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Have a blast tonight @Nice Guy Eddie @olythegreat89!! ????

What a great, great show! And then they had to announce the stuff for next INCLUDING Omega vs. Danielson plus the known previously Suzuki/Archer vs. Mox/Kingston. I know I did this before, but fuck it: *straightens invisible tie* So, um, yeah, that's gonna be quite a show. But seriously, I hope this sinks in leading up to next Wednesday. Because if it happens when I get to the stadium then fuck it I will shed some manly tears and not care. Holy crap, folks!

I have no idea what % of the audience watches Dark and Elevation but it's such a boon to the overall product. If they needed to fill time in a few weeks they could just toss Lucha Bros vs Butcher & Blade on Dynamite and it'd be whatever it was. But if you have them mow through people for five or six weeks on the webshows first, it just really builds a sort of momentum. I know it shouldn't necessarily because we see the strings and we get how these matches work and everything else, but each squash where they keep up the intensity makes me want to see that match (or really the two of them vs any "name" team) more. Some other quick thoughts: Spears looked effective out there until the last minute when he started mugging and talking about Darby. As a character, I always preferred him as the underdog babyface who was just happy to be there. That felt much more genuine than this. I'm sure you guys know this but I haven't seen much 2.0 and I dig their general level of engagement in the match. They're very good at portraying full and genuine immersion in what's happening in there. I like the storyline build through dark. You don't need more than one or two going at once just like how you'd get a marquee match on Superstars or a main event on late era WCW SN. Here you've got Anna/Tay vs Penelope/Bunny and Janela vs Kiss (with the Diamante vs Swole stuff in the background but that really did feel like it should have gotten blown off last week). 65% enhancement, 25% more even mid-card matches and 10% programs feels like the right balance to me. Speaking of more even mid-card matches, the reason why the Cassidy double suplex spot worked so well is because Taylor and Yuta hit a double suplex a minute or two before. That's the attention to detail and thought that is the lifeblood of Cassidy's stuff actually working and not just being facile and empty. And of course they build to Dynamite through it, with Hirsch against someone bigger and Jade against someone smaller. Also, I know no one in the world picked up on this and I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but I've got to mention it: Jade started her match with a waistlock takedown where she basically tossed her opponent across the ring. King started against Hirsch by using her size with the exact same waistlock takedown, but Hirsch kept the connection between them and chain wrestled her way into an advantage. Probably a happy coincidence but it really showed how Hirsch has a shot against Jade. The one thing I DO like about the AEW house style is that it often takes two times to hit a spot. They'll try it earlier in the match and it won't work and then they'll hit it later, and not just finishers either. That's a bit of build that makes almost any match better. (I'm thinking about Hirsch's tope in this case but it happens a lot; or it'll work once and then NOT work the second time like Andrade's double stomp the other night).

So we're not in a ratings war, but WWE did a bunch of hotshotting to pop a rating on an allegedly PPV-level RAW Monday (and did less than great). And now AEW is doing a PPV-level Dynamite/ Rampage double header next Wednesday too. This not-a-war is a great time to be a fan, isn't it? I hope Top Flight start winning matches once Darius' leg gets better. Dante has taken some major strides while his older brother has been injured.

That was fucking great. Cody and Black was fucking awesome. Leyla Hirsch is a tiny Ricky Steamboat. Moxley/Suzuki was fucking epic. Danielson and Omega was so big time.

Oh no, watch out Sting!

That broccoli I ate earlier is paying tribute to Minoru Suzuki by "becoming the wind."

You are a real life Vacation Jason lol. I do hope you enjoy the show tonight tho. But I also hope you dial back your talking down to people like the post above. Condescension will get you nowhere.

TAKE NOTES SANADA

Which one of you was that?

I just realized that Rampage is gonna be taped next Wednesday as well which means I'm also seeing Punk vs Hobbs plus all that other awesomeness. Not gonna freak out or whatever but that's really, really fucking cool. As for tonight I was impressed by Leyla/Jade. Their stuff on Dark was super effective in not just building interest but setting the table for their match. Not sure if people had that interest if they didn't see it but it worked for me. I personally would have loved for Leyla to get the hometown win but she still got the moral victory by making it super competitive for Jade.

OMG if you guys could here the pop in the arena as they announced match after match for next weeks show! That show is stacked!!! And this show has been fun too.

Now I'm imaging Vince trying to figure out a way to legally buy talent's faces (not just their likenesses), Vince may not be able to stop guys from signing with AEW, but he can damn well make sure they go through a lot of painful plastic surgery before they get there. Coming soon to WWE flims. Face/Off 3 (2's already in development). In a shocking twist, it will be a documentary,

Losing my God damn mind for next week. Absolutely the biggest card I've ever been in the building for. Hype level a million billion.

