Krone Meltzer

Not gonna lie, this is my favorite Tony Khan. I personally love it.

You know what, I really enjoyed that Malakai Black vs. Dante Martin match. That was just excellent. I unfortunately missed the trios match - but everything I saw on Twitter said it was great as well.

Gimme Leyla Hirsch in the IC to counter Paige VanZant and ATT. 5v5 mixed tag at Full Gear.

I'm still in awe that MiSu/Dragon was on YouTube of all places. Does last night help signify that live Rampage > taped?

Well, we've seen the mountain top and boy is it glorious.

100% fair point. By the time we got to Rampage a couple of weeks ago, I was already burnt out from Dark + Dynamite and I think it's because the shows are so damn good. You're popping every five minutes it seems and by the time you get to Rampage you've already been in the arena for 3 1/2 hours... Jesus, makes me shudder to think what a RAW show would be like to go to with 3 hours of that PLUS Main Event.

The problem I have with Rampage is that it's taped - first and foremost. Maybe it's unfair of me, but I think we can all agree live wrestling/sports is just so much better in the moment than going back to watch it later. You then couple that with the fact that - outside of that second Rampage (Punk's debut which also happened to be live) the crowd isn't into it as much as they are with Rampage. Then, we can boomerang around to the fact that an 18-45 demographic is probably busy on Friday nights whether it's partying with friends, dates, ect. HOWEVER, I think that due to the "omg CM Punk is returning!" is what gave them such a strong rating there. That's the anomaly right now. Let's be honest, Rampage is nothing more than a glorified Sunday Night Heat as it stands right now. You look at the cards and you can pick out who's winning every match probably pretty close to every time. Sure you'll get your IC vs. ATT type matches like tonight, but Punk vs. Daniel Garcia or Punk vs. Matt Sydal. I mean c'mon, we all know who's winning those. I'd really be tempted to almost just throw Rampage on at 7 or even head to head for the first hour of SD at 8 at this rate, assuming they have to stay on Friday nights. I heard TK talking about how they aren't running Full Gear on a Sunday to prevent him from going head to head with the NFL which makes sense since they are both his businesses. By process of elimination, that takes away Sunday, Monday, and Thursday from any potential AEW shows if I had to guess. That leaves you Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. I doubt they'd want to have Rampage air a week later so Tuesday would probably be off the table leaving only Friday and Saturday. Personally, I always thought it would be cool if they could get BTE on national TV. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I love the interactions and just zaniness that takes place and think that could really appeal to the non wrestling fans out there.

Love the Christian Cage theme. It's become a meme in my discord where if any sports game that's on could be an "instant classic" we throw that song on for added effect.

That's brilliant if that's their ploy that he's a tweener. Begs the question - if the entrance tunnels dictate face/heel, what is Malakai Black?

Not to my knowledge. Buy In has always been free on YouTube so I assume it'll be on their main page.

My only question is - should they have done Fish vs. Danielson on thd Buy In and then Suzuki/BD on Dynamite. Because to me, BD vs. Suzuki feels like a MUCH bigger match than filet o Fish vs. DB.

Totally agree. The crowd itself just isn't there after watching a 2 hour packed Dynamite + an hours worth of Elevation before. That's what really helped the Rampage in Chicago with Punk was it being live. Also, I really hope they make the stage something different from Dynamite to give it more of it's own unique feel and atmosphere. I'd wager they're probably still a little ways off from that as I wonder if they even have the infrastructure in place to make that happen (two separate teams to set up the arena, storage for said items, ect). TK could easily buy all that stuff when he needs it - but I could understand him wanting to take his time and make sure he's got the Dynamite rounds down before Rampage. Also, if they do it live - I'd imagine they have to move it to two hours or shoot Dark: Elevation before that instead of just having fans for a one hour show. If that's the case, I'd like to see Rampage (if possible) move to 7pm and go head to head with SD for an hour. Lots of interesting ways to cut the onion that is known as Rampage in the future.

