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I disagree vehemently with Jericho's politics. I pretty much agree 100% with Punk's. But if I'm starting a wrestling company I'm picking Jericho over Punk every single time.

Wardlow is wild. He successfully wrestled a match against Matt Taven as a sympathetic babyface wrestling from underneath. As WARDLOW. That portends great things for a big man who can sell. That's some Vader shit.

Man, the whole Punk thing and the Hangman concussion really seem to have robbed me of some enthusiasm. This felt like a very "Burger King" episode of AEW TV. Maybe the most WWE-lite they have been in a while. Could just be me. You'd think I'd be able to find more joy in an episode with Mox, Keith Lee, Tay, and Wardlow singles matches. I was really hoping for some goofy Halloween shenanigans. That Swerve/Billy bullshit was the exact opposite of what I was hoping for. Were Kingdom dressed like 2004 wrestlers for Halloween? If so, that was pretty funny. Oh well. War-Joe vs Cage & Hobbs should be great. And Dean gets some extra space to include other matches on his poll this week. First episode of AEW TV or YouTube in a good long while that didn't have a match that struck me as great and/or super-fun.

feels like a catastrophically bad idea to try kidnapping one of David Schultz's family members when you consider what he did for a living post-wrestling

Just don't read all that shit. Don't let insider bullshit shave your buzz for pro wrestling.

Juice's best strengths are his babyface, fiery promos from the heart and his selling. He is terribly miscast as Disciple 2.0 and needs to be a babyface from the little I've seen of his heel work. He's not going to hit home runs all the time but he's definitely capable of the odd classic match and a lot of really solid ones. Good pickup. Now do Dragon Lee.

