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Before I get into our live experience at Dynamite, let's turn to Page 26 of my WWF history book, "King of New York:" ----Virgil's ill-advised attack on Royal Rumble winner Studd earned himself a thrashing, causing my daughter to remark, "He's beating up the butler!”---- Guess who sat in front of her at Dynamite? https://photos.app.goo.gl/45QnQZjzSRwpmu8T6 The butler! What were the first words out of his mouth? "This isn't a good house. Nobody's getting paid tonight." Virgil and I also briefly discussed his many Steel City Wrestling junior heavyweight title matches with Lord Zoltan. My wife and daughter laughed when I sang "Judas" with the rest of the crowd. I didn't realize I knew so many of the words! It was hilarious to see wrestling shirts and title belts from all eras from '80s WWF to current AEW. Punk had a ton of shirts, and Danhausen was surprisingly well-represented. The fans fully embraced Mox even though he's a Cincinnati guy, so there was no Browns-Bengals thing going on. However, there was a definite Browns-Steelers thing going on in Baker's match, especially when Rebel brought out the Terrible Towel. So Punk's history in Cleveland now includes: Walking out of WWE Losing his UFC debut Getting squashed by Mox to lose the AEW title I told the girls, "The best thing that ever happened to Punk in Cleveland was us picking him up from the airport!"

AEW is the opposite of WCW. I remember WCW being chaotic and slapped together but it just led to shitty main events with Hogan or Nash or Hall. The undercard always delivered the goodness and kept me around. AEW is chaotic and slapped together but HERE you get The Forbidden Door PPV and the last two weeks main events. AND the undercard is also awesome. WWE currently is delivering on the main events and the undercard but it seems more planned and less chaotic. Either way, I am happy with the good wrestling.

I respect that you waited 15 years to join and in your first post made a 15 year old joke about Circuit City, well done.

I am as caught up as I'm going to get. Let's do this. I think Garcia is amazing at emoting in the ring for his age. This was a little rough. The fans were still with it though so it's fine. Danielson laughing so much basically means that he's getting turned on later though. Lethal vs Dax was very good. I never really look forward to seeing Lethal but I can't deny his stuff is generally good. MCMG was a nice reveal as Satnam really isn't ready to be in that spot yet. JR talking over people at the start of the title match was insufferable. "THE COLLAR AND ELBOW TIE UP! IT IS SUDDEN. IT SHALL DECIDE THINGS WITH ITS SUDDENNESS." He just ran over Excalibur setting the stage. Starks promo was very good. Night and day with Garcia which isn't a slight on Garcia. Christian's promo was good too. Look, they've built up a pretty cool undercard to this PPV. I hope they do more with King. She has a ton of potential to make an impact given her size and presence. It's very important for the company that they put over Storm or Hayter at the PPV. Every time Billy Gunn wrestles I wonder if our standards have changed so thoroughly over the last twenty years or if the talent has changed so thoroughly or if he just benefits from twenty more years of wisdom and a light schedule? I also hope that sometime in 2023 we have a Stokely vs Sterling faction vs faction program like Hayes vs Heenan in AWA. Ok, let's hit some of the big stuff. I was kind of feeling bad for Khan for a bit (yeah, I know), since so many of his plans got nuked. But there's two elements to being a kid on the 2001 DVDVR board fantasy booking. One is building your crystal castles in the sky. The other is going back and thinking how you could have possibly salvaged the Black Scorpion angle (the answer is BOTH Eddie Gilbert and Barry Windham; don't ask me to explain) or Sting's early 98. I think he's ok for now especially with a boosted HR team. If things still feel like this in six months though, I'd worry for the guy. If they were going to do what they did, the match was fine. I thought it was a Brock/Kofi thing from reading about it and it wasn't. It was a worked injury playing on a shoot injury to give cover for whatever they're going to do next. Punk is the sort of guy that can use this. I assume he ends up heel out of it. My hope is that Moxley does instead (more on that in a moment). I think a lot of the in-ring Punk Neo-Bret act of 2021-2022 works best with him as a babyface, where he can use his selling to ensure that every move is struggle-filled and matters. He's less able to control that (even if he controls the PACE of the match even more) as a heel. Basically, I think he has good work left to do in pro wrestling as a babyface, work that only he can do. As a 2001 DVDVR poster, I understand the overall concept of "Stop the Matsunaga". That's what we need with Mox. Stop the Moxley should be where we're headed as he becomes more and more uncontrollable and unhinged and takes the company with him. At first, I was excited about the trios titles! I like six-man tags. I always have. It's a different dynamic. You get different interactions. It allows for creative double heats, for instance. I learned lucha from watching CMLL trios! Then I realized that the people wrestling in these matches do not think about these the same way I do. Now I am readjusting my expectations and looking at this as a wasteland for all the wrestlers I don't want to see wrestling in a way I don't want to see them, thus freeing up the tag division not to be dragged down by guys like the Lucha Bros. Fine I guess. I had a certain luxury with injuries and Elite shenanigans limited to a single feud during the Cole vs Page era where I could happily watch 90% of the shows, and now that seems over. I basically love AEW at this point, if you just take out the E. Get the E out. And it does seem like the promotion is starting to lean back towards AEW Year One in some ways that makes a lot of people happy but I'm less interested in. But then again, last week we had Danielson/Garcia and on Friday we have Claudio/Dustin so frankly, there's always something great around the corner. I just get the sense my enjoyment level is slipping down to 60% or 70% instead of 90% but still that's higher than most companies in the history of wrestling.

