Gordi the recovering AEW f

There were SEVERAL instances during this show where I thought "I am enjoying this SO much more than my buddy Matt right now. Also probably my friend Paul. And various others over on DVDVR." Then i started to look forward to reading the reactions here. Then I thought, "Fuck it, let's go post my apparently-contrarian and "dammit, Gordlow!" type thoughts... First: Two suggestions for continuing the Roddy/Kingdom/Cole skits: 1) Have Roddy yelling AADDDAAMMM!!, and various other Adams show up (Page, Copeland, Bomb, Scherr, Ant (an underrated member of The Colony), Sandler...) 2) Have John Silver drop by and yell "AAAANNNAAAAAAA!!!" while Roddy yells " AADDDDDAAAMMMM!!" Edit: the giraffe is already my second-favourite pro wrestling stuffed animal, after Hiromu's cat Darryl. Second: I miss Butcher's long scraggly hair. Only thing more disgusting than a bald-headed freak is two stinking ugly bald-headed freaks. My best laugh of the show was the completely botched attempt to hum Beethoven's 5th at the end of the Wardlow match. Also, I owe Craig Haitch an apology. Wardlow really is "just a (huge) guy" without the man bun! I was honestly, like, "Who is this dude?" when he first came out to face Griff. Dragon vs Swerve, Fenix vs Mox, Hobbs vs Jerico, that other match they announced! Dang. The potentially great matches just keep coming. (Edit: Oh! Tuesday Night Wars. No wonder). Also, I am stoked about Rampage going back to apparently random WAR-style match-ups this week. Timeless Toni should team up with Limitless Lee. She is (obviously) doing such great character work now, in promos and in the ring. The guy in the King Switch shirt chanting along with "Talentless Taint" also got a legit lol outa me. I LOVE tofu. Atsu age, wakame dofu, tamago dofu, yuba, and kitsune style in particular. I think I like tofu more than I like Jay White, and I have nothing against Jay White. I thought the Codebreaker into The One Winged Angel was a great team finisher. Add it to Fight Forever! Prove the game hasn't been abandoned yet! I wanna smoke cigars and drink whiskey with Samoa Joe. "Titty Slap! Look at those titties... And then: GO FUCK YOURSELF." I got endless Beavis and Butthead level amusement from Dynamite on FITE today. TV watchers are straight missing out. Unless they are either easily offended or too sophisticated to appreciate that kind of nonsense. I am neither, so I was delighted. Twelfth: How about COD as a team name for Christian, Orphan, Dinosaur?

Turns out the masked ninjas are Punk, Cody, and Jade "invading" AEW. Subsequent Dynamite, the Brand New World Order are beating down Kenny, Kingston, and/or Dragon in the ring. JR: Bah gawd! That's... That's MJF's music! Ex and Tony react with undisguised delight as Friedman makes his way to the ring, putting on the Dynamite Diamond Ring while the BNWO bails out. MJF pucks up (Omega, Mad King, or Danielson)... and decks them. JR: Bah gawd! IMJF! MJF has betrayed AEW! MJF is the 4th member of the BNWO! *and that, my grandchildren, is when Papa Gordlow stopped watching pro wrestling forever*

Chilly McFreeze

I am Sampsan

Brian Cage just keeps getting more jacked every time we see him. It's amazing. At this point, he's thicker than he is tall. So, I'd like to suggest a new nickname for him. (Edit: also: Steiner math!)

Dragon's last match: Regal (Oops. Wrong thread).

I'm still on hiatus from these boards, but this is (to me anyway) too good not to share. Three wrestlers from Nepal: Himalayan Tiger, the first Nepalese pro wrestler, Unika, the first female wrestler from Nepal,and the staggeringly gorgeous Jureli, came to Osaka for the first time today. Cooger hosted the welcome party, and I along with my friends Kenji, Ji-sama, and Bodyguard,(and indy wrestler Moriya, from FUCK and AJPW and etc etc) were on the welcoming committee. It was fucking amazing. Cooger's friends and the Osaka Nepalese community coming together. Tiger, Unika, and Jureli are big celebrities in Nepal but they are totally down to earth and I think it was mind-blowing for the Nepalese folks to just hang with them at a rooftop BBQ party. For my part, I bonded hard with Unika and Jureli. I hung out speaking English and Japanese with the Osaka natives and Nepalese immigrants. I had the time of my fucking life. How I wish DEAN were still with us. I bet he knew who these wrestlers are! If there's anywhere in the world where someone might know, it's surely here... *puts up the secunda caida signal* Gonna post, like, 20 pictures. Hang on, it'll take a while.

