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Jeff Cobb

I've mentioned here and there that over the past few months my 10 year old nephew's pals who live across the street have been watching ppv's at our place. My nephew likes wrestling but he's grown up with it. Its been on in the background since he was born. His pals are now just discovering it. They like it to various degrees, but his pal Finn has caught the bug big time. He's always asking when the next show is, and he's excited for this weekend's " A and W" show. His mom came by the other night to drop off some cookies and she told me that wrestling is all he talks about and she and his Dad have no idea who these people are that he's constantly talking about. Finn is 11 and short for his age, but stocky and strong. Apparently he gets picked on a bit. He loves seeing the smaller guys tossing around bigger guys, which is probably why when he saw John Silver at the last AEW show he loved him. It's refreshing having some kids around when my friend and I watch shows. ( We're all in our bubble regarding Covid), because it stops us from talking about the booking and all that bullshit and just leads to cheering and booing . One exception, when the kids first saw The Fiend they absolutely loved him. Now, they think he's lame. Lol.

AEW's locker room morale, with its complete lack of stabbings, drugs, and bigots, would give Taker a coronary.

With *this* line-up!! Cody Rhodes & Red Velvet (w/Arn Anderson) vs. Jade Cargill & Shaquille O'Neal AEW Women's World Title Eliminator Tournament Final Match - Ryo Mizunami vs. Nyla Rose Six Man Tag Team Match - FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood) & Tully Blanchard vs. Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus & Marko Stunt) AEW TNT Title #1 Contendership Face Of The Revolution Ladder Qualifying Match - Max Caster (w/Anthony Bowens) vs. Ten Tag Team Match - Adam Page & John Silver vs. Marq Quen & Matt Hardy Plus Big Show showing up, and Jericho and MJF talking. No announced appearances by Mox, Omega, The Bucks... Back in 2017 it seemed entirely reasonable to doubt that Cody (and Omega and the Bucks) (*and* Okada and Ibushi and Rey Mysterio)(!!) could draw 10k to a show. In Sept 2018 they drew 11k plus and something like a 50k buyrate. A little over a year later, in October 2019, we got the first episode of Dynamite. A year and a half later... Almost a million live same day viewers! With *that* line-up! Two years ago, I'm sure more than 934k people knew who Shaq, Jericho, Big Show, Tully, Matt Hardy and the Revival were. Maybe Cody and Page, too? Half those names are people I could not have picked out of a line-up two years ago. And the pulled almost a million viewers! Maybe Tony K deserves his WON awards.

Then I look forward to Hela knocking over the AoS Darkhold while its being displayed in a museum.

Fuck the casual fans. Why are we so concerned about whether AEW can draw casuals? How about we just hope for a good show and let them worry about the business end? What is more enjoyable: Waiting on a surprise wrestler and saying, "man, I hope this guy is a draw that can bring in people who barely like wrestling and make TK some money!" OR Waiting on a surprise wrestler and saying, "man, I hope this guy is really fucking good at wrestling so I can enjoy this shit even more!" When did we stop being wrestling fans and instead became fans of business? When did we trade in Pro Wrestling Illustrated for Pro Balance Sheet Illustrated? Here's who I hope shows up for either of these roles or both, even though some are impossible due to contracts, because I fucking like wrestling and not TK's bank account or whether people who barely like wrestling will be drawn to this shit: Chris Hero Chris Dickinson Calvin Tankman Blake Christian Hoodfoot Thomas Santell Mike Bailey Tom Lawlor O'Shay Edwards Lord Crewe The amazing and resurgent Suge D working his bitter heel gimmick Anybody being criminally misused in WWE or NXT Whoever @NoFistsJustFlipsis I like watching a good wrestling match. I don't give two good shits whether somebody is a draw and might rope in the casuals. This is not meant to be a slight of @Bryan It's meant to be a slight of this bullshit mentality.