I'm pretty into all of this. I like being surprised, I like not knowing what's happening next, I like when the dirtsheets don't quite know what's happening next and nobody is precisely sure what's a work and what's not. I don't like not knowing what's happening next and then what happens is nothing, or what happens is the same thing that everyone thought would happen but then convinced themselves it wouldn't because it would be too obvious. And, of course, the danger in working the dirt sheets is that it becomes your main, increasingly weird niche focus and you lose the larger plot entirely, but that doesn't feel like what's happening here. This isn't "GOLDBERG WON'T FOLLOW THE SCRIPT, SO THIS WILL BE A REAL FIGHT" territory, and it's not even close. I feel like some people are severely underrating how sharp and clear the death of WCW was. No idea what the main event for All Out is, not even sure I could make a reasonable guess, but it's not like that'll keep me from watching. Jon Moxley is maybe having the best year in all of US Wrestling and it's really fun to watch him get to enjoy it. I tend to buy the boringest explanation of all this, which is that Punk isn't actually ready to come back but they wanted to unify the belts and doing a squash match at the PPV seemed risky in a bad way. I like Interim Titles. To me, it just feels like a (slightly complicated, slightly nerdy) way to build up a match between the person who won a tournament for the vacated belt and the person who never got pinned to lose it in the first place. This is something that already happens all the time. The visual of someone holding two belts is fun, and it elevates someone as a legitimate world champion (and tests how the crowd responds to that) without taking any momentum away from the person on the shelf. I get why people don't like them, though -- there are certainly enough fucking belts as it is in this company. Weirdly, I am not really into Kenny or the Bucks, but something about how clean everything Ospreay does, and his smarmy little prick act is growing on me. I will also say, I think a lot of this go-go-go high spot no sell back flip choreography style of wrestling is WAY better in person than watching it by yourself in your living room. While that trios match was super fun to watch on my laptop, I can only imagine how hype it is getting to see a bunch of performers do so many insane things back to back while surrounded by a hot crowd. Yeah, it can be a little cirque du soleil, but that's fun! Who doesn't like Cirque Du Soleil!! As long as that is not the only style of wrestling happening on the show. Another reason why I am enjoying Mox as champion. Everything does feel a little chaotic, though, and everything could absolutely end up disappointing and fucked but I would rather have wrestling I am invested in break my heart as a grown-ass man than to watch Karrion Kross and Johnny Gargano be the exciting new direction of a company (with all due respect!).

