TheVileOne

I'm open to the idea of Riddle trying to rehab his image and career in NJPW and places like MLW, GCW, other indies, but he's got to be serious about wanting to salvage his career. Otherwise, he's going to be another footnote on Dark Side of the Ring.

Since I get a lot of stupid BS here from some a-holes here who say I'm always negative and dislike everything: I frelling loved this show. I felt everything clicked relatively well for WK18. Up and down everyone looked solid and ready to bring their A-game. You saw fun entrances and great ring attire throughout the show. It definitely felt like the right shot in the arm that New Japan needs right now. From start to finish, I haven't liked a big wrestling show this much in quite a while. The first couple of matches were short little sprints, and they didn't go that long. That worked though because they kept the pace fast and they didn't feel like there was any filler. I think having President Tanahashi win the TV title now is fine. He can have a couple of defenses and transition the belt to someone else hopefully. Sabre got to run with the title for a whole year, so he had a decent run with it. I think Sabre is very underrated as a heel worker sometimes. Those neck twists were brutal. Kind of surprised that Uemura beat Yota Tsuji at WK since everyone seems so high on Tsuji as a future ace right now. Tama Tonga and Shingo Takagi also had a fun match. If Tama Tonga is leaving the company I don't get putting him over with a victory here. Does he relinquish the belt? Is he going to stay and defend it a couple more times? I don't really get that booking decision. I've seen reactions on Reddit saying this was done as a reward for all the time Tonga put into New Japan. No doubt Tama Tonga is a hard worker, and he's underrated as a singles talent, but dunno, having him win over Shingo in a title bout especially when he's leaving seems like an odd choice. Regardless, this was a fun match, and both guys looked like they were ready to put on a show tonight. Everyone from top to bottom felt like they were trying to outwork one another. Happy that ELP and Hikuleo won the belts. I think it's probably time to merge the Strong titles or drop them already. It feels like Strong is kind of irrelevant as a sub-brand at this point, and I'm not sure what purpose Strong or the Strong titles really serve at this point. ELP is actually one of my favorites, and I'm happy he picked up another title but I feel like he could be doing more in singles, which I hope he does at some point down the line. Still shocked he never won the junior heavyweight singles title. El Desperado vs. Hiromu Takahashi was cool. However, I do kind of want to move on from this matchup and see some fresh faces and matchups for the Junior Heavyweight division. Shocked that they never got El Phantasmo in there for a title run. But another good Despy/Hiromu match. Hiromu's entrance attire was fire. Okada/Danielson topped their match at Forbidden Door. I think it went just about the right length and didn't need to go any longer. Visual with the UV color-changing attire for Okada was a neat concept. I do feel you could run this match one more time as a tiebreaker now that Danielson and Okada are 1-1. You could tell this was an emotional experience for Danielson. I feel like Okada is really good at trying to keep it very cool and stoic even when his opponents are clearly trying to make him angry and you can see it getting to him. You can see the change when his fuse is about to blow and he's had enough. Global title triple threat felt like the 2024 NJPW version of Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles from TNA Unbreakable. Moxley looked fired up and was moving like a junior heavyweight. Whatever he does to maintain his cardio and stamina definitely came through for him here, especially since he had the long travel and was coming off a pretty physical, grueling match with Eddie Kingston on PPV. It's on YouTube, but he also did a great job putting over David Finlay in his press conference. I'm not a David Finlay hater like some people. I think he held up his heel role fine in this match, and Finlay walking away with the win and the title is the right decision for right now. It is crazy to kind of see how far Will Ospreay has come over the last 7-8 years. You can see the little changes and things that have improved his overall game, and he's also put on more muscle and mass. But the Triple Threat just had this epic, big match feel that was cool. Even though this isn't goodbye for Ospreay and New Japan, this is sort of like a goodbye for Ospreay as a full-time "New Japan guy." But it feels like he truly hammered out and discovered himself through his matches and run in New Japan. Through the ups and downs, Ospreay has found himself and become fully formed, so now it's time to see what he can do in AEW. This may not make sense, but it kind of reminds me of the changes Styles went through after leaving TNA and only becoming an even bigger star from there. It was nice to see Moxley reminiscing about Fit Finlay and saying he respected David for smashing the belt because it took balls. For Moxley, it makes sense that he'd respect a guy smashing titles since that's the kind of rebellious, anti-authority shit he goes for. Nic Nemeth I think is a good pickup for NJPW, and I hope it's one that sticks. AEW is overcrowded right now, and where would he even fit in there right now? NJPW can use him, and it could be a way for Nemeth to easily reinvent himself and give the veterans on the roster someone new to face. The brawls with Finlay were fun, and this could be good for everyone involved. Sanada's transition to being champion and headliner has been impressive to watch. I'm glad he dropped the whole unkempt hobo lion mane look. Now he looks super clean-cut, wears custom suits and looks every bit like a main event champ. He carried the match here very well for Naito, and the fans were all in for Naito winning the big one one more time. Not sure how much time Naito has left as a top guy, but enjoy it while it lasts I suppose. At first, I was ticked when EVIL interrupted the post-match speech, but they got it well with Sanada rallying back and helping Naito, paying tribute to his senpai. Naito clearly has an emotional connection with the fans and the fans were rabid to see him get the win, so it was the right decision to end things. I think going back to one night this year was the correct decision. And even at one night, this year's card didn't feel overstuffed. I think they can go back to two nights if it makes sense, but it worked out well this year. Man, I've always found Chris Charlton to be a good, solid analyst who knows what he's talking about along with acting as a translator for the English-speaking audience, but this is the most switched-on I think I've ever heard him for an event like this. Charlton sounded really fired up throughout the show. Usually, Charlton sounds really level, but he was very fired up throughout the event. I nearly lost it when Sanada and Naito retaliated against Evil and he said something like, "Ain't that a kick in the dick!" Good for Charlton he brought it to this show. I don't know what it is but it was like everyone drank some espresso doubleshots or Celsius before the show started. Charlton doesn't have to bring that level of enthusiasm every show, but he definitely shined on commentary. Walker Stewart isn't quite there yet, so it felt like Charlton had to pull a little more weight, but I think Stewart will get there eventually.

