Matt D

They just won Blood and Guts. And did the Last Call. And they're former champs that never got another title shot after they lost their title. I think you could make it work. As for Cole, you have him win a couple of singles matches or a battle royal or a one night tournament or something where he almost can't help himself. Kind of a Sting/Flair 1989-90 Scenario. And then he realizes the implications after the fact and they're stuck with it. Or just have Tony Khan announce it since he had a draw with Max and then they've done nothing but win since. But yeah, the time could even be further extended out I guess. I have no actual mental idea when All In is. I barely know what today's date is. It's summer and things get muddled.

I reiterate: The main event of All In should be MJF/Cole (c) vs Page/Omega with the pressure of an already booked despite Cole's wishes MJF vs Cole title match at All Out hanging over them. It's the most "AEW"-ish match possible for the biggest AEW show and the logical successor to previous most iconic AEW match ever in Page/Omega vs Bucks. Whatever the initial plans were (Unless they're Omega vs Punk, sure) they should change them.

Doing a rare (for me) DVDVR Cross-post but the more I think about this, the more I like it: All In/All Out will be a bit of a conundrum when it comes to not shortchanging either, even with the potential of Punk being a heel in one setting and a face in the other allowing them to maybe redo matches. You need some sense of conclusion at All In while still building to All Out. One possibility I see at this point is Cole and MJF defending the AEW titles against a reunited Omega and Page at All In ahead of a somehow mandated AEW Title match that they can't get out of between the two of them at All Out. That's playing the "hot hand" as far as humanly possible right now. You get the finality of the Omega/Page story, the end of the MJF/Cole team, the intrigue of which will betray the other, and it will feel like both a big deal and an "Only in AEW is this Possible" sort of deal with a lot of throughlines that have been building for a while. Or they can just blow up the team tonight, whatever.

I like ROH. It frustrates me but it’s enjoyable wrestling for the sake of wrestling and I like wrestling. It’s also removed from most of the wrestlers I like least in AEW (most), and has one of my absolute favorites featured every week in 2023 Athena. I think the negatives bugged me more before Collision started. Now it’s the wrestling I catch after I finished everything else each week and I usually enjoy it more in reality than I think I will on paper.

I am the lowest guy on Adam Page on the board, but before they announced Briscoe, I thought Page was the best choice for an opponent stemming off the current BCC vs Elite feud and as a fresh match up with a guy with some ROH history. The Briscoe match felt super cold even given a pretty good promo from Claudio and an Eddie one from Eddie. I figure they should probably just go back and go with Hangman at this point (Unless it's some crazy ruse to have Eddie come back from the G1 and put aside his dream to stand up for honor and fight Claudio once and for all).

My only guess is that Athena needs an opponent for the PPV and this is a different way to get there than an eliminator. In some cases ways Willow is the perfect opponent to Athena, light vs darkness and they could have built a year long story around that leading to Final Battle. Ah well.

I’m going to hold out a tiny bit of hope for Athena to be the Faces of Fear vs Ruby’s Outsiders.

Adam Cole should work a George McFly gimmick.

If nothing else, we have the sheer variety of the "Rugged Russians" WWWF match and his Japan work. That gives you a sense of potential breadth. Still, I get the sense he was absolutely great. Unquestionably great. He is one of the greatest wrestlers ever. I just don't think I have enough to rate him relative to other wrestlers or figure out where he'd be on a list.

Beating Omega with a side headlock takeover would be pretty good heat.

The whining about a long ROH show (really two put together) was absurd. You can watch it whenever. On paper, there were maybe 17 of the 19 matches (sorry Cole Karter and Action Andretti) I wanted to see and I'll watch them in between other things as it fits into my life over the next week. I think a lot of the whining about it had to be a Twitter thing. On Twitter, you have to stay up with the most recent thing to be part of the immediate discourse. On Twitter, you watch wrestling not necessarily because you love wrestling but because you crave being part of something immediate and live and bigger than you. You derive part of your identity from it and therefore you have to consume it as soon as possible so you don't fall behind the curve, because the curve is only going to last a few hours. ROH is made for a message board crowd by a message board poster. I kind of feel bad for people who can't find joy in a show that kicks off with Mark Briscoe vs JD Drake. Those people are definitely doing wrestling wrong.

Now I want to see them vs RUSH.

I don't push SC stuff often around here, but I covered a few HH matches from House Rules over the weekend (where Darby and OC tried out some of their spots that htey used last night) here: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/05/aew-five-fingers-of-death-and-friends_0255000681.html And a couple of things from last week including the great Athena vs Skye Blue match that not enough people saw here: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/05/aew-five-fingers-of-death-and-friends_098280981.html

Robert Kirkman? Dan Slott? There are no money mark comic book writers? It's probably Mark Gruenwald. Fanzine writer who cares way too much about continuity.

That’s when you appeal to comics fans and go full CHIKARA

This is also a potential side effect of the west coast touring. The build is the build though, short term cost for long term gain, etc. Presumably if they announce Anarchy in the Arena or something tomorrow, that might help.

I think I'm going to run through some of Jarrett's pod but I want to hop around and do it at least roughly chronologically. I wish they'd have taken the Arn/Fuller approach with him, just like I wish they would have with Regal. My early impression is that Jeff's memory is better and he's more able to hit coherent and interesting points with less deviation more quickly so it'd work for him.

My poor Tuesday morning commute.

It was just because Doc/Gordy had a Japan tour.

No security blanket quite like a Bullet Club shirt then?

I’ve enjoyed the shows, but I enjoyed the first four episodes more. Bring on the tapings.

They can only add so many undercard guys to Bullet Club Gold, but if they can put just one guy in there, I want it to be Lee Johnson. I think he's ready and he got the unfortunate side of the Factory to QTV transformation, but he wasn't there long post-turn to get tarnished either.

We've started a project on Panama, though @Rah is the man doing the heavy lifting on the research. http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/search/label/Espectáculos Promociones Panama

You didn't give us criteria. The board is almost always going to gravitate towards "in-ring output based on footage."