JLowe

I was watching in 2022 and don’t remember Gangrel

Did I mention that when I saw 7 Seconds last December, Lita was their merch person? When I bought my shirt, I kept thinking that she looked familiar and then when their tour was over Kevin Seconds posted on IG thanking Amy Dumas.

TBH I’ve been expecting him to pop up.

I liked the I Quit match a lot, the hockey fight bit was a little corny but also really funny and awesome and the crowd loved it. There were obvious callbacks to their past. I also think that the longer term storyline will be that Cope just couldn’t bring himself to totally maim his friend. Having this and the Street Fight on the same card could have been tough but the women delivered some great moments. Willow once again shows that she takes a Code Blue better than anyone, this time on an announcers table that does not give an inch. Ouch! Skye blades without going full crimson mask. We get tacks and some nasty but not gnarly bumps. Loved how you could totally see Skye’s pride at receiving the “You Sick Fuck” chants. Kingston-Okada was great but also sad in the end result, but effective in the longer run. I thought Hook-Jericho was excessive and was worried about Jericho’s neck on several of those bumps. Surprised a little at Best Friends going over. I thought they might actually give OC some time off. Takeshita-Rocky was fun until the end. Shibata in a squash was weird in the sense that I’m used to the Japanese legend AEW guys only having big matchups. The opening felt very WWE to me, the promo seemed heavily scripted towards catchphrases, and the song is going to wear thin quickly. The Tonis vs. VirtuRosa was solid but never quite excellent. Rosa was best bumping and selling, her offense wasn’t as crisp as the rest of them. I also was proven wrong in my discussion of AEW seeing Toni as a face, as this match tried very hard to make them the heels. The fans ain’t buying it, and we did get seeds of a full Deonna turn at the end.

It was like Battle of the Belts but no title matches (we aren’t counting the I quit overrun).

I haven’t seen Edge wrestle anywhere but AEW since i stopped watching WWE in the mid-00s, was there not color in all those TLC matches?

I did not need to know that Phillies Zubaz promotional glasses existed...

Just wanna say we have 16 women wrestling tonight along with the appearance from the CEO. Women’s division is really coming along, combining gaijin imports from Japan, top indie stars, and homegrown talent. Kingston-Okada feels really rushed, but I’ll enjoy the match. The “I quit” match should have a lot of color.

Y’all just made me realize there is a high likelihood that Jason Kelce shows up at Wrestlemania.

I don’t think I remembered to mention it earlier, but the Toni-Mariah tag also had the brilliant, very intentional moment where Toni tags Mariah in to score the pinball after hitting Storm Zero. It was well presented by both.

People on Bluesky talk about Penta being one of the top wrestlers in the world...

What about people who date back to RSPW, before there was even RSPW-M?

What I love about AEW is that we can get 2020s bombs away MOVEZ bangers like Ospreay-Takeshita and also sicko shit like Danielson-Shibata spending 10 minutes on the mat before chopping each other silly. Who the hell did BCC piss off to have to feud with the fucking Righteous and Archer (who has kinda sucked for a while now). Not in the tag tournament and having to see for the team that MJF beat singlehandedly. Also why is Yuta suddenly gone? I was really into O’Reilly and Keith, was interesting to see Keith work more as the dominant guy rather than the underdog. KOR might have the eye bags from hell but he’s trimmed up some from his last appearances. I like him, please keep him away from Undisputed. Julia-Adora was good, Julia was forced to do a lot more hit and run fitting for her size, took some bumps, and she nailed the moonsault. Main event tag was pretty fucking awful, I called Briscoe getting Infantry an upset win the second the brackets were posted. Garcia-Moriarty was a good look at the bright future of AEW. Also, Garcia was ROH Pure champion, so he’s had gold around the waist. Cope looked like he was going to blow an artery near the end of his promo, he was turning purple. Also thought he had cut himself with Spike when he first put it to his temple (and maybe he should’ve to really get it across). Spike is a very Canadian name, for all those DeGrassi junior high fans. Wednesday is once again practically a PPV with the live Rampage after Dynamite. Really excited for both women’s tag matches, Kingston-Okada, and the I Quit match.

