AEW - MAY 2023

[Coletti]

Btw how have we not yet gotten Danielson vs Blue Panther or Negro Navarro or something?! Somebody call TK!

[Phantom Lord]

4 minutes ago, christopher.annino said:

Btw how have we not yet gotten Danielson vs Blue Panther or Negro Navarro or something?! Somebody call TK!

I think Bryan wanted to do a mask vs. hair match with Blue Panther a while back just so he could shave his head and beard off.

[odessasteps]

I'd think Bryan vs Casas would be most likely, since Casas isn't in CMLL at the moment. 

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

Amateur Style Match: Manabu Nakanishi vs Jake Hager

Vikingo, Bandido & Komander vs Kaientai DX vs Blood Generation

JD Drake vs Fuminori Abe *

 

AEW Women's Title: Hayter vs Prime Aja Kong 

AEW Tag Titles: FTR vs HDA

FTW Title: Hook vs Kikuchi

AEW Trios Titles: HoB vs Zeus, Bodyguard, & Tigers Mask *

IGPW US Title: Kenny vs Super Porky

IWGP Jr Title: Hiromu vs Fenix *

NEVER Openweight: David Finlay Jr vs prime Sr.

KOPW: Taichi vs NOAH-era stoic gunslinger Misawa 

NJPW TV: ZSJ vs Billy Robinson

ROH World: Claudio vs MiSu *

ROH Women's: Athena vs KANA 

ROH TV: Eddie Kingston vs 1990 feisty Kobashi

ROH Pure: Shibata vs Volk Han

ROH Trios: Embassy vs Tenryu, Hashimoto, and Ishii

TBS Title: Statlander vs Jaguar *

All Atlantic: Orange vs Prime Liger

TNT: Wardlow vs Hobbs vs Strong Man vs Bear Boulder (edit: vs Jeff Cobb) *

AEW World: Danielson vs Negro Casas *

 

* = could actually happen. Come on, Tony Khan!

Edited May 8, 2023 by Gordlow

[Elsalvajeloco]

8 hours ago, Sparkleface said:

Jamie Hayter vs. circa-1998 Mariko Yoshida or mid-1990s Hikari Fukuoka.

I see you and raise you Yoshiko Tamura (whether it's AJW/NEO/J'd youngster era or early to mid 90s Hot Girl era) and Azumi Hyuga (when she was working on her real name in JWP would also be fine). Hell, it doesn't even have to be necessarily be just against Hayter. I would take Athena, Toni Storm, Ruby, Emi (she already had an absolute slugfest with Tamura).Shida (Tamura is credited with training her along with Emi), and maybe even Britt.

If there was any two women that were well before their time even by Joshi standards, it's definitely those two.

Sidenote: On Yoshiko Tamura and Tanny Mouse's Youtube channel, for some reason, Tamura and Hyuga recreate the opening moments of their infamous 2006 60 minute draw while blindfolded. All this takes place in Tamura and I believe Tanny's place of business as well, a very tiny studio. If someone who knows the language can fill me in, that would be greatly appreciated. I am going to hazard a guess and say they did to prove they can still do after 16 going on 17 years.

They also have a video of those two (Tamura and Hyuga) now in the Ice Ribbon gym playing Twister while trying integrate aspects of their match. That one I am not even trying to guess on.

[Zimbra]

Thought of another one: Danielson vs Alexander Otsuka.  Or Ishikawa.  Or Ikeda.

I'd also like to see the alternate universe where Wheeler Yuta and Daniel Garcia's bookings were reversed and we got Yoots as the smarmy Jericho suck up and Garcia as the cheapshotting punk-ass with the BCC.

[Coletti]

38 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

Thought of another one: Danielson vs Alexander Otsuka.  Or Ishikawa.  Or Ikeda.

I'd also like to see the alternate universe where Wheeler Yuta and Daniel Garcia's bookings were reversed and we got Yoots as the smarmy Jericho suck up and Garcia as the cheapshotting punk-ass with the BCC.

Holy shit, gimme Mox vs Battlearts Daisuke Ikeda! 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

39 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I see you and raise you Yoshiko Tamura (whether it's AJW/NEO/J'd youngster era or early to mid 90s Hot Girl era) and Azumi Hyuga (when she was working on her real name in JWP would also be fine). Hell, it doesn't even have to be necessarily be just against Hayter. I would take Athena, Toni Storm, Ruby, Emi (she already had an absolute slugfest with Tamura).Shida (Tamura is credited with training her along with Emi), and maybe even Britt.

