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The Gate of Agony! Big Cuzzo should be signed to the Embassy. Teddy Goodz owns a toy store with his brother! He gets mauled by Tio Liona postmatch. Tay Melo would be good at studio wrestling, where she can do more of her fun matwork. Paris Van Dale takes a beating like a champ. taking Tay's Judo Throws and kicks to the head. Okay, Smiley Fairchild is the new Ruler Of Elevation. HEY! Matt Hardy and Private Party should go for the trios belt! Have Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quin do the majority of the work and do like here, have Matt Hardy come in and hit five finishers. And I see Kayla Sparks gets the fuck beaten out of her by Athena. Athena starts on the outside and I loved both knees to the face by the steps. Sparkz gets in a few things and then Athena BEATS THE FUDGE OUT OF HER! ATHENA! ATHENA! ATHENA! Postmatch, she CRUSHES Sparkz with the O Face! ATHENA! ATHENA! ATHENA! It's the Butcher and the Blade with the Bunny! The Butcher is wrong-voiced, I am told. Hey! It's Waves and Curls! I respect the fact that Waves and Curls don't incorporate any superfluous "z"s. They don't last too long. Oh cool. A Pure Rules match. Leon Ruffin on the mat, I haven't seen. Daniel Garcia on the mat is a known quantity. I wonder if he will go all Volk Han in this. Ruffin uses niftiness to get on offense! Garcia is awesome applying the heel offense through a PRISM of Pure Rules! Ruffin is fun in the middle of his second comeback! Hey! Ruffin does Strange Style! Leon Ruffin is the Ares of the Elevation set! Leon Ruffin fighting to make the rope break just to have Daniel Garcia double apply the Sleeper was SUPER quality Pro Wrestling. That was great. Daniel Garcia is fucking awesome. Jora Johl! They should figure out something for him to do. Preston Vance is being utilized and wins very quickly. SERP! SERP! SERP! No Luther? What the fuck? It's AR Fox! Who I'm assuming is getting signed soon. Fox is making SERP look like a million bucks, which is a reversal of roles. SERP kicks out of two finishers! SERP gets a nearfall! AR Fox hits like a Short Spanish Fly before winning with a 450. That was good. It's Mei Suruga! They should sign her immediately. EMI! EMI! EMI! It's Willow Nightingale in her first match back from wrestling in Japan where she took a Giant Swing from Miu Watanabe. She and Riho are the Moist Babyface Babyfaces in the history of Babyfaces! I watched this twice because I wanted to watch without typing. Riho whipped out a crazy Lucha Libre spin around Emi's shins. I've never seen that by anyone before. Emi always tell an odd story. Here it's about Willow wearing purple. Gleefully evil Mei Suruga is somehow better than gleefully babyface Mei Suruga. Mei goes up BIG for Willow's Pounce and the crowd freaks out! Great Spinebuster by Willow! Yeah, that Swinging Around Emi To Roll Her Up was really beautiful. TRANSFORMER! So Awesome. Fun nearfalls ensue. Willow SHOWBOATS her power and then hits a Death Valley Driver on Emi and Riho gets the pin after a Meteora! That was FUN. That episode was good to great. I gotta go back and watch the Garcia and Athena matches now.

QEPD

Gisele Shaw vs. Jordynne Grace was fucking bonkers. Maybe the best match I have seen on IMPACT all year and eclipsing a lot of women's matches in other organizations as well. Has the KO's division returned to the glorious Beautiful People era where it was the only reason to watch Impact or pro wrestling in general?

