Matt D
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Posts posted by Matt D
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Ok, I'm here.
- LFI vs Acclaimed/Gunn: We live in strange times when we get to see RUSH vs Billy Gunn. If you told me that would have been a thing back in 2014, I would have imagined Gunn super over in Arena Mexico as the new Marco Corleone dialing numbers on his abs. I thought Bowens and Dralistico matched up ok. The best act in AEW and AEW-adjacent programming is Athena. But LFI opening up a match by throwing everyone into the guardrails chaotically is pretty damn great. Finishing stretch probably needed just a little more focus?
- Page/Gunns vs Enhancement Talent: I liked Page whipping them the guy into the 3:10 to Yuma because Page has the deal where he whips guys into his own power slam but in general, we saw a bunch more teamwork/chemistry with the Righteous/Stu the other day (Yes, I watched ROH, can you tell?). You can't deny that the Gunns are much more credible than they were a year ago. The title run helped them without hurting things too, too much.
- Britt/Shida vs Nyla/Shafir: Still lamenting the loss of Shida's theme. Britt got a pop from the tired crowd. Shafir really should be working the house show loops. I'm happy for her now that Strong is there and I'd be curious to see something with them together at some point. Cole/Britt vs Strong/Shafir could be interesting someday. If Rocky Romero uses Sneaky Style, Shafir uses Stilted Style, and yeah, it's not smooth, but it always feels awkwardly competitive in its own way, which is actually better than collaboratively smooth like you get from a good chunk of the roster, even if just barely. Nyla had the great laugh as she was choking Britt from the corner and posted on twitter how happy she was with it. I still think she should be putting over an ascendant Willow on the pre-show! I liked the finishing stretch here, everything from Nyla slamming Shida onto Britt to break up a pin to Shida saving Britt from the knee to some of the Britt vs Marina stuff which worked better than their initial exchange, to Shafir yelling for Nyla (taken out) to help her as she was about to get double teamed and lose the match.
- Best Friends vs Bill/Lee: Lee's histrionics just don't work. I think he's improved a ton in the last year and a half but that's more with the aggression than the character. I like the idea of character but the dancing and the air guitar just aren't hitting. I'm not sure what would. TRENT always has a chip on his shoulder and an edge to him. They should turn them heel someday no matter how counterintuitive that might be on paper. He has such a unique way of hitting German suplexes where he lift the guy up as high as he can and drops him straight down. Bill could really be a break out guy on the new show. If Punk goes heel, he'd be a good heater actually. Jericho ripped Mil Mascaras for eliminating himself from the royal rumble and being a jerk during the commercial break. Bill's Bossman slam was good but not as good as Dutch's from ROH this week. Then he took the double superplex. Anyway, he should have a good showing tomorrow. Post match wasn't the best choreography they ever had. Show was pretty solid overall though.
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Five years of this madness, including the earliest full Kobashi match on tape (vs Kawada).
http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/05/five-years-of-found-footage-friday.html?m=1
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I’ll get there. Card looks fun. Still have an hour of ROH left. Too much fun wrestling is always better than too little.
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Hour #2!
- Mercedes Martinez vs Dream Girl Ellie: Yeah, this was pretty awesome actually. Great competitive squash. Ellie proclaiming she was sorry was great stuff. Martinez just absolutely killed her once she took over for good. Brutal stuff. I want them to run back Athena vs Martinez somewhere other than Boston. Dreamgirl Ellie should team with Vickie Dreamboat.
- Amboise vs Kamela: This was one of the two I wasn't quite looking forward to. Kamela looked good. Intense. She made use of Amboise's flexibility. Amboise has a lot of work ahead of her though. She's pretty good selling/bumping but some of her offense/timing was rough and I don't think she should be doing Hobbs' finish to set up a rock bottom.
- Rocky Romero vs Titus Alexander: I had thought this was Rhett Titus at first but Alexander is pretty promising in his own way. Great dropkick, was able to keep up with Rocky and feed right into his stuff. This, more than anything on the show so far, was wrestling for the sake of wrestling, but it was fun. There are a bunch of guys not dissimilar to Alexander in AEW but he's only 22 and he could be a guy to develop.
