Matt D

Re: the cuts: We don't know what we don't know. People are real quick to jump and make lasting statements so they can get out there first or just to get things off their chest. That said, of what we do know, I sure don't like it.

Now 2/23/89

I actually think they should do Toni vs Mariah vs Deonna vs Thunder Rosa at the PPV and I almost never think a 4-way is the right call.

fin

I wish Cash was more interested in doing some singles matches. It was a fun tag since it felt fresh relative to a lot of recent FTR matches. I laughed at them doing Silver/Reynolds’s finishing sequence in slow motion.

Interesting choice given what I gave you. I liked a good chunk of this. Katch's confidence and familiarity with the crowd stood out. I was surprised she'd only worked the venue a couple of times with the way she was using the crowd as props for instance. Matthews is super emotive. She's very good at being in the moment. There were only a couple of times where it felt like they were setting up spots instead of just organically going from bits of violence to more bits of violence. The build to the chain coming out for the modified tapatia was a nice touch as was the transition around the chain-wrapped leg. Katch selling her neck during her big comeback was nice. I was ready for them to go home shortly thereafter honestly, but I bought into the chairs being a logical point of escalation. Then I was really ready to go home after the superplex and they went into equal strike exchanges instead of a finishing stretch. I was a little bemused by Katch recovering so quickly after the wrench shot. For one, it wasn't a great visual weapon. The chairs were bigger and broader. The chain was set up more. A wrench is smaller and sort of harder to understand in pro wrestling physics. It was made into a big deal but then not sold like one and then it was what put Matthews away. You wouldn't have known she was being pile driven onto the wrench if the announcers didn't call it out for instance. They had set up a bunch of chairs right there. I might have wanted that to work into the finish instead? But overall, a lot of positive stuff here. I should watch more Matthews.

con't

No dedicated thread? That's ok. Initial thoughts: Danielson didn't seem to get as big a reaction as Claudio or Moxley. I loved hearing the spanish descriptions of each guy as they came out. They made it like Moxley was "Comandante Pierroth", leader of La Comando Caribeño but, you know Comandante of the BCC. Very funny that Sydal was the captain. Would have Yuta been the captain? Loved the violencia sin limites bcc shirts. Hilarious that Sydal's entrance has Peace and Love in it. I would have aligned him more to the BCC theme maybe? Yes chants right from the get go and Danielson playing them up (more on that later). Panther trying to endorse him. Then they got huge heat from me (and I guess the crowd) by avoiding the initial pairings and going right to chaos and into the beatdown. What the hell? The whole point of this was see Danielson and Panther work the mat! I love heat in my lucha, love it, but this was one time I wanted an exception. The bastards. The first beatdown (because there were two!) was pretty surreal. Moxley wasn't nearly as good as directing traffic as you'd hope. He was no Satantico or Ultimo Guerrero and these were no GdI but it was their first time and I forgive them. Lots of fun individual spots like the giant swing on stupid Volador and it was nice to see Matt Sydal as their spin kicking attack dog. Double comebacks were weird. Lucha is about the ebb and the flow, the transfer of the mandate of heaven, control of destiny. It's about a big beatdown leading to that golden, shining moment of comeback. Panther had that with his clothesline and then, after Mistico's big spot, they went right back to heat on UG. UG doing the raise the roof while he was getting beaten on felt like coming home to me, and then Claudio absolutely killed him for it. He got his big comeback immediately thereafter though. From there they went on to pairings, but these were tercera caida pairings, not initial primera feelings out so it wasn't the same. Rapid fire, a few spots and out, on to the next guy. Still, lots of good stuff in here and the stuff I wanted: I wanted Moxley vs UG, both the slapfight and Moxley eating the top rope (don't powerbomb kidman) Power Bomb that's ritual in all big UG matches. Mistico, charismatic bastard that he is, subverted the yes chants and Danielson did the no ones for the first time in years, I think. I wanted Claudio basing for Mistico and it was beautiful, down to the way the camera has to follow and can barely catch the rana to the floor. It makes you feel like you're going along for the ride. Sydal matched up fine with anyone he was in with. Panther was absolutely fearless because he had the most powerful force in the world on his side, Claudio basing for him. Panther vs Danielson needed another rotation or too but I loved Panther just charging through the knee. Just bonkers stuff you'd never see in the states. And the Fujiwara moment was awesome, though I might have picked something else since it was the prelude to La Mistica on Sydal that ended it. Overall, very special. I can't help but wish it had an extra five minutes at the top before things broke down. That said, it's easy to forgive with a singles match ahead of us.

And on to 3/28:

This thread covers very succinctly and with strong and easy to understand charts how AEW is actually doing quite well as it pertains to its TV and why anyone who thinks otherwise is woefully misinformed.

Fin for this one:

Castle vs Comoroto was very good for what it was but needed five more minutes. We needed more time to just deal with the fact Comoroto shaved his beard off

Con't

I always assume I should seem more Matthews (and especially Matthews teamed with Portia Perez) as I'm not sure I've basically seen any, so works for me.

@CaseyI think most of it is on dailymotion but you lose the first 1/3 of the match or so. The way I watch stuff like this on Youtube sometimes is to upload it on a burner account as a draft but don't actually publish, either private or unlisted. Then you can access from your account usually. But that's more for my phone as is. It doesn't last on Youtube published. for long usually.

Copeland/Darby/Sting vs Archer/Righteous Copeland vs Griff Copeland/Dustin/Cassidy/Vance vs Archer/Mogul Embassy Copeland vs Moriarty Copeland vs Suzuki Copeland vs Garcia That's not terrible for a 50 year old.

You got it, but with a bridge.

AJPW Interludes con't

Yeah, look. Can I just watch the women’s match or should I watch the Kingdom match too?

