Gordi the former AEW fan

I think there is a sense in which "You sold out!" can be seen as highly complimentary. It kind of means "We cared about you. We identified with you. We considered you 'one of us.' We are sad and even a little angry that, in moving up, you have moved on." in that sense, "You sold out!" chants might actually be a good sign w/r/t Cody Rhodes. I don't think you get those chants if people have stopped caring about you.

Happy birthday @ohtani's jacket! If Corona ever ends let's go for drinks and wrestling again!

(Classical music) "Turns out, wrestling has... Only one... Royal family." (Downstait)

I was reppin' NJPW and AEW at the local amusement park. (Anyone here besides @The Natural and I who has one of the "old school" hoodies?! I'm sure there's at least one more in the club on here). There was another dad, a big Japanese dude, wearing a LIJ cap. I made Naito's round-eye gesture at him and his face lit up and he came over and fist-bumped me.

Gee, that's too bad. See ya! ?

Here's the joke I thought of last night as I was drifting off to sleep: Idea for Cody's WrestleMania entrance: There's a Jacksonville Jaguar's jersey, a Fulham kit, and an automobile bumper on a.small platform near the entranceway. Cody comes out holding a sledgehammer... And then I came here to post that joke, and found that @For Great Justice (and others) had beaten me to the punch (no pun intended). And I got a huge smile on my face thinking that I am part of a community where I am not the only person who thinks about pro wrestling that way. ***** Skip-able side-ramble about social media I am of two minds about the posters here who paste up tweet after tweet after tweet. On the one hand, I strongly agree with the "we do not need to see every tweet from every wrestler" point of view; and often I cannot see any reason for a particular tweet to have been re-posted here other than "Hey! pro wrestling!" On the other hand, almost every single day there are a handful of genuinely amusing tweets or very cool gifs posted here that I would otherwise miss, since I have never ever been on Twitter myself. I follow a very small number of people on Insta, mostly people I know in real life. Mostly from a single extended social circle here in Japan. But my Insta feed is choked up with dad jokes (one in five of which are even mildly amusing, one in ten actually funny), food porn, obviously manipulated photos of male and female fitness influencers, fitness advice that alternates between terrible and obvious, and worst of all nostalgia posts where there's a picture of, let's say, a bicycle and a caption reading "If you rode one of these as a kid, like this post." Those nostalgia posts make me weep for the human race. Presumably people are that desperate for any sense of connection whatsoever these days. I can only assume Twitter is like that, but worse, and with way more negativity. I occasionally follow a wrestler on Insta that I like but haven't met. But generally only one at a time. At least their muscle/sexy pictures don't appear to have been manipulated! Minoru Suzuki posts lots of pictures of socks! So: What is wrestling twitter like? Is it possible to manipulate/curate a feed that isn't a maddening stream of vitriol and bullshit? Are there (worthwhile) discussions that go on there that don't make their way over here? ***** Second topic: Speaking of Cody, (and of Twitter): Now that he's apparently officially moving to "the other channel" I think it's a good time to gaze into our navels and ask: Is AEW actually better off without Cody (and Brandy) (and Pharoah) Rhodes? I don't think this has been discussed much here, yet. Is it a thing on wrestling Twitter? (Sincere apologies if it has been debated and I somehow missed/forgot it). Anyway, maybe the answer seems too glaringly obvious (on one side of the debate or the other) for most people? I mean, Cody is handsome, talented, has star power... Cody vs Dustin is undoubtedly one of the all-time great AEW matches... He and Brandy have cross-over celebrity appeal... People were always talking about Cody and what he was up to... AEW (probably) wouldn't exist without him.. On the other hand, his stuff really didn't seem to fit in any more, even given the extremely broad range of stuff (from Orange Cassidy through Eddie Kingston, from Abadon through Juventud) that somehow does manage to fit in on AEW's shows. He seemed, at times, pretty tone deaf. He made some baffling creative decisions. And so on. Certainly there are a lot of arguments to be made on both sides. I am only scratching the surface here. There might also be arguments to be made (kindly and unkindly) that Cody will be better off without AEW. Personally, it feels weird to say it, but I think I have been enjoying AEW's shows a bit more since he left. They have certainly had zero difficulty putting on banger after banger even with Cody gone, Kenny and Miro on the shelf, and so on. Its kind of amazing. And it speaks well of the breadth and depth of AEW's roster and their style of booking lots of wrestlers to look strong rather than having a.tiny handful of top wrestlers who dominate the main event and championship scenes. I feel like Bryan, Punk, Kingston, Wardlow, Keith Lee, Thunder Rosa, and others are a better fit on 2022 AEW's (very spacious) upper card/TV main event scene than 2022 Cody Rhodes is. Quite curious if everyone generally feels the same, or not. Also, while we are navel-gazing here: Is there ANY chance whatsoever that this is all (still) part of some massive post-modem Brian Pillman style swerve?