I typed part of this up in response to this but then life pulled me away. It was no longer relevant but now I guess it is. So I finished typing where I left off. I guess I’m interested in the term structure. You’re asking for something unconventional to be more conventional. Rightfully so, of course given the beauty of personal taste. Also rightfully so, it is within the same world and arguably considered style as a lot of these AEW wrestlers. But the question comes from Genre vs Artist. Does Jean-luc Godard make a bad, self indulgent Noir film or a great JLG film. Even if you switch it to good, self-indulgent vs bad [insert individual here], we are still coming down to the basics of concepts of comprehending art as either analysis or feelings towards a piece or story within the confines of norms, tropes and, structures OR an interpretation of the artists or performers in How and Why to tell their What, in their unique ways. Both are great and true, the way in which we all comprehend what art and storytelling is in a literal why. In fact, my post which I tagged you in I was actually agreeing with you. Without Danielson or Omega or Punk or [insert whoever here] his matches I’ll likely be less interested in. But with Danielson and Lance Archer he has the top two ranked Segunda Caida matches this year. But I’m taking a different approach to viewing him. I don’t feel he really needs to change much. As you’ve said last time we’ve discussed Page he has a lack of mid-level offense. That bomb style and combo offense is really what makes his matches special. For better or worse, it is more fun for me to see other’s both in kayfabe game plan and as a performer manage to tell their stories with such a defined character. Just like against Hansen, Attitude Era Stone Cold, Ric Flair, and so many others that are completely defined characters. Within the context of this defined world that is created, that is the psychology going into a bout. The story being told in the ring is more than bell to bell literals of following a traditional narrative structure. That is important and often what I value, but character, personalized artistic style, and context of story and universe before the match is very much important too. I fear too often in life people can dangerously desire a need to fit things into an ideology. Now with important things like politics and maybe even day to day (found out someone I respected was a religious lifestyle ideologue and yelled and threatened their niece for cutting her hair when that went against their bible, yikes) it is very dangerous. In politics, we see the same thing in that concepts of structure are what stops an idea of how to solve a problem and gets opposed on ideological reasons. Now in the other things in life, let us use diet as an example. People can be Dietary Ideologues and generally that is fine. Just like how they would address themselves in a sense of political affiliation (Socialist, Liberal, Conservative, Royalist, etc) they follow Paleo, or Atkins, or Mediterranean, etc. My brother lived by his diet and had a very hardcore strict rules in what he could and when he could eat. He lost a lot of weight and it worked out for him. In his case, having an ideology bettered himself. Now, if he was overly pushing his Food-Faith onto other people, he’d be annoying and like other prick ideologues that have a definitive answer to what is right and wrong based on believed conceptualized structures. Luckily, he didn’t and used his rules that worked for his personal body and mind to make needed changes and live his life with. So what about an ideology on analyzing art? Or even sports? With Sports it is pretty clear who wins and losses and you can go into more details on the Why, but that is an easier thing to point to. Kurt Ramus, coach for the Timberwolves in around 09-011 was a believer in the Triangle Offense and was dead set on running that. When he was assistant coach for the Lakers, it always worked! Well, he didn’t have Kobe or Shaq. He had Johnny Flynn running the point who arguably would have been a better iso player. But long story short and not mentioning we should have drafted Steph fucking Curry god damn it why does Minnesota always hurt me regularly oh the pain is real I just want to be put out of my misery why god why, his unflinching coaching ideology made him less successful. Analyzing art. I’m fine with it. I often do roll my eyes when it is lazily written on Reddit that so-and-so can’t work or in film discussions how someone can’t direct or write a good film. It is a subjective opinion, but speaking in such a to the fact matter, it is annoying. I would often see this about Godard who often challenged norms and created and inspired his own path to storytelling, on a structural level. Questioning the editing process, having cool breaks in the story, breaking the fourth wall, playing off of tropes, if Jean-luc Godard was a wrestler you would likely hate him. And that is fair. But I applaud someone who can challenge conventional norms of a Conservative Wrestling Theory in a way that connects so deeply with the audience. Outside of you being a kind and lovely person and even friend, your fairly defined wrestling ideology is why I enjoy you so much as a poster. Along with your willingness and ability to write a good deal of content regularly. But it is a treat to see and read you dig through French and Japanese wrestling history in the manner you do. I love your thoughts on the percentage of how much what you determine an “End Segment” should be in a match and how everyone should have three levels of offensive strength in their in match repertoire. It is a real treat to know and read you! But I don’t always agree with you AND THAT IS VERY GOOD. Our last back and forth was on CM Punk vs Hangman. We didn’t agree on the match but I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I also don’t feel the need to convince you or anyone about agreeing with me. Generally, I come from the standpoint of why I disagree. As posters and as thinkers, we are very different. Your goal (apologies if I am wrong on this) was to construct a reason on what makes a great match and wrestler. A clear definitive structure to help analyze wrestling. A match should have a specific segment of how long in relation to the match for x-y-and z. Realistically, the way they tell their story shouldn’t be repeated but fit within the confines of keeping the Flow and maybe even Pace of the narrative the same. Not just Narrative Structure should be followed, but this very defined version of it. The breaking down of analysis is very interesting and an enjoyable read, but the thought of anyone who steps outside of that to express themselves, make money, and create their own art as not being able to structure a match or create art or tell their story isn’t something I can get behind. I’m no an Adam Cole guy, but listening to him talk about learning from Shawn Michaels about a match should be more of a rollercoaster and the main goal to be playing with the up and down emotions of the audience really made me understand and respect his wrestling psychology. (I think this was on his unrestricted episode) It was outside of my own opinions on how he was assembling his actions, but it put things enough into light that I admire him as an Author of his own style, something we need more in wrestling. Shock the system. ? I’ve talked in the past about Page and his style. What makes him different in his combo style strong offense and in match character of building up moment on a dime makes him exciting as a character and despite being outside of your structure of what a match should be, is admirable in that he has his own style and adds something more to his matches. Auteur Theory in wrestling. lol, now I see your post was edited to take out “can’t structure a match” so maybe none of this is necessary.

