NintendoLogic

Jericho on commentary has entered so bad it's good territory for me. I popped when he put Punk over as a trained MMA fighter as well as for his Grapplers Anonymous dad joke. By the way, is there any rhyme or reason to when Punk wears trunks and when he wears longboys?

I previously said that Henry had a great eye for talent and would be a tremendous asset for AEW as long as he didn't have a stick up his ass about Respecting the Business. But if this is the kind of attitude he's bringing to the job, he needs to be shown the door. By the way, Luchasaurus was one of the whistleblowers who exposed Bill DeMott's abusive training practices in NXT. I wonder if Henry would tell him to his face that he's weak and doesn't deserve to be in the business.

I'm reminded of when the Godwinns' ring names went over some people's heads here.

Omega/Danielson doesn't need the belt, but the belt needs Omega/Danielson. If they're feuding over who the best in the world is, one of them should be the champion. Otherwise, Page looks like a paper champion. And dethroning the guy who beat Danielson will mean a lot more than dethroning the guy who went to a time-limit draw with him.

I checked out Sabre/Ishii. Good match, but Marty Asami is complete dogshit. He's as bad as Earl Hebner when it comes to telegraphing kickouts. He killed every single near fall by blatantly holding up after the two count.

For what it's worth, Bix has cautioned against jumping to conclusions about Fish. There doesn't seem to be any record of him being involved in anything QAnon-affiliated other than that one OUR fundraiser. The fact that he deleted the IG post with him and Drake suggests that he initially got taken in by innocuous-sounding rhetoric about fighting child trafficking and bailed once he realized what the real deal was.

That and working to the hard camera.

In his interview with PWInsider, Coach Tony K promised "one huge announcement on the show." He said it wasn't about the identity of the Joker and that "it's been something a long time coming. I'm very excited about it and proud of it, and it'll really add a lot to the company, I think." So there you go.

Gigi Dolin is Darby's ex-wife, so maybe she gave Cora some pointers while they were teaming.

Man, Smackdown kind of got fleeced in the draft. Their #2 star right now is Charlotte, which is just lol. So much for the notion that they're the A show. That, or Fox has a terrible eye for talent.

Roman was the guy the fans were behind in 2014. He was over huge at the Rumble when he set a record for eliminations and was the last man standing in the way of Batista's coronation. And at the end of the year, he won Superstar of the Year in a legitimate fan vote despite having been off TV the previous few months. The backlash didn't begin until the 2015 Rumble where he won and Bryan was treated as a complete afterthought. The fans supported him when he clashed with the hand-picked would-be corporate champion, but he became the avatar of fan resentment when he assumed that role himself. That's the inherent contradiction with modern WWE. On the one hand, they have to be in control of everything so nothing is allowed to get over organically. On the other hand, they've presented themselves to the fanbase as the heel for so long that being seen as the company pick inevitably invites a backlash.

Yo, fuck Smash. Discerning wrestling fans know the real deal.

Roman has main evented Wrestlemania five out of the past seven years. And he would have main evented a sixth had he not pulled out for health reasons. Come on now.

History suggests the opposite. Total Divas and Total Bellas played a major role in drawing female viewers to WWE at a time when male viewership was collapsing. The target audience for this show isn't wrestling fans. It's women who watch reality TV and wouldn't normally be interested in wrestling. For all of AEW's success, it continues to struggle with women viewers. And Cody fits the mold of the pretty-boy type that has traditionally drawn women to wrestling. If it works, great. If it doesn't, no big deal. Either way, it's not the kind of thing to get worked up over since it's easy to ignore if you don't like it.

I vehemently reject the notion that a match needs 25 minutes and main-event status to be a proper match. In fact, I'd say extra time to work is usually an active detriment because it leads to them killing time by sitting in armbars and the like. I'd rather watch a high-end 80s WWF tag than a high-end 80s NWA one precisely because they tend to offer more bang for the buck. In a world where Blood on the Sand didn't exist, Hart Foundation/Killer Bees would be a strong contender for best American tag match of the 80s. It's certainly a cut or two above other matches from the period in terms of storytelling depth. For what it's worth, Tanahashi has said on many occasions that Shawn is his favorite wrestler.

I've never cared about FMW or anyone in it, but the footage of Hayabusa walking to the ring after his injury hit me right in the feels. Also, I was taken aback by how casual Onita's tone was when discussing Arai's debts. He sounded like a man who's had to bullshit his way out of sticky situations with the yakuza on many an occasion.

Those roided up monsters aren't so inoffensive when they're putting the fans in danger. There's a match between Ted Arcidi and Tony Atlas where they're so blown up that they crush a kid's legs while fighting in the stands. I'll take being in a wheelchair at the age of 40 over dying of a heart attack at the same age.

He wrestled in a Hamburg tournament for Rene Lasartesse in 1993.

MJF has really been scraping the bottom of the barrel lately with his attempts at cheap heat. First there was the stuff with Melanie Pillman, now he's bringing up Darby's uncle. He's getting dangerously close to Eddie's in hell territory.

Punk has clearly been drawing heavily from the Bret playbook since returning. The Darby match was an overt homage to Bret/123 Kid, and he did the sternum-first bump into the turnbuckle in his match against Hobbs.

Roman is more of an Andrew Wiggins, albeit with much more sensible views about vaccines. As for Coach Tony K, he's dangerously close to being spread too thin. In addition to everything else he does, he had to take over editing duties for Dark and Elevation after that Max Caster rap. Bookers have a shelf life, and having so much on his plate is going to accelerate the burnout process. Maybe he can do like Lawler and Jarrett did in Memphis and have someone he switches booking duties with every six months or so. I don't know who else in the company has a strong booking mind, though. Maybe Jericho. Say what you want about him in the ring, but the fact that he's managed to remain a top star for decades by continually reinventing himself suggests that he has a good sense of which way the wind blows.

By the way, was it ever explained why Lilly wasn't able to use its magical powers to prevent Charlotte from destroying it?

That'd be the perfect spot for someone to make a Lex Luger-like debut.

I'm not super-high on either team, but I can at least see why people consider the Young Bucks all-time greats. With the Usos, I just don't see it at all. Then again, the house style makes most modern WWE tag matches unwatchable for me due to the insistence on simultaneous tags. More to the point, if the Bucks had never existed, the pro wrestling landscape today would be unimaginably different. If the Usos had never existed, it would be exactly the same. The same with Roman. He's a fine talent who's had to overcome some awful booking, but he's not an all-time great like Bret Hart or Bryan Danielson or Kenny Omega. And this Head of the Table shit is unbearable.