Gordi the former AEW fan

It's funny because it's true. As we stand now: Jeff Jarrett is on the PPV. Not on the PPV as of yet? Wardlow, Eddie Kingston, Fenix, FTR, Garcia, Wheeler, Shida...

So, none of you have watched Cutler vs Pretty Peter yet? Cuz Dragon vs Sammy 2 outa 3 was really good, but y'all are voting for it over what was incontestably The Greatest Match Of All Time.

That was a long way from being my favourite episode of Rampage, even though there was a lot of good action and a lot of wrestlers I like. It still feels to me like they are leaning hard into a lot of WWE-lite stuff, like show-opening promos and schmozz finishes and (on Dynamite this week) worky-shooty feuds based on who is representing the company or whatever, and catchphrases and so on... And (on Rampage) spooky ooky videos. All that said, I still enjoyed watching AEW this week. It's moving away from some of the things I like the best (like mostly clean finishes and a more indie vibe) but it's still a lot of good wrestling. And they are really pushing some of the younger wrestlers. And they are giving us Kingston & Ortiz vs Akiyama & Takeshita! They are still taking care of us crazy hardcore fans. And our favourite wrestlers. As long as they keep doing that, Jeff Jarrett obliquely referencing WWE in his promos and Saraya/DMD being based on "I've been here longer!" " Oh yeah? Well... I have been wrestling longer! " or whatever and too much interference and no Miro and Kingston never winning the big one and etc etc are gonna get me rolling my eyes and pining for the good old days of a few months ago... BUT I'm still all Homer with the giant sub in my feelings for AEW. I'm impressed that Orange and Shotty outperformed Roosh and Ban Dido this week! At least in my opinion. I thought it was neato how Bandido didn't cheato but still handed a defeato to Rush, who is evil indeedo. My younger daughter's name is Maia, which I only just realised stands for: Make AEW indie again!

I am as excited for Roosh vs Bandido as I can be for a TV wrestling match. Oh boy!

Dark is awesome this week! Athena has been acting like she's pissed off and unprofessional in every YouTube match recently and it is awesome. Ortiz and Kingston are teaming up regularly on YouTube and it is exactly what you'd hope for. Storm & Shida vs Emi & Mei ths week! Main event this week is Claudio & Yuta vs Bononi & Nemeth. Best of all, PRETTY PETER VS BRANDON CUTLER! FINALLY! And it is amazing. Both guys bump like crazy. I don't wanna build it up too much, but Avalon vs Cutler was a hundred million times better than Austin vs Bret at WM13. Too bad for Danielson and Garcia that they are up against a force of nature in DEAN'S POLL this week. Saraya and DMD and the Jarrett promo were pure Burger King bullshit. The reward for getting through that was Dump Truck and Dragon, though. So: Worth it. So worth it. Who was the first wrestler to get scissored? Speaking of which, AEW should call him "Daddy Glock" to see if he can get over. Samoa Joe is become, is become, is becoming

How about Tito? That seems like a good pro wrestling first name.

Mike Tyson talking over everyone while JR went on his usual disconnected mini-tangents was the awkward kind of funny. I loved that match though. Orange and Shibata are two very very different pro wrestlers, but they understand, know, get, and respect one another. Weirdly heart warming for something so violent. Hayter beating on Skye during pitcher in pitcher was absolutely the good stuff! Did Jericho piss in Regal's tea or something? Here I was complaining that AEW no longer panders directly to niche fans like me... Then they go and book Gates of Agony vs WarJoe. BMMSM. Joe in Peril! Was it Tony or Ex getting all worked up about Kaun's physique? I think It was Tony. It was definitely JR getting worked up about Toa's football background. Rampage blew Dynamite out of the water this week, in my opinion. Sammy vs Dragon 2 outa 3 will be HAWT!! Hobbs vs Wardlow gonna be maximum BMMSM. Bandido vs Roosh! Way to win me back over, AEW.