I liked Menard vs Mox. It was a different sort of match up, relying on Parker on the outside and Menard's 1980s offense. It really was Menard fighting the inevitable tide though. I've been thinking a lot about aces lately from watching Inoki so much and one element of being a great ace is highlighting your opponent's strengths and unique in qualities and Mox is able to balance that with still being Hansen-esque always pressing forward and pushing his opponent to the limit and that's really admirable. Taven looked good against Wardlow. He has a skillset but I think it's not driving the narrative of the match against a guy who can take all of his stuff, if that makes sense? It wasn't ideal that both matches had a dominant champ fighting a guy whose tag team partner was helping him though. Let's just avoid talking about the rest of the show. Wednesday will be better. Dark taping had Athena vs LMK which should be brutal in the best way, right?

I’m always torn about shit like that. Like, yeah, it’s disingenuous, but the people who need the money don’t care. It still spends…

I also appreciate that he donates a lot to a lot of people in the wrestling world. It’s worth noting.

Of COURSE Eli should be in the hall of fame. The first Super Bowl I remember watching was the 1972 Cowboys/Dolphins game when I was six and the win against the Patriots was the GREATEST game I have ever seen. It was like if the 85 New England Patriots somehow nutted up and beat the 85 Bears. That should get Eli one foot in the door. And then he won another Super Bowl so he should go in.

Finished up the first week at the new job today. What a difference a week makes since leaving my last job of eight years. Still doing the same thing(Food Service delivery, except now delivering meat instead of produce), but driving a semi(after a twenty year break) instead of a straight truck. I rode with four different drivers during the week. My first day driving was Wednesday and that day was spent on the east side of Indiana. It all came back pretty quickly. Even though I worked pretty close to 60 hours this week I am not feeling tired, I'm not feeling rushed, my hair trigger temper has subsided. This has been the best week I've had in quite a while.

I was soooo bummed she didn't pop up doing the goofy dancing gimmick. The dichotomy of zany dancing Emma vs all the serious ass kickers in the women's division these days would be good stuff. You literally could have reset her back to square one like she was in NXT and earn the character arch again now that most people had forgotten about her.

These where the 1-800-COLLECT promos where Lee would call in from the town that Nitro is in next week to talk about how excited everyone in that town was that Nitro is coming, and would typically be tagged with a "weasel" joke at Heenan's expense. Poor Lee Marshall, never actually did get to see a live Nitro.

I just can't wrap my head around airing a show like this. You have The AEW Roster at your disposal, you sell tickets for a live TV taping, and you run Tay/Madison and a Matt Taven match. If you're talking about reviving the legitimacy of Rampage, you've got talent begging for more TV time and you're talking about the power of "random good matches with no build", why not just... run a bunch of those? This Wednesday is gonna be the first AEW taping in Baltimore that I won't attend. A Darby/Lethal rematch for no apparent purpose. A Marina Schafir title shot. Another foregone-conclusion Moxley semisquash. No announcement on the Jericho challenger. And you're running this card for a market who was left badly disappointed the last time out. It feels like an extension of this Rampage card, of willfully not booking a compelling card despite having more than enough pieces to do so.

As a reward for surviving the week since my hospital visit, I grabbed a Steam deal on the Final Fantasy I - VI pixel remasters (minus the one I already had). I am going to beat FF IV (II in the old numbering) if it kills me, I've never gotten past about 3/4ths of the game.

Oh it won't be long until Dragon Lee and Dralistico show up.

Taven is so underrated. He took a lot of shit for being ROH champion but he always delivered in the ring. That was quality pro wrestling versus Wardlow.