If there was any two women that were well before their time even by Joshi standards, it's definitely those two.

Sidenote: On Yoshiko Tamura and Tanny Mouse's Youtube channel, for some reason, Tamura and Hyuga recreate the opening moments of their infamous 2006 60 minute draw while blindfolded. All this takes place in Tamura and I believe Tanny's place of business as well, a very tiny studio. If someone who knows the language can fill me in, that would be greatly appreciated. I am going to hazard a guess and say they did to prove they can still do after 16 going on 17 years.

They also have a video of those two (Tamura and Hyuga) now in the Ice Ribbon gym playing Twister while trying integrate aspects of their match. That one I am not even trying to guess on.

Really, Jamie Hayter against the late-1990s/early-2000s joshi all-stars would be a bunch of fun. I picked Jamie because she's a great base and works well against smaller wrestlers... as much as I love a good hoss fight, I really love the dynamic of power vs. speed or power vs. grappler. So in addition to your two picks, add the following to my wishlist:

- 1998-era Candy Okutsu (before her back falls apart again)
- Yumi Fukawa prior to the ARS'98 moonsault botches scrambling her brains (if you don't know what I'm talking about, dear lord don't look it up, it's gross)
- pre-2000 Sugar Sato or Chikayo Nagashima
- Hiromi Yagi of any era

And if you need a slugfest, I always had a soft spot for Misae Genki...

[JLowe]

45 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

Thought of another one: Danielson vs Alexander Otsuka.  Or Ishikawa.  Or Ikeda.

I'd also like to see the alternate universe where Wheeler Yuta and Daniel Garcia's bookings were reversed and we got Yoots as the smarmy Jericho suck up and Garcia as the cheapshotting punk-ass with the BCC.

My alternate universe is Regal stays and AEW signs Charlie Dempsey and we get Yuta, Garcia, Moriarty (the 3 originally named by Danielson) and Dempsey as the BCC Young Lions squad.

[elizium]

Am I crazy or is the BCC so much better without Regal? Love Lord Steven, but they are way more interesting as a pack of attack dogs, rather than Ringkampf-lite.

That said, I do miss Regal on my TV. In a different timeline, he's currently Daddy Arse

Edited May 8, 2023 by elizium

[Elsalvajeloco]

11 minutes ago, Sparkleface said:

Really, Jamie Hayter against the late-1990s/early-2000s joshi all-stars would be a bunch of fun. I picked Jamie because she's a great base and works well against smaller wrestlers... as much as I love a good hoss fight, I really love the dynamic of power vs. speed or power vs. grappler. So in addition to your two picks, add the following to my wishlist:

- 1998-era Candy Okutsu (before her back falls apart again)
- Yumi Fukawa prior to the ARS'98 moonsault botches scrambling her brains (if you don't know what I'm talking about, dear lord don't look it up, it's gross)
- pre-2000 Sugar Sato or Chikayo Nagashima
- Hiromi Yagi of any era

And if you need a slugfest, I always had a soft spot for Misae Genki...

There was a video of Tanny Mouse and Tamura going to Misae Genki's restaurant just to bother her. That's essentially a quarter of their content, which is just bothering other retired and semi-retired wrestlers. That reminds me...Etsuko Mita has a drinking problem. And her problem may be that she cannot consume enough alcohol.

But yeah, Candy is a great choice. I know she was good in JWP but her in ARSION early on was also great. ARSION is a great example of what happens if politics and bad booking along (looking at you Rossy and Miss Lioness Asuka) with not enough exposure at possibly the worst time for joshi can do to a promotion. There is a match where Candy is Tiger Dream and she's proves to be a better Tiger Mask than Kanemoto and the dude's who been portraying Tiger Mask for last almost three decades. However, it doesn't last long much like a lot of the good stuff in that promotion. 

Ai Fujita is another person even though she kinda falls in that YMMV Ospreay doing spots for the sake of spots without selling territory. Still, in 1998/1999, she was better than perhaps 95% of the folks at the WWE PC. So was Ayako Hamada in her first year as well. 

Lucharesu was going to be the wave of the future, and utter incompetence and the waning popularity of joshi puroresu snuffed it out.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

4 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

There was a video of Tanny Mouse and Tamura going to Misae Genki's restaurant just to bother her. That's essentially a quarter of their content, which is just bothering other retired and semi-retired wrestlers. That reminds me...Etsuko Mita has a drinking problem. And her problem may be that she cannot consume enough alcohol.