You guys wanna hear Bodyguard singing his AJPW entrance theme? Of course you do! Do you wanna hear Bodyguard and Gordlow duetting (badly) on Terry Funk's theme? Well, too bad. I'm gonna post that, too. Went to the Bodybar a couple of weeks ago with my good friend (also Canadian, now living in the Tokyo area) who used to post here as The Cobra 2. Had a GREAT time. This is another "goodbye for now" post from me. Partly I am busy with other stuff. Partly I have grown terribly weary of the bad faith posters and arguments about meaningless rumours more or less dominating the discussion here these days. Ignore function doesn't help when too many people keep taking the bait. It's actually affecting my ability to enjoy wrestling to the fullest. (as opposed to helping me enjoy wrestling more, which is what I usually get out of the DVDVR boards). Congrats, Bad Faith Army! You've managed to (indirectly) troll Gordlow off the board, temporarily at least. Know that I love discussing wrestling and sharing laughs with the big handful of you who still post here in good faith. Know that I am sorry to miss out on Secret Santo. I'll continue to lurk, casually. I'll see ya when I see ya. Gonna post a couple of pictures here (in this post) too when I have time. Let somebody love you, before it's too late.

Does my heart good to see Billyken Kid doing charity work for kids with pixelated faces.

In case you don't have enough to watch between 5 hours of AEW and the G1, here's an hour and 25 minutes of highlights from 2019-2020 AEW, including title changes and debuts. Official video. With this and the FTR compilation video, they have been doing some outstanding fan service on YouTube recently. Here's hoping we get more of these. Edit: We are DEFINITELY getting more! The 2021 one is airing live on YT right now.

The Owen thing is definitely 100 ordinary singles matches in exhibition. I was at >130 total exhibition matches when I unlocked him. So presumably I played over 30 tag, falls count anywhere etc etc matches, which seems right. He's VERY fun to play with! In terms of match ratings, I am not sure about the relationship between difficulty and ratings (which seems like a reasonable possibility) but I have managed 5 and 7 star ratings on normal. I will try on other difficulties later. Watched a video that suggested that fast squashes are good for **** matches, ***** or ******* matches need to be long and violent, with signature spamming and thumbtacks and destroyed video screens. Seems to be accurate. I got my first 5-star and 7-star matches, doing lights out. Other people suggest sig-spamming the Casino Battle Royal, and that you can get ***** by sig/finish spamming a regular match. Time and health are NOT important when going for the highest scores. Back and forth seems to work better than squashing going for seven. To me, that was an interesting surprise. Edit: apparently it also really helps to use one of the PPV arenas, and to make it a world championship match, though the latter is certainly not necessary. Finally, if anyone is curious, it's not difficult to get an "A" rank in RTE playing on easy difficulty. You can absolutely build up strong CAWS without min/maxing. Just keep morale high, do intense workouts (with high energy so you don't get injured) and Rampage matches. Go for squashes to keep energy high and get **** ratings. My last run-through I got my CAW to 51/5/20 on easy without playing minigames. That's good enough! Though, I don't play online matches. Possibly you need to min max to build a CAW for ranked? My basic pattern is dining - workout - other match - go out - Dynamite, but it's helpful to be flexible. And always do any activity with a red exclamation mark. Agree that Unyielding Poise and Guardbreaker is an awesome combo. Agree that playing as OC is almost too much fun. Yuka Sakazaki, as well! Particularly if you turn in-match music off so you can hear the wrestlers. Also, the skateboard rules. And breaking tables is bizarrely satisfying. And the jukebox feature kicks ass. Love this game! Hope they treat it like the developers treat No Man's Sky and keep adding to it and giving us free stuff. Create some good will in the community, AEW!

