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I forgot what it was like for an episode of a wrestling show to be over with and think "man, I wish next week was right now". That's me with AEW on a weekly basis now.

Anybody wrestling either of those dudes should consider hitting them with a jab. I hear both are super scared of a quick jab.

I would. I swing violently between loving and hating Penta. Today I love him. Why? Because I can understand his Spanish! He makes simple, wrestle-centric declarations and enunciates every syllable. Then Alex Abrahantes tells me how much I correctly understood. Penta is basically my Dora the Explorer and I, like, totally gracias him for it. Anything Andrade says? I have no freaking clue.

LOL.

Danielson and ZSJ just pretzelling the hell out of each other...

Don't you dare correct this.

I was at both Dome shows. The first one made it cool to be wrestling fan. 40k diehards watching Goldberg go over the Immortal clean as a sheet. I was 15 years old high-fiving strangers and screaming like a child. Even my dad, who only took me because he liked spending time with me, managed a smile and an appreciative nod. The second one made me miss the Foley title win on tv. The finger-poke of doom felt like a middle finger to the fans so intense that it wouldn't be repeated until, imo, the "my friend Mark" speech Triple H gave in 2014. I remember feeling cheated. I worked extra shifts at my shitheel job to get good seats to that show, and that's what I got? Fuck that. I didn't watch WCW for almost a year after that, and I only watched then because some of the guys I liked were finally getting some run. Like I said earlier, AEW has a chance to write their own legacy in Atlanta. WWE just had to cancel a Smackdown live because of slow ticket sales. I think a string of lackluster shows has ruined a lot of goodwill with wrestling fans here. I mean, we got the worst Wrestlemania ever. The Dynamite we got was amazing, and fans showed up. It was like a concert. Insanely loud crowd. We deserve this. I am biased. I am making too big a deal of this. But dammit, we delivered the US Senate from the hands of lunatics and we deserve to break the non-WWE wrestling show crowd record in our shiny ass new baseball park.

There’s room to add, too. I’d love to see Ruby, Cassie & Jessie there. Ruby to work and J&C to do some entertaining shit. Also, you left Statlander & Anna Jay off your potential list.

Man, it's cool they broke a million viewers again. Good for them. Seriously. It's insane how loaded next week's show is. A couple of my buddies are road-tripping from Atlanta. Having an infant son makes it a tough go for me. Andrade just looks like a star. It boggles my mind that Vince and Nicky K couldn't figure out how to make money with that dude. I mean, it doesn't, because they can't figure out how to make money with Keith fucking Lee, but it kinda does. When was the last time you figure a crowd was that happy to see Chavito? You can tell he loves the business, so I'm happy for him. He's also a much better foil for Andrade than Vickie. I can't decide if this Death Triangle thing means Penta and Rey are turning on PAC or if RUSH and Dragon Lee are coming in. Either way it outta be dope. Hangman Page is over as fuck. They have to go the distance with him and Omega. If it were me, I'd have Page go over, have Danielson congratulate the winner and offer a friendly challenge, then have Bryan go full American Dragon on Page. Page is probably the only guy an AEW crowd would boo Bryan Danielson for. Maybe Jungle Boy. Nyla Rose is not good at wrestling. Now that Thunder Rosa is "All Elite," I hope they pivot to her and maybe some debuting ex-WWE ladies. That main event was absolute lunacy. AEW seems to have all the momentum in the world right now. Their competitor has burnt up a ton of goodwill with their audience, and every Dynamite lately has delivered surprises and great matches. It makes me happy. They don't do everything perfect, but it's easy to tell when a wrestling company doesn't actively despise its audience. Very cool.

Lost in all the AEW hype is the potential triumphant return of Danielson to New Japan, where another whole ton of dream matches could take place. Ibushi, Tanahashi, Okada, fuckin YANO. Gimme.

I'm glad there's alternatives to WWE in AEW and to a lesser extent NJPW because my interest in WWE is at an all time low. AEW is my favourite wrestling promotion since last year. It's so frustrating seeing the talent WWE has squandered having to row excrement creek uphill against the whims of a senile old man.

Put yourself in Tiny Khan's shoes. Rumors abound that Daniel Bryan and/or CM Punk are coming to AEW. You tease a big debut tonight... and you deliver Nick Gage, a legit out-of-left-field surprise with tons of fans and just as many haters, all of whom pop like little monkeys for his appearance. So you deliver big on the tease, while still potentially having Bryan/Punk as well. That's so genius it almost hurts.