And: It's a strength of this company. A real strength. Perhaps their biggest strength. Wrestlers who get hurt or who have issues that need dealt with get time off to heal and/or to deal. That's a massive and deeply welcome change from the SOP of the past where wrestlers who worked for big companies were frequently pressured to keep going at all costs, and when wrestlers who worked for smaller companies generally could not afford to take time off. I'm very much of the opinion that self-medicating with painkillers did more harm and caused more trauma and early death than all the steroids and party drugs combined, in the wrestling world. Giving wrestlers an environment where taking the time you need to heal, and taking care of your mental health, are both supported and encouraged is massive. A sea change. Very much for the better.

I'm kind of locked into thinking about "In-N-Out" AEW vs "Burger King" AEW. As I brought up in the Navel Gazing thread. In-N-Out AEW is a business, but content to be a smaller business, focused on maximum quality, serving a passionately loyal hardcore big niche. Not afraid to let their freak flag fly. Burger King AEW is a "challenger brand" seeking a much broader appeal, often by being a pale imitation of the leading brand or pandering to a more LCD demographic by leaning really hard into catchphrases, nostalgia pops, and so on. Orange Cassidy crashing and burning into Satnam on the tope was, in my opinion, maximum In-N-Out AEW. Bringing in Jeff Jarrett, in any capacity, however... He's the third most Burger King guy they could have possibly brought in (after Russo and Eric). It bodes ill for fans like me, who love the early and slightly weirder, warmer, and more innovative iteration of All Elite. Does it bode well for AEW as a challenge brand? Time, I suppose, will tell. i hope, very sincerely, for maximum success. My big worry is that this is the first big step in AEW moving away from something that fans like me can't miss, into something we can take or leave. Mox in AEW has been very In-N-Out, despite him being a former WWE superstar. Renee and Saraya felt pretty Burger King, though. Ethan Page seems, too, more like a pale imitation of something from the leading brand than someone letting their freak flag fly, so far at least. I am gonna quote HarryArchieGus here: "The Birthday Bash had a tired and awkward Mack-Mann feel to it. I was watching Bowens and Caster shill their shit wondering how long before the crowd turns them heel again." Yep. The Acclaimed getting over organically was pure In-N-Out. They are in danger of pushing it into a pretty Burger King place now, however. Cabana vs Jericho was a good example of what I love about AEW. Particularly the welcome back chants. PCO would have been more fun, but not by much. Too bad about that horrible botch. There were a couple of great bumps in the 3-way. Generally, the actual wrestling is going to be the saving grace for fans like me. They could possibly screw that up, though. I personally liked it more when it was almost all clean finishes, like the ghost of Giant Baba was helping with the booking. Nyla is genuinely funny on Twitter. A treasure. Hopefully she'll get there on the mic sooner or later. That Strickland/Billy angle on Halloween was pure Burger King. Not sure where I stand on Rick Ross. Celebrity angles seem pretty damned BK, but he was pretty good in this one. The House of Black presentation has always been more than a little BK, but Brody King, Buddy Matthews, and Julia Hart are all good in the ring. So it more or less balances out. Joe vs Cage was the good stuff. Shibata showing up (and not going overboard with explaining who he is) was the *least* Burger King thing they could possibly have done! Redeemed the show, for me personally. I guess I am OK if this is where things are headed. AEW is no longer the big indie family and friends promotion they started out as. Complaining about it overmuch would do as much good as complaining that my daughters refuse to stay cute little girls forever. They are 11 and 7 now, and they grow smarter, stronger, more independent every day. It's different in that I still love them with every bit of my heart and always will no matter what. Obviously. Is AEW growing beyond the company I loved also inevitable? Maybe? So maybe I am not going to be quite so passionate about Burger King AEW... But I don't resent them going for success in this way. As long as we are still getting insane Darby bumps, Big Meaty Men Slapping Meat, Jamie Hayter, Hikaru Shida, Shibata coming down that aisle, Takeshita coming back, Bryan fighting, Kingston talking from the heart, etc etc etc, I doubt even Double J will be able to turn me completely against this company.

