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The roll-up, 'natch

I'm neutral on Cole, but much like the Jackson brothers, he seems to be very polarizing; folks either love him or hate him with a fiery passion. I think Cole is perfectly acceptable in the ring, and when he is in there with someone that can really work, he can be really damn good because he does get a reaction from the crowd. I think Cole & Fletcher actually have a chance to steal the show Saturday. I've said it before, Better Than You Baybay was peak Adam Cole. He was born to be Ricky Morton in a main event level tag team.

My only non spoilery question is, does Hawkwoman/girl look better on the big screen then she has in the trailers (which I've probably only seen on my phone)? The helmet always looks ill-fitting.

Booooooooooo #JusticeForStreaky

That seems like a healthy reaction. I mean, actually reversing a double vertical suplex would be pretty amazing. And also provide conclusive evidence that you possess telekinesis.

https://x.com/WrestleTix/status/1943477416720240906?s=19 Well so much for "the show isn't selling".

I need to see this, mostly because it's Superman and secondly because due to my massively fucked social media algorithms there's a LOT of hate campaigns directed at this movie from areas I wouldn't expect and a lot of love from places I was sure I'd see hate from so I can't get an accurate read. Aside from trusting Dolfan's general take.

Yall see how much more interesting Kyle O’Reilly got the second he got away from adam Cole? Adam Cole’s orbit is where charisma goes to die. It’s been a fantastic week of tv other than that, though. Hanger fucking rules.

