Brandon Bones

I’m pretty sure that after Fenix kicked the thingy Grande Americano put in his mask. He grabbed the wrong leg when he followed up with the ankle lock.

I didn’t care for much of this largely (I’d assume) is my having no investment in the product or it’s current roster of characters. For instance if there were any inference in the moves or reactions? It’s over my head. Not the shows fault. So in a vacuum it was a decent at best show that went a bit too long. Yep. Sounds like WrestleMania. Roman/Punk/Rollins is basically a turd in the punch bowl of booking. Brandon repellent. Sprayed in my face. Punching my face. I used my method of making Revolution the greatest PPV of all time by going to bed before the main event.

Yep

You bastids is making me laff today. Kudos. Loved the Mox promo. Put Joe over strong by making his jumping the challenge as notsomuch being brave as being painted into a corner. Claudio needs a wellness check. Nick Wayne’s Mom needs my phone number. Liked the on-stage recap from Nigel. Made Wednesday seem even bigger by putting it so deservingly over. It may be shoveling sand against the tide to try considering this weeks newsfeed is going to be flooded. Fuck it. Put your money on the table. Toni Storm is a treasure. This act/character is so uniquely tailored with WWF wacky thread. I honestly believe she could surpass every other act in the company to become the face of it. She is so sharp and creative. There’s a reason folks around here campaign for her matches to be show carrying main events. Loved the outfit. Stat could use some character development to go along with how hard they put over her strength. Bring on the Hayter match.

Well hot diggity dig diggity dog. I looked into going to these shows but there weren’t seats available that I’d drive down from Cow Hampshire to get. Hopefully the loop next time comes back to ManchVegas. This was fantastic. I guess I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that seemingly AEW is in a better overall spot than I perceived them to be in recently. The poorly attended events in large venues and some of the reactions to the shows never seemed to kill the spirits for those who enjoy the alternative. Even with the looming shadow and bile left behind when back stage steps in front of the stage. Yuck all day. Stepping back to view from the macro level. There are a LOT of “characters” on this show that’s supposed to hang its hat solely on match quality. This makes me happy. Like say being able to anticipate Sheldon’s reaction and also understand why HE makes the choice he eventually does. I wonder what would make him change his mind now that the Hoe Train and a free watch has failed? MJF: Sex Trafficker. Not a good look. I could see MJF taking some Andrew Tates on-line courses. So it checks out. Not sure how I can handle all these awesome matches on TV. Let that not go unsaid. Liked seeing the champ get choked out on TV.

I’m not booking Swerve to go over before the stadium show and short him on a title run to end so soon in Texas. Just can’t do it. Don’t do it. I can wait a bit longer for this. Moxley may not have upped his credit limit on this run but IMO he still has a lot to spend as champion. I wasn’t kidding last time that my going to bed early and missing the main event made it “the greatest PPV evaaah”! This show was very good but not quite reaching some of AEWs high water marks. Though old man Bones was crawling in bed and finished watching the ME on my phone. I suppose highlighting that, after an hours long show…. I was still thinking about how good AR Fox is doing right now (being so early in the show) at all is also a backhanded dig at the show. This wasn’t an episode of the rasslin’ that was designed to pay much off. So if the ultimate goal was to give a bunch of underserved talent a shot on the big stage? I believe they largely succeeded in both getting them there AND the matches were very good to somewhat overachieving. I’m patient enough to make allowances to let those things play out. For Knight it was an absolute home run. While some talents like Julia, Cole, and Garcia could use some character work. Even the Hurt Syndicate is still an evolving act. Also understand that I’m not even measuring the success rate by how over they are. They all got great responses from the crowd. I’m just surprised by how vocal they got for acts I’m not particularly invested in. Which this show had a bunch of. Moné continues to dominate and I’m excited for the Texas match with Toni. Tickets are 25 bucks for All-In? This I’m paying attention to. Mostly because when AEW was announced as a thing. I recall them highlighting all these progressive ideas they had. Such as finding ways bring the shows to say the hearing impaired. There had been some talk about making tickets more generally affordable. I haven’t heard much about that in the last few years. This is a great lesson I’m hoping might make that pricing more consistent. Especially if it helped fill in that stadium I’m kind of worried about. Toni Storm is the best act in wrestling. THE MEG really delivered a career making match. More than held up her end. I had a few thoughts throughout the show about one critique that often used to get applied that AEW is luckily avoiding. The one about former WWE washouts slumming it in a different Fed being something to highlight. The entire Death Rider act is made from this. But there is nothing “WWE” about it that has carried over so nobody seems to go there. It used to be by default. So hopefully that stays dead. Or I just don’t run in the salty circles of E fandom. That being said Edge vs. Mox is more than Cope vs. Mox in name value. So there are pluses and minuses. Yep. Still love AEW. Still rules the motherfucking world. Still not going back.

