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So Okada wasn't there?

Anyone on the board writing a thesis about pro wres? This person just found your title!!

We should have a thread where we just bitch about WWWF stuff the way we do current wrestling. ”Fellas, ya hear about this phony baloney tournament in Rio de Janeiro? Who’s Toots Mondt kiddin’? The audience hears about that little chestnut and they’re gonna 23 skidoo.”

I’m curious as to why the talk of fake laughing? It wasn’t Fallon. Seemed pretty clear that Schiavone and Excalibur were having a great time. If it wasn’t for you that’s fine. But if you wanted something genuinely creative and not at all taking itself seriously, job done. I’ve been laughing about it ever since. Now someone strap Corney to gimmick and alert the local facilities.

main event delivered SO MUCH.

Main event was goddamn tremendous fun

bros are we really on the internet mocking a pro wrestler for how they look can this wait a week

What a maroon.

That main event was DDT-tastic. Bonkers, creative and genuinely laugh out loud funny. Exactly what we needed after the last few days, and none of the cinematic trappings of the WWE or Hardy compound efforts. I like my wrasslin’ played straight but it’s pointless right now and I could watch that over and over. A billion stars. Genuine respect also for AEW taking the time to talk about Hana. Total class.

MJF/Jungle Boy was fantastic. I thought it was the best of the straight wrestling matches tonight. Felt like a breakthrough for both of them. These guys are going to be wrestling each other for the next 20 years, and it’s going to be scary good. Runner up was Shida/Nyla. Shida has really proven herself as the workhorse of the division over the past few months, and she delivered again here. At this point, she is acutely aware of what her best stuff is and knows how to use it, and doesn’t waste time with shit she isn’t good at. Nyla was good and aggressive in this, but it was really all about Shida chopping her down over the course of the match. Felt very Bret-esque, to me. And their brawling segments were so thoughtfully done that they kind of made Moxley/Brodie’s brawling segments look aimless and kinda shitty by comparison.

Regarding Okada: According to my sources, he worked the show under a hood.

Stadium Stampede was everything MITB wanted to be and more. So many great bits. This match will birth a thousand memes. I think Matt Hardy found his perfect foil in Ortiz, a man who will vibrate like a cartoon character if you ring a bell near him. The One Winged Angel at the end was gonzo. Even with the obvious WWE Black Box crash pad, the height they dropped from was crazy. Sammy is a nut for taking that. The assisted Buckshot needs to become a regular thing that Kenny & Hangman do in their matches.

I really loved MJF/Jungle Boy. Was a good mixture of old and new with lots of intensity mixed in. Mike Tyson befuddled by Lance Archer beating up a dude as an entrance was definitely memorable.

As someone who used to, I think it's because WWE always gives us a glimmer of hope. They'll do something to earn some goodwill back, then end up ruining it. It's a hard habit to break. I grew up on the WWF. How can I stop now? I know I'm not alone, but there's only so many times you can get burned and be disappointed. I still watch old ppv's on the network and sometimes I'll check out nxt, but I've cut the cord for the most part.

After a shitty week, I needed this.

I haven't listened to WOR in forever but Dave summed up the likely outcome from this all too well (in Daveism, so I'll just paraphrase): He then went on to say that the abuse he faced on Twitter was the same or more since this has happened. There is talk of people in Japan pushing for a law to criminalize cyberbullying. Laws here in Canada are present but hard to enforce and not enforced enough. I usually lean towards letting bad ideas die in sunlight but threats and wishing death upon others are less ideas and more just being awful human beings and we are getting to the point where people are just so ingrained in their mindsets that there is no willing to learn or compromise despite obvious reasons. Legal ramifications are the only way to deal with some people sadly. Having to use your actual name and location in certain forums or comment sections hasn't stopped all abuse and awful shit but I imagine it has made at least some people think twice. While we can say "we gotta do better" and move on, there are actual concrete things that need to be done like significant legal outcomes for wishing/threatening death or sending bigoted statements at people online or in person, as well as removing anonymity on social media. The last one is tricky and would have a lot of unintentional negative consequences but I think it's a price I'd be willing to pay until the day "we can be better".

