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Thank you so much, @NikoBaltimore, those on Discord (sorry my tablet doesn't allow me on despite attempts to do so), @Craig H, @Sammo~! and Bret Hart for doing this for me. I'm honestly speechless. I enjoy my time on the board and for you to do this, it's greatly appreciated. Thank you. Love, Paul xxx.

That's the best. Truer words never spoken.

Hey, @The NaturalI know you've been through a lot and you seem like a really incredible guy. So after talking about it with some on Discord I got you a Cameo from a special somebody and hope this finds you well. Special thanks to @Craig H and @Sammo~!for helping contribute, really appreciate that.

It’s gotten lost in the other stuff on this show, but that was the best promo I've heard from Moxley in forever. I’m glad he’s still got it in him when he feels like it because when I saw his FCW work I thought he was going to end up being one of the best talkers in the business.

Shawn Spears' "heyyyyy" won the night

Tay is Brazillan. Britt offers her no competition.

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I will shit on Cody for money, please and thank you.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention this. My wife sat with me just before the Cody vs Black match. She vaguely knows who Cody is, but she doesn't know much. So Cody comes out and she asks, "is he supposed to be the heel?" And I say, "well, it's complicated, but he's supposed to be the face." Her response to me is, "but his name is the American Nightmare and he's dressed up like Homelander. Why isn't he a heel?" I just told her that wrestling is dumb sometimes.

That was freaking awesome. Kudos to all involved.

I loved Danielson/Dustin so much because it had all the things you said it had in it, Matt, while not needing to be hamfisted about any of them. The announcers called attention to most of them too. It was a very good match on the surface, but when you add the attention to detail stuff like Dustin's determination to not be a pushover and put on a better performance than his last TV match (Malakai) along with the other things mentioned, I think it elevates it to greatness. Loved Dustin countering the Danielson comeback special with the powerslam. Repetitive and predictable spots like that, particularly ones not set up better, should be punished in rematches or matches against wily vets or students of the game. Jeez, that Danielson line on Kingston was mean-spirited. We are getting Danielson vs Moxley unless there's a pivot because of The Notebook, but it would be sweet if Kingston could humble Dragon a bit. Definitely more than just shades of his old ROH persona leaking through here. I feel like this tournament ends with Moxley, out of desperation after being pushed to his limit by Bryan, kicking Danielson in the nuts after some sort of ref shenanigans and hitting the paradigm shift. Something like that. A move from his perspective that can be justified by motivation to fight for his family regardless of consequences and it gives Bryan's first loss purpose (cementing a top guy's turn) and an out to keep him strong, possibly setting up a rematch too. Should be great however they pull it off but babyface Mox has had his run and needs a new purpose. Grumpy, tired new dad. Does he still use wild thing? If the turn works you could see stuff like small scale versions of the infamous Onita deathmatch in NJPW entrance.

Goddamn I did enjoy me some American Dragon vs Dustin Rhodes

A follow up to that earlier Edge/Bret vid.

Poor Cole probably heard Vince swearing up a storm as that segment went on.

I've seen this comment a bunch. Did anyone that says it even watch TNA? So Cody, by putting over Black big twice in a row then winning the third is exactly like Jarrett in what way? Jarrett would always book himself to win because he was the owner & booker, and thought he was the only guy he could really trust. Cody lost his only title shot and put the stip in that he can never challenge for it again. How exactly is that Jeff Jarrett like? Where is the Monty Brown home grown guy that Cody won't put over? He put over Brodie. He put over Darby. He put over fucking QT. He put over Black. Twice. Most everyone's take on the Cody-verse is valid. It's been pretty bad for awhile now. ESPECIALLY the rah-rah pro USA promos. But yall calling him Jeff Jarrett are really showing your ass. Just a quick note to fans attending the shows. You pay your money, so do what you want. But you know the more you boo him and the louder it gets.... the more they are gonna put him on TV right? Big reactions (regardless of negative or positive) are the end goal of a wrestling show. Have fun booing your heads off. Just hope you aren't doing it because you think it'll get you less Cody lol.

Yeah, top marks guys. And every word was true.

