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Like concussions!

you’re fucking insane

Collision is taping tonight, not airing live on Saturday. And they've added Mistico vs Angelico to the show.

Side note this men’s roster is sort of approaching 2002 WWE levels of stacked. And just like then, I’m not saying everyone is currently in a good story, or being used right, or whatever, but goddamn. You could literally Battlebowl the matches every week and you’re guaranteed classics.

Jesus, really? I retract my statement, then. Fire them both lol.

No hard feelings. It just drives me insane reading on Facebook how AEW just does random matches with no story, but then I have to remind myself that FB is a cesspool and the intellect level on the DVDVR is much higher.

Fletcher has 30ish matches in AEW and 20ish matches in ROH (plus holds a title from there) along with a pre-AEW and current AEW backstory with their association with Callis. Obviously anyone is well within their rights to not enjoy his wrestling but he's not exactly an unknown to AEW audiences. It wasn't exactly a big "in ring" night for Dynamite so they may as well have main evented compared to the other matches on the card.

Tay Melo isn't that young.

Collision is looking pretty fun overall: Danielson vs Shane Taylor Mistico vs Angelico May vs Adora Jarrett/Lethal/Briscoe vs HOB Jericho vs Titan

Hard agree, and I make no secret of it - but I assure you I'm serious! I'll take "different" any day over what could've essentially been a segment from any RAW from 1998-20??. And again, to focus on the positives: @Just Davemade a great point on the last page, it's not an every week thing (yet) and probably ain't that big of a deal - for me, it was just the totality of the long show opening promo AND the set-up for a same-night match AND the feuding partners trope AND the Nickelodeon LEDs all over the place. But what I should really focus on coming out of it: all the right guys were involved, Wardlow was treated like a threat, crowd's behind Swerve, Samoa FN Joe is still our WHC... there's lots to love about the players, it just wasn't the segment for me. The rest of the show ruled ass though, I hope we can at least agree there!

The clear mandate coming out of Revolution was “make Kyle Fletcher look less like Will Ospreay.”

For once, give it up to Juan Cena, especially after his horrible take on the Vince scandal.

Imagine the fact that we're fellow viewers of the show, too - I can't begin to think what some of the outside world would think of the "discourse" on places like wrestling twitter, or squared circle were they to stumble on it. Like imagine someone going on, idk, Al Pacino's page and being like "YOU DONT LOVE MOVIES, YOU LOVE DRUGS! YOURE KILLING FILM! WHY DO YOU MAKE MOVIES AT PARAMOUNT WHEN YOU KNOW MGM IS THE ONLY STUDIO THAT MATTERS?! MGM 4 LIFE!!" It's just so fucking bizarre, man. I don't watch WWE for a variety of reasons, but I certainly enjoy other wrestling besides AEW from time to time. I recently gotten some great MLW and Lucha recs from you guys here, I catch TNA on the streaming channel once in a while, an NJPW on AXS rerun here or there. Even back in the '90s as a kid, I certainly had my preferences, but I watched WCW, ECW, and the WWF all the same (as well as whatever else I could find) - some of these replies are right out of like, an election thread, or like arguing with a visiting Red Sox fan in the bleachers or something. Is this just like, how everything is now??? Like, people seem aware of it - I'm sick to fucking death of reading the word "tRiBaLiSm" - but no one seems to take any steps to correct it, it's the weirdest shit. I'm all for debate but my God

Or will he?

