Stiva

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

What was the deal with Andrade leaving AEW? I always saw it as him going back to WWE to be with his wife but that seemed to fall apart as soon as he got there. Can’t remember anything too contentious with how he went out in AEW; he was in the first CC and got given a competitive match with Miro on his way out the door. Wouldn’t surprise me if Bandido vs Andrade was on the cards for Final Battle

Yeah, the eventual Daddy Magic attack and blade job is going to be king-sized. They can get some good mileage out of Garcia vs Nigel too as Nigel steps in to show his outrage. I do wonder if the end goal of the Death Riders is for Moxley to mould someone in his image and then be taken down by them. Garcia would fit the bill as the guy to eventually out-Mox Moxley down the line

Every time the Hardys try and do high flying spots, I cry inside. Especially considering those few brawls they did in AEW were great. Matt was throwing great punches and Jeff was using his reckless abandon to jump off balconies and take stupid bumps into merchandise tables. They were way better as 2020s Concession Stand Brawl specialists than TLC rehashers

Can’t deny that they played the eventual turn on MJF pretty much perfectly. He was really over for a bit after that. Also, DEAN 3 will be taking over the regular ROH slot this week which is fucking great. And I really hope it’s a way to introduce everyone on that show to an eventual regular ROH slot

Probably time to cut their losses on Wardlow. It’s not like the Don Callis Family doesn’t already have Archer if they want to give Hangman a big guy to run through and I’m sure WWE haven’t long released a roided up dude who can do swanton bombs

TK responding to the injuries by bringing back the heavy hitters is great. None bigger than Dalton Castle with The Outrunners. That has ridiculous skit potential

Collision has a “Taz Hardcore Hall of Fame Induction” segment booked and man, I’m sure it’s going to be played straight and respectful but it’d be wild if Hook turned heel by choking his dad out

Sure, we’ll team Sammy Guevara and RUSH together. It’s a good idea as any for a heel team, I suppose. And if Bandido keeps throwing out these insanely good title matches, he’ll be in the World or Unified title picture soon, surely

I had a feeling that they were beefing up the DCF to give Hangman some heels to run through so I’m glad that could be on the horizon. Hangman/Takeshita is a big match that I don’t think they’ve done yet?

TK should make Jericho do the job for Big Bill on the way out. The whole works; full squash, he snaps Floyd the bat over his knee, rips his jacket in half. Really kill off AEW Jericho

It’s ROH so I’m not even sure how many people are watching but they need to get the Trios belts off Dustin and the Von Erich immediately and give me El Sky Team vs Adam Priest and The Workhorsemen

If it is all an elaborate work, my prevailing question is “why would you waste all that effort on Karrion Kross?!”

Forbidden Door is a weird card thanks to the G1 and there’s some matches that I thought would be reserved for All Out because of that but the Cage Match is a wild collection of people. If you’d have asked me what I thought Tanahashi’s match would be, I’d have never said that in a million guesses

Yeah, this is a big one

WWE presuming that being in the ring with an older legend and coming off like a total clown is somehow a rub is a bizarre booking choice that they haven’t been able to shake for way too long

I think they have to do Mox/Darby before Mox leaves for prolonged time. Would be kind of interesting to see how Claudio would do as de-facto leader in Mox’s absence

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I’m with you. He played it absolutely perfect as his chickens came home to roost all at once. An absolute stadium sized performance. I’m intrigued to see just how he and Darby attempt to kill each other over the next few months

Spent that whole show with a smile plastered across my face. Well, other than that very serious sounding Adam Cole promo. Daddy Magic saying that they shared some “I love you’s” set the alarm bells ringing that it’s more than a wrestling injury but let’s hope not. Whole show was great, even if the pre-show matches were rough as toast. Men’s gauntlet probably went too long but I guess TK wanted to give everyone their moment at the big show and Cope doing his full entrance on his return was stupid but those are my two gripes. It would have been easy to just crown Fletcher in the 4-way but giving Dustin that moment in Texas and giving us a couple of months of the DUSTIN RHODES TNT OPEN CHALLENGE before having Fletcher win will rule. All the interference in the main kind of went down how I expected but that’s no bad thing as it was so great. The best Moxley match of his AEW run? Hangman feels some degrees bigger and better than during his last run and he really does feel like the man in a way nobody else is. Awesome show. Felt like a huge celebration of what has made AEW so great in the last 6 months and has set up plenty for down the road. Athena vs Toni Storm is going to be so great

Yeah, man, this is the most excited I’ve been for a wrestling show since god knows when. I was hyped for the first All In but that was more for the spectacle of AEW at Wembley than it was for any specific booking or matches. I’m invested in this fucker and I have full faith they’re going to stick the landing. It feels like a huge show and it’s going to deliver