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You don't wanna bowl with me cuz I cheat. You bowl a 7-10 split, I bowl 7-11. You bowl a strike, I got two of those too.

You are one degree removed from Reby Hardy, TK. Give her whatever she wants and let her loose upon your enemies. 6:17 on the crossword, dig it.

Hey, I wrote a blog post about how awesome a good story can make a person feel, in regards to Sami Zayn. It's written more for non-wrestling fans I suppose, but I thought my DVDVR folks could relate: https://www.getoutofdepth.com/blog/storytelling-wrestling-believing

The double standard of bitching about Tony no commenting him about a bunch of stuff and then refusing to even ask anyone in WWE about Vince when the biggest story in decades was going down is pretty bad. That said, Tony shouldn't be doing this stuff himself. He should have hatchet men for it. A Buck. Eddie Kingston. Maria Kanellis. Jim Ross. Someone fun.

You thought that sent the crowd home happy? I think you are nuts. That finish was massively deflating, and I don't think anyone is leaving that building happy. I thought that finish sucked dick, and them trying to pull a "happy ending" out of it was honestly just kind of pathetic.

I would like to see a full-blown Dark Order bum rush, everybody they've got cheating as much as possible so Mox can kill Uno in 5 instead of 2.

I think we're pretty much all in agreement that the Catty Females (tm Kevin Dunn/Vince)/NWO/Beautiful People direction on top of the women's division is problematic. Part of the problem is Toni's portrayal and that they didn't find the logical hook of resentment towards Hayter for getting over when she was carrying the division. Part of it is having Saraya (and there are plenty of aspects there). Some of it is Shida dropping out of things without meaningful payoff. Some of it is that it felt like they were leading to a big moment that never came back in January. In general though, I think it's just too small and too slow. I understand that the NWO had a slow burn to start, but given the pace of AEW's shows and of the way people consume wrestling in 2023, I don't think it can afford it. Part of what made AEW so exciting in 2021-2 was that new people were showing up a few times a month due to WWE's releases. Obviously this led to a problem where the roster got a little bloated, but in the moment it was very exciting and gave people a reason to tune in. People should really be picking sides every week as part of this story to help simulate that. I think Rayne should turn on Skye Blue on Wednesday. She's a more natural heel and has experience in a group like this, plus you could lean into the "coach" thing as her wanting to toughen up/show up the AEW girls. After that, it gets a little tricky because you want to keep the most logical woman to join far away from them, but I'd maybe do the one-two punch of having Deeb join and then having Nyla tease that she was going to be the great equalizer for the AEW side and then turn full heel to be their heater. I'm assuming here that you can't get either Mandy or Mercedes, by the way, as Mandy would be almost perfect for the Freelancers. So the ideal choice I'd want to not align would be Athena. They should keep running with Ruby as chaotic good but not wanting to align with Britt and Athena as chaotic evil and not wanting to align with Saraya. Anyway, you end up with Saraya/Toni/Deeb/Rayne/Nyla on one side and Britt/Hayter/Shida/Willow/Skye on the other with Ruby as Sting and Athena as Savage as wild cards so it becomes sort of Dangerous Alliance vs Sting's Squadron feud leading to Blood and Guts. Then to put it over the top, you have Skye taken out and Jade joining the babyfaces in a huge moment and you're off to the races. Obviously that's not the only way to do this, but they have to do something and I think going in that direction would 1) solve the need to have some more surprises/intrigue each week, 2) create a lot of matches, 3) salvage some of the current characterization issues, and 4) build to both an iconic moment and an iconic match. More speed, bigger scope.

I might have more sympathy for Helwani if he wasn’t so blatantly carrying water for WWE at all times. Can’t really be upset at TK for pointing out something that’s true.

The lack of DQ finishes makes an actual DQ finish kinda sorta exciting. Especially knowing there's another Swerve v Dustin bout to come. Keith Lee's hair, uh, hmmm, ahhh? Are we trying to age him? I was very much looking forward to Top Fox v the Elite, but the goofy Basketball shenanigans wasn't quite what I had in mind. Still some fun stuff in there, but a slight disappointment. I was also hoping for a little more from Starks v Garcia, but certainly it was fine. Oh man, I hate to say it, but right now the 'she's cold' complaint department on Jade is unfortunately very much correct. Wheeler-Orange promo was total cheese whiz, but I like seeing Mark Henry sitting down with the stars. Let's make that a weekly thing. There are few things I truly hate on AEW TV, but I find the constant bottom left 'Coming up' graphics extremely distracting and completely unnecessary. It's foolish to assume viewers are going to remember all that stuff, And(!) stay focused on the match. Just cut a goddamn segment and properly preview at the start of the show and the finish. It'd be fine if it were one graphic and shown at an appropriate time, but an appropriate time is not during the match. You're pulling away focus from the bouts with this bullshit dearest AEW production team! Stop trying to shoehorn so much stuff in. Hey hey, ho ho, the ADD promoting has got to go!

