Log

Hmmmm. Are they main eventing with the Inner Circle segment? Big angle coming?

I liked the Kingston part of that segment. Didn’t dig it leading into Christian. I don’t mind him having a match with Kenny on Dynamite, but then move him down the cart. Let him have some tv matches with some younger dudes and leave it at that.

I think it’s audio from a basketball game.

Ok, ok. I see what they’re doing with Sting now. So, AEW is the spiritual successor to WCW. In WCW, Sting was always getting turned on. In AEW, he always gets interrupted. That’s his new thing.

The real shame of this explosion debacle is that, if it had been an impressive explosion, it would’ve made Kingston’s face turn an all-timer.

Alright. I liked that promo. Admit it wasn’t what it was supposed to be and move on. Helps to have the best talker in wrestling explaining it, of course.

Very deserving challengers, lol.

Did he ever defend the NWA title against anyone other than Flair?

The only good thing about Cody lately is that he's not been involved in anything I actually care about for a while, so he's easy to skip. It's like when Shane O feuded with the Miz. Keep the suck in one segment. I'm excited to see Christian work with some of the guys on the AEW roster, but he was a bit disappointing as the surprise. He's actually one of the older guys that I'm cool with them signing assuming he can still go. I just don't think they should've teased him so hard. Also, coming on the heels of signing Big Show made it seem like all of the WWE olds are coming in. WWE is as stale as ever. There was that pic going around showing how the roster (well, the pushed roster) is pretty much the exact same as it was in like 2009. If AEW wants to be seen as the "hip"" alternative to old man Vince, they need to feature their young stars, which they have a lot of. I'm still positive about the future of AEW. They've shown that they can adjust when things aren't working. The next few weeks will be big for them in seeing if that's true. They had some legit hype going into Revolution and did NOT deliver on it.

I wouldn't mind seeing someone book Aries again. Just so long as it's in a match with Nick Gage and Gage gets paid a little extra to make sure Aries shuts his mouth for a while. Hell, let's do the same for Joey Ryan.

I was watching that Mania with a couple friends. That match was boring as hell, so we were just chatting about other stuff and BAM! We all were like, "Wait. Was that a three count?" We had to rewind to see the finish.

Guys, you gotta see this segment: https://www.instagram.com/p/CMPW6mFpyiY/?igshid=au3motiqbkra

Piggybacking off the Steamboat/Savage discussion... Was Steamboat's reign the most disappointing to come after a match that's considered a classic? I'm sure there are instances where someone won a title in a classic match, but had to forfeit because of injuries or something like that. But, I can't recall a single match (let alone a great match) from his reign, just when he lost it to HTM.

Seeing that fan-shot version, I think that if the boom had been more impressive and the smoke had hung around the ring a while longer, they might have had a better response. My gut says they didn't test it until the day of the show and it was too late to change it.

What happened there? Never heard the story on that one. I agree that Brock should've won, but wasn't it unclear if he'd be sticking around when that match happened? I swear I've heard that they were afraid he'd go over their top guy and then go back to MMA or whatever.

I've always thought this one worked because it fit the story. It all made sense and called back to their feud.

Signing Angle so soon after Big Show would not be a good idea, IMO. Like others said, he can't work and I thought his promos have been awful since he returned to WWE. He's just not a person I have any desire to see taking up time on Dynamite. Edit: Oh, wait! Didn't they word it "future hall of fame" talent? I know Angle is already in the WWE HOF. Is he in the Observer's too?

Are any of those Montreal matches available online?

I've always thought that 99% of the old promoters crying about tradition and the killing of the territories were just pissed that Vince was the one to actually pull it off. They'd have switched places with him in a heartbeat.

C'mon, guys. Ryan's putting on a show for "Women's Charity". You know, that charity that...uh...helps women? How can he be a bad guy?

As far as I know, Vince Sr. never booked any of his talent to have to literally kiss his bare ass in the middle of the ring, so I'm gonna go with him.

I agree. That's why, assuming that pop culture stays it's current course, I don't really see there being another boom. The only thing close to a "universal" shared pop culture experience these days is maybe Marvel? Game of Thrones came close for a while. I don't have very flushed out thoughts on it, but I think that people today love serialized content. I have thought before that wrestling, with it's long history, could tap into that, but more and more I feel like that may actually be a hinderance to attract new viewers.

The last two "booms" in wrestling have been tied to trends in the larger pop culture. In the 80's, the Hogan boom was tied to the rise of the action hero. You had Arnold and Sly pulling big numbers at the box office. Also, the 80's, in America, were even more xenophobic than other times. So, Hogan taking on "evil" foreigners tied into that, too. During the late-90's boom, pop culture became much more crass and "extreme". Wrestling was like South Park with the language. You had some "Girls Gone Wild" with the T&A. And you had the dangerous stunts like Jackass. Of course, both of those booms were fronted by some larger-than-life characters. That's obviously part of it. But I think an under-mentioned part of it was pro wrestling hitting a tone that matched the prevailing attitude (no pun) of the pop culture of that era. I think that maybe we put too much of an emphasis on who can lead wrestling into a new boom instead of what wrestling can morph into to do it.

ESPN has lost a lot of it's appeal to me for the same reasons as WWE. ESPN used to have personalities, but at some point, they started homogenizing their on-air folks and pushing the brand. Sound familiar?

Wasn’t the cameraman who missed catching Taker Snuka’s son? And wasn’t he fired for it?