Season 1, Show 19: “Grave Consequences,” or Fenix Down (But Not Out!) Recap: Dario has his crew focused on eliminating Big Ryck and Sexy Star; we’re getting more Aerostar versus Drago; Catrina is continuing to bring her brand of dark fuckery to the Temple. Match three of the Drago/Aerostar best-of-five series opens our show. I wonder if these mutual shows of respect between them are going to evaporate as this competition gets more heated…and I wonder if Drago, the guy from “the dark side,” is going to maybe be less of a babyface hero and more of a guy who clearly comes from the dark side. Striker mentions Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff as a comparison point to wonder if this series, like that one, will take too much out of these competitors and shorten their careers (though a rain-slicked road is really what took too much out of Magnum). Vampiro does a nice job of pointing out that this is different because these two have wrestled each other countless times already. I appreciate both men starting out with a few mat exchanges to switch things up, and in this case, Drago targets Aerostar’s knee with an Indian Deathlock and a knee bar. Aerostar kinda sells it when they get to standing, and I’m hopeful that maybe they’ll work something interesting around Aerostar’s knee, but they don’t, really. Mostly, they do a lot of dives and running. Aerostar hits La Bombita, which I guess is basically a springboard Coffin Drop, and it looks like it fucking hurts to hit. As does the regular Coffin Drop. Both men come close with moves like swinging uranages and lots of counters to counters, gamely sold on commentary as evidence that both men are learning one another. We even get a Hamrick bump from Aerostar. This match is fine. I’ll forget that it existed until they bring it up again when the fourth match in the series happens, but I appreciate some of the spots. Aerostar hits a rope-walk rana and a springboard splash for three to take a 2-1 series lead. Drago shakes Aerostar’s hand after the match, but it’s not as solid a handshake as it was in weeks past to my (and Vampiro’s) mind. Hype video: Konnan plays chess, beats up nameless mooks with newly made cane, and keeps trying to convince someone (Puma, maybe?) that he’s got a plan for taking care of Brian Cage. Actually, as we find out at the end, Konnan is actually beating Puma himself at this chess game in the park; that’s the chess match we were watching. Then Konnan destroys the chess clock with his cane. These Konnan “revenge is coming” promos are all kinda hokey, y’know? Big Ryck faces Dario’s Crew in a handicap elimination match, and I’m wondering why we haven’t had one single seedy backstage interstitial yet, dammit. Ryck swats the shit outta these dudes to start, so they tackle him and gang attack him. I love Vampiro noting that they went for Ryck’s ankles “just like in Wigan, England.” This is a fun little match because any one of the three Crew members would get annihilated by Ryck, but all three of them have to work together to keep Ryck down, and the enjoyment is in seeing if they can hit enough team attacks to keep Ryck down before Ryck eliminates one of them and leads to their advantage and chances collapsing like an uneven Jenga tower. At the point that Ryck blocks a double Irish whip, eats a kendo stick shot for a light snack, and then seizes the stick and breaks it over his opponents' backs, I think I know which one of those scenarios has won out! Ryck hits his standing uranage on Bael while Striker mangles scripture over on commentary *sigh*; Ryck covers Bael for three. That leaves Cortez and Cisco, but Ryck reverses a double vertical suplex on them (and it gets a minor HOLY SHIT chant, which says something about the house style or about the crowd, I can’t tell which). Yo, shut the fuck up, Matt Striker: Saying “we put smiles on faces,” even semi-mockingly, is dumb. Shut the fuck up, Matt Striker. Ryck lays out Cortez with a stick-assisted lariat and pins him, leaving only Cisco. Cisco, who was the guy to come up with the whole cigar-eye-burning plan in the first place, decides that he’s not going to give Ryck the satisfaction of beating the shit out of him and backs up the stairs, where he gives Sexy Star the satisfaction of beating the shit out of him and tossing him back into the ring so that Ryck can get the satisfaction of beating the shit out of him. Ryck punches Cisco in the eye, and Cisco blades while Ryck sets up a chair. Ryck hits like twelve more punches to the eye and then lands a standing uranage onto the open chair. GODDAM. Cisco’s head snapped off the back of the chair, and he crushed the seat. Fuck me, that shit had to hurt like a motherfucker. OK, that ends the match and, between the punches and the uranage into the chair, is the nastiest finish I might have ever seen on this show. I really liked what I think was meant to be a feud-ending destruction of Dario’s Crew. Matt Striker hypes a double-title match episode for next week: Alberto El Patrón defends the AAA Mega Championship against Texano in a bullrope match and Prince Puma defends the Lucha Underground Championship against Brian Cage in a Boyle Heights Street Fight. It’s already main event time with about twenty minutes to go. Well, this is rad. A bunch of skull-face-painted mourners walk an artistically-cool coffin to ringside while Vampiro explains Dia de los Muertes to the American crowd. The presentation here is great. I love it. As someone who also loved druids holding torches and carrying coffins to ringside in the WWF, this is right up my alley. Mil Muertes comes to the ring for what LU has termed a Grave Consequences Match; he is clutching the mystical stone that Catrina left near him in the locker room – or that he hallucinated that she did, as if you’ll recall, she dropped the stone in the ring when Mil beat Fenix a couple weeks ago, and he picked it up. I have no idea what is going on with Mil’s crazy ass, and I love it. Mil immediately hits a suicide dive on Fenix as Fenix makes his way into the ring, so yeah, he sets a certain tone for the proceedings. Hey, Catrina is here, too. I didn’t even notice her at first. There’s a spot where Fenix has Mil hanging over the ropes, and takes the time to roll the coffin out of the way and then back way up to run forward and try a dropkick; Mil rightly moves since he had about fifteen years to recover, and Fenix slams his back on the apron. Sadly, Fenix just keeps doing moves after that. Mil, meanwhile, beats the shit out of Fenix with the accompanying floral arrangements. Make him the champ and only have him defend it in these matches, fuck it. I’m in. Meanwhile, we get a couple of shots of Catrina barely being able to hold in her excitement at all this carnage. Fenix’s dumb ass hits a suicide dive right into the coffin as Mil holds it up to block his momentum. Mil follows up by ripping at Fenix’s mask. Seven-year-old me was completely into rooting for the mystical heel when the heel was the Undertaker. Much older me has not changed! Muertes killing this geek Fenix, ripping his mask, and tearing off a metal turnbuckle joint to beat Fenix with is THE FUCKING BEST. Why would I not root for this guy to murder Fenix? Dead ass, if I had a wrestling time machine, 1991 Undertaker vs. 2014 Mil Muertes would be a personal dream match that I’d make happen. Muertes tosses Fenix up the stairs, then over the railing and onto the roof of Dario Cueto’s office. Mil tells the fans to move because he’s gonna vertically suplex the whole mass of humanity to the floor. Fenix blocks it and they trade fists until Mil tosses Fenix face-first into a vent. Fenix crawls back down the stairs, and Mil follows, clears the commentary table, and powerbombs Fenix onto it. It does not break. Fenix writhes in pain while Mil stares down Catrina and then grabs the coffin. As Muertes puts the coffin in the ring and props it up in the corner, the crowd cheers, then remembers that Fenix is supposed to be the fightin’ técnico and starts up a chant for him that ends when Muertes release belly-to-belly suplexes him right into the propped up coffin. Fenix, who bladed back when Mil clubbed him with that metal joint, pulls himself into a sitting position just in time for Mil to bite at his bleeding wound. Well, I can’t complain about Fenix for at least a couple of weeks because he’s bladed and taken a shit-ton of nasty bumps to make this whole thing work, and he’s actually selling this ass whipping really nicely. I knew he could do a good job of selling pain if he really tried. Props to him. He tries to make a comeback by landing a superkick, but he’s far too hurt to get to the top rope with any speed and gets caught by a Muertes vaulting Codebreaker. Muertes hauls this guy right back up into the crowd and beats Fenix with a chair while fans file the fuck out of the way at high speed, which is an amazing visual. Fenix manages to kick Muertes once, twice, and over the railing, then wobbles to his feet, climbs the railing, and hits a desperation dive. Alas, though he shows much heart, he’s basically bled out, so Mil gets up from that attack and slams Fenix’s head into the grating that separates the fans from the floor. Fenix again hits a couple desperation superkicks and then goes up and lands a moonsault. This gives him a bit of space to locate the coffin, though Muertes gets up and trades blows with him…leading to Muertes clobbering Catrina, standing nearby, when Fenix ducks one swing. Striker points out that no one has even tried to open the coffin to stuff their opponent into it, which I was just about to say. Most of these matches rely on teases with the heel struggling to close the lid on the babyface and whatnot; this was just a bloody brawl where Muertes has been focused on putting Fenix’s lights out before he even bothers to try and win, and Fenix has been too busy trying to survive Mil’s onslaught to think about winning. Fenix’s flurry of offense comes to a sudden halt when Mil once again bites at Fenix’s bleeding eye, which is both gross and also the best. Catrina has struggled to her feet and opens the coffin lid while Muertes and Fenix struggle on the apron. Fenix breaks free lands some strikes, an double-stomps Mil into the casket. Catrina grabs the mystical stone, symbolically gives it a Lick of Death, and tosses it on top of Mil's unmoving form before slamming the lid shut. Huh, I didn’t expect that finish, but who cares? This match ruled and is the best thing Fenix has done on this show and probably in his career. The mourners come back and roll the coffin away, and notably, Catrina follows them out rather than celebrating with Fenix, which makes me think she wanted Mil to lose for some reason that will end up being helpful to her end goals, and she saw Fenix as the vessel to make that happen. I don’t fucking know. Who can tell what the dread Catrina has in mind? As much as I enjoyed Ryck and Star getting their revenge, I was going to complain about the complete lack of seedy backstage interstitials on this show, but who could complain about any show that gave eighteen-ish minutes to what was possibly the best casket match I’ve ever seen? Fuck it, between those final two matches, I'm giving this episode the full five. 5 LU-CHA chants out of 5.