Haven’t been on the site for a couple months, so probably a good time for an update. Still have stage 4 lung cancer. Finished my fourth round of chemo on Jan 31. On Tuesday, I go in for a scan then meet with my oncologist. If the scans look good, I am done with chemo for the time being and will continue on with immunotherapy (Keytruda) every three weeks. If something alarming shows up on the scan, we will continue with chemotherapy. Scans I had done six weeks ago looked encouraging, so my oncologist isn’t expecting to order more chemo for me, but it all depends on how Tuesday morning goes. I’ll probably end up going in every three weeks for Keytruda for the next two years, but Keytruda doesn’t have the severe side effects chemo does. Survived four rounds of chemo so far. First two rounds were tolerable and I was able to keep going to my office and doing a little bit around the house. I was zonked out for a couple days but bounced back reasonably well. Third and fourth rounds just kicked my ass. Not only tired, but fatigued. Deep, all-consuming fatigue. Driving tired me out. Standing tired me out. I stayed home and slept more. I’ve been constantly tired the past few months, which I can handle, but the fatigue is something else. Even thinking about doing something takes so much effort. Nausea hasn’t been too bad. They have decent drugs for that now. I’ve lost very little weight. Had some bad go-rounds with muscle aches, but those bouts were few and far-between. Hicupped for almost two days straight at the beginning. Side effect of the steroid I am on for my immune system. Had to take something for that too. Family and friends have been great. People constantly offer to do things for me, give me rides, bring me food. I turned everyone down almost every single time. I have done tons of stuff I had no energy for but did it anyway. Drove myself to work, went to birthday parties, did chores around the house. People keep asking me if I’m up to this stuff and I want to scream at them “are you insane? I may collapse with one more step.”. I can understand why people stay in and curl up and wait for chemo to be over, but it’s not me. There will be plenty of time later for friends and family to figure out what life looks like without me around. No one needs a preview now. I am determined to hobble through this best I can. I am very much my father’s son, lol. Stayed caught up at work better than I hoped. I have good people who rose to the occasion and covered my slack. I don’t have the sort of job where I can just take time off or get a replacement. And…. We all care about the company. Obviously, I don’t have a lot of young people working for me, lol. Made partner. We’ve been talking about that for while with very little being done, but either someone finally lit a partner under the partnership's collective ass or, more likely, they.’re trying to see to it that my wife is comfortable financially after….. I have that taken care of, I think, but I appreciate the gesture. Also, we are very profitable these days. I’m hoping we grow large enough to attract the attention of one of the mega corps in our field snd they buy us up and make most everyone in the place damn wealthy. That.’s my goal from here on in: get us bought out before something happens to me. I’ve always been goal-oriented, so trying to race ahead of deadlines is old hat to me. Ok, enough for now. Getting tired and wife wants to watch a movie.

Either Jey should have cost Sami the match OR Jey needs to help cost Roman the belts.. there's no heat now for Zayn/Owens vs. The Usos Other than that.. the PLE was great stuff.

I'm responding to this thread (and catching up and liking posts) very late but I wanted to chime in that as a huge mark for Evil Uno's character work I think it's really fun that he's getting a brief little spotlight match with Mox. Remember ages ago when Noah ran Tenryu & Koshinaka vs Kobashi & Izumida as like a lil' acknowledgement of service for all of IZU's masterful comedy work? And Izumida could actually GO when he had to, despite what our collective misremembering might lead the world to believe. I think Mox vs Uno is gonna be a fun beating. That said I mostly agree that this show was fun but not great. Briscoe vs Woods was the clear highlight for me, both guys looked awesome and I'd love to see Woods move up the roster as a top heel. Him and Darby having a feud where Darby takes lots of suplexes would be a sight. And as much as I'm on about de-pushing Mox, Jericho and Danielson ASAP to make space for the 30 & under guys, I would be totally onboard for an emotional MJF vs Briscoe program.

New wrestling crossword up! (I apparently forgot Impact existed when I was making that picture...)