Well, that was a GREAT two hours of pro wrestling TV. I was literally just saying to my friend on a chat that I don't personally care for the Collision announce team, that them repeatedly overexplaining lucha libre/masks and Nigel's forced/unnatural heel commentary feel way too WWE for me... but in my opinion Collision is the show for everyone who wishes AEW could be more like WWE so that's OK... Then Minoru Suzuki came out to fight Darby Allin. I stand corrected. It's kind of funny how often I end up feeling "happy to have been proven wrong." This was certainly one of those times! Suzuki vs Darby has to be the LEAST WWE pro wrestling match possible. Of course, I LOVED it. And the ladder match was NUTS. And the storytelling in the tag title match was impeccable. Just tremendous pro wrestling TV. I have two chat buddies who are going to next week's Collision. They were eating their hearts out that Hartford got such a great show. Hartford deserved it, though. That crowd was GREAT all night. Who could have predicted, after the first Collision, that Punk would get a totally mixed reaction, MJF would get a massive face pop, and FTR would get BOOED just a few weeks later. Crazy stuff. Too much shadenfreude. Also: Starks and Joe both legit cracked me up today. Pro Wrestling is so great!

I am only one person, and I am not actually Japanese, but I think it's safe to assume that I am speaking for the entire country when I say, "No, thank you."

Fairly skippable Rampage, if you are feeling the G1/five hours of AEW burn. If you've got the energy, though: Battle Royal was fun. Sets up a good match for the future. Ending of Kip vs Komander was spectacular. Shida vs Nyla was a million times better than Britt vs Taya. Aussie Open vs Vikingo & Komander announced for Dynamite 200! Honestly, I'd like to skip Collision tomorrow, but "MJF & Adam Cole challenge champions FTR for the AEW World Tag Team Titles. Andrade El Idolo and Buddy Matthews compete in a ladder match for Andrade El Idolo's mask. In Trios action, Bullet Club Gold's Juice Robinson & The Gunns face El Hijo Del Vikingo, Darius Martin & Action Andretti" (per Fite) all sound good. I am pretty curious to see what will happen in the tag match, and that trios is a nutzoid, only-in-AEW thing, and Buddy Matthews is great and I don't remember ever seeing him in a singles ladder match. There's a pretty good UFC card tomorrow after Collision, too. Henare vs Finlay and Yano vs Cobb are the first two matches on the G1 card tomorrow. Probably gonna at least watch those two. Kind of nutziod, only-in-the-G1 matches that should both be really fun in COMPLETELY different ways. Edit: PLUS Natch just posted a link to a two-hour FTR in AEW compilation video! Yowza! Edit 2: Butcher & Blade with hair wearing all white! Pandemic-era quiet matches! Memories light the corners of my mind. Misty, water-coloured memories... Also the new McDonald's shaka shaka potato flavour is sour creme and onion! I never imagined that we might get that some day. Went to McD's for the first time in MONTHS yesterday. Cheeseburger flavour shaka shaka and Lotteria's butter shoyu furu potai are both better, but sc&o makes a solid third best Japanese flavoured fries on Gordlow's list. Creme or cream! It's cream, right? Grew up in Canada. Everything had French and English labels. ANYWAY, too much of a good thing recently is what I think I am trying to say here. In a normal week this Rampage would not have seemed skippable.

One on one? Never. In a tag? Never. I think they were both in Casino-type matches together before, but that's it. Mox matched up extremely well with Darby in the past. Mox won both of their singles matches but Darby came out of them looking like a future star. (Edit: Mox and Darby also had a singles in North East Wrestling, per Cagematch. Not surecifvI have ever seen that one). I have high expectations for Mox v Orange.

They were in Albany. "Steamed hams" American is an Albany expression. It's a near-perfect reference, in my opinion. I popped for it. Edit: Casey beat me to it. I should have known Casey was at the bat. Edit: since I have already made a post: Mox and Cassidy should form a team: Blood Orange. Mad King should do a thing where he got addicted to caffeine fighting off jetlag in Japan: "Coffee" Kingston. Final edit: Those who are fans of Jake Hager style hat-based psychology NEED TO watch the first few minutes of Naito vs Haste. I felt like that was booked specifically to make me happy.