- Righteous/Stu vs Vary/LSG/Kross was the plot progression we've been looking for. Stu looked like a star out there and that bossman slam from Dutch was just insane.
- Shane Taylor vs Tracy Williams: As someone who wasn't into 2010s ROH, Shane Taylor is a guy that I missed completely. And he's probably the guy I am most interested in on this roster. I want to see him against a ton of ROH and AEW guys. He's got size, power, presence, timing. All of his stuff looks credible. Williams is another really credible guy, though entirely different and I liked the little bits of struggle in the midst of this. Williams was dangerous but this still felt inevitable.
- Athena vs Promise Braxton: A little sloppier than I'm used to with an Athena match but she's so in the moment and so into her matches that it still worked and came off as competitiveness and violence to a degree. I liked how she used the big boot instead of the forearm on the handshake which let her just crush Braxton with the magic forearm later. Finishing submission was gruesome and different than other things she's done lately. Post match with Hogan was a good watch to set things up. Inversion of the theme.
- Dralistico vs Deppen: Exhausting match. They had a bunch of different stuff here, strike exchanges, bomb exchanges, dives, fast sequences. It would have made the permanent tape in 2002. How was Mox vs Deppen? Did I see that. I feel like I have to go back and see that. I did see Casas vs Deppen and that was a lot of fun. He's a really good hand (like Williams; like so many guys in ROH) but I'm not sure where he'd fit in if they really wanted to use him. That inversion dive was nuts too. Dralistico, on the other hand, really wants to be RUSH and I think it's time to build to a mask match. Either do Danielson vs Dralistico Hair vs Mask or someone like Vikingo. He'd probably be better at the act he wants to do without the mask, weirdly enough. Ian should have been able to call La Mistica. He can call La Casita after all! Ah well.
And I have exactly an hour left to go. I know things were filmed a little out of order but I think the fans were starting to weaken by this point. I know I was a bit. More later!
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Coming into this, I pretty much want to see everything except for the Karter/Clayton vs Andretti/Martin, and considering that means I want to see 18 matches, that's impressive. I mean I could probably take or leave D'Amboise vs Kamela too but I kind of like the occasional match between two people so low on the card. But I anticipate doing this in batches. This isn't 1995 or anything. We can watch wrestling on our own terms. I think a lot of the whining about this was solely a twitter thing. On twitter, you have to stay up with the most recent thing to be part of the immediate discourse. On Twitter, you watch wrestling no necessarily because you love wrestling but because you crave being part of something immediate and live and bigger than you. You derive part of your identity from it and therefore you have to consume it as soon as possible so you don't fall behind the curve, because the curve is only going to last a few hours. ROH is made for a message board crowd by a message board poster.
- Mark Briscoe vs JD Drake: Great way to start things off. Big chops. Mark and JD colluded to make JD look like a million bucks, especially witht he beil/beale/beal but also with the Blockbuster counter into the push up hammer later (with a bit of help from Henry). Tons of character in this too between Mark wanting to go chop-for-chop with Drake, the redneck kung fu as a transition/hope spot, and then Drake blowing his advantage by wanting to go for the J-driller. Nigel was great on commentary riding Caprice after the Moonsault kickout. Really good opener.
- Serpentico vs Claudio: Loved this. Everything I wanted. A bit of goofiness to start. A lot of Serpentico being a plucky babyface and sneaking shots in with Claudio just crushing him the second he caught him. Unconventional finish that gets over how dangerous Claudio is but with a beautiful bit of defiance from Serpentico. I'm sure Serp absolutely loved being in that match.
- Kiera Hogan vs Vertvixen: Vertvixen needs to do way more "Get Over Here" stuff to help her stand out on this stage. Did she do it on WOW? If I was promoting Defy, I'd book her in a dog collar match based literally just on that. Athena was doing a similar thing to Jade on Dynamite but she portrays this wild sense of danger Jade doesn't. It also worked better than Taya vs Frost from a layout perspective as the distraction let Vertvixen take a lot more of the match. Of course, Hogan's better working from underneath and is less of a physical force, but still. And of course, Athena doesn't go hyperviolent but just basic bullying at the end. You never know where she's going to land.
