to me, I never cared for the whole IC title/IWGP title scene in NJPW where both were top titles but the IC not really but still it was except not all the time... Just streamline the fucking thing already.