southofheavy

Perfect. Just...fuckin' perfect.

And there we go. DON'T FUCK THIS UP, GOFF.

They need a defensive or special teams touchdown. Bad. That last drive had a Jamir Gibbs catch and run that was real simple. More of that, plz.

The Outrunners rule. They got some good territory bullshit happening and I am here for it. Gimme them vs The Nightmares on Continental TV any ol' time. Nigel's line "When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside" during Turbo's hulk-up was so good. Good promo by Anna Jay. She's puttin' it together.

The Hurt Syndicate's suit game was on point tonight. LOVED that opening tag. Really, really hope we get more Darby/Orange tag matches. They worked really well together. Either one of them can rip off a sweet hot tag sequence. No need to rehash how much of a nut Darby is, but that post bump was totally something I would've cooked up in my GI Joe figure fed when I was a kid.

Adam Cole should be put in a tag team and told to do his best Ricky Morton. Can't really fault him for looking out of shape right now. That injury was pretty nuts.

Do ye revel in the excitement of Tandy or are ya full of excuses?

Just sayin'.

Watchin' the highlights on Youtube right now. That's the hottest AEW crowd I've seen in a minute. Looks like this is workin'.

Yyyyyyyup. That Moxley vignette/promo should've happened in the ring in front of the audience. I know, let it play out, but this episode left me cold.

I bet RL Stine has 300 one-fingered ghost writers, ever think of that?

Yeah, that piece is awesome. My favorite part, adding to the litany of suspected Jon Moxley learning disabilities: "He probably still types with two fingers."

AEW World: Looks like the plan is Mox, then Darby. I like the end result of that. Eddie Kingston needs a run and honestly, AEW needs Eddie Kingston to get a run. Should've happened instead of the convoluted Triple Crown thing. Also, the belt eventually needs to find its way back to Swerve. International: Takeshita. Continental: This is going back to being an annual round-robin tournament and it's getting renamed. No belt. You're getting a goddamn trophy. Men's Tag: House of Black, with Freebird Rules. I'm building up The Outrunners while they hold it. Women's World: Toni Storm. She's the most over woman in the company. Follow her up with Athena, then Jamie Hayter. For my money, Hayter vs Athena is the best women's match AEW can book. TBS: Rename it. Sign Megan Bayne, strap her up. Let her, Stat and Willow beat the brakes off each other for a while. Women's Tag: Mercedes Mone and Kamille. I'm getting rid of the TNT title and renaming the TBS title. Those names scream TV Title, for obvious reasons. The Trios championship is gone, too. After the initial novelty worn off, it's largely become an afterthought and it's just another belt in a company full of them. I can see the argument that the men's division is deep enough to necessitate a third title, but I'm also making cuts to the roster. That's a whole other post. ROH just needs to be developmental. I like a lot of the ideas for that have already been posted, so I won't rehash them. The most important thing is that those belts need to be kept off of AEW TV. Outside of hyping the FTR/Briscoes matches, they've done nothing but muddy the waters. I'd also rename ROH. The promotion's best days were damn near twenty years ago and nothing is going to recapture that. It's time to get that archive on a streaming platform and MAX is the place to do it.

SIR. I want to see Jamie Hayter lariat Shafir's head off twenty times. In ONE match. Let's be reasonable here, okay?

Please, please, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZ let Jamie Hayter be a part of this army.

To me, there's been a real lack of energy to most AEW shows lately. Like, the crowd is definitely responding to big spots, crowd interaction stuff and certain wrestlers, but I'm sensing a big lack of heat. Is that really the case, for those of you who have been able to attend live? Is it just not translating to TV because of the production? Something just feels off to me.

That Jey/Bron match fucking RIPPED. Late to the party, but damn, that was great.

These comps RULE. I've reached the beginning of the Dump's Army era so far. Thank you so much for doing this! This nails the 80s/90s sets vibe perfectly and even does 'em one better with the translations. I have the Portland set along with '92 and '94. Would love to get the rest of them, but I don't know if that's possible now. This Joshi set will do quite nicely in their stead.

That Punk promo on Monday might be one of his best. I don't think I've ever heard that kind of tonality out of him before.