Maybe the "Jericho Appreciation Society" is a way for AEW to beat Cody to the "I am a pro sports entertainer and I love sports entertaining" punch! ?

https://www.rohwrestling.com/ As seen on the ROH thread, FTR vs Briscoes has been booked for Supercard of Honor. What's also interesting, and why I'm posting this here, is that it looks very much like SoH will be going head to head with Rampage that week. I am assuming that the date and time were already set and Tony Khan decided to honour that commitment (no pun intended) (rather than assuming that Tony Khan is trying to book AEW some direct competition). It will be interesting to see how that affects ratings, and hilarious to read how the "The Sky Is Falling" and "same-day American TV ratings are still the be-all and end-all because the TV landscape has not changed since the 90s" brigades react to those numbers! I can hardly wait. If I am able to watch the ROH show live, it will be a tough choice which one to go with first, and which one to watch later. It will be really interesting to mine the Supercard for clues about the future direction of ROH, and to see who Tony Khan books on each show that day. It will be fascinating to see what gets booked on Rampage. That's WM weekend, right? Presumably lots of hardcore fans will be in the area instead of home watching TV, and there will be many many alternatives to Rampage, and the Supercard going on around then. Will AEW punt on the show to give ROH more views or go all out (also no pun intended) to draw eyes their way? Will there be cross-promotion? Gonna be interesting! +

Following up an all-timer of a PPV and a stacked St. Paddy's Day Dynamite, AEW dials it down a notch and gives us... exactly the kind of low-key wrestling card that I, personally, love to watch. Bear Country & Fuego (!) vs House of Black I am so stoked to see three of my favourite AEW YouTube show mainstays on Rampage! What kind of freaky strength spot will Boulder pull off against the Evil Tattooed Guys? I wish House of Black would just come out to Malakai's very very awesome theme (I think it's called GNAGONFRUZZST). Bear Country have to be on the verge of breaking all the way through by now. Obviously, they are gonna lose today, and watching Fuego get tossed around is going to be great, but I am mostly looking forward to seeing what Boulder and Bronson do in there. Legit Leyla vs Red Velvet Speaking of breaking all the way through... it does my heart good to see how well The Legit One (I can't spell Hirsch) has gotten herself over with the AEW crowd and the folks on these boards. It's kind of a shame, in my opinion, that quite a few people want her to be The Female Taz(z) rather than just letting her be her own thing... but that's an issue I have with a lot of AEW talk in general. It's a "me" thing. But Hirsch is awesome. She doesn't need to ride on anyone's coattails. Max Caster vs Keith Lee I am enjoying the patient way AEW is bringing Keith Lee along. Reminds of what they did with Miro. when you've got someone as awesome as Rusev or Bearcat, there's no need to rush things. They have so much obvious star power. You'd have to be unbelievably incompetent to screw up booking dudes like that! Darby Allen (w/Sting) vs Butch(er) (w/Blade) I like how the ongoing Andrade storyline has so many threads, and how those threads intersect with so many other threads. And there are so many intriguing possible match-ups that can be built out of that. Like this one! Who doesn't like a good David vs Goliath match? No massive, huge, must-see "Championship Opportunities" here. Just a bunch of really good, likable, entertaining, gifted pro wrestlers doing what they do best. And if you're not down with that, I have two words for ya: "Fair enough." For me, personally, I love this kind of show every bit as much as I loved the totally stacked ones.

Gimme a break, will ya? This guy here (points at Gordlow) is a veritable fountain of misinformation! He's so old, he remembers when the Dead Sea was just sick! He's the only guy I know with an autographed copy of the Bible. He's the only man I know who can hide his own Easter eggs. (no, it isn't true. I was trying to be funny)

It might be hard to catch for people who don't speak Japanese, but I always found it amusing when Kenji Wakabayashi would say [[What a manoeuvre!]] and Giant Baba would come back with [[Will you stop!?!]]

