dorfus malorfus

I am also returning from self-imposed social media exile to comment on Punk. I think it's mostly sad. He was one of the few guys who I thought always delivered on TV and wrestled in a less bombastic style that I wish were more the norm in AEW rather than rapidly becoming more and more of a fringe thing (and will no doubt be even further marginalized once Ospreay signs and as Nick Wayne comes of age). I can't fault TK for it since the audience is clearly on board, and whenever I hear the crowd getting jazzed for obnoxious "Too sweet woot woot" or "Aussie Aussie Aussie" chants -- in support of repulsive dorks like Juice and Kyle Fletcher -- I can't help but think we're entering the Woodstock 99 era of AEW where the entertainment sucks but the real heels are the fans. Maybe Mox/OC will blow the roof off the place tonight and set a corrective vibe in motion. That said, I'm also glad they finally canned Punk. I think just about everyone who has followed this story from the beginning can relate to having a toxic coworker, particularly one with seniority/clout, and the people who can't relate to that situation are the dimbulbs portraying Punk as a victim. Older talent, regardless of where they've been, who they were there with, and how much they (theoretically) drew should be grateful to be working in such a physically demanding business at their age, not tapping people on the shoulder and barking advice in their ear, and certainly not micromanaging the locker room. Why anyone needed a fresh example of why this never works in a post-Hogan world, post-Nash world, post-Mutoh burying everyone in All Japan for years until Suwama debuted and he completely changed his approach and pushed new talent world, is completely beyond me. His firing sets a great precedent, and to me part of the tragedy is that it's taken so many decades to get to the point where a guy of his name value actually gets canned for shitty behaviour. Hopefully people start talking about what went down with Punk in the context of past eras where Shawn, the Steiners, Bradshaw, etc etc etc did whatever they wanted for years and years with impunity (and in Shawn's case have had their whole history rewritten as some kind of long redemption story as if he's any less of an moron now). I was probably always going to order the PPV tonight at the last minute but like a lot of folks here I'm much more intrigued now after watching Collison, both because of Danielson as the last minute replacement and to see the potential chaos/crowd revolts/if the vibe in 8 man tag is gonna be off. I know some people liked it and admittedly I can't stand Jay White but Dax seemed to be sleepwalking a bit through the main event last night (which isn't a dig if he was--his friend did just get fired). As a huge FTR fan, and even moreso as someone who envisions a future golden age of AEW where Brody King is the top heel and holds the world title for years and years, I'm hoping the few vocal members of the Punk camp can reintegrate and join everyone else in turning the oil tanker around.