A big part of depression is losing perspective and becoming trapped in a loop that feeds into it. I can only speak from personal experience, but I know negative things that I’d totally ignore most days can suddenly become the only thing that seem to matter, and there’s a compulsion to just keep focusing on it until it consumes me. It’s very hard to pull yourself out of that kind of tailspin alone.

First two matches were rough - for a little bit there, I thought Private Party had gotten their act together but once the halfway point of that match hit, it was botch-botch-botch. Trent looked actively pissed about it. But the Best Friends deserved the win after the work they did during the Georgia tapings and their Tag Title shot should be gobs of fun. Men of Low Moral Fiber EXPLODE~?! Ladder Match is hard to judge. A lot of people's characters were developed here - Orange Cassidy talks now! The Sabian/Havoc/Ford group is getting to be more well-defined, Sabian is still one of the biggest underachievers on the roster but he's been trying harder the last few weeks, and Jimmy Havoc's splatter-suit, uh, suits him. Cage looked good in his debut and it seems there's a built-in program with him and Darby. Entertaining and the right choice for an opener, but I'm still sorta down on this match.The transitions between comedy spots and big bumps were very jarring, there was even more "guys lying around on the outside" than a MitB match, there were plenty of botches, nobody seemed to be actually trying to win the thing and the finish was clunky. One more thing - Joey Janela's potty mouth stood out to me in a positive way. I think the guy has had a rough year or two in his personal life, just get a lot of sadboy vibes from behind the sunglasses, but I believe in his hybrid everyman/weirdo charisma and I saw some flashes of it here. MJF/Jungleboy, in a way, felt like the real TV Title Match. Huge early 90's WCW midcard Eaton/Austin/Dustin/Steamboat/Windham/Pillman/Arn vibes with this one. Clearly defined face/heel work, pinpoint traditional structure, hope spots and fake injuries and teasing a 20-minute draw, this was prime wrestling-flavored wrestling from two of the most precocious guys out there. I like them both but this was miles ahead of what I was expecting, and if this is indicative of their chemistry then they might have a brighter future than the Darby/Sammy pairing. Cody/Archer was, like, fine I guess. They booked themselves into a corner here as this didn't feel like the right time for either guy to lose, but if Cody's going to be Cody then he might as well have a belt every once in awhile. The work itself was good. Cody lives and dies by the circus he brings, and that circus probably needs a crowd more than any other act on the roster. I can tolerate - even be entertained by - the Arn and Jake stuff, but if I was a younger viewer I don't know how their interactions play any better than awkward. Tyson was their to be very, very high and take his shirt off. He's been angling for some sort of freakshow fight to any promoter that'll listen for the last few weeks or months, I don't think he had any real interest in anything other than showing those promoters that he still works out. Oh, and credit to Big Swole for maximizing her camera time. Kris/Ford was what it was. No ill feelings, they're both capable enough and the match was inoffensive. I think if Ford wants to have any hope of really breaking through in the women's ranks she's going to have to be their highspot queen. Dustin/Spears was a garden-variety bad wrestling segment on it's own, but putting the two matches with the lowest stakes on one after another was completely counter-productive in terms of using Dustin/Spears as a cool-down match and hurt the show's pacing. One of these didn't need to air. Hikaru Shida's become this sort of Bret Hart-type pickup truck of a carry artist who's just so far ahead of everyone else when it comes to technique. Other than the Nyla/Riho series I think she's been involved in everyone of the roster's best match. It felt like she won the belt because she deserved it, props to commentary and the video packages for addressing and respecting the Hana Kimura tragedy without making it a central point of the match; I believe that would have been disingenuous, right? Shida was Ice Ribbon, Hana was Stardom, I don't think their careers had that much crossover. Last week I was down on Brodie. His unscripted promos on Moxley were not main-event level, if you will, his cadence, word choice and composure all betraying the character of the Exalted One (and turn the belt rightside up!). Y'know what Brodie Lee is freakin' great at? Technical brawls with good workrate, realism and violence. Him and Mox still have their chemistry like I hoped the would. Maybe Vince was right that Brodie's peak is as a quiet, upper-midcard roadblock for the superstars / Guaranteed Good Match Guy (y'know, a Cersaro) but OK. So be it. He's fantastic in that role. Everyone else has elaborated so much on Stadium Stampede,...man, there you fuckin' go. I can't call it a MotYC, but on the list of MotQCs it's gonna be at the top. Fujita/Shiozaki, Ripley/Flair, the original Omega/Hardy vs. Jericho/Sammy (still haven't seen Drew/Seth) all good times, but yup. This was the one. Everyone involved, regardless of rank, should be elated to have this one on their resume. It's just pure entertainment, people. The match was an expression of joy They had me at horse.