My semi review of 2k25. Of course my criteria is much different than most because I’ll hardly play the game AT ALL. For me getting a decent simulator is the metric. 2k24 isn’t it. Of the bunch, 2k19 has been the best of the bunch since restarting my league a few years ago. Good AI producing quality matches (though that doesn’t necessarily mean epic 5stars each time out). Plus robust creation options both in characters and match making, and entrances. The appropriateness of how it plays out is soooooo much better. 2k22 was really good in producing good matches but creations stuff was very limited. At the time, stability was a bit more of a gifted blessing considering what a clusterfluck 2k20 was. Thankfully I dodged that forcing me to crutch on 19 that much longer. 25 does have a very expansive creator suite and so far the matches have been surprisingly great. Imagine if you will and match going back and forth and seems to be building toward something only for a three count after a simple kick to the leg. Yeah. No. That’s 2k18 and 24 for you. So between the AI being much more intuitive and my experiences with these games schooling me on adjusting those sliders both in characters and in the options menu. This has me thinking 2k25 might be the most bang for my buck. A few headaches remain. Titantron video creator is still very unstable. They changed the set up for sims in contrast to how it’s been historically. Which had me growling at the sky. Community Creations is a bit different with only Most Downloaded and Most Upvoted as search categories and it’s very annoying. Arranging it under new uploads kept me up to date on newer things to find. I’m betting this is probably over the ridiculous amount of porn that’s you can find in the images. Yeah. That’s what my next arena needs. People covered in jizz. 2k24s one saving grace was the introduction of the manual camera. Love it. Adding it to entrances doesn’t do much for me since entrances are back to being custom again. But I’ll mess with it eventually. Fuck The Island.

That Cena/Cody promo battle was fire. Cathartic too. I’ll peek in for this match for the sake of continuity. Especially since I was pretty invested in the old “Cena is the wrong choice” arguments. Let’s have it out.

Well… I saw it. Damn… that shit fucked me up. Cool. Awesome. Memorable. Never do that again.

Rosa had a hard time keeping her laugh down. Had to have been improvised.

I stopped watching the show before the main event. Greatest PPV EVER!!!

I wasn’t as impressed with the overall show as I was with the closing angle. Which was pretty great. Cena played the whole thing to the back row so that when it came time to make the heel turn face. Everyone saw it immediately. I’m pretty sure Cena and Rock are vampires now. Man oh man did Punk kick out of everything before finally doing the pass out to an STFU. Liked the sleeper clinch to illustrate at least something could overcome the power everyone’s favorite locker room leader. I also couldn’t help but ruminate over how dead the old part-timers argument is now. I guess guys like Drew and Damien can look up at the top of the card and wonder. I do agree that there is money where they are going. Just not any room at the top to break through it seems.

They’ll likely remove back stage segments to squeeze it in. But yeah… there will no 25 minute epics.

