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I saw someone say that Jericho is doing a parody of CM Punk's backstage persona and that makes it infinitely funnier. I loved the angle, I just hope it doesn't lead to TK being an on-screen presence. Props to Nicholas for doing the full flip and splitting his pants. And Jack's smile is fabulous and should be his calling card throughout. Swerve / Fletcher was fantastic, but maybe he should've gotten a "celebration" or is that too WWE? Loved the sell of the House Call by Fletcher, all bent neck and collapsing. Ospreay winning the gauntlet was great, but Roderick seems like a bit of a downgrade in opponent, but the matches will be fabulous. Poor Hobbs. Hope it's not too bad.

I had the same reaction after the diatribe that preceded it. I enjoyed the closing angle and honestly, I've always been a fan of the Bucks in-ring, but had little use for them as characters. That changed with this heel turn and the more they lean into it the better it gets. I feel like everytime AEW drops the ball, they course correct nicely and learn from their mistakes. A lot of the hand-wringing rom the Anti-AEW troll contingent doesn't take into account that TK and AEW itself are still a young company. Mistakes will be made and honestly, they haven't made nearly as many as I would've expected from a young(ish) wrestling company. My main issue with last night was how Swerve was treated. No promo, no "basking in the afterglow" of his World Title win. Just a match, a good match and that was that. I feel like Swerve promo into match with Fletcher would've been a better start to the show than the Best(Worst?) Friends and I enjoyed that as well. Bookend the show with your biggest angles. Also, I'm still hurt by this Best Friend breakup angle, especially(as it was mentioned before), Chuck being pushed to say shit. Brings a tear to my eye, but, Chuck/Trent in a parking lot and the evetual OC/Trent match are going to be great.

I still think Jack Perry is a poor promo and a very average wrestler. But realizing this morning the amount of mainstream coverage potential from Tony being on TV tonight and tomorrow with a neck brace and getting punched in the gut by Luke Perry’s son, it’s excellent booking and I’ll see where it goes. I don’t have a lot of interest in the Best Friends fallout, and it’s taking a lot of heat from OC, one of the guys who helped carry things through the rough patches the last 18 months. Swerve-Fletcher was good stuff, not as non-stop MOVEZ as might be expected. And Fletcher isn’t some JTTS, he’s ROH TV champion, former NJPW tag champion, and has had highly competitive matches recently with Danielson, Ospreay, and in tags against BCC. They are turning Mone heel, although I don’t think the crowd is going to fully allow it. Honestly, they should have Stat cheat to help Willow retain at the PPV band say Mercedes jumped the line and didn’t deserve the spot. The best parts of the chaotic Gauntlet were Ospreay’s interactions with Jay and Archer, his work with KOR, and Komamder’s shock at getting Archer. Worst parts were Penta Hogan no selling and only running in to get his moves in, and Dante getting nothing in on anyone except Jay. Aftermath with Fletcher and Ospreay slowly turning on Callis is exciting as someone who wants Aussie Open back (and maybe Jeff Cobb please). The Undisputed angle is dead in the water at this point. Good. Mina-Anna was solid, Mina did a good carry job and it’s more proof that Anna needs an excursion badly. The Midnight Chokers Club had a field day with this match. Smart to put the technically proficient but duller than drying paint Deeb with technically proficient and character star Timeless Toni. Mox-Hobbs was fine until the weird, unfortunate injury. Not sure Mox realized how bad it was, given the tope. Jericho leaning into the online criticisms and being delusional heel might work, but he still could use a TV break. Shibata and his phone translations are great stuff. I’m probably forgetting something here.

I thought this week's episode was good overall and was similar to the style of AEW that I like, silly closing segment aside. Going back to the butcher block counter tops, there's some maintenance required but it's not the end of the world. And my grandma has them at her house and uses them to cut anything that isn't meat. As far as cleaning, wood is technically naturally anti-bacterial since the bacteria goes into the wood and just dies versus staying on the surface of a plastic cutting board or another surface.

Well then.

I believe this is more of a thing where he either wants a long-term contract from Cincy or he wants out. Not so much just wanting out.

If anyone is so inclined, tomorrow night on IWTV we have a show at 730pm EST called ACTION Forever. It's our 6th Anniversary show and I'm pretty happy with the line up we have

To be clear, speaking for only myself, I'm going to like what I like. I'm not going to change that based on reaction of anyone else. My "dread" is more of a, "Oh. This is going to be a whole thing that people go on about for a while."

