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I was going to write a navel-gazing post about how, unlike certain of my peers (of a certain age, length of following wrestling, and prolific-ness in being out there), because of my lack of a social media presence and not being a part of the indy scene and not seeking it out due to other aspects of my life, I don't have any real personal one-on-one connections with wrestlers. I wasn't chatting with anyone on Prodigy. I wasn't hanging out in the DVDVR chat room with anyone. There are no DMs for them to be up in. I'm not discussing old French footage with Chris Hero or Ricky Starks or whoever. Yet despite that, because of the nature of the AEW locker room and the amount of interviews done, and how open everyone is, I feel pretty sympathetic towards almost everyone there as human beings. Even the ones I don't care for in ring. I want nothing but good things in life for Adam Cole and Adam Page. I'm not going to say I feel like I know any of them, because I don't, but you hit a certain age and you pay enough attention to human beings and you pick up on things. In this day and age with how out there everyone is, it's hard not to. So that would have been a ten paragraph post and I just shoved it into one. Point being, the post-match at the end of the show was touching, from Sonjay being out there first to hug Jay to Mark getting hugged by Daniels and RUSH, etc., but what got me was the music looping and Joe, who was just, just about to get a hug, leaning in as Mark turned away from him and giving that wry smile of his, since he knew Mark was going to get his pop with "Reach for the Sky Boy" and the two belts and all the emotion, and just Joe sort of living and being present in that moment.

You need to see this: https://twitter.com/KXNGAO/status/1618635655931908098

That's why we hired you!

Jarrett, Lethal, Singh vs Trent, Chuckie T & Danhausen was fun as hell live. I hope we get all the pre-match shenanigans. If not, I have a video I’ll upload somewhere so they can be appreciated.

RAMPAGE! I love that Wheeler is wrestling this like Pure Rules match! Hangman Page is the first to punch someone in the face. Hangman hits his offense and it's all good! They did the great camera trick of Wheeler Yuta flying into the shot and it looks all awesome and and shit! Tiger Driver by Hangman! Yuta has a hot comeback! NICE Toprope DEATH VALLEY DRIVER! By Hangman! FOR TWO! Hangman does the famous BattlARTS finish but with German Suplexes instead of Dragon Suplex! This match is great! Yuta revereses into his own German Suplexes and THEN YUTA HITS A GERMAN ON THE APRON and then HITS A FUCKING RELEASED GERMAN ON THE FLOOR! This match is fucking GREAT. Yuta counters the Buckshot Lariat! Hangman hits a ROARING ELBOW! HANGMAN HITS A BUCKSHOT LARIAT! Hangman pulls him up to hit him with a Death Rider! HELL YEAH! THAT WAS QUALITY WRESTLING! MOX/ Hangman 3 is going to rock! It's Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal and Satnam Singh! It's Chuck Taylor, Trent Barretta and Danhausen! The fuckery begins early as Jeff Jarrett just HARVESTS heel heat! Jarrett hits TOTAL Memphis punches. Danhausen is fun beating on Jarrett. Satnum holds up his end by forcing Trent into the sympathetic babyface role. In picture in picture, Jarrett hits a totally sweet Murdoch Elbow off the apron. I love that Satnam is getting more ringtime. Chuck Taylor is OVER in Kentucky! Satnam and Danhausen and THEN all KINDS of insanity breaks loose. Danhausen grabs a guitar! Satnam gets his neck rung across the top rope THREE times! Sonjay Dutt gets knocked out by Orange Cassidy! The goofiest POSSIBLE finish is what they shoot for- as Jeff Jarrett hits Danhausen with his own UKULELI! Well, that was a hoot! And Taylor isn't big enough to get the hometown win, but he did get a bunch of his stuff in. That was great! I can completely get into Dustin Rhodes versus Shane Strickland. Ruby Soho is starting her own stable, I'm guessing- as AEW Women goes total STARDOM. EMI is flanked by STEAMPUNK MEI SURUGA and BAILLI AKKI. OH MAN! This match is SO FUCKING AWESOME. Jamie is selling EVERYTHING like total fucking DEATH. EMI is fucking awesome, laying it in but she is in with Jamie Hayter so it would actually be hilarious if someone tried to work light with her. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! HAYTER IS THE STIFFEST WRESTLER ON EARTH! EMI is blood red about the chest and she is fucking AWESOME on her last comeback. This is the GUNTHER SHEAMUS of the new year. This is a TOTAL Akira Hokuto match. HOLY SHIT! THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME. HOLY FUCK DOES AEW RULE THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD!

