Gordi the former AEW fan

Hardy? EDIT: NOT that Jeff Hardy is WORSE THAN Dalmer Just, that could be who they changed it from.

I kinda feel sorry for Jay and Okada. Hopefully they will take the wiser course of working a more dramatic, face/heel storytelling match rather than trying to top the insanity of whatever Kenny and Okada are going to do in the ring. Seems like the rambo is gonna be stacked this year, I am excited for Zack vs Ren, and the crowd reaction for Muto will be interesting.

We didn't get two ladies matches, as I had heard we would, but at least the match we got was really good and got lots of time. Hitting a guy in the knee with a metal pipe is GREAT birth control Great show all around, too to bottom. 'You're the worst Jeffrey since Dalmer' popped me hard. Joe and Wardog did a great job building everything around the knee. Elite and DT are SO creative! Gotta go!

I slept in today (stayed up late fooling around with my Christmas gift, Switch Sports). So, I figured I'd browse on the boards here then catch Dark later. Then I saw this. Switched over to YouTube (no pun intended) just in time to catch the end of the Iron Savages match. Hey! Remember when I was being perfomatively outraged about Bear Country changing their name? Well... i do. I was kidding around by repeating the complaint repeatedly, but in fact I don't like the name change and it's tied in to my most recent post in the Navel Gazing thread. In my opinion Bear Country is a cool, kinda weird, very indie name for a tag team whereas Iron Savages is a second-rate generic corporate faux tough guy name. It's like when Handsome Kurtie and the Angry Sad Boys signed with a major label and changed their name to Nirvana. I also caught Mafiosa popping Taz with her character work, which was fun... but I am doubly baffled that for the second time in two days a match was ended with a simple basic transition move like the Canadian Destroyer. It's gotta be a rib of some kind! And then the match we ALL wanna see was the Main Event. Slim J came to the ring accompanied by Sonny Kiss and Jeeves K! They played the very Jane's Addiction TRUSTBUSTERS theme!! (I preferred them when they were called Peripheral Perry and the Sunset Boulevard Band) I am SO HAPPY the Trustbusters still exist! When Boudreaux came out with White Umaga to back up Swerve,and Davari teamed with Neese and Whatshisface, (Abs & Quads) I was afraid that the Trustbusters had busted and we'd never hear that theme again. HEYYYYY, I'M LIVIN'! Also the match was very very good. I will likely watch the rest of Dark later. I may or may not append further comments.

Awesome job on the timeline and the list, buddy! Although, you somehow seem to have forgotten that The Greatest Professional Wrestling Match of All Time took place in 2022. A match which in comparison made Bret vs Austin look like HHH vs Scott Steiner from RR '03. Of course I am talking about Brandon Cutler vs Pretty Peter Avalon Chapter IV. Other than that baffling oversight, though... Seriously, great work. What an amazing year!

Hang on, big write-up on the way! Have to switch browsers. I read that Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D., Jamie Hayter & Rebel vs. Hikaru Shida, Toni Storm & Saraya is also booked for this show and I hope that's true for two reasons: 1) it's not on the graphic, but Ruby & Willow vs TayJay is. Which seems to address my concerns about Saraya being immediately positioned above wrestlers I care about, like Willow. 2) it would mean TWO BIG LADIES MATCHES ON ONE SHOW! Which would obviously be hugely positive and a thing AEW could do more often. So, I hope I am not mistaken about that, and it is actually booked for Rampage or something. MATCH 6 of 7. Falls count anywhere! We are mostly taking this series for granted, aren't we? The level of creativity here is just outstanding. Definitely a lot of us take the crazy athleticism for granted now. Like we're indulging in chocolate fondue at the buffet every week and now we are likely to complain if the bananas aren't perfectly ripe or something. Ethan vs Brian is gonna be a referendum on Ethan, for me at least. I never saw The North. I remain relatively unimpressed with Ethan in the ring thus far. How many dudes have had their best match vs Bryan? A lot! So: This could be very telling. i like how they have built to Claudio & Mox vs Top Flight. I hope they give the young guys a LOT of room to shine. And I also hope they kick their f'n heads in. And I hope for a show of respect at the end. Ruby & Willow doing a Rock and Sock variation where Willow's positivity rubs off on Ruby is so much fun! They built on it on Elevation today and it popped the crowd. I could not be more stoked for Wardlow vs Joe. Oh, baby! BMMSM time.

