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Nobody is projecting, he’s just really fucking sucked lately.

"SON OF EL BITCH" ??????

Hangman is staying a face. I feel like that’s obvious, and I don’t know why people keep booking him into the hypothetical Cody heel group. Good on the booking for creating doubt, I guess. Like I said last week, this is clearly FTR buddying up with him to sow discord among the champs to make it easier for them to win the belts. To me, the money payoff is Page revealing that he knew what they were doing all along and he was playing them too...but then Kenny going mental in the background of all this and costing them the belts anyway, which then segues into building their singles feud.

I mean... we all watched HHH's runs in the early 2000's.

Cody getting patted on the back for being brave enough to leave when others weren't overlooks the fact that he was born rich. Walking away from your soul-sucking but high-paying job is a privilege of those with million-dollar daddies.

One last note about Cardona and then I'm moving on, Alvarez really had the best, most level headed take on the guy. It isn't fair to someone like Cardona that he should never get another chance and it's not his fault that WWE and Vince and such fucking garbage that they used the guy as a jobber for all that time. If it works then great, and if not, move on. We know Cardona can at least work, he's very charismatic and likable, and he deserves more of a chance than immediately writing the guy off as a former WWE guy because WWE has shitloads of workers that they don't use or misuse and nearly everyone is a former WWE guy. Another worker they mentioned was Gable. If this was Gable, would you wind up feeling the same way considering Gable is also basically a geek and a jobber right now because of how WWE used him?

Seth is a genuinely fantastic tag worker. He's a self-indulgent, all style no substance singles worker who can have a good match with the right guy. (Miz, oddly enough, gets my vote as his best opponent. Probably cause Miz both won't and probably can't keep up with Seth's pace, so he had to slow the fuck down and actually tell a story.) On the mic, though? He's the worst WWF/WWE main eventer in the 30ish years I've been watching wrestling. He's terrible at conveying emotion, terrible at sounding sincere, terrible at expressing any character through his talking, and he's just so damn monotone. Anyone who writes a format that says "Seth Rollins talks" should be fired and removed from the premises. In a more sane time period, he would be a permanent tag guy, given either a partner that has charisma and can talk, or a manager to talk for them, and he'd be great at it. Instead, he's usually the worst part of every single show he's on. I legitimately would rather re-watch all of Jinder Mahal's title run than any of Seth's big runs on top. (All that said, while I can't understand how it happened, there was a period in the summer of 2018 when he was absolutely on fire, the hottest, most over act in the company. By the time they finally put the belt on him, while he was still over, he was clearly already on the downswing from that peak. But that's WWE for you.)

I popped for the Dynamite debut of Brodie’s Stack of Papers.

Hey, all. First my wife and I wanted to say thanks for the positive thoughts regarding her mom. But good news is surgery is off the table. Well, at least the option they considered before. They drained the fluid in her lungs and are making sure that doesn't fill back up. And things with her Pancreatitis seemed like it's mainly under control though they did recently offer to put in a stent. I don't believe that would be too bad and the situation's not grim like it was before. But assuming that part's not needed and all goes well she'll be moved to a rehab facility. So all things considered good news.

Warhorse came off like a Dark-caliber talent out there. This was the first open challenge match where I felt like Cody maybe hurt himself by giving too much. Warhorse was just not credible in there against him. His best years are ahead of him, so maybe he’ll put the pieces together over time, but for now, I really feel like the fact that he’s one of the top guys in the Indies speaks to how thoroughly WWE/AEW have pillaged the scene over the last couple of years. He’s found himself in a spot he’s really not ready for.