How about this show kind sucked even without Danielson's stupid seizure spot? Ospreay and Kenny continuing to do their absolutely nightmarish, masturbatory version of a Shawn vs Shawn guitar battle of a match actually makes me think I should just stop ordering this ppv every year so long as Ospreay is gonna keep being on it. For the record we had: Bret/Shawn spots to get cheap heat in Canada...in 2023. A Benoit spot. A Tiger Driver 91 spot in a match between two guys who wrestle nothing like Benoit but who both practically define the term "weeboo". This crap was like every shitty overblown 2004 US "strong style" Indy match thrown into a blender. People who mark out for Ospreay should actually be ashamed of themselves as human beings--much like his great precursor HBK, his shitty self indulgent wrestling style is just a grimy mirror bend up to his shitty IRL behavior, and both guys have become lionized by people who ooh and ahh at explosions and fast moving objects. This match absolutely blew and was somehow also boring on top of being filled with dumb contrived spots and gore with no believable hatred between the two guys, who are obviously both very aware of how much they can exploit one another as an excuse to cram more of their own shit into creepy wankfest. Tanahashi looked really bad, tonight and on Collision. I know it's hard to come to terms with these things but he's not "working smart" at this point --hes hardly working at all, just counting on his opponents to work around him. Its vad when MJF's cheap heat insults actually come off like tough but fair appraisals. This felt like a Legends Match where both guys knew the one guy was only good for like 1 or 2 bumps so they killed some time getting heat before going home. Which is fine and in the right context can be great but it's not a ppv title match. Punk vs Kojima absolutely overdelivered and I really liked it. Kojima looks and works fantastic for his age. Punk feeling out the crowd and figuring how out how his character will react to their hostility in real time is compelling. Would have been nice if even one of our expert broadcasters could have pointed out that aside from the Mongolian Chop, Punk's actual finisher the Anaconda Vice was also lifted from Tenzan. But maybe that's asking too much. Great storytelling, and they even convinced me Kojima might win at one point even though he obviously wasn't going to. I thought that four way and Sanada/JB were both good but ended abruptly to make room for longer matches that I didn't like. JB's heel turn was solid though. I really liked the wild 10 man tag, particularly the Eddie vs Moxley stuff. I am a big enough Ishii mark that I still think he should be IWGP champ right now instead of Sanada, but even I don't understand him beating Yuta. Wheeler is coming off pinning Omega and Bandido and kicking out of the buckshot lariat. Now he's jobbing to Ishii. Ricky Starks did a friggin second job to Jay White last night. For a company ostensibly centred around the idea of promoting new exciting talent there's an awful lot of austerity in terms of protecting the same guys for years and years while treating the new guys like chumps once they finally start getting main event programs. Speaking of which: Willow/Toni Storm was good but I would have just done the title change. Felt like a finish we've seen a million times and Willow shouldn't be losing to anyone atm. Toni Storm is very much "just another person on the roster" and they should have put the belt on Ruby instead of her once Hayter got hurt. I hate the Righteous and they were on the pre-show. They didn't wrestle but I had to hear their awful theme and watch their cringey acting. This all factors in to my negative appraisal. The Naito Jericho six man was mostly just me worrying about Sting but I got the feeling they ran short on time or something (or Darby and Sting maybe both got hurt?). Fine for what it was and all six guys looked good but it never really got off the ground. The Darby/Suzuki stuff made me want a singles match between them. Main event just never really connected, even before the stupid fake seizure thing. Like if you described the match on paper it would sound like they did everything right but I just didn't get any chemistry between these two beyond a very precise and impressive exchange of holds and demonstrations of moves, running through creative spots, etc. Crowd really wanted to feel it but even the chants sounded a little half hearted. Then that spot that no one should have to dismiss their negative feelings about just because it took place amidst "5 hours of great wrestling". Remember last year when Forbidden Door had a crummy card and bad lead-in tv but ended up being really good? This was the opposite of that. It had a great card, great tv for the past month, and then we got a bunch of rushed matches in between two long matches that were both, in their own way, narcissistic shitshows.

I said that I, personally, watch once a year, dum-dum. I never said nor implied the company was crumbling or that the ratings were bad.

The populist arguments about durr they drew over 81k they're a 20 billion dollar company are so funny. As if Marvel movies are the best films made each year and beyond criticism because of how much they gross. Why even bother consuming art or sports or entertainment if you're beholden to the logic that as long as it's the most popular and highest grossing it must be "the best"? Is McDonald's your favorite food because they have the most locations worldwide?

What part of what I wrote insists that everyone feels the same way as me? Why don't you sober up and get some sleep, it might ease the senseless hostility of your posts a little.

I was thinking of this too oddly enough. On that night I thought it was a 5* match and that the right guy won. In hindsight maybe Naito should have won (I know everyone thought so at the time), but I think at the time it was more important to continue Okada's dominance and save it for Omega. Where they screwed up was giving away Omega's first win over Okada in the G1 and not waiting until the next Dome show to change the title. Tonight's match kind of stunk except for the epic feel of the whole thing. I don't even really mind Reigns winning except that it seems like they don't know where they're going with his reign which makes it hard to commit to keeping up with the storylines in between major shows. There's probably something to the idea of Sami winning the Rumble and getting another shot at Mania 40 (assuming the Rock hasn't already committed), but that's a lot of television and ppvs to fill in the meantime.

