Gordi the recovering AEW f

Agree with you there, buddy. I can really only speak for myself and I am sure a lot of people super enjoyed this entire show and if so I am happy for them. Speaking for myself personally, I would have LOVED this show without the plastic bag, cinder block, and needle. I mean, PAC vs Bruv and Stat vs Willow! The grappling in MJF vs Dancy Pants! Some of those complex sequences and crazy spots! All the storytelling! That HAWT Chicago crowd! American wrestling fans marking the hell out for Okada and Takeshita facing off... And so on. WITH those extra steps... Yeah, me too. A little bummed out. A little soured. Glad to know I am not alone in feeling that way. I I would have been SO HAPPY if they ended the Dragon match with him and Mox hugging. It's not like Bryan lacks challengers for the belt! Related, but... This is maybe more JUST me but I might as well get it off my chest here: In particular, I LOVED that AEW used to be all about good guys being friends and having each others' backs and I mourn to see that they have shifted entirely to stale WWE "strong men stand alone" and "your friends will always betray you in the end" trope booking. I LOVED the loose hang-out feel of the TV shows with the commentators just kind of being themselves. But, nope. Can't use pronouns. Need to have bullshit heel commentators... They really had something special going, a chance to "change 'the business' for the better" but nope. Have to do it the way it's always been done. Breaks my heart. "Because that's how it has always been done" is the WORST reason to do something. w/r/t the ultraviolence, maybe I'm just getting old. I get free tickets to Big Japan when they come to Osaka. I have seen all kinds of crazy shit live... I dunno. Was NOT in the mood for that much of it, this morning. Little bummed, little soured, glad to know I am not alone. Still love wrestling. Still well-entertained overall, today. Anyway, going to a BBQ party with Cooger tonight! That'll drown my minor old man sorrows!

Looks like we are getting a 3-hour Ramplision special including all the Continental Challenger matches (9 am tomorrow J-time. Check your local listings)! There is something to hang one's hat on with each of the matches that have been announced thus far. To whit: Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson, Wheeler Yuta, Claudio Castagnoil & PAC) vs The Elite (Jack Perry, Kazuchika Okada, Nicholas Jackson & Matthew Jackson) Continental Contenders Challenge: Orange Cassidy vs Bryan Keith Continental Contenders Challenge: Lance Archer vs Mark Briscoe Continental Contenders Challenge: Konosuke Takeshita vs The Beast Mortos Deonna Purazzo vs Hikaru Shida MxM Collection (Mansoor & Mason Madden) vs House of Black (Brody King & Buddy Matthews) Dang. Kind of hoping it doesn't mean having to endure listening to Nigel bully poor old Tony S and misuse fivedollarwords for three straight hours. Possibly just a me thing, but I really can't find my way into enjoying that at all. And I really like Nigel as a wrestler and i marked out seeing him in the ring at Wembley. But boy oh boy does his heel announcer act ever rub me the wrong way. On the upside, though... Takeshita vs Black Taurus?!?! Dang. They just keep banging out those "Dream Matches We Didn't Even Know We Wanted" Also Briscoe vs Archer is one of those where I feel like they are booking matches specifically to spark joy in the smouldering husk where my heart used to be. It's amazing in a very specific way how this insanely talented roster keeps wringing fun and excellence out of foregone conclusion matches. I mean that as an honest compliment, which I hope makes sense.

A LITERAL House Afire. How much further can you take it after actually drinking the other guy's blood? Guess we're about to find out. That trios main event was a whole lot of fun, too. Love how they are just turning on the firehose of awesome matches full blast and refusing to slow it down at all.

Way to Bungle Joy, AEW! Look at all these disappointed faces. I figure it's just because Bryan's first defence will draw no matter who the challenger is. And for sure they are quickly building a very compelling show to support the main event anticlimax. Plus: OBVIOUSLY Bryan is gonna give us The Best Jungle Boy Match Ever. Anyhoo: Excellent show over all. AEW on quite the roll at the moment. Grit... Your... TEETH is a delightfully weird catchphrase! Hangman vs Ishii felt like a gift to me and to my specific brand of "sicko" specifically. Hot dang, did I enjoy that slugfesr! And they gave them adequate time, too! Plus, and I cannot overstate how happy this makes me, they FINALLY stopped calling him Ishii-EE (The (double) ii means a slightly longer "i" sound, not a whole extra syllable and DEFINITELY not and emphasized extra syllable. It's been driving me nuts for YEARS. Ex apparently couldn't help himself, and Taz(z) went back and forth on it... But still. Overjoyed. Edit: I really want one more Bryan vs Kingston match. Either Kingston, really.