Hell of a lot of work for an armbar: That spot, and this one, however, are things we haven't seen in the French footage up to 58 at least (this match is us jumping forward to 60): Everything about this exchange is amazing, from how brutal the headlock pulls are, to the way Teddy Boy really has to pull him to get him to go off the ropes, to how he locks the headlock back in so smoothly, to the great escape into a pin:

Curt McGirk posted the rematch to this match in the bloodsucking freaks thread- which is fine because Chigusa bleeds a bucket and wins and Dump gets a haircut. Chigusa bleeding is the high point of that match because you figured she wouldn't lose two of these matches. THIS one is all about the unmatchable heat. The total hopelessness and devastation of Chigusa not answering the count and then being at the hands of Dump is just AWESOME. You can't match it. The school girls crying as she loses her hair, Lionness Aska and Devil Masami going crazy is sheer helplessness. This is the MOST HARDCORE angle and it was used on Japanese school girls. Monumentally awesome.

Yeah, I mean, I get annoyed by people who grumble on the internet and wear their booboo face on camera but keep re-signing, but at the same time, I respect the fact that folks got mortgages and families and interests outside of wresting that they’re trying to subsidize. WWE wrestlers are certainly not the only people who continue to do jobs they hate because the pay is good. Not everybody is in the position to walk away from that and a take a gamble on themselves.

In this case, as Aledo couldn't get out of the full nelson, Teddy Boy uses it to get some revenge for that elaborate neckbreaker flip armdrag before: This started as great Aledo submission and then got 10 times better: Here's where the match turns. Aledo hits three quick mares but then gets jammed on the first and Teddy Boy goes to the stomach. He'd stay on the midsection for a while afterwards, after a small bit of punctuation:

Orioles Chris Davis was “mysteriously” not at the ballpark yesterday and the team wouldn’t comment on it so either he has tested positive or the team took him out back and had him shot

This show was... A big step down from the past month or so. Commentary not so good, seemed like every segment had something awkward going on. Not bad just a noticeable drop in quality from a classic episode last week and the really good specials prior to that. Why are Zack Ryder and the woman who tried to pin somebody stomach down signed and Eddie Kingston isn't?

I've defended JR before but something was up this episode. Criticizing the writing, the props, Schiavone's acting. Taz and Tony covered when they could but someone needs to tell JR that his on air grumblings take away from the show way more than people not using tag ropes or whatever his bitch is this week. Plus he got lost a few times. Bad night maybe but he was definitely a negative this week. I thought Mox looked great in the main event, really crisp. Starks also had a great night, his promo was on point, he looked right at home in the ring, and he took that awful thumbtack attack so he's earned his money already. Can't say I was that into Warhorse and I'm veeeerrrryyyy 'wait and see' with Cardona. Up and down episode.

How about you both don't get to post in the sports forum for 5 years.

Build up to a final of Rebel and whoever vs Brit and whoever. Brit has no idea who this "Rebel" person is because she hasn't been paying the least bit of attention to the tournament at all and she's thought her name was Reba this whole time. Shes shocked and completely unprepared.

Ok, we're hitting the point of no return here. You guys had a couple of days to watch the match so I'm just going to spoil this. Teddy Boy took over and started to work over the midsection. Back, stomach, rib, including rib breakers. He starts to work Aledo back to the ropes and I thought he was just going to lock in a bear hug. Then this happens. Aledo makes it back in and tries to get back into the fight but... Teddy Boy beats on him back in the ring after this including a double knee I'll grab later, and some good mid-section work I won't. But after a while.... I thought for a second the rule of 3 would come into play and he'd stop him and start his comeback but nope, that gut punch took him out again. This is 1960, guys. 1960.