That is a big disagree for me, with a handful of caveats. I think they had a bunch of main eventers who could go. And that goes for some of the guys who weren't known as great workers - Lex Luger in 1996 is legitimately great on PPV as far as I'm concerned, and his Starrcade match with the Giant is excellently worked on both their parts. But in 1996 and 1997, they had Hall, Nash, Giant, Luger, Page, Flair and Savage doing good-to-great work, Goldberg doing solid stuff, and later Sting getting in the ring again and even the Hitman, who was going at three-quarters speed, putting together solid work. You add a bunch of guys positioned below them who are doing athletic, explosive work (Benoit, Rey, Eddy, Booker, etc.), and a few low-carders who are good fun (Mike Enos is consistently enjoyable whenever he pops up), and the work is really enjoyable when the booking moves out of the way. We can criticize Hulk Hogan all day, and he's one of the caveats. He's actually putting in decent work in 1996, but by mid-1997 a) he's fallen well off a cliff in athleticism and b) he's stopped working most matches like a cowardly heel, which he was doing right after the heel turn, and is taking way too much of these matches. Roddy Piper is another caveat as he was washed almost immediately after dropping the Intercontinental Championship to the Hitman and is in way too many main event spots over this time. One final caveat is that the undercard is often a mess. WCW shows rarely start with hot cruiserweight action, especially the Nitros, even though they somehow got a rep for doing that. I think WCW was absolutely a workrate promotion, though. They'd give Eddy and Chavo sixteen minutes on PPV or let Jericho and Juvi have fifteen minutes on PPV regularly. I actually think in 1998, both companies were workrate promotions. There were consistently excellently-worked 10+ minute matches on PPV in both those companies. I think WCW was more likely to give you compelling in-ring work on weekly television, but PPVs generally produced at least one or two matches with awesome work, if not more. And my hot take is that Austin was pretty boring on PPV in 1998. It's not his fault that he had to work Kane and 'Taker (who I think he has awful chemistry with) for a lot of it, but meh, Austin had a better '99 and a way better '01 in the main event spot. I think the big problem for WCW in the Bischoff era was the finishes. WCW couldn't book a finish to save their lives, specifically in the main event, and WWF could. WCW never had the strength of booking screwy finishes that were somehow satisfying, but that was well within Vinnie Jr.'s skillset. As swerves and screwjobs became more important features of wrestling matches, particularly once the calendar ticked to 1999, WCW was never going to do well. The other issue is that they tried to match WCW with shorter match times and more angles and talking, and again, WWF had the far better and more talented roster when the focus shifted to angles and talking and away from medium-length or long matches. One specific thing about late-stage WCW that I've been considering: I'm coming around to the idea that losing Chris Jericho to the competition was more shattering for WCW than I ever figured. I think it both signaled something about how WCW was fucking lame and WWF was the place to be, and it deprived WCW of arguably their best talker for the then-modern style of jokes, catchphrases, and creative skits. I digress, though. I think WCW's rep as the workrate promotion is fairly given, but is obscured by bad finishes, an undercard that was inconsistently booked, a move toward less work and more yapping that came to a peak in 1999, and the fact that Hogan and Piper spent a lot of time in main events.

There is absolutely NO age limit on stupidity, especially in this country. Apparently a great deal of the population not only does not mature, but they regress in maturity the older they get.

I love that the tunnels are back

I can’t wait to see how Jungle Boy single-handedly gets Okada and Ospreay fired.

I take it you don't follow New Japan. Kyle Fletcher and his partner Mark Davis were part of Ospreay's faction, United Empire. Plus, Excalibur mentioned that Aussie Open lived with Ospreay during their time in the UK. So, the story was definitely there. It was more than Ospreay vs. some guy.

Darby taking ownership of the baseball bat going forward as a literal passing of the…bat…and the way it sort of went unspoken but understood was just perfect. That’s great.

So I drove through part of Sussex County, Delaware today and yeah, a couple of rednecks from there makes total sense.

“As per my contract, you must convert your money into yen to pay me”

Angelico TV match!

The weird route we took to get here makes sense to me now. Rock is beloved. How do we get him booed by the audience that view him as an all time legend? You have it appear like there's some backstage BS of him pulling shit ti steal the match from someone WWE fans genuinely love. Because heels doing kayfabe heel things don't make crowds turn on you anymore. It worked. Heel Rock is back. Something fresh that we haven't seen in years. Now you setup the tag to main night 1. You have Cody win on Night 2. On Raw you have Roman attack Rock and kick him out of The Bloodline. And you set their Mania match up a year out. Definitely not a straight line to get from A to B but it makes sense now. I've been big on thinking Roman is breaking the Bruno record. But you will burn the town to the ground so to speak if Cody loses again. If they go through with it I expect a Cody win. They wouldn't dare risk it would they?

Nick Saban has done an interview where he explained his reasoning for retiring. He blamed the reaction from his players to their loss to Michigan. Said there were guys throwing helmets, etc., and he was upset by the lack of class and not by his failure to teach his players how to behave. He then blamed NIL and, with not even a hint of self-awareness, said "it’s all about how much money can I make as a college player". It's ok, Nick, I'm sure when you left Michigan State while under contract, or when you left LSU while still under contract, or when you left the Dolphins while still under contract, that it had nothing to do with money. Good lord, the hypocrisy. He should partner up Coach K and Tony Dungy and start "The Sanctimonious Gasbag Podcast".

Ehh. It’s still overproduced corporate nonsense featuring a handful of incredibly gifted entertainers and 75 people doing the same thing the same way. Still too focused on buzzwords and moments and “stories” that are way too complex and take wayyyy too long to play out. But, at least hhh isn’t a completely reprehensible human…

They have but if you don't like the WWE house style it's still a tough go. Jey Uso is the wrestling opposite of someone like Will Ospreay

Late Night with the Devil

Quake was just one teaching degree away from being able to be the Principal from Billy Madison. Only without the accidental death of an opponent. Theres quite a few guys that died in the early/mid 2000s who would have done pretty well when fan conventions became a bigger deal and I’d think that Tenta could have had a pretty good run of things during that. And in an era with more social media than just the wrestlecrap forums.

