Stiva

That's cool, I'm glad that he's getting some recognition because the fact that AEW have come out of the gate with some great entrance themes for their talent has been a big boost IMO. Adam Cole's theme has legitimately broke over to the regular rock charts to some extent, I believe but the likes of Hangman, Danielson and Britt Baker, to pick three off the top of my head, all have the JIm Johnston hallmarks that get a crowd popping. Get that hook in early and listen to them go.

“You think Bob Orton was on the road for eight days and came home to fucking herd cattle?!” popped me huge. Hangman is great

Beyond hyped for that Moxley promo, absolutely awesome stuff. I’m very happy that he’s back and they need to send unchained Moxley agter Undisputed Era so he can demolish those fucking dorks

Daniel Garcia is so great. Give me the Garcia and HOOK team that we know will kickstart the wrestling boom. Mixed episode all in all but I like the slow set-ups to a lot of what they're doing but I can take or leave Archer being Page's first challenger. It seems like Khan is going to book his babyface World Champs to beat a monster in their first defence (Moxley had Brodie, right?) but if they're going that route, I'd rather they brought The Titan in for a few months with EC3 as the mouthpiece and have Page slay him. As for House of Black, feels like they're hinting at Pac joining but I'm going to guess they swerve with that. On the subject of putting people together, Cole and Baker being together felt a little forced as I don't think they really need each other to stay over but I suppose it's been mentioned so much and it's common knowledge, they should probably have each other's back on TV, at least. Oh yeah, Brodie King debuting was good stuff too. I feel like the last two weeks have definitely had a renewed focus on the depth of the tag division; almost everyone is in a team and almost everyone is mentioning going for the belts. I think we're about ready for an enormous tag tournament.

It’s only natural that Dustin’s age would begin to work against him but god damn it, now is the time to give me the Dustin and Sonny Kiss tag team. Just three months of Dark tags is all I ask, Tony. I noticed Scorpio Sky didn’t fake laugh at Dan Lambert’s jokes on Rampage after Loss’ post about it so I know you’re reading, you son of a bitch. As for Sammy, he was a heel to me the minute he snapped up Tay Conti. Respectfully, of course

Hobbs, Hook and Starks could very quietly be a real breakout trio in 2022. All three have great presence and should, in theory, complement each other nicely as on-screen characters. Throw in Taz as the mouthpiece and suddenly Team Taz is looking like something investing real time in

When I saw 7 pages, I feared some kind of bizarre booking decision but thankfully, it wasn't that. Page winning was absolutely the right move but I'm at a loss as to who he works at the PPV. Adam Cole? I'm not sure Jade is ready for a title yet but the booking and the timing of it all probably means she had to. I'm glad AEW has really padded out with some stronger women workers to help her through it as it's definitely there but she's going to need some really smartly laid out matches, especially to hang on PPV. Rosa/Mercedes should absolutely slap though. Brian Pillman JR is unfortunate because I can fully understand why they'd want to push him and want to feature him but Garrison is the standout of that team and the experiment with trying to push them further up the card needs to be shelved; they're solid as fiery undercard babyfaces. Fenix's injury was grisly, christ. I hope that's not as bad as it looked and I'd have been down for Death Triangle vs The House of Black but that looks like it's on the backburner. Unless they do an angle with Penta brings in somebody to team with in his absence. Glad for Jungle Boy, it was the big win that he's needed and I'm looking forward to Lucha Express vs. 2.0, especially. I think that could be good stuff but wouldn't surprise me if we got Santana and Ortiz as the first main challengers, that seems like it could be good fun. A weird, uneven show that they're often capable of but I thought it set up a lot of future stuff really nicely, except for, strangely enough, their top title. Also, the idea of Danielson leading a stable of shooters is fucking great but I'll easily settle for Regal as his second and a long TNT title run where he crafts 10-15 minute Rampage main events against whoever he fancies every week.

It has to be Jeff Hardy, right? It’ll also have the add-on effect of splitting that bloated HFO stable up too

More importantly, which judge is Danielson going to kick in the face and start his next feud with?

