Matt D

I gave that a quick read a few minutes ago and it puts Khan in a knowledgeable fixer sort of role, though with a lot of hedging. I'd have to reread the lawsuit again to get a real sense of it. I remember from the first pass that it certainly wasn't good thing to be "Corporate Officer No. 1" though.

He was part of the concussion lawsuit.

PENTA vs Andretti from Rampage was the funniest match I’ve seen in a while just for how many times Andretti jumped into a superkick.

He’s in the legacy wing already.

Treadmill kicked my butt but I'm back in business. 6/1/87: Inoki/Fujiwara vs Choshu/Scott Hall: Pretty weird match! They're playing up Inoki and Fujiwara being aligned now and Saito on the other side. Hall was sort of a warm body for these guys to do things to (like Fujiwara headbutting him in the face) despite his size. Saito just got it so well. Knew exactly what to do to have the biggest most meaningful impact at any moment. He started the match by crowding out Fujiwara in the corner but later when Fujiwara took him down out of nowhere and almost got on the arm bar, he scooted out of the ring and sold it like the most momentous thing imaginable. This was building to an Inoki/Fujiwara win, most likely, but the PIRATE came out to cause trouble and beat the crap out of Fujiwara on the outside. Inoki and Fujiwara stood tall in the end though. 6/1/87: Takada/Kido vs Kevin Von Erich/Tony St. Clair: Still pretty weird! Kevin was as aggressive as ever, including hitting the Regal double knee lift which I'm not sure I've ever seen him do before. They bullied Takada pretty well actually. This is probably the best I've ever seen St. Clair look in one of these. Lots of killer European uppercuts and clotheslines. Kido was able to come in and shut things down and when Takada got back in, it was with kicks a'flying. Kevin could hit a dropkick out of nowhere but there was a pretty good chance it might hit someone in the stomach, so only so impressive. Finish was great as St. Clair went for the tombstone on Kido but Kido turned it into a cool cradle midway through. Never seen that before. As an aside, we're seeing some production changes due to the tanking ratings. There was a pre -match video setting this up and you can see bits of the hosting. 6/9/87: Inoki/Takada vs Saito/THE PIRATE: This was one that I couldn't post, which is especially frustrating as I could really use the translated subtitles here. Like it seemed like the Pirate was a surprise partner for Saito that he called out and everyone was shocked. Takada being Inoki's partner seems weird too. This had a ton of heat. Crowd was up for everything, especially Takada's comebacks and literally everything Inoki did. Early on Saito matched up with Inoki but Inoki tagged to Takada after avoiding the Saito suplex. They took over on him outside with the Pirate swarming and then controlled with chinlocks and sleepers (and mask shots). Before, the Pirate was Black Cat, but Black Cat was on the card earlier apparently and he does look a little taller than Saito so I honestly don't know. He's got a hockey mask (and came out with ANOTHER guy with one) but it's hard to tell from the working. Anyway, Takada came back by turning a headlock into a belly to back and hitting a bunch of other suplexes. He definitely feels elevated here. Saito and Pirate would regain control and did have a bunch of the sort of doubleteams you'd expect out of Saito. He couldn't get the scorpion successfully on either Inoki or Takada though. His chinlocks sure were gritty though. His facial expressions while he has holds on are some of the best all time. There was a great moment towards the end where Inoki escaped from the Pirate with this really iconic grounded double kick to let Takada back in to hit all of his big stuff (huge kick, tombstone), but the heels took over for one more bit of heat, including this really cool belly to back/elbowdrop or clothesline type thing, before the Pirate hit a clumsy Thesz press to actually win. Some cool moments in here but more weird than anything else.

There used to be a match like that every week on Elevation.

Collision is looking pretty fun overall: Danielson vs Shane Taylor Mistico vs Angelico May vs Adora Jarrett/Lethal/Briscoe vs HOB Jericho vs Titan

I decided to start using twitter to do more than follow news two weeks ago. Oops.

Tunnels are back! Re: Perry: I actually thought his performance against HOOK was quite good and there might have been something there as a heel. He worked the match very differently than he would have as a face. Ah well.

Happy birthday @The Natural. You're one of the good ones, Paul. Hope you have a great day.

Here's my quick-ish take on Danielson vs Kingston: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/03/aew-five-fingers-of-death-226-33.html

My take on Kyle is that he's someone who simultaneously does everything right and everything wrong in the ring. Is that unfair?