But yeah, Candy is a great choice. I know she was good in JWP but her in ARSION early on was also great. ARSION is a great example of what happens if politics and bad booking along (looking at you Rossy and Miss Lioness Asuka) with not enough exposure at possibly the worst time for joshi can do to a promotion. There is a match where Candy is Tiger Dream and she's proves to be a better Tiger Mask than Kanemoto and the dude's who been portraying Tiger Mask for last almost three decades. However, it doesn't last long much like a lot of the good stuff in that promotion. 

Ai Fujita is another person even though she kinda falls in that YMMV Ospreay doing spots for the sake of spots without selling territory. Still, in 1998/1999, she was better than perhaps 95% of the folks at the WWE PC. So was Ayako Hamada in her first year as well. 

Lucharesu was going to be the wave of the future, and utter incompetence and the waning popularity of joshi puroresu snuffed it out.

Tanny Mouse and Tamura's YouTube is just a weirdly fascinating experience. I have no idea what Hot Shushu is going to be like but based on Tanny/Tamura's YouTube output and the digest of the show that was on the Ice Ribbon channel, it will be utterly bizarre. I look forward to it. Kind of like when Chigusa books a comedy match on Marvelous for the sheer sake of entertaining herself.

I loved Arsion so much until it completely fell apart in 2001. The combination of the lucha and shootstyle, you'd think it wouldn't work, yet it somehow did. The random kickboxing, I could take or leave, but everything was so enjoyable. (By the way, can we have the time machine work in reverse and have Stephanie Vaquer in 1998 Arsion? My gosh.)

[John E. Dynamite]

4 hours ago, Phantom Lord said:

I think Bryan wanted to do a mask vs. hair match with Blue Panther a while back just so he could shave his head and beard off.

YOU'RE GONNA GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD SHAVED OFF

[Elsalvajeloco]

12 minutes ago, Sparkleface said:

Tanny Mouse and Tamura's YouTube is just a weirdly fascinating experience. I have no idea what Hot Shushu is going to be like but based on Tanny/Tamura's YouTube output and the digest of the show that was on the Ice Ribbon channel, it will be utterly bizarre. I look forward to it. Kind of like when Chigusa books a comedy match on Marvelous for the sheer sake of entertaining herself.

I loved Arsion so much until it completely fell apart in 2001. The combination of the lucha and shootstyle, you'd think it wouldn't work, yet it somehow did. The random kickboxing, I could take or leave, but everything was so enjoyable. (By the way, can we have the time machine work in reverse and have Stephanie Vaquer in 1998 Arsion? My gosh.)

Now you're going to make me upload a match I have somewhere on DVD that was a six person tag with Hamada, Mary Apache, and Linda Starr vs. Candy, AKINO, and Ai Fujita. If someone wants to get a sample of what ARSION was and should have been, it's that particular match.

AKINO (Mika Akino) is another one you chalk up as someone was a great her first year in wrestling. She also had a fabolous back kick finisher when she was noki-A.  It's crazy that's she in OZ Academy as this older woman taking part in whatever crap Ozaki can cook up and she's the champion. I guess Ozaki has to beat someone. She cannot possibly beat herself. But once that technology is invented, she'll be on it.

Speaking noki-A, I will also add in Baby A who would was the prototype for what became the High Speed stuff:

[Zimbra]

1 hour ago, christopher.annino said:

Holy shit, gimme Mox vs Battlearts Daisuke Ikeda! 

Mox vs Takeshi Ono, just two surly ass kickers going at it.

[Coletti]

3 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

Mox vs Takeshi Ono, just two surly ass kickers going at it.

Fuck, make it Mox/Yoots vs Ono/Orihara we can really get nuts!

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

@Elsalvajeloco Saved you a DVD dig unless the watermark is annoying.

[Dolphman 3000]

Is this the Punk-approved Collision roster?

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, elizium said:

Am I crazy or is the BCC so much better without Regal? Love Lord Steven, but they are way more interesting as a pack of attack dogs, rather than Ringkampf-lite.

That said, I do miss Regal on my TV. In a different timeline, he's currently Daddy Arse

This sort of felt like the moment where things went wrong for AEW:

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

8 minutes ago, Sparkleface said:

@Elsalvajeloco Saved you a DVD dig unless the watermark is annoying.

Goddamn this match is good. Mary Apache being the hoss of the match was fun.

