SturmCRF

I'm down for Jungle Boy as The Devil, assuming he can rise to the role. He needs some sort of faction if he's going to be any sort of main event heel, and there'll never be a better time to capitalise on the Wembley thing making him vaguely controversial. I've seen a fair bit of Mariah May from watching Stardom over the last year or so, she's really good. Not on a par with the best wrestlers in Stardom, but more than fit to share a ring with a Natsupoi or a Mayu and have an excellent match. She should immediately slot in as one of the better wrestlers in the AEW womens division, hopefully they keep adding to it.

I think that's the worst possible thing they could do, they shouldn't be finding another major thing to copy from modern WWE. If anything, they should move their one World Title around a lot more. Distinguish themselves from the endless title runs that the competition has comitted themselves to, give those guys you mentioned a shot. Move back towards a more sport like presentation where the belt can change hands without months of storyline foreshadowing, and the focus is on the actual match, not who's friends with who and who might or might not run in. It's not what they will do, but it'd be great if they did.

I wasn't able to concentrate on everyone's wrestling takes with this shit festering in my mind. So sorry, you're going to have to show your workings here, because if your main takeaway from the last couple of weeks is 'Israel eviscerates children', you might be advised to seek out news somewhere other than Al Jazeera or The Canary. If you just didn't like the Juice/MJF angle then sure, not many people did, wrestling probably isn't the right medium for that kind of thing, but seeing as reports of antisemitism have gone up sixfold in the UK and probably similar or worse elsewhere, one might argue it's actually the perfect time for Max or anyone else to fight antisemitism. It's gotten pretty bad out there, there are Nazis, Islamists, arch wrestling board contrarians, more anti semites than you could ever need or want. And if you didn't mean for your brief 'Let me tell you why I skipped Dynamite' snark to be taken that way, maybe don't suggest that it's inappropriate to discourage people from hating Jews when the Jewish state that they created after some people tried to kill all the Jews is killing people in its desperate attempts to stop the terrorist group whose founding document is heavily themed around Jew killing. Apologies mods, I know this is why we don't have a politics folder, but this garbage has been sitting in the thread for a day now. Anyway, I liked the V Trigger in that finishing sequence. Max Caster getting distracted like an idiot when he had the match won was stupid.

When I was 16 and had just been dumped by my first girlfriend, someone was nice enough to introduce me to a girl who was a big wrestling fan. And to give 16 year old me some credit, I was cordial enough to her and not a total gatekeeper elitist prick about the fact she was mainly a huge mark for The Rock rather than the grand traditions of professional wrestling, but I did give her an extended soliloquy on how excited I was that Kronik were coming to the WWF. I'd never even seen them in WCW, I was just a big fan of Crush and Adam Bomb and was very into the idea of them teaming up. She, politely, thanked me for the information but confirmed she could not share my enthusiasm, because they were a bit shit. It didn't totally scare her off as she invited me to go to a Mick Foley book signing soon after and we stayed on good terms, but nothing ultimately sparked between us and it's hard not to blame Kronik.

Everyone seems very quick to assume Naito beats SANADA, but I'm not so sure. They've committed this far to getting SANADA over as a main eventer, and him beating Naito is a more interesting story. Naito has already gone through his whole arc and got his big win over Okada at the Dome. I'd have SANADA win and then drop it at New Beginning to someone more interesting like Tsuji or Shota or Uemura. Or even ZSJ! On that subject Natural, while we're never going to agree on Ospreay, I also love ZSJ and wish he'd get a main event push. What I don't know is whether he bears some responsibility for being typecast as an upper midcard workrate guy. His wrestling is incredible, his character work is a joy, but I wonder if both are pitched slightly wrong for what people thing of when they think top of the card wrestling champion. Maybe that just means NJPW should adapt to allow for a submission based, vaguely Clockwork Orange hipster douchebag at the top of the card, but maybe Zack should integrate a few more impactful moves and add a bit more edge to his character. Don't get me wrong, him vs Danielson was probably my match of the year and I crack up at almost everything he says, but he could do with projecting as being a bit more brass ring grabby to make that final step up. Say what you like about Ospreay as a person and wrestler, but he has the aura of a dangerous idiot who's just smart enough to Hidden Blade the shit out of anyone in his way.