I definitely conflated Orange and Darby earlier in this thread. But... Still... I would SO have preferred Swamp Monster to Jeff Jarrett. BUT: Shibata more than makes up for Jarrett. Oh,Burger King AEW, I just can't stay mad at you (Homer with giant sub gif). Edit: oooo. Found it!

The list of dudes I'd freak out most for if they came out to face Jeticho: Kevin Steen Tyler Black PCO Jeff Cobb (former ROH TV Champ) Shingo (former tag champ) Davey Richards (for the reactions that'd get here) Ishii MiSu (both former TV champs) Rocky Romero (former tag champ) Homicide Rush Christopher Daniels Dude I most hope comes out with Jay Lethal: Gentleman Jervis, who knows the secret to beating Orange is to gently rock him to sleep. (Or Drew Gulak, but dressed as Soldier Ant). EDIT: or The Swamp Monster!

Man, the whole Punk thing and the Hangman concussion really seem to have robbed me of some enthusiasm. This felt like a very "Burger King" episode of AEW TV. Maybe the most WWE-lite they have been in a while. Could just be me. You'd think I'd be able to find more joy in an episode with Mox, Keith Lee, Tay, and Wardlow singles matches. I was really hoping for some goofy Halloween shenanigans. That Swerve/Billy bullshit was the exact opposite of what I was hoping for. Were Kingdom dressed like 2004 wrestlers for Halloween? If so, that was pretty funny. Oh well. War-Joe vs Cage & Hobbs should be great. And Dean gets some extra space to include other matches on his poll this week. First episode of AEW TV or YouTube in a good long while that didn't have a match that struck me as great and/or super-fun.

That would make a lot of sense. I think about it like this: There's folks like you and I, like a lot of folks on here and other people we know... Let's call us "passionate fans of pro wrestling in general and AEW in particular" The ones we know and like, the ones we haven met yet... quite a few of us, all around the world. Over the last year-plus (or however long) since the show went back out on the road, if AEW came to town - or anywhere within driving distance - all those passionate fans were online, day one, scrambling to get tickets. For themselves and for friends and family. And judging by the road reports I have heard and read, even for a lot of the passionate fans four plus hours of pro wrestling is an awful lot of a good thing and following that up with a long drive home with some heavy traffic at the start of the journey... I could easily see those same passionate fans making the trip without (as many) friends and family along for the ride this year. You know, maybe the kids don't need to come this time, maybe my buddy from work has other plans... Also: I kind of think they are swerving away from catering so directly to their passionate hardcore indie/Japan/weird wrestling fanbase. We still get Danielson vs Garcia or, like, Kingston vs Takeshita type stuff aimed right at our bullseyes... We still get deeply awesome very niche appeal stuff like Cutler vs Pretty Peter and Abadon vs Freya and on and on. But the sense I kind of get is that AEW was more like Shake Shack or In-N-Out or something, a plucky independent company with a hardcore passionate big-niche crowd who were really into the good stuff but now they are perhaps striving to be more like Burger King, a challenger brand with designs on a much broader appeal. Tony Khan has said as much, in interviews. Which is fine. I do not begrudge them their success. It's still appointment viewing for me. They still reliably hit my personal bullseye week in and week out. They are leaning a little harder on the viral stuff and catchphrases, maybe pushing some of the ex-WWE and WWE-wannabe personalities a little harder than some of the the ex-indie and weirder ones. Whatever. I still get tons of what I want to see I'm still a fan. A big fan. I wore my AEW hoodie today. With pride. I was stoked the weather was cool enough for me to put it on again today for the first time since maybe May. Not sure if I'm quite so passionate any more. Which is fine. Being frothing-at-the-mouth passionate for three years for any kind of pop culture is pretty impressive. And I'm still well into this current Burger King-ish AEW. (A&W AEW)? FTR are fighting for New Japan in Osaka next week. I might go. I might not. That kind of surprises me. If AEW came over here, but only to Tokyo... I might not go. If you had asked me last year, there would have been zero doubt. I 100 percent would have made the long and costly trip to Tokyo. I'd have bought my NJPW tickets the day FTR in Osaka was announced. AEW still rules. AEW is still my favourite non-local-indie pro wrestling company. I still very much want to see a live AEW show some day. But, it's maybe no longer quite a "bucket list" item. So: I could see non-passionate fans maybe not wanting to watch that much wrestling being a big factor in the ticket sales downturn. I could also see even passionate fans being less eager to make a long trip and book a hotel or fight traffic late at night...