If I were booking that field we'd be getting an Eddie Kingston vs Lance Archer Japanese-style brawl as the finals. But AEW is pushing younger guys here and [Wim Hoff voice] that's... okay! I am, personally, less stoked up for this AEW PPV than for any previous AEW PPV... though I am still fairly stoked. I am not on the Push Ethan Page bandwagon. Is there even such a thing? There's definitely a Make MJF The Star bandwagon. I am not on it. I agree with William Regal's in-story take on Friedman. He's playing at being a bad guy and getting "I love him because he's so good at playing the heel role" reactions. I will be bummed out if Regal turns on Mox. I am not looking forwrd to MJF as champ with shows being built around variations of his "Do you want to know how I got this scarf?" worked-shoot promo. I realise I am pretty firmly in the minority there and I am OK with that. Storm vs Hayter,on the other hand, has me 100% stoked. Should be the best match on the card. I am SO hoping for a Hayter win. Partly because she's great but also because she's gotten over with the live crowds organically, and putting her over a big-name import would be a very anti-Burger King move for AEW to make. On the other hand, if Jeff Jarrett goes over, I may have to reconsider my fandom. I personally would much prefer to see Eddie Kingston on the PPV. Or Shida. Or JD Drake. Or Toa Liona. Or Wardlow, Hobbs, and Joe, or FTR... Who are likely to be added so that's.... okay! The ROH Title match is gonna be great and any of those guys could win and it would be fun to watch what happens next. A Bryan win, while possibly the least likely outcome, would mark me out pretty hard. I'd love to see him as champ when they start up the new ROH TV show. Though, Dragon really doesn't need the belt. As @Phil Schneiderargues in his latest Ringer piece, Dragon seems content just to be free to fight long interesting matches with a variety of talented opponents. DMD vs ex-Paige is not for me and that's... okay. I am curious of they will turn Jade 100% face here. SioG and Acclaimed have some good ring chemistry and some storyline intrigue. They could steal the show. I like both JB and Bad Dinosaur but this story is kinda played out now. Expecting FTR v Ass Boys, Elite v Death Triangle, and Hobbs v Wardlow v Joe to all be added, making the show too long but also more my kind of show. Also hoping for Kingston v Akiyama to be announced for the pre-show, and like Bryan v MiSu, steal the whole show.

Eric Bischoff and Vince McMahon should be tarred and feathered for making the "loud executive shows up on camera multiple times a show to be obnoxious" trope a thing. It's a bottom-three wrestling trope ever. EDIT: Maybe we can scrape some of the tar for this purpose off Mick Foley's head.

oh my

If you had told me that after 10 weeks, the Browns would have the same number of wins as the defending Super Bowl champions, I would have said, "That's great!"