Not sure what happened with Yeun, but if I can guess, he's probably a highly in-demand talent right now and he was coming on before the strikes hit which caused major delays throughout the industry. So he likely had to move on to other projects. What Thunderbolts should do is pivot to Zemo. Make Zemo leader of the team as Citizen V. When Zemo shows his hand and offers the T-Bolts a place by his side, they will side with Winter Soldier. Have Zemo as Citizen V earn the public and government's trust so he can take over the world since that's the only way to save the world and cleanse it of superheroes.

So what happens to Damian Priest now and where does he fit in? He's failed to cash in his briefcase umpteen times at this point.

He also said this: https://twitter.com/Nick_Hausman/status/1739289735607042111 That's a fairly pretty suggestive point to make only a few days later to make the Harvey Weinstein comparison. On that podcast that came out today, Hausman claimed, "I knew full well it was probably going to hit in some way. I didn't know it was going to hit near as hard as we've seen it hit. But I'm just tired of watching Chris bully people around and be very abrasive, especially publicly like that. I didn't appreciate the things he said about Ace Steel's wife, Lucy, and some of his tweets, and I'm just tired of it. That's all it was behind it." He definitely backtracked on those comments earlier today. Whether he got some threatening legal emails over the weekend or not, I don't know.

Saying you know people who were hurt by Chris Jericho and his actions is not an opinion.

Jericho hasn't done himself any favors lately. There was no reason for him to act erratic and start drunk tweeting on Christmas Day about Brawl Out, Stephen P. New, and CM Punk. There was absolutely no reason for him to revisit that situation at that point especially when it was over and done with and everybody had moved on. Also, it was f'n Christmas morning. What the hell was he doing he needed to get in a social media shouting match with a lawyer? Why did he choose that time to speak out about the incident that happened over a year earlier? Especially when he kept his mouth shut forever about it. He was on Howie Mandell's podcast and they tried to talk about Brawl Out and he was tongue-tied and didn't offer any details then. And that's just one example. There have been others. But that incident is when Nick Hausman first responded to him, implying Jericho has had people sign NDAs.

