HumanChessgame

The cold weather in an open air stadium in Philly lead to Becky dressing like Santa Claus. Meanwhile the band playing Rhea out dressed up like her. Hearing about Becky's health issues made me set my expectations accordingly. Sick or not, Becky held up her end of the match and the finished product was fine, though not anything super memorable. The Riptide into the buckle looked nasty. The tag title match was the expected clusterfuck, but there weren't any spots that looked to hospitalize anyone. This was a creative enough way to split the titles back up, though Waller and Theory are the least interesting choice. That ladder buckling while Miz and Priest were up there looked like it was moments away from causing a botch. Truth got his lifetime achievement award, I wonder how long he and Miz end up keeping them. The lucha guys tag match would have been a decent Raw or SD match but didn't seem like anything special here. It looked like a vehicle for the football guys guest spot. I went to get a snack and missed almost all of Uso vs Uso. It seemed like the hype package was longer than the actual match. Odd that the women's trios match wasn't in the cooler spot. This was basically a Jade squash. If anything could put some oomph on this show after the last three mediocre matches it would be Sami and Gunther. Both guys got to play to their strengths with Sami taking an ass beating and Gunther being his vicious self. Holy shit Sami broke out the turnbuckle brainbuster (this is the first time he's hit it in WWE right?)! As much as I wanted Gable to dethrone Gunther, this was underdog Sami at his best. The amount of offense Cody and Rollins kept getting in continuously surprised me and every time I thought they were going to take it home the longer and longer it went. Going in we all know the limitations Rock had and even in a tag situation this was never-ending. On several occasions I thought there was going to be a swerve and the faces would actually win. Per cagematch, this was 44:34. All the other wrestling on the card - 1:20:12 Splitting WM into two nights because of what a massive slog the show was getting to be was a good idea, but they just padded it so much with promos, adds, and all other manner of filler that seven matches (three of which were pretty short) took almost four hours. This was a one match show. I wouldn't say anything was actively bad, but almost all of it was just Raw/Smackdown level.

The opening tag match really smoked. Frazier and Axiom are two of the better fliers on the roster and seemed to have an answer to anything the larger opponents threw at them. I'm really surprised there was no title change as Breaker is ready to be on the main roster full time and Corbin is..well..Corbin. NA match really over-delivered for me. Femi is still green but good at doing hoss stuff, Dijak is always solid in the big guy who is surprisingly agile, and Briggs held his own. I thought breaking up Bro Country was a bad move as it seemed a case of the sum being greater than the parts, but Briggs looks like he might have some solo potential. The women's trios match was definitely a thing that happened. It might be just me but a lot of the current crop of NXT women just kind of run together. Maybe it's the cringey names or not enough of them having that established of characters? What I caught of Lyra/Roxanne was fine. Maybe it's because I get Perez and Cora Jade mixed up a lot but I'm just kind of tired of her, even though she's good in the ring. Tony D has improved a hell of a lot as far as his wrestling ability goes, but the gimmick is really holding him back. Ilya is one of the best guys on the roster right now in terms of looking unhinged and explosive on offense but also making his opponents look good. There was never any doubt of the outcome here but the match was fine if a bit long. Main event was solid but I guess I was expecting a bit more intensity for a feud blowoff match.

This year's Bloodsport didn't have any really brutal matches, but was very solid overall. Thatcher/Tischer, Masha/Shayna, and Dempsey/Makowski were the standouts.

If you're lucky you had a cool boss who would give you something form petty cash because you knew that after you submitted all your mileage and other receipts it would take about two pay cycles to get the actual reimbursement check.

I forgot Supercard was tonight and tuned in right before the main event, so I'll have to go back and watch the rest. Briscoe/Kingston was an MOTYC though. You've got two guys who are near the top of this generation in the "I don't believe this is real but I believe this person" criteria and have a really emotional storyline going into the match. They beat the shit out of eachother, Chicken got color, they didn't do anything too ridiculous and had plenty of FIGHTING SPIRIT telling the story of a guy who never made it to the top and is trying to do his brother proud against the guy who took the long, hard road getting where he is. The match seemed like an actual struggle and even though the outcome was a bit predictable, it was a hell of a ride.

