Shartnado

The Knockout's 3-way ended up having some of the most innovative 3 person spots I think I've ever seen. In fact, some of the stuff I had never seen before. It seemed like Ash will be targeting Brookside first, before setting her sights on the champion.

Yesterday I kept the nosebreathing up for both bike rides as well as the entire damn workout. It takes a lot of concentration for a hardcore mouthbreather such as myself, but I got the hang of it. Great, now I can weaponize breathing against myself: "You can now breathe normally only on the weekends from now on, so you'll learn to appreciate it more". Anyway, the workout was fine. I did regular bench and a set of curls, resistance band lat pull downs and lateral raises between each bench set. The 260+ sets didn't go too well, but on the way back down the reps got cleaner again. This was basically an off week for me, but with the diet looming just a few days ahead, it was probably just as well. The surprising thing is that even with the most successful bulk season ever, my weight at the start of this cut, will still be within the usual range. The bad thing is that the weather is not within the usual range over here. I'm not running until there's no half-melted snow on the roads.

That's a smart play on Bucks' part. Hook Cole up with a sweet podcast gig, so he will be preoccupied for the time being, while The Elite take the spot recently deceased Tony K was probably saving for Undisputed Kingdom in hopes that they would actually get over as heels for what they did to MJF. Storyline-wise, Cole and The Elite should at least acknowlegde the situation and promise to stay out of each others' business, for now, until the AEW World Title comes into play in one way or another.

You know who is probably not taking this The Elite main event takeover too well? Adam Cole. He's still looking from the sidelines as somebody's disputing his kingdom! Oh well, you know the old saying "Mone just talks and Adam Cole barely even walks", so what's he gonna do about it? Him turning on The Young Bucks a couple of years back sure bit him in the ass now, huh?

The first workout back went well enough. I tried on a bunch of stuff but kept the weights moderate to say the least. Like I said, resistance band and light dumbells, EZ bar, all the fun to do stuff. I did feel like my endurance isn't quite back yet, but it was alright. At the end, I did a decent amount of ab work and for the first time ever, I was able to do a few reps with the ab wheel with my toes on the floor instead of knees elevated off the floor, like usual. That means my lower back and core are now stronger than they have been up to this point. On the way back home, I felt like I could breathe through my nose again for the first time in a week, so I made a point to ONLY breathe through my nose for at least the last 20 minutes of the ride. Really concentrating on getting my lungs filled with air through the nose and then pushing the lungs empty through the mouth kept me from blowing up during the ride and I made good time, not really slowing down or even shifting to a lower gear while going uphill. I need to remember this once I start running again, in about a week.

Our tastes may differ quite drastically, but I find them very solid and entertaining tag team that hasn't really gotten the opportunities that they deserve. Put them in the ring with any team with a modicum of talent and at the very least you'll have a solid tag team wrestling outing. Any company would be lucky to add them to the roster.

I wish hostile takeovers worked like that in real life. I didn't notice Hobbs blowing out his knee and was wondering why the match wasn't too good. Well, that explains it. Deeb getting to play with Storm is good. The opener ended up being crazy, though it took a while to get going. Strong might as well hand over the International title right now. Shibata as a JTTS with a phone that translates for him is oddly hilarious. I had to see if "The Learning Tree" was a Fozzy song, but I guess not?

Oh My God! They killed TK! You bastards!

Ok, so I have now missed a week's worth of workouts due to the flu, but have been riding the bike to work, as usual. Work has been hectic, so I haven't eaten as much or as often as I usually try to. Still, I was shocked that my weight had come down so rapidly. On Sunday evening, I think I saw 198 on the scale, briefly. This morning, it was 188. That's a whole bunch of fluids getting the hell outta dodge. I guess the brief backlash of winter that we are experiencing over here, made the biking that much harder? Today, I'm supposed to go back to the gym. You can expect it to be resistance band and light curl based "taking it easy" kind of an outing.