Eh, folks can have their opinions. I'm just trying to remember the downfall of WCW and for me it was the introduction of Vince Russo, who ruined WWE before he showed up in WCW, I thought. I dig that AEW can book all this shit on the fly and the work gets it over. As long as people keep watching, buying tickets and getting the PPVs, I'll be happy. I like that AEW has to produce in the ring to stay alive and can't just coast like the WWE does. I mean the WWE is making money whether Mandy Rose is over or not. The fact that they TRY to put out a good product is heartwarming, but it's really unnecessary from a bottom line sense. The rubes are showing up no matter how many good matches Kevin Owens has, pretty much. AEW has to worry about quarter hours and buyrates and ticket sales. It makes it a lot edgier. Actually, as long as the Jaguars money, the Ford/Chevy money and SOCCER~! money keep pumping in, they probably don't need to worry either, but I dig that Tony Khan is TRYING to not make this a vanity project. It's a REALLY good time to be a wrestling fan.

I think Billy was always one of those guys who was good in certain contexts, just not the “Singles Star” context, and I think WWE trying (and failing) to make him fit that mold on a couple of occasions probably led to him being unfairly painted as “not good.” He is currently very good as AEW Dad.

One thing I love about Moxley's character is that it spared us from having to see Punk's opponent doing the "I'm so conflicted...my opponent is hurt, but I really want to win the championship...oh, whatever shall I do?" shit. He was just like, "You're hurt? That sucks. Too bad. We're in a match." And then he just kept beating his ass.

We really need an eye roll emoji on this board.

On this note, I also support Dark and Elevation's commitment to bring us 1998 Worldwide/Saturday Night in 2022

Punch The Sammy Guevara Championship. You defend it 5 times successfully and you get to pop Sammy in the face one time, no suspension.

A lot of dudes in this thread just KNOW there’s no plan for the world title at All Out? Damn. Never knew we had all these insiders on the board.

They're called customers. I hope you don't have to have them.

I hope never to let things spiral to the point where I have a workplace mortal enemy.

He gets to wear a legbrace that he uses as a weapon. Hammer Jammer!

In general, Kenny is way more interested in character, story, and selling than Ospreay. It may at times be goofy, over the top, and completely contrary to what many people think wrestling “should” look like, but he is definitely engaging with those core principles of good wrestling. Whereas Ospreay’s approach seems to be “LOOK HOW AWESOME I AM WHILE I GET ALL MY SHIT IN” and is very much dependent on his opponent to wrangle him into something more interesting (see: Orange Cassidy at Forbidden Door).

I think some of the issue is that Gunn spent what were probably his physical prime years with the character of "great athlete" and he wasn't all that good at that style of wrestling. Now, he's positioned as an "old timer" and he can smartly work that. I was thinking last night that Garcia is not well-spoken, but he's a great promo. Does that make sense? I think the idea of "good promo" has been reduced to "talks like The Rock" a lot these days. It's a small box. We need more Garcias that just talk the way they talk.

Television titles were awesome during the territory days because they killed a lot of TV time and got your heel over as an asshole. I remember the goldfish bowl of a thousand silver dollars that predates the television title idea but it was the same idea- the heel wrestles a lower card guy every week and it builds up to a upper card guy finagling his way to challenge for the 1000 dollars. And BEFORE THAT, I remember Johnny Valentine in Mid-Atlantic pulling names out of goldfish bowl every week until one week when Ken Patera filled it with pieces of paper with "Ken Patera" written on them. I will never forget Valentine's horror and exasperation. That was good stuff.

I the last couple months, the tv shows I've kept up with the most were Better Call Saul and Westworld. Now, I thought BCS was wonderful throughout. Westworld (IMO) had some high highs and some low lows. Going into the last episodes of their respective recent seasons, I wasn't sure where either show was going. The difference was, I trusted the people behind BCS to take things somewhere good. I did not have that trust in the Westworld people. I ended up feeling correct in both of those assumptions (again, IMO). In my experience, when I've wondered where something is going, I've felt that the people behind AEW have taken it to a good, or even just interesting (in the case of Punk/Mox last night) place. The booking leading up to Forbidden Door was a little wonky, but it turned out great, for example. I have trust in them to do that. It may not always happen, but it's happened enough to earn my trust. On the other hand, WWE has had me wondering where they might go next with something, and almost always, have left me unsatisfied with where it ended up. That's why I stopped watching. Sure, there may be some great matches, I'm not doubting anyone who says there are. It's just that nothing is ever going to go in a direction that I find to be all that interesting. I just don't trust them.