Beyond the Kylie Rae issue, Nick Hausman voiced that "a lot of people have been hurt" by Jericho during the video where he compared Jericho to Weinstein. Like it or not, and that is a vaguely broad claim, that's still a pretty significant allegation. And Hausman is a member of the media. It's not just Twitter conjecture that's driving all of this. This might be an odd example, but one situation where there was this weird allegation that somewhat had a resolution, I remember going back years ago there was this story going around that emerged that Megan Fox auditioned for Transformers at like 19 by going to Michael Bay's home and washing his car. I forget where the story started. I think it was a press junket or something. But people brought it up again during the #MeToo movement because Bay was viewed as a filmmaker who objectified young women and might've been displaying predatory behavior toward Megan Fox. A few years ago, Fox addressed the story again and said her audition did not go the way of the original telling in a way that denies Bay doing displaying predatory or salacious. I think the story resurfaced because Fox was on Jimmy Kimmel and she talked about her brief onscreen role in Bad Boys II when she was only 15 years old and how Bay filmed her for the movie. https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/megan-fox-not-preyed-upon-michael-bay-interview-viral-084444797.html?guccounter=1 Now, it's not like Bay was ever canceled or suffered significant damage as a result of the suspicions or allegations over the original story. Also, not saying Bay is completely innocent in the matter either. But after Fox made these comments, everyone kind of moved on from Bay.

It's an excellent question but the problem is there isn't a simple, quick fix, easy solution to all of this. There might never be a solid resolution here that will satisfy all parties. The problem is the way Tony Khan handled this and responded to this at the press conference was embarrassing and made everything worse, and Meltzer and Alvarez said as much too. It's not the best example, but there was a time where Will Ospreay was basically viewed as persona non grata and his career was in tatters over the allegations that he had Pollyana blacklisted. Ospreay's career did at least manage to recover from those allegations even though he wasn't being accused of sexual harassment and assault. He was viewed as someone who was a victim denier and hurting the career of a victim of sexual assault. I don't know if Jericho's career can ever escape this though. While Ric Flair hasn't exactly escaped the allegations, he did manage to find a way clear out of the allegations made by Heidi Doyle on Dark Side of the Ring. Flair denied the allegations. The media eventually forgot about the story and moved on. I'm not saying that's right. I'm not saying those allegations were ever properly addressed, but Flair did lose a sponsorship. Not only that, Flair had already quit WWE before the episode came out. So it wasn't exactly like anyone could fire or cancel Flair. And plus, he's Ric Flair. I'm not saying that's right either, but basically, there was not enough of an issue to derail and incarcerate Flair over the allegations. Plus the matter had already been settled legally (to my recollection). I'm not sure what recourse Jericho has here, and if he will ever address this publicly. I don't know what the solution is here. However, Jericho does have to be taken off TV as that's the only way to PARTIALLY mitigate this situation right now. It sucks, but I think about Kylie Rae too, and my concern is what happened to her once-promising career and what she's been dealing with the past several years.

The Rock at 51 years old is not coming back for his long-awaited prophesied match, his first actual match in over 10 years, with his family member Roman Reigns for it to happen at Elimination Chamber.

Going by their website, they stopped updating them in September 2022. Right before All Out 2022. When the promotion first went to hell. It's crazy to think that AEW came out of the COVID-19 pandemic fairly unscathed and weathered that storm fairly well. It was everything came after the pandemic being in the rearview mirror that got them in trouble.

Taking Jericho off TV right now until this situation gets resolved is the only choice to make right now.

The Rock just finished the story. They aren't booking Roman Reigns vs. The Rock at Elimination Chamber. There is only one place they are doing that matchup, and they are doing it at WrestleMania. Nick Khan doesn't give a shit about "finish the story." Ari Emanuel doesn't give a shit about "finish the story." Triple H didn't care enough to do it when the iron was hot to do it, and Triple H wants to make his bosses happy. They aren't going to blow off The Rock wrestling Roman Reigns at Elimination Chamber: Perth. That's not frelling happening. They will do everything they can to make this year's WrestleMania 40 the biggest WrestleMania of all time. And you do that by putting Roman Reigns vs. The Rock in the final Night 2 headlining spot. Stockholders don't give a shit about finish the story either. They want numbers and milestones and accolades. Finish the story doesn't do that. The Rock at WrestleMania versus Roman Reigns does that. This was the final trump card to play for Reigns and the Bloodline, and WWE has clearly been waiting patiently to play this. They aren't playing it at an Elimination Chamber show in Perth. They are serious about having Roman Reigns' title run surpassing Hogan's in the 1980s. And they just might do it now. Everyone who claimed Cody Rhodes didn't have enough adversity last year are going to be eating their words soon.

You know what I didn’t dislike? Godzilla Minus One.

