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So the show had too many matches back to back that told very similar stories, and had very similar finishes. But it's OK, because this thread also features too many posts back to back in which people point out that the show had too many matches back to back that told very similar stories. So actually that repetition is clearly acceptable to everyone.

I just saw newz that Elimination Chamber is scheduled to be the February Saudi event. The good news is WWE can save on shipping, as the Saudi government has a few elimination chambers they can choose from already.

Wrapping my head around the AEW criticisms from last night (someone tallied the following on the f4w board apparently) for instance: It kind of feels like the difference between AEW and WWE is that one company has absolutely nothing happen ever and the other company has too many things happening. But the difference between AEW and 1998-9 WWF Crash TV is that crash TV had 3 minute matches instead of 10-15 minute ones. I'm probably biased/lucky in that I don't usually watch this stuff live and i can skip around how I want. But you know what that list looks like to me even more than the other things listed? Memphis TV with far more substantial matches. And Memphis TV is awesome. It's Lance Russell as Kermit the Frog trying to keep order while there's all this insane chaos around him and his run sheet gets blown up each and every week. There are problems. Things start and stop and come and go too much without enough direction, though they do almost always get where they're going in the end. The ranking system is flimsy and not entirely underpinned by transparent logic (Why isn't Punk ranked if he's 10 and 0?). They need agenting when it comes to repeating certain things, but Gordi summed up pretty well how we should be much more focused on the execution and the impact than the theory. I didn't mind the execution of Best Friends getting laid out repeatedly. He didn't mind the execution of two size mismatch matches in a row. But if things were done differently, either of us could have raised issues. The biggest problem is that they don't let moments resonate into the next segment. On the other hand, Raw and Nitro have traditionally overdone that, to the point where you'd have people talk about the NWO constantly during a luchador match. The reverse to that is not being able to fit in enough women or to highlight the huge roster well enough. So it's a hard balance. How do you make things resonate more while still involving everyone. And the answer is that if you have to sacrifice one of those two things, you just don't involve everyone and you take advantage of how cycling people in and out can keep them fresh. Maybe you use the announcing more to highlight issues and draw them out a little longer instead of having constant interference/presence on screen to keep the stories going. Or hey! you can use insert interviews like old WWF TV. That's a great idea. Let's see someone's head in the corner of the screen talking about an issue. But even that's tricky due to the intensity of the matches, making sure that all the things they need to plug get plugged, and balancing picture in picture. I'm sympathetic because I'd rather have too many interesting things going on than too few, and they should constantly strive to get better, but I don't think there's an easy answer for any of this. Any solution causes some other problem. But I'm also not getting paid big money for my message board opinions about how to fix it either.

I don't know how everything came off on tv and while I don't think this was one of the better episodes, I had a lot of fun attending the show. Going to the show was like seeing a band you like that has a really extensive catalogue - you know you aren't going to hear every song you like but figure there will be enough to satisfy you. I didn't think I'd see every wrestler I really wanted to, but went in hoping to be entertained. Some have mentioned the lackluster crowd. I was on the second floor on the camera-facing side so I don't know how full it was below me, but the building was a little over half full. A ton of people left before the Rampage taping as well. It could be due to territory fatigue as they were just in Greensboro (a little over an hour away) a few weeks ago and Charlotte (2.5 hours away) over the weekend, which both have more of a wrestling tradition. Lance Archer got a huge pop, Brody King got a big pop when he came out (this was my personal high point of the show), and Adam Cole and friends got a huge reaction when they came out. Punk was also over huge, though during the match almost just as many people were cheering for Wardlow. I wasn't a fan of the way that match ended. You could have had Wardlow crush Punk yet not look like a total chump getting rolled up at the end. I also agree that putting Hobbs/Martin (which was great live) on right after since it told such a similar story. The crowd definitely felt the front-loaded card and was losing some steam at the end. Dan Lambert got the loudest negative reaction. I like Penta more than most and was glad to see him, and I guess they've got to give Matt a match (I don't know if it was on tv or not, but before the match he cut a promo vowing to delete Penta and pointed out his wife and kids in the crowd) being local and all, but this didn't hold the crowd's attention that long. Then it was followed by The Acclaimed/Bear Country match which wouldn't have been bad in the first hour or on Dark, but was out of place at this point in the card. I'd really been looking forward to Shida/Deeb given how good their past matches were and was a bit let down this one ended the way it did. It's clearly leading to a bigger match with some sort of stip and I'm sure that will be great, but I would have liked to have seen a longer match. Garcia/Sammy was easily the best match of the night and kept getting progressively better as it went along. Some pics- Rampage spoilers- Dark-