"You know he's leaving right?" "Goldberg? Yeah, I'd heard." "No... Brock." New Yorkers, in my experience, can be some of the friendliest, most honest, most social creatures you'll ever find. If we have something to say, we will say it. If there's a conversation to be had, we'll have it. And if there's news to be shared... "Well, yeah, Brock is apparently going to try out for the NFL. Despite not having played since high school." "Oh boy. This is going to be fun." So, knowing what I knew before that random conversation I had outside of MSG waiting to get in, here's what I was expecting: Brock, a heel, being the WWE guy, would get massively cheered by the MSG crowd. Goldberg, a face, being a WCW guy AND leaving imminently, would get booed out of the building. Brock wins because, again, he's the WWE guy and staying. Knowing that Brock was leaving too changed everything. So the build is very simple. Goldberg is in the Rumble, looking dominant. Brock, who doesn't want to face him for the title, distracts him long enough for Goldie to get eliminated. A month later, Brock is in his final obstacle to a probable rematch with Angle at Mania for the title, has Goldberg interfere in his defense and costs him the WWE Championship. So, they hate each other now, and will fight. (The promo video focused HEAVILY on the Lesnar-Austin portion of this feud, which was SCSA getting installed as the guest ref by Vince. To the point that I was actively wondering if the original plan was Austin-Lesnar and Steve said no.) I was actually giddy in my seat, knowing something special was about to happen. The people around me were chattering about it too. And boy howdy, did it. Brock is out first to a chorus of boos. Not just boos, but YOU SOLD OUT chants. They are loud and sustained enough that JR has to actually acknowledge them (which I'm sure Vince was furious about). Goldberg comes out to mild cheers. I distinctly remember everyone around me going silent, and really experiencing the piped in chants for the first time. We were unapologetic assholes in this match. There was no way either guy was getting cheered. So, the in ring participants instantly realize something's up with the crowd, with Goldberg sort of acknowledging it, Austin coyly smiling at it, and Brock being Grumpy Brock. The issue also is that these two guys clearly are in no mood to sell for each other, much less put on anything resembling a good match. To the point that they don't tie up for about 3 minutes after the bell has rung... even Austin looks actively annoyed. Say whatever you will about us in the crowd, but this match was awfully put together and executed even worse. They're doing a power vs power match, but sooner or later, one of the two has to go on a sustained offense, and that doesn't happen until about 10 minutes in. Til then it's headlocks and restholds a-plenty. Goldberg FINALLY hits a spear on Lesnar and that finally gets the crowd half excited... mainly because they still want to boo Goldberg. F5 gets 2. And finally a spear & jackhammer finish for Goldie in what is easily the most sarcastic applause you'll ever hear out of a Mania crowd. Lesnar says his goodbye to the fans by telling them they are number 1. Kick Wham Stunner. Enjoy the NFL and Japan, Bork. Goldberg drinks a beer with Austin to celebrate his win. Kick Wham Stunner. (All but no sold.) Godspeed Billy. That was a joy to relive. There was an absolutely unique energy in the crowd for this match. For better or worse, it's a once in a lifetime experience I'm glad to say I participated in. End of Day 60.

Every single thing about that is awesome. Pro wrestling rules.

I don't remember even if it was this months thread or not, but Miroslav Barnyashev has IMO gotta be in the "Richard Blood > Ricky Steamboat" conversation we were having recently

First time I've seen Warhorse wrestle. Not too bad, and I like some of the little things he did (the immediate reversal of Cody's figure-four comes to mind), but he's not someone I'd want to see week in and week out. Justin Roberts sounded like a grade-F Lenne Hardt in his introductions for Cody-Warhorse. Agree with Craig that Cardona needed a vignette package before he debuted. It honestly took me a minute to make the connection that Cardona used to be Zach Ryder. Maybe a week or two of vignettes with Cardona saying he's "more than a hype bro" or something similar would have helped. With Ariane Andrew coming in for the tag tournament, I'm curious if AEW may use this as an opportunity to audition new talent for the women's division, similar to Cody's TNT open challenge.

I'm about halfway through the show so far. Some things I liked: There's 4 potential feuds in the opening match (jericho/oc, best friends/PNP, Lucha/hager and most intriguingly sammy/JB) that would deliver. So why is Matt Hardy involved? Did enjoy sammys reaction though. Sammy has a perfect "oh shit" face when he gets himself in trouble like landing in the middle of 5 opponents. "smells like cat pee, Tony" - love that Ortiz! I dig Warhorse's character. Can't say I've seen him wrestle but I like that he sticks to the headbanging Mid-match. Small things like that make me smile. Plus he looks a lot like Bobcat Goldthwait to me, which adds to it. Arn joining up with FTR was unexpected. Presumed Tully would have joined there. Page made that segment! Tag title match was good stuff, the Grayson dive over the top looked unique as hell. He has something about him. If Ciampa can be a big star in NXT, think Stu has a role to play. Big laugh from the moment I saw the papers in Brodies hand ? Look, JR ain't my cup of tea but he was really bad tonight (to my tastes). Not least his weird comments about Anna Jay, and his rant about Covid, "look I have my mask" like a petulant child. He's detracting from the product for me. Sad, because I loved his calls when I was younger.

