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Everyone buying in and using the PLE acronym sound like if people on here using WWE Universe instead of fans. Yall should be ashamed of yourselves lol. PPV 4 Life

The Bloodline arc does not work without Jey being at the absolute elite level of character work. Roman doesn’t become a manipulative mob family leader without having someone to manipulate. Jey managed to be in that role but not become a dignity-less patsy. Sami does not become a player in this without Jey doing the jealous doubter role as magnificent as he has. And the Usos are an incredible tag team.

Tomorrow's headline: MAGNIFICENT MOROCCO

Bloodline is the most compelling story in wrestling in a very long time, I'm loving everything about it. Sami finally hugging it out in a genuine way with Jey Uso was fucking brilliant. I love them as a cohesive unit, really interested to see where it all goes from here and who will step up as the challengers as we near 2023 and WrestleMania season. By the way, Solo is channeling the spirit of uncle Umaga out here.. I seen potential on NXT but my God he's been an A1 killing machine since getting the call up. Possible future world champion. Women's War Games was fun for all the plunder. Lashley vs. Theory vs. Rollins had a dope finishing stretch. Really good match, very creative. I usually dislike triple threats but that was a blast. Another good PLE under the Hunter regime.

I get where you're coming from, but this one actually makes sense. Seems silly to call them "Pay Per Views" when you're not actually paying per view.

I could definitely live the rest of my life without ever hearing either Uso ever again say “You the twos, and we da Ones”, as well as Roman (with the crappiest looking death glare I’ve seen in a long time) demanding that everyone “Acknowledge Me”. Yeah I’ll acknowledge that you’re better in ring than you used to be, but I’ll also acknowledge that the bookers have their heads shoved up your ass, because they still dream about him vs Dwayne like that’s ever going to happen (or be any good if it does. IMO the last Rock match against Cena is one of the all time worst Mania main events, and I don’t see how he’ll improve with that many years off in between). They badly need to split the titles again or just have somebody beat Roman.

That main event was outstanding. Not many storylines in wrestling history are hotter two years into it than The Bloodline is. Jey Uso is both a Hall of Famer and criminally underrated at the same time. He’s the modern Arn Anderson.

The problem for HHH there is you could say the same thing for Wargames as you do for Elimination Chamber. Even just now they kind of had to scramble for people to fill the cages, and reasons for the matches to happen. AEW does Blood and Guts when it's warranted, not when a calendar says to.

Good catch. I'm pretty sure Corey was referencing Umaga when he said Solo had a Ferrari engine put into a Samoan bulldozer. I only watched the Men's WarGames because of the Bloodline story. It's so good. It was also cool to see Sami turn on Kevin after Kevin has turned on Sami/Generico so many times over the years.

All the boys got one part of the Bullet. Brian got the promo skills that unfortunately Brad didn’t get.

Hard to top Godzilla’s tag team with Jet Jaguar.

The Nasty Boys have a King Ralphesque ascendency to Dukedom, and Regal must give them etiquette and decorum lessons. Along the way Regal picks up Nastyisms the same way normies in Pauly Shore movies start talking about munching on grindage. Laughs abound.

dream matches? Mine - New Jack vs Darby Allin

Acclaimed were starting to get hot, but the angle with the Gunns and eventually taking on Daddy Ass (and Scissor Me Daddy Ass) was definitely a factor in them getting molten heat.

Admittedly, I have only seen that stuff very spottily and may be overrating how integral Gunn is to the act...though I thought he was fairly over even before this during the early period when Sonny Kiss was twerking at him in battle royals and stuff.

Billie Starkz main events Kouraken Hall at 17.

We just talked about this, too, and I think I started it because I think Dave's JYD slander disqualifies him entirely as a Critic Whose Opinion I Value. I also reject the idea that Workrate = Moves + Pace that has been cemented by Meltzer. Why do we never talk about selling or facial expressions or any of the other ways you can work a crowd as part of this concept? Dave. Larry Z got more crowd reaction wandering around at ringside avoiding Bruno than guys today do by doing dives over the ropes. I think as I've watched a ton of wrestling between '77 and '96 over the past years, I have decided that the definition of good workrate should be centered on crowd reaction rather than wrestler action. What good is a crisp suplex if the crowd isn't feeling it?

