Godfrey

That Dominic beatdown was wild. Kudos to him for taking it. This has been said a lot over the past 6 months but this would have been amazing with a real crowd, maybe even a star making appearance. Dominic is putting in the work so far and I'm into seeing him wrestle.

My local place had Royal Rumble 1992 and everything WWF from 97 to 2000, but the specialty grocer on the other side of town had tons of 90's All Japan and New Japan bootlegs. I had to learn katakana to rent them so the whole endeavor was worthwhile.

This was a great send off and you're right, Impact doesn't often get a chance to say goodbye on good terms so it was nice to see. Santana and Ortiz really made their bones in Impact, would they be considered home grown talent for them? We never hear of them being an Impact product but Wikipedia says that was where they first got started.

He’s danger close to the Woody Allen Line.

I was advocating for more women's matches on Dynamite but after the slew of injuries reduced the roster to Shida and a bunch of talented but green women I let that one go. But that doesn't mean they can't have more of a presence on the show. The Baker/Swole segments have been great and have involved zero wrestling, Swole's one elbow this week notwithstanding. Why not get at least one more of these feuds going? It will have to end in a match eventually but you can get a couple of months worth of content first and if it works properly the match won't have to matter as much because the lead up was so much fun. Try and tell me Vickie Guerrero can't make worthwhile television out of a feud with pretty much anyone. I want more women's matches but if that's not going to happen I'd also enjoy it if they at least pretended the division wasn't an after thought.

Wait, then why are you here?

I'm with you, he's been really good when he's been on the past few months. Great promos and delivering in the ring, excluding his match with Hager although even that was an okay slugfest.

Opening match was fantastic storytelling. So many little touches that advanced angles, like Omega teeing off on a guy like he did Marko or Cabana almost doing the Dark Order hand symbol but then just celebrating. Not sure who Nine was but he took a rana off the top like a champ. The Hardy/Guevarra brawl was great. I can get into this feud. Sammy's dive looked wild and Hardy bleeding a lot was a great touch. Cardona hit a nice tiger driver.

The Kevin Nash shoot that was posted got me watching Kevin Nash shoots and he said in one that his son loves watching Kevin Sullivan in Japan. I didn't know he went to Japan and when I did some cursory searching I couldn't find anything (except him kicking the shoot out of WING Kanemura, that wasn't in Japan but it was very interesting to watch). So is Nash wrong about that or did he mean a different Sullivan or did I just not look hard enough?

Not if you ask Priscilla Kelly. But I was thinking the same, and then I wondered if they'd actually pull the trigger on making him champ and what that would look like. I presume interference plays into the finish and if I were Ricky Starks I'd ruin his title shot too. His back looks effed.

Diesel/Shawn was pretty great.

Scorp cut a really good promo on Dark, still think he gives away too much in his matches but Hobbs is a big guy and the match was quick so it didn't hurt this time around. Austin Gunn is certainly Billy Gunn's kid. The Initiative are a goofy jobber team, Janella and Kiss are a goofy mid-card act, this was an entertaining little match. Janella/Kiss are putting together good sequences (even if Joey is still trying things he shouldn't) and they have personality to spare, not sure how far they can go with a tag roster this stacked but a fairy tale title shot against a team like FTR would be cool. Schiavone made me legit LOL during this match, the guy is doing his best work these days. Abadon has such a different presentation from anything else on main stream wrestling right now that she gets points just for that. At the moment, her matches are essentially a series of horror spots and a sloppy rana but a female version of the Fiend, or at least a Bray Wyatt type, may have legs and that means a lot less is a lot more. Could be she's not much of a talker but some vignettes from that former deathmatch producer guy would go a long way to keeping her special. Hide the negative, highlight the positive. QT/Evans was a good return from both guys. Looks like they're picking up the Allie program where they left off which is great because I don't need much story from Dark but a little something to give the matches more stakes is appreciated. QT may be a good instructor but as a wrestler he's all over the place; one power spot, one dive, and a number of moves that don't really focus on anything and aren't working towards a particular finish, like a low rent Seth Rollins. FTR/Pillman Jr. and Garrison was a fun squash. Pillman is coming along well. Dax and Cash laid their shit in even in this match. Private Party/Butcher and the Blade was a fine exhibition. PP have a modern Rockers vibe to me and the new gear is better but so many of their moves barely graze their opponents that all the somersaults in the world won't make their double teams look good. I like B&B, I think they have a great look and don't try things beyond their scope. Solid main event.

