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Kenny

I had no idea you felt this way! Why haven't you said something?

I'd have to argue that Swerve is making a case for himself for at least being an alternate in most Top 5's. I've really come around on him.

Only if we can fit Darby in to the bazooka.

Sting shoots MJF with a bazooka fired from the rafters.

You say that as if I or any of the other oddly named people here can do anything about it. Your whinging accomplishes nothing.

"If that egg-suckin' dog dies, he dies!"

I’ll vote for the lumberjack match this week if they do the right thing.

AEW signings in 2022: Top 5: 5. Toni Storm. 4. Wheeler Yuta. 3. Claudio Castagnoli. 2. William Regal. 1. Konosuke Takeshita. Honourable mention to Renee Paquette, Samoa Joe and Keith Lee.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that everyone who actually watches QT vs OC really, really enjoys it. OC had wonderful matches with Tony Nese, Ari Davari, Jack Hager, and Ethan Page this year. Of course QT is going to be a great foil for him.

IT'S RAMPAGE! Darby Allin takes on Cole Karter! Karter could be the new Buff Bagwell. JESUS! Allin hits craziest fucking TOPES on earth. Man, Karter is taking an assbeating. Karter crushes Allin's testicles on the toprope! We now move to the part of the match where Allin makes his opponent look like a total murderer. And he does. Allin is a budding Chris Jericho in that category. Karter is good at getting the crowd behind Darby Allin's STRUGGLE to escape the low-grade heel beating applied by Cole Karter. Karter needs to channel his inner douche more to become a TRUE HEAT MACHINE. Allin makes his comeback and hits a CODE RED! KARTER HITS A TOPROPE FALCON ARROW! So Cole Karter has the possibility of ruling soon. Karter misses on a 450. I'm digging Karter. Scorpion Deathdrop and Coffin Drop for the win. That was good. COLE KARTER! HOLY FUCK! SHANE TAYLOR! FUCK YEAH! Holy FUCK, Shane Taylor versus Keith Lee? Okay, now I gotta get this fucking PPV. The Acclaimed vs FTR would be good. The Bunny versus Hikaru Shida for the Pro Wrestling WAVE title? Sure. The Bunny is ratings, DADDY! It would be completely AWESOME if the Bunny becomes the WAVE champion. That would be a weird twist to this truly weird feud. Isiah Cassidy screams like a little girl! Jarrett and Lethal are a good old school heel tagteam, UNBELIEVABLY! Cassidy is our sympathetic babyface! Jarrett and Lethal are they new Hardliners. Marq Quen is the most SPECTACULAR Robert Gibson ever! Jarrett and Lethal do a very awkward finisher! That was fine. ATHENA! ATHENA! ATHENA! Will she beat the shit out of someone? One can only hope. Hey! It's Dani Mo! She's awesome. HOLY SHIT! ATHENA! ATHENA! ATHENA! Athena is approaching a GUNTHER/IKEDA level of ass stomper. ATHENA! ATHENA! ATHENA! So FUCKING AWESOME! HIT HER! HIT AUBREY! HIT EVERYBODY! ATHENA! ATHENA! ATHENA! Athena as the ROH champion and the Bunny as the WAVE champion is a future I want for AEW. Samoa Joe takes on Mr. Toni Storm! At Final Battle! Oh MAN! Darby Allin versus Samoa Joe? Jesus, that should be an assbeating. QT Marshall is a HEAT MACHINE! Orange Cassidy has taken the All-Atlantic Championship to a new, lunatic level. QT is backbreaker CRAZY! Ethan Page has a little subplot to the match, yelling at Matt Hardy! I wish it was 1999 so Matt Hardy could physically have a great match with Ethan Page. While we revel in picture in picture, the midcard and Dark Elevation all stars beat on Orange Cassidy, and Cassidy sells the back like a TOTAL champ. Hey! Brandon Cutler makes a cameo! Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford show up and causes a nearfall on a Diamond Cutter! Orange Punch to win! THE HOUSE OF BLACK! That was the greatest episode of Elevation EVER. AEW RULES THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD!

I freaking loved that Ricochet/ Escobar main event. And Lacey 3.0 or 5.0, she's had a lot of changes, better be basically heel Slaughter. That'd work, because she can't be a babyface. It never takes.