Why yes, I do highly approve of much less WBD/TK discussion and much more about fan-assisted Eddie Kingston chops. So much so in fact that with the issue you've had with Twitter links on here and it working for me here you go.

If those are 4 star matches then 4 star ratings are meaningless.

Give them 30 minutes? At least one of us should be happy and it might as well be me

Danhausen and Jeff Jarrett are going to be in the same match tonight. Wrestling is awesome

Do you even count Hennig turn as an actual turn? The Horsemen recruiting saga that lasted for a full year made them out to be heels who were kinda faces but not really tweeners. They were suppose to be the badass Horsemen, but they were in fighting for months. Hennig came in and instantly started heeling on a babyface DDP and suppose to be this highly sought after free agent. It just makes the Four Horseman look dumb for Ric going all out to recruit a guy who will go the highest bidder and already sided as a bad guy. Maybe the only explanation is they wanted to go after another bad guy since TECHNICALLY they were suppose to be the bad guys who don't wear white hats. IMO I think they really didn't have a handle what the Horsemen were suppose to be in the era of the NWO. Once you got past that weird gray area where the Horsemen were united and siding with team WCW, it went down this weird path where Jarrett (who Flair recruited but didn't recruit) was feuding with Mongo, Benoit, and Arn. Mongo is feuding with Jeff. Benoit is feuding with Jeff but also feuding with Mongo cause Mongo's wife is obnoxious and basically slutshaming Woman. It's Days of Our Lives: The Four Horsemen Edition. So adding in Hennig to the mix when Hennig is already basically telling Flair he will only go with who pays him the most is basically just making things worse.

This is your new thread for AEW stuff that isn't on TV. Enjoy.

With Emi Sakura's appearance on Rampage tonight, it's her first televised non Dark/Elevation appearance since 12/11/19's Dynamite against Big Swole.

I still hold out hope for Zack Sabre Jr as the final dude. The best Gotch/ Volk Han style guys from two feuding Japanese companies in back to back weeks is the nerdiest booking in the history of pro wrestling. I mean, THAT'S WHY THIS BOARD HIRED TONY KHAN TO RUN AEW!

Live look at DEAN: “I love this British shit!!”

I told myself "well at least it was only from the second rope" to try and shrug it off.

If Gordi and I agree, it’s the truth.

There was some excellent camera work during the opener, particularly when Yuta came flying into the frame on that dive. In my opinion an avalanche Death Valley driver might be better used as a match-ender than a mid-match highspot, but I am old. Maybe that's also why I'd prefer not to lump Eddie Kingston in with HOB? Although possibly I'd still hate that if I was young. I enjoyed the classic ukulele based prowrestling psychology BECAUSE I am old. So it's not all downside. I also had a very nice pee during that match. And I was done in time to enjoy a bit of Satnam's shtick and Jericho's commentary. And that dumb, shitty finish! His name is Mudd! I enjoy a good squash. Swerve vs Dustin! Oh, baby! YES! THE QUEEN GETS THE MAIN EVENT! As is only right. Isn't it nice to have extremely high expectations for a match and then to have those expectations met? (It really is).

Just fantastic stuff from Sakura and Hayter. I expected a good match but they definitely exceeded my expectations. This was a motherfucking battle.