I hope they have the willpower to hold of on Hayter's return match until the PPV. Presumably vs Saraya. Probably, and understandably, they'll give her a (couple of) TV warm-up match(es) first... But... I hope AEW understands that they have got something really special with Hayter. Putting her return on the Zero Two Hours makes me kind of wonder if they do, though. But that ENORMOUS pop she got in London maybe reminded them? Me and my wrestling buddies have been dying for her to return. I know we aren't the only ones. Holding off on letting us watch her fight until Chicago might pay off with a rabid, foaming at the mouth crowd. I'm all about that right now. I LOVED those British crowds going nuts (and I legit lol-ed at the Big Bill love and some of the chants, etc). Keep it going! Count on the delayed gratification paying off! Treat her return match like the fn special thing it is. EDIT: Fuck. Oh well. Whatever. Nevemind. This week's Dynamite: Chris Jericho & Big Bill & Bryan Keith & Roderick Strong vs. Hook & Orange Cassidy & Kyle O’Reilly & Mark Briscoe – All Star 8-Man Tag match Jamie Hayter vs. Harley Cameron Ricochet vs. Kyle Fletcher Bryan Danielson will address his future

That was a really really good professional wrestling show. Super enjoyable, and the hours straight up flew by. Start time was 2 am Japan time, so rather than watching "live" I woke up early-ish this morning and just managed to squeeze the entire extravaganza in before starting work. Chatted through the whole thing with my good buddy who lives in Tokyo (used to post here as The Cobra 2). We synchronized our delayed-watching start times. Hook vs Jericho and Mone vs DMD were the only matches I did not get super into. The former felt more like a TV match for whatever reason (perhaps because I was really kind of hoping for a crowd reaction like the Large William match on Collision) and the latter kind of came off as a crowd killer. But I didn't *dislike* either of those matches or anything. MJF vs. Bruv and the main event both hit me as MOTYC-level and hugely enjoyable. I wonder if it's hard to get spearmint toothpaste green sneakers in Big Bill's size. Or maybe that was the only colour available in his size? Either way, I really enjoyed those sneakers. Needless to say I am fn *delighted* with the way the main event played out. It's good to know I am not the only one who was getting a little emotional watching that. Work started 7+ hours ago and I still have a markout buzz going as I type this out. That had to have been one of the all time great pro wrestling live crowds. They made EVERYTHING better by their reactions. Even the tbs title match, because I felt less alone in not being able to find a way into it. Some of the chants and reactions had me legit laughing in delight. (Edit: and it's fn cool that a couple of "us" were part of that crowd!) I mean, *literally* I laughed out loud, gasped out loud, and I was on the verge of actual tears... From watching a professional wrestling event. That'll do, AEW. That'll do.

Great crowd. It's really too bad they couldn't have brought this guy in, considering they are in Wales: Too much blahblahblah this week, for my personal tastes. That endless back and forth between MJF and Ospreay made me (personally) ZERO percent more excited for their match. Bryan's brief talk to Ospreay was a million times more effective. To me. Personally. I am legit curious why anyone would legit prefer a long blahblahblah segment to one more fun wrestling match. I also preferred when most of the wrestlers in AEW were pretty much allowed to be more or less themselves, or to be goofy and original, rather than portraying cliched "face" and "heel" characters. I don't see what the appeal is to doing things that way, other than "That's what we have grown used to." On the other hand, and more importantly, the actual wrestling was all excellent and entertaining and the PPV is going to be non-stop bangers for hours and hours. Unfortunately for me (personally) the start time is 1 am Monday Japan time so I won't be watching live. I'll be able to catch half of it after waking up before going to work, then the challenge will be avoiding spoilers (Oh golly! Did Will Osoreay actually use the Tiger Driver?!?! The fn suspense is killing me!) All irony aside, I am fn stoked for the show.