One of the worst parts of Vince winning the wrestling war is that the company with historically one of the worst in-ring products ended up the survivor.

I know I was laughing my ass off the first time Hardy did the finger guns “AHHHHHHH”, with Santana & Ortiz acting like he “Hulked Up”. I actually jumped a bit, like it was a jump scare.

Yeah, I’m not getting the “fake laughing” criticism. Tony is genuinely delighted by everything these days, and Excalibur pretty much made his name in commentary by being loose and calling silly matches like this. It didn’t at all sound like Big Tony was screaming LAUGH GODDAMMIT in their ears.

Happy belated birthday to Kota Ibushi, who on Thursday became the age Arn Anderson was when he retired ¯\(°_o)/¯

Lance Archer's opening assault was great. Cody's selling wasn't the best tonight and his comeback felt a little flat but I loved the three Rhodes' moves followed by a Stinger splash. That reverse superplex was super fucking dangerous. Mike Tyson trying to put on a shirt during the finish tho. ? Fun match but I think without the manager and Tyson stuff and maybe trimming 3 or so minutes off and it is a super match. As is, flawed near greatness. I get that it was a forced, last minute replacement but Statlander vs. Penelope was not worthy of ppv. Women's title match has some really good spots rounded into a very good match overall. Shida is absolutely the one to carry the division until others get on her level. Rose is able to be carried at least. We've seen it with both Shida and Riho. That kendo shot was gnarly. Damn. Title match was very good I thought. Bomb throwing with adequate drama and Brody got to go out like a G. Fun. Stadium Stampede is a must for the eventual AEW video game. Ortiz is The Best. It's true. Going down the pool ladder so slowly, hahaha. That was so much fun. Thought the ladder match had a lot of weak looking shit and a few big spots that worked. Cage made to look awesome out of the gate. I think highly of him. The one thing he's always missed is an intensity and hopefully Taz can get that out of him, that's certainly something Taz had in spades. Show felt like the best possible no audience WCW Uncensored PPV with all the no DQ matches but the bombz added to each one with the Taz/BBB spot, the headshot with the kendo stick, and the Cody/Archer match, then the gimmick matches. Not complaining. It's fun when done right. Money well spent and a nice reprieve from sorrow.

The whole show was worth every bit of the $40 I spent on it (thanks $10 Google credit!). I thought the opening ladder match was pretty good, but could someone please talk Darby out of killing himself 1 minute into nearly half of his matches. Jesus Christ, that kid is going to fucking die out there one of these days. Brian Cage as the surprise entrant was enough of a surprise and I wonder where they go with him having the chip, MJF seemingly being next in line for the world title, etc. Cody vs Archer was really good up until some of the overbooking at the end. Every Cody match tells a story, but I felt they could have told a better story without the managers getting tossed, Jake coming back out, and then Cody winning with two more Crossroads. I'm happy Cody won and felt that was the right move. I don't know what the plan was leading up to Shida vs Rose, but after what happened with Hana, I thought that Shida would win. That match was fucking great. I loved it. I think it's maybe the best Shida has looked, her Tifa inspired gear was great, she really brought it, Rose hung in there and brought it as well, and they told a tremendous story. I teared up with Shida winning. I liked Moxley vs Lee a lot. It was stiff as fuck with each guy dropping bombs on the other. Moxley showed he'll damn near kill a man to get his title back, Lee was the perfect opponent for that style of match and made Moxley look good in the process. I really do hope they start to disband the Dark Order though. Like, I don't care if Lee, Silver, and Reynolds are a trio until Uno and Grayson can return, but the Dark Order should be done with. Fucking LOVED MJF vs Jungle Boy. There are some matches you watch where you get a strong sense of what the future looks like and the future looks like these two tearing it up on top in the years to come. The Stadium Stampede was everything I wanted it to be and then some. At first I was a little worried with the wrestlers congregating around and in the ring. They quickly got away from it and that's when that match became one of the best and damnedest things I've ever seen. So much good shit. Matt Jackson giving Sammy locomotion Northern Lights Suplexes for 100 yds, the whole pool bit with Hardy and PnP, Ortiz and the bell, Page sauntering out with the line sprayer and spraying over Jericho, Matt and Kenny AGAIN trying to run down Sammy in the golf cart, Page on a horse, and so much more. I can't wait to re-watch that match. AEW never disappoints with their PPVs. I don't think there's been one time where I felt my money went to waste. My only gripe is that this would have been amazing with a crowd.