THE TRADITION OF FESTIVUS BEGINS WITH THE AIRING OF GRIEVANCES! I've got a lot of problems with you people and you're gonna hear about it! You! Jarrett.. I have been trying to figure out why I have such a bug up my ass about Jarrett in particular, in AEW in particular. I am not faking or exaggerating the feeling. I have a sense of where it's coming from, but I was struggling to articulate it. Then I gave John E. Dynamite a weird Osaka Pro match to review in Secret Santo,and that review gave me the key to understanding myself. This, in particular: "The thing I truly despise the most about the WWE monopoly years was the continued shaming of “bingo hall” pro wrestling. The thing I truly despise about capitalist corporate homogenized big-money bullshit American entertainment is the idea that things aren’t valid unless they cost a lot of money to make. I don’t know what part of the typical mass-media consuming populace even bother to see little shows with sub-200 crowds and it hurts my brain and soul to think about. This match is people, being artistically creative and athletically capable on their own terms, trying (and succeeding) to entertain a crowd that they can immediately see and interact with. Cirque du Soliel people are, God bless em, always gonna understand the value of human expression for a human purpose. None of my best memories of watching live theater happened on Broadway. Most of my best wrestling memories are from venues no bigger than ECW arena, when I got to feel like I was connected to the performers and the other people around me. Matches like this just make me want to support community theater and indie wrestling and every weird 200 seat thing in the world. " The best part of my 50+ years and counting of wrestling fandom was when I first moved to Japan and became part of the Osaka Pro Wrestling family. The second -best part was when I was on the roster of Vancouver All Star Wrestling in the mid-1980s. The community. The connection. Territories and local indies. Small halls. Connection. Massive corporate pro wrestling ain't really my bag. Same with music, same with beer... But, people need to make a living. I dreamed for years about a promotion where great, entertaining, creative wrestlers could get international exposure while not being forced into narrow corporate roles, while being granted freedom of expression and creativity. With more of a human dimension, with more real and honest connection and a greater sense of community. Something big, but with the soul of a good territory or indie. TNA was such a huge disappointment. They could have done that but instead wanted to be a more watered-down corporate thing. AEW started with a bet that non-corporate wrestling could never fill a 10,000-seat arena. And at first, and for three years or so, it really came across as something very close to what I'd been dreaming of. A big, weird, joyous indie with a sense of community and connection that was big enough and good enough to get people international exposure and allow lots of people to make a comfortable living. It sure was great while it lasted. And it's still pretty great and one of my favourite things even now that it's transitioning into more of a challenger brand. But in my mind (and I know this is just my way of thinking, I am NOT trying to position this take as The Only Possible True Path for AEW to follow), I would prefer for them to remain as distinct as possible from corporate style professional wrestling. I didn't, initially, think they should have brought in Big Paul and Mark Henry. But, I now really enjoy both of them and I would definitely miss them if they left AEW. I don't have anywhere near the nostalgia for the Attitude Era that so many people seem to have. So, I wasn't stoked for Taz or Christian (for example) but obviously both have been really entertaining in their roles. Guys like Jericho and Danielson have ties to corporate wrestling, but they also both travelled the world perfecting their craft working in small halls etc etc... Punk is similar. But he's enough of a mark-for-himself that the way things ended wasn't exactly a huge shock. FTR and Ruby, for example, felt like they were happy to "escape" from the clutches of corporate America and go somewhere they could be more themselves. MJF and Britt, for example, have worked their way up through the indies... but both sometimes come across as marks-for-themselves who dream of being massive superstars more than artists who love wrestling. I don't know either of them and obviously could be completely wrong about this. Jarrett had ties to the territories, obviously, but he's also a symbol of watered-down corporate challenger brand mentality and perhaps the biggest, most obvious,most embarrassing example of mark-for-himself of all time. So I kinda see a lot of it through "corporate vs indie" glasses. What I'd personally prefer is for AEW to stay maximally indie and weird and steer hard away from corporate stylings and me-first personalities. I would so much rather have more Bear Boulder and JD Drake and Pretty Peter and Leva Bates and Willow and Yuka Sakazaki at the expense of people with big names who are not also weird and/or indie. To me, signing Jeff Jarrett, putting him on TV, putting him in main evens, and pushing him into a title program (and immediately booking Saraya as more important than the wrestlers already on the roster) is a pretty clear symbol that AEW has changed. Which is FINE. And probably inevitable. It's just that I personally would prefer more of what I love, and I don't think (or see any evidence that) the "bigger" names are drawing more eyeballs. I think a purely weird and indie and community -focussed AEW would be every bit as successful as a challenger brand AEW. So the shift is going to leave me frustrated and bummed out at times, even though AEW still (as the saying goes) rules the motherfucking world. tl/dr: maybe what you wanna do is fill the roster up with people who LOVE wrestling rather than people who are marks for themselves?

