I continue to be taken aback by how technically unsound Riho is. She's a joshi dojo product who's been wrestling for 13 years, but she looks like she just got out of the Performance Center. Nothing she does looks crisp at all. She does have a connection with the audience, and AEW's women's division isn't exactly a murderer's row, so it's not that big a deal. Still, it is rather jarring.

Kenny Omega vs Jack Evans for the AAA Megacampion title ? I'm hyped.

Whomever laid out that Pentagon/Trent match should be fired.

Terrific little TV match. Also, Spears is quite good at announcing.

A feature on my girl Shanna !   AEW listened to me. Yes, they did.

 

11 minutes ago, El-P said:

Spears is quite good at announcing.

I didn't know it was him. I've been trying to figure out who it was but yeah, I agree. He's been really good. Like, shockingly good.

Yeah, he's making good points, get the match over, can be funny. Well, I hope they noticed, because he sure can make a transition when needed.

Loved this episode, best Dark thus far. Shanna vs Swole was a fine match, with Swole showing more personality and looking more comfortable. And then don't even expect me to be objective on Shanna, but she's quite good anyway and I'm glad she seems to be in their plans.

Awesome Kong's new presentation is glorious. Leva Bates & Peter Avalon getting squashed will never get old.

And then they go overtime for a really good title match. Evans can do some crazy looking stuff. Not on par with the Janela match, but a cool showcase for Evans in singles and Omega is just a pleasure to watch anytime.

Jimmy Havoc stapling the fines he gets for stapling people on his opponents' forehead is quite a smart and funny idea. I like the fact he referred to him getting drunk at a bar too. Also, he guy can actually work, as showed by this good little match with Cutler. Between this and some ridiculous stuff on MLW, I'm warming up slowly but surely to Jimmy...

I guess Nyla didn't get the memo about not referring to the Perfect Ten. She's pretty good though, but nowhere near Spears last week. 

Santana & Ortiz vs Jurassik Express was really good. Marko shined in that one (not even mentioning the dart-style canadian destroyer during the post-match). The one thing with P&P is that they probably are better suited as babyfaces (Ortiz especially as that goofy babyface charisma). Guevarra on the other hand can't be likable, ever, so just hanging on with him balances things. They were quite funny along Hager on this week's BTE (which was Being the Inner Circle).

Tony & Dasha work quite well together hosting this show BTW. 

I just can't get past the fact that Havoc looks like that one 40 year old guy who never got over his Goth phase that you see at every concert, with that exact haircut, wearing a black trench coat, and bitching about how he liked the band before you ever heard of them.

1 hour ago, Blehschmidt said:

I just can't get past the fact that Havoc looks like that one 40 year old guy who never got over his Goth phase that you see at every concert, with that exact haircut, wearing a black trench coat, and bitching about how he liked the band before you ever heard of them.

That's a pretty great description. But that's actually a great heel gimmick. Also, his face (not the haircut) really reminds me of an old friend, who's an old college cinema teacher and intellectual. So there's a bit of odd cognitive dissonance whenever I watch Jimmy Havoc.

Jimmy Havoc is a waste of space. Ratings death.

Vickie Guerrero was pretty enjoyable on commentary this week.

Joey Janela joined for the last two matches and said that Orange Cassidy was "So brave he'd strap a bucket of maple syrup to his back and ride a motorbike through Canada"

That is totally f'n funny, eh? 

1 hour ago, gordi said:

That is totally f'n funny, eh? 

The joke itself isn't necessarily funny, but since Cornette gives Janela nothing but shit, him mocking the joke that got Cornette canned from the NWA show made me laugh.

I had this on while I was getting ready this morning and totally missed that line!

Loved the sequence with OC and Pac. 

5 minutes ago, Blehschmidt said:

The joke itself isn't necessarily funny, but since Cornette gives Janela nothing but shit, him mocking the joke that got Cornette canned from the NWA show made me laugh.

Plus the fact it's not actually funny is what makes it even better and smarter, and thus funny in the end. Because the original joke ain't funny either. I don't care about his lack of fundamentals or crappy punches, I can't help but love Janela. 

Just reading about it got a legit lol outa me. I'm hoping it makes me laugh again when I get around to watching Dark later this week. 

Statlander’s promo was the real comedy with the implication that she was just riding up and down in the cargo lift until the cameras were rolling for her to speak. 

One of the best Darks IMHO.

Really loved Orange Cassidy's hot tag.

Announcing was pure comedy.

Bea had her best match in AEW. Hope they do something more with her.

I confess I am happy everyone enjoys Kris, but she's just "OK" to me in the ring. I mean there's no getting around the fact that she is inexperienced.

On 12/18/2019 at 8:07 AM, Blehschmidt said:

Vickie Guerrero was pretty enjoyable on commentary this week.

Joey Janela joined for the last two matches and said that Orange Cassidy was "So brave he'd strap a bucket of maple syrup to his back and ride a motorbike through Canada"

Depends on the part of Canada he rides through!

