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Yes, Comcast is making edits to WWE programming. We know, you're upset you can't see a joke from 1997 that you'd forgotten about until it was brought up again just now. If you say "cancel culture", I'll personally fire you into the sun.

Christian vs. Kaz was the world's best scoop of vanilla ice cream. I instantly remembered that Christian's run as ECW champ and through the Orton feud is one of my favorite runs ever. He's supplanted Dustin as the guy that I want every younger roster member to go 10 minutes on TV with. I'm going to write "use Ricky Starks to transition the TNT Title from Darby to Christian" on a little piece of paper, fold it up, and give it to the fanciest-dressed man who works in a church because God needs to hear my idea.

I fucking love this show. It is easily my favorite tv show period. They shot so many good stories and angles that it makes my head spin. Somehow, someway, they got me to give a shit about QT and the rest of that jobber crew. Before I talk about the opening match, I want to address the "WWE-lite" stuff. I have rarely looked at AEW as WWE lite. This entire episode was an example of that. In WWE, you are limited to one style and it's the rote WWE style. With this, we had a similar WWE style match that actually stood out because it's so much different that all of the other styles. Christian looked pretty good, if a little tired at times. Honestly, the thing that bugs me the most about Christian is the amount of tanner he had on. Holy shit. You had a psychology fueled match between Cody and QT that lead to a really good angle between QT's new faction and the Nightmare family. I'll tell you this...The side that has Nick Comoroto on it is the side that's winning. The thing that felt most uncomfortable was Red Velvet basically being Brandi's stand in. Then you have a wild, exciting match between nu-Death Triangle and the Bullet Club. Shock of shocks, Gallows looked really fucking good. I know Karl can be pretty good when motivated and Kenny is almost always good, but Gallows looked great. Also, it feels redundant to say Death Triangle looked great, but they did. They almost always do. Penta in tag matches is better than in singles because it cuts down on the amount of taunt spamming he does. You have the main event that is just a wild brawl where Miro looks like a fucking monster. And no joke, my hopes going in was that we would see Kris, Trent, or Sue return. When they showed the crane game, I thought for sure that that's where they would replicate the OC spot from the legendary Best Friends/Ortiz and Santana street fight. I figured it would be Trent in there for the sillyness of Trent popping out of stuffed animals, but it was Kris Buttlander! YES! And then! And then! TRENT AND SUE BOTH RETURNED!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!! I was pumping my fists like fucking crazy during those bits. The Best Friends are the kings of the main event gimmick match. God, please, just please, give Chuck and Trent a run with the tag titles at some point this year. Plus, we got an ultra hot angle where the Inner Circle returned, outsmarted the heels, and completely fucked up Pinnacle. Am I alone in hoping that what happened with Spears was their way of writing him out? Dax and Ortiz nearly replicating the Tully and Magnum wooden spike spot IN THE SAME ROOM WITH TULLY was...mwah...fucking artwork. PRO WRESTLING, MOTHERFUCKERS

Miz's Hate Me Now was the highlight of an awful Mania

I still don’t care for the matches, but the Running Up That Hill video package is one of the all time greats.

I know like me, most of the fathers on this board have stepped on a fucking lego or builder blox at six in the morning while heading toward the toilet for the first piss of the day. Legos on the floor are no joke. I have nearly killed my kid many times over that shit.

NJPW relies too much in 99% of matches ending in a finisher and I hate it because as good as the match is you know it's never going to end with anything other than a Rainmaker, 3 x Hi Fly Flows, etc I doesn't matter how many times Kota and Naito drop each other on their heads with the sickest moves imaginable, the Destino o Knee ends it. I really like how AEW finishes lots of matches with secondary moves.

Kris Statlander returning and doing that insane spinning whatever it was through the air hockey table made my goddamn night.

I don't think anybody has mentioned that Laredo Kid did the fucking craziest tope of 2021 last night. I swear he came like two inches from crushing his skull.

