Leaderboard

Fuck imagine THAT neck tat

In general, different people just want different things, and that's ok. There's a question of lore vs "X of the week" stories or serialization vs standalone. There isn't necessarily a right or wrong answer. It comes down to personal tastes and your tastes can change as you age and also as you become more or less comfortable with yourself and your hobbies. A lot of people in their late teenage years or early 20s feel self-conscious about their hobbies and feel like things need to be super serious or have to deconstruct tropes and norms in a cynical sort of way. I think that serious and complex are two different things personally and while there may be overlap, it's not even close to 100%. It goes back to the notion of realism in pro wrestling. Probably the least useful statement in pro wrestling criticism is "That wouldn't happen in a real fight?" or "Well, we know now in MMA that doesn't happen." Realism doesn't help fictional storytelling but a consistent set of narrative rules does help create a fictional universe and sets up certain consequential weight and expectations for the audience. Consistency and careful pushing and pulling at the unreal tapestry is more important than trying to make things real. There's a joy ("Gordi's Joy") to be found in people just trying to entertain one another and pop one another and impress one another happy if anyone comes along for the ride and happy if they don't. I think there's still an element of that to, let's say, the BCC and Moxley in particular actually. You can see it with his shirts. He just wants to go out there and paint his picture for himself and his pals. Obviously that picture is wildly different than what the Elite were doing, but it feels undeniable to me. It's the old Monty Python or early SNL mentality. Or the early seasons Simpsons writers room I guess. Thinking through the difference between Gordi and myself, I think a lot of it is that wrestling is a relatively solitary hobby for me. I don't watch with other people in front of a TV. I actually don't think I've seen any wrestling on a television screen as opposed to a phone or computer screen since 2010? Maybe earlier. That's not at all a made up figure. I have seen maybe two shows live in the last fifteen years. I engage with you guys, of course. I write about it. I have some friends I talk to online one-on-one about it, but I imagine it's an entirely different way to consume wrestling than how Gordi does it and that, in part, leads to different mindset and different pros and different cons in what I want. BUT 7 hours of wrestling a week is a LOT of wrestling. And there's plenty of room for things that Gordi likes and things that I like and things that both of us like and probably even things that neither of us like but that someone else likes. I'm ok with that.

the comma in "Whoop That, Trick" is silent

Man, nobody remembers Inside Pulse. I was a wrestling (and MMA) writer on Inside Pulse in the early/mid 2000s, along with Chris Hyatte, Flea, Scott Keith, David Ditch, and a bunch of other enthusiastic writers. A lot of us (maybe all of us?) did indeed migrate over from the 411 boards/New Millenium Blues crew. Meanwhile all-around excellent guys Larry Csonka (RIP) and Dark Pegasus JD Dunn held things down at 411 after our great NOAH-esque exodus. What great memories I have of those days! Most of us here are old enough to remember it. Before (almost) everything was on YouTube. Before YouTube existed! You had to make connections and trade tapes if you wanted to watch Japanese or Mexican or Indie wrestling. Then, guys like Verne, Tabe, Goldenboy, Schneider, Keith etc etc were putting comps together and/or making older stuff available. Eventually, you could join crazymax..., Then, eventually, wait for IVP videos to have a sale or whatever... around then people (myself included) started uploading matches on YT... And with each step it became a little bit less of an exclusive club, which is good, but people also took it more and more for granted, which is too bad. The 411/IP split came at such an interesting/fun time. The Verne/Tabe etc etc point on that timeline. Probably the peak period for WWE snark from the Flea/Hyatte/Dunn/Keith crew, when several of them featured on EWR, when you still had to *subscribe* to a dirt sheet to have access to insider information, when Ditch and Keith and myself were kind of still exposing Japanese wrestling to a readership that at that time had to make an actual effort to be able to watch the matches we were writing about. It wouldn't last much longer. I really enjoyed that sense of it being "something special." I think that's why I can't get along with people who are too snarky and negative about wrestling. Not that "it's still real to me" but that it still feels special to me. Projects like Secret Santo really drive home how LUCKY we are with such an insane variety of wrestling available any time anywhere these days. Legit bums me out that some folks primarily choose to complain about all that wrestling rather than enjoying it. At one point Inside Pulse was getting 750,000 distinct views per month! But the discussion boards were never as lively as 411s. Eventually I had to make my way over here (and to Smark's Choice and SSS) to find people who were interested in discussing Japanese wrestling. I think someone referring to a Toryumon or Michinoku match clip I'd posted as "those little Chinese guys" was a breaking point for me in terms of trying to get any such discussion going over there Anyway, thanks for mentioning Hyatte. It's been a while since I reminisced about those days.

