Zakk_Sabbath

I wasn't quite as down on this week's show as some of you guys, but I do agree that there were some things here that would've worked better had this not been the go-home Dynamite. Similarly, there were some things at the show last week that I now feel would've worked better if they bumped them up to last night - but chiefly, I think Hangman should've been in the house. Obviously there are other angles being more highly prioritized right now, but I feel like his/Jay's match could've been highlighted a little more going into the PPV. I'm not trying to come off as overreactive, as though it's a preshow match or they got left off the card or something, but I fear there's a path to squandering Hangman's momentum coming out of the awesome Swerve stuff. To end on a positive, I'll say I REALLY enjoyed the use of archival footage of them in the Guns video - maybe the second best use this year behind the Danielson/Nigel hype packages.

They have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever to Brian Pillman Jr

Aw man, that's a bummer. I thought she was just on ROH this whole time. Kind of makes sense though, I definitely noticed her absence at the show last week (she and AR Fox are always brought out up there as the 'local legends'). Someone has to figure out a viable replacement for Twitter soon, I hate being outta the loop

Big Havok fan, my buddy didn't mention they were on this! Good looks!!

Ah man, that sounds like a great time - I just found out the other day they're playing in the city this Friday while I'm there for a work thing. I was initially trying to parlay it into "Eh, Newark is *right* there..." with the hope I'll be done in time for Full Gear on Saturday, but if I can't make it down there, Exodus is one hell of a consolation prize.

I was unaware of that but it makes logical sense. I feel hella gross speaking in these terms, but while they likely have the talent and budget for it, I don't know that "the brand" is at a point yet where they could feasibly run a house show concurrently with live TV. Maybe ROH, though. They've run ROH PPVs against Rampage before without cannibalizing the whole audience, so it seems doable

While I disagree on some of the ex-WWE signees for reasons already wonderfully articulated by NoFlips above, I do think there's some merit to your idea of "course correcting" in certain ways after '21-'22. Of course, the only issue with such is that it makes Mox & Co. the absolute #1 babyfaces on Earth - but fuck it, I was cheering 'em anyway. (Also, I'm glad to hear you were able to take some time for yourself away from the grind, and I hope you're feeling better soon - insert requisite 'DMs are always open if you need someone' here )

Huge agree with this. I haven't seen a better HHH or Randy Orton match to this day. I think his contributions there get minimized for a lot of different reasons - could be that the man in charge is tired of reading stuff like I just wrote, but my gut is that it's also got to do with some of the crazy shit he did back then on their TV (and how it might be looked at today through the lens of concussion awareness and things like that).

Job well dunn - but this gonna drive me nuts now: Who was the comedian that did a bit about the 5th dentist? Was that a Carlin thing??

I only have room in my attic for my grandmother, Hologram, and Mortos. No more, no less. Gonna be a real weird blunt circle. (If I don't joke I'll cry. Probably a discord item tho).

Part of me thinks that's where ROH (should it ever get TV or on to Max or whatever) could become more of an asset. Turn it into a nice mix of some of the usual faces and prospects, but then add a rotation of 2-3 people at a time sent over to freshen up and give the TBS/TNT audience time to miss them (funny enough, I think Jericho is almost the perfect candidate right now). You could also use it as a place for people coming off injury to shake off the rust in a lower stakes, usually taped environment - if you continue to tape it with the main show, you also get the bonus of advertising whoever it is locally (almost like when WWE would do those post-Raw dark matches, for example I saw Cena vs Punk in a cage once after they just wrestled in a tag main event on TV). I think there's a lot of different things it could offer if it ever moves in that direction (especially with the House Rules experiment seemingly being over, and Dark/Elevation being long gone already). Really, even if TK shut down ROH tomorrow out of left field, I think this idea could have some legs for Rampage or whatever Shockwave is too, as long as they are also still shot with Dynamite/Collision. Sorta like that early, Punk-era informal brand split a little, just to keep the flow of the main 2 going, freshen a Ricochet up in a year or two, but then also still get the juice of using them to get people in the door (and just maybe, get some eyeballs on the C show). That's another reason why I'm super curious to see how this Collision at Hammerstein after the ROH show goes, there might be room to do something similar with that combination on a long term basis, too.