I for one am looking forward to The Queen v The Hoss. Such a match could be be career threatingly violent, possibly even life threateningly violent but who wants to live for ever when love must die? Don't expect the match to be stopped for injury cause no matter what The Show must go on! And if either woman is trapped in a submission hold they'll want to be break free! Never Saw Emi when she wrestled in Japan... but now She's here! In AEW

I saw the other thread locked and was like "what in the world could possibly have happened with the 10 people who post about AEW YouTube to get that locked?"

Not sure if it’s been posted yet, but highspots.tv has a two hour Briscoes in PWG special posted for free on their service. Just need to sign up, just create an account, don’t set up a subscription or anything, and it’s there. Watching Briscoes vs KoW from 2007 from the JCC right now and it’s wild. RIP Jay.

There's a Rumble Superstore at the Alamodome that opened yesterday. Sold out of Cody merch. CodyMania season is here!

Some quietly good looking stuff here. I'm excited for Taylor to get the hometown pop and for Danhausen to interact with Singh or Jarrett. Plus Emi gets a chance to shine against someone who gets what she can do, all aspects of it, so you know it's going to be hard-hitting and fun. I am kind of dreading Page vs Yuta but there's an easy solution for that.

#CanCon

Dave Meltzer gave ****1/4 to Mark Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal. I feel uncomfortable with star ratings for tribute matches so I don't. That's not the point of them. Best tribute match I've ever seen was Adam Page/John Silver/Alex Reynolds vs. MJF/Santana/Ortiz on the AEW Dynamite Brodie Lee Celebration of Life, 30th December 2020. That's the best wrestling tribute show ever.

Jesus, Last of Us is that old? I had no idea mainly because I hesitated to play it for so long. And now I'm basically done with it. Fuck this game. It really is just How Hard Can We Kick You in the Nuts: The Game. I just got past... Like, I just don't need this shit in my life. Fuck this man. There is legitimately terrible, awful shit that happens in the world. I'm trying to play games to escape that, not to have the most extreme form of it thrown in my face. Not to mention, THERE IS NOTHING REMARKABLE ABOUT THIS GAME. Ooooh, they got emotional voice actors. Wow. So the accomplishment is that a video game was able to deliver emotional impact through storytelling, voice acting, and the characters emoting? Great. So it's on the level of a tv show or movie. Wow. You know what game didn't need super fancy graphics, any voice acting, or characters showing emotion on their faces? Celeste. For anyone with depression, self-image issues, anxiety, and issues with self-worth, Celeste hits home in incredible ways and it does so through a 16 bit styled game and some of the most challenging platforming you'll ever see. And throughout it and at the end of it, it didn't make me feel worse or ashamed. It made me feel a sense of, wow, the people who made this game really understand me and what people like me are going through. The Last of Us just spits in your face over and over again. The controls are shoddy as fuck. It's an improvement over tank controls, but some of the movement and environments are seriously frustrating. When you encounter a bloater in the gym it's fine because the gym is almost like an arena. When you encounter a bloater in the apartment and there's tight corridors, shit strewn about, and other zombies running at you, it makes me want to throw my controller at the screen every fucking time that bloater would come from an angle I couldn't see and kill me. It took me 200 to 300 tries to beat Malenia in Elden Ring, but I fucking did it and I never wanted to launch my controller. It's also repetitive as fuck. Oh, we need to get to capitol building in Boston. Press L3 to look at the building in the distance. Go through a bunch of shit. Oh hey, there it is in the distance. Press L3 to see it. Later on its oh, we need to get to where Bill lives. Press L3 to see where he lives in the distance. Go through a bunch of shit. Oh hey, there it is still in the distance, press L3 to see it. Hey, we need to get to that bridge in Pittsburgh. Press L3 to look at the bridge in the distance. Hey, we need to get to that communications tower once you get out of Pittsburgh. Press L3 to look at the bridge in the distance. THAT ISN'T COMPELLING. It's just the same bullshit over and over again. Saying a game is "overrated" isn't a criticism of the game, but holy shit is this game overrated. It just isn't that good.