That Britt Baker match was bad. As in, bad. She doesn't benefit from working so few matches a week, at this rate I don't see her improving very quickly. That multicolored jobber looked pretty terrible, on all front.

Statlander vs Priestley on the other hand was quite the cool little Youtube match. That promo... Ok, so she's an alien. Sports-based approach baby ! I honestly can't wait to se more of Brandi's stuff. It has a bit of a Raven's Nest feel with the signs and such.

Main event was very good, Orange Cassidy has been quite the success thus far. I wonder how long he will be seen as special the more he does stuff though. But yeah, amazing pop for his "hot" tag. PAC truly is a wonderful worker on every level. 

Janela was quite funny too, making fun of himself and his jelly belly. Next time I hope he mentions he has no basics, just for the sake of it. Give that guy something cool to do instead of a feud with Shawn Spears...

3 hours ago, El-P said:

That Britt Baker match was bad. As in, bad. She doesn't benefit from working so few matches a week, at this rate I don't see her improving very quickly. That multicolored jobber looked pretty terrible, on all front.

 

Baker has showed me nothing so far.

The jobber was Michiko. She's obscure, but honestly no more obscure than much of AEW's roster- haha.

I joked to myself that AEW hired her as local talent thinking she was a joshi who could carry Baker, but once she showed up they realized she was "cultural misappropriate" white girl.

If the online databases are correct, Michiko has been around since 2011 but only has around 75 matches under her belt, mostly against nobodies in nobody leagues. Can't get better that way.

Baker has around 100 matches since 2015, but has at least been in SHIMMER, RISE, ROH, and WWE tryouts and tangled with Tessa Blanchard, Shayna Baszler, and other "decent" American female indie names, like Savoy, Rayne, Karen Q, Ellering, Mia Yim, Grace, Havok, etc.

Frankly, after looking over her match history, she gets around 45 matches a year, and if she is going to be exclusively with AEW, she will be lucky to match that. You are correct, she will not improve much and I doubt she will ever get over with that gimmick anyway.

Sidenote: everyone's favorite whipping girl Lacey Evans has been wrestling 4 years in NXT/WWE and has 260, most coming in the last three: 70 to 100 matches a year.

One reason why this whole win/loss record isn't always a good thing, when Sami Gueverra, a featured member of the Inner Circle, whose nickname is the Spanish God, has a match with Brandon Cutler, who's basically a competitive jobber, and both their single records is 0-4, it kinda makes Sami looks like crap. So yeah, win/loss mattering is good, but keeping track of every record can be counter productive. A guy like the Sandman in ECW was losing all the time, but it did not matter. If you show the graphic of a pitiful record, with the idea that win/loss matters and perception being reality, I'm not sure it will help some of these acts get over.

Joey Janela as Santa Claus was the most pro-wrestling thing ever. The Hipster Jesus in the crowd was quite funny. Fun match with Spears, who showed versatility working a rather comedic match. Not sure about Janela doing the Steve Austin bit at the end though. I realize Austin is bigger than just WWE-branded stuff in term of pro-wrestling legacy and it a call back to 20 years before, but still... That stuff works great on an indie show, not crazy about it on AEW TV. I guess the self-conscious aspect of AEW, especially on Dark, makes it irrelevant anyway, it's just a fun salute to the biggest star of the last 30 years.

Really fun Riho/Shoko Nakajima match to open Dark this week. Worth the time to check out. Very fun match and the crowd was into it.

Unfortunately they followed it up with a Jimmy Havoc match, who may be my least favorite person on the whole roster. I feel like they could be doing something more with Sonny Kiss than jobbing to this loser. Then they teased a feud between Jimmy Havoc and Luther! I'd rather buy a pay per view of cars rusting or paint drying than watch that.

Match 3 saw Hikaru Shida who may be my favorite female on the roster taking on a much bigger, much greener newcomer named Cassandra Golden. I really wish they'd stop having Shida work all of these fringe girls and get her back in the mix. This was okay, but the talent difference was glaring.

Dark Order/Jurassic Express is the Main Event (No Luchasaurus) and I had to stop watching before this got started.

Watching Dark right now. Christi Jaymes seems OK enough, but how many more random women can this promotion bring in? Are there any storyline even going on with any of them, since the Nightmare Collective was quietly killed off? 

Why in the world is Jimmy Havoc still employed?

Watching his match from Dark this week, which is basically a glorified squash, I guess to try and get him over. His offense looks like shit, his total lack of tan or any muscle definition looks like shit, his Goth of Seagulls haircut with noticeable bald spot behind it looks like shit. 

I've literally been to a hundred indy shows with guys that look just like him doing the same gimmick and all they are good for is bleeding as well.

Not to mention this feud with Dr. Luther that absolutely no one gives two shits about. 

Can we fire these two losers, and use the money to get someone with a "dark/odd" gimmick that actually works? I hear Su Yung is a free agent now.