Leaderboard

Also, did you not notice just how frequently the WWE has felt the need to let everyone know they won the Monday Night War? For the last 20 years?

Is the roster much bigger than at the start of the pandemic period? I think they could create an illusion of unpredictability using lower card talents without necessarily having to constantly bring guys in. If Sammy had an open challenge next Wednesday and Moriarty challenged him, it'd still feel unexpected.

According to his book: Bryan first saw the move performed by Muta at an NWA tournament called Future Shock '89 (Starrcade '89, in Atlanta. Presumably he watched it on video year later? He would have been 9 at the time). Muta wasn't using it as a finisher, but Bryan thought it might be cool to use it as one. He called it the "bridging chicken wing thing." He started using it in Memphis (in 2000), but only a few times as a finisher. He first heard the name "Cattle Mutilation" from Reckless Youth at the Super 8 (presumably 2001) which is where he started using it as his regular finisher. At first, he didn't know what Youth was referring to, and after it was explained to him he assumed he'd never hear the term again. Subsequently, Christopher Daniels also called the hold the "Cattle Mutilation" but Bryan didn't like the imagery and in his own mind kept calling it the "bridging chicken wing thing." He says that he continued to call it that until late 2002, when he finally accepted that everyone else in ROH called it the Cattle Mutilation and there was nothing he could do to change that.

Oh believe me, Coach Tony ABSOLUTELY cares if YOU watch...

Blewitt is such a hilarious name for a kicker

I went back and watched the first Kingston appearance the other day and found the thread and people went nuts; it might be the only time in a decade when the mods let a live show thread happen. They would do well having Sammy do open challenges.

Saying "shit" is just a slippery slope to calling dudes "fruit booties."

For me, the Gage appearance (and Juvi, too) make me sit up and take notice that, "Oh shit! They really might bring in anyone!" It's been a while since pro wrestling had any intrigue in the week to week happenings. Now, I tune in to AEW with the thought that someone cool showing up is definitely not outside the realm of possibilities.

Did they show you a bunch of pictures and make you select the ones that had busses?

I think he was pretty pissed off at how petty they've been and then the no commercial stuff too, because he knows that's a pissing contest where both companies lose financially. He went so over the top in his dunking that he won me over. It's hilarious. You gotta read his tweets in his Giannis Antetokounmpo intro voice.

Glad they finally announced this, now maybe he can get a win on TV?

Apologies in advance to AEW for losing one viewer in that vital demographic once I hit 50 in a couple of weeks.

I'd be happier if the entire site died, not just changed its name.

Dust Storm, surely.

Lemme start this before a bot does. FOR THE AEW CHAMPIONSHIP - Kenny Omega (c) vs. Hangman Adam Page MEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP ELIMINATOR FINALS -- More as they announce.

Hey, @Craig H I did a drunk Cameo request and forgot to go into detail about what Dave said. But I think he covered it pretty well.

Face champions doing open challenges and heels demolishing babyfaces until someone rises up to stop them seems like a great way to keep booking the title.

What if they talked about getting in each other's butts?

If any of you folks are having a bad day because of something you screwed up, keep in mind it could be way, WAY worse. Case in point:

An editor is one thing, WWE creative is another. Seems to me WWE creative lets a lot of shit hit the small screen. Further, if you were witness to Chris Jericho's glorious WCW heel run prior to his WWF debut, or his AEW run nearly to the babyface turn and feud with MJF, you would well know he's clearly better left to his own devices on promos. I see no reason to give any credit to WWE creative. A badly scripted, badly acted wrestling show was never my bag. Your dismissal of the Gage angle/match/segment is a bit shortsighted to say the least. The whole thing made for a lot of excitement and presented a unique experience that provided most of us a shit tonne of fun. Some were saying 'it's not usually my thing, but this worked'. Of course, there was inevitably the 'I don't like Nick Gage' posts from ppl that think others care if they like or don't like somebody, but those were as trivial and forgotten as the other weekly 'I don't like (insert elite wrestler name)' posts following Dynamite. If you're talking about the Painmaker, yeah he certainly could use some editorial advice. But certainly not from WWE creative as overseen by an out of touch senior citizen and his stooges. Yeah, no credit deserved there.