I'm gonna make sure I don't lose a bar fight in your territory, just in case I want to get booked...

If Punk draws even half as much money and PPV buyrates as "past his prime Roddy Piper" did that first year in WCW, I think AEW and TK will be very happy.

I'm on board with that. Last year it couldn't be controlled if there was an outbreak. It was the wild wild west. This year there's a vaccine. So if you're an idiot like a Cole Beasley and cause an outbreak, you and your team should be punished. Grow the fuck up and trust the science.

Still remember this promo and Eddie Kingston's match that followed vs. Cody defending the TNT Championship on AEW Dynamite, 22nd July 2020. Said match made my Best AEW Matches.

I think the other problems that presents themselves by signing both Punk and Bryan is that with Punk, the expectations have been set way too high for too long now and I don't think anyone would be able to meet those expectations. At least with Bryan you know you're getting a guy who is loved and is automatically going to have a good match with anyone. Additionally, those are two more main event guys on a roster that I don't know can handle two more main event guys. I think it could handle one more guy, but not both. My main concern for Bryan is that he's going to feel like the chains are off and he's going to do as much stupid shit as possible. Like, we think Kota Ibushi is wrestling's Johnny Knoxville, but Bryan's mindset is right up there too.

If we're talking fantasy matchups he absolutely has to wrestle Angelico. And I bet once he finds out about the style that Angelico does he'll see to get that done ASAP.

I missed the last half hour of the show because Sling fucked something up. WTF Sling? Man, Spears is a decent enough worker if you get past the 12 gimmicks he has. Him and Jericho had a fun match. Maybe it's just projection from a guy who's seen Reservoir Dogs 100 times but I hope to God, Jesus, and @Nice Guy Eddie that the little dance he did with the chair was a Mr. Blonde Dance. If that's the case, I take back everything I ever said about him. (Yuta's Chyron reads "Protege of the Best Friends") (JR, a few minutes later) "WHUT is the relationship between Yuta and Orange Cassidy?!?!?" (We all facepalm) Yuta coming up slowly as the Best Friends' young boy is GREAT Loved Will Hobbes' late 80s/early 90s hip hop throwback overalls NICK FUCKIN GAGE. If he's the 2nd labor of Jericho, what are the rest? LOOOOOOOL Sting and OC. The slow-mo chest pounding, man. That was the shit. I really enjoyed the women's title match but Nyla seemed kind of gassed really early on, slow to get off the mat. Didn't care much about Kazarian vs Gallows but I really liked "oh shit things just got real" when Kenny showed up to go after Kaz. It's like a boss in a video game showing up after you're beaten enough of his minions. The Andrade segment was a bit of a mess. I don't think we need Chavo in 2021. My first thought was how that hair restoration gimmick he was pimping must not have taken. Anyway, just keep Andrade's nameless manservant, which is so fitting since Andrade is working a rich superstar gimmick. He doesn't care what that guy's name is. Did Darby have abs drawn on his rib tape? Was it an upside down, two-line cross? The FTR/PnP segment was weird. It felt edited wrong and cut before it could get its point across effectively.

Thinking about the dumb Stephen Smith "Ohtani being the face of baseball is bad for the game" controversy from last week, I really hope AEW takes steps towards smashing this barrier in mainstream wrestling. Vince McMahon told Andrade to take English lessons and get back to him. Tony Khan should give Andrade the opportunity to stick that up his ass sideways.

Only things I didn't like on that show were the Andrade/Death Triangle segment and the Nyla Rose/Britt Baker match. Actually, the latter was...fine, but Nyla is bad and Britt isn't good enough yet to carry her to a great match. Other than that, show fucking ruled. NICK FUCKIN' GAGE! Darby vs Yuta was fun as hell, main event kicked all kinds of ass. PRO WRESTLING! Is it next week yet?

MJF should refuse to pay Gage after he loses. Then, have Gage try to kill MJF.

Sting beating his chest in slow motion had me laughing out loud.