I've been waiting to see a post like this for a long time. For as much as the death of the territories is blamed on Vince in mainstream media, the writing was on the wall by the early 80s. Cable and syndication were huge factors, but really, the territories wouldn't have survived neoliberal capitalism at all. The deregulation that started with Reagan led to Ticketmaster, Live Nation and other corporations of that nature having a stranglehold on live event production. A lot of the territories were responsible for making and distributing their own tickets, and with venues being independent entities, it was far easier to keep prices down. You hear a lot of stories from those days that include ticket prices, and often you hear $10 for ringside, $5 for general and kids in for free, as an example. Ticket prices now, for the most part, are higher than the inflation rate. Considering that the cost of living (a disgusting phrase, as an aside) has skyrocketed since the 80s and wages are wildly suppressed, a lot of people are simply priced out of live events on the whole. The same salary that enabled a family to go to weekly wrestling events in their town from the 50s through the 80s has turned into a salary that gets you through the gate once a year. Frankly, I think there are a hell of a lot more wrestling fans out there than we think. It's just that it's impossible to meet them where they're at. Also, for as awesome as YouTube, streaming and downloading is, it has a large responsibility for how homogenous wrestling has become worldwide. I would've killed to have those options when I was a kid, even though wrestling was all over the dial in the 80s, anyway. But, do I wish that the cat could be put back in the bag? Most definitely. I love Japanese wrestling as much as the next guy, but I don't think that most wrestlers and fans really consider that those styles came into being through a very specific booking philosophy AND a completely different culture, especially All Japan. You can do the moves all you want, but doing a tope doesn't make it lucha, ya know? The sameness of wrestling is really, really similar to the commodification of the American suburbs. They ALL look the same and it's so depressing. Our big cities are old enough that they can retain a lot of their character, but if corporate America had its way, they'd look like the suburbs on steroids. What really sucks is that capitalism is so pervasive in our lives, we do it to ourselves. Take, for instance, Giulia's entrance on NXT this week. Not a knock against her, but she's already got her "entrance" and it's all branding, even if it means that she had to something illogical like turning her back on Chelsea and Roxy. Almost EVERY wrestler does this, and even though it largely started in 2000's WWE, workers are doing this in their first match in front of 27 people. It's just become the thing you do, whether you should or not. One of the many reasons why I love Eddie Kingston is that he powerwalks to the ring looking to kill the motherfucker in front of him, rather than pausing on the apron to do some pose. So many wrestlers can't turn the branding off, even if they're about to walk into a War Games or a barbed wire match. I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. Capitalism sucks and needs to die. P.S. - As capitalism dies, it turns to fascism. If you seek its monument, look around you.

I still dig FTR. It helps that I pretty much completely tune out anything about them outside of the ring. That said, they've got their NXT run, the Briscoes trilogy and that awesome match vs Juice and Jay White, and then a lot of filler that just didn't grab me at all. When they don't have game opponents or there isn't good focus on the tag division, they seem a little tuned out. I couldn't care less about their matches with the Bucks, but that's far more on the Bucks than FTR.

Tbh, her regular-ass running lariat looks better than both that and the ripcord version. She should just roll with that. (Also, Okada's Rainmaker fuckin' honks.)

I'm fine with the Perry match, but I agree with all of this. Ricky Starks would've been a fantastic first defense, given that the crowd has always been behind him and they had that Strap Match of Doom already. If Tony hadn't cooled off Takeshita, that would've been a good call. Probably more of a TV match, buuuut I remember when the TNT title was floundering and Takeshita came in and the crowd was absolutely ready for the rocket to get strapped to him. He was a perfect candidate for the belt and it would've been something really, really fresh. Now, not so much. Orange Cassidy would've been great. Dude can take a loss, no sweat. If the House of Black wasn't lost in the ether right now, Brody King would totally suffice. I get that there's history/story reasons for Jack Perry getting the match, but like username said, he's gotten a lot of opportunities that should've been given to other people.

Land of Confusion can suck it, it's ALL about Misunderstanding. Don't even get me started on Phil putting the Earth, Wind and Fire horn section all over his records for a spell. So good. BUT TONIGHT, Jamie Hayter is going to take Harley Cameron's head off and that's really all that matters.

Still the master and the ruler of the world. Gonna watch some Sid matches tonight in his honor.