Firebreaker Chip

Jinsei Shinzaki / Hakushi

I always enjoy when Austin loses the run of himself and just gets sucked into admiring the quality of his own work at length

This has almost unbelievably cursed energy

Why did early 90s WCW commentators care so much that Marcus Bagwell went to "Sprayberry High School"? It gets mentioned all the time! I don't think there are any other wrestlers where I could tell you what school they went to

Even before this intervention, you could easily tell by the quiet dignity of Hangman's countenance that he has no truck with prolonging the tiresome artificial outrage of the pineapple on pizza debate

Awesome. Next they should do all the male wrestlers standing next to an upright Tom Philips while not wearing lifts

WWE should be legally mandated to prefix any use of "cage match" with the phrase "Bullshit WWE-style"

Yeah Cody going for a Springboard so early in the opening exchanges felt off I will never not enjoy a heel winning a match after taking such a bad beating he barely knows he's won though I wonder if the plan for War Games is to do Fall Brawl 96 with Page in the Sting role

I liked Cody's ramp sprint clothesline, Sting-worthy Elsewhere, Adam Page combines the pisshead gimmick of Scott Hall with the brooding, melancholic inscrutability of peak Crow Sting - and folks, he ain't even wearing paint When it comes to Anxious Millennial Cowboy, the only thing that's for sure...is [daintily sips beer from a plastic glass]

Also: Wardlow and Hager look like the evolved/roided up versions of Marty Scurll and Orange Cassidy

Dustin Rhodes could have a good match doing nothing but punches The tag title match was incredible. It would be a bit indulgent for my tastes watching it in a vacuum, but the quality and intrigue of that build and how well they know each other's moves gives them leeway imo. It sounded a bit like the crowd never quite recovered from it? They've got like three main event quality angles on the go, must be tough to sequence Downstait turning in possibly the worst live performance by a group of people who have ever been in the same room before. Also Cody's entrance doesn't need an entrance just let the crowd react to the powerchords! God bless Schiavone going all in on calling an Orange Cassidy match with a straight face, the sound of Jim Ross' soul leaking out of his ears just barely audible on the feed The first half of the show was stronger overall, but it makes such a difference to not feel like you're watching six matches cut from the same template

Thought commentary was particularly strong on this one. They all sounded really genuinely invested in the women's title match.

The Lashin' of the Christ segment had an almost penalty shootout-like vibe , the slightly surreal atmosphere of the playing area being repurposed for something more tense, stop-start and unpleasant than usual, the crowd hushed, teammates watching on from the sidelines desperately willing the one unfortunate on but powerless to intervene The actual lashes felt a bit idk "disappointing" compared to the ridiculous amount of violence that regularly occurs in modern pro wrestling, the noises produced being less impressive than e.g. a Trent chop from earlier on the show; perhaps it's a bit into that C*rnette zone of "it actually hurts and looks like it doesn't" Cody's selling was tremendous though, if ever someone was justified in getting a world title despite a) having the book and b) solemnly swearing to never challenge for it again, he's in there

Huh Zack Gibson scrubs up really well, who knew? Enjoying that Matt Riddle is playing an ersatz Millie McKenzie role in being the chirpy, suplex-obsessed blonde tag partner for Pete Dunne to reluctantly cooperate with

That rana was horrific! Couple of solid hate-filled brawls on the undercard in Juice-Mox and GOTO-KENTA. If Suzuki-Mox isn't also a hate-filled brawl I don't know what will be

Gino was pretty bad on this, he pronounced like four people dead and I was genuinely worried he was cranking it at the commentary desk when Pieter was on screen Fujinami still hitting like a truck at 66 lol

THIRTY YEARS, and they give him a watch, kick him in the butt and say "hey, a [BT Sport] took your place, daddeh." That's hard times.

Lmao at these contemptible dumbasses quoting Jordan Peterson on commentary

The Bray Wyatt stuff is so hokey and bad anyway I don't know why they didn't just lean into it and have Bryan's change of look come via a time machine

Just a bunch of crazy kids with a single Hail Mary pass of a dream: for Bray Wyatt to have a good singles match with someone who isn't Daniel Bryan

That women's wargames was just fantastic. It was a cool side effect of how protected Shayna's been that she could lose due to her own error while outnumbering their opponents and not be weakened by it. Also Io had taken herself out by doing something amazingly dangerous. Really clever, satisfying finish. The triple threat was decent but too long, and the finish wasn't really visually logical enough for me. They should just open Survivor Series with Peter taking Cole to the woodshed and winning the damn thing imo, but I guess that probably doesn't fit with their plans for Ciampa to try to reclaim his title Riddle-Balor was rock solid, was not counterproductively trying to steal the show and served to effectively re-establish Balor's deathmove Cole's first table bump through the one he needlessly leant against the barrier was a hilariously unnecessary kayfabe self-inflicted injury, the one for the finish was a terrifying real life self-inflicted injury. Keith Lee should win the big one sooner or later, what a talent

That brainbuster Dawson hit was a work of art

Is it possible that the way it goes now is 1) use AEW paranoia to negotiate a new contract with a disproportionately generous downside guarantee 2) ask for your release on twitter 3) receive the terrible punishment of being sent home to sit out your contract 4) sit at home getting paid decent money doing nothing 5) hope vince forgets you exist rather than hauling you back in to tank his own product with a thinly-veiled punishment storyline

There is definitely a post-Tr*mp amplification of the idea that all journalists are untrustworthy shit-stirrers, but declining faith in media institutions is an ongoing thing across the board; this is not without good reason but as noted above people often aren't good judges of which bits are credible, and reflexively throw the baby out with the bathwater Also everywhere has fucking comments and have your say shit on it now so every confused nudnik gets to indulge their need to disagree with the story underneath it for some reason

There does seem to be a block of young wrestling fans who have somehow become convinced that rather than having good sources but being eccentric and frequently sloppy and naive, Meltzer literally has no inside knowledge at all and anything he's right about is a fluke consequent to him throwing a lot of shit at the wall and some of it sticking There is also maybe some defensive resentment about him criticising or bringing negative attention on wrestlers they like, an egregious violation of the sacred rule that annoying nerds should be allowed to Enjoy Things without being troubled by becoming aware of the existence of criticism of them Dunno if the proliferation of shit-tier wrestling news websites whose content is all aggregated re-reporting has muddied the water a bit