So let's talk about this 4 way for the title. I know Dave is all like, well, um, uh, you have to put your title on the biggest character, and, you know, that has to be, umm, that's gotta be Baker. To me, and it's not because I'm a fan of hers, but I think the smart move is to put the title on Hayter. Toni doesn't lose anything by not winning the title now, Britt is going to stay over regardless, and Hayter seems like she could be a hot hand given that Kris is on the shelf. Then you build to Hayter vs Britt.

The good thing about AEW is that it has some easy solutions to backstage issues given the roster. Like, for instance, let's say the solution to the Rosa situation is a best of 30 series between Storm and Hayter. Sounds good to me!

And now, what you've all been waiting for: -This first segment was pretty good. Daniel Garcia, as so many others have pointed out, is incredible at certain things, and conveying a focused set of emotions. Jericho's recent promos are like Judd Apatow movies; trim the runtime by 20% and they'd all be classics. The only problem is I'm not sure how you get to Garcia/Jericho at Grand Slam, which I'd guess is their endgame, without Jericho going over Danielson. That result would cause other problems, notably that it would be fucking stupid. -I love Dax Harwood's old school sensibilities about the business and tag wrestling and the like, but I think sometimes guys like him romanticize putting other people over. Like it's the right thing to do. And sometimes it is, but that finish might've been a good time to drop a "that doesn't work for me comma brother." Getting MCMG into that 6 man is an unspeakably huge upgrade from the previous lineup. Great match, and Dax would catch a charge if he chopped someone like that in a barfight. -Thunder Rosa breaks my heart in so many ways. You can tell she cares so much about putting out the best product possible in her matches. And when she first got to AEW she was the kick in the ass that division sorely needed. It's just sad to see how much her work has gone into a tailspin since she won the title. As for the "why did Thunder Rosa only get three minutes to tell her story when Punk got fifteen" talking point that's been going around certain dreadful corners of the internet, Rosa isn't a native English speaker. That whole thing might've been a pretape. We don't know. There are problems with AEW women's division, but not making a woman who isn't completely comfortable speaking english go out in front of a live audience when she's clearly an emotional wreck isn't one of them. -"Sometimes your kids are just numbnuts." National Treasure Tony Schiavone, ladies and gentlemen. This whole Gunn Club situation is relatable to me, because my dad is one of my best friends and always has my back, but he loves giving me a hard time too. We never came to blows, but we would've thought it was hilarious if people chanted "Ass Boy" at me for no reason. This was more angle than match, and that makes sense. The Acclaimed are so goddamned over. -Britt Baker. Ugh. At some point we're going to have to stop pretending that she's a top level performer and not someone Tony owes a debt of gratitude to because she stayed healthy through a global pandemic. Her promos have regressed, and that's the strongest part of her game. If she wins the Women's title, rather than Storm or Hayter, it would be an unspoken admission that TK has no idea what to do with the division. -Swerve in Our Glory and the Acclaimed are gonna dance at All Out. This should rule, and I could see this going either way. I love SioG, but sooner or later you're gonna have to start adding acclaim to... the Acclaimed. Shit. Too many acclaims. -Holy shit. Holy mother fucking shit. For weeks I've said here and elsewhere that I couldn't imagine a feasible scenario where the CM Punk that's been present in AEW so far beats this most recent version of Jon Moxley, but not even I imagined this going how it did. I guess we'll never know if Punk ever gets the real-life ass beatings his actions so often warrant, but this was the onscreen version of that. I loved every second of this. I felt like that girl who watches Darnell beat up her shitty boyfriend in that one "When Keepin' It Real Goes Wrong" skit on Chappelle show. I savored that ass whipping. I don't know whether or not everything we hear about AEW's backstage environment is true, but I 100% believe this was the match that was supposed to happen at All Out. You don't come back from a shattered foot in 2-3 months, especially without the benefit of painkillers. I think all that "he jumped over the ropes" stuff was done in an attempt to hide that he's still too hurt to go. There was also a report this week that it was Jon Moxley's idea to do