JLowe

First hour was so great! Second hour was so there (by AEW standards). FTR match was as good as we all hoped. Punk’s promo walking around the ring was fucking fantastic. BCC vs Factory should have been as squashy as last week IMO, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Also kind of smart that they’re wrestling trios both to get Yuta over more and to keep the Danielson-Mox tag team on the back burner while other tag title stuff gets worked out. Wardlow-Archer was surprisingly good as it turned into two big athletic dudes who also beat the hell out of each other. Strap a fucking rocket to Wardlow’s back, he’s a freak. Storm-Soho (who from googling have an NXT faction connection) vs Hayter-Britt will do nicely. JAS-Kingston et al. was very good to start and then went a couple minutes too long. Hager looks like a 12-year old who had growth spurt but hasn't gotten new clothes. Big Money Matt Menard is so punchable. Daniel Garcia continues to be the sore thumb. I just can’t stand Adam Cole at this point. I’m done with him. I’m close to turning the channel when he’s on. At least Dante didn’t have to eat the pin this week. Maybe he and Shotty can form a tag team while they run some kind of Brock as BCC try-hard angle. I imagine opinions will be split again(or maybe I’ll be the asshole) but that women’s match was a serious letdown and a joke as a street fight for 90% of the match. Oh boy, even more House of Black vs Death Triangle. FFWD. Flash paper fire ball!! Now THAT’S sports entertainment baby! Main event was interesting in that it definitively built Sky, put him over as a face mostly, and laid seeds at the end for ATT to turn on him. As a match, it had problems because they’ve run so many ladder matches recently (and had that great Sammy-Cody match just 3 months ago) that they have no choice but to up the ante, which led to Sammy almost breaking his neck, and a comical “barbed wire” ladder. I complain too much, because I did enjoy the show and I enjoy AEW. I’m just inappropriate a situation where several of the big angles/characters turn me off. Rampage looks really good though!

It's time for Miro to come back and reclaim.

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Just saw that this is being done and wanted to pipe in that I agree completely with your reviews of the first 4 Nitros (that's all I've caught on the rewatch so far). The Wright-Disco match was shockingly good, and then the Kurasawa-Pittman match was stiff AF (Pittman had just had a squash win on Cobra at Fall Brawl).

Discovery's target audience and main ratings draw is men 18-49 with all of their Gold Rush (literally like 5 different shows at this point), Dangerous Catch, and other shows like that. AEW fits right in to that.

I'm probably in the minority but I love the weekly segments where Mark Henry tricks Big Paul into listening to one of his animal impersonations. I'm also a fan of Big Paul's ever-growing backstory of Dr. Luther. I feel like they still pay decent attention to the match.

If it means no more promos for that cringe Chad show during PiP, it's already had a positive effect.

Women’s matches were the highlight of this episode, although as DEAN~! said Stat-Hart was pretty rough early on. Has Statlander wrestled Jade? And even if she has, the new serious dark Stat hasn’t. A trios match featuring any 4 of those 6 women is going to be good. Skye Blue got feisty early, played a strong face in peril, and did a ring post plancha. Emi and Ruby mostly watched this one. I love Bunny’s taunts while she’s wrestling. On the one hand, I think Cutler kicked out of one too many big moves. On the other hand, it means we got to see him eat a bunch of serious moves (although there are too many running knee strikes). I’m really tired of The Acclaimed being jobbed. Max’s rap was once again stellar, with the Goth Phase reference I’ve been making, a diss on Dr. Oz, and saying “Penta is short for Pendejo” which may have legit pissed him off. Good spot with them exchanging taunts. The rest was very boring and squasharific, with the Suzuki elbow being the highlight.

I was just watching Nitro season 1 and in episode 3 Booker attempts (as in it doesn’t land because the opponent moves) a standing version of the Harlem Hangover which...it’s 1995...