It's Sheamus taking on Sami Zane! Sami goes back to assuming the roll of Terry Funk en lieu of El Generico. Sheamus is still the new Greg the Hammer Valentine, what with him beating the fuck out of folks. Sheamus is wrestling like this is the lowest rung on the ladder to climb to get to Roman Reigns. Sheamus isn't making like Sami is GUNTHER- so this isn't transcendent or anything. Fun reversal of a Toprope Air Raid Crash into a Powerbomb by Sami! FOR TWO! Air Raid Crash by Sheamus FOR TWO! Jimmy Uso CHEATS! BLUE POWER BOMB FOR TWO! Solo Sikoa Beats the fudge out of the ringside Brawling Brutes! Jay Uso Superkicks Sheamus and Sami rolls him up for the win! That was fun. Emma kisses Madcap Moss! OooooOooooo! And she gets beaten to death by Shayna Baszler! Emma sells the arm damage. NEARFALL on a Hanging Neckbreaker on Baszler! Emma with a Tarantula! Shayna randomly applies the Sleeper and Emma taps! That was quick. Shotzi runs down postmatch to also get beaten to death by Baszler! Raquel Rodriguez runs down and doesn't get beaten to death by Baszler. Lacy Evans 3.0! I dug 2.0. Jesus Christ, Kofi Kingston gets to get beaten to death by GUNTHER! GUNTHER sells a wad before cutting off Kofi with something hideous. Kaiser CHEATS! Braun Strowman shows up and Kofi gets a nearfall on a SOS! Kofi gets a bunch more offense. GUNTHER opts to start mauling Kingston. SUWA DROPKICK! GUNTHER beats him with an EMERALD FROZIEN~! I think that was an Emerald Frozien. That was good. Not a harrowing GUNTHER exercise in stiffness, but it was good. Tegan Knox is back! Liv Morgan is still hardcore and crazy! Santo Escobar and Ricochet wrestle to take on GUNTHER! The ref throws Legado del Fantasma out and the crowd doesn't really pop like freaks, which is strange. GREAT fucking Tope by Escobar. I give it 1/2 Dragon Lee. I give it a 1/3rd Ciclon Ramirez. The crowd are watching something to the left of the match. This is good. Kinda Dragon Gate. Needs a little stiffness and weight or some Strange Style to make me really dig it, but this is good. Gnarly Superplex by Ricochet. Ricochet and Escobar SHOWBOAT their freakish balance and Escobar hits a Rana to the floor! Man, the Buffalo crowd sucks ass. Ricochet does the Will Ospreay Landing On His Feet From A Toprope Rana! Escobar gets his Knees up for the Shooting Star Press! Toprope Poison Rana by Ricochet! Ricochet hits a 2 Cold Scorpio Tumbleweed for the win! That was good! That was a good little episode of Smackdown.

Tony needs to go the Impact route of killing anyone leaving on-screen. MJF's contract is up and Mox snaps his neck on the next Dynamite.

Bottom 5: 5. Paige Van Zant 4. Saraya 3. Jeff Jarrett 2. Jeff Jarrett 1. Jeff Jarrett

NIFTY YOUNG MEN VERSUS THE FACTORY SPECTACULAR EDITION OF RAMPAGE!! Orangey Boy Cassidy vs Cutie Marshall: a nonchalantly agreed upon lumberjack match! To see who rules the Atlantic. Darby Allin vs Cole Carter: I want to say that if Bryan vs Bald doesn't win DEAN's Poll this week, I will eat a hat. But. I would have said that about Kingston vs Akiyama last week. So who knows? Anyway, both of the AEW Nifty Guys vs Factory Stooges matches have massive sleeper potential. Athena vs Former Ohio Valley Wrestling Women's Champion "Dynamite" Dani Mo. I am gonna go way out on a limb and predict an Athena win here. Hopefully she continues her YouTube tradition of "being" unprofessionally violent in the ring. It's really fun when she does that! Plus fucking Jeff Jarrett in the fucking ring again and fucking Saraya on the mic again. Will either of them win me over? I suppose there's a non-zero chance. I think it is more likely that Danielson vs Harwood gets zero votes this week than that I enjoy those particular segments. Still very very likely I will enjoy the show as a whole, though. It's also possible, perhaps even likely, that Elevation will be Gordlow's favourite pro wrestling show next week. While this edition of Rampage is, like, 60% aimed at my sweet spot (on paper), Elevation is pertmuch 100% Gordlownip. Can't wait!