Doubling down on what I was saying, one element of AEW booking is that no one that is doing anything is doing just one thing. Look at Statlander. She's number one in the rankings. She's now involved in the Britt/Cole thing. She's got beef with Hirsch who's about to turn on her. She just came off that loss to Soho that they could poke at later if they want to. Sting and Darby are up against the Acclaimed, who are also the number one ranked team and looking ahead to the champs, but Andrade also wants Darby as his new assistant, and now he's talking to Hardy about something. It's a giant tapestry which is really not how I can remember any company ever being booked before. It means that there's reason for people to get involved in almost every match. Scorpio Sky or Arn could have come down for the Sammy match just as easily as the multiple entities that were already there.

As a kid I would track down any wrestling I could find. Every Sunday when the paper came I would yank the knock off tv guide and search for anything wrestling related. The VHS tape was your friend and I remember not only watching NWA/WCW and WWF, but also got my hands on UWF, GWF and some Memphis footage. I was big on babyface Jarrett WWF stuck to the script. Early 90s WCW rewarded you for your devotion because it was always a little chaotic/random. The thrill people have today revisiting WCW B/C shows existed back then as well. You never knew what you were going to get. I still remember Owens brief NWA run leaving an impression on me. You'd find a syndicated show on at 1 in the morning and 92 Benoit is throwing dragon suplexes. In the late-90s I was WCW all of the way. Again, I liked the randonmness of it all and the quality of some of the match ups. I only changed channels for Stone Cold because he was a force of nature.

I remember being so disappointed though when I first saw a street fight and it wasn't actually fought in some filthy downtown back alley a la Streets of Rage.

The Apter mags made Yoshi fucking Kwan look like a bloodletting killer, man. They were these incredible hype machines for me as a kid.

Didn't think it looked good live, but bless Daniel Garcia for being GREAT at explaining things on twitter.

So, as a kid we had WOMETCO cable out of Fayetteville, Ga. I still remember their office on the square. Every saturday the cable access channel had a 3-5 hour block of pro wrestling. We got WCW Worldwide, WWF Wrestling Challenge, USWA, Smoky Mountain, and another WWE or something. They had the old school hosts and everything. I was enraptured by the "Dirty White Boy" Tony Anthony, Buddy Landell, PG13, and all the people I'd only heard about in the Apter mags to that point. Then WOMETCO got bought up by BellSouth after the FCC ruling stuff. All that cable access stuff became a thing of the past. Sad.

@cwoy2jmentioned the Apter mags above. Those and the Napolitano mags were super important to my young fandom as well. I couldn’t tell you the first time I actually saw, say…Jerry Lawler wrestle (probably a clip from Pro Wrestling This Week?), but I already knew all the major beats of his character and moveset and big feuds. I was practically a fan before I ever even saw him. There are hundreds of examples of that for me. Really helped to have a passing knowledge of people when they eventually popped up in territories I could actually watch. Probably another negative towards WWF programming, too, as you’d be reading about the Sheepherders/Fantastics blood feud one month and then get the Bushwhackers debuting the next!

