Belgian_Waffle

"apologies mods, I know this is why we don't have a politics folder, I'm just an ignorant Zionist racist piece of shit". You casually list off All Jazeera and "Islamists" as somehow being inherently anti-Israel (heaven forbid) and by extension, I take it, antisemitic. This already tells me what I need to know about where you're coming from. After spending the last week working with Independent Jewish Voices and Jewish Voice for Peace, in conjunction with Muslim, Palestinian, pan-Arab, and various secular groups in organizing demonstrations and events to support Palestinian solidarity, I don't have much patience for bigots conflating Judaism with Zionism. So excuse me for being busy this week and not responding to your pathetic hateful comment promptly (I'm sure this will get deleted anyway). The rise in antisemitic incidents in the UK you reference is, I presume, the stat from the Metro police that has been making the rounds on social media. Let's take a deep breath for a moment and remind ourselves that this is the same police force tearing down Palestinian flags during non-violent demonstrations. Let's also keep in mind they released that number without any audit or breakdown of specifics (ie, a crowd chanting "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" can be construed as antisemitic,). Here's the thing though asshole: Islamaphobia and anti-Arab racism is once again the norm in America, Canada, and the UK, and it's because of two things: 1) the media bias towards Israel in the wake of October 7, completely ignoring Israel's 75+ years of criminal occupation and ethic cleansing of Palestine's indigineous Arab population; 2) the conflation of Zionism with Judaism which immediately makes the Hamas attack on Oct 7 an attack on Jews as Jews as opposed to what it actually was, an attack on the civilian population of an oppressive state. Further, the Stand Up To Jewish Hate ("blue square") group Max is being utilized by have expressly Zionist and pro-Israel mission statements -- this not a group advocating for Jews writ large, and are totally complicit in shameful smearings of anti-Zionist Jewish groups as being"self hating Jews" (itself an old antisemitic trope). To see AEW incorporating this kind of western propagandist weaponization of antisemitism, while Gaza is bombed into non-existence, while Gaza has been the victim of Israeli genocidal policies for decades, is repulsive. To see you invoking the holocaust to further victimize Jews when 75+ years of Zionist brutality are what led us to the catastrophe we're experiencing now, is repulsive. Maybe you should be checking where you get your news from, because I can promise you the people ultimately making the decisions at CNN, MSNBC, Fox, wherever you get fed this crap have much more in common with actual antisemites than the scary brown people you dehumanized in your shameful post. Edit: also your invocation of ThE hAmAs ChArTeR is hilarious -- maybe read some actual history about that "founding document" and how badly it's been misrepresented to further conflate antizionism with antisemitism. May I suggest starting with the works of Sara Roy, a--gasp!!--Jewish woman, who is also the world's leading scholar on Gazan politics and civil society, including the history of Hamas.

Was already boycotting this week because of the max fighting antisemitism while Israel eviscerates children bullshit. Turns out I get to miss a Fletcher match AND a Penta match. Bonus!!

Are we really not including Takaiwa or NOSAWA in the Black Tiger rankings? Sure would help Rocco's standings.