Jawbreaker show, awesome! They seem to be skipping Texas this year. Wife and I are actually looking to move to Philly area in a year or two, my company just opened an office there (well technically West Chester), my mom and brother and family are in Allentown and one of my wife’s best friends lives on Abingdon. I may be reaching out for neighborhood recommendations eventually.

I’m jealous, although I did have the Dax-Punk match here in Austin.

I’m realizing one of the big disconnects between the two viewpoints on the main event is whether the story/angle called for Jade to get some comeuppance versus those who think it was good for her to show (awkward, no-selling) dominance.

Funny you mention that because I was wondering what would’ve happened if Shafir’s frustration led to her stretching Jade.

agree, I was thinking that he really need to add more “sports entertainment” elements beyond the Kangols. I get that part of the long term story is that he’s not actually meant for this, but it needs to be awkward and corny. That spot he did where he had Eddie on the ropes and was running in place on him is a good start, add some show/comedy to that move and add something like you’re talking about.

Really, the late 90s were just fucking terrible for design, fashion, and music. Of course, a lot of wrestling music is still stuck in that era...

Shafir looked visibly frustrated at one point when trying to lock in a basic leg submission and Jade had no idea what to do and just kind of sat there.

I’m probably just tired and grumpy after yet another long stressful week but outside of the very excellent Kingston-Garcia match that ranged from “eh” to “meh”. I didn’t see that Jade-Shafir match the same way, and I’m probably just salty from soooo much Adam Cole this week.

I've always assumed that it was based off Goldberg's shitty "tribal" armband tattoo

and if they knew that Bret was off the table, that could have been foreshadowing.

I mean, the Deeb 5-minute challenge was so dead you could hear people breathing in the audience, but other than that I don't think it's been too bad. The Marina match was similar, for sure. At the Austin show I attended, the crowd was super hot for all of the women's matches for the Youtube show (and super hot all night).

I'm guessing Archer hauls Serpentico out to the ring, destroys him, destroys Luther, pisses me off, and leaves.

On Rampage, they will cut entrances for time. They've done that the last few weeks. They could just cut the Hook segments period.

Finally able to watch, started last night at the hospital but only match I could pay attention to was Dustin-Punk, and had to leave during JB-KOR. anyway, the opener was everything I wanted in a wrestling match between those 2. Old school AF, but with some big newer moves towards the end. Thinking Dustin might actually be on his last ride, which means I may get to see his last match live, since it will assuredly be in Austin. BCC vs the random dudes who could be the next member (even though Danielson named Moriarty in his original promo) was better when I could pay more attention and hear Regal and the others put Martin and all over. I was a little salty that Dante had to technically eat the submission when they’ve been building him some recently (and when Brock is right there), but that’s my fandom talking. JB vs. KOR was the surprise great match of the night. I am on team “the right guy went over”. Looked like Jungle Boy may have knocked one of Kyle’s teeth out, definitely bloodied his mouth. Hook continues to be dangerous and also still hasn’t sold a fucking thing. I’m worried for Danhausen. As Dean said, Britt got the memo that the women’s tournament is stiff (and also competitive). Speaking of stiff, fumbling your promo where you’re bragging about being the best promo in the women’s division is not the look you want. They’re obviously building to Britt-Jade (The Baddest Bitch vs. That Bitch, in the battle of originality). Main event...FUCKING STING DOING CRAZY DIVES!!!! I love him, always have, but “killing yourself for our pleasure” is not meant literally. Same goes for Darby, we need to enjoy him while he have him. He needs to not do things like do an unprotected headfirst dive into a chair wedged in the corner. He also cracked his skull pretty good on the coffin at the end. Also, we saw shirtless buff Jose late last year, how soon y’all forget. I’m sure I’m forgetting things, obviously the NJPW announcement was great (although Adam Cole meh), Kingston was great, Wardlow’s backstage stuff was great...oh yeah Wardlow Butcher was just huge dudes hitting each other hard until Wardlow tries to end Andy’s wrestling career with brutal power bombs.