Best professional wrestler of his generation, by a mile. Which is REALLY saying something. I have only met him a handful of times but in my experience he's just ss good of a dude as he is a professional wrestler. We'll all be a little worse off, as wrestling fans, without him around as a full time wrestler. But I can confidently say that most of us here certainly appreciated what we had in terms of enjoying his matches etc etc. Not a case where "You don't know what you got till it's gone." We knew. And how lucky, how blessed, are we that we got that whole rich AEW chapter of his career to enjoy? Just look at Natch's list. Good Lord! What a body of work. And we got to enjoy it. Thank you, Bryan!

The opening trios match was a perfect demonstration of maybe my favourite thing about pro wrestling. All three of Orange, Briscoe, Ishii have such distinct and well-defined characters that there is good reason to mark out every time one of them is tagged in to the match. You know what you are going to get, and you know it's going to be good. And you know what The Outrunners and The Butcher are bringing to the table, too. Nyla immediately squashing Leigh after the match was good character development too. I was wondering what she might bring to the ring during the trios match, and got to find out right away. The Saraya segment was also illustrative. She and Cameron are just so phony. EVERYTHING they do and say just rings false. Then Toni comes out, and even though she is OBVIOUSLY playing a ridiculously arch character... It all rings completely true! Not sure how to explain that. Might be something and simple as Toni being GOOD at acting? Kip Sabian does nothing for me. Unsure about why that is. I'll always be into Nick Wayne and pulling for him to succeed, because I knew his dad, but Kip has negative heat with me to the point where I was bored by that match. And I know it's pretty much traditional pro wrestling, but every bad guy win being a fuck finish makes things boring and predictable from my personal perspective. O how I wish AEW had the balls to stick with Giant Baba 90s-type booking and educate their fans to appreciate that instead of falling back on tired tropes. Speaking of! Username already nailed it, but the 80s Vince-ification of Top Flight got a 100% legit lol outa me. Delightfully ridiculous. I mean, I SHOULD hate it too... but I was entertained. Leyla/Leila Gray/Grey (I know I could look it up but it is more fun to speculate) doing Summerslam Megapowers stuff in Sexy Cabin Attendant cosplay was just sooooo stoopid. Mansoor being torn also made me lol. I think ultimately I just like Airplane Spins very very much. Damned entertaining pro wrestling, and MORE hawt G1 action on the way in a few hours. (G1 match) was EXTREMELY EXCELLENT. They worked a deliberately paced BMMSM style, so you know I loved that. REALLY looking forward to both semi-final matches. EDIT: Almost forgot ROOSH & Fletcher! El Nose-O Hook-O getting his violence back is great stuff. And apparently Fletcher's body responds very well to clenbuterol or maybe the locker room got hooked up with some ozempic pens? Or they are just dieting and working out effectively, maybe. i have no idea. In my days the locker rooms were like THAT scene in the Micky Rourke movie. On the other hand I myself have dropped more than a few kilos recently without exogenous chemical assistance. And I am a lazy 58 year old with a sedentary job. But, you know, Fletcher and several others on the roster are looking noticeably and impressively leaner recently. Good for them. VERY good for them if they are doing it the hard way. Did you know Bricoe and Black Taurus had an ROH title match recently? I JUST heard about it. AEW/ROH keep tossing out those dream matches we didn't even know we wanted.

Well, now we know what Shane's involvement with AEW is! They brought him in to teach ground and pound to Swerve. Every match was good but the show felt pretty sports-entertainmenty to me, what with all the fuck finishes and video packages. Hopefully the folks who were demanding "more story" from AEW are enjoying this. G1 has been REALLY good this year. Exceptions: 1) the usual HOT BS (The Shida vs May finish was VERY House of Torture. Not my bag at all) 2) a meh showing by Jake Lee. Everyone else has exceeded expectations. Fun, interesting Japanese baseball playoff structure with six good wrestlers making the playoffs. Takeshita has been really excellent, every bit as enjoyable as Eddie Kingston last year. Which is REALLY saying something! Dynamite (even if some aspects of it were not to my particular tastes) plus G1 tonight makes for a pretty great day of watching professional wrestling. Edit: While I am complaining about too many video packages, etc... That Bryan video package was EXCELLENT. Do I contradict myself? Fine, then I contradict myself.