Here it is ladies and gentleman.. ?

Solid enjoyable show that soothes the soul of this old wrestling dork. Bryan/Omega. Fucking bring it. Dan Lambert is an inspiration on the mic. The poise, the confidence. I’ll bet the mirror he has been practicing in front of is a fan too. Little bit of “seen it” for Suzuki and the rest doing the crowd brawl when Cody and Black already did one. This might have been better served as a beat down on Mox and Eddie to set up Suzuki doing something really fucked up only to be interrupted by a flock of refs. I don’t know. I liked that closer. But it never got into 3rd gear. That red suit made Cody easy to spot in those far away shots in the crowd. Smart. Seemed like a lot of strong promos tonight. I really like how they’ll wedge 20/30 second promos in between match announcements. Keeps things straight. I love you AEW.

-Loaded card for next week. My god, what a show that'll be -Giving the people Kaze Ni Nare, thank you -Tons of shits -Rosario Dawson is in the Nightmare Family... Oh and the Gunn Club are fixing to run the table

Schitzen Baggins

How are 2point0 the first team to realize that being wrestling's Bulk and Skull is fucking money?

I'm not so sure it wasn't - KiLynn hit a pump kick and a fall away slam too, which are basically Jade's two big moves. All that seems like too much of a coincidence to not be intentional.

Ha is that "Chairman of the B-O-A-R-D" from Remsberg is a subtle little Norm MacDonald tribute, or did I miss something?

I guess they've closed the door on Strowman returning, since they gave his name to someone else? Since a Bron and Braun would definitely confuse the viewers in their minds? Lol

So they chose to let him have the IP of a good name and kept a bad one instead. Got it.

Miro is going to run over Fuego’s car in the tank, isn’t he?

Blues Traveler was right... The Hook brings you back.. and chokes you out...

DRAGON SLEEPER FROM HOOK! I REPEAT!

How great are Hobbs' dungarees by the way?

And wait a damn minute. I see what they're doing with Cole and the Bucks. They're going to get those three real close and iso Omega for the turn. Planting seeds! Instead of Omega and the Bucks winning trios belts it could be Cole. How fucking fantastic were both the Punk attack and Lambert segments? Some real great shit there. Wrestling wasn't much tonight, certainly not bad, but still felt like a killer show because of the white hot angles.

Rosario Dawson was there. A million billion stars ?

See for those who were on twitter all "guess the rankings don't mean much huh meltz!!" Well it's non-title... it's not about the title it's about who is the best in the world. That Jericho and Dan Lambert segment could have sucked but by god it was incredible.. both men on fire and the crowd singing to Judas was 100% organic.. i fucking love this promotion Lol. Also... get Paige Van Zant in the ring ASAP.

Much like The Suzuki Incident, life continues to imitate art and Hook has gone from meme to social media phenomenon. The crowd is going to legitimately come unglued when he finally debuts, and I’m here for all of it.

They didn’t overbook the show this time, and it payed off. Good break neck heading into what is essentially a double Clash.

Good to see Tony’s willing to fight for his woman.

I am going to the show tonight. I'll be on the floor in Section C. I sold one ticket and I still have one for sale. I was also underwhelmed with this card, but last night I scored a ticket for New Japan in Philly next month, so I'm a little less ticked off.

I am going to say that's a very big yes. Bryce was in a sketch comedy group here in Philly for about 10 years or so probably. I performed on shows with him a ton. Really funny guy and a big comedy nerd.

Let us not forget: Malcolm is an absolute treasure. And she... damn girl. The comment on that tweet that says "She looks like she could throw a cotton ball onto a roof" is 100% accurate.