What's great about that too is that I've read Bret's book where he points out specifically where & how he does it, seen a million of his interviews about it, yada yada, and I *still* miss it 9/10x I watch that one unless I'm looking for it super hard.

This is without a doubt my favorite line - I remember moving back in 2012ish, when I was waiting for the cable company to come hook me up, this was the only DVD that made the trip so far and it had been so long since I watched it I must've rewound 100 times. Probably due for a rewatch in light of recent pages lol

I guess the last one I went to there was a little further back than I thought, I must be thinking of LI (or the one we had tickets to in Providence but had to miss for IRL stuff) - anyway, to illustrate the scoreboard/pyro/aisle thing, here's the building Wednesday as versus the setup in '22 (from aaaasalmost the same seats):

Real quick also, if you want a Rampage spoiler Re: pyro, I wasn't gonna mention it because I don't wanna be a Negative Nancy, had an awesome time, and thought it was a great card, etc. but IMO it's the smaller venue setups, not the venues themselves. I'm a real dork for the production stuff, and based upon the AEW shows I've been to in the last year and a half or so (This one and another in Bridgeport, two other buildings in CT, one or two on LI, and Grand Slam in Queens I wanna say?) I think the deal is if you get enough people in the door for the full raised stage, you get pyro - if it's the sheets of mylar or whatever on the arena floor, none. If you look at the way the "short aisle" setup is, because it's bumped up, in a lot of buildings the scoreboard is closer to being over the stage/aisle than it is the ring as normal. I'll see if my girlfriend has any pics that show what I mean

Damn, we sucked that bad on TV?! I have to watch the whole show. TK didn't sell it before Rampage if they were that pissed about it. I felt like a dick when it got started the second time around in the style of the Goldberg chant for sure, that was definitely unnecessary. Like I said, they're a tough crowd (and thinking further, I didn't even consider the WWE connotation, though I think it was more just Bridgeport Bridgeporting). I mean, dude:

So the best way I can explain it is: everyone in the city truly, legitimately, in their heart of hearts, believes they are Eddie Kingston. More of us had '203' or 'East Side' / 'West End' tattooed somewhere than didnt, that shit was not gonna fly lol. Swerve was probably the most over guy of the night til that, too - my girlfriend made air doing the Nana dance! She's forbidden me from sharing it with strangers, but if you see a cute Willow-looking chick next to a guy in a Hangman shirt visibly struggling not to be gigantic in the upper hard cam side... The match itself with Lio/Swerve was great too. The place came unglued for that back to back flip to the outside stare down thing. Actual standing O from many, including me and the guys behind us and next door. The Archer/Roddy match kinda sucked for our section because they were directly underneath us, so until they did the stuff on the rail, we had to kinda watch the screen. I think that was designed like that on purpose just because that side was where most of us were concentrated (not talking shit, been to plenty of empty-hard cam-Smackdowns there, too). We also ALMOST didn't catch Darby's dive, either - it happened to our immediate left, and was so damn fast I actually questioned if someone fell or was trying to shoot attack the guys at first, my adrenaline spiked hard for a second until I heard it was him. Penelope/Britt ... Look, we tried. Haven't watched it back yet, but I'm like 80% sure any voice you hear is gonna be mine, hers, or the drunkest dude I've ever seen at a show trying and failing to get a BRITT-PORT chant going over and over. Felt bad about it. It was so quiet at times, that it gave me that Office/Curb-like secondhand embarrassment, gotta be honest. Match was a little pokey, but it was largely inoffensive and everyone went crazy for Penelope's moonsaults and for that one diamond cutter spot. There was another quieter moment that was actually sort of funny, though: during the commercial break prior to the Ospreay/Fletcher promo, they sent Schiavone to the ring too early, and he had to just wait there. Requisite cheers and chants, yada yada. But you have to remember how long two full minutes of a break is. Poor Tony's just standing there. You can hear a pin drop. Suddenly one guy: "I LIKE THE PICTURES OF YOUR DOG ON INSTAGRAM, TONY. I HAVE A DOG TOO." I usually hate when people try to be comedians at shows, but that had me fucking crying. Bless you if you're reading, sir. I can't say enough about the tag match, that was so much fun. FTR have definitely mastered the art of having the non-legal man always be doing some shit, and keeping engaged. I honestly don't know if I've ever noticed it on TV as much as the 6 or 7 times I've seen em live. I haven't watched this back either, but there was a TON of noise for this one. Dueling chants, "All These Teams," "Fight Forever," all that shit. Really great. All in all, a great night of action. I have absolutely nothing bad to say other than that I wish more people came Fuck em, their loss. Also, as promised in the monthly thread: no update or word on a Hammerstein Collision on-sale, at least not in the building. It seemed like there were less ads between matches overall, but I also saw a reference to an MJF promo on the last page, and I'm 99.9% sure that didn't play in the building (unless I was rocking a piss). There was one ad for Albany, I wanna say? Maybe one more, but def not NYC.

