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There’s no way Hangman would lose again. I can’t express how much I’m looking forward to this Hangman heel/tweener run. Basically a Hanger driven by absolute hate for Swerve to do things he doesn’t want to do, like joining the EVP side for B&G, shunning all friends to do everything for himself and the livelihood of his family, etc. Basically a modern day DTA Hangman Page. Given enough time, he’s going to be a bigger face than he was before.

That's the problem with trying to intentionally "make moments" sometimes - the urge to go back to the well, or make something overly epic can be too much to resist. On a side note: I may have mentioned this on past 4ths, but that Lex/Yoko slam is the first time I ever saw pro-wrestling in any form as a kid, so happy anniversary to me

"Smuggler's Blues" and "You Belong to the City" are bangers and I won't hear otherwise.

let's have a little more respect for crockett and tubbs most trusted ally

I don't think those two should face each other again for a long time. It should just fester and fester and when time comes, there's no match, Hangman just kills him.

Bad America! Go to the corner! That'sright. No buts. You know what you did! Better yet, you know what you need to do to make it at least a little bit better!

And the Coyote-Roadrunner feud was massively popular! You may be on to something here.

Greg drops diss tracks. Verne kills a guy. Is the daughter still in jail? Whole family is as gangsta as Minnesota gets, I suppose.

I need to start calling my Iranian friend "The Iron Chic."

Rewatched Logan to psyched for Deadpool & Wolverine. There's way too much dust in this room, keep having to wipe my eyes... It's just a great movie and everyone is bringing their A game. It also makes me wish the Quesolupa was a thing! James

Nice rib on Luger. Who knew Greg Gagne had diss skills on the mic?

Horrible trigger discipline, all three of them. Is the photographer still alive?

“I’m Greg Gagne and I’m in a rage! I want Brody, and I want him in a cage!” Yeah Greg, imma call bullshit on that one.

I like the alliance of Briscoe and KOR, but I don't like them being positioned as possible guys for Blood and Guts. There's just no natural heat with the Elite, no original-ness, and to be frank, no star power. The Elite already beat the FTR/Darby/Danielson team at Anarchy in the Arena, so you need better team than that for Blood and Guts, and Briscoe/KOR just don't fit the bill right now. The Acclaimed are at least originals and could use a rub like this to stay relevant, but the other 3 guys need to have some real firepower. Swerve is obvious, and Kenny should definitely be there if he's healthy. I could see a case for the 5th being Ricochet, Darby, or Hangman, but I'd pick Darby. He's a natural babyface who can sell choosing his loyalty to AEW over his feelings about Swerve, which highlights Hangman's personal failings for making the opposite choice and joining up with the Elite. Ricochet would have the instant gratification pop, but lacks the long-term story beats imo.

Wasnt that Phil Collins?

My guess is MJF vs. Daniel Garcia at All Out which will be in the same city as last night so the crowd will be jacked.

Topicalish point: sometimes it feels like wrestling booking (at least recently) would have decided to do the Yokozuna slam challenge on the Intrepid every year even if he gets bodyslammed by a new guy every year.

I don't like Cornette, but that is great on seeing him as a 5k donation there.

If you think about it: Wil E Coyote was such a great heel he was able to constantly get jobbed out and still keep his heat. A fun little known fact is that early in their feud ECW ran a house show and one of the main attractions couldn't make it so Dreamer beat Raven clean as when a big no show happens the face always wins the main event to make up for it.

It was a hip toss.

I wasn't watching ECW but from the general outlines of stuff I remember happening, Dreamer and Raven also had other feuds that would go on during their longer feud so they weren't fighting for 2 1/2 years and doing nothing else, so their feud would go to the backburner and then resume later on and so on

And even then, Dreamer/Raven was a feud where the face could never quite beat the heel. Having a feud where the heel can never beat the face is booking the wrestling equivalent to Wil E Coyote and the Roadrunner

Now I'm imagining spraying America with a spray bottle, like a cat, every time we do something boneheaded.

I immediately envisioned Jason Vorhees as a Sith when I read that. Lightsaber machete!