I wonder if Wanda moved close to Wundagore Mountain. Connections to Rocket Raccoon and Black Knight exist there, as well (and Spider-Woman if they want to go there). Was Billy & Tommy screaming for help a memory, or was she seeing/hearing them in the multiverse somewhere? I really think this is how we get mutants, too. She's more powerful than Dr. Strange confirmed. I wouldn't doubt if they go into how she's a Nexus being in that movie. But what I'm most pleased with is the epic fucking trolling of Evan Peters' character. He's not MCU or Fox Quicksilver... he's RALPH BOHNER. I love it. Let me drink all the tears of fans on the internet that will be upset about this (and believe me, they are).

RF Video doing shoot interview with Dan Severn and Ken Shamrock.

Oof.

JFC

@Flair’s Shadow

Sorry for the triple post but any discrimination royally pisses me off: racism, sexism, sexual orientation, homophobia, by religion and the disabled. I'm proud to have friends of different races, the LGBTQ community including a gay cousin, who practice religion or don't and those who like me are disabled.

:).

I don’t see how this is supposed to tie into Dr. StraOH SHIT SHE’S READING THE DARKHOLD OH SHIT ITS HER KIDS!!!

It might be early, but I win the month

The only person allowed to do the thigh-slap in my book is Tajiri. Adams gets a pass (and he's dead). All other should buy that solenoid kick noisemaker that Tajiri was rumored to hide in his baggy shiny vines. - RAF p.s. - I liked Wrestling 2's backslap and thought it could be justified as part of thee effectiveness of the kneelift, as with Jake Roberts' (less consistent) DDT percussion. p.p.s. - I was taught to punch with a stomp.

Fuck, after reading an extra five pages of this shit, just let it be LA Park and get it over with

I have a blast watching AEW with my kids. My daughter just turned 10. She's not super into it, but she pops in here and there and watches with me. My son is 3 and it's hilarious to watch with him. He knows Jericho, Moxley and Omega by sight. He also knows that -1's daddy "didn't make it" (my son's term for anyone who dies). ? He really seems sad for that little boy every time he sees him. It's equally sweet and sad. On a lighter note, my son made up this sort of action cartoon in his head that he talks about a lot. It's called "Circle Vipers". No idea where that name came from. They're "regular guys with guns", not superheroes. I asked him if there were any bad guys that the Circle Vipers fight. He said yes, "Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega, but they're giant". So, in addition to wrestling, those two are starring in an action cartoon in my son's head.

We're getting JD Drake on DARK again! This time vs Chuck Taylor on Saturday night.

Homophobia sucks. Discrimination of any type really and I mean really annoys me. Love you, Kayla xxx.

Dear Lord I hope the plan is not to run Le Snar on top with a part time schedule! I really like my hoodie ? If he can't use his real name (obviously he can) I really hope AEW goes with a Space Mutiny Dave Ryder special. Slab Bulkhead! Fridge Largemeat! Butch Deadlift! Thick McRunfast! Fist Rockbone! Eat Punchbeef! Big McLargehuge! Rip Steakface! Bob Johnson! Oh, wait...