I've seen the start and the end. I am 100% skipping Takeshita vs Ospreay. There are 40% of the people on the roster I'll watch Takeshita against and 70% I'll watch Ospreay against and neither fits the bucket here. I enjoyed the Dark Order match from the weekend more than the big twelve person match but there were little bits of slickness I liked, like Jarrett's russian leg sweep. Mostly Jeff/Satnam/Lethal tagged into each other and interacted with one another. I would have liked that bleeding over more. I would have liked more Satnam. Maybe more Mack. Loved the fargo strut. I kind of have a "Look to the Back" mentality to Willow/Stat matches right now as I keep expecting something to happen. I'm not 100% sure they earned the heat on Willow. Size isn't everything but it does mean you need to be extra mean and vicious and effective and they only got most of the way there. Garcia vs Christian was excellent and I was glad for the company I had to watch it. Loved that once Garcia got a wedge in on him with a damaged limb, Christian started to play King of the Mountain to keep him away from it. Very "Bock"-ish performance overall. Will have a lot of words to write about Danielson vs Kingston but it was great. Picture perfect for this moment of the feud. I need to badly get to writing this up actually, and the six man from Dynamite. Tick tock. Rushed through the 3 way. Thought it was pretty good for what it was (a 3 way!). Needed more of Hangman on top because Swerve was de facto face there. I would have actually liked Aubrey to run out as one of the last refs and it build to a moment where people had to wonder if Hangman was going to clock her too. I would have liked to see Hangman look more elated in defeat at the end too. Main event was quite the thing. Would have liked Sting's kids to be explained away a little bit better. A glimpse of Luger would have been nice too. But the Bucks did exactly what they should have done and it ended exactly as it should have. Darby's nuts, but we knew that. I would have liked to see Sting hit something instead of take something if he was going to bump just as much but that's beside the point. Still not the match I would have chosen but it went as well as it could have.

That is a bold claim. I admire your moxie.

It's 2024. I'd say there's more value in fan perception and brand trust to having AEW treat a legend on the level of Sting properly than to have him put over someone established on the way out.

I’m pretty sure we’re heading towards the titles getting vacated myself.

Loved May’s spinning side slam. She sure makes the most of the space between moves. Got a kick out of Gunn outsmarting Uno with the foot toss neck breaker counter. Curry Man taunt is self explanatory. Sydal might quietly be a top ten guy in the company. Great Garcia performance. Really nice to see him interact with other people, be it working Strong or Cage or fist bumping Hook after clearing the ring.

Jeff Jarrett is the hero of his own story.

SWS continuation would be next. I'm dying to get back to Tenryu; this is true. That said, I was kind of looking forward to Choshu and this NOW vs NEW stuff though. I'll figure it out next week when I'm back to 100%. I could theoretically shift things around so AEW watching is on the treadmill and NJPW is on the laptop for a bit. We shall see. I'll bury this here, but we've got a new SC project starting up on Weds too. All the watchable 70s Joshi that we know exists on tape. So that'll take up some time too. Regardless, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read. This does keep me inspired to stay in shape and while I am doing it for me, people checking in does help.

Far more true for Dax than Cash, I thought. Especially when Cash was in there with Mox. Cash wrestles like a guy about to be in a road rage incident.

I’d learn to finally figure out how to tell Villano IV from Villano V just from how they wrestle.

Wow. I forgot that match even happened. They put out a ton of content.

I've danced around this lately, but I do want to state it clearly and directly. The Bucks reinvention/gimmick change has gone about as well as it could have possibly gone. It's basically the shift from "Young Bucks" to "Old Bucks" that they've needed for a while. They're still not my choice for Sting's last match but I came in expecting the worst based, if nothing else, on their last few feuds, and I've come off pretty satisfied with it. We always knew they'd bump around for Sting and create the motion (w/Darby) but there's enough of an emotional underpinning now that, give a huge hot crowd, that I believe they'll lean into the gravitas instead of ironically squandering it. Let me put it this way: I'm planning on actually watching the match even if I don't want to actually write it up.

They ran that on Saturday. That was the purpose (or the combo of purposes). That's the "bar" AEW generally has. They almost never run a match just for the sake of running a match. On ROH, they do. On Dynamite and Collision, no way. On Rampage, most of the time, no. I'm not saying it's always bad faith actors making the complaint as unimaginative people, maybe? Thankfully very few people on the Board are unimaginative.

Let's see where you fall on something then. Bryan Keith vs Malakai Black. It's a way to get Keith out there in another singles match against a "name" to show that he can hold his own, a way to quell some of the complaints about Black not getting singles matches, a way for Black to re-establish himself further in that arena with a win on TV, a big bomb fest that will get the crowd chanting This is Awesome in the last moments. But primarily, it's a means to the end of having Black win and then Briscoe to come after him post-match with the spike only to have his vengeance cut off as the rest of the House of Black charge in. Another stop on the road to whatever blowoff eventually happens there. Is there enough meat on the bone there to make you happy or are you thumbs down on Keith vs Black because there wasn't enough purpose in them wrestling?