Gordlow

Has to be Bryan for me. He is great in big matches or small. He is riveting to watch in a tag match with zero story and zero build, or in a main event championship bout. ZSJ has been having a whale of a year as well. I personally would vote for him over most wrestlers... but not over Danielson, Kingston, MiSu, or Ishii. Hoshi is on my radar now. Hopefully fate will conspire to allow me to catch her at a live show some day.

Between the beer and the cinnamon roll centers, Takeshita is gonna look more like Takeshi Morishima by the time his excursion is done.

"F--- buyrates and million-dollar gates and everything," Punk said. "That's what this s--- is about. What's the best part? The best part is making these new relationships and showing guys what a lot of guys never showed me but should have: to not be a d--- to these kids who just want to be pro wrestlers." Damn straight.

Got really busy in the middle of the week. Let's see if I can remember my thoughts from Thursday morning. I'm worried about my memory. Recently, if I close a window/app on my tablet I immediately forget what I was gonna do next. If I open the fridge my mind tends to blank on why I did so. But, I can still remember the date of my favourite tag match. (6/9/95, obviously). Anyhoo: Cage match was just tremendous! Road War(dlow)riors pop. Busting the cuffs. Yeeting the security guy. Too much fun. Punk vs Page is a tough match to pick! There's something to be said for using the belt to elevate guys. There's something to be said for having your biggest star be the champion. Bronx Combat Club is the best thing. FTR vs RPG for the ROH TTTs. THAT is how you do a fuck finish without disappointing Gordlow. Jeff Cobb is one of my absolute favourite guys to watch in all of pro wrestling. I was undecided on O'Khan but his "amateur" match with Yano and his real life heroics (and enjoyment of Las Vegas) have me firmly in his corner now. Khan on the Cobb vs FTR at Forbidden Door? Oh hell yeah! Yes, please! Absolute Jurassic Swerve was indeed very fast-paced and exciting. If Limitless House go on to take the Tag belts after Swerve winning here, that would be a nice subversion of predictable WWE style booking. I liked Rosa's hat. Both Owen semi-final matches were stiff and hard-hitting. My kind of wrestling. Or,I suppose, one of the kinds of wrestling that I really love. Joe just beat the hell out of Kyle. That was great.

She's a One Woman Gang!

Here's my hawt take: Game seven of a conference finals is a pretty big deal for a lot of sports fans. Taking that into consideration shows respect from AEW toward their larger fan base. There's something positive to be said for leaning that way as opposed to arrogantly insisting on some kind of "it's us or them, make your choice." Although, yeah, it's a very good point that pro wrestling fans are going to care about the whole card and not just the main event championship match.

Danielson vs Bourne had so many nifty reversals! That whole Young Hardyz presentation was just beautiful. Particularly the Matt Facts and Brandon dressed as Lita. I was too impressed to actually laugh. SCTV used to do that to me, sometimes. Caster vs Dante suffered a bit for me because I couldn't help comparing it to the Danielson opener. That being said, I love seeing AEW's younger wrestlers getting time to shine on the network shows. Everyone gets the chance to look good on TV. I was kinda hoping for Stat to win because I think AEW Originals should go over WWE refugees more often. I feel like I wasn't alone in that today. On the other hand, Statlander is leaning kinda heelish now and Ruby vs DMD is a more classic good vs evil match-up. Also, the wrestling was good! Stat is the Terry Gordy of AEW's women's division. I really want the faces to win the Owen tournament matches. An online friend disagreed because "Owen was the best heel" which is true enough... but for me when I think of Owen it's Stampede Owen, not WWF Owen. And he was a hero in Stampede. Go Joe! Go Ruby! 13 matches is a lot. Hooray! More pro wrestling! KOR vs Darby should be sick! Here's to American Team of the Year winning and putting an end to the Sammy feud. Although, I guess I wouldn't mind if it set up Tay vs PVZ and Sammy & Kaz vs MOTY... or maybe Sammy vs Kaz next? That could be really fun. Regal on commentary is a treasure.

Rampage 7:30 am tomorrow, Japan time. Check your local listings. Don't you dare miss it! Lock the windows and bar the doors! etc. Ruby vs Statlander to see who meets DMD in the ladies Owen finals. I am digging this powerhouse former alien version of Statlander! I am not buying into the "Britt and Bay Bay are both gonna win the Owen" predictions trend. I gotta work on Monday so I will have to avoid spoilers and try to catch Double or Nothing after the fact. AmDrag vs Evan Bourne! I feel like that has to have been a dream match for someone at some point. Young Bucks vs A Mystery Tag Team Who Will It Be I Hope Workhorsemen or Bear Country. Or maybe Silver and Reynolds? Plus we get to see Scorpio Sky's new belt! My autocorrect wants his name to be Scorpion. Weird, because my autocorrect is full of wrestling names. If I type American it assumes the next word will be Dragon. If I type "Ka" it knows that "wada" is probably coming next. Oh, hey, @John from Cincinnati you are quite correct in pointing out that expressing a preference is not the same as complaining. That's an excellent point. Also, to be clear: The joy I take in pro wrestling is in no way performative. Watching and discussing AEW and Japanese wrestling and old matches and so on very often genuinely and sincerely fills my middle-aged heart with true happiness. So do lots of other things. I suppose I am quite easily amused, and also quite frequently delighted by relatively simple pleasures. I had a cup of green tea last week that damn near brought tears of joy to my eyes. Enjoy the show! Edit: Had a look on cagematch. This will apparently be Danielson and Sydal's third singles match. (FIP 2006, ROH 2007).