For the most part, this was fucking terrible. Like, NXT has been stagnant for nearly 3 years now, which I think is when all of the Johnny Gargano shit started where he'd act all concussed and was feuding with Ciampa. That era was fine at first, but man, you can only take so many supposed epic matches. My all time favorite period of NXT was when you had TUE, the Authors of Pain, Sanity, a re-building of the women's division, etc. I still liked the NXT roster, but it had gotten so stale and the move to two hours was a real monkey's paw scenario. I wanted the show to be two hours long. Then it was and a stagnant program over one hour is tolerable. Two hours is borderline torture. I'm just going to go with my initial impressions and where I wound up with the show so this is borrowing some from what I was typing out on Discord. At first, I really dug the new logo. In fact, I still like that logo, even though it's the quickest spin art looking shit you could cook up in Illustrator in about five minutes. WWE has an entire graphics department and this is purely jealousy, but it's fucking aggravating to know they keep churning out easy shit like this and make way more than I do. Whatever though. Colors are great though! NXT got too dark, too dungeony. It was like, "Here's NXT brought to you by Kink.com!" We all like colors, right? It's a good thing when your color palette is broad. And then they cut to the arena. On my first look I thought, wow, this is really bright, but it's a nice change of pace. Then, and not piggybacking off of what anyone else said because this was the legitimate thought that came to me at the time, same as everyone else, it looks so much like a Nickelodeon game show. Basically, Double Dare. Then some other aesthetics started popping out. I mean, really standing out. There's no guardrails, which immediately tells me we're not going to get any wild shit on the outside of the ring. Ok, fine, learn stuff in the ring. I started paying attention to the outside of the ring more, and I wish I could screencap this when I'm at work (my phone also won't let me screencap the YTTV app, which is...weird), but the people in the crowd weren't doing anything. Just, nothing at all. At the risk of sounding crude, the first rows on the hard cam side looked like they had people bussed in from the nearby nursing home and rehab facility. Just a bunch of broken down looking people. The biggest issue with all of those people though, and this is the whole crowd, is that they were doing nothing, and the arena was FILLED with crowd noise. They're literally pumping in canned audience sounds for this regardless of what the crowd was doing. You can easily notice this at the start and during the first match. Plus sides for the new appearance though, is that the entrance is cooler. Going with the bright and colorful theme, it's more inviting and attractive. I love how the end of the entryway really widens out to the ring. My personal preference is having people right on top of the folks coming out, like in ECW or UFC, and the next best is a WCW/NJPW/AEW style ramp. This was still cool though. So I guess if any crazy shit happens, that's where it will go down. The ring sounds fucking amazing. This is by far the best sounding ring WWE has ever had. It does look a little bouncier, which is whatever, but man, it just sounds so fucking good. Then the show gets going. First they change the amazing name of Rex Steiner to Bron Breakker. BRON. BREAKKER. You thought Braun Strowman was a shitty random name generator name? Holy shit. BRON. BREAKKER. is fucking atrocious. WHY ARE THERE TWO Rs IN HIS NAME? The fuck is going on here? Then you have the announcers all but calling him a Steiner. WWE's obsession with owning every little bit of a person is so fucking stupid. Know what else is even dumber? Jobbing out one of the contenders in the main event in the opening fucking match AND THEY'RE NOT THE PERSON REPLACED IN THE MAIN EVENT? Like, what are we even doing here. That was maybe the worst bit of booking I have ever seen. It was the type of shit a junior in high school running an efed would come up with. I know WWE shit rarely makes sense, but this was just all time dumb. It's up there with a DQ in a Hell in a Cell and a DQ in a No DQ match. And the show is still a slog. I'm going to give them a break on that one until the find themselves, but this was a little too much old OLD NXT for my tastes. Again, that's perfectly tolerable when the show is an hour long. At two hours it's just unbearable. It's just bad TV. Next week is going to be even worse because this week we at least had a very long wedding to close the show. Next week is going to be even more green dudes and dudettes wrestling. Some of that shit is going to work, some isn't, but again, it's the two hour run time that hurts more than anything else. Let's look at it like this. I would probably have zero complaints if you had a show with an exciting opener with Rex Steiner not facing LA Knight, one of the tag team squashes, the main event with a more valid reason for replacing KOR and replacing him with someone who actually looks cool, and the wedding segment. That's an hour long show that I would be thrilled with. This was just a mess from one segment to the next with a couple things hitting and most things not. NXT has missed an AOP like team for awhile so these new dudes feel like they fill that void. I'm game for that. The wedding was amusing and was like the best stuff you'd see from TNA. Rex Steiner is awesome, but has a dud for a name and I can't trust that they'll book him well. Ciampa fills the role of the vet champion well while the young upstart chases him. And that's about all I liked. This was bad. This was really bad. And part of the reason it was really bad is that you did have good things happen on this show. but everything else is such a mess that it's all forgettable and regrettable.

Rick Steiner's son, Bronson Rechsteiner. Previously announced as going to be using the name Rex Steiner, but changed to Bron Breakkkkker on the day, because they dread him jumping to AEW in a few years.