Something I've been meaning to ask here just to see what everyone's general read is: do we think Toni Storm actively dislikes her new role or is she just not charismatic at all (or both)? I really like Matt D's above proposed scenario, especially the idea of getting Cargill involved as a way of finally creating some wormholes between her reign and the Hayter/Baker storylines. I will also say that AEW has one huge (I think much huger than they realize) ace up their sleeve in that when Statlander is finally healthy she *needs* to either end Cargill's reign immediately of become the deciding factor on Team AEW vs Saraya/Storm immediately. If she comes back, as over as she was and talented as she is, and isn't treated as being super-special/new women's ace then she'll just become another version of Wardlow and the division won't have another big surprise feel-good return they can bust out. Thunder Rosa can come back and get a pop but I really can't imagine the fans not turning on her if she goes against Hayter.

I would love to do live commentary for the bowling event, only for Jake to grab me from behind by the shoulders and take my microphone. (From This Side of the Mic, Version 2, Chapter 17) Sometimes, (my daughter) will come up behind me and give me the Jake Grip, and I'll say, "Ahh! It's Jake the Snake Roberts!"

Snowman like Colonel Tom Parker, or Snowman like

Funny thing, tons of people complained about booking then too. Crazy, I know. Also, I'll let one of my favorite current wrestlers say it

I don't think this was directed at me. But I didn't expect them to put the title on Sami, nor in my opinion should they have. But for this to be successful they needed to effectively shift who Sami wants to fight. Coming into this the title was secondary to him wanting to fight Roman. So him not winning the title isn't the problem. The problem is not shifting that heat & personal issue onto someone else. The way it played out, it's more like Jey will have the personal issue with Sami (for Spearing him). It's kind of a backwards way to tell the story. And I will state it now, I'm actually in favor of both Reigns & The Usos retaining the titles at WM. Keep filling that heat balloon. This is the era where the profits are there despite what you book. They could realistically have Roman beat Bruno's record if they wanted to and it wouldn't hurt the bottom line.

Thought the booking was a miss. If you're not going to go with Sami winning, then the play was to get the heat & personal issue onto Jey so Sami doesn't even care about Roman anymore. Violent beat down from Jey (after it looks like he was going to hit Roman), just gross beat down that goes too far. Then you book Sami as a wildman stalking Jey, and trying to convince KO to trust him and help take the one thing Jey covets. The way it played out certainly doesn't put a lot of heat onto an Usos vs Sami & KO tag match.

Honestly, this board was only going to be happy with Sami wins. But the crowd was singing and cheering as they went off air after Sami and KO got the heat back old school, so... *yano shrug* So Sami wins, then what?

That main event was excellently done. I think if Sami won it would likely be my favorite match of the year so far, but the fact I was moved this much and really bit into each near fall is a testament to how special this was. Lovely stuff.

Montez Ford is such an obvious “the next guy” candidate. He’s right there, whenever they want to pull the trigger on it.

It’s been hilarious watching all the other WWE water carriers come out in support of Ariel. Everybody tripping over themselves to get their spot on the countdown panel one day lol.

Considering moving everything back a step in my large backlog and playing that when it drops, pretty intrigued by it.

We watched Rampage this morning before my son’s basketball game. He was totally into the basketball spots. It was corny as hell, but at least there were a few fun, athletic spots thrown in there. Like that Swerve is being featured more. I’ve really come around on him. Doesn’t hurt to be in there with Dustin bleeding like a stuck pig. Look forward to his match with Lee, hopefully at Revolution.

This is the most ridiculous take in recent board history. Tony has made plenty of cringe tweets, but this isn't one of them. 1) He's clearly half-joking. 2) After that bullshit Helwani pulled complaining about the TK interview, while hoping we ignore that he lobs softballs at HHH and we forget he was repped by Nick Khan, Helwani deserved to be called out.

Finally saw this last night (it’s been a long, mostly bad few months) and wish I had seen it in theaters if just for the underwater scenes. As a Mesoamerican Archaeologist (by education) I really liked the origin of Namor and the Tlakoni (?) being a Yucatecan group with a flower in a sacred cenote and motivation being colonization and genocide of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. I also liked that it wasn’t Atlantis given how that myth has been turned into racist pseudoscience. I was hoping they would go with multiple Black Panthers, including Okoye, but I guess it has to be a member of the royal family. I thought Wright did very well and showed emotional growth and maturity as a character, hopefully she can do so in life. Angela Bassett was a showstopper and I’m glad they gave her such a major role.