I still thought Dynamite was pretty good with matches and angles. I'm not going to lie though, the thought did cross my mind that I want AEW's cable TV shows to be closer to when Dynamite first started airing where the booking seemed pretty fearless when it came to wins and losses. Maybe my memory is poor, but I seem to recall most matches having clean finishes without chicanery to protect heels and faces. Dudes, both men and women, just straight up lost and won. Opening segment...Perfectly fine because Best Friends vs Super Elite has been the post-PPV storyline for these guys. It is getting a little played out with the Best Friends coming away with one win in this whole feud. There's at least some movement here where it's starting to transition to Bucks vs reDRagon with Cole stuck in the middle. When Britt first came out I was a little concerned because I tend to hate real life couples being involved in wrestling, but I wound up liking Britt's involvement just fine. Plus, it's leading to Britt/Cole vs Kris/OC, which should hopefully give us a rematch between Kris and Britt at Revolution where Kris SHOULD win. Personally, I still think Kris is up there with Rosa for Kris' best match and opponent, but I haven't seen Britt vs Riho because Battle wasn't recorded. I really liked everything that happened with the Wardlow vs Punk match. I sat there thinking, holy shit, they're putting Wardlow over pretty big here. He's just a total force of nature. I had a feeling that the match would end with a small package. Despite Punk winning. I saw it more that he escaped and less that he won or even survived. Lots of moving parts with this feud that I like. Building up to Punk hopefully shutting MJF up, building up to Wardlow smashing Spears, building up to Wardlow smashing MJF. I mean, when Wardlow destroys MJF and turns on him, I hope it's in a packed arena because the roof is going to blow off of that place. Part of me also wants Punk to keep interfering in MJF's matches to cause him to lose by DQ and one of those opponents winds up being someone that goes after Punk because they're pissed they were used by Punk to get one over on MJF. Hobbs vs Martin was really good shit, but the finish annoyed me because it involved the chicanery I mentioned above. Others here have mentioned that needs to be more quality control with these matches and segments because there are too many repeating elements. Hell, Jericho openly complained about this and it led to some positive change with regards to avoiding repeating elements. It seems they've taken some steps back in this regard. It's also a good example of something I brought up last week where not every match needs to go through a commercial break. Hobbs vs Martin should last 6 or 7 minutes instead of putting Hobbs on the treadmill for however long and having Martin risk injuring himself by being in longer matches. You can even do the same finish they did, but again, in a 6 or 7 minute match. I had wondered if Page's next challenger would be some form of a monster or giant. To be honest, I had completely forgotten about Archer. He and Page should have a banger of a match to hold Page over until Cole probably challenges him at Revolution. Shida vs Deeb was awesome. It makes me think even more that Kris will beat Britt for the title and the Deeb will be her first challenger. WTF was that Hardy vs Penta match? Both guys looked blown up, Hardy looked like he was repeatedly sandbagging Penta, Penta looked sloppy, there were a couple moves where Matt clonked right on his fucking dome, including the Fear Factor at the end. Really weird match................. ............That led into a fucking awesome angle. Again, another example of how AEW is really good with feuds and angles that have lots of moving and intertwined parts. I did have to laugh at everyone kicking the shit out of Black like it was the ending from Death Proof until Julia stopped them. Add me to the "SHE'S CORRUPTED" choir. Brody King looks scary as fuck. Honestly, Jungle Express should have a short reign because Black and King should smoke them for those titles Demolition style. I have no idea what to think about Matt partnering up with Andrade, but can we please get a hotter mic for Andrade. His English is improving, but he's a little soft spoken and when you keep moving the mic around, it makes it almost impossible to hear him. I also have no idea where this shit with Eddie and Jericho is going, but Eddie needs to win a feud badly. Dude is O-fer in all of his feuds and the crowd still goes nuts for him because he's the realest motherfucker in pro wrestling. Main event kicked all kinds of ass until the finish with the aforementioned chicanery. Pro wrestling has desperately needed someone like Nick and Nate Diaz and Daniel Garcia fills that role perfectly. I wouldn't have minded Garcia winning here, even if it hot potatoes the title around too much. I love Garcia as this dude who will just fight a motherfucker. Sammy looked good as well. What sucked, but also didn't suck, was the involvement of 2point0. I love those guys, I love Eddie, I love Sammy, I love Garcia, and I like Jericho enough. Everyone involved scratches an itch for me, but it sucked that there was another fucked up finish when you could have had Sammy just go over clean. Here's the deal...If you're someone who is as threatening as Garcia and wrestles as good as him and can talk like him, then it doesn't hurt him if he loses clean in a tough match. There's no harm there. Case in point, look at Darby Allen and how many Ls he dropped clean on his way to being one of the top guys in the company. He may be in a holding pattern now, but he's at least still on TV with Sting and he's still kind of the face of this company. This was Garcia's 10th loss. If those previous 9 losses didn't hurt him, then losing clean for a 10th time wouldn't hurt him either.

