(BP)

Butcher and Blade don’t come off like cult members, but I could see them being the bikers in Mandy who take bad acid and go goblin mode, so they could work as hit men for a cult.

They should run an angle where it turns out there’s so much cult activity in AEW because Doc Sampson is running an MKUltra program on the roster.

Julia worked Stat on Dark during her eye patch phase, and it wasn’t pretty. Really one of the issues with the less experienced women on the roster is that they haven’t learned how to work with rangy opponents, so they have trouble hitting stuff clean on the Stats and the Jades of the division.

Darby made the most sense at one point, but he’s supposedly about to disappear for a significant amount of time to start his training for climbing Everest. He seems to think it’s an investment in his wrestling career because it could generate mainstream media attention.

I’m thinking she’ll get to keep her name, but I would pitch Jane Cargo.

That first one seems to be based on the Toy Box Killer, which is so beyond the pale even for serial killer true crime stories that I don’t think it should ever be dramatized. The investigator responsible for cataloguing the crime scene went home and killed themself the same day. The Scalper trailer is cut together well at least, but it didn’t sell me on giving it a try.

They’ve pretty much dealt with all of the lore stuff they’ve been teasing most of the series, so whenever C-137 and Rick Prime have a final showdown that would be the logical endpoint. It’ll go for another twenty seasons after that, but that’s the way the news goes.

I’d imagine Brody causes distractions for Julia’s cutoffs so she can take control until one of the Best Friends neutralizes him and Stat does her comeback. Maybe Brody accidentally gets the mist and then Stat hits Sunday Night Fever. With a heater at ringside stuff like that doesn’t seem too tricky to lay out.

You just a need a mantra to keep yourself focused. This one guy I used to see on TV would use the phrase “Whatamanuever!”

Really they ended up conspiring against themselves because they couldn’t see beyond the boom period and their own pettiness. They cost themselves an audience they never got back doing a victory lap. The WCW hardcores who would’ve given it a shot bailed as soon as they saw their stars getting humiliated. Then they began to shed casuals they’d picked up during the Attitude Era as the WWF became less like a weird burlesque show built around face Austin and more like a regular middling wrestling promotion again. They were too high on their own supply to believe people would just stop watching wrestling.

When it’s frustrated snarky inflection Rick it’s perfect. It’s the peppy upbeat lines that sound off.

When Kyle Fletcher was on commentary I realized he sounds like Rhys Darby and I couldn’t stop thinking about it during the FTR segment.

Like a fourth of the belts are tag titles, so it might also mean you don’t have any friends.

I saw Buddy Rose for the first time on one of the Shawn DVD sets tagging with Somers against the Rockers, and my first thought was “where have they been hiding this guy?” PWO has some tremendous write-ups about him. This is more of an oddity than anything else, but I love that it exists: Buddy and Hogan in Japan teaming against Fujinami and Yatsu. Hogan later main evented the WWF Wrestledream show with Yatsu, presumably because they were familiar with each other from the early 80s.

I’m aware I’m becoming the board’s DPW shill, but this is so cool of Cole to do. Chris Danger becoming a wrestler and turning himself into his own CAW is a great 21st century twist on the Dude Love story.

Emi Sakura is DPW’s Women’s World Champion. Deadlock partnered with Gatoh Move, and she’s even defended the title in Japan on a show they co-promoted.

I don’t have anything against Jay White, but all of the singles matches I’ve seen with him seem kind of rudderless and samesy until there’s a really hot finishing stretch. That’s how I feel about a lot of the NJPW-style wrestlers in AEW though, so I mostly chalk it up to his matches just not being my thing.

Yeah, I remembered after I posted it that it was right after the chair spot on the ring post that had a lot of daylight. Though Starks giving Danielson a Hogan swing chair shot in that setup was the right move, especially a week before Wrestledream.

RVD doing the Taz arm cross and mean mugging ruled. I don’t know what that heckler said to Ricky that made him say back, “so is your wife’s orgasms.” But goddam.

The eventual Randy/Elizabeth reunion moment between Miro and Lana is going to blow the roof off. I’m hoping Willow’s not hurt and they just decided not to job her out to Julia.

Nemeth’s debut match as Ziggler against Batista was a really good sprint where Dave gave a lot. It kind of reminds me of Danielson’s NXT debut match with Jericho where someone is put directly in the deep end with a top star and comes out looking great.

If their only ambition with Rampage was to fill two hours of tv time, they nailed it. Collision looks great on paper.

I’d be way more terrified of Renee if I helped her dumbass husband seriously hurt himself.

I thought one of the most unnerving parts of the whole match was Fenix trying to roll Mox into the ring and Mox floundering on the apron like he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing.

It’s been a week since AEW has had a tournament, so we’re due for one anyway.