- AR Fox vs Kyle Fletcher: Big week for Fletcher obviously, including the frustrating promo in the ring when he had to relinquish the belts. AR Fox's theme says he's going to hit a 450 from the moon. Fletcher is really into the specific beats of his theme in this intimate setting. The USA chants were funny. I like Fletcher's bodyslam. It's almost like a "snap" slam like I haven't seen anyone do. I see Fox kind of like RVD. If you work over his leg and try to work a match around that, you're doing yourself and the match a disservice since he's going to get all of his shit in on the comeback and his shit involves rolling and bounding. Wrestling would be better overall if something like the running knee into the corner/brainbuster just finished a match like this now and again. It looked incredibly credible. Just sometimes, you know? Or the Falcon Arrow off the top..... I do like the reverse headlock with the arms locked set up for his hammerlock driver though.
- Willow vs Hyan: I'm sure the crowd will get burned out eventually but they're still hot and chanting (ROH in the last match and Let's Go Willow here). I liked the covering on why she didn't have the title yet. Obviously Ian was there so he could speak to it but calling back to the match with Mercedes was good announcing too. Willow's been good since she came in but given the slightly shifted hierarchy she's able to assert herself more and it's really working well. It did over the weekend and it did here too
- Mack Attack vs Kingdom: I'd like to see Kingdom vs Silver/Reynolds (they did it back in 2015 but I don't want to track that down). Two teams that can chain together offense in a way that isn't overly irritating. Taven IS irritating but i do kind of like his jawing and both Bennett and Taven's stooging. He matched up well with Willie for opening match stuff too (but I wouldn't have wanted to see that later in the match). I got a kick over Nigel pointing out how the Mack Attack should be the lowest ranked in the company. Ventura stuff there. W.Mack is obviously a great hot tag. Fans still hot for the Ninja Rap. Good for them. Kingdom needed their win back but they did a good job of protecting the Macks with a bit of "new team" miscommunication on who the legal man was.
And I'm through hour #1. It was a good hour!
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If Hayter can't wrestle for All In, she should start the show and go on about how they created a movement, they created a tradition, they changed the world, etc., and that each and every person in that arena better come back next year to see her wrestle. Work those fans out of their cash!
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It’s important everyone knows that Danielson was going on about wrestling bears while on commentary during the commercial break.
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47 minutes ago, JLowe said:
I had this exact same thought, something about Jack’s promo somehow gave me that vibe.
I’d be for the Two Man Petulance Trip
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41 minutes ago, 赤い竜 said:
Tiger Mask 2 (Misawa) vs Kenta Kobashi
The first singles match against each other.
I am digging into the forbidden archive of stuff I’m not supposed to post to put up the first ever Kawada vs Kobashi match for the five year anniversary of NFF/FFF at Segunda Caida tomorrow. It’s never been out there in our trading circles.
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They're dropping two episodes worth of tapings tonight for some reason. On a PPV weekend. I look forward to it but I have no idea when I'll get through it all!
I will say this: there are two types of people in this world, those who get excited about the idea of a Claudio vs Serpentico match and those who complain about too much wrestling. I have no time for the second group.
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11 hours ago, TheVileOne said:
I get that Sabu apparently lives in Vegas, but his appearance tonight as an enforcer for Roddy and Adam Cole felt random as hell. Sabu was really the best name they could've come up with?
Excuse my language but what the absolute fuck?
Sabu randomly showing up and being treated like a huge deal is everything that is great about AEW. If anything the issue isn't that they brought in Sabu to be awesome but that the best thing they can think to do with him is this Adam Cole/Chris Jericho thing. He should be all over Anarchy in the Arena or just in a little insert box doing his pose in the corner of the screen for the whole PPV. I just don't get you at all, man.
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16 minutes ago, AxB said:
I know I've mentioned that Juice Robinson and Dalton Castle have the same voice a few times, but when the Ricky Starks promo was interrupted by a mystery attacker, I legit thought it was Castle for a few seconds.
Dalton Castle as the third member of Bullet Club Gold would be very special pro wrestling.