I think if you’ve really been paying close attention to Punk singles matches in AEW, they’ve kinda subtly been suggesting that Punk is pretty close to being over the hill, but he’s been able to use the GTS as his get-out-of-jail-free card. Even the story of the Lee Moriarty match (who is nobody in the pecking order right now) was about Lee outclassing him on the mat. So, it made sense to me that he would have nothing for Wardlow, who they’ve really been building as a force of nature these past few months, and need to basically be bailed out by heel infighting.

I get that the first two matches were pretty similar (in that both had a bigger guy trying to punish a smaller guy rather than just going for the win, and both had banana-peel-esque finishes) but to my eyes there was a very clear difference in how Punk was using veteran savvy and experience to combat Wardlow's size and power whereas Dante relied on speed, quickness, and explosive athleticism. That felt like the exact right way to go, in both cases, and in my opinion it made for both a sufficient and a pleasing contrast. I LOVED Punk's selling, and thought the match did a swell job of putting Wardlow over as a beast, MJF as a dickhole, and Punk as a warrior. AEW once again showed respect for the intelligence of their audience, in that they know that we know about Cole and Baker and didn't need to make a big deal about it. Even though I'd normally say that a Bay Bay and a Dentist make for an odd match, them vs an Alien and an Orange is a natural match-up, one of the oldest stories in the book. reDRagon vs the Bucks, and likely a six-man when Kenny returns, is something to look forward to. I feel the same about Jericho vs Kingston, as I think that match-up could bring the best stuff out of Jericho that we've seen in a while. FTR vs El Hijo del Double A, too! Got a big kick out of Arn and Tully's tough guy handshake. I'm always happy to see Bear Country. If I had the book, Dynamite would be mainly built around them, JD Drake, and Legit Leyla. And Lulu pencil. And the American Dragon Iron Man Challenge Series. Even though I don't mind when dudes who are way way way smaller than me win matches, hold titles, and get pushed, I very much enjoyed all of the Big Hoss Clubbering that AEW gifted us with this week. I knew I wouldn't be alone in that, on these boards. I enjoyed seeing Matt Hardy hit a moonsault! Not because MOOVZ! but.. just cool to see that he still has it in him. I feel like I oughta complain about something, for the sake of balance, but I have been marking out all week. Maybe my threshold for joy is a little low? Maybe Pro Wrestling is pretty great? Maybe a little from column A, a little from column B? Oh, I know! I really wanted Maki Itoh to run in for the save during the Shida beat-down. Enough so that I was almost bummed out when it didn't happen.