I will find another match that's not on the internet yet (probably the other CAZAI vs. LCO match but it's LCO bleeding buckets instead of the faces).

It's crazy that Billie Starkz (no diss) has been wrestling for almost five years. Ayako here had only been wrestling for 20 months here. AKINO was at 21 months. So was Ai Fujita. To be that smooth in under two years is ridiculous. This is also four months after that infamous first match with LCO and maybe 2-3 months after the rematch. So they were putting on true MOTY candidates with a shade over a year's experience.

 

[sabremike]

5 minutes ago, Matt D said:

This sort of felt like the moment where things went wrong for AEW:

 

Referencing Madness is NEVER wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

15 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Goddamn this match is good. Mary Apache being the hoss of the match was fun.

I will find another match that's not on the internet yet (probably the other CAZAI vs. LCO match but it's LCO bleeding buckets instead of the faces).

It's crazy that Billie Starkz (no diss) has been wrestling for almost five years. Ayako here had only been wrestling for 20 months here. AKINO was at 21 months. So was Ai Fujita. To be that smooth in under two years is ridiculous. This is also four months after that infamous first match with LCO and maybe 2-3 months after the rematch. So they were putting on true MOTY candidates with a shade over a year's experience.

 

The heck with that, AKINO was putting on great matches within weeks of debut. One of my favorite Arsion tapes was Stardom '99, which has two of the best matches Arsion would have in their history on the same tape with Yoshida vs. AKINO and Yoshida vs. Yagi. AKINO was only six months into her career when her match against Yoshida was taped.

Bless the Internet Archive.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Since we don't have a GIF thread anymore and there is NO WAY I can choose the best out of all these to just post one, here are several dozen GIFs of ARSION from what appears to be the start of the promotion in 98 to the end when it transitions to being AtoZ. There is also a cameo from Hikari Fukuoka. She will be the one moonsault stomping people's guts out.

Enjoy!

To tie this back to AEW, I remember Oyaji/Jiri bringing up several months back now when the AEW women's division was struggling a bit the idea of bringing in more savvy vets. Just by looking at the GIFs, you can tell if you don't have folks who can be a good base like GAMI, Aja, the Apache sisters, Reggie Bennett, and Yoshida and know what they're doing, your women's division is probably going to have a few issues. They're working with a bunch of women are are extremely young (Ayako was fresh out of high school) and have less than a year's experience. 

[Matt D]

56 minutes ago, sabremike said:

Referencing Madness is NEVER wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The real problem was when Danielson, who had pushed Mox into this in the first place, came back from injury and was not just cool with it but posed for one too.

[Octopus]

3 hours ago, elizium said:

Am I crazy or is the BCC so much better without Regal? Love Lord Steven, but they are way more interesting as a pack of attack dogs, rather than Ringkampf-lite.

That said, I do miss Regal on my TV. In a different timeline, he's currently Daddy Arse

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

This sort of felt like the moment where things went wrong for AEW:

 

I agree and disagree. I will say, the twitter picture of them having fun behind the scenes gets a bit overplayed when the company was basically founded on Indy wrestlers goofing off backstage and traveling on YouTube. 
 

For no rational reason other than sheer repeated elbows and the aesthetic, BCC was my favorite thing in wrestling at that time and maybe even personal favorite stable. But the booking was clunky on occasion. I loved a lot about the JAS feud but key moments weren’t capitalized on.

The Kingston dynamic with the group was a missed opportunity. Friends with Mox but hated Claudio. Kingston almost burns Danielson with the gasoline at Anarchy in the Arena but not really capitalized on. We get a who is Garcia’s dad feud instead with Jericho when Dragon returns from injury. Claudio beats Maynard(?) before Kingston can beat Jericho, but that isn’t continued with. We get a convoluted gimmick match with Kingston and Jericho instead of treating Blood and Guys like a blowoff. We could have seen Kingston against Claudio with a split Mox who is respecting his friends fighting, but it’s spun off into a Guevara feud that turned into more BS backstage drama.

Regal leaves and they awkwardly didn’t know what or how to do it. He turns on them, he gets betrayed, then he knew he would get betrayed so it’s all cool. Maybe in a longer time frame it could work but so many of those steps seemed awkward. 

Regal being a father figure to Danielson it makes sense for that to be the lead in to Danielson vs MJF (a feud that you could point to as things could have been different but I think was top quality AEW style storytelling). But, it was glaring throughout that Danielson and the rest of the BCC was separate for this portion. Maybe it was addressed but I don’t recall it. With Mox the clumsy Regal exit felt somewhat awkwardly  blown off and I’m sure he was just in a F this let’s go to the next thing. The Hangman feud was interesting and it was cool seeing Mox’s tweener presence get more aggressive and heel-like. 

