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I see Mark Davis returning to action, that's exciting.

I will admit that I find the idea of Flair turning and spending the next year in a track suit with the Bucks pretty funny.

My interest in Sting’s final match just went way down.

ALL I SEE IS ANOTHER FUCKING BELT

Greensboro doesn’t give a shit about no damn Young Bucks. The fuck outta here.

Broke down the Cagematch title histories Samoa Joe was Pure Champ when Punk lost the title in the 4 way against James Gibson. Nigel beat Danielson by Count Out when both titles were on the line in 2006 at Weekend Of Champions Danielson beat Nigel while Nigel was Pure Champ at Generation Now, then finally the unification in Liverpool. Post Revival Pure Title Shibata was Pure Champ when he fought Eddie Kingston for the ROH World/NJPW Strong at Wrestledream. And last but not least, Yuta taking on Eddie on Rampage. Only the Nigel/Danielson series had the Pure Title on the line in addition for the World.

By all accounts, Sting got to choose anyone on the roster to be his final match, and he chose the Young Bucks. There's every chance that the reason he never worked them before now was because he was saving the Young Bucks match for his final one.

Not enough belts in AEW. How about the AEW Cosmos Championship? Does Tony Khan use all the belt slots like I do for VPW2?

Stoked for Bucks v Sting/Darby. Good choice choosing two performers who get the best matches out of everyone they face. Especially considering the clear limitations. Bucks-hate amongst the ‘smarts’ continues to be a head scratcher, but then evaluating them based on their terrific character/charisma (especially as heels) and excellent in ring work would perhaps be too logical?

This board is weird, I swear. Look, I get the Bucks aren’t all of y’all’s cup of tea, but Sting can’t do a singles match. Hell, he even has to do cinematic matches as a tag match. So who else would be better to put Sting and Darby up against than the Bucks. As characters, the Bucks are dickheads, they want to send Sting out with a loss, but in reality, there’s fewer teams more appropriate than the Bucks that can ALSO protect Sting and bump around like pinballs for him. This is the logical and best conclusion given Sting’s capabilities. Now, if maybe Sting wasn’t going full Cactus Jack in most of his tag matches then he’d be able to physically do the singles match against Darby, but he looked seriously fucked up at the end of that match last night. I don’t want to see Sting all broken down looking sad as fuck in his final match like Flair did. Give him the tag match against the Bucks and let Nick and Matt bump around the ring for Sting like crazy. I am almost sure that if it were physically possible that Sting would want to do the honors for Darby, but I just don’t think he’s capable of doing it.

That's pretty much where I'm at regarding who to keep. I like ELP and it'd suck for him to go when he has just broke out in the heavyweight division like he has but with his background and age I can't begrudge him for cashing up considering his ceiling with the company. He turned down AEW last year so at least we can assume he's going to be doing what he wants to do. Your mention of Cobb was interesting to me because although I've always rated him and think he's valuable on account of being so unique among the roster, it made me realise that I'd close to forgotten about him which shows how he has been downplayed this last year. I assume he's going. I was actually under the impression that they'd already started focusing on younger guys / other foreign options since around 2022 in anticipation of future losses. Successfully, judging by the number of people who are of the same 'if the War Dogs stay then we're good' mentality. A lot of relatively unproven foreign names added to the midcard at the time for a company with no money so now if a group of the more established names leave it doesn't look too bad. Bad news: EVIL was favourite to win even before there was a mistake made on the company website showing him as the current champion.. Good news: They kayfabed it majestically:

Holy shit. That opening to episode 1 of Echo is so unbelievable sad and also heartwarming. I was in tears until Fisk showed up. Probably the dad in me. My oldest’s name is also Maya, so that was getting to me too. And I guess coincidentally enough she’s talking ASL when she starts high school in August. So just a lot got to me in a way not much else from the MCU has.

This is dumber than the story mode.

