AxB

Like that picture of Adam Cole with ZSJ, where they're both six feet tall yet the top of Cole's head barely reaches Sabre's nose?

Apparently Bea was released in February so she's still waiting out the 90 days.

And Bea Priestley. Or whatever her WWE name was.

They probably enquired about booking the building multiple times in a short period, and got given a good deal on a 3 week residency. Like how Collision stayed in Texas for ages last summer.

AEW has announced a series of dates at the 2300 Arena (ECW Arena). Dynamite Aug 27th Collision Aug 30th Dynamite Sep 3rd ROH Death Before Dishonor Sep 5th Collision Sep 6th Dynamite Sep 10th Collision (taping?) Sep 11th So presumably DEAN~!! 3 will be taking place somewhere in that time frame too

25 years ago Yesterday: The PRIDE Grand Prix 2000 Finals! Sakuraba vs Royce Gracie in a Royce's Rules match! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXTrAifUiUM

So, we're not long since Mania week, and WWE has started cutting office staff. The Senior Vice President of Creative Services (Christine Lubrano) being the most senior employee now gone. Usually, they start with firing the office staff and then start releasing wrestlers a day later. Usually.

She wrestles barefoot though.

Yamashita just jobbed out to Nattie Neidhart in Bloodsport, she was never beating Toni Storm. I do wonder how many *s Meltzer will give the opening match. Because by his metrics, that'll probably be the worst ever match with Okada vs Omega in, but plenty of people would have enjoyed it more than those 6* epics they used to have. I do like how people were complaining the Dyno is formulaic with the number of matches and how long they go, and so AEW changed it up by having fewer matches last night, but giving them far more time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qga9fQ3kBY KONOSUKE TAKESHITA vs MIKE SANTANA (c) for the House of Glory Wrestling Championship.

We already know how to make Amateur matches less boring. There's two ways, you either determine the winners ahead of time and have the wrestlers co-operatively perform the match, rather than actually compete during it. Or you let them compete for real, but you relax the rules of wrestling to allow strikes and submission holds, and make it so you can't win by pinning your opponent, but just by submission or referee stoppage.

Hogan and Bischoff's third man is Izzy Martinez and they're doing some sort of Amatuer Wrestling tournament thing.

Ha ha ha ha ha. What happened was, GCW announced a Senior's Scramble match (with The Rock n Rolls, George South, Action Mike Jackson et cetera) and said The WARLORD would be in it. But then THE WARLORD cancelled himself off that appearance because it was head to head with the WWE Hall of Fame and he wanted to go to that, with The Barbarian. So Sean Ross Sapp reports that THE WARLORD cancelled himself off the GCW show, and one of the Newz Aggregator sites that copies everything he does read that, and reposted it, but being too young to know who The Warlord is, instead said WARDLOW had cancelled himself off the GCW show (that he was never booked on). So yeah, Wardlow is still recovering from his knee and was never booked in Vegas week.

There's this really long YouTube video I saw which claimed that the run-ins at that Mania event was less about "Here's a bunch of legends to pop the crowd" and more about "Here are all the ghosts of Roman's past returning to haunt him", and the reason he lost is because taking revenge on Shield Seth was more important to him that the title, in that moment. Which is a nice story, but I feel more like... WWE doesn't do subtext, or subtlety. If that was the story, Michael Cole would have been screaming about it. It feels like a fan headcanon'ing an explanation for something that didn't actually have one. Like were Cena and Taker sitting in the back saying "We're ghosts from Roman's past, let's return and haunt him"? That doesn't sound like them.

