Stiva

I think Starks has to be the next champion, he’s been absolutely must watch since Collision began and is proving he can go in the ring along with the charisma and promos. He’s slowly becoming the complete package. I would also go Christian Vs MJF at Full Gear if the rumours about Edge are true. Christian is probably the top heel at the moment and that books itself.

Feels like the natural ending of this Toni Storm gimmick is her refusing to come out in front of the crowd for a match in dramatic fashion and Thunder Rosa taking her place. 18 months ago, that would be nonsense but AEW doesn’t really make sense anymore so chase that pop, baby

So, that’s MJF and Cole with the ROH Tag Belts, Joe with the ROH TV belt, Kingston with the ROH World Belt and now The Elite with the ROH 6-man belts. Are these guys going to actually work ROH tapings or are we unifying titles?

Ah man, Ziggler is absolutely going to show up in AEW and I can’t be bothered with it

They should bring Rebel back and make The Waiting Room a weekly promo segment. That had potential in the pandemic days and it was just dropped

I actually think the thing that could increase some attendances is if they pull the trigger on elevating Orange Cassidy into the World Title picture. That and treating Danielson like the superstar he is would help

I kind of need to see a Punk/Cody promo battle.

What is strange with Jade is that they had Britt Baker say something like “TBS is The Baker Show” a few weeks back which felt like an obvious tease and now she’s off to WWE.

Yeah, I have a strong feeling that WWE will make her an absolute superstar. She always felt detached from the rest of the women in AEW since her role was just to steamroll everyone until Statlander came back. She’s going to come in to WWE with the rocket and be presented like a total star. Also, it would be very funny if Jax was only brought back to make Jade look good

It’s a shame that he’s finally gone but really, the man sounds absolutely exhausting. At this point, I’m actually way more interested in a Danielson-Led Collision at this point. The last year or so of backstage nonsense has genuinely soured me on following AEW.

That All Out card is really not great. I’m sure it’ll actually turn out well in-ring but dropping that card in Chicago of all places seems a big risk. Especially with no Punk to main event it and MJF and Cole working a Rampage main event in the middle of the card

I thought this was a top drawer show and it really felt like a huge deal up and down the card. The main event was a bit too Shawn Michaels agented NXT style for me with all the talking and melodrama but it’s such a hot storyline that I can forgive them, especially as there was no swerve and they have a mega babyface made in MJF. I don’t think there was any blow away match but pretty much everything was consistently good which I’ll take all day. Weakest was probably the Elite 6-man and man, has Ibushi not looked good in his two appearances. Hyped for Mercedes coming in and I presume that she’ll be at All Out to make the big debut, if you can call it that. As for that show, we talked about how All In’s card seemed slapdash but what the hell can you do for All Out’s big matches? You’d think Punk will main event but who against? Starks?

Am I right in thinking WWE didn’t even do E+C Vs The Hardys when all four were in the same company for a few months in 2009? As much as it would probably be awful, that’s a no brainer nostalgia match. Also, who is missing from the ALL IN card that should probably be on there? Hardys, Keith Lee, Andrade, Hobbs, Miro, Jarrett and Lethal, Statlander, even The Dark Order should maybe get a pre-show opposite Sabian, Butcher and Blade. And that list is when you consider PAC, Hayter and Danielson are all out

I’ve been talking tonight about the current Cassidy International title reign and where it goes/ends and all I can surmise is that the “final boss” of this run has to be a big marquee match opposite Omega, right? I assume it’s the Moxley match at All Out and once you’ve beaten him, it’s only really the likes of Omega or Punk left. Feels like it should end at the hands of Miro down the line but it does feel like you’ve run out of “good matches” for OC to have in this run and you need to position a lot of these defences as big matches opposite other big stars since he’s been so fucking good in 2023.

There’s still a week for more things to go tits up ahead of Wembley too.

At this point, I can’t tell if Punk is going into business for himself in order to force PPV matches down the road or that he just can’t help himself over whatever perceived slight he’s experienced that day

I think that match sounds pretty good to me even if you could run Golden Lovers vs Bullet Club Gold as a straight tag attraction. You’ll probably get a good 5 minute spell in the match where Omega and Takeshita go back and forth to build the All Out match and there’s plenty of history and first-time teases you can play out and milk with a huge stadium crowd. I’m more disappointed that AEW is seemingly snakebit with injury timings as we’ve been robbed of Danielson/Nigel, Hayter’s triumphant return and a heroes welcome for PAC. All three of those would have been big moments and worthy of the occasion Though, I do think if All In doesn’t have a big Omega single match, it should definitely have a big Orange Cassidy singles match. Run the Mox match with Kingston and Claudio in their respective corners

It probably does make sense to do it but what I want, is Coach TK to build up the show with the people we see every week. AEW has so much talent at its disposal that it doesn’t need a token Ospreay match just because he’s English. You have Pac right there, find something for him to do. Why not build him Vs Claudio up for All In instead of throwing it out at DBD with hardly any build?

Dude is unrelenting. Seems strange to put Ospreay on the show anyway tbh. If I’m going to All In, I want to see the AEW guys I watch every week. Unless they would do Ospreay opposite Danielson or even Cassidy again but a match where he has to drop to Jericho’s speed sounds like torture

I don’t know why he doesn’t just hand the reigns over to someone on that creative team, do an Impact style taping schedule in a smaller venue and try and make something more of it. I had visions of guys catching fire in ROH and moving to AEW with some heat behind them but that just hasn’t happened. Unless Athena comes up to beat Statlander

They’ve added ROH World Six-Man Championship: Brian Cage, Bishop Kaun, & Toa Liona (c) vs. Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Leon Ruffin Fight Without Honor: Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds, & John Silver vs. Vincent, Dutch, & Stu Grayson Komander vs. Gravity which, outside of the FWH, don’t add much appeal, even if I’m sure they’ll be perfectly good. I have a feeling that it’ll be a show that will deliver on the night but I’m not sure the card will sell any more tickets to help fill that building up

I wish we had got more of CIMA in AEW. Dude should have got a proper US run at some point in his career, in general

Hook casually cutting a promo on Jack Perry while drinking his wine was money

I watched the last two weeks of ROH and, after reading those, that feels like an AI booked show

To be fair, it’s not even the actual cost of the ticket, it’s more the hotel and travel that will knock the price up. I have a feeling that TK has something wild up his sleeve for Wembley so I think I’m going to bite the bullet and head down for it. Even if I have to watch through golden binoculars