I'll be honest, when somebody asked to create last year's I didn't think it would hit 68 pages already. But thanks for doing that. Since it is media heavy I was wondering if it would help putting spoiler boxes for videos directly put in here. There's always the option to put just the link without embedding the video too.

I will! Howzabout THIS to start?

Switching to an annual format. This thread is media heavy and getting very long.

McGwire and Sosa are both no's on my mythical ballot. Too many injuries, not good enough numbers (except one category, obviously), massive defensive liabilities. Big Mac is a maybe, leaning no. Sosa is a solid no. This is like having OSJ back.

RAW is XXX, in Gorilla

It didn't make Ric look real bright when you consider Hennig turning on DDP right out of the gate, but there was the whole Arn "spot" promo that Nash so famously overshadowed with his parody, both of which clearly established Hennig as a babyface, however briefly it may have been.

I think the cruiser segregation ultimately worked in his favor. He was a big fish in a small pond, but the top cruisers who "moved up" around that time never got much to show for it. Thinking of Malenko as US champ being an afterthought in the Jarrett/Mongo feud (and getting beat by both) and Rey getting a (midcard only) giant killer gimmick that ended with him losing his mask and the blowoff match with Nash anyway. Jericho dodged a serious bullet with Goldberg not wanting to do business with him. Never working (and losing) to the likes of Nash, Goldberg, Steiner, etc gave him an aura of "can't wait to see him work with real top guys" that made his WWE debut so anticipated.

Jayzeus!

See, there you go. All that shit and Hangmin just goes back on offense. Yuta having his kind of match was not a good idea; Page getting wrapped into pretzels but surviving through his bombs would have been a better way to work it. EDIT: Also count me as one who wanted the AVALANCHE DVD to finish the/any match instead of be a 2 count.

Allie Katch reposted this on her Instagram, but an account on there is selling 50 VHS comp tapes of all three FTR vs Briscoes matches at $25 a pop with all proceeds going towards Jay’s family (and he’ll provide proof after they sell out). It’s tomorrow only, so if you’re interested just check her story. I’m not going to post his username since it’s technically piracy since the matches are owned by ROH, but I thought this was pretty cool.

Oof at those ratings. Allin vs. Matthews was a 3 star match (Matthews/Allin didn't really click well together) and if we're honest Danielson vs. Cage was a 2 star match (due to Danielson wanting to wrestle a match Cage couldn't do and Cage doing big steroid guy offense and neither guy getting on the same page with each other). Lethal/Briscoe was a 3 star match maybe 3 1/2 or 4 star match even with the emotion behind the match. I tuned in as the tag match was done.

I don't think Bischoff liked the Horsemen because they weren't his creation (and I know he and Flair didn't like each other), and he also didn't like that they continued to be way over with the fans no matter what dumb angles they got stuck with.

I want to apologize to the mods for this in advance, but I'm going to break the 'no more images' rule just this once, if it's okay - I just saw this on reddit, and since this thread is likely going to cease in activity pretty soon, I thought this picture might be a nice way to wrap things up. Continued love and prayers and/or positive vibes for the kids, families, and friends affected.

The filmmaker was a complete nobody. His film work was a step above school board meetings so it's not so surprising why he was enamored with Teddy. His issue was nobody cares about wrestling stuff outside of the wrestling bubble. When I was in college I used to go up to Toronto to see bands. One time I was trying to grab a bite before a show and stopped into some Canadian fast food pizza chain. They had a series of Bret Hart themed extra value meals and his picture was all over. It confirmed everything I ever thought about how big Bret was in Canada.

More of a boost than tossing out Xia Li? What does focal point mean anyway, she's Ronda Rousey she's a focal point just by existing in the match. Whether she's as over or not, a competent production team can make it seem like a big deal via announcing, clip packages, etc. She was champ for most of the last year, is still booked as The Baddest Woman on the Planet, use that for whatever you can. Having her appear in the match and tossed out by someone you're maybe interested in doing more with, either a favourite like Rhea Ripley or someone you're high on and want to give a moment to, is a smart way of using her name without damaging whatever mystique she has left, just due to the nature of the match.