It's the Holiday season! That means I have time to write up a YouTube show! And... It's one of those sneaky GREAT Elevations today. Huzzah! last time, Shafir tied people in knots to wear them down so Nyla could crush them. This time, Nyla crushes people and leaves them lying so Shafir can tie them in knots. Neato! Julia's got her big black hat on! Yay! And we get two nifty submission finishes in a row! will Bunny make it three? (Of course not). Setting up Bunny & Penelope vs Madison & Skye. what do you figure Madison is coaching? I honestly can't see what aspect of wrestling she's clearly above-average at. With Deeb, for example, it's pretty clear why you'd wanna learn from her. Rayne? Not so much. Kaz is VERY tan. Huge pop for Takesoup! i like Big Paul comparing Kaz's punches to Ronnie Garvin's! Rather than reigning Lard Lad in, Frankie sped himself up. Neato! another huge pop, for Willow! Love this crowd! Her positivity is rubbing off on Ruby, and the crowd pops again for the fist bump. First-rate character work there. Kiera IMMEDIATELY taking it to Athena is great psychology. She's been scouting! Athena busting out a secondary finisher is cool, too. super fast paced main event, but it is a curious choice to end it with a simple common transition move like a Canadian Destroyer. It would not surprise me in the least if all four of the last matches, Takeshita through Dralistico, made DEAN's poll this week. It's a tough choice! They were all really entertaining.

What did all y'all get for Christmas? Me? Oh, I got TWO NEW GIANTS! I love prowrestling giants. I haven't got around to justifying it in my thread but Andre is all time top ten for me and Baba is damned close, as well as being the greatest booker and promoter of all time in my opinion. But... El Gigante and Khali were the drizzling shits. There's more to it than just being an actual giant. I think that Vince or Cornette or someone could have made a star out of Giant Tataki. He clearly gets it, but also very clearly lacks reps and guidance. I haven't seen a ton of Panamanian wrestling (maybe ONE other match also connected to Secret Santo and/or Matt or Segunda) but it LITERALLY seems like someone explained it to Sandokan and he kind of got it and explained it fairly well to some other Panamanian dudes and they kind of tried to work it out as they went along. This as opposed to what happened in Japan where dudes like Blassie were present and involved and therefore the pacing and storytelling in Rikidozan matches are miles better than in Sandokan matches. The crowd reactions in Panama are pretty great, though. They were definitely doing something right. This particular match is pretty surreal. Tataki (which is the name of my favourite food in the whole world, so I am predisposed to love the guy) is Andre-level hyperpituitary. Broad and thick as well as tall. And he's VERY agile for his size (a theme in my Christmas matches, as it turns out). There are two good guys facing one giant bad guy and he's giant enough that it really doesn't seem entirely unfair. They stick and move, dodge, jump up on each other's shoulders... They really fight the way you'd figure two argonauts would have to try and battle a cyclops or something along those lines. And if Tataki gets hold of either of them, he just utterly lays them out. It's pretty cool. Until the end where, no fooling, the good guys kick the giant right in the nuts and when he rolls out of the ring in agony they bury him in chairs while the crowd explodes with joy. Perhaps morality works differently in Panama. The ending brings to mind Brian Cage in the first Casino Battle Royal, similarly buried in plunder (if I'm remembering correctly. Was it Cage? or maybe Archer?) And in Christmas match no. 2 The Machine takes on Konga Kong in an all-time great around-five-minute match. Good Heavens this match is a spectacle! Konga Kong is Kokina Maximus sized! Calling him 400 pounds seems to be underselling it. And he is AGILE for his size! At one point, Cage gets him up for a powerbomb (which is an insane feat of strength already) but then Konga Kong counters into a RANA. It is one of the most astonishing spots I have EVER seen. It's well worth the hassle of waiting for the video to debuff on dailymotion. Really, everyone, have a look at that rana. Cage also CATCHES a diving Kong and there are ALMOST too many absurd size/strength/agility "how is that even possible?!!?" spots in such a short amount of time. It's video game wrestling but with an actual steroid monster and obese giant doing the impossible things. I REALLY hope Konga Kong is still wrestling. I want him to pop up in AEW and get involved with Cage, Toa Liona, and company, and also with Bear Boulder, Keith Lee, and Claudio. I want him to rana out of a Wardlow Powerbomb Symphony. Finally, Stevens vs Fuller is EXACTLY the kind of match that would be so much fun to see live. Two good wrestlers playing to a hot crowd, each reacting to the other. The true art of prowrestling. And Rick Fuller is damn near the Platonic Ideal of the local indie tough guy champion. Thanks, Matt! What a great Christmas gift.