I watched the second half of the show this morning. Arez has been a favorite of mine to watch for a while now on account of the unorthodox stuff he comes up with (even by lucha standards) and there was an interesting contrast with Makowski's more shooty/mma based offense. I wonder if Makowski was just worn out from competing in Bloodsport then high-tailing it over there but the match was shaping up to be one of the best on the card and seemed to end kind of abruptly. There were a number of guys on the card I wasn't familiar with, including Demus and Connelly but this match had an extra edge of viciousness to it. I don't know if there was any kind of feud leading up to it, but there was just this sense of urgency both guys were coming out with to try and put the other away. Nothing fancy or creative spots, just old fashioned pain on both ends. Slim J has always been a generic early 00s indy guy but you know how you can be completely indifferent to someone then out of nowhere they pull off a great match and you wonder where that's been? Priest has impressed me for a while, though most of the stuff I've seen of his has been more hardcore stuff in ICW-NHB and it was cool to see him showcase a fuller display of his skills here. The main event was fantastic. Just a lot of really painful looking grappling.

Next week they're going to start a tournament for the "Wobbly Furniture Support Title" so if you come out victorious you'll have something to prop it up with. I thought Danielson/Archer was really good on account of how Archer is basically their Kane/Big Show "big guy they try and heat up once a year to make him look imposing for a new program then forget about him" yet Danielson made him look like a threat and got a great big guy/small guy match out of him. It wasn't until reading about the promo here that I realized Edge's promo was supposed to be some response to Punk's interview. With some more time and a proper buildup you could have thrown Osprey/Hobbs on a ppv and it would have really cooked with gas. The match was great but AEW has a bad habit of putting two guys who don't need to lose in a program or match with eachother.

Really fun show so far with a lot of randomness that I think Dean would have loved. Anyone else's feed keep freezing during the Krule/Warhorse match?

This means the next person who goes to an AEW show needs to hold up a "Make Shartnado All Elite" sign.

Cardona coming out was a surprise, then I remembered he was one of Edge's former stooges. For something with no hype it was a damn fine match and I'm sure both guys got a kick out of working with eachother on that sort of stage. Black/Edge is a program I can get behind. The Top Flight/Big Starks match was awkward. Starks clearly didn't kick out of the first pin attempt even though he was clearly supposed to, and then it looks like an audible was called for the awkward finish. Starks is claiming to be OK on twitter. Infantry/FTR was a great tv bout with The Infantry getting in enough to make it look like they just might pull it off. There was an awkward leapfrog spot near the end but otherwise everything was solid. That was one of the funnier backstage segments from Storm and company. The main event was fine with Shibata being a better fit than Moxley in the group, though Claudio was really the standout in here.

Since everything gets a spinoff, prequel, and reboot nowadays I don't see why they don't just do a Moneypenny spinoff. You could even do an M prequel and have Judi Dench bookend it by telling a newly minted 00 Moneypenny about what it's like to be a woman in the spy game and go on to do a 60s/70s espionage movie with a young M on her first mission.

Didn't The Infantry confront FTR last week? I figured they'd be wrestling them instead of HOB. People mentioned wanting to see a surprise in the tag tournament so I guess this is it. Good on The Infantry as they've been putting in the work on the undercard from the get-go though I'm bummed about less HOB in the tournament. Really good match between Danielson and Shibata without any cringe moments. Is Julia Hart the biggest AEW original success so far?

Seth could always turn on Cody during the inevitable dog and pony show of the main event. Though I question how effective that would be if Cody still wins.

double post

This pretty much covers it. I thought he was good as an underdog babyface who was somewhat exciting in the ring when everything clicked just right and was the first case of someone having a really catchy licensed theme. After a promising start during the covid era he really plateaued. Regardless of how accurate or out of context him not wanting to take advice or work on his promos was, he never got any better and while his heel character was a bit different, it just didn't fully click. Honestly I think he'd be better off joining Pillman Jr at the Performance Center.

The Chikara 2005 and 2006 Tag World Grand Prix tournaments both had 32 teams. It's been several years since I've watched it, but the 2006 tournament was fantastic.

I'm pretty sure Virgil beating a jobber was one of the first wrestling matches I ever watched on Superstars back in the early 90s. That's about all I can say about him. Up until fairly recently I was always under the impression that Ole and Arn were actually brothers given how similar they look.