I have four tattoos, one on each shoulder, one inner bicep and one outer. The inner one hurt the most, but it was bearable, no worse than a routine dentist appointment. Didn't get my first one until I was into my thirties as I never thought of myself as a tattoo guy, but glad I have them now. I would have more, but I find the whole process prior to the tattooing itself kind of intimidating, I don't like explaining my weird ideas (even if the idea is 'please replicate the Watford FC club crest, I want this on me permanently) to strangers. At some point I'll get round to it though, I still want to get one of a carton of semi-skimmed milk where its green cap is the only colour I have across any of my tattoos. Because I really fucking love semi skimmed milk, like a marginally less bald and much less athletic Kurt Angle. Also one with the phrase 'Confusion is not an obstacle, nor clarity a solution' from The Armed Live At The Masonic, because it's a genuinely wise and useful epithet that I've never heard anywhere else and The Armed are the best band in the world today. And they have about 86 members, so if any of them are outed as sex monsters it'll be easier to handwave it as a statistical inevitability than with my Daughters tat. Don't have any wrestling tattoos and can't think of many I'd want, although the Dark Side Of The Ring on Herb Abrams' UWF did make me seriously consider a purple, green and yellow cowboy boot with 'Let's hear it for the Jews!' written on it.

It's also what nearly every footballer says when they get a transfer to a new team. They don't generally intend for fans of their old employers to take it as a personal affront, they're just expressing enthusiasm for their new one. Leave Jade alone, TwitterX bastards (I'm assuming), if you don't cut the shit she'll throw you in the sea.

Look-Danhausen In ring-Tugboat Promo-Kallisto

I have thousands of the things distributed across shelves in three rooms of my flat, I'm team CD forever. Why would I get caught up in this ludicrous vinyl phase, start rebuilding my collection from scratch and obsessing over collectible colour variants of multiple LPs that have the same music on them? I do feel bad that Spotify has its hooks in me now though, which combined with running out of physical space and CDs getting more expensive means I don't buy as many. Amazon also doesn't do even slightly obscure stuff anymore these days, so I mainly just buy them at gigs, that way at least the band gets (most of?) the money.

Pig Destroyer's cover of In The Meantime by Helmet is amazing. So is the original. Both essential gym playlist tunes.

I don't like the precedent of them doing a PPV where the AEW title isn't defended, but apart from that, yeah, I'd agree. Lots of fresh matches, a proper pre show, should be good.

Now you've made me mourn the Brock Lesnar managing a Target docu-sitcom we're never going to get.

Ryan Nemeth having maybe the best theme music in AEW?

One more reason to like Willow, that Soul Glo album is excellent.

My section got a brief 'Fuck the Tories' chant going during Ospreay vs Jericho. I threw in a perfunctory one but then remembered I was trying to enjoy a wrestling match and stopped. The guy to my right got visibly agitated and asked the world in general if they'd rather have Labour instead, and I thought about saying yes, Corbyn's gone now and 2023 Labour couldn't help but be an improvement over the current lot of reheated Boris Johnson leftover bastards, but then remembered I was trying to enjoy a wrestling match and said nothing.

Great show overall, fascinated by how it came off on TV but probably not enough to spend four hours watching the replay on Thursday when there'll be a new Dynamite to watch. We left at the end of the Trios Title match, because queuing down Wembley Way for two hours plus with 80,000 people would have been intolerable, especially just for more of MJF and Cole's Bloodline bullshit. It's very well done bullshit, in that it's over, but if they hadn't lost me with weeks of poor cinematic skits, they had done by the time they'd casually dispatched Aussie Open, simultaneously removing most of the doubt that MJF would retain with no big turn. Punk vs Joe and the tag titles were my favourites, as the crowd were genuinely split and passionately invested in the outcome, which you need when you're watching things you can't hear happening half a mile away. Wembley is so huge, Stadium Stampede was kind of a chore to pay attention to, rewarded with massively entertaining spots if you happened to be concentrating at the right time. But like, Eddie and Claudio were fighting one tier above us, in the right quadrant of the building for us to have a good view, and I could still barely see them. If I wanted to strain my eyes to see two distant bald men hitting each other, I could just wait until Millwall next make the Playoff Final. I went into Ospreay vs Jericho intending to belt out Judas (which is at least a slightly more ethically sourced National Anthem Of Wrestling than Real American) and then get behind Ospreay, and glad that everybody else seemed to have the same idea. Very good match, happy to see that Will is over like a motherfucker. The Bullet Club six man was also disappointing, so many men with big hair that it was tough to follow, and when you're part of a minority who seem familiar with all the years of tangled NJPW lore, there's not much you can do to get an atmosphere going. Made me wonder if your Cornettes and Punks are onto something with a Hangman or a Kenny missing some fundamental old school wrestling crowd connection intuition. Much less so with Kenny, but it didn't work here, and wasn't going to when 3/4 in attendance were watching at a distance where he looked barely distinguishable from Juice Robinson. Coffin match ruled, House Of White ruled, even if it never feels right seeing them lose to anyone, let alone the Bum Father. Women's match was fun for the entrances and didn't outstay its welcome, dubious about Saraya as champ, but hard to begrudge her, and the whole division needs a shakeup anyway. Good time overall! The Rev Pro show the day before was much more how a live wrestling show should be, but none of the stadium shows I've been to can possibly match the intimacy of a normal sized building where you can smell the Deep Heat and hear the slap of man chopping man. For all my grousing, I'll definitely go again next year.