I love CM Punk calling 2.0 the Nasty Boys younger brothers. That got a jolly pop from me.

I think a big reason they wouldn't fumble is they built the groundwork before even thinking about presenting the title. We could all argue a Trios title could've been introduced over a year ago with all the stables they have - but they've really pushed the six man tags (Darby, Eddie, and Mox come to mind - as well as someone like 2.0 and Daniel Garcia) recently. My only concern would be introducing titles too rapidly. I don't want to get into a situation where it feels like the 'E with all these titles that are meaningless. However, I don't think that'll happen since World, Secondary, Tag titles are being split by gender. No way they'd go for it, but it would be cool if the trios was also an intergender thing as well. I honestly don't know if they'll ever get to the point of being able to have a successful womens trios just because of how hard it is as is to get female tags (although it's becoming more of a thing recently since the industry has adopted it more) - but I also know TK isn't a huge fan of the intergender wrestling so I don't know if we will see that. Would be cool to have some of those couples who are both wrestlers have the chance at winning titles together (Cardona/Green, Kip/Penelope, Bunny/Blade, Swole/Cedric, Baker/Cole, Leva/Avalon, ect.) while also tying everything together. Sounds good in my head, I don't know how they'd implement rules or whatnot (only one female per team, female vs. female and male vs. male only, ect) but it sounded good in my head with some tweaks.

You think maybe, just maybe the next title we get down the line is a womens tag title? Trying to even out the division so both sides, men and womens have their world title, undercard title, and tag titles? I'd be more inclined to think the trios title would be next with the plethora of trios/stables they have - but I could also see TK trying to balance both sides out. I just don't know if they have the firepower in the womens division for tag titles yet. Realistically, I thought that would be next (womens tag titles) over a secondary womens title since it seemed like they were trying to put together some more female tag teams, but with this development of a secondary womens title I do wonder what will be next.

Do you think part of this is because he's already declared he will never challenge for the AEW World Title - so people see his stories as nothing more than that? There is no "journey to the top of the mountain" with him (assuming he keeps that stipulation) and because of that, takes the investment out of the character. Just like a college team who get's a post season ban. Why cheer on USC for 13 straight weeks when, even if they go undefeated, they still get nothing but a "good job!". Maybe not the best analogy, but the closest one I could think.

I'm gonna be honest, I don't think Cody should turn heel. The kids love him, he's a great brand representative and does seem to have genuine enjoyment for what he's doing. I actually really like and respect the guy - even if his promos can be cringe at times. He does seem to have good intentions at heart most of the time. Where did all of this Cody hate come from anyways? Is it strictly because he's an EVP?

4D chess being played if anybody is a basketball fan.

https://twitter.com/WrestlingNewsCo/status/1445419752432754698?t=Bl4OxX5iy66Mo0MorjjSuw&s=19 Of course the link doesn't want to work. Pillman Jr got rid of the mullet

Don't know if it showed up on TV, but the back of his sign said "This is awesome sucks" Guy just seemed like he wanted to be a negative nancy all night. Trying to get himself over

Funny you mention Cloudy. That 2CW clip I posted a few pages back is HIM getting low blowed by -1 and eating the superkick chair shot. He is currently in a tag team called "High Seas" with Captain Nick Ando who main evented said 2CW show. Outside of that, his cagematch implies that he just wrestles for small local northeasten promotions. I also preferred Up in Smoke back in the late 00's but those guys haven't teamed together in a hot minute now.

Damn Rochester for breaking into the Bucks car. That shit really actually upsets me. I'd like for us to get more shows up this way in the future, but Rochester acted like a cess pool last week breaking into their car and the Gunn Clubs as well.

Wonder who the Joker is going to be. Looking at that match graphic, I don't see Matt Hardy, OC, or Jon Moxley winning it. PAC or Andrade I could see being a TV title defense for Omega right now, but I'm really leaning heavy into thinking Lance Archer takes it. Also, I'm going to put this in spoilers because I don't know if anyone mentioned it or it matters, but...