I grew up in the 80s so it was more JCP vs. WWF. I'm from Virginia and we didn't have cable when I was a kid so the only WWF I got to see was Superstars on Sunday morning and the occasional times I stayed up late and watched Saturday Night's Main Event. I got two NWA shows every Saturday, one at noon and one at like 11:30pm or so (and this was back in the days when channels would stop at a certain time!) and my uncle would record the TBS shows and Clashes for me b/c he had cable. I was a big Apter mag reader too. The WWF never came to Charlottesville but the NWA would come here twice a year or so and they were in Richmond more often than that so I'd go to at least one NWA show every year as a kid. So anyway, I was a big NWA supporter. Even though I was only 7 in 1986, I pretty much knew what was going on with wrestling (retired wrestler Abe Jacobs spoiled it for me when I visited Ricky Steamboat's gym in Charlotte but that's a story for another day). That said, I thought the NWA seemed more authentic because their guys looked more like regular tough guys than the jacked up muscle guys in the WWF. I was firmly in the camp that Flair would wipe the floor with Hogan because he knew more "techniques" and was a better "scientific wrestler" and he wasn't stupid like the WWF rulebreakers who would sit there and stupidly hit Hogan during the Hulk-Up. I thought the WWF was "fake" because it was all bright, there were animals, a bunch of fat wrestlers who didn't know any "techniques" (yeah, I know Dusty Rhodes is fat and I didn't like him but at least he's tough and he knows how to put on a figure four) and all of Hogan's matches ended the same way. Plus there was hardly any blood! How can you tell 6 year old me that on one show, Ric Flair gets rammed into a cage and he's bleeding like a stuck pig but these losers in the WWF do and there's nothing?! Plus what's up with those stupid big blue bars? That's not a cage! Long story short, I thought the WWF was pretty hokey and that while wrestling might not be on the up and up, the NWA was more "real" (whatever that meant to 6-7 year old me). I definitely was not the kid that Vince McMahon was marketing to then. I'm sure he didn't lose any sleep over that though as we all know, there were millions of others who were.

WAITwaitwaitwait. Bob Caudill is STILL ALIVE?!? AWESOME! Tonight was the LOOK AT ALL OUR BEEFY HOSSES night. I dug the Wardlow/CM Punk match. That's how you get Wardlow over as an epic ass stomper. And then Powerhouse Hobbs and something for Jay Lethal to do. I look forward to Lethal versus Ricky Starks. THEN Bear Country. THEN fucking BRODY KING debuts. SO MANY HOSSES! The wrestling was actually pretty pedestrian until the main event and Daniel Garcia is the ACTUAL best wrestler in AEW, He is fucking awesome. YAY! AEW HOSS NIGHT! IF YOU AIN't 3 BILLS, U AIN'T SHIT!

"Tonyyyyyyy, we're out of timeeeeeeee" said David Crockett as he tried to leave his lunch with Bob Caudle

See, it all comes down to their training, doesn't it? After all, Daniel Garcia was trained for Pro Wrestling by former DVDVR Message Board poster Brandon Thurston, whilst Brian Pillman was trained by noted DVDVR500 hater Lonce 'Lance' Storm. So obviously Garcia is going to be vastly better.

Who, me?

I think this is probably pretty true. Last week when Jade Cargill won the title they put over what a big moment it was for her, for the company, for her daughter then within a short time of winning it, it was "Yeah but someone else is wrestling/talking tonight and we have to cut away really fast" and it kind of cheapens the moment. You spend weeks hyping this tournament as being so important, the title being important, the win being important, Cargill being important and you cut away quickly to something much less important (in kayfabe terms). You gotta let it breathe a bit. Take the time to bask in what you've done well. I don't want it to become 'Raw is Recaps' but I think there's a middle ground in putting over the importance of what's just happened and talking about it all night/replaying it into the ground.

They're obviously saving Wardlow finally popping MJF for his hometown on 1/26, and as a man with tickets for that show I'm fine with that.

Because of the Apter mags, I'm still waiting for Wildcat Wendell Cooley to jump to one of the Big 2 and win the IC or US title.