I showed up a little too late for this one. Did manage to see "Surprise, bitch!" from Nyla and the responding "Senseless violence, but a message certainly sent." If it has a message it wasn't really that senseless, was it? Anyway aside from the non-chokeslam that was a pretty fun whooping. Nyla/Athena's gonna be great.

Sting/Darby/Shingo vs The Bucks/El Phantasmo was at the first Forbidden Door and it was fucking excellent - and I skip most Bucks matches, tbh...

To be fair, he has a terrible history of trusting the wrong people. (See Curt, a joke).

For me it’s the deconstructionism and winking irony, even when they chose to go through more conventional motions. There was probably a window where metatextual heels were novel and even additive but that was years ago and at the margins, not the center.

Hook vs Joe should be laid out like an NCAA tournament game where the underdog looks like they could win in the second half but gets overtaken by the favorite and loses

His match vs Spike Dudley from GAC 2000 is a forgotten classic.

RANKING: Athena/Billie Starkz Hardy Boyz Nemeth Brothers Young Bucks Hardy Boyz but Jeff is in no condition to wrestle and Sting has to immediately hit a Scorpion Death Drop.

Pop quiz: would you rather have the Revolution match be the Young Bucks or the Nemeth Brothers. It hurts like shoving a pen into my eye but I’m leaning Nemeth. One should never lean Nemeth.

My respect for SAS would have went up a little if he called him a fish eyed fool.

ACKNOWLEDGE HIM

As soon as I saw the ending, I knew that the internet would have the most level headed reactions to the Bucks being Sting's last opponent. I'm going to go ahead and take a wild guess that Sting himself handpicked his last opponent, so while not being a big fan of the Bucks(despite liking their matches for the most part), I have no issue. I also think it's somewhat refreshing in a way that we're not going to get a Darby v Sting match. A partnership that doesn't lead to a "fight" is something you don't see often in wrestling. Shit, even FTR has only faced each other once (I was at that show in Philly, really happy I got to see that live). Armchair booking and handwringing what was likely Sting's choice just seems...weird to me. The guy earned the right to pick his final opponent, no matter what personal feelings people have towards the opponents in question.

It was a Violent Gentlemen shirt being sold right after Brodie passed with proceeds going to Brodie’s family. I remember trying to buy one and they were all sold out online and I went back some months later and they were no longer being sold. It would be cool if they would sell them again.

Britt Baker randomly joins the Cole group one week like it's the Disciple in 1998

I'm no wrestlologist or anything. I'm just a simple wrestling fan living in complicated wrestling times. But shouldn't Sting's final match be against....I dunno.... DARBY?!?!?!?!

We live in a world where people earnestly expect a company that sold the most tickets for a wrestling show in the history of wrestling shows 4 months ago will go out of business tomorrow.

A new doom poster approaches~!

Did a girl beat a guy? If so, that's why.

have they ever talked about what bounties Bryan Keith has hunted or is there an NDA for that

I miss Mike Awesome. Did he have any good to great matches in WCW? I don’t remember any matches just his weird pasted on gimmicks about fat chicks and 70s shit. Or Canadian. Was he Canadian? I need to watch heatwave 98 again