Never seen the Jason guy before but it’s hilarious that the Sith dude is an impossibly good looking underwear model with dreamy eyes and pouty lips. Did he turn because the Jedi tried to restrain his mojo? Was Yoda like, “this rizz, contain it we cannot?” He was totally trying to distract Osha with his other lightsaber when he got out of the water.

Actually, now that you say that, I wonder if they would try something along the lines of an "exploding death match" between them, since it is outside? Maybe not an exploding ring like the failed Mox/Omega match, but more along the lines of the exploding barbwire boards and whatnot...

Well, if you want to tell your fans you’re finally going significantly forward and not then taking two steps back like you usually do, that is how you do it. I’m fully on board with this way of thinking.

My guess is Hangman is the Elite's 5th if Swerve is Team AEW's 5th.

I love Renee opening the broadcast with a rundown, but it'd be 10 fold better in the live arena. Can we get a set off to the side of the ramp or on the otherside of the building, please? And give Renee the match graphics to introduce as well. Death to distracting ADD graphics during the matches. The Garcia/MJF/Daddy Magic promo to begin was punchuated beautifully by Danny making such a lofty play on his mother's life. Total pro! Danielson v Pac was every bit as great as I imagined it could be. Loved Pac's elevated elbow drops. Danielson put a selling clinic on for all students of the game. Magic + Chess to close! Pac never wins the big one, but @DEAN taught us better than to care about such frivolous outcomes. The Willow promo that followed was completely on point. I loved her laying out why she smiles. So smart - further babyface connective tissue! No one better, but Mark is close. Speaking of which, the Briscoe promo and angle that followed was perfect for getting us all thinking about Blood n Guts. 'Who's gonna be in?' We all wanna know. I love shitheel Perry. I love Okada. I love Losing Streak O'Reilly. And then to the back for the Toni/Mariah promo - alotta talk, but no one's complaining when the pros give us the beatiful prose. I'll be sad to lose this pairing. Stat v Willow started strong with that awesome ramp rush and pounce, and it never relented. Love Willow. Love Stat. Tastes great, and refreshing! The Britt Baker promo was touching, she was understandbly nervous, but it was good. If I'm truly honest I wasn't so into the cliched motivational speech to close, but before I could bellyache, there was wonderful heel Mercedes mixing it up with the Jacksons. Perfect! The Mone-Baker confrontation was tremendous! Britt had the fire she needed and Mercedes' gots her groove. I love how excited everybody is for this, but let's keep expectations realistic. Promo-wise we should be good, but Mone's gonna need to do some heavy lifting in ring - she is clearly capable. Happy to have the Doctor back, but can we get the Rebel? The Callis/Ospreay/Fletcher promo was fantastic. Even if it defied the logic of the story told Sunday. It's Wrestling, a Dash of a Pass granted. I loved the Jericho promo. He still needs to reel this character in a smidge, but overjoyed with his continually use of 'That doesn't work for me, brother'. Great heel chicanery throwing Taz out. Love it! Joe/Hook/Shibata v the Jobbers of Agony was a good TV showcase. Give the Gates some credibility now. The angle that followed was rockin'! Bryan Keith is slowly becoming a star before our eyes. Give him time. Bill too. I unashamedly popped for the Fireball later on. Jarrett v Hanger was totally on point. I need an encore viewing after writing this. I'm not sure what I think of Hanger's new theme, but I certainly missed the giddyness his previous always provided me. What a nicely worked match. Even notorious Hanger Hater @MattD got down with this bout! How far can we run with babyface Colonel Sanders-Jarrett? He's gotta at least have one more Stampede in Calgary, yeah? Garcia v Ospreay closes this near perfect broadcast. Ospreay's acorbatics had me daydreaming him getting the call from Hollywood to take the torch from Jack Chan. I loved all the shenanigans to close. Matt Menard is a beautiful bleeder. MJF channelled some serious prime Franchise vibes there. It was like he was transported to 1995 shaking Gary Wolfe's halo clean off his shoulders. Easily his best use of the Avalanche Piledriver! Mia Wallace says 'Goddamn, Goddamn'. I can see the endless scroll from the King on this one. And closes with #AEWrulesTHEmotherFUCKINGuniverse.