PART TWO! My son was in Richmond for few days because he went to three shows this week so he was staying at my daughter's house and he was telling me at length about the shows he went to. KIDS! And their Rock and Roll MUSICS! Then my oldest son came in and was telling me about something about a mod to Grand Theft Auto which would be like me trying to explain BattlARTS to him. So HERE WE ARE! Tay Melo and Madison Raine! Tay is all slick with the speaking of BattlARTS flying into a Cross Armbreaker. Melo looks great in this, which is a lot to do with Madison Rayne. Oh man, they lay it in on the floor while in picture in picture. Madison looks better in this than she has looked in a while, including her IMPACT! stuff. That was good. Ethan Page has moved up the card. HEY! It's Matt Taven! It's Wardlow! This should be good. If short. It's strange that Taven was wrestling in the NWA less than a month ago. Wardlow hits a very large Beel! GREAT Over The Toprope Tope by Taven! Wardlow sells the leg. I'm glad they are having an actual match. Taven is so underrated. NICE Dragonscrew while in picture in picture. COOL! A KNEEBAR! This match is so New Japan. I love this match. Taven is fucking great working the leg. Wardlow is fucking great selling the leg. Nice Knee to the head by Taven. Wardlow goes total Steiner. Wardlow BRIDGES UP! A lot of Powerbombs! Postmatch, Bennett takes out the knee of Wardlow! Joe makes the save! The Embassy! With Powerhouse Hobbs! The Embassy picking up Hobbs makes them the beefiest, meatiest stable in the history of professional wrestling. Once again, two shows in a row, the Moxley match is the least of the matches though I blame Daddy Magic. Matt Taven looked fucking great and Wardlow is a good professional wrestler who doesn't need to be but he sold so much for Taven and sold so well. That was better than last week by a lot, though it does still feel like an episode of Elevation on steroids. But I love Elevation so dug this. AEW RULES THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD!

Say what you will about JR (I have), but “Is it take your husband to work day” was spectacular.

Menard isn’t a technical marvel, but Mox is the best wrestler alive and everything’s going to be bare minimum good. Moxley is so goddam crisp. Discovery wants to present AEW as a sport, better do a kidnapping segment Billy Gunn could’ve been part of in 1999. Madison Rayne took some nasty looking offense from Tay like a champ. Fun matwork too. The main was the best version of HBK vs Goldberg I could’ve feverishly imagined in the 90s. Taven’s really good, but that and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee with this stacked roster. Puh-Puh-Puh-Puh Powerhouse

Sami is breaking up the bloodline in segments like he was Tim Conway in a sketch on Carol Burnett.

God damn, man. You really did him like that.

Fuck it. Jon Gruden, Urban Meyer and Tom Brady to the Commanders next year! C'mon Danny Boy, do it! ?

That, with emphasis that he gets every call, whines on the rare occasions he doesn't, and the announcers talk about him the way nitro announcers used to talk about the nwo.

Peyton Manning had the sense to get his ring with Denver and then hang 'em up.

Utter bullshit. People actually need to unpack what Hangman literally said. https://youtu.be/eSaizncuovY Did CM Punk get to where he is by taking advice and listening to everyone? Plenty of veterans and top stars didn't like his look or think highly of him or gave him crap for things he did differently. This whole argument is fugazi and everyone knows it. Booker T on CM Punk: "He's one of the main guys who doesn't take advice!"

Rich people engage in philanthropy because the alternative is giving everyone free health care and (gasp) paying more taxes - so they'd rather throw menial amounts of money away and take credit for it Any country that has its citizens begging for money on GoFundMe to cover medical bills and other basic expenses is irreparably broken

Caught Barbarian. Went in blind as blind can be. Fuck that was good. I legit had no idea it wasn't just home invasion serial killer thriller. Sooo good.

Yeah, it debuts tonight at 8PM EDT (about an hour from when I post this) on HBO. My mom loves horror movies is also watching it cold. She has no idea what will happen. It will be great!