This is a thread for navel gazing, so please excuse me while I hit you with what’s likely to be some very rambly bullshit. I’m prone to being in a funk around the end of year holidays, sorry. Reread your@Gordi the former AEW fan post a couple times since last night thinking about how I wanted to engage with it. I enjoy engaging with your stuff even though I know I can be a contrarian little shit. Thought about quibbling about our definitions of “disingenuous.” Is Nigel disingenuous? We know it to be true he wants to be that guy again and fight Danielson. Is it disingenuous for OC to be a full on lazy, unthinking wrestler when we know that not to be true? None of this is really important, but it’s the kind of inane nonsense I find mentally stimulating. (confession: I also mostly don’t like heel commentators) Then I came to the bit about your being nostalgic for 2019 and how this has become more of a late capitalist venture. And as usual, I bristle against the concept that AEW was ever anything but. It was always the challenger brand looking for a big rights increase to reach profitability. And then Matt really crystallized something for me, which is that like him my experience of wrestling is more solitary than communal like yours. So why am I always bumping up against you and trying to clarify that I think you had blinders on this whole time? And it occurs to me that while I don’t think my perspective is wrong (who does?!), all I’m doing by engaging in a contradictory manner on this issue is trying to ask other people to start from a place of cynicism and close their heart off to things like I’m inclined to. And that’s a shitty thing to do, and I apologize for having engaged your posts in that way. And I think it fucking sucks that we’re here now having an existential dilemma about what it means that Ric Flair is on these shows in the year of our lord 2023. Now onto nostalgia: I think it’s a cheap trick to keep going to those wells, especially after they’ve long run dry. And it’s really troubling how dry some of the wells are. We did ECW nostalgia in mid-2000s WWE and then again in 2010s TNA. Were good! Hook doesn’t need the FTW belt as a crutch, and Impact certainly doesn’t need to be doing any Bully Ray vs Tommy Dreamer stuff! And with Sting and Flair, we already had our nostalgia time with them — in TNA a decade ago! We don’t need more! We’re good! And yet it’s undeniable how powerful some nostalgia is. The last concert I went to with multiple generations of my family involving multiple cars on the voyage was Elton John and he brought the fucking house down with a pretty diverse crowd. Nostalgia can bring people together. I heard so many versions of multiple generations of dudes going to see Top Gun: Maverick last year and how it brought people together in a way the movies hadn’t for them in ages (of all the movies that got bumped in 2020 because of the pandemic, nobody played their hand better than Cruise). I think the memberberries stuff does suck most of the time, but it can clearly be executed at a high level and brings great joy to many people. I don’t know if I want to take that joy away from people, but it’s also normally empty calories. I struggle with it. And there are some wells that haven’t run dry! You have no formative memories of Steve Austin, but they haven’t rung that bell too many times. I think that last Spiderman movie is cynical CGI sludge, but I know what age I was when I first saw Tobey McGuire as Spiderman and can resentfully admit that shit activated something in me (it also helps that Tobey kind of fucked off and disappeared from movies for a while). I understand why people respond to this. But I really don’t like seeing Ric Flair these days and I get that too. On the topic of pandering: I think my favourite anything of the 2010s was Twin Peaks: The Return. Among the “legacy sequel” nostalgia trend, it was the most prickly and interesting and least pandering of the bunch. A beautiful misshapen object that seemed like it was designed to actively make people annoyed. Great vibes. Nobody likes to hear about anyone else’s dreams, but that rule doesn’t apply to David Lynch. To bring this back to wrestling, I’m one of those silly people who think we’re kind of in a movie star crisis. All this nostalgia and IP floating around, and very few stars really breaking through the noise. Tom Cruise is still a number one and Will Smith is still doing Bad Boys movies. Black Adam flops and the Rock cynically runs back to the Fast movies. For some people, culture peaked when they were a certain age, and they refuse to throw their action figures away. And I’m probably as guilty of it as anyone because I like some of it while rolling my eyes at people who indulge in versions of it I don’t get (there’s no way that new Ghostbusters movie is good, and the cool thing is I’ll never know for sure). It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that this culture resulted in Sting and Flair together on TV in 2023. And we enjoyed some of those Sting matches, and him authoring a worthy final chapter, so we participated in bringing us to this place. There’s a reason Tony thinks we want this. And it sucks. I don’t know what the solution is. Tony’s as online as any of us. Maybe he’ll solve the problem, maybe he means it when he endlessly insists everything is fine. Maybe he can’t throw away his action figures. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you and yours, Gordi. Thanks for letting us ramble at you. Hope you get more of what you want in the new year. I’m looking to hit play on as many matches in the Secret Santos thread as possible to wash the taste of Ric Flair on AEW TV out of my mouth.

While we're on the super-safe and definitely not at all sensitive topic of race relations (my bad everyone, we're circling back): I'm looking at the next few months of possibilities w/r/t the World title scene, and depending what's happening with Max's injuries/his "contract" (lol) I think I see it going like this: 1) MJF drops the title to Joe in his hometown for my now-oft-predicted, Lifetime Achievement "Thanks for saving Wembley" quickie run 2) Joe drops the title in February to Swerve to make him the first Black AEW World champion during Black History Month. (Editing to add for clarity: this isn't like some pandering, 'lets draw a Black audience' idea - I say this because I think it was enough of a story beat in the Hangman issue that it's going to come back around) 3) We revisit Swerve/Hangman, Swerve/Mox, etc. on the road to Revolution and the world rejoices