Update: Ospreay vs Shingo fucking ruled, obviously. And then on the way out, Shibata was there, and I bought an 8x10 and shook his hand and my girlfriend and I both got pictures with him. I looked like a gurning loon, but hey, nice bonus!

Also, I feel the need to apologise for not trying harder to start a 'Both these Skyes!' chant just now when Skye Blue and Skye Smitson squared off in the battle royale. I didn't commit early enough and then they both got eliminated (one might say the Skyes fell) before there was another window. Negligent on my part.

I'm literally in the Copper Box Arena, twenty minutes away from a ludicrously stacked Rev Pro show. Ishii vs Luke Jacobs, Kosei Fujita vs JJ Gale, Ospreay vs Shingo Takagi, ZSJ vs Ricky Knight Jr, and seven other matches that will probably also be really good. Shameful lack of Shingo merch though, we went to all the trouble of getting cash out this morning, so of course they're taking card payments for once but have a pretty miserable selection. El Phantasmo and Bullet Club War Dogs and Rev Pro 11th Anniversary are great and all, but goddamit, they're not the Japanese Dragon.

I haven't seen the last few shows, we cancelled our subscription after the last PPV for all the obvious reasons any reasonable person might not want to pay £10 a month for Dark. But giving Kiera Hogan vs Lady Frost two minutes is a glaring example of where they've gone wrong. Sure, maybe it's too much to ask that we get competitive Claudio or Aussie Open matches regularly, but why give so little time to two women who are slotted at a level where they should be going back and forth and having to struggle for the win a bit? I know the answer is that they're taping before Collision, but it totally ruins what made the first few episodes of studio ROH unique, where nearly everyone got time.

Ospreay got a decent match out of Tanga Loa, he'll get an actively good and memorable match out of Jericho in his sleep.

I feel like what I've seen of his character work and promos on this comeback run have been some of the worst, repetitive, trying too hard to be intense shit I've seen him do, but his matches usually end up being much better than I expect.

I'm with Zendragon, I've always thought the Atomic Drop looked like total shit, even when I was a small child and was 95% sure I was watching a real fight.

Yeah, there's so much money in a Malakai singles run, especially a match vs Punk. I don't know what sort of physical state he's in, he always looks fine but from interviews you'd think his back was worse than Dalton Castle's. I hope not, because as much as I love the House Of Black wrecking people as a team, they all have loads to offer as singles wrestlers. And I want to see him entering the ring to Amenra again.

I do. Honestly, probably no because I also subscribe to Stardom World, NJPW World and WWE Network, and watch everything AEW does, so I only tend to get round to watching it for the bigger Noah shows, a handful of TJPW shows and maybe two DDT shows a year. But the service itself is hard to fault, the picture quality shits on NJPW World and you get a vast amount of wrestling, it's just whether you can get the value out of it. I'll be pleased I have it this month for the N1, and basically any Nakajima or KENOH match makes me feel justified in paying the subscription. If you can view the other two companies as a bonus and not feel guilty about not having the time to keep up, or if you specifically want to follow the Tokyo Joshis or the DDTs, go for it!