Nineteen

This nails it. The week to week is still great but it doesn't feel like it's building stuff PPV worthy. Those first few years about Hangman's chase and the rise of MJF as the company's biggest dirtbag were fantastic but there there was a little "okay, now what" after. I have faith they'll get back on track. Every great company has their lulls and "not as good as it used to be" AEW is still better than most other stuff out there (for me at least).

Okay, the picture should be Hunter doing the Hunter point at his own cardboard cut out

Not sure how I feel about a member of FIST helping out with the Ant Hill..... Hoping this is start of a Private Party face turn with the moment of respect at the end and getting the (much missed) Velvet Rope entrance back. Slim J's got some rad offense. It works too with that dirt bag look like you won't see that kind of stuff coming from a guy like him. Clayton not doing Jersey proud there. Hook squashes rule though.

Hearing a lot more optimism on Punk/Mox being jumped up. I was thinking maybe Punk's really not ready to go so you couldn't put him on PPV yet. Makes sense though if Hangman isn't in the Trios Tourney. I thought Kenny looked about as well as he could. He was moving around good, that enzuigiri he hit was really smooth and he hasn't lost a step on the V trigger. I don't mind selling that he might be back too soon though and it'll be a justification for them losing at some point (if they do... to House of Black.... plz....) Even if he's still not 100%, it's an okay spot for the Bucks to do the heavy lifting and he could just hit his spots and not take too much damage. Show did feel a little weirdly paced tonight, Punk came off pretty heelish in that opening. Some of the lines from both of them felt a little too "shooty" which AEW has been good at not doing. Hoping for Punk to retain next week, let's at least get The Autumn of Punk (Autumn > Summer anyway) It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a match as much as Danielson/Garcia while being so relieved that it was over. JAS is a little crowded and even if Garcia doesn't end up in BCC him breaking out on his own to find his own path could be a nice resolution to this arc. Curious about how the rest of All Out is gonna shape up. No real clear challengers for the tag belts (assuming Lee/Swerve retain). I guess they can't announce TOO much with so much talent locked up in the tourney for now but feels like a lot of big names are kind of in the wind at the moment.

I know you're not supposed to upstage the bride but Itoh Is Cutest~

No worries homie, we don't kink shame here

Thanks, I thought I read somewhere that he said any were okay so was trying to be safe but noted. ................getting pronoun'd and typo'd on a single post. Yikes

Had to look up who Zack Clayton was and saw he's engaged to J-Woww who I (mercifully) haven't thought of in a long time even though I live near Seaside Heights. Really when talent has to resort to "NEW JERSEY" as heel heat. Speaking of bad nights for Jersey, Sonny, why =( =( =( I mean glad they're getting a more prominent spot but been a fan for a minute and gonna feel bad booing them. Swerve/Lee vs. Private Party should rule next week

Was really hoping Brody was winning there but I guess All Out is gonna be Kings of the Black Throne vs. Sting and Darby, or a six man with the full group and Miro too. I get that Darby has cooled off and they should start building him up again I just want good things for the Church of Dutch Satan. Julia's look is really great too, I just hope she updates her ring gear too since it's a little too close to the cheerleader look and she should be moving away from it. She's really confident as a promo too these days, I loved that segment with her and Miro in the back after. They spent so long showing Murphy from the back and the way he kept his hood on for a second I was thinking it might be a surprise Miro too. I feel like Penta's gotten beat by the "tying his tassles to the ropes" things before, or at least has been in a trouble for it, you'd think he'd get a new mask by now. Match was fun and I know Knox was trying to signal the match was over and who the winners were but he was kiiiiind of throwing up the Ingobernables first while they were doing the pose.... Knox on the take here? Dragon Lee! Maybe Kenny? Madison and Jade was great, she's a great addition and hopefully if she has a hand in creative we'll see a little more out of the women going forward. Ruby and Athena were great signings so might as well like... do more with them. Hoping Athena dethrones Jade at All Out. Ricky Starks is awesome. "Grandpa Ass." Stokely, also, is awesome. I love this little unspoken thing going that Danhausen just knows everybody and how easy he was with "okay I got the big bearded guy." Totally popped for Jericho bringing back White Zombie, main was fire too. A shame we finally got the Judas kick out too. I know Jericho took a minute to get over there but I liked that it was one of the bulletproof finishes in the company. Also, maybe not do a finishing hold during a REALLY long commercial break? Friend pointed out that Punk has a little Rick Grimes look going now. Him and Mox should be great, hope we at least get the Autumn of Punk for what we lost this summer... of Punk. Danielson/Garcia 2/3 Falls Next Week.... good gravy AEW just keeps on giving