Best wrestling Twitter going.

Not that anything outside WWE and a potentially profitable AEW isn't a money pit, it's that boxing is the ultimate boom or bust business. And not even like an audible boom you can show off. More closer to a very low roar. If I have an investors call, the last thing I would tell them is I'm going into boxing. Even if they wanted to go the Tyson Fury route, he is already splitting the pie with Top Rank on the US side and Frank Warren on the UK side. It would be silly for him to hand out another portion to someone else when he himself isn't a huge draw. If they wanted to do it with Logan Paul, that celebrity boxing interest is dissipating fast. We're having big name ex NFL players fight and either no one knows the fights are happening or the people who do know just don't give a shit cause the fights suck. Granted, it started off with way more interest than the original run of celebrity fights 15 years ago. However, it's cooled off tremendously. I mean they probably could be the third wheel co promoter when he fights some Youtuber, but that's a weird way to piss away money when the last several years they've been risk averse. If they try to go all in where they try to build around one huge star (none out there really so yeah), the America Presents promotional model 20+ years ago proves that ain't going to work. They (a combo of businessman Mat Tinley and late boxing promoter/hustler Dan Goossen of the famed Goossen boxing family) were able to woo Mike Tyson for a handful of fights in his final years of relevancy as a fighter in the hopes of luring away a potential megastar in the making. At the time, they said as much themselves saying they were looking for the next Mike Tyson. Guess what? Almost two and a half decades later, folks are still in search for the next Mike Tyson. America Presents lasted 3 or 4 years and then went away quickly as they appeared. We're talking about a time in boxing where the landscape was much more open and friendly to promoters that weren't Bob Arum or Don King. You had the aforementioned America Presents, you had Cedric Kushner Promotions which had Sugar Shane Mosley and Virgil Hill, you had Square Ring promoting Roy Jones Jr., you had the revival of Forum Boxing that Jerry Buss started which had Mark "Too Sharp" Johnson and a bunch of great Mexican boxers like Juan Manuel Marquez and Marco Antonio Barrera, you had Main Events which promoted Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Vernon Forrest, and Arturo Gatti, and a few other notable promotions. Now? It's Bob Arum, Eddie Hearn, and Al Haymon with De La Hoya's promotion Golden Boy barely hanging on. If you're not with those first three especially, good luck trying to be a star or running a show that makes ANY money. That monopoly is so strong it absolutely ended an American premium cable staple in HBO boxing, which was around for decades. No one is going to break that monopoly. 50 Cent didn't do it. Jay Z didn't do it. Triller certainly hasn't done it. As already mentioned, Dana White didn't even get out of the starting blocks. He got so frustrated he just decided to fucking promote slap boxing instead and get it legalized as an actual sport in Nevada. If Dana White the most equipped person for something like that (even with all his shortcomings) doesn't want the smoke, Nick Khan and Paul Levesque definitely don't want that smoke.

Enjoyed the Darby and Athena matches, Nate Webb and Kevin Thorn were fun easter eggs, and they got me to bite on a QT nearfall. A worthwhile Rampage imo. I'm much more excited about Joe vs. Darby than I am about Joe vs. Juice.

Let's go #FTR. Make it so.

The weirdest thing with Cody was his AEW Unrestricted interview about the charity a week before he was gone.

Guys, can't we get BEYOND Thunderdome?! (I stole that joke from MST3K)

It's clickbait.

Conversely, the first company to actually electrocute Drew Brees will have my unending consumer loyalty.