OMG, what a F'n PPV, once again! A few things aside the matches: - The crowd was amazing! They seemed appropriately appreciative of pretty much everything and weren't completely "let's make this about us", which was awesome. They were super into Strong vs O'Reilly and even gave heat to Jericho. Go away heat, but heat nonetheless. If Jericho can get "Learning Tree" over, then he truly is one of the greatest. I have to say, I have my doubts about that one. - The match placement was stellar. Start with 2 exciting, big matches, then get all of the "undercard material" out of the way and finish off with 3 mega matches at the end. Still sounded like the crowd WASN'T even blown out by the end of it! Ospreay vs Danielson lived up to the expectations and then some. So many amazing things. The ending was absolutely phenomenal. The ladder match ended up being wonderful and Jungle Turd returning made the All In footage way more logical in retrospect. Good call. Big day for Swerve. This was definitely the way to go, he could not lose another big one. So, Malakai vs Copeland, instead of Brody vs Copeland? C'mon, Adam, face all 3 of them in separate matches, yeah? Jay White gets his revenge on Billy Gunn and unifies the titles, another right call. Adam Cole walks! I feel bad for Willow if she's just keeping the title warm for Mone. Let's see where it goes. It was probably Statlander who attacked Mone in the dark, right? It will be interesting to see, who goes after The Timeless One next? She solidified her title reign with this win. I watches this in two portions, including the zero hour and this was worth more than what I paid for it, so it ended up being a bargain!

It's uncanny!

Skipped straight to this after finishing the previous special. Opener was actually very exciting, once it got going. That give through the ropes into the corner and outside was crazy. It's was surprising that Spitfire won the tag titles, also shocked that it wasn't Decay with the titles! Their reign was pretty short, then? The tag titles changed to The System, I don't exactly like that, but the match was certainly exciting. Kon vs PCO was alright, I almost thought that Kon might actually take it for a second there. The Time Machine six man was very good and obviously all the better due to Good Hands changed to GYV. Shelley was rightfully still salty from the No Surrender and it cost them. Alexander vs Hammerstone was good, but it kinda seemed that Hammerstone didn't have his working shoes on, but I guess he was more of a clear-cut heel this time, as witnessed by the ending. Got to the Knockout's 3-way, but didn't start to watch it. This was Quality stuff so far!

Well, they could be like "Yay, I get to see it from my own couch, like it was meant to be!", but I guess not? As for rest of Dynamite, Young Bucks bumping the FTR video package due to "time constraints" because The Elite had a match next anyway, as well as Matthew micro-managing the commentary was dick-move brilliance, once again. As far as the trios match went, it's so funny to see PAC in almost any setting running circles around everyone else, to the point where it's like "it's kinda unfair that anyone should have to face this cyborg with a malfunctioning compassion chip in the ring". He can lose most of the time and still be about the most credible opponent for pretty much anyone. OC having no friends to combat STP ended up badly for him, despite getting the win. Ospreay vs Claudio was super, but what else could happen? Ospreay not being on the same page with the rest of the Callis Family was obvious to anyone, except for Callis, who is really grasping at straws at this point. Ospreay has no need for you and I'm pretty sure this will come to a head at Dynasty. Damn, Nana almost played the part of Paul Heyman, if it wasn't for Swerve's last second save. It sure feels like Swerve may indeed take it at the PPV, or we may be in for a big swer... er, surprise. I don't like putting this into the universe, but Hangman or Keith Lee could still be waiting in the wings to ruin things for him... let's hope not.

Finally got to the end of Supercard of Honor. The Stardom six woman match was high speed, indeed. Any addition of Stardom women into AEW women's division should be exciting. Kinda like in '95 WWF, the All Japan Women brought something completely new, albeit for one night back then. Both Women's title matches were very good. I wonder if Amanata will now challenge Athena next? Dalton vs Johnny TV was entertaining, but it's probably good that this one is over with. The tag title match was good enough, the six man open challenge was a good surprise, and the main event was intense af. Too bad that Briscoe finally winning the title is kinda like Tommy Dreamer winning the WWECW title back in 2009 at this point. Still, they created a wonderful moment and the match was indeed a war!

Got my "summer diet care package" in the mail earlier this week. Bunch of burners and essential amino acids plus one container of pre-workout/pump volumizer and a testo-booster. Yeah, the flu also got me good, but I am feeling a bit better now and if I had to get sick, this was definitely the time for it to happen, and not a few weeks from now. This way, I still have time to fully get over this before the diet actually starts.