JLowe

I wonder how much of it is the grade inflation thing that was happening in skating and gymnastics before they reset it all. Like, the idea was that 10s were impossible to get for a long time, then a couple of new tricks/routines earn 10s, then as the sport progresses you get more complicated tricks and routines that you HAVE to score as a 10.

There were two or three ugly spots in that match where I was thinking Gresham landed wrong, so not surprised.

Not a good start to the USFL opening weekend when you have to postpone several games due to weather because they're all being played in the same city. We'll see if they make it through the season at this rate.

I've had a bit of free time in the evenings over the weekend where I needed to decompress, and I decided that I would revisit WCW. I started with the first Clash of the Champions, then opted to start watching/rewatching Nitro. I still can't decide if I actually saw the first Nitro live or not, I have strong memories of the Luger appearance but not the Mall of America. Both the Pillman-Liger and the Sting-Flair matches were good, the Hogan main was a mess, which really sums up WCW in the 1990s. Both the first and second Nitros built up the arrivals of Sabu and Mr. Michael V.K. Wallstreet, who promptly lost their matches to Alex Wright (pre-dancing days) and Sting, although Sabu's loss was a DQ for putting Wright through a table after the match (IIRC). They also had a huge intro with Scott Norton showing up at the first Nitro, and then subsequently losing to Savage in week 2. Hogan-Luger ended with Dungeon of Doom interference and then a very long segment building to having Luger replace Vader on the Hulkamanics for WarGames at Fall Brawl. I started watching Fall Brawl '95, which was weird since a lot of the matches were based on angles from WCW Saturday Night. Pillman and Johnny B. Badd had a really great opening match which went about 30 minutes (albeit with numerous restholds) and Badd getting busted open hardway early on. Still shocking that they were essentially running a blackface gimmick in 1995. After that was a weird squash with Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Cobra, who looked familiar and I confirmed my memory that he was also the NWO Fake Sting. That's as far as I got, and I don't plan to make a regular thing out of posting about Nitros or WCW PPVs.

Dustin was my immediate thought. He's been around a long time, worked in all the major companies, knows what works and what doesn't, and if someone starts to complain about an angle he can just say "listen, youngblood, I got Goldust over".

Have him as a celebrity guest in The Acclaimed’s corner when they when the tag belts. Book it, Tony K!

One of the announcers said Gresham is 5’4”, which would be surprising as a kayfabe height so I’d imagine that’s accurate.

I missed the start trying to find the channel at the hospital, and missed some sections while nurses were in the room checking on my wife. I couldn’t really hear much either. Opening match was decent, hate that Sammy won, I feel like they’ve almost killed the TNT title over the last 3 months. Also, Sammy’s botch on the moonsault busted Ethan Page open, almost looked like a broken nose too. I kind of like whoever said they should have Ethan win the belt as revenge, it what I think they should do is bring Miro back with a vengeance and beat the hell out of Sammy, almost a squash. I actually caught the ROH episode where they showed some of Gresham’s recent title defenses. I like him. No idea who Dalton Castle is, but The Boys were awesome and he and Gresham had a fine match. The post-match was definitely a much better way to debut Singh, but I’m still not the least bit interested in seeing him wrestle and this just seems like a weird miss from a company that pushes lots of “small” wrestlers and focuses on workrate. I love Thunder Rosa, and I really don’t get the criticisms I’ve seen. Then again, I don’t watch joshi these days, and while I hear the WWE women are much better I value my limited free time too much to try and wade through that crap. Thunder Rosa has a good character, is a good wrestler, knows how to work crowds. She can fight stiff and she’s not afraid to bleed for the storyline. That’s all I need. I also like Nyla, she’s great at being a monster heel while apparently being about the nicest person in the company in real life. This was a great match, big moves and lots of convincing near falls and I honestly was thinking that Nyla could pull the win. That said, that match deserved 5 more minutes, the ending felt rushed.

I really don’t know or do stars but my gut says I would subtract .5 from all except Swerve-Lee vs Team Taz which might actually deserve another quarter star.