That's a great point! Probably, a lot of people don't know that his real name is Mongoose McQueen I don't want to shock anybody and I'm not trying to be controversial, but in my opinion AEW has been on quite a roll recently. I like how we got fast exciting big spot action in the opener, hard hitting technical violence in the tag match, power wrestling and shenanigans with the TNT Angle Advancement match, real talk mixed with high comedy from Jericho, then I had to go get my Pfizer shot but I'm assuming at least some blood and violence in the cage match. Nice buffet there. Something for everyone. EDIT: and I didn't realize, or maybe I forgot, that Garcia was the guy who got into the accident that Jericho helped out. Glad I got to see most of the show before getting vaxxed, as I wasn't able to avoid spoilers this time. Forgot to turn chat notifications off. A Sports Entertainment faction has potential to be hellaciously entertaining! Some good ideas getting floated in this thread already. " That's right, Anxious Millennial Cowboy Hangman Adam Page, this Saturday at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and State Farm Insurance present All Elite Wrestling Battle of the Belts II at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland Texas, I, The Influencer Chris Jericho, am meeting you, Anxious Millennial Cowboy Hangman Adam Page, for a Championship Opportunity and I (full name) am not only going to take your Championship, I am going to send you (full name) to the local medical facility in Garland, Texas, this Saturday at (full name of event, including the presenting sponsors)!

When I read WWE threads here or try to follow what's going on by reading websites: The name-changes, booking, angles, and storylines generally seem to range from bafflingly stupid to full on rage-inducing. When I watch clips on YouTube or Twitter or wherever: The actual wrestling (per se) is always really good. The zooming, swooping, always-cutting camera is always awful. These wrestlers are obviously among the very best in the world at what they do. Why not just let us watch them do it? But: When I try to actually watch a full WWE show what really kills me is the endless corporate-speak. You can't say wrestler, you have to say superstar. You can't say belt or strap, you have to say championship. You have to use everyone's full name every time you mention anybody. "Local medical facility" "Championship Opportunity" "here at WWE (full name of PPV)" Oh, sorry, you can't say PPV any more, can you? "We thank Gordlow for his contribution to the WWE Universe, and wish him well in his future endeavours" And then on some websites you can even read absolute nonsense like " Two superstars were sent to a local medical facility following their championship showdown at (sponsors) present (full name of premium event) at (full name of arena). " Don't know whether to laugh or weep.

For some reason 3/16 feels like a date that has pro wrestling connections. Will Dynamite be Stunning this week? Will it leave us all Stone Cold? Oh! Right! St Paddy's Day. Far as I know, only 4 matches have been announced so far: T'under Rosa vs DMD IN A STEEL CAGE for the AEW Women's Championship. I imagine there will be blood. Britt Baker has a competition in her. She wants no-one else to succeed. She hates most people. There are times when she looks at people and sees nothing to like. But who will drink whose milkshake? Either way it should be one gotdamn helluva show. Bay Bay and reDRagon vs Confident Champion Cowboy, Jungle Lad, and The Educated Dinosaurus (it's not a six-man match. It's a one-dinosaur, four-man, and a bay bay match) I am anticipating a whole lot of the goodness, here. I wonder what's next with the Young Bucks and The Dark Order vis-a-vis the ongoing Adam on Adam violence saga. Wardlow vs 1 Gold Scorpio for the TNT Title: Will MJF cost Wardlow the match? Will there be some unforseen twist? Will Ethan or ATT get involved? Might it just be a straight-up speed vs power match? I'm gonna be at the clinic getting my Pfizer booster shot. I am going to have to do my best to avoid spoilers. Bryan Danielson & Jon Moxley vs Wheeler Yuta and Chuck Taylor. I am still in that stage of being all giddy that Dragon and Mox are going to be teaming up, with William F. Regal in their corner. It's almost too much. Will Orangehausen be there, too? How will that work? Anyway, with four matches announced and two days to go, there's loads of time for us to ask for "Hook and Lee vs Hobbs and Starks, please!" type of awesome extra toppings...

