Iron Moose

The women's rumble dragged for the sake of giving Nia the huge bolus of eliminations. The NXT women aside from Roxanne didn't get much chance to shine. Bron looked great. Braun tossing Jacob to clear the deck for Cena was noticeable once it happened. Other than that, good stuff. The first stomp to Roman outside the ring was NASTY.

the other weird meta-textual thing I'll note about Bowens is that he was cribbing from The Rock's promo that annihilated Billy Gunn ("... that you ABSOLUTELY SUCK") .

and it sparked much joy.

This, and also, the official AEW social media channels are missing something else. With WWE ones, they use different zooms and pans to focus on what the video is about. It feels like AEW's are more likely to just be straight shots from broadcast, sometimes cropped, meaning that sometimes relevant things are happening outside of what the viewer can see. As an example, look at this: https://www.instagram.com/aew/reel/DEcpqGAprbC/ particularly how Bryan Keith's ringpost shenanigans in the first few seconds are off-camera.

when we got Hangman v Cole, the crowd did indeed chant THIS IS ADAM ... but you're right, I don't remember any dueling chants.

Kelani-Lola was definitely better than I remember the Breakout final. This one had Lola attaining a challenging balance of character work throughout ("I'm conflicted about beating you up but it's for your own good" -> "oh how DARE YOU") and some of Kelani's moves were countered in interesting ways (the armbar countering the rope spin armdrag, the midair sleeper) and otherwise refined (the step-over kick being replaced with a much cooler-looking leaping head kick). The challenger for Fallon is interesting. I think everyone has a good argument - polishing the idea of Cora as an effective schemer, possibly giving her a title while Roxanne could be without one; Vaquer as generally competent and dangerous, not too enmeshed in either Cora or Lola-Kelani's arcs, and could go for a champion v champion with whoever wins Giulia/Roxanne; Kelani winning through unseemly means for a last desperate shot at Fallon (and maybe giving us a double turn in the process); Lola being sick of everyone's crap and wanting to move back into a place of prominence after the Shayna/Jaida detours. I still cringe a bit at I'M A LATINA. I hold out hope that Vaquer deadpans into the camera that yes, she is also a Latina.

brilliant. (FWIW it's a publicity still from a movie she has a part in. )

Surprising absolutely no one, Punk v GUNTHER in a steel cage at the Chicago house show was apparently very good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q27eCPZHD30

The final LVL UP had a fun six-woman tag with Wendy Choo, Kali Armstrong and Lainey Reid defeated by Layla Diggs, Carlie Bright and Kendal Grey, and Dante Chen taking on three dudes in a self-inflicted gauntlet match. It was also fun but raises weird questions about being a gatekeeper of a developmental brand's developmental brand. Godspeed, LVL UP.

Meanwhile, on the second-to-last LVL UP: Joe Coffey beats Keanu Carver, and Lainey Reid pulls out a sneaky win over Kendal Grey - leading to a post-match fracas with Carlie Bright and Leyla Diggs saving Kendal from Wendy Choo and Kali Armstrong, setting up a six-woman tag for next week. (One quick highlight here was Reid very smoothly countering a crossbody with a fall-away slam. ) Also, Dante Chen makes an open challenge, offering himself up for a gauntlet match.

I'm tired of the Liv-Rhea arc, but I want to give props to Liv for how much fun it seemed she was having last night. The megaphone and cackle are great touches that amplify each other. I have to respectfully disagree about Zoey, it seemed like the crowd was iffily kinda into KC, but increasingly appreciative every time Zoey flew into the match. In terms of the bracket, I also think Kayden/Dakota is trickier to make compelling than Zoey/Dakota.

... I'm on it. Time Lass Toni Storm coming right up. ... also, yeah, that was a *great* main event.

fine, I'll say it Time Loss Toni Storm

Meanwhile, on LVL UP An interesting match where Wendy Choo defeats Dani Palmer by countering a standing corkscrew moonsault into a grounded sleeper (maybe a cobra clutch). When they're in sync with each other, it's quite good, and both of them show good intuitions of playing to the back rows. There are a few moments where it seems like one is selling something a few seconds early, or not entirely getting out of the way when something is supposed to miss. Palmer takes a great chest bump into the turnbuckle; Choo's spookiness is less pronounced as the match goes on, which I think is a good call. Palmer gets a post-match promo in the back expressing frustration and that something has to change, so ... maybe she'll join up with Lainey and Kali? I'll be honest, I'm surprised they haven't put Palmer on Main Event yet - I get the feeling her work would translate really well in a bigger venue. also Niko Vance (w/ Shawn Spears and Brooks Jensen) beats a lonely Oro Mensah with a diving headbutt, which puts me off rewatching. Cost-benefit of that move is way against using it at all.