I actually like the overall look now, but the excruciatingly bright lights during matches is maybe a bit much. I think this was a fun enough show, but one of the biggest draws of NXT over the last few years has been that it's the one WWE property with consistent logic and attention to detail. Everyone else has already covered the dumb stuff happening with little or no explanation on this show. It was painful to go from great storytelling to "The Blonde Khali, who has never even been mentioned on NXT television before, gets a shot at the title because he saved KOR from a locker room attack." Wanting to highlight new talent instead of career indie dudes is a completely reasonable choice. And there's real entertainment value in watching Steiner's kid and the Creed Brothers throwing pasty dudes around like sacks of flour for the next couple of months. But they're going to have to do a better job of actually introducing the new kids and creating some sort of internal logic for matchmaking.

NXT didn't do a good enough job of telling us who Von Wagner was. They should have included a 30 second video of his highlights from other matches. Only an idiot would put an unknown guy in a main event spot like that.

They probably should have made the second one, let it come out, seen how people reacted, and then decided how to proceed with the third one. Doing them back to back was a creative miscalculation.

I was told just yesterday his name would be REX STEINER. Bron BreaKKer is a terrible name, and I dare someone to justify the extra K to me. Creed brothers were the shit though, big dude tag teams murdering jobbers is my favorite sub-genre of pro rasslin by far

More Creed Brothers, please! This is so my jam and what has been missing in wrestling for a very long time.

That's exactly it. Feels like the biggest thing this promotion has done to date. I mean it isn't bigger than Punk's return but in terms of wrestling matches, this is the biggest for me. The two best in the world, let's fucking go.

The intensity of Omega is what I've wanted from day one and I feel like we really just got it for the first time. Maybe this is his next Okada-esque series of matches. So fucking excited. Great pro wrestling show. Next week looks jaw dropping good. They still need to get Santana and Ortiz on the show. Poor Fuego getting booed for challenging Miro, lol.

OMEGA and DRAGON next week!! YES..... Awesome show tonight too. Crowd was electric all night.

I guess my question on that is does Von Wagner actually have a 30 second video of his highlights. Short of showing him lifting weights I don't know what they can show. It isn't like they can pull footage from the Florida NXT loop because there isn't one I thought it was funny looking at Vinnie Massaro twitter saying that he fully expects people to say he stole his gimmick from Tony D'Angelo ?

Not A_K, but as the father of a girl who has a sensory processing disorder that she has mostly grown out of, I think it's fantastic that AEW partnered with Kulture City on day 1 so that all fans, regardless of challenges, could enjoy their shows. To my knowledge, that is still the case today. As a point of comparison, my wife took my daughter to a Taylor Swift stadium concert before all of the pandemic shit happened, maybe 2019 or 2018. We knew sound would be an issue. Taylor Swift is HUGE and there is literally no reason to add extra cost for anyone attending to enjoy the show the same way anyone else without a sensitivity would. And yet, you had to have extra passes or whatever the fuck for that shit. Thankfully my wife brought earplugs anyway. The Kulture City stuff goes beyond that though and has actual sensory rooms setup to give people a chance to reset. Then you have the fact that AEW has been an open door to anyone LGBTQ. They didn't have to do the weird Stephanie thing by touting someone was gay or whatever. They just let people like Nyla, Sonny, Bowens and others be themselves without overpromoting it. They're just human beings like everyone else. Plus, Nyla Rose, a trans athlete, was one of their first champions and a perennial threat to the champion. I'll also give AEW points for paying way more people than they needed to pay during the pandemic. They gave a ton of people, regardless of color or background, time to perform, earn money, and season themselves when there was no where else to turn to. Suge D got promoted by Jericho, paydays from AEW, and can parlay that to even bigger paydays now. I fully understand the issue of there being a lack of diversity at the top. It is hard to ignore though that one of the first tag champions was black, the current tag champions are Hispanic, Sammy is Cuban and easily going to be a big part of AEW's future, Nyla is indigenous and trans, Shida and Riho were both champions and both are both foreign, Dante Martin is constantly featured as an exciting act, Jade Cargill is getting a slow Brock Lesnar push, and Thunder Rosa is one of the cornerstones of the women's division. I think in time you're going to get more diversity at the top of the card and the company has a lot of irons in the fire, but no one on the level of Bobby Lashley, Kofi, or Big E at the moment. Again, I fully understand that is frustrating. It's also not like there isn't any movement here. Now, as far as commentary goes, yeah, JR thoughtlessly references shit that is gauche. I don't think any of that is done with malicious intent. I normally can tune him out, but I'll admit that whenever there's a brainbuster, someone could fucking reference Koko B. Ware one fucking time instead of two klansmen. And ALL of these things and more should be done. I can't think of a single "good for the people" thing in the name of PC that shouldn't be done. People thought whatever punishment Max Caster received was harsh, but my god, you can't cut that promo the same day someone else gets skewered for saying the same thing about Simone Biles ESPECIALLY when mental health is as important to the company as it is.