strobogo

Couple of things I've noticed in pro wrestling in the year of our lord 2023: No one throws good kicks to the gut. Even people usually very snug are leaving a whole lot of air in between those kicks these days. A lot more talents doing thigh slaps for chops.

Juice Robinson is really good, Rock Hard Juice Robinson is the absolute shits.

I'd feel like a real asshole if there had to be an all hands on deck meeting, helmed by my son-in-law, to make sure everyone knows I'm not going to be in charge to fuck everything up again.

Did "imminent sale to Saudi Arabia" help the stock price

"The name on the contract does say Khan..." etc etc

"In the pool of potential buyers" could mean literally anyone in the world. I'm sure they'll inquire about the asking price just like Vince did when WCW first went up for sale, because that's just what you do when your top competitor goes up for sale. However, it would be incredible for Black Monday when Tony Khan opens up Raw, simulcast on TNT, saying he now owns WCW WWE.

The victory roll reversal into wheelbarrow piledriver into deadlift German would have been an incredible sequence to have actually ended the match. Does anyone have a two set of more violent looking moves than Toni Storm's corner ass attack and her short piledriver?

Show was awesome, except for the absolutely by the numbers literally predict exactly what every punchline before he said it MJF promo, and the JAS bullshit. Women's match did fall apart, but what Britt Baker match doesn't? Ladder match had some fucking insane bumps. TK reading these threads of people bitching about Bryan's booking and deciding to book him as The World Warrior for the next 8 weeks. There's enough top level talent from all over the world that Bryan can go right up to the PPV without facing two people from the same country.

A take: Disco Inferno is buried way, way too much online by both fans and other wrestlers. Guy was a very over mid card guy who was very dependable to have a solid to sometimes very good much with just about anyone from any division or size on the roster. Particular after returning in 1997 after that 6 month break or whatever when he came back leaned out and much more aggressive in the ring. I'm talking just about him as a performer in WCW, not anywhere else, and not in regards to any stupid shit he says on podcasts or tweets.

Dude is rad. Very strong 70s Jumbo vibes to me.

The idea of Vince being in charge but it no longer being his company seems completely antithetical to Vince McMahon's personality and vision. What makes more sense to me is that he wants to cash out and doesn't want to leave it to his family, of which he has publicly said he is disappointed in in regards to the business, fired his son, demoted HHH, and removed Stephanie from any creative position.

Casino ladder match to be replaced with King of The Mountain in 2023

Luckily they aren't on television and are in absolutely no way required viewing of any kind to enjoy the promotion. AEW doesn't run house shows. The talent on Dark aren't going to get their reps, particularly when it comes to working within TV time limits and hard cams. And a lot of the talents that pop up on Dark have little to no actual television experience. Same goes for Level Up, but there's nothing forcing anyone to watch them. They're tertiary web shows. You can completely ignore their existence.

Being mad about the dark shows existing is weird as hell. Like being mad that Jakked and Metal that aired at 2 am on Sunday morning existed.

For Vince and a pop culture gimmick, he's 10 years ahead of the curve on Rad Radford.

By the time Raven debuted in January 1995, Kobain was dead, Pearl Jam was basically blacklisted in the US due to the war with Ticketmaster, Soundgarden was winding down, AIC was on hiatus, and pretty much all genres of rock had completely fallen off the charts. The time for a timely grunge gimmick was definitely not 1995.

Which was why the WCW reveal that he actually was a try-hard cosplay by a rich kid hilarious. I'm pretty sure that actually was part of the character initially in ECW but was dropped early on. But anyway, the content and delivery of Raven promos were garbage. Even the grunge deal had peaked and was on the way out when the Raven character debuted in ECW. I've seen most of his ECW/WCW/WWE/ROH/early TNA work and I can't think of a single stand out Raven promo or promo that sold me on needing to see a Raven match. Luckily with the right guys he could have pretty solid matches at least for a while, but his promos always sucked.

The delivery is what sucks so much, though.

Sucks that the Sasha thing fell pretty flat in all aspects. The name is very TNA meme, promo style did not translate at all, and the move was botched. Personally, the thing that was the biggest disappointment to me was that the match with Kairi is going to be in the US. I have absolutely zero interest in any of the US based NJ shows and did have interest in seeing Sasha go full joshi in Japan.

Raven's promos actually fucking suck. ECW and WCW. I will never understand how he got the reputation as this great promo/psychology guy.

I think "fans thought it was real" in other eras is hella overstated. There are newspaper articles going back to the late 1800s/early 1900s talking about the worked nature of pro wrestling. There's no way you can watch stuff from the 40s/50s and truly believe the audiences thought it was 100% real athletic competition. Most of that kind of talk is from old timers gassing themselves up in later eras than the Thesz era anyway. And on the legit whilst also being entertaining tip, there are a ton of Lou Thesz spots that are still regularly done all the way up to 2023, including comedy and high spots.

Vince staging a hostile takeover angle of his own company in real life out of spite is incredible lmao

Coming back to sell. Which I think he could do without resuming leadership of actual on screen stuff.

AAA looks way more foolish than TK in that situation

Finished the show and still felt quite underwhelmed. Ospreay/Omega was something. Certainly not the match I expected, but quite interesting. I do feel like I've seen this story a few times before, though. Same with Okada/White. Really just feels like a reset to right before the pandemic/AEW formation.