Leaderboard

It's amazing. To summarize: Vince is removed from power because he's a rapist Vince muscles his way back in by holding any potential sale hostage Vince decides to sell to Endeavor because Ari promises to let him stay in creative A month after the ink is dry, Vince is removed from creative It's awesome that the "I'll owe you one, pal" guy, who built a career on empty promises, ends his career on someone else's empty promise. The "secure the bag" crowd will say "at least he got paid," but that wasn't what Vince wanted. He specifically maneuvered for his position in creative and he got out-carnied. Reminds me of Kanye getting fucked over by Nike. That's what happens when "rich" gets into a showdown with "wealthy." It feels good to see it. Not that I'm one to root for any corporation or billionaire. But in this specific case, where a detestable small time carny finally got his comeuppance, I'm cool with it.

I covered the two Danielson matches from last week (and a bit of Serpentico) here: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/10/aew-five-fingers-of-death-109-1015.html

I hope Vince quits, gives Billy Corgan $1500 for the NWA, and gets em an hour Tuesday nights on Paramount - just to see what the hell something like that would even look like.

I'm totally cool with a squash. I grew up on Wrestling Challenge and WWF Superstars. I'll gladly watch Ricky Ataki get his ass whopped in 1:30. What I don't need is something like Juice Robinson vs older than me Chris Daniels in a two seg JTTS match that's just there to eat up time on TV. If your TV is short squashes and meaningful matches, that's cool. It's the in-between matches, where there's no story, no doubt to what the finish will be, and it goes long, that I just can't deal with.

I never wanna hear anything about "why does Tozawa have a job" ever again.

People talk about coming through in the clutch when someone wins a game late, but the real clutch performers are the ones who perform just well enough to look their boss in the eye and say, "Fuck you, pay me." That is the motherfucking American dream.

Vince spent so long exploiting and cheating everyone in his life he couldn't see it when it was happening to him. If Vince ends his days back in a trailer park I would not shed not a tear

I think there's actually potentially another level to it. What do people watching care about? If they don't care about who wins and who loses or don't care about titles, but instead care about seeing "great matches" or being in the crowd for historic moments, about their cred in being there and being part of it, I almost wonder if someone like Kenny Omega could get actual heat/engagement by making it seem like a match was going to go off the rails and lose Meltzerian stars only to pull it back and bring it higher than before, kind of like fans clapping up a wrestler in a bearhug somehow. I don't think this is necessarily a good idea as it could damage wrestling longterm but if someone could sort of pull off this kind of Sabu-metrics, they could probably get over in a unique way.

I agree, a squash is all about the intention. If you're throwing someone out there just to remind the audience they exist it probably won't do much, especially a competitive squash like Juice/Daniels. A short squash to establish a certain dynamic about a wrestler (new person, new move, new attitude, etc) can be very effective so long as it's going somewhere. I'd be disappointed to see Danielson in a squash too, he doesn't need it so it would be a waste of his efforts (unless there's a storyline reason for it), but someone similar like Danny Garcia would benefit immensely from smacking and stretching a dude for 5 minutes and submitting him

If I paid for tickets to a show, I would be fine with a squash depending on the wrestler. I'd be cool with seeing Wardlow just powerbomb a dude a bunch of times or seeing Keith Lee yeet someone across the ring. I'd be pretty disappointed, though, if like Brian Danielson had a three-minute squash, though. I guess there are some guys where I'd just rather see their cool spot and others that I want to see do more.

I imagine DOD HTM as him going full on disheveled Fat Elvis and doing karate in an ill-fitting jumpsuit/gi and now I'm sad we never got that. https://chumley.barstoolsports.com/union/giphy/2022/07/04/5352afe5.gif?crop=4%3A3

mid-80s Watts would be showing Jade Cargill jobbing to Statlander multiple times per show if he was handling AEW TV these days

Jones isn't that great but the skill you can't teach is have your best season the last year of your contract so you force your team to let you walk and start over with a draft pick or retread or overpay you

tOSU hosts Penn State and Bama vs. Tennessee. And Duke travels to FSU in the "Are They For Real" Bowl.