I know I am always stoked for every AEW show every week, including the YouTube shows, but... dang! The go-home Dynamite is fully stacked.I We get two Owen semi-final matches, two PPV set-up/preview matches, and a legit low-key dream tag match. Also, to pick just one example of how amazing wrestling is now, Wheeler Yuta is over here participating in a very entertaining NJPW Super Juniors tournament. It continues to be a genuinely great time to be a pro wrestling fan. Owen semi #1: Storm vs DMD! Storm hits so hard! Storm hits so hard, and she seems to be having the kind of effect on the womens division that Bryan and Kingston had on the men... In that everyone seems to be bringing it just a little bit harder now. That is a good thing, in my opinion. Owen Semi #2: Joe vs KOR! Owen semis: I love KOR but I am pulling for Joe because I want a good guy type pro wrestler to win the Owen, and in my opinion Kyle is a bad guy type. I suppose they could have him beat the emaciated yet somehow popular bay bay in the finals in such a way (Future Shock explodes!) that O'Reilly becomes a good guy. That would also satisfy me. Premium Live Event preview: Bungle Joy vs Swerve vs Starks. The odds of this being insanely fast-paced and exciting are very good. I hope we also get Dinosaur vs Powerhouse vs Limitless on Rampage... but we'll get to see those dudes slap meat on the PPV anyway. PLE set-up: Wardlow vs Spears The Giant Killer INSIDE A STEEL CAGE with a guest referee who is better than you and you know it Spears is now a giant killer, having slain Giant Bernard last week (if I recall correctly). It would be kind of funny if Spears won and Wardlow didn't get to face Friedman at Double or Nothing IV. That might calm down some of the "too many matches" complaints, right? What a world we live in, when people on the DVDVR message boards are complaining about getting too much wrestling! Also, people are complaining because we are "just" getting Blackpool Combat Club matches every week? Really? You need them to be in some kind of program? It's not enough just to watch them fight? And, yeah. I know that complaining about people complaining is idiotic. Don't let that stop you from complaining about me complaining about complaints, though. It's the circle of (internet) life. Which is, in part, why I'm trying to cut down on my internet life somewhat. I am starting to think it might not be healthy. PPV set up (non-match division): Punk/Hangm'n confrontation. People pre-emptively complaining about the outcome of this match, on both sides, is also very funny. Human nature is pretty damned funny, sometimes. My own included, obviously. THE MATCH I AM ACTUALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING THE MOST: FTR vs Roppongi Vice. Hot dang. AEW keeps giving me dream matches I never even considered before. I hope they get a fair amount of time and a clean finish. (If not, I will complain). Rocky and Trent are so good at pro wrestling. Bald and Mullet are among the very very best. We are lucky. Pro wrestling rules!

They oughta tag Sonny up with Danhausen, as The Kiss Demon. Bring in Dale Torborg to manage them.

I'm really really hoping that Maki Itoh is the Harley Quinn. Her, or Lulu Pencil. Here's hoping Hangman makes a star out of young Konosuke! He's so good, and there are so many good to great natch-ups for him on the AEW roster! I really enjoyed Takeshita's matches with Danny Limelight (where has he been recently?) and Jay Lethal last time around. I want to see him fight Garcia, Wheeler, Starks, Sammy, Dante, Serpentico, Angelico... and eventually Bryan. It's actually hard (impossible?) to think of anyone on AEW's roster I don't wanna watch fight Takeshita. Can't wait to see who the male Joker is. Count me among those hoping it's not Gargano. I feel like there are enough NXT guys who everyone kind of identifies as such on the roster already. I'd prefer for him to bounce around for a year or two before joining AEW. I'll be stoked if it's Claudio, though. I personally identify him as an ROH guy. And I wanna see him and Joe beat the hell out of one another.

Who else am I gonna vote for? Gordlow and Ishii = tshirt buddies! I'm going to buy a black elbow wrap and white wrist tape and cosplay as him for Halloween. I'm genuinely grateful I didn't have to pick him over MiSu, Bryan, or Kingston, too. Which brings this to mind: There are an UNSANE UNPOSSIBLE UNCREDIBLE number of pro wrestlers who belong in this discussion. 2022 is shaping up to be one of the great years in pro wrestling history.

Is it too soon to start fantasy booking Banks and Naomi in AEW?

Will you stop?

I am mad because I am legitimately too busy to watch all of these matches even though I am pretty sure I would love all of them quite a lot. I feel frustrated that, even though the number of "wrestlers that I love watching" is ridiculously high, higher now than it has ever been, there are still wrestlers like Aoyagi of whom I have only seen a handful of matches and others like Alexander and Kamitani where I don't think I have ever really paid close attention to even one of their matches... and even though my internet friends have provided a free curated sample, that sad fact is unlikely to change any time soon. Mainly because the time I have budgeted for " watching and discussing pro wrestling" is already stretched very thin. I think about that... ...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world!"