What was the last match of his you saw? What was the last promo of his you heard? Because if the answer is either the Krule match at DEAN~! or "I don't remember", you're not really qualified to speak upon this. He spent over a year trying to get the title shot, but his promos building the angle, and showing his increasing frustration and exasperation at not getting the shot were all posted on his twitter, where most people won't have seen it. And he didn't just show up with a new look right away, it was a gradual evolution. His new gimmick isn't a "No Gimmicks Needed" gimmick, it's a new character. Furthermore, by what metric was the Heavy Metal gimmick not working? If a wrestler on the indies adopts a new gimmick, and it gets them more/better indie bookings, gets them title reigns and main events at the indie level but doesn't get them signed for TV, is that a failure? Was Eddie Kingston's career one long failure until he wrestled Cody on Dynamite, or was his TNA debut the beginning of his success era?

WARHORSE has completely changed his gimmick now. He's dropped the all caps, dropped the shouting, dropped the headbanging, dropped the name (he's 'Warhorse' Jake Parnell again now), cut his hair, grown a moustache and is now the leader of a Nihilist faction called Nihilation (the other members being Victor Analog and Mad Dog Connelly. EDIT And furthermore, the reason WHY he changed his gimmick is, after he lost the IWTV World title, he spent years campaigning to get a shot at regaining it, never got one for ages and ages, and when he finally did (vs Krule, at ACTION DEAN~!), he lost the match. And that's what drove him into thinking nothing mattered. Character evolution, right there. So, bad example.

I watched Necro Butcher vs Iceman (from Bleeding Gums Wrestling Lust for Death 2) this afternoon. It was really good! Went 25 minutes! Usually Iceman matches only go 7 minutes at the most, but nah.

Trailer for The Smashing Machine

An MMA Promotion that you pretended was worked (or where you gave the fighters scripts and promo classes)? I'm not sure there would be much point. MMA Fighters have a tendency to be dumbasses with dramatic lives... plus if anyone started looking impressive and racking up a win streak, they'd get snapped up by the UFC before you could use them to put anyone over on the way out. A Shootstyle Pro-Wrestling promotion, I don't think there's any way to have worked matches and pass it off as legit combat any more. Over 30 years of mainstream MMA history, people know what a real fight looks like nowadays. Possibly you could do fixed MMA in the extreme short term, by simply telling the fighter who's supposed to lose and not telling the guy who's supposed to win. But running fake 'real fights', you're not going to be convincing anyone. And if you're not convincing anyone, if you're running fake fights in a more realistic style than regular pro-wrestling style, that's niche pro-wrestling. MMA fans like real fighters actually fighting, Wrestling fans like fake fighters fake fighting, in an unrealistic way. Nothing wrong with Niche Pro-Wrestling, of course. Way more fun than the mainstream stuff. I liked it when ICW NHB was running their Pitfighter shows, where they would mix the no-rope cage deathmatch stuff with the "big burly guys in cutoff jeans and MMA gloves punch each other really hard for five minutes" faux shootstyle stuff.

