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Some online friends were going crazy over the big surprise at the end of the Impact PPV... and yeah, that's a pretty good surprise, and it portends interesting things moving forward... and there is a lot of that going on these days. A lot of nice surprises that make it seem like crazy things are going to be happening soon. Plus, that insanely great live crowd at the Texas Dynamite... hopefully that portends a lot of white hot sold out crowds in pro wrestling's near future. People who have been starved for live entertainment and are just wildly delighted to finally be getting their fill... It really feels like right now is a very good time to be a pro wrestling fan, and things are absolutely poised to get even better.

I wasn't a "smart" fan at 10 years old but I read the magazines and I'd rent all the old tapes by then. I was definitely a work rate guy even if I didn't know what that was but for some reason I enjoyed Earnest Miller from the beginning. He certainly wasn't a workrate guy but he was good at working a martial arts style that was good enough for pro wrestling. He had a natural charisma that he really got to show later on. I was happy to see him in WWE, Velocity was probably my favorite show and he was a really good Commentator. I'm actually surprised that he got to have a run as a Wrestler before he was a Commentator. He was still very good as an inring talent and still very over but in hindsight I wish he started wrestling first in WWE then did commentary later because he probably would've lasted longer. Really I was on Instagram and I seen a clip of Teddy Long being announced as the Smackdown general manager and it was definitely cool that he got to have probably the most memorable and longer overall run as a GM because he was still very good as a manager but that GM role definitely let him so more range as a personality but honestly Earnest Miller could've worked just as well. I was actually surprised he didn't have a deep wrestling background like Glacier did and that he was just a Bischoff guy. I think he did well

Well done, AEW.

It was on Finlay.

With LeBron in the photo.... wow

Assuming they don't epically collapse I believe the Bucks are winning it all in game 6 or 7. So with that said it's hitting incredibly hard that a Greek dude is one of the star players on what will soon be the NBA champions. I never thought I'd see this but knowing it's coming soon has me crying like crazy. It's also happening at a time where my dad is in Greece and I can only imagine how they're reacting over there. I guess it's time to get some Ouzo as I'm gonna be celebrating like a motherfucker. Holy fucking shit!

I love Ernest Miller. Karate Cat, Commissioner Cat, all of it. I went down a shoot interview rabbit hole a while ago on YT, and found one with (I think?) RF where they're talking about Miller supposedly teaching celebrities karate. Maybe-RF asks him what celebrities, and he's like "One you might have heard of is Usher Raymond. You don't believe me, bitch?" I about died.

Ernest Miller was tremendous at talking shit. My friends and I still laugh about the NWO sending out Scott Norton when Miller was yelling for someone to come fight him.

Look at how Bobby's distributing his weight on landing - right heel, left foot, left hand, the brunt of the impact on his left hip. Right hip raised, right leg barely making contact. Arn completely confident Bobby's gonna stick it, in position to buck and sell a millisecond before landing. Mesmerizing.

Hey! This looks pretty Clubberin'. EDIT: Hoo that was a hot opener! Dudes were working hard, kept it in a good length, really liked this. I remember hating Glacier and digging Mortis as a kid, totally neutral on Wrath. The Cat was of course much hated but in retrospect hilarious. "I'm the greatest! You people make me sick."

That’s the spirit. No regrets allowed in Secret Santo.

The Zona 23 junkyard is my favorite currently.

I couldn't go to MSG before I turned 14 (1974). I saw a few shows in various armories and high schools in NJ before that. My first show was at the Elizabeth Armory and a lady was arrested for throwing a chair off of the balcony at Professor Tanaka, who was beating on Pedro. I went to one of the Knicks playoff games and the checking for vaccine documentation was weak. I held mine up and was waved through without it being checked.