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- Pillars Match: the cardinal sin in this feud was not keeping Sammy and MJF together longer as they were pretty funny together and this feud needed fun. They should have done some twists and turns. Have Max and Sammy win the first tag by cheating and through miscommunication from the faces but then have it so that if Darby/Sting and Jungle Boy/Luchasaurus beat them, each would be inserted into the main and Jungle Boy would have to overcome crazy odds and... I don't know. 4 ways are never great matches but they can have a lot of fun character beats and that's what I'm expecting here.
- FTR vs Triple J: This is all about Mark Briscoe's antics. I'm not sure if it's "PPV-worthy" but it should be great fun.
- Hayter vs Storm: Feels very weird that after everything, we're back to this match. If Jamie is really hurt, they could have run the six-woman match that they never got to run with some stip behind it ("If the Outcasts win, they get to challenge once a week for Jamie's title whenever they want" or something). If Hayter is healthy, this will obviously be good. Storm's promos and overall character is pretty wonky, but she's been really good in ring.
- Jade vs Taya: Maybe it would have been better for Taya to earn the ability to use her finisher again. Done a deal where Jade brought in Max the Impaler and Heidi Howitzer and Taya would have to beat them in a gauntlet match without using her finisher to earn it back. Something. Anything. Otherwise, it's just a wonky build. Taya is an opponent that Jade can maybe do 1-2 extra things against given her size/strength and she probably shouldn't be doing those things but she probably really wants to, so this might be more frustrating than anything else. Hopefully Stat's ready to come back.
- Battle Royal: I like Cassidy as champ. I like AEW battle royals. I like the idea of a joker if there is one. I don't like the pacing of the Blackjack ones all that much otherwise. Hopefully this is full of some goofy interactions and some overlapping stories like the Bullet Club/Starks feud and maybe House of Black/Acclaimed+Gunn and maybe Lee/Swerve, and everyone gets a payday and Cassidy keeps the belt. If they were going to do Cassidy vs Takeshita at Forbidden Door, for instance (which isn't the most interesting use of Cassidy since you'd want him against someone he couldn't wrestle any old Wednesday, buts still..) well, this isn't a bad place to set it up. EDIT: Or just don't have a joker, whatever.
- Cole vs Jericho: Sabu! That is all.
- Anarchy in the Arena: Am I going to watch this? I mean, probably. There better be some goofy stuff with Mox's theme. Is Danielson secretly hurt? I get the sense it'll end up as more of a stunt/spot show than unbridled violence. We'll see. It feels a little weird to do it so soon after the Strong/Jericho FCA match.
- Page/Gunns vs Hardys/Partner: Should be enjoyable to me at least. Should be on the pre-show. I await four months of Matt Hardy owning Ethan Page's contract though I don't get how that works, even with two extra hours of TV, without Dark. it belongs on Dark.
- Wardlow vs Christian Cage: This should not be a ladder match, but at least you know it's going to be one of those ladder matches that are less about big spots and more about a metallic object being used as a weapon to hurt someone over and over again (probably! There are two other matches like that on this card; this should not be a ladder match!) I don't think Wardlow needs the belt for a big match at All In, for instance whereas it'd be a great place for Christian to put over someone like Pac. Do you really want both Christian and MJF to have titles at the same time. It'd probably make MJF look bush league by comparison.
I'd like to see 1-3 pre-show matches along the lines of things we've gotten on past PPVs. It'd be good to have Willow defend against someone on the Bunny/Penelope Ford level. Or Nyla even. You might want to build that last one up a bit.
Weirdly, I'm way more into this PPV than the last one. The last one just felt like a lot of rematches and rehashed things, with a main event that was just going to be a lot of work to watch. This has some of that too, but it all just feels weirder to me somehow. Like, if you went back to Grand Slam and told someone the Revolution card, they would have nodded and went "Ok yeah, that all makes sense except for the Orange Cassidy/Danhausen team). You tell them this card and they're much more baffled. This feels more like "my" AEW somehow, good and bad.
That said, we're on the road to Forbidden Door, All In, All Out, Collision, the Owen Tournament, etc. and both the exciting things and the crazy, unpredictable, surprising, unexpected match-ups are all ahead of us.
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It's a little trickier for me to get a head start due to some cord cutting over here, but this was a go home show with a ton of talking segments so I could hit certain all of those at 2x speed.