I can understand not being overly enthused about Cardona—I’m certainly not—but I’m willing to give him a chance. He’s shown an aptitude for being creative and getting himself over in the past, and he’s also shown himself to be a solid dude in the ring when motivated and given opportunities. I remember when he got bumped down to NXT and thrown in a team with Mojo; he worked his butt off to make the Hype Bros a really solid team. Easily the best Mojo has even been, that’s for sure.

People really need to chill with the Kingston stuff and complaining about why AEW hired one person over Kingston. You really don't even know what Kingston's position is. We've said it multiple times, but the dude is still under contract to NWA, NWA isn't going anywhere, and talent can take dates elsewhere for now. So I mean, would you rather they not have brought in Kingston at all because you feel teased by the prospect of him being a full time wrestler for AEW when that isn't an option? Everyone expects stuff to happen way too quickly. Just have some patience to see how things play out. As for Cardona, the level of his popularity is orders of magnitude greater than Shawn Spears, who people understandably compare his hiring too. Yeah, I'm cautious about hiring another ex-WWE midcarder, but I try to level set with that mindset because nearly everyone is an ex-WWE midcarder. Ryder was someone who could have been a huge star for WWE, he got over on his own and built his own following, crowds were consistently hot for the guy, and his reward for all of that was getting punished, buried, teased with title runs, etc. I'd rather have Cardona as a full time wrestler on the roster than Spears and use Spears instead as a trainer.

Yeah. Absolutely no idea what Cardonna gives them that they don't already have. At this rate they're just going to end up with tons of generic, built white dudes in a quasi-WWE style but without the decades of built-up brand loyalty & prestige that let WWE slack with it for so long. That's not even really a critique on who is already there of that ilk, we just don't need more of them. There are already so many loose ends; why add even more? Painfully looks like "jobs for the boys". Was this one of the heaviest shows yet on direct Tony Khan references? Like really, if its a sort of cosplay Bischoff thing going on here (given they wanted to raise the Moxley/Austin analogy), at least Bischoff worked his way up through the company from nobody to somebody back then legitimately. What possible legitimate, good-for-the-show reason is there to start name dropping Khan. Surely he's not going to make an actual physical appearance or else they're really veering towards Dixie Carter territory. A Russo-rific show (in the worst ways) was probably a decent way to describe this one. Hopefully they get back to last week's quality in the coming shows.

I didn't care for Warhorse. I thought the gimmick and presentation was really cringey. There wasn't anything especially great about his work either.

Y'all need to stop projecting with all the JR hate so much.

Suspended for the entire season...daaaaaamnnnn

So someone who was actually good at making viral gifs would just grab the through the legs-takedown. But dammit, I'm trying to give you guys a sense of this stuff. The whole reason that Aledo did what he did was because Teddy Boy did a shitface shin kick to off a clean rope break. So yeah, obviously Aledo's going to do everything in his power to clown him afterwards! Little bit of extra oomph/desperation in this escape: We see a lot of full nelsons (Double nelson as the french announcer calls it) in this footage and I'm always glad to see it because the escape attempts are almost always interesting. This was a good idea that really didn't work:

It's kinda telling how this article lumps Seth Rollins in with the stale old guys (Orton, Show and Rey in this instance), while he's only been on the main roster a shade under 8 years. I mean, Seth sucks, so I get it, but I think it says a lot about how quickly people become completely overexposed in WWE. To put it into contrast, Bret was with the company for 7 years before winning his first world title. For Shawn it was closer to 8 years. Now, whole careers play out in the space of a couple of years, and guys just spend the rest of their careers simply existing.