Every babyface is standing tall in AEW right now off the back of last night. Makes me wonder how the other shoe might drop next week. Maybe it’s a bad analogy, but AEW is so much better at putting hope and joy at the core of their presentation than WWE is. The difference in the shows having a ‘soul’ is like the MCU vs. WWE’s DC.

Stylistically AEW is about as homogeneous as WWE is. Under the WWE umbrella you have a more grappling-centric wrestler like Thatcher or the rare times they care to let Gulak do stuff, or a true bruiser like WALTER who will just beat you to death with strikes. New Japan also has people to fit those molds (ZSJ and Ishii for example) but AEW mostly does not. The closest to the latter is probably Kingston, although he's more focused on his own selling than either of those other two are. AEW mainly has people going for your big modern indie 2.9 style approach complete with big kickouts and acting shocked that a move that never gets a pin didn't get a pin, even their big guys tend to work that style more than "just" being big guys. TBF you do have stuff like Cody running his own take on a throwback NWA-style matches, but I have the same feeling when watching both promotions that they'd both benefit from more variety.

Tony selling the legos like death is the voice of a man that knows the truth.

I know there are some relatively new people here, so know this: If you post an April Fools joke about someone's death tomorrow, it will be your last post.

(Hopefully this hasn’t been done before) I’ll start with... -Kenny Omega was never the best in the world (if you choose to believe that) based on his talent, he was simply in the best spot to be the best when he was in New Japan. Any of the top 20 (hell maybe 50) wrestlers in the world could be the best if they were given the position and push he had. His acquired knowledge working in Japan/fluency in Japanese does help him greatly in getting that push, though, and he does deserve credit. Styles also had his best career run there. New Japan doesn’t burn out the crowd before their main events and saves the bigger near falls for them, the fans aren’t fickle or impatient and let the match properly build without “pick up the pace claps” every time there’s a hold applied, and they have the best talent pool for a top guy to work with. In general I wouldn’t say Japanese wrestling isn’t better, but the crowds (pre Covid) are, and that is maybe the most important aspect of a great match to me. -Jon Moxley is not a great wrestler at the moment. His best match since leaving WWE was against Ishii in New Japan (ties in to my first point) and besides that I’d actually say I’ve enjoyed his big matches from WWE more than his big matches from AEW. -Most modern shoot style comes off to me as pretentious and self indulgent, and usually borders on boring to awful. There’s a mindset of “this is how wrestling is SUPPOSED to be” and then the matches get like zero reaction from the crowd. Most of the matches on Bloodsport shows are really bad, though I did really like Suzuki/Barnett and Takeda/Gresham from that one show. -Modern TV wrestling (not just WWE) is way too reliant on promos, 90% of promos are boring or bad, and the amount of angles and non wrestling segments we see nowadays is way too much. -They always say it’s easier to be a heel than a baby face, I feel the opposite applies currently. -Cruiserweight Classic from 2016 was the best wrestling tournament ever. Maybe would have to rewatch some G1s to confirm here, but in terms of single elimination bracket, there’s no doubt. -Less steroids gives wrestling less mainstream appeal. -Shinsuke Nakamura never mailed it in or got lazy when he went to WWE like so many people claim, he was just older, working a ton of dates, stiffness doesn’t get over like it does in Japan, etc. He just adapted. A lot of his spots were more over in Japan so some of his stuff doesn’t resonate with the crowd as much and therefor comes off as underwhelming. I don’t think it’s for lack of effort. -90% of matches more than 20 minutes go too long

You spelled Liger wrong.

Comoroto did look like a star. He definitely got that "woah who the fuck is THAT dude" reaction from me.

Hana Kimura also just received coverage in the Washington Post the other day. I was scrolling the home page and did a double take when I saw the article.

