Zakk_Sabbath

This is my memory of it as well - to add to this, I think I/we would have probably remembered them mentioning anything beyond the NJPW association, because maybe a year or so after this, Rick Martel debuted on Nitro and I found it really interesting that Tenay very specifically mentioned during his walk out that he was a former WWF tag champ (to the point that I was able to pull it outta my rear end just now 25 years later)

My list is your list, I think - I miiiiiight swap 2 and 1 just because it's Sting, but I'm sure that's just a matter of taste more than anything (like, I'm sure if our seats were swapped, you'd be replying similarly re: Bryan). In any case, this is definitely the most hyped I've been for an AEW PPV in quite some time. Probably Revolution '22, if I'm being honest.

Agreed, and it also makes me wonder about NJPW's future with regard to the States. My understanding was Rocky basically IS the Forbidden Door. Super curious to see how this affects the AEW/TNA partnerships, Strong, and stuff like that - not to mention the flow of gaijins the other way Love this idea. The conversation here yesterday and today makes me feel like if Cole had a little bit more of Roddy's intensity, folks might buy into him a bit more, so this is right in line with that Edit: @Matt DI agree with everything you said about MJF, but will say, I think he was well on his way to everything you wrote until the crowd turned him babyface. It was certainly something watching him pivot to doing Hogan spots in a similar spirit

Huge agree - I think with a few tweaks, Dan Lambert could have been that guy early on. I could also totally see Stokely excelling at doing a Stephen A kind of thing Edit: this is going to be a very, very weird choice, but you know who would actually do really well at that kind of thing I bet?? Ruby Soho. That Outcasts stuff largely wasn't my cup of tea, but one good thing about it is that it showed how well she plays sarcastic

I tried it for three episodes way back, and agree fully - he was oddly looser on 205 I thought (and is better today). I admit it's some kind of weird anti-bias on my part but I legit can't stay mad at Nigel for having a less-than-great instinct or two from time to time, when he's out here dropping Scott Norton and Fascination Street by The Cure and shit

I mean, the other side of the coin is the presumption that everyone knows everything, which is what I would argue seems to be the standard procedure on AEW TV when it comes to basically anything ROH-related (both the current incarnation, and the classics). It's like A bubble within THE bubble. FWIW, I still think there's a non-zero chance of a final Nigel/Danielson bout at Wembley next year - my thinking is that without Punk and Sting, they're gonna need something both left field and big for the English

Fully agree - I guess what I meant by that was, I didn't think it was that crazy of an impression for Godfrey or anyone to have based on the crappy back to back timing (I also thought when I wrote that, that it was two concussions fairly close together, like around Forbidden Door time - a bunch of guys got hurt around then so it's entirely possible I'm blending stuff together in my head)

Agreed on both points - the J.R./Heyman booth during the Invasion is actually one of my favorites of all time. It was super interesting to revisit their WCW stuff after that too I've unfortunately never gotten around to seeing a single Bobby Heenan match in its entirety but based on PWI covers alone I'd certainly buy it

Well said - with that idea in mind, I'll say I personally enjoyed the Cole/Page feud and it worked for me big, BUT I'll also admit that with it being one of the rare immediate rematches AEW's ever done, it felt like it was going on a bit too long at the time.

One of the other differences is the overall configuration of 2 voices in the booth vs. 3. What Nigel (and I guess Graves, but I haven't heard any of his recent output) has to do to be effective is more of a balancing act than straight heel commentary IMO, because he's also there to be the 'ex-player' voice, which to me is more of a de-facto babyface role (think Taz now, Big Show/Mark Henry on Dark, or going back a ways, Larry Z on Nitro or Randy Savage on those early RAW episodes) - it's gotta be tough for Nigel when he's working a booth which, at its core, is essentially two PBP guys in KK and TS, as opposed to the Vince/Jesse, Gorilla/Brain two-man situation. I think what Nigel does is probably closer to something resembling Heenan's role in the second hour of Nitro where he had to navigate having both TS and Mike Tenay in there, as opposed to anything from his WWF tenure.

I'm super late to this post, but I'll second this. He's had a run of really, really good TV matches starting with the Rampage match vs Jericho a month or two ago. If he's not going to be in the International or TNT title conversation in any meaningful way, since his brother is gone and Jack Evans is gone, they should just team him with Angelico IMO

Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. I forgot the OC match! I don't know if I 100% agree, but you make a compelling argument. I'd say the one thing Cole has going for him over Lee is at least he had the Hangman program from jump to make him feel like a big deal before eventually getting another title program with MJF, whereas Lee's most notable TV output (the Swerve team/feud) suffered from a lot of stop/starts and pivots before it could really get off the ground in the same way. I mean, as recently as this past fall they were *still* planning on circling back to it (I'm realizing now, I think it was actually Swerve/Lee that was cancelled, not Taylor/Lee as I wrote earlier)

Oh yeah, dude, hugely. FWIW, when Lee's last PPV match against Shane Taylor was called off, he mentioned it wasn't anything related to the rumors of post-COVID issues and was actually some other injury (which I guess one could call 'positive' news/maybe just a bit of bad luck, as opposed to a more serious lingering illness or the body 'telling him it's time,' hopefully).

