strobogo

I think everyone likes Ricky, but he has not been shinning in these long matches. FTR vs Bang Bang Gang banged and will bang next week. Joe vs Punk also banged. Kind of a bummer this Joe couldn't be involved in the meat wars of Drew/Sheamus/Gunther.

Opening tag was hella fun. Darby and OC work great together, Keith Lee looked better than he has in a long time. Orange Cassidy is truly the ace of AEW. This stuff with MJF seems very below the world champ, but I have to say I find it a lot more entertaining and palatable than the edgelord screamy guy. I think it'd be real interesting if Cole actually turns on MJF. Jericho getting himself involved with Don Callis is yet another shameless shrewd move to soak up heat from someone else's program. I would assume this leads to Sammy being The Elite's final guy and then a 9 month Sammy/Jericho feud which sounds like death. Gotta respect how much Kenny gave Yuta, I just wish Yuta was someone else. He's just....so there. Kenny vs Takeshita is going to bang so hard. Women's division really needs Hayter back ASAP.

AEW's whole thing is PPV quality matches on TV every week. It'd maybe be a bit different if they were on the monthly PPV schedule, but they aren't.

I dunno, sounds like a good fucking deal to me.

Juice/Ricky went way too long and ran out of steam in the back half, but that's gotta be the first time I've seen a drop down trip spot that wasn't comedy since the 70s. Joey Samoey just non stop bangers in AEW, Joe/Punk 4 should be real interesting. Whole show for next week is looking :whoo: Joe vs Punk Hobbs vs Starks FTR vs Bang Bang Gang Athena vs Willow

I think for both Brodie and Big Show you need to lose every match. For Brodie, eventually the Dark Order asks you to join and through that you can unlock him. For Big Show you do have to beat him but you can cheese it with a count out pretty easily.

The only wrestler you really have to grind for is Owen. The other unlockables are beaten in RTE (Big Show, Brodie) or easily purchased in the shop after a few matches (Cody, Aubrey).

It's definitely closer to the WM x8/XIX side of things than Day of Reckoning. A good base with room for improvement. All the No Mercy talk was a bit overblown, as it is much closer to the Gamecube games, which were a mix of the N64 and Smackdown games.

Greg Valentine in Battlearts made me look him up on cage match, and he did a tour of Big Japan, including a barbed wire death match with Kendo Nagasaki. The fuck.

Men's MITB was wild. Wildest one in years. Would have been truly insane if Ricochet and Paul had pulled that spot off clean at the end. Escobar felt very out of place in that he was the only one the crowd didn't react to either direction. Priest winning made sense to me, would assume he's going to be feuding with Rollins for the next few months as he's elevated to a main event guy, also setting up some JD drama. Women's match was a mess. Trish was....not in her element, to be polite. The Shayna turn was out of nowhere but I'm sure it will be explained as Shayna being tired of Ronda bossing her around and getting all the accolades when Shayna is the one that trained her or something. It's probably an attempt to get Ronda back to a face, but if they go that route. I'm betting Shayna gets the face reaction. Dom wearing (purple) bandoliers to the ring lmao. WHC was fine, but there are few things that look worse in wrassles right now than Seth Rollins doing missing his stomp/seated superkick stuff. Shit looks absolutely atrocious even with camera cuts, can't imagine how bad it looks live. Imagine how incredible the NEXT generation of Anoa'i family is going to be. SST/Tama/Yoko were better than the Wild Samoans. Umaga was better than SST/Tama/Yoko. Roman/Usos/Solo are better than Umaga. This groups's kids are going to be GOAT tier from the start. The reaction after the spear/spike kickout and Solo realizing in that moment that everything his brothers and Sami said about Roman was true in that moment was tremendous. Also, fucking Gunther CHOPPING THE SHIT OUT OF RIDDLE'S FOOT before putting him in a heel hook is incredible

How is a talent supposed to get better at something if they aren't given a chance to do it in the first place? I feel like its often forgotten or ignored that so much of the AEW roster never worked TV wrestling prior to the company, and are also still early into their careers. That was probably literally the first heel promo the guy ever cut and it was fine, although very generic I'M A HEEL, SEE type stuff. Content was pretty bleh, but he seemed comfortable enough with basically a 180 to what he's been doing for his entire career so far, and that bodes well for the future, imo.

