Technico Support

I don't even know what "Virtuosa" is supposed to mean. Like is the whole gimmick "I'm smart and really good at wrestling?" Because that's some two decades ago e-fed shit. It's All Elite Wrestling. Being good at wrestling is supposed to be everyone on the roster's baseline. Unless you're literally the best wrestler in the world or top 3ish, you seriously cannot make "really good wrestler" your whole thing. Deeb is flopping for the same reason.

This week's Hey! (ew) featured Bryan Keith and it was really good!

Holy shit that sounds awesome. I wrote this in the Peacock or Netflix thread, but if we're talking Steiners vs babyface superteams, Steiners vs Sting & Luger from whatever Superbrawl that was was an awesome match. I love face vs face matches that eventually break down as guys lose their cool, and that's what the match was. It was a little sloppy but you can kayfabe it by attributing it to the teams slowly getting more irritated and chippy. Just a fun match.

This past weekend's beer: finished off the last can of the Sierra Nevada lager, and then moved to Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA. Somehow Sierra Nevada stays inflation-proof at 10.99 a six pack while everything else is going up. I'm sure the independently-owned stores near me sell it for a few bucks higher...big win for my local county-owned stores. Torpedo is 7.2% alcohol and really a can't miss beer if you like IPAs, just really flavorful.

I didn't think I'd see a Penthouse Forum reference in 2025 but I'm here for it.

Watching old AEW from 2020, being reminded that Jimmy Havoc was a thing, then pausing the show to Google the story about Excalibur choking out drunk, belligerent Havoc in a Baltimore restaurant parking lot. Glorious.

After seeing all the damage Punk did to AEW because he’s a thin skinned bitchboy, all this, plus apparently aging 10 years in the space of two and having an awful match, is delicious. Every once in a great while, the shitty people get what’s coming to them. Savor it when it happens, my friends.

Living in the working class heart of Chicago like a real tough lunchpail Chacago guy Highland Park without stable income can't be easy! The We Watch Wrestling guys always clown on Punk for all his Chicago this and Chicago that bullshit when he lives 25 miles away in one of the city's richest, whitest suburbs.

Thankya buddy! Your work gym sounds awesome. I, too, am "encouraged" to come in a little more...my work gym is pretty good but obviously no free weight barbells and plates due to liability issues. Of course, the showers were broken Monday, which is awesome after a 3 mile treadmill run and a half hour of weights. Deodorant and body spray yaaaaaaay! Heat wave in my area this past week = running outside only Sunday and Friday. Sunday: 6 mile run that I had to cut short to 5 when the expected extreme heat started maybe a half hour into it Monday: 3 miles on the treadmill (varying speeds between 5 and 6), then chest, shoulders, triceps Tuesday: Same as the day before but with back, biceps, and core Wednesday: See Monday but at my actual gym, not work Thursday: At the actual gym, HIIT on the treadmill for a half hour (4.5mph jog, 8-9 sprint), then back, biceps, core, and legs Friday: FINALLY able to run outside without risking heat stroke, 6 miles because my legs were dead from HIIT Today: Cheat and recovery day. Down 81ish pounds since starting a little over two years ago. Might shoot for 100 just to make it a nice round number.

Winston Duke would be awesome. 50 is okay but his apex was Den of Thieves.

He was with Sculdun's wife in the end. I wonder if the Empire connected Sculdun to Rebel funding due to his relationship with Mothma and his closeness to Luthen's antiques business, and sent him to prison, leaving his wife and Mothma's husband to get together for convenience/necessity. Of course that makes their kids, who are married, step-siblings now.

Yeah, when I wrote about those countries being human rights dumpster fires, I was fully aware that I am living in a glass house.

It's so crazy in retrospect to think about WCW getting one of the WWF's tippy top guys at the height of his power, and doing absolutely nothing of consequence with him. Politics were so bad with the inmates running the asylum that a top guy, a genuine superstar, was handed to them and they squandered him.

Yeah, Alvarez is always joking about how much Google says he's worth. They should build this match as Saudi apologizer vs China apologizer, winner gets first dibs on the next human rights dumpster fire regime to cozy up to.

Fragile ego, fragile body, weak mind, weak spirit Punk gave some interview around Mania where he said something like, "why is it everybody else can say things and then say, 'that was my wrestling character,' but when I say things, everyone thinks it's me?" Like bro, since the start of your career, you have portrayed your "wrestling character" as 100% shoot, real you. NOW that everyone is catching on that the real you is kind of a douchebag, my man is trying to fall back on kayfabe. Or do we consider all his performative activism part of his wrestling character, too? Conspicuous women's rights t-shirts? Real Pro-Palestine insta posts? Real Old tweets and interviews shitting on Saudi? Wrestling character Amazing After seeing the way he's conducted himself over the years, watching Punk elbow Miz and say "save some of that sanguinous cock for me!" is awesome. To @TheVileOne's point: Just don't hold yourself up as some paragon of progressive causes and this shit would never happen. I kind of believe @EVA. I bet the dude really needs the money. As for the little kid who wanted a pic that Punk shoved aside, dude should know he needed to be 9 years older and female.

Matt D hates fun! Honestly, I'm more annoyed by all the Defy-related chants. More than any other indy, it feels like Defy fans make it their whole personality. I agree that chanting jokey shit about wrestlers' names instead of getting into the match is kind of stupid, but chanting for another promotion entirely in some effort to show how smart you are is top tier wrestling hipsterdom. It's like going to some modern pop concert and holding up signs for your local open mic coffee house. Defy is the Crossfit of wrestling. How do you know someone is into Crossfit/Defy? Wait long enough, they'll bring it up.

