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A highlight of my Thursday night. I think@Infinit may agree. Here's hoping AEW crowds far and wide, Cincinatti in particular, have as much passionate love as the G(reater)T(oronto)A(rea) for the wonderful Dalton Castle. Overjoyed with my hometown crowd providing such a loud score for all the talk and mat action. I had no doubt Butch/Blade/Mox/Claudio would provide beautiful violence. That said, a question comes to mind - What are some of the worst moves/spots used by a Wrestler of the year candidate historically - Mox generously offers the 'brutal' back scratch er as it really is the fart face back massage. I love Mox, but can somebody in that club of his let him know how bad that looks? Let's be honest, his Danielson stomp is weak too. The bad mouthing ends there, this is potentially the Wrestler of the Year I'm talking about and his live presence supports that distinction. Loved the Keith Lee-Swerve interaction. La-la-loved the return of Stu Grayson. That said, wouldn't of hurt to let the local crowd have an Actual In-person live look at our French Canadian hero. Strange how many ppl appear and seem to be in the building whom were never in front of the crowd. Nyla-Anna heel-heel was a strange booking but worked pretty nicely. Was the censored JR line that I assume was him saying Anna would be the 'Man' if she beat Nyla for the title in the live feed or was that International only? Also wondering if his 'Pronoun Boy' talk has made the cable waves or just the international feed? Anyway, great to see Nyla get an angle and a nice win here. I also like them breaking up a bit of the monotony of Jade's streak and giving her something new. I suspect Jade's a babyface following all this. Loved seeing her handle the security here. The Ethan Page-Private Cassidy segment was a great example of the airless often poor editing of these Rampage broadcasts. A 'tasteful editor is All Elite' would be quietly a great addition for this company. Cutting to OC and the Bests so quickly following the match reminds us all that 'none of this matters'. Regardless, wonderful to see Ethan Page receive this live show of support. Six man Main was fun. I'm digging Embassy Cage. Nana's been a fantastic signing! I'm also into this Kingdom signing and debut. If I'd only seen Matt Taven's middling ROH World title run and what I've heard of Mike Bennett's WWE bookings I might be with the jeers to the Kingdom talk. However, I've been watching/skimming Impact for most of the year, and this team has been terrific every time out. I suspect a few ppl will be surprised by this well oiled machine. Outside of the airless editing, I liked the playback of this show fine, but it's kind of a shame the post show speech section wasn't kept in for television. Not that it was smoothed out for TV or that I expected they'd air it. The Dax Toronto love and especially Shawn Spears heartfelt talk of his mother passing made for a really special close to this show. It had those great compassionate vibes AEW seemed to be routinely hitting with awhile back. As the most reliable critics have said AEDub 'rules the fucking world'.

Going back to the confused looks from wearing a wrestling shirt thing, I get looks and questions when I wear my Shayna Bazler "Submission Magician" shirt. I've gotten asked multiple times if I'm into dom/sub play from wearing that and I have to explain that it's just a cool wrestler.

I always saw Orton as a wrestler's wrestler. He's very consistent, safe (unless he is dropping you through a table), and steady. He does the WWE style of main events as well as anyone and can be either a heel or a face with equal efficiency. He can be plugged into just about any storyline at any time and give it some legitimacy. So I can see why he is so valued by WWE, and why other wrestlers frequently name him as a "top" wrestler, but I'll be damned if I can think of any great matches that were great because of him specifically.

I had to watch that Dalton Castle challenge for the title three times this morning. So fucking GREAT.

Didn't hit the main yet. Will get there. Other thoughts: Went back to see the entrances because I wanted to see the pops. Bunny's new Mountie gimmick is something. My favorite thing about that opening match, other than the fact they hit hard, was just the interaction between Mox and Claudio. Some of that is Claudio trying to work in the stomps, or breaking up Dragging the Lake or the post-match interview, but a lot of it is just Mox reacting to stuff Claudio does. Sort of a "Oh yeah, that goddamn strongman is on my side." JAS interview was fine. I'm not sold on Garcia's delivery or rationale. "Jericho cheated to beat me. He's always going to win. I want to win too." It's not the most compelling rationale I've ever seen. I could write up a paragraph about Garcia's mindset, but it'd kind of be bs. I really hope the Goose chants become a thing. I like Castle and think he has a ton of value as an Elevation act like Serpentico and Danhausen and Emi to make things seem like a fun, enjoyable event. That said, I want to see 2.0 and Sammy (or Hager) have the six man belts soon. And then I ever increasingly want the Joe/Pinnacle vs JAS feud into winter. Just about everything I saw on this show made me want that more. Really enjoyed Anna vs Nyla. Nyla was working subtle babyface, where she's not actually a babyface but she's so over the top acting like she's queen or president that it comes off as a smarmy babyface and it's great. Anna, on the other hand, is the only person in the JAS who actually works like a Sports Entertainer. It's what they all should be doing. It's especially what Garcia should be doing. Kofi's Boom Drop. Shaky Leg Kneedrop. Worm. Etc. This could have used a slightly more intricate finishing stretch to protect Anna maybe. Post-match with Jade killing everyone was great. They can use those visuals for months. Kassidy vs Page got the short shrift but was fine for what it was. I have no idea where this is going but I guess it'd be funny to have Stoke second Matt/PP against the Six Man Champs and just be really annoying at ringside. Too much contract stuff over the last year. The Firm + the Family Offices + the Trustbusters is all just too much. It's kind of how Khan relates to the world, I think. (that said, if I'm fantasy booking Stoke flips the contracts to Christian since he'd be even better than Stoke in that role trying to make money off of Matt and PP by getting them to win titles and play second fiddle to Luchasaurus). I did catch the post match with Spears. I can't imagine him ever being more over than he was tonight in that. I'm happy for him and think he's a pretty good face-in-peril type babyface and they really do need another guy on that Sydal/Kazarian level that can put people over on the face side, but let's manage some expectations here. I do hope we get a MJF vs Spears match at some point though.