I stand corrected. Apparently Canada is a home town. I can see why Neville vs Fire Ant main evented. Did you know that Jumbo was Off to work! Enjoyed the hell out of Eh EW in Canader!

Pleased to meet you, my name is Gordi. It was definitely true in the case of Bret Hart, but maybe exclusively with him. It's not like we get massively confused about who to cheer for if Sylvain Granier is fighting Jinder Mahal or something. Bret and Owen were definitely "my guys. Edge, however, was never at any point "my guy." Ron Garvin was briefly one of my guys, but at that point I wasn't aware he was Canadian. John Tenta, Bad News Allen, Chi Chi Cruz, Vance Nevada, Quiet Storm, Abdullah the Butcher, El Phantasmo, and many many others are my guys because I have met them and they were nice to me. That's probably tied into them being Canadian. I am generally the high voter on Gene Kiniski, Don Leo Jonathan, and Archie Gouldie due to nostalgia based on my being Canadian and also old. I like Lance Storm more because he's (western) Canadian. I like Sammy Zayn equally well whether I think of him as Canadian or Syrian. I met him once, in Japan, and he tried to kayfabe that he wasn't el Generico. Test, Petey Williams, Don Callis, Steve Corino, Tyson Dux, Gilles "the Fish" Poisson, the Rougeaus, Tiger Ali Singh, Davey Boy Jr., Shawn Spears, and Rick Bognar are not my guys even though a couple of them are really good. Michael Elgin is definitely not my guy. I like Phil Lafon, The Bollywood Boys, Dino Bravo, Rick Martell, Leo Burke, The Vachons, and Luther more because they are Canadian. I wouldn't go so far as to call them my guys, though. Maybe Luther. Yeah, Luther is my guy. I have no strong opinions either way about Paul Diamond or Ethan Page. 2.0 are my guys, but more because they are amusing than because they are Canadian. Bryan, Ishii, Mad King, MiSu, Shida, Maki Ito, Takumi Iroha, Takeshita, Zeus, Kuuga, Fenix, Bear Boulder, JD Drake, Toa Liona, and Orange are all my guys despite none of them being Canadian and a couple of them not being guys.

AEW IN CANADA!!!! ROH World Champion Chris Jericho defends against Bryan Danielson I think Danielson will be a huge crowd favourite despite Jericho being Canadian. Winnipeg is not Toronto. "Canada" is not a hometown. Everyone loves Bryan Danielson. Jungle Boy vs. Luchasaurus (w/ Christian Cage) I feel like I should be more excited for this one. It's David vs Goliath with a back-story. We should be champing at the bit for this one. Maybe they turned the dinosaur too often? Hopefully they'll win us all over once they get going in the ring. Swerve Strickland vs. Billy Gunn Yeah, sure, why not? Expect the unexpected. Presumably we'll get a big crowd-popping Acclaimed moment or two here. Interim AEW Women's World Champion Toni Storm & Hikaru Shida vs. Britt Baker & Jamie Hayter Downside: Only one women's match per network show. Upside: Every one of those matches has been awesome recently. Expect that streak to continue here. Looking forward to hearing the Toronto crowd's reaction to Hayter. AEW All-Atlantic Champion PAC defends against Orange Cassidy These guys match up really well and there has been some nice build to this one. Could steal the show.