I'm with you on Nigel, for sure, I think you've nailed my problem with him. He's actually very good at what he does, I just don't think it helps to have anyone doing it. Reading the rest of what you wrote, here and elsewhere, does make me question what I like and don't like about AEW, and wrestling in general. I got into it from the start because it seemed like a promising alternate major league wrestling company, with a bunch of wrestlers I already liked, and The Young Bucks, who I didn't like but at least indicated that tag wrestling would be treated seriously. A lot of their earlier signings to fill out the roster seem very indie in retrospect, probably because they were, but I fucking loved that they'd have Kip Sabian almost take Hangman to the time limit, or Kenny and Janela have a mad brawl on Dark. The Cody challenge made every week exciting. 'Warhorse, oh, I've heard of him, that will be interesting.' Then he gets a shot, doesn't really convince, but hey, maybe Eddie Kingston will. Oh look, Eddie Kingston rules, signed. The looseness to it, and the sense that anyone could get pushed if they got over, that no one was being punished for obscure reasons or treated as a non-entity because they weren't an established star, was great. Then there were all the pandemic releases, and loads of my favourite WWE wrestlers who were being wasted got signed, and most of them seemed like upgrades on anyone outside the main event. When Hager debuted on the first Dynamite I was encouraged that they'd signed another credible main eventer, now they have about 25 of those and the idea of giving him any sort of push seems absurd. Meanwhile, I finally stopped watching Raw and Smackdown a couple of years ago, partly because of the dominant, part time champion hellscape, partly because of unwatchable Vince garbage, and probably mainly because my girlfriend got into wrestling through me and she can't stand most of their presentation, so why would I inflict it on her when we can enjoy most other wrestling together? The idea that WWE is good now under HHH confuses the shit out of me. There are really good wrestlers there, and I watch the PLEs and NXT, but you still have Akira Tozawa being a comedy jobber, and a fake tertiary world title, and corporate new-speak, and 20 minute scripted promos starting a show. And I will always love pro wrestling and AEW still seems leagues ahead of the alternative, so they have quite a lot of rope before I'd consider even missing a Rampage, let alone giving up altogether. I guess, in conclusion, my philosophy on wrestling is pretty flexible. Pure, sports based NJPW main event kinda stuff is my favourite, but I love an elaborate storyline if it sticks the landing, I love a heel turn, it doesn't take long for me to get nostalgic about total Wrestlecrap gimmickry as long as it's swept under the carpet quickly enough to become an obscure shared reference and doesn't eat up too much TV time. I love that Edge and Christian can treat the last two decades of their careers as canon and have a feud in AEW, even if match wise I'd prefer a 40 minute Danielson vs Garcia technical classic taking up half the show, or Hook vs Swerve, or Buddy Matthews vs anyone. Ultimately I want a variety show, I want to feel like any style of wrestling could break out from segment to segment, and I want talented performers who are floundering in one company to be able to go and realise their potential in another. I never got into comics because I found the idea of all those years of interconnected lore overwhelming, but they also lose their appeal to me the second they become too self contained. Wrestling is like a lifelong, real life comic where I do know most of the story threads and character histories like the back of my hand, so as long wrestling as a whole continues to satisfy that need, I don't care too much about the minutiae, even if I'll discuss and think about it ad nauseam. Still couldn't care less about The Bloodline, though.

1994 (The) Public Enemy is so so corny in my rewatch (to the point of 2nd hand embarrassment), but you can tell it's a gimmick of that era. If you take that gimmick and move it to 2023/2024 without tweaking it heavily, it's a career ender.

Not sure you do that and have it not feel like pandering. Unless Swerve calls his shot and demands the match in February because this is his mission. Of course, then we need Prince Nana doing the entire Rocky 4 Apollo entrance.

I think the “problem” with Orange is that he’s an awesome wrestler. I think if he was more limited, he would’ve stayed in that same character (Danhausen?). But when you’ve got someone who can fucking go like he can, it’s hard to keep him as this comedy character forever.

You phone me in the evening on hearsay And bought me caviar You took me to a restaurant off Broadway To tell me who you are Sorry, wrong "Rent."

This is what I really don’t like with how the MCU has grown, hiring expensive, super well known actors for these roles. Sure RDJ was well known when he was cast as Tony, but he was more well known for being a fuck up who might have been on a redemption tour starting with KKBB. He also wasn’t expensive. There are a ton of really good actors out there that people aren’t super familiar with. Go with one of them. Create a new star and draw people into your movie because it’s good, not because Ryan Gosling is in it or Pedro Pascal is in it and I really love both of those guys.

I spent some time babbling about Garcia here: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/12/aew-five-fingers-of-death-124-1210-part.html?m=1 and here: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/12/aew-five-fingers-of-death-1211-1217.html?m=1

Kevin Nash drawing 29,000 at the Garden comes to mind here. But I don’t think they’ll be able to put enough people in the arena to have the hard cam over the entranceway like at Clash 1.

Back at the Ringer today with a history of WCCW! https://www.theringer.com/wwe/2023/12/19/24007240/world-class-championship-wrestling-history-von-erich-family-dallas-texas

After just catching up on Collision it's going to be hard for tonight to be better than King/Danielson alone. Shit, the other two CC matches ruled also so tonight will be climbing uphill. Not saying tonight won't be fun because it will be but if we're comparing stuff then there you go.