Jungle Jack really should have been wearing a turtleneck

The parallels of Hangman and Mox's friendship conflictions were neat, too, especially as they tied into the same segment like that.

They're like 18-0 and have never even mentioned tag titles so probably not

Those tables were hella far out from the start. Banger show. Weird that the crowd was so muted for Elite vs Dark Order. The Garcia dancing on top of Keith Lee to the absurd power spot was amazing. Sports Entertainment Daniel Garcia might have been the right call after all, provided he isn't actually around Jericho. That stupid dance is hilarious every time. Hopefully this show was the end of any Sting interactions with Jericho or Sammy. I believe Sting said this was the last year for him and I really have a hard time thinking about what is left for him to do in AEW. The only major guys he hasn't interacted with are Bryan, Kenny, and MJF. Can't really think of who his actual last match might be with. Claudio and Eddie just mean mugging each other the entire time the match was going on around them, then Claudio going full M. Bison on that mf hitting the ring later. If they don't try to kill each other in war games, what's the point of pro wrassles?

Okada is unsafe, fire him

Yes. It's been the main story and talking point in commentary of Tana matches for the past 5-6 years. Although now it is to the point where Tana should probably retire to the NJ Dads division and only work one or two singles matches a year. Although the match was much more enjoyable than I had anticipated (and than Swerve match) because it was 95% shtick from both. A similar reaction to Jungle Boy/Sanada, which seemed to me like it would have been the dullest match of the night on paper, but turned out to be pretty solid. The heel turn to feud with Hook was very much what I expected to go down and should be good for both guys to actually have something to do now. Really hope Jungle Boy starts wearing turtlenecks. 4 way was a blast. Off hand, it might be the best 4 way match I can remember. Perfectly paced, everyone's spots being perfect for their characters, great intereactions from everyone. 10 man tag was also super fun. Takeshita just fucking startching people left and right :lawd: Very unsurprising to me that the match featuring Chris Jericho was the worst on the card, but I'm going to blame Sammy for killing the crowd by nearly killing Sting TWICE. Keep that man away from anyone over 40. Kind of bummed at the lack of Sting no selling a Suzuki death elbow, but would like to see Darby vs MiSu sometime. What a wild group of people Sting has worked with through AEW. Just in the past 12 months: Muta, Marufuji, HAKUSHI, Minoru Suzuki, Naito, Shingo, the Young Bucks, Orange, Miro, Keith Lee, Dustin Rhodes, Jeff Jarrett. Wild. Punk becoming John Cena is hilarious. It's way better than happy to be here Punk, for sure. Kojima can still go hard in the paint. Kind of crazy that both Kojima and Nagata are in better physical shape than Tanahashi despite being a generation ahead of him. Kenny/Ospreay was more what I was expecting at WK and was really something. GOAT rope break. I would have preferred Calis to not be involved but ultimately it wasn't that big of a deal. Bryan/Okada could never live up to the hype, but even working with a broken arm for 10 minutes, shit was a delight. Bryan has to drop the seizure selling. He's been doing that a couple times a year since his FIRST come back in 2015 and it is just gross every time he does it. I wonder if the surprise finish was the plan or what. I think it was better than a 70 step Okada finishing sequence, though. When I saw that Bryan had broken his forearm, I couldn't tell when it happened during the match and assumed it was from one of those uppercuts that sounded particularly violent.

There are an awful lot of very, very bad, awful segments on WCW in the last couple of years, but I think nWo Nightcap might be the single worst dogshit WCW produced.

Last year's card was even more haphazardly put together and was missing half the AEW main event roster and was still probably the best AEW PPV last year.

Riccaboni/Caprice are a very good team.

Punk vs Kojima certainly just got much better

One of his legs doesn't even look like it could bend at the knee, he slipped off the ropes doing his finish that he's been doing for 20 years, to stand on the ropes he has a weird cross foot stance, he didn't even make it all the way around on the slingblade. Randy The Ram actually was still juicing and hitting his spots. I agree he's still an asset in the ring, but not in big time singles matches.

I would go from rough onto bad. Bummer, really.

Tana looking rough. Guy looks like he has Mutoh knees. I hadn't even considered MiSu murdering Darby as all I was thinking about was Sting no selling and chest thumping after a murder elbow and Suzuki getting spooked.

lmao stay mad slapnuts