Who knew the AWA was 30 years ahead of its time?!

Ive not seen any of the grocery stores I go to getting rid of self checkout lanes.

In-between skateboarding and setting things on fire.

Watching the first Liger/Sano match and the Sumo Hall crowd is INTO THIS and the opening chain wrestling is crisp as hell. This is the match with the insane inside to outside suplex from the apron on Sano, followed by a barely in control tope suicida, and finished with Liger hitting a rolling senton from the top to the floor on a downed Sano. This... THIS is the Sano vs. Liger I remember and love. Just wild stuff with extra juice on everything. Is the story that Sano didn't respect the kid's show gimmick? He definitely seemed dismissive in the opening until Liger starts coming back in a big way. Fans thought the match was going to end on a countout because A) holy shit, Liger that was insane especially for '89, B) Sano's selling*, and C) it's the '80s and that's how so many big matches ended though by now they were moving away from that thankfully (hold that thought). *He may have been legitimately concussed by that salvo from Liger. He gets back in the ring, stumbling all over the place, Liger whips him into the ropes, he stumbles and falls backwards into them. Holy shit. Liger smartly puts him in a dragon sleeper to give Sano time to recover. Oh yeah, looks like a real concussion or some injury because he's a step off for a bit here. Sano later goes for a plancha, hits Liger a bit but doesn't really get caught and smashes face first into the ground. That ain't going to help. He's got a trickle of blood coming down from his forehead after the half-failure of a dive too. He proceeds to GO TO THE TOP for a ridiculous negative air dropkick to the outside. He's hit his own crazy combination of dives now. This fits the theme of these two trading back and forth, pushing each other to their limits. The mat sequences at the start laid the groundwork, with them trading holds such as the Romero special, and fancy escapes and such. It culminates when a top rope dropkick from Sano meets a Liger counter dropkick. There's a meta element of raw excitement and emotion because I think everybody in the crowd realizes how fucked up Sano is from that earlier death combination from Liger. The ending is a bit flat for the crowd, as an avalanche backdrop suplex keeps both men down and it's a double knockout. HOWEVER, that plays into the story they told of tit for tat. I think this may be Liger's best. Gotta watch the sequels now but the emotion, craziness, and the story is just A++++++.

I mean I don't need THAT much of a reason to delete the whole thing

If Cardona never showed up and the tag next week was Dark Order vs Cody and WARHORSE, I'd be looking forward to it. As it is, I hope they aren't intending him to be a babyface, because he just seems cringe to me. He doesn't seem like he's the cool guy, he seems like the delusional idiot who thinks he's cool. Make him AEW's Johnny Swinger. As far as Ariane Andrew, compare and contrast: Cardona was a life long fan, got a gimmick over and coasted on it for years, and never tried to become a good worker or have a good match, and debuted with an apparent push. Andrew was recruited despite not knowing what Pro wrestling even was, worked hard to learn and improve, and debuted to her tag partner rolling her eyes and seeming disappointed to be teamed with her.

Starks gets no bonuses for taking the skateboard spot. If anything, that's a receipt for nearly killing Darby at the taping two weeks ago. One final, final thing regarding Cardona, and it's more of a criticism for AEW in general, but I don't like how they debuted him. They overuse that method of debuting wrestlers where they do the surprise run in. Cardona would have benefited from maybe a couple weeks worth of hype videos or packages.

Good point and that's probably why I said maybe not Moxley. You're right. He left WWE, wasn't fired, and definitely feels like a bigger deal than Cody's jobber friends and The Lesser Funkadactyl.

See, I wouldn't agree with the implication that Moxley was a WWE castoff at all. Not everybody who's been in WWE is a castoff. Moxley and Jericho clearly are not. Tye Dillenger, Zack Ryder, and Cameron clearly are IMO. The others I could see an argument either way.

JAYZEUS, TOR KAMATA! Save some blood to actually work in your body.

Pretty psyched to see Cardona debut, not gonna lie. FTR, Hangman and Cody as the new Four Horsemen? Inject it into my veins.