Christian Okoye could hav3 been quite the worker in the mid 90s.

The way Rocco Rock says "THE BRUUUUUISE BROTHERS?!!?" still makes me genuinely laugh. Everything else about them makes me laugh too, for very different and not intended reasons.

Nash really missed his calling as world's tallest stand-up.

As someone who went to a theatrical arts school in the late-1990s, I cannot adequately put into words how much I loathe Rent, but BUDDY I WILL GIVE IT A SHOT SOMEDAY Just not today. Ugh. The bile in my throat.

Decided to get more out of Honor Club and randomly chose Best in the World 2018 and started watching. Let's see where this goes? Getting Hangman vs Damien Priest and Bucks vs Briscoes is enough to get my attention! So far both of those matches definitely delivered and Austin Aries vs Kenny King as well as Jay Lethal vs Kushida were very entertaining too! Matt Jackson kicked out of Jay Driller on a steel chair... c'mon! But Super Red Neck Boogie was enough to put him down.

Someone already suggested those two being the only draw in the tournament, because that would rob them even of the "at least one of us won something" moment. But I was under the impression that this wasn't the company whose only agenda is "taking smiles off peoples' faces", so maybe that won't happen? I say Mark wins and Lethal understands that he has become totally dependent on the interference of Jarrett & Co. He then has to do some serious soul searching and decides to become even closer friends with Jarrett, Dutt, Satham and Karen so they will continue interfering on his behalf even more.

@Gordi the former AEW fan I certainly remember Inside Pulse! It was one of the many wonderful sites that destroyed my academic career, since I spent all the time reading them, instead of really studying (until I absolutely had to). So, given how things worked out, Inside Pulse and 411, Scoops, MiCasa and WrestlingClassics very much affected the person I ended up becoming outside of wrestling fandom. While there was a short while where it felt like it was a bad thing, those sites indirectly made me choose a different path that has so far worked out surprisingly well. So thank you very much! And yeah, Hyatte was something else! Good times! 25 years, where the F did you go?

Lethal! Briscoe! WHO IS THE JOBBIEST JOBBER IN THE TOURNAMENT

Ima road trip to Greensboro for the ppv I think…

I'm offended, OUTRAGED EVEN, that you forgot that I wrote there too during that time period. But yea Inside Pulse was quite a time, for awhile there they were really making an effort to be a major online player for wrestling. Actually I may have been writing there right after you were gone so I'm no longer offended, I take it back.

