Stiva

Anyway, not to intentionally double post but Final Battle was another fantastic ROH PPV. Mercedes dropping her first belt to Red Velvet was really good, Moriarty vs Nigel was a phenomenal bit of work and Deonna Purrazzo as Heel Pure Champion should finally give her something to sink her teeth into. I hope that Kingston vs Woods was the beginning of them shuffling Woods into more serious territory for 2026 as I think he’s someone that has way more value than the third guy in The Premier Athletes. For 2026 in general, I hope ROH gets an influx of new indie talent. I know they have a ridiculously big roster as it is but it’s probably time to cycle some older heads out and get some new guys in

I’m in the complete minority with Harley in that I find her promos and backstage skits unbearably annoying but I think she’s actually improving pretty quickly in ring. I could live without ever seeing her do poorly performed comedy for the rest of my days, even if I do acknowledge that’s why she’s over in the first place. I did like how she did in the angle with the Death Riders and Statlander though so maybe she’s way better at the serious stuff than they’re letting her be

I have no real opinion on Copeland either way but he’s useful to have around. And, for better or worse, Cope and Christian is something they would be pretty negligent not to do as it’s obviously a big deal for people at large. The eventual FTR rematch will probably be really good and they’ll put over a young team when they do drop the belts so I have no problem with it. Plus, he decided to work a random match with Griff Garrison and if that’s not in the spirit of AEW, then what is?

That Eddie promo really hit home how much he was missed in that 18 months or so. An absolutely king-sized promo

Yeah, the whole DR story is that the others can get the job done and Moxley can’t. I have no doubt that this all ends with Darby beating PAC on the way to the semis of the CC

Yeah, that’s just a wild collection of great matches. Darby/Okada will be fucking great if Okada turns up. Roddy Strong is a great pick for this too. He’s probably just going to eat pins but he’ll have a great match with everyone in the Blue League. I sincerely hope Moxley loses every match; they’ve started on this story, they may as well continue with it and I assume it leads to Claudio assuming control of the Death Riders

Joe has been so great since he came back in the summer so I’m all in on him getting another run. Hangman is still the guy, title or not. Plus, HOOK turning means we’re getting Joe vs Kingston at some point and that’s just swell. Right as Eddie doing the “injured guy takes time to build back up on return” story reaches the end and he looks close to 100%. A few surprising results tonight but no bad ones and gives things a bit of a shake-up as we go into the end of the year. I’m looking forward to The angle where the Death Riders put Moxley out to pasture and we get the Moxley/Darby team that they hinted at right back at the start of AEW

That was my first thought when I watched the Lashley match. He’s definitely entering late and winning. As for THS as a whole, I’m fairly ambivalent. Shelton has been oddly really good as a power athlete throwing guys around but Lashley hasn’t really lived up to any early potential and I imagine the reason he isn’t a single guy is because he’s “selective” about jobbing. The MJF stuff was terrible but MJF swings from excellent to unbearably bad from program to program so I’m willing to give THS half a pass there. I do wonder where they go after this feud with The Demand though. The OPPs?

Nothing says Number 2 promotion liking giving your World Title to a dude that the actual Number 2 promotion thought was surplus to requirements

Blake Christian is a really good promo too. I think they could definitely be a really good heel tag team going forward but I fear they’ll be lost in the shuffle like CRU and Top Flight

I love Tony Khan’s absolute joy in announcing more titles and seeing people go mad about it. I assume we’ll be getting US Tag belts sometime in 2026

The only knock I have against Mercedes is that, god damn, how many “celebration” angles does she need? I get that it’s the heel gimmick but it has a WWE tint to it that feels very tired. This one worked better as she got her face in the cake which is always a good pop but yeah, I feel like these segments happens way too much without any real payoff

TK probably has an account on here too and I want to see his GWE 2016 ballot

I’m higher on Andrade than most, I think so I’m glad to see him. I don’t think they did Andrade/Omega in his last run so I’m happy to see that on Wrestledream

Say what you will about the Young Bucks but at least they knew that cybertrucks are embarrassing and used one to get heat.

Don’t really have an issue with Stephanie going in but god damn, the video package is going to be an all-timer in WWE bullshit

Toni dropping the World title so she can be first Women’s Tag Champs with Mina makes sense too

Man, Tony just bringing everyone back. I’m half expecting Pineapple Pete to join the Don Callis Family at this rate

Stat winning feels like it’s something TK has wanted to do for a long time so let’s see how it goes. She joins the Death Riders from here?

Also, I’ve had an inkling that the Mark Briscoe stuff is leading up to him finally having a deep run in the CC. The first one they made an effort to say he was finding his footing as a solo wrestler, he did better again in the second and now he’s finally won some big matches and has just beaten a bona-fide main eventer. I’m not sure he’ll win but I’d be willing to bet he’s in the Semis at World’s End

Orange Cassidy, PAC and Eddie Kingston isn’t a bad set of guys to make their return when you have some injuries

PAC and Gabe Kidd is the bad-tempered tag team I didn’t know I needed. Make it happen, TK

Kingston being back and teaming with HOOK is awesome though. Get Homicide in as their manager while we’re at it. It also means we’re probably getting Eddie vs Joe at some point

I liked that post-match angle in theory but not sure it worked for me in practice. Felt a bit too WWE-esque when this entire year has been so much better when AEW has moved away from it

We’re in Canada and Jericho matches have been all over the AEW YouTube in recent days so I’d maybe prepare for that. More importantly, we have Eddie Kingston! Including the Tailgate Brawl, you’re looking at one hell of a long show