Matt D

Crossposting: The kids are all about the polished video breakdowns of things now, right? We need someone to go over Eddie's five stages of grief during the finish of the match. Denial: What do you mean you got the submission on Parker? I had Jericho. I had him right here? Why did the bell ring? On top of a cage, in Kawada's move. Jericho. He's a coward! I had him. Anger: You screwed me again Claudio! Just like before! You stole my moment! You knew how much this meant to me! You Swiss asshole! Bargaining: I mean, we both did it at the same time, right? I had Jericho. I beat him this way already. Maybe this is just our win together. Maybe I can accept that. We all knew he was going to quit. Depression: Oh no, no, it's not. Who am I kidding? You did it. You came up here. You saved me from the Walls. You did it. You swung him around. My back hurts. Just, no, I don't want to get up. My back hurts and you did it and this was my moment, my chance, and now it's gone forever. Acceptance: Fine. Fine. I'll fistbump you. Fine. I hate you. You did it. I'll fistbump you. But I'm Eddie Kingston so I'm still in depression and I'm never going to really accept this bullshit.

I'm pretty certain there's always going to be some version of the Dark Order for -1's sake, even just at the studio Dark tapings, and that Vance probably has a safe job for a good long while even if he might never get a huge push.

More chinlocks.

The Joe match.

I'm not going to lie. Tonight's match may have a better build than Blood & Guts:

I know I was harsh but when you get those bits of wisdom which are either validating or reaffirming or eye-opening, they're great. Yes! I want him to talk about pins for fifteen minutes. I want him to talk about how the set up and context to a move is more important to a move! That's the kind of stuff that I breathe when it comes to watching wrestling. I don't mind him going around for a landing for a while. I think where it's mostly frustrating is when he downplays himself again and again still, because that's just not compelling listening. Hopefully, 5-6 episodes in, he can go, "As you know, I was always there to everyone who asked but many people found their own way. In the case of X wrestler for Y character that doesn't exist anymore, I did show her a thing or two, specifically old british comedian Z..." or whatever.

He’s just going to talk about whatever anyway!

Watching it back this morning, everything from, let's say the focus on Kingston's arm to the start of the women's match has been spot-spot-spot-spot-spot-spot with the multi-man format allowing for one guy to feed in after the next after the next after the next. There was a hate filled six man and a triple tag match and a fatal four way and a comedy six man but it was all spot-spot-spot-spot-spot-spot and past a brief respite where Clark Connors was getting beaten on and maybe the extended back rake spots on Darby, it was pretty exhausting. Like you said, it's what the crowd wanted and it's not like the spots weren't good, but I'm really glad that 2021-2022 AEW generally isn't JUST that in general. EDIT: Made it through Cassidy vs Ospreay and they should have had that earlier in the night. That would have fixed a bunch of things. Crazy they had Rose/Storm, that, and then the ZSJ singles all in a row after the endless multiman barrage.

Yeah, I forgot about Mox, Brody, Matthews just to name a few. Realistically it's more like 50 guys on the roster I'd like to see him against. That's nuts.

I caught the entrance on Twitter. I saw some people talk about how he shouldn't leave the easy WWE life but to get an entrance pop like that even once in your life... him posing with the masked Cameraman was the best too. I haven't seen much of him in the last year or two but there are probably an easy 36 matches I want to see with him against people on the AEW roster. That doesn't feel like hyperbole either. In no order: And it's not like I wouldn't want to see him against Griff or 2.0 or Sydal or Matt Hardy or Butcher/Blade or Moriarty or whoever. What a great pickup.

JR not on the first half of the show also makes me way more likely to watch it. I've come to recognize that the very worst way to experience AEW is by watching Dynamite as it happens on Wednesday nights.

I just have no attachment to 2010s and on NJPW. I caught the buy-in because I had time and like the Elevation guys/feel. I was going to hit the Darby match and the Kingston match due to SC contractual obligations and maybe the ZSJ mystery match depending on who it was, but I'll probably hit most of this over the next couple of days now.

I am going to have to watch way more of this thing than I was initially planning to apparently.

It feels like they've been feuding for months, even if maybe they haven't. I'm ready for both teams to move on to other things.

The really great stuff is really great. I was shooting some messages to Loss earlier: “The move’s one thing. It’s the detail of building up to the move that makes the move special.” - About why people go up for Sami’s Blue Thunder Bomb when he never wins with it. “It’s little tiny things that make it all mean something so you actually care.” He also talks about how selling is basic and reacting is more advanced. Then he said Taker was the best ever at it and went on to how no one will write wrestling reviews about the close up, in between stuff. And of course he spent 10 minutes talking about how you need to have good pins. So there's a lot of really great stuff in there but you have to wade through a lot of repetition to get to it and then the stuff that is really rough, mainly him downplaying himself. He had this neverending spiel about how he likely never positively impacted anyone's career by giving them advice on character work, except for a few cases that he did, and those people know who they are, and that's not his story to tell, but mostly he didn't, except for those times that he did, and he'd help anyone, of course, but he never actually helped anyone on this count, except for when he did, which wasn't all that often, and they know who they are, and really, it was just little things, when it was anything at all, but sometimes it was quite a bit really, but often times it wasn't, but he would always talk to people about it, but most people figured it out, but some people he helped, and some people never figured it out, but he helped some of those who did, but he really didn't do all that much, not really, except for when he did.

Christian Cage, Interim Jungle Boy.

It's their fourth match together, though. Plus they've had one or two promos.

Trick now is to give Christian a reign of terror where he continuously works everyone until JB can come back to stop him.

Or things will rebound over the next few weeks as they turn the attention inwards again, people start to get cleared from injuries, and they shuffle the roster pairings around a bit. Product-wise, we're not in 99 WCW here or anything.

And people were complaining about the roster being way too big a few months ago.

I've been withholding comments for various reasons, but the one-two punch of the Henker handicap match and the Mychel singles match is just amazing. Two very different matches. Two very different performances. Chronologically close together. If you asked me who he was after the first few matches, he was the guy with the "toupe" headspin. But we have a very clear picture of just how good he was over decades.

I wouldn't say I'm excited about any of the FD matches, but of the lot of them, Cassidy driving Ospreay (who buys into his own shit as a character) nuts seems to be one of the more appealing aspects of the entire show. And it only works if Cassidy can also go when the time is right. My only worry is that they'd decide that the time is right way too soon.

My guess is Claudio but that he's not signed as of yet and Khan is working it out with Gresham as a back-up plan.

The Mercedes Martinez/Serena Deeb oneupsmanship tag team has been my favorite thing in AEW over the last couple of weeks so I'm glad that more people will be able to get a look at the act.

So did you watch Dark this week? The banter was pretty good as usual. Important stuff about using the water cooler they're trying to fit under the announce desk (next to Taz's coffee machine) to provide water to the Wingmen's 3-piece band that they bring in just for the Dark tapings. Also how Excalibur tiger drivers everyone that causes him trouble.