maybe there would be less paranoia about young talent leaving if they didn't just job two of their most promising (also both POC) future top guys to a 42 year old with a broken arm. the antidote to which was Hobbs destroying Jericho, though as someone else alluded to this was about as dynamic as Barbarian vs Snuka from Supertape vol. 3. I'm glad the belt is off Fenix and I like Shida so I'm good with that too. Between these two and FTR it feels a bet chaotic/like we're in reset mode with these belts. Which is fine as long as we start to build from here. Maybe Saraya's unsavoury romantic association finally elicited enough heat that they decided to emergency take the belt off her? Fenix looked sloppier then usual tonight and I'm now fully convinced he will kill someone or himself in the ring one day. Jay White is a horrible professional wrestler, and maybe an even worse talker. As I put it last week, his philosophy of "the more I do the better it is" only works if your million gestures and taunts and idiosyncrasies and exaggerated selling and facials add up to something discernible. When it's all just density for density's sake you've created a situation where, even when you're on the defensive, you're only getting yourself over. This style of wrestling didn't exist before HBK btw. It's two great modern practitioners are Jay White and Will Ospreay. I'm not the biggest Hangman fan but he tried to keep this thing coherent but every time he started to build ti something (ie, selling the leg really well) he would just walk into the world's most bombastic uranage or a sideheadlock so White can make the guns up sign while applying a resthold. I do think Max will get a great match out of him, as he has a gift for stifling his opponents' worst tendencies. Also all those fuckin bumps and this match ended in a schoolboy. if they are seriously going to build up Wardlow all over again by devoting a year to him powerbombing guys to death I might be morbidly intrigued. He still gets great reactions. Maybe there's a second (third? fourth?) wind there. I got my wish and MJF and the Acclaimed are going to tag together and I couldn't be more excited. The Acclaimed are really at a point where they should be working singles as often (or more, in Bowens' case) as they do tags. They're certainly bigger than the trios titles already and it feels like a different trio would benefit more from those belts as giving them to the Acclaimed is just sort of giving them something to do since they're not tag champs. I hate to say it but teaming with Daddy Ass might be holding them back at this point too. It's too bad AEW doesn't have a big round robin Champions Carnival-style annual tournament where Bowens and Caster could pick up some singles wins and see how the crowd reacts. Wasn't super invested in Edge/Luchasaurus. Thought they worked fine together but since the finish was a foregone conclusion I would have had them go shorter and give Copeland way more offence. I love Danielson, I really love Christian, I have zero interest in more old guy vs old guy matches, at least not when they're both so established there's no lasting consequences in terms of who wins. Although I do wonder if Mustafa Ali is showing up given his relationship with Danielson, either to betray him and join Christian's group (especially since Luchasaurus is clearly turning face soon) or yo save Danielson from a beatdown. I love the Joe vignettes but I don't understand building him up for another title shot already. To me, an uneasy MJF/Joe alliance based around their handshake after Max cheated to choke him out would be a lot more interesting.

Dutch is kind of already the Satanist Brother Love. Speaking of love, I love that I log in at 330 am to get caught up on discussion and I see a Manos post. Peter Avalon as The Master and Nick Comaroto as Torgo would be a good use of those guys right now.

Unless Swerve is going babyface, in which case him and Christian is a fun program, especially promo-wise. I was actually wondering if they'd turn Swerve face and have Hobbs take his place in the Mogul Embassy but then they went ahead and put him in the Callis family instead. But as much as we all love Danielson he definitely shouldn't be beating Swerve anytime soon.

Plus in Albee fashion of a different sort it ended in cussing

Mixed bag of a show. For the second week in a row (at least) the women's match was far and away the best wrestling segment. Timeless Toni is on fire. Julia Hart is on fire and taking some time off so when she's back she's even more over because people don't realize they miss her. Athena and Statlander and Willow are all world-class talent. That's a Big Five right there, plus Hayter when she's back. But we limit the women's matches to one per show so Kip Sabian can get on tv. Lots of people I absolutely can't stand are getting a lot of tv time but I feel like that's just the perpetual crisis of any wrestling fan. Kyle Fletcher should scream more when he does moves and see if it makes his selling any less horrible. Juice, Gunn and Gunn should cut another promo without White and see if they can come across even more pathetic and make the crowd go even more uncomfortably quiet. I ran screaming from New Japan somewhere around 2018...were Switchblade-era Bullet Club segments this cringey in Japan or is this a new thing? On a more positive note, the MJF/Acclaimed interaction, even if it was just a one-off for now, gives me hope that he'll eventually work a program with them, with the Acclaimed serving either as opponents for BTYBB or (more intriguingly) as MJFs eventual backup to take on Bullet Club and the Undisputed Kingdom.

It's also hard to accurately judge how well cheaper PPVs could do based on 90s IYH shows because a lot of them were headlined by Kevin Nash

I've meant to ask this for awhile now but do we know if Nick Wayne's mom got a talent contract when they signed Nick? I have to think the real heat (as if we haven't already seen the realest of heat in this program) is her turning heel as well and joining her son at Christian's arm.

Speaking to nothing except my own very particular and idealized aesthetic values: Kawada vs Gary Albright Oct 25, 1995 Misawa vs Kobashi TC Jan 20, 1997 Yuki Ishikawa vs Kazunari Murakami Nov 26, 2000 I should have a Suwama match on there too somewhere because he is so ridiculously great and consistent and a dear personal fav, but he has a ton of great matches and not really a "perfect" match (though his Oct 24, 2000 TC defense against Masakatsu Funaki of all people is extremely damn close).

