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not to be too negative towards anybody else, but John Cena has to be the best ambassador ever for wrestling, right? for combining his willingness to be such a good guy to fans with not really having any obvious character flaws The Rock would also be reasonably far up the list too But if you're looking for someone to day "this is a wrestler", Cena has to be pretty far up the list because he's sort of a real life comic book character without the sort of flaws that a Flair or Hogan has

Let's talk the Dark Tapings at a glance, no major spoilers: Enhancement matches from people to be excited about having Enhancement Matches; just to name a few: Serpentico Statlander Diamante Mercedes/Deeb Lethal/Singh (two) Willow (2) Athena EVIL Julia Fuego Bear Country Woods Abadon 2.0 Angelico Shafir And that's not to say I'm not glad to see Dante, Renegade Twins, Kiss, AQA, Lee Moriarty, Caster, Fuego, etc. Then there are the following matches between names or quasi names: Silver/Reynolds vs Bononi/Avalon, 10/Uno vs Nemeth/Drake, and Silver/Reynolds/Uno/10 vs Avalon/Drake/Bononi/Nemeth Private Party vs Bear Country Dante vs Comoroto Takeshita vs Anthony Henry Danhausen vs Jake Something and Sydal vs Jake Something QT vs Fuego (and Solo vs Fuego) Plus there's a few Pure matches with Nese getting a shine match before tackling Yuta and Garcia finishing out the tapings vs Angels in a pure match. Good stuff. I am this much closer to writing my essay about how people who follow AEW but aren't watching the webshows are only hurting themselves.

Is the last name Warshawski?

With the IWGP tag belts back on Cobb and O’Khan as expected, them vs. FTR (and I guess maybe RPV in a 3-way) seems like a lock. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the belts get switched to FTR either. With Cobb and O’Khan slated for the G1, those belts would be on ice in Japan through August anyway. Kinda wondering if this ladder match on Wednesday isn’t a way to get the AEW belts on the Bucks so they can do the rubber match with FTR for, like, every belt in the world at All Out.

OH FUCK YEAH!

Here ya go.

As a hungry man, that was the most beautiful post I’ve ever read.

Been busy but here are some gifs from upcoming Tuesday's Gerard Bouvet/Georges Cohen vs Black Shadow/Josef el Arz tag. This is Bouvet with some great cartwheels and a good payoff: And I love this wristlock escape by Cohen, which consists of 1) jockeying for position, 2) bridging up to rotate around, and 3) sweeping the leg over for the headscissors.

Dominion developments:

A lot of the issues stem from things outwith TK’s control, but he handles them in such an outside the box manner that it can be jarring. Sammy is a prime example of it. As his popularity starts to rise with the fans, he starts to get a push, then does the Sasha comments and gets pulled from TV. He returns, feuds with Matt Hardy, Matt Hardy gets injured. The feud slows down until Matt returns and we eventually get a blow off. He then wins the TNT belt and loses to Cody, who almost immediately gets Covid. interim title is brought in. Feud is interrupted until Cody returns. He then finally beats Cody and moves onto Scorpio, somewhat taking Cody’s place after Cody departs. During this time his relationship with Tay becomes known and for whatever reason fans quickly turn on both, despite Tay being one of the most popular wrestlers and Sammy being very well liked at the time, they are both now hated (and that’s going up against Dan Lambert). So the dynamic changes once again due to no fault of TK’s. and that’s just one guy. TK has had to do a lot of fire fighting in AEW’s short history. Covid, Brodie’s passing, injuries, Cody’s departure, this MJF thing. He must feel like one of this plate spinning guys you would see on talent shows.

There's something else that nobody's mentioned about Satnam Singh: Dude can talk. You certainly couldn't say THAT about Gonzalez or Khali.

NSFW: 'Nuff said.

Statlander vs. Red Velvet was fucking fire. Statlander dropping the stupid alien gimmick is the right call. She came off as a STAR on Rampage. And so did Velvet and The Baddies. The main event women's division stuff has been kinda boring while Jade, the Baddies, Stokely, and Statlander are stealing the show.

Today CyberFight's brand NOAH will hold an exhibition for Misawa. Expect mementos from Misawa's days in All Japan and NOAH. A talk show, the talk show guests are Kaito Kiyomiya, Kotaro Suzuki, Satoru Asako and Ippei Ota. Merch will be available. Match screenings will be played. And more.

