JLowe

Who is this? That Tlaloc mascara design is incredible.

That's pretty much where I'm at. The AEW live fans deciding to turn all the heels into faces (combined with MJF hedging on his full-kayfabe heel character) has been frustrating. I really liked the Mox run, and I get that he's earned his break, but I'm not invested or confident in MJF as a top guy as a face, and not really as a heel either as I think his promos are wildly overrated. I love BCC but I do agree that they've been in a holding pattern, albeit with fun matches. And as I said elsewhere, Elite-DT best of 7 may be fun for some, but not for me. And Jade Cargill has gotten incredibly stale and boring. On the other hand, excited to see what's next with The Acclaimed and with Hayter (and how they reconcile that "interim" title). Think it's also time to get FTR back on screen regularly.

What if Morrissey costs Starks the win, thus having MJF's first title match not be against someone you are building to future superstardom, and giving Starks another feud in the interim?

Penta being shown on Monday Night Football could have been big, except there was no reference by the announcers or the chryon to being an AEW wrestler.

I guess Post Malone is for a different audience but I know he's a big deal in some circles and he actually got in the ring (and did alright for himself).

That's Wendell Pierce

I am an old but what level of mainstream star is Bow Wow at this point?

I want to discuss something @just drewposted in the PPV thread, but it's more suited for general discussion, and something I've touched on before. This is all my opinion, of course. "-Jade Cargill is a star that does star shit. I’m just not sure Nyla is the kind of matchup to bring it out of her. I’m all in on Jade, though, so it’s all good. Let’s maybe move her on to a fresh matchup." Jade Cargill is absolutely a star, and someone who does/can get mainstream attention. She's learning in the ring, and has shown that she won't try and do something she isn't confident in. Her mic work (IMO) is pretty spotty, she's hung up on a couple of catchphrases that have been run into the ground. The problem is, she's still green and not able to adjust on the fly if things go off script. She has to have a veteran hand in there to lead the match and build to Jade's spots, and make the audibles. She also (and I've mentioned this before) isn't working matches regularly enough to learn those things, as opposed to practicing moves and counters over and over again in a training session. BUT, they are running a streak angle for her, and therefore none of the top tier (read: veteran) women can be involved in an angle with her because not only can she not lose, right now she isn't really doing much to make her opponents look good in defeat. The Athena situation is the most egregious, she had to go back to working Dark and working a killer heel angle to get some heat back. They brought in Madison Rayne which was a huge fail. The Mercedes Martinez angle ended with a decent match but buried Mercedes. What can they do with Jade moving forward, if they remain committed to the rumor of Stat being the one to finally end the streak?

How did Jerry Jones allow there to be a regular season NFL game in Mexico without the Cowboys being involved?

This definitely needs the “wow” reaction.

Why is one pronounced “can-ziss” and the other “r-Ken-saw”

More like Jade’s streak will continue for a year until Stat makes her big surprise return

This is all good except I must have missed the incredible promos.

It elevated Yuta (and that schmuck insult was just ridiculous) and Garcia, made the JAS 10x more interesting than they had any right to be when they started, hell BCC as a foil made Jericho more interesting than he’s been in years and helped him to a career year in his early 50s. Every match featuring a member of BCC was stiff AF and elevated the opponent in defeat. It gave Mox a purpose and a mission, and without that would he really have been able to be THE GUY to carry the company when shit kept hitting the fan?

I prefer The Elite but this is not for me.

Ironically the last PPV I didn’t get was Forbidden Door, and I ended up not getting this tonight. Might still spring for it this weekend, results aren’t exactly making me want to drop $60.

The Punk-Dax singles match in Austin was great. That was also when Punk first did the “belt” sign. Between that and the official start (and naming of BCC) it was a pretty significant taping.

When the DDT bosses came over with Takeshita, I wondered if it was because of a contract offer.

More interesting than Tony Nese...

I knew that, actually saw it referenced by Owen Ellickson on Twitter which was one of the things that made decide to give wrestling a try again. Just meant some 11-year-old Tony Khan going onto RSPW-M and reading Dean, Rippa, Phil, etc. and their road reports and stream of consciousness tape reviews.

It’s still wild to think of young Tony Khan being on RSPW, what a cesspool that place became. It’s probably already been mentioned before but I have no doubt he was a regular reader of the Death Valley Driver Video Review.