And consider watching Three Pines - it's VERY Quebecois! Alfred Molina is great, no surprise. And they did a French cover of "Mad World" as a background for one of the more screwed-up scenes in Ep 2. It's a decent enough little diversion and the arc plot seems like it will be a gut punch by the time it's over.

Clearly the persistence of @DEAN in the face of hospital food to give the people what they want settles the ‘who defends the belts with Mark’ debate? I feel sure Toni and Ruby laid it in just for you fella. Not a time for debate about religion, but the post from Coleman was certainly an advertisement for the power of faith. Mark Briscoe I salute you squire.

Man, haven't gotten into the HOF debate in a while. Yay. Anyway, Rolen to me was a no doubter, and him not being a bigger name is more about MLB and it's sportswriters in general being absolutely awful at recognizing elite players throughout most of baseball history, especially at 3rd Base and Center Field. Is it true he's not as good as Boggs, Beltre, or Chipper? Sure, I have no problem with that. But how many 3rd basemen in baseball history are better then those 3? Schmidt, Matthews, maybe Brett and Robinson, and A-Rod if you consider him a 3rd basemen. That's basically the list. And I'm not sure if Rolen is any worse then basically any other 3rd Baseman in baseball history. I've described him as his generations Ron Santo: Constantly great at basically all elements you could want a 3rd Baseman to be, but not so over the top great he was ever considered one of the tip top players for his era. It took way too long for Santo to get his due, and even though he primarily played on my teams greatest rivals, I'm glad he got the credit he deserved. Also, if we want to be critical of the sports writers on this, it should primarily be about how god damned hypocritical there Steroid shit has been. You elect Henderson, who it's basically an open secret did steroids, and you induct Ortiz who had a false test, but Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, etc. are still on the outside waiting, and it's primarily due to how the players treated the sports writers themselves over the steroid issue, they just use that as an excuse.

@John from Cincinnati.

I think we should all move on from this subject.

Yeah, cuz you can go back to Texas vs. Kerry which looks equally horrifying.

-Death, taxes, Ricky Starks being over as hell. Fun tag, and I understood the finish. Hopefully Starks gets his decisive blowoff so he can move on. He can't be in position to take the belt off of MJF in nine months if he doesn't get on a tear. Andretti was clearly the greenest guy in the ring, but I thought he did ok. -It felt like Cage and Danielson just never got to that high gear. I did think Cage did a good job taking care of Danielson ie. making shit look horrifying without it actually doing damage. Takeshita coming out ruled, but I'm not sure why MJF would run from him. -Adam Cole's back? Don't care. Just not for me. If I thought he'd be coming back in the spot he belongs, which is as a mid card heel, it'd be one thing, but TK is gonna shove this guy down everyone's throat based on one rating he popped 2-3 years ago and the live audience being into his theme song. It sucks, but iiwii. -JungleHook could be a thing if they want it to be. Two over young babyfaces kicking ass? Yeah, I'm into that. I'm just not sure that's the best use of either guy. Ethan Page has found a bit of a groove. -The Gunn/Acclaimed segment wasn't for me. The tall Ass Boy just doesn't have the charisma his brother does, but the short Ass Boy isn't the worker Tall Ass is. It's a conundrum. -Matthews/Allin was the good professional wrestling. Buddy Matthews is good at this shit. I'd love to see a scenario where all the HOB guys are strapped up. Trios titles, Buddy with the AA, Malakai with the TNT or World. Brody as the enforcer. Get these guys some damn titles. I foresee a Joe title win next week. Unless Wardlow returns to cost Joe the match. -Women's match was good. Ruby must really enjoy being injured, because it feels like she's always taking insane bumps. Nice to see her get a big win on tv. -I'm tired of MJF. I just think there's better choices. -I got emotional during the main event. I think there's something therapeutic about engaging in a loved one's passion after losing that loved one, like the night the Marlins played after Jose Fernandez passed or Hart/Benoit. What a wonderful evening.