Just got back from seeing it. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think it’s a good launch point for Phase 5. I thought the CGI was fine to excellent, I only remember one short scene where it looked very obvious green-screen. Some scenes had a very Star Wars feel and for just a hot second I thought they might slip in an Easter Egg teasing that the galaxy far, far away is part of the Quantumverse.

It's probably the Rey del Aire even if they couldn't keep the momentum going until the end and I woulda preferred if almost anybody else had won it. Hiromu/YOH was unending and I just don't get why they have to go 30 minutes when the winner isn't ever in doubt. Dynamite was unfortunate and Dustin/Swerve was pretty cool. Yeah it's the Rey del Aire. Watch it so you can see a majority of the guys that you should care about in CMLL, consider it a big sampler platter. Your life will be better if you learn care about, idunno, Fugaz or somebody.

This is going to be a magical evening. It truly is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I know we have seen great “home court advantage” spectacles before. But Sami is different than Punk in almost every way possible. This storyline is different. Look at how all of us are speculating about what could happen and what should happen. I am going to enjoy this like a child.

I think her winning it would destigmatize the belt is the thing tho. But that would also necessitate her feuding with, say, Baker and Soho for the TBS belt instead of the Baddies.

The Sami segment was the greatest. A nerdy, neurotic Quebecois ska fan is headlining a PPV in his home city at the apex of what is the best storyline in WWE history. That is the magic of wrestling right there.

Awesome!

How am I supposed to vote when there’s no Bryan Danielson match on the list? This week is disqualified.

This to me is the big nagging issue at the moment. I love Danielson just like everyone else does but he's too old to be a guy you build around and he hasn't been protected enough to be a "special attraction" in a singles match so I don't really see any upside to having him main event a ppv at this point, especially when Ricky Starks was so hot coming off his big promo and match with MJF at Winter is Coming. Why not just have kept the feud cooking and run MJF vs Starks again at Revolution? The fact that Starks already lost once would just create less certainty that he's losing again, as opposed to Danielson who everyone knows is losing. Again, I love Danielson and am all for a title program with him and MJF, but not at a ppv. MJF's ppv challengers should all be future pillar-type guys like Starks, Darby, Wardlow, Garcia, Jungle Boy (who I really am not feeling since JE broke up but who deserves a chance), etc. Guys like Hook and Wheeler and Hobbes and Bowens as a single could be at that level soon enough too. They've created all these new guys and about a year ago it felt like at any minute any or all of them could blow up (Sammy even kind of got halfway there before the crowd turned on him and he was booked poorly as a heel). The way they've held back on really pulling the trigger on the next generation of guys at the top level has me worried that nobody is main eventing a ppv with MJF in the next year other than Danielson, Moxley, Hangman, Jericho, Cole, Claudio, or Omega.

Actually sorta thinking about this. Just $10 to get in and watch the festivities. You can drink beer and take pics with the wrestlers. $250 to be the fifth person on one of the 10 wrestlers teams. I wouldn’t do that but I actually think that’s pretty reasonable. And it’s a charitable donation. We’ll see, I asked a friend if he wants to go.

I'm late! It is on at an odd time! It's The Elite! It's AR Fox and Top Flight! There is a basketball theme! FUN! AR Fox is the George Gervin of highflyers- so classy and elegant. Okay, I am now tired of the basketball crap. AR Fox is a great Ricky Morton. Dante Martin and Kenny Omega is as good as Omega and Fox! Then all kinds of stuff happens and this is just an overstuffed crust pizza of a wrestling match. ONE WINGED ANGEL on Darius! OH NO! THE LIGHTS WENT OUT! BRODY KING! MALAKAI BLACK! Oh! That'll be good! Oh man, Yuta vs Orange Cassidy! That'll be good. It's Daniel Garcia! It's Ricky Starks! Oh man! Nice punch by Starks! Garcia hits a beautiful Dragonscrew to start his FORAY into beating the crap out of Starks. So Starks is wrestling like Jerry Lawler. He punches to transition. Great Lariat by Starks to counter his mangled knee! Garcia looks fucking GREAT in this. ACTION ANDRETTI! SAMMY! Ricky Starks goes all out on ADRENALINE and hits a lot of offense. GREAT finish. That match was pretty great. Garcia and Starks have a real chemistry and I hope they battle it out for many years to come. It's Dustin Rhodes! It's Shane Swerve Strickland! DUSTIN BLEEDS after Swerve drops a GNARLY dropkick to Dustin's face. Swerve is fucking great in picture in picture beating on the open wound. CODE RED! FOR TWO! GREAT DEATH VALLEY DRIVER ON THE APRON by Swerve! GREAT SUPERPLEX by Dustin! INTO A PILEDRIVER! FOR TWO! Parker Boudreaux! DQ~! BOUDREAUX IS WARDLOW! KEITH LEE! I would like to see more Dustin/Strickland matches. Well that was an awesome batch of wrestling. AEW RULES THE E E MOTHREFUCKING WORLD!