Road Report: Kumite Combat Wrestling presents Kaiju Fight (Sun 27th April 2025, The Hairy Dog, Derby) So the show was scheduled to open doors at 2pm, but there's no direct train from Stoke to Derby on a Sunday, which meant I had to get a train Stoke to Birmingham, and then change in Brum to get to Derby. I had reckoned without the hugeness and complexity of Birmingham New Street station... the first train was a big Intercity going to Southampton from Glasgow or somewhere, massively overstuffed, spent the whole journey stood up in the entryway. Then we arrive in Brum, hundreds of people are getting off the train, hundreds more are waiting to get on, it takes like 5 minutes to get off the platform and up the stairs into the station proper, and my seven minute turnaround time is mostly evaporated with me having no idea what train I'm supposed to get or which platform it leaves from. I find it, but not until after it's gone. My 7 minute turnaround turns into a 67 minute turnaround. The shops in the station are very expensive, so fuck that. Luckily I had a book in my pocket. Percy Jackson and his friends complete rather more of the Labyrinth more quickly than they otherwise would have. Train arrives, it's completely empty because Birmingham is whatever the opposite of a Terminus is for this service. The Begininus, or Start. So I get to have a nice sit down at a table, with some people I don't know, who are presumably quite nice people but I don't talk to. And then I get to Derby and get off. The Train Station is about a mile outside of the city centre, and the venue is pretty much smack bang in the middle of the City Centre, so it was pretty easy to get to. I arrive just in the closing stages of the opening match, which was apparently a multi-person elimination match. Harley Harris get eliminated right as I walk in, and then Darko does a little while after (it's a bit jarring seeing Darko on a Deathmatch show and him not bleeding at all; Not long ago I saw him dropkicked so hard the ICW:NHB Chain he was sitting against broke). And the beefy lad from Hellbound (David Grant?) goes on to win the whole thing, retaining his Boozerweight Championship. So the first match I really get to see all of the way through is Henry Faust vs Tyler Owens. Which is one of those matches where two pale skinny guys kick each other really hard. Well, it's not, because Tyler Owens has managed to incorporate a lot of slimy little bastard-isms into his indie Workrate style, and Henry Faust plays into that by incorporating some "I'm a better wrestler than you"-isms into his. So instead of it being just a "Pale skinny guys in trunks and kickpads kick each other really hard" exhibition (and don't get me wrong, I actually *love* seeing that style, nothing wrong with that type of wrestling at all), we instead have the story of the good wrestler, and the lesser opponent who cheats to keep up with him. And really, having them kick each other really hard all of the way through, and then the finish be a small ref bump - kick to the nuts - pinfall, it really makes you think he's such a little bastard, because of how every kick in this match has been really hard. (Being live ringside for super stiff matches is way more fun than watching them on telly/ streaming, because you can feel the wind of the strikes on your face. And because the welting and swelling on their chests and backs, it doesn't seem to get picked up as much on camera as it is visible in person). The Deathmatch Fuckboi Antonio Gonzalez vs Big Daddy Unicorn Jason Joshua, it's a Hardcore match, but it's incorporating a little (just a little) of the Attitude Era-style Comedy hardcore into the brawling and bloodletting. Gonzalez is (in storyline) trying to rebuild himself after losing in a shot at Alton Thorne's Deathwolf title on the previous KCW show, so he's trying to express himself as a serious tough guy asskicker here. So consequently, he's quite offended at the girls in the crowd shouting "Pussyhole" at him. Which, like, think about it my man. You're a straight guy, fighting a gay guy. Anyone shouting Pussy is clearly supporting you. Joshua came to the ring with a Dildo, at one point in the match he sticks it on a Baking tray to make it stand up and tries to force Gonzalez' mouth down onto it. Gonzalez escapes, battles out, back and forth, and he ends up being Atomic Dropped onto it instead. It's a fun match, it's a smart bit of card placement to have this match (based around weapons and brawling, but not especially blood soaked) take place in the first half, so anyone here for Violence more than Wrestling doesn't get bored waiting. Gonzalez wins, the second heel victory in a row. Next, for the Openweight Championship, Millie McKenzie challenges our champion BlueShe. Being a regular style Pro-Wrestling match, on a Deathmatch show, right after a Hardcore match happened, that's a tough spot, but they made it work. McKenzie's strength and athleticism were very impressive; She's been a lot more high profile through her career, whilst BlueShe hasn't had that