tbarrie

How old are you, Curt? Because I'm 51 and I kind of feel like an aged, wizened mountain man who... etc.

Personally, I quite liked the twist of how Cope tried to "take out" Yuta. It was unexpected but still made sense, which is a difficult combo to pull off. But I'll agree the actual match execution wasn't great. Copeland just slipping out of the cattle mutilation bothered me too.

Wait, was it Phil Hickerson or P. Y. Chu-Hi?

I don't know. I can tell that objectively she's a good-looking woman, but I still see too much Jessica Fletcher in her face to find her hot.

Nah. Let Toni knock off a couple of challengers before Bayne takes the title.

Also, the women's tag was pretty great. Laid out to make Megan Bayne look like an absolute force of nature and I loved it.

Hey, AEW Security stopped a murder attempt! That makes them, what, one for four the past twelve months?

That's my recollection of the match too. Which is why I found it odd that one common criticism of the match was that it was obviously Flair because of how he wrestled.

Huh, the "Shadow Man" Raziel mentioned is the Valiant character? I guess I should have realized that, had I known that Acclaim owned Valiant and/or remembered it was Valiant who licensed Turok from Gold Key.

Turok wasn't licensed? Did they buy the comics character outright?

I've always had a soft spot for "The Wild-Eyed Southern Boys".

Not to go all Unforgiven Fanboy, but I don't know that I'd call Little Bill a "bad guy". An antagonist, yes. But he's not really any more flawed a person than the protagonist or, well, most of the characters in Unforgiven.

Not to pile on Matt, who's awesome, but I agree with what seems to be the general consensus here. If you miss a flying move and land on your knee, selling it with a brief "Ow, my knee" gesture and moving on seems perfectly reasonable to me; I don't think it necessarily implies that the knee is going to be significant later in the match. The narrative purpose for is simply to establish (or re-affirm) that missing flying moves hurts. I do agree with Matt's general point and his criticisms of Ospreay, but I don't think this particular application holds up.

That reminds me of something I should have asked when this thread was new: what exactly is a "hot take"? I know it's some slang term the kiddos use these days, but what does it mean? I have a vague idea, but somebody a little back referred to a "lukewarm take" and I'm unclear how to interpret that without a better understanding of the original term.

Sorry to hear that, Natural. Take care of yourself. You're a good one.

While I'm here - I thought that Keith vs Ospreay was something of a disappointing style clash, and kind of exposed Ospreay's weaknesses. Good show overall though.

Probably. But it gets us one step closer to Swerve and Hangman uniting to stop the Death Riders, which is an ending a number of people seem to be into.

Fair enough, but I think humanizing Brody too much is a mistake for his character. Or it was before Malakai left and the rest of House of Black turned face. Also worth noting that Brody and Darby had faced off multiple times before with no indication they were old friends or anything.

He said "WWF", not "WWE". Do we have a thread for criticizing the World Wildlife Fund?

IMO, it was already obvious Mox was winning. Swerve winning the title shot isn't going to give anything away.

Better than "Don't Worry, Be Happy" for the SST?

I really didn't like it when MJF was threatening to MitB the poker chip, because they'd done the poker chip gimmick before and had never hinted that it could be used that way. Nor did they give any indication that the rules had changed until after the match where MJF won it. Narrative consistency is everything, dammit! But I also agree it's just not a great plot device, at least not in 2025. It was cool when Edge cashed in the first time, but it's been done to death now. (Plus it's got some people expecting to see something at Revolution other than Mox beating Cope after Death Rider interference, and they'll bitch all the more now when that's what we get.)

I think there's an argument to be made that wrestling physics is just as fantastic as anything in Game of Thrones or the MCU.:) More pertinently, I did mention those shows, but I believe I also threw out Mad Men as an example in one of my other posts. I did that because I wanted to be clear that fantastic vs realistic isn't the important distinction for what I'm saying, it's fiction vs reality. When watching a story about Don Draper, I don't particularly want to hear him reference something that actually happened to Jon Hamm, nor do I think his doing so would add anything. Nor, if I happen to be watching a talk show where Jon Hamm is a guest, do I want or expect him to pretend to be Don Draper in that context. Absolutely! Especially since some responses I've seen are kind of tangential to what I meant when I brought the subject up. When I say I'd like to see a stake driven into the heart of kayfabe, what I mean is that I'd like to see everybody - fans, wrestlers, promoters, whoever - clearly distinguish between what's fictional and what's real. I don't want to see elements of a wrestler's real life be brought into the storylines, especially if it's discordant with their fictional character. (Like Darby Allin talking about how the House of Black's resident monster used to bunk on Darby's couch, or something.) I don't want to read a quote a wrestler gave to a real media outlet and have to guess whether they were staying in character. I really don't want to have to worry that a wrestler might be really injured when they're selling; it would be nice if I could trust the performers and the promoters to stop the damn match in case of a real injury and make it clear to the audience that the show is on pause, because then I could enjoy the matches more. But I can't, not necessarily because the performers and promoters consciously want to maintain kayfabe, but because some things have always been done a certain way in wrestling and nobody wants to change it. In short, my thesis is that wrestling is a form of fiction and should be treated that way. I'd even go so far as to say I don't see any other sane way to engage with it in a post-kayfabe world. But there are a lot of wrestling traditions that don't make sense post-kayfabe and don't contribute to the show, and the business seems reluctant to give them up.

Think how excited he must have been when Wrestlemania was created - one step closer to his boyhood dream coming true!

What promotions do you follow? The AEW announcers, at least, talk pretty frequently about how going for a pin is generally a good idea, because even if you don't get the three you still make your opponent expend energy kicking out.