NOSTALGIA I don't think my nostalgia w/r/t pro wrestling is *typical* wrestling nostalgia. Partly because of my age, partly because of my personal experience(s) of pro wrestling. And I think it goes a long way to explaining why my taste(s) in wrestling are also often somewhat atypical. Of course, EVERYONE's experience/nostalgia/opinions are different and personal. But some of my experiences are rather unique, even by those standards, I believe. For example, I was a member of the Vancouver All Star Wrestling roster and a character on their TV show in the mid-1980s. I was "inside" pro wrestling during the era where kayfabe reigned, and I experienced The Death of the Territory System first hand. For example, I lived in post-communist middle Europe from the mid 90s through the turn of the century, and as such missed out on the Monday Night Wars and ECW etc etc. When I came back to Canada, I got RIGHT into tape trading, at first to catch up on what I'd missed. And I ended up writing for Inside Pulse alongside guys like Hyatte and Scott Keith and got to experience the tail end of the "internet insiders" boom first hand as well. Then, I moved to Japan and was part of the Osaka Pro family from 2009 through 2012, and still maintain ties with many of my friends from those days. And it all ties together when some of the survivors from Vancouver All Star make their annual trip to Vancouver to work and party with Asian Cooger! Kayfabe It might be reasonable to expect that a guy who wrestled during the 80s would be right there with Cornette and JR when it comes to the sanctity of kayfabe and the necessity of "protecting the business" but in fact it's quite the opposite with me. "The boys" in the green room at BCTV were SO SERIOUS about it. I was playing a bad guy character, so I wasn't allowed to arrive at the arena with, or give a ride home to, any of the good guys. I was expected to treat the fans at the arena and studio poorly, not only during the show but also before and after... Curse them out. Threaten them, even. So they'd boo us, later. What bullshit! The fans were SO NICE to me, asking for autographs, showing me their photo albums, letting me ride their skateboards, or whatever. I was always getting in trouble in the heel dressing rooms for smiling at the kids and grandmas who wanted to say hello to me. I was a shitty heel, in other words. That was in itself a kind of quaint nostalgia, I now believe. The veterans in the locker room had been brought up in wrestling by guys who were themselves brought up in a time where keeping kayfabe probably was important to the business, a time before the cat was well and truly out of the bag. By the time I got there, though, even the (often literally toothless) rural fan base that came out to the arena shows in Cloverdale were almost all cognizant that "Thumper" was a bad guy character that they enjoyed booing during the matches whereas "Gordi" was a relatively easy-going and friendly person, with a nice girlfriend, who played that character on TV. We used to be able to sneak into the backstage entrance area at the Pacific Coliseum when the WWF was in town and get pictures with the wrestlers. The heels were always the friendliest. Then one day someone put a stop to it. I bet it was an old guy with a stick up his ass about kayfabe. What bullshit! Anyway, that goes a certain distance in explaining why I was happier when Orange Cassidy was just a weird guy who wrestled lazily and not some clever strategist playing subtle mind games. The cat is WELL AND TRULY out of the bag now, and has been for a very long time. Why not have some fun with it? That was massively reinforced by my time as a regular member of the ringside crowd at Osaka Pro shows and a participant in their many drinking parties and social events during my first few years here in Japan. The heel/face and wrestler/fan divides fell away and we could all be one big happy drunken laughing family. It was a kind of paradise. And the comedy! Based on tweaking the sacred tropes of pro wrestling in a loving way. I am still amazed that so many people could understand and enjoy that! Which goes a fair way in explaining why I loved the "Ring of Friendship" "All Friends Wrestling" era of AEW and LOVED that they had succeeded in taking that beautiful sense of community to a place where TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE could feel a part of it all at once and why I mourn that they pissed that away trying to appease JR, and Cornette fans; that they pissed it away in a failed attempt to bring in the mythical huge casual fan base. MEMBER BERRIES Speaking of pandering... Good Lord! That Sting/Flair promo in Carolina where they LITERALLY came out and were, like, "Member Bam Bam Bigelow? Member him?" And the crowd were, like, " YEAH! WE MEMBER! WE MEMBER!" Fucking hell. I was flabbergasted. Then in the same show (I believe. Certainly it was the same week) MJF LITERALLY said "Good memberberries" or "nice memberberries" to Hangman in their backstage bit. I I know they are not trying to troll me, Gordlow, specifically. They aren't aware that I exist. But I hope I can be forgiven for kind of feeling like maybe they were. I get why those specific memberberries would work on a Charlotte Coliseum crowd. I don't begrudge them that simple pleasure. But oh boy did that segment stoke the fires of my concern that AEW is putting away "doing original and challenging stuff" in favour of "Let's stoke the memberberries fires!" And, because I was out of town for the MNW/ECW era and because I was generally more into trading tapes than watching TV in the subsequent era and in particular because the main two dudes I was into watching on that era of TV both met tragic and awful ends i DON'T HAVE HAPPY NOSTALGIA for those days. So I am not excited for Edge vs Christian, again. And to be honest bringing Flair in has me, personally, less hyped for Sting's Last Match. Not so much complaining here as just trying to understand/explain my own feelings. It's not that I am anti-nostalgia. I got right into Muta/Mutoh's retirement tour, for example. Marked out hard, more than once. I went out of my way to be there for Manabu Nakanishi's last match in Osaka and got emotional during it. But, I guess when the lazy as fuck cheap heat nostalgia pops are aimed somewhere where my nostalgia is lacking... The laziness just feels too painfully obvious. My Problem With Nigel It's not like I hate heel commentators. Hell, I WAS a heel commentator in the 1980s! It's not that Nigel is BAD at being a heel commentator. He certainly plays the role well enough. He is getting better at knowing when not to speak. It's that, in 2023, a heel commentator is blatant memberberries type bullshit cheap nostalgia. It's disingenuous. It's, "Hey! Member Bobby Heenan? Member Jesse The Body? You liked them, right?" Even more than Statlander being a literal alien or Orange's lazy kicks, even more than Evil Uno playing a game of Uno on Being the Elite, the thing that I feel invited the new fan (like myself) into the AEW community in the glorious first couple of years was the relaxed friendly laid back natural honest chatting going on at the commentary desk. Particularly on Dark or during picture in picture on the international feed. Just likeable guys like Mark Henry and Big Show and Taz and Ex and Tony making each other laugh and being themselves and not playing some bullshit character. Meaning what they said and saying what they meant and joking around loosely. SUCH a refreshing change from the horrific corporate speak on WWE's show. I feel like Nigel's disingenuous heel announcer character is a huge step away from that refreshing honesty and freedom and toward a kind of empty pandering to how things used to be. Personally, I'd rather Nigel just be himself instead of playing an over the top heel character. Anyway The days of AEW being a warm-hearted community-based genuine alternative to corporate wrestling are over. We are well into the late capitalist "WE MUST GROW!" stage and memberberrying seems to be a big part of the Challenge Brand strategy . Ironically, it leaves me feeling nostalgic for the halcyon days of 2019 And there is still SO MUCH great wrestling week in and week out anyway, so I am really mostly sad that they want to present it in a more polished and professional way rather than in a more warm and rumpled way. In a "maybe this will make people like us" way (which it won't) rather than a "just be true to your weird self" way.