(timestamped) The Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Randy Rose) w/ Norvell Austin vs. Rick(y) Morton & Eddie Gilbert This actually belongs in both this thread and the Cutting A Fucking Promo thread. This features a young Eddie Gilbert who is willing to get color for any reason and also walking heat machine Norvell Austin getting into an awesome screaming match with racist Tommy Gilbert, who I think calls Norvell a "black **something inaudible**". Norvell doesn't fold though and just runs down Tommy's son and pisses Tommy off even more. Then the cherry on top is Norvell Austin screaming, "AIN'T NOBODY BAD LIKE US! AIN'T NOBODY BAD LIKE US!" and blowing his whistle. Finally, accidental visionary Randy Rose chimes in with, "BLOOD AND GUTS, BABY! BLOOD AND GUTS!". You goddamn right, Randy.

I can’t begin to tell you how awesome it is to play stuff on SteamDeck that’s been lost to time due to rights expiring, never being available digitally, etc. I was playing some X-Men Origins: Wolverine and WWE All-Stars earlier today. Sound is a little off on Wolverine, but both of them play pretty very well (but locked to 30fps). No Mercy running at a very consistent 60fps and looks upscaled, it’s great. Now if only I could figure out how to get the original American McGee’s Alice. I’ve heard buying EA games on Steam is a chore right now due to their new launcher or whatever the fuck. Maybe I’ll just settle for having it on Game Pass. I did buy a few games from the Steam Halloween sale, though. Finally grabbed the other two games that the creators of Cosmic Star Heroine made, The Evil Within, Blood Knights, System Shock 2, Black Mesa and… lol, Skyrim.

It can be argued that Jericho not only sharing the fundraiser but also his own contributions could inspire other people to contribute. I’m still of the school of keeping your charity personal, but I know that in the modern online world sharing a link and leaving a note can be a big difference maker.

Let me pull out one small portion and have you engage with that, as while that's a fine post, it's more about restating observations and planting a flag. I think there's at least one area where we can explore further, of course, but let me start with one. After a brief clarification or two. 1. I tend not to contribute too much to the listmaking at SC. If I really opposed something I might scrap with Phil or Eric, but I'm much more about exploration and understanding than ranking personally. 2. I do think that Page has many excellent tools and that his character has a lot of value. I went heavily in depth about the latter recently here and you can see my write-ups of the Punk match or the Danielson matches to see some of the nuance there. To the best of my knowledge, Godard was not involved in collaborative work that impacted his peers. In fact I can't even think of a parallel. Perhaps if he was on a film festival and what he did potentially sabotaged or impacted the ability of filmgoers to immerse themselves in the other films at the festival? Certainly, his work might make more conventional movies seem staler to audiences in general, but he's not in a company with them. There could be some loose fellowship, maybe, but the notion of a single card of pro wrestling matches, let alone years of cards, cannot relate. He certainly wasn't a "world champion" or "member of the elite" with some responsibility to his fellows. I'm for experimentation, but I generally want to see it in the realm of character or execution more so than structure. If you deconstruct things in one match on the card, and everything else has to function like normal, it feels like both a cheat and sabotage. This is why I really don't give a lot of credit to 2010s Brock Lesnar and WWE Big Bombs main event style. The parallels I'm coming up with, like Taika Waititi messing up scale and scope for the entire MCU in Thor: Ragnarok with his treatment of Surtur or a hypothetical James Bond movie where a director tries certain things and disrupts the ability of future directors to make James Bond movies as easily all seem both shallow and not particularly useful or even connected enough to my point. Pro wrestling is just unique, right? You're certainly welcome to feel otherwise.

Here's the thing, I 100% agree with you with the 2007 Giants beating the 2007 Patriots being the GREATEST football game I've ever seen. I attribute that win to the Giants defense stopping the best offense we've ever seen more than I attribute that win to Eli. The Patriots averaged over 36 points per game that season, and if the defense gave up even half of that they would have lost. The Tyree play was fucking fantastic, and he gets credit for that, but that one play doesn't outweigh the rest of his career and get him into the Hall of Fame in my eyes. We are not required to give the quarterback credit for everything that happens with a football team. Eli did his fucking job and did it well, but he's not a Hall of Fame quarterback because his team won two Super Bowls that they would have won with pretty much any above average quarterback. With that said, I understand the arguments for Eli Manning, I just disagree with them. I have no idea why people think people like Matt Stafford or Matt Ryan should be in the Hall of Fame.

