NikoBaltimore

I found my Penta mask but my pesky glasses get in the way. Maybe I'll bring it at the risk of incurring the wrath of Natural. If not then I'll be the dude in the W*ING shirt and maybe a hat. I can't believe it's today already.

It didn't dawn on me until watching this week that Wren Sinclair is Madi Wrenkowski. I thought she showed a lot of promise when doing AEW Dark/Elevation and feel NXT is a damn fine place for her to be.

Yeah, dude. Once I made the switch it was a game changer. I still have use for YouTube TV for now but I at least don't have to deal with ads.

My initial reactions: The Boys-I know you can put anybody in the gimmick yet these were the two that actually made the concept work. So that sucks. But cutting them was likely planned out for at least a month since Dalton lost them to Johnny TV on a random ROH show. Dasha Kuret-This baffles me. She was a beloved announcer and unless there's somebody replacing her it seems odd that Roberts would do all the AEW shows. Yeah, there's Bobby Cruise but I can't see them using him for anything other than ROH. Jose The Assistant-Kind of makes me wonder what's going on with Rush and Dralistico at this point but to be fair Jose was fine but not that to whoever he was with. Jora Johl-Didn't know he was signed. Anthony Henry-Since the injury happened outside AEW I'd rather not speculate on anything. Was never gonna be a singles star but had a really fun team with Drake. It sucks but oh well. Gravity-His match with HoB sealed his fate and honestly he was only worth it for the Pac match as a joke. But that was about it. Stu Grayson-Was wondering about him recently but since he wasn't on TV since the Righteous stuff it was a matter of time before he either left or they cut him. Parker Boudreaux-Will not miss him at all. He had a presence about him at points but nothing else. Slim J-This sucks a lot. The guy is only 38 and maybe with a better gimmick might have had a better chance. I really hope he finds a way to recover because of the people cut he's the one I feel really bad about. I would hope that the reasons for the cuts are relatively benign but it's hard to put a positive spin on a business move like this. I'd much rather see a contract run out like apparently TK preferred but it's odd that they would change course like this.

If it was almost anybody else the Rocky 3 montage with Sami/Chad would have been at best really funny and at worst corny bullshit. But while funny it actually did a pretty good job building up to him beating Bronson and feeling ready for WM. But man if they shelled out the bucks to have "Eye of the tiger" it would have been incredible much like the link Phantom posted. I hope with Rock being around more some backstage have a chance to pick his brain. He hasn't been heel for a long-ass time and it's like riding a bike to him. And yet somehow last night was on another level. The part that got me the most was him talking to the kids and progressing from empathetic father to full-on shit-talking Rock. Man, he rules.

I wonder how the game would have turned out if Angel didn't hurt her ankle at halftime. She had a good first half and tried in the second but if fully healthy she might have drove LSU to a win. Whenever they have a rematch in the WNBA it's going to be incredible. Also, it's not lost on me that Caitlin Clark is fucking special. She has the skills and the charisma to boot which makes me hopeful for her WNBA career. I don't want to look too far into the future but with how she is now it's hard not to get excited about the impact she'll have on the WNBA.

Hi, folks. Some of you may know I setup a Discord a few years ago that's board adjacent in a sense. With the show coming up it only made sense to create a chat for the show which is located here. https://discord.gg/jYk9PRsS4v I asked @Jaceyfor permission to mention it here which he kindly gave. Basically it's a chat room and I'm sure a lot of you know what Discord's about (if not it's a fancy IRC) What I'm hoping to do is archive this for posterity so while those watching at home can certainly join if you're at the show it could be something worth posting to as well. I'm sure I'll be putting a few pics up myself. If interested in some way please check it out.

Agreed and honestly I forgot she mentioned that in the Raw confrontation until 10 minutes after I posted this. That's mainly because I didn't know what Rhea was or was not doing on TikTok and this aside still don't since i don't use it. But hey if they want to use real feelings and make it part of what is or is not discussed in the story then cool. But I still stand by the second paragraph.

