Gordi the recovering AEW f

My only thought on Malakai Blech is that I am really gonna miss singing along to his catchy singles entrance theme.

She's Bane's wife, Megan. I mean, most of her scenes from Dark Knight Rises ended up on the cutting room floor and the movie was 12 years ago, but there's a significant enough crossover between Batman and AEW fandom (high fives Natural) that I don't think they needed to overexplain who she is.

Starting out hot and ending on a bummer is such a weird formula, but they keep going back to it again and again.

If I were a gifted and talented pro wrestler, my in-ring style would absolutely bear a close resemblance to The Kingston's Road Tribute Style. I f'n LOVE it and hope he never changes. I'm excited for two Cage matches on Dynamite! (Kenny vs Brian and Hook vs Christian)! I have a whole "The Moxter, BROTHER!" bit worked out for the Powerhouse match, but I think it just isn't funny any more (which, yeah, assumes it ever was funny in the first place). I am legit worried that Likable Jon has actually become A Selfish Wrestler which would legit bum me out. on the upside: I'm legit excited for the interview Gormless Toni cuts after winning the Gauntlet. (Considering the winner gets a title shot in Oz, it would be INSANE if anyone else won). Toni The Excited Rookie thrilled to get a shot at The Glamour this early in her young career should be really fun. w/r/t the controversial Collision tag: Since a major complaint about Mox World Order House of Moxture is the whole "I thought this was supposed to be about putting younger wrestlers over, BROTHER!" stuff... If Mox (haha who are we kidding? If... let's say, The Bad Apple) puts over one of THE YOUNGEST MEN ALIVE that will go a long way toward proving me and my fellow haters wrong... Right?

There is a SLIM chance they could use this match to put over The Youngest Men Alive, which would totally prove The Moxter right and me (and all my fellow haters) wrong and justify the whole angle. I guess we'll see! (To be clear, the joke is that Mox said he was doing this "to put young wrestlers over").

I do 100% unironically, my best version of AEW would be ZERO blahblahblah segments, nonstop tournaments, regular Gauntlet matches and Battles Royale, a few MORE belts (Cagematch title that's only defended in cage matches, for example), and ALL the storytelling done either in the ring or on optional YouTube and vlog channels. Also, rather than hiring all the best wrestlers from New Japan and Mexico, my best version of AEW would have a constant stream of guest wrestlers. And rather than hiring a bunch of WWE cast-offs and putting them on top of the card you'd bring them in as guests, mostly to put your indie guys and "originals" over. And the tag titles could main event a PPV once in a while. And the video game would be great and updates would be free. And all clean finishes, all the time. And you'd educate your fans to appreciate this new version of pro wrestling, Giant Baba style, rather than giving in to the pro wrestling grandpas crying about how It's different. But mostly the tournaments. I REALLY like tournaments.

Fucking hate it. "Stop the Moxunaga" could have been the greatest thing ever. "Mox World Order" would have been more nostalgia pandering, so not for me particularly. But other people here would likely have loved it, and at least taking a shot at that would have made some sense. But we have sadly ended up with lame predictable go-nowhere repetitive House of Torture bullshit. The absolute WORST possible direction they could have chosen for this. The grimdark promos do zero for me, personally. Mox is such an obviously likable dude, I don't buy him as angry brooding and evil (or, worse, EVIL). It'd totally work for me if he was taking psychotic JOY in destroying ... uh... Whatever it is The House of Moxture is trying to destroy. Beat dudes down, make the good guys look like fools, and LAUGH about it. Don't glower about it. Nobody has been meaningfully elevated out of this, so far. For example, Private Party hold the tag straps but it doesn't seem like anybody, anywhere, in or out of kayfabe, is taking them seriously as a top tag team. There's still a real chance they save this whole angle with a GREAT ending where someone who deserves it gets put over clean in a huge way, but sadly I am getting the feeling that the end of this arc will come more as a *relief* than a *triumph* That the payoff is more likely to be "Thank fuck that's finally over, at last we can move on" rather than " Hooray for the deserving saviour of AEW being elevated to a top position!" For the record, I REALLY hope that I am wrong.

Honestly, since there's no use arguing against nostalgia pandering and since Buddy and Brody are broadly beloved right now, put them in yellow and black striped gear and repackage them as The New Killer Bees. I'm pretty sure you could get B. Brian Blair to bestow his blessing. And doing the "ref is befuddled by which bee in in the ring" thing (with masks?) would be good for a chuckle with those two.