Injury-prone I'll give you as a fair criticism (though I was in the building for this last one and it really was a total freak accident that basically could've happened to anyone) but do you mind expanding on 'underperforming?' Not trying to start a disagreement, but IMO, I can really only think of one Cole match in AEW that outright stunk (vs Jericho on PPV) so I'm jw if there is some other metric you might be referring to

I enjoy MJF and look forward to his return, but candidly, there's a part of me that almost doesn't want to see him back until Adam Cole is healed up too, just so we can get right into blowing that thing off. So much of the last ~2 months of his title reign was wrapped in treading water due to Cole's ankle - I'd hate to see MJF get the big comeback pop and immediately get dropped right into the same situation again and end up having to mess with Bennett/Taven over the ROH tag titles for a few months or whatever it is, with some midcard babyface 'reluctantly' trusting him (or worse, they derail Joe by dragging him back into this shit).

It's certainly possible they did that but I'm like 99% sure Enos/Bloom was the match in the ring when Scott Hall came out of the crowd on Memorial Day to kick off the NWO

Oh shit yeah that was pretty recent, I forgot about that. I thought of Perro Aguayo right away, that one freaked me out

Someone did this in WCW im almost certain. It might've been some combination of that DDP/Raven/Saturn/Benoit/Kanyon stretch of the US title scene. It could've easily just as well been some dying days Norman Smiley HC title stuff, but I am near certain it was done.

Watch it turn out that the whole time the guides were supposed to be training him to climb, he spent training them to wrestle instead, and they do a quick 7 min summit street fight. I certainly wouldn't put it past him. Re: your second point, I agree - it's that Rey Mysterio Jr. underdog intangible. It goes beyond just being just a cruiser or below 6'0 otherwise every undersized guy ever would be that level of star. In AEW, I think Danielson, Fenix, PAC, and OC are all guys with similar qualities. I know a lot of folks are probably gonna disagree on this, but the Bucks flirt with having that quality much of the time too - they just undermine it (for lack of a better term) with something way too outside the box (e.g. Matt suplexing two much bigger dudes at once).

On that note: I'm calling it now that their match with the Bucks will have a spot where Darby is slammed hard into that new barricade and the screen turns off or sparks on em a bit to put it over the top

That rules, im gonna track that down today. I would love to see a redux on that at some point on a modern show. You could even do it in such a way that you incorporate elements of @Cobra Commanders original idea and have the two guys in the ring for the scheduled match end up teaming up against the other two teams, have that end in a NC (or with the new third team giving one the tainted victory) and build to a big three-way-tag or even a TLC type affair depending on the situation Edit: @Ziggyi haven't watched but FWIW I saw a tweet implying Dave lagana was involved in writing for whatever the Rock is doing

Anything like that with something solid, is one that he makes look like death (and probably doesn't feel excellent to take) - I was thinking of those casket bumps too, especially whichever one had the tacks or spikes on the lid. (Edit : Swerve??) Even back on the first show, he had that ridiculous bump with THE Cracker Barrel

That would have been my choice too. Also: unless I got newzed at the time, I thought he was hurt already and *that* was his idea to write himself off (which makes it even more fucking insane). I know Samoa Joe jacked up his back on some concrete stairs during a TNA title match with Sting way back when, and it bothered him for like a literal decade after, I can't imagine the stones it takes to go for something like that when you're already hurt. Another nasty one coming to mind: I forget what match it was but Lance Archer planted him on the ring steps, with the steps on their side so they were tall as opposed to long, and it was pretttay, pretttay gross.

Obviously everyone knows from the Punk-era that I am vociferously anti-formal roster/brand/etc. split of any kind, but in an informal way, I think it might be kind of a cool experiment to have Dynamite/Rampage tapings be more "AEW+Puro"-focused, and ROH/Collision tapings to be more "AEW+Lucha"-focused. Recent shows are selling better, thank goodness (and especially Big Business, holy shit - @Niners Fan in CTon the money dude, no pun) but I think this idea might help draw even more people because AEW could look at NJPW or AAA and CMLL numbers in certain areas (be it NJPWorld, Honor Club when guys are on that, NJPW on AXS, ratings for the lucha stuff on local affiliates, how recent indy appearances by dudes on excursion drew) as sort of a back door metric, and book the shows/route to certain areas accordingly Edit: To clarify this thought was kinda kicked off by @Go2Sleeps comment about the Collision-only RUSH feud (which I support as well)

I wonder if they'd subtitle it "Once in a lifetime!" then run the same card three times in 15 years