strobogo

For me, the difference with Benoit is you can track his deterioration mentally and physically. You can see the matches where he definitely gets brain damage, you can see him get more and more freakish bulk onto his frame that doesn't look the least bit natural, over the course of 10-15 years. And then the topic becomes, hey, should we just get rid of this form of entertainment and how complicit are we in how a whole lot of these people end up. I'm in full favor of getting rid of boxing and MMA, why should I give pro wrestling the extra rope when I know it is just as bad on the performers. Some may argue even worse.

We're about 20 years to the horrific end of Chris Benoit and I still can't sus out my feelings. You watch his work and wow great artist in his field, knowing in the back of your head that you're watching his brain turn into mush that ended up in the horror. But also being like "man this guy was good at this art form" and it feels like grappling with Polanksi or Woody Allen. Just a thing in my mind as going through a multi year Nitro era rewatch with some online friends.

I would think there's no way it can keep it up at this level much longer considering how insane ticket prices are and I have no idea who is affording that shit already, but then extra after the economy is tanked and the price of everything in life doubles.

WM cards looking pretty weak to me. Whole build to everything feels like they're happy to coast because they're so hot.

Also happy Jericho is going to be gone for a while. Figured something was up after the title loss, then got ticketmaster emails about Fozzy dates in my area, then the promo.

I'm all in for Bucks/Okada vs Swerve/Kenny/X (Hanger probably) in the lead up to Kenny/Okada 4 PAC appears to blow his achillies for the 3rd time. I'm sure it has nothing to do with DG water and carrying 80 pounds more than his frame is built for for 13 years.

Where is Jack Perry? I don't think he's worked in AEW since he lost the TNT Championship back in....November? December? And then Wrestle Dynasty and nothing since.

Anyone that would ever compare AEW at its absolute worst to late stage WCW or guest host era WWE are trolls for sure. However the Deathriders angle sucks and needs to end asap.

Darby already climbed Everest, he's the wildcard, working the marks

Oh man Elite Deathriders why would you put that into the world

It was weird they really little brother'd Keith considering he's been booked as a tough guy fighter his whole run so far. Also amazing how much better they were without Jericho around. Storylines coming out of the show that are interesting: FTR vs Edge/Christian Both Owens have a bunch of interesting stuff like Mercedes vs Athena, Hangman vs Fletcher, Ospreay vs Brody or Takeshita, and probably Hangman vs Ospreay in the finals The Learning Tree perhaps ending as Jericho takes a break and Big Bill going solo The Opps vs Yuta/Pac/Claudio The continuing build to Okada/Kenny at All In and I assume a big run for Speedball Whatever Garcia is going to be up to after dropping the belt How this MJF/HS thing is going to turn out Imagine the main event had gone the way it went up to the point of Hangman's interference, and he actually HELPS Swerve win the title, the Deathriders shit could end, and Hangman's run in the Owen would then lead to Hangman/Swerve at All In for the title.

Literally everything on the show and the stories going in and out, I'm into. Except Deathriders main event shit. It is kind of fascinating to have so much awesome and interesting shit in every part of the card except the main event. I think the moment has even outgrown Darby ending the angle. And who knows if that will even happen or matter, because Darby's always been vanishing from TV to go do some weird shit for the past 3-4 years every time he builds momentum. Kenny's been the International champ for a month and it feels more important than Mox's whole 6 month run with this angle.

Show was fucking amazing until the main event and angle. This Deathriders shit wore out its welcome 4 months ago and it's definitely going to go on another 4 months. Please, wrap this angle up. It is not good.

Lol the trainwreck of dickheads that would be. This return of Charlotte is a real botch all around, starting with it doesn't seem like she's in a good state of mind, to straight back to Charlotte has to be in the title match after a year off, to whatever the fuck this program with Straton has been. It would probably be helpful for all involved for her to take time off after WM and come back later in the year with a different booking style for her that doesn't have her immediately in the title scene and doing exactly the same thing she's been doing since NXT. There's a redemption arc for her character somewhere to be done, but they're really risking perma X-Pac heat for her.

Charlotte's real gimmick seems to be "worked herself into a shoot" as this is like the 5th time in 6 years something has gone way off the rails and then she does some real shady shit in the match and pouts when she's the one to lose. I'm definitely expecting at least one very reckless stiff spot and no selling, especially if Tiffany is the winner.

These guys like Andrade/Miro/Black must think they're going to get a Cody situation instead of going back to WWE to the exact same booking and position they had before. But working twice as much and not being able to say no.

The most interesting thing about Cody as the mega face of WWE is that him leaving and starting AEW is absolutely integral to his character and can't be avoided and shouldn't be avoided, which is so completely opposite of any mega face they've ever done.

It's funny Cena did his patented "fine speech" response to a promo as a heel and it's exactly the same thing he did as a face for so many years just without saying "fine speech" ahead of time.

You're out of luck. The current crew running things are from the Attitude Era, and there aren't many 80s and earlier matches where you can have one or both guys to pop up. It's similar to the AFI 100 list where the voters are all guys from the 70s and so it is heavily skewed to 70s movies all their friends made and the 40s/50s movies they liked as kids.

Black does not have the "oh well we gotta push that guy" look and aura of Lashley come on lmao. He never did, still doesn't, and he also hasn't been pushed like that outside of his NXT run. From call up to main roster to entire AEW run, I'm hard pressed to remember much of anything he's done and it's probably less "we don't know what to do with him but we gotta do something" and more "doesn't work for me, brother" stuff.

Lashley is kind of the Lex Luger of his era where you look at them and are like "well of course we have to push him" and he rarely seems to hit the level it looks like he should but everyone still has the same idea looking at him.

Shelton was in solid stuff in the CC, Lashley would be fun to put up against the real flippy shit guys and just wreck them. I don't know if I'm going to go far enough to say they're a negative so far, but I don't know what to do with them either. It's better to have them in the tag division than a Lashley title run or something. AEW's problem has been too much talent for most of their run and that's about the best problem to have, really.

Oh for sure MVP ate him the fuck up but that's the nature of letting guys do their own thing in promos. A lot of times it works out, other times it does not. If I'm MVP after the second or third time I think I'd have started to feel bad and let Bill get his shit in.

MJF getting in Lashley's face and saying something like "you want to do this right now" was hilarious and I doubt it was supposed to be

Edge has extremely overdelivered his entire second run, including the WWE run. I've been a long time hater of Edge since probably the start of his singles run, dude has done the best work of his career in ring. I don't think he should be main eventing a bunch in AEW, but he's also lost most of them and has spent most of his AEW run working with people he's never worked with before. I think it's still important for perception for WWE talent to choose to go to AEW. Bryan didn't have to go to AEW, he wanted to. Edge didn't have to go AEW, he wanted to. Lashley didn't have to go to AEW, he wanted to. Cole, Ricochet, Mercedes, etc. It's not like all those stages of WCW and TNA where big WWE stars would go to half ass and have no pride in their work.