Yeah. Weird. It's kinda like Burger King rebranding and going heavy on the red and yellow.

Oh hell yeah! Getting paired with Matt is a straight-up early Christmas present! And I know I'll be getting something good. I'll give you a choice of two shorter, VERY different pro wrestling matches. First, an atypical Fuminori Abe match: And second an EXTREMELY neato matchup that very much delighted me by popping up in my YouTube feed the other dayyyy:

That was a pretty long way from being one of my favourite episodes of AEW TV. I am legit bummed out that the ending means a Jarrett tag title shot and more of that anti-charismatic mark-for-himself on AEW TV. It wasn't all bad, though! JR seemed to be having some fun at points tonight, which was refreshing. And Jericho was pretty funny on commentary. SO MUCH really good wrestling coming up! There were some neato storytelling beats in the trios royale and I loved the final four and the ending and hope we get Top Flight & AR vs Gates & Cage. I popped for the explanation of the SAP's name. Eddie Kingston is THE BEST. I don't want dissension between him and Monkey but we'll see where this goes. Nice that Vertvixen got some time. Ruby and Willow doing a Rock & Sock thing could be fun! The entrance rap was amusing.

Not really sure how you'd get that idea, considering the first post includes obvious picks like BRYAN DANIELSON, MISAWA, LIGER, JAGUAR, HOKUTO, and BRET. That being said, it's totally fine by me if folks want to leave consensus GREAT wrestlers off their list of FAVOURITES. Certainly not necessary to do so, though. I am definitely enjoying the WIDE range of choices and the interesting "justifications" of everyone's picks. It makes me feel vindicated in thinking that it is by no means unreasonable to ask someone "why" they like someone or something. Seems like a fine way to generate some thought and discussion. Sounds good! Have at 'er, everyone! Probably no need for a seperate thread. Allow me to begin: the reason I FUCKING HATE seeing JEFF JARRETT in AEW goes back to when I first came back to Canada from Europe. I got in touch with my old pro wrestling senpai Vicious Verne and he hooked me up with an absolute ton of wrestling tapes so I could catch up on some of what I'd missed in my seven years overseas. Among the tapes were the first few weekly TNA PPVs. That was the worst crap I had ever laid my eyes upon. It was worse because of the anticipation. (I felt the same way about new episodes of The Simpsons). Not sure if it was in those first few weekly PPVs or something I watched with Verne later at his place(or both) but there were also SEVERAL instances of Jeff Jarret booking himself as the ultimate badass asskicking stand-alone babyface ala Stone Cold Steve Austin. It laid absolutely bare how much of a mark for himself this passable midcard southern heel was. It was deeply embarrassing to watch. Mortifying. I have never gotten over that. I feel legitimately bad inside every time I see or hear the guy. Him emphasising "slapnuts" every time he says it, as if expecting to get a massive pop, makes pity and sadness well up in my bosom. That's not generally how I wanna feel watching AEW. To wash that taste outa my mouth: The first lucha match I REALLY got into in my tape-trading days was the somewhat legendary multi-man (tourneo cyberbetico?) match won by FELINO. He's been my main 90s lucha guy ever since. I always mark out when he shows up. The standard hipster response to that is to say "I prefer his brother" so if you were mentally loading up that response you just might be a standard hipster. I love EDDIE KINGSTON because when he came over to Osaka Pro I NEVER saw him break character. I saw ATSUSHI ONITA break character there. I saw FUJIWARA break charcter there. Kingston was.ALWAYS surly and unpleasant. And we LOVED him for it. And when he got himself over on AEW he became a symbol for all the great indie character workers (like Arik Cannon for example) who never got the chance... and then he proved himself to be so much more than even that. To take it a step further, LUTHER stands in my mind as a symbol for all the dudes who aren't necessarily gifted with a great look and/or exceptional athleticism but who love wrestling and tour the world putting their bodies on the line for minimal reward and recognition (like for example Tony Myers). Hats off to those dudes. Love seeing any travelling indie veteran on Dark or Elevation! Goes a LONG WAY toward making up for putting Jarrett back on TV. That dude had his shot, and blew it. Completely. Catastrophically. Irredeemably and irrevocably, in my book. Hey! TAKUMI IROHA was the best new-to-me wrestler I saw live in the 2020s. She hits BattlArts hard and sparkles with joy in the the ring. FUMINORI ABE was the best new-to-me guy I saw this year. He hits BattlArts hard and radiates a grim seriousness of purpose, but also sometimes appears on Choco Pro. LULU PENCIL is the greatest pro wrestler who has ever lived. Yes, even better than KroniK and I stand by that controversial opinion.