At the Olympics. Tall muscular guy walks by. "Excuse me, are you a pole vaulter?" " No. I am Austrian. And my name is Gunther now. "

My theory about the lights going out in the main event? Shane McMahon backstage sabotage. Remind me: Brie is... Whose spouse? I kind of want Dragon to beat Swerve just so years from now I can watch an "Every AEW World Champion" video on YT and be like " Oh, yeah. " Enjoyed matador Orange. Hope that surprise finish leads to Bull vs Chicken for the ROH title. Who could have predicted, back in 2019, that bringing in Paige and Banks would actually NOT make the AEW Women's Division any stronger? Just realised Dax and Cash rhymes with..

OBVIOUSLY if you are bringing him in it has to be in order to teach everyone on the roster to throw ultra-realistic worked strikes Also if Shane signs with AEW I can see a CLEAR upside in that it would free up 5+ hours per week for me, personally.

Yeah, but... when he said that... HE WAS LYING

Oh baby! This is f'n MAXIMUM Only in AEW booking. These are the bones they throw out to dudes like me who miss the days when AEW was a big goofy indie packed wall to wall with Wrestling For The Sake Of Wrestling. This is why, every damn week, when I start thinking "Burger King AEW is just not for me any more..." I end up getting stoked to watch anyway. f'n NICE one! Edit: GOOD HEAVENS! They have also booked a rematch of one of the absolute best matches I ever saw live and in person (2019 NJ Cup in Nara Centennial Hall, just a short walk from my place)

Reportedly: "The AEW Unified Trios Championship will be unified no more as new ROH Six-Man Champions will be crowned Saturday. ROH announced during Thursday’s Ring of Honor TV episode that a title eliminator match will take place at Friday’s Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view, with Dustin Rhodes, Ross Von Erich, and Marshall Von Erich facing Dark Order’s John Silver, Alex Reynolds, and Evil Uno, with the winners advancing to Battle of the Belts XI on Saturday to face three members of The Undisputed Kingdom for the ROH Six-Man Tag Team titles." Not sure on the source. Buddy c&p'd it to me on messanger. This MIGHT be a minority opinion, but... IMHO, That's crazy talk. AEW/ROH have so few titles, and now they want to.start merging? You head down that road and pretty soon 10% of the wrestlers on your roster won't even be holding a title. OK. Wait. I misunderstood. They are DE-merging. Phew. Dodged a bullet there. (Honestly, I'd be perfectly fine with everyone holding multiple interim title belts ad every single TV match except AITA and B&G being part of a tournament).

I really enjoyed Wavey Grandpa vs Murder Grandpa. I like how Jericho's chest bleeds like crazy every time he fights one of my favourite Japanese guys. Shibata making the save popped me hard. Oktoberfest Shida was working stiffer than usual. I hope my boy Curt picked up on that. Royal Rampage on Friday?!?! No time to take a breath. Jeff Cobb vs Takeshita from G1 night was lotsa fun. If Jungle Boy named his son after Matt and Nick he'd be Jack's son Jackson.