I guess one benefit of Hunter/new regime re-hires is interesting challengers for Roman. Scarlett and Kross have that great WWE feel of even though he's not a great wrestler but the two have a really solid act. Fall and pray, Roman. Ricochet and Corbin was fun!

Was there anyone as prolific as Edge who went his whole career without a finish you can just associate with them? I know the spear is considered his "big" one but so many people did it better and to better reactions. Like when I think spear it's Goldberg and Roman by a country mile before Edgeward Weird to compare with Jericho too because it seems each time he'd use a new finisher (minus the Breakdown) he did a great job of getting it over to the point where they still feel like legit match enders. I still bite on near falls when he hits the codebreaker.

Excalibur is just on my wave length with references. Bojack tonight, "I AM THE TABLE" a while back. Mr. Masked Man rules. Toni Storm is gonna break someone's neck with one of those hip attacks someday. Hayter had a pretty sick rainmaker, get the woman her wide shot~ There's something weirdly funny about the crowd getting down to Baltimora after Jungle Boy tried literal vehicular homicide earlier in the day. Christian/Jungle Boy at All Out should be a blast. COOL HAND ANGE SWITCHBLADE COMB APPEARANCE~ (tilde count - 2) I wonder if Cole finally figured out the Bucks killed him. Definitely intrigued for how the Elite Classic vs. Undisputed Version plays out with Hangman if the rumors are true and Kenny is back soon. Making kids cry is pro wrestling! Hobbs had /something/ extra on that last spinebuster to Ricky, thought he was gonna put Starks through the mat with that one. Shame Team Taz is done but I guess it did what it set out to. Starks and Hobbs are totally over now and Hook carved out a nice niche for himself. They would have been great in the trios tourney too. Eddie Kingston speaks for the people. Sammy is so getting merced at All Out. Anna seemed a little more comfortable on the mic this week. Maybe leaning into the goofiness of JAS helped a bit. I can see her choking out randos in the back being a recurring thing. LIONTAMER!!!!!! (didn't want to go for the trifecta on tildes, gotta save them, yaknow) Yuta vs. Jericho ruled. Yuta mostly rules anyway.

I'm having a hard time with timelines but I remember Heenan/Schiavone/Tenay on Nitro being excellent. Schiavone called the show and did a great job putting everything over, Tenay especially introducing the lucha concepts and cruiserweights, and Heenan was just always a treasure. I actually remember enjoying the Nitro desk in most iterations, even Bischoff and Mongo were tolerable as long as one they didn't have to do all the heavy lifting. (Minus Zybysco, of course) -three minutes of wiki later- Okay Stevie Ray was a weird treasure with Schiavone and Tenay/Hudson during the dark days of WCW... fruit booties

Wow and Jericho is looking more and more like Al Bundy these days..... Ange is totally Bud

This week's Rampage thread brought to you by Mandy and Sonya? A coworker of mine lives near a Krispy Kreme factory and says sometimes the smell is so good it's almost aggrivating. Having said that, on the daily I do prefer dunkin since Krispy Kreme's are almost a little too sweet (heh, too sweet) that they feel like more of a special occassion thing. Yeah Anna's probably gonna be for the better being paired off with Jericho. I wouldn't mind some Dark Order/JAS multi mans over her leaving too. Tell me Silver and Jericho going at it on the mic wouldn't rule. Didn't mind the finish as much since that's two main events ending with JAS chicanery. Claudio/Takeshita is gonna rule. A little surprised Yuta didn't sucker Jericho into a Pure Rules match, maybe saving that one for later.