Derp

Rodrick Strong was the fucking king in that trios match. If I ever meet him I owe him twenty bucks. They beat the snot outta him but he made them earn every bit of it. He made being in a chin lock look like a fight. I’m pretty sure I saw Adam Cole out there too. I could be wrong. Hangman isn’t tv. He is HBO. I’m all for May/Toni closing the show. The MAIN event, not the CO-main event. It’s going to be so awesome. I know they got some SHIT planned for this one. More squash matches. Not JOBBER matches mind you, no. Murder. Joe is correct. I want violence too. More Joe promos committing criminal threatening. Jerichos stage graphics spoil Loki Season 2. Jericho really is Randy West levels of cringe at this point. Problem for him is taking a break at this point basically means it’s over. I can’t begrudge the guy that much. He has to have at least one more banger in him, right? I’m told this episode was edited overnight. Fine. Show was zippy, squeezed a lot in, and got a lot done. Makes you wonder why killer episodes of RAW in the second or third hour at tapings in 94/95 weren’t more frequent. Going live is a tall order. Because even if everything you’ve planned generally hits its marks. There’s always going to be those invincible nitpicks that a second chance to shave off the margins really produces gains for the show. Energy! Dustin selling his ass off. I’m pretty sure the guy in the “I’m a Poor” shirt is that little dweeb giving the black power fist to The Nation on RAW all grown up. Pretty good pull apart, I guess. I’ll watch MJF and Hangman put on a MOTYC. That was two women’s matches… right? I like the Death Riders more than an Edge title run. Sorry about that.

Hologram, before I forget. Not a fan of the gelled lights during matches but for a run in car crash return plot twist? It actually helps to maximize the gimmicks “impression”. It was already a pile on ton of big splashy media to help reintroduce him. But count me in on more Blitzkreig and less Sin Cara. Keith Bryan vs. Bandito might be my match of the year at this point. Bandido made that crowd rememmmmmmmber! So much fun. Harleys segment did its job with expertise. I’m not as into her act yet as her overall reaction suggests. I ain’t mad at it tho. Booking her title shot certainly has a lot of wrong answers. Moné skates on thin ice over the debate in the ROI value of former and rebranded WWEbots. YMMV in that regard and Moné isn’t solely responsible for the inconsistency in their collective output. That has improved a lot thanks in large part TO Mercedes so I’m looking forward to this. I’m glad to hear the Aussie show is going to look good from at least an after show optics perspective. I doubt now that’ll be a dull crowd sitting on its hands. It’s still not looking that great for some hometown payoffs in match results. Unless there’s some hot shotting belt trades upcoming? That usually doesn’t get over too well with the critics historically.

The opening segment with Will and Kenny was a nifty lil sketch to bring our hero’s together. Bring on the Golden Assassins or whatever. Fletcher getting his ass kicked in his hometown will fit in down under when every other Aussie on the show will probably get a positive highlight. I really liked the Private Party squash. Worked in a way that had PP only hanging on by their finger nails due to their teamwork. But couldn’t shovel sand against the tsunami. Now squash The Bucks too. Of course… you know… that match would be 45 minutes of them being slammed off the top through a thumbtack table, piledrivin off a balcony, and something with a super kick bomb shoe. I’m lukewarm on the Jarrett stuff as I never really got caught up in this late career renaissance. Thing is I can see a MJF match being kinda fun. But I really don’t want to see Claudio lose to a slip on a banana peel. Thanks to spell check for filling in “renaissance” for me. Camera work throughout the show has really been good. I saw a lot of great visuals that helped support the narrative being told. When Kenny pulled away during his part of the promo (with Will seething in the background) or the intros for the tag title match. Also went a long way towards making that room look huge. Applause. Julia is looking very sure footed for someone with her experience. Like when younger wrestlers are getting started and their movements in ring look a bit off timed? Put Hayter over and still came across a bit better. That’s a win. I tend to lean in favor of The Death Riders because I like all of them individually. Hate the theme song, still love crowd entrances. Cope sure looked like he escaped with half his ass even though PAC died on this hill to make him look gooder. Not to damn with faint praise. Edge IS trying hard enough to highlight a deficit in ROI. Not that enthusiastic about a match with Mox. So many of Mox style gimmicks have been done to death that I wonder will even something as awful as thumbtacks or glass really move the needle at this point? I love you, AEW.