Perry also, in some promo, made a tasteful reference to "having the hottest bitch in the locker room."

I think I've mentioned this before, but I I had a work trip in March 2020 (day after AEW Revolution 2020, in fact!) right before the pandemic really hit, and I saw RoS on the plane ride out and Joker on the way back. I despised both films and wondered if a plane crash would have been preferable. I actually enjoyed TFA at the time, and still do if I don't think about its issues too much. It's excellent in a fanservice and ticking all the boxes way. But at some point it hit me that it's just a remake of New Hope, a lot of things don't make sense, and they rendered episodes 3-6 meaningless, which was its worst crime. The Empire is back, the Rebellion is back at step -2, and we have a new Luke. Yaaaay.

That sounds awesome. Was this on your pod or his, and can you post the pod name and date? I wrote this up in a longer post in the Peacock thread, but the most striking thing about 1987 - 1991 WCW was how they didn't really build up anyone for the world title storylines outside of Luger and Sting, who were essentially back-pocketed for whenever they needed them. Every other big program challenger was just someone they heated up in three minutes like Cup Noodles. 1987: Ron Garvin is just plugged in because nobody else wanted to do it 1988: Luger and Flair main event both of the year's PPVs 1989: Steamboat pins Flair in a tag match and becomes #1 contender overnight. They trade the belt, leading to "retired" Funk attacking Flair to lead to the next program. 1990: Sting is injured. With nobody else built up, they plug Luger back in for a bit. Sting wins the belt and defends against an awesome new heel challenger they'd built since 1989 is shoved into the dumb Black Scorpion program. Did they have plans for a hot new challenger to be unmasked here? LOOOOOOOL of course not. 1991: Flair wins it back. Again, nobody has been built up, so they throw TATSUMI FUJINAMI in there. Flair leaves the company on the eve of ANOTHER Luger main event. Aside from Sting's handful of months world title reign, I'd argue Sting and Luger were just upper midcarders (charitably! Sting did fuck all between Clash 1 and and Flair/Funk/Muta program). It's amazing to me how none of these contenders, aside from "in case of emergency, break glass" Lex Luger, were even on the radar a month or two before getting title programs. WCW, everybody.

From 1987 until their closure, with the exception of a brief period when the NWO was the hottest thing in wrestling (but shorter than 83 weeks), WCW could fuck up a wet dream. I could list WCW's fuckups year by year but I gave up on my rewatch around 92. But for 87 alone, I'd say: Crockett letting Watts and JR con him into buying the UWF for way too much money when it was like a month out from dying. Following that up by doing nothing with the UWF or its talent, with the exception of semi-pushing Sting a year after the purchase. Flair's title loss to lame duck midcarder Ron Garvin, and Garvin's subsequent two month "sabbatical to train for Starrcade." Putting Starrcade in Chicago to counter claims of being "too Southern," angering their core fanbase. Dusty finish for Road Warriors/Horsemen tag match at Starrcade when the Warriors' "hometown" was so ready for a title change. Killed the town.

TFA completely undoing the Rebellion’s struggle and victory, THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE ORIGINAL SERIES, all because that hack JJ Abrams had no other ideas outside of “let’s just remake New Hope,” was the dirt worst. If I was Luke and all my efforts meant nothing in the end, I’d fuck off to some shithole planet myself. I really appreciated Johnson trying to at least do something different, even if aspects of it were flawed. The less said about Rise of Skywalker, the better. One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I appreciate all the heavy lifting retcon work subsequent TV shows have done to explain the post episode 6 New Republic’s inadequacy, their human failings, and the rise of the First Order, thus softening the blow of TFA resetting everything in the grand scheme of things.

Mid/lower mid card guys going 60/40 with stars and losing has been cemented as AEW’s TV formula. I guess there’s just always going to be a need for content and something to bitch about. I grew up in the 80s with nothing but name guy vs jobber matches on TV except for SNME & Clashes. The Raw vs Nitro period gave us more competitive matches (but usually with shitty finishes) because both sides were trying to beat the other in the ratings. WWE after the end of WCW was a mixed bag, but mostly shitty because they had no competition. Now we get AEW and their typical TV format, with some matches between same-level guys mixed in. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just different. My point is, everything changes. That’s like seeing a famous rock band from the 70s nowadays at the state fair, only one or two original members, they’re all old, and being like, “ I don’t know what all the fuss about them was about.”

There was a fun little character moment after that on the floor, where Yuta tried to struggle to his feet, using Shafir for balance, and she violently shoved him off of her and up the ramp. I lol’d. Yuta is doing his best work right now as a conniving, stooging little shit.

The ideas of two NWOs, and NWO Sting, were a creative nadir in a company built on creative nadirs since 1987. Instead of just ending the NWO angle and doing something else, they said “no no, the answer is MORE NWOs!” And then the guy whose whole thing was “I am the arch enemy of the NWO” joined them. I said it during my late 80s/early 90s rewatch, but god damn, this company stepped on its own dick more than John Holmes.

Oh man, yes. I don’t care enough to look it up, but I swear 2/3 of the Opps teamed with somebody else in a six man recently. What the fuck?