dorfus malorfus

I started reading this thread midway through page 3 and thought the discussion about spamming the word "boom" was a dig at Cole.

It's been years now and I still have a hard time not thinking Jim Valley is super racist for saying Kento Miyahara "is maybe a little too much like Tanahashi." They literally look and wrestle significantly different from one another. On a slightly less sordid note, Double J put over TNA pretty hard on Dynamite. I know nobody here wants to see it, but do we think some of the recently released TNA lifers like Rhino are going to show up to work with Jarett en route to his quest for Moxley's title? This is the same company that's booked Gangrel twice now for two different programs.

I liked that Mercedes cut a celebratory promo just for the hell of it. Not every promo needs to end with a confrontation. I could have lived without the backstage Mariah May segment though. I'm still not really sure I get the whole idea that she's a future star. She's got a lot of presence but her actual matches are usually just "solid", and as a promo she's one of the company's absolute dirt-worst (somewhere between O'Reilly and whichever Young Buck has the gravelly voice).

https://ibb.co/fScq7Jt

If we get Swerve and Bowens as tag champs feuding with Ricochet & Caster and Lashley & Shelton I'll be happy. Would totally rejuvenate the tag division and play off all the old Swerve vs Acclaimed stuff in interesting ways.

I was mostly joking when I compared Swerve and Ricochet to the Jimmy and Rick storyline from Degrassi but Ricochet going full tilt murderous heel while keeping his glasses on the entire time legit has me wondering if Tony Khan had Rick in mind the whole time. Awesome sequence that made me care about a guy I thought I didn't want on tv (Ricochet). Honestly I would rather see Christian vs Jarrett headline All In then another Jay White main event. I was really hoping he was out of the title picture after he took the fall at the PPV. Hopefully he just wins this gauntlet, loses to Moxley, then becomes a final boss for midcard babyfaces. I'll applaud White's business sense; he was a handpicked guy in a super hot promotion during a period when they could do no wrong, then knew when to jump ship before people could figure out he was never any good (and never even over, to boot). At least Tony Khan had enough sense to not sign Iibushi too while he was ravenously snapping up New Japan fool's gold (oh wait...). Overall I thought this show was really fun, looked great, felt fresh, and never dragged.

I wish AJPW would sign him and reunite him and Abe and just let the Astronauts run wild in the tag division.

I think they should have Copeland pin Mox clean in the trios and immediately announce the title match for two weeks from now on Dynamite. If they pop a big rating and the feud seems to have legs they can always run it back on ppv. No sense dragging it out for a month when they're already hampered by declining ratings and attendance. When I think of the days when this promotion was HOT I think about the great matches they were regularly "giving away" on Wednesday night TV (Omega vs Danielson, both Hangman vs Danielson title matches, Punk vs MJF in Chicago...hell, Sammy's TNT title win over Miro felt like a real big deal at the time and that wasn't on a ppv either!). I think one can point to the Punk injury and the build to the first Forbidden Door as the period when they started running rote matches with fairly predictable finishes on tv and saving too much for PPV. Garcia vs Briscoe sounds awesome but I hope Garcia's next feud is with MJF so he can finally get his win back and maybe elevate himself and the TNT title in the process. Orange vs Hangman should be great and I'd like to see that one spin out into a long term feud. Also feels like we should get Orange vs Yuta soon in a big singles match to wrap up that feud (with Yuta winning clean). Also speaking of hurrying up and resolving feuds it's probably time for Caster to join the Hurt Syndicate tonight. I thought the Acclaimed already officially broke up back at Full Gear.

Rambling NYE hot take: At the risk of my answer to everything being "just copy All Japan booking," I gotta say there's only one company in the world that actually protects under-30 guys and hotshots world titles on new talent the moment they have momentum and it's post-Mutoh AJPW. That being said, they're also perennially struggling to grow their audience beyond the diehards, so I don't know if it's a feasible business model to the general fanbase but it feels like it would satisfy the armchair bookers a lot more than just endlessly protecting the same already-established guys. It's also a little different because AEW doesn't have a dojo system so their "homegrown" talent is usually just US indy guys who never worked NJPW or ROH before signing with AEW which furthers the issue of how can AEW promote "new faces" if everyone they sign is only signed in the first place because they were already buzzworthy from working a different promotion. I'd like to see 6 or 7 truly "built from the ground up" guys like Hook on top within the next two years. It seems the route with the most integrity in light of the post-kayfabe era we live and complain in.

Was just about to post about this myself. Very happy about the result. Shame the crowd was so quiet for it, especially considering how hot they were during the tag league finals. All Asia tag title match from today is a MOTYC everyone should scope out, though it helps if you've been following the Anzai/Inoue rivalry. Great show overall.

Two people's brains were never the same after that Okada title run: Shibata's, and Dave's.

I waa expecting any of the following turns/swerves and for better or worse none of them happened: Bennett and Taven Roddy Kyle Wardlow return either as a heel again with MJF or as a tweener who beats up both guys DMD return as a heel with MJF now that her and Cole are split irl I guess I wouldn't have been shocked if Bobby Fish showed up either. What a weird and confusing feud this turned out to be.

Dave is definitely nuts with the Ospreay stuff. I do think he used to be very measured but all the high-end NJPW matches in 2017 sent him into some kind of workrate equivalent of an acid trip he's never come out of. Him talking about wrestlers just being stronger, faster, and more athletic now--and thus "better"--and the older stuff looking lame in comparison was veering uncomfortably into sounding like a eugenics argument.

