Boss Rock

Finally watched Knoxville-Zayn and loved every bit of it. Hilarious spectacle and the best match of both shows that wasn't Becky-Bianca.

Unbelievably anti-climactic finish unless someone was legit hurt. Still, ridiculous that they continued to do the same finisher kick-out fest they've done nearly every time they wrestled. Enough of this match-up. Never do this again.

This. I know New Japan has had a lot of titles, but honestly the tag titles should've been merged years ago.

Sabre wins the NJ Cup and Bullet Club having another expulsion angle. Like we're back in 2018.

Honestly I think he's been wrestling pretty much as he always has since he first came over full-time. He just hasn't had a ton of singles opportunities outside of the G1 due to tagging with Taichi.

Shingo-Sabre had their best match yet together. Still not sure it unseats Ospreay-Sabre as the tournament best, though. Okada-Naito was also great, around the level of their last one. Some really good near-falls.

I thought it was overall a really good episode. The first hour was excellent and honestly one of the best they've ever done. Thought Lethal-Cole and the ME were solid even if they had too much interference. Everything else was not great. Leyla-Velvet got off to a good start and I liked their match on Rampage, but this fizzled out pretty quickly. The Sammy/Tay-ATT segment was bad, but I found it more stupid than "get this shit off my TV immediately." I enjoyed Sammy's run as TNT Champion, but he seems miscast as a babyface now. He and Tay as obnoxious heels would be much better. Rosa-Nyla/Vickie was the only thing I downright hated. Not just Rosa not getting a proper celebration/promo, but Vickie spouting her real-world views on immigration. Their interactions on Twitter and Nyla's promo afterwards are a hopeful indication they are moving away from this angle.

Yep, terrific chemistry and still manage to change things up a bit every time. Shingo-Hiromu was great as well, but one of those matches I was hoping would be just a LITTLE bit better. And I ain't mad at the final four, but considering we've already seen Shingo-Sabre twice, was hoping for Hiromu to shake things up.

Now that we're farther into the tournament, more exciting matches happening/could happen. Cobb-Naito and Okada-CIMA were both good.

I totally forgot to do this, but for 1985 I'm switching Steamboat for Funk.

Another really good show I thought. The first match was an awesome spotfest and I look forward to a potential ReDragon-Jurassic Express title match. The Bryan-Mox-Regal stuff is terrific and I love that they appear to be going in the stable direction that was first teased. Hopefully they face Sydal and Moriarity next week. I was skeptical about JAS but they're off to a good start. Daniel Garcia declaring himself a "sports entertainer" is the second biggest heel move this year. Jericho's AEW run has been very peaks and valleys but he seems to be back on the upswing. Warldow-Scorpio was...well the result was correct but the crowd really doesn't care about Scorpio due to the booking and this wasn't an ideal first title defense. That being said, the beatdown was great and proof that Wardlow is an absolute star in the making. The Hardyz-PP tag was solid for what it was. I don't need to see a Hardyz title run but I am interested in them against nearly every AEW tag team. The main event, while not on the level of Lights Out last year, was really good but Britt's no-selling of some spots was pretty blatant. Wouldn't be surprised if there's legit heat between the two.

I enjoyed Naito-Tana as well and really appreciated the ending, but wish they hadn't taken it so slow the first few minutes.

Togo is a definite lock. And while I think his NJPW work trumps his Dragon Gate resume, Shingo is definitely in consideration.

Okada-Taichi was really good, but still not as good as their New Beginning match in 2020. CIMA-Goto was also pretty fun. Shame they didn't get the rest of Stronghearts in this tournament.

Hiromu-Suzuki was really good, like the Taichi-Ibushi G1 match but with overhand chops instead of kicks. Unless we have a major upset coming, I'm guessing the semis are going to be Okada-Cobb and Ospreay-Shingo. Thinking Cobb wins the whole thing.

Two recent ones in AEW would be Eddie-Miro and Eddie-Punk. Both only given a few weeks build but were incredibly captivating and entertaining programs.

Couldn't get through the whole show, but Douki-Sabre was a hoot. Ospreay-ELP was pretty good and had a cool finish, but nowhere near what they've done before.

Awesome list! Honestly forgot about some of these matches considering how much good stuff there's been.

MVP vs. Matt Hardy 2007-2008. Terrific year-long chase with the MVP challenge series, the tag title run, and then Matt returning at Mania to cost MVP Money in the Bank. I do wonder if they still intended to have the blow-off match after Mania considering Matt got shoot injured, but it played very nicely into the whole thing.

I'm curious if there's a case for Sting now or at least a re-evaluation considering his current work in AEW.

I dunno what everyone else was watching, I thought this was a really good show.

So far Desperado-Okada and Shingo-Ishii have been the only must-watches of the tournament (big shocker). But Okada being a jerk to Wato was fun. And we saw some flashes of the old Dick Togo before more House of Torture nonsense.

1985: Stan Hansen, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat 1995: Kenta Kobashi, Jushin Liger, Mitsuharu Misawa 2005: John Cena, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson 2015: Daniel Bryan, Sasha Banks, Kazuchika Okada 2025: Hook, Jade Cargill, Bron Breakker

I saw this pointed out on Twitter and I agree, it's good that this show delivered when you consider last year's is remembered for the dud explosion.

Pretty terrific show. Gonna be really, really hard to top that. Almost unfair how stacked AEW is. I wasn't a huge fan of the finish to Britt-Rosa even if it was expected. But if they do the title change in San Antonio, which is looking pretty obvious, then all will be forgiven.