visibility quite so much (she's a 10 year pro herself; She was called Amarah up until a couple of years ago). It was a technical match, back and forth, Millie in control early as she tries to win the title in her company debut, BlueShe coming back into it in the later stages. McKenzie's suplexes were a highlight... speaking of things you notice in person that don't necessarily translate to the on-camera versions of shows, Millie McKenzie is alarmingly muscular in real life. Someone in the crowd shouts "Your technical acumen is outstanding" and BlueShe immediately wins via technical acumen. And then we have the intermission. The Hairy Dog, I had been under the impression it was a Folk club, but evidently it's a Metal/Punk club now. Or always was, and I was misinformed. The pillars around the venue are festooned with band stickers (with a few Deathmatch Outlaws and British Top Team ones added presumably quite recently), the wooden floor is sticky, the carpeted area is squelchy... lots of people clear out from the venue section and go into the bar (or just outside, I dunno). I go to the merch stand and buy a Hellbound 4 Skulls shirt for a tenner. Up next, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, we have a Deathmatch between The Death Match Slasher Tommbie vs Franco Fate. Franco is a guy who last time I saw him, he was opening match at an all ages show with loads of kids there. This show was 18+ only, obviously. He's one of the bravest guys on the Deathmatch scene, because generally they'll either do the bald thing, or the shirtless thing. Quite a lot do neither, go out there with a full head of hair and wear a shirt for the Deathmatch. But most of your bald Deathmatch wrestlers, they wear shirts. Franco Fate doesn't... he doesn't look all that scarred up just yet, but judging by how his Deathmatches go, it's just a matter of time. This match was loads of fun, Tommbie brought this baseball bat to the ring that looked to be wrapped in barbed wire but it was actually covered in fireworks, so he lit those up and got a few good hits in before they burned out. With Franco bleeding from several cuts on his back, they went through the crowd and (on Tommbie's orders) the crowed formed a Circle Pit, the PA started playing music and we got a little Moshpit Karate sequence. Which then turned into a Moshpit Lucha sequence with fucking tilt-a-whirls and shit. So that ruled. Franco bumped on the sticky floor with his back all bleeding, I got a nice picture of his blood all Jackson Pollock'ed in the stage lights. They get back in the ring, Tommbie ties Franco in the ropes like he's Randy Savage awaiting a snakebite and does his Skewers spot with the tattoo needles, that looks painful as fuck. Franco there with 5 or six clusters of tattoo needles hanging out his chest, and then a couple more in his head; To everyone who wasn't on my side of the ring, I'd like to assure you it looked horrible. And then the finish sees one guy go through both a door and a sheet of glass in rapid succession. GREAT MATCH. Can't wait to see them run it back... and the circle pit spot becomes part of the deathmatch lexicon the same way the Bar Fight spot did, I get to tell everyone I was at the first one*. Unless someone else did it first and I've not seen it, in which case I'll still say I was at the first one, but I'll be lying. For the Double Dragon Tag Team Titles: The Goons (Lizzie & Payton Blair) vs British Top Team (c) (Lou Nixon & Brett Semtex). Although in this case it's the Single Dragons Tag Team titles because Brett forgot to bring his belt. It's a tag team deathmatch, that early on is structured around Lou and Brett easily out-muscling and overpowering their smaller opponents (after every exchange, Lou pops a double bicep pose and says MAN STRENGTH), until the Goons of Chattanooga bring the weapons into play, and suddenly it's a lot more even. They pair off and split up into pairs, Brett and Lizzie (or possibly Payton brawling past me to the stage while Lou and Payton (or possibly Lizzie) fight near the bar. There was a box of carpet strips in the ring, and Lizzie... hit Brett with the box. If only she'd read the label, she would have known to open it, and access a far more devastating weapon. It winds up with Brett on the stage propping a door between two chairs, but before he can follow up Payton is able to get clear of Lou and join her sister on the stage, where they give Semtex a double Chokeslam through the door. They return to the ring and attempt to put Lou away and win the titles, and they get so close... but he's able to hang on long enough for Brett to recover, and before too long it's over, and the tag team champions retain their one belt. They then clear out of the ring quickly, leaving The Goons to hold the ring post-match, Lou getting on the mic to ask us, the audience, to show support for our American guests. Which we do. And our MAIN EVENT, for the KCW Deathwolf Championship: A 2 out of 3 no-falls Light Tube Log Cabins match! B... A ROSE vs 'KING FREAK' ALTON THORNE (c). So the way