clean over the top rope, straight down on both feet. Absolutely unbelievable. The midair adjustment on the splash to Giulia was also impressive. I have no idea how she'll do on the main roster but I desperately hope they're drawing up Rumble plans to get her and Vaquer on the general public's radar. (other women's IS notes: Wren did great, Giulia was there, Zaria continues to undermine herself by overselling everything a touch, Vaquer-Giulia is being teased a lot, and where on earth does everyone else go from here?)

women's division is an embarassment of riches, and I'll just say that I hope Kelani isn't going through - a lot more stories to be had that way.

This sounds fantastic but aside from like ... Hogan at X8 (and that feels like a stretch) I can't think of any. Do you have any other examples at hand?

Bliss also had pregnancy complications (and caught skin cancer, mercifully before it could get too serious. )

Meanwhile, on LVL UP: Fun episode, more tags than usual. Drake Morreaux over Harlem Lewis in a fairly basic but lively number, Layla Diggs and Tyra Mae Steele over Lainey Reid and Kali Armstrong in a strangely structured tag, with TMS as FIP and Diggs pinning Armstrong (with the setup being Lainey on a hot streak of sneaky tights-pulling victories, most recently over TMS, with Diggs not being cool with it), and the somewhat sassy Kale Dixon and Uriah Connors over Cutler James and Dion Lennox.

can we get a tournament of tournaments plz

I think this is why the announcers paused awkwardly when it happened. "Mother's Milk on Jay White" is a really weird thing to type, let alone say aloud.

per Cagematch, Thea's last match was a house show in August, and her last televised match was the championship match against Roxanne in July. Thea from a few months ago would have stood up to Ridge more forcefully. (while we're at it, Arianna Grace's last match was early July; Kendal Grey's had two TNA tag matches, most recently in early October, and her last WWE appearance was early September. ) ... I feel like this hints at injuries?

From memory, NXT has Mixed tag: Karmen Petrovic and Ashante "Thee" Adonis v Dion Lennox and Brinley Reese Iron Survivor Qualifiers: Nathan Frazer v Eddy Thorpe Zaria v Wren Sinclair Stephanie Vaquer v Jaida Parker RIP Wren (and I thought after last week that Cora was an easy lock for a last chance re-entry into the iron survivor - whoever loses out of Vaquer/Parker is now in that slot for me. )

Meanwhile, on LVL UP I was discouraged to learn about Dani Palmer's thoughts on weather, but she and Kali Armstrong had a solid little match. Also solid was Gallus dropping a fall to (the somewhat ad hoc?) Shiloh Hill, Cutler James and Dion Lennox. I remain a high voter on Palmer - she plays to the far corners of the venue well, like when she's kicking her legs a bit while fighting off an armbar. Armstrong has a beautiful elbow drop and at one point shoulderblocks Palmer hard enough that Palmer's complete backflip sell doesn't seem egregious. There's some choppiness to an abdominal stretch-striking sequence, and I feel a bit weird about having Palmer use a corkscrew moonsault in the pre-show taping while Vaquer might be using the same finish much later up the card, but I'm not going to complain about it.

I can see sloppy, but it wasn't unforgivably so for me. Vaquer and Giulia are both really interesting to watch in their adaptations to the house style, and I can look past the first few near-collisions with the refs but have more difficulty with things like being repeatedly unsure if Cora's knee strikes were being sold as hits or misses. For the gauntlet... yeah. It struck me as a really bad thing when the crowd didn't seem to buy the near fall from Jacy's hit right as Fallon was entering. I think it's a consequence of the on-air promotion of the NIL program. We now get real names on-air, vignettes around signing, a show explicitly around watching them try things out and grow as characters and performers (Level Up) - the kind of thing we never got with the Horsewomen or Asuka, Bliss or Carmella, or Nikki, or the IIconics, or Rhea and Liv, unless it was an aside of "and she used to ___". I realize I'm dangerously close to parroting a Fatal Influence talking point, but it seems like the ones who wrestled before coming to NXT, or who make their debuts as more fully-realized characters, are less tentative and have a stronger sense of Who They Are than the ones who are there because - forgive me the bluntness - it's hard to make a living outside of college as an athlete and wrestling has become a novel lifeline. He makes me uneasy with recommending the show to non-fans. I'd say that's pretty bad, even if it's not The Worst.