Well, that’s 45 minutes of Revolution sown up.

Fun little end of year show but AEW always feels at its weakest to me when they’re a ways away from a big PPV. Like, Punk and MJF have orbited for a while but we’re still waiting on the big angle to kickstart the match at Revolution (I presume). Also, the ReDragon music sounds like a South Park parody of a rock song.

I’m all the way into this but I suspect Moxley has a bit to go yet. Tuned in to potentially get The Briscoes and I got Kyle O’Reilly, looking like a pop-punk bassist, making silly angry faces. Can’t say I’m too thrilled at the combination of overly-long Undisputed Era matches and Nick Jackson overacting but I’ll let it play out.

I haven't seen much of WWE this year but, had he signed, would people want to Sami come to AEW and do a similar gimmick or would people want him to go back to El Generico? It seems like the latter would have been a bit of a regression considering how much he's come along as a performer.

My longstanding view on Orton is that he’s been in a lot of great matches but I don’t think he’s ever been the best man in those matches. I can’t see that viewpoint changing even with re-evaluation. Maybe he was the best man in those matches with RVD, they always had a weird chemistry.

Does Owens have enough name value and cache to maybe get on that "PPV Program Once Every Quarter" sort of deal? The Edge contract, if you will.

Page/Bryan was absolutely incredible and I can see the logic in having them go again at BOTB. I had a feeling that post-WWE would see Danielson attempt to go long again but to see that he’s actually better at it than he ever has been is pretty wild. Page wasn’t quite on that level but it’s fair to say that nobody currently working is even close anyway. Would have popped for the Briscoes at the end but Sting having the big moment in Greensboro will be awesome. I guess FTR keep asking to sell for and put Sting over. Black having his own creepy stable is far more preferable than ever seeing Wyatt turn up with his. Hyped for the next wave of AEW debuts now that they could potentially have the pick of ROH. I also love how Darby will also loop back round to teaming with the guys he’s fought tooth and nail in the past and he always remembers to be cagy at first. Great little attention to detail for people who have been with it since the start.

Yeah, Hangman beating Danielson is absolutely the way to get him down as the undisputed top guy. Part of the reason that Danielson has had to turn heel to make it all click, I would imagine. I like the idea of the Dynamite Diamond being the thing that they bestow on someone who they clearly see a lot of potential in and is slowly bubbling over but who they don't want to give a title to yet so Dante being the one to beat MJF makes sense, especially if they pull the trigger on the Wardlow turn.

We've had Prince Nana, now AEW just need to get MLW to lease out Julius Smokes to really cash in on the wave of ROH bittersweet nostalgia.

Janela would be a good fit in a heel stable, I think. Like one of the nWo guys who would stand around clapping while the actual main eventers beat down Lex Luger

Wardlow almost throwing that jobber out of the ring with the F10 was total highlight package stuff. He needs to do that to someone on Dynamite or Rampage

I absolutely love brawls where there’s always a sneaky feeling that at least a few fans went home with grievous injuries because of it and this is right up there. Onita just lashing Dragon Master in the face with his belt is one of the wildest strap/belt spots I’ve seen. Just lashes out with reckless abandon, incredible

I think I’ve personally enjoyed Darby Allin more than any other wrestler but I really haven’t watched enough other 2021 wrestling to speak authoritatively on it, I’m afraid. Just want to say Darby owns

Darby Allin vs Billy Gunn is the result of Tony Khan randomly thinking about 1998 WCW when falling asleep and deciding to just pick TV matches out of a hat.

I can’t see them going right to Danielson/Hangman, I think it’ll be an extended TV feud with someone first. Black shouldn’t be losing so soon again, MJF and Darby has legs and Miro is better than the Lance Archer role of gatekeeping monster to slay. I’d go Andrade as a guy who has credibility to get a shot but can convincingly give Page a good first defence. Or have him give John Silver a title shot for being a supportive chap during the last year. And yeah, I forgot to mention JR but that dude was fucking out to lunch for most of the night. One match had him go on a diversion about European uppercuts that not even Tony knew how to make relevant to the match at hand.