Stiva

Agree with all of this. It also had the added benefit of making JR mark out on commentary which means you keep company with Bryan Danielson. I cracked up at Hardy just leaving Private Party pissing in the wind though. I assume this leads to Jeff coming in but I’m not sure how all the pieces will fit. Props to Kassidy in that match too, he looked fantastic in there. I’m almost disappointed he isn’t in the ladder match now. Great show all in all. I LOVED Punk picking Moxley and everything that went with it. The intersection of the Moxley and Danielson stuff, MJF reacting to Moxley, the crowd popping huge for the idea of them being a team and then them living out teenage dreams by hitting the Doomsday Device. Just a great 15/20 minutes or so of pro wrestling. Hangman Page is a madman. I don’t know if he’s the one who has decided his reign needs to be a total bloodfest but I’m down for it. What’s wild is that AEW don’t look like running out of those sorts of hot TV matches any time soon

Keith Lee and Ken the (Forbidden) Box

Having thought about it, the fact the new signings first match is against Isiah Kassidy makes me think it has to be Keith Lee. Just because Kassidy will bump around like a lunatic for him and make everything look great

Starks, Hobbs and HOOK vs Sydal, Dante Martin and Lethal could be a fun 6-man to throw on the Revolution undercard. At the very least, it would get HOOK a featured PPV win

I suppose this can double as the Rampage thread but the finishing spot in Starks vs Lethal was smooth as butter. Starks has fantastic presence, he feels like a forgotten worker when people are mentioning AEWs future top talent. Are we thinking that QTs “top student” is just going to be him in a mask or is that too soon after the FTR dressed as Luchadors angle? As for Dynamite, I think that Brandi/Lambert segment may well be an AEW low point but another one was surely Kip Sabian sitting at ringside with that stupid fucking bag on his head. I thought Miro had killed him off

Give me grumpy Kendrick from a few years back, Regal and Danielson as a group and AEW has my goodwill for the next decade.

Moxley coming back has to lead to him winning the belt again, surely? Not to be too cynical but it’s an ideal story and the way the live audience reacted to him coming back paired with the rating shows that he’s still the fucking man. Saying that, a 6 month Moxley/Danielson blood feud sounds pretty appealing too. This leads me to another hypothetical for you all. Obviously TK is doing the Batista slow burn with Wardlow and MJF but you also have HOOK getting superstar reactions every time he squashes another dweeb. If, as could happen, Wardlow and HOOK continue at this rate, what do you do? I don’t think HOOK is ready for a title but, if you were to team him with Ricky Starks, it weakens both of their auras and it’s fairly clear MJF is going to be the one that beats Hangman so how does Wardlow fill time in the meantime? As much as you can rightfully criticise AEW, the fact that these questions are things you can ask are a testament to them

Umaga was who I was thinking about, actually. He was definitely the last of the monster heels built up for the WWE champion before they decided to run with shades-of-grey Cena on Raw and wink wink nudge nudge bullshit baby face HHH on Smackdown. Spare a thought for Big Daddy V

Yeah, you’re probably right. To be fair to AEW, I’d probably put Cole and Baker together on screen too but where does this leave our girl, Jamie Hayter?!

I think I'm right there with you on D'Amore. In anyone else's hands, the Impact roster goes nowhere. For all of the talk of THE FORBIDDEN DOOR, the fact that Tony Khan either, didn't want to, or didn't see the potential in using Impact for anything more than having Kenny Omega hold a few extra belts on Dynamite is disappointing. I have a sneaky suspicion that the ROH invasion program may well have been what D'Amore foresaw when they struck a deal with AEW and it'll play out as he planned originally.

At it's very best, SMW is transcendent pro wrestling but, with the benefit of hindsight, you can definitely see Cornette edging toward the excesses and nonsense that makes his OVW booking unwatchable. Dirty White Boy though. You could definitely argue that, in terms of raw talent, Tracy Smothers got done the worst by Vince's second job jobbers gimmick but Tony Anthony got stunk with TL Hopper AND Uncle Cletus. That poor fucker.

This show, as subpar as it was, beat Raw in the demo and hit over a million. I guess Moxley's return bumped it up but, with that being the first segment, and the show not really having much in the way of good matches to grab anybody after that, will it translate to similar next week?

Incredibly stupid name aside, it really sucks for ol' GUNTHER that he's not in a WWE that wants to run with babyfaces on top anymore because, back then, he'd be built up really strongly for a 3/4 month run against Cena, lose but be kept strong and probably eventually settle into a decent gatekeeper role as a trusted monster heel who can be trusted to have good matches and keep his heat. Unfortunately, we're trapped in the Reigns-Lesnar vortex in which nothing else can escape or thrive so good luck breaking through that.

