JLowe

St. Mark’s in the 80s still had some Beat vibe to it, a great record store, the great comic store, dive bars, and head shops. West Village was where the bridge and tunnel crowd went. It helped that Alphabet City at that point was still pretty dangerous. By the mid-late 90s Alphabet City was getting gentrified and St. Mark’s got much nicer. Walked down it in December 2019 and it doesn’t have quite the cool of the 50s and 60s Beat era or the grime of the 70s and 80s punk junk. Hook is actually getting really good at bumping and selling. I still think it’s too soon to have him get a run on the top but clearly he’s earning his way there.

The opener was totally my shit. Main event was perfectly booked and wrestled other than that NASTY bump on the announcers table. Oh joy, Orange Cassidy has to work Penta again.. Yes, please unify the trios titles and then retire them. Colten Gunn has a very nice dropkick but his lariats are shit. Marq Quen was in bad need of some WD-40, not in shape and moving slow. Killed that match cold. Anna and Deonna did not gel until after PiP. Venus de Milo is a sweet submission hold. Toni was mugging overtime, and Deonna tried to hold her own.

Hell yeah, glad I checked the page during Dynamite commercials, got a pair of second row reserved for me and @Greggulator!

Honestly, the only way I think I could be satisfied is for Hook to start out with a T-bone suplex for Joe to no-sell and then have Joe just beat the hell out of him.

So I’m finally caught up with Mr. Brodie Lee tribute week. I appreciate the homecoming to Daily’s Place and his importance during the pandemic. But I also did not watch during that time, so I just don’t have the emotional tie-in to a group that is largely comedy jobbers at this point. I enjoy the Silver-Reynolds team. Anna Jay is floundering some but is a solid enough hand, and I guess they had to find a way to have a women’s title match in Battle of the Belts, and it was a perfectly cromulemt match. I really enjoyed the FTR/Garcia-HOB match a lot, lots of stories going on and really had no idea who would win. Kingston-Yuta was a great match and really put Yuta over. I do recall thinking that Gordlow would really enjoy this weeks stuff, lots and lots of his guys (and gals in terms of Deeb). Adam Page-JD Drake kicked ass. Gates of Agony seem like they belong on the main roster. The street fight was a lot of fun when it was outside the main arena area, leaned mostly to comedy while still having some stiff shots. The Bill-Jericho table spot looked nasty enough, although technically Jericho was pinning Bill afterwards. The Guevara spot was just stupid and dangerous and accomplished nothing other than I guess making people not want to miss a BotB in the future? Thats about all I remember at this point.

I’m just now seeing this and I am so stoked that this is so close to where I live now! For years, I dreamt about going to a show with the DVDVR Playaz.

Five years from now, these will be the opening words to the “Death of AEW” documentary.

I ate at a Ruby Tuesday near the Philly airport back in June since it was right by our hotel, it was actually decent for basic chain restaurant.

Also, speaking of old chains that you didn’t know still had locations: there is apparently a Roy Rogers at the PA Turnpike service area by Allentown. My wife had never even heard of it.

On the subject of Monte Cristo sandwiches: my college’s cafeteria (it was a small school and full meal plan was part of the deal) was generally bland and average to awful (taco night meant 2 hour waits to order pizza delivery) but they killed it when they had Monte Cristo’s. One time I had four of them (I miss my youthful metabolism). Oddly enough, I’ve never had one since graduating in 1993 but will have to fix that soon.

Skye’s was very funny, and it also took me a minute to recognize Madison Rayne. Only wrestler I’ve ever seen was Mark Henry, he was with his family at the Austin airport and I was definitely not going to interrupt family time. He is an enormous man.

It was so clearly piped in for Shida’s comeback and then notably back to the subdued live crowd at the finish.

I guess because I get the Yahoo fantasy trophies?