Exactly. This is also why lately the only WWE match I watch each year is the Mania main event (as long as I can stream it somewhere/watch it at my brother's house). It's exciting seeing if Roman will lose or not but when he wins it just makes me not want to follow again until next year's Mania when the stakes are back up.

They're saving it for Orton next year

Lmao what is even the point of WWE

I don't think the main event in itself makes much of a difference with AEW ppv buys. They didn't even have an All Out main event until about a week before the show last year and it still did decent (with a whack undercard). For better or worse their ppvs are sold on the strength of the brand at any given time. That being said, and as someone who genuinely thinks Jungle Boy kind of sucks, there's a much more viable route to building a hot ppv main event with him and MJF as opposed to Sammy, who is probably still six months to a year away from being rehabbed as a babyface (if that's even possible at this point). I've argued this point to death but the only sure way to actually kill this company is to not put young homegrown talent in ppv main events. If the only guys allowed to main event a pov remain MJF, Hangman, and then all the ex WWE guys like Danielson, Moxley, etc, then there's nowhere for AEW to grow, and you've educated the fans to support the status quo and deny the possibility of new names ascending. Forget the austerity booking in WCW; look at how fast the Attitude Era fizzled out once they ran every possible variation of Austin, Rock, HHH, Taker, Angle. Building new stars isn't always "organic" or pretty, sometimes you have to sacrifice 5% of a buyrate here and there in order to establish a changing of the guard.

A general historical question for this Friday afternoon... Underrated/unsung gaijin who worked Japan for years but never get celebrated the way, say, a Hansen or a Vader do. Who comes to mind for everyone? I have a couple personal favs from AJPW that are not likely to be first on anyone else's mind so I'll throw them out there. George Hines: he was solid as the Eagle teaming with the Patriot but he really came into his own after the Noah split. Vader went with Misawa, Ace went to WWF, so Hines gave himself the somewhat thankless job of working super hard every night in spite of never really getting much of a push in order to help hold the midcard together. In hindsight I always wished they had done more with him and Shawn Hernandez as a team, as opposed to Doc & Rotundo (much as I love those guys)...they added some fresh faces to the roster during that tough period but were still very much in that classic King's Road mold of American heels. Giant Kimala II: Honestly, this dude was way more athletic and had better stamina than a lot of guys his size. I guess his most high profile thing was teaming with Izumida as a comedy team in the 1996 RWTL but he could go pretty hard when the opportunity arose. There's a tag match probably still floating out there somewhere on YouTube or Dailymotion where Kea and Kimala II take on Hines and Wolf Hawkfield and all four guys are definitely out there trying to show there's still a viable AJPW undercard in the post-Noah world...worth seeking out as a showcase for both the guys Ive listed here. Anybody else have darkhorse favorites?

Also since Finlay has come up a couple times and with Forbidden Door coming up I think this is an Aew-adjacent topic, isnt it depressing that Gedo hasn't been able to get away from the Fergal Devitt BC leader gimmick since...when did that start, 2011 or something? We've gone though Devitt, AJ, Omega (all with success), and then to the more bland Jay White and now to the even blander David Finlay. I'm sure Hangman was destined for the spot if he hadn't jumped. It's like if the history of DX leadership was Shawn to HHH to Waltman to Jericho to Ziggler to Seth Rollins to...I don't know, Matt Riddle or something. Time to either put a hoss in that role just to break the mold a bit of just disband the group already.

My dream is the Miz jumps to AEW and this is his gimmick.

He is literally the worst. The voice, the facials, the Aces & Eights outfit. It carries over into his work too via his selling and mannerisms. He's the only guy on the roster I just ffwd through whenever I'm not watching live, no matter who he's working with.

Wasn't the last Blood and Guts like 6 vs 6 or 7 vs 7 anyway? Definitely not a hard and fast rule that they can't just do 4 vs 4.