People are speculating Cena has donated $40k to Shad's family GoFundMe. The name of the donation is CTC - the name the group used when they team up.

I think there was a similar (lack of) care when one of the Villanos suffered a neck injury in a tag match with Raven and Kanyon. Raven was pretty much the only one caring for the guy IIRC.

A business that buys WWE that doesn't care about wrestling, and is only concerned about profit, wouldn't give two shits about the quality of a Takeover event or a main roster WWE Network special. One could argue that the only thing NXT has really done is improve the image of women's wrestling inside of WWE. Roman Reigns being on the list isn't exactly fair either, since he debuted at the end of October, and a few weeks later would be on the main roster as part of The Shield. He's more of a testament to the success of FCW, if anything.

It should have the Pay Window on one of the Side Plates.

Everything about the main event was solid gold. Wow. Including the very beginning

Also, he pretty much looks like every other corn-fed white dude who takes their football photo in high school.

@gordi Osaka Pro - Ebessan vs. Kuishinbo Kamen 2/3 Falls Match I’m going to start this review by saying, I’ve never watched an Osaka Pro match, let alone an Ebessan or Kuishinbo Kamen match, so I have no context whatsoever for what is going on. I’m just going to give you my thoughts as I’m watching it. First, you have to love the elaborate, over the top entrances for both guys. If you’re going to be silly, be all the way silly in my book. The first fall of this match goes something like this…Ebessan tries a body slam, falls down and gets his shoulders pinned for a 3 count. I can’t lie, that was hilarious. It’s so simple, and so stupid, that you can’t help but laugh. I didn’t expect it at all, and I was immediately all in on the rest of this match. The second fall is Ebessan, going for the exact same body slam, falling down, and barely getting his shoulder up before he gets pinned again. Then, Kamen works a wrist lock and Ebessan does a bunch of rolling escapes, only for Kamen to apply the wrist lock again as soon as he stands up. It’s absurd, but absurd is the point. The second fall ends after Ebessan finally escapes the wrist lock and rolls Kamen up for the three count. The third fall is where this really picks up. After some shenanigans with the referee Ebessan and Kamen work a slow motion version of a puro slugfest. There is a strike exchange, that Ebessan wins with a spin kick followed by a slow motion Shining Wizard. It’s basically what Orange Cassidey does every week, but in the context of a puroresu match. If the match ended there, this would have been a fun little comedy match, but then they decide to actually start wrestling…and they’re both pretty damn good at it. They pull out some fun slams, suplexes, ad some truly impressive high flying moves (my favorite was the tope into the head slap). This was a fantastic comedy match. Everything worked. I honestly don’t like most comedic wrestling, because they either do things that aren’t funny to begin with, or they take the one little joke they have and run it into the ground. This did none of that. They had a couple really funny bits, and then moved onto wrestling before the humor overstayed it’s welcome. This is a match I would have never watched, and probably never even heard of outside of this project, but I really enjoyed this.

The worse part is that...even on an in-ring scale (especially in the modern era), WWE isn't that bad. It isn't good, but the WWE/F roster is just too GOOD to be truly BAD. There's just too many talented wrestlers on the show to make the show bad. WWE's not bad...it's BLAND. It's a bland piece of pablum that doesn't inspire any thoughts- good, bad, whatever. Even if WWE is trying to make "moments" instead of good story, by and large most of those moments are so formulaic even they don't really seem like great moments...in large part because there's no story leading to it and just moment for the sake of moment. Heck, the fact WWE is so bland may indeed make WWE WORSE than bad. At least with truly bad stuff: UWF shows, WCW in 2000, etc....at least then you can watch the show to laugh at it and have a great time. You can't even mock how bad the WWE is, because it's at least "this is a perfectly competent wrestling show. This is an acceptable show. This is a good way to waste seven hours a week of my life I will never get back."