Great stuff, guys! @NikoBaltimore@Craig H@Sammo~! You fools are gonna get me to cryin' up in here. Way to pull together for our homie! @The Natural

DMD is mind and body, sorry Tay you're not right here, but it's hard to suggest you're not. The anti-Cody sentiment goes from realistic 'why is Cody a babyface' to Jeff Jarrett comparisons in one thread page flip to the next. You can hate Cody for his silly neck tattoo, or his American Dream, his entrance music, his gorgeous wife, or whatever you like, but to suggest this guy who has strongly put over so many of his peers and kept himself (sure he has some pull) at the mid-card for the majority of his run has done anything but help this company to where it is lacks facts or 'science' in your op eds. Cody is a gifted promo (but the patriotic promo! The patriotic promo!) and an above average wrestler (most of his matches are good to excellent) with a great look and fire. Boohoo, if you don't like him, he's a bonafide star and he isn't hording titles or the spotlight. Taking a win over Malakai Black is completely fine. Sure, I would have liked to see Black go 3-0, but it was a really good match and there's no doubt that Malakai Black rebounds just fine.

Actually, one of my favorite bits of Danielson vs Dustin was the post match, when Danielson was sort of bathing in it and then he realized that Dustin was being checked on by medical staff and he sort or rushed over to check on him too. You get the sense that he, as a character, is so into the moment now that all of the chains have been taken off of him and he's able to compete on this level for the first time in a decade+ that he's not entirely in control of his own intensity. That's going to boil over at some point, presumably.

I’m not going to defend the booking of the main, but Cody definitely started not selling and rushing his comeback at the end because the timing of the schmozz stuff in the middle got messed up and they were about to go off-air.

I liked MJF not being able to help himself and Fargo strutting onto the stage because he was about to cut a promo on Sting.

Danielson and Dustin were amazing. I really like how AEW goes "hey, we have two all time great wrestlers sitting around the locker room. Let's give them 15+ minutes with no bullshit" on a fairly regular basis. Bucks/Kenny/Cole are such an unbelievably great group of douchebag heels. They get more hateable every week, and I can't wait to see Jungle Boy make one of them tap and Hangman take Kenny's head off. Cody/Black was a really fun match. I think it was too early for the match to happen, and way too early for Cody to beat Black, but the match itself was great. The FTR promo was good. MJF was a perfect dick per usual. I hope Archer recovers quickly. This show rules.

Cody Rhodes sucks. His neck tattoo is stupid. He looks like a damned fool.

so for those that care - Okada will be in the US at the beginning of November ??

Hand to God, if he cut a promo where he said his planet needed him and was lifted into the rafters on a harness, and then came back in three months not looking and acting like a desperate social media influencer, he’d be more over than he’s ever been.

Nese is a veteran of the NYC indie scene and is looked up to by all the young NYC guys on AEW’s roster. I imagine that has a lot to do with the company finding him a soft landing spot after WWE.

There is no defensible reason to skip on Buddy Murphy and then pick up Tony Nese. And I like Nese. I can't believe the price tags were THAT different.

I guess after Blade Runner and Dune, his next movie will be to remake Lawrence of Arabia. #sand

Posting this for Casual Abadon. Also, I really like Uno's new mask.

Tony Nese is a guy that should be in Impact.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CVakb17rIik/ WTF is this goof talking about? Anyway, moving on.

In a modern environment where the audience knows everything, the former is a useful tool. It shouldn't colour every aspect of the show, but it has a place to be emotionally potent. And it's especially useful that the person who gets to use that tool isn't eligible to hold the company's top title. There's zero risk of him being the centerpiece of the promotion and running people off in that way, so the heat stays firmly on him and away from the promotion and booker. If you want excitement about "what happens next" from an "outright story aspect," this company already provides plenty of that. The virtues of variety are so often championed with regards to wrestling shows. If it really is such a virtue, some people should be more open to the idea that What You Want isn't what you want all the time. This company exists in the way it does largely in part because of heated fan resentment opening up a space. Tony Khan understands that the spiritual resentment of wrestling fans is a powerful tool, and he and the guy who drove John Cena around for a year know how to wield it. There is room in this company to play in that space and see what comes of it. Forget what you think Cody's strengths are. Trust the process.

Dune Act One is fucking beautiful and the cast is entirely on point. The story flows well even when weighed down with Herbert's pseudo religious babble. I wish that Denis had been given the green light to shoot everything all at once and then release the second and third acts in three or four month intervals. We should not have to wait eons for another installment.