"Vanilla ICE ICE BABY....."

I cannot go on this ride with you, @Goodear. I don't think 2.0 and Garcia can control their bookings. Khan wanted a eight man Dark Order tag and 2.0 and Garcia, being such dicks to everyone, have no friends. Serpentico just wanted YouTube time and is used to being abused left and right by Luther so he was just happy to be there. He also does certain things right. He caused the initial distraction that let 2.0 take over, for instance. He just doesn't do a lot well. Maybe I'll feel differently about the act after seeing it for a year but he's such a small part of the show that I'm always glad to see him. If he was on Raw, he get that terrible comedy spot every show and you'd be sick of him within a month, but he shows up once every three Darks now. Dark 10/19/21 Hayter vs Nieves: This wasn't quite there. I liked how Hayter was moving Nieves around the ring wherever she wanted her. That was effective but nothing looked super impactful. I wonder if she can do a hanging vertical? The clothesline was too abrupt. She should have found some way to telegraph it more and get the crowd primed for it maybe? Gunn Club vs Sheik/Alexander/Chamberlain: Is Colton's finisher the same as Dustin's new finisher? I'm not going to look for it but it seems iffy. It looked good here at least. Best bit of this was probably Austin pulling the legs from the outside early. It's very clear what Austin is but I don't really get what heel Colton is supposed to be, especially with Billy standing right there sort of being a better version of whatever it might be. Billy's punch on Sheik was great but I wanted to see that guy do more. Diamante/Nyla/Sakura vs Statlander/Rosa/Velvet: Things to like here but they were more specific moments than the overall match. I get a sense that people trained more recently are taught to look at dropdowns as a way to trip an opponent as opposed to just something you do as part of a routine. I see that in watching Velvet at least. There was almost a sense of hierarchy here as she lost the offense quickly against Emi but who knows since the match was so much noise by that point. My favorite thing about Statlander is how she works the boop in and she worked it in by trying it to Nyla and getting crushed with a suplex. Nyla sure isn't protected anymore, that's for sure. She tagged herself in and got clowned pretty quickly. Diamante fed well for everyone. That's her lot. I did like her little taste of tandem stuff with Nyla. Rosa understands what she has with the crowd and is able to milk it at times, so good on her. If these sentences are all random, disconnected thoughts, that's ok; so was the match. Also, unlike the match on Elevation, they didn't use this to hype the TBS tournament nearly as well. Jade promo: The "Very Funny" thing probably didn't work, but it was a good effort. The promo itself worked fine. I like managers. Jade obviously needs one. There's even benefit in her having her own since it makes her stand out more. The company just has a lot. Jade is not the person to put the TBS belt on this year. Archer vs Fernandez: Jake just seemed glad to be there. I would have liked to see his reaction to Archer dragging the guy out. Yeah, Archer is really fun to watch in squashes. He has that Sid/Steiners/Road Warriors vibe. This pretty quickly became the Taz/Kingston show, which was pretty distracting, let me tell you. Kingston's mini promo about how he could hurt Archer was good. Fernandez got to show some fire and he ate that forearm well off the top. This was a blur, but that's ok. I do like how Dark is constantly pushing towards the main shows. Solo vs Kazarian: I got kind of restless midway through this one and got looking up Solo and realized he was in a team with Starks right before Taz told us that. IT was funny because when he was out on the floor, I kind of had Starks vibes out of him, so I can see that. I think there's honestly room for just about everyone on the roster, but I can't tell you what Solo's doing there. He's competent, and you want guys like Kazarian and Sydal to put over talent on the bigger shows, but I don't think Kazarian is any stronger for beating Solo than he would have been beating some talented indy guy. So this was fine, sound, but there wasn't a lot of reason to care. 2.0/Garcia/Serpentico vs Dark Order: The entrance was pretty funny, especially because they set up the moment on the ramp and then paid it off in the ring with the streamers. How can you not enjoy watching Serpentico? The bit where he kept trying to give Parker a thumbs up was so good. The long beatdown on Angels didn't work. I don't know if the crowd was just exhausted and this was late in the taping cycle or he didn't get a hope spot or the Dark Order (including Colt) just weren't working the apron or what. The only one that was really getting reactions was Garcia with his off the charts intensity. 10 is one of the best hot tags in the company with his size and spots. Does Grayson always do that flip over senton to the guy leaning on the apron? That seems like a challenging spot to work into multiple matches but it worked here. The finishing stretch started awkward and then used that awkwardness for humor so good on them. Still, overall this could have worked better.