I finally caught up with the show. That main event ruled. It's one of my favorite AEW matches. It also felt like (again) it was a bit cramped for time but they still told a great story. OC and Pac are such fantastic foils and yin-and-yang. It's like a real life Bugs Bunny/Wile E. Coyote where OC is a step ahead of Pac most of the time, except Pac has managed to drop a proverbial anvil on his head via the timekeeper's hammer. I will gladly take arguments that OC is the best worker in the world. I will make that argument, even though the amount of wrestling I watch is way less than everyone else. But every match I have seen him have this year has been absolutely perfect for what they are going for, and I still haven't even seen the Osperey match. Someone with a heavily gimmicked character like OC can really find themselves limited. Santino was a fantastic performer and great wrestler but was always kept at the comedy level. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and there's a huge value in having someone who can carve out 15-20 minutes on a Tv show with ridiculousness. It's not insane to me that OC managed to get the character over because it's funny to start with (Paul Rudd from Wet Hot American Summer) and he's super talented. But OC has managed to take a ridiculous gimmick and turn it into match psychology. He's so good at a cat-and-mouse match where he frustrates "serious" wrestlers constantly. But the matches are almost always really good traditional underdog match structures made special with his panache. Pac did vicious heel stuff on the floor to set up the "babyface rallying to beat the 10 count" spot we see all of the time. But OC did this by rolling down the elevated ramp to get closer to the ring. That is just so much fun. Pac constantly trying to get the hammer but being cut off first by BRyce and then almost by Danhausen was also great. Pac was fantastic in his reactions, too. The end of the match was really special. Unless I don't remember it, they probably could have added in an OC kickout from Pac's finisher to rally the crowd back. But just the double Orange Punch was a great way to have a definitive win. Having the second punch let OC have a more dramatic pinfall that let him sell just a little bit longer to the pin and explaining why Pac couldn't kick out. OC really is a genius performer. I have no idea if he lays out his own matches or how they work. But they are all so friggin' good. Once his in-ring career is over (and I never want it to be over), he would be a fantastic agent. He's a really creative guy and I can see him putting together all sorts of masterpieces for all kinds of wrestlers.

'Taker/Orton at WM 21 was a fantastic match, laid out nicely. It's a credit to everyone involved that Undertaker and his streak (which I think was heavily promoted for the first time in this match) felt legitimately in danger during the end run. On another note, I have been thinking about what makes someone "boring" quite a lot recently (again, I have seen a ton of Ted DiBiase the past three or four months), and I get how you feel regarding Orton. He's mechanically sound, but most of what he does mechanically is not at all amplified by how he sells that stuff. The same thing is true of DiBiase to me. Like, he's in there with Orndorff in Mid-South or Savage in WWF or Tenryu in All Japan and you can't point to his actual work as the issue. The thing is that those other three guys are amplifying a mood to the back of the arena. For example, Orndorff is a bully jock who is frustrated that he can't overwhelm DiBiase with his elite athleticism like he can most others. Savage is on the edge and might lose his self-control at any moment, and that can work for or against him in unpredictable ways. Tenryu is irritated at DiBiase's strikes, DiBiase's perseverance, DiBiase's pressing him, and that irritation only grows as the match goes along, threatening to spill over into some real violence. DiBiase leaves no imprint against these guys; he is simply there as the colorless guy whom others contrast sharply to re: making you feel something. This is exactly Orton's problem, IMO. Even when he was working a distinct gimmick (Legend Killer, on-the-edge sociopath), I'm not sure it ever played particularly well in actual matches. No amount of cheek-puffing or pounding the mat helped. I feel Orton is always play-acting. He never feels like he is either dangerous as a heel, nor in danger as a face. He does stuff in the ring, and some of it is nice, especially RKO counters, but even compare that to DDP Diamond Cutter counters, and DDP actually backed that up by broadcasting why those counters were crucial to his matches. DDP came off like a sneaky heel who would find any opening he could, or like a never-say-die face who would pull a Diamond Cutter out to bring him back from death. With Orton, it's just like ooh, neat counter! and not a defining characteristic of the character he projects in the ring. Sorry for the length, but I have been trying to watch a couple of guys who are generally beloved to understand why I don't get them, and "they bore me" has come up as a reason fairly often! I'm trying to unpack what I mean by that.