Man, Night One of the G1 was great. An incredibly solid show top to bottom, with violence, action, variety, and just enough surprises in how it was booked. ZSJ vs GOK was particularly great, with a unique takedown exchange that popped me hard. The time flew by like it was an AEW PPV. And after Rampage and Night One yesterday, and Collision this morning, I am still hyped for Night Two. BUT There was one very disappointing match. The one regrettable stain on an otherwise pristine tapestry of a show. "Actually excellent matches with predictable, massively disappointing, bullshit endings" seemed to be a deliberate theme of tonight's Collision. It happened THREE times. Once is really more than enough. I REALLY miss the AEW that almost always featured clean finishes. Oh well. Opener was f'n HAWT. And an "Only in AEW" match. As long as they keep rolling out stuff like Darby vs Taurus I am going to keep getting over my little disappointments and coming back for more. Presumably. Eventually WWE disappointed me enough times that I just gave up completely. I don't see that happening with AEW, though. We all hope Blue is OK. No doubt in my mind about that. HarryArchieGus hit the nail on the head w/r/t the E-Sports Arena! That felt like a PERFECT-sized venue for this show. Loved the hard cam shooting up the ramp. Loved the more intimate feel. I have ZERO business acumen but I would *URGE* AEW to consider running more venues this size, charging reasonable prices for non-ringside seats, providing plentiful merch and refreshment opportunities for the live crowd, and thereby restoring the warm community feel that has sadly slipped away over the past couple of years. Atmosphere is everything. This crowd LOVED Juicey Boy. It MADE the match. I am sure the venue added to that tremendously. Makes the Collision(s) louder! Trimmed beard Dash looks like a different (less interesting) person. Wardlow/Manbun effect. Ishii/Roddy was the most "actually excellent match with a predictable, massively disappointing, bullshit ending" of the night for me. Otherwise, though, it was EXACTLY what I was hoping for when it was announced. Great call bringing in Gringo Loco to make your debuting luchadore look like a million bucks! Surely I cannot be the only one hoping Hologram would use the 3D as a finisher. LOVED the airplane spin, though. Dustin/Von Erichs was too sweet. But, I gotta be honest... I coulda used a little more COWbell. I am SURE that someone backstage was furiously insisting they call it a "LumberJILL" match. (Get it? Hahaha! LumberJILL) and I am SO GLAD that A) they didn't go there and B) Nigel managed to resist the temptation to go there, as well. (EDIT: According to tbarrie, Nigel may have actually gone there. Dammit, Nigel! I am at the point of NEEDING to mentally tune Nigel out in order to enjoy the matches, so I can see how I might have missed it. I complain about Nigel A LOT and I often (here and elsewhere) gets the "they are building to him vs Bryan at Wembley" explanation. That might very well have gone a LONG way toward justifying Nigel's tired, unfunny, disingenuous heel commentator shtick. Those were great matches, back.in the day. Oh well). (the lumberjack match was) Another "liked the match/was bummed out by the ending" scenario. Rosa's hat was AMAZING. G1 Night Two matches include Boltin vs Henare, Gabe Kidd vs GOK, Shota vs Shingo, and Naito vs ZSJ.

Hey, ya know... When you put Suzuki, Ishii, and The Outrunners all on the same one-hour professional wrestling television programme, and toss in a Statlander semi-squash for good measure, it's likely you will end up making ole Gordlow pretty happy. Which is what happened. Plus you toss in Ishii vs Roddy Strong tomorrow (and if I recall Natch's post correctly, f'n DARBY vs BLACK TAURUS as well) then it looks like I won't be able to skip Collision this week either. Don't know how I am supposed to save up any mark-out energy for the G1 or the upcoming PPV or even Blood and Guts plus MiSu vs Jericho... But, what the hell? I am having fun.

I am gaining SO MUCH respect for Will Ospreay. He put both Swerve and MJF over huge, in ways that make them look great. Guys who made a name on the indies and became well known stars in AEW. That is the SPIRIT of being a Bret guy. Certain dudes are good at Bret cosplay and talking about putting dudes over. But guys like Ospreay and Bryan and Eddie Kingston are keeping the true spirit of Bret alive by actually doing clean jobs in the ring when it serves to do so. THAT is how you enter the Best in the World conversation in my mind. Not by winning every match and refusing to return any favours. (i.e an HBK guy). The REALLY great ones can lose a match and make the other wrestler look great while never losing an ounce of credibility or the support of the fans. I am VERY pleasantly surprised to be including Will Ospreay in the conversation with all-time favourites like Bret, Bryan and Eddie (and Terry Funk...) but he has absolutely earned it!

You'd think, being in "Little Rock" you'd want to build the show around Ricky Starks.