Damn, Britt vs Taya failed to live up to my very low expectations. I think that might have been the worst match in Dynamite history. Slow and awkward. I legit hope they are both OK because they did NOT look OK in there. Remainded me of Ibushi in B and G. Swerve vs Darby and Anger/Regret Fox vs Orange were both really fun, with innovative spots and interrelated storytelling. Ishii vs Kingston was GREAT. Everything I wanted it to be. Two guys I love to watch just going 100%. Reminded me in many ways of Bryan vs MiSu, and I have no higher praise to give. Cobb vs Zack and (surprisingly, to me) Finlay vs Tonga were also really good. Still enjoying the hell out of Fight Forever. Possibly sinking too much time into it. Made Shinsuke, Okada, and Cobb CAWS. None of them are note perfect, but they are all fun to play with. Nice random-ass Rampage coming up in two days. I am stoked for Shida vs Nyla! Enjoyed Hook's "training" video. Chuck should team with Allin. The Kentucky Darby.

(Insert graphic here) I'm excited as can be for Pac vs Gravity. It seems to be based on a Gordlow-type joke, in that Pac is the man that Gravity forgot. Plus Gravity is (actually, as far as I know) Bandido's brother, so in my opinion this is likely to be a fast paced athletically exciting bout possibly with a crazy strength spot or two. Orange vs Fox is also a natural match-up, and I love the nonchalant way it was set up. Swerve vs Darby has some build to it and should be great. Taya vs Britt is not for me. They are both pretty far on the "polished and professional" side of the continuum. I'd prefer the TV time be given to ladies on the weird and indy side. If this were, say, Abadon vs Nicole Matthews, I'd be SO MUCH more stoked. Nice to see Best Friends in a big tag match, although they will definitely eat the pin. Better than Bay Bay hasn't started to wear thin. Yet. How long can they keep it going? How long will they be allowed to keep it going? Also Ishii vs Kingston and Zack vs Cobb in the G1 tonight (J-time). Oh how I wish Osaka had been given those matches! It's been a lot of fun this year, so far, what with the 20-minute time limits and Kingston and Kiyomiya being involved and so on. Also, I have finally gotten AEW Fight Forever for my Switch! Holy guacamole do I ever LOVE that game! I have only had it for a few days but I have been playing it obsessively, and just loving every moment of it. I have already unlocked Big Paul! Accidentally stumbled into it while running through the storyline mode to build up my Naito CAW. It took several tries, but I was finally able to beat him by count out. One of many huge mark-out moments the game has given me so far. For all the justifiable complaining I have read about the CAW creation suite, it's still plenty fun and useful. The game overall just absolutely murders my commute time. I was in danger of missing my station yesterday afternoon. (insert pics of CAWS here) Guerrero Gordlow Naito

Stat vs Shafir was stiff and nasty and awesome, and it was the main event! Great stuff! Stat's power offence looked amazing, too. I enjoyed everything about the RANBO except for the perhaps unavoidable "lots of eliminations during pitcher in pick sure" situation. Nick Wayne and Gates of Agony both got over without going over, which I always love to see. Darby and Swerve being first in, last out worked great. I had to look up who the TNT champion is. (It's Bad Dinosaur). The announcers kept saying the winner (Darby) would fight for the title at the PPV, but I didn't catch them naming Luchasaurus, so now I wonder if the title will change hands before then, or maybe Swerve or someone will get added to the match. According to Wikipedia, Darby is both the youngest and the least heavy person to ever hold the TNT title. I was surprised to hear QT worked a death match in Tijuana! (Edit: thanks to Curt for posting the video)!

2-ring, 20-person Royal Rampage battle royal(e)! Oh. Hell yeah! You know who loves battles royal(e)? Gordlow loves battles royal(e). I am STOKED! Also Stat vs Shafir, which could be stiff and nasty and awesome or could be weird and sloppy and awkward. I, personally, am hoping for the former. It's probably for the tbs title, too! Maybe it will main event! Also, in a match other people here are definitely more stoked for, in comparison with how stoked Gordlow is for it: The Acclaimers and Rockabilly vs QT, TV, and Aaron Solo. I like Aaron Solo! I like The Acclaimed, in the ring. The scissor me stuff is starting to wear thin on me, personally, but I certainly don't begrudge anyone who still marks out for it. Lots of people in the live crowd certainly do. Similarly, I don't begrudge anyone enjoying QTV. I am just baffled that anyone does. I don't get it. Still, the Royal Rampage is right up my alley, and I am hoping this will be a breakout performance for Marina and I am always stoked to see Stat fight. And at one point I was baffled that anyone could enjoy Jarrett in AEW, but I get it now. And at one point I'd have called MJF the most overrated guy on the stick in all of pro wrestling... But he's been undeniably entertaining recently. So maybe I'll turn the corner on QTV some day, too? Maybe the catch phrase stuff will start to feel fresh again? Anything is possible! Nothing is impossible! Is the last-minute ROH PPV tomorrow too? It is, isn't it? Might get up early to catch the pre-show on YouTube or wherever. Feels like ages since I have seen a Workhorsemen match. I love watching those guys! My autocomplete understands that. I only need to type "Wor..."