- Fletcher has a ton of upside. He's 24! I've been saying that maybe Cole Karter, if he can develop, might be the guy who wrestles HOOK for the next decade, but no, it's Fletcher. I think where he has some difficulties is in the struggle in the moment. He can visibly give up the moment for the next spot instead of constantly be fighting and jockeying for position. I thought this had a few too many kickouts without rationale. Fletcher did a very good job of showing his frustration and getting exasperated or a little lost from a kayfabe point of view, but I would have wanted him to make some more mistakes after big moves and before going for the pin to protect those bombs, even if it did also put over Cassidy's resilience, of course. Cassidy has one move per match that looks off lately and I think it's not some grand decision but it does play into the fatigue. Here it was the apron DDT. I get the sense sometimes that Khan plays moneyball with AEW signings and that feels the case with Aussie Open.
- The six man, maybe due to the lucha rules, was a bit more like a series of fun moments than a coherent match. But those moments were, in fact, fun. I have loved the Navarro inverted cloverleaf for years but the angle of it means you need to figure out how to put it on in a way that looks sustainable for more than a few seconds. Usually it'd by really driving the guy's neck into the mat but the lack of rope breaks made it work here. Not a ton to say. I hope we get two dozen of these defenses.
- I liked Frost vs Valkyrie in spirit (they hit hard), but maybe it had one too many rotations. I think what I would have liked more would have been if Jade's distraction on the ramp let Frost back in it once and then her coming to ringside (which she obviously didn't do) let it happen for a second time. Taya took a lot of this, and she should have, but that may not have made for the most compelling overall match.
- Fans were still into FTR. We'll see if that lasts.
- Cole overpromised on his promo. "I'm going to break both of your legs!" He can make up for it a bit if he comes out with enough hate, but that's going to be hard on a card with Anarchy on it and after some of their exchanges in this feud already. Taz being excited for Sabu was really good and I hope he gets some HOOK interaction, if not this time around then eventually.
- Presuming they aren't adding HOB vs Acclaimed/Gunn to the PPV, it's good they're keeping a few matches (that and a blow off with Starks/White) in their pocket. You can work some of those stories into the battle royal and not overstuff the PPV.
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Devil's advocate would ponder whether most adult and most mature is necessarily the metric for "best Star Wars show." I fully believe it might be the best show that happens to be set in the Star Wars universe mind you.
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1991!
1/2/91: Misawa/Kawada vs Jumbo/Inoue: This is JIP But it comes in awesome with Kawada trying to take liberties with Inoue and Inoue firing back like an absolute bastard. Kawada overcomes. This was another one where the Super Generation Army were almost playing de facto heel. They really beat the crap out of Inoue and even Jumbo a bit. The best part was when Kawada took Inoue to the outside and he ended up seated in the first row. You start to see this black object come down upon Kawada (standing on the other side of the guard rail)'s head again and again and you realize that Inoue is hitting him with an umbrella! Then Kawada gets the umbrella! It's all great stuff especially because it's ended when Taue, in his jacket at ringside, intervenes. More on that later. Jumbo makes it in but they take over on him (forearms and Misawa's back headbutt off the turnbuckles). Inoue has really credible chops and slaps but Jumbo just thuds you when he gets shots in. Night and day. Eventually Inoue gets a hot tag and hits the flipping senton and the fans hate it when Kawada breaks it up. Finish is a flash where Kawada gets Jumbo out of the way for just a second and Misawa hits the tiger driver. If you move quick enough you can avoid an endless finishing sequence. Post match, we don't really see it, but I think Kawada knocks Taue off the apron and causes him to crash into the guardrail. They're definitely building to that rivalry in a clever way. If I had a good way of making gifs right now I'd gif the umbrella. Someone else can try. It's around the 4:40 mark here:
1/2/91: Kobashi vs Hansen: This one's fun, but also starts to show some iffiness with Kobashi for me. Hansen dominates immediately but Kobashi dares smack Hansen across the face. What does ol' Stan do? Go out, get a chair and just hit the meanest shots imaginable, right in the center of the ring, which usually never happens. It's ok to use a chair on the outside but they rarely get brought in. With that in mind, I thought Kobashi recovered a bit too soon even if it was early in the match. He tries to pry off an arm, really just to contain Hansen and it takes a while for him to get any traction with it. In the middle, Stan goes after an arm himself, probably out of spite, which isn't his best move and it lets Kobashi come back with it. I get that they were trying to establish Kobashi but with that start of the match, I think maybe he just ended up taking too much of it with a big superman comeback and a slam and the moonsault, etc. It just didn't feel earned to me. He needed to get deeper into a hole and fight back harder to get to that point. Hansen took his head off anyway with a lariat but this is a time where I would have liked Hansen to pull him up and hit him a few more times for his insolence.
