Stiva

Fun two hours, even if I didn’t really think any match was particularly great. As said though, everyone on the show felt like a big deal and each champion was going up against a well-built, credible challenger which is all you can really ask for and nothing stood out as bad booking or a wasted segment. As for Taz, I actually like him in the role; he has good delivery and Cage needed a mouthpiece anyway. It seems like next week is a show where they have to get the booking decisions right. Do they give Cassidy the big win without the crowd? Do they pull the trigger on Cabana joining the Dark Order? Do they deliver on Nyla’s surprise? A few more variables that could pay off big if they get it right.

I had no idea that they did a Britt Baker photo shoot and it’s hilarious.

Luchasaurus needs to drop the contrived and awkward strike combos and work like a big man. Doing the moonsaults and shooting stars is fine but hitting weak spin kicks and bad, slow-mo punch combos subtracts from his matches and gimmick so much.

Re-testing people with positive COVID results because they “don’t like” that result is beyond insane to me. I think that’s the biggest sign, amongst so many others, that this company has managed to cut itself off from reality in a legitimately damaging way. This is a good example of, despite craving that mainstream attention, them being so much better off on the fringe sectors of popularity because if this was anything else, they’d be getting slaughtered.

Just want to throw out some love for Janela/Kiss as a team. Sonny Kiss has had a great year on Dark so I’m glad he’s getting to shine on Dynamite. The pair have good chemistry and Janela is way more palatable as a fired-up, hot tag babyface. SCU and Butcher and Blade are the two best opponents for FTR to lead in with and I’d be up for them getting a long match with QT and Dustin when QT recovers. That’d be so great. Fyter Fest looks like a pair of good shows but I do wonder if they have anything planned for Cage after this shot. Both Brodie and Archer felt and still feel directionless following their title shots so I wonder if they reignite the Darby Allin/Taz stuff.

How much do we think the Hollywood trend of going with remakes and reboots ties into WWEs use of nostalgia acts through the mid/late-2010s?

Will Shawn Spears' 7th gimmick finally get him over?!

Absolutely. And, I think there's something to be said for the progress that has been made where these women feel that they're safe to come forward and tell these harrowing stories in public. Obviously, we're far from where we need to be but maybe, in all this harrowing and awful news, that can be something where, from this generation onward, we can see a wrestling industry devoid of all of this? Maybe that's overly optimistic and I would love to read and listen to a women's perspective before saying that. But this minor exorcism feels like a positive step, regardless.

It'd be really funny if they had to shut down for a month, they showed a ton of old PPVs and they attracted much better ratings than the current embarrassment.

I feel like I don't want to say too much about this because, even in this closed space, I feel like my voice as a straight, white man is distracting from the voices that actually need to be heard but Scurll's "apology" is skin-crawling. Using the UK age of consent as a crutch when you were a 26 year old man involved with a 16 year old woman. Yeah, it's the age of consent but why was she at a party? Why was she drunk at 16? The idea that he feels those two caveats are an excuse of sorts is legitimately stomach churning. For some reason, and I don't mean to prescribe severity to each individual accusation, but this one feels especially seedy and evil. But, the idea of not watching wrestling as a result of this is a large crater to navigate. This current wave and scene is clearly awful but just how bad was it in the 90s and 80s? How many women from then have stories similar, or worse, than what we're hearing now? I feel like we had to answer this question post-Benoit; how do we navigate our fandom and appreciation of one wrestler in light of horrifying circumstances? How do we now, navigate and justify our support and fandom of an entire industry in light of these accusations? And how do we do the same with the wrestling that has gone before? This week has shown that wrestling has systemic problems, ingrained for years. How do we approach 80s and 90s wrestling with that thought in mind? All of this clearly had to happen and every single victim has my support, no matter how insignificant that might be, but I really hope that, going forward, these are questions that we ask ourselves as we evaluate and re-evaluate pro wrestling, as best as we can.

For early SMW that isn’t mentioned too much, that incredible Heavenly Bodies/Fantastics backstage brawl that ends with Cornette’s car window being smashed. Cornette follows it up with an all-timer promo the following week.

Dug this week's show and I echo the love for the twist with Abadon. I'm still halfway interested in Brodie and The Dark Order since it feels like someone gathering the troops for another assault after losing a battle. Uno and Grayson winning the belts and FTR/The Bucks having to go through the other two DO teams first could be a fun 3 week program. Omega kneeing Dustin in the face with that overly-dramatic leapfrog was pretty frightening but Dustin turning it into part of the match is why he's the best. Britt Baker sending a message that just said "This woman needs Jesus" had me rolling, along with Swole's Undertaker impression. AEW really understands that comedy has it's place in pro wrestling and it never overshadows the real angles; Orange Cassidy dropping all his shit and going after Jericho was a perfect example. We had some MJF comedy and Britt comedy so he just got a measure of revenge and had a good show closing angle. Ricky Starks doesn't do too much for me in-ring but the guy has fantastic presence and is such a natural promo. He's going to be a great addition to the MJF/Jungle Boy/Darby/Sammy Young Guns group. And my final prediction is that we get Heel Cody with his own "Horsemen" of him, FTR and one other with Arn as the modern day JJ. With a heel turn caused by Darby Allin finally getting one over on him and taking his title. Cody offers the usual handshake routine and then kicks the shit out of him. Book it, Tony.