Oh, man. I really appreciate the heads up. It's a busy day today. I could have missed that.

Commentary briefly discussed how Anna Jay was personally recruited into the Dark Order by Brodie Lee. In my case at least, that brought a lot of other things to mind. Such as that Anna and Tay beat Britt and Penelope on the Brodie Lee celebration of life show, and Anna and Tay's friendship with Negative 1. Edit: you can hear them bring it up about 28 or 29 seconds into this clip:

Went for four hours of wrestling (or, two of wrestling and two of sports entertainment) today. Sheamus vs Gunther was pretty good! Spoiler: Gunther hit Sheamus really hard, but Sheamus kept fighting back. Also, they hammered on the idea that there is dissension between Zayn and one of the Usos over and over and over and over again throughout the whole show. Maybe now I get while some folks think AEW doesn't build stories enough. Personally, I had figured out the issue well before the end of the 20-minute opening promo segment. BMMSM was fun, though. Glad I watched that. Even though the ending sucked. Now it's time for two hours of pro wrestling! Hooray! Blackpool Combat Club! Oh HOORAY. Two hours of JR. Alpha Toro ? AEW really feels different from WWE. You can probably guess which one I prefer. Blond(e)s got straight squashed. Does Tony Khan have a brother or sister? Does that sibling have a daughter? Cuz they should bring in Tony's Niece. I like how they semi-subtly set up Anna as representing Brodie Lee. The Trios Title Match was one of those relatively rare matches where I was *really* invested in wanting one team to win. So, I was biting on near-falls. And for the second time today, disappointed by the ending of an otherwise good match. BotB! I like PAC going straight into title defence #2. They should give PAC a new finisher where he soaks the hammer in lighter fluid, then... you know what? Never mind. Trent's piledriver set-up was just great. More impressive to me than the table bump. Nice Savage/Tito finish. I didn't expect Willow to win but I was still sad when she lost. She is just so likable. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was still into it at the end of a four-hour session. I wouldn't say that Gates of Agony are made as stars now, but I feel like they hsve definitely been established at a kind of Faces of Fear level as a big-man team that's a credible threat. I came into the match already a fan, though. Interested to see how others feel. My hot ? takes: Claudio is strong. The Acclaimed are over with the live crowds. Mad King is very good at character work and FTR are very good at tag team wrestling. Pretty darn good birthday!

Cheers, bruv! Much appreciated. There's nothing like sharing food you love with family and friends at a birthday celebration. Plus, I am getting FOUR HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES of AEW TV with the extended Dynamite yesterday and Rampage tomorrow. Quite a nice gift! (I also got some really nice sake and umeshu from my students yesterday. No wrestling merch so far, though). Tony Khan's birthday is October 10th. Maybe I'm benefiting from him booking himself some fun birthday matches. I share a birthday with Thom Yorke (of the rock and roll combo Radiohead) and Yo-Yo Ma (who plays the cello) which I find pretty delightful. Also Rhino, who is exactly 10 years younger than me which REALLY makes me feel old. Some pretty sweet wrestling! Death Triangle vs Dark Order! Man, what a gift a Dark Order win would be! Mawks and Claudio and Yuta vs Roosh and Private Party! A little BCC for my birthday? Yes, please! Rayne & Skye (a natural pairing) vs Tay and Jay (not as natural a pairing as it looks because their names don't rhyme). FTR vs Gates of Agony - which REALLY feels like it was booked specifically as a birthday present for good ole Gordlow! Jade vs Willow - Two big Willow matches in one week? Again: Yes, please! PAC vs Trent! Oh boy! Best birthday ever! Last year we also had the G1 on my birthday. Remember that? KENTA vs Hiromu, Shingo vs Yano and Ishii vs O-Khan on my actual birthday. And Uncle Tony gave me Deeb vs Shida on Dynamite. Also the best birthday ever!

Thank you, my friend! I was looking forward to seeing what you'd pick for me. That's an excellent choice.