Guessing Kenny and the Bucks or Cole and ReDRagon are gonna be the first trios champs but really pulling for House of Black in this. Any combination of matches is gonna make for a dope ass tourney though. Jungle Boy and Anna - adorable couple, terrible promos. I don't know, Jungle Boy's response to "lol your dad died" being "lol you got divorced" felt..... I don't know. AEW has been great about giving us babyfaces worth rooting for but I wish Jungle Boy took a high road here. I mean he's totally not Max Caster when it comes to roasting people but taking away his mouthpiece feels like a weird move for the time being. Match should be great though. To the surprise of no one Danielson/Garcia ruled.

/\ Embassy Forever~ (YOU FOOLS!) Man this show delivered. I love the joy Regal has whenever he shows up to do commentary and glad he got to have that little "GENTLEMEN, DID YOU MISS ME" even though he was only gone for one match. BCC is the best (BCC av replacing current BC av pending). Really loved that little moment of Garcia going for the Regal Stretch and Yuta grabbing the walls but Garcia being the one having to use the rope break. To parrot someone else, I hope these two keep running into each other and grow together. Only gripe is I felt Yuta had a liiiiiitle too much control of that match, I never really felt like Garcia was in it until the end but then the finish happened. Yuta really nails the Pure style too. Kind of weird that Vinny is in Honor No More because he couldn't be in Ring of Honor anymore but... was in Ring of Honor. Little Quibble but I do want to see more of The Righteous. Dude seems like he's ready to have his own group too after being the third guy in The Kingdom and the 4th guy in Honor No More. So so so so happy for Claudio. My first RoH show as Final Battle '05 and he got dusty finish'd out of winning the pure title for Nigel and I've been a fan since. Weird that there's a stable where Bryan F. Danielson is the only one without a belt but speaks to (again) that BCC is the best. Really surprised Joe won there. With his recent injury history and having been off TV and the way they've been building up Lethal messing up Joe's arm really felt like it was gonna be Lethal's night. I was totally shocked when Joe kicked out of the shitty cut- Lethal Injection. Samoa Joe in Ring of Honor just feels right. Deeb and Mercedes really compliment each other's styles. I've always liked that Romero Special/Dragon Sleeper move (always gave it to my edits in Fire Pro games) and glad someone has it as a legit finish. Can't glow enough about Top Guys and Dem Boys. I really feel like they are the two best tag teams ever and their pair of matches this year proved it. Dax throwing hands with Jay, Redneck Kung Fu, Dax being trapped in the ring what felt like forever, that table spot (I don't know many times I've said this in years of watching RoH but I think Mark Briscoes died.....). Truly, Fight Forever. Even if there's not a weekly RoH show coming soon (plz though), I'm kind of okay with it being quarterly thing where the champs do stuff elsewhere within and outside of AEW then come together every few months for these dope ass shows.

And for all that, thankfully Hogan didn't up being the bass player for Metallica, I mean who knows how much that would have changed things?

When Chuck busted out the chainsaw I was hoping that was the start of a transition from Best Friends to DIRL. Wardlow vs. OC ruled! I saw a meme recently of Edge with Judgment Day and this whole wall of text underneath it, and a picture of Christian with "Lol your dad died" underneath. Christian doing more with less and gets to hang out with a dinosaur now. He's definitely getting the better these days. Still, Jericho/Gage was really damn good and Kingston's been untouchable these days. Reaaallly high hopes for next week. Glad Parker's switchblade combo made another appearance. Glad House of Black has some better stuff brewing these days. Vs. Darby and vs. Miro should both rule. Wondering if we'll get a Silver/Reynolds/Hangman vs. Black/Brody/Murph when Murph's healthy again. Takeshita rules. Mox has been on fire recently too. Mox vs. Punk is gonna rule. When the triple threat started I was starting to check out. I was thinking the Bucks were going to hold them at least until All Out for a third match with FTR and was thinking with that it's hard to get invested in any other tag team but Lee and Swerve was a legit surprise. Feels like that's gonna give a lot of other teams some shine now too with fresh matchups.