I want to shatter the illusion of the Orange Cassidy character since it was shattered for me just now. Matt Riddle's tag team partner in another life.

Chris Hero. But the very first idea for that whole storyline was actually all the members of the Pinnacle, instead of Spears/Gage/Juvi/Wardlow/MJF. Whoever had the original idea got half of their wish, just left out FTR from that whole dreadful thing. But yeah, agreed. It might not have been for everyone, but the "deathmatch"/no rules match was awesome. Wasn't a technical masterpiece or anything, but it was great, violent fun. Also - I mean, c'mon guys, they're only saying "shit", it's not like they're out here saying fuck every other sentence. It's hardly cursing or "naughty words". Let's grow up a little.

Finally watched this! Buy In I finally finished last night but really to just watch Suzuki/Dragon again. DEAN was right, it's even better the second time. As much as the strike exchanges get old it works with these two grim fucks going at it. Lee Moriarty is weird but cool, Fish is great, Tay is solid. Anyway, Rampage: Punk/Sydal was really fun for Punk basically solidifying a classic wrestling moveset over his last couple matches: piledriver, neckbreaker, clothesline, bodyslam. He's decided to get these over (again) and it's wonderful. A bit of his wink-wink is coming out (literally) again but it's Punk, he's gonna do that. Sydal looked fluid and crisp as hell. Ruby still has incredible selling and her and Bunny both worked hard, but they were kinda in the death spot after all this, still worked a fine match. The main was just fun as hell. They should have had Dan say JDS is only gonna use open palm strikes like UWF because he would injure someone too bad with his fists. It was really a crowd pleaser even despite the heel win but it worked just fine to get everyone ever. Great show.

Lol

You're talking out of your ass.

When you're fighting a company that's so insecure and petty that they just took great pains to knock a D level wrestling company off a C level streaming service, you take all the hollow victories you can get and laugh all the way.

Yeah, they've never cared if I watched.:(

All I see when Jericho does the Painmaker gimmick is Glen Osbourne. I want to see him work Silvermane on the midcard of a PCW show.

Or this one:

To the surprise of no one - Nick Rolovich is suing Washington State for wrongful termination The twist is - the crux of of his argument is he was a victim of "discriminatory and vindictive behavior" from the AD. He is claiming that the AD decided to fire him in April which was 4 months before the state put in place the vaccine requirement for all state employees. Also his lawyer admitted that Rolovich's religious exemption claim was that because Rolovich was a "devout Catholic" he couldn't get the vaccine. That sure as fuck is news to this devout Catholic.