After a shitty day, shitty week and shitty year, AEW did it's job and was able to deliver entertainment that took your mind off everything that's happening. I was on the fence about ordering earlier in the week but I'm so damn glad I did. The undercard was a mixed bag, but the main event more than made up for it. The Stadium Stampede was worth the price alone! So many hilarious one liners and just pure entertainment. Challenging the refs two-count and doing a replay review, the bar fight, the referee running trying to keep up with the golf cart, the pool scene, jumping off the goalpost, Sammy being woken up by the water hose and the f*cking HORSE! They didn't try to be serious like Edge-Orton with slow plodding, heavy breathing work. If this was a Wargames match like it was originally scheduled back in March, then I'm sure it would've been more "blood and guts." But they went out and entertained us and gave the audience exactly what we needed right now. Kudos to all involved!

That was tremendous. Pay Sammy ALL the monies.

I've likened it to continuing to follow a sports team that's been a long time favorite even though they've sucked for years. You've got sentimental value attached and always hope they might get good again or have an entertaining game. It's also like continuing to watch a tv show you like even when you don't like the direction the plot has taken. There's the thought of being invested in it and wanting to see how it ends, for better or for worse. Though in the case of the WWE, people should realize there's not going to be a series finale and that it's ok to just quit watching when you no longer find it entertaining.

Dude, next time you get in an argument on here about WWE booking or whatever, please DON'T bring up Hana Kimura's suicide.

I feel you man. I just dropped the network this month and I had it since day one. They have so many great assets yet still give us a subpar product. I'm tired of getting my hopes up with them. I used to keep the network for NXT but even now with NXT on USA, I stopped watching. AEW is my go-to for now unless something miraculous changes.

Softball leagues run in the winter.

I was thinking about this too. It's a must as an unlockable stage... it'd be almost as fun as the match itself.

I'm pretty sure there was a conversation here in a similar some months back (probably after Triple H got "demoted"), but I do think it was in regards to someone else being in control of NXT maybe after a sale or something. Now that I think about it, I think the discussion revolved around if any potential buyer for WWE would see the importance of the indies and whether or not NXT was essential. I think I pretty much said a whole bunch of people in NXT would be doomed. I believe my words were to the effect of a "bunch of people going back to the indies whence they came". Unfortunately, some of that became reality due to COVID-19. So yeah, you're pretty much saying what I've already said. If you remove the jaded WWE mindset or philosophy, everything they own is a whole different entity.

Surprised he isn’t wearing pooka shells.

Yes, let’s.

This thread needs more SST killing jobbers. I think this one was on the Rob Naylor WIMPY compilation.

Stadium Stampede was dumb. Not as bad as any of WWE's "cinematic matches," or the Undertaker "dying" at Royal Rumble 94, but the replay tent, Page riding a horse, golf cart, NEO 1 drone, etc. put it at about the same level of stupidity as Team No Respect urinating on the FMW promoter, or Prince Kharis in SMW. Excuse me, I'm going to rewatch Cactus Jack/Maxx Payne vs. Nasty Boys from Spring Stampede to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Brodie's gear is fine.

Even though I really liked this show, I can't help but think that this would have been amazing with a live crowd. I think the stadium match had just the right amount of goofy to it. Happy to see Shida win, I think @EVA has it right about her, she knows what to do and when. It'll be nice to see how the fill the Baker void on the show, looks like an opportunity for someone to get more time on TV. I got the feeling the Tyson wasn't exactly sure what he should do and that he didn't want to mix it up since he may have been worried about giving someone a full shot. Dug the MJF/JB match I have to assume MJF will bark up Moxley's tree next. Excited to see Archer's next move and glad that Cody actually won a blow match that doesn't involve Darby. Ladder match was OK. when someone posted here that Cage was cleared, I thought he might be the Wild Card. He didn't move too great though so I hope he's actually ok. I'd guess him and Darby will feud for a bit. I've spent $50 on much worse before.

How about Isosceles Kramer? Seven Costanza?