TimLivingston

As always, when Nick and Matt are eating shit, they're at their best. I can't believe Okada actually changed his theme; I understand why someone might pull the trigger, but that is an iconic theme, man. The way I'm describing how AEW is being booked right now is PRECISE. They are pushing all the right buttons and know when to be direct and when to sow chaos. Symphonic, really. An amazing turnaround for the company over the past few months.

Glad to know I’m not the only one. Hasn’t worked for me at all.

Has anyone else had issues with hitting either the double arrow for pages or the Prev/Next buttons on mobile? I’ve been trying to reset cookies and history on my phone and re-sign in but every time I do, I can’t tap the buttons at all.

Hangman is visibly shaken when Swerve admits to him that he deserved what he got several months back. Hangman wrestles with that as the two circle each other with the overlap of the Bucks and the Death Riders. He then sees that maybe he has a way to process all that trauma by hashing something out with Swerve, even if it's just a confirmation of something he already knew. An honest-to-God therapy session with the man who he despises the most. Swerve then takes the chain left behind and figures if he's going to truly walk the walk, he will do for Page what Page did for him and give him the help Page didn't ask for but knew he needed. He hands him the chain after showing his value to Page, and Page knows the way to victory lies with how he won the last time he fought Moxley in the Revolution Texas Death Match, and hangs him over the top with the chain Swerve gave back to him, exorcising all his demons in one fell swoop as Mox taps out exactly as he did those years before. PROFESSIONAL. MOTHERFUCKING. WRESTLING.

He said it after the Ospreay match: the first half of the match was nothing but the crowd doing chants about how awesome the fact they were seeing the match actually happen was. There was no response done from anything in the ring for nearly the entire match until basically the stretch run. I have no doubt Mox charging Bryan to start the match during the entrance was them putting in a failsafe so that wouldn’t happen again, and also, given how the crowd responded in the post-match? Mission accomplished. They had no choice but to basically be silent because of what they saw. Bryan wanting to face certain guys on his way out as emblematic of AEW’s booking woes is a fallacy; it’s TK’s fault through and through, and putting it on the wrestlers when he doesn’t have the wherewithal to actually plan something out and stick to it is a lot easier when so many of them don’t know any better. It’s easier to dream match book than anything else. Time to grow up.

Bryan literally said earlier this year he doesn’t understand modern wrestling fans and so many of these responses are why he said it.

People are too caught up in what should be instead of what is.

I think like many Netflix shows, they were given a budget and when they realized they had more meat on the bone but no room to expand, they had to compartmentalize and compromise, sadly. The showrunners leaned too much on some aspects for drama when there was plenty there in how the wrestling was actually presented. Think they severely underestimated the audience.

The Nigel stuff is falling flat. He doesn’t have the juice to hold this together without a retort from Bryan. The match is gonna be the thing that makes it, but the lead up has been essentially to crickets.

A fantastic series; fast forward button is slammed on towards the end to wrap up all the story beats, but it was a true success. The Hair match re-creation gave me chills, especially with the entrances where they threw out some of the same camera shots from the actual taping. Well worth the time, and I wish there was more.

I’m three in and digging it big time. It’s a J Drama, so historical accuracy gets booted to the side in many instances, but holy crap, the wrestling here is top notch. Chigusa and company really trained the actors well, and they do a great job throughout. Really committed all the way through. Incredibly impressed by a lot of this, even if, as said before, the accuracy leaves a lot to be desired in some ways.

Outrunners rule the goddamn world.

It’s not for the title. Yeah, I could see Fletcher and Ospreay even win, then have turn and give the title to Davis.

When they win it’s gonna be Acclaimed-level huge. Probably bigger. Tough crowd. Tony needs to figure out arena sizes.

Literally the next day? WWE Vault uploaded the Badd Blood HIAC match.