The last GCW show at the Hammerstein I bought and was hugely disappointed. So I kinda get the stakes involved. I have been pulling for them ever since. Mance, Allie, Effy, and Cardona all bright spots in an otherwise dim wrestling landscape. I assume the deal with Triller must be keeping them afloat to some degree. But things have been better back when a Janela Spring Break used to get what… 2000 tickets sold? The death match/light tube stuff gets waaay overdone. But it’s still something of the market to largely corner for themselves. So I hardly can blame them for keeping it up front. I got up to the Allie injury and just said “fuck it, I’m out”. That shit just sucks. But it isn’t dissimilar to all those ROH on-line PPVs failing numerous enough times that you gotta just let it go. Nobody is there that I want to blame in particular in either case. But it’s a failure all the same.

Yeah. I’ll have to admit it. I’d always wanted to see a trios division and I did. While it had its moments, it doesn’t warrant a division. It really is novelty stuff like cage matches and battle royals. Nobody wants a division of THAT shit. It sucks up too much of your roster, time on the show, and because it’s so crowded… nobody gets over. I hate that it’s true. And like Fist said. It already dilutes an already established division that now has no room to breathe. Just ask Private Party. It couldn’t be a worse time to be tag champs. It’s so bad I’m pretty sure their doorman guy rope guard fellow is about to stop letting them through the velvet rope the act is so lame at this point. It’s not entirely their fault either. Hopefully, they can turn it around. But really I blame The Shield. Those matches were so fucking awesome so frequently that it really drilled it in my resin covered brain that a trios division would be viable. Stupid bad Brandon. Get your shit together.

I might have watched Ethan Pages vlog once or twice. But since I’m really not a merch hound. I wasn’t too interested in toys. Seemed like a good guy from what little I saw. Meh. Moved on. I’m thinking more in the direction of some underutilized talent that use the platform to up their profile. Being that the lane previously occupied by others has been left vacant. It’s seems like there could be room to exploit there if you’re not on traditional television. Just not Dark Order. They can’t do shit with BTE.

I remember that complaining too. I also zoomed past Peter Avalon stuff as it never seemed to have much weight to it. Plus, autograph signing interactions with fans is total cringe. BTE was never really intended to be anything other than a travel VLOG by bored dudes in the road entertaining themselves. But they did start experimenting a lot and did stretch its relevance a lot further than I bet even they expected. So you don’t think that some supplemental content delivered through an alternative couldn’t have some merit? Maybe to an underexposed talent that could parley that onto TV? I mean it’s YouTube. All-In or that Hangman/Omega vs. The Bucks tag title match had so much more going for it if you’d seen BTE. For example. But I wasn’t necessarily suggesting BTE specifically be brought back to prominence. Just that the work done on the show week to week did a lot of heavy lifting in getting things over. I also do agree that for the fan watching the TV with a blind spot to whatever shenanigans are happening on the internet won’t exactly get what’s coming. But many would and that is a start that just isn’t there anymore. Edit: Maybe it’s ironic. But I never watched any control center stuff. They didn’t have to sell me a line-up of matches since my ear was to the ground enough to know what they were.

Walked away from WrestleKingdom disappointed but a lot got made up for with Wrestle Dynasty. Don’t sleep on Takeshita/Ishii. Ishii was trying like hell to drag his old self from 10 years ago into this one. A couple of suplexes he took forced me to remind myself that you can’t break a neck you don’t have. They have plans for the lard lad. Omega/Kidd was incredible. Fifty stars because it was in the Tokyo Dome.