The fact that the March thread didn't close when that was going on is almost a minor miracle. As for today being April Fools I would like to celebrate somebody that knew how to pull off a great prank regardless of the day. And with that I'll link an article about some of the pranks that Owen Hart pulled. https://whatculture.com/wwe/10-greatest-owen-hart-ribs-of-all-time My favorite one is not in this article but it was one mentioned in Foley's first book. Owen and Mick were having house show matches and Austin for some reason was outside. So they made it their mission to make him crack no matter how bad they had to be. What finally did the trick was Owen and Mick having an awful hardcore match with the worst weapons to use that they could think of. One of them was a big ol' bag of popcorn that MIck hit Owen with. Owen of course sold it then proceeded to do a snow angel. That got Steve to not only bury his head in his hands due to laughing but also cursing them under his breath. So according to Mick and Owen mission well accomplished.

Net-net, the mid 90’s AJPW style has done more harm to pro wrestling than good.

What are you guys on about? I only remember talking about Sid. Which is always a good thing.

- Tajiri v Super Crazy from Living Dangerously 99 has had way too much influence on modern wrestling. - IWA-MS - 2002 through 2005 is the most enjoyable period of any promotion I’ve ever watched. I’m not sure how much of that is down to Ian and how much is down to Mike Burns but it’s a period I go back to time and time again. - I think Jim Cornette and Vince Russo worked themselves into a shoot, bro. I don’t believe the hatred was too bad to begin with, but each side acted more bitter as they got reactions from their respective ‘communities’. Fans have fuelled the flames to the point each side became more bitter and entrenched in their view. I think they would kiss and make up if an audience demanded it and they thought there was money in it.

I'll do you one better: watching some of Moxley's stuff post-WWE has made me understand why Vince saw him as suited for wacky comedy stuff. He just carries himself in kind of a goofy way. And for a dude with such a tough-guy image, his punches and knees consistently look very weak. EDIT: For example:

I can't believe they brought that level of violence in a pre-taped brawl. These dudes are hungry.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past several years, it’s that wrestlers with significant concussion histories fucking LOVE to sell like they just got another one. I mean, they just really, perversely enjoy that.

That was my favourite episode of wrestling tv i've seen in forever. Everything hit and hit hard. Three great matches. I fucking LOVED the QT angle. A money Mox promo. Good competitive squash of sorts. Really enjoyed the Callis stuff. Jade beat the piss outta Velvet. Godzilla vs. Kong match, lol! And that main event was so fucking great. They made Miro look like a killer, had two great babyface surprise returns, Sue, and for the first time in forever it made sense for the babyfaces to outnumber the heels because Miro is a killer. The show goes off the air with Sue celebrating as the Pixies play. Life don't get much better than that. I adored all of this. Even the very so so women's tag had the fun chaotic brawl. edit: I FORGOT THEM SETTING UP BLOOD & GUTS WITH ANOTHER GREAT BLOODY ANGLE. TWO JUICES ON THE SHOW. While I didn't love the wwe camera fuckery during the angle, it otherwise ruled. We even got the chair leg setup for a cage match of sorts. This company loves its history and callbacks.

my least favorite day of the year, to be sure glad that DVDVR is a fiercely defended refuge from it

All due respect C... I'm much more concerned with the people who do know tomorrow is April Fools Day.

Usual warning that the day is a No Strike Day

Might be a hot take but I thought 'Monster' topped it

Watching this now but if we're talking about something that's 20 years old then I need to post this as well. Still the gold standard of video packages.

That ending was such a feel good moment. I wasn’t sure about “Where is my mind?” As OC’s new song but I was completely sold on it as it played over the lovable faces standing tall. The shows have been on a roll with these main events lately feeling so different from one another. Rosa-Britt, Darby-Silver, Arcade Carnage. It’s just so fun to watch week to week.

So we're losing out on the DuVernay/King New Gods epic because of a bunch of creepy incels with no life and a massive sense of entitlement who got their way. Awesome.

ICE KILLER is goddamned great wrestling name.