Well said, (from the first few pages) it feels like it's being overlooked how well Friedman did making himself unlikeable again. At the very least offer some points for not being a cool heel. Further, it feels inconclusive in 2022 whether the 'X-Pac heat' is actually damaging. Or if it's actual go away heat in the case of Max Friedman. The turn on Regal and everything he did in this re-established himself Truly as a Heel. He also set-up a lot of potential matches. I heard the name Eddie Kingston and thought 'that's certainly a program I'd care to see'. I kinda liked him digging in on all his favorite topics. And I liked his flat out proclaiming himself to wrestle only on PPV, and on rare occasion! Bryan was so great selling the Regal shit. Goddamn am I ever sad to see William go... but... considering they were losing him, this felt like an incredibly fun exit for the Gentleman Villain. Regal in AEW, and the BCC, and what could have been? I've been watching everything on tape delay. And in preference. Early Thursday mornings for Dynamite. Wrestling over breakfast is a beautiful thing. This week's show at an hour 50 with a few skims was excellent - where maybe it didn't seem as such over the 2 hour duration, and without whatever that Acclaimed promo was. Watching this show with the ability to skim Willow-Anna and mostly ffwd the clearly terrible Jade segment made it inevitably a hit. I'm sold. I was initially amused by this song choice. Then on 3rd run I was thinking maybe less so. I don't know the Kansas catalog outside of the 2 songs that have repetitiously played on the radio since their 70 something release. When those songs come on the radio I change the channel. Always. But Wrestling certainly has a way with music! The Omega visual is the perfect sell. Re: 11/30/22 Dax Harwood v Bryan Danielson was 'fucking awesome!' I especially loved the somewhat unique (or fresh to me) work around the barricade. So fun! Similar thoughts on Joe v AR Fox. Just a perfect assbeating with enough thrills to come away better for it. Grumpy old man assbeater Joe is the best Joe! Bring on the slightly promoted Final Battle PPV. Which I'm fine with being a thrown together set of dream matches - one featuring the Briscoes. I'll happily take a 3rd round of FTR v Briscoes? Put a cage on it if you must. Omega/Bucks v Death Triangle still have a long way to 7 but thus far it's been an exceptional 'piece of business.' Note: all matches viewed with heavenly audio effect that brings the live crowd to the forefront (a good one in this instance) while making the commentary a background squeak. I love it so much!

What a great comparison. To take it a step further, I'd say Douglas and MJF both have a propensity to give into their worst instincts at times (MJF with the 'bidding war' stuff and going far too long, and Shane undermining some of his own otherwise great promos with less-than-necessary cussing and 'Dick Flair' stuff).

Makes sense as MJF is kind of a mash-up of Shane Douglas/Impact Player shootier stuff with some of Mick Foley's praising Eric Bischoff promos mixed in.

I wish I looked that good now, much less at 68. Damn.

I like the Nak took the time to not only take a cute picture of Imperium, but also to censor GUNTHER.

Yeah, this looks more like Harrison Ford in ROTJ let’s get this over with burnout than Love & Thunder where Pratt looked like he was watching Feige hold his family hostage right next to the camera lens.

Tanahashi and 68 year old Fujinami

Am I about to spend 35 american dollars to pre-order Andre the Giant in a teal sportscoat? You bet your ass.

PENTIMENT [4] A biggish budget Disco Elysium-like with a heavy emphasis on charm and art history headed by the person behind Fallout New Vegas, but also an EXTREMELY deft hand in how it reveals how your build effects what you see. Disco has the bold idea to show you options you can roll on even if your stats won't clear them, to plant more specific seeds about the kind of player you might like to try next time. Pentiment instead at no point reveals what's available for different builds, and those different builds can change on six different factors (so far! I'm only in act 2!). I am in constant awe of what they've done here. High marks, strong recommendation, probably #3 on my top 5 but I could see it passing SIGNALIS.

Antonio Brown, who is legitimately a hall of fame talent, played at Central Michigan. If you think that happened on accident, you don't understand how football works. There is not a football team on earth without at least 1 crazy person. The amount of crazy it takes to overwhelm his talent is outrageous. Just think how many people have to say, "nope, I'm not doing that," for him to get to Central Michigan. Also, do a Google image search of his team photos from Central Michigan, you won't be disappointed.

The Holiday special was super fun. Drax and Mantis are a wonderful chaotic duo.

Not to be confused with bringing a stadium show to a minor international market "For the first time ever, The WWE is going to Bahtoo Stadium in Mandelay, Myanmar"

I've never been happier to have named my old dog after Emi.