Something that I think is missing from the current AEW landscape is the presence of alternative media supplementation. Yes, I’m very proud of how I phrased that. When AEW started. Several of their visible acts had YouTube shows that often would support or comment on angles and matches seen in the official narrative. For example “Being the Elite” really gets overlooked in how much heavy lifting it did in laying the foundation for AEW to not only exist but hit the ground running. Because what do you book with a start up company? A bunch of cold matches? Maybe something that’s on paper a “dream match” but the competitors are probably coming from polar opposite of where they’ve been. While I personally resent over branding and commercialization. I still credit its power and can recognize how much work it got done for WWE over the years. BTE was the antidote to a cold start up. Week in and out you were introduced and familiarized with a set of characters that at least a portion of the audience would know from the first show. Plus it was often very creative and funnier than it had any right to be. Noobs would have better access to understanding what’s going on when the announcers more to say about the wrestlers than “He’s athletic” or some other vapid attempt adding color. Even after AEW was chugging along for a while. Several others in the locker room picked up the ball. Thunder Rosa, Sammy’s VLOG… all began as small inexpensive ventures that you could see evolve with more production applied (intros, sharper editing) as everything built. TR would do personal interviews over Tacos and Sammy would hang out with his friends and be goofs. Sometimes even bleeding over into each other’s stuff. You know… FUN! But this stuff has absolutely withered on the vine. It is baffling to me how much of a void it’s left. Is no one sitting in catering interested? Has no one noticed? FFWD to now and AEW is in its awkward adolescent phase where the cool factor is out reach. Time to grow.

I straight up have a Harry Potter scar in the middle of my forehead because I tripped over a BB gun and went face first into the edge of the tv stand when I was 6. The results were an impressive score on the Muta scale I bled so much about the face. My pillhead gun toting grandfather was certainly alarmed. Especially since HE gave me the BB gun about 10 minutes prior. I did get to see my face in the mirror and thought I looked fucking bad ass. Grampy applied what he called a “butterfly stitch” and I never saw that BB gun again. Mum was super-pissed when she came to pick me up later. I run like an artist to this day.

I liked the show a lot. I was glad they didn’t have Osprey and Fletcher go out a do another epic. Both guys were used well here. Osprey gets the win yet he got visually wrecked by the guy that beat him last time. Its 2-1 Osprey at this point IIRC. Moné/Stat was another banger that really helped cement Monés shedding of her skin of this unfortunate situation many expats from WWE experience. The injury killing the momentum of a new popular hire. Someone here called it “getting her sea legs” but I fear there is more to that hill being climbed. Punk getting dinged in the Rumble suggests those problems would have continued to haunt AEW had he stayed there. But this string of really great matches and their frequency really has her growing out of it. Knock on wood. MJF/Cole really exceeded my expectations but it really shouldn’t have. Max works hard and is very reliable to produce a good to great match. Cole should probably go back to WWE. At least there, when he is lost in the shuffle, an injury won’t derail a years worth of work. I see and understand many of the criticisms laid upon the guy. I just don’t see it as a death sentence to his career. Clearly the guy has something to offer if given the correct role. Just not sure it’s AEW. I was pleased with many of the extra curricular segments of the show that did a lot of heavy lifting in table setting for the future. There are a bunch of matches on the horizon to look forward to. Shoot Omega/Okada into my veins. Didn’t realize Mox vs. Copeland was even possible. Any one want to gander at the marquee value? Two famous wrestlers (yet not selling tickets under their probably more familiar names) burdened with being a draw in a vacuum doesn’t sound promising. But I guess if it’s in the correct town, right? May/Thunder Bae was solid. May exceeds my expectations every-time, since she is a rare occasion of a fresh act getting some good early in the career momentum. Rosa seems a half step slower of foot since the injury comeback. But no less game for doing anything and everything to make it work. JR didn’t say anything notably stupid or cranky. This time. Just a production suggestion for the C2. I like how concise the smaller block tournament is set up. But I think for the sake of investment in the tournament itself that eliminated competitors should be highlighted during the semifinals and final match. It suggests an attachment to the prestige of the tournament and gives a built in motive for everyone to want to be in it. So yeah. Have Shelton back stage. Have Briscoe watching in the locker room with his friends. Darby can watch from the rafters. Brody can hang upside down like a bat in an undisclosed dark room with the rest of his crew. Over the years, similar to the Rumble its status and importance will build. Otherwise another likable show from my favorite set of underdogs. It has and continues to feed the need so I can continue to not watch WWE.