I really do appreciate the ‘devils advocate’ posts by @Goodear (not meant as a slight and I don’t doubt your sincerity), it’s worthwhile looking at what could be done better and where they’re dropping the ball or building logical inconsistencies. But when it comes to the heart rather than the head, the emotional investment with virtually all their biggest stars, building on the ‘upstart’ goodwill in a gradual but exciting way, the respect and reverence for the broader lineage of pro wrestling, the party atmosphere, the Nitro-esque pace of the show, the deliberate ‘no arseholes’ locker room policy, the lack of dogma towards a particular physique/style, the unbound enthusiasm of the booker…it all just adds up to an absolute pleasure of a ride every (for me) Thursday and a sense of real optimism for where they’re going next. I think that’s why these threads are always buzzing - I remember the post-show thread here from the NXT invasion and that sense of true unpredictability and a genuine happening, it’s a bit of that same vibe every week. On the show, the main delivered hard without turning away this more squeamish viewer, and one of my faves Archer finally gets to win a big one (for now!) And the prospect of ZSJ in AEW gets ever closer… Jerichos fat-boy Frankensteiner was great but I don’t think his knees would thank him after that hard landing. At least he gets to go light on the workrate (presumably) next week. No matches with Bucks, Cody, Black, Kenny, PAC, Sting, Jungle Boy, Christian etc etc and they still pulled in over a million, must be doing something right.

It'll be a joke, just like the first women's MITB featured James Ellsworth helping Carmella win, like Kid Rock getting 15 minutes so the divas could enter to his awful music, and the 2nd (or 3rd?) women's rumble had Santina enter it. Expecting dignity from Vince booking the women is to ask for the impossible.

I just hope she's allowed to work elsewhere. I like seeing her in the NWA.. plus she is involved in her own women's promotion. Rosa and Deeb are magic together.

Seeing AEW doing almost a 20k advance for what is still a blind card in NYC, I’m really curious what a potential card with Bryan/Omega on top, in a destination location and with enough advance notice for the international traveling audience, would pull. Could they sell out a football stadium in Chicago, NY or Vegas? Maybe not that many. Or baseball - Citi Field holds 45k and that feels achievable. The biggest non WWE crowd in the past 30 years is what, the Goldberg Georgia Dome show? That drew 40k? I think they can top that.

OH FUCK! You know what this means?! If Archer holds onto that title and works some Japan shows, then he gets to scare little kids around ringside again. I love that shit. Pro wrestling is blood and scaring the shit out of kids.

I think that outside of the face of WWE guys (Reigns/Cena) or Brock, Daniel Bryan is easily the biggest signing AEW could possibly ever do. It’s exciting when actual active top guys jump ship and not just the classic “misused midcarders”. I think he would be only the second case of this happening after Moxley, but Ambrose was never really seen to be in the same level Bryan was in WWE.

I made that same alignment in NCAA 2014! I don't think the conference champion ever won more than 9 games and half the conference would end up 5-7.

Would love it so much if TK's live event announcement is a UK show. Maybe at Craven Cottage. I'd sell my grandmother for ringside tickets.

I honestly think it has. It's refreshing seeing competitors come together for the greater good, working alongside each other. AEW, NJPW and IMPACT Wrestling.

What's so tremendous is that it sounds like WWE's push to get a deal with NJPW was their last ditch effort to keep Danielson. I hope WWE's past treatment of other promotions they've "partnered" with over the past 30 years factored into NJPW's decision. That would be some excellent "chickens coming home to roost" shit. Bring in an amazing dealmaker in Nick Kahn in an effort to go legit, only to get tripped up by your carny trash past. Delicious.

Mmmmmmmmmm… That would raise his stock hire to me if he started acting more like Juvi on the mic.

The tough thing about Baker being a de jour baby face is that the heel side is thin, whereas there are multiple programs for her on the other side. Where does she go next? The Bunny? Penelope? Those are JTTS’s. As opposed to Deeb, Rosa, Conti, Rico, Statlander, ....

I believe it’s known as MLW now

If you could only sign one, Bryan Danielson or CM Punk, Bryan all the way. Put any Punk Money towards buying Bryan.

I was listening to an old BTS and they mentioned we've now had bald Mutoh longer than Mutoh with hair.

I I just realized it's MJF who is bringing in Nick Gage. Here's to hoping Nick Gage turns on him and tries to pizza-cutter his tongue out. I guess there's a little MDK in us all. Shame...

Knew it was going to be a fun night for us when fans started chanting : " Eat her soul" during Abadon's Dark match. Fun show for me and Joey. Worth the 7 hr drive.

Someone was saying they wanted Tankman to team up with Powerhouse Will Hobbs. Because it would be a good team, I mean. Not because their name would be Calvin and Hobbs.