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Further adventures of introducing wrestling to my wife, Malakai Black/Dante Martin edition: "Oh, I really like this. It seems more like what I think of wrestling in my head instead of just one guy doing his moves and waiting for the other guy to do his moves." If I don't screw this up I'm pretty sure I can get my wife to watch Battlarts with me.

Jericho, to PVZ: "I wouldn't touch you with your husband's genitalia." CM Punk: "I don't think that's true." Thought Punk was the best he'd been on commentary tonight. Also loved how after the "Daniel Bryan" slip he defended JR, saying "so they see it's not just you"

If he had only ripped off the cross... Anyway, this card was fucking tremendous. Danielson/Fish might be the one everyone talks about but Black/Martin is the best one. That is proof that the one thing that makes wrestling work is SELLING. IN LARGE AMOUNTS. ALWAYS.

I told ALL OF YOU to Boo this man, and you didn't. THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE.

Awesome show tonight. Dante/Black ruled as the opener. Dante looked great, managing to hit lots of his big spots throughout until falling short in the end. Glad to see the Inner Circle back together after randomly branching off for awhile. Wasn't sure about the masked FTR bit at first but ended up really liking it. Here they came off very Midnights-esque completed with the new theme. I hope they get a real run and get to do a decent amount of stuff actually in AAA, feel like that could be real fun. Loved the little Serena/Shida bit, nice to see that feud continue. Great finishing stretch in the trios tag, crowd was super hot for all the Dark Orders big moves. Surprised Cody/Black 3 is already next week, but I enjoyed Cody's Rocky coaching. Sting running off MJF was fun. Kiera Hogan looked excellent as always, she was such a great heel in her last Impact run that I almost forget she can be quite the good babyface too. Epic Miro vignette and really good Hangman promo. This show was filled with good stuff all throughout. Topped off with another fantastic Bryan main event, Fish looked good as well. Bryan/Dustin should be incredible next week, a shockingly first time ever match. Definitely see Moxley/Bryan as the tournament final. Also enjoyed Punk having his best commentary night yet IMO with some great little bits. Complimenting Serena on "having a fantastic head of hair" then having to ask if Kiera Hogan had "any relation.." leading to Tony asking if he meant Ben Hogan the golfer, Hogan's Heroes, or Paul Hogan.

What about people posing as a Cuban?

That's a face in my book, although my book is really out there and missing some pages.

What's a "Dave Hebner"? I only know Earl and some unfortunate schmuck that the Million Dollar Man paid to get facial surgery to resemble Earl.

Fuck this fucking game.

I had a back and forth with @Matt Dlast week about how much we enjoy making basic moves meaningful, and it really looks like AEW is making this part of the house working style. CM Punk has been working body slams into a signature spot, and the announcers are putting them over. Malakai Black's half crab could have been a throwaway hold, but the fact that he went back to it and worked it into an opportunity to sell an injury. I'm really enjoying AEW these days, and it's been a while since I've regularly watched any wrestling. I'll probably never be a regular WWE watcher again, they've burned me too many times. Paige VanZant is a star, but I have to say her husband has one of the worst tattoos I've ever seen. Seriously, I watch a lot of MMA, I've seen a lot of terrible tattoos, that dude's tattoo is bottom 5.

For the people on Twitter that are complaining that Bryce Remsburg was trying to stealing the heat from the Danielson vs Suzuki for attention, just admit that you haven't watched a lick of pro wrestling before 1998. I mean if Bryce and Aubrey Edwards are terrible at this then Tommy Young and Earl Hebner would make their head explode in rage

Darius Martin is such a good high-flier, that it has blinded everyone to how good his selling is. He doesn't even do the "Sell on defence, forget to on offence" thing that a lot of young wrestlers fall into. He's out there doing one-legged springboard moves.

I am Fat (right now at least), but I am not Spanish, nor a Waiter

I was really impressed with Bobby Fish. He fucking layed it in, That was a fucking BattlARTS match.

And now that we have definitive proof that a Dragon is stronger than a Fish, the next logical step for Bobby is to challenge Taz's son. Because Fish vs Hook is a natural rivalry.

Damn, I had never heard of Frank Andersson but he looks awesome. All kings of cool suplexes and amateur wrestling shit, plus super agile.

Miro cutting promos in Colonel Kurtz lighting is badass.

Loved how much shit Johnny Hungee aimed at Adam Cole, also that they made Alex Reynolds look pretty good before he inevitably lost. If you watch BTE you know they have a little feud going with Cole over Boobs and long hair.

Busy weekend but just gotta say Bryan/Suzuki was a classic as expected and I feel we finally got the Suzuki we’ve been wanting since he first showed up. Bryan continues his magnificent run, the absolute joy in his face when getting hit by Suzuki shows how much this guy loves wrestling. “If you’re watching TV and not watching this on YouTube, you’re a dumbass”

To go with the Serena Deeb head of hair: LOL.