Man, I will really miss this tournament once it's finished. In terms of in-ring action it's hard to come up with an example of another tournament where *every* match is so good. And every match with Bryan or Kingston has, in my opinion, been GREAT. And I don't feel burned out by the C2 so far, at all. The G1 ALWAYS burns me out when I try to watch every match. The smaller field and shorter match times definitely help out with that here. Can hardly wait for Collision. It looks like it's going to be an amazing conclusion to the first part of this very enjoyable journey. Weirdly, I feel like tonight's main event was my least favourite match of the tournament so far. Just felt a little bit "go, go, go, move, move, move, kickout, kickout, kickout" crossfit style to me, even with Mox selling the hell out of that knee. "Least Favourite" doesn't mean I didn't like it, though. Sir Paul is probably my least favourite Beatle but I love his music and he's obviously an all time great. I am still hoping for Bryan or Kingston vs Mox in the finals. Let Swerve go after Friedman's belt instead. I think they handled Kenny being out really well. I am glad they didn't turn it into some BS angle. Stay tasteful, AEW! I think that the C2 Triple Crown belt being plain black velvet is a BOLD design choice! SO HAPPY Riho won. Glad they esplained the tiebreakers today. Rush/Swerve sounds like dangerous driving! Nice to hear JR sounding relatively healthy and happy. He seemed rejuvenated. Wardlow's stuffy nose, Joey Samoey, and the Mox sign all got legit lols outa me. The MJF is the Devil signs came close. Hard to believe Christmas is almost here. Brian Cage vs Keith Lee could be tremendous. Big Meaty Men Leaping Around!

What stuck out to me in his match against Eddie was in the corner he knew Eddie would nuke him but he kept dancing in a show of defiance. He's done that before (against Shibata jumps out) and it always struck me as a really neat character trait where he will live and die on the dancing shield. I love it though feel when he loses that last CC match something will snap one way or another. The tamer aspect will be him splitting with Menard and company as he's sick of hearing them go "No dancing!" all the time. The admittedly better option would be for him to completely lose his shit, drop the dancing and go into vicious killer mode embarrassed by his CC showing. Both options can work if done right though I would prefer the latter. Now there is the chance he beats Brody which if done might work out better than what's mentioned above. Defeating the most intimidating hoss of the bracket (and CC for that matter) would give him a sense of confidence where he could dance his way through to better things. He might not be a title contender but even with a couple losses he could pick up a big win here and there. In time he gets enough of those where the wins happen more and he can at least see the next level is not too far away. But this is me assuming that things will pan out well. I love AEW but an not blind to the fact that many ideas either didn't pan out too well or were just given up on before it had a chance. With Garcia he's young enough where they can take their time and take him on a great path. But it kind of has to start with the end of the CC as no matter what if nothing changes after this then that'll be a misstep that could take more time for him to get over. EDIT: I'm sure Matt could better discuss Garcia but work's slow and the caffeine kicked in (about time, amiright?) Also, I love that dance though would ruin it for everybody if I ever attempted it. And yeah same goes especially for the Nana dance.

Had the sports massage yesterday and it felt good. Pretty much pain-free at the moment in the lower back region and that's very cool. I did a brief resistance band workout in the morning before getting there and also did one this afternoon along with elevated push-ups (50+30) using the handles. This routine will most likely continue every day at least at some point.

If he wears a turtle neck until his debut match and then whips it off to reveal some monstrosity on his neck, instant riot

I was thinking an Elon Musk-esque character, but a super terrible neck tat would be icing on that shit sundae!

My life is better now that I've started down the Hey EW rabbit hole.

Nash's work with Alex Shelley was the best stuff Nash ever did.

Hyatte was on Declaration Of Independents? The website that people called DOI, but then someone on here word filtered DOI to Second Doi, and so any lengthy discussion of it let to chains of quotes where the older posts now said Second Second Second Second Second Doi? That wouldn't be a good fit, he was a "WWF IS THE MAJOR LEAGUES AND EVERYTHING ELSE SUCKS" guy. Also, DOI was the "Feinstein is Innocent" site. I don;t think anyone really stuck around there after that shite started. I never liked that guy. He hated us. Had a whole section in his column devoted to mocking the DVDVR board.

@Kevin Wilson@Gordi the former AEW fanI had no idea the Inside Pulse connection! I submitted some writing samples as a teenager but it didn't pan out for one reason or another. My timeline could be off, but I think one of them was a really over the top screed about how getting rid of the IC title at the time was the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone, anywhere, for any reason. There's a very strong likelihood I've been reading both of your writing since I was a kid. After 411/IP, Hyatte had a column on Declaration of Independents for a little while, but I think the relationship ended poorly IIRC (I could be pulling that out of thin air, it's been a very long time). I was a big fan of your site, but got the feeling you all were starting to get spread a bit thin trying to go in an IGN-type direction with all the coverage of non wrestling/MMA stuff, like adding the video game, comic, and other headers (though I don't have a bad thing at all to say about the writing in those places on the rare occasion I ventured outside the wrestling/wrestling gaming sections).

I remember Inside Pulse too, I read that a lot never knew I had read gordlow stuff before this board but I very likely did. Thanks for the decades of entertainment Gordi

Just got back from Minus One with my older brother. That was wonderful. Good human drama and great action whenever the time came. Was so happy to hear the classic music.

https://shop.umbrellaent.com.au/collections/coming-soon/products/karboy-dead-end-drive-in-big-collectors-edition-1986-4k-uhd-blu-ray-cd-book-rigid-case-slipcase-poster-artcards-keychain-tshirt-freshener-stickers?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=Facebook_Desktop_Feed&utm_campaign=March+Physical+-+Sales&fbclid=IwAR0GyHv6HE3PXz54NNDunhUswcryNcXaGAD_nE5ZM6Mxi5iEThATxRqohU8 Good lord. I don't think ANYONE is that big of a fan of Dead-End Drive In.