The Samoa Joe stuff was good at least. This is kind of the Joe I wanted to get as world champion in TNA and WWE, but they would never execute. I feel we got a bit of it with Joe in NXT, but that's still NXT. People don't even really acknowledge that as a world title run for Joe. It's just sad to me Joe never got those opportunities when he was still in his prime, but better late than never. The promo segment was good. Set up potential title programs with Hangman and Swerve, and pushed his title bout with Hook, which is fine. Tony Khan social media meltdowns aside, there's easily precedence for the experienced veteran champion defending his title against a surging younger contender on TV in every major wrestling promotion. Tony Khan just comes off as embarrassing when he tries to justify it by bickering with people and trying to clap back to USA Network over Cagematch ratings, while also taking shots at Jinder Mahal, who like it or not, is a former WWE Champion. Bret Hart wrestled 123 Kid for the title on Raw. Ron Simmons wrestled Cactus Jack on WCW Primetime. The Undertaker defended his title against Jeff Hardy on Raw in a Ladder Match. Jack Perry got a title shot against Kenny Omega on Dynamite. You can find plenty of other examples, but there's really nothing wrong with Hook stepping up and getting a shot, especially for a TV main event. I get that at 64, Sting is incredibly limited with what he can do in the ring, but that main event was still kind of scary, especially that table deathdrop. I was truthfully kind of hoping that Flair would turn on Sting after the match because I always found the idea of Flair coming in to be Sting's what? His buddy or something as Sting goes into his retirement was kind of goofy and dopey. If you're going to use Flair on TV, and let's say the last match for Sting is Sting and Darby versus the Bucks, why not have Flair side with them? Seems more keeping in characters with them. Just have Flair say he made Sting 36 years ago, and he can't stand that Sting is getting all this glory and celebration when there's no Sting without Flair. It tells itself. And the only reason I say this is because the present matter with Flair being Sting's valet simply doesn't work. Sting and Darby never needed a manager. If anything, Sting was basically the manager to Darby; a pairing that worked out surprisingly well for the two. Claudio and Hangman had a solid opening match at least. Claudio did the job and made Hangman look good. Still not sold on Adam Cole's evil Kingdom stable. I'm willing to let this whole scenario play out, but this seems like a step down for Wardlow after he broke away from Pinnacle and MJF. But AEW squandered all that, and it feels like he's back to square 1. Same thing kind of happened to Hobbs and now he's in the Don Callis Family and just mainly serving as an upper-tier midcarder who jobs to the babyfaces for big tag team matchups. For one thing, it could've easily been Wardlow in Joe's spot right now. The main problem is that Wardlow is not good on the mic and can't cut the type of lengthy main event promos that Joe can. But oh well. It is what it is.

A payday for Jumpin Jeff Farmer

I read this as "full Esther," so I expected SAS to call Whitlock "an evil heathen."

on the subject of the Jericho Cruise

same. a few years ago i watched Mania after a number of years away. the constant cuts were SO DISTRACTING. i was more focused on counting how many seconds a shot would last rather than the match itself. for the record, there were VASTLY more shots that lasted less than a second than shots that lasted 5+. I only reached 10 seconds a handful of times over the hour i watched- mostly during entrances. Haven't watched WWE since and am in no hurry to go back. all of this. 100%. obviously Hunter is going to put Dunn over publicly, especially while they were both in executive-style roles within the company. i wonder how much of those production styles were taught that way specifically because of Dunn. Like, "you need to do it this way because that's what the boss wants" as opposed to "you need to do it this way because it is the optimal way to present this". if it's more the former, we could see a bigger change than if it is the latter. i'm sure it will take a few years to really be noticeable either way.

When I was a kid, my mom was so into the Bennigan's broccoli bites that she once just asked for all the broccoli bites they had, Ron Swanson-style - I've never seen it IRL before or since. They made 10 orders, got tired of it, and sent the manager over with like five massive frozen bags and some instructions to make at home.

Funny you should say that @Coletti, as I also fell asleep on the couch this morning and therefore missed most of the main event, except for the Bucks coming out. Hangman vs Claudio ruled, obviously. Surprisingly strong victory by Page, not that I'm about to complain about Page going over too strong, unless he's in the ring with PAC or Buddy Matthews. Both 8-person matches were alright, with the biggest thing coming out of those being Anna vs Julia and Cage& Gates of Agony vs Archer & The Righteous on Saturday. Roddy wins over Bounty Hunter. Undisputed Kingdom will be facing The Scissor Club soon enough, you can see Austin Gunn being the voice of reason between those teams. Wait, what? Sammy with another win over Starks. I hope this doesn't mean there will be a title switch on Saturday. Who am I kidding, it's a Battle of the Belts, of course there isn't! Joe with a strong promo, good for Swerve and Hangman to come and do exactly what Joe said was not gonna fly anymore. Well, at least HOOK has the win-loss record for a title shot! I like HOOK. A lot, actually but the fact that he has the absolute shit-worst, negatively inspiring theme music of the entire roster, does not do him any favors, with me, anyway. Some people must like it, he wouldn't use it otherwise, right? Either way, this is a good way to use him, and the fact that he has won almost all of his matches. He actually deserves a shot at something! Didn't see enough of the main event to comment, except for the Bucks. Yeah, no. This is not the time. Because who ever it was going to be, they had better be going over Sting there. Well, Matt Jackson pinning Sting to retire him would be quality trolling, I must admit, but still!