IMHO if you are running with Roman vs. Cody again, I genuinely don't think you can have Roman retain or do shenanigans again. I think you could get away with it last year because many people were shocked by it and were just automatically assuming Cody would get the win. But a part of me still believes Triple H won't be able to resist Roman surpassing Hogan's title reign. The only way Roman retaining would make sense at this point is if he beats The Rock. Secondly, what else can you really do with The Bloodline anymore? You already did Sami Zayn rebelling and breaking away. You did the Usos breaking away. Roman has beaten everyone else. The last challenge was really The Rock, and the fans rejected it and they pivoted back to Cody. At some point, you have to pull the trigger. Cody isn't getting any younger either. If you want him to have his title run it pretty much has to happen now.

watching my taping of the Earthquake episode (tonight's replay)... I was thinking "I thought Earthquake's wife was Japanese, so how did his kids end up looking like Samoans" Nah... he did meet his wife in Japan, but his wife is a Filipina, so yeah, things make more sense with this information EDIT: Kitao seems a bit dumb for trying to legitimately fight giant-ass John Tenta. I don't think I expected Kitao to look that small next to Tenta seeing that footage after knowing about it for so long EDIT 2: I know Meng is Tongan and not Samoan, but the concept that Meng sounds like that laughing his ass off is no surprise because I could believe that Meng is a lot more jolly than his "he could kill everybody" reputation. Also, I'm heavily inclined to call him Meng because I wasn't watching wrestling before 1997 and he was Meng when I first saw him.

If Darby is gonna keep the bat then Jericho needs to put his in storage. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. (Hopefully Darby will be around to USE the bat, but... I digress.)

Swerve, Ospreay, Switchblade, Adam Cole, Hook, Darby, Takeshita, and somehow still Jericho. Sorry to anyone hurt by this list. Probably Matt.

EVPs who ascend through the middle of the stage are over. They’re learning.

Pairing Okada with the Bucks is interesting. On one had, it’s working against what the fans want (to cheer for him), but at the same time, much like the Bucks, Okada is at his best when he’s being kinda bitchy, so this is probably the best context to introduce him as a character (not just a wrestler) to America.

Catching up on everything, not much to add but loved the show and everything about the main was pretty much perfect. The Sons of Sting continue to look like they'd make awesome wrestlers, great touch with their tributes and of course Seek & Destroy. Looking forward to the upcoming tournament. I hoped it'd be more of a weekend-Crockett Cup style especially Dynasty being in April like the originals but I understand going with more of March Madness idea so that works too. Every match was at least good, with only Toni/Deonna not being quite as epic as I hoped for. Glad to see Joe retain so he gets a somewhat longer reign and doesn't drop it in a three way. Figure Swerve still wins it next eventually but would personally love to see Joe vs Ospreay.

I don't have much to add since a lot of the points I would probably make have already been summarized. I would add though that WCW made their bones during the period where Nitro was hot (especially early on) backdooring their way into fun matchups cause their roster was made up of a gumbo of new stars, old stars, luchadores who weren't stars, people who were unknown but about to be known, some solid utility guys, and everything else in between. Keep in mind, they hid a lot of the older guys by not having them wrestle that much or at least keeping them in short enough matches where you couldn't totally shit on them for their effort. Okay, now fast forward to 1999. After having watched every Nitro and PPV from 1998 and a select few Thunders, I can say that WCW's issue at the top is a multi-prong problem. It's a bit more than the old guys are politicking and can't wrestle anymore/cannot be carried. Eh...a lot of those guys had some okay to fun matches every now and again. The thing is...they shouldn't be. A lot of these guys are now older and somehow wrestling more on TV than they were in 1995-1997. Hogan had a stretch in early 1996 where he was wrestling on Nitro pre-NWO but then he took a long break to then come back in early July to do the turn. Another thing WCW got away with when they were hot is not having a bunch of their stars on mid tier PPVs and just having random matchups as main events. By late 1998/1999, they is A LOT of shit being thrown at the wall to make up for all the ground they lost to WWF and now the tide has really turned. So more old guy matches. More importantly, more old guy matches that are too long, badly laid out, and badly booked with horrendous finishes. So for every match with their stars that is ok, fine, or even good, you get three that are the total opposite of that. In the glory days, it was a 1:1 ratio which you can get away with especially if the stars aren't wrestling that much. Also, we have to define what the term "carry" means. I usually throw the word "carry" around for guys who could never usually have a good match or prelim/midcard guys who usually wouldn't get the opportunity. A lot of those guys have had good matches at SOME point in their career even if it was 4-5 years earlier. An inherent added problem to the stuff I've already mentioned is someone has to do the "carrying". So it's a bit more complex than RAWR RAWR HOGAN NASH BAD as much as who of those guys is going to pull their weight when two or more participants are way too old and the matches are put together in a nonsensical fashion. Some of these matches I am watching do have "good" workers in them, but the way they're put together means they will suck regardless. Where I am at in 1999, man, Piper is just too old so he needs the exact right opponent. He had a good match recently with Bret but a lot of that was cause the fans where into the important parts of the match and Piper wins the US title so you get the obligatory title change pop. The very next week, Piper has a terrible match with Hogan cause both guys are moving around like slugs. So it's back to square one. I think part of it also is by the late 90s heading into the new millennium, the standard of what wrestling was had a changed a bit. Flair can get away with certain stuff, but many elements of his matches that worked in 1989 or 1991 don't work in 1999. That shit he was doing night in and night out doesn't really resonate with fans as much. The fan favorite spots do. The rest either draws a light pop/reaction or indifference. The SuperBrawl match with Hogan you see a lot of that. A lot of these guys are just mainly working on their greatest hits. Some of it works. When it's terribly put together, then hardly any of it works.