I was thinking about that too. I'm rooting for a full sell out, Sting deserves it I remember Inside Pulse, I used to read Scott Keith, Hyatte, and I think Ditch back in the day. I probably read your stuff too so thanks for that. Those early internet days were fun, a remember sending a money order to someone in Arkansas for a tape that had been copied so many times I could barely make it out. I can't remember what I ordered originally but they sent me a Best of Super Juniors to make up for it

Yokozuna joins the Hart Foundation next week on Raw. Meanwhile, the Greensboro PPV ticket sales are going pretty swimmingly. Enough to make one wonder how many tickets they could open up if needbe in that building

I am going to utilize one of my days off this week by seeing Minus One. So excited.

I saw him wrestle Ortiz at an indie show a couple of weeks ago and it was great. Ortiz came out to "Smooth Operator" and BK spent his whole entrance in the ring mean mugging while singing along to every word.

I do feel that after going over hangman in the texas death match, the only next step is the world title. I'm pretty sure their feud with The Gangsters had to do with New Jack labeling them as "fake", but yes the whole "white b-boys" thing looks extremely retrograde in hindsight

Well we did have the Nigerian Nightmares so we can extrapolate that all of Africa shares one dream but their nightmares are regional.

Has anyone ever done the bracket regarding “white guys appopriating being black” a la Dusty, etc?

Hush your mouth, it's Christmas.