Oh, he's absolutely that. Road Dogg sucked. But the Cody tweet you were referencing didn't talk about talent, it talked about drawing and being memorable. I'm quite confident that quite a few people left arenas remembering the New Age Outlaws' act, and as I said, I'd even go so far as to call them a second-tier draw. In other words, you or I may not have much respect for the way he got over, but one can't deny that he was in fact extremely over at one point.

Okay, that clears up the PLE thing for me. I kept reading it and not understanding what it was, so I’m glad it’s a new term and I didn’t have a stroke or shift one reality over where that’s the only thing that’s changed.

I haven't got tickets yet, waiting to see if there is a magical price drop like there have been in other cities. It also feels like they're making a decision to push all the big matches to the following week and Winter Is Coming. This is also likely to be a "go home" show for the ROH PPV, which means it could be great or could be a very WTF show. All that said, if Takeshita gets announced I don't see how I can skip.

Fucking STOKED they coming back

When WWE does something right, they really do something right. Sami and the Bloodline is one of the best storylines in years great show

That show was great and the main event was fantastic.

God bless everyone fantasy booking Sami into a Mania main event while Vince is still breathing. @The Naturalhas the booking right. Sami is the guy you use to heat up Roman for The Guy.

I only watched the main. It was a fine but thoroughly unremarkable match. Owens was the only baby that brought War Games fire, and that’s what these matches live and die on (well, that and blood, but obviously that one’s already out for WWE matches). This did not justify the stip at all.

Sami really really needs to accidentally win the Rumble.

So I've sat and thought about this for a few days. I struggle with alcoholism, struggled since I was 18(I'm now 39). I give AEW the benefit of the doubt with things because they haven't destroyed good will the way WWE has regarding on air substance issues, but I felt really uncomfortable watching that angle Weds, but also enamored because it felt so "real", which it was to a sense. I'm willing to see where it goes, and if Mox gave the blessing for them to use his issues as part of an angle, who am I to say differently, but as someone who has struggled with it, it made me feel uncomfortable and "some sort of way". A lot of what Danielson said hit home for me and, it was just an uncomfortable, yet amazingly acted segment.

Claudio vs Jericho with fun stips FTR vs Gunns or Kingdom? Mercedes vs Athena Joe vs ??? Garcia vs ??? Dalton/Boys vs ??? (Go 2.0/Hager or Rush/10... Andrade? or I guess Cage/Gates?) As good as I think Mercedes vs Athena will be I feel like they need to toss a dream match on this... like Danielson/Shibata vs Briscoes. I would like to see Danielson/Shibata vs Briscoes. Would you like to see Danielson/Shibata vs Briscoes too? Can we will this into the universe and then have the Danielson vs Shibata singles match on the Portland AEW show?

The heat The Bloodline would get this week if they turned on Sami just because they can…

I refuse to call these god damned things PLEs, I'm sorry. Sounds too WWE-ey to me.

Never doubt me

Wall to wall good wrestling. Ray Jaz vs Invictus Khash was also good- even though Khash I want to be better than he is. I really dug Vipress' tricked out submission. When CWFH is good it is so good.

The video package on the tag titles just cemented that they have always had a long and loopy history lol So, this tournament is just going right along with what's come before. Weird to even throw Holidead and Chainsaw in there just to go back to the original match anyway lol I liked BK and Glitch together. Can't believe MAGA Jesse done turned face on us lol

Is Ricky Starks the first wrestler ever to sell a rib injury by actually taping up his rib cage, instead of his belly/ lower back?