"I HAD A JACKASS, AND I LOVEDDDDD THAT JACKASS, ONE DAY MY DADDY SAID THAT JACKASS HAS NO MORE USEEE TO US... MY DADDY THEN SHOT THAT JACKASS, APOLLO CREED"

This whole MJF bit reminds me of the Dudley's winning the ECW tag straps and Bubby saying " In ECW we became men and in WWE men become Gods!. Where gonna lay these titles on the desk of Vince Macmahon" then Raven returned. Wouldn't be surprised if Tony being such and ECW fan is cribbing from that

Boo. I will now, on principle, make a point to not buy whatever that ad was for.

My son is asking for an AEW Malakai Black figure. I told him they don't make him yet. He said he'll just get Santa to make it. Dammit.

They need to hand out some proper long-term bans. Make it clear that that shit is unacceptable. I get that emotions are high but that was really ugly.

Even though Koreeda is Japanese and up until fairly recently shot a good majority of his films in Japan, the cast is exclusively South Korean and shot pretty much in South Korea. So yeah, I doubt it would get submitted by Japan. I think the true story is South Korea going with Decision to Leave, which had a ton of Cannes buzz as well, It didn't win the Palme d'Or, but it did win Best Director. Tang Wei probably should be on the shortlist for Best Actress in a Leading Role as well as she is snatching damn near every major award in the country so far. AND SHE AIN'T EVEN KOREAN! And oh, this is Park Chan-wook's spiel a couple months ago after the film got submitted by South Korea:

Watched all of Dark and first half of Elevation. Enjoyed the Emi singles match and especially the Emi-Maki vs. Nyla-Shafir match. Of course I enjoyed Lard Lad, and Wingmen vs. Party Hardy. Cutler's comedy match was great. Always enjoy seeing Bunny. I wanted to like JAS trios but it was a little too squashy. Brian Cage and Angelico obviously have their fans here but I FFWD through Cage and Angelico once again couldn't keep my interest. Zack Clayton sucks. Guess I missed soem good matches on the back half of Elevation, will try and catch them, How could I not want to see Athena destroy someone and Party Hardy vs. Chaos Project?

Not going to lie, I think it'll be as good if not better than his Hager match and that was so good I voted it as match of the week last week.

They're going to have to fight Chatri Sityodtong and his Asian MMA Ponzi scheme ONE FC over the exclusive rights to the Myanmar territory, daddy. We gone settle it tonight in the Omni!

Let me take this completely earnestly from you, separating you from other posters. So I was pretty critical last night, and everyone watches for their own reasons and to fit their life, but this feels like an extreme reaction in some ways. If you were to say "I'm not going to watch live anymore." or "I'm going to avoid the main event scene." or "I won't drop money on the PPVs.", I hear you! I'd even encourage you. But the value of AEW is in stuff like Dax vs Danielson or Shinno Hagane v Angelico. If you don't care about that stuff (or some subsection of it! Maybe Hayter vs Storm is for you instead, or spotfest six-mans, or Mox doing his Hansen impression) first and foremost, I'm not sure why you're watching/writing about/interacting with people about AEW. Yes, you need stories and promos to help justify the matches and give them stakes and meaning, but you're always going to have an e-fedder's mentality to how that should work in this company. Just save yourself grief and watch it the next day using a source (FITE or otherwise) that has the PIP full screen. Skip through the stuff you don't want to see. You'll be happier. WE will be happier because you'll be happier. I want the company to succeed so more people can have work and there's stability, but I mainly want it to succeed so they can give me more matches I want to see. I'm actually in agreement with @Gordlowto a degree that I don't want them to score ratings and attendance success if it means giving me less of what I want. It's just that what I want and what he wants aren't exactly in unison. What do you want? If it's "well balanced storylines with compelling characters" first and foremost as opposed to "really strong matches that have at least a patina of meaning behind them," there are definitely better uses of your time than watching AEW and I'm happy to suggest a bunch of older wrestling and the means to find it. Yes, we probably should be able to have our cake and eat it too (though how many prolonged runs in wrestling history hit on both marks successfully), but it's probably not going to happen, so for the sake of your own well-being, try to maximize your happiness is all I'm saying.

The reveal kicked me directly in the feels.