S.K.o.S.

The thing about that is, they're selling tickets to the show. And there's going to be more than one of these shows. Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Globe Theatre in LA. It's where PWG runs ever since they left the legion hall in Reseda behind.

I think this is exactly where they're going, except that it's Kingston refusing to tag with Claudio.

Would give serious consideration to buying a Bullet Club shirt that said "Simmering Chessmaster Megadouche".

Watched the first half of the show, and I'm gonna practice what I've preached on here before and watch the second half of it tomorrow on my own schedule, so that I won't be a zombie at work. So if we're allowed to talk about the Buy-In, I loved Despy & Kanemaru breaking down Keith Lee and trying to keep him out of the match. Like it was more than just the typical formula of "isolate Swerve and don't let him make a tag", they wrecked Lee's knee and cut him off whenever he tried to get in the ring for any reason. And then eventually it all fell apart for them in spectacular fashion. Goto really overdelivered in some of his earlier US appearances on ROH shows. I'm thinking of these strangely great matches he had with Beer City Bruiser and with Punishment Martinez. His match tonight wasn't quite up to the standards of those ones, but still pretty decent.

That's what I've heard. It's a match that will be on the Buy-In pre-show, so like, not main event level stuff or anything.

No idea if this is actually true, but in my headcanon Andrade is mad about being left off the ppv because of the CMLL/AAA issues and is coming in with something to prove. So I'm expecting that match to be great. Also I accidentally got spoiled on the one more match that they're adding to Forbidden Door on this show, which is bad, but I think it's a really cool match, so that's good!

Because Ishii beat Connors to get into the 4-way.

Kevin Knight is the one and only name on this card that I had never heard before. Should've been watching NJPW Strong, I guess.

I've seen tweets to that effect too. That's what inspired my post. I just think Gedo's smarter than that. As for the schedule, those shows with 4 G1 matches seem like they'll be very easy watches, which is great! I was expecting we'd get 6 G1 matches per show, with 3 matches from each of 2 blocks.

You're talking about the wrestling, but I'm thinking about El-P and the Bucks trying to out-heel each other. Really looking forward to seeing the AEW fanbase's reaction to Phantasmo.

I just think Tony doesn't know how to build to a 4-way. There is no real established template for it, other than "a bunch of people all say they want a match and we just throw them all in together". Even on this show, where they obviously knew where they were going with it, it was still a mess. Didn't seem like we were getting a 4-way. White told both Hangman and Cole flat out that they're not getting title shots. Then Okada shows up, and suddenly EVERYONE gets a title shot. Why? Who knows! (edit: Craig said this exact same thing while I was writing my post!) I DID say at least a week ago that I thought a 4-way was the end goal, just because once Hangman says he wants a title shot against Okada and puts that in people's heads, you at least need to have Hangman and Okada in the same match with the title on the line.

I don't have a specific guess besides "someone who hasn't been in AEW much or at all". I don't see that ZSJ match being high on the ppv card, and there's enough star power in the Blood & Guts match even with a downgrade from Danielson. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm misreading it, but I think the Danielson replacement is someone the AEW audience isn't necessarily super familiar with. Danielson was saying something like "Trust me, this guy's good," and that was a while before he said he wouldn't tell us who it was. Like, he wouldn't have to do that sort of hard sell for Cesaro, because people already know how good Cesaro is. I also don't think Gresham would be a great fit for the BCC or the Blood & Guts match.

Seems bad! I don't know if that's Vince enticing people to watch Smackdown instead of Rampage, people deciding since they skipped Dynamite they might as well skip Rampage too, or what.

They have graphics with Okada, White, Tanahashi, and Ospreay front and center in each of their blocks. To me, that guarantees those will NOT be the four winners.

New wrestling crossword: (You probably can beat their time. Reading all the clues out loud slows things down a lot)

I might be oversimplifying a bit, but if you're a non-U.S. citizen and you cross the border to take paid work in America (i.e. indie wrestling dates) without a work visa, and the border crossing folks find out about it, that's what can happen. This happened pre-Trump btw.

Stinky!

I'm at least as annoyed about Wardlow pinning guys whose shoulders weren't on the mat as people here were last week about the Japanese flag being on the All-Atlantic title.

Ishii vs. Kanemaru, Connors vs. Honma

Thanks guys! Took the day off work, lounging, got a Detroit-style pizza dinner coming up tonight with the significant other. Life's good!

Remember that they sent Jimmy Havoc to rehab and quietly let him go. I think that'd be the right move here too. No guarantee that rehab works, obviously, but it's more responsible (is that the right word? do they have any responsibility as his employer? idk) than just cutting him loose. There isn't any match that is worth keeping Jeff around for, imo. It kind of sucks because he was clearly giving it everything he could, but when this sort of thing happens once, you can't give him the chance to do it again.

Oof.

AEW just tweeted out a Dynamite lineup that no longer has the ladder match on it. Could be that it's off the show, or could be that they're still deciding who to sub in.

Really think the IWGP title match will be a 4-way. Hangman wanted a title shot against Okada, and the only way to do that now is in a multi-man match.