There was a discussion about Road Dogg here recently, and I came to the position that he was basically a guy with a couple catch phrases in an era where that's all you needed to get over. He's Godfather status. It's telling that his tag partner was part of a good, reasonably-over tag team before the NAO existed and then got over 25 years after the NAO first got together in a different company, but Road Dogg just has that one catchphrase-spewing character in an era of catchphrase-spewing characters. All this is to say that I politely disagree with your counter-point.

Morocco's greatest day since Layla won the WWE Divas title in 2012!

I would like to point out that despite all the complaints that the CFP is “just the same teams every year” we are heading into a playoff without Clemson and Ohio State for the 2nd straight year, without Oklahoma for the third, and the first without Alabama since 2019. It’s almost like the 4-team system is fine and everybody else just needed to get better!

Hiroshi Tanahashi, EVIL, Satoshi Kojima, and Manabu Nakanishi in NJPW.

...And fuck that owl!

Ryan Day is now 31-2 in B1G play, 45-5 overall, and Buckeye Twitter is screaming for him to get fired. Which is absolutely batshit crazy on the surface, but I love to see it.

Bonus match: 3/5/69 Giant Baba vs The Destroyer: I'm a little under the weather (just a cold) so no running. This is 50 mins or so, 2/3 falls. Destroyer starts the match by saying that he's going to win with the figure four. He spends the whole match searching for it. He controls with holds for the first ten or so, switching it up, going for pins, trying to cheat liberally. Baba escapes using his strength but he can't get an advantage. When he gets it, however, he holds it for the next ten minutes or so, starting with a slick rolling leg pick. In general, he's not as smooth as Destroyer move for move but he just needs one to really press his strength advantage. Destroyer keeps things entertaining. He goes for the figure four early on a counter here but can't get it. That brings us to a bunch of headscissors, where he'll use hook or crook to escape, but then elaborately end up back in (eye poke, headlock, run up the ropes for headscissors takeover, right back in). At the 20 minute mark they finally speed things up with a rope running interlude where Destroyer dodges and points to his head. It's a great bit of dissonance, the idea he's the intelligent masked gentleman with teeth like that and the nose bulging out of the mask. Baba spends a few subsequent minutes slowing things down by escaping Destroyer's own headscissors attempt and just tearing Destroyer in half with a proto STF and half crab. This sort of brings us to the second half of the match where Destroyer starts leaning into the imaginary hidden object, going after the eyes with it. Baba tries to get revenge by going after eyes himself, which is another theme here, Destroyer drawing Baba into making emotional mistakes. Here it lets him take back over, but not for long as he ends up in bodyscissors. Baba has a moment here where he seems a little unsure how to put the Destroyer away. This whole bit is about Destroyer casually outthinking him and being willing to adapt and not focus entirely on the leg. He does start to work on it but Baba comes back and works on Destroyer's leg (emotionally), only for Destroyer to get him in a great bicep slicer. The other side of things is that Baba is just too big and too strong and too valiant and he escapes so as to beat Destroyer around the ring again. Big stooging here with a lot of Baba pulling at Destroyer's masking and ending with one of my favorite French holds, the hammering leg nelson. Baba has a lot of holds where the fans get to chant along as he grinds over and over. This is one. They're at around the 45 minute mark here and it's time to lean into the heat (post heavy stooging). Destroyer loads the mask and nails Baba on the outside causing him to blade. Baba fires back bloody and things are pretty exciting from here on in. Destroyer takes all of Baba's stuff, but gets another figure four attempt (#3 or 4) gets pushed off, tries a jacknife, but gets rolled over for a 3 that ends the first fall. They roll into the second fall with more of the same, Destroyer trying to work the leg, missing stuff, Baba hitting and missing dropkicks, both guys hitting and missing kneedrops, some nearfalls where Destroyer just falls right by the ropes, and more loaded mask, all leading to the figure four and the bell going off right when he locks it in. I get that they wanted to have Baba win but still protect the Destroyer by having his hold on as the bell rang, but it did mess with the drama a bit relative to this being either 0 falls each or 1-1 when the bell rang. This is probably the best choice for what they were trying to do but it didn't make for the absolute best match. It was excellent all around however.