B Block finals was a really good show but I'm not very hyped for the finals of the G1 this year. There is just such a lack of excitement to the booking during the pandemic era of NJPW. The start of the tournament felt exciting and fresh with ZSJ and Cobb being booked so strong but then ZSJ fell off and Cobb while he was a made star in the tournament doesn't reach the finals. EVILs matches being all the same formula didn't work most of the time because his act needs crowds booing like hell, I think if he was doing the same shit to huge heat his matches would come off way better but his cheating heel act dies without reactions to it. Taichi feels like a guy ready to breakthrough now too, I love how the crowd has gotten behind him in the tournament. I hope they do more with him and ZSJ than just run Tekkers/GoD a bunch of times but that is certainly looking likely for WK though I think O-Khan/Cobb could make some noise in the Tag League but now the tag titles feel like they are too low for ZSJ, Taichi, Cobb and even O-Khan almost, after the tournament they all had. And are they going to have any follow-up with Tama pinning Okada, that should be a big deal for him but idk what they can do with it, outside of Okada possibly having to defend the title shot against him which would be such a forgone conclusion match that it would be pointless. I don't know what they are going to do to stretch WK out to three nights and make them all seem important because there booking has been dire and they need to cycle the upper card around a bit. Ibushi is feeling tired to me now and Naito, whom I love so much, seems to be breaking down physically. One thing I forgot to point out earlier when it happened is that after Hiromu/Ishii I am so ready for heavyweight Hiromu, I just want him to beat Eagles pass the torch to Despy and mix it up with the big boys.

I am very, very exceptional, of course, but the first time I ever followed AEW results live (ever) was to see who the next labor of Jericho would be.

Again - it is not ranked. Unless you are referring to Dolfan's bad Top 5 Otherwise the NBA is saying that Michael Jordan isn't one of the Top 25 players of all time (both in the old list or the new list)

But how are they in the key demo?

NOAH do one of those before their title matches too (including for the tag belts & the Jrs) & it's a great touch that just really emphasises the history of the lineage. I love that sort of thing. Things I don't love? The lowest wrestling crowd at the Budokan in the COVID era which almost certainly means the lowest wrestling crowd there ever. NOAH drew twice that when they ran there in February. Stardom also did over 3,300 there in March. NJPW have run their 3 times in the COVID era & crowds have gone from 3,564 for the 2020 Best of Super Juniors/World Tag League Finals to 3,026 for the 49th Anniversary show in March to 2,088 for the 2nd last night of the G1, headlined by an Okada singles match. It's kind of amazing how bad the company has reacted to COVID.

There was an article posted a while back that made the point that if you think of all the AEW factions (similar to NJPW factions) more as MMA training camps than traditional pro wrestling stables. They train together watch each others back ect.

AEW wasn't a thing on TV yet, so he had no skin in the game. Go easy on him, people probably weren't in his ear at that point about what to emphasize.

CM Punk was excellent on commentary tonight 'Were live pal!", plus he added alot of real solid in ring analysis. Dante Martin has no right to be this good this young. Loved MJF new jacket. Also a minor thing, AEW doesn't do the WWE invisible camera man so I appreciated when Cody acknowledged the camera crew as they went into the school. Also someone here pretty much called Arn's promo word for word last week

Toshinden! Been tempted to pickup a ps1 since my ps2's gotten old and most of my PS1s don't come on as easily as they used to. Still have most of my games but been missing a few I used to have, like the Twisted Metal series. PS1 is definitely one of my all time favorite eras of games and one that brings the most nostalgia feel when I think of Street Fighter Alpha, Tomb Raider, Symphony of the Night, WCW vs The World, etc.

I would have totally no-sold the customer and said "No." Then just smiled real, real big and watched them speedwalk away from me.

Today I learned that MVP had a stable with Kenny King, Lashley, Samoa Joe, Low Ki, Eric Young, Homicide and Hernandez. This was not knowledge I had before.