It was unreadable with the trolls and the gimmick posters and Scott Keith clones. There’s a reason that some of the roots of the DVDVR forums come from the RSPW-M (moderated) group.

I'm house-sitting for somebody and they have cable so I was actually able to watch Dynamite and I picked a great episode to watch. Bryan/Pac was a great start and it didn't slow down after that. I didn't even mind Chris Jericho that much

We've also got Thunder/Deonna and what's looking like Riho/Serena. They have certainly come a long way.

That was the best Adam Page performance I’ve ever seen.

DYNAMITE. Only one day later! This is less elaboration than usual, so look at it as Dynamite Short Cuts.

Why do you fucking tag him every time? Why is THAT the thing that's important to you? Jesus fuck dude, we get it. We know you don't like her and find his fandom offensive, and we know that he will rise to your hate-tag. And as someone who missed her entire career until the show where she broke her foot, this is RSPW shit. You are doing RSPW shit.

We’re now about two months in with really good to great episodes of Dynamite every week. Like I said before, just keep doing what you’re doing, don’t flinch at ratings, and don’t change it up. And last night ruled. I like that Hangman isn’t purely an attack dog for the EVPs. I was getting Steve Austin vibes from him.

He also apparently loved The thief of Baghdad.

FTFY

Joe didn't walk out on Team ROH during Cage of Death, it was Danielson that did.

Great episode. I’ve said many times PAC, for all his obvious talent, just doesn’t do it for me, and while this was naturally an excellent match, it never really held my attention other than me noticing that PAC was fighting extra stiff, including not holding anything back on the two big elbow drops. Willow’s promo, on the other hand, really got to me. Kinda wish it had been in the ring. Fantastic match, and one where the outcome was in doubt. Britt’s story was pretty shocking, and it sounds like there are some things that were even deeper mentally that she vaguely hinted at. She looks in great shape. And I guess her return allowed them to finally admit that Mercedes is a heel. Mone had a point about there being a lot of women who have earned and are waiting for their shot. The ladder match replay really showed how poorly received the Perry win was. Go away heat as far as I’m concerned. The rest did nothing to get me excited for Blood and Guts, other than the hope that Perry takes a few shoot shots. Didn’t we just have this same trios match like 2 weeks ago? It was fine, Hook actually showed some new stuff (the counter into the DDT) and didn’t throw his shitty punches, and then he took a heck of a beating. That’s about as much interest as I have in all this. Also, Jericho is actually a really good commentator, so having the Learning Tree commentary was both jarring and mute-button worthy. Page as the wild card did not really pop the crowd, and the dynamics of the match took a while to get over, but they did eventually. Still, never thought I would say this, Jarrett deserved a win. The post-match with Page and the Bucks was good development. I’m a big Daniel Garcia fan, have been pretty much since I first saw him, but this massive main event-level push is kind of random and out of nowhere. They keep talking up his record since the Classic but have they really been high level wins? That said, hell of a match. I was thinking that MJF would cheat behind Danny’s back to get him the belt, with the idea that he could more easily beat Garcia at All In. Instead, we get the maximum effort 100% heel turn that was needed. I’m possibly forgetting a match? It was really lots of talk and angles with some long, mostly hot matches.

https://rspw.org/ There's what's left of it. Looks like it's been about 15 years since any major activity. I got into the internet scene in like, 2000 (I was 16) so even that is now old enough to drink.

I'm going to pivot away from where this is heading and say that AEW is slowly and consistently getting away from an underbooked woman's division. Would I still enjoy more matches, absolutely, but they built a great storyline with Toni/May/Mina while including the Saraya/Harley, Willow/Stat still has more legs to it and I'd argue that Banks/Baker last night felt like one of the biggest segments AEW has had for womens wrestling in a long time. You get Hayter back and build on what is going on, i really could see it growing by leaps and bounds even more post All In. May/Toni(if that's where they're heading) and Baker/Mone are two legit, high profiles matches with stories woven in that aren't just hamfisted slapped together. I really think AEW is finding their stride again.

