For Great Justice

It’s funny to me that for all the talk yesterday about athletes vs wrestlers that put it into a binary context, the main developmental feud is between a legacy athlete and a CZW guy

I will always appreciate Dave’s exhaustive work and dedication to pro wrestling, but it’s not debatable that his tastes shaped a view of what made good wrestling by the early internet wrestling community that absolutely sucked and led to the Johnny Kickpads generation. Shame on you Dave. Shit, appreciation for Sid / Mark Henry / Bunkhouse Buck / Dusty Rhodes is what drove a lot of us to DVDVR in the first place. Finally, sanity.

I’m not sure what the disagreement is here. It’s completely within the WWE’s right to revert to the formula of training sports athletes rather than poaching indies. It’s worked for them in the past and is a step up from underwear models of the mid aughts. There have always been and will always be veteran Indy-born guys on the card like Steamboat, Goldust, Rude regardless. I think it makes sense to target your developmental recruiting on the athlete types moreso than the Indy types. I unabashedly prefer NXT 2.0 over the Gargano/Cole/Ciampa era NXT though. Vince was 100% right that they product stunk and was contributing nothing to the main roster.

That Ezekiel/Owens/Gable segment was so good. Credit to all three performers for getting this thing over, because they are and it rules.

Amazing. Honestly Naitch could do a run in and hit that corner strike spot right now. That ruled.

Elevation main event was a good ol multigenerational time. Welcome back Angelico!

I also have Belair #1. Never would’ve thought that just a couple of years ago, but she’s like a Lex Luger that actually worked his ass off become an excellent pro wrestler. She’s really incredible. Belair / Hayter please

I didn’t realize Singh is legit from Punjab. They really should have had him debut by throwing a shirt at CM Punk

I had no idea Gresham is that tiny. I’ve met Joe and he’s a legit 6’0. Jeez.

Thank God for that heel turn

AEW really isn’t great at booking women after they lose the title. Riho was left twisting in the wind, Shida twisting in the wind until the Deeb feud and now Baker doing nothing.

I love it that the Acclaimed are in AEW’s post show dark stuff spot. Like, the fans won’t go home fully satisfied without seeing them. Really feels like they are in that still-early heel New Day / New Age Outlaws phase where they are a hot feud and face turn away from the top of the division for a long time.

To reinforce wins and losses mattering, I’m hoping to see Shawn Dean get a TNT title shot on TV soon. Would add more gravitas to these MJF losses.

Shiiiiit if we get Ring Ka King on the AEW Network you can just go right on ahead and take my money

That was the turdiest ending to a Dynamite since that early Dark Order beat down one (not the later, awesome, Brodie Lee title win beat down) Politely, TK, no one gives a shit about Jay Lethal. Let alone Dollar Store Omos.

Not gonna lie I got YET-TAY vibes there at the end. Match was fun as hell but Joe was obviously super blown up.

That Team Taz tag match was GREAT. Everyone involved in that match was OVER AF!

Jungle Boy was good on his pre tape promo. Massive improvement there.

God the end of a big Hangman defense with Japanese commentary would be great. BUCKKKKKSHOOOOOTOOOOOO

At least they had sort of gave a logical storyline reason to drop a dude’s first name this time

Well this thread took a turn toward ruining decades of my disbelief. “Coming to the ring, from Branson, Missouri, accompanied by the Baldknobbers….Stone Cold Steve Austin!”

Hobb’s bodyblock might be the best cutoff in the business, so he’s got that

It’s incredible to me that AEW is simultaneously featuring and growing three generations of stars: the Danielson/Punk/Mox/Jericho/FTR tier, the Hangman/Darby/MJF/Jungle Boy/Wardlow/Acclaimed tier and the emerging Garcia/Yuta/Hook/Top Flight tier.

I look forward to BCC vs Starks and Hobbs a few months from now to put the final young lion gem in the infinity gauntlet

Do they get the independent studies from the focus group?