Matt D

Phil, while we have you, do you find it odd at all that L'Ange Blanc is so poorly represented in the French footage we have? Especially relative to guys like Ben Chemoul or LeDuc?

Yeah, it's not like weekly AEW talk was ever through the roof though. I haven't seen the main yet and thought Saraya's promo was very, very bad, but otherwise, I thought it was a really good show. In some ways it was "just" a really good wrestling show, but that's the kind of thing I want to see, so I'm not going to complain. Jericho can tour Europe for another month and the Elite (everyone but Cutler; I like Cutler in small doses) could stay home for another decade and I'd be ok with it. Here are my DVDVR bulletpoint thoughts so I can show my work. I just think I'm vibing on an entirely different plane of existence than you guys. Which is ok. I didn't watch any AEW at all for the first two years, wasn't interested, and that was what a lot of you liked. I do see problems (injuries derailing booking plans, too many turns, poor use of capitalizing on the really fun webshows) but in some other ways, I don't see some of the same problems you see (ROH is fine. The number of belts and tournaments is probably fine since it's a crutch for Tony's booking lapses; at the end of the day, it's a promotion built around the idea of good matches, so it's fine).

Here you go. Feel free to share it. Even better if you can get it back to him and/or his family.

I wish we had appropriate footage of Becky Lynch as it's impossible to tell whether she's any good or not with Dunn cuts.

We should have gotten Kingston vs Claudio shortly after that.

Injuries making their biggest matches Jericho vs Moxley/Danielson.

Would you give Eddie Kingston one? I’m not expecting a lot of chants. The test should be Chicago.

You know, I can't find a post that really sums it up well because it was an opinion shaped over a year but you can find me developing it with this search: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/search/&q=Page&page=3&quick=1&author=Matt D&search_and_or=and&sortby=newest But I don't actually suggest it. I do cover some in my SC review of Punk vs Page though.

Especially after Goldberg kicks Punk in the head in Saudi Arabia in 2023.

I put this together over at DVDVR but it's a crazy crazy list. These are the people that I could find on the roster that were injured/suspended/off the roster somehow during the last year. And I'm sure I'm missing people.

All this drawing stuff is fun and all but everyone should be happy to hear I plan on writing up a bunch of Big Daddy to try to decide if everyone’s been wrong about him or not on my own set of criteria.

It's sort of been the story of the year. There were HR issues stemming from people like Janela and Swole leaving so he boosted the HR team. There were locker room leadership issues so he extended Moxley and Jericho and gave them bigger roles. Now there are live gate issues and scheduling issues where they're going to the same towns too often so he brought in Jarrett.

From Craig over at DVDVR a week or so ago with photo evidence. “Miro’s working out at the same gym as my friend. And he’s told me he’s seen him there before so I’m like, you need to actually approach him and just say you’re a big fan of his work, but you miss him on Dynamite. Turns out, yes, he has another role and isn’t wrestling for the time being, but he hopes to return soon, and him and CJ have a place in the valley for now. And then they exchanged small talk about auditioning. So we can stop saying that Tony has nothing for him. Dude just realized where he can make money safely.”

No one wants to hear my TED Talk about how Punk is absolutely necessary to carry forward Neo-Bret-ism and retake the establishment of struggle and meaning for every single spot, since Dax isn't the guy (as proven by a number of matches including, most recently by the Aussie Open match), and how Page, when driving matches, comes off as the most untrained guy on the AEW roster and the one most rewarded for negative traits and most in need of advice, even if he has many positive qualities as a wrestler and a character too. If you do, I have some long posts on DVDVR I can point you to. That said, it was on Punk to hold it together long enough to inspire the next generation and he didn't. There's just no one else that can carry the torch.

I’m looking forward to both Athena vs LMK and vs Diamante.

Can someone tally the turns in 2022?

I also bet that if Khan came to Jericho tomorrow and told him that after some negotiation with the "Punk camp" the endgame of the ROH Champion storyline is that Punk will come back to challenge him, Jericho would jump on that in a heartbeat, which would be the most Jericho thing to ever Jericho. I guess I was speaking more on the idea that we don't entirely know where Mox and Danielson stand, though one can guess.

Unfortunately, I do think I lose my bet with Tim at this point. There's a world where Punk can come back even with heavy animosity with the Elite but I think he needs some combo of the unofficial "new EVPs" in Jericho/Danielson/Moxley on his side and I don't think he has that. At this point, I still think the ideal possible world is that he comes back for a few months when healthy and willingly puts over guys like Starks and Wardlow and FTR on the way out. Starks: Wardlow had similar things to say, etc. But I think the ship has sailed.

I don’t think they’d return Cole like this. If anything Jericho would beat a guy like Daniels or Richards and then post match, Cole would come out.

I’m going to miss the last few couple of serene months of AW.

So the live crowd who paid for tickets got to see him wrestle. He was booked for the live Rampage a couple of days later (and had been on the previous week’s live Rampage) but it was a different crowd. Both he and QT got great reactions. It’s a feature, not a bug.

While I believe the Kitao thing having watched him now in this period, the card has Sano vs El Dandy! How could that not have been amazing?

Re: Creative Control. Saraya on Jericho's podcast isn't really necessary to listen to but it was interesting when she said she came into TV and had an idea for Khan and he basically told her. "Great! I wish you told me last week. We're all booked/plotted/marked for this week, but we can do it next week!" but then she wasn't going to be at TV next week (which was this last week), and then Jericho, just talking to her conversationally said that he usually goes to Khan with a month worth of ideas ahead of time and that's how they plan things out. My guess is that he's now being paid to help other talents organize their month of ideas to present to Khan, basically, on top of his own. People will go to Jericho now and say they have X, Y, Z ideas and he'll help organize things to present it to Khan like he would. That's just a guess though. We've heard from Saraya that she was frustrated with her first promo back and that she wished she went to Jericho and Mox first to work it out with them. Moreover, we heard a lot from Britt a couple of years ago how instrumental Jericho was in coaching her promos. She'd go to him with ideas and he'd help her work things out and block things, basically. He was just doing that out of the goodness of his heart (and so he could shape future things he could use, I'm sure) before. Now he'll be paid to do it and probably be more proactive. That's what I figure at least. The other benefit of Jericho is that he's on commentary for a lot of Rampages so he gets to see some new/upcoming talents first hand in a way he might not be watching backstage. That's absolutely why he's working with Dalton Castle this week. He saw him for the first time or one of the first times a few weeks ago and it was obvious just to hear him on commentary that he loved the act.

They should have just had Jungle Boy "injure" Christian in that match in a bump-free sort of way. Totally lose his cool so that Christian won the match because he goaded JB too far but that he certainly paid the price for that victory. I know we're (rightfully) complaining about too much repetition of the same themes, be it the handshakes or the contracts, but I think they could have differentiated this enough from the Sammy/Eddie finish. Some brutal violence out of JB (or the simulation of such) would have helped to get him over at no real loss and when Christian came back, he can say that he never lost to JB and there'll be more heat to go around there.

I’d love a feud between the Pinnacle + Joe and the JAS (after they potentially get the ROH trios belts) right now. So many fun potential match ups. And it would centralize most of the ROH stuff in one place.