NIGHT KILLER (Claudio Fragasso, 1990) IMDB ROTTEN TOMATOES SELECTED BY @(BP) I wanted to pick something on Tubi since a lot of the horror I’ve watched this year has been on Shudder or other paid services. This was directed by the auteur responsible for Troll 2 and despite being called Nightkiller has only daytime kills, so you can imagine what you’re getting into. (And then after I forgot I had to review it) “it’s a real stinker and I’m not sure if So Bad It’s Good is your kind of thing, so I’m kind of relieved you didn’t end up watching it.” REVIEWED BY RIPPA In a previous Halloween Havoc, I did a bonus review for the documentary “Best Worst Movie’. Just in case you are unaware, that documentary is about Troll 2 which has developed a cult following for being the king of “so bad it’s good”. One line from that review is: The middle of the documentary features the Italian Director and Crew trying to convince us that the movie is actually good and misunderstood. That “Italian Director” is Claudio Fragasso… director of Night Killer. Though he went by the name Clyde Anderson and he was known as Drake Floyd for Troll 2. That is just the very very very tip of the madness mountain we are gonna unravel here. (IMDB says Night Killer is the movie he did right before Troll 2 but as you will see when I get to the production horse shit might not be the case). This movie is such a bat shit fever dream that I feel like I need to talk about every last part and spoil the shit of out it. But this movie is such a bat shit fever dream, I almost feel like you should watch it first (especially if you know nothing about it.). I am gonna split this into two parts – all the movie related stuff will be in the spoiler box just to give folks the option of avoiding if you so choose There are A LOT of triggers in this movie that folks could find upsetting. • Rape • Suicide • Memory Loss • Psychological abuse • Manipulation • Police incompetence • Medial Malpractice • Mental Health Professional Abuse (I don’t know how else to say this other than, if this is your therapist, find a new therapist and file every single possible complaint ever against the old one) I don’t want to do a blanket “Oh everyone here watches Horror – DESENSITIZED TO EVERYTHING~!” I can’t assume that – despite the “waves arms” whatever this was – folks won’t take some of the issues seriously. Anyway, that should be the last warning from Papa Rippa Everything in that spoiler box is what I could remember from the one time I watched and what I could decipher from my shitty handwriting. I haven't had to do this is a long time. It was like memories of trying to review an unlabelled early days of Osaka Pro show. If you have watched this – you know that none of the actual killings have anything to do with the actual plot of the movie. This is because Fragasso wanted to make a psychological thriller and when the studio saw his version, they were all “Fuck That!”. They then brought in Fragasso’s boy Bruno Mattei to add all the gore and killing. (Apparently, they were no longer boys after Mattei since clearly Fragasso was pissed off. Now I don't blame him but Fragasso is also clearly half a bubble off plumb.) This is why it seems like you are watching two movies shot on the same roll of film. It also could be that they needed all the gore and killings because they were Italian and decided to release the film in Italy as a sequel to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. NO ONE got that memo. I mean if you are going do that at least run a chainsaw in the background or something. It is really hard for me to go with the “So Bad It’s Good” vibe that apparently this movie as attracted on the internet. (I found so many fucking podcasts about this fucking movie.) To me – Troll 2 is a much better example. At least that had people who had no business acting. Most of the folks didn’t take it too seriously and the you just had some alien vegans trying to turn people into vegetables. Here Fragasso – still crazy – was trying to make his thriller but went way too over the top. It was like he watched Fatal Attraction and was like “there aren’t enough disturbing themes”. God – this really ruined Tara Buckman’s breasts for me.

BONUS REVIEW: THE INVISIBLE MAN (Whale, 1933) IMDB ROTTEN TOMATOES REVIEWED BY @Curt McGirt This has been a bad blindspot with me in my Universal horror viewing for years. I finally got around to Creature from the Black Lagoon last year so this year it's Invisible Man; maybe next year I'll watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein or something. I recorded it before but since it was on TCM again it was irresistible. Claude Rains, a highly respected stage actor and theatrical teacher who had only had one film role prior, was chosen to carry this based on his voice, and it sure as hell is a good one. We open at your typical rowdy Bavarian-style inn/public house that's packed with local townspeople yucking it up, until the door opens to a wintry stranger wrapped in bandages with only his nose sticking out. They immediately get up to gossiping if he's an escaped prisoner or something while he takes a room upstairs. He calls away for a bunch of scientific gear and keeps throwing fits until the owner and his shrill, comedy-relief wife decide to throw him out, at which point he goes ahead and shows them the Full Monty. It's a brilliant move. You'd expect the reveal to come in the middle to end but it's at the very start and hooks whoever's watching because in 2022 it still looks incredible, in 1933 it must have had people fainting or running from the theater. Griffin, our villain, busts up the inn and escapes back to his former employer, assistant, and girlfriend's home, explaining himself to the assistant. He's a poor chemist who's discovered and taken this secret elixir that gives him invisibility but also homicidal madness. The latter of which he indulges in by killing a cop first thing out, then dumping a guy off a cliff and DERAILING A FREIGHT TRAIN which is just a totally evil thing for anyone to do in any movie. I'm surprised he didn't kick a dog to death or something. Anyway, he gets double-crossed by his friend and the cops eventually trap him. As with the other early Universals this one is a remarkably tight picture, short and lean and in this case especially, mean. Rains hasn't a question of sympathy in him until the very end. Unlike Dr. Jekyll we get no back-and-forth between normal and not normal, he's just batshit the whole time, ranting about the power to create invisible armies and kill and rape at will. Not only are the demasking/undressing/redressing effects remarkable but so are the fun little things like floating books and flying beer mugs and him absconding with a drawer full of money at a bank. The bicycle riding by itself is especially tickling. The other actors are just pretty much there in this, your typical stupid townspeople and blowhard police. Gloria Stewart is pretty in that '30s blonde waif with a nice perm way. But this is Rains' movie, and even though we only see his visage at the very end of the film, that mocking, angry voice is just perfect the whole way through. You know what, I haven't seen the new Invisible Man yet either (and have it on the DVR)... or all of Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon which had a pretty freaky ending as I recall. Need to remember those two for later.