Rampage was fine, definitely a big step down from the super hot Dynamite. I was laughing when they talked about how The Hardyz haven’t lost a step and how Matt is in the prime of his career. That said, Jeff looked better than he has for a while until they botched their signature corner double team whose name I can’t remember. Also notable that Matt did a splash instead of a leg drop and Jeff did a splash instead of a swanton Bomb. Don’t care a lick for Sabian but he has a job to do and he does it. Backstage with Private Party was fine, I wonder if Jeff’s problems cost them that last run with the tag belts, and now they’re in full “putting over the young guys” mode. Willow-Stat tag was a fun squash, the Stoke stuff is right on the line of funny and cringe. I would like to see more of Notorious Mimi, and not just in the “settle down” way. Good look, good size, seemed to have solid in-ring skills. Tony listens to the fans and books 2 women’s matches! I’m one who thinks Rampage could become a woman’s wrestling showcase while also understanding that taping a show like that after Dynamite would probably flop. Anna Jay looked good, she’s excellent at wrestling in character. Shida was Shida, she’s always going to be an excellent hand while not being particularly interesting. Main was kind of a waste of Komander’s talents, but I was also a little drunk and pretty tired when I watched. They built him up as having all these llave skills but they didn’t really come out. Obviously, they’re building an angle with Yuta and the closed fist, although I will reiterate that he’s allowed one, so making a big deal out of him doing it once doesn’t work. No Satnam, I think Team Jarrett is about to break up. Maybe a Lethal-Briscoe tag team?

Honestly, I don’t think most crowds care much about Luchasaurus at this point.

Oh, I thought that was the free one. Oh well.

Which league did I send you $25 for?

That would be smart strategy on Swerve’s part, to explain why he wanted a Cage match.

Bryan Keith was booked for the main event of the Inspire AD (Austin indie he’s worked before, where Ricky Starks got his start so not just a fly-by-night) next weekend and was pulled earlier this week, which makes me think he’s probably signed with ROH/AEW.

That show was fresh and full of energy, felt like a reboot of sorts although I just saw the mention of lots of guys in Japan. Still... Dante and OC have a great match with Dante showing much more than just high flying while still doing a move that made Tony Schiavone just laugh in amazement. Mariah May (requiring SO much settling down) and Aminata have a competitive, stiff match and then the “surprise” debut of Deonna Purrazzo. So many possibilities to go with the current talent (and a returning Hayter). Takeshita just ragdolling Darby all over the Garden State. Good lord, such violence. The knee strike on the tope looked vicious, then just yoinking Darby from the apron to the edge of the ramp, and THEN THE DOUBLE ROLL DOWN THE RAMP INTO A GNARLY ROLLING GERMAN SUPLEX. Bah gawd almighty he broke him in half! Push Takeshita to the fucking moon. A showcase 4-way with (the probably not actually unsigned) Bryan Keith, Hijo del Vikingo, the perpetually underrated Trent Baretta, and also meh Brian Cage. At least Cage will bump and sell for Vikingo and Keith. Swerve and Garcia have a great match with some nasty shots, the possibly not a bitched sharpshooter on the announcers table, and Garcia being the master of kicking out at 2.999999. Once I saw Hangman walk in backstage angry I knew it would end with him going after Swerve, but the fact that Swerve was laughing like “yeah fine, let’s go again” ruled. And basically all the in-ring and backstage segments hit! My friends, AEW RULES THE MUTHAFUCKING WORLD~!

I was looking through her socials and she was out injured and also possibly on grievance until recently. So I think she’ll be an ROH regular and AEW jobber for a while.

I think there will, and should be a competition, and I also think the Mannings are fine with Arch as back-up next year if it happens that way. But I think Ewers absolutely improved significantly this year in terms of leadership and connecting on deep balls. He rushed back hurt after missing those two games mid-season and didn’t even have full green light until Okie State.

Ironically, Texas was the closest to beating that 2019 LSU team.

Glad they reviewed that, that’s the 4th or 5th bad spot by these refs.

Fuck these refs though