Oh yeah, duh - good call. I completely spaced on that (and IIRC something went askew with the Hangman one, right, like someone hit the ring early/late or something? Slowly coming back to me lol)

I was literally liking your guys' posts and replying "thirded" when it hit me that pairing him with Christian might just be a super roundabout, backdoor way of emphasizing Hangman's heel alignment to the audience since there's potential for some to find his character sympathetic after already dropping a clean fall to Switchblade at WD. It makes sense in that context to me considering that we also had a pretty decently vocal contingent rooting for Hanger at the end of the Swerve issue, since Swerve was really the one who initially escalated it with the home invasion. So yeah, fully agree it's an oddball pairing, but I think the visual of Hangman fighting side by side with the uber-heel Patriarchy is kinda the method to the madness (YMMV, of course - I could be talking total nonsense, it's equally likely TK sat down with a blank sheet of paper and thought "Hey, I bet this would be a good one')

Watching her discover that on Twitter in real-time is legit one of my favorite things from the early days of Dynamite, and I mean that with all sincerity! Mentioned in another thread, but we'll be in the house for this one, so I'm super psyched this appears to be a stellar card. (My fat ass is also psyched for the chili dog spot ~3 miles from the building, but I'll save that for the discord). Texting w my better half right now about logistics, and she's got me cracking up with how excited she is that we're getting an Adam Cole match - I think I caught a couple of your usernames flash before my eyes!

These guys like, never come up, but I liked them as semi-associates of the Hart Foundation for a bit. I'm racking my brain but I think teaming w Anvil/Bulldog Montreal was their last WWF show before they were sent to Paul E

That's awesome. Whatever that licensing fee is, it's probably a drop in the bucket for a big machine like Guns, but I have to admit: I sometimes laugh at the idea of someone like Edsel Dope getting a check in the mail from YouTube/Spotify for 2/38ths of a penny and wondering if he can tell "Oh nice, that one dork is listening to Rhyno's theme again"

I'm a fan of all those guys (where you're clearly not, which is cool) and I'll fully admit It's not my favorite possible outcome either, but circling back to the comic book thing yesterday, I think even the most ardent Elite-hater would have to admit it's at least A logical conclusion, even if not the most cathartic or surprising.

Couldn't agree more, and even if not this exact thing, there are a million different ways to go about accomplishing the same - don't ask me why, because shit gets dropped all the time and it's not a huge deal, but for whatever reason I have been finding myself really itching for a payoff to the PP hammer attack (especially now that they're the champs). There was also that quick interaction between Perry/Mox about a month ago ('I don't care what they say, I always thought you were a good kid') which I could see playing out similarly - may have even been the same episode

Obviously I know no more than you or anyone else, but my completely uneducated guess is that it's a Pulp Fiction reference intended to be a subtextual commentary about the modern day usage of titles as McGuffins for angles that don't necessarily require one. Judges will also accept "Mox just thought it was cool."