Ok, AJPW interlude. These are a bit on the hush for now, but you know how to reach me just in case (and there's one later on that you might need to reach me on).

Was a near thing at times in the last two months, but ultimately made the call not to head up. We had some family stuff in February that I didn't know how it'd fall and it fell just bad enough that we made the decision to treat the kids on Spring Break with a trip. Just got back from that (and they had a blast) but the time off work and expense and some lingering stuff pushed the needle far enough that it doesn't make sense for me to take off two more days from work and miss a couple of extra days with the kids and burden the wife. I hope everyone has a great time though and I'll catch the show on IWTV and hopefully write it up on SC as Phil and Eric will be busy creating history as the modern day Toots Mondt and Jack Pfefer.

Sometimes he gets a little too “we’re performers!” in his promos but he’s getting better.

We’ve been in Perryville for a couple of days and have to go through Baltimore to get home today so it’ll set us back and extra thirty maybe but we’ll deal with that in a few hours.

Lots to catch up on. There's some exciting secret news about new 89 AJPW footage so I want to get to a point where I can hopefully slot that back in quietly. 6/29/87: Inoki/Sakaguchi/Saito vs Bigelow/Bad News/Mike Moore: Mike Moore is Man Mountain Mike/Motor City Madman. He's big but he has no idea how to keep the offense. He has Hansen's coat and Brody's shoes. Bigelow starts with a press slam. 87 Inoki loved to be press slammed at the start of match. This has a lot of Moore losing the offense for his team and Bigelow getting it back, with Bad News somewhere in the middle Sakaguchi has his usually good fiery corner work. Saito is a tank, as always. Bigelow and Inoki match up a couple of times.The most interesting stuff is at the end when Saito and Sakaguchi work together as NOW leaders, with a double suplex on Bad News and then Sakaguchi tossing him into Saito's lariat. 6/29/87: Fujiwara vs Choshu: The NOW leaders getting it all out of their system as the reboot is happening. This time they make it all the way into the ring before Fujiwara takes over with the headbutts. He controls for most of this really, early on with the headbutt and punches and holds. Choshu tosses him out to reset and gets an advantage with killer elbows in the corner but Fujiwara eventually fires back with the headbutts. Choshu hits a lariat out of nowhere though and follows with just nasty kicks before trying for a belly to back but Fujiwara jams it and goes for the armbar. That sends the outside and Choshu gets whipped into the rail and then comes back with a lariat and Fujiwara can't answer the count. Very nice subten minute match but not as gripping as their last one. 6/29/87: Muto vs Johnny Smith: Smith has to be 12 here. They definitely thought they had a star in Muto. This feels very different than almost anything we've seen in a while. Smith is, of course, Calgary made, explosive and gritty and he hangs. He also seems to bring something else out of Muto, who is a little more explosive himself in matching. In a different world these two might have a longtime rivalry. Maybe they go a little too back and forth, working up from matwork, to chain wrestling, to rope running (Muto's great dropkick) to bombs, to top rope move attempts. Smith misses his and that means he eats the backbreaker and moonsault for the loss. 6/29/87: Fujinami vs The Warlord: He's billed as the VIOLENT WARLORD, and is a super rookie having just debuted the previous year. He's huge, of course, and Fujinami has him press him right at the start and hit a bunch of his other big offense. When Fujinami comes back with low kicks he sells them like he's facing Dusty, maybe too big while still more stunned than anything else. There's some fun bits where Warlord is just too big to deal with. Fujinami can't get all the way over on a shoolboy for instance. This ends on the outside with Warlord sailing over the guardrail as Fujinami ducks and back body drops him. He wasn't nearly as advanced as Barbarian but this wasn't a bad debut overall. 7/7/87: Inoki/Saito/Hoshino vs Maeda/Kimura/Kido: NOW vs NEW. Not sure why Kido is no NEW. I guess i could look up his age but I can't be bothered right now. Obviously the new pairings are interesting as is a refocusing on Maeda vs Inoki which they tease a lot in this and pay off just a little. I think the deal is that neither guy would agree to lose to the other which is why we never got that big singles match. I'm sure Inoki was self conscious about Maeda's combo of size, presence, and skill too, and Maeda had his own issues. But the crowd is supper into the two going at it at all. Hoshino and Kido obviously match up well but we knew that though we don't get nearly enough Hoshino in 86-early 87. He's a guy we'd benefit from having HHs on. Some great stuff between them with rope running but not enough of it. Saito and Kimura matched up well. They had that match earlier and it really does make Kimura seem just a little elevated. Honestly, Saito vs Maeda just felt more gripping to me in general than Saito vs Inoki. One cool thing was how Saito was able to utilize the Ishin Gundan strategies of double teaming with Hoshino. Inoki really didn't buy into it but Hoshino was totally on board for a spike pile driver or whatever. That gave them a longish advantage on Kido. Until Maeda came in to kick the crap out of Hoshino. Kimura tried the same but got his leg caught and he was crushed by Saito. It all built to a crazy finish where Saito had the scorpion on Kido and everyone rushed in. In the chaos, Saito got a saito suplex on Kido for the win. Good start to all of this. A slight realignment makes everything feel fresh but I still could have lived with months of Choshu's army vs the world.

Tossing this here because it's by Square Enix, has some similar names ("Soul of Thasma" anyone), and has a FFV/X-2 job system, but I'm playing Bravely Default for the first time. I'm right at the end of Chapter 4 and enjoyed it a lot so far. You spend the first half of the game with a fairly conventional battle system but I can already see that the back half is going to be all about turn manipulation and counters. I imagine only a handful of people here played it but I made it to Vampire Castle and had to take a bit of a break because the mobs there are ridiculous in their countering. But you can turn encounters to none and I'm overleveled anyway so I'll just have to face that boss and then move on sometime in the next few days.