Super Porky is a really good choice! If I'm gonna focus on "makes you happy" rather than "unreasonably" my top 5 would probably be: Super Porky/Brazo de Plata Ebessan/Kikutaro Giant Baba Kana (Asuka, but not when she's in the WWE, unless she is winning the Rumble) Eddie Kingston

Love this question, too. In the spirit of overthinking everything, I wanna focus on "unreasonably" There are a whole lot of wrestlers where I think it's reasonable if they make you maximally happy: Liger, Eddie, Kobashi, Bryan, Savage, Terry Funk, Andre, and on and on. Then there's a special sub-category of pro wrestlers who, if it were not for the Death Valley Driver Video Review, you might think you were alone in loving their work (and at least in my case, might never otherwise have discovered): Johnny Saint, Negro Casas, Volk Han, Shinobu Kandori, and so on. in my case, there are also wrestlers with whom I have a personal connection (like John Tenta, Asian Cooger, Daisuke Harada -basically anyone who was in the Vancouver territory in the 1980s or the Vancouver indies from 2005 through 2009 or Osaka Pro from 2009 through 2012 - and so on) and I mark out unreasonably any time I see any of them. And the famous wrestlers I have met who were unusually kind to me: Abdullah, Hokuto, Chono, Akiyama, Bryan, Bob Sapp, Onita, and so on... So that narrows my list down considerably, if I eliminate all of them. But my list is still at least as long as the good reverend's So, a top 5 of pro wrestlers where I think I mark out more for them than most of you do: El Felino Manabu Nakanishi Bear Country Kantaro Hoshino Les Kellett

My honest argument would be that hating a wrestler's work, as you do with Brody's selfishness, as I do with Helmsley's or Inoki's self-conscious self-aggrandizement, can be pretty enjoyable. Particularly when there are people who strongly agree or disagree with your take and there are discussions to be enjoyed as well. So my take on the question is that it isn't "who have you seen a lot of, that you hate?" so much as " Who have you seen a lot of, that doesn't create much of a response one way or another? " Overthinking it further: It's probably possible to hate a wrestler (or their work) and not enjoy talking about it at all. That might be worse than just being bored.

I have already deleted the Strong Spirits game from my tablet. Just so so so so repetitive. You do the same basic things again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again... Sort of fun for the first couple of days but, I wouldn't bother. Although, maybe you'll like it, @Blue Dragon since you seem to genuinely enjoy posting skeevy Joshi pics again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

It's an interesting question and there have been a lot of interesting answers. For me? Last couple of years it's definitely been EVIL. I watch a fair bit of New Japan because I have some real-life friends who really enjoy their style and it gives us a fun thing to talk about. Plus, I love Ishii, MiSu, Cobb, Hiromu, Shingo... But it also means sitting through endless EVIL matches with more-than-predictable interference finishes... plus a stinking title reign! I didn't mind the guy when he was teaming with SANADA on the mid-card, but I loath him as the lead heel. That run has really hurt New Japan, in my opinion. All-time, it's either Boris Zhukov or Randy Orton. Zhukov because we used to get AWA on TSN in Canada and he seemed to be on a lot, while entertaining everyone very very little. Soldat Ustinov was worse, but he wasn't on TV as often. then Zhukov moved to WWE and formed The Bolsheviks. Volkoff and The Iron Sheik were a wildly entertaining tag team. Not so Volkoff and Zhukov. I suppose the quick loss to the Hart Foundation at VI was the most I have ever been entertained by a Zhukov match. I know Orton has his fans here, but he has never really done it for me. I find him consistently, reliably boring. Which I think is the worst thing a wrestler can be. At least with HHH I was able to work up a kind of hatred for him during his reign of terror. Orton never got me to care that much. Even in recent years, where I only very occasionally watch a big "premium event" like RumbleMania, Orton always seems to be in some interminable, overblown, bullshit match with bugs being projected on the mat or something. I was there live in the building for Backlash 2004 when Orton had a hardcore match vs Cactus for the IC title, so I have kind of enjoyed at least one Orton match (even though -spoiler- Cactus losing a hardcore match definitely bummed me out) but there is no famous, well-regarded, highly-pushed wrestler who has ever bored me more. Not even EVIL.