Matches have been great this month, but the overall build up and excitement isn’t there. Not saying they need a Bloodline level story or anything, but Tony has lost some of the magic these last few months. They are trying to differentiate themselves from WWE, which is a good thing, but maybe they are doing so in the wrong way? The shows are missing something imo. They are definitely missing SOMEONE.

This show (and AEW in general lately) seems pretty directionless. I still enjoy AEW. And there's still a bunch of good matches every week. But the buzz that had been there, the feeling that most of what was happening was can't miss... that's kinda all gone right now. It seems like I say this every PPV cycle, but I wish they would start announcing a couple matches more than a week or two out. One of the biggest benefits of only doing 4 PPVs is having time to really advertise and push things and make them seem like gigantic events. You lose all of that by waiting until two weeks is left to announce your matches. Here's to hoping some big angle is in the works to spark some momentum. I miss how things felt after All Out 2021. Punk was back. Cole & Danielson debuted. The first Grandslam was upon us. How do we get back to THAT excitement level?

Crazy fast deadlines, underpaid and overworked CGI artists seems to be the story. If anything something like Avatar 2 proved if you have the time and the money you can still get amazing CGI. Marvel just doesn’t care at this point. Or doesn’t care enough when their bottom line won’t really be impacted by spending another $20 million on CGI or taking another 6 months to ensure everything is top notch.

They should get weird and put the ring in the middle of the park, like when WCW did the Marquis of Queensbury Finals outdoors at Disney-MGM on one of the city backlots:

I think critics are very useful if you know that particular critic's quirks. Like, I know to take Meltzer's New Japan ratings with a grain of salt. I'll listen to what Steven Hyden writes about a heartland rock band, because I know that's his wheelhouse. If I know a movie critic has hated every Marvel movie and thinks they're bad for cinema, I may take him/her hating Ant Man lightly. However, if a critic that has generally been into Marvel pans it, then it may mean a little more to me.

Strong first half of round 1 and kinda shaky back half of round 1. Then a very nice recovery in round 2. Blanchfield is scary good on the ground. Still think Valentina might pose some tough questions for her that Andrade probably couldn't. However, if Valentina can get past Alexa Grasso, then it's a very intriguing fight.

The only way I see Omega signing with WWE is if Punk coming back into AEW leads to him not wanting to re-sign.

not to spoil anything coming up in 1984 but 2 around this time comes off like someone who would end up being hated by the fans who were backups on a sports team with a tyrant head coach. Just having 2 being a crusty old fart kinda unintentionally makes him come off like twilight years full-alcoholic Bear Bryant. From what i've seen in 1984, and this might be the case pre-84, but the WWE Network versions of these shows sorta suffer by not having local promos included.

I mean, there's the obvious elephant in the room answer that he's black.

Alright, I'm just gonna say the big dumb thing. The Danielson program is a time-killer. Punk is coming back and he's going to come back as the biggest heel the industry has seen since possibly Hogan in 96 or Vince in 99 or something. They're gonna use this to turn MJF into a mega babyface because A) he has the requisite charisma to do it B) really has nowhere else to go as a heel. I'm not guaranteeing this is going to happen, I am saying this is pro-wrestling and this is feasible.

They have said in the past that Revolution is their WrestleMania, but it still doesn't help when people see All Out as that. So yeah, it would do them some good to distinguish one of their PPVs as the biggest one. And if American audiences weren't such shit and turned off by round robin tournaments, I'd say AEW should adopt the G1 as their special Royal Rumble thing. In all my life, I don't think I ever once had an issue following a round robin format. Or better yet, and I almost hate to say it, use the Swiss format that Magic: the Gathering and other events use for their tournaments. Matches are selected randomly, the more you win the more you're paired up with others who are winning the same amount of matches, and then from that you get a final 4 single elimination tournament.

I have it on my ipod. It slays me every time, too.