That Ethan Page video blew my mind. As a fellow Hamiltonian, I'm sad to say the best of our several vintage action figure shops, Kool Stuff, just closed its doors after about two decades. Maybe All Ego can get in touch with the proprietor and work out a promotional deal of some kind for a new storefront.

Athena is definitely up there and Julia Hart seems to have figured it out too, can't wait to see where she goes from here. EDIT: also I meant to mention this last night but it was like 1am. Kingston's performance in doing the strike battle with Shibata reminded me a lot of the one and only truly perfect match built around multiple strike battles, the first Sasaki vs Kawada Dome match from 2000, the one where Tosh gets his big win (which incidentally is one of only four men's singles matches I reserve space for on my "star ratings are silly but for my own obsessive reference here is my list of the only men's singles matches I would give 5* to" list). It's subtle (kind of) but there's a timing to the wincing and bending inward for the sell but not waiting too long before striking back that was straight out of Kawada's work in that match. Shibata was fantastic too but further to the point I was making above about character work, Kingston's is the type.of mind that isn't just thinking "that chop battle was awesome, how can I work it into my match", he's thinking "I've seen and performed a million chop battles, I love Kawada, Kawada does this a particular way that for some reason is better than the way antibody else does it, how do I absorb that without just reproducing it". To provide a perfectly contrasting example, Kingston's working of the tired chop exchange sequence into something alive and special is the complete opposite of the meatheaded "I saw this once , apparently it's legendary, now WE GUN' DO IT TOO, BRO" Tiger Driver '91 spot in the Omega/Ospreay fartfest.

Yeah I've rewatched it a bunch of times today while I decay at my home office desk and every time I keep thinking the real highlight of the whole thing is Christian's facial expressions and the complicated lifetime of emotions they allude to. Last night really hit home for me that MJF, Darby and Christian and to a certain extent Kingston are in a class beyond the rest of the roster, even Danielson and Mox. There's too many guys focusing on what they should "do" in a great match rather than how they should behave in a great match. Character work is the real currency.

This is dangerously close to what my own thoughts were as well. I really don't get the "you made the Righteous look like a joke" counter-argument. This was the most high profile thing they were ever going to get, and their heat on tv is mostly non-existent so they were given this spot in spite of not being over. They were good in their roles here. They're not young guys or someone you can build around. Dutch got to do some of his cool power offense. What is the benefit of having one of them pin friggin MJF of all people and immediately return the ROH tag title to a belt nobody cares about again, which is what it has been since Jay died until they put it on MJF and Cole.

I loved this show but the six man was without hyperbole one of the worst professional wrestling matches I've ever seen in my life. The FTR match wasn't much better, especially with Fletcher nearly killing Wheeler like three or four times. At least he did the job. Can we just team Mark Davis with Josh Woods or someone solid like that and end the Aussie Open experiment before Fletcher cripples someone? Everything else was good to great. Eddie/Shibata, Julia/Stat, Danielson/ZSJ and the main were all among my favorite AEW matches this year. Swerve vs Hangman was very good, though I would have just had Swerve win clean minus the Nana interference. The handicap match was weirdly captivating as a one-man-show by Max. His Brundleheel / Heel Who Dreamed He Was A Babyface And Loved It character is one of the more original characters in wrestling in awhile, which is ironic since he keeps the balls juggled in the air by employing so many old school hackneyed schticks. Eventually the Dream Will Be Over and he'll be the devil incarnate again but I'm here for the extremely long build to that day. Starks vs Yuta was a nothing match but was inoffensive. I liked all the pre show matches. Mox is funnier on commentary than I would have expected. I loved the debut at the end. Had a big time feel they need right now in light of the dip in ratings and attendance. A short term spike can make itself useful by getting eyes on the product as a whole. EDIT: forgot to mention the four-way, which was as stupid as I expected it to be but not nearly as annoying. Also I've seen a million clusterfuck 4 way tag matches but don't think I've ever seen the spot where the heel team try to win by the one guy pinning their own partner -- that spot made me laugh. My spouse suggested that the other three teams came up with it and decided the Ass Boys were the only two dumb enough to believably pull it off, which also made me laugh. Nice of Penta to do a job here.

She was limping too when she got up, I was worried she might have to miss the ppv over it.