Did everyone else assume Danielson was going to be gone for months and months and then return as the most super babyface ever? Although if that happened he'd pretty much have to fight MJF again to try to get revenge and I don't think they want to go back to that feud anytime soon so I'm happy with how this played out. Only real caveat for me was Danielson's dumb "you're everything that's wrong with wrestling!!" line to Omega. We have enough counterproductive shooty promos on a weekly basis in AEW without framing this feud as shooters vs video game wrestlers.

True, and especially since I have a feeling MJF also won't be on Forbidden Door. I just get the impression Max's "Hollywood Hogan run" is something he and TK have already committed to so I don't really envision him actually dropping it until All Out or later (like maybe a year or longer). Whereas Hangman I don't think they ever really had a long-term plan in mind.

I liked the show! Quick thoughts before I try to stay awake long enough to read another 20 pages of Dreiser: I liked the MJF/Jungle Boy segment. Jungle Boy still sucks on the mic but he is hanging in there and taking every bullet with stoicism. This crowd was rude and bawdy and I hated them. The segment made me want to see MJF vs Jungle Boy headline the ppv, even though I don't really like Jungle Boy much these days (and will like him even less when he's fully Jack Perry, sigh). I suspect Darby is getting the shot at Double or Nothing since he looked up at the sign and everything last week but I would rather JB go first and Darby get his shot at All Out wherein enough time has passed that it's halfway feasible MJF might drop the title. Hoping Anna Jay will come back as a face and kick MJF in the nuts, it seems like the right way to revamp her after such an ugly injury. Plus she was so endearing as a face in the Dark Order. I also really liked the Danielson heel turn. Danielson vs Omega II sounds like a very good use of Omega right now. BCC vs Elite Blood & Guts sounds like [Daniel Plainview voice:] one goddamned hell of a show. I cracked up at Schiavone delivering soul crushing news to Omega seconds before he steps out to take on the monster Cobb. Come on, Tony. Omega is a big enough goof that I'd bet money on that segment being his idea because I think he took it from the Full House episode where Danny is interviewing a boxer before a championship fight and he ruins the champ's game by asking him about his wife leaving him moments before the title defense. Omega/Cobb was good. They didn't gel well for the first half. The second half was exactly what you'd expect but not in a bad way. Cobb is awesome and AEW should steal him. BCC squashing Dalton and the Boys ruled. Danielson being part of these beatdowns sounds good. Ruby vs Willow was pretty good. It's hard watching Willow get run roughshod like that because, as Tony said, she's such a nice young lady. I feel similarly bad watching when the Acclaimed get beat up. Natural babyface likeability has a home in AEW. I thought OC vs Butcher was the match of the night. Butcher is a personal fav of mine and Orange is a maestro for all the reasons we keep discussing each week. My partner was sad there was no Danhausen because they just listened to the NYT podcast about him. Maybe next week... I'll save the bad for the end. The main event was a WHOLE LOTTA NOTHING but I'm glad Cole is healthy and the celebration with Baker was great. Garcia was on offense way too much, then they went straight to the finish. I can't inherently dismiss it as Cole just getting back into the swing of things since his match with Joe in the Owen tournament finals basically had all the same issues. You know what is one of my least favorite matches of all time? Jericho vs Shawn at WM 19. Guess what I'm not excited for? Jericho vs Shawn's guy 20 years later. I'm glad there was no QTV. Now can we just relegate Juice Robinson to Dark or something? Aside from being the epitome of Just A Guy in the ring, I'd rather they just bring in Enzo if they're set on giving tv time to a guy whose entire promo style is based around being as cringey as possible. Finally my biggest negative: I hope I'm not alone in thinking MJF should never, ever try to get heel heat by cynically implying a babyface is antisemitic ever again (even if it's just in the form of a lame, already-dated Kanye reference).