the All Out match this week on Dynamite, instead of at the PPV. I find that wording very interesting. It would make sense to me that Mox wouldn't want to squash Punk in Chicago and risk being the guy who killed that town for AEW. I also don't believe these two will be the main event of All Out. That wasn't the kind of loss you come back from in nine days, injury or not. Then you make both guys look like chumps; Punk for being a bitch and not being more competitive against a guy he could turn around and beat nine days later, and Mox for losing to a guy he smoked less than two weeks ago. Shit, even Cody had the good sense to let it simmer for a couple of months before coming back against Brodie Lee. That Punk loss is the kind of things you film vignettes over. Training montages and shit. Something will happen at All Out. It might involve Punk. But I highly doubt they're running that match back nine days later. -Christian Cage is doing some of his most compelling work here. He's talking like the guy in the movies that shows up from the big city and buys the factory that employs most of the locals and is going to fire all the local workers and replace them with robots & illegals. The kind of thing that would've gotten wagered over a high school basketball game in any number of early 80's films. And then the foreman's son who quit the team the year before has to come back and lead the squad of plucky undersi- Wait, what were we talking about? Holy shit. Anyway, great stuff from Christian there. -The unsung hero of this show might've been Ricky Starks. The live audience was clearly still a bit in shock from the Mox/Punk encounter, but by the end of his promo they were all in. No pun intended. That line about "where I'm from, we cut the heads off of snakes!" That's the good shit. The emotion from Starks felt very real, and if I were TK he'd be on my short list of guys to build to that tip-top level over the next year. Everything about this guy screams STAR, and from what I've read there's still some hurt feelings on his end after being told "no" by Triple H in the previous PC era, so he's a guy who's loyalty I'd be looking to secure, by both compensation and exposure. Fantastic fucking promo. -That Mox promo was the good shit too. Thay reminded me of the "Paradigm Shift" promo from after DoN in tone and intensity. He's so effortlessly menacing with an air of cool. Like Todd from Beavis and Butthead if Todd had a job with benefits. I think they'll play the "undone by his own hubris" card at some point to get the title off of him, but I don't think it'll be All Out. -This main event. First of all, let me say that when AEW announced they'd signed PAC at their kickoff press conference it was the best news I'd head that day. There was a time 2-3 years ago one could've made the claim he was the best wrestler alive. I think the pandemic slowed that more than any downturn in performance. It's such a joy to see him more regularly on tv, and if you haven't been watching his title defenses on youtube, that's a "you" problem. They've all been really good. I haven't seen much of these other guys. I really only know of Ospreay from when Seth Rollins called him a broke bitch on twitter a couple years back. That was officially the only time in his entire life that Seth Rollins wasn't lame as hell. Probably. I didn't know him in grade school or anything. This sort of match really isn't my style, but if you're gonna go out there and do that, be really good at it, and all of these guys wrestle that high speed international tempo really, really well. I'm so stoked for Kip Sabian, too. That dude has put the time in on re-inventing himself and has earned a chance. If they run with him and PAC at the PPV, I'll be even more stoked for him. As I'm not familiar with Ospreay, I'm really not familiar with any beef between him and Omega, but anything that keeps the Bucks and Omega away from the main titles feels like an absolute win to me. Like I said earlier, I really dug this show, and I'm not sure why people are harping on all these late match announcements. It would bother me if the matches they announced looked like they were gonna fucking suck, but I haven't seen one announced yet that doesn't make me want to buy the ppv. Do Tony Khan and AEW in general have issues that need worked out? Yes. Would I want to watch a show that felt this chaotic every week? No. But to me, this episode felt the good kind of chaotic like the episode from last year when Malakai Black debuted. Just good shit all around. All Out is shaping up to be both compelling in story and match quality, and this week affirmed my decision to pay actual American currency to either order the show or drive an hour to the nearest theatre showing it.