There was a story last month how they were going to use the planned London shows to debut him.

I imagine, with it being taped, every single second of Edge/Orton will have been pored over and edited to the point where it probably will be pretty good. Meltzer said it went 30-35 but neither man has 35 minutes worth of stuff to fill a match so I’m guessing it’ll clock in at 20-25 in the end. But I bet Styles/Bryan is better.

I was just about to chime in with Kingston as a personal pick. I can't think of a time where he hasn't brought something great to a match and he's one of the most underrated sellers (not bumper) of all time.

I wouldn’t call WWE a poor environment for Bryan. He didn’t necessarily have the freedom he would on the indies but he got to have long, varied matches with just about everyone on the roster you’d want him to, complete with both an all-time face run (2013-14) and heel run (18-19)

I think Brodie Lee’s debut would have been a much more impactful moment had there been a crowd too.

I thought every match on Smackdown was at least good and a couple, the main and Gulak/Styles were great. What an incredibly stacked roster. If this show had any semblance of actual pro-wrestling booking, this crew would be remembered as fondly as the 02-03, 06 and 09 crews. Hell, even 2011 Smackdown.

The opening statement was a nice touch but AEW still feels like it could do better with black representation on their shows. Opening tag wasn’t great, really. Omega’s AEW run continues to be so inconsistent; I know it’s next to impossible to make Kip Sabian’s offense look good but that’s no excuse for that drunken stumble into the ropes after the drop kick. He seemed pretty slow for him too so I’m not sure if he’s carrying an injury or not. In front of a crowd, it would be even more readily apparent that Page is their first “homegrown” top guy though, he’s leaping off the screen. The Cage squash wasn’t as good as last week since it didn’t have Lee Johnson bumping like a lunatic but these squashes leading to title shots are pretty delightful in how old-school they are. Taz as the mouthpiece is surprisingly good too, I’m amazed he was sitting on commentary for years without trying it elsewhere. Lance Archer kicking the shit out of some random fellow in a wasteland was hilarious but they should totally keep up those vignettes until they build up someone in the baby face side to fight him. Part of me wants to see Jake Roberts come face to face with Broken Matt Hardy. Hardy meeting with Private Party gives me hope that they’ll debut the 6 Man Tag Titles when they get the second show. Sammy popping Jericho by singing the song a couple of lines ahead was hilarious. If Jericho is still good for a few potatoes a match, those boxing punches in the corner had to be bad for Cabana. The match was perfectly good TV fare, the right length with a good finish. I actually dig Cabana as a guy who has enough credibility to have competitive TV matches before putting people over. The Britt Baker segment was incredible. If she’s coming up with this stuff by herself, she’s a certified genius. Treating riding the wheelchair up the ramp as a fear of strength after not being bothered to do the actual hard work was a great gag. Butcher and Blade feel like the perfect first team for FTR to face since they’re a really underrated team that will match their style. It should be a genuinely great match. Dug the main event, especially all the continued hints at Cody’s heel side. Him blading after headbutting the wall was a fairly wild spot and I loved Jungle Boy going straight after it, as you would in a title match. I really like these 2-3 week spots that they do to elevate certain guys since they always have an improved standing after it, even when they’ve been defeated since it also establishes the hierarchy. Now that Cody has said the open challenge is open to workers not on the AEW roster, I’m guessing now that it’s how they debut Zack Ryder. Even though I’m hoping for a one-off Heath Slater appearance. I’m also making a prediction that we get an equivalent of the World Tag League in AEW at some point.

Yeah, this is where I am with Impact too. It’s a very competently booked promotion that has good ideas and uses everyone very well but it comes off as such a flat, product on TV, even before the pandemic. They felt like a hot deal after that great Slammiversary a couple years back but for whatever reason, that just wasn’t sustained.

I don’t know about that. For AEWs core audience, Adam Cole and Undisputed Era are the greatest thing in the world. He might not be a needle mover with ratings (who is?) but he’d make them a ton of money

Incredible. I also think it's worth mentioning that little Pepe never repeated an outfit in his time on the Nitro commentary desk. That dog had quite the wardrobe.

He was pretty god-awful, especially considering he had a US Title run. Jeff Jarrett seemed to find a decent formula with him by working over his legs so Mongo just had to lie around selling until he hit his clotheslines and piledriver. Speaking of which, it really is insane that he didn’t kill anybody with his tombstone. I thought he was a half-decent promo though. Even if he did only have one volume and crowds were always invested in his matches at least.

What news story or film from 1996 did Vince only get round to seeing this week to inspire him to do a drunk-driving angle?