Really great episode, though I could have done without Jericho calling PVZ a bitch and bimbo and doing the "I bet you really want to sleep with me" thing. When does Miro get the big belt?

Also Bobby Fish is a sleeper Best Wrestler because of all his shit-talking to the crowd during the entire match.

That's pretty true. Sorry, I guess the "one" singles match is not true.

Really liking a potential Danielson vs. Archer or Kingston match in the second round, either should be fantastic. I feel like Luchas/Revival could have been handled better. I feel like if they went in as Super Ranas that's how they should have been announced after the match too, that and... having to defend the belts as Super Ranas going forward. Have this be like when 2.0 also wrestled as The Bad Boyz within the same company. I'm psyched that it looks like we're finally getting Hangman knocking off Kenny but I'm really hoping someday we get Dutch Satan as AEW champion

Yeah, Malakai Black is the darkhorse third great wrestler to come in. This was like his answer to the two great matches 24 hours prior. That's how you get a young guy over without putting him over. The Lucha Bros/FTR match, on the other hand, was a wreck. I loved the Dark Order match. Bryan Danielson is fucking unreal. I love how they are now booking the women as Memphis studio wrestling.

AmDrag vs Dustin next week is gonna be ???

Danielson is the greatest alive. Fucking GREAT Hangman promo. Schiavone was gold during the MJF segment.

In his book, Bret says he used to draw Chief Jay Strongbow in the middle of orgies so that's likely the agent he's referring to. Strongbow was apparently pretty straight laced so Bret thought it'd be funny to make him the focal point of the drawings. He also said that when Bundy decided to leave, Bret drew a picture of him (Bundy) puking up a bunch of dicks as a going away present. Bundy took the picture and captioned each dick with Bret's brothers' names.

with God, all things are possible. Even Miro losing in an upset.

Well, he was also 6'7" and 287 pounds, and looked like he probably had a gun in the back of his pants.

brackets don't do it for me. Bryan vs. Dustin will be fantastic but there's some glaring omissions in the tournament. You could argue maybe Punk doesn't have enough wins yet but there's no real legitimate reason to not have Christian or Miro in the tournament. Their non-kayfabe reasoning is to protect them but in a promotion with a clear ranking system i'm not sure it actually makes sense.

Bryce debuted with the second-generation CHIKARA class that included Eddie Kingston and Jigsaw, which is to say he cut his teeth on & specializes in being the befuddled official trying and failing to corral eight man indy clusterfucks. AEW wants the refs to be "bad", because a lot of the highspots in these tag matches are technically kayfabe-illegal. Bryce at least registers shock, confusion and exasperation. Compare this to Knox, who just doesn't act like he gives a shit. I think the gap between them is sizeable

They gotta give Powerhouse Hobbs a win here after this. Monster heels aren't monsters if they never win important matches.

This was great. Will going on about Sawyer having dog collar matches as his gimmick match he didn't lose until Phil shit on that was hilarious. Tune into this one people, it's another great pod.

Now that's a sweep.

You wouldn't even have to turn Mox long-term heel. Just have Mox see Hangman as an unworthy champion, not mentally tough enough, and leads to a battle for respect in a hardcore match. Ends with a handshake and Mox goes back face. Beating Omega makes you champ. Beating Mox makes you in AEW.

Dear god. Danielson goes from the strikefest with Suzuki yesterday to the hurty-TORQUE fest with Fish. That finish looked GNARLY. I mean, from a workrate perspective, within 24 hours he had the match with Suzuki and now Fish.

Real Life Angel

C’mon, calling Danielson a one-trick pony isn’t fair.

Is it cash or open bar? That's how you tell if it's hell or just purgatory.

I love this company, but I really wish they'd evolve passed saves being preceded by entrance music. Interruptions preceded by pressing play on the theme music is fine and often great. Big saves I'll never understand the sacrificing of a more natural surprise element. I mean you can always fire up the music after the ring is cleared.

So, like i didn't have enough to mark out about already today... My friend Juan tipped me off about a pop-up puroresu shop that was set up in a local mall this weekend. Something I'd naively hoped would happen all the time over here, but in fact this was the first time I've seen anything like this anywhere outside Tokyo since Mr. Hito's shop closed. Giant Baba's boots: Giant Baba's t-shirt: Tiger Mask's mask: And I'll spoiler the rest, and post the t-shirts I bought in the merch thread:

AEW Full Gear 2021 card:

I think they should just do huge marathon tapings of Dark/Elevation every few months in smaller venues, and keep Dynamite/Rampage together for the bigger arenas.