Angelico vs,Evil Uno? Or: Taven/Angel(ico)? My good friend Chris went back to Scotland for The Holidays. When he gets back, we have already set aside over two hours to grab a bite and overanalyse Wrestle Kingdom, Wrestle Dynasty, and everything else in painstaking detail. I am super lookng forward to it. (My takes pretty much align with the general consensus: Night 2 was better, Zack vs Shota was overlong and aimless, get well soon Douki, Kenny is 100% back and Gabe is a f'n STAR now, Thank you for Takeshita vs Ishii (and vs Shingo), womens matches were all reallygood, etc etc). I am calling this "Stop The World and Meltz With You"

Just wait. I think it was on the 5/18/22 Dynamite (Takeshita vs Hangman match) where he straight up said Takeshita is "from The Orient." That became a running bit for me for a couple of months (It's OK, you see, because I live in the mysterious Orient myself, and my beloved wife is Oriental...). I remember praising JR for not announcing Tana as being from The Orient when he dropped by and just trusting that people here would get the reference. I am very curious if they will edit that out when that ep goes up for streaming. Can someone please check that for me, if and when? If memory serves, that was a predictably excellent match that everyone but our boy Matt enjoyed. I joked about it so much that I legit can't remember if that was the only time JR referred to a Japanese wrestler as Oriental. I had forgotten about the "these men from China" thing. Dang! That's bowling shoe racist EDIT: JINX! Yeah! I forgot about Emi. That was probably the first time. Thanks, Sparkleface, for remembering that.

O'Shea : Sir, I need to know where I can get some gold scissors. TK : Gold scissors? My goodness, what an idea. Why didn't I think of that? Gold Scissors! Rick, there's four places. There's the Scissors Hut, that's on third. O'Shea : Uh-huh. TK : There's Scissors-R-Us, that's on third too. You got Snip-Your-Stuff-There. O'Shea : Mm-Hmm. TK : That's on third. Snip Low, Sweet Chariot... Matter of fact, they're all in the same complex; it's the scissors complex on third. O'Shea: Oh, the scissors district! TK : That's right.

For my money, the top three Johnny Cash songs are Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, and (perhaps surprisingly?) the cover version of Hurt. What are your favourite Johnny Cash songs?

OK. So. In last week's thread, in a post where I was otherwise lavishly praising Christmas Dynamite, I said this: TK's recent obsession with making the absolute crowd-pleasing *****+ match the opener and ending the big show with a heel or heels standing tall is kind of baffling to me. As always, I vastly prefer how the "old" AEW would strive to send the fans home happy. And... Dang! That PPV was almost like an exaggerated parody version of that! And I have been doing my "Lemme tellya something, BROTHER!" Moxter bits for a couple of weeks now and to be honest I really didn't think Mox was exercising "creative control" backstage to make sure "this is where the power lies! " or whatever... But golly dang this whole mWo House of Moxture thing has already devolved into dispiriting self-parody territory. So the "in-ring work, per se" continues to be f'n amazing week in and week out but the endless repetition of betrayal and backstabbing and cheating to win "storytelling" and the bizarre refusal to let the good guys win the big one or to end things on a happy note seem to be wearing thin with more than a few of us. On the other hand: Orange vs Hangman, and Hayter vs Julia! I mean, I complain... but it's not like I am going to skip this one! I had a wonderful New Year's Eve in Osaka with some of my wrestling friends, drinking and feasting from early evening until the first morning trains started up around 5 am and we made our sleepy, happy ways home. ( And the wife and daughters and dog and hamster had a good time at grandma's house in the countryside also). I thank almost all y'all for the very enjoyable AEW discussion here in 2024 and genuinely hope you all had and/or have as safe and happy a new year celebration as I did.

You guys are totally right, you have convinced me: Jerry Lawler vs Matt Borne is now the match I am most looking forward to at Worlds End 2024.

It's the 26th here so I didn't have to ignore my family on Christmas to watch this one live. That was about as good as a pro wrestling TV show can possibly get. GREAT to have Taz(z) back on commentary! TK's recent obsession with making the absolute crowd-pleasing *****+ match the opener and ending the big show with a heel or heels standing tall is kind of baffling to me. As always, I vastly prefer how the "old" AEW would strive to send the fans home happy. Nonetheless, LOVED Christmas Dynamite and Ospreay Brody is YET ANOTHER legit MOTYC on free TV. Excellent tournament setting up an intriguing semifinal. That crowd was great! They REALLY hated Ricochet, Claudio, and Moxley! Oh no! The Ballroom crowd HATES bald guys with beards. Guess I'm never going there. Also, check out the people in the crowd wearing Santa hats! To a wrestling show! Who does that? Merry Christmas, all y'all!