That's cool, I'm glad that he's getting some recognition because the fact that AEW have come out of the gate with some great entrance themes for their talent has been a big boost IMO. Adam Cole's theme has legitimately broke over to the regular rock charts to some extent, I believe but the likes of Hangman, Danielson and Britt Baker, to pick three off the top of my head, all have the JIm Johnston hallmarks that get a crowd popping. Get that hook in early and listen to them go.

“You think Bob Orton was on the road for eight days and came home to fucking herd cattle?!” popped me huge. Hangman is great

Beyond hyped for that Moxley promo, absolutely awesome stuff. I’m very happy that he’s back and they need to send unchained Moxley agter Undisputed Era so he can demolish those fucking dorks

Daniel Garcia is so great. Give me the Garcia and HOOK team that we know will kickstart the wrestling boom. Mixed episode all in all but I like the slow set-ups to a lot of what they're doing but I can take or leave Archer being Page's first challenger. It seems like Khan is going to book his babyface World Champs to beat a monster in their first defence (Moxley had Brodie, right?) but if they're going that route, I'd rather they brought The Titan in for a few months with EC3 as the mouthpiece and have Page slay him. As for House of Black, feels like they're hinting at Pac joining but I'm going to guess they swerve with that. On the subject of putting people together, Cole and Baker being together felt a little forced as I don't think they really need each other to stay over but I suppose it's been mentioned so much and it's common knowledge, they should probably have each other's back on TV, at least. Oh yeah, Brodie King debuting was good stuff too. I feel like the last two weeks have definitely had a renewed focus on the depth of the tag division; almost everyone is in a team and almost everyone is mentioning going for the belts. I think we're about ready for an enormous tag tournament.

It’s only natural that Dustin’s age would begin to work against him but god damn it, now is the time to give me the Dustin and Sonny Kiss tag team. Just three months of Dark tags is all I ask, Tony. I noticed Scorpio Sky didn’t fake laugh at Dan Lambert’s jokes on Rampage after Loss’ post about it so I know you’re reading, you son of a bitch. As for Sammy, he was a heel to me the minute he snapped up Tay Conti. Respectfully, of course

Hobbs, Hook and Starks could very quietly be a real breakout trio in 2022. All three have great presence and should, in theory, complement each other nicely as on-screen characters. Throw in Taz as the mouthpiece and suddenly Team Taz is looking like something investing real time in

When I saw 7 pages, I feared some kind of bizarre booking decision but thankfully, it wasn't that. Page winning was absolutely the right move but I'm at a loss as to who he works at the PPV. Adam Cole? I'm not sure Jade is ready for a title yet but the booking and the timing of it all probably means she had to. I'm glad AEW has really padded out with some stronger women workers to help her through it as it's definitely there but she's going to need some really smartly laid out matches, especially to hang on PPV. Rosa/Mercedes should absolutely slap though. Brian Pillman JR is unfortunate because I can fully understand why they'd want to push him and want to feature him but Garrison is the standout of that team and the experiment with trying to push them further up the card needs to be shelved; they're solid as fiery undercard babyfaces. Fenix's injury was grisly, christ. I hope that's not as bad as it looked and I'd have been down for Death Triangle vs The House of Black but that looks like it's on the backburner. Unless they do an angle with Penta brings in somebody to team with in his absence. Glad for Jungle Boy, it was the big win that he's needed and I'm looking forward to Lucha Express vs. 2.0, especially. I think that could be good stuff but wouldn't surprise me if we got Santana and Ortiz as the first main challengers, that seems like it could be good fun. A weird, uneven show that they're often capable of but I thought it set up a lot of future stuff really nicely, except for, strangely enough, their top title. Also, the idea of Danielson leading a stable of shooters is fucking great but I'll easily settle for Regal as his second and a long TNT title run where he crafts 10-15 minute Rampage main events against whoever he fancies every week.

It has to be Jeff Hardy, right? It’ll also have the add-on effect of splitting that bloated HFO stable up too

More importantly, which judge is Danielson going to kick in the face and start his next feud with?

Well, that’s 45 minutes of Revolution sown up.

Fun little end of year show but AEW always feels at its weakest to me when they’re a ways away from a big PPV. Like, Punk and MJF have orbited for a while but we’re still waiting on the big angle to kickstart the match at Revolution (I presume). Also, the ReDragon music sounds like a South Park parody of a rock song.