Matt D

Just caught up to the end of the pre-show. Incredibly emotional stuff.

What the heck was up with that Cole Karter dive?

Austin vs Cena is 100% the play.

Unless it gets us closer to getting more Houston footage, we don’t care.

I will fully admit that 2022 AEW will work better in ten years as a comp than it has for us living through it, but it'll be a hell of a comp.

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.