L_W_P

How else to you build up your finisher bar?

I remember watching Casino as a teenager and not understanding why the cheat didn't take the hammer and the money. I thought "Dude, take all the money and then just head to the emergency room and get your hand sorted. Sure, it'll hurt like hell and you probably can't hold a pen again but you've got a shitload of money for it!" I didn't understand the US health system (and it's extreme costs) back then... To tie this into wrestling; No more 'independent contractor' shit. Give all your employees proper healthcare WWE!

Assuming Ospreay is out of action, total fantasy booking, no idea on the state of play in NJPW or the politics behind the curtain -

Oh man, the 4 corners on a pole match from WCW... For AEW you get: A signed photo of Danhausen A guest spot doing commentary on Rampage Hager's Hat The AEW Cross Atlantic Titanic Passage Title

Tuxedo T-Shirt He still wants to be formal but he's here to party.

Is Ben still around? We can finally get that hobo army story. This is how we build Mark Briscoe to take the title from MJF. That or Piranisi? If only for a weekly "AEW Fashion Watch" segment.

Great list but want to highlight this one and ask the board - Is "It's my yard now." the greatest 'words for impact' promo of all time? There's all time great promos, but the weight of 4 words was incredible.

I remember in NXT Elias had a surname - Samson - I thought "That's juuuust close enough to do a 'long lost brother' reveal. A Sandow/Elias tag team could have been great. Sandow the pompous, spoiled, much loved brother & Elias the artistic rebel who left home to be his own man. This is why the whole "Creative has nothing for you" line is such BS. There's always SOMETHING you can be doing to get a character developing.

Off the top of my head - The pop for Austin helping Foley. WHAT? - Not a moment but it's become all time vernacular. The entire YES Movement, but specifically Bryan turning on Wyatt in the cage. Wyatts v SHIELD faceoff. The opening bell standoff between Danielson and Omega.

I'd go for the Rock rolling handstand to get back to my feet, then into "Triple H overselling Orton" for a moment, before finally staggering into a Flair Flop.

After THAT promo in Seattle I thought Elias was going to be an upper mid card guy for life. From memory he used to hit a pretty sweet flying elbow in NXT and the 'Drifter' gimmick had a both comedy and danger built in. Should have been a slam dunk but then, how many times have we said that over the years?

Not only would a vaccine not be a sure thing, but through the season it's been made clear that getting an infection is kinda the least of people's issues. Taking spores out of this universe makes the cordyceps far less of a threat and thus reduces the "save the world" angle of a vaccine. People are the issue. If you run into a clicker, you're just dead. Same with a bloater. If you stumble outside a QZ and into some of the runner types then the infection is a side effect if you manage to not have your throat gouged out or head ripped off.

The link that got put up with SportBet in Australia specifically says Countout or DQs don't count. Even if it's a small, capped limit, it seems insane that we can gamble on a PRE DETERMINED outcome. I know it's been a thing in the NFL for years but this is getting out of hand!

Remember that one year Michael Cole won a WrestleMania match? That's what legalized gmbling will give us. Omos is a 4-1 outsider vs Brock? Let's have wrestler X cause the distraction, Omos hits the Sky High, gets the pin and we all collect. Brock can then hit him with 25 suplexes and F5 him through a table afterwards to get his heat back.

I wonder if we don't get 6 months of heel-ish BCC followed by Danielson returning to try and kill the monster he helped create?

I actually like this a lot. Wight is enough of a physical presence to carry that authority, has a long history in the business, and the WMD/KO Punch is a great answer for any heels who are thinking about taking a swing when he rules against them.

There was a time in wrestling where this phrase could have actually been spoken haha "You see the bump that Lethal took? Rats off to him for that. They'll nurse him back to health."

I think wrestling fandom works in a sort of "Reverse Dark Knight" logic - You either retire a villain or you wrestle long enough to see yourself become the mutually respected veteran. With kayfabe dead people can appreciate the artist as much as, if not more than, the art itself. That you gave kudos to Lethal for the selling on the handspring is evidence of this.

OC yells "Shazam!" Lights go out Lights back on

On a positive note: Bryan's promo was absolutely perfect. That's how you explain a warrior tapping out without losing his credibility.

That was bizarre. The way he kept looping around from "Winnipeg -> Level Up -> Shazam -> International -> Winnipeg" followed by the abrupt ending... massive ADHD vibes. No issue with that at all but damn dude... You hire people to explain this stuff for you. Also: While I've lamented the repeat spots during shows, I've not yet complained about ring gear. Tonight was my breaking point. SOMEONE had to grab Top Flight and put them in a different colour scheme. Wearing long black pants with a gold trim, against the JAS who wear... long black pants with a gold trim, was a small thing but it says a lot.

Even their start in NXT wasn't perfect. Scott Dawson was a job guy for job guys before he started teaming with Dash Wilder.

As negative (and almost nihilistic) as all this is... It's hard to counter argue. I think the turning point was when Punk came in. He went through Darby, Kingston, MJF, Page and Mox in the span of 12 months without ever really putting anyone over. Maybe they had plans for the title run but it was as one sided a run as AEW will probably ever have. Eddie Kingston has great heat with Jericho. The long term story seemed to be that Eddie was desperate to make Jericho tap out, even if it was at the detriment to his team. 6 months of shmozz booking later and we never got the blow off. Jericho in general has been really frustrating. The Inner Circle transforming into the JAS hasn't really presented anything different. I thought they'd be doing a sort of mock style, playing up all the tropes of WWE with a little wink and a nudge but it's really just Chris, Sammy and Hager doing the same thing but with a different tag team to take the falls along the way. They paid big money to PAC to do not much of anything. They bring in Miro, Black and Andrade as 'under utilized' guys from WWE. Now, I've argued the position of "Not everyone has to be world champion" but these three should be doing a hell of a lot more than they have been. Are Miro and Andrade even with AEW anymore? They were building Jade Cargill into a star. I actually applaud the work they did with her up to around 30 or 35-0 but the last few months have been pointless. Why is she not the #1 contender for the Women's title? Why do the likes of Baker, Storm, Saraya etc not go after this title? You have FTR with the AAA, NJPW and ROH titles but never pull the trigger to have them holding your titles as well? Even for a short term run? How do you miss that opportunity? You build Wardlow turning on MJF pretty perfectly. Then what? Buying ROH seemed like an opportunity to create a developmental brand with a bit of history/legacy. Why is it popping up on AEW TV and not as one of the weekly YouTube shows? It seems to be a common theme in AEW - The build/chase is done fairly well, if not excellently, but then there's no follow through. No plan for what happens next. When you have a roster this stacked you want to make sure everyone gets some shine, sure, but at the same time you can't have people wandering aimlessly for weeks/months while you work out what they are going to be doing.

It's something my wife has noticed about Samoa Joe in AEW; The amount of sweat he drips when he puts people in a chin lock. She's joked that it should be his finishing move. Just grabbing them and dripping sweat on their faces until they give up.

Having watched the OSW boys go back over this era, I'm more concerned with the uncontrollable sweat this man produced.