I get the notion that Robinson is a better face but he very much comes off as a guy making overwrought mannerisms pretending to be a pro wrestling as a heel. On the other hand, there's maybe nothing in 2022 wrestling better than Eddie Kingston fighting off two guys with chops on a bad leg, right?

I'm in Vancouver meeting pals and I'll be ring announcer for BOOM Pro Wrestling tomorrow and got to see my Phillies win at a bar while talking about the booking for the show. Life is pretty fucking great.

Matt Ryan shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame or in any sentence with Dan Marino. Matt Ryan was a good player. That is all. If it was all or none, I'd vote none. I'd rank the rest Big Ben, Rivers, Eli, Stafford, Ryan. I don't think Eli Manning is a Hall of Fame quarterback, but I think he's a much better candidate than both Stafford and Ryan who I don't understand how they are even in this discussion. Seriously, after last season, people were talking about Stafford like he has been anything better than average for his entire career. He had a Joe Flacco year and everybody just forgot that he was Matt Stafford. This year rolls around and he's playing like Matt Stafford and everyone is surprised. If Kirk Cousins fucks around and wins a Super Bowl, are you guys going to try to convince me Kirk is a Hall of Fame quarterback? I need to prepare myself for this before it happens.

Cornette thinks Moxley is the worst wrestler in the world. Not Omos. Not Lash Legend. John Moxley.

Hobbs vs Wardlow on tap! Hobbs and Cage reunited!!! Shiiiiiit yeah son

This will be in two parts! I gotta go pick up my youngest son at 10:30- as he is at some Shoe Gazed show in Richmond and I'm trying to reel in his ever growing response to the call of the wild. You raise them up and hope that have a modicum of common sense to make it to 25. I've got confidence. MOX and Daddy Magic start off the proceedings! Ange Parker CHEATS and the camera misses it! AAA LIVES! Daddy Magic crushes MOX's testicles a couple of times while we enjoy the picture in picture. Menard gets in touch with his Canadianness and procures the Boston Crab. MOX hits a Cutter! KING KONG LARIAT! Menard survives. SWEET Regal Knee by MOX. Menard takes advantage after Parker hits the ring! MOX applies the Sleeper and wins! That was perfectly fine. Daddy Magic is kinda crappy when he isn't brawling or commentating. Moxley versus Lee Moriarty will be good. Keith Lee is from Wichita Falls, Texas! My sister was born in Wichita Falls on Shepherd Air Force Base! AWESOME! SERP! I ASSUME that SERP will fly ver- and that was quick. Swerve goes insane! Oh right, it's Halloween! Tay Melo is in the ring and I'll be back at MIDNIGHT!

I hate Brady because I'm a Bills fan. Fuck Brady. Its not complicated.

I know you hate me but I'm gonna do you a solid and give you advice. Stop being so petty about this. You were paintedbynumbers. Now you're Pedro. It's not a secret. The mods haven't banned you again, not because they don't know, but because they don't care. If you stop fighting posters about it and let it go everything is gonna be fine. They would have banned you by now if they planned on doing it. Don't give them a reason to. Go back to posting thoughts and opinions like the rest of us and quit fighting the tide. Let it wash over you. AKA don't be a weirdo this time and there won't be a reason to be banned.

WHOA! It looks like Bandido is official now too!

I'm sad we're not getting another Abadon Special/Halloween Deathmatch this year. Last year's was the best.

World premiere was last night and the post-screener reviews are completely into the stratosphere.