Yeah...a quick Google search has Vince's net worth at somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.6 billion. Unless he loses literally every penny overnight, him being removed from a creative role in WWE remains a "but the bad guy still won" story.

The Honky Tonk MMAn would have been the original MMA Jeff Jarrett

Vince: "He doesn't deserve that black belt, Jesse! He did nothing for it." Jesse: "What are you talking about, McMahon?! He has a receipt!"

The WWF missed the boat by not having post IC title run Honky bring on Master Fuji as a Sensei and doing an undeserved black belt karate gimmick..

Disco Inferno will be showing up as HTM's protege around the same time Yoko debuts as the newest member of the Hart Foundation.

"For trailer park trash you are, and to trailer park trash you shall return." - Genesis 3:16

Final trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon

There is an alternate timeline where Karate zombie Elvis impersonator HTM dry humps Hogan at Halloween Havoc 1995. Then Joe Louis Arena collapses within itself from all the chaos from the Rapture and WCW is no more.

Putting new people to the promotion in squashes used to be useful, too, in that you could show the audience their moveset. Show them what they use to win, then, when they're in a more competitive match, it means more to see that move blocked or kicked out of. I suppose nowadays, by the time someone makes tv (especially in AEW) the audience has already seen them wrestle somewhere else and know what they do.

Wasn’t he just bragging about how he wasn’t going anywhere and bringing up how long his mom lived? So nice to see this dirt bag finally served some humble pie.

I think we just still use the general merch thread to cover everything. But speaking of merch I'm liking this one for Ricky. Nice and clean compared to some of the other shirts they have. Plus it's Ricky which 'nuff said. https://www.shopaew.com/ricky-starks-ricky-s-bizarre-adventure.html Oh, and catching up on Swerve's podcast Ricky's working on having his own cologne. So if you're into that then there you go.

Trevor May announced his retirement and then had some... thoughts... about Oakland's current ownership

I dig the squashes, fwiw. We’ve been conditioned as an audience for so long to think every match has to be between two stars, yet at the same time get upset when there isn’t a clean winner and loser.

This just came across my algorithm I always enjoy different takes on wrestling, not sure I've seen anything from Australia before and if I have it was definitely not from the 80s. Medlin is the older heel, Dunlop a young face who isn't afraid to cut corners himself. Dunlop has a good knee drop and innovative counters but Medlin might be too wily for him, also the fans boo a time call. Worth watching once!

Music City Wrestling. Nashville TN. December 25, 1998 Six Man Street Fight Reno Riggins, Steven Dunn & Bart Sawyer vs Flash Flanagan, Wolfie D & Ashley Hudson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfNJPggNIbI And the next night. 12/26/98 Double Dog Collar Steel Cage Match Ashley Hudson & Flash Flanagan vs Bart Sawyer & Steven Dunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9zBDID75oc

TKO has seemingly been holding the knives out towards Vince the entire time. They referred to him as a liability in filings. I’m pretty certain he’s the only major stockholder whose shares were set up in a manner where he can just sell and walk away immediately. Maybe he was optimistic about maintaining some creative input, but I think his primary focus for the past couple of years has been becoming wealthy enough to insulate himself from ever being held accountable for anything he’s ever done. I get taking some joy in this stuff, but the real stake in the heart was last year when the WSJ story broke. That’s when things changed irrevocably and his options became much narrower.

American Fiction Written and Directed by Cord Jefferson (directorial debut - writer: The Good Place, Station Eleven, Watchmen) Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, and Sterling K. Brown