This (and Tim's post) legit brought a legit tear to ole Gordlow's eye. Settling a difference of opinion in a constructive way. Thinking deeply about wrestling, and relating it to stuff going on around us (Navel-gazing, if you will). Paying tribute to a man we all miss terribly. All while enjoying a wide variety of pro wrestling matches. Legitimately beautiful. What this site is REALLY about, in my mind anyway. Thanks for this.

I think when you get a goofy-ass dance-off and also insanely dangerous nail board stunts on the same show and they both work and they both fit perfectly, you are talking about one of the all time great episodes of pro wrestling TV. Amazing. So glad they didn't do a crash pad dive off the top of the cage this year, also. They didn't need it at all. That was more than enough insanity for two hours. Loved how Mox came in and INSTANTLY escalated everything. Also the bloody kiss. Edit: also, there was an interesting story being told there, about friendship. BCC lost because Pac and Takeshita are not their true friends whereas Golden Elite are all 100% loyal to one another... but also BCC lost because Mox ultimately cares about Wheeler. Good stuff.

Gimme a few minutes here. I'll post some videos so EVERYONE can enjoy the GREATNESS. 60s Fritz Kiniski 70s Destroyer Brisco Robinson Tag Race 80s Brody Hansen Surprising and fun tag 90s Surprising and fun tag (edit: this match is actually pretty bad. I guess I was thinking of a different late-career Andre/Baba tag match). There's so much more! Lots and lots of Hansen and Kiniski and Race and Butcher matches! Those guys all match up really well with Baba, in my opinion. Hopefully Matt also has some recommendations!(Maybe a Bock match?) Couldn't find the Murdoch match I wanted. Maybe the best Hansen v Baba match was from '82, but I couldn't find the video for that one. SO MANY surprising and fun tag matches in his later career after he phased himself out of the main event. The Destroyer and Robinson ones are personal favourite matches, for sure. I personally LOVE all of these, but I love Baba in general. Let me know what you think! Hope lots of people can find joy here.

Wow! (Technically) that was FIVE matches and (technically) TWO of them were ladies matches! (Insert "Scanners" type gif here later) I say (technically) because (of course) the Taya match was a literal two-move squash. But, still. At long last, Tony Khan can stop being ashamed of himself! I will also say this: Valkyrie vs Storm is a *very* Marvel Cinematic Universe type of match-up. Similarly, Trentylocks got semi-squashed to set up an interesting-enough match-up for BotB. Actually, it will be *plenty* interesting to see how Orange solves the puzzle of how to overcome Archer's massive size and power advantage. I was please that Mentallo got a little bit more in the Takeshita version of the Local Wrestler Gets Straight-up Squashed Match than McQueen was given in the Taya version. Cool to see him on AEW TV, however briefly. Ditto for Bambi! (And apparently her sister Liiza got a dark match, also, which is nice). In addition to the three fun squash(y) matches we got two *really* good TV bouts. They are really using Keith Lee like WWWF used to use Andre the Giant. Waiting on the apron for the long-delayed hot tag, then getting cut off before rewarding everyone's patience with a dominating finish. Classic stuff. Love it. Limitless Dust are too much fun together. Long may they tag. The main event was pretty tremendous. You get the sense that Willow and Athena hate each other, know each other well, are very evenly matched up, and that everything is a struggle and everything hurts. Just first rate pro wrestling, there! In an ordinary week that would probably be the AEW MOTW, but FTR vs BGC on a LOADED episode of Collision is still to come. Plus Kento vs Nakajima (AJPW vs NOAH) at Korakuen, Kenny vs Vikingo at TripleMania, and nights one and two of the G1. That's one hell of a pro wrestling weekend!