Wait! What? REALLY?!? The main event of the Christmas Rampage is a JEFF JARRETT tag match?!?!? Oh well. At least Rampage also has the THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR Three Kings Trios Christmas Casino Trios Christmas Battle Royale, which should be plenty weird and entertaining. Just the name and concept are weird and entertaining already. Plus a Jade squash of a lady with lots of good YouTube matches, in this case Vertvixen, and that's generally a reliable formula for fun. Plus we'll "hear from" Kingston & Ortiz and also from Wardlow. You know who likes Kingston & Ortiz and also Wardlow? Gordlow does! I bet you do, too. Anyone like Jeff Jarrett? anyone prefer watching him fight to, say, Wardlow or Ortiz ...or Bear Boulder or Serpentico or Nicky Boy or Leva Bates or Yuka Sakazaki or Red Velvet? If so, I genuinely hope you REALLY enjoy the main event.

This thread is inspired by a post from Kevin Wilson in one of the AEW threads. He wrote: "God I hope no one ever drills me on why my favorite wrestlers are my favorite. Some connections are intangible and no two people are going to have those same connections. And honestly its not really anyone else's concern anyway, like who you like. Unless you like Akira Taue or something, then you should do better. (I'm kidding, please don't ban me)." Now, Kevin isn't entirely wrong in his thinking there. Personal tastes are mysterious and sometimes genuinely inexplicable. (for example, some people like Muto more than Taue. Crazy,right?) Perhaps as a kid you were running to get a hotdog and fell and skinned your knee. and now as an adult you say you don't like hotdogs because of the nitrates or whatever but in fact it's the memory of that childhood trauma... HOWEVER it seems like a weird take to me. In my opinion, this is a pro wrestling discussion board and I don't think it was in any way unreasonable for one poster (I think it was Dog,but being unable to flip pages on this site makes it difficult to go back and check) to ask another poster (it was definitely Casey) to explain why they like a particular wrestler. Also: Hey, Casey! Casey! Would an empty can be OK? (This w/r/t a coffe can with a different Casey favourite wrestler on it, as discussed on the merch thread). I am writing this up on Firefox because I was hoping I'd be able to tag people using this browser, but: Nope. I, very weirdly, can't make paragraph breaks on Firefox but I can post pics and videos. I may go back later and edit in paragraphs in Chrome. Or I might just leave this as a DEAN style wall of text. Why do I keep posting here if it's such a pain in the ass? Because the DVDVR boards are still THE BEST PLACE on the internet for pro wrestling discussion. Maybe for me the peak of all time for such discussion was the SmarksChoice GWE discussion. That was almost 100% people justifying their favourites as if opinions were objective truth and it was A BLAST! I still have internet friends (like for example The Natural) who I met arguing and discussing over there. Hopefully there is still room for and enough interest for a thread where all we do is explain why we like certain wrestlers. Allow me to begin. I like BRYAN Danielson the most because I met him several times in the early/mid 2000s when he regularly popped up to Vancouver because Vancouver All Star/ECCW had given him work back when work was hard to comd by and he always remembered that. He's a genuinely good dude, humble and friendly, and obviously great at every important aspect of pro wrestling and also able and willing to adapt to many different styles and also he always makes the other wrestlers in there with him look good. I like KUUGA/AZIAN COOGER because he's my real-life friend and because