Toni saying Italian with that hard I... Good show, went to bed before the main event, sounds like a victory to me

If they get someone that's the complete opposite of Kevin Dunn then that might probably be the biggest change of regime from Vince to Hunter. It was always speculated Dunn would be gone if Hunter took over but I've always heard Hunter put him over publicly. I imagine that any of the production people in FullSail all these years were probably trained to be like Kevin Dunn. But even outside of the production, Kevin Dunn has had a shallow and negative input on the overall on air product that has tainted even Vince McMahon and Hunter himselfs philosophy on wrestling that might not ever go away

Two things: Toni should have instead asked for a meeting with ENRICO PALLAZZO. Secondly, was Anna shot by Homer's makeup gun?

As this is my 666th post, I am required to post Ram Kaichow threatening an official. I don't make the rules, I just follow them.

Fun show. It had all of the stuff I want from an episode of AEW. OC/Dustin/Preston Vance/Edge might be the leader in all-time great goofy "WTF" pairings. The women's match didn't have the random weirdness of the men's match but I really liked it? It definitely reminded me that Ruby Soho is just an absolute world class wrestler. She completely held that match together. She's always in the right place at the right time, knows how to sell, knows how to taunt and knows how to express herself via body language and facial expressions. Samoa Joe is THE perfect champion. The only thing I keep thinking whenever I see him with a World Title is why hasn't he ALWAYS been the world champion? The guy has an aura and presence like only a few others have. He's awesome in the ring. He's also the only person who can be a monster bully and suit-wearing, scheming puppet master at once. We're all guilty of overthinking wrestling (duh) when "just give Joe the belt, let him be a dickhead heel, build up a face over the course of a year to beat him" is all you really need to anchor any promotion. I'm not feeling Hook and never have. I don't get the character. That said, he's a perfectly fine choice to be the first guy to put Joe on the ropes for a little bit before getting his shit wrecked. Sammy/Ricky was such a weird match. I don't know if I liked it or not, but it was very interesting. Ricky did that insane rochembeaux on the ring apron. It looked like DEATH and probably could have been used to set up an injury angle. Instead, it was the spot to a commercial break for a match that ended via a random superkick. WTF? I loved Ricky's "man, come on" when Jericho's music started. He spoke for us all. Jericho having his song playing ala New Jack was a nice touch and then it hit me as to the possible reason for it. I'm only half-joking. The ring entrance is short at Dailey's, so he can't do the extended entrance. But there has to be a stipulation in Jericho's contract where they have to make it through the chorus of his song so he gets some kind of royalty fee, right? That has to be it. The main event was really fun. I thought we finally saw the anticipated on-screen paralysis of Darby Allin when he got overtossed in that playground bully spin thing he did where he neck cracked off the rope. Bryce FLEW over to him to see if he was okay. What an insane person. I don't care about the Young Bucks but man that was a fashion CHOICE. Between them and Hangman the mustache game tonight is off. My one big criticism for the night -- someone should have thrown a shoe at Renee in the Toni Storm segment.

Imagine thinking the overrun might be a big debut like Mercedes and then it ends up being the Bucks to screw up Sting’s retirement tour. Amazing.

the Bucks will intensify their feud with Sting by selling smokes to high school kids

Well, we need to take this seriously, because Raz has a PERFECT record when it comes to predicting doom for AEW.

We will have wrestlers involved and matches and ticket info coming soon. We are looking for sponsors, the more we can get the crazier we can make this card!!