This was really good, and not at all what I expected. The Honma vs Yamakawa matches were important in my development as a pro wrestling fan. When I moved back to Canada (from the Czech Republic) in 2003, I got right into buying and trading tapes and DVDs in an effort to catch up on all the great stuff I'd missed while living in Europe. Those state-of-the-art death matches (and also Toryumon, and some other stuff) were things I got into that gave me a feeling like "not everyone has seen this" and they gave me footage to show and to trade with friends who had footage from the territory days and/or the Monday Night Wars and so on. The Honma vs Yamazaki series was sold to me as "these guys bring psychology into death match style" which from my current perspective seems totally insane given that Atsushi Onita is an absolute master of pro wrestling psychology. What it seems to me that Honma is doing is bringing state-of-the-late-90s-and-early-2000s speed and athleticism and perhaps also fancy-dan suplexes and top rope moves and so on into the death match style... which is significant. This specific match is cool in part because it's Honma who was (one of) the absolute top guy(s) in that style for a time and he's at his peak here and he's facing Jun Kasai who was (arguably?) next in line to be (one of) the absolute top guy(s) in that style, and who is a young lion on the rise here. It's a compact, niche take on a Hogan/Warrior, Bock/Hennig, Jumbo/Misawa kind of confrontation. The psychology therefore isn't so much good guy vs bad guy. It's top guy vs young buck (as it were), and they work that style really well and it pays off beautifully. Honma is mean and confident, Kasai shows a lot of fire. Exactly what you'd hope for. They work a large percentage of the match perfectly straight with lots of fast and tight chain wrestling and they are both really good at it. Here's something I'm thinking about now: If Honma and Kasai had just stuck to straight pro wrestling, would we be discussing their work now, in 2021, or would they be largely forgotten or overlooked these days? It also feels like - and I believe it was - one of those Japanese tournament matches where you know that anything can happen. It's interesting to see Kasai before he became a walking mass of scar tissue. It's interesting to see Honma young and spry (and very loud, and not overly tanned, and with black hair...) For fans of the old ultraviolence, there is a sickening chair shot in this one, a barbed-wire bat comes into play, and Kasia is wearing a very crimson mask indeed by the time this one gets going. Near the end, a splash of blood hits the camera lens. Through 2021 eyes, the violent spots feel more impactful because we aren't being overwhelmed by a never-ending onslaught of them. For fans of stiffness and bumping I recommend at least watching the finishing sequence of this one. In particular, there's a series of three moves that bring this match to a close that are not too far removed from peak All Japan in terms of intensity. As I said, those relatively well-known Honma vs Yamakawa death matches were important to me 15 or 16 years ago, but "2021 me" probably likes this match more. I appreciate how the blood and violence add to the story of the match rather than being the entire purpose of it.

Money in the Bank 2011 turned ten yesterday.

As a 10/11 year old, I LOVED Glacier, Wrath and Mortis. Glacier's entrance was one of my favorites and I loved the gear that Wrath and Mortis had. I am sure some of my nostalgia for that era is rose colored glasses since it was when I first got seriously into wrestling but my ideal wrestling shows are C-shows. I loved Saturday Night and Worldwide. As a result, I love when AEW skews close to that type of show. WWE doesn't do it. NXT is as close as they get and it's no coincidence that it's the only WWE related thing I watch, outside of PPVs. Miller always made me laugh and I popped big for that Rumble dance spot he had. Seeing @Gordberg's post, what should I check out for Alexander Otsuka? I am a shoot style novice. Heck, an MMA novice really (outside of a few early UFC videos I rented as a kid because I'd heard they were "the most violent things ever. People DIE!!!~~!~~!") so if hes's not a good person to lure me into the world of shoot-style, where do I start? (Maybe I should spin this off into a thread, if one doesn't exist. If someone else doesn't in the next day, I will.)

They are, it's their mugshot.

I heard the first time they ever fucked an entire SWAT team posted up outside their Econo Lodge + that most of the snipers were aimed at Hokuto.

Can't wait for this. First-day buy. What a fun little game.

In the interview Herron said she always planned on doing just one season and was actually surprised when the 2nd season was ordered. She did indicate that she would happily work with Marvel Studios again when she is done with her own personal projects

So Finn has this great year+ long run in NXT, reinvents his character, and his long awaited return to the main roster he’s immediately doing the same fucking bullshit they had him doing when he left. Posing to his music, mid-card, Balor Club, smiles. Fuck that shit. Otherwise decent show aside from Old Man Vince’s hilariously awful open. Because LOL pandemics, right? Put him in a fucking home already.

Cheri Bibi & Eric Husberg vs Giacomi Gugliemetti & Philippe Crapez Very cool exchange here with Crapez rolling through for the backbreaker. I haven't seen that before in this footage. It's not like Bibi was a small guy either. Here he hits a nice standing dropkick and then misses the next but look at Husberg preen to get heat:

Edge beats Roman. Seth cashes in. Roman vs Seth vs Edge at SummerSlam. Nobody's happy. Book it.