he loves pro wrestling SO MUCH and because he'll do a senton atomico onto a pile of chairs in front of literally twelve people. I love Zeus and Bodyguard and Mihara and Kotoge and Harada and Black Bufallo and Tadasuke and Tigers Mask and Spider and Apple and Ran-chan and Billyken and Fuke and Matsuyama and Ebessu and Kuishin... I LOVE OSAKA PRO because that was my second family for a few years and they were all in various ways kind and friendly and helpful to me and made me feel welcime and like I belonged. And they still do if I see them now. I love Ebessan/Kikutaro and Kuishinbou Kamen in particular because watchung their legendary 2/3 falls match literally (literally!) changed my life. Then meeting Ebessan (3) and Kuishin changed it again by convincing me (and also convincing the woman who has now been my wife for over 15 years) that I was MEANT TO live here. I love BIG JOHN TENTA because him agreeing to be interviewed by me was the key that opened the door to the at-that-time extremely secretive a d insular world of pro wrestling. I love VERNE and I-TON for being my senpai and my closest friend in wrestling in the 80s and I live BRUISER JOE and SALTY THE SEAMAN because they are STILL wrestling and sometimes they come over here to hang out and drink with Kuuga and me. I love MISAWA because he was the mosr exciting guy on those blurry tapes I traded for and later I loved him more because almost everyone else was divided into Camp Kawada or Camp Kobashi which made being Camp Misawa seem more interesting to me at that time. LYGER obviously stood out on those old comps,too! And of all the Japanese wrestlers I got into back then they are the ones whose "body of work" best stood up under repeated scrutiny. And their LOVE of wrestling is crystal clear. I more or less picked NAKANISHI at random to be my "Late 90s through 2000s NJPW guy" and I have never regretted it. It was the hour match against Blue Justice that spurred that random decision, but as a result I got to REALLY enjoy (for example) seeing him as champ in front of a white hot Furitsu Taikukaikan crowd, and being there for his last match in Osaka. I love JAGUAR for being the best at being mean, and because she was very nice to me when we met in person. HOKUTO, too! She's the second-best at being mean, and she was if anything even nicer than Jaguar. Also the whole "body of work" thing works in their favour. Chono, Abdullah, Dump (!), Devitt, Riicky Marvin, Dick Togo, Tajiri, Kikuchi, Ishimori, Akiyama, Delphin, Joe Doering, Suwama, Atsushi Onita and SO MANY other great wrestlers have all been nice to me at one time or another (I am one lucky prick) and I am more positively predisposed to all of them because of it but only DUMP and KIKUCHI make my favourites list. So, it takes more than just being nice to me once Dump and Kukuchi had, essentially, opposite roles to play but both were PERFECT in those roles. I like BRET so much not because he's great as because he's Western Canadian and because I was able to follow his journey from Stampede youngster through WWF IC champ, then resume watching that journey at WM 13. I could go on (oh boy could I ever) but I am OFF TO WORK now. Gee whiz I hope other peolle wanna play. I can't wait to read other people's takes.

I think if you are looking for examples of wrestlers who didn't get over and have not moved up the roster, you might not want to point at THE CURRENT WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, but maybe that just me

Yeah, for sure! When was the last time JERICHO put someone over. lmfao As if JERICHO would ever put a younger wrestler over clean in the middle of the ring. Can even one person remember a single example of that happening recently? Don't think so!

