John E. Dynamite

The fact that none of those pleather-and-kickpads "Strong Style" indie types even attempted to have a European Rounds match with a bronze medalist Luxembourgish karateka (or whatever) is one of pro wrestling's great injustices.

MJF winning the title by the end of the year was telegraphed as soon as they had his title shot contract retconned back into his possession. His putting over Mistico and Mark Briscoe compounded it for me, classic "don't worry about it you'll win later" booking. AEW is completely aware that the first MJF title reign was when the company's "vibes were off" so I'm interested in how they'll go about it this time. Surely it can't be that hard to shave 5 minutes off of long promo segments, knock off the buttheaded 90's shock value and keep Adam Cole miles away from whatever goes down. He's got so many storyline threads to tie up. But who knows? Maybe it'll be cameos from the Sandler-verse and one last desperate attempt at a Wardlow program and I'll roll my eyes at it. With Ospreay, Darby, Jay White, Okada, Takeshita, and Fletcher as options I figure the next champ will be a new one

I'm sitting on my deck getting misty. I can't believe Ishinriki vs. Ueda has cagematch hype. I found that match clicking through puroarchive's archive.org account for days and days. My gimmick for that Secret Santo was using it as a reason to watch new matches and only recommending things I'd never seen before, and that match was the best thing I found. It was my platonic ideal of a DVDVR joint and I waited a good degree of weeks so I could gift it to DEAN. It reminded me so much of the matches that he and the Playaz hooked me up on when I was a kid, it was the closest I ever got to feeling like I was properly giving back. I wasn't doing great at the time and it's hard to read my old drunk + manic post about it but I remember finding and watching and sharing all those matches being a damn fine time. DEAN didn't write it up because he was in the hospital but I was stoked to see him drop a Thanks on it. It's phenomenal pro wrestling. Fan cam, deep cut, punk as hell, pure artform stuff.

If she's going to have a larger TV presence, Mama Wayne needs to cut a certain kind of promo on Dynamite one of these days, where she explains how she grew up in the wrestling industry and is the daughter of a Moondog. It turns out none of the AEW diehards I talk to on other boards know about her background,so I have to imagine live crowds don't know either. It gives her instant credibility. It gives Nick a little extra cred too - there's no reason he couldn't work a year as Moondog Wayne when he's 30 and fat. and while we're spitballing, here's why Don Callis should call his new charge "Big Zooch"...

ooh, I wanna half-ass this Khet or the "physical body" - Moxley Sah or the "spiritual body" - Hangman Ren or the "name, identity" - Kenny Ba or the "personality" - Toni Ka or the "double" or "vital essence" - Young Bucks Ib or the "heart" - Darby Shuyet or the "shadow" - Swerve Sekhem or the "power, form" - Willow Akh or the "intellect" - MJF

Kinda crazy how similar the Okada vs. Omega series is compared to Flair vs. Steamboat. Tonight was their version of Spring Stampede 1994.

Mina Shirakawa's modern legwork formula is deeply underrated by "post-workrate" nerds. She does a sneaky multitudes of things right, and might be one of the most efficient "go out there and get a This is Awesome chant!"-type TV wrestlers on Earth.

I'm fine with The Kyle Match on account of Fletcher assuming all the chants were in support of him during that long heat segment. And that was at the end of a four hour double taping - if that's what the crowd had to do to stay engaged, oh my God, go for it.

I made another More Than Halfway Done stack of games to beat from my backlog (+ accompanying Google doc) Atelier Ryza, Alwa's Awakening (NES version), Drakengard, Hypnospace Outlaw, Utawarerumono, the extra Persona 5 content, Zack & Wiki, Star Fox Assault, Layton Mystery Journey, Neon White, Ufouria, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon RRT, GTA V, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties Knocked out Neon White first and it made me realize how much of my partially-finished backlog comes from games not having enough goddamn hand-eye bleeding-thumb my-thirtieth-attempt-will-be-THE-ONE kind of stuff. Cause I finish those. You know what's filled the void? Puyo Puyo Tetris. I got Platinums on every level of Neon White and even some Reds when I really liked the level and/or realized the super shortcut. The most gamerly thing I've done all year. But I'm on the seventh and final world of PPT, I got three star rankings on every level in the first four-and-a-half worlds and going for 100% is simply not gonna happen. There are good games I love. Like GTA V, turns out? I am a very low vote on 4. Guess I just love Los Santos There are bad games I love, I knew Drakengard was this going into it but props to Utawarerumono for being a truly engaging work that I would recommend to exactly zero people. There are good games I want to smack upside the head, like P5R (which would be better served by being half as long), and even games so bad that they're awful. Layton 7 is a travesty, but I'm glad LEVEL-5 has all that sweet, sweet Fantasy Life money to attone for it.

