AxB

Our friend Dylan Hales tweeted the cover art:

Tweeted and deleted: So presumably a future big announcement. The skyline in Manchester England is hard to recognise, they keep rebuilding the whole city centre every year.

Tomorrow! Mina returning to the USA quickly. Feels like she only arrived back in Japan a few days ago.

https://vxtwitter.com/WrestlePrestige/status/1782114985046655339 Blackheart Lio Rush vs JAIDEN

Speaking of which, https://twitter.com/VancityReynolds/status/1782121079731016040 Deadpool & Wolverine trailer TOMORROW!!

Now a couple of weeks ago, Top Flight were in a face vs face match, and it made FTR the de facto heels on that night, because the brothers Martin were the more beloved duo. Whereas last night, they were in another face vs face match, and they suddenly found themselves obliged to work heel because they were facing the beloved Eddie Kingston (and his friends). Eddie finally wearing Tenryu boots, black trimmed with yellow, feels like the look he should have been sporting all along. If they changed the alliances up in the match slightly, we could have a stable of Adam Copeland, Andretti & Briscoe. ACAB. Don Callis joined commentary for Hobbs vs Esparza, and might as well not have bothered because the match was over before he really got to say anything. Mox's IWGP title being on the line vs Hobbs is a pretty big deal, because it's not a belt that is defended frequently under normal circumstances. Like a year long reign is still single figure defences. So if Mox is defending it less than two weeks after winning it, that implies the plan is for him to not have it very long and he doesn't want to be Mr Zero Defences. Max Caster didn't screw up his rap (that angle, if it was an angle, seems to have been dropped), but he almost did, because he wrote so many lyrics he had to double time half of it. Something about legalising incest in there. I expected The Acclaimed to win the TV tag match, and then lose the trios titles match on the PPV, but then them losing this one doesn't imply they're winning tonight, because this isn't WWE parity booking. Nigel's apology to the Clamdigging community, when it didn't turn into a heel promo non-apology immediately, it got me thinking some actual clamdiggers had actually complained. Takeshita's Bunkhouse outfit looking like something from a Yakuza game was cool. Danielson's MMA braids seem to come loose immediately and he was looking unlike his usual AEW appearance. Some good blood in the Bunkhouse, too. When Mox's music kept playing after he'd finished entering and was brawling around with Hobbs, I thought they were going to New Jack it (redeem themselves after that singer in blackface that one time), but then it just stopped. Leyla Hirsch has had the worst luck since returning to TV. First Julia Hart hurt her shoulder and the match only went 3 minutes as they rushed to the finish to avoid exacerbating the injury, and then last night she slips going up for her climbing Moonsault - although considering they went right to Skye getting the win here, perhaps the planned finish was her missing the Moonsault, and slipping was an acceptable substitute for that. The couple of fans who tried to start a CM Punk chant during the Bucks' match got shouted down pretty quick. Watching FTR on the same show as Claudio, it really hammers home how, despite Sting spending years in AEW and retiring as a hero in AEW, everyone in AEW who does a Scorpion Deathlock calls it a Sharpshooter because they're doing it as a Bret tribute. I don't like AEW changing from cloth ring aprons to LED boards, but I can't deny that the change has made changing the show branding a lot faster and simpler. That one time Fite forgot to cut the feed and we almost got Rampage two days early, it took ten-fifteen minutes to change everything. This time it was like one second. RVD being well over 50 years of age, and going almost 20 minutes, hitting all of his spots perfectly (except he did ZERO of his chair spots), that's impressive. He might not have that Copeland/Cage super jacked and lean 50-year old thing, but he's arguably dealing with the ageing better than either of them. Certainly much better than either Hardy. Emi Sakura improvising to fill time while Yuka walks off her hurt leg, that really underlined what a great all-round performer Emi is. Book her on All In this year, she deserves that spotlight! The match was really good, too. Presumably they had to change up the match plans quite a bit, with Yuka being hurt and gutting her way through, but it didn't ruin things. Just changed them. Big congrats to Angelo and Ruby. It does make me wonder, is Angelo actually really good at acting, or did Ruby tell the office and the segment producers in advance, but surprise her actual partner on Wednesday? The main of Rampage, it was NXT Black n Gold as hell. Even though only half of the people in it ever worked there. It suffered from being in the "Are you still watching?" spot on a three hour show, where the last match was not the most important one with the biggest stars. But it was OK. All in all, three great hours of Professional Wrestling television.

I love it when they get Referee Kim to do the ICW NHB shows, because she looks so horrified at basically everything that happens in the matches. Like most of the refs are pretty "seen it before" after a while, but she's constantly cringing from it. Really sells the devastating effect of the moves. And with Ref Shiny Shoes now apparently giving up on the refereeing and concentrating on his career as an actual wrestler, hopefully Kim will start travelling more (instead of being a Tennessee exclusive). Obviously in an ideal world, SPO would still be reffing most of the matches, but that's tragically impossible, may he Rest in Peace.

The only reason they had to go from a company that makes and distributes movies, to a company that deletes movies for the tax write off, is the Fantastic Beasts franchise died on it's arse. JK Rowling's lack of talent killed the company. She's the Vince Russo of Warner Bros.

The classic play is for the face to say "We don't have to wait, we can do this right here, right now in Cheap Pop City!", and then the heel (or heel manager) says "We're not doing this match in Cheap Pop City, we're doing it down the line. Cheap Pop City doesn't deserve it, because Cheap Pop City sucks!".

re: The Coefficient. If you're a regular big 4 team in the EPL, the last thing you want is another Champion's League spot for the league. It would threaten the monopoly. The Champion's League Big 4 are basically in a 4 horse race to win the league, the last thing any of them want is a fifth contender to worry about.

They've announced Nyla as host for Zero Hour.

Cavill is busy putting together the Warhammer show for Amazon. Other Hemsworth is Geralt.

Logan Knight (an Oklahoma-based LGTBQ+ wrestler) is taking action against the Athletic Commision: https://twitter.com/LoganKnightPro/status/1781062546914423102 Specifically, he's campaigning to get Native American land in the state exemption from Commission oversight. And he wants people who agree with him on this issue to let the OKC know about it by emailing [email protected]

Forbes article on the most valuable combat sports promotions in the world: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2024/04/18/the-most-valuable-combat-sports-promotions-2024/ Anyone who thinks AEW is dying should probably read this.

The Fugitive?