I am leaning towards this being completely how she feels about it and I sympathize with Becky. I kind of want to wonder if she talked with Rhea and shared her thoughts on the spot privately though who knows. But I don't know and would rather not speculate. I do however think even for a house show in 2024 there's tons of other ways to do a comedy/outside the norm spot that isn't something like this. Yet to Becky's point women's wrestling has come a long way that when a spot like this is done especially in WWE it's just so odd anymore. I also can't help but wonder why in the fuck somebody would ask her about this in the first place. It's a damning indictment on the person asking who seemed really tone deaf in not considering who Becky is and what she has talked about for a long time. It's been long established from Becky about her views as it's been said many times over. So he was just best off not mentioning this at all even if he thought it was some type of fluff piece question.

Man, for a guy who's 85 he don't look a day over 45. How DOES he do it after all this time? But yeah Happy Birthday to my all-time favorite superhero and the joy that his stuff has brought me throughout my life. From seeing the '66 show at my grandma's to the Tim Burton movies and everything since then he's always been the one I pay attention to the most. I might not have fully picked up on why at the time but for as great as Superman is Batman was and always be my choice. EDIT: For giggles I didn't see all that you saw but I'll rank the ones I did anyway. Batman '89. Nostalgia is a motherfucker. Plus Nicholson Joker AND for good measure Prince doing the music? Fuck yeah! Batman: The Animated Series. Perfectly encapsulates practically every side of Batman. The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger's Joker. 'Nuff said. Batman Returns. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. The Batman. Almost hate that Pattison was so damn good. Batman '66. Nostalgia is still a motherfucker but '89 has better merch and is a better quality overall than this. Justice League cartoon.

To be fair they did what I'm now assuming is the drone camera shot when coming back from break for Bianca/Dakota. As much as I love it I'm okay with easing into this so it's not as jarring for some. But damn is it good.

My wife: "So, who are you gonna see at the Dean show?" Me: "Oh, a bunch of cool shit including 3 Flippy Guys against 3 Strong Motherfuckers" My wife: "Oh, cool! But really, what's their names?" Me: "Those ARE their team names!" From here she'll gives me that look I know all too well and I have to convince her I'm not trolling her for once.

Watching that video three things immediately came to mind: 1. Holy fuck Mark Briscoe's gonna win the title. 2. Holy fuck I better have tissues for when it gets dusty in the room. 3. Holy fuck I need to see this live. I was only intending to go to the Dean show and drive home Thursday night. But I feel a strong need to go to this.

I had a feeling Mike would get a run before the game started so wasn't surprised by that one. It would have been 11-1 but they put in Tate who needed experience after being out all season. But it was a fun win. Also, David Rubenstein is showing tons of promise as the new owner. They had him on for about the first three innings and he not only said the right things but seemed pretty sincere doing so. I feel a lot more optimistic about the Orioles's future than I ever did with either of the Angelos's before. Will that lead to a World Series win? Honestly I'm hopeful for this season but do try to be realistic so maybe not. But the building blocks to it will at least be further strengthened and that's good for me.

Kingdom match was good shit so I'd say that too.

I'm not a fan of quoting myself but I just now got a key answer to what I was wondering earlier. NYT just said there were issues with the integrity of the ship and in particular the auxiliary machinery and a propulsion deficiency. So I'm sure it was an accident and feel for the ones on it. But yeah there's going to be lawsuits out the ass over this one.

It's almost hard to fathom how much of a wide impact this is then you see that Biden is speaking about this along with the international coverage that was mentioned earlier. Damn. He also is saying the government is going to pay for the rebuild and relying on Congressional support. Without going into why I have my doubts but do appreciate the sentiment.

I meant to say this last week but I'm really loving the changes in production they're doing on Raw. They're trying new things and from what I saw so far it's fucking great. I remember last week the had the camera follow Sami walking to the back and after he disappears they focus on another angle with Miz and R Truth. It was so awesome and man do I not miss dipshit Kevin Dunn.

Thanks. I work from home a half hour from Baltimore so it's super rare for me to go anywhere near Baltimore. Even when I lived by Dundalk for a few years I went on the bridge maybe a couple times. But to say the least this is a major event that right now just feels very shocking. I have many questions and they don't really have lots of answers so I'm hoping they'll have more information on hand in the next update.