New Day/Usos is a match that I'll remember for a really long time. The other matches that really have stood out to me this year at a really high lever are the "Yuta impresses the BCC" classic, the Eddie Kingston War Games and Acclaimed/SWITG. I think it was the absolute best-case-scenario of what only the WWE can do. They tapped into their lore and extended universe while letting four awesome wrestlers go out and have a great match with a fantastic story. It's a match that some 8-year-old watched with his dad or something and became a fan for life.

The frustrating thing about it being Jarrett and not Satnam is that it makes Sting come off as older.

@Gordlow You had me thinking we could be friends until I got to the Jeff Jarrett portion of your post. I can’t believe you’re not a fan after all the great segments he’s given us over the years (and yes I’m struggling to think of some right now). In all seriousness I like that I’m not the only one that’s going to be less than thrilled if MJF wins the main event. I think he can and will get better with more time, but for now his promos aren’t doing it for me either. Who are you predicting to win the ROH Championship match? Personally I’d say Jericho since that would probably get the most buys for Final Battle. My best guess is if Jericho wins he’ll defend against Adam Cole (I was going to say Kenny, but I can’t see them relegating him to ROH) at Final Battle. Your pre-show match idea would be phenomenal if they actually run it. I’d love to see them given proper time, and tear the house down.

"I cannot afford to pay three head coaches at the same time."

The Sami/Dragon match was excellent but that was "wrestling nerd" excellent and not something with any stakes or anything I'll remember three weeks from now besides "oh yeah, that was a great match." I am actively campaigning for New Day/Usos and will die on this hill.

Nice belt

Sr Documentary about Robert Downey Sr with Jr doing the interviewing Directed by Chris Smith (American Movie, Fyre)

Dalys/ Faby/ La Amapola/ La Jarochita/ Lluvia/ Marcela/ Princesa Sugehit/ Reyna Isis vs Alex Gracia/ Avispa Dorada/ Hikari Shimizu/ Ivelisse/ Lady Frost/ Mei Suruga/ Stephanie Vaquer/ Tae Honma- CMLL Tormenta vs Princess Aussie- WOW BK Rhythm vs Chantilly Chella- WOW Athena vs Kayla Sparks- AEW Elevation Daniel Garcia vs Leon Ruffin- AEW Elevation El Serpentico vs AR Fox- AEW Elevation Mei Suruga/ Emi Sakura vs Willow Nightingale/ Riho- AEW Elevation

Maybe Liv can get Abadon into WWE where they can start off scary doing supernatural stuff to intimidate their opponents and then later be befriended by a "wacky" girl who gets them to have fun and eventually dance all under the chorus of the announcers doing their best fake laugh?

Shaw/Grace make a run for it!

You're onto something there. The Impact Zone is not afraid of a chant along, it wasn't too long ago I heard a half assed chant along to 'I'm Matt Taven!' It had the velocity of a Raw audience, in awfully small portion, chanting 'Johnny Wrestling'!

Joe Hendry is proof that wrestling fans will chant for absolutely anything.

After seeing clips of middle aged Bobby Fish try to box and whoever they picked to be his opponent, you will think, "shit, they should just switch to throwing suplexes".

Exactly what I think when someone throws a punch at me: "NORTHERN LIGHTS SUPLEX~!"