Plus he went into that impromptu Dizzee Rascal recitation in his one promo, which seems pretty unchav. Although I'm from Hamilton ON and have no idea what a chav is anyway but I'm assuming it's something similar to a douchebag.

How long have they been with New Japan anyway? I remember they were a big deal in Noah awhile back which would have been the last time I gave them much thought. I was disappointed because I thought they said BADBOY Hido would be joining them at first.

Plus maybe a singles push for Toa Liona, who continues to look awesome. Few other random Collision thoughts (from what I watched, which was about 2/3rds of the show): ZSJ is a really fun promo but holy hell was putting him in the commentary booth (especially with Nigel to banter with) an unwelcome distraction in the main. I made it about 2 mins into this one before tapping out, also factoring in that I can't watch more then one Kyle Fletcher match in a two-day span so I'm storing my patience for the ppv. Julia Hart looked great again tonight. Up until now I would have thought it was a terrible idea to take the belt off Stat but Julia's having really good matches consistently and the crowd seems to have formed a consensus to get behind her, so it might be time to strike while the iron's hot. I rag on the Righteous all the time because their gimmick and promos are so cringey (plus, unlike Dutch, Vincent isn't very good in the ring), but even I was feeling for them out there trying to hype this match with MJF and just getting zero reaction from the crowd until the go-away "STFU" chant started. I think it's going to be even uglier tonight at the ppv, although at least the match will have some heat because people will want to see Max beat them. The Misery-inspired hobbling board bit at the end was pretty stupid too, and uncomfortably dark in the context of a storyline that has allowed room for a lot of comedy. This push has clearly been a failed experiment, and in both their defences I don't think there was anything the Righteous or Tony Khan could have done differently, I just think outside of a fair-sized but relatively small cult following (pun intended) the crowd doesn't really want to see these guys, so it's better to keep them on ROH/somewhere lower in the mid-card. Also in regard to that match, damn if the two dudes the Righteous squashed didn't look like Noah-era Kobashi and Akiyama for a hot second when the camera first showed them. I like how between first RUT and now NUGENIX we've had not one but two sleazy testo supplement companies buy up advertising time during Collison. Between the devil ninja intrigue and all these cryptic allusions to The New Era beginning, I gotta admit I'm pretty excited in a very mark-y to see what transpires at Wrestledream and over the next few weeks of tv and press calls.

Maybe I'm letting my imagination run away but my immediate thought when Callis and Nana were conspiring is that Hangman vs Swerve is going to be a double turn. Hangman joins Callis because he resents Omega already forgetting about him to team with Ibushi and Jericho; Callis scores a huge emotional gain over Omega by having one of his closest allies/most experienced rivals join his Family,; Nana sacrifices Swerve to the Callis Family because they offer him a bribe and he's all about the money; Swerve and Hangman both get fresh coats of paint and Swerve can lose in Seattle because it will make everyone want to see him get his revenge (plus now that they've confirm Darby is main eventing they can send everyone home happy when he beats Christian).

I wish they had just gone with Moxley's "Tall, Dark & Sexy" nickname for Takeshita instead of "the Alpha".

Weirdly enough I found those GI JOE videos elsewhere during my undergrad but I did get introduced to the below hilarity via someone sharing it in on DVDVR around the same time (so like 2005? I remember Taue had just won the GHC title. We didn't know how good we had it.) https://youtu.be/bq1_6D9QS9Y?si=tg1QcB4fzOlkLorx

I have a feeling the "handicap" match at the PPV will somehow be worked in a way to involve constant skullduggery and crutch-shots from the injured Cole. I may think the Righteous stink, but TK seems fairly invested in them and isn't gonna let Max dance all over both of them at once (at least I don't think he will). Alvarez's theory last night that they inserted the Righteous into this slot last minute instead of the Kingdom because Cole got hurt is bonkers, especially coming from a guy who has been covering wrestling for a living for ages. The Righteous being pushed for that match was telegraphed weeks ago when they started showing up on AEW instead of ROH and beating people. The Kingdom vs BTYBB is clearly still in the "latter part of a long tease" period. We even have the precedent of BTYBB vs Dark Order (and to a certain extent, Aussie Open) to establish that Max and Cole fight random, lower ranked teams on ppv. I don't have an especially logical mind for wrestling but this one just seems like a no-brainer "this was the plan for the beginning" scenario.

Would that also mean Punk would have 3 straight clean singles wins over Ricky?