Thank you all. Been moved by the birthday messages I've had. Thanks again. Love, Paul xxx.

https://www.f4wonline.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_700/MjA0ODQzMDUwODM5NTgyMzAy/gicvwd4weaalaiz.webp Yes, please.

https://theubj.com/uae/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kazuchika-Okada-AEW.jpg Things you love to see. Great getting this on my birthday.

I tapped out about 935. Too tired. Really enjoyed what I saw. My new(ish) lady friend is a good sport and let me explain the “enemies/partners” trope from the show opener. Whoever said that it was much more palatable bc they didn’t milk it all night was dead on. I’m also ok with long opening promo segments on episodes immediately after PPV’s. It’s like a show recap on a tv show before the next episode. If they do it every week, it’s gonna be an issue. RIP in peace to Hook’s momentum. Christian Cage’s whole deal works so well. I’m looking forward to how he shenanigans out of the I Quit match. Interested to see how this tag tourney unfolds. I still like the “lethal lottery” idea the best.

Jeez, before I forget, happy belated Paul. The world's a better place with you in it. Hope you had a good un kiddo.

Will Ospreay vs. Kyle Fletcher was King vs. Armor King in Tekken and I don't give a fuck what that implies because I loved it and the crowd did, too. Stat is a wonderful base for Riho and the two of them really clicked. Great match. Okada and the Bucks actually makes sense. I like Okada as a smug prick. Lots to work with there. It's been so long now, but I thought Kyle O'Reilly was truly amazing right up until he was sidelined with those injuries. So happy to see him back.

Swerve, Okada, Ospreay, Jay White, Takeshita, Daniel Garcia, Rush, Darby

putting the Kato mask back on.

Re: Jungle Jack, here's his quick NJPW post-match promo (with spoilers). And if this is any sign I think he's improving https://youtu.be/cPnXvt7PceQ?t=65

On a different note, I keep hearing that if you want to come across as edgy and cool, you need to order AEW’s next ppv. Well I’m here to just reassure you that you don’t have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude.

The "primadonna" stuff feels unearned, too. Yes, using real glass is stupid (IF in fact that was the issue...nobody is using actual glass panes, they're all using safety glass with the exception of your dumbest shindies) but CM Punk is not the booker or creative staff. Take the glass out of it and you have an old head, not known for his sparkling personality or diplomatic prowess, seemingly big leaguing a younger guy and telling him how to do his match. I'd be a little peeved, too.

June's X-Men 35/ Uncanny X-Men 700 is the final issue for the Krakoa Age https://aiptcomics.com/2024/03/06/x-men-35-farewell-krakoa-age Chris Claremont returns for the final issue. The saga would faired better if Hickman stayed during the run, but oh well.

If I had to give odds, I'd say Cody is probably at 75% or 3:1. He definitely should win, but he also should have won last year. Roman's reign (pun!) is, for lack of a better word, special. We have not seen anything like this in decades, and frankly, will probably never see anything like this again in our lifetimes. I'm sure the temptation is there for Hunter to give Roman the 2nd longest reign of all time. And frankly, I get it. While we're quite probably in "Diminishing Returns" territory when it comes to Roman, we're also living through history. That means something too. I don't think Roman retains. But, until the palm hits the mat for the 3rd time... anything is possible.