Like you said it was a shitty loophole. It was never established that Killswitch can exchange the title shot with anyone he chose. It wasn’t done organically. Why did AEW allow it? When Ted DiBiase tried to buy the WWE title reign from Andre, WWE said no in storyline and said a monetary exchange of a title champion status is not allowed. The whole mess was badly executed. Secondly, I gave multiple pieces of constructive criticism for last night’s show and said things I liked about the show. I will continue to comment on things where I see fit whether I dislike them or not.

But Jericho does need to be quietly removed from TV right now until this situation gets addressed. Otherwise, it's only going to get worse. It's definitely going to get worse either way, but removing Jericho from TV is the only way to partially alleviate this situation until it gets addressed. Not to pile on Saraya because I realized she went through a personal hell and was in an abusive relationship with Del Rio, but there was also the issue of her current boyfriend and the video she released that shows him pretending to stab and murder someone, noting her current boyfriend's history.

He's calling Danielson a clam digger because he's saying Danielson is like this hobo hipster type who likes to dig clams out of the sand. Also, Nigel is a former wrestler, and he has history with a lot of the talent and guys in AEW like Danielson. Even if it doesn't lead to anything, I don't see a problem. This has been a part of heel wrestling commentary as long as there has been heel color commentators.

So can anyone explain what the Triple Crown Title means for AEW/ROH's World Title? Will titles still be defended separately? Is the Continental title simply a ceremonial title? Is it basically like the Double Gold in NJPW where the champion just basically holds both belts and defends all belts at once whenever they are defended until a new singular title is made?

To share something positive here, the timing between Nigel and Adam here was perfect. And Nigel was great, as per usual, on commentary last night. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/18vdm0x/spoilers_aew_worlds_end_nigel_mcguinness_gets/?ref=share&ref_source=link EDIT: Twitter version: https://twitter.com/DrainBamager/status/1741456534511776028

Since I've been down this TikTok/Influencer/Trend rabbit hole before. This is a TikTok trend that YouTubers/influencers are doing. It involves a group of people or two people posting a video saying, "We're [married/siblings/best friends/wrestlers/influencers/etc.]," who then proceed to call out the behaviors or habits of their group, "We're [this]. We [do this]." So this was an attempt by the AEW social media or I guess Saraya in this case to create a viral video capitalizing on a current TikTok video trend. The problem is that Saraya's bit in this is kind of tone-deaf and bad in light of the recent rumors and Tony Khan's comments last night. I get that it's meant to be comedy/parody, but it basically implies that AEW employees are harassing the women's wrestlers.

My problem with this is they've been doing this business with Christian controlling Killswitch/Luchasaurus and basically abusing him since going back to the Jack Perry feud. They've teased him turning on Cage since it looked like he was going to attack Nick Wayne's mom. I just don't see how much longer they can drag this out because they were already doing the PPV rematch here with Copeland after he lost the first title match on TV. If they can make some sort of compelling development here with how Christian is controlling Killswitch and what secret he has here maybe this can work, but I dunno. This felt counter-intuitive.

I said letting Jericho go out there last night was going to be bad and they needed not to allow that. They did it anyway, and it made things even worse. This whole thing is a lose-lose situation. AEW was going to lose last night, no matter what happened. Not putting Jericho on TV would've been one way to mitigate the situation. People say not everyone is perpetually online. They were literally in New York last night. 20 years ago, New York crowd was chanting goodbye to Lesnar and Goldberg at WrestleMania 20. Plenty of people around that time were saying no one in the crowd would have any idea what was going on backstage with Lesnar and Goldberg and the two would still have a good match. The match was garbage and both guys stunk up the joint. The crowd totally turned on both of them and they could never get them back and they didn't even try. New York has always been a smart crowd, and AEW has a smart mark crowd. AEW literally caters to smart marks. Did you all think people really weren't going to give a crap about what was happening on social media over the weekend, especially in the New York area?

It was an ultra-exaggerated, even more contrived version of the Dusty finish. It teases a babyface beating the heel champion and winning the title but ultimately ends with the title back on the heel champion. Made even dumber and worse by the fact they set up a title shot battle royal on the same night to have Killswitch win only to promptly hand over the shot back to Christian after he lost. Dumb garbage. The Dusty finish is a finish reversal. They basically did a reversal last night.

Considering how badly Tony Khan failed to manage the CM Punk situation, I don’t have high hopes for this one either.