Save it for Full Rear 2023. Or maybe Farter Fest?

Yeah, to be honest, "Mayo nashi" was one of the first phrases I learned after moving here and it has proven very useful. What a GREAT main event title match! Tough choice between that and Kenny vs Shinno for DEAN's poll! It set a high bar indeed when Hayter brought up 90s AJW. They lived up to the hype. Awesome. Hayter is a main event wrestler for sure. One of my wrestling buddies watched this show with his dad, in town for the holidays,who hadn't watched wrestling in YEARS. Imagine how absurd that trios opening match must have seemed to him, with Christmas tree spots, barbed wire brooms, Brandon's costume, dudes flipping through tables... Of course, to people like us it all makes sense, (maybe?) but it must have seemed surrealistically absurd to my friend's father. I got a real kick out of imagining it through dad's eyes. Was this the first time AEW had someone come out to interrupt a promo? I can't recall it ever happening before... Nice job on holding out on the appearance of Jake Hager's hat! I hope Starks and Andretti run through 2.0 -> Hager's hat & Garcia -> Les Sex Gods THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS! Bryan vs Ethan should be pretty great. LOVED that promo from Joe. Exodus Prime is a good name for a Transformer, but an even better name for a Christian streaming service. During Mox's entrance, did anyone else think the dude holding two cups of beer looked a little like Shane McMahon? Gunns coming out in Hart Foundation gear was A++ trolling! That Rick Ross segment bombed badly with the live crowd, but I am looking forward to seeing who teams with Keith Lee vs Boudreaux and White Umaga.

All y'all need to be more open-minded about food. Unless in this case wtf means, "Well, that's fine." (And also, some of y'all need to be more open-minded about pro wrestling). Anyway. AEW World Trios Championship “Best Of 7 Series” – Match 5 (No Disqualification): Death Triangle (3) vs. The Elite (1) AEW Women’s World Championship Match: Jamie Hayter (c) vs. Hikaru Shida FTR vs. The Gunns We’ll Hear From Bryan Danielson Live Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland Face-To-Face Meeting Ricky Starks Will Appear Live The Next Chapter In The “Book of Hobbs” Very stoked for all three matches. Will match 5 of 7 go long? Will we get THREE last minute surprise matches? All of the talk segments are intriguing. I guess they'll set up Bryan vs Friedman. I wonder if Shane Taylor will show up during the Lee/Swerve segment. I wanna know what's next for Starks and for Hobbs. I hope we get Kingston & Ortiz vs Workhorsemen or Bear Country or Boudreaux & Slim J! Elevation was excellent this week! Well worth checking out of you haven't already.

Yeah. Thanks for this. Pistachio is literally my second-favourite flavour of ice cream, after green tea. This pistachio as hell match was genuinely beautiful, but in a really crazy and specific way. This is 100% certainly a match that I NEVER would have seen without it being a Secret Santo recommendation. And, to be clear, I am extremely glad I got to see this. There is a moment at the end where that was *genuinely* moving. Also moving and simultaneously very funny: The crowd chanting "Arigatou!" for Miyamoto after Pondo calls him back out to the ring, but mispronouncing it like in that Styx song. The announcers! You are not kidding. If two non-southern wrestlers used those exact voices doing a southern gimmick, it would come across like an offensive caricature. Also very funny and irresistibly charming: EVERY SINGLE THING TERRY FUNK DOES HERE. I got to see Miyamoto live in July in a nice smallish arena in Osaka. Yankee Two Kenju (Isami Kodaka & Yuko Miyamoto) vs Abdullah Kobayashi & Jaki Numazawa in Tables and Thumbtack Death Match that ended with a top rope piledriver through a (Japanese) table. Calling him maybe the greatest death match wrestler of all time is NOT hyperbole. Dude is amazing. He's a good wrestler,in terms of all the in-my-opinion-important aspects like bumping, selling, telling a story in there, interesting and believable offence, pacing, creativity... and also apparently an insane person who has zero concern for his own well-being who is also cursed (?) with a deep deep love of working death matches. No fooling: I almost gave you an Astronauts (Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura) vs Strong BJ tag match, because Abe was my favourite guy I saw live for the first time at that Big Japan show in Osaka. I have a different Abe match in reserve, that I will maybe give someone else in the next couple of weeks. (And for sure I would have LOVED to have seen young Okada in there with Tigers Mask)! Miyamoto was my #2 guy on that show. He could probably be successful working straight matches. I don't think Pondo could, to be honest. But he has found his niche and he's apparently cursed with the same deep love for it. He can deal out and absorb shocking amounts of punishment. And he has a unique charisma. I try to imagine it sometimes. Being a death match addict. Have you seen the movie "Crumb" about the cartoonist? It's pretty great. There's a scene where he talks about how somewhere there's a person who only wants to ride another person around like a horse and somewhere else there's another person whose deepest desire is to be ridden around, and if those two people are lucky enough to meet then that's love. Or something like that. Imagine loving, really loving and being addicted to throwing people through panes of glass and also being thrown through panes of glass yourself. Wanting nothing more than to fall off ladders into barbed wire, in front of people who are super-excited to be watching that. How fortunate you must feel to meet other people who feel the same way, who are not psychopathic assholes. Pondo really does come across like he has a good soul. It's a long inconvenient journey from Japan to West Virginia, I am certain. But I can see why Miyamoto made that journey to get cut up with barbed wire in front of a hundred people in a crappy little building. It's beautiful that he did. And this is definitely putting too fine a point on it, but Terry Funk being there almost sanctifies it.