I'm just gonna leave this here. https://shop.jazwares.com/pages/vault Basically the Jazwares Vault opens on the 27th and the reason for the link is that's when they'll have the sweet-ass ROH figs that I'll be getting a solid 80% of (I don't need a ROH Kenny or Danhausen) But sign me the fuck up for the Danielson and Briscoes figures among others and say goodbye to my wallet. Also, if you grew up on LJN figures you might want to pay attention to what Myers and Cardona are doing. They have their own figure line and while I didn't grow up on LJN the Macho and Andre ones here fucking rule. https://www.majorbendies.com/collections/big-rubber-guys

I spent tons of time staying the night at a friend's house while we tried to figure out how to do more than punch and kick on Nitro. When we pulled off a suplex it was like we won the title with how excited we were. Then I somehow got it on PC and while noticeably faster it was still a shit game. Despite that I still have fond memories and might one day try Nitro again for giggles. EDIT: Just saw the guide and forgot how complicated some of the moves were to do. Yeah, fuck that I'm good.

I thought it was a bit too convenient that somebody had a Bruins jersey right near somebody with a Leafs jersey (well, the Leafs one is completely logical but I digress) But whether they were plants or not I laughed at that and enjoyed the hockey elements. But aside from that I was oddly bored by the I Quit match and I'm not sure if it isn't just a "me" problem. Did I expect lots of blood? Did I expect Christian to make Adam's situation much more dire? Or maybe I was just looking for more overall hatred in the match and things felt a bit too scripted for my liking. Maybe all of the above (though the first possible reason might have depended on WBD's stance on blood nowadays) But something just felt off since the build was pretty damn solid.

You might say the rankings were worthless and I wouldn't necessarily argue. But for me it was worth it mainly for this:

Cody had a fire promo last night but the one last week was great as it gave Rock something to mock and in turn led to what Cody did last night. Things just feel right with the buildup to the two nights of Cody/Bloodline and Seth aside this is going to be a fun one to watch. I just hope we're past the point of staff giving out signs for the fans as with the Cody love there's no real need for that anymore.

So now that I'm not on my phone but on a computer I might as well say a few things. I'll quickly say I didn't care for Joe/Wardlow and the Jericho tag. The Wardlow stuff is way too late and while I don't hate the guy there's just nothing that will make me care about what he says or does. I hope to be proven wrong one day. And the best part of the tag was how incredible GoA looked. They need to get some big wins. That aside the show fucking ruled. Sorry Curt but I love the CEO theme and so did Bo$$ton. Everything about Mercedes screams big-time star and if you're going to build the women's division of the future around somebody then why not her. I wasn't sure about heel Okada with the Bucks but holy fuck he absolutely completes them. If you didn't like Bucks themselves acting high and mighty here comes a legend and suave-ass motherfucker to give them tons of credibility. Plus he was wonderful throughout the match and it's all to setup him again Kingston. Jeeeeeeeezus. I want to be apathetic to what Ospreay does for various reasons yet it's impossible for me to with a promo like that. Nothing and everything made sense at the same time and I was fired up for the Danielson match once it finished. Though if he was pissing blood from his head then he might wanna get that checked. I'm eagerly anticipating Matt's writeup on Jay/Darby but this was by far Jay's best match in AEW. It might not have been a PPV epic but if you had one match to watch of Jay White this is it. He transitioned from trying to be a face because of BBCG to just shedding all that and going back to the heelish form he always should be. Darby was the perfect opponent for this as he bumped around like mad and had a fucked up back on top of that. The missed coffin on the apron might not be a top 10 "Dude, WTF?" type bump from him but factoring in the back it's pretty close to it. It all just fucking worked so well and is one I'll be rewatching for sure. Willow/Riho was good but it was all a means to get to the post-match. I'm glad Mercedes isn't starting right away with Toni and is instead in the Willow/Julia/Skye sphere. That'll be a great for her to get back into the groove and get her ready for the big stuff to come. One thing that I want to make sure is to not take what we are getting for granted. We're getting big-time stars coming in to mix it up with other big-time stars and we all will rejoice. This is fucking awesome times, folks.