I know that some really cool person - quite possibly somebody within *our* circle - had an ongoing Twitter thing where they posted baffling Mongo McMichael solutions to the common "how do I do this move?" question. I want those .gifs and I want to spread them as far and wide as I possibly can. Osamu Nishimura -> Black Terry -> Steve McMichael feels outright personal. I would buy a ten tape compilation of their alternating matches in a heartbeat.

Still the best AEW show I've seen in that arena. Hook puked.

Absolutely mainlining AEW on Max so I can catch up for the next Baltimore show. November to Today is my monthy goal and it's going great. If I was still good at posting about pro wrestling I'd have a whole big list of takes and talking points, but in lieu of that, here's this - Mark Brisoe is at worst a Top 5 guy in this promotion. Mark Briscoe can do pure doomed JttS babyface better than anyone on the roster - Mortos is very good at the heel version, I should mention. He's the best ring general in tag team matches. His performance in the last Blood & Guts was the undeniable centerpiece of the match due to this. He doesn't just promo well, he promos in under a minute purely to get a crowd revved up in a way that is such a lost art. He bleeds good. I know what his character is, and he wrestles like it. And when called upon to deliver a big ol' kickouty epic, he finds ways to implement the face/heel dynamic and proper timing in ways that most are too eager to even consider. It's like there are two wrestling geniuses inhabiting his one body. I think he's the truest Five Tool Player in the entire business.

Jumbo and Misawa won multiple TC matches with cradles. And even if it wasn't a TC match, there's... Jumbo vs. Misawa.

Figured I'd pop in to share my thoughts for the first time in awhile but I forgot these threads are just the same guy making half the posts / responding to himself and talking about why things allegedly suck. I really don't know when to blame the product or blame the never-ending information war, but I used to like talking about wrestling on the internet. Now, without fail, every time I enjoy something I sign in to anywhere I just get blasted over and over again with hate and tired, compulsively negative talking points, regurgitated from the worst podcast and shitheadedest Twitter chuds. This is culture now. Negativity gets more engagement, the compulsively negative create more content, I can't tell what's actually good or bad because bad's going to win out regardless. This might be the same post I've been making all year, I don't know, I haven't been on a bender in awhile. Will Hobbes is neat. The semis were put together smart. Ospreay/Fletcher got to the point (relative to their expected excess) and Okada/Ricochet read the room and didn't burn the crowd out. I've been biting my lip for months re: Okada dooming while thinking the entire time "he's going to win the CC and wrestle Kenny in Texas". Funny that. I totally buy a Mox injury. Don't know if I embrace or dread a pivot if it comes to that. Two very good women's matches on a main PPV card and a very storyline-relevant one on the preshow hasn't happened that often. Ever? I think you can trust Toni, Kris and Willow with any-and-everything. They look like the division's unshakeable nucleus. WWE is trying to get wrestling media to describe their debut Netflix RAW as "Wrestlemania-worthy" so I'm less concerned about Rated FTR vs Death Friends being given away too quick when they should load that sucker up.

random thought occurred to me today as I stumbled into a half-casual wrestling conversation about the prevalence of Canadian Destroyers and how they're a sign of a world gone mad and it got me to thinking about the DDT. and how it was the prior example of a move that meant instant death when applied by its creator before turning into a transition move i was always sympathetic to what became of the DDT due to the time I spent backyarding in high school. they're easy. they don't hurt. the person taking the move is the one in control. they look good. i guess what i'm getting at is that the current generation of professional wrestlers have turned the Destroyer into what it is now because i have to assume Canadian Destroyers are significantly safer and less painful than taking a flat back bump. that wrestlers can't help but calculate the ratio between how much a move hurts (or can hurt) vs. how much the crowd thinks they hurt, and have decided that the Destroyer, no pun intended, offers the most bang for their buck. like i 100% have to assume wrestlers think to themselves, whether they mean to or not, "why do we do moves that actually hurt but don't look that painful instead of moves that look like death but don't hurt one bit?". and then end up devaluing the moves that don't actually hurt because they now possess the knowledge that they don't hurt. when you know for a fact that taking a reverse hurricanrana is exponentially more pleasant than taking a bodyslam, like... can we at least understand how things wound up the way they are? because i never see that point brought up in any conversation.