Completely agree. I hate when somebody turns heel or face and we're supposed to just accept that their personality has completely changed overnight. Like, Jack Perry has been doing a fine job of being a traditional wrestling heel, but it still bugs me that there's been no attempt to explain how anything he's done since turning on Hook is consistent with his previous characterization. But Hangman hasn't really changed at all; he just really hates Swerve (and with good reason). The main reason he's a heel is that the crowd has decided they like Swerve a lot (which bugs me too, but that's a rant for a different time). MJF's face turn was another example of doing it right. They framed it as a bad person trying to be a little bit better now that he's found his first real friendship, rather than expecting you to ignore that he'd previously been scum. Good stuff. His turning heel again makes sense too, even if it's disappointing on a couple of levels.

Is this new Rap fad a form of popular music?

Even if it doesn't, AEW needs to stay the course IMO. Last night felt like they had their energy back and the way to win people over is by being consistent.

Pretty much my thoughts as well. Also, there’s…

It's all about attention to detail for me. They started setting up the ring with celebratory bullshit while Dr. Britt was STILL in the ring.. some real disrespectful shit there. Both her and Mercedes go their lines in. Dr. Britt had some great lines about Mercedes being broken down at 'ALL IN' and Mercedes' facial expressions and palming Britt's face... really good heel shit. MJF.. awesome beat down. But again what made it great was the attention to detail. He yelled some shit about "Restoring the feeling" which you know is him going at Ospreay but then Ospreay comes limping out mind you and MJF powders into the crowd where he went full Piper or Dudley Boyz with the fans riling them up even more. I loved all of this.

I actually liked last week’s episode, but I agree with the overall consensus that it’s just fine. I’m digging Jason Mendoza from the Good Place in it, but otherwise it seems like it’s hinting at much bigger things that presumably won’t get settled/revealed in this show/season.

Now onto the other Sheik, The Iron Sheik.... There have been two biography's of Khosrow Vaziri; one was commissioned by the WWE when they had the Simon and Shuster deal (and where trying to do something like a book a month) and got shelved cause it was apparently just so damn dark and depressing. This has never seen the light of day. The other was started by Brad Balukjian and ended up being published 20 years later as The Six Pack: in The open road in search of WRESTLEMANIA (2024, 286 pgs). This is certainly one of the more interesting concepts for a book, it starts with The Iron Sheik in the depths of his crack addiction and the author ends the project after realizing he's essentially enabling self destructive behavior. So instead of a biography its a series of profiles of the men who lead the WWF's expansion period heading up to WrestleMania (not all of the men profiled where on the 1st WrestleMania card or where completely out of the company) Tony Atlas (also likes crack along with feet), Vince McMahon (some very interesting comments from people who worked behind the scenes for him during this period, running theme through the book is the differences between him and his father given how many men worked) , Sgnt Slaughter (his stolen valor BS and why he got on the outs with Vince) Tito Santana (his son talks about how his father grew up extremely catholic but grew to accept him as gay), Bill Eadie (wanna know why Demolition isn't in the HOF yet? his 11 year lawsuit) , Jose Luis Rivera (growing up in poverty in Puerto Rico and being inspired by Pedro Morales) and Finally Hulk Hogan (trying to get to the truth of a lot of his bullshit and recent scandals) and an overall lot at how the wrestling business uses abuses and spits the boys out. And then it circles back to Khosrow Vaziri at the end of his life dealing with murder of his daughter and having cleaned up, seemingly at peace. It's very well done and attempts to find the real men behind the characters. The human being who portrayed these superhuman beings, almost all men profiles are interviewed (Slaughter, Vince and Hogan being the exceptions) and he interviews a good number of people who where involved with them at various points in their lives (doesn't get slaughter but does talk to his 90 year old HS football coach for example) a really fun read about the early WrestleMania era of the WWF