EVA

With Eddie and Penta out of the match for long periods of time, I loved how Stadium Stampede ended up being a showcase for Best Friends, a heart-and-soul act for AEW. Great to see them stand tall in front of 80,000.

During the Elite/BCG 6-man, I couldn’t help noticing how hard Jay and Juice were working Rick Knox to cover for the Elite’s extended teamwork sequences. Details guys.

The only match that really disappointed me was HOB/Acclaimed, mostly due to its formless No Holds Barred stipulation. Never really found a groove. And ended up being the third tag match without tags in a row. RIP “House Rules,” a potentially fun concept that mostly stuck to re-running variations of the same 3 stips: no DQ, Julia banned from ringside, and no stip at all.

Between the Bloodline driving WWE’s business and MJF/Cole being the hottest thing in AEW, it seems that 2020’s wrestling fans are hungry for blunt force melodrama. That’s definitely not my preferred style, but MJF and Cole have a lot of fun with it, and I was really loving MJF/Cole until my old nemesis reared it’s head again: finishing runs built around Panama Sunrise spots—the seemingly inevitable endpoint of any Adam Cole PPV main event.

Oh my god, yes. THAT.

This show was an interesting case study of what old spots people don’t really remember well/care about. The Ole Kick response was pretty tepid, crowd did not buy the Pepsi Plunge as the finish, nobody seemed to remember any of the signature Golden Lover stuff, the Jay/Ibushi showdown spots clearly didn’t get the reaction they expected, Penta Oscuro to crickets, etc.

So he could take it off at the right time.

Boo.

If Emi was held off the show so the Bucks and Jericho could have their own Queen entrance/gear, I am going to become the Joker @just drew

Every time I’m reminded that Rich Rodriguez is coaching at Jacksonville State, I can’t help but chuckle.

I’ve got the YouTube TV quad screen going with UMass/NMST, Ohio/SDST, JSU/SCST, and Vandy/Hawaii. It doesn’t get any better than this. Sicko heaven.

Today in “Football is Scripted,” ND just ran a play-action pass and the camera just stayed on the targeted receiver the whole play, like they knew where the ball was going the whole time. Camera dude not only didn’t bite on the fake, also didn’t even give the QB a second look. That guy knows BAWL.

Aw man. Navy having two guys wide open to convert a 4th down but failing to do so because they ran into each other is the most Navy thing. And also why I love this stupid sport.

BAWL

Michigan needs to show some life in the passing game before I can pick them for the championship, but they’ve clearly surpassed Ohio State as #1 in the B1G, and if you’re inclined to think it’s unlikely that Georgia 3-peats…Michigan is the clearest, safest choice. Conversely, this is the first year in a long while (ever?) that I see a lot of media leaving Alabama out of their CFP projections. Historically, when people start projecting that the Bama run is over, that’s the precise moment Saban gets their ass.

A billion different things happen on AEW TV every week. It would not have been hard to carve out 1 minute for a couple of weeks to sell Emi’s Mercury fandom and Wembley dream, then book a 3 minute match on Zero Hour. And I don’t even know that she necessarily needed to have her own match. But some kind of spot of the card. If I was booking the show, I 100% would’ve had a goofy Planet Jarrett tag of some kind where I could run in cameos from cult favorites on the roster to get them on the show and just have fun. Emi doing her Freddie thing and bumping Karen Jarrett would’ve popped me, and probably 80,000 people.

I mean, it won’t matter at all, but that’s an absolutely insane system. Biff Poggi never woulda let that shit fly.

I think it’s great that Ospreay realized that all the bruv’ing annoys people and is now leaning all the way into it. That’s called being a worker, bruv.

To me, this is probably a bigger indicator of AEW losing its way than a lot of things people complain about. Letting Emi do her Freddie Mercury bit at Wembley is such as easy win. How do you fuck that up. Never would’ve missed that in 2019.

This Week 0 line-up is definitely a For Sickos Only affair, but god as my witness, I am that sicko. UMass/New Mexico State in PRIMETIME on *THE* ESPN is absolutely wild, and I’ve gotta watch at least a quarter of it to be part of sicko history. It also seems very fitting of the Last Days of the PAC-12 that they could have this Saturday all to themselves as a showcase for their Heisman candidate and potential CFP contender, but instead the game is stuck on the P12 Network no one gets. I also think Notre Dame vs. Navy could be a bit closer than the 20-point spread suggests. As we saw in last year’s Dublin game, this can be a tricky trip to navigate and have your team prepared for to start the year, as Northwestern got their one and only win of the season, in part, by being better prepared than Nebraska. When I think “being prepared,” I like to think of a team like Navy. But if Sam Hartman really is the key to unlocking ND’s offense after all these years, it very well could be over by halftime.

The Cole/MJF stuff was threaded through the show brilliantly. The Jericho-Ospreay thing was shockingly good. But what happened with AR Fox was straight TRASH. Fox/Swerve was really working. If he can’t make Wembley, fine, but don’t just throw away the whole act and then have the faces just forget the whole thing in 3 minutes. Terrible. Christian is a poet though.

Santana hurt his knee and decided to make it chest day all year.

Those are my exact reasons. He’ll probably be great again but just won’t get the volume of carries needed to have Heisman numbers.

THANK YOU FOR THE BAWL THREAD @RIPPA

To really answer Brian’s question now: I think Drake Maye is gonna put up big numbers, but I don’t think UNC is gonna be good enough to have him in the conversation. Rest of the team is very mediocre, and I don’t see them getting to the conference championship in the new, division-less ACC. Not a Pickett/Pitt situation developing, I don’t think. I definitely think Jordan Travis at FSU is the most likely candidate out of the ACC. I think Marvin Harrison Jr is set up well to be a serious contender. Very similar to Devonta Smith in 2020, in the sense that if he’s just as productive, or even better, with a 1st year stater at QB, he’s going to overcome the QB bias and get a lot more of the credit himself. Obviously, if JJ McCarthy shows significant improvement and Carson Beck outperforms Stetson Bennett, both of those guys could get the “QB on the best team” run if Michigan and Georgia play up to expectations. I don’t think Blake Corum is going to make a serious run at it this year for a couple different reasons. If Notre Dame is back in playoff contention, Sam Hartman is going to be a big factor in that story, so he’ll very naturally be in the Heisman convo. It’s basically been 20 years since ND has had a legit top-tier QB, and I don’t know if we really remember what it was like when ND had an all-caps GUY at QB. The media will go nuts.