Was also at the show - didn’t think the crowd was any less quiet than the two AEW shows I’ve been to in Charlotte. It was my first time at this building and I hope they come back because there isn’t many bad seats. I had a seat camera side behind the production stuff and could hear the trash talking in the ring, so, super close for a great priced ticket. Some jerk was cat calling during the Shida/Deeb match. He got a great “shut the fuck up” from another fan. Weird moment happened in the crowd during the Punk match. Some random older fella in a purple generic Lucha mask was standing directly in the aisle in front of me (I had the seat closest to the aisle in my row). Homie is just standing there directly in front of me. I’m tallish so I hate standing up at these shows because I know I’m blocking someone so I asked the guy to move. He realizes he is blocking me, apologies and gives me a fist bump. He moves to the side. Now blocking others. Just standing there in the aisle. I hear the guy behind me ask the person he was with if she could see to which she said yes but the person next to them couldn’t. Old Lucha man was closest to me so I asked him again to move. Told him he was blocking people. He said, it’s ok. Don’t worry. I asked him again to move and he replies, “I’m part of the show.” And then ignored me. Went and got security and the guy left. So weird. Speaking of weird. Was the dude with the box on his head on camera? Front row to the right side of the ring? During Rampage some fans my side were yelling at him like it was Kip Sabian but could have sworn it wasn’t? Dark main event was awesome. Luchasauraus was waaaaay over. Just a fun Match. Casual fans near me were confused who was who in the Sammy/Garcia match, didn’t help their gear was similar . Adam Cole is so damn over. Kyle O Reilly does littlE things so so well love him on the outside.

Wardlow is the latest example of how a big, muscular dude murdering opponents will always get over. It worked for Sid, it worked for Ryback (well, for a while) and now it's working for Wardlow.

To me, lights out doesn’t fit the Deeb and Shida characters. Blow this off with those two in the Lion’s Den

I'm going to be wending my way through this thing as the day goes on, picking and choosing what to watch, but I'm ok with the escalating stuff with Cole and the Best Friends, primarily because Cole's group is a main event group and Best Friends are an upper mid card act. At the end of the day, they'll look valiant but the heels are going to build their forces and go over and then this new formation can wrestle Page with Dark Order as back up, Page can overcome (probably with Britt being a more ready Anna in the process), and then the heels can split and feud with each other. I'm fine with the midcarders getting shown up again and again but still making a good effort of it.

A FACE-MELTINGLY GREAT EPISODE OF TEEVEE RASSLIN WARDLOW IS THE TITTY DADDY! DEEB IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD! BEST HOBBES PERFORMANCE EVER! DANTE LEARNED HOW TO LOOK ANGEY! PUNK GOT SOMEBODY OVER! BRITTKLIQ! HANGMAN PAGE GETS CHAMPIONSHIP POPS! JUNGLE BOY CONTINUES TO SPEAK COMPETENT ENGLISH! PENTA/MATT started as an exhausting taunt-off instead of the return of psycho LU arm-breaking Penta that we all want. Significantly better after the PiP break. I TOLD YOU ALL IT WAS BROOODY KIIING TIIIME~~~ TATTOO FRIENDS ~~~ MAX CASTER occasionally needs a ghost writer but THE BEARS ARE GOOD AND EVERYBODY DID THE WRESTLE. STING N DARBS ARE NO NOVELTY ACT. BUG DAD N BONE KID! WHAT DO YOU CALL A PAC WITH NO EYES??? PAC! DANIEL GARCIA CAN JUST DO THIS SHIT AUTOMATICALLY! Funny thing, though, this episode didn't "breeze by". Every quarter-hour felt really dense. A lot of really good showcases for homegrown talent, I had to chew on this one but the ep was a banquet.

Suzu Suzuki in GLEAT.

I would imagine people should know now wrestling isn't a captive audience anymore. The most important match doesn't start until 1 hour and 40 minutes in? Yeah, I will just click back and forth during that time and watch the final 20 minutes. The average viewership technically wouldn't change. For big shows, it would make a difference because that was something I looked into when UFC was doing those quarterly shows on big Fox. Yes, that definitely makes a difference. But for rank and file shows like last night? No difference at all. It ain't 1998 anymore. Let it go.