Didn't Test have a shirt a long time ago that just said "Testicles?" -one minute of Googling later- Or it was worse.....

It probably ranks around middle of the pack but watching 32 as it aired was a pretty miserable experience. After the surprise Ryder win it was.... kind of average after with Jericho/AJ being kind of a let down and not much really feeling that engaging. Ambrose/Brock sucked all the air out of the room for me and my friends since we had really high hopes for that one. Ditto Sasha not winning. Like Charlotte winning makes sense but to the fans she was the third option in that match. And enough ink has been spilled about all 27 excruciating minutes of Roman vs. Hunter..... At least the Cronenberg as hell entrance and Steph as Sindel was neat. And I'm reasonably sure Rock was on drugs that night.

Really loved Deonna vs. Mia. Really hyped for Machine Guns/Josh vs. Violent By Design next week. I like Honor No More but feels like they could be doing so much more, either as a disruptive force or being higher in the ranks. Taven or Edwards would both be great challengers for Josh, OGK could totally be challenging for the tag titles. Feels like they getting thrown to whatever group is defending Impact that month and it's... fine, I guess for multi mans, but that's a lot of talent just spinning their wheels right now. I have a few friends I've been trying to get back into Impact but they cite things like their poor production value and their tendency to run murder mystery storylines. While I feel we're getting over due for the latter, I really liked how that Killer Kelly piece was done. The production has been watchable and better recently but that felt like actual cinematography and mood setting. Taya and Rosemary are wonderful together. ^ yesplz!

Hoping they make good on Wardlow bringing some prestige back to that title. That Brodie (Cody) -> Darby -> Miro run of the TNT title was top notch. I felt like Scorp could have been such a better champ but that whole Sammy thing was hard to move past from..... SPEAKING OF Ruby was a liiiiiiiitle out of place for that door spot. Like there's 6 people in that segment, one of them totally could have held her in place for Tay. Last quibble of the night, remember how toward the end of Aleister Black's time in WWE people were wanting so much more from him than being spooky backstage..... Well, him vs. Miro should be fire when that goes down. Shaffir/Nyla vs. Rosa/Storm was waaay better than the crowd gave it. Feel like the Gunn Club/Acclaimed segment should have been in the cool down spot. Probably Shaffir's best match since getting to AEW. Hoping this Dark Order things leads somewhere. Pres10's coming into his own, Uno's a great mouthpiece, the fans love Silver and Reynolds. These Christian segments are getting.... uncomfortable Dope main event!

Just had a horrible flashback to the RoH/CZW program when Joe got run off by someone chasing him with a weed whacker- Not because of the spot itself but people on the message boards crying that "he got buried," like motherfucker, it was a running weed whacker, would you stand up to that?

Now someone please tell me he dropped a "Holla holla" after and started dribbling two invisible basketballs when he made that annoucement I really liked the visual of the two battle royals going on at the same time. I don't know if AEW's little wrinkles to conventional matches are "great" but they at least are distinct and make for some fun storytelling opportunities. I really liked Butcher and Blade having their moment too. They've been at least reliable since getting to the company. Liked the little bit with Hangman and Silver at the beginning too. I was talking with friends recently that Dark Order seems to be not a thing anymore and at least they got a mention of being Page's running buddies. Nyla's weather promo before the main event *chef's kiss* Okay didn't think that far ahead but House of Black vs. BCC in almost any capacity sounds great. Malakai vs. Danielson or Mox, Kings of the Black Throne vs. any iteration. Murph's still out, right? Him vs. Yuta could totally steal any show.