I originally wanted Okada/Punk, then was able to get hyped for Okada/Hangman after Hangman's challenge. Hangman/Jay would probably be pretty great (loved their 2018 Long Beach match which felt like a breakout match for both guys). But a triple threat, four way, or likely tag team match I feel a lot less enthusiastic about than the proposed singles matches. Definitely wanted a big time Okada singles match on the card. I am glad the way is paved for a potential FTR IWGP tag title reign and hope they go that route, even if it ends up a 3 or 4 way in that case.

i was out of town last night so couldn't watch live, but i was SUPER hyped for this card leading up to it. Have only watched the main card so far, but that has to be an all-time great main card. Every fight delivered! Jack Della Maddalena did his thing. great start. Jake Matthews looked amazing out there. the patience, the accuracy, the power. wow. Double Wow, the ending to Weili/Joanna 2! @The Natural i guess it didn't make much difference not being a 5 rounder. The spinning back forearm was a thing of beauty. Perfect placement. Faceplant. Goodbye, Joanna. You will be missed. Valentina/Santos was an interesting fight. i scored it for Valentina (Santos had control in rd 2 but didn't do a damn thing, while Valentina was peppering shots and still lead the stand-up battle). a score of 48-47 is perfectly acceptable IMO, but i'm with Elsalva: and then there's the main event. Been a Jiri fan ever since i saw him in Rizin. ^^everything i could say. absolutely incredible fight. one i can't wait to rewatch. Jiri is the man. Glover is also the man. agreed. Jiri's a fun fighter to watch, but he's always been more than hittable and eats a ton of offense. It will be an exciting reign but i don't predict a long one.

Yeah, I know he dislocated his shoulder on purpose but that was TOO gnarley. So fucking old school freak show wrestling.

And I'm eating breakfast right now! (Sausage, biscuits, gravy)

That match graphic is dope. Dig the graphic style and both people getting Japanese Kanji under their name, since it is a joint show meant to be viewed by both countries.

Great show! Rampage will always have the uphill climb of coping with being a “B show”. So many years of WWE treatment has us all kinda trained to expect to expect nothing if the Main Show has anything else tacked on it. Rampage at the very least has escaped being painted as a throwaway Velocity or 205 Live. Bad schedules aside. Every match hit the the sweet spot in a very compact hour. I even dug the good work done in getting Santam Singh on tv. Plus the trios act overall had a very good presentation. Pretty sure Big Show was the agent for this one. Count me in on the elevation in opinion of both Statlander and Red Velvet. Statlander seems to train for the sake of power and strength. Velvet smaller stature and ability to rag doll really complimented Kris to put that all in focus. That snap zoom on Jade had to have been edited in but was really good. I like The Baddies as an act. The Main Event was a blast. I hadn’t seen Osprey since before he left CHAOS. Additionally, I’ve seen very little NJPW over the last couple of years. So Aussie Open was new to me. Kind of surprised it’s not a Golfing gimmick. Glad it’s not. They impressed me. It was like somebody posted earlier that it was a real treat to discover them. Good times. Great memories.

Ooooooh ZSJ has such a smug, annoying face, perfect for getting his fucking head kicked in ??????

One of the best fights I've seen all year, every round was exciting. I am glad it had a definite ending, not sure what those score cards would have looked like, give me a finish any day.

now THIS fight is all time great. I've been calling for Jiri to be champ for years and have been hyped for it to finally happen here. Figured Glover was walking in to the inevitable. But once it got started, I was totally down with the old man legend run continuing forever. Amazing back and forth fight, so many momentum switches back and forth. Totally thought/accepted Glover winning and then what the fuuuuuuuuuuck! Holy shit what a war.

That was a WAR.

But the winner gets frogurt! Yay! The frogurt is also cursed That's bad.

Woah. Legendary fighter. Sad to see her go out in a ko like that, but man for a shining period she was an absolute terror.

As in: A temporary out of control infatuation that they eventually get sick of, which is fun while it lasts and hopefully does no permanent, irreversible harm? OK. Can do.

For the atomic drop enthusiasts on the board

This.