(Warning before reading - my memory is pretty hazy on a lot of this, so it's quite possible I've got some of it wrong. Mostly it was a very long time ago. I'm old and didn't spend as much of the time period I'm describing sober as I probably should've) As far as seeing a full Wrestlemania match - not that I know of. It's possible, but I certainly don't remember it. The only time I watched WWF, as it was at the time, on a regular basis was roughly 1990-1992. Before that I doubt I'd seen a dozen hours of their programming total, mostly due to lack of opportunity (parents didn't have cable). I'm not sure I've seen a dozen hours since, mainly due to lack of interest. I don't have anything against em, I just don't feel like watching for whatever reason. The last WWE match I saw was Bryan/Orton on Raw maybe seven years ago. I remember liking it, but I haven't watched since. Those two, and Goldberg if he's still around, might be the only folks on their current roster I've seen wrestle a full match. (Googled it. Mysterio's still around? I did not know that. Yeah, I've seen a bunch of his matches.) I really dunno why I haven't watched them outside of that time in the early 90s, though part of it is that I've watched next to zero television over the last ten years or so. Also, I'm REALLY cheap. Irrationally so. PPVs cost money to watch, so even when I was watching a lot of wrestling I never saw the PPVs. The only time I can remember watching any PPV was one time when a couple buddies and I rented some old ones from a knockoff Sam's Club type place. Don't remember what they were, but I'm pretty dang sure none of em was a Wrestlemania. The only thing I do remember was Kevin Sullivan being on one of the shows. And maybe the Road Warriors. Of course I've seen the big Andre gets slammed thing from WM3 a few places over the years, but never the whole match. What I have watched is all over the place. First I remember watching was roughly around 1980 - whatever showed up on one of the three stations we got in central Texas at about midnight Saturday night. Could've been more than one promotion over the next few years. I remember a few of the folks on the shows. Scott Casey had the belt for a good while, I think. I remember Matt Borne, Manny Fernandez, the Mongolian Stomper, the Grapplers, and a skinny Eric Embry. I remember seeing at least one Flair interview, but never saw him wrestle back then, I think. A quick Google search says that at least some of that was Southwest. I know I saw a decent amount of World Class at some point too. I took a few years mostly off, then watched a bunch of stuff in the early 90s, not just WWF. Watched a fair amount of WCWSN. Watched whatever was on ESPN back then - GWF I guess? I know there was something else I watched on a lower tier sports channel, but don't remember what it was. Took a few more years off, then watched a lot from maybe 1995-2000. Mostly WCW at that point - Nitro, Thunder, Worldwide and to a lesser extent WCWSN. I also watched WOW and a little ECW. That's how I wound up here, reading Dean's stuff on RSPWM starting in the summer of 1997. Eventually just slowly lost interest. I think I had mostly wound down watching before WCW went under, though I did watch the last show. After that I just haven't watched much. I've seen a few random things here and there. Seen a bit of ROH occasionally. Saw a little bit of old AWA. Watched some old stuff I hadn't seen online, but never really any WWF/E. That's about it. I'm kinda curious about AEW, but not enough to actually turn on the TV, apparently. So to tie this back to Dolfan's stuff, I read this with just almost zero foreknowledge. I knew a few things - the aforementioned Hogan/Andre thing, Hart/Austin from WM 13 (I've seen the last minute or so of that somewhere along the line), Eddie and Benoit winning at WM 30, though I haven't seen that, and the existence of Taker's streak - that's about it. It's been a fun read.

Thanks! Yeah, I get all that. I'm just personally in a place where watching something really enjoyable is the most important thing for me. It's hard for me to empathize with people more concerned with whether other people that they don't even know will like something. I've lived through two boom periods. When they end, those people go away, so caring about them is a lost cause. Wrestling will always go back to being a niche. Which matters even less today since just about everything is niche now. BTW, more casual fans know who Joey Ryan is (HEY IT'S THE DICK GUY!) than, say, Blake Christian. Do we want Joey to show up because of that?

I feel like wrestling became about business when WCW and ECW went under and left us in the mess we've experienced for the last 20 years.

Yeah, rewatched it when he passed and it is even better than I remember and as a kid I thought he obviously would've been a huge star had he committed to wrestling after his playing career. I'd say that's the best followed by LT/BBB. This match had one experienced pro wrestler, a young and inexperienced but promising prospect, a phenom making her debut, and Shaq. It had no fuckin right being this much fun.

If that's a waste, then hiring Billy Gunn and all of his offspring has to be the direct opposite of a huge financial windfall. I like how folks are pocket watching a man who is essentially a MULTI-billionaire. Lots of financial advisers and CPAs round here.

Legion ran so that WandaVision could take shambling baby steps towards being a “weird” comic book show. If you like the oddness of early-season WV, you should definitely check out Legion. First season is an all-timer. I loved the whole show, but most people discover the limits of their tolerance at some point in the latter two seasons.

How and why do the elderly manage to capitalize every word like that?

Kenny is GOATed. And 30 minutes? Wow.