I don’t want TK to be an authority figure. But I do want Shad

That was such a weird, random botch too. Like that’s a move/bump,that’s been done a million times but somehow he slips on a banana peel, crashes facefirst into the buckle and gets his knee fucked up in the ropes. Or did it give while he was running towards the buckle?

Could they just cast Brian Cage as Tony’s personal bodyguard during his recovery without needing to explain why Cage is suddenly out of the Mogul Embassy? or make Miro the guy whose job involves protecting Tony so that you have an official reason why Miro doesn’t wrestle and an in-joke about all the rumors that Miro doesn’t like any of AEW’s ideas for him.

I'm less concerned about 16 being on rails because honestly, X was about as on-rails as you could get and it was still great, and 13 might as well been an interactive movie. I'm ok with rails if the story is worth it. Although I have noticed the hand-holdy stuff, so it might be an overcorrection to just how overwhelmingly open Rebirth is.

You always be you! I enjoy your posts.

A lot of thoughts on this and I am at work pretending to work while I type this. I also had too much McDonald’s breakfast and the veins in my arms are feeling oddly tingly. - Beautifully said, I have felt a number of things you mentioned here. Maybe not the specifics but I honestly hate the Facebook and tik tok algorithms I’m in because it’s making me dread seeing discussions on things I love. I am very much someone that listens to podcasts and can enjoy people having differences of opinions. But mostly elsewhere it is regurgitated hot takes and cliches and if you take the time to actually try and have a discussion it is goalpost moving and name calling. Even clips of stuff I like is filled with trolls. It’s on me for clicking the comments, but I’m just so used to it that it’s still instinct. - I am in the camp that I was actually depressed and embarrassed from the All In footage. I like AEW and I like Punk. But seeing it really mad me sad and uncomfortable. The reasoning was said to be for Perry and I couldn’t get that. I think it’s way over stated what actually happened, but people that already have strong opinions are just going to lock their feet into position. A few weeks removed and they actually got me to care about Jack Perry as a character. I joke about him a lot in everything, but outside of how gorgeous his hair is, I’ve always found him to be unbelievably boring. Once you’ve seen his usual spots, you’ve seen most of his matches. Plus, I became biased over hearing people like Dax and others talk about him being a dick. True or not, idk, but it did effect me. After this and the gimmick workshopping he did in NJPW-USA he actually has a character that I find interesting that fits his persona. He’s Dom without the comedy. Smirking piece of shit that’s wearing a leather jacket. Have him do the G2S. As long as this goes somewhere, I’m willing to admit I was wrong and airing the footage was the needed awkward moment to get us to glory. - I will say, I didn’t like all the shenanigans. I feel that I’m sharing and having my opinion in good faith. I will admit to something being the right idea when it becomes apparent. That’s why I’m not quitting AEW forever. - I see some online comparing this to Vince-Austin. I don’t see that other than one is a boss. Perry is not, nor is he trying to be Stone Cold. He is a villain. TK is awkwardly yet surprisingly nuanced in being a fucking goober boss that appears to want to be one of the boys by doing his patented hug (like HHH’s point). He’s not an evil boss like Vince was, but also isn’t a hero. Whether it works or not, it is an interesting gray smoothie. I say I don’t like it but my mind is running with possibilities that are both good and bad. - I do like the Glass chant. AEW used to feel like a party. I feel that’s why the sales of tickets dropped. Seeing all that fun and wanting to be a part of that was a big part of why I got tickets to Quake by the lake. Loss of good will or something, the fun shifted. I like watching AEW matches at home, but going to a WWE show and doing the Seth song before he talks sounds like a more fun outing. 100%! Very weird feeling. I’m interested to see what the company looks like when there is less Danielson and Samoa Joe. Will the main event house style be more Swerve, Ospreay Takeshita? For personal reasons, I’m going to savor every drop of Danielson I can get. Lol It is tooooough working past the fear of pervious shitty booking. I’ll make jokes for fun but will tip my hat when it ends up being something more I enjoy. Like the unnecessary amount of belts. If we have Okada as a heel powerhouse doing midcard epics, Ospreay having wild sprints, Toni Storm doing skits mixed with good matches, Copeland and I assume Mercedes being happy to be here veterans, and Swerve having a massive aura on the top of the card. Through in workhorse teams fighting for the Tag or trios, then you have a murder’s row of champions. Yes, I know you can book stories without belts, but sadly I don’t know if the powers at be consistently can. Hence all the gold. Lol. If this is what we get, I’ll admit when I’m wrong. I think my overall feelings of AEW are very high. I’m very nervous about things but ultimately, unless they stray from the formula of GREAT matches and have exciting big shows, I’ll likely always come to AEW for my grappling based entertainment. If only they could do what I want all the time. Which is build a time machine for a tournament: 93 William Regal 98 Genichiro Tenryu 05 Samoa Joe 84 El Satanico 05 Necro Butcher Blonde hair kicky year Katsuhiko Nakajima 19 Daisuke Sekimoto 93 Vader