You and Dean and other basically said all I wanted to say, other than the glee I got from Danielson laying into Billy Gunn and the awesomely dangerous blading from Page. Robyn Renegade’s had two TV matches with AEW and both have been excellent. Might be time to give her a push on Dark as a reward, or add more women’s matches to TV. That was the best I think I’ve seen from Ruby Soho, and whoever mentioned that it’s because she decided to try and match the stiffness from the other qualifiers may be on to something. I also think it helps make the very competitive Bunny-Toni Storm match less of an aberration and more of a “all of these competitors are bringing everything they have for this tournament”. Speaking of the women, Dr. Baker might want to give her beau some lessons on putting on the crimson mask. Finally, I didn’t have CM Punk - Dustin Rhodes on my AEW dream match list but I should have.

I wished earlier for Danielson to stiff the shit out of Billy Gunn. When they had their first exchange in the corner, it looked like after the first chop Gunn was laughing and saying “is that all you got” and boy howdy Danielson laid it in, and then took a super stiff elbow from Gunn in return. Meanwhile the announcers are talking about Gunn potatoing them, so I bet they enjoyed that exchange.

Same, and that’s fucking nuts because there are some serious arteries around there if you saw the wrong spot. Like if you mess up on the forehead you can obviously do some damage but blading on your chin is asking to be rushed to a hospital.

That's still one more than The Acclaimed ?

A manager says " I was responsible for the ultimate decision and I approved it, and any failure is on my part". There are no "buts" or "it was this one guy whose dumb idea it was but I was the idiot who agreed even though I shouldn't have."

His target audience is a Venn Diagram of those bros, Joe Rogan superfans, and people who loved Rage Against the Machine until they got "political"

He was essentially ahead of his time in that regard, I'm surprised he hasn't found a way to do something like Uber where they offer loans to their independent contractor drivers to buy newer vehicles to allegedly make more money.

AEW is funny because they alternate between "we keep W-L records and maintain rankings for title shots" and "all you have to do is keep doing run-ins/obnoxious promos and you'll get a title shot". Scorpio Sky, prior to finally getting his TNT title shot, mentioned this, and I think more teams should. I will get some joy out of Danielson stiffing the shit out of Billy Gunn to get him to sell.

There really isn't anyone else like Vince Jr. left in wrestling, is there? Old enough to have grown up in the strictly kayfabe, carny, gentleman's agreement world of the territories. But also the guy who blew it all up and changed pro wrestling to sports entertainment to some kind of corporate entity focused on brand synergy and intensely protected copyrights. The top dog in a shrinking kennel.

JR and Tony mentioned JYD right at the start of the show, and again when a Eddie was wearing the shirt.

The other thing with the “lights out” is that they’re already using it for House of Black “run-ins”, so my immediate reaction was that we were going to be shifting HoB to ROH and feuding with Joe. Also, Singh had the same pony nub and almost the same outfit and shoes as Wardlow. And was slower than Marina Shafir.

Or, hear me out, have FTR win the belts and then let JE help King and P&P

I mentioned in my overview of the Austin show that there were people in the crowd who were trying to be clever with a Let’s Go Brandon chant during his Elevation match.

Regal is the fucking best. The Acclaimed are also the fucking best. Wonder what they cut out of Caster’s rap?

“Hey guys, great to be here. Listen, I saw that you signed some giant former basketball player who’s had about 4 months of training. Have I got an idea for you...”

1. 2 minutes of skin welting chops? Rule. 2. Better match than I expected but still not good and was indeed a mess. Penta is so fungible to me. 3. I was wrong. Fantastic match, Luchasaurus is so limited but his 5 moves of doom are very over. Surprised at the clean win. Having FTR confront the losers after the match was an odd choice. 4. Total crowd-killing squash. 5. I honestly expected blood but it had some good moments of violence from Eddie and Santana, and was a solid match before my predicted schmozz. Now that “Judas” has gone gold, they need to change Jericho’s theme so he can be a true heel. The knock-off on the WWF opening was funny though. 6. That one was a gimme. It’s getting old to me, but I guess we’ll at least get Wardlow back in the ring. 7. I got the match of the night that I didn’t expect! I’ve come around huge on Starks, he’s a star. Hobbs is coming along. Swerve and Lee, as I said elsewhere, are seemingly a natural tag team and I honestly would like to see that continue. Hobbs power slamming Lee sounded like a bomb went off. That ending reminded me so much of Nitro, where you’d have a bunch of really good wrestling and then some bullshit ending that killed the mood.