Yeah man I get it. But I had to scroll through people taking shots at me, 95% of which weren't even about my actual thoughts and feelings. I gritted my teeth and let it go for days and thought I could finally go back to posting in the monthly thread without feeling like I'm an albatross to the conversation. And post number one in the new thread takes veiled shots at me, of which again are not even on point of what I was actually saying. It bums me out. Sorry I'm human and felt the need to express that. I'll go back to suffering in silence. See yall in the May thread.

Thanks for helping everyone move on. Nailed it. No notes.

Signing Christian might be the smartest decision this company could make. He wrestles so intelligently. I went into that match knowing Kaz would not win but the layout of the match and Christian's selling was so on-point. I totally bought the Flux Capacitor as the finish. If he can coach up the youngsters they have in the locker room, then the sky's the limit for that roster.

Daniel Bryan's debut of the running knee beating John Cena, WWE Champion and the biggest star in WWE clean as a sheet at SummerSlam 2013. Now that's a way to introduce a new move. I woke up to watch SummerSlam 2013 live. The show was worth it especially Cena/Bryan. A ***** match.

When flipping goes wrong:

Advice in advance: Your April Fool's joke already isn't funny.

I'm so glad Tony cut off JR's "Oh my gawd, not lego" bullshit. Tony pulled off one of his best performances to date during that match because he's a nerd and a dad in the '90s. Bless him.

This company is on fucking fire. I love it. Darby video was great too. He and Hangman can carry this promotion for 15 years. They are so set for the future.

I fucking loved that main event. So many call backs. We all have opinions on styles and work rate and characters and such, and that's mostly subjective and based on opinion. But the true answer to being the WWE alternative is remember shit that happened months ago, and using it to bring things forward in the now. Stalander's return was a amazing coming out of the UFO game. Trent's mom, the van, the Scott Hall debuts on Nitro denim outfit, Trent's return. Them remembering Statlander & Orange had a angle beginning about the boop. That music over that ending with the 4 of them hugging and Trent's mom honking the horn. My god. One of the best endings of a wrestling show in a while. (Well I guess only since two weeks ago when Pinnacle's ending beat down was phenomenal as well). Loved Christian working a Christian match. We can get nit picky and debate of a a guy that big of a deal going that long with Kaz was a good idea. But regardless that style match was refreshing. The Cody / QT segment was effective and felt like a big deal. I know QT and the rest of those guys aren't a big deal. But it was a really simplistic and well executed angle. The six man tag was fucking bonkers. Really liked it for what it was. Legit action movie / car crash non stop adrenaline rush. It didn't have much selling. And it would benefit from slowing down a gear and letting shit sink in. But you can't deny some of those moves are just ridiculous. Thumbs up from me tonight.

AEW giving workers something to do by putting them in stables and having them all feud is so NJPW, but what can you do with a roster this big? Khan is at lest brave enough to let them beat the shit out of each other until they bleed. Thankfully, the angles are pretty interesting, even the ones that include workers I really don't care about. Main was fucking crazy. Excellent shit, big time moments for returning workers, and only rivaled by the balls out trios match. Laredo Kid is a fucking lunatic.

The problem with resting players (or load management as its always called in the NBA) is it screws the fans attending the games in person. This is especially the case in the NFL where there are so few home games a season, not to mention how infrequently teams can visit other teams. Like one of the proposals kicked around for a 18 game season is the whole players only play 16 games. So they would definitely miss two. Now imagine you live in Jacksonville but wanna see Aaron Rodgers in person. In the history of the Jags franchise, Green Bay has played in Jacksonville a total of 4 times (and this is over 25 years). So you assume - Green Bay is going to pick that game as one of the one Rodgers misses (out of conference game to minimize effect on tiebreaker, weaker opponent that theoretically you can beat without Rodgers). But of course, the Packers aren't going to announce that ahead of time. If I am that fan who paid like a trillion dollars to go to the game because you wanted to see Rodgers (and because the NFL gameday experience is stupidly expensive)... yeah, I am never watching again. (Especially if it is maybe the like one game a year I can afford to go to) Now leagues are somewhat okay with dicking their fans over but even still they really try to keep it subtle