I thought the opener stunk, looked like an awkward, staged brawl and the spear looked terrible. To be fair, Starks was wrestling in slacks and slippers. I know he’s on the smaller side but I don’t think this underdog angle is going Ricky any favors, his whole character is the little dog that thinks he’s a pit bull and will scrap with anyone. I also don’t care for Archer at all and just don’t see what everyone else does. Hook-Moriarty was eye opening, I’m guessing they train together with how smooth all of that went. Stiff, fun moves, Hook did a very good job selling and it was about as convincing a near-fall as one is going to get right now knowing Hook isn’t about to lose. I’m glad they’ve moved on from the squashes. Athena killing Madison was fun, and as I said above taking out Aubrey Edwards is one of the most heelish things you can do in AEW. Mercedes save was a little disappointing TBH even though I know it’ll be an excellent match on the ROH PPV. Main was fun and a huge tease. I understand why Matt D doesn’t like Takeshita and it’s exactly why I do love him. He’s a giant puppy who only knows how to go all-out and throw bombs. Ortiz is really putting it together lately and was excellent FIP. Glad we’re getting a singles match out of this, a tag felt like a big waste of a dream match and glad they held off on actual Kingston-Akiyama one on one.

Aubrey was also the perfect choice, she’s incredibly over. At the Austin show in April, she got the third or fourth biggest pop when she was introduced.

Last night I told my wife I wasn’t going to order the PPV to save money and she is basically insisting that I buy it, so I guess I’m in. The buy-in is going to be great, I’ll probably be watching the UT football game on my iPad and the buy-in on the big TV. My hope is that MJF was swerving with The Firm and that’s how he wins. I don’t want BCC to break up yet, and I don’t want Regal to turn, nor do I think it makes much sense for him to choose MJF over BCC. I’m with Matt where I think Britt-Jamie split, with each costing the other the match. Can’t recall who said that they’re not going to have a title switch on an interim title, which makes sense to me. I think it would be more interesting if Keith Lee went heel with Swerve, but I definitely seems like they’re going to split and I can’t see AEW taking the title off The Acclaimed right now, they are their single hottest act. I don’t know that they would take the belt off Jericho, but if they do it’s definitely not gonna be Jericho taking the pin. They’re teasing that Sammy could go into business for himself, and as I said on the Dynamite thread there are little seeds planted for Claudio to take advantage of an opportunity even if it’s pinning Bryan (and technically in the BCC canon that would be acceptable). I don’t see them ending Jade’s streak so Nyla is toast, and the TBS belt goes back to being boring AF. I don’t really care much about the rest of the card.

Just finished a rewatch where I could really focus on it. Opening tag was high four star wrestling with a lot of storytelling and a great, classic go-home match for this particular storyline. There was one interesting moment that I want to see if it pays off. Claudio did a save for Bryan where he crawled and head butted either Jericho or Sammy (that part doesn’t matter) and then lingered for a second before rolling Bryan onto his side. In a 4-way for the title, in that same situation, maybe he goes for the pin because the belt is what matters. Also, I want to shout out Sammy again for really embracing being a shitass heel instead of trying to be a cool heel. And again, he really is taking a beating, leaning into Bryan’s kicks and Claudio’s uppercuts. Swerve-Bowens was another 4-star match that told a story and was a classic go-home match for this storyline. Bowens looked like a star, Swerve’s strange style is great because so many of his moves look painful but are also really dickish. Then we have the trios title match. Someone compared it to the late 90s WCW where they throw 6 luchadors together and they just go out and run a CMLL spot fest. Except here we have two teams of brothers, one of whom is part of a long-running trios group that also holds the title. This was definitely a spot fest, but what incredible spots there were! AR Fox did things I’ve never seen, Top Flight pulled off some innovative tag spots, other than a slightly botchy Fear Factor everyone was super smooth and clean. There was even a very convincing hope spot after the run of spots culminating in Fox’s beautiful 450 splash. After this, though, things went off the rails. Lots of talking, although we did get Wardlow’s huge over the top rope dive. Britt’s great promo expect it was a face promo when she’s still supposedly a heel. Page-Bandido was...let’s call it deliberate early on (or plodding if you’re nasty). Bandido got his spots in and Page was a good base, but I don’t think there was ever any sense that Bandido stood a chance. Page has a very late ‘80s main event style to his work, which is a bit of sore thumb in this promotion. crowd is starting to die a bit now. Storm-Anna was fine, Matt D is spot on about how Anna JAS has really embraced the sports entertainment element, which adds a lot to the match. But the match itself felt like it was at 3/4 speed, and also never in doubt. Mox’s promo was more good selling for the PPV. He’s a straight shooter, he tells you who he is, and everything he says about MJF is 100% accurate story wise (and shoot wise too). Crowd was waking up again, and then Stokely walks out and the sudden silence is palpable. MJF has to implore the crowd to cheer, but by then this segment has been killed dead. It really was a tale of two hours, and maybe the show might have been better and hotter if the matches were scheduled a little differently.