Stiva

Unless they want to hold off on Punk actually appearing until Collision, I do wonder if he shows up after the main event at DON to mirror MJF doing the same to him

Give Danielson the book and tell him to allocate 15 minutes every week to work who he likes. The rest of the show is inconsequential

Now, that’s more like the Dynamite I love. Awesome matches in front of a molten crowd and we feel like we’re trucking somewhere. Even Jericho is watchable now that he’s leaning back into oblivious, arrogant idiot mode. Miro and Thunder Rosa coming back felt like it was on the cards but everything surrounding Collision is ridiculously exciting, even if not for all the right reasons. Also, how the fuck do they book the Wembley card? I assume the card is pretty much set in stone but this is a preposterous roster of talent

Seems like the current estimate is somewhere around 70k sold which is wild. The crazy bastards may actually do it

The news about Dean is awful. I always remember stumbling across his Smackdown workrate reports as a fresh-faced teenager and laughing at his absolute love for the ridiculous Al Wilson storyline. Since then, I always made it a point to read his old DVDVRs, the comix and, recently, his stream of consciousness thoughts on basically everything over at DVDVR. He turned me on to so much obscure, dirty Japanese wrestling at a time where I didn’t see past the big promotions. Just total positivity in a community that, so often, only focuses on the negatives. RIP

Catching up on Dynamite after being away and does that dickhead in the MJF scarf and aviators in the front row ever stop being extremely annoying? He’s actively taking away from OC vs Bandido

They pump out so many nonsensical designs, I’m almost thinking they’re using some AI to do it

You’re probably right but I guess they don’t actually need to build him up since he never technically lost the belt. Then again, the rankings are a thing of the past and Sammy Guevara is going for the top belt so who knows how TK is doing things now

Hyped for Punk’s return, providing they go right back where things left off with MJF and we steer clear of Jericho and the Bucks.

I’m all for another AEW show where Khan can put together weird match ups but it feels like it’s going to give another big blow to our chances of getting any real angles or stories to attach to

Is that area within Daily’s Place where they filmed during the height of the pandemic off limits these days? I might be a minority but I always loved the look of those shows, they should totally do ROH there if it’s possible

I really dug the whole of Dynamite this week, even if the first hour was a definite high point of 2023 AEW. OC/Matthews was really great and I’m glad Matthews has got to have a big showcase singles match like that. Jericho leeching onto Adam Cole is absolutely ridiculous. I wonder if Jericho will have another fantastically creative idea like asking Adam Cole/Ricky Starks/The Acclaimed/Moxley (delete as appropriate) to join his stable and get angry when they don’t

Nah, the 92 Summerslam was in a different Wembley stadium to the one that is there now. The old one was knocked down and rebuilt with a larger capacity

I imagine Jericho will move on to more important things. Like being the first one through the curtain at Wembley so he can get the big opening pop

I have no idea tbh. I expect it’ll sell fairly well out of the gate considering they haven’t toured here in it’s entire existence and you’ll get fly ins from other areas of Europe, on top of the rest of the UK. I assume that they’ll tape Dynamite and Rampage before flying over as maybe doing those live in smaller London arenas may cannibalise the Wembley tickets? Maybe TK has Goldberg lined up. I’m sure they’ll have some celebrity involvement if that still sells tickets

Yeah, especially with All Out the following month. Even besides that, it’s a big ask. I know there’s rumours about McIntyre becoming a free agent but I’m not sure he’s enough. I can’t think of any celebrity involvement that could push it through. I’m assuming Khan has the card and everything in place already but I’m massively interested in getting there either way

AEW hitting Wembley two days before my birthday, and on a bank holiday weekend, is good timing for me. Hopefully the tickets aren’t too expensive as I imagine Wembley isn’t cheap to rent

Man, a few months or so of Rhodes and Lesnar as odd buddies brought together by a common enemy is so much more interesting than that swerve last night

Jericho probably understands that, if Punk does come back, his first program is going to be the big draw and he’s trying to worm his way into it now

Way too many “shoot” comments for lack of a better word in that opening segment. I’m all for taking the title off that lame edgelord at this point

My boys Miro, Darby and Sting are AWOL but QT Marshall is back, baby. We are truly blessed

Yeah, this was a fun little revisionism project and it sort of makes me want to watch the whole run for myself but it’ll take a Herculean effort to drag me from my big Memphis rewatch. Maybe one day I’ll give them a fair crack of the whip

I’ve been sour on recent AEW but Danielson going an hour is always essential viewing and I’m half expecting FTR to show back up after the tag match.

If Parker is the one they’re putting in ring, the other guy must be barely trained because Parker is green as grass. Even with those three working with him, he looked lost on Rampage

This new ROH is exciting purely because it seems like it’ll be the home of Slim J working studio style for the foreseeable. Some more stray thoughts: The show didn’t feel too different in style from AEW but there were enough distinct faces to make it feel like it’s own promotion and I’m sure there’ll be big crossover anyway. The Infantry is a fantastic WCW C-Show tag team; they have the corny entrance attire, the choreographed double teams and they lose to the established teams. In general, there’s a lot of freshness in the tags. You’ve got Trustbusters, The Kingdom, Aussie Open, Claudio/Yuta, Titus/Williams, Roju/Johl, The Embassy and that’s just on this show alone. Sabre Jr calling out Danielson seems to indicate one match for Forbidden Door at the very least. Christopher Daniels pulling a regular schedule in 2023 is certainly something I didn’t expect. Takeshita vs Woods felt like a match you’d find nestled into the centre of Dynamite so the general flow of the in-ring work seems to be some competitive TV matches mixed in with a couple of marquee, longer matches intended to be of a much higher quality. I think I’d prefer Takeshita to win a title in AEW but it feels like he may be the guy who beats Claudio. The commentary is really great. They’ve got fantastic chemistry, for a start but it’s not just the calling of the action and relaying the stories, they’re having fun with all of the characters. Saying that the Trustbusters have enough money to make it so Metalik didn’t get an entrance, things like that. Really just a total net positive for the whole show and everyone on it. The women’s matches on the show were…fine. Madison Rayne went nowhere in AEW so why not send her to ROH to help bring the rookies along. Willow Nightingale showing up is, like Takeshita, the case of someone who I’d prefer to be getting a sustained AEW push but at least it seems like it’s going to happen somewhere. Plenty of AEW advertising and a few references to make things clear that, yeah, this is its own promotion but I assume it’s expected that you’ll watch it along with Dynamite and Rampage as the AEW “universe” if you will. Especially if the idea is that workers will “graduate” to Dynamite from ROH with momentum. Claudio vs Kingston at the PPV seems like the time to bring in a certain Chris Hero… Overall, it was a really good first episode. There was nothing outright bad other than the Daniels match plodding along and it feels like a roster full of people that can certainly put on good matches. Whether Khan can be relied on to book another 2 hours of TV and fill it with memorable angles is another question altogether.