I'm seeing a lot of this as I'm rewatching 80s/90s WWF from the start (and writing a thread on it!). A LOT of the guys we took for talentless stiffs back in the day are at least passable, if not pretty good, watching with 2022 eyes. It's funny because I have to stop myself from writing "passable, if uninspiring, match between two pros" over and over. They're not going to set the world on fire but they're not botching all over the place, either. It's almost like guys who honed their craft in a bunch of territories before getting to NEW YORK~! picked up some stuff and were actual pros. To put it another way, 1988 Ron Bass is likely better than a good chunk of your NXT walk-ons.

After lurking the board for 15 years, I finally made an account and my first official post. I find it odd that people who used to slam wrestlers like RVD and others who were “masturbatory” and sold as much as Circuit City has in 2022 absolutely love Will Osperay and groups like Death Triangle. The irony is quite strong. Btw, I called this in a tweet a few days ago. Punk and MJF will end up teaming up as The Salt of Personality. Heard it here first:

Sure, but its also smug and arrogant. And it's not like you'll be back here apologizing to the people you were calling fools if it turns out it wasn't a work. You're just out here saying "everyone is dumb but meeeeee!!!" and it's insufferable.

Good to know that falling all over yourself to be the first to claim something is a work has made its way from r\squaredcircle to here.

1997 Shawn Michaels thinks Thunder Rosa’s injury seems fishy.

Another aspect to the squash match is that it educates fans that a title match can be short and not always be 25+ minutes.

Now I want to see Dustin challenge for every ROH title. Dustin vs Joe Dustin vs Yuta Dustin/... Brock Anderson vs FTR.

Will Ospreay is awesome. AEW should sign him.

For those saying this is setting up a world title rematch, in what world? Punk, according to the story they told us very clearly, came back too early and also got his ass kicked decisively as a result. Why would I be interested in a rematch a week and a half later? That match effectively killed an immediate rematch in my opinion and sets one up later down the road. How is Punk going to be any better in 11 days after theoretically reaggravating his injury yesterday? Where is the logic? This would have worked if it were a month ago, not so much now imo.

That six-man was INSANE live. Everything after Ospreay blocked the Black Arrow had the crowd losing it for every nearfall. Shit deflated a bit for the Sabian stuff, but it still worked, the "hostage" under the box was a good misdirect. Punk got the Cody reaction, not sure if that came across on TV. Crowd was into the short match and dominant Mox win probably due to the novelty, Mox being super over, and Punk getting mixed reactions. Knew something was gonna happen when they announced the Trios match as the main. Dax vs. Lethal fucking ruled. Dax is the king of chops. Again, FTR should've won the tag belts at Double or Nothing, but if you're insistent on never doing that for whatever reason, put the belts on the fucking Acclaimed. Everyone loves the Acclaimed. Emi Sakura and Shida had a great match on Elevation that's worth going out of your way to check out. I wonder if Rosa's really hurt or if she "lost her smile" Meltz says Storm was supposed to win at All Out, but I think the right call is putting the belt back on Britt Baker. Have her steal a pin from Hayter, turn Hayter face and have her chase. Rampage:

The thing about Ospreay is, he loves to have those long counter sequences that are like Jerry Lynn vs RVD x 10. BUT he does them with people who he's facing for the first time. So the idea that they've memorised his combos and know the exact timing to duck the blindside enzuigiri is a bit... unearned? You know how the later Kawada vs Misawa matches are good, but way better if you're going into them having watched the previous ones, so you have the context of why certain moves worked or didn't work? Ospreay wrestles every match like it's the climax of a long series of matches, whether it is or not.

The great/funny thing about this whole Acclaimed/Gunn Club run is that they inadvertently stumbled into a 2022 New Age Outlaws routine and proved that hitting the same catchphrases every week can still get WAY over, despite all the jaded fans on the Internet who will tell you that catchphrases suck and the New Age Outlaws routine was a war crime.