Late to the party as I was on vacation the past few days and watched most of the show from the New Orleans airport yesterday morning. Danielson/Kingston and FTR/BCC were great matches in a vacuum, but when compared to the other recent matches they've had, not as much stood out. With the first, there was such a big deal about the whole enforced code of honor between Kingston and Danielson, but after Eddie won that was kind of it. I thought we'd get Bryan being forced to tell Eddie he respects him, shake his hand, etc. Claudio and Moxley wearing the Road Warriors shoulderpads was ill-fitting and pointless but the match was really starting to cook at several points. Kinda surprised Dax was the only one to get color. The finish really soured me on the match as a whole, but I'll be ok with it if we end up getting a rematch in the finals of the tag title tournament. I'm kinda over Christian and his group and their shenanigans. The match was fine though I thought Garcia should have won. The 8 man was a throwaway match and I'd have rather seen the women's tag match on the main show instead of this one. Ospreay vs Takeshita was a great movez! match that will appeal to those into it. I thought Takeshita looked like a million bucks here. Roddy and OC are kind of the opposite of "and then the bell rang" wrestlers for me. I'm over OC's schtick and charisma has never been Strong's strong suit but when both guys get going in the ring they really cook with gas. With everything else on the card this match probably won't get as much attention, but it was a sleeper hit. It's good to see KOR back, but his return was a big nothingburger. The women's match was fine but nothing memorable. I think they should have done a better job of establishing Deonna beforehand. Also agree with those saying the heel/face dynamic was off. I didn't grow up watching WCW as it didn't air around me until after Nitro started and I'd watch reruns of Worldwide after school. When I did start watching it, Sting didn't do that much for me as far as his character or wrestling went. Even throughout the Monday Night War era I never really got into him. That being said, his retirement didn't have any emotional impact for me the way it did for so much of the other fanbase, but from what I've read everyone who was a longtime fan enjoyed how things played out so I'm happy for them. I'm in the camp that enjoys the Bucks when they aren't turning their schtick up all the way and they did a fine job making Sting look great in his final hurrah. Overall this was a great PPV from a workrate standpoint, though aside from the main event there wasn't anything that will really stand out as memorable.

I'll almost always watch AEW over WWE and the former definitely has more guys on the roster I'm interested in seeing, but AEW's booking has been pretty rank for a while now. Sure a lot of it has to do with injuries or other things beyond their control, but so many of the storylines have been inconsistent or directionless if not outright stupid. The writing in WWE isn't any great shakes either and I was in full on "fuck this company" mode for a while last year, but things have been a lot better in recent months. For the first time in I don't know how long I'm actually looking forward to Wrestlemania. As bland as WWE often is, I will say their overall product comes off a lot tighter and more well produced than AEW even if I generally prefer the wrestling in AEW.

The wrestlers formerly known as Bear Country.

I don't know about Dragon, but Great Sasuke is still around and working US indies with some regularity so I hope we see him at some point. I can only imagine he and Darby Allin seeing who can die first. Edit: turns out this happened in 2019 Didn't Mabel/Big Daddy Viscera use that at some point?

Someone mentioned in the other AEW thread that Moxley/Dax should be two guys going full territories tribute brawl and that was more or less what we got here. I'm not a fan of Moxley but figured this would play to his strengths, though I thought he got in way too much offense and the post match bit made FTR look like wieners. I don't know if the time calls in the match were meant to tease a draw or what but seemed kind of out of nowhere, especially when Dax tapped at the last minute. I like Stokley but am not sure how he fits in with Willow and Kris as he's clearly a heel and the two of them are such natural faces. The distraction spot seemed out of place, but I get that it protected Skye a bit and I assume it's leading somewhere in whatever story they're doing with the three of them. The Bucks current act works so well on account of the borderline shooty nature of the presentation and it's honestly the best gimmick for them. Taven has always been just a guy to me and I'm kind of over OC's schtick so I wasn't too invested in the main event but then it totally over-delivered. The gusher OC tapped showed why there was a surprising lack of blood in the opening match and Taven seemed determined to emerge on the other side of that table the way he lawn darted into it.

A madcap comedy around a race featuring wrestlers you say?

Rock has also hosted SNL five times. I haven't seen every episode, but he was pretty funny in the material I did catch.

I was wondering if they might try and build a Mania match with Nia after the Rumble elimination. Jade doing an Ultimate Warrior squash on her would get her a showcase match on the card without taking up too much time.