The beauty of this Jade v Nyla feud is that it’s adding a layer of depth and character acting opportunities for them both. Jade, the confident unbeatable champ with a calm charismatic swag is now the determined tough force looking for revenge, without having to have actually been beaten. Nyla, the monster who is feared and wrecks havoc in her path is now the charming villainous trickster. Plus, this aspect of her character is going to work wonderfully with Vicky. I love watching this build and I’m excited to see where their journey leads. Potential for some really great moments. —- I love hour long wrestling shows. Fun action!

If you watch his stuff in WCW as well I'm guessing some of his pre WCW stuff, he was clearly a hell of a worker. That's why people made a hard push for him to get into WWF and why Ross tried so hard to keep him in WCW. However, Herd didn't see much in him. Outside of weird programs with like The Berzerker and whatnot as well as the Hogan stuff, his first year or so in WWF was basically all enhancement matches. However, according to Prichard, they designed it where he would be doing different things in those enhancement matches which was a nice touch. The issue was Taker basically being the last of the attraction type wrestler meant he was going to get paired with monsters and other stiffs. When it came time to put on good matches, he could. He just happened to be their reliable utility man.

In 2022, Andy would have gotten up after the 2 piledriversand given Lawler a Canadian Destroyer.

Is Maria a better roster addition than Saraya? She has all the connections through being active over the last few years and Women's Wrestling Army.

I can't think of any one specific match off the top of my head but Michael Cole as a heel lead announcer was fucking insufferable. It made it hard to try to watch matches when he's actively just calling everyone who wasn't some jacked up giant or The Miz a nerd and calling fans nerds for liking anyone other than The Miz. It's one thing for a color commentator to do that but I'm not trying to tune into a product to hear voice of the show basically call me a basement dwelling internet dweeb just because I kinda like to see a good match rather than some shitty promo written by a failed sitcom writer every now and then.

the armdrags make me realize that Scorpio and Ricky Steamboat would have made for a really fun tag team the only matches with Scorpio and Steamboat teaming were... The Hollywood Blonds and Rick Rude vs Sting, Scorpio, and Steamboat at a House Show in at a high school in Terre Haute and Regal, Maxx Payne, and Paul Orndorff vs Steamboat, Scorpio, and Bagwell from a WCW Saturday Night

There was a while there where PAC didn’t seem to want to do clean jobs. Says a lot about the story he and OC have told over the last couple years that he went down clean as a sheet. It also says a lot about the state of the business that as soon as he did I thought to myself “oh no. Is he a Triple H guy?” We don’t talk enough about how tremendous PAC is. Not being able to be stateside for much of the pandemic really scuttled his AEW run, but now that he’s back on tv regularly it’s even more apparent how awesome his work is. I think Mox is currently doing the best work in AEW but I think PAC might be the most gifted worker in AEW…

No.

Carolina lardilization?

There's at least one difficult spot in this one, but you have my permission to look up any unfamiliar Japanese names ?

I know I always goof around about how boring he is to me, but Taker's got at least two really good ones I can remember with a greenhorn Orton in '04

I dunno, but I wish he was a native Texan. Then we could've gotten Blackjack Danza.

Another episode with a distressing lack of capes neither Shawn Spears or Dalton wore one. So it looks like they are going forward with Nyla v Jade as heel v heel Surprised to see both AJAS and which ever Private Partier that was get essentially squashed. I hope that Ten busts out that sweet overhead Steiner Belly to Belly on dynamite. Good episode if this big men hitting each other was your thing! BCC going HARD against BBB and then the Bret tribute in Canada. MOAR TOA is always a good thing! Honor no more, no more show up. So Tony's still not done signing people. Is Rampage going to become Rampage of Honor? 5 on 5 after WARJOE makes the save! whens blood and guts?

As A teenager I thought Masato Tanaka was just the coolest. The roaring elbow was great and I pop for the Diamond Dust when Darby does it! (I refuse to call it the backpack stunner)

Taker is a hard one to peg, because so much of his earlier body of work was constrained by his gimmick and paired with questionable opponents. Once he got to break out of the walking corpse mode, he was also getting a better quality of opponent.