Bundy's like "this is my one chance to do this spot"

Fun show with a lot of action throughout. Sad to see the end of The Hex reign, but awesome match to go out on. Love that Homicide retained twice, glad to see this is turning into an epic reign for him. Markova looked good again against Taya. Loved Adonis/Dane, getting to see shades of the old babyface Adonis back is great, always felt that was his best role back 10-11 years ago. Solid big man battle here. Liked the story in Tyrus/Mims, good underdog performance from Mims. Kamille/KiLynn was amazing. Kamille's big matches are always so good and KiLynn has been on fire for awhile so this delivered big time. I'm down with Kamille continuing the run but totally would've bought KiLynn winning . The chaos setting up the main event scene was entertaining. Corgan was amusing in setting up the match and everything without a mic. Kinda thought Sam Shaw winning would've been something fresh, he looked good. Going back to Murdoch sorta felt like the weakest option IMO even though I enjoyed his last reign, but I guess we'll see. I thought he had been turning heel but in the end seemed like his old face self, while Latimer early in the night was weirdly full on babyface but in the main, seemed like his natural heel self. Surprised to see Aldis the one taking the clean fall out of nowhere like that. His pre-match promo seemed set up for him to return to the top, at least until Cardona returned. Interesting times ahead. Full results NWA Alwayz Ready:

Discovered yesterday that I actually get AXS on my DirecTV (redid the favorites a couple years ago and didn’t include it and promptly forgot it), and discovered today that I can watch the last few episodes of NJPW World on demand for free, so I’m going to familiarize myself with some of these names in the next couple of weeks before the PPV. Last time I saw any NJPW was the height of Omega and the Bucks a few years ago.

Oh man, this match is fucking awesome. Kenzie Paige and Allysin Kay aren't afraid to beat the fudge out of each other. Ella Envy is such a great heel. TK should steal Pretty Impowered and have then feud with/join the Baddies. EDIT: Homicide is your superstar of this PPV. First he has a good New Japan juniors match with PJ Hawx and then has a really great brawl with Colby Corino. Homicide is your comeback wrestler of the year. He can just GO.

Seeing Flair, Von Erich, and Wildfire together didn't surprise me as much as seeing Kev wearing boots.

With no precincts reporting, folks love them some Big Head Girl From Outer Space!

Gotta say I’ve liked the Doctor Who vibe they chose to give this PPV in terms of graphic design

And just like that Del Rio has deleted his Twitter account.

Dude was in a grueling five-round war. It's easy to criticize the decision-making process, but he was going for the finish and thought he had the choke. It didn't work out well for him. Smallest of mistakes can cost you big.

Going into the fifth.... this is one of the best cards top to bottom. All killer no filler.

AEW is an enjoyable product. I have my criticisms and I could see worrisome booking decisions that could turn it from my favorite weekly program (I generally love Rampage and Dynamite is usually mostly thumbs up for me) to a really good show. That sounds silly, I know. I’m very sure the wrestling will likely always be a strong point of the production. So I will still pump my tentacles and be joyous. The multiple titles (and that the newest addition isn’t even trios, which is said to eventually pop up) is getting comical to me. I know that fits the sports feel that Tony has been saying since day one, so it’s technically on brand along with the convoluted interim titles, but it just has me going meh. Why is the Owen Tournament winner a belt? They all look great, but it seems like everyone has a belt from AEW or RoH or somewhere. I’m sure the ROH stuff is waiting for a potential RoH show? Regardless, derp. Just rambling here, I will say I’ve actually enjoyed many of the recent episodes. Double or Nothing was great and even most of the Dynamites and Rampages have been good. The Baddies rule, the Kingston/ BCC vs JAS is a great storyline, marking for Athena, the wrestling is fantastic, etc. Maybe I’m tired and jaded. I’m just here, derpin in bed and typing this post. I wonder if AEW has a pivot problem. Now this is when someone points out in a snarky way all the examples of why I’m wrong and I give them a Thanks trophy because I’m dirt. Fenix gets injured so they prolong the feud with House of Black and turn of Julia Hart moves a a glacial pace, Tayvara is hated by everyone and they turn and return and turn again in an abysmal TNT title feud that makes us all long for the Codyverse, CM Punk is injured and they come up with an announcement that is confusing about a battle royal that is pointless because the winner fights Moxley the same night. Derp.

Having listened to him on Konnans podcast every week Disco strikes me as a “work smarter not harder” type of guy. I’m sure he said there had been tentative talks but he wasn’t interested (possible BS), as he preferred to work a lighter schedule for decent money. Disco was always fun in WCW, his feud / team with Alex Wright was great undercard stuff. His last Impact run was also a real highlight. I try to not let his Twitter trolling cloud my judgement, but it’s exceptionally difficult. He can be insufferable.

Just thought about something this morning: there's a group of folks that don't want AEW to sign former WWE guys but at the very least they should be happy they haven't signed that multi time champion Vacant ? I'll see myself out now.