Oh also, Daniel Garcia really is legitimately great at playing “vulnerable and insecure cocky jock asshole” Like, for real. He might have a Hollywood future in that type of role given the sheer volume of content that comes out with that archetype in there. I could totally see him being on some Netflix or Hallmark high school based show about the suspicious murder/disappearance of a classmate or whatever.

The thing about Rosa hiding in the bathroom is the part where I mentally check out. Has anyone seen Thunder Rosa? I can't buy her hiding in the bathroom from anyone. She's literally got in cages and fought people for real. Why would she be scared of or cowering from Jamie Hayter? Not that Jamie Hayter isn't tough or strong, but the idea of Rosa being so scared of someone she's hiding in a bathroom or some nonsense sounds absurd.

Leave me out of this, @Hail Sabin. ?

Man you've been hyperbolically doomsaying whenever possible since at least when Cody left. And then the TV contunues to be good. The text is the text.

They booked around their highest-paid wrestler/World Champion having an injury that either was or wasn't going to be healed in time for a PPV in his hometown. And it didn't heal. They wanted to move on and certainly didn't want to have a situation with two interim titles. After the MJF thing the AEW fanbase has become so lost in the weeds fantasizing about worked shoots and shot works and everything betwixt. Since RAW stopped being awful, sub-dirtsheet targeted-advertising-on-your-social-media gossip mills have realized "AEW Is Doomed!" articles get clicks. But for fucks sake people, please apply Occam's Razor. Apply his Butter Knife. Apply his Chainsaw. This is not some convoluted 4D booking chess or the result of some hyperpolitical Machiavellian backstage plot. The likeliest answer is that Punk's foot didn't heal in time for a PPV and now they're winging it.

I’m not sure how anyone could’ve disliked this show. I’ll have my full review later but goddamn was that cool…

I think Log is on to something with his post concerning trust. I trust AEW. I mean… I’m not going to let Tony Khan fuck my girlfriend or anything. But I have little to no hesitation spending my time and money on 50 dollar PPVs after years of paying 9.99 a month. Dax Harwood is so my current WOTY that it got me off my dead ass and dropped a couple of bucks on ROH tickets. Top to bottom the best live show I’ve ever attended in person. If I were capable I’d do a cartwheel. I’m not blind though. As positive as I am about AEW. I even had the thought when ever I’d hear some podcast interview where somebody goes on about how much love, harmony, and rock n’ roll the AEW locker room is… I’d think “Yeah, that ain’t gonna last”. But so fucking what. That squash was totally awesome and memorable and a huge storyline milestone for the company. It got applause for the tie up. Obviously I’m All In. Because I trust AEW.

oh god imagine Heath Slater coming back to seize the 24/7 championship because the only way all his kids will be able to afford college is if he can hold on to the 24/7 belt for three months and then some complete shitbag bushwacks him during Heath Jr.'s little league game on Day 86 how great would that have been

I can't disagree, Britt vs. Jake Hager does sound pretty damn interesting. I'd love to see him writhing in the Lock Jaw.

I was having the same thoughts re:Gunn last night. As somebody who's never had much use for Billy Gunn I can't tell if he's having the best run of his career or if my tastes have just changed over time. Anyway, I liked Lethal/Dax, Gunn/Gunn and Punk/Moxley a whole lot. The main didn't do much for me outside of a couple of big spots.

You know, it’s almost like Coach TK is laying the seeds for a “nothing brings a world together like an existential threat” angle. Mass chaos, fights, random booking….all hell has broken loose. So maybe All Out ends with Ozymandias releasing the giant squid. I dunno what that would be exactly, but that could be where this is going.

Jon Moxley squashes CM Punk to become Undisputed AEW World Champion. 2022 is the year of Jon Moxley. Never expected a squash match. Very rare to get a squash when a world title is on the line. CM Punk not fully recovered to go properly? Punishment for Punk? What's the AEW World Championship match at AEW All Out?