It's not like they can keep up with it perpetually and lord knows those fucking incel douchebag losers aren't going to stop just because they've been 100% pwned so if the MCU wants to take more shots of them, I'm sure the opportunities will (unfortunately) keep coming. She-Hulk ruled.

Every match with Jerry Lawler on commentary?

I scanned through Saraya on Talk is Jericho. She really doesn't know the roster yet. That's obvious. She hasn't been keeping up or doing research or anything. She's definitely going to ease into wrestling and when she does, I'm getting the sense she'll be more of an attraction and more of a work smart instead of work hard sort of wrestler. Bump-lite. Returning was more a case of the fluid in her neck coming back slowly over time than anything else, it seems. Jericho and Moxley were the two that really pushed her to come over and made sure it happened. Though she seems VERY familiar with Britt relative to everyone else. Some interesting stuff in the margins about how you pitch Khan ideas. Jericho gives him a month worth of stuff usually. Saraya gave him some ideas but too late and he would have worked it in the following week but she was off (which was probably this week as she wasn't on the show). Some interesting talk about Vince's assistant calling her a while back and saying that she had to give WWE a cut of her twitch or stop doing it, which we've heard with others but the actual technicalities of how that's announced is interesting.

This was such a goddamn fun show to see live. So much great stuff. In ring was killer. Promos were on point. Crowd was jacked. Was there a "meh" moment in the show? Not that I can remember. Billy Gunn was even in a pretty good match on live television in 2022 lol. And it was so great to send us all home happy with OC finally winning gold!

Igor Strogoff with the Tiger Driver 78: While I'm at it, here's Jean Menard with the Doctor Bomb '78:

For some reason I have in my head the ghost of Norm Macdonald telling Dan Snyder that "not only do the NFL owners want to wish you well, they want to throw you down one...THEY WANT TO MURDER YOU IN A WELL, DAN"

Joe's gonna re-kill you?

Oh man! I had to cut some quality wrestling to get this number down to forty this week. I had to cut the Flip Gordon match from NWA and I am HEARTBROKEN that I had to cut the King and Kong match from Big Lucha. I also had to wholesale cut all kinds of DARK and ELEVATION matches which was somehow pound for pound better than Dynamite and Rampage this week. As for my VOTE! I go with PAC versus Orange Cassidy. That smoked everything else on free TV. In regards to the WWE, I would go with either Axiom/Nathan Frazer or the Roxanne Perez debut on Smackdown, though they once again had a barrage of good to very good matches this week. There was a LOT of good Lucha Libre this week. Panterita del Ring Jr and Sr and Dark and Blue Panther had a fucking AWESOME match in CMLL. There was a great three way with Vikingo, Laredo Kid and Black Taurus. Plus Komander was all over the place. The best Fringe match was between the WOW tag match and the AWESOME KiLynn King vs Taya Valkyrie match from NWA Powerrr, It is a great time to be a fan of the Professional Wrestling. EDIT: And Josh Alexander vs Bobby Fish was the best televised Josh Alexander match so far.

This is a good point, though I place most of the blame on everyone losing their minds over Joe and Punk or Joe and Danielson going 45+ just to do it in RoH. I have a ton of problems with RoH and what, in my view, it and its legacy have done to modern wrestling.

Bob trolling Piper by wearing a pink cowboy hat while seconding Adonis was quality heeling.

Man, I could've avoided a lot of awkward moments/convos in my 20s if I'd just had a Shayna shirt

We talk about Matt Hardy and Chris Jericho being masters of innovation but Daddy Ass is the opposite of that. Billy Gunn is a lot like Xpac and Dolph that once he found a gimmick that worked he never updated it leading to "xpac heat". Only now it seems to have gone full circle into nostalgia

Like most people I stopped watching ROH around... 2010ish, so I've only recently discovered Dalton Castle. Holy Shit, this dude rocks. Why don't we have more 70s era, Charles Nelson Reilly-esque queens in pro wrestling?

I don’t know that ENDS fully works, but I love that they tried something different rather than going through the same old motions. It’s worth remembering that SEASON OF THE WITCH was rejected by critics and audiences on its initial release, despite now being widely beloved for its strangeness. I see a similar fate for ENDS—it’s not what most people wanted from HALLOWEEN right now, but once we get some distance, people are going to start appreciating it for what it actually is. The opening scene alone is a GOAT slasher opening scene. So glad I didn’t have that one spoiled for me.

Turning Rampage into an ROH show is not best for business.

Well we have a new winner. According to Warren Sharp on Twitter, the Navy vs SMU gane had a 15 minute delay because the SMU mascot decided to take a shit about 30 yards down the field after a TD ??

AEW signs Maria the same week Karl Anderson goes back to WWE. I bet he’s so heart broken.

Road Warrior Animal would have words with you. Besides, beard+mohawk is all part of the gimmick collector gimmick.

That was a fun hour of wrestling.