Opening tag was pretty good, first half got the comedy out of the way, second half was solid wrestling with the greatest hits. Sad that OC is reduced to tag team midcard, kinda wish they would just give him a few weeks off to rest and refresh and then come back hot. But I also understand with so many wrestlers now, not wanting to lose your spot on TV. Women’s tag squash was great, a true squash where both Toni and Mariah looked like badasses. Rosa as Deonna’s partner was a bit underwhelming but will be a good match I think, Rosa isn’t afraid to be a little stiff and throw in a shotgun dropkick or two. Heard about Takeshita and Komander having a fantastic match, and I think we got to see about 70% of it. Wanted Lard Lad to do his wheelbarrow German suplex, but he based very well in general for Komander who hit his stuff very clean. Main was kind of frustrating because I wish they would do more with Top Flight (although they do at least get an actual spot in the Tag Tournament) as a tag team. I remembered before the announcers said it that Taven and Bennett were from Boston, so of course they get a big hometown match and win. It was solid stuff but also falls into the discourse of “too many matches with no story or meaning”. And as someone who generally enjoys Strong and The Kingdom in the ring, and enjoyed their big angle for longer than most, I honestly wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t around, as opposed to Top Flight. Add me to the “extremely underwhelmed by the tag tournament brackets” list.

Old horror VHS is more collectible than most, especially some of the smaller label cult stuff.

I loved almost everything about Dynamite, except I was mostly tuned out for the trios match despite having Eddie and Okada. I even didn’t mind the tag match because Gates of Agony came out looking like bosses and got a lot of stuff in. Also, I just don’t find Riho believable and really rolled my eyes at her suplexes of Willow. Mercedes came off like a superstar, even if it went on a little long. I generally hate the “sing-along” style that the WWE has brought to the forefront, but the CEO chants made the crowd super hot and if that keeps up, then I’m fine with it. There are times where AEW crowds are a little too dead because they don’t know what to chant besides “this is awesome” or the dueling “let’s go chants”. Ospreay crushed another promo. I’m glad they can keep him busy for a while before he inevitably gets into the title hunt. Wardlow-Joe was pretty good, for a hot minute I thought they were going to do a surprise title change, but instead Wardlow passes out clean and we get more Swerve-Joe build.

Yeah, honestly being Irish-American Boston bros I kinda assumed they were bonehead adjacent but I was dead wrong. I love The Pogues but the US punk knockoffs (and most Oi/Street Punk) isn’t really my thing.

Judging from Bluesky, people are mentioning it but without any real outrage or threats of boycott.

Shout out for repping scrapple!

They’re overplayed but I love that recently they went out of their way to tell any racist/alt-right/fascists to fuck off, they don’t want them as fans.

Buddy has, what, twice as many years experience? And I bet Bowens can do just about anything Buddy does if he was allowed to. Looking at Cagematch, Bowens hasn’t had a singles match in AEW (or anywhere) in over 2 years. Last one was February 23, 2022 Rampage against Orange Cassidy in a Face of the Revolution qualifying match. But one of his rare AEW singles matches (10 total in AEW) was as one of Bryan Danielson’s first matches (hand picked) on November 5, 2021. Edit to add: Bowens actually started in 2013, while Buddy started in 2007, and has wrestled something like 100 more matches in his career. So they’re closer that I thought.

I disagree, Bowens has the look, skill, and charisma to be your top babyface champ.

“Punk is about thinking for yourself, not being a sheep, and fuck the government!” leads to “There is a secret cabal trafficking children for Satan hiding in the deep state”

The Acclaimed are still a merch moving machine, every time they drop a new shirt you see like 5% of the audience wearing it, which is not Austin 3:16 but is respectable considering they have new shirts every 2-3 weeks right now. Once that cools, they’ll reboot.