It's funny because it's true. As we stand now: Jeff Jarrett is on the PPV. Not on the PPV as of yet? Wardlow, Eddie Kingston, Fenix, FTR, Garcia, Wheeler, Shida...

I think any Starrcade finish that was a prelude to holding the title up until Superbrawl was gonna be seen as a shitty finish Even if it's Bret coming in to ring the bell with Hogan in the Scorpion and a knocked out Nick Patrick, only for the dispute to involve "is Bret still a legal referee after the end of his match" or "Hogan says that he didn't actually give up" or something Now the other problem with having Bret be an avenging babyface in WCW is that he just spent the last 7 months as a heel in the USA. If WCW was in the business of logical storytelling in 1998 (which they sorta weren't) then Bret would gradually drift towards being a heel out of disappointment with the WCW fans/babyfaces (yeah, that might be too close to Sting in late 1996). But without Hart in the nWo. They probably should have killed the nWo at Starrcade 97, or at least killed the original and had the nWo members in a post-split civil war with each other. Of course that's probably a stupid idea with the group still selling merch and making money. So if the Horsemen could have long long runs after being fresh, then it would have probably been dumb to try getting rid of the original nWo after 17 months. Two of the bigger changes in wrestling happened so close to big shows that it inconvenienced the 'winning' promotion. Bret going to WCW before Starrcade 97 and the WWF buying WCW just before Wrestlemania.

Dolfan N. NYC, Super Genius

That is a WHOLE SECOND PAY PER VIEW CARD. FFS.

Still time to add four to six matches to this card...

LOL.

Still remember this, December 2013. Daniel Bryan was so fucking over.

Disney pretty clearly only gave the first 2-3 episodes to their marketing and merchandising partners without any clue about where the series was going, so we're ending up with gems like these: https://twitter.com/ZipRecruiter/status/1580951970713546752?s=20&t=DY4VeX0bm3e4PQHrzOiGHQ Someone needs to recut this but with scenes from the factory prison.

It's Bobby Lashley and Mustafa Ali! Ali bumps big early! Ass Stomper Lashley is the funnest Bobby Lashley. Ali continues to bump big and doesn't actually stop bumping big. Ali makes a COMEBACK! For a second. Lashley Spears and Full Nelsons Ali to oblivion! That was an exercise on how to make Lashley look even more monstruous than usual. And Ali is really great at that specific skill. It's Mia Yim and Tamina! I dug Yim's foray into IMPACT! Tamina has been off TV for a while. She isn't on TV very long, as Yim squashes her. Oh man, she SHOULD join Damage CNTRL! It's Chad Gable versus Matt Riddle. Gable hits the oldest school Vertical Suplex that it reminded me of Johnny Valentine vertically suplexing Bill White in 1973. So this match rules. Otis distracts Riddle to allow Gable to CRUSH him with a Released German Suplex off the top! Riddle hits a very nice Fisherman Buster Suplex! EXPLOIDER by Riddle! Powerbomb by Riddle! It's King's Road Riddle! Great trading of submissions, with Riddle hitting a slick Jumping Guillotine! They do some more slick stuff to set-up Gable CHEATING TO WIN! That was great. I liked that Riddle wrestled like a singles wrestler and that they incorporated Riddle's submission stuff. That was neat and fun. It's Shelton Benjamin and Dominick Mysterio! Benjamin beating on Dominick is akin to Danielson and Sammy from last Wednesday. Dominick is a HEAT MACHINE like Sammy. Benjamin will punch you right in the face. Shelton Benjamin is pretty underrated. That was 1/100th of Sammy versus Dragon, but it was the same idea. Kinda. That was pretty good. Dana Brooke versus IYO SKY makes this episode seem like an episode of AEW Dark on steroids. Tamina, Shelton Benjamin, Chad Gable and Dana Brooke are quite the WWE version of the Factory. Chad Gable would be the QT Marshall of RAW FAKTORY! Shelton Benjamin would be NICKY BOY! Tamina would be Aaron Solo. Dana Brooke is our Cole Karter. Great Moonsault by IYO. Booooo! Mia should join Damage CNTRL! It's Dolph Ziggler! It's Austin Theory! Ziggler has had an odd 2022. I loved his foray into NXT. I loved his use of his BattlARTS skills. Ziggler is more of Alex Reynolds of Dark Order. WWE has a very large roster and they flexing it tonight as all of their unpushed midcard is putting over their upper card. Theory takes Ziggler's DDT like a freak. Blue Thunder Bomb for two by Theory. Actually, Ziggler is like Jay Lethal- a good wrestler that they send out to have a good match with someone they are trying to get over. Fun nearfall on a FAMEasser by Ziggler. Another fun nearfall on the ZIG ZAG! Ziggler has achieved FULL JAY LETHAL status with this match. This is fun. Theory going crazy should mean that this needs BLOOD! That was good. Who will be the fifth of the babyfaces? It's Baron Corbin! It's Akira Tazawa? DId HHH look at the payroll and say, "Hey! I didn't know we were paying these guys." Either way, Tozawa gets some stuff in before Corbin beats the life out of him. Tazawa has a second comeback! Corbin kills him dead! So Tazawa is Fuego Del Sol of this RAW Dark episode. It's Seth Rollins versus Finn Balor! This should be good. Rollins is a babyface in peril and we are sympathetic to his plight, the low-grade offense of Finn Balor. This picks up as Rollins goes on offense. Nearfall after Balor rolls him up after getting the knees up! Great Tiger Driver by Rollins. Balor completely no-sells a Superplex. Rollins hits a very nice Falcon Arrow. Judgement Day shows up! The Good Brothers and Mia Yim show up! AJ Styles CHEATS! Rollins stomps on Finn Balor's head and wins! Postmatch, Austin Theory attacks Seth Rollins! This needs BLOOD. That was a good episode. Kinda strange in spots, but three good matches even if they were kind of randomly generated. HHH! HHH! HHH!