Now we got the Dillionless Four Elbowmen back together to face the Elite. I was excited with the Danielson’s return but I haven’t been feeling this feud. Maybe I’m burned out. @John from Cincinnati pointed out that it hasn’t had the crazy match ups yet like we see in these AEW feuds. Maybe that’ll be this week with Omega and Mox. A lot of backstage assaults and segments. I want a story to be told through continuation of in match moments. I feel that goes into @Gordlow’s Sports Entertainment points. This feels like a vehicle for more of the Elite friend drama, which a few years ago was the best storyline in wrestling. It might be external factors in my life that’s just making me less excited towards something I might like in a better place, it could be the awkward Brawl Out news continuation that makes me less excited to cheer a storyline where the Elite get sympathy being beaten up backstage, could be booking decisions being more segmenty then matchy, I don’t know. 

At almost every turn in the BCC existence I have been both blown away and also underwhelmed. Very human and it happens. My issue with AEW and WWE can often be my own fault where I imagine what all could happen. As an Octopus I technically have 9 brains, so my imagination and ability to use logic is far superior to everyone else and I can create situations where others can’t reach the bar. With my 3 hearts I just care so much more, which is why I’m so compassionate and humble, but my hearts just get so wrapped up into what does and doesn’t happen. I’m at a weird spot in my wrestling enjoying life where maybe I’m just not in the right spot to enjoy things right. It’s not you, Tony. It’s me. But maybe not, I did love the MJF v Danielson feud and the Hangman v Mox series. Maybe I was better then? I don’t know why I’m still typing. I’m sure I didn’t actually make a point. 

I’m glad we got what we got with the BCC over an alternative of Mox and Danielson becoming Professor X and Magneto shaping the minds of young technical but needing to be more hard hitting wrestlers and eventually battling each other for the fate of professional wrestling: A group lead by a wild brawler that will fight anyone but also loves his family and will make the right choice for him to better himself when it is at an important point in his career vs a perfect wrestler who will stomp on heads, bend people, pick on larger wrestlers in the back, eat salads, and talk about flaccid penises. Oh shit, maybe that would have been sweet.

BUT WAIT. You’re a Timberwolves fan, Octopus. Be unreasonably reasonable and logically identify my poor logic. We could have drafted Steph Curry. Twice! The Wolves got Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio. Rubio wouldn’t join the team for years because of playing in Spain yada yada yada. The reason we didn’t pick Curry, The GM, David Khan (yes, his fucking name was fucking Khan) said we needed a point guard. Fucking Minnesota’s Rasputin bullshit artist David fucking actual name fucking Khan and I Want to be the Zen Master but I’m Actually a Strip Mall Office Building Transcendental Meditation Hustler Curt I Think We Should Run the Triangle Offense Because MJ and Kobe Did It So it Must be The Right fucking Fit For Every Team Rambis thought that the guy that became one of the greatest point guards of all time and changed the landscape for how teams try to score couldn’t be a point guard. Even if we didn’t think he could be a point guard which in hindsight is like the caveman that thought trapezoid would be the more influential shape over Wheel, we didn’t have a good shooting guard. It was dumb not taking him and I was mad in Nate’s basement. We had chips though.

Minnesota should have drafted Curry. But let’s be honest, we would have fucked him up. We would have had him in a shitty offense with less talented shooting coaches and a less able medical team that would have likely not been able to get him to ride through his early injury years. Mark Jackson had a soothing voice that kept him in his path. The Minnesota accent is draining when outsiders listen to us for too long. If we drafted Curry, the world would not have the Curry we know now. Mediocrity and occasionally bad decision making says “you’re welcome.”

Lets not think about how if the BCC was recruiting more youngsters would be good, but what awkward misses and slightly off booking decisions could we have seen. Maybe a weird hazing segment? I like to imagine JD Drake as a spy for Jericho, which sounds great, but it actually would have been and while typing this I’ve disproven the point I stumbled into. Damn my 9 brains and their ability to book perfectly. 

In summation, Regal was cool. I like the mean streak the BCC have now but I had more fun watching them before. Maybe Regal yelling while Yuta pulls out each of Matt Jackson’s teeth would have been cool. Idk. I won’t spell check.