Yesterday Money in the Bank 2011 turned ten. One of the best wrestling shows of all time with the amazing main event between John Cena and CM Punk for Cena's WWE Championship before a molten hot Chicago crowd. Punk said he'd win, leave with the WWE Championship and did just that. Real shame WWE's Summer of Punk was so messed up. Said show also hosted the best Money in the Bank Ladder match to this day as Daniel Bryan defeated Sheamus, Kane, Cody Rhodes, Wade Barrett, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel and Sin Cara to win it. My review of both: WWE Championship. John Cena (c) vs. CM Punk, Money in the Bank 2011. CM Punk vs. John Cena was excellent from beginning to end. The opening feeling out process and the respective targeting on body parts with Punk on Cena’s neck and Cena on Punk’s torso. The counters of each other’s main moves such as Punk escaping the Attitude Adjustment pushing Cena into the ropes to the running knee Punk usually does in the corner. The second one was right on the jaw. My favourite exchange in the match is when CM Punk went for the Go to Sleep, Cena catches the leg midair putting Punk in the STF and Punk after staying in the hold for some time turned into an Anaconda Vice. Punk kicked out of two Attitude Adjustments when this was a rare event.The perfect finish as Cena had Punk in the STF in the middle of the ring. Vince McMahon told the timekeeper to ring the bell in a cashback to the Montreal Screwjob at Survivor Series 1997. The timekeeper refused so Vince sent John Laurinaitis out to do it but was stopped by Cena who nailed him with a punch. Cena went back into the ring and walked into the match ending Go to Sleep. All this played before a hot crowd. One of the longest non gimmick matches in WWF/WWE history, 33:44. A ***** match. Smackdown Money in the Bank Ladder match. Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus vs. Kane vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Wade Barrett vs. Heath Slater vs. Justin Gabriel vs. Sin Cara. This remains my #1 MITB Ladder match and one of the best Ladder matches ever for the content, the pacing in it and the big spots. There’s Daniel Bryan’s perseverance, Sheamus Powerbomb putting Sin Cara through a ladder. Kane’s chokeslam on Sheamus onto a ladder which Sheamus fucking bounced off and Justin Gabriel’s 450 splash from a flat ladder laying across the top turnbuckle on Kane. The match resulted in a surprising but a very worthy winner in Daniel Bryan which added to my enjoyment off the match. ****1/2. --- The show also featured an underrated Randy Orton vs. Christian match as Christian regained the World Heavyweight Championship by getting Orton disqualified. I recorded Money in the Bank 2011 when it went out and bought the official DVD release. I hardly ever buy those, rather the DVD box sets. Thoughts on Money in the Bank 2011 besides we're fucking old?

Not a pure comedy, but it was legitimately funny and was more likely to get nominations in the Comedy field, thus…it was deemed a comedy. Cuoco was very good in it and deserved a nom. Shockingly good.

I feel like we need to have an intervention over Casey's ScottKeithian use of the term "rest hold" in 2021.

Giannis restating his case for best player alive in this series has been amazing. Also, it's amazing to think that, with maybe five plays going differently the last two games, and Devin Booker would've established himself as an A+ superstar who closed out the finals with back to back 40 point games.

Tate's super rehearsed Oprah-esque was, uh, refreshing in an MMA context if nothing else. Definitely felt like Miesha. I think the outcome she's most hoping for is "Oh my God, Women's 135 is so shallow" and hoping she can get shot at a vacant title if Nunes retires early like she loves to hint at. I think the UFC wants to feed her to a prospect on a big show.

It happened again ? Two outs, Rays intentionally walk Kevan Smith to get to Max Fried, who then hits a two run double. I feel like that's the last time that'll happen for awhile.

These two and the Halloween Havoc set will always have a special place in my heart because of WCW/NWO Revenge. I have seen them an essentially infinite number of times.

Since the claim is that it was torn when he was in New England, yet somehow passed his physicals for Tampa, I'm going with #1. It's possible to play with a torn MCL, I just don't think it was torn when claimed.

The power of old.

So is the Space Jam remake actually just Ready Player 2, Basketball edition?

That had to have been Kenny’s best live promo ever. I mean everybody was on fire, but Kenny was also living up to his superstar hype tonight.

The late, great, and missed Sir. Bobby Robson xxx.

I mean, posturing as aggressively pro-vax is probably the most palatable I'll ever find Corden? Also, the entire framing of the issue in that article is wildly slanted and gross. Please don't make me come down aggressively on Corden's side. I very much don't want to.