I was not expecting Darby vs Quen to be based around long-term body part selling, nor to finish with a Fujiwara arm bar! Bullet Club:NJPW::DMD Club:AEW For a moment there, I was afraid Keith Lee wasn't going to yeet anybody. Powerhouse's spinebuster was almost as impressive as Limitless' Biel. Tony Nese doesn't just have abs. He also has pecs and at least one bicep! That was a pretty f'n enjoyable pro wrestling match right there. This past week has given us a rich bounty of pro wrestling, overall. A big... thing, of riches.

So much really very good wrestling this past week! Four more matches scheduled for Rampage: Swerve makes his AEW debut vs "He Has Abs" - Honestly, I haven't seen much of either guy. I have liked what I have seen in the ring so far from Nese, but I have a wrestling-nerd buddy who dislikes him based on how he was presented on "the other channel" which was apparently, literally, that he has abs. I also have abs. You just can't quite clearly see them. Swerve had a match against Buddy Wayne's kid (who is also All Elite, after Orangey Boy showed up and gave him a contract...) and that match was really fast-paced and exciting. I expect something similar here. Darby (w/ Sting) vs Marq Quen (with Isiah Kassidy) - I hope I spelled Kassidy's name correctly. *winks at Dean* Speaking of really fast-paced and exciting... Also: Maybe we'll get some continuation of the Andrade/Matt/Jeff etc. storyline here? Was this Rampage taped on the same show as the live Dynamite? I could probably look that up, but I want to avoid spoilers. Keith Lee vs Cutie Marshall - I have just enjoyed the hell out of Keith Lee in AEW so far. When he was on "the other channel" I used to get a huge kick whenever someone posted a gif of him doing cool and awesome things. I also enjoy his whole presentation. I can relate to a guy who is big and strong but speaks softly and thoughtfully. I wouldn't mind a Keith Lee and Hook vs The Factory mini-feud. Lot of interesting ways those two could toss Marshall and his students around the ring!! Hayter vs Mercedes. This will probably be the hardest-hitting match on the show. It might be a better match, in terms of in-ring stuff, than the PPV match we got between DMD and Rosa. Wouldn't shock me to see those two involved at some point here (maybe post-match), helping with the build to their gonna-be-awesome Steel Cage Match.

You and me both. I get a lump in my throat damn near every week over something on one of AEW's shows. Got choked up twice today watching Dynamite, no fooling.

Here's something you don't see every day: Austin Idol and Tommy Rich vs TMII and Kabuki. More of an interesting historical curiosity than anything else, in my opinion.

Hats off to @PetrolCB. "2 Gold Scorpio" is better than "Transitional Sky" which is what I was going to go with. Did not see that title change coming! Guess the Universe put its own twist on what @JLowe was manifesting! Not big on "Jericho Appreciation Society" as a unit name. Very much looking forward to Jericho, ripped Hager, Garcia, Terrance, and Phillip (why not "Inner Circle 2.0?") vs Kingston, Santana, Ortiz, maybe Sammy? etc. (Outer Circle?) Wargames and Guts match. Finish sequence to Page vs Dante was some very swank pro wrestling. Regal choking up a little. Danielson choking up a little... Gordlow choking up a little. i really hope "Uncle Tony" brings in Finlay for a one-off. Bryan, Mox, Regal vs Finlay and, say, Bear Country? I'm sending it out into the Universe. Come on, Law of Attraction!! What's next for Arn and Tully? Darby's expression! He's all "Papa Nero! I knew you'd come!" That was sweet. Not too sweet, though. Just sweet enough. Tony " has abs" Nese as his first opponent? What is this? Some kind of swerve? LOVED the Jurassic Device!! Legit Leyla and JD Drake on Dynamite. *contented sigh* Edit: Damn near forgot aboot PAC vs Wheeler! Kingston also got me a little choked up.

I know some of y'all are old enough to remember when virtually every pretty hippy girl (and all the Oprah-watchers) got really into reading "The Secret." You know, 'the Law of Attraction ' and how putting a desire out into the Universe was enough to bring it into your life? Remember that? About half the young women I dated at University (so, like, two) genuinely believed that nonsense. It was equal parts flattering and red-flaggish when they'd explain to me how they'd willed the date into existence. Why am I bringing that up now? Hangman vs Dante! Bryan and Mox vs A Tag Team That Includes JD Drake!!! If JD Drake is wearing trunks, maybe it's time for me to admit The Law of Attraction is actually real.