The Outrunners accompanying Dalton Castle to the ring and mixing their own shtick in with the The Boys routine put a big old smile on my face. Makes me happy in the same (a similar?) way that Luther finding his niche with Timeless Toni did. Nice to know that there is still space for the entertainingly weird and indie on AEW TV ❤

Cheers, my lads! It warms my heart that you thought of me when you heard that news. I am indeed fully stoked for The Summer of Ishii.

My tl/dr is: That was a massive pile of unnecessarily Sports Entertainmenty disappointment. If you have time, please read my explanation of why: Disappointment is an interesting thing. If I am hungry and it's late and we find a ramen restaurant and the ramen is pretty good, I will be delighted. But if we made special plans to go to a famous ramen restaurant in Kyoto, and had to wait in line 45 minutes, and it's kind of expensive, THE EXACT SAME BOWL OF RAMEN would be a MASSIVE DISAPPOINTMENT. I really thought this could have been another all-timer. As good as last week's show. So, even though there was plenty of good (for example, BRYAN WINS! Calgary warming my heart by POPPING for Ishii, the bloody final image, etc etc) I feel let down. Way too much ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY WWE-esque Sports Entertainment Bullshit. (thankfully, not leading directly to Fuck Finishes, but still, the matches did NOT need that shit). Fucking non-stop Nigel on commentary. He takes SO MUCH from the table while bringing significantly less to it. About 80/20 at this point. So, yeah. Good show. ALL the wrestlers absolutelybusted their asses. But: Disappointing. - Did Nana dance through the ENTIRE commercial break? I sure hope so. - I refuse to suspend my disbelief w/r/t Joe being hospitalised by some fucking DRYWALL. Cool visual with the forklift, though. Joe being loaded into an ambulance while commentary does concerned voices was the most egregious bullshit on a show absolutely packed to the fucking gills with egregious bullshit. i still loves ya, All Elite WRESTLING. AESE can git tae fuck, though.

Good Golly Bob Holly! Last week's Dyn-o-mite was an all-timer and I legit believe they have a chance to go two for two this week. DO YA?!?! Yes, I do! Look at that image! The least serious guy is going to get his ass absolutely kicked by the most serious guy, and everyone is going to LOVE it. Speaking of contrasting styles: Claudio (power) vs PAC (speed) vs Fletcher (Aussie) vs THE STONE F'N PITBULL TOMOHIRO ISHII (awesomeness). A pure "Only in AEW" match if I ever saw one. I LOVE those. Dragon vs Hangman could be about as close as we can get these days to something like Terry Funk vs Stan Hansen, in a "The Best in the World" vs "Ultraviolet Cowpoke" sense but also (not to get all MattD on everyone, but): If anyone can reign in The Hanger and get him to tell a cohesive story in that there ring, it's gonna be oor lad Bryan. Seriously, this could be GREAT. Willow is fighting. The world is always a better place when Willow is fighting. Also, the Billington Kid gets to fight Takeshita. On Collision. In Calgary. I thought the Kid looked tremendous in there vs Dax. I hope he can take the erstwhile "getting over without going over" path blazed in early days AEW by the likes of Darby. I was kind of planning to take a break after Forbidden Door (Which I LOVED. And the crowd was amazing, in my opinion, going mad for Mistico with the Lucha Brothers, Ishii being Ishii, Okada's entrance, and loads of other "esoteric" pro wrestling moments, but treating all the Sports Entertainment Superstars (including IWGP Champion Dean Ambrose) (!) with silent contempt. That crowd MADE the show for me). I need to store up Mark Out Energy for G1 season. (Go Tsuji)! But. Dang. How is a pro wrestling fan supposed to skip stuff like this? It's unreal. Even did a preview post for this one! How do you like them apples? The heartbreaking mishandling of Fight Forever, the Sportsentertainmentification of AEW and the switch from respecting our intelligence and communicating openly with the fans to corporate newspeak have all contributed to turning A E W from a thing I am obsessed with into a thing I am merely very into. But I love these matches. ...and that last Rampage in June. It felt like they let ME book that one. El Phantasmo vs AR Fox, Orange vs THE OUTRUNNERS, Gabe Kidd, Queen Aminata... Shame Shingo vs Dalton didn't go as well as it could have... But, dang it, AEW... I guess I still loves ya.