Squashes can be greatly effective, but they can also be a fucking snooze/ratings killer/funsucker. Wardlow 'In Action' feels meaningless at this point. The powerbomb symphony doesn't feel particularly over anymore. Ppl wanna see him face somebody of value. If squashes are somehow a must for 'rebuilding' him then it might be more effective to book him against interesting opponents - see big huge dudes to show off his incredible strength. Not goddamn Matt Sydal. It makes him look like an asshole to be crushing cruiserweights while calling for competition. Going back to a Wardlow squash run with the recent history in mind of a previous squash run leading to a less than substantial run in the upper card feels problematic. Powerhouse Hobbs has been especially tedious 'In Action'. He just doesn't have anything that special (ooh a spinebuster!) for showcase like that. Further, Hobbs has had so many squashes that have led to, at best, simple losses to bigger stars. I dunno, I like Hobbs, but don't really see much passed gatekeeper hoss. Which is a fine enough role. The Keith Lee squash on Rampage was aided by the excellent bumping of Turbo Floyd. That's part of what's necessary, a great bumper. Still, any of these guys giving enough to make a worthy opponent seem worth defeating is more important and far more interesting than AEW Creative seems to understand. EDIT: Samoa Joe and Miro have both had a number of great examples of how to effectively squash an opponent. Or how to tell a story with an undersized opponent - see Miro's matches v Fuego del Sol.

Stringer Bell in the Wire

Just re-reading this, I'm still smiling and shaking my head. Vince spent his whole career trying to portray himself as something bigger and more legitimate than what he actually was. He wasn't a wrestling promoter. He was a producer of entertainment. He wasn't a carny who ran a successful carny small business, who was then able to go public and get even bigger. He was a respectable big businessman who should have been looked at the same as we view any other CEO. And then he went head to head with the real deal and got treated like a chump in one month.

I think squashes are also fine if they effectively do what they need to do for a guy. I also think a lost art is those mid-level type squashes, where it's basically a jobber, but like a few more minutes and the jobber gets some offense in. This is like how they would let top heels get some clean wins on TV while giving them lesser names.

My first reaction to the guest star was, "no, it couldn't be..." And then more and more throughout the episode I kept thinking, "well, it does sound like him, he seems like he's game for anything, so maybe?"

I'm hoping so - I assumed there were plans for Taylor after he wrestled Joe on PPV but we're sure taking our sweet ass time getting there, aren't we? I'm of two minds on the squash thing. Just Dave, you makes a excellent point on audience conditioning, but Tech hits a good one too with the 'match for sake of a match' description. I guess I land somewhere in the middle: I am 100% down with the art of the squash as a TV viewer - but if I paid $120 for tickets and that's what I got, I wouldn't be necessarily pleased. I think the happy medium is probably just to keep those kinds of matches to ROH and Rampage, and pepper in *maybe* one per Dynamite/Collision -- but ONLY in service of pushing a monster along the lines of Wardlow, Luchasaurus, Nyla Rose, Joe, etc.

one season, and he wasn't even all that great (who was, this year?), but I'm ready to retire his jersey number just for this.

That’s what we were saying this time a year ago. This shit is beyond stale. Thank god hhh couldn’t bring back ALL his toys from “ring of hunter” or it would be even more boring and repetitive…

It didn't feel like HHH gave up much creative power even when Vince came back. I just assume now he doesn't have to worry about Vince randomly wanting to change something on him that was already set in advance. Now he just has to worry about life doing that.

i'm just gonna imagine "Dungeon of Doom" Honky Tonk Man where Sullivan makes HTM believe he's actually Elvis until Wayne tells them all to fuck off and leaves

One would say that Brian Adams crushed your hopes of a Summer of 69.

The clitoris has over 8,000 nerve endings and it still isn't as sensitive as men faced with the possibility of a woman succeeding in "their" sport.

Love the closing from 'In Decades past...' forward, but the whole piece is exceptional.

I PROMISE that Blood & Thunder vol2 is IMMINENT but in the meantime you can buy the 2nd edition of vol1 either in hard copy (https://t.co/SlCjWMXH9K) or as an ebook (http://amzn.eu/d/dR1R259). I've also made Wrestling Can Be Anything vol1 - a collection from the first 5 issues of my 'zine and some stuff from STARBURST magazine - available to buy as an ebook for the first time: https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CJLT5T81! Hard copy also available here: https://lulu.com/shop/alan-boon/wrestling-can-be-anything-vol-1/paperback/product-6zm86y.html…! Both books come with a YOU LEARNED SOMETHING! guarantee!