1/2/91: Taue vs Spivey: JIP so we just get the last five. The hierarchy is dodgy here and I probably would have put Taue over, to be honest. He certainly dominates for a time. He can certainly hurt Spivey. Of course, Spivey can also catch him off a cross body and chuck him over his head. This ends with the spike and I kind of think Taue should have kicked out and made Spivey hit it twice or something. Still, Taue had come a long way and he still had to earn his singles momentum I guess.
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This is a thing I want to see:
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2 hours ago, Greggulator said:
I mean, I want to see every OC match. But I went to NJPW a few weeks ago and was blown away by Aussie Open. I was familiar with them a bit from AEW but man they were such a great act in person. I think Fletcher has a good amount of shtick in him to do well against OC.
I can't get tagging to work in the merch thread so I'm posting this here, but proclaiming that my friend Gregg should 1.) buy this shirt and 2.) wear it to some serious business situation.
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- Lucha Bros are pretty annoying with their whole refusal to follow the conventions (not the rules!) of tag team wrestling, but Claudio obviously matches up well with Fenix and I bet in this one he'll match up well with Penta. That feels like a fresh encounter. Should be good. I think you have to have the Elite cost them the match somehow as we're building to the PPV.
- I'm sure Frost won't get a ton in on Valkyrie. Taya has to look strong considering she already lost to Jade once and the only difference now is that she gets to use her finisher. I'm glad she's getting the spot though.
- Starks really needs to hit a big promo here. I do wonder if there'll be any twist to the match. My assumption is that we'd be getting a third Bullet Club Gold guy debuting to provide some excitement, protect Starks, and set up a Forbidden Door scenario.
- Ew. A Contract signing. Think of Gordi!
- What else does FTR possibly have to say at this point? We get the angle. It's a good angle. They should have given us Dash vs Satnam or something instead.
- (I'm going to skip the pillars talking segment. I'm looking forward to the match as much as anyone can look forward to a 4-way, mainly due to the character beats that they'll play into within the match but ... they really should have just rode with the Sammy/MJF team for a couple of weeks longer)
- Cassidy vs Fletcher should be good. I feel for Fletcher having to give up the belts (especially if Davis is only out for 6 weeks) but I overall like the guy and think he has a lot of potential.
- And yeah, HOB vs Those Guys Who Lost To The Embassy should be a lot of fun too, especially when it becomes a mauling. Very curious about the special rule, as always.
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I navel gazed a couple of paragraphs on Darby/OC vs Bill/Moriarty... I have no idea what I was even going for with this one:
http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/05/aew-five-fingers-of-death-515-521.html
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There's a exact, perfect moment shortly after the pin where Willow's expression shifts from disbelief to joy and it's one of those instances that you can only get from pro wrestling and it's just #1 and the best.
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36 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:
Haus of Wrestling is reporting that Dave's Daily's Place rumour is bullshit, you're welcome.
Pfft. That’s the same rumor from two days ago just corroborated by some Reg guy.
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7 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:
Can we just take the last like fifteen pages and throw them in the Naval Gazing thread? Please?
It has been two (2) days since we got a new CM Punk rumor.
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1 hour ago, JLowe said:
I don't recall seeing Adam Page at all.
Page was completely new to me too and you can go back to board threads as I'm intrigued with his big reentry into the scene and the subsequent creeping realization about his ringwork. It was like a horror movie week to week.
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Rasslin' Video Games
in COMPUTERS & GAMES & TECH
Posted
His figures always look off compared to everyone else too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just super difficult personality-wise in whatever scanning process happens these days.