And since there's more afternoon to fill... i'm gonna watch some wrestling I haven't watched so.. The Best of Keith Lee in Evolve. First Keith introduces us to this special and tells us that Evolve had people such as Timothy Thatcher, Walter, Donovan Dijak, Matt Riddle, and Keith Lee. I'm feeling a Coliseum Video aesthetic here for some reason. First off, Keith Lee vs Donovan Dijak from Evolve 81 (March 31, 2017). Gnarly corkscrew to the outside by Keith Lee. Gotta love the normalish front row fans getting picked up on the mic. I think these two had several matches in this spirit in NXT. I asked myself "if Keith Lee showed up in Louisiana in 1984, how quickly would he end up in the main event in New Orleans with Bill Watts". Wild that the moonsault probably isn't in the top 5 craziest wrestling things that Keith Lee can do. "This Christmas" by Donny Hathaway popped up on the R&B station and I think this is the first time I've heard that this year, which is an important song to check off the list each year. Keith spends awhile telling us he's limitless and Dijak pops up to hit the torture rack/knee move. You know there's some fed seeing all the moves done on ring aprons which asks "what if we made the aprons wider". In most fair universes, nobody in an indy should be alive after being hit by a Keith Lee moonsault. Which means Dijak kicked out at 2 from a Keith Lee moonsault. Chokeslam counters! and then Keith Lee wins with a sitout powerbomb. Second, Keith Lee vs Donovan Dijak from Evolve 84 (May 20, 2017). There's way more lighting at Evolve 84 than at Evolve 81, which means the crowd looks a lot smaller for this one than the previous matchup. Is this a community center, a high school gym, the world will never know. Dijak flies in response to the Pounce. Batshit looking slam by Dijak onto the apron out of a fireman's carry. Nice looking powerslam counter to a dive by Lee as I've decided that Keith Lee's 1984 Mid South music would be "Beat It" and Bill Watts would insist that Keith end matches with the Thump. How to show you're limitless: (1) do amazing things, (2) say you are limitless during matches. Having back to back Lee/Dijak matches presents the challenge of hoping these two matches don't repeat themselves too much. This would be a Coliseum video if they did the Hulk Hogan/Harley Race Texas Death Match with the same finish on back to back matches. Speaking of that, the sitout powerbomb doesn't end things for Lee after a Canadian Destroyer. I'm sure we all figured out the official wrestling reason why Canadian Destroyers don't do shit anymore. Keith Lee flips off the top in a very "fucccck" way after taking too long to do a moonsault. Dijak avoids accidentally dropping Keith Lee on some black fans in the front row but Keith clears out a few rows after going over the rail. Dijak dives into the chairs onto Lee in a match that would have gotten fucked up in multiple ways in 1996 ECW. Man this rec center is gonna wonder what happened to their chairs. Those windows with sunlight are a little distracting. This is wrestling, we're not supposed to have things like natural light. Reverse rana by Keith Lee! This match has a slightly different finish as it's a sitout powerbomb off the top rope this time. Third, Keith Lee vs Timothy Thatcher from Evolve 90 (August 11, 2017). Hey, Stokely Hathaway is hanging around with Thatcher. Lots more hardhitting and less spots early in this matchup. Hey Thatcher is taking on someone called Darby Allin in an upcoming match, amazing how much utility served by WWE hooking into some 2010 indy feds. This match is a bit of a culture change from the Dijak matchups but it's good. Thatcher flies on the Pounce. I'd be an ineffective heel manager for Thatcher because I would just be fistpumping constantly in praise of him hitting dudes. Lee gets the win after a popup punch out of a fireman's carry. That headbutt looked nasty too. That was worked at a tempo that was probably a comparative night off for Keith Lee's knees and back compared to the Dijak matchs. Fourth, Keith Lee vs Matt Riddle vs Hot Sauce Tracy Williams vs WALTER from Evolve 91 (August 12, 2017) for the WWN title. The only thing that can stop this matchup from being awesome is multi man match tropes. Stokely is with Hot Sauce. That mushroom tattoo on Riddle makes him look like such a dork. We almost get Keith Lee vs Walter to start off but then we don't. After a few minutes of Riddle/Williams keeping Lee/Walter away from each other, and a Riddle/Williams sequence, we get Lee and Walter dropping bombs and doing awesome things to each other. Good luck to Riddle and Williams in competiting with that. More Riddle vs Williams as Lee and Walter sleep. Then we got Riddle and Williams putting submission holds on Walter and Lee for a little bit. For some reason I wasn't convinced by Tracy Williams hitting 3 larger guys with strikes one after another. Then they dispatch him and it's Riddle/Walter/Lee. Triple (double) German Suplex. Tracy Williams awakens and gets a nearfall on Riddle. Williams doesn't fly as nuch as you'd expect from a pounce. Riddle has to break up a Walter sleeper on Keith Lee to save his title. Riddle hitting Walter with some spider-like strikes. Not sure if you'd know that Riddle was in MMA from watching some of these strikes, but real strikes vs wrestling strikes is a whole other thing. Matt Riddle taps out Tracy Williams with the crossface to retain his title. So, Keith Lee doesn't win *every* match on his best-of. Love the between match narration of Keith Lee trying to not accidentally flip us off while holding a water bottle. Fifth, Keith Lee vs Matt Riddle from Evolve 94 (October 14, 2017) for the WWN Title. Matt Riddle is Rob Van Dam for aspiring MMA douchebags. Weird to have the fans on the hard cam be seated that high up. Riddle's foot hit the hanging circus sign on a move. He hits that sign again on a powerbomb! Nice to see the person to furnished the Wrestlewar 91 cage found work creating a set that the wrestlers will clip if they go high enough. It's probably for the best to just pretend that Riddle can hurt Keith Lee with sentons. Oh yeah, this is a last man standing match too, for the record. So this one could end with Keith Lee ripping that sign down and beating Riddle with it. The arena setup here makes the front row on hard cam look like a jury tasked with deciding this match. Riddle clips the sign for a 3rd time, this time on a suplex. Keith Lee is taking the variety of trademark Matt Riddle moves for this one. Riddle bounces like a motherfucker on that top rope powerbomb. That fisherman's buster on the apron looked like it could have went better. Keith barely gets up after that and a top rope senton and then goes on the offense with that punch and the Go to Sleep and a powerslam off the top. Riddle almost makes it up by 10 but collapses at the last moment and Keith Lee wins the WWN title. And now our 6th and final match of this special, Keith Lee vs WALTER from Evolve 96 (December 9th, 2017) for the WWN title. Time to unbutton your pants, folks. This is from the same gym as the four way match. You see, that ref missed the rope break due to the size of the competitors. Love the sequence of these two just bouncing into each other followed by a leapfrog and dropkick by Keith Lee. This match is going almost exactly how you'd imagine it should. Kind of an odd dynamic of Keith Lee doing all these awesome things and the Evolve commentator talking about Keith Lee's weight depending on what he had for lunch. Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry gets signage below the scoreboard in this gym. Nice dismissive shoves by Walter along with a butterfly suplex and running Keith Lee's spread fingers into the ropes. I think there's a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine at the top of the stairs in this place. This is the hossiest of all hoss fights. Behold these two large dudes exchanging strikes and powerbombs! Nearfall for Keith Lee falling backwards onto Walter while in the sleeper, which might be a bananapeel finish they'll do to end Gunther's title reign. Speaking of that, Keith Lee hits Ground Zero and that's enough for him to get the win over Walter. Keith Lee has a few closing remarks and we fade out. That was a fun selection of matches. Through no fault of his own, Keith Lee's momentum has ground to a halt over the last few years (which started before he went to AEW). With better timing, and no global pandemics, i'd think that this decade would be working itself out a little better for him. Lots of awesome moves (although that fireman's carry/punch didn't seem to land too cleanly and looked less devastating than most of his offense), lots of awesome bumping and stuff that large dudes shouldn't be able to do.

Even with the injuries, what a fantastic year Danielson has had! The MJF IronMan feud that involved a build up with tv matches against Rush, Bandido, Thatcher, and Takeshita. An Anarchy in the Arena. The Okada match where he broke his arm and still submitted him with his legs. The Ricky Stark matches. The Sabre Jr epic. The short TNT title contender ship match against Swerve and then the match with Christian. And now the current Continental Classic. I haven’t seen the recent ROH match but it sounds good. Good stuff!

If you have cable access, you might want to consider using a rope variation.