you win is, it's 2 out of 3 falls, but you don't win a fall by a 3 count pinfall, you win a fall by putting your opponent through a log cabin made of light tubes. B A Rose has eschewed his usual black and red checked shirt and black jeans, in favour of a black and white checked shirt and white jeans, so you know he means to make this bloody. Alton Thorne's Black and Green Hellbound gear really matches the silver and green of the Deathwolf title. The match, it's well paced. Like that classic Onita** match pacing, where they know you're waiting for the explosions, but they don't give them to you right away. They build up to them. They tease them, they set them up but they're evaded, avoided, dodged, escaped, teased... and then boom, there's shards of glass flying everywhere and everyone in the audience is ducking and putting their hands over their drinks. It gets bloody. B A Rose is one of the more covered up guys in the deathmatch scene; Between his match attire, his long hair and his giant beard, the only spots you'll be seeing him bleed from are his forearms maybe, and the bits of his face between his hairline and his nose (and his hairline is very youthful). Alton wears a sleeveless t-shirt, has short hair and far less beard... but it looks like the shirt was in vain, as his back seems to get opened up pretty badly anyway. Rose picks him up for a bodyslam, and when he puts him down, there's bright red blood all over his white trousers. Both men go through a log cabin each, so we're tied up going into the final cabin. Then Alton puts BA through a giant glass sheet (might have been a shower door or something), but the ref doesn't award him the victory because that's the wrong type of glass structure. So I guess it's a 1-1 draw because there's no unbroken glass structures left? No, wait, there's one on the stage apparently. So they brawl over to the entrance area, BA knocks Alton down, and gets the ref to help him set up a door between two chairs (nb: Between the backs of the chairs, not the seats), puts the final log cabin of glass on top, and pulls our champion to the top of the stairs, trying to superplex him through and win. So (Spoilers for the main event finish) they duel back and forth trying to lift the other into a decisive finishing move from up there, and then suddenly Antonio Gonzalez and Tyler Owens rush out from the back, superkick both Champion and Challenger, and they fall off the stage and through the glass together. So it's a No Contest. Then Gonzalez & Owens drag Thorne back to the ring and start sticking him with skewers and stuff, before BA Rose makes the save and our ring announcer tells us the show is over and tickets for the next event (in August) are available online now. So I head out of the venue and back to the train station, my boots going crunch crunch on the nice pedestrianised pavement thanks to all of the glass shards stuck to them (they fall off after a while). And the train to Brum is delayed, Percy Jackson narrowly escapes certain death and meets some Greek Gods again, I have a nice phone call with my Mum in Birmingham station, eventually arrive back in Stoke and jump into a Taxi so I can get home and start my D&D game (late). All in all, it was a really fun show, highly recommended if you're anywhere near Derby, the UK railways should be re-nationalised, and it's never a bad idea to bring a book. Oh, and a bottle of water, bring one of those too. * There were a couple of really good looking women in the circle, but they were standing right behind the camera guy, so they probably won't be on the version of the show for home viewing. ** Although here the explosions are from glass tubes getting smashed over people's heads and bodies, rather than Onita's fireworks.

There have been "Best of Dark Volume 1" and "Best of Elevation" DVDs in AEW Lootcrates.

How long did PAC sit at home, waiting for his WWE deal to expire? Over a year, wasn't it? And he wasn't even jumping to AEW, because AEW didn't exist yet. Brodie Lee was another guy who WWE benched for months because he let it be known he was leaving at the end of his deal, and then saw his deal extended (due totime missed via injury) to keep him from going elsewhere. I mean, as a wrestling fan, I want to see wrestlers wrestle. But if I had a job, and my boss decided he'd rather pay me to sit at home than have me actually go to work, I'd be pretty happy with the free money. Even if my job wasn't getting beaten up for a living (which, let's face it, is every wrestler's job).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trXD9i5ZQWA The Hardy Boys did anothe cinematic deal, this time with The Nemeth Brothers.

The Head of State of the UK is the Monarch. The Prime Minister is merely the head of Government. Should have done your research, movie people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywQXOmJnwVc Jordon Breaks vs Kid Lykos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkJyl_GlBOM Meiko Satomura & Rayne Leverkusen vs Nina Samuels & Millie McKenzie (Satomura's UK retirement match)