Yeah, let me explain. All the stuff that's free (well technically ESPN+ and Fight Pass ain't free but you get my point) and airing on TV or streaming would go in here. That would go for Bellator, Rizin, Invicta, Bareknuckle FC, LFA, CFFC, PFL, One FC, KSW, and all the UFC Fight Night cards. If the card is upcoming (as in seven days or less), going on, or just happened, this would be the thread. In April, I will probably start a new one and close this one. All the news not regarding an event that is happening that particular week would go in the Non Event thread. You can now put stuff regarding USADA and uniforms in that thread if you want. Monthly (or every three week) UFC PPV threads will still happen unless it's basically a free PPV like the one Abu Dhabi show last year. It appears there is an effort to stop a bunch of new threads from popping up. I want to do my part.

another smallish cool spot from the Sting/Vader strap match was Sting doing a Liger koppo kick on Vader (partly thanks to the strap pulling him in that fashion)

91-95 were my childhood wrestling days and WWF was the one I watched most and loved, but I did see some WCW, some USWA and the PWI type mags. I wouldn't have been able to identify the differences at the time, but looking back now I think I thought that the other promotions were a bit more grittier and sleazier. Guys like the Freebirds or Dirty Dutch Mantell just looked like gross dudes whereas most of the WWF guys were oiled up bodybuilder types. Plus you'd see more violence in the Apter mags than you would see in WWF. It gave the sense that the other promotions were a lot wilder.

A lot like @cwoy2jI grew up in the mid atlantic (Baltimore) and had similar wrestling experiences. I didn't get cable until I was maybe 14 or 15. I started watching WWF in 85 in the ramp-up to Mania 1, so I would have been 10. I got into JCP shortly after that, like maybe a year later, because a friend of mine and his mom loved it. He had a plastic mug with Magnum TA on it and I had no idea who he was. Thus my Southern rasslin' education began! So TV-wise, without cable, I watched Superstars Saturdays at 11:30pm on channel 11, which was Baltimore's CBS affiliate at the time, and Challenge Saturdays at 4 on UHF channel 45, which is now the Fox affiliate and owned by Sinclair! Crockett was on in syndication Saturdays and Sundays, on the same station, independent UHF channel 54 which I think is also Sinclair now, at noon. At some point, at least for a little while, Watts' UWF aired at 3pm on Saturdays on the same station as Challenge. Always looked forward to Saturday Night's Main Event. I probably liked Crockett a little more then WWF. It was grittier and more realistic. I remember wishing we had front row seats at The Bunkhouse Stampede but my mark friend retorted, "Well what if someone gets it with a 2x4 and flies into our laps?!?!" Amazing. I, too grew up on the Apter mags and, in a pinch, the second tier stuff like Main Event and Wrestling Eye. So yeah, to summarize: I'm old, grew up on the big 2 in syndication in Baltimore, like Crockett slightly more.

I've been wanting "I Quit" since the start of this feud, and I think Shida losing by ref stoppage without submitting clearly points to that as the blow-off match.

Malakai Black and Brody King are like bookends with the tattoos and all. I love them. I am happy that JE finally won the belts, but now I am hoping the House of Black will smash them for the titles in like three or four months. You know what would be cool? If Julia turns heel and takes off her eyepatch to show that her "damaged" eye now looks just like Malakai's. CORRUPTING MIST~! Lance Archer is an ass stomper, but in no way does he strike me as a guy that will survive Adam Page on big match night. This should be a decent little program though. The ref in the match pulling a Herb Dean in the Shida / Deeb match was a nice touch. QUESTIONABLE STOPPAGE~! even though Shida had to be helped out of the ring. I also believe this will be leading up to some sort of submission match or Last Woman Standing stip. It is about damn time that they teased putting Adam Cole and Britt Baker together in the same stable.... Looking forward to Statlander getting her shot at the title even though I don't think she'll win. It is great that Shawn fucking Spears continues to be the killjoy of the Pinnacle both in real life and in kayfabe. Only he could ruin the Emancipation of Wardlow face turn tonight. A man that hits people with chairs just because he thinks it's fun is now the voice of reason. No lie. I was kinda hoping that Daniel Garcia would pull off the upset. I like Sammy, but Garcia is such an unsung hero and a crazy hard worker. I am happy that we have a fed where Wardlow vs. Punk is in the mid-card and Daniel Garcia wrestles in the main with Sammy. I am down with Kingston turning heel and forming Nuevo LAX with Santana and Ortiz.