What exactly happened at the beginning of the main event with Shafir and the briefcase? The announcers made it sound like something got botched and they had to break the handcuffs but I think it mostly happened off camera, unless I just missed it. I thought Okada pulling the ear (because Ricochet is bald) was very funny.

I was trying to think of what the correct answer was but this is definitely it. Ospreay/Fletcher wasn't even the best opening match in AEW ppv history. Off the top of my head, MJF vs Darby blew away last night's opener.

Dear lord. That is INTENSE. My two favorite promotions are AJPW and NOAH but I don't think I would ever sleep if I was beholden to their live-on-the-air schedule. Hopefully the switch to Netflix and Max gives you UK folks some leeway in terms of watching during waking hours.

That would make sense re Mox needing to take it home early. Can't remember the last time an AEW ppv ended at 1130 EST.

You should dig up Kidd's old twitter thread where he's demanding AEW protect Nick Wayne from what Kidd perceives will be the inevitable false accusations of rape from lying females. It was such a bad look he and Ospreay concocted a whole PR campaign where Kids commuted himself to a mental institution to rehab his image (ie, he's not an abuser, he just had a MH crisis).

Even more egregious is that Dave uncritically supporting Ospreay and normalizing "business as usual" praise for his (shitty) matches all throughout the speaking out controversy is what made everyone so quick to accept the allegations against Ospreay being "walked back" (when in fact they were never walked back even a little, the promotion just confirmed that the communication they received from the venue saying that Ospreay wouldn't work the show if Pollyanna was on it came from the venue and not from Ospreay himself -- that is, the communication didn't come from Ospreay but it was still Ospreay threatening the venue with reprisal if they booked Pollyanna). The fact people these days act like none of that ever happened or that Ospreay has somehow matured from his years of covering up SA and badgering women on twitter is really disgusting. Knowing that Gabe "Don't Accuse My Friends of Rape or Else I Might Kill Myself" Kidd is probably going to be ALL ELITE~! the moment his NJPW contract is up makes me glad that my interest in keeping up with this promotion is already waning to an all-time low.

Dave decreed this morning that Ospreay now occupies three more places in wrestling history: best opening match on a ppv ever, best single-night performance ever, and "best second-best match on a ppv ever". I continue to wonder if Dave actually believes these things or if endlessly digging his heels in deeper is just a side effect of him being so mercilessly harangued by trolls who are even more nuts and obstinate than he is.

Was Veda Scott sitting behind the announce team during the pre-show (orange t-shirt)? I would have liked this ppv better if it wasn't $50 CAD. A nothing main event with a "surprise return" everyone already knew about is a depressing way to end a ppv when your attendance is already dwindling. I was hoping Jay White was only in this match to look stupid and eat a pin so at least I got that wish granted. I enjoyed both CC semifinals way more than I expected I would, given the four guys involved. Ospreay working a shorter match knowing he had to go hard again in the finals greatly reduced the amount of bullshit him and Fletcher tried to do (or at least forced them to cram it all into a shorter match and dial back the theatrics and melodrama). Okada doing the stone faced grumpy Jumbo stuff in the Ricochet match was great. Post-match with Swerve was great too and I like that the idea that Ricochet is a dork who gets pushed too far and goes full-blown deadly heel (a la Rick vs Jimmy on Degrassi). Mercedes vs Stat was great again but they are out of their minds if they think saving the title change for Willow is worth sacrificing a big win for Statlander at this point. Hopefully they change their plans and have Stat get a third shot and finally win. MJF vs Cole was way more entertaining than it had any right to be (100% thanks to MJF just being a cheap heat seeking troll the entire match and calling Rosa's dad "Yosemite Sam"). The post-match was without hyperbole the worst post-match angle I've ever seen in my life. 5 of the most unlikeable guys on your roster getting 5 vs 1 heat on the heel everybody wants to cheer. They should just make this the "curtain call" moment for the Undisputed Kingdom and ship them off to ROH full time and let them be happy they had this moment. I hated Ospreay vs Okada. I thought these guys had lousy chemistry in NJPW and they had lousy chemistry tonight. Crowd didn't buy any of the near falls (including the first Rainmaker, which they should really have protected better) until maybe a couple before the finish. I did enjoy Okada winning as I feel like all his AEW wins thus far have been weirdly low-profile and protecting him will give him and Omega a better chance of drawing at All In (where they're presumably going to finally meet, based on the photo op of them standing in the ring with the poster on the tron). Last thing I'll complain about: QT Marshall should not be wrestling on tv. Covering his face when Jarrett went for the enzeguri then BREAKING HIS FALL WITH HIS HANDS when he took the Stroke for the finish...are his delusions of grandeur finally at the point where he's protecting his face for potential acting roles? This show reminded me a lot of last year's All Out, Full Gear and World's End, in that there was some really good wrestling but they felt like decidedly "b shows" (Wrestledream 2023 looked like that on paper but the awesome Christian/Darby main event coupled with the Copeland debut ended up elevating it). I know it's hard to run PPVs every month and still make them all feel important but as someone else already pointed out everything after Omega's return felt really bushleague.

Agreed. Somehow I ended up liking it considerably better than the Ishii/Ino match everyone raved about.

Further to my above post, they should have called it the "season finale".

It would be funny if they had all the heels who were typically relegated to Rampage refusing to believe it's actually cancelled and insisting "it's all a work" a la certain segments of the WCW locker room circa Jan 2001.

Don't watch the actual match but the handshake at the end of Okada/Shelton is fun and might provide an important tease/context if Okada goes full babyface by the end of tonight.