ESCAPE THE UNDERTAKER Bonus Review by RIPPA Several months ago, my son asked to (re)watch the Original Star Wars trilogy – it has morphed into a weekly family movie night and it is the best (only?) good thing I have going on in my life at the moment. It is something I have been meaning to bring up in the general movie thread but I have been lazy. The reason I bring it up here is a week or two ago as we were trying to find a movie to watch I went past the Escape the Undertaker Netflix dealie. I didn’t give it a second thought but my wife went “Wait? What’s that?” It is at this point that I should point out that neither my wife nor son watch wrestling. My wife is vaguely aware of some wrestlers (a few of the women like Bayley and Becky Lynch especially). She is aware of the New Day due to my watching of UpUpDownDown. She especially knows Xavier Woods as she frequently watched Da Party Uno videos with me. My son only knows wrestlers via memes which means he pretty much knows John Cena and the Rock. With that all being said you can imagine my surprise when after showing them the trailer and explaining the premise (an interactive Netflix movie) both wanted to watch it. Neither is a fan of “horror” but this is “horror” is the loosest definition of the word. In fact, I think it is labelled as something like “family horror” on Netflix. Either way – it is most assuredly done with kids in mind. The after school specials and Halloween themed special episodes we watched growing up were far more terrifying than this. So to many of y'alls disappointment - there won't be anything gory (or as horrifying as current WWE Booking. WHOO-HOO!!! Got it in! Fish in barrel shot!) It only is about 30 minutes and that is even with exploring most of the options. I didn’t watch the Black Mirror Bandersnatch thing so I am not sure if this is the standard but with this, most of the “choices” were watching events from each member of New Day’s perspective. (Do you follow Kofi up the stairs? Do you go with Woods to the basement? etc...) The choices that actually affect the ending are minimal – two at most. I think we only found two “dead ends” – can’t call them deaths as in one case the Undertaker just knocks you unconscious (while basically a comedy spot is happening so yeah clearly this was booked by the RAW writers) and the other choice is just joining heel Taker. We got the “best” ending on the first try but it really isn’t that hard to know how to get there. I will give them credit – a few times there were things that were genuinely creepy. Granted part of this could be because there was a whole “face your fears” section and two of them were things that are WAY high on my list of Nopes. The members of New Day are great in this. My son was surprised at how good they were at acting. There are allowed to acknowledge some of the usual tropes surrounding surviving horror films. Of course, so many things do that now that you could consider that a trope in and of itself. Undertaker was by far the worst part as somehow a movie/tv show designed with plenty of smoke and mirrors couldn’t hide how fucking broken down Taker was with actual smoke and mirrors. Near the end, Taker takes off his jacket and it legit makes him look 10 years old. (And I don’t mean in a plot point way – just in a “Jesus Sting – keep that T-shirt on” way). I have never seen someone look so bad and uncomfortable in the rig they used to lift him three feet off the ground so he could play Palpatine for a hot minute. And I haven’t even mentioned how stupid it is that he was still wearing his MMA gloves. Like you clearly stopped living the gimmick Taker, you can take them the fuck off now. There are a few nods to wrestling fans that made me chuckle that the rest of the family looked at me like I was crazy for. I called the Taker sit up spot which popped my son. There was a really weird reliance on old Paul Bearer stuff which all things considered might have been the creepiest part of the show. Oh, also, it really seemed like they redubbed some old footage to have Pat Mcafee doing commentary with Michael Cole as opposed to whoever it was at the time that Vince now clearly hates. We all enjoyed ourselves because it was stupid fun – which is exactly what we were looking for at that moment. Not horror but fits the Halloween vibe. I definitely would recommend it if you have younger kids who also happen to enjoy wrestling.

It's ridiculous, but also makes so much sense. He got to the top of college football against all odds and lost the one stable person in his life at the same damn time. He has to try to navigate being newly single at the exact same time where the most women are interested in him. It's not surprising that Ed Orgeron of all people would have a very hard time dealing with that. He went from laughingstock to champion in the only place in the country where you can act like Ed Orgeron and no one will look at you sideways. We can moralize this, but he was doing what a lot of us would do in that exact situation. Most people would have no clue how to deal with being that rich, that popular, and that desirable at a time where you also have no excuse not to indulge. He just couldn't help himself.

Martin's subtle selling and facial expressions were excellent for that entire match, especially for someone his age. As the match started he has a look of apprehension on his face like he thought he was in over his head, but he asked for it and he wasn't going to run from it. He really is an impressive prospect who is only going to get better working in a promotion that really seems to care about match structure and making little things count.