Agree with all of this. I think the idea of Raw Underground isn't bad but it got produced to death and a change of venue isn't going to solve the root issues with the show. I was even getting into the idea until one of the Viking Raiders threw a bunch of terrible punches and used his exact same worn out spots as he does in the ring and it was cut identically so the only real change was the a Viking Raider wasn't that Viking anymore and I had to listen to Shane McMahon. Maybe they can work it into something usable but this was not the thing they need.

Well, I'm definitely interested in Raw for the first time in a while so if this is all a work, I got worked.

Daniel Bryan at WM30 for sure, and Benoit at 20 at the time. Jericho winning the title from HHH on Raw in 2000 was probably the biggest one for me purely due to the shock but naturally it was reversed right after so we didn't get to enjoy it for long. Thinking on it now, that particular rug pull may be the moment I started to turn on WWF booking.

Because he's the biggest name in the company who isn't an ex-WWE guy and all discussions of stigma aside, I think it's important AEW establish themselves as a company that doesn't only run men from the other show at the top. Omega defeating Mox leading to Page defeating Omega is a good path to establishing the relatively new top guys.

A few calls for MJF to carry the company for a whole year, which is a lot for a 24 year old kid with limited TV experience. I am not saying he can't do it, but it would be a daunting task and one I would hope they have a plan for because a series of fuck finishes in their world title matches is not a great idea. How does MJF do in the mercurial demos~? Is he a channel changer at all?

You're right about NXT but this is their SDL debut and I think even by this point he was starting to show something. And here's him in a later promo and again, with some time I think he could have grown into a decent heel. Not a done product by any means but he didn't look out of place with Reigns and Samoa Joe and that's not easy.

Very unfortunate injury for Jason Jordan. Gable was the better wrestler but Jordan had a lot of charisma, he just needed more time. Calling either Kurt Angle’s son is pretty silly, why couldn’t he have just been their coach or something? (Don’t answer that.)

They'll have to bring in more than a few women to fill out that tournament since so many of the roster is on the shelf. Obviously you want someone like Thunder Rosa and it would seem Ivelisse is in the mix, who else could fill out the spots? I assume anyone signed with Impact and Ring of Honor is out and the only WWE releases available are Maria Kanellis and Sarah Logan and they're both out too. And my early call for winner is Allie and Brandi.

I'm into seeing what Cardona can do. WWE's style is such that we may have never seen what Zack Ryder was capable of and everyone deserves a chance to show their stuff. My issue is just that he feels very unnecessary. He's jacked and tanned and that's great if you're Eric Bischoff but to me he's a generic CAW template in a company that tries to be anything but. He reeks of Ruthless Aggression and other corny wrestling tropes I want to move past. Or to put it in a more positive light, Matt has a steep hill to climb and a lot of evolving to do before I can see him as anything besides what he's spent that past 15 years portraying and I'm excited to see if he can do it.

Is Cardona officially on the roster? He may be in for a one and done next week to promote his action figures or whatever.

https://www.si.com/wrestling/2020/07/29/randy-orton-drew-mcintyre-wrestlemania Of all the things that 2020 has brought me, the most surprising is how much I agree with Randy Orton.

I've defended JR before but something was up this episode. Criticizing the writing, the props, Schiavone's acting. Taz and Tony covered when they could but someone needs to tell JR that his on air grumblings take away from the show way more than people not using tag ropes or whatever his bitch is this week. Plus he got lost a few times. Bad night maybe but he was definitely a negative this week. I thought Mox looked great in the main event, really crisp. Starks also had a great night, his promo was on point, he looked right at home in the ring, and he took that awful thumbtack attack so he's earned his money already. Can't say I was that into Warhorse and I'm veeeerrrryyyy 'wait and see' with Cardona. Up and down episode.

Feels like they're investing in the long term with Scorpio Sky now. He's on Dark every week winning singles matches, his outfit has undergone some changes to take him away from SCU, and he's constantly being put over on commentary as someone on the brink of a good run at the belt. Forgive the fantasy booking, I could see Sky being the guy to defeat Cody for the TNT belt if they want to relaunch him properly. And if he Sky isn't the ball of charisma they need right now, they have enough managers around to talk for him. Shit, if that's Eddie Kingston's new role they could make some real money.