The Brodie "feud" isn't really fair, since Brodie got sick basically right after that match and we aren't even really sure where he would have went post dog collar match versus Cody. It seemed like he was positioned for a feud with Hangman, and that would have been great for both of them, and let's be honest - the stuff with Cody and Brodie was actually really good, with Brodie putting in some of the best stuff of his entire career, both promo and match wise. Plus, just like WWE - especially at the time - there were no crowds to gauge reactions against, so in a purely story sense, the babyface overcoming to monster heel is basically wrestling 101. Right call here most likely, if not a little too soon for that rematch. But if they would have waited, with hindsight being what it is... Brodie would have had to relinquish the title anyway. It's really too soon to say if this is the peak for Malakai, that seems pretty reactionary to something that just happened under 24 hours ago. Cody (and the Bucks, and Omega) put over a lot of fucking people in the early days of AEW, so much so that people were questioning that booking choice. Private Party over the Bucks? Omega had a pretty bad 2019, kayfabe wise anyway. Cody putting over MJF, and not winning the title VS. Jericho when Cody was RED fuckin' HOT (and that stipulation that they haven't went back on? that was Full Gear 2019, and it's now coming up on the 2021 version of the event and they've stuck to it). I hate to be @John from Cincinnatiover here about Cody, but comparing him to TNA Jeff Jarrett is just fucking crazy.

The plan for Archer vs Kingston was clearly for Archer to go for a Moonsault and miss, but the whole 'under-rotate and spike your head into the mat' part was not intentional. As far as Jungle Boy vs The Elite, you're supposed to be exasperated that they keep beating him up. It's build to him getting a bigtime win when the odds aren't stacked against him, innit?

We're just thinking about you and hoping you're doing well. We figured you could use a pep talk from one of your heroes. Hang in there man.

I love that AmDrag is just murking dudes with various submissions. More of this.

I think there was. You should write an angry letter to the promotion about that. Yes, I am suggesting that you send AEW some cross words.

Nope.

I think med school might not be your calling.

Dragon vs Dustin was really, really good. I'm starting to suspect that this Danielson kid might be pretty good.

Per WWE.COM “Stone Cold has a few beers with excited fans in Tokyo”

Shit, now I want Colin Robinson at ringside with the glowing blue eyes anytime fans aren't getting the booking they want... Like maybe during Cody's matches...

One of the scenes I did on a TV show required me to point a gun at my head and others to point guns at me. Once the scene was setup prop people walked me through every gun and showed me how they worked. They explained how every gun was real but the firing mechanism had been removed and none of them were loaded. I got to inspect every persons gun if I wanted to. Even knowing that they weren't working firearms, it's never comfortable having a gun pointed at you. Every time I left the set so they could change anything, I was walked through the guns again every time I came back. That's what it's like on a major network TV show when the guns aren't firing. I imagine the circumstances are supposed to be even more thorough when they do. But even though that felt very safe there were other moments where corners were cut that felt dangerous to me. For example, someone said, "Hey when you arrest Jae, let's slam him down on that table." The stunt coordinator looked at me and said "Don't worry that's not our table so that's not happening." When I came back to shoot the scene, an actor said "Hey did they tell you what we're doing when I arrest you?" I said "No." He said I'm going to twist this gun out of you hand to disarm you and then shove you down on your ass." I've done a lot of fight choreography over the years and this seemed pretty simple to me. But we didn't rehearse it with a choreographer. The actor just hurriedly showed me how it was going to work before they yelled for him to get in position for the first take. That's kind of ridiculous. In every theatre production I ever done that moment would have been rehearsed over and over. First in slowmotion and then we'd speed it up as we got more comfortable. To JT's point about vehicles, there was another scene where I was supposed to enter the driver side of an armored truck. They had traffic stopped for the shot, which was great because I could't see around the armored truck for cars coming.. First take there was something wrong with the extras so we did it again. We reset the truck and I did it again. This time as I go to step out in front of the the van a car passes right in front of me. If I'd been a second faster I was going to get nailed. I looked around the van to the traffic cop(he was a real cop) and he gave me the OOPSIE face. I was pissed. No one said a word to me about it. Like they didn't notice. And that's something I've always understood about acting. No one but you is counting your bumps. And they'll let you take those bumps a hundred times and ask for another one. You have to tell them, nah I'm done for today. And this is true whether the people in charge are good folks that you're friends with, or strangers who might be jerks. You're just expected to do it. And most actors will suck it up and do it because we're desperate to work and we believe this opportunity may never happen again. There's so many of us and we know we're disposable. And with movies and TV shows, we know that we're working on something worth millions of dollars and every minute we waste is worth thousands. It's a lot of pressure. And if you complain you're made to feel like you're lucky that you get to play make believe for a living. Fucking deal with it. I've been doing this a long time and I've got all kinds of stories like that. So when I heard what happened on the Rust set, I knew that it was a breakdown in protocol. I couldn't believe it happened, but I could also imagine the circumstances that lead to it. To me it's not about whether or not it's safe to use firearms in pictures. That isn't the problem. For me it's an underlying issue that we don't feel like we can even take the time to insure our own safety, because time is money and the money is worth more than our safety. "Make it CG." doesn't address any of that.