Love: Loaded boots and loaded gloves. The crowd never fails to scream at the top of their lungs in the vain effort to rat out the heel as he is about to secure victory via cheating. There is nothing better that a bunch of fans yelling LOOOK OUT~!!! in unison right before a babyface gets wrecked and then the lot of them are angry enough to set the venue on fire as the heel's hand is raised in victory. Love: The Shaw Brothers kung-fu movie trope subverted by pro wrestling where a beaten heel goes to "the Orient" to learn a deadly forbidden move (usually a leglock, or some heel submission move like the Cobra Clutch, Stomach Claw, or the Tongan Death Grip) and returns to the fed with a tenfold increase in skill. In the movies, it's the hero that goes off to learn the secret technique needed to counter the villain's deathblow thingie. Hate: KO Punch finishers. Punches are technically not legal, so why are refs counting pinfalls after someone hits a fucking Superman Punch finish? That's not a finish, it's a DQ. Also, what makes your KTFO punch finisher more dangerous than the worked illegal punches you threw during the match?

To cover the obvious thigh slapping, they should start doing those Batman POW! etc. graphics instead.

Wait, Dave TRULY believes problems of people with obvious leg slapping for every strike is some anti Young Bucks thing?! Is he trolling or has he really lost the plot? I hated that kind of leg slapping since 2004 and know the exact moment, I didn't hate the Young Bucks before they were in TNA!

Louie Anderson rules, is very generous, and is a cool white dude, that's what I'm choosing to take from all this.

And honestly, aside from CM Punk, Daniel Cormier is the only "HoF" signing that would even mean anything since Cormier can actually work a match instead of being ANOTHER manager.

Just to temper some of yalls expectations lol... they pulled Brock's merch months ago when his deal expired. The same was true with Sting, once his contract ended WWE pulled his merch because they no longer had legal standing to sell it. Just because those two facts are true, doesn't mean that someone's merch being pulled means they are definitely going somewhere else. Case in point, plenty of Big Show merch still available on WWE Shop right now. Don't work yourself into a shoot over t-shirts brother. ?

R.I.P. Jim Crockett Jr. Thoughts with his family and friends xxx.

I like The Undertaker but he came across as a right tit with those locker room remarks harking back to the good ole days.

That idea of highlighting old regional film making is really exciting. Meanwhile... Severin Films is bringing the heat this summer:

Regardless of who shows up, one of the coolest things about AEW gaining momentum and announcing a new dude to the AEW roster is the return of this excitement of who it could be. I've been texting with a close friend who is just barely less hardcore about wrestling than I am, and we've been going back and forth on who we wish it would be (Punk, Hero or Bryan, but with no chance of it being Bryan) to who we hope it isn't (Angle, Steiner, RVD). We haven't had talks like this since we were in our late teens-early 20's. It's very fun. Just reminds me how awesome it is that there is another brand that is doing well, and that brand is working with OTHER brands. It's really really cool.

I don't think his deal is up yet, but I'd love if Hall of Famer they are referring to is Shinsuke Nakumara. American wrestling fans that have not watched New Japan deserve to see a legitimate legend treated a whole lot better in America.

FYI Sting's merchandise was pulled from wwe.com before he joined AEW. BORK LASER confirmed!!!

People on the internet. Stop listening to actors. It's literally their jobs to lie to you. They get paid to lie.

@NoFistsJustFlips, your lack of Iceman King Parsons hurts my feelings...

Aldis did announce that Powerrr will be returning to "Into the Fire" as it's theme song.

Watching AEW just now, not a fan of the trope flogged beyond death by WWE of the participants in an upcoming multi-man match/battle royal all hitting the ring like clockwork to close the go-home show 'this is just a taste of the chaos we'll see this Sunday night!'

JCP & Crockett Jr. made some great rassling, so great in fact that 35 years later a brave promoter/booker/worker still copy it, modernize it, namedrop it, or merchandise it and they can still make money. Whether you are in the biz or if you are a new fan, those shows still stand up and the best will get you on your feet. So many eras and so much great action and angles and innovations - thank you, sir. - RAF