It's funny because I almost always miss Dark but I managed to tune in once and it just happened to be his match with QT. And I absolutely hate QT and his weird "is this a match for an audience or are you watching me give a completely lifeless step-by-step enactment of what a pro wrestling match is for my trainees" style of pacing and execution. But I really liked the match! I thought: neat, so this Andretti guy is really solid at playing the sprightly, flippy underdog guy, too bad there's already like 20 guys like that on the main roster". Then I see him a few weeks later against Jericho and I start to realize what's about to happen and I'm like uh oh ...

Sorry for going even further off topic but since this thread is already pretty much a free for all: I completely forgot that the Bone Street Krew was even a thing. Was the perk of being a member basically that you wouldn't get fired (that is, as opposed to guaranteeing a push like the Kliq, the BSK basically guaranteed your job security at a time where guys were coming and going like crazy and maybe a ppv appearance at an In Your House or on a Survivor Series team? Not the most notable list of alumni...)?

I'm already scared enough at the prospect of Ospreay's fellow victim-denier-in-arns Gabriel Kidd showing up at some point.

This is so well put and pretty much reflects my feelings, less about Omega specifically, but more about the highly athletic style that has become the new gold standard since Omega and Ibushi became the big WON darlings around 2011 or whenever it really became the prominent "critic's choice" style. This was all I could think about during the Vikingo match last week, just like...are we really pushing for athletic ability alone to be the key metric of determining who deserves praise the most? I seem to be alone in actively hating the Vikingo match so I'll chalk that one up to maybe my needing to revisit it (if everyone is a dummy except you then it almost for sure means you're the dummy is a good rule of thumb for these things), but like...what about that match made people want to see Vikingo again right away? Just all the crazy dives he does? It's weird to me, especially when you have a guy like Bandido who can do all that crazy stuff but still has that super likeable character and is so expressive (also the difference between, say, Rush who oozes scary heel charisma vs Fenix who...goes in there and does all his stuff every match). And more to the point, do we start to disqualify guys like Kingston (or, say, Max Caster for a less extreme example) from high praise because their level of athleticism prevents them from having a "Kenny Omega-level match" in terms of the athletic feats of gravity defiance we've come to expect? I realize these types of arguments are dangerously close to the reactionary Cornette/Disco positions but I see it more like a binary distinction where on the one hand you have morons like Cornette who don't want any innovation and then the people who are basically cool with all different styles but reserve all their highest praise for Omega and Ospreay and people like that. It's the kind of thinking that warped everyone's perspective of the four AJPW pillars where Taue is always seen as the weak link of those four (or five, after Akiyama) but he was actually in a lot of respects the second best wrestler (after Kawada) of the three on many occasions, especially post-1995 when Misawa and Kobashi's stuff got more and more patterned. I think people are starting to tire of the repetitiveness to a certain degree. The shrug reaction to Action Andretti seems to suggest you need more than just the ability to do a standing moonsault to be seen as a (future) star. This post isn't as eloquent as it seemed in my head while I was writing it but basically I like most Omega matches a lot but I think his success is symptomatic of a bigger problem of which Will Ospreay is the final and most extreme manifestation of (the Return of the Repressed where Teddy Hart/DX-era Shawn comes back, is even worse, and main events the Tokyo Dome)

I'm hoping this is indeed what he learned. The television since Full Gear seems to suggest as much, since other than MJF throwing drinks on kids he's mostly focused his singles title pictures on guys he knows aren't gonna go bananas (Danielson, Joe, Wardlow, Hobbs, Orange, Darby, Jungle Boy...Sammy would be the potential exception to the rule there although I'm one of those naive types who chooses to believe Kingston's apology after piefacing him was a genuine acknowledgement that Sammy wasn't really at fault).

Dalton and the Boys are on paper the perfect foil for the BCC right now. With any luck this should end up looking something like, say, Doc, Johnny Ace and Richard Slinger/Johnny Smith vs Tamon Honda (clearly Dalton's spiritual predecessor), Kikuchi and Shiga.