That volcano mask is incredible. Hides any faults he has as a wrestler. Valletta started out as nearly unwatchable in AJPW and ended up just being kind of unremarkable. So, most improved. Kind of wish he’d go with a Tiger Jeet Singh gimmick instead of a Bruiser gimmick. We need more dudes with sabres. His pecs are mesmerizing, though.

I missed Damo in the clip. I don’t know anything about him. I’ll except him, too, unless notified as otherwise. I know he was signed up for CYN, but dude might have just been looking for a payday, not on board with whatever else.

Watched the Masha Slamovich versus Kenzie Paige Coffin Match from New South on Pro Wrestling TV on Roku and that was fucking great! Kenzie Paige is the secret great brawler of the Indies! Masha is Masha so she brought the total ass stomp. The finish was hilariously indie.

The funniest part that in this episode after the whole crowd yelled "HENDRY!" he responded with a low-key "Hendry." ...which of course, sounded just like "KENNEDY."

Vikingo vs 1 Called Manders or Big Beef would be a must watch

Texas is Starks' second home so he'd be something of a local challenger at Winter is Coming. It'd still be an elevation for him to main event and come close.

Binged Cyberpunk: Edgerunners during night duty and holy shit. Great story that is totally not for kids, well-conceived characters, and a bleak and nihilistic mindset that will punt you directly in the feels. No good deeds go unpunished. Investing in these characters emotionally and then watching them struggle against the tide in vain is absolutely heartbreaking. Yes, I know that Rebecca is a loli. I do not care. She is fucking awesome as is just about every primary character in this series.

Am I the only one surprised that is surprised more people don't get beaten to death when someone comes up and tries to play them to their face? I get it, the show wouldn't work if every scheming asshole got killed every time they tried to scheme, but it should happen more often than it does. It's funny, because I knew that dude was doomed as soon as they introduced him, but I didn't expect him to go up to Ser Criston Cole and say, "hey dude, we're totally the royal fuck buddies."