That's MJF's ex-fiancé, actually. In other news - Jelly Roll versus Logan Paul is probably happening at SummerSlam.

The first new Swell Season album in 16 years dropped today. Between this and a couple of single releases they've made in the last couple of years, Marketa has grown into just a powerhouse of a singer when she lets it go. The end of "Pretty Stories" on this album is really good stuff. This will be a regular listen over the weekend. Speaking of powerful vocals and harmonies, I have the Remaster/Reissue of Civil Wars's "Barton Hollow" coming through Magnolia Records early next month. I'm excited to hear that on vinyl.

Jun Akiyama vs. 1 Called Manders booked for GCW Japan on July 30 at Korakuen Hall.

Zaslav did make one (1) good decision:

Even though we lost our game against Korea was on of the funnest in my 16 years of derby, same with Japan the next day. Unfortunately our final game against Wales wasn't, their coach was a major dick and we got hosed by the refs while being blown out. The USA cruised to winning the whole things, us Greeks moved up three spots from our initial seed to being ranked 35th of 48 teams.

Here are the Buzz Sawyer Omni opponents listed on CageMatch before Last Battle: Dick Slater, JYD, Pez Whatley then after Last Battle: Abdullah, Buzz and Tommy vs the Road Warriors in Thanksgiving 83 so they had the epic blowoff between Buzz and Tommy and were teaming them up a month later

I have to say, BYU is amazingly successful for a school who will suspend 18-22-year-olds for having sex. That's like suspending kindergarteners for finger painting.

A Power Rangers fan on BlueSky alerted everyone that the MMPR: The Movie Funko Pops had been restocked on their website so I waited a week, used my Disney+ Funko perk coupon, and got all six for like $80. Hell yeah. And Entertainment Earth has the CM Punk pipebomb Funko up for preorder so I grabbed that too. I’m still on the lookout for a deal on the old one he had when they first got the licensing deal with Funko, it regularly lists on eBay for hundreds of dollars. TLDR: I bought a shitload of Funko Pops for my birthday lmao

Pretty sure Hangman explicitly said his family will be there but not at the show, though.

the Death Riders are still at the top of the card, but they make up a much smaller portion of TV time.

Hangman mentioned his family being there. I wonder if there's a possibility of Mox going after Hangman's family to try to get him to lay down and Swerve making the save for Hangman's family, kind of turning Swerve into a hero for his son... and then allowing Hangman to put the final nail in Mox coffin

If this was WWE, the way Swerve was looking at that chain, he'd use it to cost Hangman the title after he & Ospreay lose to the Young Bucks. Because reasons.

Guy Ritchie will no longer direct Road House 2 No reason was given for his leaving nor was a replacement named

I loved Toni’s “eat shit, bitch” line. I popped pretty big for that.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this but neither Tsushima or Yotei take place in China.

Once it got rolling, the promo wasn't bad but then it got awkward. It was just a bit weird, especially because like you said, the rest of the build has been solid. I've really come around on Mercedes so this is definitely my second most anticipated match after the main.