This is one of those times I’m actually glad to be so friggin’ old. The sheer breadth of wrestling available to me on basic ass tv when I was like 10 definitely shaped me as a fan. WWF was omnipresent, but everything else I was watching was, at least to me at that age, so much more REAL. It wasn’t even necessarily NWA for me. I was immediately all in on World Class and, soon after, Watts’ UWF. Honestly, it’s probably why I was mostly into WWF heels, because at least they had a tiny bit of grit. The only WWF babyfaces I really remember latching onto in the mid-80s were Barry Windham and Tito Santana. I was probably a far more traditional “cheer the faces” sort of kid elsewhere, though.

Also, Jungle Boy has turned into a credible babyface promo. Night and day difference from a year or so ago. Good on ya, JB.

I am going to take the opposite approach and say I enjoyed the first hour pretty well but again thought the show fell off in the second hour. The Diesel/Bret Survivor Series '95 finish makes sense with Punk's comeback leaning so heavily into Bret homage and how highly they think of Wardlow but needing to progress the story of MJF and Punk while ratcheting up the tension between the big man and MJF at the same time. Mission accomplished on all fronts and I was kinda taken aback with how decisive they went with Wardlow until the Bret finish. Great match. Wardlow is so ready. So are we. That they followed the same pattern with the Hobbs/Dante match, which was pretty damn good up until the end, was the first sign of questionable stuff tonight. How many people does Dante have on his side now? Lio, Sydal, Moriarty, and now Lethal. What the hell? I'm fine with Deeb/Shida going the way it did but there should've been another women's match. Instead we got a way too long and competitive match between Acclaimed and Bear Country. Sheesh that was rough and the crowd was dead until Stanger came out. I'm not his biggest fan, but I think King is a fine addition and has chemistry with Black. That Matt Hardy/Penta match was even worse than the tag match that followed it. Holy shit, that was painful. I get that it all served a purpose but neither of those needed to go that long and so close together when the "main event" was Sammy vs. Daniel Garcia. Too much overbooking in the promotion the last chunk of time for me and the second hour was full of it. They threw way too much at us and I don't think much of it really stuck. Garcia is so fucking good already. He gets pro wrestling. He never breaks his character. Everything he does, whether it be his moves, psychology, or reactions, comes from knowing his character perfectly. He's only going to get better. I think he may have a higher ceiling than Sammy. While he's completely different, and Sammy's style is easier for fans to latch onto, I think I enjoy watching Garcia over Sammy already and he carried this match. That Pac video was excellent. Two for two with those.

So I just saw it and liked it. Is that a hot take? Obviously, it could never be made as a non-MCU movie, but it probably would have worked better if it didn’t take place in the same world as Spider-man et al. Thought Kit Harrington was surprisingly good in his few minutes of screen time. The fight in the village was a real strong point.

Bret Hart was named the Excellence of Execution for a reason.

I rolled credits on Mafia 3. Still have some horticultural stuff to do, but I was satisfied with the ending, so I may or may not go back and clean that up. It was the first Mafia game for me, very GTA-like. Driving and gunplay was solid. Loved the emphasis on stealth in the missions. I stopped playing Kingdoms of Amalur The Reckoning because I got into Mafia 3 so much. Probably will go back to that to finish as much as I can stand. There's a ton of side stuff to do, so I may just try to complete main quest. It's a good itch scratcher for my fantasy vibe, but it makes me want to play Elder Scrolls. Thinking of playing all the stuff I have from the Wolfenstein series on PS4. Those have been on the pile for a minute.

New Way of the Blade pod with NECRO BUTCHER~! Talking about his war with Samoa Joe https://redcircle.com/shows/be34c05b-8483-4797-af55-5ec4bd254611/episodes/3e627797-7fee-425d-a73b-19de4c60c0c7

Kingston, Adam Cole and Evil Uno played VPW2 on Twitch earlier today so presumably that’s going to be put on the AEW Games channel at some point.