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He can fill in for the shot put. As the ball, I mean.

I'm a little surprised that Punk's MMA performances don't seem to be dampening enthusiasm for a potential return to pro wrestling. If I were one of the EVPs, or anybody else with backstage pull in AEW, I'd tell Tony Khan "I'm not selling for that guy. And we both know he can't make me." OK, not really. But I'd have a lot of respect for anyone who did say that.

Mojo Rawley needs to go to the L.A. Dojo and become Dojo Rawley.

I don't think this makes any sense. It's possible to be part of a group that has a collective identity while also having a distinct individual character. LIJ, for example, have a group identity, but I wouldn't say the members are defined just by their associations with one another.

Love it! Bring it back! Except... Considerations like these are why I favor giving each team two saves rather than just one. That way you get up to four per match, which would help protect double-team moves and give you some cool moments without going overboard.

One more: rope breaks are extremely overused. It seems like most wrestlers, in kayfabe, never bother to train submission escapes and just rely on the ropes to bail them out. That's lame. The wrestlers look weak for taking that approach, and the sport looks bad for rewarding it. The solution: all pro wrestling should limit the number of rope breaks the way ROH pure rules matches do, and wrestler should respond by working in more submission escapes. Like limiting saves in tag matches, this would open up more cool ways to structure matches and build suspense. PLUS, you could do the old spot where a face goes for a sunset flip, the heel holds the ropes, and ref kicks the heel's hands away--and have it make sense!

Here's another: I think they should also enforce the rules in tag team matches way more strictly. Right now, enforcement of the rules is so lax that it makes no sense for the wrestlers to ever follow them. If you're not the legal man, there's no reason to stay out on the apron, and no reason to leave the ring when the ref tells you. You'll never get punished, so obeying the rules can only place you at a disadvantage. But everyone still does some perfunctory rule-following, at least in the early goings. Even heel teams do this. Not only does it not make sense in general, it ruins the hot tag. There's no point to a hot tag when the wrestler on the apron could just come in and clean house at any time, whether they get tagged in or not. They should also limit the number of times the non-legal man in a tag match can break up a pin or submission. I've heard WWE actually does do this, but never conveys it to the audience, which is weird. I think it would a great way to build drama and tell stories. Two saves per team would be a good number.

I originally posted a version of this in the "Wrestling Tropes You Love / Hate" thread, but it makes more sense here: I hate that wrestling companies allow blatant cheating, caught on video in clear view of everyone, to go completely unpunished. Some promotions even allow their supposedly prestigious titles to change hands as a result of such acts. It makes no sense and cheapens everything. I also hate that the rules of pro wrestling permit competitors to drop each other on their heads and necks, kick and knee downed opponents in the head, and throw each other over the top rope. These moves being legal makes nonsense out of everything that happens in the ring. Why would you ever scoop slam an opponent on their back when you could spike them on the top of their head instead? If your opponent is on the mat in front of you, why would you ever do anything but stomp their face over and over? Why would you ever hit a press slam or powerbomb in the ring, when from the same setup, you could throw your opponent over the top rope to the floor? It would be way more effective, and it's all legal! All wrestling promotions should outlaw moves that involve lifting the opponent off their feet and dropping them on their head or neck, as well as all kicks and knees to the heads of downed opponents, and all throws over the top where the opponent's feet are off the mat before their shoulders clear the perimeter of the ropes. They should also move away from unambiguous match-deciding cheating, except for angles where a decision gets reversed or a wrestler gets suspended.

I'll do you one better: watching some of Moxley's stuff post-WWE has made me understand why Vince saw him as suited for wacky comedy stuff. He just carries himself in kind of a goofy way. And for a dude with such a tough-guy image, his punches and knees consistently look very weak. EDIT: For example:

With NXT's move to Tuesday being official, I'm reminded of this post of mine from December '19, in which I predicated that going head-to-head with NXT would end poorly for AEW: In retrospect, I definitely underestimated (a) how much of an appetite there was for an alternative to WWE, even one that still seems very WWE-ish to me, and (b) how much more NXT would "indulge in goofy sports-entertainment stuff" on USA.

Penta says "Penta El Zero M"? Can he only say his own name, like a Pokemon?

Did Omega ever have a clear motivation for giving Sydal the chance to wrestle him if he could beat Nakazawa, etc.?

It's really just confusing. Imagine you're the champion, and your next challenger says "I want that title so bad, I'll beat up my own girlfriend!" Are you more intimidated by him now? I don't see why Ibushi's reaction would be anything but "jesus, this guy's even dumber than I am".

Christian's promo absolutely blurred the line between fiction and reality--the Jon Moxley reference was to an out-of-character interview where Moxley was praising him as a worker. If you want to say that's not technically "breaking kayfabe", OK. In that case, I'll say that I think a promo that technically doesn't break kayfabe can suck very bad in the same way that a kayfabe-breaking promo does. GSP, Jones, Khabib, and Usman were/are dominant fighters. They are not analogous to Christian Cage.

I didn't like Christian's promo at all. He's their hot new signing, going straight for the world title, and he's talking about how he works hard in the ring and makes his opponents look good. I can't wait for his big promo hyping up the title match. "Kenny Omega... you better watch out... cuz ask anybody, ask Jon Moxley... I'm a CARPENTER... I'm a MECHANIC... and at Full Gear... I'm gonna GET YOU OVER!!!!"

This is a bit of derail, but I've never understood this. Seems to me that both a sleeper and an RNC work by compressing the carotid arteries, and neither attack the windpipe, so it makes no sense to say that an RNC is a "choke hold" in a way that a sleeper isn't.

I like the SLEEPER HOLD. It bugs me when it gets called a "rear naked choke" in pro wrestling. Let's go back to our roots.

@Smelly McUgly I'd never seen or even heard of that Flair/Regal match, but I'm watching now and enjoying it a lot. Thanks!

So YOU'RE the one.

Setting the special effects aside for the moment: The last five matches on this show (and maybe some earlier ones that I missed) all had some kind of outside interference. Penelope Ford ref distraction in the Best Friends/Miro and Kip match, Private Party interference in the Hangman/Hardy match, Jake in the ladder match, Hobbs and Hook in the street fight, and the Good Brothers in the main event. Who likes this? Aside from bookers looking for shortcuts, who wants this stuff in wrestling? Does it really "get heat"? It's just as prevalent as ever--maybe more so, now that New Japan is doing it so much--but I can't imagine seeing another ref distraction or heel run-in and having any reaction but "yep, I get it, whatever".

Maybe Free Will and Self-Expression Through Creativity are Bad Things.

Is there anything to rule out Okada as the guy? I don't think they said the new signing would be physically present at the show.

Who are you to question the 2020 Booker of the Year?

A @NoFistsJustFlips post in the AEW thread reminded me of one of my favorites: wrestlers trash-talking into the camera on the way to the ring. I don't even need to be able to hear what they're saying. They don't even need to be speaking a language I understand. I just like the vibe.