Not sure if Tony should get over on Jack Perry in any way more physical than having Tony rise from his wheelchair, distracting Jack Perry and causing him to lose the match

https://cdn4.whatculture.com/images//2024/04/38a740d82f56545a108b3beb6ae897c0.jpg Hail Hydra.

I don’t know that anyone here would actually hate or love anything based off potential fan reactions. That seems incredibly weird to me, and not something any of us would do.

It’s going to be really impressive when Tony goes from being floored by a punch to the gut to beating the stuffing out of Perry en route to pinning him at the next ppv - all in the space of a month or two. Found out about the closing angle via mainstream media this am - lol, that was a surprise - and now I have so many questions. I mean, they’re mostly silly questions, but still…. Does this lead to some sort of gimmick match at a ppv? And does Tony win? (Answer: he’s a carny. Of course he wins). Does TK book himself over Okada by dq en route to the blowoff with Perry? Okada being the gate keeper Khan goes thru to get to Perry might break some brains. Who appears with Tony in the training montage meant to convince us that Tony can go from hero to zero in one ppv cycle? Hangman? Moxley? More importantly, Does Tony license “Eye of the Tiger” for his training skits? He’s a damn fool if he doesn’t. Does he follow Rule 105 of wrestling booking and book a heel turn for himself before the angle is over even though that would probably make no sense? It took TK almost five years to join Vince in the exclusive club of Wrestling Promoters Who Put Themselves Over While Kinda, Sorta Owning Pro Football Teams. I guess that qualifies as admirable restrain these days. No plans to watch the angle, but it will be interesting to see how far into this TK goes. Shad Khan appearing in a wrestling angle was not something I thought I’d see.

If it makes you feel any better, none of my hesitation about the angle has anything to do with what I thought fans online would think, its my own deep hatred for heel authority figures based on years of trauma. If that isn't the direction they are going I'd be of course thrilled but based on how they did it I don't think the fear is totally unwarranted.

this is the kind of analysis I really dig. I do think the venue setup is uniquely unusual, but yeah, a lot of things felt a bit off.

Last week, Mox cut a promo almost entirely with his back to the hard cam. Wonder if this week was a bit of an over-correction?

I love Willow but I thought her segment with Mercedes looked weak because of her. Willow was angled to try and look at the camera a lot, as opposed to looking at Sasha who was directly angled at her. In live theater, actors always “cheat” and tilt themselves like that so the live audience can hear better. It felt like they were trying to do that at times last night. You don’t need to do that when something is mic’d up. It just looked off. Like, the sneakiest and most conniving women’s wrestler ever who is coming for your title who you injured in a match is right there, you should be staring her down to try and not worried about anything else. Maybe the venue’s camera set up was weird or they were trying to do something a bit different since the WWE has been getting raves for their new direction. It just looked off at times — like with Jack deciding to turn and look directly in the camera for no real reason at times.

Eh, I'm kind of with you on Perry.

I do know kind of wonder if the end game of this is Tony, playing into the Punk "he's a nice guy, he's not a boss" thing, brings in a sheriff-type authority figure to make announcements and stand against the Elite and have it be Sting. I remember one of Stings last appearances him talking about not being around anymore and adding "in the ring" and I thought it was interesting. Face authority figures are almost always cringe and do nothing but cut off heel characters at the knees, but I would give Sting a chance in the role/think he could pull it off.