2007 through 2015 lucharesu, you say? Well, since 2009 through 2012 Osaka indies are my very specific particular very favourite bag, I might just be able to.dig up something to scratch that particular itch. I'll copy & repost my "please don't" request here, even though I doubt you would ever give me that sort of match: NO "GREAT" MATCHES FOR ME, PLEASE! No ***** Meltzer/Keith-style epics that go long, have tons of (empty) flash and multiple finisher kick-outs. I have seen too much of that. I am here for interesting/weird matches. I love Kenny. I love Okada. I loved Kenny vs Okada at Dominion. I DO NOT WANNA WATCH THAT KIND OF MATCH HERE. I wanna watch Kenny vs Little Girl. Gimme weird. Gimme crazy. Gimme violent. Please don't gimme self-consciously epic and flashy. Also do not give me Sports Entertainment. No WWE. WWWF is fine, if it's weird and/or involves Andre. Also, unless you specifically ask, I won't be giving out great matches, but rather weird or interesting or nostalgic ones. AND SPEAKING OF WEIRD AND NOSTALGIC: I have VERY specific memories of this match! It was my 46th birthday. There were a handful of very friendly folks from Cirque de Soliel KOOZA at this show, on their day off. We got drunk together. This match blew their mind! Imagine a pro wrestling match that could blow the mind of The King of the Clowns. They were marking out really hard. Konaka = Pale One teaming with Black Buffalo and Naoki Setoguchi also doing Pale One gimmicks vs my special friend Apple Miyuki and the Shirai sisters in cute cosplay! This might be the MOST 2007-2015 Osaka-style match of all time. Thanks to my other special friend Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru for posting this on her most excellent YouTube channel. While I was posting this, I got a pop-up notice that it is referee Matsui's birthday today! I'll take that as a sign that today is a good day for Osaka nostalgia. Hey Matt! You should watch this one, too. It's pretty weird and entertaining.

I haven't seen Vikingo vs Laredo yet. But. Action vs Ocho was not a technical classic or a bloody brawl or (thank gawd) a lotsa-flash epic multi-finisher-kickout Meltzer-pleaser... But... ...it made me +and *the crowd*) mark out so hard. I think I'm just going to pick my FAVOURITE match this week. Even if it's easy to assume the Vikingo match was "better."

Startin out HAWT! Best bloody ear since Misawa '94? Tay with blood on her face after making out with Sammy was a SICK visual. Mox and Hanger gonna give us one HELL of a brawl. Dax broke his ass bone LOVED Shida's red suit! That dude took the MOST AWESOME bumps for Wardlow's powerbombs! Joe vs Wardog also.gonna be crazy. Dustin handing out powerslams, Orangehausen Eddie Guerreroing... What a fun, feel-good main event tv match! I would love to see Kip & Seven vs Workhorsemen.

New theme song confirmed: